Arizona daily citizen., 1901-09-03
OUR COLONIAL POLICY.

editor Clark Howell, Is memo per
of the Democratic national com
mittee, is disposed to join with
Henry Watterson aud urge the
Democratic party to accept the
colonial policy Of the Mckinley
administration as an established
fact In justice to the Atlanta
Constitution, it should be said,
that it does not approve of the col
onial policy, nor of the recent de-
cision of the Supreme Court up
holding it; but it argues that the
policy having been established,
right or wrong, it is the duty of
the people to accept it.
Discussing this phase of the
question the Atlanta Constitution
says:
The Arizona Citizen takes a
morose and gloomy view of the fu-
ture of the country. 1t fears i'm
perialism with great and mighty
fear and seems to have lost at least
two.thirds of its respect for the
Supreme Court of the United
States. Our old friend O'Brien
Moore, who edits The Citizen in
far off Arizona, unless he has
changed materially of late, is not
disposed to be sad and gloomy
person. We would advise him to
brace up and take q more hopeful
view of things. The Philippine
Islands are not ruled by a despotic
tyrant, but by the DEGREES of the
Congress of the United States
The same can be said for Porto
Rico. While we do not like the
system ourselves, still we feel sure
that the Congress of the United
States can be relied upon to es-
tablish fair and just government in
the islands, and to head off imper-
ialism if it ever should show it's
head. One of these days when
Arizona emerges from its Territor-
ial bantling clothes and becomes a
full hedged State in the Union.
perhaps the editor of the Arizona
Citizen will look upon things in
general with a more hopeful eye"
The cheerful badinage of the Con-
stitution does not put more hope
ful face on a serious matter. We can
not believe that citizens and serfs,
peers and vassaIs, can live under
the same flag in peace and amity
and contentment. The practice ol
despotism in the Philippines viii
only accustom US to it and wher
despotism is attempted at home
the spirit of resistance will bt
blunted Either we ought to pre-
pare to admit the Philippines ant
Porto Rico to Statehood eventual
ly, or We ought to abandon them tt
their own devices. Is the Atlanta
Constitution ready to enlarge th'
race issue by bringing the Filipin
os into citizenship?
So far as the power of Congress
to govern these far off islands i
concerned, it does not mend at al
the larger question involved. |
Congress can legislate for thes'
islands independent of the Unitet
States Constitution she can estab
lish for them state religion
maintain priesthood at public ex
pense, authorize polygamy and re
establish the institution of slavery
She can take property without du
process of law, abolish the right G
trial by jury, inhict harsh and dc
grading punishments, demand ez
cessiye bail, destroy the writ c
habeas corpus, deny to the citizen
the equal protection of the Law
pass bills of attainder and ex pos
facto laws, destroy the freedom c
the press. and deny the inhabit
ants OF these possessions the righ
70 petition for redress, or she cal
turn the government of such terri
tory over to a military satrap will
power over the lives and property
Of the people as great as eve
welded by an imperial Caesar.
This should not be, and the de
mand should 20 up from all ovel
this country that the first legisla
ton Of the next Congress shoule
extend each and every provision o
the Constitution of the Unite,
5satse TO every acre of Ian,
shrouehout the world above whic
loA's the unsallied flag of thi
Y great country.
This, We insist, is the true Den