SOME SEE IT by T. E. Bowen

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 1, 1899

SOME SEE IT.

By T. E. Bowen

It is refreshing to note that some influential men in our nation see the evils of drifting away from the sure principles of the Constitution, and have the courage to present powerful arguments against the widespread ideas of expansion and imperialism. Ex-senator George F. Edmunds, Senator Geo. F. Hoar, and others have spoken out in clear, ringing arguments against this evil tendency of our nation.

In concluding a speech of two and one half hours' length before the Senate, January 9, Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, a staunch Republican, said:—

“Shall America begin the twentieth century where Spain began the sixteenth?

“The Monroe doctrine is gone. Every European nation, every European alliance, has the right to acquire dominion in this hemisphere when we acquire it in the other. The senator's [Platt] doctrine put anywhere in practise will make of our beloved country a cheap-jack country, raking after the cart for the leavings of European tyranny.

“Our fathers respected above all the dignity of labor and rights of human nature. The one thing created by God a little lower than the angels was a man. And they meant to send abroad the American flag, bearing upon its folds, invisible perhaps to the bodily eye, but visible to the spiritual discernment, the legend of the dignity of pure manhood.

“That legend, that charter, that fundamental truth, is written in the opening sentences of the great Declaration, and now the senator from Connecticut would repeal them. He would repeal the great character of our covenant. No longer, as the flag floats over distant seas, shall it bear on its folds to the downtrodden and oppressed among men the glad tidings that there is at least one spot where that beautiful dream is a living reality.

“The poor Malay, the poor African, the downtrodden workman of Europe, will exclaim as he reads this new doctrine: ‘Good God! Is there not one place left on earth where in right of my manhood I can stand up and be a man?’ Will you disregard every lesson of experience? No tropical colony was ever yet successfully administered without a system of contract labor strictly administered and enforced by the government.

“Beneath the great dome to which the pilgrim from afar first repairs when he visits the capital of this country hangs the great picture which delineates the scene when the nation was first baptized into immortal life. Shall the scroll first be stricken from the hand of Jefferson and another put there which shall read: ‘Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed—some of them. Men are created equal—some of them. Taxation and representation go together—for us, not for other men. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are held in the Philippine Islands at our will, and not at the will of the people?’

“And then shall we turn the picture with its face to the wall and put instead of it a representation of some great battle where the guns of our navy and our army are turned on the men struggling for their liberty at Iloilo?”

Mr. Hoar quoted Abraham Lincoln's declaration, “No man was ever created good enough to own another,” and added:—

“No nation was ever created good enough to own another.”

Surely such sterling truths as these are worthy of earnest study and careful consideration. If the United States has the right to “benevolently assimilate” one group of islands on the other hemisphere, what will restrain it from entering any other port, and subjugating by force of arms any other tribe or nation? If it can enter the Philippine Islands as a “friend to protect the natives,” what shall restrain it from entering any other foreign land where natives may need a friendly power to protect them from the aggression of France, England, or Russia? If its profession of “friendship” to Filipinos is sincere, then, as a friend should, why shall she not leave their dominion when her presence is not wanted? It is not friendly to enter another's possession, ransack about, and force one's presence where it is not wanted.

T. E. BOWEN.