The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-09-29
CARL SCHURZ ON
IMPERIALISM
Continued From Second Page.j

recognizing and obeying that government,
and to kill by the thousands innocent peo-
pie who had never harmed us, who, on the
contrary had effectively fought as our al
lies by teh side of the Stars and Stripes
against the common enemy, and whose
only sin was that they wanted to be free
and independent, while we coveted their
land. And we still go on killing.
| have again and again challenged the
imperialists to show me in the whole
history of the world single act of
perfidy committed by any republic more
infamous than that committed by Mr.. Nc
Kinley's administration against our Fill
pino allies, and have received no answer
but a sickly Sneer. Not one of the impe-
rfalists has been able to point out in the
history of any republic since the world
stands single act SURPRISING in treacher-
Gus villainy this thing done in the name
of the great republic sprung from the
Declaration of Independence-the republic
of George Washington and Abraham Lin
coin. Where is the American having the
honor of his country truly at heart who
will not hang his head in shame and con-
trite humiliation at this deep disgrace?
THERE WAS ANOTHER ALTERNATIVE
What transaction this was is
farther shown in it's glazing, hideous
nakednesS:
What ?Did no other alternative present
itself to his mind? Did it never occur
to the President of the American Repub-
lie, sprung from the Declaration of hide
pendence, that there was another alter
native which should at the very start
have suggested itself to Republican
President rs the most natural-namely,
to let them, according to our own prece-
dent and that of Cuba, have an independ-
ent government of their own? Why should
it not. Just as in the case of Cuba? Can
anybody tell?
Indeed. the spectacle of an American
President who. when he had to deal with
people striving for freedom and indie
pendence and had so successfully thrown
off the Spanish yoke, jumped at the con-
clusion that there was nothing else to do
than either to return them to Spanish
foreign rule or to subject them to Amer
lean foreign rule-foreign rule at all
events-but that the freedom and indc-
pendence they had fought for could not at
all be thought of-and this after a war we
had with proud profession begun for the
liberation of the oppresssed-the spectacle
presented by such an American President
would only three years ago have excited
the Indignation of the whole American
people Who will gainsay this?
A WAR THAT IS WITHOUT GLORY.
Mckinley has much to say of mys-
terious responsibilities" of all sorts.
IL WILL says Mr.. Schurz, in reply,
only ask this simple question:: Did
our victory at Manila create for us
responsibilities essentially different
from those which were created for US
by our victory at Santiago in Cuba?"
Completing his review of the rea-
sons given by Mckinley in his letter
to Justify our betrayal of Our Filipino !
allies, the speaker repeats: ''As an
act of cold blooded, cruel and dis
graceful treachery it has no parallel
in tho history of republics"
And what war it is, this war carried
on to subjugate or kill our Filipino allies.
a war without glory, without enthusiasm,
war for which even those who defend it,
have nothing but regret and shamefaced
apology. Ard that war has caused us to
keep on foreign soil, under the most nox-
ious climatic influences, breeding disease
and death. and under conditions in the
most repulsive degree demoralizing, an
army more than three times as large as
any we had in active field service in the
revolutionary war, in the war of 1912, in
the Mexican war. or in active operations
on the Island of Cuba-in short, in any
of our wars except our great civil con-
flct. That war has now lasted more than
eighteen months, and no end in sight The
cry is still for more soldiers-100, 900 of
them good military authorities say, five
times rs many as we ever had actively
employed in any of our foreign wars;
a war costing our taxpayers many scores
of millions a year, gradually to mount
into the hundreds. besides thousands of
American lives and the wreck of the mem
tai and physical as well as the moral
health of many more thOusands-a war
which, the more successful it is, the more
it will be demoralizing, disgraceful and
dangerous to the American people.
THE EFFECT OF SUCH A WAR.
1t is war not merely against the Fill
pinos, but war against our own repub-
Liza war against the principles, the
ideals, the beliefs and the conservative
influences which hold this democracy to-
gether, war against ourselves as a free
people. Never was there a truer word
spoken than that of James Russell Low
ella wise man-when he said that this
republic would endure only so long as
it faithfully adhered to the principles of
those who had founded it. What he meant
was that if our people ever ceased to re-
spect and to believe in the high ideals |
of right, justice and liberty set up by
the fathers of the republic and expressed
in the Declaration of Independence our
democracy would lose the element of con-
sentative poise necessary for its stability
and the republic, while perhaps remain
ing republic in name, would not remain
one in essence. Without popular rever-
ence for those ideals, without popular be-
lief in those high principles to appeal to,
a democracy will inevitably be ruled by
greed and selfish ambition, and the pow
ers of the government will be more and
more grasped and used to serve the igno-
blest impulses and passions of human.
IMPERIALISM AND ENGLAND.
In answer to the argument so often
used by the imperialists, that the inn
perialistic policy has long been pursu-
ed by England without producing the