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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (March 16, 1899)
6 13be Conservative. ishcd in vain. The trnclc of the country ( Congo Free State ) costing so much in life and treasure remains insignificant , being only seven-tenths of one per cent of Belgian commerce. ( The exports of the I'nitctl Slates of America to the Phil ippines are only four anc-hiutdredths of one per cent of our country's total e.rports. ) The same amount of energy and money spent in the development of industries at home , would have resulted in a far greater development of Belgian commerce , whereas the colonial venture has only proven delusive and disastrous. In Mexico the topographical structure of the country is such as to divide it naturally into three well-defined altitnd- inal climatic sections the first , sea level to about 2500 feet above is known as the ticrra clienle ( hot ) ; the second , 2500 to 5000 feet altitude , the tierra tonplada ( temperate ) , and the third , 5000 feet and upward , the tierra fria ( cool ) . The "tierra caliento" of Yucatan , Cam- peachy and Tabasco is the Van Dieman's land of Mexico , to which , from the cooler or temperate upland zones , certain of fenders are exiled to eke out their exist ence if they cpn live at all under the hot , debilitating conditions of an ex treme tropical climate. It is a tradition that the sacrifice of human life in the construction of the Panama railroad across the Isthmus of Darien from Colon or Aspinwall on the Atlantic , to Panama on the Pacific , was equal to a man for every crops tie that lies in the road. And it is to such places , and subject to such climatic conditions that our crusade for glory , expansion , "imperial dem ocracy , " is exiling the flower of our youth ? According to a San Francisco journal of February 7 , "The commanding gen eral of the United States forces now in Cuba , has reported that fifty per cent of the American troops on the island are on the sick list. " When the government of the United States dispatches shipload after shipload of uimcclimated young men to the everglades - glades and jungles of tropical swamps , whether in the East Indies or West In dies , it is consigning the flower of American youth to unimaginable suffer ing and too often , alas ! to hapless and inglorious death. Do you think this is overdrawn ? Do you think this is an extreme view of the case ? Let mo quote a sketch by an eye witness , a well-known New York writer , of the embarking of sick and wounded soldiers on board a transport hospital ship homeward bound. "That day strange figures began to mount the sides of the ship , and to oc cupy its every turn and angle of space. Some of them fell on their knees and slapped the bare deck with their hands , and laughed and cried out , 'Thank God , I'll see God's country again ! ' Some of the men were regulars , bound in baud- ages ; some were volunteers , dirty and hollow-eyed , with long beards on boys' faces. Some cauio on crutches ; others with their arms around the shoulders of their comrades , staring ahead of them with a fixed smile , their lips drawn and their teeth protruding. At every second step they stumbled , andthofaco of each man was swept by swift ripples of pain. ThejT lay on cots so close together that the nurses could not walk between them. They lay on the wet decks , in the scup pers , and along the skylights and hatches. They were like shipwrecked mariners clinging to a raft , and they asked nothing more than that the ship's bow be turned toward home. " This is glory this is expansion this is "imperial democracy. " But to resume on the subject of Java : The record of mission work is a short one , as after casting out the Portuguese Jesuits , the Dutch forbade others to en ter , and all missionaries were strictly excluded until the humanitarian agita tion took place in Europe. This resulted in the formal abolition of slavery and the abandonment of the culture system while it forced the government to do a little for the Christianizing and educa ting of the natives. The government supports twenty-nine protestant pastors and ten Roman Catholic priests , pri marily for the benefit of European resi dents , and their sphere of usefulness is restricted ; proselyting and sectarian rivalries being forbidden. Missionaries from other countries are not allowed to settle and work among the people. The Dutch do not pose as philanthropists nor pretend to be in Java for the good of the natives. Their dominion is one of power ; their government , a despotism. Enforced Lul > or In Java. A few words on the culture system , or enforced labor : The Dutch East India company acquired control of Java through pioneer preemption , purchase , conquest , strategy and unfair diplom acy. One-fifth of the native's labor and one-fifth of his crops were exacted by the government as ground rent. Each family was required to keep one thous and coffee trees in bearing condition on village lauds , and two-fifths of the crop , clear and sorted , was to bo delivered at the government warehouses. As late as 1880 the natives were obliged to plant one-fifth of the village lands in sugar cane and each man had to give one day's labor in seven to cultivating the same. Each native was obliged to plant six hundred Arabian or Mocha coffee trees , keep them in bearing condition and de liver the crop cleaned and sorted at the government warehouses at a price fixed by the Dutch officials. Previous to 1874 nine to twelve giiilders per picul (188 ( Ibs. ) were paid , although forty to forty- five was the price in open market. ( A guilder is equal to 40 cents. ) The great double post road from Anger Head to Banyuwangy was constructed at the cost of 20,000 lives , under this system of enforced labor. Laboring men of the northern races never did and never will go there or to other tropical climates , en masse , to do the work of the country , agricultural or industrial , there to found permanent homes ; and this not merely because the rate of wages in such coun tries , owing to native competition , is usually low , because they cannot thrive under the climatic conditions. Into the despotic clutch of enforced labor , or a contract system to exploit humankind in the interest of capital , through oriental conquest , the freedom- loving citizens of the United States are sought to be dragooned under the speci ous pleas of glory , expansion , "imper ial democracy. " Will this scheme for the betrayal of democracy succeed ? If it does , it will be a crime against the human race. n Charity at Homo. To neglect the industrial and social conditions at home is to sap the very foundations of national power and pro gress. The Philippines would add one more problem to political government , one more problem of industrial slavery , one more problem of social barbarism to the list we have already confronting us. There is nothing morally , socially , polit ically , or industrially in the situation which would make it to the advantage of the United States to annex them. Our duty to mankind is first of all to maintain our own civilization , and that is quite enough to tax us to the utmost. James Brice , in Harper's Magazine for September , wisely says : "Tho United States will render a far greater service to humanity by developing a high type of industrial civilization upon her own continent , a civilization conspicuously free , enlightened and pacific , than by any foreign conquests. " And what of the subjugated peoples ? I extract from the press dispatches re porting the battle of February 5 , at Manila : "The engagement proved a veritable slaughter of Filipinos , thousands of them being killed. General King's brigade charged upon a numerically stronger force of the enemy and drove them yell ing , helter-skelter into the Pasig river , where , in a frenzy of terror , they were drowned like rats. The Americans are buoyantly elated over the punishment they have given the treacherous na tives. " "The account of 700 Ygorote tribes men , naked and opposing their bows and arrows to the rifles and cannons of the Americans , in a desperate but hopeless attempt to hold their ground , is wonder fully pathetic. 'On all sides , ' says one report , 'were lying dead natives , their bodies in some instances , being full of bullet holes. ' Again : 'I saw a number of bodies which had been literally torn into shreds by the fire from the war ships. In some places the shells had torn great holes in the earth and around them were scattered dead bodies. On
