Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1900-09-14
t%ration, for the office of county Judge
of Grand Forks county. Johns liver
must have gone bad again. Standish
is hooded now for sure"
THE REAL ISSUE.

President McKinley's letter of ac-
ceptance is a model of clear logic and
patriotic determination and resolve to
be true to the nations obligations.
The democratic party this year
claims that imperialism is the para
mount issue. President McKinley's
letter shows clearly just what is the
paramount issue. President McKin-
ley's letter shows clearly just what is
the real issue in the Philippines when
he says:
What, then, is the real issue on this
subject? Whether it is paramount
to any other or not, it is whether we
shall be responsible for the govern
ment of the Philippines, with the SOW
ereignty and authority which enables
us to guide them to regulated liberty,
law, safety and progress, or whether
we shall be responsible for the forcible
and arbitrary government of a minor
ity without sovereignty and authority
on our part, and with only the embar-
rassment Of a p~rotectorate which
draws us into their troubles without
the power of preventing them.
There were those who two years
ago were rushing us on to var with
Spain who are unwilling now to accept
its clear consequence, as there are
those among us who advocated the rat
ification of the treaty of peace, but now
protest against its obligations. Ma
lions which go to war must be pre-
pared to accept it's resultant obliga-
tions, and when they make treaties
must keep them.
"Those who profess to distrust the
liberal and honorable purposes of the
administration in it's treatment of the
Philippines are not justified.
Imperialism has no place in it's
creed or conduct. Freedom is a rock
upon which the republican party was
builded and now rests. Liberty is the
great republican doctrine for which the
people went to war and for which a
million lives were offered and billions
OF dollars expended to make it a law
full legacy Of all without the consent
of master or slave.
There is a strain of ill-concealed
hypocrisy in the anxiety to extend the
constitutional guarantees to the peo-
pie of the Philippines while their null
LITIGATION is openly advocated at home.
Cur opponents may distrust them
selves, but they have no right to dis
credit the good faith and patriotism
Of the majority of the people
who are opposing them: they
may fear the worst form of imperial
ism with the helpless Filipino in their
hands, but if they do it is because they
have parted with the spirit and faith
Of the fathers and have lost the viril-
ity of the founders of the party which
they profess to represent.
"The republican party doesn't have
to assert it's devotion to the Declara-
ton of Independence. That immortal
instrument of the founders remained
uneXecuted until the people, under the
lead of the republican party in the aw-
full clash of battle, turned it's promises
into fulillment.
1T wrote into the constitution the
amendments guaranteeing political
equality to American citizenship and
it has never broken them or counseled
others in breaking them. 1t will not
be guided in its conduct by one set of
principles at home and another set in
the new territory belonging to the
United States.
IF Il opponents would only prac-
tice as we'll as preach the doctrines of
Abraham Lincoln there would be no
fear for the safety Of our institutions
at home or their frightful influence in
any territory over which our flag
floats.
Empire has been expelled from
Porto Rico and the Philippines by Am
erican freemen. The flag of the re-
public O floats over these islands as
an emblem of rightful sovereignty.
Will the republic stay and dispense to
their INHABITANTS the blessings of lib
erty, education and free institutions,
or steal away, leaving them to anarchy
or Imperialism?
The American question is between
duty and desertion-the American ver-
dict will be for duty and against de-
s%ertlon, for the republican party is