New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-09-01
SOME ANSWERS TO A FOOLISH CHALLENGE

Colonel Bryans recent challenge to his
Omaha auditors to produce IAN abstract of
title" on which to base this country's asser-
ton of sovereignty in the Philippines is evok-
ing answers which the most partial admirers of
his skill In special pleading will be curious TO
see him meet. The other day we called atten-
ton to the rejoinder contained in ex-Minister
Charles Denby's open letter, and the hint Of ir-
regularity and insufficiency hidden in Colonel
Bryan's pettifogging challenge at Omaha has
within the week drawn responses from two
authorities on territorial title more conspicu-
Gus and experienced than Mr. DENLY. The
first of them, ex-senator George F. Edmunds,
of Vermont, long a moving spirit in the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, ardently OPP
posed the ratification of the Paris Treaty, and
has combated from the very beginning the
policy of trans-oceanic expansion, which has
resulted successfully in the acquisition Of
Hawaii, Porto Rico, Guam and the Philippines.
The other witness is no less a person than the
present chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee Of the Senate, admittedly one OF the
foremost statesmen to whom the country looks
with reasoned confidence for guidance in the
field Of international politics.
In the course Of an interview a day two
ago, in which he sharply questioned Colonel
Bryan's purpose, If elected, to throw over the
The Philippine Islands belong to the United
States by all rules Of international law; they
are ours; we bought and paid for them, and
the inhabitants of those islands are citizens
or subjects of the United States just as surely
over, as the Democratic platform proposes, I
am opposed to any such proposition. II we
should do that I firmly believe that within at
most three years the islands would be in pos
session of England Germany or Spain, and 1
should not like to see that.
Discussing the same general question in his
speech before the Hamilton Club OF Chicago
on Wednesday, and abiding especially to Colo
mel Bryan's contention that American control
in the Philippines should rest, and does virtu-
ally rest, on the same basis as American con-
troll in Cuba, Senator Davis declared with Ia
comic vgor:
We never had sovereignty over Cuba We
have sovereignty over the Philippines. When
we invaded the Philippines the natives were
not in arms. We never promised to give them
either in Porto Rico. Our title to Porto Rico
and the Philippines rests upon the same in
contestable basis, and yet have not heard that
even the Democracy purposes or wishes to
erect Porto Rico into an Independent State.
Such answers. of course, contain no new or
startling doctrine. TIL he made his accept
ance speech at Indianapolis it had probably
never occurred to Colonel Bryan seriously
to question the transfers of sovereignty accom-
plished in the Treaty of Peace with Spain
TIL he started on his Topeka trip he had ap-
parently not fallen to that pitiful level of sub
terfuge which led him to describe the CONVEX
sion Of a remnant of Government bullion held in
the Treasury into silver dollars as free coinage
at the ratio of 16 to l. or to ridicule as lynpos-
sible an abstract of title" by the terms of which
several millions Of Spain's former subjects
could acquire an as yet underlined allegiance to
the United States. To emphasize old truths
may be tedious and irksome, but even the
most familiar truisms take on a new fresh
ness and significance when summoned to dis
prove the reckless sophistries of a master Of
catchy phrases and empty parade