Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-09-10
---------s2E-- -
MIR. ETHEEEs'S REMARKS.

Judge and Honorable Romeo H.
Freer was one of the speakers at Sat
urday nights Republican meeting at
the opera house, and he made some
rather astonishing statements and ad-
mitted some remarkable things.
For instance, he said the Republican
party lis the child of inspiration, dedi-
Gated to liberty, to equality and to
law" and then he declared: "The Fill
pinos are ours by purchase, and they
will be protected under the folds of the
flag"
There appears to be something wrong
with these assertions, somewhere. They
don't appear to gee" Can a party ded-
icated to liberty, to equality, and to
law" purchase, as Mr. Freer admits has
been done, ten million human beings at
two dollars per head? And then
the country proceed to govern them
without their consent and in de-
fiance of their wishes? If we can,
what is to prevent us, under a
renewed Mckinley rule, from pur-
chasing from England another bad title
to the South African Dutch, and gov
ern them in like manner, and so on
around the world, picking up Cheap
bargains" in humanity wherever they
can be found, and reigning over them
in the name of liberty and equality
and law" Mckinley has set the pre-
cedent. What is to prevent him and
those who think with him from follow
ing it up? If the policy is all right in
one case it would be all right in others.
Formosa to us for a good, stiff consid-
Grafton, for she needs money, and then
we could doubtless buy the people Of
Java, and Borneo, and Sumatra, and all
the miscellaneous cannibal islands of
the South Sea, getting the populations
perhaps as low as siXty-ive cents per
head, instead of the two dollars we
paid for the Filipinos, and thus give to
the world a renewed demonstration of
our latter day ideas of liberty, our con-
ception of equality, and our respect for
law. Mr.. Freer appears to be fully
committed to the Mckinley brand of
imperial expansion and to be prepared
in advance for any future step in the
| way of benevolent assimilation.
Again Mr.. Freer said:
Protect your people at home first,
| before you allow your sympathies to go
10000 miles away to people who are
| in armed rebellion against u.s."
His meaning is not clear, because
! our people at home do not stand in
any especial need of protection, unless
it be from the regime at Washington
and they can fully protect themselves
| threatened from no outside source, and
would be to-day be at peace with all
the world were it not for the warlike
| and aggressive policies of William Nc
Kinley. But he goes on to say: Don't
allow your sympathies to go 10000
miles away to people who are in arm
| ed rebellion against u.s." This is q
| strange statement and strange
| doctrine to come from a candidate OF
a party declared 10 be in favor of lib.
erty, equality and law. In the first place
the Filipinos are not in rebellion
| against us. The definition Of rebel.
lion" is something very different from
Mr Freer's conception OF the word
We rebelled against England in 1916
| the Southern States rebelled against thu
| Government in 1S60-61. but the Boer:
of South Africa did not rebel agalns
England. and the Filipinos have not re,
belled against us, although they die
| rebel against Spain before the war be
tween that Kingdom and the United
States. We bought the Filipinos, al
Mr.. Freer admits, but we made the pur
chase from q nations lost tn,
title. and the transfet M without TIL
consent Of the chatt1es. rhey we're no