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Show TROUBLE WITH LATIN-AMERICANS. A dispatch tells us that the thoughtful men of Cuba believe that there ' canv be no permanent peace and no assured progress in Cuba except under a United States protectorate. The old fact comes back that, the men of. Latin America have not yet any comprehension of what real free government is, that it means ''Liberty under the law." So soon as a crowd of them are given authority they abuse it; 80 soon as any restraint is placed upon the. others, they want revolution. One side cannot use authority author-ity without abusing it, the other will not submit to necessary restraints without kicking. The trouble . is none of them have ever been able to understand that liberty without necessary restraints re-straints is mere license, or that there can no be stable government without men consent to surrender, for the good of the whole, some of their primitive rights. In his primitive state a man has a right to go without with-out clothing, to burn his own house if he pleases to ; he-is never "compelled" to pay taxes, or to keep his premises in a sanitary condition and the idea of having hav-ing a tribunal to adjust differences between his neighbor and himself has never once crossed his mind. ; So when civilization begins to draw its restraints around him he chafes under them. On the other hand when given" power he is prone to abuse it. When in the name of government he sees opportunities to "rob taxpayers or to sell advantages to grafters, there are no restraints upon him, "the needs of the state" supply him with every needed excuse, until revolution revolu-tion becomes justified. We suspect that a peace will be patched up, but we fear it will never be permanent, for respect for righteous laws has to be taught to people, and they must also be impressed with the righteousness of enforcing en-forcing such laws. . The present situation in Cuba ought to be a valuable val-uable object lesson to Mr. Bryan. He cannot with all his gift of language, sufficiently suffi-ciently express his chagrin and indignation that there are still restraints upon the Filipinos. He is sure that they are capable of self-government and holds it a great outrage that the United States continues to hold control over there. If one island in the Caribbean sea, possessed by one people, peo-ple, and blessed in every way, cannot keep the peace, what would happen if a hundred islands in the Pacific, Pa-cific, peopled by more than thirty warring tribes, were left to themselves t We fear that Mr. Bryan himself does not yet quite understand the solid principles required to ; make a people self-governing. And with the example exam-ple which Cuba is presenting, his Filipino shibboleth will have to follow his railroad-purchase shibboleth into the silence. |