Worse
"The Present Situation"
1899
American Sentinel 14, 12 , pp. 178, 179.
THE treaty of peace with Spain has been ratified. Porto Rico and the Philippines are thus confirmed to the United States. The United States is now no more the United States of America; it is, as Senator Daniel said it would be, "the United States of America and Asia."
And how stands it as to principle with the United States of America and Asia? Immediately following the ratification of the treaty of peace, the following resolution was adopted by the Senate:—
"That by the ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain it is not intended to incorporate the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands into citizenship of the United States, nor is it intended to permanently annex said islands as an integral part of the territory of the United States; but it is the intention of the United States to establish on said islands a government suitable to the wants and condition of the inhabitants of said islands, to prepare them for local self-government, and in due time to make such disposition of said islands as will best promote the interests of the citizens of the United States and the inhabitants of said islands.
No inhabitant then of the Philippine Islands is, nor can be, a citizen of the United States. They are, and must remain, only subjects. But when the United States possess people who are not, and cannot be citizens, but are held and ruled only as subjects, it is no more a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, no more a government of "We the People,"—it is no more a republic, but "a government of some other form."
That all this was intended in the very making of the treaty of peace is certain, as is shown by the words of Mr. Whitelaw Reid, one of the peace commissioners, in a speech in which he explained the difficulties and aims of the commissioners in the Paris convention. It was spoken in Chicago Tuesday night, February 14. His subject was "The Achievements of American Diplomacy." As reported in the New York Herald he said:—
"The Pacific Ocean . . . is in our hands now. Practically we own more than half the coast on this side, and have military stations in the Sandwich and Aleutian islands. To extend our authority over the Philippine archipelago is to fence in the China Sea. Rightly used it enables the United States to convert the Pacific Ocean almost into an American lake. . . .
"Let us free our minds of some bugbears. . . . It is a bugbear that the Filipinos would be citizens of the United States. It is a bugbear that anybody living on the territory or other property of the United States must be a citizen.
"Brushing aside these bugbears, gentlemen, what are the duties of [sic.] the hour? "First—Hold what you are entitled to. If you are ever to part with it, wait at least till you have found out that you have no use for it. Next, resist admission of any of our new possessions as states or their organization on a plan designed to prepare them for admission. Make this fight easiest by making it at the beginning. Resist the first effort to change the character of the Union. We want no Porto Ricans or Cubans to be sending Senators and Representatives to Washington. We will do them good, if we may, all the days of our life, but, please God, we will not divide this Republic among them.
"Resist the crazy extension of the doctrine that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed to an extreme never imagined by the men who framed it, and never for one moment acted upon in their own practice."
That is plain enough, and is stated plainly enough- to show to all, without any argument, that the principles of American republicanism have been repudiated, and intentionally repudiated, formally and officially by the United States, and that now it is a government of another sort.
What sort of a government it now is, as compared with what it was when it was founded and while it adhered to its original principles, is pretty well illustrated in the speeches of Senators Hoar and Hale against the resolution quoted in this article. "Senator Hoar opposed it because it gave no hope of liberty or self-government to the islands. He said it was an infamous declaration."
Senator hale said:—
"Confess will adjourn and the war will go on, and there is not a man who will not realize in three months that it is a war of conquest and subjugation. "And yet, we are told that we are traitors and are held up and blacklisted in the newspapers because we want to give those people a chance at least to show that they are friendly and can set up a government of their own.
"Instead we kill them, not by scores, not by hundreds, but by thousands. More Filipinos have been killed by the guns of our army and navy than were patriots killed in any six battles of the Revolutionary war. It has become a gigantic event. The slaughter of people in no way equal to us, meeting us with bows and arrows and crawling into the jungles by hundreds, there to die, has stupefied the American mind. No one has said that our mission of commerce and of the gospel was to be preceded by the slaughter of thousands of persons."
Ichabod! The only word that now remains is Ichabod.
A. T. J. March 23, 1899 ATJ, AMS 179