The Irish standard., 1900-10-06

be ut best like the British Government
in India, an arrogant ruling class ant
a PROSTATE people kept down by tn,
bayonet without voice or influence il
. shaping their own destiny.
Our Constitution was never fash
Toned for such service, and such sys
TEN is abhorrent to the Declaration OF
Independence. We simply cannot ac
!. quire territory, by any means, except
with purpose to erect new States
and we can rule no people as vassals
or as subjects. Moreover, the consent
of people cannot confer the author.
ity upon us, for it cannot change the
structure Of our Government.
But it is said by the President-and
the saying has now become common
cant that providence delivered the
islands into our hands" and that we
owe duty to the people to govern
them and to protect them. The cool
way in which the Lord is constantly
made responsible for the mistakes and
sins Of the administration is getting to
he very trying. Providence was no,
consulted when Mr.. Mckinley grabbed
the Philippines. His grandfather
would not have mentioned Providence.
but would have frankly said that "the
devil tempted him." All he took, how
ever. was the tyrant's title of sover-
eighty. never acknowledged in the for.
mer troubled centuries by the people
1t could not transfer the land or the
waters which have never been reduced
to possession or subsection, it could
never transfer the bodies and souls of
| the people.
| We owe no duty to the Spanish hi
the islands except to leave them where
we found them. If they have not
made friends of the natives in former
centuries, it would be wise for them
to move. We owe no duty to the ma
tives except to stop killing them and
let them alone. They ask nothing
more and they are not inclined to take
anything less from us.
1t will not do to say that, if we leave
them, they will be unable to protect
themselves. Let them try; they take
the risk, not we. We are charged
with no mission to protect them from
real or fancied dangers against their
own will and judgment,
1t will not do to say that if we with
draw one race will dominate, govern
and oppose all the rest. Grant it. and
then have we either the duty or the
right to interfere among them to make
all things smooth and perfect. But
there is not particle of proof that
there is any revolt against Aguinaldo's
government wherever it extends, there
is not the smallest evidence that any
element Of the population wants our
protection or interference. or that we
have any friends among them except
our friend the Sultan of Sulu and his
datos on our pay roll.
The invocation to be "a world pow
err" in IL piratical and despotic way,
has taken the Imagination of the Pres
ident and appealed to the cupidity Of
the commercialism that surrounds him.
There is another and a better world
power not yet too late to recover.
-Four years ago this Republic was
the greatest world power that ever
swayed the minds of men. There was
no stain upon our honor, no blood OF
an alien people on our hands; we had
kept the faith Of the fathers. The
torch of liberty passed round the
world for more than hundred years
had been lit ut the fame of the Ameri-
can Revolution. No human Influence
for freedom and progress in all the
ages has equalled ours. And with lead
ershlp in liberty and self-government
marched the most marvellous material
progress that the world has ever seen.
Shall we return to that ideal state
while yet there is time, or shall we
drift, as we are drifting, to the vortex
that has swallowed all the grasping
empires of the past, and where all
others are fated to follow?
This is the supreme question the
American people are summoned to de-
eide.