Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1901-08-22
Edmunds Sees Grave Peril.


promises to Cuba have not been kept.
He declares that Porto Rico will be
filed with corruption and bring great
danger to this country. Mr.. Edmunds
also considers that the Philippines
will be a scene of corruption and that
imperialism will continue to be an Is
sue in this country.
Il have been a Republican so long
that think there will always be
Republican party" said he, "and l
have never been able to find much
good in the Democratic party. How
ever, I think the Governments course
in regard to Cuba has been wrong and
unnecessary. We have not made
good our promises to Cuba, and there
was nothing to prevent us from doing
so. We promised to give the Cubans
their freedom, and we would have
stood much better in The eyes Of the
world and in our own estimation if We
had done so.
81 do not know enough about the
Cubans to say whether they are cap
able of selfgovernment, but our action
in allowing them to set up govern
ment of their own under certain re-
strictions in regard to foreign affairs
is an admission on our part that they
are capable Ny plan would have
been to give them a complete inde-
pendence, as we promised to do; let
them set up their government then
along in the Writer, perhaps, or be-
fore they had time to get into any
foreign entanglements or contract any
debts, we would have gone to them
and explained our position in the mat
ter.
eve could have called attention to
the Monroe doctrine, told them that
in order to protect ourselves we must
have some arrangement by which they
could not make any alliances with
other nations without the Govern
ment of the United States being con-
suited that we had set them free and
it was necessary for US to see to it that
our rights were protected. We could
deal with them as a republic and have
something in the nature of treaty
that would insure US all the protection
necessary. If they refused to enter
into any such arrangement it would
be necessary and right for US to insist
upon it, to tell them firmly that they
must agree to it or take the coDse-
quences. That would have been my
idea of it, instead Of refusing to fulfill
our promises and not giving them an
opportunity to say whether or not we
should control their foreign relations.
an my opinion we have more to
fear from Porto Rico than from Cuba.
Porto Rico is a part Of the United
States, and it will probably not be
long before it isfooded with ambitious
lawyers and other arpet-baggers, who
will soon be in control of its affairs to
a greater or less extent. Then there
will come time when the political
parties will have to consider the ques-
ton Of admitting Porto Rico into the
Union. The carpet-baggers and 9th
ers will be in control, and think you
will find the conditions worse than we
ever had with any of the Rocky
Mountain Territories that have be-
come States. We will have much
worse people to deal with than the
Populists of the West.
"In the Philippines we will prOba-
bly, have to maintain an armed force
for number Of years. There will
always be more or less guerrilla war
fare going on, and we will be in some
what the same position that England
is in India, where she is always find
ing it necessary to suppress an uPris'
ing Of one sort of another"
"Do you think the trusts will be-
come a more important issue than i'm
perialism ?" was asked.
"The trusts will work out the prob
lem themselves in a manner" was the
reply. They will go through the
same Transformation that the railroads
did few years ago. I think exper-
ience has shown that in all big COM
binations of this kind it is found that
they are prosperous for a time, at the
start, then they begin to fall behind,
and finally they go to pieces"
"You 10 not think the trusts will
be an important issue?"
"No l will not say that. One can
not tell what may happen, and you
know that everybody who is not in
the trust is against it, and when we
consider how comparatively few peo-