The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-02-02
ORGANIZING DIVINE pRovrDENoE.
Chicago Chronicle.)

How often have the American people
been assured by Mr.. Mckinley and by
others who pretend to superior knowl-
edge of facts and the course of events
i'm the far east that the Philippine
islands were dropped into our lap out
of the sky by Divine Providence, and
that, to the great astonishment of the
president and everybody else connected
with the administration, we simply had
to take them or else skulk away like
towards from the discharge of a solemn
duty Enthusiastically enjoined upon us by
the Almighty.
Only a short time ago Professor
Schurman, chairman of the presidents
Philippine commission, told an audi.
ence in Philadelphia that the president
in inviting him to undertake that task,
told him that he and his cabinet were
at first opposed to taking the archipela-
CO. but that the unfolding of events
left him no alternative. 1t became a
matter of duty imposed by a higher
power And the president himself said
in public speech les than year ago:
"The Philippines were intrusted to our
hands by the providence of God. It is
trust we have not sought" But it is
not necessary to particularize. Every
body knows that this has been the sane
timonious excuse for war and rapine
from the first.
Let us see how this pretense looks in
the light of a dispatch from Commo-
dore Dewey which inquisitive senators
have dragged into the public view.
The dispatch was sent from Hong Kong
March 81, 1898. 1t was published for
the first time on the 18th inst. In it
Dewey said he was confident he could
reduce the defenses of Manila and place
the city at his mercy in one day. That
was before the commencement of the
war with Spain and a month and day
before he performed that very feat.
In that same dispatch Dewey said
There is every reason to believe that
with Manila taken or even blockaded,
the re st of the islands would fall eitheer
to the insurgents or to ourselves" 1t
was with that dispatch before his eyes
that the president, through the secreta-
ry of the navy, ordered Dewey to go and
capture or destroy the Spanish Philip
pine fleet. He knew very we'll where
Dewey was likely to find that fleet. He
kpew very well that if Dewey should
succeed in accomplishing the work he
was ordered to do Manila and the whole
archipelago would fall either to the
insurgents or ourselves"
The Dewey dispatch amounts to an
official disclosure of the fact that there
was nothing unexpected about the fall
ing of the Philippines into our hands
unless the success of Dewey in accom-
pishing the work hs-was expressly COM
manded to do was unexpected. 1t stands
officially confessed that there was moth
ing providential about the falling of
those islands into our hands more than
there was about sending Dewey to take
command of the Pacific fleet or about
concentrating it at Hong Kong or about
ordering Dewey to capture or destroy
the Spanish fleet.
In short, the Dewey dispatch brands
all the talk we have heard from the
president about "the providence of God"
in this Connection as mere canting hy-
pocrisy 1t explains why the president
insisted on the cession Of the islands
from Spain why he has always turned
a deaf ear to the Filipinos. 1t officially |
places Mckinley before the world in his
true character, which is that of a plain, |
vulgar conqueror who cares nothing for
the great principles on which this re-
public was founded and on which alone
1T can survive. The inquisitive senators
are getting some Of the information the
people of this country so much need in
a form that admits of no dispute.