The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-03-29
VOICE OF WEST.
1t Is Heard in a Speech by Sem
atOr Beveridge
In Opposition to the Porto
Rican Tariff.
FAVORS FREE TRADE.
Not Only Right But Good Policy
He Says.
Will Vote For the Bill If Com
PEELED To
In Order to Establish a Civil
Government.
FAVORS FREE TRADE.


Washington, March 29.-The confer
ence report on the diplomatic and con-
sular appropriation bill was agreed to
by the senate soon after it convened
today.
A concurrent resolution offered Dy Mr..
Culberson of Texas directing the secre-
tary of war and the secretary of the
navy to keep advised the families OF
wounded soldiers and sailors of the con-
dition of the men was agreed to-
Consideration of the Porto Rico tariff
and government bill was then resumed.
Mr.. Beveridge Ind.l addressed the SEN
ate in support of the proposition for
free trade between the United States
and the island of Porto Rico. Mr..
Beveridge said in part:
BEVERIDGES SPEECH
Mr.. President: The issue Joined in
the debate involves the power of con-
greSS over the islands and the peoples
which Providence has placed in our
Keeping, and therefore the eXpediency
of retaining them. 1t involves the power
and progress of the republic through
out all its future. For II congress has
not a free hand to deal with these is
lands as their different conditions and
changing needs demand, it is not only
lneXped1ent, but 1t may be Impossible
to hold them. To treat Porto Rico as
we treat Hawaii, and to deal with the
latter as we deal with the Philippines
and to apply to all without delay the
same fixed formula of laws which Gus
tom and the intention of statehood has
prescribed for our territories from
which our states are formed is a pro-
position mad as it is novel.
OUR CONSTITUTION NOT A CHAR
TER OF DEATH.
We have the greatest opportunity, the
greatest duty, with which fortune ever
blessed it's most favored nation. Events
have placed us in positions of command
over the Pacific The key to the COM
meree of the east is in our hands. We
are the warden of the gates of the
Gulf With the canal a completed work,
We control the chosen and the natural
highways of the commerce of mankind
more than any power than England
More than any people of history. Events
are placing us where we may command
and compel the peace of the world.
Porto Rico, Cuba, the Canal Hawaii.
the Philippines make literally the
sovereign power among the nations. I
say make US the master people of the
world, for 1 never will believe that
will surrender our possessions to 9TH
ers, because we can not invent sane
and appropriate methods for their gov
ernment and control. l will never be-
lieve that our constitution manacles our
hands and narrows our vision and
numbs our brain. 1 will never admit
that our constitution is such charter
of death.
For one accept the privileges, duties
and the burdens of our situation, in the
spirit expressed to me by our great
admiral, as we stood on the Olympia's
heroic decks and looked across the
beautiful city to the blue mountains
of Luzon, when he said TO me: A
higher power than mine was in this bus
mess; higher will and a wisdom than
ours unfurled that flag over this ocean
empire, ours now, and ours forever"
The Philippines, Porto Rico, Hawaii,
n nv f1-nn oh af
her people, Cuba--all ours. In the mar
kets they command, in the markets they
afford. in their resources to be de-
VelOped, in their people to be educated.
in their sovereign location upon the fu-
ture highways of the worlds greatest
commerce, in their strategic positions in
all future wars, rendering US impregna-
Dle ourselves and giving the validity
of superior power to any arbitration we
| suggest; in a hundred circumstances
| these possessions are valuable to the
republic beyond our present poor abili-
| ty to estimate or even to Surmise. If
we hold them, this senate chamber in
coming centuries. will ring with praise
of the wisdom that accepted our oppor-
tunity and placed the republic on the
throne of the world. If we surrender
them to more discerning and powerful
! peoples, succeeding generations Will
curse the folly and the crime that not
! only yielded our high advantage, but
placed the republic at the mercy of its
possible future foes.
| FREE HAND ABSOLUTELY NECES-
SARY.
And yet, I repeat again and again.
that just this fell and dread event-the
| surrender of all fthe war has for
us-is the first Issue in debate: for we
| cannot keep these islands unless we
may provide for them according to the
wisdom of events-according to the
common sense of situations. The needs
| of Porto Rico are peculiar to Porto
| Rico; we must administer to them as
good Judgment may demand. The
/ needs of Hawaii are peculiar to Hawaii
The needs of the Philippines are pecu-
| liar to the archipelago. The needs OF
all are utterly unlike our American
states when they were territories. And
| if we may not adopt measures fitting
each and change those measures as
| conditions and necessities change, we
must give them up There is no other
| alternative; or, rather, there is an al
| tentative whose very statement puts
us to this melancholy choice.
That alternative is the proposition
that our constitution extends over peo-
pies to whom its sacred meaning is
dark as midnight; that these peoples
shall he provided for according to a
fixed formula of government and laws
| prepared for the highest type of self
| governing communities the world ever
! saw; that before these people even
connnrehend the term self government
/ before they realize its duties, its obliga-
/ tions burdens and rewards, exercise OF
that holy function is to be forced upon
| them: that they are to be made a part
of the American people, and states of
| the American union; and that Porto
Rico senators and Filipino senator's