The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1902-06-07

any less fitting to avow that we will
protect such peoples from ourselves?
s ''How is it that these gentlemen who
will not tell you what they will do in
the future in regard to the Philippine
Islands We're so eager and greedy tc
: tell you what they would not do in the
case of Cuba when We first declared
war on Spain? You can make no dis.
tinction between these two casss except
by having a motive. which 1 do not
for one moment impute, that when YOU
made war upon Spain you We're afraid
Of Europe, if you did not make the
declaration.
"These people are given to us as
children, to lead them out of their
childhood into manhood. They were
docile and affectionate ut the begin
ming. But they needed your Kindness
and Justice, and a respect in them for
the rights we claimed for ourselves.
and the rights we had declared always
We're inherent in all mankind. You
preferred force to kindness. and power
to justice. and war to peace, and pride
to generosity.
''You said you would not treat with
q man with arms in his hands. You
have come. instead to torture him
when he was armed and dcfensclcss.
Yet you said you would make his con-
duct the measure of your own: that
If he lied to you you would lie to him;
that If he were cruel to YOU, you would
be cruel to linn: that if he were saw
age, you would be Il savage also. You
held an attitude toward him which
you hold to no strong or to no civilized
power. You decorate an officer for
the capture of Aguinal1o by reachcry,
and the next week ratify The Hague
convention and denouncc such action.
and classify it with poisoning and
breaking Of faith.
"You tell us that the Filipino people
have practiced some cruetics them
selves. Such things are quite likely to
occur when weakness is fighting fer
its rights against strength. Is their
conduct any excuse for ours? The
Filipino people are but baby in the
hands of our republic. The young
athlete, the giant. the Hercules, tho
Titan forces fight uron boy 10
years old and then hIames the little
fellow because he hits below the belt.
"If the stories which come to me in
private from officers of the army and
from the kindred ana friends of SOL
dtors are to be trusted: il the evidence
which seems to he just beginning be-
fore the senate committee can be trust
eel, there is nothing in the conduct of
Spain in Cuba worse than the conduct
Of Americans in the Philippine Islands
u this evidence be true. ana nobody
Is as yet ready to deny it, ard Spain
were strong enough. She would have
The right tomorrow TO wrcst the Phil
ippine Islands from our grasp on
grounds as good if not better than
those which justified us when we made
var upon her. The United States is
n strong and powerful co,lnl.y-tl,c
strongest and most powerful on earth.
rs we love to think. But it is the
FIRST time in the history of this people
for nearly 300 years when we had to
appeal to strength and not to the
Righteousness of our cause TO maintain
cur position in great debate of Jus.
tice and liberty.
"Gentlemcn tell us that the Tilpin
ere savagcs that they have inflicted
torture. that they have dishonorrd our
dead and outraged the living. That
very likely may be true Spain did
the same thing of the Cubans. We
have made the same charges against
cur own countrymcn in tile disturbed
days after the war. The reports of
commuters and the evidence in the
documents in our library are full of
them. But who ever heard before of
all American gentleman, of an Amcli-
can who took as II rule for his own
conduct the conduct of his antagonist
or who claimed that the raHur lie
should act as slvages because she had
savages to deal with?
81 had supposed that The question,
would do it in the future. and il need
whether Il gentleman shall lie. or MUIR
der or torture. depended on his sense
OF his own character and not ON his
opinion of his victim. or all the
miserable sophistcal shifts which have
attended this wrctchc4l business from
tho beginning. there is none more mis-
cradle than this.
"And tell you that il YOU disregard
the lessons of human nature thus far
and do not rctracc your steps and set
&ali example of another conduct, YOU
will have, and those who follow YOU
will have, a like experience hereafter.
You may pacify this country on the
surface; you may make it Il solitude,
and call it peace: YOU may burn towns;
you may eXterminatc populations: YOU
may kill the children Or the boys over
40, as HerOd slew the tilstboln of the
Israelites. But the volcano will he
there. You will not settle this thing
i'll a generation or in a century or in
ten centuries. until it is settled right