their patriotic blood for the liberty and independence of their country. The result was our picket discharged his piece, when the insurgent troops near Santa Mesa opened a spirited fire on our troops there stationed. The engagement was one strictly defensive on the part of the insurgents and of vigorous attack by our forces." (February 4, 1899.)

The imperialists have made a systematic attempt to blacken the character of Aguinaldo and his associates, branding them as mercenaries who took bribes from both sides. "The United States pays no gold for peace," said President McKinley with a fine show of indignation in a speech at Fargo, N. D., Oct. 8, 1899. "The leaders of the insurgent forces say to the American Government: 'You can have peace if you will give us independence,' he says. He had another price than that for peace once

before."

It is difficult to learn what may be the basis of this charge. President Schurman, of the Philippine commission, says that Aguinaldo rejected with scorn an offer to take $5,000 a year and become governor of the Tagals.

"It has been said," declared Consul Williams in a communication to the State Department, July 18, 1898, "that they sold their country for gold, but this has been conclusively disproved, not only by their own statements, but by the speech of the late Governor-General Riviera in the Spanish Senate, June 11, 1898. He said that Aguinaldo undertook to submit if the Spanish government would give a certain sum to the widows and orphans of the insurgents. He then admits that only a tenth part of this sum was ever given to Aguinaldo, and that the other promises made he did not find it expedient to keep.

"I was in Hong Kong September, 1897, when Aguinaldo and his leaders arrived under contract with the Spanish government. They waited until the first of November for the payment of the promised money and the fulfilment of the promised reforms. Only $400,000 Mexican, was ever placed to their credit in the banks."

Indeed the policy of the imperialists, as exemplified by the McKinley policy in the Philippines has never been described better than by Mr. Schurman, when he said in a speech at Chicago, on Washington's birthday, 1900:

"I must say a word about the jingoes (imperialists). Now the jingoes are a sect who hold that everything is ours that we can lay our hands on; and that other people have no rights which we need respect. Their philosophy of the Philippine question is exceedingly simple. It is this: Greed in their hearts, gold in the Philippines, and God in heaven to satisfy the appetite with its desired object. The inhabitants of the archi pelago, of whom there are some 8,000,000, never enter into their calculations, or if they do it is simply as material for exploitation or food for bullets. Eight million Filipinos with no legal or moral rights that we need to consider! Eight million immortal souls to be treated as mere chattels! Yet this is the gospel of the jingoes. The American

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people will in due time punish them for their infamy."

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The Democracy shares Mr. Schurman's confidence in the ultimate justice of the American people. The advocates of the might vs. right policy will be punished by removal from power and consigned to lasting obloquy. What Edmund Burke said of the British Tories in 1775 is no less true of those Tories of 1900:

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"In order to prove that they have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that they ought not be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking some of those principles or deriding some of those feelings for which our ancestors have shed their blood. All dread of a standing military force is looked upon as a superstitious panic. We grow indifferent to the consequences inevitable to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the world by a mercenary sword. Between craft and credulity the voice of reason is stifled, and all the misconduct, all the calamities of war, are continued. The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered. You will never see any revenue from these colonies. Some increase of the means of corruption, without ease to the public burdens, is the very best that can happen. Is it for this we are at war, and in such a war? Have any of those gentlemen who are so eager to govern all mankind shown themselves possessed of the first qualities toward government, some knowledge of the object and the difficulties which occur in the task they have undertaken?"

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CHAPTER VI.

A REPUBLICAN ANTI-IMPERIALIST

When Senator George Frisbie Hoar, of Massachusetts, ventured to speak his mind on the question of the President's Philippine policy he was assailed by his party associates with all the bitterness of vituperation that imperialism has in store for those who dare to oppose it. Among others, former Representative Lemuel Eli Quigg, of New York, ventured to intimate in a public speech that the venerable Senator from Massachusetts would have the nation "skulk its duty." Mr. Hoar honored Mr. Quigg with the following reply, which was sent to the press:

To the Editors of the Journal, Advertiser, Herald and Globe,

Boston, Mass.

Gentlemen. Will you give me space in your columns to answer a very serious attack which, I believe, all of you have published? At a meeting of the Essex Club last Saturday, Mr. Quigg, lately a Republican member of Congress from New York, after some undeserved compliment, made this statement, referring to me:

What he wants us to do I can define in no other words than these: "He wants us to skulk from our duty."

