The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-07-05

as a football game or a pugilistic en-
co inter, and no more 1t was a superb
exhibition Of courage, endurance, forth
tUde, pluck and patriotism 1t made
Roosevelt governor of New York 1t
msey make him president of the United
SULtes-
The American people can not be
described properly as warlike. They
prefer charters to the sword. They are
not pugnacious They are slow to
ar ger. Had it not been for the destruc-
ti&n of the Maine it is doubtful whether
there would have been war with Spain.
Tie administration was opposed to it.
TIE business interests of the country
dig not want it. The Catholic church,
with its immense political influence,
labOred for peace. But the explosion in
the harbOr of Havana was the kneu of
Spanish dominion in the western heniS
phere and the Pacific, and the war that
followed was the peoples war.
With the Philippines it is different.
TIE conscience of the nation IS not in
teSested- The appeal to patriotism IS
not strenuous. The field of operations
is 1far, and the advantage Of victory is
dubious, questionable and remote.
Fighting AguinaldO and his savage
hGrdes is like a contest with wolves.
They assemble and dispense and reap
pear unconscious of defeat and indiffer-
en1 to ,oeath. They are reinforced by the
hostility of nature, by the fatal ener-
gies of the air infesting where they fly
ard poisoning where they repose The
Twentieth Kansas regiment, recruited
at 1000, has 200 invalids on the way
home. $50 more unfit for duty from
wounds and disease; but 45O remain on
the firing line. People are beginning to
wonder why we paid twenty millions to
Spain and, if the North American In
di ms held civilization al bay in a hand
to-haHd fight for two centuries, when
the ten million Filipinos will be paci-
Ted.
Werh it not for the humiliation and
4gnOmtny OF retreat and surrender, there
wOulds be an immediate demand for
evacuAtio but pride of race and
dreams of destiny and hunger for the
horizon and passion for empire come in,
and the depleted regiments will be filled
Ap, and the administration supported
even to the point of discriminating the
insurgents. The man or the party ad-
vocatinS a policy Of REIMBURSEMENT and
submission will go into history with the
Hartford convention and the copper
heads of the rebellion.
In clamOring for expansion and Orien-
tai dominion, Roosevelt appeals to i'm
pulses that are indOmitabIe- He repre-
sents the inevitable. He anticipates the
future. He moves along the line of least
resistance. Above him flames the splen-
dor Of the tiag, with its intangible in
SEPARATION, the emblem of irresistible
power, the symbol of imoerishable
glory. Roosevelt did not omit to remind
his Kansas audiences that they. too,
had a herO-the adventurous and intre-
pid Frederick Funston, farm hand, re-
porter, explorer, lecturer, soldier of for
tune and, at thirty -four, brigadier gen
eraI. He bears the same relation to the
Luzon campaign as Roosevelt to that
in Cuba, and for similar qualities and
exploits. These two. with Dewey, are
Athus far the famous names of the war.
The verdict of history is yet to be
pronounced. Time sometimes reverses
the judgment of contemporaries
> Meanwhile the benedcent trusts that
were to cheaper comm Odities and bene-
fit consumers have, during the past
/, thirty days, raised the price of brooms,
raisins butterine, wall paper, rubber
goods, glassware, meat, crackers, furni-
ture wagons ploughs. fence wire and
other necessaries from Is to 100 per cent
and Captain Oberlin NJ. Carter, who
was convicted more than a. year ago of
stealing seventeen thousand dollars
from the government and sentenced to
fine, Imprisonment and dismissal, is still
wearing the uniform and drawing the
pay of his rank. BY July 1 his guilty
partners will be protected by the stat
ute of limitation.