Behind a wall of our own building we have in recent years waxed fat and rich, not to say sordid and corrupt. As we have been, shall we so continue?
It is a trite saying that no war leaves a nation where it finds it. A little more than a year ago our Uncle Samuel shouldered his musket and set forth to rid his southern doorway of a certain yellow, yelping cur which for years had been a nuisance if not a menace to his peace. The dog is dead and its carcass kicked out of sight. But is that all? We learn—some of us with surprise or even consternation—that certain responsibilities attach to the use of firearms on the high seas and in the international preserves. Can we dodge those responsibilities? Ought we to do so if we can? Will it even pay?
We have discovered—once more with something like surprise—that war, even if undertaken in the "sacred cause of humanity," is something more than mere burning of powder. Whatever our original purpose, we have new territory on our hands. We cannot kick Spain out of Cuba, even in the cause of philanthropy, and leave the island to Cuban savagery, for that is no better than the savagery of Spain.
Similarly in the Philippines. If Admiral Dewey, after sinking Montojo's fleet a year and a day ago, had sailed away, as some Americans seem to think he ought to have done, he would have merited court-martial for himself and the world's scorn, contempt and execration for his country. He had no license to burn American powder and pour out American blood to further the ambitions of Aguinaldo, or win colonies in the far East for Germany. Dewey's real victory was won, not on that spectacular first of May, but in the weary, dreary months following, when, with infinite patience, unsleeping watchfulness and the tact of true genius, he kept the peace in the waters that rolled above the sunken Spanish fleet; whispered words of friendly warning in the ear of the amiable German, Von Diederichs, and—greatest of all—captured Manila without bloodshed. Let us never cease to thank the God of Battles that in the Admiral of our Asiatic fleet we have had a man as well as a fighter—a modest, earnest, fearless man, who could not only conquer an enemy but, greater still, conquer himself, control his natural resentments and bring his passions in subjection to his conscience. What might have befallen us before now without such a guardian of our interests on the scene, it is neither pleasant nor profitable to speculate.
But the conflict is not yet over—perhaps it has not yet even fairly begun. Assuming, as I suppose we may, that Aguinaldo is ready to treat for peace, there still remain the allies of that patriot—in Asia and Europe, even here in America. The Philippine chieftain has fought hard and with splendid prodigality of patriot blood—not, however, his own. But three months' experience with the "white devils" who fight without resting, and especially with "devils" like Funston and his wild westerners, who "eat bullets" and swim turgid rivers under fire—three months of such experience has caused the Filipinos to revise the estimate of white man's warfare formed upon their acquaintance with Spain.
Still remain, however, the watchful Europeans in the East, who, despite the diplomatic protestations of their respective governments, would be only too ready to take advantage of our first misstep or sign of weakness.
Remain also those peculiar patriots here at home who have found interest or duty in affording aid and comfort at long range to their country's foes. Of these American Filipinos there are several breeds. First, there is the political breed, who, under the leadership of a distinguished westerner, are gallantly fighting the administration with a view to the possibilities of 1900. Of these patriots it is to be observed that their political instincts have already taught them much. Not for the first time, they realize that they have misjudged the public temper. Treachery, in whatever guise, has never been lovely to the American eye, and I think we may assume that the Bryan Filipinos will presently discover that they are on the wrong tack. They will not figure largely in the events of the future.
A more troublesome, insistent factor is the Atkinson breed of Filipinos. This will do as a generic name for a species of patriots that has never been entirely wanting at any stage of our national progress. They were called Tories when they first appeared, to oppose the patriot revolt from Great Britain. During the War of the Rebellion they earned the name of Copperheads, from the similarity of their tactics to those of the snake in the grass which strikes without warning. These tactics the Atkinsons are renewing now, without apparent hope of reward or success, but merely from that perversity of nature, that inborn contrariness whose existence is to be explained only on the theory that "it takes all kinds of people to make a world."
Of these gentry and their kind, I have only to say that they may thank their lucky stars that they live and practice their treacherous devices in a country where the jealousy for free speech and a free press sometimes permits liberty to fall into license. The wanton Copperhead may for the present shelter himself behind the good nature of the people. I say for the present, for I do not believe that such treasonable conduct as inciting troops under arms to resist lawful authority can forever go unpunished; but in the end it will be treated as it deserves.[1]
[1] This was written before Mr. Atkinson's treasonable pamphlets had been stopped in the mails by the Post Office Department.