Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-08-16
A SHALLOW ARGUMENT.

A SHALLOW ARGUMENT.
Judge Parker, in his desperate at
tempt to find something in the policies
OF the republican party against which
ne could register an objection, chose
what the democracy is pleased to call
"militarism. The arguments he made
IN his speech Of acceptance against the
expansion Of the nations influence,
power and with those its markets h
which is tse result of this ''militarism"
We're shallow in the extreme and the
wonder is that a man who has filed
the highest judicial office in the great
est state in the country could be gull
ty Of so little reasoning. 1t is charged
that David B. Hill wrote part of Judge
Parker's acceptance and the admirers
OF the candidates will no doubt hope
that the Sage of Wolfert's Roost"was
the author Of the chapter on "militar-
ISM
Here is what Judge Parker told the
committee on notification at Esopus
the other day:
We are not a military people, bent
on conquest, or engaged in extending
our domains in foreign lands or desir-
GUS OF securing natural advantages
however great. by force; but people
loving peace, not only for ourselves,
but for all the nations of the earth
The display of great military arma-
ments may please the eye, and, for the
moment, excite the pride of the citizen
but 1t cannot bring to the country the
brains Drawn and muscle of single
Immigrant, nor induce the investment
here of a dollar of capital. Of course
such armament as may be necessary
for the security of the country and the
protection Of the rights of its citizens
at home or abroad, must be maintain
ed. Any other course would be not
only false economy, but pussilanimous.
protest, however, against the feeling,
now far too prevalent, that by rea-
son of the commanding position we
have assumed the world, we must take
part in the disputes and broils of for
eign countries; and that because we
have grown great we should intervene
in every important question that arises
in other parts of the world. also pro-
test against the erection of any such
military establishment as would be re-
CURED to maintain the country in that
attitude. We should confine our inter-
national activities solely to matter in
which the rights of the country or of
our citizens are directly involved. That
is not a situation of isolation. but of
independence.
The government of the United
States was organized solely for the
people of the United States. While it
was contemplated that this country
should become regufanfian, hanfian
should become refuge for the op-
pressed of every land, who might be
fit to discharge the duties of our citi-
zenship, and while we have always
sympathized with the people of every
nation in their struggles for self gov
eminent the government was not Gre
ated for a career of political or civil
izing evangelization in foreign coun-
tries, or among alien races by inter-
vention in their affairs. The most eff
ficient work that we can do in uplift-
ing the people of other countries is
by the presentation of a happy, pros
porous self-governing nation as an
ideal to be emulated, a model to be
followed. The general occupation of
our citizens in the arts of peace, or
the absence of large military arma-
ments, tends to impair neither patriot
ism nor physical courage"
This is pretty English and sounds
all right until the reader considers the
sense. A high school student, in an
essay contest, would be marked down
for the want of logic in the compost
ton. Yet a candidate for the highest
and most important Office in the ma
ton asks the people for election in a
speech such as this.
1t is true that this government saw
its beginning in small way. So has
every other government since the
world began. Now it has enlarged. ex-
grown. until it stretches from
ocean to ocean and from the frozen
north to the semi-tropical south. In
a war in which the United States took
the part of the down-trodden, defence
less Cuban people against the tyran-
meal Spanish government the fortunes
OF the struggle made it incumbent
upon this country to possess the Phil
ippines. There was really no other
way out of it except to fall below the
standard the United States had al
ready reached among the worlds ma
tons. AS to the government of the
Islands there is no fair minded man
who will deny that the plan now being
followed and the additional plans that
are made for the ultimate future of the
Philippines compose the most humane
and practicable scheme Of govern