The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-03-30
The Porto Rican Question
SPEECH
Senator Albert j. Beveridge.

United States and Porto Rico, he an
nounced that If all efforts to secure free
trade should fail he would support the
pending bill. Following is the speech in
full:
Mr.. President-The issue Joined in this
debate involves the power of Congress
over the islands and the peoples which
Providence has placed in our keeping, and
therefore the expediency OF retaining
them. 1t involves the power and progress
of the Republic throughout all its future.
For If Congress has not free hand to
deal with these islands as their different
conditions and changing needs demand, 1t
is not only inexpedient, but 1t may be i'm
possible to hold them To treat Porto
Rico we treat Hawaii and to deal with
the latter as We deal with the Philippines,
and to apply TO all without delay the same
fixed formula of laws which custom and
the intention of statehood has prescribed
for our Territories from which our States
are formed, is a proposition as mad as
il is novel;
We have the greatest opportunity. the
greatest duty, with which fortune ever
blessed its most favored nation. Events
have placed us in positions of command
over the Pacific. The key to the commerce
of the East is in our hands. We are the
warden of the gates of the gulf. With the
canal a completed work, we control the
chosen and the natural highways OF the
commerce of mankind more than any
power than England. More than any peo-
pie of history. Events are placing us
where we may command and compel the
peace of the world. Porto Rico, Cuba,
the canal, Hawaii the Philippines, make
us literally the sovereign power among
nations. L say make us the master peo-
pie Of the world, for | never Will believe
that we will surrender our possessions to
others because We cannot invent sane
and appropriate methods for their control.
L will never believe that our Constitution
manacles our hands and narrows our
vision and numbs our brain. will never
admit that our Constitution is such char
ter of death / will never admit that our
fathers, those master minds of history s
most expanding ard administering race,
so anchored within narrow and a
stagnant harbor when the high seas call
us. their islands are ours, and the inhabi-
tants thereof need our guiding, restrain
ing and uplifting hand to regenerate, to
civiliZe, and to redeem them. No. My
faith is in a constitution which is a chart
by which we sail all seas and make all
ports-a constitution which is a free COM
mission for the exercise of our strength
is it develops.
MUST KEEP NEW POSSESSIONS.
I repeat, Mr.. President, that the first is
sue under debate involves the keeping of
our new possessions. For one L rejoice tina t
we have them. For one l believe that we
have them by the DEGREES of a Providence
which. in all our history, has outran the
weak and hating wisdom of Presidents
and Congresses. For one 1 accept the
privileges, duties and the burdens of our
situation in the spirit expressed to me by
our great admiral as we stood on the Olym-
pia's heroic decks and looked across the
beautiful city to the blue mountains of
LuzOn, when he said to me: "A higher
power than mine was in this business; a
\, rIa<l
that flag over this ocean empire ours now
and ours forever" The Philippines, Porto
Rico, Hawaii. and in the future, by the
free choice of her people, Cuba-afl ours.
In the markets they command in the mar
kets they afford, in their resources to be
developed, in their people to be educated,
in their sovereign location upon the future
highways of the worlds greatest COM
merce, In their strategic positions in all
future wars, rendering US impregnable our
selves and giving the validity of superior
power to any arbitration We suggest: in a
hundred circumstances these possessions
are valuable to the Republic beyond our
present poor ability to estimate or even
surmse. II we hold them. this Senate
chamber, in coming centuries, Will ring
with praise of the wisdom that accepted
our opportunity and placed the Republic on
the throne of the world. If We surrender
them TO more discerning and powerful peo-
pies. succeeding generations Will curse the
folly and the crime that not only yielded
our nlgn advantage, out bldCeu the TStpuD-
lie at the mercy of its possible future foes.
And yet. L repeat again and again, that
just this fell and dread event-the surren-
der of all the war has won for us-is the
first issue in debate; for we cannot keep
these islands unless we may provide for
them according to the wisdom of events
according to the common sense or sltua-
tions. The needs of Porto Rico are peculiar
to Porto Rico; we must administer to them
as good Judgment may demand. The needs
OF Hawaii are peculiar to HAWAII. Inc
needs of the Philippines are peculiar to the
archipelago. The needs of all are utterly
unlike our American States when they were
Territories The people of each island
group are unlike the people of the other.
And none of them are like the American
pioneers who dominated our continental
measures fitting the condition and the
necessities of each and change those meas
ures as conditions and necessities change,
we must give them up. There is no other
alternative. Or, rather. there is an alter
native whose very statement puts us 10
this melancholy choice.
THE ALTERNATIVE
That alternative is the proposition that
our Constitution extends over peoples to
whom its sacred meaning is dark as mid
night; that these peoples shall he pro-
vided for according to fixed formu:a OIL
government and laws prepared Tor the
highest type of self-governing communities
the world ever saw; that before these peo-
pie even comprehend the term self-5overn-
ment. before they realize its duties, Its
obligations, burdens and rewards, exercise
of that holy function is to be forced upon
them: that they are to be made part OF
the American people, ana states OF the
American Union; and that Porto Rican
senator's, Hawaiian senator's and FlliplnC
senator's shall sit here, equal In dignity
and power to the representatives or the
historic State of Massachusetts,, the imper-
ial State of New York. or OF Indiana, the
very heart of the Nation; and that all TINS
shall be determined Immediately and ire
yocably. now and for all the future. This Is
the alternative forced upon us by the oP-
position to the government This Is the al
tentative which a desperate faction
searching for a campaign issue, advances
at once of the critical periods OF our MS
tory.
Let me state what is here involved again
Let it be stated and restated till Its ex'
act meaning and its consequences OF fate
are burning in the brains and hearts and
consciences not only of senator's, but OF
all American citizens. The government says
that Congress may provide Tor these Is
lands in any way that may be best FOL
them and for us; the opposition says that
we car act in only one way toward them
and that way the way devised for our In
FAINT States, which were bone of our bone
and flesh of flesh when they were Ter
ritories. The government says that the
Republic must teach and train and guide
these children for years. for decades, may
be for centuries. till they may compre
bend what equal laws. free speech, and al
the substance of liberty means. before We
give into their hands that precious self
government which Ii required a thousanC