sfactory to nearly all as was this utterance of a badly divided
court, it sanctioned the Administration policy and opened the way for
necessary legislation. It did nothing, however, to hush the
anti-imperialist's appeal, based more upon the Declaration of
Independence and the spirit of our national ideals.

It was said that having delivered the Filipinos from Spain "we were
bound in all honor to protect their newly acquired liberty against the
ambition and greed of any other nation on earth, and we were equally
bound to protect them against our own. We were bound to stand by them, a
defender and protector, until their new government was established in
freedom and in honor; until they had made treaties with the powers of
the earth and were as secure in their national independence as
Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, Santo Domingo, or Venezuela." But we
ought to bind ourselves and promise the world that so soon as these ends
could be realized or assured we would leave the Filipinos to themselves,
Such was the view of eminent and respected Americans like George F.
Hoar, George S. Boutwell, Carl Schurz, and William J. Bryan.

These and others urged that the Filipinos had inalienable right to life
and to liberty; that our policy in the Philippines was in derogation of
those rights; that Japan, left to herself, had stridden farther in a
generation than England's crown colony of India in a century; that the
Filipinos could be trusted to do likewise; that our increments of
territory hitherto had been adapted to complete incorporation in the
American empire while the new were not; and that growth of any other
character would mean weakness, not strength. The mistakes, expense, and
difficulties incident to expansion, and the misbehavior and crimes of
some of our soldiers were exhibited in their worst light.

Rejoinder usually proceeded by denying the capacity of the Filipinos for
self-government without long training. Even waiving this consideration,
men found in international law no such mid-status between sovereignty
and non-sovereignty as anti-imperialists wished to have the United
States assume while the Filipinos were getting upon their feet. Many
made great point of minimizing the abuses of our military government and
of dilating upon native atrocities. The material wealth of the
archipelago was described in glowing terms. Only American capital and
enterprise were needed to develop it into a mine of national riches. The
milit