Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1902-03-15

what Funston calls "the real thing"
! We have had too much mealy y-mouthed
Imperialism. Kipling, Funston & Co.
give it TO us in straight flung words"
They rail ut the traditions and the
manners of freedom "As America
and England are both free, peoples"
sneers Kipling, 1--WE must just muddle
along in the expensive, wasteful,
butcherly fashion that attends our
methods" That is lese-liberty. 1t is
Imperialism thinking to rc-estabish a
brutal lordsliip over a race which, as
Kiping himself has told ils. is "little
used to lie down at the word of an
other man. And Funston at the
Lotos club was as imperious ana as
ridiculous as the King in Wonderland,
with his cries of "Off with his head"
and his Illuminating order of the day.
Let us keep still about this business
till the war Is overv'
That Is the true comment on
benevolent assimilation" and ell the
other oily phrases of the Imperialists
afraid of what people will say about
the work they are engaged in. In
Kipling and in Funston we see the
thing without disguise. To them. talk
of human rights is only sickening
cant, and the idea of constitutional
and ordered freedom is as meaningless
as dimensional space. "A Con
stitution for Malta?' exclaimed the
Duke of Wellington: you might as
well give a Constitution to "a man-of-
war;! That is the rough soldiers
way of governing which our swash-
bucklng Kansas General would apply
to his admiring fellow-ctizens. "Oh.
you want to prate about humanity and
about justice, do you? Well, If you
open your lips, you shall be soundly
flogged and then strung up to the
yard-arm' And in Funston's sweep
ing contempt for the Filipinos we find
another proof of the brutalization
which the heightened despot in the
Orient inevitably undergoes. Napoleon
went to the East processing Rousseau's
belief In the essential nobleness of
human nature and the cqhality of men.
He came back saying that man there
was "a dog" And 1t was not long
before Frenchmen too. became to him
no better than dogs-flesh for his can
non-and their aspirations for frater-
nifty and freedom the subject of his
mockery. 1t is easy to see the same
process at work in Gen. Funston.
His blunt proposal to hang every
American who dales to peep or mutter
l against his infallibe sword Is simply
II proposal to suppress free government
at home, as well as in the Philippines.
The Greek definition of liberty was
9 that political condition in which free
: born men, having TO advise the public.
D may speak free" But Funston has
changed all that. Let us keep still
a about matters of policy in the Philip
: pines" Believe il, Lords and Com
mons" wrote the great English cham
0 plon OF free speech, they who counsel
/ We to such suppressing, do as good
as bid ye suppress yourselves" And
Milton went on to show that the cause
u OF free writing was a free and humane
i government; and that the attempt to
q prevent Englishmen from speaking
:, the thing they would was an attempt
to make them Ignorant, british, for
mnl, and slavish," ant their govern
ment Oppressive. arbitrary, and ty-
rannous." GIVE me-" he cried, ''tbe
s liberty to know, to utter, and to argue
s freely according to conscience. above
;, all liberties"
There is really something comic
about specialized writing-man and
i an improvised General undertaking TO
d instruct great and proud Democ-
n racy, ana to reverse the increasing
political purpoSe which runs through
the ages. When the lmperialstic
q furry is over in England and tho
= United States, the Dcmocraclos of
l. either will resume their majestic
't march towards the goal Of freedom. of
(? equality, of human right. Already
W we can see In england the stir which
- hetokens that social amelloratiop Is to
ne again the great absorption OF poit
" ical iite, wen once the nlare of the
t. trumpets Is hushed. Among MS who
J. can doubt that the pressing questions
OF equal taxation and equal oppor
tun,iy VIII soon he taken I'M by ON
n eager reading aud arguing Democra
cyF Where will Kipling and Funstor
" De when this age-long movement In
T. the soul of man resumes it's onyya rd
1t course! WIN they still lie how,nr
A. with their lmperialstlc idols? If they
90, they will look only little NOR,
ludicrous than they really do now
i, Ihey are commanding the most inouis
itive' the most talkative, the mos
irrepressible Democracy that eve,
sw'trmed upon this earth, TO be silent
Ana this incredible Stiffness passes it
self Off as the Gospel of Efficiency
Der Casus macht mich iachen.