The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1902-06-03

characterized the war as O whole.
The cruelties have been wholly excep-
tional, on our part.
The guilty are to be punished; but
In Furnishing them, let those who sit at
ease at home, who walk delicately and
live in the soft places OF the earth,
remember also to do them common
justice Let not the effortless and the
untempted rail overmuch at strong
men who with blood and 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 darkest places. The warfare
that has extended the boundaries Of
civilization at the expense Of barbar-
ism and savagery has been for CEN
turies one of the most potent factors
in the progress of humanity. Yet
from its very nature 1t has always and
everywhere been liable to dark abuses.
WORK OF PEACE AND FREEDOM.
1t behooves us to keep a vigilant
watch to prevent these abuses and to
punish those who commit them; but If
because of them we finch from finish
ing the task on which we have entered,
We show ourselves cravens and weak
lings, unworthy of the sires from
whose loins we sprang. There were
abuses and to spare in the civil war.
Your false friends then called Grant
butcher" and spoke of you who are
listening to me as mercenaries, as
"Lincoln's hirelings." Your open foes
as in the resolution passed by the
Confederate congress in October, 1862
accused you, at great length, and
with much particularly, of "contemp-
tuous disregard of the usages of civil
lied war;" of subjecting women and
children TO "banishment, imprison-
ment, and DEATH" of murder" Of "ra-
pine" of "outrages on women" of
'lawless cruelty" of ''perpetrating at
rocities 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 today
in those who traduce our armies in
the Philippines, who fix their eyes on
individual deeds of wrong so keenly
that at last they become blind to the
great work of peace and freedom that
has already been accomplished.
Peace and frcedom-are there two
better objects for which a soldier can
fight? Well. these are precisely the
objects for which our soldiers are fight
ing in the Philippines. When there is
talk of the cruelties committed in the
Philippines, remember always that by
far the greater proportion of these
cruelties have been committed by the
insurgents 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 American arms. The
victories of the American Army have
been the really effective means of put
ting stop to cruelty in the Philip
pines. Wherever these victories have
been complete-aud such is now the
case throughout the greater part of the
islands-all cruelties have ceased, and
the native is secure in his life, his lib
erty, and his pursuit of happiness.
Where the insurrection still smolders
there is always chance for cruelty
to show itself.
FOR CIVIL POWER.
Our soldiers conquer; and what Is
the object for which they conquer? To
establish a military government? No.
enact for the government of the Phil
ippines are to increase the power and
domain 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 mill
tary power Is used to secure peace, in
order that it may itself be suppianted
by the civil government. The pro-
gress 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 conquered to create irre-
sponsible military rule. We conquer
to bring just and responsible civil gov
eminent to the conquered.
But our armies do more than bring
peace, do more than bring order. They
bring freedom. Remember always
that the independence of tribe or
or community may and often does,
have nothing whatever to do with the
freedom of the individual in that
tribe or community. There are now in
Asia and Africa scores of despotic
monarchies, each of which Is inde-
pendent, in no one of which is the rethe
slightest vestige of freedom for the in
dividual man. Scant indeed Is the
gain to mankind from the "indepen-
dence" of blood-stained tyrant who
rules over abject and brutalized slaves.
But great is the gain to humanity
which follows the steady but slow In
production of the orderly liberty, the
law-abiding freedom of the individual,
which Is the only cure foundation upon
which national independence can be
built. Wherever in THE PHILIPPINES
the insurTection has been definitely
and finally put down, there the individ-
ual Filipino already enjoys such free
dom, such personal liberty, under our
rule. as he could never even dream of
under the rule Of an independent"
Aguinaldian oligarchy.
TASK OF SEF-GOVERNMENT.
The slowly-iearned and difficult art
OF self-government, an art which our
people have taught themselves by the