The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-01-09

may plough and sow and reap and go
about the affairs OF peace with abso-
lutte liberty. And yet all this kindness
was misunderstood or rather not under
stood Senators must remember that
we are not dealing with Americans or
Europeans. We are dealing with Orien-
tais We are dealing with Orientals
who are Malays. We are dealing with
Malays instructed in Spanish methods
Ihey mistake kindness for weakness;
forbearance for fear. 1t could not be
otherwise unless you could erase hun
dreds or years of savagery, other hum
dredS of years of OrientaliSm and still
other hundreds of years of Spanish
character and custom.
OUR EFFORTS TO SECURE PEACE
Our mistake has not been cruelty; it
has been kindness. 1t has neen the ap-
plication to Spanish Malays of methods
appropriate to New England. Every
device OF mercy, every method of con-
citation has been employed by the
peace-loving president of the American
republic to the amaZemenL of nations
experienced in Oriental revolt. Before
the outbreak our military governor OF
the islands appointed a. commission to
make some arrangement with the ma
I1Ves mutually agreeable. 1 know the
members of the commission well-Gen-
eral Hughes, Colonel Crow and General
Smith-moderate, kindly, tactful men
of the wOrld-an ideal body for such
negotiation. 1t was treated with con-
tempt We smiled at intolerable insult
and inSOlence until the lips of every ma
| tive in Manila were curling in ridicule
Tor the coWardly Americans We re-
Trained from all violence until their
armed braves crossed the lines in vio-
1atiOn of agreement. Then our sentry
shot the offender, and he should have
been court martialed had he failed to
shoot. That shot was the most for
tunate of the war. For Aguinaldo had
planned the attack upon US for two
lot r1r1,4
this attack prematurely on. He had
arranged for an uprising in Manila, to
massacre all Americans, the plans for
which in Sandico's handwriting, are in
our possession; this shot made that aw-
fuI scheme impossible. We did not
strike till they attacked us in force,
without provocation; this left US no al
tentative but war or evacuation.
WORK OF THE COMMISSION.
The patience of our peace-loving
president was not even then exhausted
A civil commission was sent to Manila
composed of a distinguished diplomat
and eminent college professors, and
| also General Otis and Admiral Dewey.
These men exhausted the expedients of
peace, and always were met with the
Malay's ready evasion, the Spaniard's
habitual delay. am personal witness
that no effort was neglected by our
commission to assure the Filipino peO-
pie of our good intentions and benefi-
cent purposes. The commission enter
tanned the mestiZos of Manila in a way
that would have honored the senate of
the United States; the brown faces of
the common people Sneered. The COM
mission treated natives, accustomed to
blows, with kindest consideration; the
| agents of Aguinaldo told tales of our
pusillanimity to the ignorant rural
masses. This remarkable man sent So
called commissions, ostensibly to treat,
but really to play with ours. His COM
| missions were composed Of generals in
uniform. The pOpulace gaped in open
admiration when they appeared in Ma
Mia Our representatives of peace talk
ed to them, argued with them, enter
tanned; the people We're impressed with
their Importance. President Schur-
man even rode with them through the
city; the masses were confirmed in their
reverence for their brothers who were
thus hOnOred and distinguished. Then
the bespangled representatives of the
Malay dictator returned to their lord,
and the sole effect of these pacific eff
forts was to make 250,00 natives in Ma
Mia think that the only way to win the
respect of the American republic is to
| fight it.
No, senators, the friendly methods of
| peace have been thoroughly tried only
to make peace more difficult. The ORR
entail does not understand our attempt
to cOnciliate. Every effort of the COM
mission which did its work at Manila
so earnestly, and which, with Ameri-
I
liantly succeeded, only delayed the
peace it attempted to hasten. There is
not now and never was any pos
sible course but ceaseless opera
tons in the field and loyal support of
the war at home. The news that 5000
American soldiers have crossed the
Pacific; that, if necessary, the Ameri-
can congress will make it 100, 900 or 200,-
600 men; that, at any cost, we will eS-
tablish peace and govern the islands,
will do more to end the war than the
soldiers themselves. But the report
that we even discuss the withdrawal of
a single soldier at the present time, and
that we even debate the possibility of
not administering government through
out the archipelago ourselves, will be
misunderstood and miSrepreSented, and
will blow into a flame once more the
fires our soldiers blood has almost
quenched.
THE BLOOD OF OUR SOLDIERS .
Mr.. President, reluctantly and only
from a sense of duty, am I forced to
! say that American opposition to the
war has been the chief factor in pro-
longing it. Had Aguinaldo not under
stood that in America. even in the
American congress, even here in the
senate, he and his cause were support
ed; had he not known that It was pro-
claimed on the stump and in the press
of a faction in the United States, that
every shot his misguided followers fired
into the breasts of American soldiers
was like the vOlleys fired by Washing
tons men against the soldiers of King
George, his Instruction would have
dissolved before it entirely crystallized.
The utterances of American opponents
of the war are read to the ignorant SOL
diers of Aguinaldo, and repeated in
exaggerated form among the common
people Arms and ammunition We're
shipped from Asiatic ports to the Fill
pinos by wretches claiming American
citizenship; and these acts of infamy
We're coupled by the Malays with
American assaults on our government
at home. The FiIipinos do not under
stand free speech, and therefore our
tolerance of American assaults on the
American president and the American
government, means to them that our
president is in the minority or he would
not permit what appears to them such
| reasonable criticism. 1t is believed and