EXPANSION AND TRUSTS.*
[* This was Colonel Ingersoll's last interview.]
I am an expansionist. The country has the land hunger and expansion is popular. I want all we can honestly get.
But I do not want the Philippines unless the Filipinos want us, and I feel exactly the same about the Cubans.
We paid twenty millions of dollars to Spain for the Philippine Islands, and we knew that Spain had no title to them.
The question with me is not one of trade or convenience; it is a question of right or wrong. I think the best patriot is the man who wants his country to do right.
The Philippines would be a very valuable possession to us, in view of their proximity to China. But, however desirable they may be, that cuts no figure. We must do right. We must act nobly toward the Filipinos, whether we get the islands or not.
I would like to see peace between us and the Filipinos; peace honorable to both; peace based on reason instead of force.
If control had been given to Dewey, if Miles had been sent to Manila, I do not believe that a shot would have been fired at the Filipinos, and that they would have welcomed the American flag.
Question. Although you are not in favor of taking the Philippines by force, how do you regard the administration in its conduct of the war?