The Irish standard., 1902-09-06

y
and then stab you in the back. He
thought Gen. Smith had received hard
treatment in being retired from the
army, and he pleaded in extenuation
of that notorious order that many like
it had been issued during the Civil
war. On this point 1 put him right,
telling him that no such conduct had
been ever charged ON our government
and our army, even by it's critics at
home and abroad-that we had waged
no war Oh women and children, and
had indulged in no wholesale devasta-
tions Of the South. 1 find that the
wrong impression on this point is very
common among our soldiers, and is
fostered by the reckless statements
made by Southerners, who are living
in the very homes they occupied be-
fore the war, and who cannot specify
kinsman Oh neighbor who lost life
in anything but fair fight. 1t is the
weakness of our Southern friends to
insist that no sufferings ever equaled
theirs, and when atrocities in South
Africa OF the Philippines are men-
toned, they always say, "Ah, but you
should have seen what the Yankees
did to usv'
That the ''niggers," Gas my soldier
friend called the Filipinos, saying that
that was the common name for them
in the army should hate us to the
point of dealing treacherously with us,
is not so very surprising. Is not the
conduct he charged on them an exact
copy Of what we did to them? We
came to the islands protesting to be
their friends, and when we got the
chance we stabbed them in the back
as people, overthrowing their native
government, treacherously entrapping
their chief magistrate and DESTROYING
their nationality to the best of OUT
ability When was people treated
in this fashion that did not retort by
practicing every kind Of deception on
their enemies to get them into their
power? You cannot enslave a free
people and yet retain in them the vir-
tues of freemen. Destroy a people's
sa'f-respect by the superior force they
cannot resist, and you will awake to
the fact that their self-respect was
the backbone OF their virtues, and that
in losing that they have lost much
else.
The term 'nigger," as applied to our
unwilling subjects by cur soldiers. and
no doubt by our civilians also, is sig
nificant of much. 1t is one of the
graceful terms by which the English
endear themselves to the Hindoos. The
aindoO is great deal darker in skin
than the Tagal, but he is not black
man, and he resents the suggestion
that he is. His forefathers when
they poured down upon India from
Central Asia, thousands of years be-
fore our era, were as white as the Eng
lishman, and were Of the very same
human family. Fer the dark skinned
people they found already in India,
they invented Sanskrit nickname
which is the exact equivalent of "nig-
GER" Now the Hindoo is as dark as
they are, but he cherishes some queer
remembrance Of his former whiteness,
and resents bitterly being called what
he called the aboriginal tribes of his
own country.
In America we thought we had got
rid of the word except in the mouths
of would-be slave-drivers; but it comes
back to us as part of the great re-
vival of contempt for the lower races
of mankind, which Kipling has in
stilled into our imperialists and those
of Great Britain. Forty years ago.
when the influence Of men like Lin
coin was the dominant one in public
thought, the relation of the lower to
the higher races was conceived worth
lily and on Christian lines. It was felt
that we owed to our weaker and less
advanced brethren of the human race
our best efforts for their peaceful ad-
vancement toward our own level. EN-