| OCR Text |
Show OH THE SHAME OF IT! It may be that though President Roosevelt be personally disposed to give expression in some form, either in his message to congress or otherwise, to American sympathy with the Boers, he may feel himself precluded from doing so by the fact that his own administration ad-ministration is engaged in a programme pro-gramme in the Philippine islands not very different from that in South Africa, Af-rica, which such sympathy would bv implication condemn. To any American Ameri-can declaration of a nature to be so interpreted the tu guogue retort would be only too obvious to the English. They would say, look to yourself. Take the beam out of your own eye before you concern yourselves about the mote in ours. This, of course, would be the British answer to any word of sympathy from us with the great struggle for freedom in South Africa. Professor Charles Eliot Norton recognized the difficulty of fhe situation in his speech last week at the anti-imperialist meeting in Boston. Bos-ton. "We should like," said he, "to sympathize with the Boers, for we feel that they are right, but we are doing such things In the Philippines that we are hindered." What a shame and pity that the country of Washington and Jefferson and Lincolnthe country whose constitution consti-tution is based on the principles of the immortal Declaration of Independence, should be placed in such a position. The defense or excuse that the Filipinos Fili-pinos "are not fit to rule themselves" i is, needless to say, hardly worthy of serious discussion. The great majority of them are Christians, and if Christianity Chris-tianity does not civilize men and fit them for orderly social life, what will do it. An American congressman Mr. Shafroth of Colorado who speaks from knowledge obtained personally in the Islands, thus gives evidence in reference ref-erence to the absurd suggestion of the native population being "savages": "When I am told that they alone make the observations and intricate calculations at the Manila observatory and that prior to the insurrection there were 210 schools In the islands and 5.000 students in attendance at the Manila Ma-nila university; when I find the better class living in good, substantial and sometimes elegant houses, and many of them pursuing professional occupations, occupa-tions, I cannot but conclude that it i3 a base slander to compare these people to the Apaches or other American Indians. In-dians. Even the civilizing test of Christianity is in their favor, as a greater proportion are members of the Church than among our own people. Of the 8,000,000 of inhabitants. Mr Sawyer, in his work on the Philippine islands, asserts that 5,869,000 are Christian Chris-tian natives." If such people are not qualified to rule themselves, what are the qualifications qualifica-tions for fitness? There ought to be an answer 'to this question. Down in the Carolinas there are thousands of voting citizens who never heard the name of Christ, or, at least, know nothing about Him. So it was reported recent- ly at a Baptist or Methodist confer- ! ence. Are those heathens fit for self-government; self-government; and, if they are. what qualifications have they to make them Bo which the Filipinos have not? There are people In Georgia called "Crackers," "Crack-ers," who are much nearer to the type of savage than any element in the Philippine population. In Kentucky there are people in many sections who for generations have recognized no law or order except the bullets of their rifles. How are they more civilized . than the 6,000,000 Christians in the j Philippines? Until these questions are satisfactorily satisfactor-ily answered the argument as to the Filipinos of unfitness for self-govern- ! ment has not a leg to stand on, and so long as we force our rule upon them by guns and bayonets, so will we be in the shameful situation of being hindered hin-dered from uttering a word of sympathy sympa-thy with any struggle for freedom in any land in the world. |
