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Show SOME INCONSISTENCIES OF THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE. land, and, eventually, In a confederated confederat-ed archipelago as free and democratic as the Dominion of Canada. WlXm that time comes, the Philippines will be ready to decide whether they prefer pre-fer to remain uuder the auspices of the American flag or to enter uion the more ambitious and dangerous experiment ex-periment of complete indeitendence In their external relations, 't his freedom of choice is always open to our Canadian Cana-dian neighbors. The American Monthly Month-ly Keview of Keviews for September. His Arguments in Platform and Speech Taken up in Light of Reason. THEY ARE FULL OF SELF-CONTRADICTION. An Able and Exhaustive Analysis of Democratic Proposals and Policies by the Conservative Editor of the Amen can Monthly Review of Reviews. the other? Stable government in the Philippine islands under Ameihnn auspices aus-pices is what Mr. Bryan demands, and he asserts the demand without the slightest reference to tho question whether or not the Filipinos themselves them-selves want us to establish a stable government or take them in the future under our rare and protection. There is no need to be mincing of language. Mr. Bryan's program, reduced to practice, prac-tice, makes the Filpino people the wards of this nation, irresi'c, live of their will, presumably for their good. And in our capacity as guardian. Mr. Krya.i would have us thriftily obtain a transfer of title from our comparatively comparative-ly helpless ward to an extremely valuable valu-able possession which in his opinion is all that we happen to need of our world ""when we ratified the peace treaty that Mr. Bryan himself declared we ought to ratify? If Mr. McKinley should take this alternative course, and give up the campaign early in November thus in the only practical way conceding independence to the Filipinos by what means would Mr. Bryan break his way again into those islands -in order to establish the "stable "sta-ble government" which he says it would 1 his iirst task to set np? The Only Practical Way to Grant lnde- peudence. Is It iot time to come down out of the clouds of theoretical reasoning about tlievinallenable rights of man, in order tc ok plainly at the actual situation? sit-uation? e have been fighting in the I'bilippiijas for a year and a half; and Mr. Bryan's unqualified exposition of tbe doctrine of the right of self-government goes infinitely farther than the state's rights doctrines entertained by tbe most extreme of the Calhoun and Jefferson Davis school before the war. For Mr. Bryan's doctriue would allow any group of men, whether in county, tn town, or in school district to set themselves up as an independent government. gov-ernment. The state rights men at least understood the fact that sovereignty had to reside somewhere, if there was to be any government at all; and they went no farther back in their analysis than the states which were the constituent constit-uent members of the Federal Union. R does not seem to us necessary to attempt at-tempt to set the American people into contending camps over the mere metaphysics meta-physics of the inherent rights of man. When one takes individuals and cross- ' examines them, one finds that there is not a shade of difference between Republicans Re-publicans and Democrats on the theo-reriral theo-reriral mixtion of the desirability of islands, it is our opinion, from all we can learn, that there has been even a little too much eagerness to thrust home rule upon the Filipino communities communi-ties iu advance of their preparation to govern th m.-elves efficiently. After all, government is as much a means as it k an end iu itself. Safety, good order, justice between man and man: the opportunity op-portunity to worship in one's own way; the right and the chance to give suitable suit-able education to one's children; freedom free-dom to work and to eujoy. without fear or danger, the fruits of one's toil these are the things that government ought to accomplish. Where races of men have cai'Tjity for progress, there must come a time in their evolution when the best government for them is essentially popular and Democratic. But when communities, for reasons either temporary or of a more permanent perma-nent nature, could not possibly manage successfully to gain for themselves the true ends of government by democratic means, it would be both stupid and wants property aim w men m n- international in-ternational market is by all odds the ward's most important asset. And yet Mr. Bryan quotes Senator Lodge's Philadelphia Phil-adelphia speech with deep moral disapproval, dis-approval, because Senator Lodge was frank enough to say that he believed that the promotion of our eommercia'. interests in the Philippines and the far Kas was entirely compatible with out treating the Filipino people both honorably and beneficially, and that it was a distinctly proper object of the work of our government in its diplomacy diplo-macy and external relations to promote the expansions of our trade. The Philippine Necessarily Dependent. The