Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1902-05-12
CANNED FREEDOM.
THE MANILA EDITOR OF "FREE.
DOM GETS TOOFREE.

Arg0naut. The Silence Of Tom. Reed, the
Foremost Republican in the Nation, untsll
Hes party Departed From the Path Of
Freedom.
A few years ago, when the republican
party left the broad paths which it had
so long trodden and wandered into the
devious ways OF colonialism, insular ex-
pansion, and imperialism, Speaker Tom
Reed concluded that he would not fol-
low. He had two courses open to him
one, to accept and advocate doctrines in
which he did not believe, the other to
drop out OF the ranks and be silent. He
choose the latter. He wac speaker of
the house of representatives, the highest
post held by any presiding officer, he
was at the head of the greatest deliber-
alive body of the world. He was adj
mittedly leader in the republican
party, and he was logical candidate
for the presidency. He laid aside all Of
these honors, present and potential be-
cause his conscience would not permit
him to accept that which he believed to
be wong. Before he fell out of the
ranks, however he remarked, with his
usual biting wit, when all the cant
about "giving freedom to the Filipinos"
was at it's shrillest: eyes we are CIV
ing freedom to the Filipinos, but we are
shooting it into them with canister
canned freedom, as it were." Saying
which he withdrew to private life, and
has since been silent.
There are many other republicans,
who, like Speaker Reed, have fallen out
of the ranks and are silent. They can
not join the democrats in their denun-
citation Of the old party ;neither can they
join the old party in what they believe
to be wrong. They can only hope that
the old republican party, the party that
freed the slaves, the party Of Lincoln, of
Grant, of Summer, of Seward, OF Stanton,
will, ere long, cease to pursue the will
of-the-whip of Asiatic expansion. and re-
turn to the old simple way of freedom
and self government.
These perhaps too serious remarks are
drawn from us by the name and the
plight of paper recently plunged into
trouble in the Philippines. The paper
is called the Freedom. Its editor has
been heated advocate of what Tom
Reed called shooting freedom into the
Filipnos." He believed so strongly in
the article of canned freedom that he
named his paper after it. He has been
particularly bitterin denouncing journals
here ON the mainland which, believing
in flee speech, have not hesitated to ex-
press their opinions about matters and
things in the Philippines.
But the Manila editor has dipped so
deeply at the Pierian Spring of canned
freedom that he has grown too free even
for the free Philippines. He has been
commenting on the Philippine Com
mission. Here in Gods country we can
say what we please about anybody, from
the President down. In the Philip
pines, however, it would seem that the
seventeenth sub-secretary OF gentle
man usher of the back-stairs to Philip
pine commissioner is sacred person.
1t beehoves editors OF canned freedom
newspapers to mind their p's and as.
The editor of Freedom has been put in
jail for too much freedom. Inasmuch
as he denounced editors in the home
country for advocating freedom in the
Philippines, it would be no more than
just for the home editors now to agree
with him and say that he was fifty
punished.
But the Argonaut believes in freedom
everywhere even in the PHILIPPINES. We
hope that the representative commits
sioners there will get over their thin
skinnedness, and bear it philosophical
ly, as officials do in America when they
are criticised by newspapers. AS for
putting editors in Jail, that seems now
to be confined to only two places in the
world of which we know anything-the
first is in Kaiserland. presided over by
William, the War Lord OF Germany; the
second is in the Philippine Islands, over
which floats the flag of the United
C{otoc Tho