As regards Aguinaldo and the Tagals, I think that Mr. Whitelaw Reid’s irritation at their protracted resistance has led him on too far. I prefer the opinion of Senator Hoar, who, speaking in the Senate of three proclamations of Aguinaldo, said: “Mr. President, these are three of the greatest state papers in all history. If they were found in our own history of our own revolutionary time we should be proud to have them stand by the side of those great state papers which Chatham declared were equal to the masterpieces of antiquity.”
In the same speech he says, and I commend his words to the reader’s attention: “Mr. President, there is one mode by which the people of the Philippine Islands could establish the truth of the charges as to their degradation and incapacity for self-government which have been made by the advocates of Imperialism in this debate, and that mode is by submitting tamely and without resistance to the dominion of the United States.”
Mr. Whitelaw Reid, however, was perfectly right in one thing. The Philippines belong (or will belong) to America by right of conquest. On August 28th, 1899, Mr. McKinley addressed the 10th Pennsylvania Regiment at Pittsburgh soon after their arrival from Manila. He said: “The insurgents struck the first blow. They reciprocated our kindness with cruelty, our mercy[5] with Mausers.... They assailed our sovereignty, and there will be no useless parley until the insurrection is suppressed and American authority acknowledged and established. The Philippines are ours as much as Louisiana, by purchase, or Texas, or Alaska.” Here we get down to the bed rock, and discard all flimsy pretences. The Americans have undertaken a war of conquest, they bought it in fact, but I fear they are not happy either about its material progress or its moral aspect. We shall have to wait till November to see what they think about it.
But whenever the cost in lost lives, ruined health, and shattered minds, to say nothing of dollars, comes to be known, there will be a great outcry in America.
Mr. McKinley and his advisers are much to be pitied, for they were misled by the information given them by those they relied on.
The False Prophets of the Philippines.
Here is an extract from General Merritt’s evidence taken from the Blue Book, fifty-sixth congress, third session, document No. 62, part I, p. 367:
Mr. Reid: Do you think any danger of conflict is now reasonably remote?
General Merritt: I think there is no danger of conflict as long as these people think the United States is going to take possession there. If they imagine or hear from any source that the Spaniards are to be reinstated there, I think they will be very violent.