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Show ' f fT- Cbas Cram's Open l Letter to fflajor Gran ft An article in one of the city papers has been handed me for perusal, containing con-taining such a gross charge against those who do not endorse this administration admin-istration in its Philippine policy, that in self respect, I am compelled to refute re-fute not only that charge, but the whole article. Major, the article does you a very gieat injustice. If not. then from the gentle, kind. Christian gentleman you once were, you have become, through ignorance of the facts, perhaps (because (be-cause I cannot entertain the idea of mendacity), an apologist for an executive, execu-tive, and political party, which Is now writing in human blood, the saddest chapter in the nation's history. The statement you make regarding the reason for the uprising of the peo-p!e peo-p!e of Luzon against the Spanish government gov-ernment would be a comedy with you as its chief actor, were it not so serious seri-ous and sad. Of all the reasons for the destruction destruc-tion of these brave people advanced by the McKinley apologists this Is certainly cer-tainly the most unique, and for purposes pur-poses in the coming campaign, wherein you will no doubt be a candidate for standing room at the Mark Hahna pie counter. I would (if permitted) suggest that you at once secure a patent on this apology, and if you will permit me to christen this illegitimate offsprinj of imperialism I would call it, "Major F. A. Grant's patent apology for the destruction of the liberty of 10,000,000. brave people in the Philippine islands, who have for 300 years been battling against the. tyranny of Spain." : Your attack -oa theCatholic church and Us representatives needs no defense de-fense from me. Its glorious history is written on the pages of eve?y nation, living and dead. The agony of the lowly Nazarene ha3 been equalled and multiplied a thousand thou-sand times, by those brave men and vomen, who, leaving father, mother, sister, brother, have gone into unknown un-known lands, to meet death in all its horrible, ghastly forms, that they might carry the story of the cross to the ignorant. If a refutation of your attack was needed, look at the splendid splen-did schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, semi-naries, hospitals and the many charitable char-itable organizations devoted to suffering suffer-ing and distressed humanity. all fostered and built by these humble followers fol-lowers of the lowly Nazarene in the Philippines. That there may be black sheep in this Christian fold, I do not doubt, because men are not perfect, but before you cast a stone, see that the church in this city of which you are a professing member, is 'blameless. 'blame-less. Major, your attack on the leader of the Filipinos is so perverted, so contrary to the facts, now presented to the nation, that I am astonished at the ignorance you have displayed in the article before me. I say ignorance, because knowing you so well, I would not, and will not yet, impute any other motive for such gross utterances. Major, if this has been the line of your argument in southern Utah, then the astonishing gains of Democracy are fully explained. "Agulnaldo," you say, "is utterly unscrupulous, wholly mercenary!" Against this unsupported statement, I place that of your superior officer, General Merritt. which you will find in document No. 62, page 3S0. He says: "There are a number of Filipinos whom I have met, among them General Aguinaldo and a few of his leaders, whom I believe thoroughly trustworthy and fully capable of self-government. self-government. Aguinaldo, honest, sincere-and poor; not well educated, but a natural leader of men highly respected respect-ed by all." . Major, is this "the stuff that rebe-i rebe-i lion is being fed upon"? Again you say, speaking of Aguinaldo, "they knew he could be bought, so they bought him for $200,000. He sold out and left the country." Against that mendacious utterance, I place that of another of your superiors General Green. He . ! says: "In August, 1S96, an insurrection broke out in Cavite," note the date, major, 1896 years before you became a great military hero and years before j the Spanish war "under the leadership ! of Emilio Aguinaldo, and soon spread to other provinces on both sides of Ma nila. It continued with varying sue-, cesses, on both sides, and the trial and execution of numerous insurgents until December, 1897, when the governor general, gen-eral, Primo de Rivera, entered into a written agreement with Aguinaldo. The document is in the possession of Senor Felipe Agoncillo, who accompanied me to Washington. In brief, it required that Agoncillo and the other insurgent leaders should leave the country, the government agreeing to pay them $800,000" not $200,000, as you said, major-In silver and promising to introduce intro-duce numerous reforms, including representation rep-resentation in the Spanish cortes, free dom of the pr?ss. general amnesty for all Insurgents, and the expulsion or secularization of monastic orders. "Aguinaldo atwi his