The daily journal. (Salem, Or.) 1899-1903, 1901-11-15
SOUTH AFRICA
AND THE
FILIPIN0S
A Parallel Drawn That
Charges Barbarim.S
Are the Americans Guilty of
Running a Concentrate in
Samar?

SaTl1art
The JOURNAL prints the following
" "parallel barbarism" from the Chi
cago Public berause il brings ont view
held by many people who believe that
the United States is not in a position to
criticise the people Of Great Britain in
their war against the Beers in South
Africa. While we print this for the inior.
nation and satisfaction Of such as hold
that view we DO not subscribe to the
parallel, but hold that the people Of the
United States have only good intentions
toward the people Of the Philippines,
that our country and the present ad-
ministration is seeking to give them
self government and free institutions,
while Great Britain is carrying out its
policy of obliterating self government
and destroying existing Republics and
cruehing weaker nations to the wall,
contrary to the declarations Of the
Hague international Peace conference.
But here is the
Parallel In BarbariSm.
Hardly year has gone by since inno-
cent Republicans were protesting against
having the Mckinley colonial policy de-
scribed as a policy of imperialism. But
events are now taking place which give
to those protests an emphatic negative.
II the American government we are de-
veloping in the Philippines is not the
government Of an empire, then it is a
nondescript. II lie not a republican gov
ernment. 1t is not a military govern
ment. 1t is not free enough for limited
monarchy. It is the most absolute gov
eminent, protesting civilization, on the
face Of the earth. 1t is more absolute
than the Russian government. For au-
tocratic authority it is without paral-
lei outside the British military lines in
South Africa
1t has forced the people Of the island OF
Samar to leave their homes and to con-
gregate in the towns. This is the infam-
GUS "reconcentrado" device Of Gen.
Weyler in Cuba. Partly because he
drove the Cubans into the towns, We
went TO war with Spain. President Nc
Klnley declaring this "reconcentrado"
was
not civilized warfare; it was extermina-
ton. The only peace it could beget wss
that Of the wilderness and the grave.
Yet, in less than four years after those
words were written, the Mckinley Co
lonial policy has led us on to doing in the
Philippines what President Mckinley so
vigorously condemned Spain for doing in
Cuba.
Nor is that the worst. The later dis
patches from Manila tell OF a policy Of
in the Philippines which
goes beyond the drastic laws Of the
Spanish, when they, as our predecessors
ruled with imperial sway over those un-
happy islands This extreme and un-
precedented policy consists in making
treason punishable with death. and in
defining it with such grim absurdity
that the people who are fighting for the |
liberation OF their own country may be |
executed as traitors by us who confront
them as foreign invaders.
Trcasonl Is ii treason? Treason
against what? Not against the United |
States, for under our constitution only
citizens can be traitors. These people |
are not citizens. Ii cannot be treason
against the united States. What then?
There is no answer that meets the re.
quirements Of public law, They are TO
be shot as traitors merely because they
are in arms against the American army
Of invasion. 1t is war measure. This
may possibly be an effective way OF car
rying on war of conquest, but it is new
to modern warfare, strange to the prin-
ciples of public law, and abhorrent TO
all our own traditions. Even in our ei-
forts TO snb iue the American Ildians,
barharous as oar methods often we're, we
never went the length OF executing hos
tile Indians as traitors.