Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The Columbus journal. (Columbus, Neb.) 1874-1911 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 1900)
-.- J ' s. -- jpsC T2&g. - The news that G0,000 American sol diers have crossed the Pacific; that, if necessary, the American Congress will make it 100,003 or 200,000 men; that, at any cost, we will establish peace and govern the islands, will do more to end the war than the soldiers themselves. But the report that we even discuss the withdrawal of a single soldier at the present time and that we even de bate the possibility of not administer ing government throughout the archi pelago ourselves will be misunderstood and misrepresented and will blow into flame once more the fires our soldiers' blood has almost quenched. "the blood of our soldiers." Mr. President, reluctantly and only from a sense of duty am I forced to say that American opposition to the war has been the chief factor in prolonging it. Had Aguinaldo not understood that in America, even in the American Congress, even here in the Senate, he and his cause were supported; had he not known that it was proclaimed on the stump and in the press of a faction in the United States that every shot his misguided followers fired into the breasts of American soldiers was like the volleys fired by Washington's men againsi the soldiers of King George his insurrection would have dissolved be fore it entirely crystalliezd. The utterances of American oppon ents of the war are read to the ignorant soldiers of Aguinaldo and repeated in exaggerated form among the common people. Attempts have been made by wretches claiming American citizen ship to ship arms and ammunition from Asiatic ports to the Filipinos, and these acts of infamy were coupled by the Malays with American assaults on our Government at home. The Filipi nos do not understand free speech, and therefore our tolerance of American assaults on the American President and the American Government means to them that our President is in the minority or he would not permit what appears to thein such treasonable criti cism. It is believed and stated in Luzon. Paney, and Cebu that the Filipinos have only to fight, harass, retreat, break np into small parties, if necessary, as they are doing now, but by any means hold out until the next Presidential election, and our forces will be withdrawn. All this has aided the enemy more than climate, arms, and battle. Sena tors, I have heard these reports my self; I have talked with the people: I have seen our mangled boys in the hospital and field; 1 have stood on the firing line and beheld our dead soldiers, their faces turned to the pitiless south ern sky, and in sorrow rather than anger 1 say to those whose voices in America have cheered these misguided natives on to shoot our soldiers down, that the blood of those dead and wounded boys of ours is on their hands, and the flood of all the years can never wash that stain away. In Borrow rather than anger I say these words, for I earnestly believe that our brothers knew not what thej did. THE FILIPINOS ARK CHILDREN, UTTERLY INCAPABLE OK SELF-GOVERNMENT. But, Senators, it would be better to abandon this combined garden and Gibraltar of the Pacific, and count our blcod and treasure already spent a pro fitable loss, than to apply any acade mic arrangement of seif-governinent to these children. They are not capa ble of self-government. How could they be? They are not of a self-gov erning race. 'I hey are Orientals, Ma lays, instructed by Spaniards in the latter's worst estate. They know nothing of practical gov ernment except as they have witnessed the weak, corrupt, cruel, and capri cious rule of Spain. What magic will anyone employ to dissolve in their minds and characters those impressions of governors and governed which three centuries of misrule has created? What alchemy will change the oriental quality of their" blood and set the self governing currents of the American pouring through their Malay veins? How shall they, in the twinkling of an eye, be exalted to the heights of self governing peoples which required a thousand years for us to reach, Anglo Saxon though we are? Let men beware how they cmploy me term ''self-government." It is a sacred term. It is the watchword at he door of the inner temple of liberty, for liberty does not always mean self government. Self-government is a me thod of liberty the highest, simplest, best and it is acquired only after centuries of study and struggle'and ex periment and instruction and all the elements of the progress of man. Self government is no base and common thing, to be bestowed on the merely audacious. It is the degree which rowns the graduate of liberty, not the name of liberty's infant class, who have not yet mastered the alphabet of freedom. Savage blood, oriental blood. Malay blood, Spanish example are these the elements of self-government? We must act on the situation as it exists, not as we would wish it. I have talked with hundreds of these people, getting their views as to the practical workings of self-government. The great majority simply do not un derstand any participation -in any gov ernment wlfatever. The most enlight ened among them declare that self government will succeed because the employers of labor will compel their em ployees to vote as their employer wills and that this will ensure intelligent voting. I was assured that we could depend upon good men always being in office because the officials who con stitute the government will nominate their successors, choose those among the people who will do the voting, and determine determine