Conservative.
A GllEAT MOItAT * CATASTKOP1IK.
[ Now York Evening Post ] .
If , after the news of the battle of the
Nile or of Trafalgar had reached
England , the English people , through
their leading organs , clergy , newspapers ,
legislators , politicians , had with practi
cal unanimity determined to abandon
the protestant faith and to embrace that
of Rome , as professed by most of the
older nations of Europe , had begun to
go to confession and to follow "the pro
cessions of the cross" through the streets
once more , would it not be treated by
historians as one of the most astounding
events of the modern world ? It cer
tainly would. And yet a revolution
nearly as extraordinary has occurred
among us as a consequence of the battle
of Manila , or what is popularly known
as "Dowey's victory. " "We admit , there
is more sign of motive in Dowey's vic
tory for the change which has occurred
here than there would have been in the
battle of Trafalgar for the change
which we have imagined in England ,
though one would , in suddenness and
unexpectedness , bo the equal of the
other. But the moral decadence exhib-
itfd by ours far supasses that which
would have been revealed by the Eng
lish conversion. For we have , with a
stronger faith than England's protestant
ism , held during the whole period of our
national existence , or for over one hun
dred years , the following creed of four
articles :
1. That all just power is derived
from the consent of the people who live
under it.
2. That armed resistance is presump
tive evidence that this consent has not
been obtained.
8. That the people who offer this re
sistance are the supreme judges of its
justifiability ; that the morality of at
tempts at a revolution has to bo deter
mined by the event , and that the opinion
of a conqueror , or would-be conqueror ,
thereon is worthless.
4. That fitness for self-government
can only bo determined by the people
themselves , and that the first and surest
evidence of this fitness is willingness to
fipht for independence ; that no oral or
written expression can bo accepted in
place of it. and that judgments as to
their political capacity by foreigners who
do not know the people , are absurd.
Under this creed wo have lived from
1770 until 1808 , and wo have professed it
with an enlhusia ni often boideringon
extravagance. In fact , "good Ameri
cans" have generally been supposed will
ing to die for it , after the manner of the
early English heretics. Under it , too ,
we have as a nation , by every mode
known to us except an appeal to arms ,
dealt with the following revoluti ns or
attempts at revolution : thn Greek revo
lution , all the Italian attempts at revo
lution , all Polish attempts at revolution
all the attempts at revolution in Spanish
America and iii Cuba , all Irish attempts
at revolution , all Hungarian attempts.
Such revolutions wo have treated in va
rious ways , some by armed aid , pome by
despatches , and some by wildly enthusi
astic popular receptions , like that which
wo gave to Kossuth. There never has
been during the whole century , with its
varying circumstances and numerous
tempations , the slightest sign of weak
ness or of doubting on our part.
* * * * * *
Even the boy of that period would
mvo been disgusted with the gossip of
our generals , admirals and fighting par
sons about the unfitness of the Filipinos
for self-government. What do they
enow about the matter ? How many
English generals and admirals and fight
ing parsons thought Americans fit for
self-government in 1776 ? Did the Aus-
rrians think the Hiuigarians and Ital
ians fit for self-government in 1848 ?
Did the Turks think the Greeks fit for
self-government in 1825J ? And yet the
Austrians spoke Italian ; often were
[ talians themselves and had lived long
in Italy. Our mighty rulers of men are
buying and selling countries which
they have never seen , whoso language
they do not understand , and of whose
existence they were hardly aware a year
ago. A general who has spent a month
in Manila , or an admiral who has
fought a battle on the coast , is treated
as a competent adviser about the fate of
a people of whom we know little more
than about the inhabitants of Mars.
This is , in itself , proof , not only of our
abandonment of our ancient faith , but
of our ignorance about our now doctrines.
We hear a good deal about the in-
competency of the Filipino masses to
carry on a government. But in what
country that has achieved its indepen
dence since wo achieved ours , were the
masses fit to carry on 'a government ?
Greece , Hungary , Italy , the South
American republics ? Is it possible that
even McKinley pundits do not know
that after a war of independence it is
always , as with us , a small body of lead
ing men who construct government and
set it going ? It was FO in all other
Spanish-American states , and we have
for seventy-five years agreed to consider
them successful. It is wo , and wo only ,
who have set up the ridiculous pretence
that it is for foreigners to decide
whether a people is worthy to bo free.
Any people proves its fitness to bo free ,
as we proved ours , by achieving its free
dom. That is the only sure and legiti
mate way. Thn opinion of McKinley's
office-holders on the matter is not worth
a dozen cans of beof. Wo have no
reason for concluding that the Filipinos
cannot sot up as good a government as
any other revolted Spanish state , ex
cept our own greed and our shameless
abandonment of the noble faith under
which wo have lived for a century , am
have achieved everything which has
won for us the respect and confidence o :
mankind.
" P ° °
SANPIKGO 1s fsibJ
iiAiuum. nfc inanimate
things may be
charged with the animal magnetism and
ntellectual characteristics of those with
whom they have been first in familiar
contact. And upon this hypothesis or
heory one may easily account for the
uxurious languor , the tranquil indo-
ence and the stately calm which clothes
Coronado Beach and the sleeping clouds
which overhang it like a dome of tur
quoise. The first white men who
ounged along its wave-washed sands
and basked in its everlasting sunshiuo
were Spanish cavaliers , and slow-paced
priests , who shied at hard work and
strenuous effort as an unbroken colt
shies at a locomotive or a brass-band ,
in full tone , headed by a drum-major
with a bearskin chapeau and an ani
mated baton. Those exploring Span
iards of 1776 who sought , under the
guise of Christian endeavor , to acquire ,
to subjugate and to hold , for the sake of
Christ and civilization , the lauds and
other possessions of the aboriginal bar
barians not un-Ameri
, were altogether -
in their desire to "
can "benevolently as
similate" the heathen whom they over
came with arms. The sun shines and
the waters glow all about the ruins of
their old missions and the ashes of the
aborigines whom the Spanish benevo
lently assimilated rest tranquilly com
mingled with those of their forcible
benefactors.
The waves even roll indolently and
there is languor and enervation in the
wings of the birds that sport along the
beach and "benevolently assimilate"
insurgent fish from shallow and sands.
Everywhere rest , calm , tranquillity , in
dolence , saturate the air and perme
ate the personality. Nowhere else Ton.
the continent can bo found a place more
favorable for the refreshment and res
toration of too highly taxed t energies ,
too strongly strung nerves. The splen
dors and comforts of the Coronado
Beach hotel under fhe clock-like man
agement of Mr. Babcnck are really be
yond description. But they approxi
mate a material Heaven and come very
nearly up to the perfection of purveying
to the creature comforts of mankind.
The hotel itself Js a marvel of beauty
in Moorish architecture. It is capacious ,
airy , delightful ; and its broad vernii-
das whence one can throw a pebble
into the Pacific are strewn with big
easy chairs which invitingly open their
arms and insist upon your repose and
comfort. The rooms are supplied with
good baths , excellent beds and perfect
ventilation. It has now about seven
hundred and fifty guests and can enter
tain satisfactorily nearly as many more.
The grounds are exquisitely laid out and
most artistically embellished with trop
ical and half tropical fruit trees and
flowering shrubs and vines. Magnifi
cent oranges , intensely white and red
roses aud.beautif ally colored blossoms of