Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1900-01-05

Republican leaders and Republican presidents
used to assert in the strongest language that no
man could have divine right to govern another
man. Our revolution forefathers rebelled against
the doctrine that one people could have right
to govern another people. And yet, in these
latter days, we find Republican president, occ
upying the chair of Lincoln and Washington,
who practically asserts the right aud duty of our
people to other lands and other races. Speak
ing of the Philippines islands, President McKin-
ley says:"They are ours by every title of law
and equity" How about the concent of the
governed? When and where did the Philippine
people ever tranfer their country to us /?
The president adds "They cannot be abandon
ed" We ought not, of course to abandon
them as an apple of discord to be fought for by
other great powers of the world but is there any
thing on earth to prevent us from abandoning our
claim to sovereignty over them, and assuring
them that their people shall have the right to
govern themselves? There is no power in the
universe to prevent us from abandoning our
claim to dominion there. Great Britain finally
abandoned her claim to right to govern her
American colonies" and we have just as much
power to let 90 as she had. But it is said "lt
we desert them, we leave them at once to
anarchy and finally to barbarism. T Their itch
plains and valleys would be the scene of endless
strife ard blood she'd" In other words, he dons
the mantle of prophecy and declares that they
will not govern themselves peaceably and sane
". and then assumes that we must govern them.
| am always distrustful of those people who
assert that Providence has given them com
mission to regulate somebody else. There has
never been a despotism on earth that has not at
tempted to justify itself by declaring that Its
subjects were better off governed than they
would be trying to govern themselves 1t Is the
old argument which those of Us who lived be-
fore the civil war used to hear advanced so often
in defense of the institution OF slavery - that
the Negro was improvident and unfit for tree
dom, and needed master to take care OF him.
Such claims won't bear examination. 1t Is the
sel6shness and self-interest of masters and would
be masters that speaks when they are mace.
England no doubt thought and said that the at
tempt OF her revolted colonies here In North
America to govern themselves, instead OF hav
ING good king to govern them, would result
in perpetual wars and anarchy. Our right to
govern the Philippine people isn't half as de-
feasible as that of England to govern the states
her sons had created here on these western
shores. We are nterlopers in those Pacific is
lands, having no sort of claim to them, except
our destruction of the last remnant of Spanish
government there in our war with that country,
and the 20 millions we paid Spain to surrender
dominion she did moi possess Truly, we not
only can, but ought to, leave the Philippine
people to govern themselves. 1t is the only
thing we can possibly do without flying in the
face of all our history and all our traditions, aud
violating the very principle on which our gov
eminent was founded. -Kansas Populist