Porto Ricans and the Filipinos and the Tagals of the Asiatic islands absolve us from our duties to the seventy-five millions of our own people and to their posterity. I deny that they oblige us to destroy the moral credit of our own Republic by turning this loudly heralded war of liberation and humanity into a landgrabbing game and an act of criminal aggression. I deny that they compel us to aggravate our race troubles, to bring upon us the constant danger of war, and to subject our people to the galling burden of increasing

armaments.

If we have rescued these unfortunate daughters of Spain, the colonies, from the tyranny of their cruel father, I deny that we are, therefore, in honor bound to marry any of the girls, or to take them into our household, where they may disturb and demoralize our whole family. I deny that the liberation of those Spanish dependencies morally constrains us to do anything that would put our highest mission to solve the great problem of democratic government in jeopardy, or that would otherwise endanger the vital interests of the Republic. Whatever our duties to them may be, our duties to our own country and people stand first; and from this stand-point we have, as sane men and patriotic citizens, to regard our obligation to take care of the future of those islands and their people.

VI.

DUTY TO OUR POSSESSIONS

WE cannot expect that the Porto Ricans, the Cubans, and the Filipinos will maintain orderly governments in Anglo-Saxon fashion. But they may succeed in establishing a tolerable order of things in their fashion; as Mexico, after many decades of turbulent dis

order, succeeded at last, under Diaz, in having a strong and orderly government of her kind, not, indeed, such a government as we would tolerate in this Union, but a government answering Mexican character and interests, and respectable in its relations with the outside world.

This will become all the more possible if, without annexing and ruling those people, we simply put them on their feet, and then give them the benefit of the humanitarian spirit which, as we claim, led us into the war for the liberation of Cuba. To this end we should keep our troops on the islands until their people have constructed governments and organized forces of their own for the maintenance of order. Our military occupation should not be kept up as long as possible, but should be withdrawn as soon as possible. The Philippines may, as Belgium and Switzerland are in Europe, be covered by a guarantee of neutrality on the part of the powers most interested in that region-an agreement which the diplomacy of the United States should not find it difficult to obtain. This would secure them against foreign aggression.

As to the independent republics of Porto Rico and Cuba, our Government might lend its good offices to unite them with San Domingo and Hayti in a confederacy of the Antilles, to give them a more respectable international standing. Stipulations should be agreed upon with them as to open ports and the freedom of business enterprise within their borders, affording all possible commercial facilities. Missionary effort in the largest sense as to the development of popular education, and of other civilizing agencies, as well as abundant charity in case of need, will on our part not be wanting, and all this will help to mitigate their disorderly tendencies and to steady their governments.

Thus we shall be their best friends without being their foreign rulers. We shall have done our duty to

them, to ourselves, and to the world. However imperfect their governments may still remain, they will at least be their own, and they will not with their disorders and corruptions contaminate our institutions; the integrity of which is not only to ourselves, but to liberty-loving mankind, the most important concern of all. We may then await the result with generous patience with the same patience with which for many years we witnessed the revolutionary disorders of Mexico on our very borders, without any thought of taking her government into our own hands.

Ask yourselves whether a policy like this will raise the American people to a level of moral greatness never before attained! If this democracy, after all the intoxication of triumph in war, conscientiously remembers its professions and pledges, and soberly reflects on its duties to itself and others, and then deliberately resists the temptation of conquest, it will achieve the grandest triumph of the democratic idea that history knows of. It will give the government of, for, and by the people a prestige it never before possessed. It will render the cause of civilization throughout the world a service without parallel. It will put its detractors to shame, and its voice will be heard in the council of nations with more sincere respect and more deference than ever. The American people, having given proof of their strength and also of their honesty and wisdom, will stand infinitely mightier before the world than any number of subjugated vassals could make them. Are not here our best interests, moral and material? Is not this genuine glory? Is not this true patriotism?

I call upon all who so believe never to lose heart in the struggle for this great cause, whatever odds may seem to be against us. Let there be no pusillanimous yielding while the final decision is still in the balance. Let us relax no effort in this, the greatest crisis the Republic has ever seen. Let us never cease to invoke the

good sense, the honesty, and the patriotic pride of the people. Let us raise high the flag of our country-not as an emblem of reckless adventure and greedy conquest, of betrayed professions and broken pledges, of criminal aggression and arbitrary rule over subject populations-but the old, the true flag; the flag of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; the flag of the government of, for, and by the people; the flag of national faith held sacred and of national honor unsullied; the flag of human rights and of good example to all nations; the flag of true civilization, peace, and good-will to all men. Under it let us stand to the last, whatever betide.

CRIMINAL AGGRESSION

[From a speech delivered at Central Music Hall, Chicago, October 17, 1899.]

I ASK you, in all soberness, leaving all higher considerations of justice, morality, and principle aside, whether, from a mere business point of view, the killing policy of subjugation is not a colossal, stupid blunder, and whether it would not have been, and now be, infinitely more sensible to win the confidence and cultivate the friendship of the islanders by recognizing them as of right entitled to their freedom and independence, as we have recognized the Cubans, and thus to obtain from their friendship and gratitude, for the mere asking, all the coaling-stations and commercial facilities we require, instead of getting those things by fighting at an immense cost of blood and treasure, with a probability of having to fight for them again? I put this question to every business man who is not a fool or a reckless speculator. Can there be any doubt of the answer?

A word now on a special point: There are some very estimable men among us who think that even if we concede to the islanders their independence we should at least keep the city of Manila. I think differently, not from a mere impulse of generosity, but from an entirely practical point of view. Manila is the traditional, if not the natural, capital of the archipelago. To recognize the independence of the Philippine Islands, and at the same time to keep from them Manila, would mean as much as to recognize the independence of Cuba and to keep Havana. It would mean to withhold from the islanders their metropolis, that in which they naturally take the greatest pride, that which they legitimately most desire to have, and which, if withheld from them, they would most ardently wish to get back.

The withholding of Manila would inevitably leave a sting in their hearts which would never cease to rankle, and might, under critical circumstances, give us as much trouble as the withholding of independence itself. If we wish them to be our friends we should not do things by halves, but enable them to be our friends without reserve. And I maintain that, commercially as well as politically speaking, the true friendship of the Philippine Islanders will, as to our position in the East, be worth far more to us than the possession of Manila. We can certainly find other points which will give us similar commercial as well as naval advantages without exciting any hostile feeling.

Although I have by no means exhausted this vast subject, discussing only a few phases of it, I have said enough, I think, to show that this policy of conquest is, from the point of view of public morals, in truth, 66 criminal aggression "-made doubly criminal by the treacherous character of it, and that from the point of view of material interest it is a blunder—a criminal blunder, and a blundering crime. I have addressed