Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-09-17

uoHlnS fiorlua 10 the SemlnoleS, or tt
treat their non-consent to the govern.
ment of the United States as a valid
reason for turning over the territory tt
them.
Our next acquisition of territory was
that of Texas. secured by treaty after
1t had been wrested from the MeXicans
by the Texans themselves. Then came
the acquisition of California. New Mex
leo. Arizona. Nevada and parts of Colo
rad and Utah as the result of the Mex
lean war, supplemented five years later
by the Gadsden purchase.
ALASKAN PURCHASE.
The next acquisition was that OF
Alaska. secured from Russia by a treaty
and purchase. Alaska was full of ma
tiNes, some of whom had advance well
beyond the stage of savagery. n We're
Christians. They We're not consulted
about the purchase, nor was their ac-
quiescenee required. The purchase was
made by the man who had just put
through a triumphant war to restore the
MO II free the slaves. but none OF
them deemed it necessary to push the
doctrine of, the consent of the governed"
TO a conclusion so fantastic as to neces-
State the turning over of Alaska to its
original owners, the Indian and the
Aieut. For thirty years the United States
authorities, military and civil, exercised
he supreme authority in a tract OF land
many times larger that the Philippines,
in which it did not seem likely that there
would ever be any considerable body
of white inhabitants.
Nearly thirty years passed before the
next instance OF expansion occurred.
which Was over in the island of Hawaii.
At effort was made at the end of Presi-
dent Earrison's administration to Sc
cure the annexation of Hawaii The
effort was unsuccessful In a debate in
congress on February ., 1894. one of the
leaders, in opposing the annexation of
the islands, stated, these islands are
more than two thousand miles distant
from our extreme western boundary.
We have a serious race problem now in
u country and l am not in favor of
adding to our domestic fabric a mongrel
population tof this character). Our con-
stitution makes no provision for a colo
NAL establishment. Any territorial gov
eminent We might establish would neces-
sarily, because of the population. be an
oligarchy. which would have to be sup
ported by armed soldiers"
RIDICULOUS TEARS.
Hawaii has now been annexed and her
delegates have had a national conven-
ton OF two great parties. The fears
then expressed in relation to an
"oligarchy'' and armed soldiers" are
not now seriously entertained by any hui
ma being; yet they are precisely the
objections urged against the acquisition
OF the Philippines at this very moment.
We are making no new departure. We
are not taking a single step which in
m way affects our institutions or our
traditional policies. From the beginning
We have given widely varying degrees
Of self-government to the different terri
tories according to their needs.
The simple truth is hat there is moth
ing even remotely resembling imperial
ISM or 'miit3riSp' involved ir tho
present development of that policy of ex-
pansion which has been part of the his
tory of America from the day when she
became a nation. The words mean abso-
lutely nothing as applied to our pres
cnt policy in the Philippines; for this
policy is only imperial.stic in the sense
that Jefferson's policy was imperialistic:
only military in the sense that Jack
sons policy towards these Seminoles or
toward the Sioux embodied mil
and there is no more danger
OF its producing evil results at home now
thar there was of it's interfering with
freedom. under Jefferson or jackson. or
in the days of the Indian wars of the
plains. Our army is relatively not as
large as it was in the days of WAYNE:
we have not one regular for every thous-
and inhabitants. There is no more dam
ger of a draft han there is of the re-
of slavery.
SAVED FROM IMPERIALISM.
When we expanded over New Mexico
n California we secured free govern
ment to these territories and prevented
their falling under the ''militarism'' of a
dictatorship like that of Santa Ana, or
the imperialism of a real empire in
the days of Macmillan. We put a stop
to Imperialism in Mexico as soon as the
civil war closed. We made a great anti
lrnperlalistic stride when we drove the
Spaniards from Porto Rico and the Phil
ippines II thereby made ready the
ground in these islands for the gradually
increasing measure of self-government
for which their populations are Seyerally
fitted. Cuban are being helped along
the path to independence as rapidly as
her own citizens are content she should
go. The presence of troops IN the Philip
pines during the Tagal instruction has
no more to do with m%ilitarisn or i'm
perialism than had their presence in the
Dakotas, Minnesota and Wyoming dur
ing the man. years which elapsed be-
fore the ina outbreaks of the Sioux
were definitely put down. There is no
more militarism or Imperialism in gar
risoning LuZOn until order is restored
tina there was imperialism in sending
soldiers to South Dakota in 1890, during
the Ogallalla outbreak. The reasoning
which juStifieS our having made war
against Sitting Bull also justifies our
having checked the outbreaks of Aguin-
aldo and his followers, directed, as they
WERE, against Filipino and American
alike.
The only certain way of rendering it
necessary for our republic to enter on a
career of 'militaris1n' would be to aban-
don the Philippines to their own tribes,
and al the same time either to guarantee
a stable government among these tribes
or to garrison them against outside in
reference. A far larger army would be
raGl1lra1 RI r1rrV off 9nV Gllrh nn1IaV
than will be required to secure order
under the American flag; while the pres
ence of this flag on the islands is really
the only possible security against out
side aggression. The whole argument
against President McKinley's policy in
the Philippines becomes absurd when it
is conceded that we should. to quote the
language of the Kansas City platform.
give to the Philippines first a stable
form of government" If they are now
entitled to independence they are also
entitled to decide for themselves whether
their government shall be stable or un-
stable, civilized or savage, or whether