associates went to Hongkong and . Singapore. A portion por-tion of the money, $100,000. was deposited deposi-ted (one-half of what was promised, and all that was ever received) in banks at Hongkong, and a law suit soon arose between Aguinaldo and one of his subordinate . chiefs named Ar-tacho. Ar-tacho. which is Interesting on account of the very honorable position takon by Agulnaldo." Major, keep your ears open. On account ac-count of the very honorable Dos:Uon taken by Aguinaldo." . "Artacho sued for a division of the money among the insurgents, according accord-ing to rank. Aguinaldo claimed that the money was a trust fund, and was j to remain on deposit until it was seen whether the Spaniards would carry out their promised reforms, and if they failed to do so it was to be used to defray de-fray the expenses of a new insurrection. insurrec-tion. The suit was settled out of court by paying Artacho $5,000. No steps have been taken to introduce the reforms. re-forms. . 1 "More than 2,000" insurgents who have been deported to Fernando Po and other places are still in confinement, and Aguinaldo Is now using the money to carry on the operations of the present pres-ent insurrection." Major, this was written Aug. 30, 1S3S, apd yet you charge him with being a bribe-taker. "Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie, A fault which needs It most grows two thereby." To confirm the utterance of General Green, I quote Oscar F. Williams, our consul at Manila, May 25, 1898. Document Docu-ment No. 62, page 32S. "Today I executed a power of attorney attor-ney whereby General Aguinaldo releas- ed to his attorneys in fact $400,000 nor in bank at Hongkong, so that money therefrom can pay for 3,000 stand of 1 arms bought and expected here tomorrow." tomor-row." Now, major, listen to another consul in the same document. Mr. Wildman says: "There has been a systematic attempt to blacken the name of Aguinaloo and his cabinet on account of the questionable question-able terms of their sur-ender to Spanish Span-ish forces a year ago this month. It has been said that they sold their coun- try for gold, but this has been conclusively conclu-sively disproved by the speech of the late governor general. In the Spanish senate, June 11, 1S98. He said that Aguinaldo undertook to submit if the Spanish government would give a certain cer-tain sum to the widows and orphans of the insurgents. He then admits that only a part of this sum was given to Aguinaldo, and that the other crom- I ises made he did not find it expedient I to keep." f Consul Wildman further says: "I was in Hongkong Septmber, 1897, when Aguinaldo and his leaders arrived ar-rived under contract with the Spanish government. They waited until the 1st of November for the payment of the promised money and the fulfilment of the promised reforms. Only $400,000, Mexican, was ever placed to their credit cred-it in the banks." Now, major, against your unsupported unsupport-ed defamation of a brave mar. we have the official and personal endorsement as to Aguinaldo's honesty from General Merritt, General Green, Consuls Wild-man, Wild-man, Williams, Denby, Pratt and others, oth-ers, men who like you, perhaps, are standing with this administration, in the destruction of that Tepublic and the conquest of 10,000,000 brave people. Major, read the letter of Aguinaldo to McKinley, page 360-361, dotument 62. and then in the solitude of your closet ask your God to forgive you for maligning malign-ing a brave man and a brave race, and that he may give you strength to resist re-sist those who seek to use you to pull their chestnuts from the fire that they may eat them. Your excuse for the commencement of hostilities is puerile, childish and unworthy un-worthy of you. We began hostilities. A soldier from a Nebraska regiment fired upon a Filipino patrol between the lines of the American and Filipino forces, killing a lieutenant. The fire was returned and a number of natives killed. Aguinaldo immediately expressed express-ed to General Otis his regret, disavowed! any purpose of hostility, and offered to move back as far as the American commander desired. Honor between men, between ' nations, should have prompted Otis to do this, but no! In his arrogance he said, "The fighting had commenced: it must go on to the i bitter end," and since then thousands have died for liberty and- freedom of native land, and hundreds of our own brave sons have gone down to death, and hundreds of millionf of the people's money have been squandered there-that there-that a few more millions might be ! made by trusts and corporate greed, the flag dishonored, the constitution trampled in the mire of petty politics, all in the name of destiny and "benevolent "be-nevolent assimilation." Yoar remarks to General Rio del Pilar, Pi-lar, whom you characterize "an arrogant arro-gant young coxcomb, about 21 years of age," surprises me. "Why don't you fellows give this thing up?" Major, thi3 man was an officer in another army, your superior in rank, and certainly in good manners. Your remarks to him were brutal in the extreme, and no ' doubt he returned