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

their wounds and their pale faces as II
thew were medals of honor. what sol-
der glories in a wound or an empty
sleeve which he got in the Phlllppines
The conflict in the Philippines mas
cost YOU six hundred million dollars
Thousand of American soldlers-the
flower of your youth-the health and
SANITY of thousands more, and hundreds
of thousands of Filipinos slain.
Another price we nave paid as the re-
suit of your practical craftsmanship
We have sold out the right, the ola
! American right, to speak out the SYM
nathy which is in our hearts for peo-
pie who are desolate and oppressed ev-
erywhere on the face of the earth.
This war. if you will call it war, has
gone on for three years. 1t VIII go Oh
| in some form for three hundred years.
unless this policy is abandoned. You
will undoubtedly have times OF peace
and quiet, or pretended SUBMISSION
You will buy men with titles, or o1nce'
or salaries. You will intimidate cow
ards. You will get pretended ana
fawning submission. The land Will
smile and seem at peace. But the vol
cano will be there. The lava will break
out again. You can never settle this
thing until you settle it right.
Gentlemen tell us that the Fi1ipinos
are savages, that they have inflicted
torture, that they have dishonored our
dead and outraged the living. That
very likely may be true. Spain SAID
the same thing of the Cubans. We
have made the same charges against
our own countrymen in the disturbed
days after the war. The reports or
committees and the evidence in the
documents in our library are full Of
them. But who ever heard before or
an American gentlemen, or an Ameri-
can, who took as a rule for his own
conduct the conduct of his antagonist,
or who claimed that the republic should
act as savages because she had saw
ages to deal with? I had supposed, Mr.
President, that the question, whether
a gentleman shall lie or murder or tor
ture, depended on his sense of his own
character, and not on his opinion of his
victim. OF all the miserable sophistical
shifts which have attended this
wretched business from the beginning,
there is none more miserable than this.
MT. 9TeSlUeuls LulS Is the 0lSTIldl law
of human nature. You may struggle
against it, you may try to escape it,
you may persuade yourself that your
intentions are benevolent, that your
yoke will be easy and your burden will
be light, but it will assert itself again.
Government without the consent of the
government-an authority which heav-
en- gave-can only be supported by
means which heaven never can sane
ton.
The American people have got this
one question to answer. Can you law
fully buy with money, or get by brute
force of arms, the right to hold in SUBJ
jugation an unwilling people, and to
impose on them such constitution as
you, and not they, think best for them?
We have answered this question a good
many times in the past The fathers
answered it in 1875, and founded the
republic upon their answer, which has
been the corner stone. John Quincy
Adams and James Monroe answered it
again in the Monroe Doctrine, which
John Quincy Adams declared was only
the doctrine of the consent of the gov
erned.
The republican party answered it
when 1t took possession of the force
of government at the beginning of the
most brilliant period of all legislative
history Abraham Lincoln answered it
when, on that fateful journey to Wash
lngton in 1851, he announced that the
doctrine of his political creed, and de-
clared, with prophetic vision, that he
was ready to be assassinated for it if
need be. You answered it again your
selves when you said that Cuba, who
had no more title than the people of
the Philippine Islands had to their in
dependence, of right ought to be free
and independent.
The question will be answered again
hereafter 1t will be answered soberly
and deliberately and quietly as the
American people are wont to answer
great questions of duty. 1t will De an
swered, not in any turbulent assembly,
amid shouting and clapping of hands
and stamping of feet, where men do
their thinking with their heels and not
With their brains 1t will be answered
in the churches and in the schools and
in the colleges; and it will be answered
IN fifteen million American homes; and
1t will be answered as it has ALWAYS
been answered. 1t will be answered
right.