people of the Philippine islands could not possibly take their place as a member of . the family of nations with no responsible backer; because, if for no other reason, they would not be admitted to the family fellowship. The American Hag as the symbol of the larger and external status of the Philippine Phil-ippine islands does not mean anything in any sense humiliating to the Filipinos. Fili-pinos. Their objection to the Spanish flag rose solely from the most protracted pro-tracted and colossal misgovernment on Spain's part, and not from any instinctive in-stinctive development, among the Filipinos, Fil-ipinos, of the spirit of national unity and independence. There has never been any evidence of the existence of such a spirit. Dr. Rizal, who was the real head and inspiration of the revolt that produced Aguinaldo as one of its military chiefs, was merely contending for the carrying out of certain promised prom-ised reforms in the Spanish colonial administration. As a matter of recent history, Mr. Bryan himself stoutly defended de-fended the treaty agreed upon at Paris under which Spain was eliminated from the Philippines by the process of transferring such title as 6he had to us. Nothing could be more contrary to the spirit of sincere criticism than the flippant assertion that we went into a slave market and bought the Filipinos at $2.50 a head, when, in point of fact, as the easiest way to settle certain property questions the ownership of various public buildings, and other valuable property unquestionably belonging be-longing to Spain we paid the sum of $20,000,000. The transaction was perfectly per-fectly honorable on both sides, and did not in anv way affect the future we must deal with the situation as we lind it la the end, rather than at the beginning of that period. In contests of this kind, it is customary for one side or the other to win. We can admit ad-mit ourselves worn out, and therefore practically defeated by the Filipino i aisi i gents, and in pursuance of such coin ession we can acknowledge their j ii;d peudence aud withdraw exactly us the British withdrew from this couutry in 17s;t. In that case, nothing could be more absurd than to make the condition that we should stay by, establish es-tablish a stable form of government, withdraw when we saw fit, keep permanent per-manent possession of the principal harbor, har-bor, and then maintain a permanent protectorate. George Washington did not deal with the British on any such basis as that. If, indeed, we have made a huge mistake in the Philippines, Philip-pines, and If we have no right or business busi-ness to be there, aud if Aguinaldo Is another George Washington, and if the Filipinos are eminently capable of self-government, self-government, then Mr. Bryan reasons to a most unsuitable conclusion. We should acknowledge our position in the Philippines to be morally and physically physical-ly incapable of maintenance, and should make a treaty of peace under which we should withdraw completely, complete-ly, acknowledging the Independence of the Filipinos, giving them as their due and proper right the public property that we took from Spain, and claiming nothing whatever from them in return. We should leave the Philippines as Siain has left the West Indies. T ie Proprieties of the Case. Viider those circumstances, to ask tlietn to give us a harbor and coaling station would be as impertinent as it would be for them to ask us to give them Honolulu. And it would be still mole iu. pertinent for us, after our behavior be-havior to them and our inglorious attempt at-tempt to defeat them on their own soil, to offer to be their sponsor and protector pro-tector in the face of the world at large. The English Sought us in the Revolutionary Revolu-tionary War until they thought the game was no longer worth the candle, and then they acknowledged our independence. inde-pendence. They had their grave doubts about our ability to form a stable government; gov-ernment; and they looked on while we floundered tbrowfb -nr wretched ex-ueriment ex-ueriment with the articles of confeder- intelligent self-government everywhere. every-where. It just happens, however, that at the present moment Mr. Bryan's Democratic friends throughout the South are engaged in the practical task ' of depriving of self-government nearly half of the entire Southern population, on the ground that participation iu government is not, in fact, an inherent human right, but that the object of government is the high and true welfare wel-fare of the community, and that only those people should participate in the tasks of government who are sufficiently sufficient-ly intelligent aud responsible. It does oot seem to us that the real question at stake in the Philippines is met, or even approached, bv eloquent expositions bated upon gHUe ing generalities about the inalienable rights of man. Mr. Bryan's Solution. Toward the end of his speech Mr. Bryan comes to what he calls "an easy, honest, honorable solution of the Philippine Phil-ippine question." It involves three points: - "First, to establish a stable form of government in the Philippine islands. "Second, to give independence to the