The Portland daily press., 1900-07-18

With this proposition. Ii IL were worth
while I would point out it's dishonesty
and 1insincerity. But fragrant Though
these are, It's absurdity is so much more
fiagrant that nothing need be said. So
1t Is with their can't about militarism,
and Intimidation and oppression at
home'' as following what they are pleased
to call conquest abroad We cannot
argue with them on this proposition, be-
cause no serious man thinks for one mo-
ment that they believe what they assert.
During the great civil war there Were
many. preachers of the gospel of disloyalty
among the so-caIled Copperheads kOf the
North, and these men, like their repre-
sentatfves among our opponents today,
prophesied the subversion of the country
when the great armies of Grant and Sher-
man should come back from the war;
but the great armies OF Grant and Sher-
man returned to civil life and were sWal-
| lowed UP among their fellow citizens
without a ripple. A considerable army
was kept for year or two on the Indian
frontier and in some of the Southern
states; but it never entered the head of
human being to sttempt what the Cop
perhea1 prophets of disaster had franti-
cally foretold In 'eS for .'99 syou your
selves saw regiments and brigades and
divisions return from Cuba, Porto Rico
and the Philippines to be disbanded and
swallowed up in the mass of the people,
If volunteers, and if regulars, to resume
their ordinary work in fort and canton
ment; and after greeting them on the
day they returned, the bulk of people
would never have been able to tell, ex
cept by the newspapers, whether they had
come back or not OF all idle chatter the
talk Of danger of militarism is the idIest.
The army we have now is relatively to
the population of the country less in size
than 1t has been again and again during
the last century and quarter, in times
when we had only our own Indians to
guard against. In Wash1ngton's admin
istration, General Wayne spent some
three years in Ohio, warning against the
Tagals of that day, with under him an
army larger in proportion to the then
population of the nation than all our
present national forces, regulars and
volunteers combined, and there is just as
little danger from the evils Of milttarism
now as ther was then. 1t is as utter
folly to talk of our liberties being menaced
by the existence of a force capable of
keeping order in our outlying possessions
now as it would have been to talk of
their being menaced in the seventies by
the soldiers who followed Custer and
his fellows against the Comanche, Apache
and Sioux
No, our opponents mean nothing, and
know that they mean nothing, when
they pirate about mllitarlsm, and attempt
to say that they favor expansion, but are
against ''imperials. They used pre-
cisely the same arguments six years ago
against our taking hawaii, that they
now use against our taking the Philip
pines. They pulled down our flag in
Hawaii Just as they now wish to pull it
down in the Philippines We had to undo
their work in Hawaii just as in the end,
but at an infinite cost of blOodshed and
woe, we would have to do in the Philip
pines, should they be successful in this
election. Yet not one of them now would
dream Of saying that we were not right
about Hawaii, In fact they could not do
So when by a strange irony the Kansas
City convention had to rely upon the vote
of Hawaii before it could settle what it's
country.
AS regards the Philippines even the
Kansas City convention felt that they had
to propose some policy, and what they
propose is that we should first give them
a stable form of government; second.
independence; and third, protection from
outside interference. BY the order in
which they put these propositions they
showed their estimate of their inpor-
tance. Well, what we are doing now is
precisely and exactly to try and secure a
stable form of government in the Philip
pines, and the chief obstacle in our
way is the support given to the bloody
Agu1naldian oligarchy kby ktheir sympa-
thizers among the people who were repre-
sented in the Kansas City convention.
Moreover, now we actually are seeing
that no outside nation interferes in the
island. After we have secured stable
government, we intend to give them self
government as rapidly as they are fitted
for it. Our opponents say that they wish
now to give them independence. 10 give
independence now would be precisely
like giving independence to the widest
tribe OF Apaches in Arizona. 1t would
mean the turning over Of the most peace
full, laW-abiding and prosperous part of
the population to be plundered by the
banditt1 who are following Aguinaldo.
In China we see at this moment the aw-
full tragedy that is following just exactly
such movement as that which the So
called anti-imperialists have ohampioned
in the Philippines The Boxers in China
are the precise analOgues and representa-
tives Of the Aguinaldian rebels in the
Philippines. Had we adopted the policy
of souttle' in the Philippines, the policy
which our political opponents now cham
pion, the streets Of Manila would have
witnessed such scenes as those of the
streets OF Pskin, To allow the Filipino
rebels to establish their own so-oalled |
government and then to protect them
against other civilized nations would be
exactly as it we now sided with the
Boxers in China, demanded for them
the liberty" to butcher their neighbors,
allowed them to establish their own
independent government, and then
agreed to protect them from the wrath of
Civilized mankind. A more wicked abb
surdity than the Kansas City proposition
for dealing with the Philippines was
never enunciated by the Representatives
of political party.
Expansion means In the end not war,
but peace. But like every other great
good 1t can normally be achieved only
by effort at the outset. Woe to us If we
shrink from such effort. Woe If we fall
tosdO our duty because the first step seems
hard to the weaklings and the men of lit
tie heart II we are to retain the respect
Of mankind we must do no wrong and