to his forces to die in battle with the conviction indellibly impressed upon his mind that at least some of the American officers were coarse in language and lacked good breeding. I am extremely glad to know, however, from an experience of about five years in the American army, 7 that you do not represent the highest I ideal of a brave, chivalrous American officer. You say, "One thing that is prolong- ing the war there is the attitude of a certain class of politicians in this country." Do you in your egotism. assume to say that all those who do not endorse this administration i in its usurpation of power, never con- i templated by the fathers, in its destruc- J tion of the liberties of 10,000.000 people, do you say that because we. asserting our American manhood, and declining to be bound to the wheels of Mark I Hanna's golden chariot. re disloyal? Do you say that because we do not endorse the opening of an American j 'consul's mail by that old tyrannical bulldozer, whose subject you lately were, we are not Americans? . Do you j (CoaiinuecJ on iage 3.) j i CHARLES CRANE'S OPEK -LETTER TO MAJ, GRANT (Continued from page 1.) say that because we will never permit the Declaration of Independence which the supreme court declared c.as "the soul and spirit of which the constitution constitu-tion is but the body and letter" to be trampled in the rhire by corporate greed and military lust of power, we are traitors? The pliant, plastic tool of those who know r.o country, no God, no flag, no law McKinley said "Forcible annex- : ation, according to our American code of morals, would be criminal aggres- sion." Was he a copperhead? Was j McKinley a traitor when he said, "Hu- i man rights and constitutional privi- ! leges must not be forgotten in the race ! for wealth and commercial supremacy, j The government of the people must be , by the people and not by a few of .the I people." Now listen, major, to this culled from the Declaration of Independence: "It j must rest upon the free consent of the governed and all of the governed." Major, get down lower still and open wide your ears, "Power, it must be remembered, re-membered, which is secured by oppression oppres-sion or usurpation or by any form of injustice is soon dethroned. We have no right in law or morals to usurp that which belongs to another, whether it be property or power." These are the words of a patriot, before be-fore he became seduced by those around him. For those principles we (who denounce the policy of this administration) administra-tion) now contend. You say "They (the Filipinos) have now under our military rule more liberty lib-erty than they ever had in their, lives before." So said or wrote General Gage to Lord Dartmouth a week after Bunker Bun-ker Hill. "The rebels do not see that they exchanged liberty for tyranny. No people were ever' governed more absolute abso-lute than the American provinces now are, and no reason can be given for their submission, but that it is tyranny which they erected themselves." Flag and Constitution. Major, those who think as I do believe be-lieve that wherever the American flag iloats there is the constitution in force. Lincoln said this republic "could not exist half slave and half free," and we who believe in the constitution and the Declaration of Independence say, this renu'olic cannot exist half republic and htV empire. We oppose the war in those distant islands, because it means disease and death to tens of thousands of the brave sons of this renublic. not I only by the bullet, but that other great scourge of war, in tropical countries, that most loathsome of all diseases, which once tainting the blood is almost ineradicable. Major, we Lincoln Republicans revere re-vere the constitution and the immortal Declaration of Independence, which, j written by Jefferson, was indorsed by ! the fathers, and for its preservation Lincoln said he was willing to be assassinated. as-sassinated. Fremont stood on that platform in 156, Lincoln in 1SS0 and if has been reaffirmed again and again since then. We hate imperialism and love the republic. We deny that 10,000,000 brave people can be bought from those who had no right to sell for $2 per head and then be shot down by tens of thousands thou-sands in the' name of "benevolent assimilation." as-similation." We believe we have not yet advanced the car of liberty so far that we can now reverse its wheels. We have not done so much for the fair goddess that we can now turn and rend her. We believe that love of liberty permeates per-meates every human breast, regardless of the color of the skin. We believe that the Filipinos are God's children, and that a universal father has implanted in their bosoms the same love of liberty and justice that animates our own. We are opposed to the subjugation of an alien people, because history teaches us that sovereignty acquired, by the sword must be maintained 'by the sword, and that wealth gained by robbery rob-bery is certain in the .nd to weaken and corrupt The possessor. We oppose annexation of the Philippines Philip-pines because it shatters the Monroe doctrine from top