I wish to put against this statement my emphatic denial. What I wanted the American people to do in the beginning, what I have wanted them to do all along, what I want them to do now it to do in the Philippines exactly what we have done, are doing, and expect to do in Cuba.

If we have skulked in Cuba, then Mr. Quigg may be justified in saying that I would skulk in the Philippines. We have liberated both from Spain, and we have no thought—at least, I have had no thought-of giv ing either back to Spain. I should as soon give back a redeemed soul to satan as give back the people of the Philippine Islands to the cruelty and tyranny of Spain.

Indeed, since they got arms, an army and an organization, I do not believe it would have been in the power of Spain to subdue them again.

But the United States never, in my judgment, should have allowed her to make the attempt. Having delivered them from Spain, we were

bound in all honor to protect their newly acquired liberty against the ambition or greed of any other nation on earth, and we were equally bound to protect them against our own. We were bound to stand by them, a defender and protector, until their new governments were established in freedom and in honor; until they had made treaties with the powers of the earth and were as secure in their national independence as Switzerland is secure, as Denmark is secure, as Belgium is secure, as San Domingo or Venezuela is secure.

Now, if this be a policy of skulking from duty, I fail to see it. Perhaps I am not so familiar with the history or the vocabulary of liberty as Mr. Quigg.

Perhaps they understand these things better in New York City than we do in Massachusetts. Perhaps Mr. Quigg is a better counselor than I am to the representatives of the county of George Cabot, of Glover, of Whittier, of Nathan Dane and of Robert Rantoul. But, at any rate, the policy which I have stated seems to me the true American policy; the counsel which I have feebly recited is the best I have to give.

We based our policy in regard to Cuba (did we not?) on the ground that it was the policy of righteousness and liberty. We did not tempt the cupidity of any millionaire or even the honest desire for employment of any workmen, by the argument that if we reduced the people of Cuba to our dominion we could make money out of her and she could not help herself.

In those days we were appealing to the great, noble heart of America and not to the breeches-pocket.

I differ from Mr. Quigg both as to principles and as to facts. If we were bound in honor and in righteousness, bound by the history of our own past, bound by the principles and pledges of our people to abstain from depriving Cuba of the liberty we had given her because it was right, we are, in my judgment, all the more bound to abstain from depriving the people of the Philippine Islands of their liberties because it is right.

If I am right in affirming this as a matter of principle (and I am a little curious to see who will stand up and dispute it on Massachusetts soil, or who will speak any other doctrine to the sons of Essex), then the question becomes a question of fact.

Are the people of the Philippine Islands as well entitled to their freedom and independence as the people of Cuba?

Had they contributed as much to achieving their independence as had the people of Cuba?

Do they desire their independence as do the people of Cuba?

Are they fit to govern themselves as are the people of Cuba?

Have they forfeited their right to their independence by any misconduct, such as attacking the army of the United States wantonly and without provocation?

Now the facts which enable us to answer all of these questions, about which the people have been so much misled during the last summer, come to us at length from the reports of the commanders of our army and navy in the Philippine Islands. I have two witnesses to call, Otis and Dewey. While I may not adopt all their conclusions as to policy (and it is not the special business of soldiers and sailors to determine the policies of the country), I have no desire to go beyond them and the men for whom they vouch in the matter of fact.

But before citing the evidence, let me state what I would do today, as I have stated what I desired to do before the war broke out. The Philippine armies are scattered. General Lawton said they were the bravest men he had ever seen. But they had been beaten in every battle. Aguinaldo is a fugitive and in concealment. They are in the condition that Spain was in after Napoleon had overthrown her navies and driven out her king at the beginning of the Peninsular War, with a

host as huge and strong as e'er defied

Their God and placed their trust in human pride.

Whether they will repeat the history of Spain, dispersing like foam when they are attacked, coming together again like the thunder cloud, and in the end wear out the patience of the conqueror, it is not worth while to speculate.

It is not from any fear of any foeman, powerful or insignificant, that the American people are to determine their duty.

If the thing be right, they mean to do it. If it be wrong, they will not do it. I would send General Wood or General Miles or Admiral Dewey to Luzon. I would have him gather about him a cabinet of the best men among the Filipinos who have the confidence of the people and desire nothing but their welfare. In all provinces and municipalities where civil government is now established possessing the confidence of the people, I would consult with their rulers and representatives.