The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-02-13

But the people demand independence
 They are not qualified to become a part
 of our government and the former &C.,
 quisition of sparsely peopled territory
 adjacent to our states forms no pre-
 cedent for incorporating into our body
 politics a distant, foreign and populous
 territory. They resent our claim to
 govern them and with my present light
 on the subject cannot but sympathize
 with them in that resentment. Our purpose is, no doubt pacific; but, from
 their standpoint, what do they know.
 They only know that they have been ruled by foreign power and have { fought to be free. They are told that | the United States has taken the place
 of Spain They have seen only ships of war and armies. They infer that they
 must fight orhave no liberty They might
 know better, we may say, than to fight
 with us. Yes, perhaps. But whatever their ignorance, or faults, or folly, I confess, with my present light, when I
 think of those two thousand Philip
 pinos who fell in battle last Sunday and
 who lay on their own soil soaked with
 their own blood, they seem to me, in
 spirit like those Massachusetts
 farmers who were foolish enough to at
 tack regular English troops and who
 fell at Concord and Lexington. We say,
 in them, was the spirit of liberty and
 to them, we build perpetual monu-
 ments I confess that I am too much of an American to be able yet to glory
 over victory over poor people who
 only ask for liberty to own their own
 land and to govern themselves. l am
 sure that if in the days of our revolu-
 ton, when only part of the people were opposed to the rule of king George, lf the French who were the enemies or England and our allies had made treaty with England and had bought Englands claim to the colonies and had proposed to give protection and i'm pose a government upon the colonies who then had no constitution and no well recognized place among the na- tions and little to bind them together but congress, Adams and Jefferson and Washington would never have con- sented to such government. l am sure the colonists would have fought France as they had fought England.
 What shall be do? I claim no supe- rior wisdom. As humble citizen of these United States do not feel my self qualified to govern the inhabitants of the other side of the globe nor do I feel and divine call to assume such gov ernment and I have no wish to impose such immense responsibility upon my 1 fellow citizens who happen to go to congress and who, for the most part, are no more qualified for the task than l I am. h
 If this question were submitted to the | people and I could vote upon the sub ject, with my present light, 1 would | vote as follows: I would wave white | flag in the Philippine islands. 1 would 1 ask the people through their leaders to | come together. I would say, we have | received all rights which Spain has claimed in your islands we give these rights to you. We have bought all the Spain made, we will sell them to you for the price which we paid. I would say now form your own democracy, republic kingdom or empire whatever you can agree upon and maintain. They would form some government and, eventually, such as would suit them. Men always do. I would guarantee for a period of years to aid them against the attacks of any foreign power. I would assure them that if they did not respect and protect the person and property of all private citizens of other countries I would approve and if need be 9ssist the government of any country of which such persons may be citizens in punish ng them for their lack of protection, Such a course would be in harmony with our declaration when we engaged n war with Spain to free Cuba It would accord with our fundamental principles of government. It would make our flag on all seas the symbol of liberty. It would make our govern nent 8 world-power in the sphere of political ideas and in the promotion of peace. It would make this hour, the inc of our natcn's temptation, to be he time of our nations greatest vic- ory.