The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-01-15
FULL OF-BEvERIDGN.
Northwestern Chronicles Reply to
Indiana Senator's Recent Speech.

Indiana Senator's Recent Speech.
The Northwestern Chronicle in its issue
| of last week contains the following editor
ial under the caption "Beveridge's
Bathos:"
Senator Beveridge Is young man, q
very young man; a well advertised youpns
| man. He knows how to keep hlmseI Pc
fore. the public. ne he ca Oh + eme P m
tor on his return from afflicted Cuba
speech which materially helped to pre-.
cipitate the Spanish-AmeTlca;nn war d;o, aad
to take a leaf from the book Of the ven
cradle senator from Vermont. Accord
ingly Mr.. Beveridge, soon after his cleo
ton to the United States senate, made
a flying visit to the Philippine islands to
study the situation on the spot and to
prime himself for a great GRAFTON In the
upper house at Washington 1t was
amusing to note how carefully the young
man guarded the information which he
dug up in Manila, lest premature leak
age might mar the artistic effect of the
discourse with which, in due time, the
senate chamber was to ring: All of which
clearly reveals the youthful Mr.. Beye-
ridge as political mountebank Of the
first water. Now that the young mans
taken place according to schedule. all that
can be said Is that he might, we'll nave
spared himself that tedious journey to
Manila He says nothing that Is new and
His melodramatie performance exhibits
conceit and bigotry. One is at a loss
whether to admire more his stupendous
assurance or his inexhaustible ignorance.
The attitude and amplitude of his mind
may be cleaned from the following extract
of his speech outlining the character Of
the Filipinos:
''They are barbarous race, modified
by three centuries of contact with de-
oadent race. The Filipino is the South
Sea Malay, put through process Of 300
esty in dealing, disorder in habits of In
ddustry. and cruelty caprice and corrup-
From these statements it is clear that
of-Beveridge To designate a race as
decadent and religion as superstitious
is not So difficult as to give good defini-
ton Of these muc G1 terms: Could
decadent race? England's reverses in
South Africa, by a despised army, tell
against her incomparably more then
fdroes of aet the United R states IS GREAT
Britain, therefore, a decadent nation? The
young senator's characterization of the
Filipinos as barbarous people is suttl-
GENTLY met by the statement. Of thought
full men who, in making. their investiga-
lions. were not under the constraint of
gathering material for the applause or
the galleries Gen. Wheeler, and even
Mr.. Schurman, give very different ac-
count of the Philippine ISLANDERS, and Adj
miral Dewey says that they are as we'll
fitted for self-government as the people
of Cuba, to whom our government has
promised independence. There is a famil-
lar ring in the charges of cruelty and dis
honesty against the Spaniard, but these
old accusations are set down by men of
sober Judgment as the recrudescence of
hereditary prejudice OF as inventions of
designing enemies of chfvalrouS race,
which has made the world recognize in
the term "Castilian" politeness the ideal
of nobleness and gentleness in human con-
political corruption of Spain must have
raised a smile In the senate, which Just
now Is deeply engaged In few bribery
Investigations
When the junior senator from Indiana
speaks of the religion Of the Filipinos as
superstition, he forgets that it is the be-
lief of the largest religious body in the
its professors many of the leading minds
Of the day; that 1t is the religion which
rescued his own ancestors from the con-
dition in which the Fflipinos were three
centuries ago; that 1t Is the form of "su-
perstition" which, as Mr.. Gladstone says,
has marched, for fifteen hundred years
at the head of human civilizationi" that
it is the only religion which has effective
ilized and Christianized the natives Of
Mexico, Cuba. Africa and other dark spots
of the world, while Professionalism was
doing little more than trying to rescue
the new-made children of the Catholic
Rome. To call that religion superstition
is to vilify the history Of the human race.
But Mr.. Beveridge Is young; no doubt
he will outlive his youth, and, let us
hope, his childish prejudice against the
mother church.