The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-05-18

What, ! ask, do you want in the
Philippines? More particularly, why in
any part of Lu2on and the Visa yan is
lands are you making a bowling wil4er-
ness and killing children over 10 years
age? 1t will be said that these are
the unhappy incidents of war. whiyA is
always a stern affair. very GiTarent
from the holiday making into which
civilians would turn it. Be 1t, so. Why.
then, are we making war? Here are g.
800 600 fellow Christians of ours-the
only Christian nation in Asia-as highly
civilized as most of the people of Cen
trail and South America. What do we
want of them? We have never told
them The treaty of Paris requires Con-
gress to determine the civil rights and
political status of the inhabitants of the
Philippines. Congress has been dumb.
President Roosevelt, with his noble in
instincts and straight-seeing statesman
ship, declared that we were to prepare
them for liberty after the fashion of the
really free nations. The period of
tutelage should be short, because no
nation can confer freedom upon another
and the most we can do for the Fill
pinos is to establish favorable condi
tions and then endoW them with indie
pendence. This implies doing in the
Philippines what we have already done
for Cuba, which this month is TO start
as an Independent republic. But in face
Of all this. Gen Wharton says that the
Filipinos must be despotically governed,
like India and Java, and that any one
who advocates their independence should
be sent to prison. Congress is silent,
the military authorities whistle down
the wind the humane and enlightened
policy of the President and the military
authorities are the supreme power and
final arbiter in the Philippines. Are the
American people, then, the freest people
on this earth the very flower and chiv
airy of liberty, shooting down Filipinos
because Filipinos will not do what
Americans want while all the time
Filipinos are endeavoring to ascertain,
but cannot, what it is Americans do
want? Are not your oriental wards en-
titled to know how you intend to dis
pose of them before bidding you welcome
to their homes? If we have no policy,
let us say so and stop fighting. If We
have policy, let US say so and it may
end all fighting. But to keep an army
of 40, 900 or $4,000 American citizens in
Asia 20 fight for no policy is at once
foolish and wicked.
1t is said officially that the fighting is
over But the commanding officers agree
with the best newspaper reporters that
the Christian Filipinos are everywhere
against us. And the War Department
has stated n confirmation of his situa
ton that the retention of a large army
in the Philippines is indispensable. But
if this be So though the instruction
may be ended, the archipelago is as full
of our enemies as ever it was. You
have governed them against their will
behold the result. Shall we make of the
Philippines an American lreland-an Ire
land consumed with hatred for us, gov
erned by coercion and bent on rebellion?
Thank God, there is a more excellent
way. Drop coercion and try concilfa-
ton Give the Filipinos what they want,
not what you think is good for them.
Regard them not as Sioux or Apache
Indians but as ChristianiZed and civil
lied brown men, ranking with the
Japanese. Gen. Otis said to the Senate
committee that they could. if we with
drew. at least maiatain a military gov
eminent; and with the seditiOn law be-
fore you can you say we are doing much
better? Gov. Taft is reported as saying
at New Haven that. if we conferred in
dependence upon them, power would fall
into the hands of the educated classes;
but is an intelligent oligarchy of Fill
pinos worse than an intelligent oligarchy
of Americans?
| was in Ireland last month when the
cities of Dublin and Cork conferred their
freedom upon the leader of the national
list party. His speech on those occa-
sions was printed in full in the news
papers and one sentence of it still rings
in my ears. There are" he said, only
two methods of government-that of
freedom and that of force: and Ireland
has shown for centuries that the latter
is permanently impossible" The remedy
for our Philippine ills is to substitute
government by the consent of the Fill
pinos for a government by the coercion
of the Filipinos.