The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1902-06-05
The President on the
Philippines. NIX
SUBSTANCE OF HIS
ADDRESS DELIVERED
AT ARLINGTON ON
MEMORIAL DAY.


no excuse for failure to stop cruelty
in the Philippines. Every effort is
being made, and will be made, to
minimize the chances of cruelty oc-
curing.
In every community there are peo-
pie who commit acts of well-nigh in
conceivable horror and baseness. If
we fix our eyes only upon these in
dividuals and upon their acts and if
we forget the far more numerous citi-
zens of upright and honest life and
blind ourselves to their countless
deeds of wisdom and justice and phil
anthropy, it is easy enough to con-
denim the community. There is not
a city in this land which we could not
thus condemn if we fixed our eyes
purely upon its police record and re-
fused to look at what it had accom-
plished for decency and Justice and
charity. Yet this is exactly the atti-
tude which has been taken by too
many men with reference to our army
in the Philippines, and it is an atti-
tude both absurd and cruelty unjust.
The rules of warfare which have
been promulgated by the war depart
ment and accepted as the basis of
conduct by our troops in the field are
the rules laid down by Abraham Lin
coin when you, my hearers, were
fighting for the Union. These rules
provide, of course, for the Just sever
lty necessary in war. The most de-
structive of all forms of cruelty would
be to show weakness where sternness
is demanded by iron need. But all
cruelty is forbidden and all harshness
beyond what is called for by need.
Our enemies in the Philippines have
not merely violated every rule of war.
but have made of these violations
their only method of carrying on the
war. We should have been Justified
by Abraham Lincoln's rules of war in
Infinitely greater severity than has
been shown. The fact really is, that
our warfare in the Philippines has
been carried on with singular human
ity.
The guilty are to be punished; but
in Furnishing them let those who sit
in ease at home, who walk delicately
and live in the soft places of the
earth, remember also to do them
common justice.
There were abuses and to spare in
the civil war. Your false friends then
called Grant "butchern 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, 1662-accused you at great
length and with much particularly
of "contemptuous disregard for the
usages of civilized war" of subjecting
Il Ill, ii - Il. 4
imprisonment and DEATH" of ''mur-
der" of "rapine," of 'outrages on
women" of ''lawless cruelty" of
"perpetuating atrocities which would
be disgraceful to savages,' and Abra-
ham Lincoln was singled out for es-
pecial 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 freedom-are there two
better objects for which soldier can
fight? Well, these are precisely the
objects for which our soldiers are
fighting in the Philippines.
Our soldiers conquer, and what is
the object for which they conquer?
To establish military Government.
No. The laws we are now endeavor-
ing to enact for the government of
the Philippines 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.
GAIN TO HUMANITY.
Great is the gain to humanity which
follows the steady though slow intro
duction of the orderly liberty, the
law abiding freedom of the individual
which is the only sure foundation up
on which national independence can
be built. Wherever in the Philip
pines the instruction has been def
nitely and finally put down there the
Individual Filipino already enjoys
such freedom, such personal liberty.
under our rule, as he could never
even dream of under an "independ-
ent" Aguinaldian oligarchy.
We believe that we can rapidly
teach the people of the Philippine
islands not only how to enjoy but
how to made good use of their free
dom, and with their growing knowl-
edge their growth in self-government
shall keep steady pace.
When they have thus shown their
capacity for real freedom by their
power of self-government, then, and
not till then, will it be possible to de-
eide whether they are to exist indie
pendently of us or be knit to us by
ties of common friendship and inter
est. When that day will come it is
not in human wisdom now to foretell.
All that we can say with certainty is
that it would be put back an I'M
measurable distance if we should
yield to the counsels of unmanly
weakness and turn loose the islands,
to see our victorious foes butcher
with revolving cruelty our betrayed
friends and shed the blood of the
most humane, the most enlightened,
the most peaceful, the wisest and
best of their own number-for these
are the classes who have already
learned to welcome our rule.
Nor, while fully acknowledging our
duties to others, need we forget our
duty to our own country. The Pacific
seaboard is as much to us as the At
lantic; as we grow in power and pros