The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-31

we show ourselves cravens and weak lings, unworthy of the sires from whose Joins we sprang. There were abuses and to spare in the civil war. Your
 false friends then called Grant d
 butcher and spoke of you who are
 listening to me as mercenaries, as Lin
 coln's hirelings' Your open foes-as
 in the resolution passed by the Confed-
 crate Congress in October, 1S62-accus-
 ed you, at great length and with much
 particularly, of "contemptuous disre-
 gard of the usages of civilized war;"
 of subiecting women and children to
 "banishment, imprisonment and death" of murder" of "lawless cruel ty," of "perpetrating atrocities which
 would be disgraceful to savages;' and
 Abraham Lincoln was singled out for
 especial attack because of his spirit of
 barbarous ferocity." Verify, these men
 who thus foully slandered you have
 their heirs to-day in those who traduce
 our armies in the Philippines, who fix
 their eyes on individual deeds of
 wrong so keenly that at last they be-
 come blind to the great work of peace
 and freedom that has already been ac-
 complished.
 Peace and freedon--are there two better objects for which soldier can fight? We'll, these are precisely the ob- jects for which our soldiers are fighting
 in the Philippines. When there is talk
 of the cruelties committed in the Phil iippines, remember always that by far the greater proportion of these cruelties l have been committed by the insurgents l against their own people-as well as
 against our soldiers-and that not only
 the surest but the only effectual way of stopping them is by the progress of
 the American arms. The victories of | the American army have been the really effective means of putting stop to cruelties in the Philippines Wherever | these victories have been complete and such is now the case throughout the greater part of the island-all cru cities have ceased and the native is se-
 cure in life, his liberty and his pursuit.
 of happiness. Where the insurrection still smoders there is always a chance 1 for cruelty to show itself.
 Our soldiers conquer; and what is the object for which they conquer? To es- tablish a military government? No. The laws we are now endeavoring to | e1ldtI TUT LIle SOVeIIlIIl6Ill lll6 lllIp-, pines are to increase the power and do- main of the civil at the expense of. the military authorities, and to render even more difficult than in the past the chance of oppression. The military power is used to secure peace, in order that it may itself be supplanted by the civil government. The progress of the American arms means the abolition of cruelty the bringing of peace and the rule of law and order under the civil government. Other nations have con- quered to create irresponsible military rule. We conquer to bring just and re- sponsble civil government to the con- quered.
 But our armies do more than bring peace, do more than bring order. They bring freedom. Remember always that the independence of tribe or a com munity may, and often does, have noth- ing whatever to do with the freedom of the individual in that tribe or communi- ty. There are now in Asia and Africa scores of despotic monarchies, each of which is independent, and in no one of which is there the slightest vestige off freedom for the individual man. Scant indeed is the gain to mankind from the. Independence" of a blood-stained ty- rant who rules over abject and brutal ized slaves But great is the gain to humanity which follows tthe steady though slow introduction of the orderly liberty the law-abiding freedom of the individual, which is the only sure foun- dation upon which national indepen- dence can be built. Wherever in the ne has bphn ' definitely and finally pua down, there the individual Filipino already enjoys T such freedom such personal liberty, un- i' der our rule, as he could never even dream of under the rule of an 'indepen dent" Aguinaldan oligarchy.
 The slowly learned and difficult art of self government, an art which our peo- pie have taught themselves by the la bor of a thousand years, can not be grasped in day by people only just emerging from conditions of life which, I our ancestors left behind them in the dim years before history dawned. We I believe that We can rapidly teach the people of the Philippine Islands not | 1nly how to enjoy, but how to make good use of their freedom; and with ' heir growing knowledge their growth [ II government shall keep steady | pace When they have thus shown C heir capacity for real freedom by their bower of government then, and l lot till then, will it be possible to decide c whether they are to exist independently if us or be knit to us by ties of common Il friendship and interest. When that n lay will come it is not in human wis U lom now to foretell. All that we can d ay with certainty is that it would be d ,ut back an immea surable distance if Il ye should yield to the counsels of un- W manly weakness and turn loose the is U ands, to see our victorious foes butcher U with revoting cruelty our betrayed U riends and shed the blood of the most l lt umane the most enlightened, the U most peaceful, the wisest and the best U f their own number-for these are the lasses who have already learned to ! |. welcome our rule.
 Nor while fully acknowledging our ta of |