how and where elections will be held. The most ardent advocate of self governmcut that I met was anxious that 1 should know that such a govern ment would be tranquil because, as he said, is anyone criticised it the gov ernment would shoot the offender. A few of them have a sort of verbal un derstanding of the democratic theory, but the above are the examples of the ideas of the practical workings of self government entertained by the aris tocracy, the rich planters and traders, and heavy employers of labor, the men who would run the government. PEOPLE INDOLENT NO COMPETITION WITH OUR LABOR. Example for decades will be neces sary to instruct them in American ideas and methods of administration. Ex ample, example; always example this alone will teach them. As a race their general ability is not excellent. Edu cators, both men and women, to whom I have talked in Cebu and Luzon, were unanimous in the opinion that in all olid and useful education they are, as a people, dull and stupid. In showy things, like carving and painting or embroidery or music, they nave appar ent aptitude, but even this is super Ccial and never thorough. They have facility of speech, too. The three best educators on the isl and at different times made to me the same comparison, that the common people in their stupidity arc like their caribou bulls. They aro not even good agriculturists. Their waste of cane is inexcusable. Their destruction of hemp fiber is childish. They are incura bly indolent. They "have no contin uity or thoroughness of industry. They will quit work without notice and amuse themselves until the money they have earned is spent. They are like children playing at men's work. No one need fear their competition with our labor. No reward could be guile, no force compel, these children of indolence to leave their trifling lives for the fierce and fervid industry of high-wrought America. The very reverse is the fact. One great problem is the necessary labor to develop these islands to build the roads, open the mines, clear the wilderness, drain the swamps, dredge the harbors. The na tives will not supply it. A lingering prejudice against the Chinese may pre vent us from letting them supply it. Ultimately' when the real truth of the climate and human conditions is known, it is barely possible that our labor will go there. Even now young men with the right moral fiber and a little capital can make fortunes there as planters. But the natives will not come here. Let all men dismiss that fear. The Dutch have Java, and its population, under Holland's rule, has increased from 2,000,000 to more than 20,000,000 people; yet the Java laborer has never competed with the laborer of Holland. And this is true of England and Ger many, of every colonizing, administer ing power. The native has produced luxuries for the laborer- of the govern ing country and afforded a market for what the 'laborer of the governing country, in turn, produced. In Pal nan the natives are primitive. In Sulu and Mindanao the Moros are vigorous and warlike, but have not the most elementary notions of civilization. For example, they do not understand the utility of roads. Nothing exists but paths through the jungle. I have ridden for hours in Sulu over the most primitive paths, barely discernable in the rank grass. They have not grasped the idea of private and permanent property in land, and yet there is no lovelier spot, no richer land, no better military and naval base than the Sulu group. In Paluan. Sulu, and Minda nao the strictest military government is necessary indefinitely. The inhabi tants can never be made to work, can never be civilized. Their destiny can not be foretold. But whether they will withstand civilization or disappear be fore it, our duty is plain. OUTLINE OF THE PLAN OF GOVERNMENT NEEDED IN THE PHILIPPINES: '"SIMPLE AND STRONG." In all other islands our government must be simple and strong. It must be a uniform government. Different forms for different islands will produce perpetual disturbance, because the peo ple of each island would think that the people of -the other islands arc more favored than they. In Panay I heard murmurings that we were giving Ne gros an American constitution. This is a human quality, found even in America, and we must never forget that in dealing with the Filipinos we deal with children. And so our gov ernment must be simple and strong. Simple and strong! The meaning of those two words must be written in every line of Philippine legislation, realized in every act of Philippine ad ministration. A Philippine office in our Department of State: an American governor-general in Manila, with pow er to meet daily emergencies; possibly an advisory council with no power ex cept that of discussing measures with the governor-general, which council would be the germ for future legisla tures, a school in practical government. American lieutenant-governors in each province, with a like council about him; if possible, an American resident in each district and a like council grouped about him; frequent and un announced visits of provincial govern ors to the districts of their province; periodical reports to the governor general; an American board of visita tion to make semi-annual trips to the archipelago without power of sugges tion or interference to officials or peo ple, but only to report and recom mend to the Philippine office of our State Department; a Philippine civil service, with promotion for efficiency; the abolition of duties on exports from the Philppines; the establishment of import duties on a revenue basis, with such discrimination in favor of Ameri