Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-03-05
7HE P0INT IN ISSUE.

The Porto Rican bill involves a great
deal more than appears on it's surface.
While it provides for a duty on mer-
articles shipped from that
country to the United States, and from
the United States to that country. of tif-
teen per cent of the tariff laid on similar
from foreign ports, it establishes
the rule that the products of a country
are not entitled to free entry when it's
inhabitants are not. The democratic
idea that the signing of the treaty of
peace with Spain brought all the acquir-
ed Islands into the United States, and
converted their population into citizens,
is untenable.
The treaty did not provide for the natur-
alization of the inhabitants of Porto Rico
and the Philippines. or recognize any
right of citizenship which the American
congress does not see fit to bestow.
Vested rights give to such people a claim
for protection, pending the regulation OF
their status by the government to whom
the territory they nhabit has been trans
ferred, but they do not accredit them
with all the privileges heretofore accord
ed the citizen of the United States. The
claim for protection, brought about
through the transmutations of war, i'm
plies an allegiance to the sovereignty of
our country, and respect for it's %jurisdic-
ton ever the territory acquired.
The privileges conferred upon our citi-
zens by act of congress can be conferred
on the inhabitants of newly acquired
territory only by a similar act of con-
gress. When the laws defining citizen.
ship were enacted they had reference to
conditions existing or current, not to sit
uations OF a foreign character. The de-
claration of independence declares that
all men are created free and equal, and
such is interpreted as the spirit of our
constitution, yet when the slaves were
freed during the progress of the civil
war, and were recognized as men, they
did not by reason of their freedom alone
fall heir to the constitutional preroga-
tives originally prescribed for their white
brethren. It required an amendment to
the constitution to define their position
as citizens.
Notwithstanding this precedent the
democratic party would force the imme-
date recognition of the inhabitants OF
the recently acquired territory as full
fiedged citizens under the terms of the
treaty, including the rights of untram-
meled traffic which exists between the
several states of the union. The posi-
ton taken by the republican party on the
Porto Rican bill denies free trade to thu
new provinces and thereby. protects thu
labor of the United States from the COM
petition of those islands. This applies
not only to protection from the product'
of cheap labor in the tropics, but from
the labor itself. If the principle OF fire.
trade with Porto Rico and the Philip
pines was recognized, on the ground
that all the laws affecting citizenship
within the boundaries of the Unite'
States apply with equal force to the &C
ouired territory, there would be no ba
to the importation of laborers fror
those sections. The democrats have en-
deayored to make their contentious alon
this line hold good by insisting upon tn
establishing of free trade relations. T
the republicans must be given the cred1
of making a constitutional adjustment {
affairs that will keep the colonie on
footing essential to their progress an
development but which will in no wa
interfere with the protection now afford
ed the Industrial life of our nation.