Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 24, 1899)
* -w " ; v * . _ < - . wfrL" r f-cp , _ AVJ v be Conservative. The judicial as- KENT. pirntions of the former governor , Silas A. Holcomb immortalized in Bixbian metres as the chattel mortgage fiend of Broken Bow , who took "boar black pig" and cow called "Speck" as security for the mite ho loaned the widow have been rent. Edgar A. Howard will repair the rent , tell all he ever meant , assure the pops of good intent , and without dissent repent his attempt to circumvent the ambitious bent of Silas who charged two per cent for money lent on boar black pigs and U spotted cows with cuds content. CHICAGO ANTI-IMPEKIA LISTS. totters in Sympathy With the Object of the CHICAGO , 111. , Aug. 12. Those opposed to the present admiuistiation of affnirs in the Philippine islands have completed the organization in this city of the Cen tral Anti-Imperialist League , to cooper ate with other like bodies in arousing op position to the policy of imperialism. This organization is not merely local , but is intended to promote the holding of meetings and to carry on a general agitation throughout the central West. The following are the officers of the league : President , J. Sterling Morton ; vice- presidents , A. C. McClurg , Herman E. von Hoist , Richard T. Crane , Bishop John Spalding , Graham Taylor , Bishop Boyd Vincent and Judge Rufus B. Smith ; secretary , Howard L. Smith ; treasurer , Frederick W. Godkin ; execu tive committee , Messrs. Edwin B. Smith , Edwin O. Brown , J. Laurence Laughliu , Daniel M. Lord , Sigmund Zeisler , Frank H. Scott and Leroy D. Thoman. The league has already published two tracts and will issue others. It is pre paring to hold meetings in the near fu ture. Among letters it has received in support of its work are the following : Ex-Senator Edmunds. -Senator George F. Edmunds writes : "I am glad you are to hold meetings in the interest of the true principles of our government and to oppose the con quest of people on the other side of the globe who do not wish to become either citizens or subjects of the United States a conquest which very few if any of its promoters have undertaken to show would bo finally of material or moral benefit to our country , and one the im mediate evils of which in losses of life and health in our army and of the treasure of the United States I fear , and yet only half know. " Senator Mason Says It IK a War to Make Slaves. Senator "William E. Mason says : "That class of dangerous citizens who feel above serving their country have not yet heard of the unnecessary and unconstitutional war now being waged by ns to make slaves in the Philippine islands. They Pay we bought the right to govern from Spain. Then wo bought what wo had no right to buy and what Spain had no right to sell. To get the technical right to kill we call them rebels against a government to which they had never sworn allegiance wo must make them subjects before they can bo rebels. Lincoln said no man is good enough to govern another man without his consent ; it was true then , and it is true now. " We Are Worse Than Spain , for Sim Was True to Her Principles , Which We Ha've Always Denounced. Mr. Moorfleld Storey , the distinguished Boston lawyer , writes as follows : "As was said of slavery , so may we say of the attempt to subjugate the Philippines , if it is not wrong nothing is wrong. The moral law has not changed in a year. If governments do not de rive their just powers from the consent of the governecl what is left but the divine right of kings or the savage law of might ? If Spain was wrong in trying to subdue Cubans and Filipinos , our country is not right in carrying on the work. Nay , we are far worse than Spain , for she was true to her principles , which we have always denounced , while we are false to all that we have ever be lieved in morals , politics and religion since we were a nation. "Those who seek in the will of Provi dence an excuse for the bloodshed and rapine which we condemn are but mod ern examples of the men who from the down of history have made their deities responsible for their sins. Every tyrant , every persecutor has pleaded a divine commission. " The Nation Turned Toward ISaiharlsm. Prof. Charles Eliot Norton , under re cent date , writes : "The course of the nation , against its better will , against its conscience , has been turned from civilization toward barbarism. Every good citizen is called upon at this moment to use whatever in fluence , whatever power he may possess , to restore the nation to its old , true course. One end is to be aimed at as preliminary to all others to bring the deplorable and shameful war in the Philippines to a close. " Mr. Carnutf ie Says AVe Are No Longer Upon the Old Foundations. Andrew Carnegie writes from Scot land : "Upon no Fourth of July celebration till this year has there been reason to la ment a departure from the great princi ples which the Fourth of July heralded in 1770. We are no longer upon the old foundation , but have been carried to the lower platform of the powerful military states of Europe , to whom the republic has been an instructor. The ship of state has been in troubled waters , but there is one of her citizens who believes that the time is not far distant when those who have endangered her will be called to account and the principles of the Declaration of Independence taken again as the chart and compass which will bring back the republic to the high position from which it has temporarily fallen. " Mr. Morton Says Good Go\ eminent Should at Home. J. Sterling Morton writes : "Good government , like charity , should begin at homo. After the Amer ican mind shall have sufficiently ex panded to perfectly assimilate Dr. Frank lin's epigrammatic injunction , 'Mind your own business , ' it will be in condi tion to discuss the duties which annex to citizenship. Up to this time the average citizen considers only the privi leges of his citizenship. Few voters in the United States recognize any duty to country as superior to party allegiance. Partyism has warped and shriveled patriotism throughout the republic. " Let Us Not Imitate the Policy of George III. The Hon. Herbert Welsh , of Philadel phia , the well known secretary of the Indian Rights Association and editor of City and State , writes : "July 4 , 1899 , has witnessed a most extraordinary paradox of our history. The same free states which struggled against the tyranny of George III , and a century later cemented themselves into what we trust will be a lasting union for the extinction of slavery , are now waging an unnatural and cruel war in the distant Philippine islands , against a people struggling for independence as righteously and as passionately with as much reckless bravery and stubborn determination as we ourselves showed in resisting the house of Hanover. In union with the Filipinos , we fought but a year ago to break the tyranny of Spain. If we are wrong , let us say so , and set ourselves right. Let us beware of the stupid persistency of George III , and , at least , remember that we are Americans. " Ilishop Vincent Calls It an Inhuman War. Bishop Vincent , of Cincinnati , writes : ' 'Aside from all questions of constitu tionality or mere expediency it is the moral situation in which we find our selves placed in the Philippines , which , it seems to me , ought to distress every true American heart. It is so utterly un-American in spirit , so almost in human. How any genuine American , with the principles of the Declaration of Independence in his soul , can look com placently at what is going on today in the Philippines , I cannot understand. What crime have those Filipinos com mitted , that under the very stars and stripes we should be shooting them down by thousands , as the Spaniards did before us ? Absolutely nothing but what they want , independence and self-government like our own. "