can imports as will prevent the cheaper goods of other nations from destroying American trade; a complete reform of local taxation oh a just and scientific basis, beginning with a tax on land ac cording to its assessed value: the mint ing of abundant money for Philppine and Oriental use; the granting of franchises and concessions upon the the theory of developing the resources of the archipelago, and therefore not by sale, but upon participation in the profits of the enterprise: the formation of a system of public schools every where with compulsory attendance rigidly enforced; the establishment of the English language throughout the islands, teaching it exclusively in the schools and using it through interpre ters, exclusively in the courts: a simple civil code and a still simpler criminal code, and both common to all the isl ands except Sulu. Mindanao, and Pa luan: American judges for all but smallest offenses; gradual, slow, and careful introduction of the best Fili pinos into the working machinery of the government, no promise whatever of the franchise until the people have been prepared for it: all this backed by the necessary force to execute it; this outline of government the situa tion demands as soou as tranquility is established. Until then military gov ernment is advisable. ENGLISH OR PUTCH8 SYSTEM IMPOSSIBLE PROTECTORATE IMPRACTICABLE. We cannot adopt the Dutch method in Java, nor the English method in the Malay states, because both of these systems rests rest on and operate through the existing governments of hereditary princes, with Dutch or Eng lish residents as advisors. But in the Philippines there are. no such heredi tary rulers, no such established gov ernments. There is no native ma chinery of administration except that of the Villages. The people have been deprived of the advantages of heredit ary native princes, and yet not in structed in any form of regular, just, and orderly government. Neither is a protectorate practicable. If a protectorate leaves the natives to their own methods more than would our direct administration of their gov ernment, it would "permit the very evils which it is our duty to prevent. If, on the other hand, under a protec torate, we interfere to prevent those evils, we govern as much as if we di r-vuvnVtX'AS' ?ftrf.-- eurat, rectly administer the government, but without system or constructive pur pose. In either alternative we incur all the responsibility of directly gov erning them ourselves, without any of the benefits to us, to them, or to the archipelago, which our direct adminis tration of government throughout the islands would secure. KIND OF AMERICAN OFFICIALS NECES SARY. Even the elemental plan I have out lined will fail in the hands of any but ideal administrators. Spain did not utterly fail in devising many of her plans were excellent; she failed in ad ministering. Her officials as a class were corrupt, indolent, cruel, immoral. They were selected to please a faction in Spain, to placate members of the Cortes, to bribe those whom the Gov ernment feared. They were seldom selected for their fitness..' They were the spawn of Government favor and Government fear, and therefore of Government iniquity. The men we send to administer civ ilized government in the Philippines must be themselves the h.ghest exam ples of our civilization. I use the word examples, for examples they must be in 'that word's most absolute sense. They must be men of the world and of affairs, students of their fellow-men, not theorists nor dreamers. They must be brave men, physically as well as morally. They must be as incorruptible as honor, as stainless as purity, men whom no force can frighten, no influ ence coerce, no money buy. Such men come high, eveu here in America. But they must be had. Better pure mili tary occupation for years than govern ment by any other quality of adminis tration. Better abandon this priceless possession, admit ourselves incompe tent to do our part in the world redeeming work of our imperial race; better now haul dowi. the flag of ar duous deeds for civilization and run up the flag of reaction and decay than to apply academic notions of self-government to these children or attempt their government by any but the most perfect administrators our country can produce. I assert that such ad ministrators can be found. There is one in Cuba now who. with the words "Money is not everything." refused S30,000 a year as president of a corporation that he might coutinc the work of our race in the regeneration of Santiago, and thus an nounced and typified the new ideal of the Republic, which pessimists declared had become sordid and base. And among our 80,000,000 we have thous ands like him. Necessity will produce them. Ol'R ADMINISTRATORS MUST RE EXAMPLES. I repeat that our Government and our administrators must be examples. You cannot teach the Filipino by pre cept. An object lesson is the only les son he comprehends. He has no con ception of pure, orderly, equal, impar tial government, under equal laws justly administered, because he has never seen such a government. He must be shown the simplest results of good government by actual example in order that he may begin to understand its most elementary principles. Such a government will have its ef fect upon us here in America, too. Model administration there will be an example created by ourselves for model administration here; and our own ex ample is the only one Americans ever heed. It is not true that charity be gins at home. Selfishness begins there; but charity begins abroad and ends in its full glory in the home. It is not true that perfect