s, the
pithy and pregnant phrases of which their speech is full, all mean
dominion. They mean perpetual dominion.... There is not one of these
gentlemen who will rise in his place and affirm that if he were a
Filipino he would not do exactly as the Filipinos are doing; that he
would not despise them if they were to do otherwise. So much at least
they owe of respect to the dead and buried history--the dead and buried
history so far as they can slay and bury it--of their country." In the
way of practical suggestions, the Senator offered as a solution of the
problem: the recognition of independence, assistance in establishing
self-government, and an invitation to all powers to join in a guarantee
of freedom to the islands.
=The Republican Answer.=--To McKinley and his supporters, engaged in a
sanguinary struggle to maintain American supremacy, such talk was more
than quixotic; it was scarcely short of treasonable. They pointed out
the practical obstacles in the way of uniform self-government for a
collection of seven million people ranging in civilization from the most
ignorant hill men to the highly cultivated inhabitants of Manila. The
incidents of the revolt and its repression, they admitted, were painful
enough; but still nothing as compared with the chaos that would follow
the attempt of a people who had never had experience in such matters to
set up and sustain democratic institutions. They preferred rather the
gradual process of fitting the inhabitants of the islands for
self-government. This course, in their eyes, though less poetic, was
more in harmony with the ideals of humanity. Having set out upon it,
they pursued it steadfastly to the end. First, they applied force
without stint to the suppression of the revolt. Then they devoted such
genius for colonial administration as they could command to the
development of civil government, commerce, and industry.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N.Y._
A PHILIPPINE HOME]
=The Boxer Rebellion in China.=--For a nation with a world-wide trade,
steadily growing, as the progress of home industries redoubled the zeal
for new markets, isolation was obviously impossible. Never was this
clearer than in 1900 when a native revolt against foreigners in China,
known as the Boxer uprising, compelled the United States to join with
the powers of Europe in a military expedition and a diplomatic
settlement. The Boxers, a Chinese association, had for some time
|