Morris tribune., 1900-07-21

dent jefferson secured the Louisiana pur.
chase just as President Mckinley secured
| the Philippines and Andrew jackson
warred against the Seminoles when we
had acquired Florida from Spain pre-.
cisely as General Macarthur is now war
ring against the bandits among the
| Tagals in Luzon Unless we are willing
to deprive Jefferson and Jackson of the
need of honor which has been held to be
peculiarly theirs, we cannot deny the
same high praise to President Mckinley.
At Kansas City the men engaged in
preaching the gospel of dishonor and re-
pudiation solemnly asserted that ''impe-
rialism abroad will lead quickly and inev-
itably to despotism at home. y You men
of Minnesota and the Dakotas who are
here this evening can appreciate the
fatuousness of that statement by the sim
pie process of thinking whether your lib.
critics have been abridged by the return
of the Minnesota and Dakota troops who
won such honor for themselves in the
Philippines. There are geometricaI prop
ositions SO essentially absurd that mathe-
maticians hold their mere statement to be
equivalent to their refutation
f Do Not Relieve What They Assert.
So it is with this proposition. If it were
worth while / would point out it's dis
honesty and insincerity But fragrant
though these are it's absurdity is so much
more fragrant that nothing need be said
So it is with their can't about militarism
and intimidation and oppression at
home" as following what they are pleased
to call conquest abroad. I" We cannot
argue with them on this proposition, be-
cause no serious man thinks for one mo-
ment they believe what they assert Dur
ing the great Civil war there were many
preachers of the gospel of disloyalty
among the so-called copperheads of the
North, and these men like their represen-
tatives among our opponents today proph.
ssied the subversion of the country when
the great armies of Grant and Sherman
should comp back from the war; but the
great armies of Grant and Sherman re-
turned to civil life and were swallowed up
among their fellow citizens without a rip
pie. A considerable army was kept for
year or two on the Indian frontier and in
some of the Southern states, but it never
entered the head of human being to at
tempt what the copperhead prophets OF
disaster had frantically foretold. In 1893
brigades and divisions return from Cuba,
Porto Rico and the Philippines to be dis
banded and swallowed up in the mass OF
the people if volunteers, and if regulars to
resume their ordinary work in fort and
cantonment and after greeting them on
the day they returned, the bulk of people
would never have been able to tell except
by the newspapers whether they had come
back or not
Our Army Comparatively Small.
OF all idle chatter the talk of danger
of militarism is the idlest. The
army we have now is relatively to the
population less in size than it has been
again and again during the last century
and quarter In Washington's admin |
lstration General Wayne spent three |
years in Ohio warning against the Tagals |
Of that Gay, with under him an army |
larger in proportion to the then popula- |
ton of the nation than all our present |
national forces, regulars and volunteers |
combined, and there is just as little dan
ger from the evils of militarism now as |
there was then. 1t is as utter folly to !
;alk of our liberties being menaced by the |
existence of force capable of keeping |
order in our outlying possessions now as
+ would have been to talk Of their being |
nenaced in the seventies by the soldiers
Who followed Custer and his fellows
against the Comanche, Apache and Sioux.
No, our opponents mean nothing and
Know that they mean nothing when they
'rate about militarism and attempt to /
ay that they favor expansion but are
Igainst Imperialism. They used precisely
he same arguments six years ago against
'ur taking Hawaii that they now use
'gainst our taking the Philippines.
Pulled Down the FIae in Hawaii.
They pulled down our flag in Hawaii
ust as they now wish to pull it down in
he Philippines. We had to undo their
york in Hawaii just as in the end, but at
n infinite cost of bloodshed and woe, we
would have to do in the Philippines
hould they be successful in this cleo
ion. Yet not one of them would now
ream of saying that we were not right
bout Hawaii, in fact they could not do
0, when by strange irony the Kansas
dty convention had to rely upon the vote
f Hawaii before it could settle it's views
n the financial system of our country.
AS regards the Philippines even the
Aansas City convention felt that they had
, propose some policy and what they pro-
ose is that we should first give them
5able form of government; second, indie
endence, and third protection from out
de interference. By the order in which
1ey put these propositions they showed
1eir estimate of their Importance Well,
that we are doing now is precisely and
xactly to try and secure stable form of
oVernment in the Philippines and the
nief obstacle in our way is the support
lven to the bloody Aguinaldian eli
archy by their sympathizers among the
eople who were represented in the Kan {
IS City convention. Moreover now we
,tually are seeing that no outside nation
lterferes in the island.
Not Ready For Self-Government.
After we have secured a stable govern ]
lent we intend to give them self-govern-
lent as rapidly as they are fitted Tor it. \
ur opponents say that they wish now to
I've them independence To give "inde- ]
sndence' now would be precisely like
wing independence to the widest tribe f
Apaehes in Arizona. It would mean
le turning over Of the most peaceable, t
W abiding and prosperous part of the q
opulation to be plundered by the ban j