Filipinos. . "Third, to protect the Filipinos from outside interference while they work ut their destiny." cruel to turn them loose upon themselves. them-selves. Thus Mr. Bryan is right in his first proposition that it is somebody else's business, and not that of the Filipinos, at the outset, to stablish iu the Philippine islands a stable form of government. This is exactly what every practical statesman, if in power, would feel that he was compelled to attempt; and Mr. Bryan, in power, would doubtless doubt-less act like a practical statesman. But all his preambles as to the right of the Filipinos to stablish their own kind of government, stable or unstable, good, bad or indifferent, would have gone glimmering. What Does Philippine Independence Meant Mr. Bryan's second proposition is to give independence to the Filipinos. But this does not really mean anything, any-thing, because it is sandwiched in between be-tween two other propositions, both of which are of the nature of radical limitations lim-itations upon independence. To begin with, Mr. Bryan's independence is not to be accorded until a stable government govern-ment has been created. He prescribes no time for the accomplishment of this task, and there is no reason to suppose that he could possibly achieve it in a four year's term. He would, therefore, have to turn it over to his successor iu office; and thus the realization of Phil ippine muepeuuenee uniu uc iuucuu-itely iuucuu-itely postponed, like the Knirlish evacuation evac-uation of Kgypt. The second aud greatest great-est limitation upon Philippine independence, inde-pendence, however, lies in Mr. Bryan's third practical proposal; namely, "to protect the Filipinos from outside interference in-terference while they work out their destiny." This, of course, means a per-Iietual per-Iietual protectorate, aud it means the assumption by us of entire responsibility responsi-bility for good government in the Philippine islands toward all other nations na-tions of the world. For the Philippines are open to international commerce, and to the residence of well behaved foreigners, and we should, by Mr. Bryan's program, be held responsible under all circumstances for the conduct con-duct of a people whom, paradoxically, we ourselves had recognized as an independent in-dependent and sovereign member or tho fnmilv of nations. Mr. Brvan'.s The first of these propositions goes flatly counter to the elaborate theoretical theo-retical argument which occupies nearly all the space of Mr. Bryan's speech. If. indeed, the Filipinos possess, as he affirms, af-firms, the absolute right to govern themselves, then we can have no business busi-ness to establish a stable government, or any other kind of government, among them. Aguinaldo and his supporters sup-porters have asserted all along that they are eminently callable of establishing estab-lishing their own government, and that our business is simply to clear out. The administration at Washington, and Judge Taft's commission now in the Philippines, made up of Democrats aud Republicans alike, are at this moment doing everything in their power to establish es-tablish a stable government in the archipelago. Human motives can never be wholly free from some taint or al-i, al-i, f oni-tlilv imnerfection: but it does political status of the Filipino people. If that treaty of peace had been promptly ratified, as it ought to have been, the war between our troops and those of Aguinaldo which began a year and a half ago, would, in all human probability, never have occurred. We should have proceeded to establish good government just as rapidly as possible, and it would have been both asy and safe to have conceded to the Filipinos incomparably more than they had ever asked from the Spaniards. A Condition, Sot a Theory. There is not a human being in the United States who has ever wanted to hold the Filipinos in subjection or vassalage. But the events of the past eighteen months have at once illustrated illustrat-ed and brought about a condition of tilings nuder which it is clear that Filipino independence would be impossible im-possible for a long time to come. As a maiter of mere preference, most of ns want neither colonies, possessions, nor protectorates in the Orient; and least of all. do we want military campaigns, cam-paigns, whether in the Philippines or in China. But in the Philippines, as well as in China, no less than in Cuba two years ago, we are merely doing a part of the ugly but needful police dutv of civilization. Our soldiers are suffering iu .the Philippines because Filipino guerillas decline to accept the American amnesty proposals; and their refusal is said to be based largely upon the theory that their position is the football of American politics, and that the election of Mr. Bryan would mean the triumph of their cause. If, theu, Mr. Hrvan should be elected in November, Novem-ber, it "is to lie inferred that the flames of the insurgent cause would be rekindled re-kindled everywhere. But Mr. Bryan would remain a private citizen until the 4th of next March, and Mr. Mc- ation before we established our sound and stable framework of government under the