Carl Schurz

“ I have always believed that the republic of Washington and Lincoln should and would always recognize it as the first and highest responsibility to give to the world an example of good faith and perfect justice in the recognition of the rights of others, be they ever so humble. ”

“ But if we do overcome those difficulties and fulfil the duty imposed upon us by our true responsibility, the American people will stand before the world in an attitude of moral greatness never surpassed in the annals of mankind; for we shall have shown that we cannot only take cities and conquer hostile armies, but that, which is infinitely more glorious, we can, when we have done wrong, conquer ourselves. ”

“ I have long been, and am now, firmly convinced that, if the facts and tendencies of the imperialistic policy carried on by our government were well inquired into and fully understood by the American people, and then submitted to a popular vote on their own merits for approval, that policy would be indignantly spurned by the intelligence as well as the moral sense of an overwhelming majority of our citizenship. ”

“ Far more than any other kind of government does a democracy working through universal suffrage need the conservative influence of high principles and ideals of right and justice, and of popular beliefs founded upon such principles and ideals; for when they disappear the evil passions of covetousness and of selfish ambition take their place and become the only motive power of action, there remaining nothing higher to appeal to. And that is the direction in which the imperialistic policy is driving us. ”

“ In April, 1898, we went to war with Spain for the sole purpose, as Congress proclaimed to the world by a solemn resolution, of rescuing from oppressive misrule a population struggling for freedom and independence. Congress not only positively disclaimed any intention to annex to this republic the territory inhabited by that population, but declared that the people of Cuba “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent”—in other words, that Spain, by her oppressive misrule, had not only morally but actually forfeited her sovereignty over that country. ”

“ But let us once resolve with perfect good faith to aid the Philippine islanders in constructing an independent government suitable to their conditions, and let us have men in power who are honestly determined to accomplish that end, and the difficulties will rapidly diminish. Of course, the Philippines will not have an ideal republican government. We have not, for that matter. But let us honestly try together, and they can yet an independent government as good as that of Mexico, and better than those of most of the South American republics. ”

“ But must we to that end repudiate the high principles, ideals and traditions of the great American republic, and commit the villany of betraying our allies, and slaughter untold thousands of innocent people who only stand up for the principles to which we ourselves owe our national existence? ”

“ Who, then, will deny that even from the legitimate commercial point of view our treatment of the Philippines is as uncalled for and wanton as it is cruel, treacherous and disgraceful, and that we can still correct the colossal blunder we have made by doing justice as an honest nation if we only resolve to do so? ”

“ It is the difficulty of baffling the greed of some persons who want to rule that country for exploitation; it is the difficulty of curbing our own vanity and false pride, which would persevere in an ambitious course however wicked, because we have once entered upon it. These difficulties of meeting our true responsibility is great; but to quote Bishop Potter’s words again, it would indeed “be a source of national mortification if we gave up our responsibility because we find it difficult.” ”

“ We killed many, maty thousands of them, and still go on killing them at the rate of 1,000 to 1,500 a month for no other reason than that, as we call it, they refuse to submit to our sovereignty; but as it may in truth be called, for no other reason than that our former allies object to being sold and brought like a herd of cattle, and that they still demand that liberty and independence to which, by the principle we ourselves had affirmed in the case of Cuba, they are rightfully entitled. ”

“ One of the first things they have already done with us, it seems, is so to benumb our moral sense and to confuse our moral principles as to make us capable of cheating our own consciences by putting aside the question of right or wrong in what we have done as a mere “academic question” no longer to be discussed, because it is done, and of readily accepting that which exists, however wrongful, degrading, and dangerous, simply because it exists. ”

“ The idea that our colonial service will become a seminary of political virtue is, therefore, a highly grotesque one. Most of the rascalities practised there we shall, on account of the distance, never know. But in all probability enough will become known to produce an incalculably mischievous effect upon the natives and to expose this republic to the ridicule and contempt of mankind. ”

“ It may be a very inconvenient question to the imperialists, but that does not make it merely academic. It must be discussed to exhibit the moral aspect of the case. Let us look at it. In the first place, we have not got the Philippines yet. We are still fighting and killing people, our late allies, to get control of them. All we have got is, as I have shown, not a moral and rightful, but merely a technical, title—such a title as an unscrupulous corporation-wrecker may, by legal quirks and technicalities and treachery and force, get to the property of the stockholders. ”

“ Indeed, there may be some persons expecting to make more money out of the Philippines if we subjugate them at the cost of ever so much blood and devastation, and then rule them by a substantially despotic sway. ”

“ By some it is said that the establishment of an independent government in the Philippines would at once be followed by bloody anarchy, that those people would forthwith begin to cut one another’s throats, and that to prevent this we had to destroy the native government, which at the time was in a considerable portion of the conntry in peaceful operation, and that incidentally we had therefore to cut their throats ourselves. ”

“ In the first place, this prediction of bloody anarchy is a mere guess, without any proof. But even if it were well founded, will any imperialist have the hardihood to pretend that those people would in their internal broils have killed half as many, or one-tenth as many, as we have killed and are killing to subjugate them? ”

“ How much of such a system we may expect from an administration which, in spite of the solemn pledges and protestations of its party and of the President himself, has so much demoralized the system which already exists by opening all sorts of facilities in it to the invasion of spoils politics, I leave you to judge. ”

“ Here is the trouble with our imperialists. Determined to make the Philippine Islanders our subjects, they find no end of reasons to show that those people cannot be their own masters. Nothing would be easier than to convince any one desiring to be so convinced that the Cubans, or the Mexicans, or the Chilians are incapable of maintaining decent independent governments, and that therefore we must rule them. ”

“ But, through a subordinate, it became known to the Filipinos, and they understood it as what it was—a declaration of war against them. Then the conflict wantonly provoked by the President's order came. We destroyed by force the government the Filipinos had set up—a very respectable government, as all competent witnesses testify—a far better government than the insurgent Cubans ever had, We carried death and desolation into the towns and villages of our late allies. ”

“ Nor will any sensible person doubt that if we, even to-day, after all that has happened, proclaimed it to be our sincere and fixed intention with regard to them to treat the Philippine Islanders on the same basis of right as that on which we have promised to treat the Cubans, the abominable slaughter would cease at once, and although much natural distrust would have to be overcome, friendly relations with the islanders could be established, with substantially the same desirable results as we might have had more cheaply by honorable and statesmanlike conduct at the beginning? ”

“ Then many of the difficulties which at first sight appeared most formidable will be found not to be insurmountable at all to an honest, intelligent and persevering effort to overcome them, The other way to approach the problem is with no sincere desire to solve it, or even with the desire that it not be solved. ”

“ Why, it might even be shown that the people of New York City, or of Philadelphia, or of Chicago, have proved themselves unable to govern themselves, and that the conduct of their municipal governments must therefore be entrusted to somebody else better fitted. ”

“ I have been told on very good authority that many of the leading Republicans are heartily sick of the whole Philippine business, and that they sincerely wish we had never taken a foot of ground on the Philipinnes and were now rid of the whole concern. ”

“ An unscrupulous pettifogger may dispute that, but a man of honor will not. et the imperialists answer, There has also been some quibbling as to our having promised them independence. That we did not in formal official declaration promise them independence, is true enough. But did we not, while we were using them as allies, and profiting from their service as allies, know that they believed they were fighting for their own independence, and that they would not have fought on the same side with us against the common enemy if they had believed otherwise? ”

“ And, secondly, because a good many of our people have very little regard for the rights and interests of so-called inferior races, and consider cheating and robbing such races as a privilege of the superior being. ”