The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-05-26
OUR LOST OPPORTUNITY

| clSeS OF the Ocald High OcHool, FL
! day evening, May 10, 1911, at lem
pie Theater.)
[Senator Hoars Address on the Sub
jugation of the Filipinos, to the Unit
ed States Senate in December, 1921
We have to deal with a territory ten
thousand miles away, twelve hundred
miles in extent, containing ten million
people.
A majority of the Senate think that
people are under the American flag and
lawfully subject to our authority. We
are not at war with them or with any
body The country is in condition
of profound peace as we'll as of unex-
ampled prosperity. The world is in a
profound peace, except in one quarter
in South Africa, where handful OF re-
publicans are fighting for their inde-
pendence, and have been doing better
fighting than has ben done on the face
of the earth since Thermopylae, or GER
tainly since Bannockburn.
You are fighting for sovereignty.
You are fighting for the principle of
eternal dominion over that people, and
that is the only question in issue in the
conflict. We said in the case of Cuba
that she had right to be free and in
dependent.
We affirmed in the Teller resolu-
ton, I think without a negative voice,
that we would not invade that right
and would not NEEDLE with her terri
tory or anything that belonged to her.
That declaration was a declaration
of peace as we'll as of righteousness;
and we made the treaty, so far as con-
cerned Cuba, and conducted the war
and have conducted ourselves ever since
on that theory-that we had no right
to interfere with her independence,
that we had no right to her territory or
to anything that was Cuba's. So we
only demanded in the treaty that Spain
should hereafter let her alone. If you
had done to Cuba as you have done to
the PHILIPPINE Islands, who had exact
ly the same right, you would be at this
moment, in Cuba, just where Spain was
when she excited the Indignation of
the civilized world and we compelled
her to let go. And if you had done in
the PHILIPPINES as you did in Cuba, you
would be today or would soon be in
those islands as you are in Cuba.
But you made a totally different dec
laration about the Philippine Islands.
You undertook in the treaty to acquire
sovereignty over her for yourself,
which that people denied.
You declared not only in the treaty,
but in many public utterances in this
chamber and elsewhere, that you had a
right to buy sovereignty with money,
or to treat it as the spoils of war or
the booty of battle. The moment you
made that declaration the Filipino
people gave you notice that they treat
ed it as a declaration of war So your
generals reported, and so AguinaIdo
expressly declared. In stating this ac-
count of profit and loss 1 hardly know
which to take up first, principles and
honor, or material interests should
have known very we'll which to have
taken up first down to three years ago
what you call the sentimental, the
ideal, the historical on the right side
Of the column; the cost or the profit in
honor or shame and in character and
N principle and moral influence, in
rue national glory; or the practical
side, the cost in money and gain, in
ife and health, in wasted labor, in dis
national strength, or in pros
oects of trade and money getting.
What has been the practical states
nanship which comes from your ideals
Ind your sentimentalities. You have
wasted nearly six hundred millions of
reasure. You have sacrificed nearly
en- thousand American lives-the
lower of our youth. You have de-
provinces. You have slain un-
'ounted thousands of the people you
lesire to benefit. You have establish
ID recommendation camps Your gen
rails are coming home from their har-
rest bringing sheaves with them. in
he shape of other thousands of sick
ina wounded and insane to drag out
miserable lives, wrecked in body and
mind. You make the American flag in |
he eyes of a numerous people the en-
'lem af sacrilege in Christian churches.
ind of the burning of human dwell !
ngs, and of the horror of the water
orture. Your practical craftsmanship
which disdains to take George Wash |
ngton and Abraham Lincoln or the
soldiers of the revolution or of the civil
var as models, has looked in some
Eases to Spain for your example. I be-
leVe-nay, l know-that in general
our officers and soldiers are humane.
3ut in some cases they have carried on
'our warfare with a mixture of Amer
can ingenuity and Castilian cruelty.
Your practical craftsmanship has
succeeded in converting a people who
hree years ago were ready to kiss the
lem or the garment of the American
ana to welcome him as liberator, who
-nronged after your men when thew
landed on those islands with benedic-
ion and gratitude, into sullen and ir
'econciliable enemies, possessed of
hatred which centuries can not eradi-
cate.
The practical craftsmanship of the
declaration of independence and the
iolden Rule would have cost nothing
but a few kind words. They would |
nave bought for you the great title of
loerator and benefactor, which your
lathers won in Cuba. They would have
bought for you undying gratitude of
4 great and free people and the undv
ng glory which belongs to the name
u hberator That people would have
relt for YOU as Japan felt for you when
she declared last summer that she
owed everything RI tho T-n;+od CO..