constitution of 17S9. But they did not propose to establish our government for us while acknowledging acknowledg-ing our independence, nor yet to exercise exer-cise a protectorate over us in perpetuity. perpet-uity. Let us have the manliness to do the one thing or the other in the Philippines. Phil-ippines. If the Filipinos have won their independence and deserve it. let us eschew metaphysics, recognize facts an'' come home. If they have a moral title to their independence, backed up by. military prowess and the evidence of political capacity, then it follows that we are the last people in the whole world to have a right to take from them a port or a coaling station. And it would be ridiculous in the extreme ex-treme for us to introduce the new sister into the international family. The Other Alternative. That is one straightforward alterna tive: and we for our part should advocate ad-vocate with all our might if we thought the facts justified it. But we do not believe Aguinaldo is a George Washington, or that there exists any such tiling as a great and promising Filipino uation moved by the spirit of political progress and fighting intelligently intelli-gently for independence and a place in the family of nations. What we do believe be-lieve is that there is a large population In the Philippine islands that needs peace and order; and that, as matters now stand, the only outlook they can possible have for those ordinary conditions condi-tions tiiat make life worth living lies iu the suppression of the warfare maintained main-tained by guerrilla bands o Tagals, and a chance for American administration administra-tion to show what it can do. We have gone so far in this effort that true economy of human blood, effort, and treasure lies in our going a little farth- program, then, would have us take n coaling station to keep for our own. with the understanding that a stable government that we ourselves had established es-tablished there presumably by force, for in no other way would an outside nation establish a stable government in those islands would, under moral duress, consent to the permanent loss of an important harbor. Some Logical Conclusions. If we have the right to establish a permanent government in the Philippines, Philip-pines, it obviously devolves upon us to decide what constitutes such a government, govern-ment, and the right to establish it unquestionably un-questionably would involve the right of subsequent interference for its maintenance. This right of subsequent interference, moreover. Is unquestionably unquestion-ably involved in the duty we should assume to protect the Philippines against all outside interfernce; for If protracted m isgo vernmeut or nnarchical nnnHltinns uhnnlrl nrevail in till' islands not seem to us that anybody can very well question the uprightness and sincerity sin-cerity of the motives of the Philippine commission in attempting to frame and establish a government that shall be the best possible for the natives, and that shall train and develop them iu the practice of self-government. As to Getting a Philippine Harbor. The real and practical question is, What is best to do, for everybody concerned, con-cerned, in a serious and critical situation? situa-tion? Mr. Bryan devotes many columns to abstract and lofty argument, with Impressive quotations from American statesmen of an earlier day and from the holy Scriptures. He gives only a few lines to telling us what he would really have done in the Philippine matter mat-ter if he had been in authority. In the first place, he says: "A harbor and coaling station in the Philippines would answer every trade and military necessity; neces-sity; and such a concession could have been secured, at any time, witnout uu-ficulty." uu-ficulty." This could hardly mean any- thing else except the harbor of Manila, the one important center of the Philippine Phil-ippine trade. If we could, "without difficulty" have secured this from the Filipinos, it surely would not have been because the Filipinos were at heart willing to give away their best possession. If they were to be allowed a real freedom of action as an independent inde-pendent government, who is there that supposes for a moment that they would have given us the harbor of Manila? Mr. Bryan, in this speech, as well as In others, constantly likens the attitude of the American people toward the Filipinos to that of a hlfwayman committing robbery with violence. But his descent from the ideal to the practical prac-tical Is not altogether felicitous. His suggestion is, to quote his exact words, that "a war of conquest is as unwise as it is unrighteous." The unwisdom lies in the fact that wo do not need the whole thing, aud we might have got the valuable harbor, which is all we need for commercial and naval purpose, pur-pose, without entering upon a war of conquest. Iu other words, the wise highwayman would make u gentlemanly gentleman-ly compromise with his grateful victim by accepting his gold watch as a pres- ent, and would allow the traveler to pass on with his horse, his pocket-book pocket-book and his loose change. If Mr. Bryan's suggestion means anything at all, it would