The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-03-30

fare of our island wards we have liberty
OF invention, no scope for the exercise of
common sense. no power to apply to one
situation that method which is best for it
and to a different situation another method
which Is best for ii.
According to the opposition, the Constitu-
ton ties our hands and utilities our under
standing; according to the government the
Constitution places in our free and I'M
Shackled hands the commission of all need
ful powers, and inspires our minds to their
best efforts to invent, devise and TO create
new laws for new conditions, new methods
Tor new necessities, new precedents for new
emergencies, a new life for a new people.
The opposition says that now, this moment,
the decree shall be. nay, is, irrevocably reg
iStered that the Philippines. Hawaii. Porto
Rico and every other possession we may &C
Quire shall be States of the American Re-
public, with congressman and senators
helping to devise our laws or to corrupt
them; the government says that we reserve
the future for the future. but that for the
present we will hold these islands as a
sacred trust for, them, for us, for mankind
and for the world, dealing with them as
wisdom and righteousness from day TO day
shall dictate, developing them into gardens,
their Inhabitants into happy and prosper
Gus peoples. and when the time shall come,
If ever, that American ideas, American
methods and the American spirit changes
the quality of their blood, the method of
their minds. the tendency of their character
and their ideas, ideals and understanding
OF government, then our. successors in the
American Congress may admit or inject
them into the blood of our national life, as
the wisdom and justice of posterity may
determine.
In a word, the question is whether the
Constitution gives Congress a free hand
over our possessions, or whether If we re-
tain them, the Constitution gives them a
free hand over us. We are like farmer
with farm, part adapted TO corn, part
to fruit. part to woodland pasture, part
a w n rai mi yvil for
tile, part a highland which irrigation will
make productive. We say that we must
have free hand and clear brain 10
deal with each portion of that farm as its
situation and quality requires; the oppOsi-
ton says that over all uniform methods
must be employed, the same treatment
given, the same seed SOwn, and the same
harvest garnered. The sower who sowed
alike by the wayside, among thorns, in
stony places as well as in prepared ground
is repeated here i'm those who seek to
scatter self-government and the Constitu-
ton alike on the barbarian and the en-
Kanaka of Hawaii the half-breed of Porto
Rico, as well as the brothers of our blood
In our American Territories.
LIKE A MODERN BUSINESS MAN.
We are like modern business man. with
many and dissimilar enterprises; the op-
position says he must deal with all alike
must devise and apply a common system
to different situations; we declare that he
should have a free will, a versatile and
constructive mind, and free hand to meet
each situation with appropriate and there
fore different action.
And so again the issue focuses upon that
burning point which, according to our de-
cision, will become the fixed and radiant
star OF our porgresS and our hope, or the
malign and darkening orb of our decay
and doom-the retention of our islands and
our future power to acquire, to govern, tc
develop. For If we are not to nave the
free hand for which L plead. we had better
leave our wards to their anarchy, misery
and Woe; better leave them to other
nations having the power and the wisdom
of events and situations; better proclaim
ourselves the hermit nation of modern
times, the China of the Western world
better bring on the awfullest war of his
tory, by letting them be fought for by
stronger nations than our own; better dc
all this and more, and let history write
coward" and incompetent" across our
flag, than to make these islands at the
present time vital parts of the Republic
with our sacred self-government for people
who know not its meaning, with no au-
thority to act as their needs and situation
may require, and with their congressman
and senator's sitting in the seats of power
and the hight places of judgment. All this
may possibly come. but if it ever does come
We insist that 1t must come in its season
And SO, Mr.. President, the profound re-
suits of our determination will be as vital
to the Republic after a thousand years
have passed as they are to-day. Yes. the
grave decision we reach will increase i'm
veal or woe for us, as the centuries sweep
for it involves directly our growth and its
method; our mission and our power to per-
form is our whole destiny as the sovereign
people of the world.
OUR DESTINY INVOLVED.
Mr.. President, that phrase is no vague
nor vain expression. 1t is the hottest article
of faith in the breast of the common
American citizen. He believes that this
people is becoming and is to be the sover-
eign and saving power among the nations
He knows that human progress is not
steady and continuous, but by succeeding
mighty impulses impaired by the master
people of each great period of human de-
velopment that those master peoples who
have been the successive guardians of the
progress of mankind have been endowed
with a vitality, an organizing, administer
ing, ruling power which made them in
their day, the sovereigns Of the world
that no matter how cruel or unjust to the
eye of the time particular and specific
manifestations of that sovereignty ap
peared. to the eye of history the work OF
each of these master peoples was a neces
sary part in the development of the hu
man race. Senators. the profoundest faitf
of the American people is that our day as
the master people of this world has
dawned, and their prOfoundest resolution
so deep and elemental that ii is an instinct
is that we will, in our great day of wOriC
dominion, do our great work of world re-
generation better even than England die
her vast and yet, compared with ours, hel
lesser work in her day, which now perhap:
is waning; better even than Rome did hers
(and at her Titanic achievements let M
man sneer) better still than the Greeks die
their work into which the very roots Of
our civilization and liberty sink and draw
through the soil of three thousands year:
some of the most precious elements of oul
moral and intellectual life.
Sir, it is time to announce the highe
law of national power, and the duty 1
implies; of national aspirations and TIL
work that justifies them. The American
people were not made for mere passive
example,; we were made for an active
positive. constructive force among man
kind Surely ours is not the base destin,
of him who eats and drinks and Is merr,
because tomorrow he dies. Surely our in
finite energy, passing the power of an.
people in the world to-day, and, as / be
lieve, OF any people who ever lived 1
meant for a vaster work and noble
than self-adornment, self-indulgence an,
admiration ~ And staT If this sv is Sc
quibbler's strained construction of OH
Constitution considered dead an
merely written instrument, and not as
living, vital, growing constitution, devel
oping as the American people develop. an
like Christianity, revealing new beautie
and new powers our sight become
stronger. clearer, more enlightened?
DANGER AND VALUE OF PRICE,
DENTS.