preservation of the Union and the enfranchisement of a race; and, last, that the power of a great, free people might go out like the benediction of heaven to bring liberty and justice and hope to the oppressed and tyranny-ridden inhabitants of the islands of the sea.

Blood has been shed; treasure has been poured out that men might be ennobled, humanity uplifted, and God's omnipotent decree fulfilled. When Dewey sailed into the harbor of Manila; when white men and black men charged the San Juan Hill; when Sampson and Schley pursued the Spanish fleet along the Cuban coast, civilization awoke to the knowledge of the divine footsteps marching on.

Peace, blessed peace, is with us once again; and what inestimable blessings it brings! In the white heat of a new baptism of fire sectionalism has been blotted out forever. The blue and the gray have marched side by side under the one flag; white and black have stood shoulder to shoulder; and henceforth, from sea to sea, from lake to gulf, we are one people, glorying in a common destiny. We have challenged the admiration of the world. We have won the respect of all Christendom. The United States stands sponsor for a hemisphere, and we lead the vanguard of humanity's advance.

Men and governments pass away, but the glory of great deeds lives on forever. Such heroes as Washington, Grant, and Dewey; such statesmen as Lincoln and McKinley, take their place with the immortals. New duties and responsibilities are upon us. Not of our seeking, but forced by the unexpected and unforeseen fortunes of a holy war. Are we not strong enough, brave enough, wise enough, humane enough, to meet them and master them and shape them into blessings? Dare we not turn wide-open, fearless eyes to scan the expanding horizon of the twentieth century?

Let cowards falter and pessimists bewail. The

world moves. The Republic lives. God reigns; and in the sunshine of His guidance we go marching on-on under a flag that symbolizes the highest aspirations of the human race. Washington made it the flag of independence; Lincoln made it the flag of liberty; McKinley has made it the flag of man's humanity for manuntil to-day, on land and sea, the wide world round, serenely uplifted toward the empyrean blue-kissed by the sun of day, wooed by the stars of night, feared by tyrants, beloved of mankind-it tranquilly floats, the unconquered flag of the greatest nation of the earth.

CHARLES E. TOWNE

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the University of Michigan February 22, 1899.]

I.

"LEST WE FORGET"

THE possession of the Philippine Islands was in no way necessary to the success of the war nor within its purpose. Admiral Dewey went to Manila in pursuance of his well-known instructions to "find the Spanish fleet and destroy it." In his subsequent operations he was assisted by the insurgent Filipinos, who were engaged, like the rebels of Cuba, in an effort to throw off the yoke of Spain, if possible a more heavy burden and a more odious tyranny in the Philippines than in the Antilles.

Said Admiral Dewey on the 27th of June, "I have given the insurgents to understand that I consider them as friends, because we oppose a mutual enemy." The publications of the Government show beyond all cavil that whatever mental reservations the Washington authorities may have found it consistent with their ideas of honorable diplomacy to entertain, our representatives immediately in contact with Emilio Aguinaldo and his coadjutors treated the insurrectionists as allies, and that we were honorably bound to respect the relation. Such was the situation when they organized a gov

ernment, declared themselves free and independent, adopted a constitution, raised and maintained an army, collected revenues, conducted military operations according to the laws of war, and captured and held many thousands of Spanish prisoners. During all this time they made no mystery of the sacred object of their endeavor. They were striving for independence, for the overthrow of the Spanish power and the establishment of a Philippine republic. They eagerly welcomed the sailors and soldiers of the United States, and gladly accepted and returned our assistance.

My friends, if under such circumstances we harbored against our allies a secret intention of snatching from their grasp the hard-won reward of all their suffering and valor as soon as it should come within their reach; if we deceived and profited by their confidence only to force upon them the milder, though scarcely less welcome overlordship of the United States in the place of the Spanish despotism they rebelled against; if, in short, we led these people up to a near view of freedom only at last to give them a change of masters-then may God forgive us and in some way shield us from the retribution we deserve and that all history teaches us we must else receive! For such an act would be worse than Punic faith, a deed without a name, in the presence of which the garnered trophies of a hundred years would fall to ashes and the sun of the Republic set in blackness forever.

We have not conquered the Filipinos, we have bought them. Theirs is not even the poor satisfaction of figuring among the spoils of honorable war. They are the sorry chattels of a higgling bargain-and-sale between the bankrupt monarchy of Charles the Fifth and the recreant Republic of George Washington. The condition of affairs in the Philippine Islands at this moment constitutes the ineffaceable stain upon the honor of this country. Having bought out the shadowy

and unstable authority of Spain we have succeeded to her equity in this rebellion, or, rather let us say, to her inequity, for we have long since given full recognition of the justice of the rebellion. Oh! the magic power of gold. By paying $20,000,000 of it we have transformed patriotism into treason, our allies into rebels. The very men whose aspirations for liberty a few short months ago we supported with our army and navy, we are to-day engaged in shooting to death.

But it is said that the present hostilities were begun by the Filipinos. The facts are not quite so well authenticated as could be wished, especially in view of the claim of Agoncillo that the Americans were the aggressors and precipitated the difficulty for the purpose of influencing the then pending vote in the United State Senate on the treaty ratification, and considering also the vigilant censorship of the cable maintained by our military authorities. But accepting the statement as true, where rests the ultimate responsibility? Does it not lie against us for not having long before given to the people of those islands an assurance that they should have the right of instituting and maintaining a government of their own? That is what they have been fighting Spain for. That is the only thing they desire. Why was not the assurance given? My answer is, because the powers that be in this country did not intend to allow the Filipinos to govern themselves, and will never hereafter grant them their independence unless compelled to do so by the liberty-loving people of the United States.