Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1900-06-20
OUR NATIONAL HONOR.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY-OUR
DUTY TOWARD THE PHILIP
PINES WILL BE FAITHFULLY
PERFORMED.
Philadelphia, June 20.-Chairman
Wolcott referring to our troubles in
the Philippines said:
l. The future of nations, the future of
man, is hid from mortal vision, and,
no more than man may a nation choose
it's own duties. When war with Spain
was ended and we faced our victorysin
all it's completeness, we found eight
millions of people living upon I'M
counted islands delivered into our
hands. Abandonment of them would
be confession that while the oppression
by Spain by a million and a half, of
Cubans demanded u armed inter
ference, greater barbarity and cruelty
to millions of Filipinos, less able to
protect themselves, was a subject of
no concern to us. No civilized nation
in the world, no Christian nation,
could have turned these people back
to Spain. Our commissioners, when
they insisted upon our retention of the
Philippines, voiced the sentiments and
wishes of the American people; and
this nation has assumed witt open eyes
and with full realization of the diff
~culties which may be encountered, the
grave responsibilities imposed upon
us by the treaty of Paris.
eve r. told that the islands are
rich in all the products of the tropics,
in mineral wealth, and in the posi-
bilities of their future development.
So much the better. But ii they were
as barren as the Libyan desert, we
would have taken them just the same.
I'VE haven't Deen there long, but
long enough to reach two conclusions:
One is, that the first thing we intend
doing is to suppress the Tagal insur-
reotion and to establish law and order
throughout the archipelago. That is
the first thing we shall do. And the
last, the very last thing we intend do
ing, is to consider, wen for a moment,
the question of giving up or of aban-
doning the islands. ~.
I'VE are actually owners of the Phil
ippines by an i%ndisputed and indubit-
able title. We are there as the neces-
sary and logical outcome of our vic
tory owe Spain. There are upwards
or a thousand islands sprinkled upon
that southern sea, peopled by more
than eighty tribes of differing race and
language, and having absolutely noth-
ing in common with each other. Most
of these tribes welcome our coming and
are grateful for u protection. The
Tagal tribe, hostile not only to us but
to most of the native tribes, are in in
surrection against our authority. They
have neither a government nor the ca
pacity to conduct one, and are waging
a predatory guerilla warfare which
would be turned against the other ma
tive tribes if we let them alone. What
would the democracy have us do? Give
them up to rapine and bloodshed, and
leave the islands as lotsam and jet
sam on the face of the waters? There
are parallels in u own history. We
purchased rIorida from Spain IN 1921, :,
when it had four thousand white set
tiers, for five millions of dollars, and
other valuable considerations. The
Seminoles, natives of the soil, brave,
resolute, having far greater intelli-
gence and character than the Tagals,
disputed our possession. We sent An
drew Jackson down to fight them, and
it took us twenty-one years to subdue
them and send what was left of them
west of the Mississippi. If the anti
everythings" had lived then, they
would, I suppose, have urged us to turn
over Florida to osceola, the Aguinal-
do of the Seminoles! Would you after
the war with Mexico and the Gadsden
purchase, have given the great area
south and west Of the Arkansas to the
red Apache? Not so did our fathers
construe their duty, and as they built,
SO shall we, their sons.
"The ~insurrection against our legiti-
mate authority, which, for the time,
imPedes our efforts to establish a gov
eminent for the Filipinos, involves us
in a sacrifice OF lives and of treasure.
The difficulties we encounter in the
island Of Luzon are many, butthe chief
inspiration and encouragement of the
Tagal insurrection come from the
democratic headquarters in thesUnited
States. ~Paftisanship has proved
stronger than patriotism, even while
our soldiers are being murdered by
marauding bandits, and il it were not
for the hope held out to Aguinaldo by
American sympathizers. the insurrec-
ton in the Philippines would long ago
4 have ended ~ t