to bottom. Lincoln said: "Destroy this (the spirit of liberty) and you sbw the spirit of despotism at your own doors." It was. Lincoln who led us through, the red sea of fire and blood, and" struck the shackles from 4,000,0'JO slaves and made them free, yet today there are those who masquerade in his 1 name, who arrogate to themselves the right to enslave in political bondage 10,000,000 brave people, who dare to do and die for liberty, while in our own land, dedicated to freedom, are millions of industrial slaves, whose homes are being looted by tyrannical and nirati- cal trusts. We oppose a great standing army as an unnecessary burden upon a free people, and because we know that all the great battles for freedom have been fought by volunteer soldiers, and all the great battles against liberty j have been fought by standing armies, j By a standing army you teil the soldier sol-dier that he is to be kept in idleness, and that the bowed shoulders of toil will support him as a hired butcher. By a standing army we encourage militarism, mil-itarism, a spirit diametrically opposed to the spirit of our institutions. We oppose a standing army because (judging from the article before me) it creates an arrogant aristocracy of military satraps on the one hand, and tasselated society sapheads on the other. Major, we are Republicans, but we are not slaves. - We believe (as it was during the decline de-cline of Rome) that the majority of the present CDngress and senate merely confirm the will of the executive who, perhaps honest and patriotic himself, has become, through the power of wealth and unscrupulous greed (by which the great Ohio suspect, Mark Hanna, your leader, has surrounded him), the pliant, plastic tool of these imperialistic money monsters. You will. I know, parden me, when I suggest that you do not read enough; that you have not studied the history of this nation; that you do not yet know its aims nor its aspirations. You have forgotten the history of Rome, of Greece and other republics, which, like our own, were the admiration of the world, yet through lust of "world rower," and empire, and by foreign conquests, are now but a memory. The power which controls the Republican Repub-lican party, which demands a standing army, which legislates for trusts and defends corporate greed, which permits per-mits our old enemy, the British empire, to dictate and make our laws, which imitates imperialism in all its malignant malig-nant forms, which refuses to extend a resolution of sympathy to struggling Christian people in far-away Africa, which permits agents of blood-thirsty England to open official communications communica-tions without protest, and then kick the loyal American official because he himself protested, which is destroying those who demand political liberty as we did from King George, which is prostituting and debauching the supreme su-preme court to its unholy purposes, which sets aside the laws, that its musters mus-ters may prey upon the struggling people, peo-ple, is the same power which, wrapping wrap-ping itself In the folds of the flag, to hide Its foul designs, prates of patriotism, patriot-ism, even while it tramples upon all our cherished ideals, upon the constitu tion, and drags in the mire or party politics the Declaration of Independence. Independ-ence. This power, which now debauches the party of Lincoln, of Grant, of Sumner, rules the kingdoms of the world. Its fetters bind the land of the Pharaohs. The blood of the slaughtered Americans Ameri-cans cries from the ground against it Ireland suffers and pleads, and struggles strug-gles in its grasp. India lies prostrate at Its feet, and if the outraged and indignant in-dignant people do not rise in their might and repudiate thijj iniquity, and consign to eternal and everlasting oblivion ob-livion the authors of this infamy, then is this republic doomed to speedy destruction. de-struction. Major, let me suggest to you, in all kindness, do not permit yourself to be made the .tool of designing and unscrupulous un-scrupulous demagogues; listen not to the siren song of the tempter; be not debauched by a pledge of support for office; do not prostitute the instincts of your better nature that you may feed from the public crib; do not endorse that against which our fathers fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill. A republic such as ours cannot own or control colonies and long remain A republic. We cannot maintain our free ! institutions and govern a people who I have no voice In the administration of I our governmental affairs; Colonization, I sooner or later, leads to imperialism, and there can be no empire In a republic. re-public. The forces which uphold the one and control the other are antagonistic, antagon-istic, and the two cannot be joined together to-gether under the same government and live. It must be al! republic or all empire. em-pire. This has been the lesson : taught by the past, and if we try the experiment the -wreck of one more the;greatest of all republics will be added to those strewn along the pathway of nations. Your friend, CHARLES CRANE. |