The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-05-10

greSS. because, although OuI pSODl'
were infatuated beyond reason by the
syren of empire, there remained We
the consciousness of national honest!
and the pledges we made to give to thu
F'ilipinos the same liberty obtained fol
the Cubans. These pledges may no
be written in black and white, but the
oral declarations were strong enough
to make Aguinaldo and his troops oul
allies in the Spanish war.
1t makes no difference that the
| Filipinos fired the first shot bringing
about this war. They had the same
right to precipitate difficulties as the
Americans had to bring about the wal
for independence. and they exercised it
They were sold for twenty million dol
lars and to the Filipino it was simply
an exchange of masters. The native
had an unquestioned right to resent
the unholy bargain. The American
who says the Filipino is wrong has for
gotten everything he learned. No long
er has he the instinct of the genuine
American, because by his avowal o!
the right of coercion to establish gov
eminent he debases the genius of re-
publican citizenship.
! Let US look at this question squarely
in the face. Not as Catholics or sec
tarians desiring to accomplish som =
thing for religion, but as Americans
anxious to hold fast to those principles
which made us freer than all other
people Not as idiotic believers in the
assumption of Mckinley that God de-
signed the change from Spanish to
American rule, because the method of
warfare conducted by our troops shows
the devil had Il good deal to do with
it. The crux of the whole problem lies
in our inability to ever assimilate the
people of the Philippines into any
scheme of American government. The
effort to do so has resulted in failure;
emphasized more today than at any
time since the war began. The effort
to do so is tantamount to an acquies-
cence of the right of coercion, and that
admits the legality of its application
among white people in the states. The
ready compliance of the American
mind to coercion is the principal dan
ger from imperialism. The logic of
the situation is plain and ineXorable.
The utter impossibility of assimilat-
ing the Philippine tribes with any other
people attempting to perpetuate a gov
eminent of law like our own, has never
been presented to the American peo-
pie in the proper light. That phase
of the question has never been debated
in congress. That important feature
OF successful conquest has escaped the
optimistic reviewer in the magazines.
What does Professor Briggs say about
it:
To begin with, it is a radical error
to form a concept that the ten or
twelve millions of islanders constitute
a homogeneous mass. That mistake
largely characterizes the congressional
debates, even on the part of the sup
pcrters of the administra ton; and is
responsible for most of the confusion
OF ideas.
Apart from the crafty Mestizos mix
ed breeds), there are three great dis
tinct classes, Filipinos, Moros and Pa
gans; these, again, are subdivided into
distinct tribes; and, so far from any
thing like homogeneity between Fill
pino and Moro, Moro and Pagan. tribe
and tribe. there are deep and mex
tinguishable hatreds. Even among the
Filipinos. the Tagaland the Macca-
bebe, the Visayan and the Ilocano, are
hereditary foes. In the old days, their
normal state was that of war; and,
but for the control of the white man,
they would be at it today, hammer
and longs" kris and bolo. OF natural
cohesion, of national spirit and aspir-
alton, they have absolutely none.
These are the tribes, this is the peo-
pie designed to become our equal in
citizenship, or to hold in military
bondage as illogical to our scheme of
government as African slavery in the
southern states. To endow them with
the limited rights given to people of a
territory in the Union is not in har-
mony with our past experience of
Asiatic races in our midst To govern
them other than citizens is to brand
as d lie the declaration upon whose
we became free ourselves
and instituted republican government
What is the best thing, then, to be
done?
Stop this murder that is called war
going on in the Philippine islands. Let
the FiliDinos work out their own des-
tiny, as we have worked out ours Per
haps they may become the prey of
strong power, like Germany, which has
had less trouble and infinitely better
success in colonizing semi-civilized
and savage tribes than we have had.
The Philippines falling into other hands
should not concern us. Colonizing
Asiatics was never contemplated in our
scheme of government, and we lost
sight of our Americanism when we at
tempted it. Therefore, let us follow
the example of George III, when he
gave the American colonies independ-
anca
We know this is a sentiment which
our imperialist neighbors will assail
as traitorous Be it so. Edmund Burke
was called such when he declared
against the British war on the Ameri-
IAN colonists.
Mark the prediction. Two years
hence the man today who advises the
Americans to scuttle the Philippines
will be called the genuine American.
One of that kind will be president of
the United States.
He Died a Catholic.