government must be achieved at home before administering it abroad; its exercise abroad is a sug gestion, an example, and a stimulus for the best government at home. It is as if we projected ourselves upon a living screen and beheld ourselves at work. England to-daj' is the home of ideal municipal governments. Well, England's administration of Bombay did not divert attention from Glasgow, and Glasgow is to-dav is the model for all students of municipal problems. England's sanitary regeneration of filthy Calcutta made it clearer that Isirmingham must be regenerated, too. and to-day Birmingham is the munici pal admiration of all instructed men. England's miracle is Eg3'pt, surpassing the ancient one of turning rods into serpents because the modern miracle turns serpents into men. deserts into gardens, famine into plenty England's work in the land of the sphinx has solved its profound riddle, exaulted not England only, but all the world, by its noble example, and thrilled to the very soul every citizen of Great Brit ain with civic pride in the achievements of the greatest civilizing empire of the world. "Cast thy bread upon the waters and after many days it shall re turn unto you." "With what measure ye mete, it shall be meted to you again." DOMINANT NOTES OF -OUR FIRST AND SECOND CENTURIES. Mr. President, self-government and internat development have been the dominant notes of our first century: administration and the development of other lands will be the dominant notes of our second century. And' adminis tration is as high and holy a function as self-government, just as the care of a trust estate is as sacred an obligation as the management of our own con cerns. Cain was the first to violate the divine law of human society which' makes of us our brother's keeper. And administration of good government is the first lesson in self-government, that exalted estate toward which all civilization tends. Administration of good government is not denial of liberty. For what is liberty? It is not savagery. It is not the exercise of individual will. It is not dictatorship. It involves govern ment, but not necessarily self-government. It means law. First of all. it is a common rule of action, applying equally to all within its limits. Lib erty means protection to property and life without price, free speech without intimidation, justice without purchase or delay, government without favor or favorites. What will best give all this to the people of the Philippines Ameri can administration, developing them gradually toward self-government, or self-govern went by a people before they know what self-government means? TRUE INTERPRETATION OF DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. The Declaration of Independence does not forbid us to do our part in the regeneration of the world. If it did. the Declaration would be wrong, just as the Articles of Confederation drafted by the very same men who signed the Declaration, was found to be wrong. The Declaration has no ap plication to the pretent situation. It was written by self-governing men for self-governing men. It was written by men who, for a century and a half," had been experi menting in self-government on this continent, and whose ancestors for imiKiu mttxM ,. hundreds of years before had been gradually developing toward that high and holy estate. The Declaration ap plies only to people capable of self government. How dare any man prostitute this expression of the very elect of self-governing people to a race of Malay children of barbarism, schooled in Spanish methods and ideas? And you, who say the Declaration ap plies to all men, how dare you deny its application to the American Indian? And if you deny it to the Indian at home, how dare you grant it to the Malay abroad? PHRASE "CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED" MISUNDERSTOOD. The declaration docs not contem plate that all government must have the consent of the governed. It an nounces that man's "inalienable rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are established among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that when any form of goverhment becomes de structive of those rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it." 'Life, liberty, and the pursuit of haj piness" are the important things; "consent of the governed' is one of the means to those ends. If "any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it," says the Declaration. "Any forms" includes all forms. Thus the Declara tion itself recognizes other forms of government than those resting on the consent of the governed. The word "con sent" itself recocrnizes other forms.for "consent" means the understanding of the thing to which the "consent" is given: and there are people in the world who do not understand any form of government. And the sense in which 'consent" is used in the Declaration is broader than mere un derstanding; for "consent"' in the Declaration means participation in the government "consented" to. And vet these people who are not capable of "consenting to any form of govern ment must be governed. And so the Declaration contemplates all forms of government which secure the fundamental rights of life, libertv. and the pursuit of happiness. Self- government, wnen mat will best se cire these ends, as inthe ease of people capable of self-government; other ap propriate forms when people are not capable of self-government. And so the authors of the Declaration themselves governed the Indian with out his consent; the inhabitants of Louisiana without their consent; and ever since the sons of the makers of the Declaration