, or the great body
of them, so long looked upon the workings of African slavery, and the
difficulty which the Abolitionists had in arousing a sentiment of
revulsion toward it.

One of the curious things in this connection is the similarity--the
practical sameness--of the arguments used to justify the Philippine
occupation and those once used to justify American slaveholding. We
are now working to civilize and Christianize the Filipinos, and were
then civilizing and Christianizing the negroes with the lash and the
bludgeon.

Of course, there are other arguments. Increase of trade and wealth, as
the result of our appropriation of other peoples' possessions, is
freely predicted. It has always been the robber's plea. That is what
it is to-day, even when employed by a professed Christian nation. Nor
is it improved by the fact that the grounds upon which it is
predicated and urged are largely fallacious. The spoliation of the
Philippines will never repay us for the blood--our own blood--and
treasure it has cost us, apart from any moral or humanitarian
consideration. There is not one aspect in this business that promises
to redound to our benefit. No, I won't say that; I would hardly be
justified in going that far. In one particular the Philippine
operation has profited a considerable part of our people. It has added
materially to our Army and our Navy. The opportunity for enlargement
in those quarters was, undoubtedly, the strongest inducement for our
entering upon a colonial policy. For a great many people, and
especially in official circles, we cannot have a standing army that is
too large, nor too many ships of war. The more powerful those
appendages of our authority the larger is the opening for the kinsmen
and retainers of those in high places, who may be seeking profitable
and agreeable employment, and the more liberal the contributions of
contractors and jobbers to the sinews of partisan warfare. Our Army
to-day is nearly three times what it was five years ago, although
outside of the Philippines we are at peace with all mankind. Nor is
that formidable advance at an end. The Far East is now certain to be
the world's great battle-ground for the near future, and since we have
entered that field as the master of the Philippines, like a knight of
the olden time who was ready to do battle with all comers, we must be
constantly increasing our preparation. We may not only have to fight
the Russians and the Japanese and th