The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-15
AMERICAN HUMANITY.

The swift and generous response people are making to the appeal of mortal misery and need which comes to us from the stricken West Indies, is, we are glad to think, eminently characteristic, A more humane and charitable nation does not exist, we
 firmly believe, II is partly that we have abundant means to succor dis tress, and that we recognize the obligation which goes with ability,
 Richesse oblige. But there is more in
 It than the mere possession of wealth
 By instinct and training and long
 habit, American have developed a peculiar readiness in coming spontane-
 ousy to the relief of suffering. Our
 own inheritance and history, the
 growth of voluntary charities, the
 private endowment of education on a
 scale elsewhere unknown. the various
 colossal calamities of our own which
 have opened hearts and purses to the
 victms--a Chicago fire, a JohnstoWn tlood-all have somehow conspired to make us open as day to melting charity.
 We see with gratified pride how
 quick the French press is to pay it's
 tribute to our instant answer to the cry of those subjects of France who
 are ready to perish. So unparalleled q
 misfortune requires unexampled speed on the part of the rescuers, and gifts
 which must be not only large but re-
 peated. The earliest reports. appalling
 as they were, did not measure up to the
 actual extent of the calamity as we
 now see it revealed. It is no case for playing the fashionable patron,' who,
 as pr Johnson said simply encumbers you with his help after you nave reached the bank. The civized world, with the United Staes in the van has to
 avert what would be it's own disgrace If those helpless survivors of an une- qualed disaster were to be left to want or death. Our government at Wash
 ington has moved promptly and gene rously. If more than the two hundred
 thousand dollars voted by congress is needed, more will undoubt edly be forth coming. Chambers of commerce and private initiative will supply further sums, all of which and more will be re- quired according to present appear ances. The whole movement of sym pathy and help is certainly striking testimony to the existence of a deeply humane sentiment in Americans, to which a genuine appeal is never made in vain.
 It Is because we have a profound conviction that our national character Is thus marked by great humanity that we so keenly feel the peculiar wrong done us by the reports of cruelty in the
 Philippines They have stained our
 good name They have given foreign
 CTS bad impression of us. The Euro
 pean press, continental as well as Eng fish, has published the dispatches from the Manila courts martial and we could
 not greatly blame Frenchmen and Ger
 mans If they concluded that imperial ism wos causing our national character
 to degenerate. But We are confident
 that this is misrepresentation. Say
 agery in warfare was the last think our
 people dreamed of when the troops
 were sent to the Philippines. We hae
 never doubted that the mass of our cit
 izens have all along had the most eX- cellent and kindly intentions in this
 whole Philippine adventure, and have
 been led on into our successive miseries
 there partly as a result of the cheerful
 ignorance with which we set out, and
 partly in consequence of blundering leadership-New York Evening Post.