have been governing not by theory, but by practice, after the fashion of our governing race, now by one form, now by another, but al ways for the purpose of securing the great eternal ends of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not in the savage, but in the civilized meaning of those terms life according to orderly methods of civili7.ed society; libcrcy regulated by law; pursuit of happiness limited by the pursuit of happiness by every other man. CONSTITUTIONAL POWER TO GOVERN AS WE PLEASE. Senators in opposition are estopped from denying our constitutional power to govern the Philippines as circum stances maj demand, for such power is admitted in the case of Florida, Louis iana, Alaska. How, then, is it denied in the Philippines? Is there a geo graphical interpretation to the Con stitution? Do degrees of longitude fix constitutional limitations? Does a thousand miles of ocean diminish con stitutional power more than a thousand miles of land? The ocean does not separate us from our field of duty and endavor it joins us, an established highway needing no repair, and landing us at any point de sired. The seas do not separate the Philippine Islands from us or from each other. The seas are highways through the archipelago, which vpuld cost hundreds of millions of dollars to construct if they were land instead of water. Land may separate men from their desire, the ocean never. Russia has been centuries in crossing Siberian wastes; the Puritans crossed the At lantic in brief and flying weeks. If the Boers must have traveled by land, they would never have reached the Transvaal; but they sailed on liber ty's ocean: they walked on civilizations untaxed highway, the welcoming sea. Our ships habitually sailed round the cape and anchored in California's har bors before a single trail had lined the desert with the whitening bones of those who made it. No! No! The ocean unites us; steam unites us: elec tricity unites us: all the elements of nature unite us to the region where duty and interest call us. There is in the ocean no constitutional argument against the march of the flag, for the oceans, too. arc ours. With more ex tended coast lines than any nation of history; with a commerce vaster than any other people ever dreamed of, and that commerce as yet only in its be ginnings; with naval traditions equal ing those of England or of Greece, and the work of our Navy only just begun; with the air of the ocean in our nostrils and the blood of a sailor ancestry in our veins; with the shores of all the continents calling us. the great Repub lic bafore I die will be the acknowl edged lord of the world's high seas. And over them the Republic will hold dominion, by virtue of the strength God has given it. for the peace of the world and the betterment of man. WORDS OF EMPIRE EXPRESSLY IN CONSTI Tl'TION. No: the oceans are not limitations of the power which the Constitution ex pressly gives Congress to govern all territory the nation may acquire. The Constitution declares that "Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territorv belonging to the United States." Not the North west Territory only; not Louisiana or Florida only: not territory on this con tinent only, but any territory any where belonging to the nation. The found ers of the nation were not provincial. Theirs was the geography of the world. They were soldiers as well as landsmen, and "they knew that where our ships should go our flag might follow. They had the logic of progress, and they knew that the Republic they were planting must, in obedience to the laws of our expanding race, necessarily de velop into the greater Republic which the world beholds to-day. and into the still mightier Republic which the world will finally acknowledge as the arbiter, under God, of the destinies of mankind. And so our fathers wrote into the Con stitution these words of growth, of ex pansion, of empire, if you will, unlim ited by geography or "climate or by anything but the vitality and possibili ties of the American people: "Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States." POWER IMPLIED TOGOVERN AS WE PLEASE The power to govern all territory the nation may acquire would have been in Congress if the language affirming that power had not been written inthe Con stitution. For not all powers of the National Government arc expressed. Its principal powers are implied. The written Constitution is but the index of the living Constitution. Had this not been true, the Constitution would have failed. For the people in any event would have developed and prog ressed. And if the Constitution had not had the capacity for growth corre sponding with the growth of the na tion, the Constitution would and should have been abandoned as the Articles of Confederation were abandoned. Tor the Constitution is not immortal in it self, is not useful even in itself. The Constitution is immortal and even useful only as it serves .the orderly de velopment of the nation. The nation alone is immortal. The nation alone is sacred. The Army is its servant. The Navy is its servant. The Presi dent is its servant. This Senate is its servant. Our laws are its methods Our Constitution is its instrument. This is the golden rule of constitu tional interpretation: The Constitu tion was made for the people, not the people for the Constitution. Hamilton recognized this golden rule when he formulated the doctrine of implied powers. Marshall recognized it when he applied that doctrine to constitutional interpretation in Mc Cullough vs. Maryland. Congress rec ognized it when it provided for inter nal improvements. The Supreme