Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-11-03
II M|SS0U[ 4, ANACONDA, Dill Iona u 0THEn POINTS

quietly and ig~nominiously drop back
into the rut of oblivion marked u for
us w the democratic party.
CONSTITUTION AND THE FLAG.
We hear a great deal in this campaign
about the constitution following the
flag, and our democratic friends insist
that wherever the flag goes the con-
stitution follows of it's own force. and
that therefore when the Spanish
American treaty was ratified the Philip
pine islands and Porto Rico became
TN integral part of the United States.
and that their ten or twelve millions of
half naked savages and half civilized
tribes. became at once full fedged
American citizens, possessing all the
rights, privileges and immunities which
accrue to the people of New Mexico and
Arizona, and this without any action OF
congress or h passage of any law.
If this contention be true, then the war
with Spain and all the magnificent re-
suits which have followed. morally ana
otherwise, instead Of being a source OF
Just pride and qualification to the Amer
lear people, must be regarded as a ma
tional calamity. If this contention Is
true, then I do not hesitate to say, that
it would have been better to have let the
destruction of the battleship Maine n
the cowardly murder of her crew go un-
avenged; better to have left the starving
Cubans to the tender mercies OF the
butcher Weyler; better to have left the
F%ilipinos under the tyranny and perse-
cution of Spain for three centuries
more than to have brought upon our
selves the unspeakable- disaster of being
compelled to lake into the ~bodypolitic ten
or twelve millions of people, not one per
cent of whom are capable of self govern
ment, or of understanding or exercising
the privileges of American citizenship.
If this contention is true, 1t means that
we have no power to tax any OF the
products of these islands and that they
must be permitted to come here free OF
duty, produced as they are by the cheap
est labor in the world, to break down the
magnificent protective system built up
by the republican party during the past
forty years, and which has made US the
greatest manufacturing nation in the
world.
Through the splendid diplomacy of the
. "
cured from the European powers the
recognition Of our right to what Is
known as the open door policy in China,
which means hat the products of our
farms and factories and workshops shall
have access to the markets OF that eoun-
try on equal terms with those of any
other nation in the world. But IN making
this demand upon the European powers
we are in honor bound to reciprocate by
according them the same privilege in the
Philippines which they give us in China.
But if the constitution follows the a
we can no more grant the open door IN
the Philippines than we can grant 1t IN
New York or Boston or San Francisco.
And if we close the door in the Philip
pines with it's $1,000, 900 people, we shall
be very apt to find 1T closed to us in
China with its 400, 600, 900 people,,'pand
that would mean the loss of the great
est present and prospective market In
the world.
But it must also be borne in mind that
under the terms of the treaty of peace,
Spain is already granted an open door IN
the Philippines for ten years.. II the con-
stitution follows the flag we cannot levy
a duty on our own products which go to
the Philippines. And if we cannot levy
a duty on our own goods, we cannot, I'M
der the treaty. tax those of Spain. Thus
we see that if this democratic conten-
ton is correct, Spain, and II other
country which chooses to transport goods
in Spanish ships, will have an open door,
not only to the Philippines, but through
the Philippines to the United States as
well. This mean the breaking down OF
our tariff laws. 1t means the death knall
of republican protection and the estab-
lishment of democratic free trade, and
beyond doubt is the end sought by the
democratic party in resurrecting the old
exploded dogma that the constitution
follows the flag.
The republican answer to this conten-
ton is, that every foot of territory be.
longing to the United States, which IL
not embraced within the states them
selves, is under the direct control and
jurisdiction of congress, which may pass
all needed laws and rules for its govern
ment, and the government of its people
and may, If it sees fit, sell or otherwise
dispose of it, subject, of course, to treaty
stipulations and to those fundamental
rights which we recognize as belonging
to all people, II which are the life AM
essence of our free institutions, and
which we have never yet denied to any
people who were capable of appreciatine
and enjoying them.
1t is well enough to recall in this con.
n%ection, that this doctrine that the con-
stitution follows the flag, lay dormant
from 1903, when it was used at the time
of the Louisiana purchase, until about
1S4S, when John C. Calhoun dug it from
it's grave for the purpose of forcing
slavery into the territories. You are al,
familiar with what followed. A blood,
war which swept the land as with g
bosom of destruction; which turned
father against son and brother against
brother and which left the face of the
earth dotted with new made graves. Ir
that awful conflict the false doctrine tina,
the constitution follows the flag was sho,
to death on a hundred battle fields anc
people believed that it had been foreve,
h.,rtol fco~o s~lk De 1-l I1Lo1