Conservative.
honorable exceptions , has worked itself
into such a. state of niiiid as would be
gratefully appreciated by a Orosar or a
Napoleon , and a state of public opinion
has been produced which it requires
considerable courage to question. "
And this has been peculiarly the case
on the Pacific coast , where the material
advantages of supplying an army in the
Philippines have been eagerly seized
upon , while the consequent burdens of
administration to the people at large are
not yet realized ; but the day of reckon
ing will come. The hopes of most of
those who expect to gain something
money , glory , prestige will be disap
pointed. "The cost of conquest and
maintenance in life and gold is in gro
tesque excess of any possible advantage
to trade or civilization. "
"We had but just emerged from a
period of industrial and financial crisis
and depression during which fifty
thousand miles of railroad had been in
the hands of receivers , and twelve
hundred banks had failed , when , with
out deliberation or reason , we plunged
into a war with Spain , followed it up
by a wild shout for expansion , and pro
ceeded to inaugurate a war upon the
Filipinos , a people whose only offending
( insofar as the United States was con
cerned ) has been that they , like Ameri
cans , desire liberty , to whom wo pre
sented an ultimatum of submission or
ruin. One of the Paris Peace Commis
sioners has added that to accord freedom
and citizenship would be to demonstrate
ourselves the most imbecile of all time's
offspring.
Gracious God ! Is it possible that one
short century of material prosperity has
so completely deadened our conscience
and hearts to the imperishable principles
that sustained our forefathers in their
struggle for the same liberty that the
brave and devoted Filipinos strive for ,
and have striven for years and years ?
Can any conscientious man or woman
deliberately aver that our course has
been justifiable ? No. It is not possible
and any such averment could not justify
the wrongs we ore perpetrating. Our
attitude is excused by the plea "we are
in it and cannot back out" the ethics
of a dog fight and the reason of a bnl
in a china shop , and a fight too , in
which the disparity between contestants
is as ten to one. To which I remark
"It's never too late to mend. "
"The devils of national vainglory , o :
imperial expansion , and of the passio :
of robbing and crowing over victims
are simply the devils of individual vain
glory , the devils of business and domes
tic ambition and rivalry. " "There is
no sense in the American people dealing
with the Filipinos as though they were
uncivilized barbarians who had no right
to aspire to a separate national existence
Thus far we have sent them nothing bn
the sword. The policy of crushing firs
and conciliating afterwards is replete
with the brutality and impolicy of war. "
Dhe one thing denied the Filipinos by
; he government of this country is the
one single thing that George HI wanted
; o withhold from our forefathers
Liberty !
William Pitt , Earl Chatham , declared
in Parliament : "It is said the Ameri
can Colonies intend to rebel. I hope
; hey may ; 1 am delighted to hear that
they are likely to do so. "
Neither congress nor the people have
asked to govern the Filipinos , and the
natives are resisting our "benevolent
assimilation" with their lives. Our
soldiers are being returned home en
feebled , crippled and ashamed of their
home government , while other soldiers
are being reluctantly transported to their
vacant places. The following from the
San Francisco Chronicle of the 25th
instant speaks for itself : "Home from
the wars came yesterday a shipload of
soldiers , some sick , some bullet-torn , a
few of them dead. The ship was the
Morgan City , and it was her business to
bring back such victims of the firing line
and of camp disease as seemed fit for
the mouth-long journey across the
Pacific. At 8 o'clock yesterday morn
ing the steamer's lights were visible off
the Golden Gate , and it was noon when
the slow procession of wounded and
invalided veterans began to stumble
down her gangplank at Fremont-street
wharf. There were aboard the Morgan
City 480 sick and wounded men , three
who had died on the thirty days' voyage
from Manila , two attending surgeons
and seven Hospital Corpsmen , a guard
of eight from the Third Artillery , a
ship's quartermaster , and one officer as
a passenger.
"It is the most remarkable aggrega
tion of fighters that over recrossed the
Pacific. Among them were 100 volun
teers who had felt the sting of Mauser
bullets and seventeen regulars who were
sufferers from gunshot wounds , a total
of 117 soldiers who had actually shed
their blood on the field of battle in con
flict with the Filipinos. There was
material enough for a whole nation's
sympathetic tears , but no tears were
shed. No bauds of music , no patriotic
public , no thankful friends , no tender
relatives greeted the home-coming oJ
these real victims of a foreign war.
Their return to their native land was
pathetic in its mute appeal to sympathy
Eyes dimmed by fevers and by long
sickness gazed wistfullly along the
wharf , and poor fellows struggling
cautiously to the rail on crutches lookec
in vain for a familiar face or a welcom
ing smile among the little handful oJ
persons , attracted to the scene by idle
curiosity , just as though it were only
some strange collier about to dump her
load of coal. "
Is it not time the true facts were
known , and that something rational
humane be done some course of Chris
; iau action be defined ? There is nothing
so kingly as kindness and nothing so
royal as truth.
JOHN J. VALENTINE.
San Francisco , Calif. , July 81 , 1809.
THE CONSERVATIVE
1 OPULAU
ENDORSEMENT. TIVE , during a for
ty-five years' resi
dence in Nebraska , has been a close ob
server of the rise and fall , in the popular
esteem , of individuals engaged in
public affairs.
The things least deserving of praise in
legislative , executive and judicial life
have been most lauded and the things
most worthy of commendation have ,
nearly always , been at least temporar
ily condemned. The men who worked
to be in accord with popular clamor and
to allure the plaudits of the multitude
in 1855 and thence on to 1865 have , as a
rule , been forgotten. They merged in
dividual opinions in the common tor
rents of popular views. They even lost
individuality itself , and as integral parts
of a composite , can no more be recalled
and distinguished today than.a particular
drop of water or grain of sand can be
selected from the Missouri river at full
flood. Impulses and prejudices too
often form public opinion. Reason and
reflection evolve conclusions and opin
ions for the studious and the thoughtful.
The man who acts for what he believes
to be the right , regardless of the plaudits
and indifferent to the jeers of today ,
does the best for the commonwealth and
will be alive in the history of innumer
able tomorrows , when the very exist
ence of the time-server shall have been
ignored.
TWO IIUNDKED CENT DOLLARS.
The numerous lawyers of the populist
persuasion who , from Allen down , claim
that their practice during the last ten
years has averaged $2,500 annually seem
to forget that these diabolical dollars , un
der the gold standard , contained each a
purchasing power of two hundred cents I
All the stump speeches proclaiming ca
lamity which these gentlemen have so
eloquently delivered throughout this
state must have been deliberate and
agreed-upon falsehoods , or else the
statements now made by Allen , Bryan ,
Clem Deaver , Kem , Holcomb , and
others of that kind , that any of them ,
all of them , have , ever since they began
life , made always more than $2,500 a
year are lies. Have those prototypes of
"the plain people" been unable to live
on $5,000.00 incomes ? These celebrated
benefactors who instituted the Missouri
river , established the gold and silver
mines of the Hooky mountains and are
now members of an office-seeking trust
for cash only could not be more dis
tinguished than for the remarkable im
pediment in their veracity I
