The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1900-10-05

| pie in general to the Administrations
policy in The Philippines and Porto Pico,
is driving the defenders Of that policy to
desperate methods to justify It. Their
chief reliance seems TO be in seeking
comparison and precedent in our acquisi-
tons of the Louisiana purchase, Florida
and the Northwest territory. Such CON-
parison does not hold good, for It is not a
comparison at ALL These additions were
contiguous, adjoining land, part of the
same geographical division. They were
almost entirely vast wild, uninhabited
territory, unexplored regions roamed
over by wild animals and wild Indians.
There were few white inhabitants in
and about St. Augustine, Florida, and
New Orleans, all else was an unbroken,
unexplored wilderness, border land Of
our inhabited States. All the settler had
to do was to hitch up his team and with
few household effects drive into this
i wilderness and build home without
infringing on the rights of any other
people, the Indians having no fixed home
but claiming the vast domain in common
with the buffalo and other wild animals
which roamed over it.
1t is readily seen that such acquisitions
of territory possess nothing in common
with our invasion of the Philippine
islands and levying war of conquest on
their people. Those islands are not con-
tiguous territory, but separated from our
country by 1000 miles of ocean, and on
the opposite side of the globe, so that
geographically considered the distinction
between the Philippines and the Louis
lana, Florida and all other acquisitions
is wholly different.
As to population this difference is as
strongly marked. Our early acquisitions
of territory were to all intents and pur-
poses uninhabited regions by civilized
man. The Philippines on the contrary
are densely populated by people whose
ancestors have owned the country for
thousands of years, in all probability,
who are highly civilized on the large
islands of the group. It is stated and not
contradicted, that 90 per cent of the
inhabitants of Luzon can read and
write. They have churches, schools,
4 towns, villages and we'll cultivated
farms. Their leading men are fine
scholars, able statesmen, and the
whole population have proven their
claim to be an independent nation by the
heroic struggle they have made for liberty.
To the disgrace of the United States
and shame of our free institutions, the
people of this far away land in the tropics
have been slaughtered by thousands,
their villages sacked and burned. and
farms laid waste; and still they fight on
with determination born only by love
of independence, and the desire for self
government, the cardinal principle of our
boosted popular system of government.
4 Ethnologically considered, the inhab-
itants of the Philippines are as widely
different from the people of the United
States or the white race, as the two coun-
tries are geographically and climatically
distinct. The Filipinos are small, brown
men, a tropical race. The several races
of men on the globe are so distinct in
natural disposition that they refuse to
assiinilate, and all efforts at harmony
among the races have resulted in chronic
friction, which resists every effort to blot
out and perfectly harmonic. The Amer
lean people understand this to their
sorrow. They have an experience of two
hundred years with the African race, and
the two races are today apparently as far
apart in their social, political ard relig-
ious bent as they were in the beginning.
Notwithstanding this lesson we are am
bilious to take in hand brown, tropical
race, separated from us by thousands of
miles of ocean, and go through the same
fruitless experience to make black white
in all the elements of our civilization,
which has proven so signal failure in
our experience with the tropical man Of
Africa, with the advantage of having
transported him into temperate cline
away from the tropics.
The Philippines are thickly populated
by their own people. who have inherited
the soil from a long line of ancestors, and
these people believe they can govern
themselves and enact laws more to their
liking than any other race can do for
them, and they have proven the sincerity
of their belief by heroic struggle against
Spanish rule for 900 years and against
the tremendous power and odds of the
United States. since au illfated admin
istration, drunk with the thirst of con-
quest and fred with consuming greed of
commercialism, has taken the Spaniard's
place as conqueror and devastator OF
homes and destroyer of their natural
| protectors.
1t is not for the present Of future benefit
of the little brown men, away off in the
distant islands of the sea, this relentless
war is being waged against them, at
cost of thousands of lives of our best
young manhood and hundreds of mil
lions of American money, wrung from
the hard earning of our industrial class,
but to contribute to an exploiting class of
millionaires, who have grown wealthy |
beyond the dreams of avarice by absorb |
ing through partial and special laws the |
wealth created by the hand of industry. |
Blind and reckless. the greed of this class |
with the government in their hands, has |
carried them to the opposite side of the