Court of the Republic recognized it when it confirmed the act of Congress in making the promissory note of the Republic legal tender for debts. Wash ington recognized it when he sent the nation's soldiers to s'jppress local riot in 1704; and Lincoln, the soul and sym bol of the common people, recognized the doctrine of implied powers in ev ery effort he made to save the nation. There is no power expressed in the Constitution to charter a bank; and al though the subject was familiar to the trainers of the Constition. who still re mained silent on it. Marshall said that this power was implied. There is no power expressed in the Constitution to make internal improvements; and al though it was a subject painfully be fore the framers of the Constitution, who j-et remained silent upon it, Con gress said it is implied. There is no power expressed in the Constitution, but almost the reverse, to make anything but gold and silver legal tender for payment of debts; the Supreme Court declared it is implied. There is no power expressed in the Constitution to maintain order in a State with the nation's soldiers unless the State first calls for aid; Washing ton, Lincoln, and Cleveland said it is implied. The legislative, the execu tive, and the judicial departments of our Government have recognized and confirmed the doctrine of implied pow ers, by which alone the Constitution lives, the people make progress, and the Republic marches forward to its imperial destiny. "The letter killeth; but the spirit giveth life." By the same reasoning that Hamil ton. Marshall, Washington, and Lincoln employed we could infer our power to do the work of administering govern ment in the Philippines as the situation may demand, even if that power had not been affirmed in express words. We could infer it from the purpose of the Constitution to "pro vide for the common defense and pro mote the general welfare" of the na tion and the power given Congress to make laws to secure these ends. For the archipelago is a base for the commerce of the East. It is a base for lui'itary and naval operations against the onH powers with whom conflict is possible; a fortress thrown up in the Pacific, defending our western coast, commanding the waters of the Orient, and giving us a point from which we can instantly strike and seize the pas session of anj' possible foe. MAY GOVERN UNDER ANY FORM WE PLEASE. The nation's power to make rules and regulations for the government of its possessions is not confined to any given set of rules or regulations. It is not confineg to any particular formu'a of laws or kind of government or type of administration. Where do Senators find constitutional warrant for any spe cial .kind of government in "territory belonging to the United States." The language affirming our power to gov ern sucli territory is as broad as the requirements of ail possible situations. And there is nothing in the Constitu tion to limit that comprehensive lan guage. The verv reverse is true. For power to administer government any where and in any manner the situation demands would have been in Congress if the Constitution had been silent: not merely because it is a power not re served to the States or people; not merel3' because it is a power inherent in and an attribute of nationality: not even because it might be inferred from other specific provisions of the Consti tution: but because it is the power most necessary for the ruling tendency of our race the tendency to explore, expand, and grow, to sail new seas and seek new lands, subdue the wilderness, revitalize decaying peoples, and plant civilized and "civilizing governments over all the globe. For the makers of the Constitution were of the race that produced Haw kins, and Drake, and Raleigh, and Smith, and Winthrop, and Penn. They were of the great exploring, pioneering, colonizing, and governing race who went forth with trade or gain or religious liberty as the imme diate occasion for their voyages, but really because they could not help it: because the blood within them com manded them; because their racial ten dency is as resistless as the currents of the sea or the process of the suns or any other elemental movement of na ture, of which that racial tendency its self is the most majestic. And when they wrote the Constitution they did not mean to negative the most ele mental characteristic of their race, of which their own presence in America was an expression and an example. Yon cannot interpret a constitution without understanding the race that wrote it. And if our fathers had in tended a reversal of the very nature and being of their race, they would have so declared in the most emphatic words our language holds. But they did not. and in the absence of such words the power would remain which is essential to the strongest tendency of our practical race, to govern where ever we are. and to govern by the me thods best adapted to the situation. But our fathers were not content with silence, and they wrote in the Consti tution the words which affirm this es sential and imperial power. THE WHOLE QUESTION ELEMENTAL. Mr. President, this question is deep er than any question of party politics; deeper than any question of the isolat ed policy of our country even: deeper even than any question of constitute m. al power. It is elemental. It is rao al. God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces cf reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adepts in government that we may administer governments a:i:ong sav age and senile peoples. Were it uot for such a force as this the world would relapse into barbarism aud