S2em to mean this and nothing else. Framing a Stahl? Gover-mejlt. Instead of too much arbitrary rule en the part of the Am.rb.ans in those than which nothing could be more likely under Mr. Bryan's program the moral sentiment of the whole civilized world would compel us to interfere and restore order, or else to abandon our pretense of protecting the Philippines Philip-pines from the interference of others. In short, by Mr. Bryan's program, our policy in the Philippines Is the maintenance mainte-nance on our part of perpetual responsibility respon-sibility toward the world at large. The Republicans, on the other hand, would 6ay that we have to deal only with the preseut ami early future. In the present pres-ent they are doing just what Mr. Bryan Bry-an advocates: namely, tryng their best to establish a stable government As for the second proposition, which Mr. Bryan calls the granting of independence, independ-ence, the Republicans would claim that they are aiming to give the Filipinos local autonomy, or self-government, in their own affairs, without endeavoring to set the islands adrift without chart or compass as a new ship of state. ttoine Close Distinctions. It is hard to see what difference there Is, for really practical purposes, between be-tween that higher authority over the Philippines that Mr. Bryan would exercise ex-ercise under the guise of a protectorate and that responsibility which we should more openly and directly assume as-sume under me theory that, for purposes pur-poses of International recognition, the sovereignty of the Philippines and adjacent ad-jacent waters was under the stars and stripes. Is it not true that, doing away with mere rhetoric and forms of words, the Filipinos are just as iudepeudent under one method as they are under four months, lie in a most difficult predicament. pre-dicament. Our army would either have to give up what it now holds in the Philippines or else face redoubled insurgent activity with increased effort ef-fort on our part. This would mean a very fierce and bloody campaign, with the' loss of many brave American officers offi-cers and men. The Coiiiiiiuiler-lu-Chief Next March. Under those . circumstance, what would Mr. Bryan, as commonder-in-chief of the American nrniy, do on the day after his inauguration, early iu March? Would he discredit the work of our troops, and order them to their barracks to await their turn to embark em-bark for America on tli-e transport ships? Would lie recall Judge Taft and his fellow-comniissioners, and authorize au-thorize Aguinaldo to assume the teui-porarv teui-porarv reins of government, military and civil? He would certaiuly have to do something. It is true that Mr. McKinley. Mc-Kinley. as president, and In his capacity capaci-ty as commander-in-chief, is at present pres-ent the final authority in Philippine affairs; but if Mr. Bryan were president, presi-dent, how could he avoid occupying exactly ex-actly the same position until Congress had' ordained otherwise? But let us suppose, in the event of Mr. Bryan's election in November, that Mr. McKinley McKin-ley should decline to take the responsibility respon-sibility of sending reinforcements to the Philippines and pushing the campaign. cam-paign. Would he be justified in withdrawing with-drawing our troops, and leaving the islands is-lands in the hands of armed insurgents, who deny the sovereignty that we officially offi-cially assumed in the eyes of the whole er and completing our worst, ine uesi way out of the woods is to press straight on. to the Qther border, which does not seem so very far distant. If there ever Is to lie an independent and sovereign Philippine nation, it can rest only upon the basis of a considerable historical period of experience in self-government self-government with limited sovereignty under strict American auspices. Two or three centuries of Spanish colonial methods have not fitted the Philippine islands for immediate emergence as a sovereign political entity. Perhaps fifty fif-ty or a hundred years of American tutelage tu-telage may complete the work of evolutionand. evolu-tionand. in that case, it will be entirely en-tirely safe to trust the Americans who will be on hand fifty or a hundred years hence to deal with the question of Philippine independence as the facts and circumstances may Justify. Mr. Bryan's program does not seem to us to point to any real solution. We cannot can-not undo what has been done since the early days of May, 18S18. We must deal witli the Philippine question as it is in the latter half of 1900. As matters now are. we can acknowledge defeat, withdraw with-draw from the Philippines and disclaim dis-claim responsibility. This is the scuttle scut-tle policy that President Jordan of the Iceland Stanford University has advocated advo-cated and that Mr. McKinley declares he cannot adopt. The only other practical prac-tical alternative is to stay in the Philippines, Phil-ippines, and seek, by all possible means, to bring hostiliiies to an end; to establish firm and orderly government: govern-ment: to train the natives by degrees to the exercise of self-government in villages, towns, districts, provinces, is- |