Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1899-05-26

those interests are), the spirit of our
Declaration will have been carried out
according to DR.. Abbott.
Plain Statement of the Philippine Problem.
[Harper's Weekly.
When the United States interfered in
Cuba last spring, 1t was to rescue the
people of that island from tyranny and
help them to establish their independ-
ence. We did not seek to annex Cuba or
to establish our supremacy in the island.
The country agreed with President Nc
Kinley when he said, on the subject of
Intervention, in his message to congress,
that ''forcible annexation cannot be
thought of" since ''that, by our code of
morality, would be criminal aggression"
Today we are fighting to enforce the
supremacy of the United States through
out an archipelago inhabited by former
subjects of Spain, who, like the Cubans,
were struggling for independence a year
ago, and those who resist are notified
that they can accomplish nothing except
their own ruin. There are plenty of
them ready to run the risk of such ruin,
and the result is a constant succession of
battles. In these battles the Filipinos
lose much more heavily than the Ameri.
cans, though the list of killed and
wounded on our side is already long
enough to carry suffering into hundreds
of homes. which men left last spring in
order to fight Spain and give the sub
lects of Spain independence. The people
read constantly of victories for our
forces, but they do not rejoice over the
victories.
The truth is that the nation has he.
come involved in the most serious
foreign complication ever known in our
history. Last spring some vessels of
our navy sailed into Manila bay to
destroy the Spanish fleet lying there.
This spring tens of thousands of United
States soldiers are engaged Ia warfare
with the very natives who rejOiced at
Dewey's victory over their oppressOrs.
1t is the most remarkable transfOrma-
ton scene presented on the worlds
stage in recent times.
The responsibility for the existing
situation Is hard to fix. Clear sighted
observers at Manila ascribe the outbreak
of the natives against our forces to the
prolonged delay IN the adoption of a de-
finite policy by the administration.
Month after month passed without any
announcement as to what our authori.
ties proposed to do. The unhappy eX-
perience of the Filipinos with the Spanish
had naturally made them suspicious as
TO the intentions of any foreign nation
towards them. They had long been
fighting for freedom from Spanish
domination, and it was only human ma
ture that they should be apprehensive
as to the sort of rule which they would
get from Americans.
The commission which was sent TO
the islands by the president has sought
to make up for lost time by the most
generous promises couched in phrases
which sound grandiloquant in American
ears. but may be no more than the cor
ventional forms of expression in the
Orient. The pledges are all that could
be asked by natives who have been
fighting Spanish tyranny-with one i'm
portant exception. Everything is based
upon their surrender of the idea of in
dependence. The most salient sentence
in the long manifesto is the matter-of-
fact announcement that "the supremacy
of the United States must and will be
enforced throughout every part of the
archipelago, and those who resist car
accomplish nothing except their own
ruin
Time Is necessary to show what effect
will be produced by the proclamation
The natives have found by unhappy eX.
perience that proclamation pledges by
the Spaniards were made only to be
broken. 1t was inevitable that many of
them should question whether such
pledges would be any more binding when
made by Americans. Beyond all this Is
the evident resolution of a large element
to fight to the death, promises or nc
promises. But President Schurman re-
ports that there is already evidence that
the proclamation has done good, and that
the commissioners are receiving many
natives who profess their allegiance to
the United States, and say that they pre-
fer the promises made by the representa-
tives of our government to the tyranny
of AguinaldO.
The people of the United States are
studying seriously the ugly problem