BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-06-16
sAr1JUAN, JUNO 10
"Peace And Freedom


Peace and freedom are there two
better objects for which soldier can
fight? Well, these are precisely the
objects for which our soldiers are hight"
inc in the Philippines" That is the
1<eynote of President Roosevelt's Deco
ration Day address over the graves OF
the Union dead in Arlington Cemetery
and no man can read it and say again
that there is any doubt as to the pol
icy of the administration in regard to
the Philippines. 1t is set forth there
with a clearness and force peculiar to
the President. He knows his own
mi I'd and speaks it with the direct en-
phasis of absolute conviction. He
Stands by the armv with the loyal de-
votion of a true soldier and just com
mander in chief, condemning without
palliation the misdeeds of a few OF It's
members, while championing It's u1l
sullied honor and heroic cou1age as i
whole, and expresses in vigorous Ian
guage his righteous contempt for those
who trlduce and SANDER it. From de-
fense of the army he passes to {! de-
fense of the ca Use in which it has been
fighting, gand defines that in terms
which cannot be misunderstood
Those who have come IN personal
contact with the President during the
past few weeks are aware tnat his III
dignation over the persistent effort, that
has been made to snirch the army has
been rising steadily higher and higher
1t was clearly surging within him when
an ofigp3 ofigp3asgd fl,ath2 this addre s dominating
sion in almost every passage OF It.
What could be more natural or more
fitting? He was to speak in the pre-
sence of the dead who had given their
lives in battle for their country, had
gone to death in obedience to the or
ders of their country. They had been
tr educed in their time "fo1lly SANDER
ed" as the President says, in the same
way that their successors are being
traduced now. lie could not think of
these slandered dead in the presence of
their surviving comrades without think
ing of the s1andered living who are
today fighting their country's battles.
Perhaps the most impressive Of the
several passages in which his indigna-
ton finds expression are the folio sing:
The guilty are to be punished but
in Furnishing them let those who sit at
ease at home, who walk delicately and
live in t1e soft places Of the earth,
remember also to do them common
justice. Let not the effortless and the
untemptsd rail overmuch at strong
mtn WHO with blood ard sweat face
years of toll and days and nights of
agony, and at need lay down their lives
in remote tropic jungles to bring the
light of civilization into the worlds
dark PAGES
Verify. these men who thus foully
slandered you have their hairs to-day
in those who traduce our armies in the
Philippines, who fix their eyes on in
divielua1 deeds of wrong 50 keenly that
at last they become blind to the great
work of peace and freedom that has
already been accomplished.
In regard to the future of the Fill
pho people the President stands squa-
rely with Governor Taft and with Pres
ident Mckinley in the view that it is
too soon to say precisely what their
ultimate from of government shall be
lie does not promise them independen=
ce, either immediate or remote, but
simply says that the future alone can
decide what the form of government
shall b Here is the full passage
The slowly learned and difficult art
of selfgovernnlent, an art, which our
people. have taught themselves by the
labor of a thousand years, cannot be
grasped in day by people only
just emerging from conditions of life
which our ancestors left behind them |
in the dim years before history dawned.
We believe that we can rapidly teach
the people of the Philippine Islands
not only how to enjoy but how to
make good use of their freedom; and
with their growing knowledge their
growth Ia e1f-government shall keep
steady pace. "When they have this
shown their capacity for real freedom
by their power Of self-government
then, and not until then, will it be pcs
she to decide whether they are to
exist independently Of us or be knit to
rs By tics of common friendship and
interest When that day will come it
is not in human wisdom now to foretell
All that We can say with certainty is
that it would be put back an irnmeas-
arable distance if e should yield to
The counsels of unrnanly weakness and
urn loose the islands. TO see our vieto-
rious foes butcher viii revolving cruel
y our betrayed friends, and shed the
31ocd Of he most humane. the most I
the mort peaceful, the 2
Nisest and the best of their own num- e
,er for these are classes who have /
.lready learned 70 welcome ON rule.