night. And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the gloiy, all the happiness possible to man We are trustees of the world's progress, guardian? of its righteous peace' The judgment of the Master is upon us. Ye have been faithful over a few thin": I will make yofi ruler over many things." What shall history say of us? Shall it say that we renounced that holy trust, left the savage to his base con dition, the wilderness to the reign of waste, deserted duty, abandoned glory, forget our sordid profit even, be cause we feared our strength and read the charter of our powers with the doubter's ej'e and the quibbler's mind? Shall it say that, called by events to captain and command the proudest, ablest, purest race of history in his tory's noblest work, we declined that great commission? Our fathers would not have had it so. No! They found ed no paralytic government, incapable of the simplest acts of administration. They planted no sluggard people, pass ive while the world's work calls theui. They established no reactionary na tion. They unfurled no retreating flag. GOD'3 HAND IN ALL. That flag has never paused in its on ward march. Who dares halt it now now. when history's largest events are carrying it forward; now, when we are at last one people, strong enough for any task, great enough for any glory destiny can bestow? How comes it that our first century eloses with the process of consolidating the American people into a unit just accomplished, and quick upon the stroke of that great hour presses upon us our world opportunity, world duty, and world glory, which none but a people welded into an indivisible nation can achieve or perforin? Blind indeed is he who sees not the hand of God in events so vast, so har monious, so benign. Reactionary in deed is the mind that preceives not that this vital people is the strongest of the saving forces of the world: that our place, therefore, is at the head of the constructing and redeeming na tions of the earth; and that to stand aside while events march on is a sur render of our interests, a betrayal of our duty as blind as it is base. Craven indeed is the heart that fears to per form a work so golden and so noble; that dares not win a glory so im mortal. Do you tell me that it will cost us money? When did Americans ever measure duty by financial standards? Do you tell ine of the tiemendous toil required to overcome the vast diffi culties of our task? What mighty work for the world, for humanity, even for ourselves, has ever been done with rase? Even our bread mnt we eat by the sweat of our faces. Why are we charged with power such as no people ever knew, if we are not to use it in a work such as no people ever wrought? Who will dispute the divine meaning of the fable of the talents? Do you remind me of the precious blood that must be shed, the lives that must be given, the broken hearts of loved ones for their slain? And this indeed is a heavier price than all com bined. And yet as a nation every his toric duty we have done, every achieve ment we have accomplished, has been by the sacrifice of our noblest sons. Every holy memory that glorifies the flag is of those heroes who have died that its onward march might not be stayed. It is the nation's clearest lives yielded for the flag that makes it dear to us; it is the nation's most precious blood poured out for it that makes it precious to us. That flag is woven of heroijm and grief, of the bravery of men and women's tears, of righteous ness and battle, of sacrifice and anguish, of triumph and of glory. It is these which make our flag a holy thinir. Who would tear from that sacred banner the glorious legends of a single battle where it has waveil on land or sea? What son of a soldier of the flag whose father fell beneath it on any field would surrender that proud record for the heraldry of a king? In the cause of civilization, in the service of the Republic anywhere on earth. Americans consider wounds the noblest decorations man can win, and count thd giving of their lives a glad and precious duty. Pray God that spirit never fails. Pray God the time may never come when Mammon and the love of ease shall so debase our blood that we will fear to shed it for the flag anil its im perial destiny. Pray God the time may never come when American heroism is but a legend like the story of the Cid, American faith in our mission and our might a dream dissolved, and the glory of our mighty race departed. And that time will never come. We will renew our youth at the fountain of new and glorious deeds. We will exalt our reverence for the flag by carrying it to a noble future a- well as by rememliering its ineffable past. Its immortality will not pass, because everywhere and al'vays we will ac knowledge and discharge the solemn responsibilities our .sacred flag, in its deepest meaning, put upon us. And so. Senators, with reverent hearts, where dwells the fear of God. the American people move forward to the future of their hope and the doing of His work. Mr. President and Senators, adopt the resolution offered, that peace may quickly come and that we may begin our saving, regenerating, and uplift ing work. Adopt it. anil this blood shed will cease when these deluded children of our islands learn that this is the final word of the representa tives of the American people in Con gress assembled. Reject it, and the world, history, and the American peo ple will know where to forever fix the awful responsibility for the conse quences that will surely follow such failure to do our manifest duty. How dare we delay when our soldiers' blood is flowing? Applause in the galleries.