Murat Halstead

“ America is too great to be isolated from the world around her and beyond her. She is a world power, to whom no world interest is alien, whose voice reaches afar, whose spirit travels across seas and mountain ranges to most distant continents and islands—and with America goes far and wide what America in the grandest ideal represents—democracy and liberty, a government of the people, by the people, for the people. This is Americanism more than American territory, or American shipping, or American soldiery. ”

“ The inner sea is a wonderfully attractive sheet of water, twice as long as Long Island Sound, and studded with islands, a panorama of the picturesque mountains everywhere, deep nooks, glittering shoals, fishing villages by the sea, boats rigged like Americans, flocks of white sails by day, and lights at night, that suggest strings of street lamps. The waters teem with life. Evidently the sea very largely affords industry and sustenance to the people, for there is no botlom or prairie land, as we call the level or slightly rolling fields in America. ”

“ But there are green hills as we approach Nagasaki, and on a hillside to the left are the white walls of a Christian church with a square tower, stained with traditions of triumphs and suffering and martyrdom long ago. Nagasaki is like Hongkong in its land-locked harbor, in clinging to a mountain side, in the circle of illumination at night and the unceasing paddling of boats from ship to ship and between the ships and landings. One is not long in discovering that here are a people more alert, ingenious, self-confident and progressive than the Chinese. ”

“ All of South America save Brazil and the two Guineas, all Central America, Mexico, the entire territory west of the Mississippi, now embraced by the United States, beautiful Cuba, from whose eastern province of Santiago Ponce de Leon across the lucent waves of the tropical sea coveted the ambrosial forests and fertile meadows of Porto Rico, whence he was to sail to the floral empire of Florida. But this was not all of Spain's magnificent domain. Far across the waters of the South Pacific was the now famous cluster of islands bearing the name of the Spanish king. ”

“ With the steady aim and relentless energy tasking science to its utmost ingenuity, the multitudes of men to their utmost endurance, whole nations work day and night, fitting ourselves for the quick and extensive killing of men. This preparation for war. Armies meet on the field of battle; shot and shell rend the air; men fall to the ground like leaves in autumnal storms, bleeding, agonizing, dying; the earth is reddened by human blood; the more gory the earth beneath the tread of one army the louder the revel of victory in the ranks of the other. This, the actual conflict of war. ”

“ It is a new departure, but not a matter for the panic or apprehension of conservatism, that the Stars and Stripes float as the symbol of sovereignty over a group of islands in the waters of Asia, that are equal to all the West Indies. If we are strangers there now we shall not be so long. We have a front on the Pacific Ocean, of three great States—Washington, equal to England; Oregon, whose grandeur rolls in the sound of her famous name, and incomparable California, whose title will be the synonym of golden good times forever. The Philippines are southwest from our western front doors. ”

“ When one has been to the Philippines, what's a thousand miles or two! "Hello, Captain Seabury! It is only about a thousand miles right ahead to the land. You know what land it is, don't you? Well, now, you may break the shaft or burst the boilers, fling the ship to the sperm whales, like the one that was the only living thing we saw since Japan entered into the American clouds of the West. We are only a thousand miles away from the solid, sugary sweet, redolent, ripe American soil, and if there is anything the matter we do not mind, why we will just take a boat and pull ashore." ”

“ The glowing spectacle is not in the west alone, but the gorgeous conflagration of the palaces we build in dreams spreads all around the sky. The scene one evening in the vicinity of the sun departing in Asia to light up the morning of the everlasting to-morrow touching America with magical riches, was that of Niagara Falls ten thousand times magnified and turned to molten gold, that burned with inconceivable luster, while the south and north and east were illuminated with strange fires and soft lights, fading and merged at last in the daffodil sky. ”

“ I speak of the great multitude, whom we name the American people. They had been told of dire suffering by neighboring people—struggling for peace and liberty; they believed that only through war could they acquit themselves of the sacred duty of rescuing that people from their sufferings. I state a broad, undeniable fact. The dominating, impelling motive of the war in the depths of the national heart of America was the sentiment of humanity. The people of America offered their lives through no sordid ambition of pecuniary gain, of conquest of territory, of national aggrandizement. ”

“ Let the waters of the orient as they moan through the shell-riven wrecks at Cavite, the booming waves of the Caribbean as fathoms deep it sweeps over Pluton and Furor and breaks into spray on the shapeless and fire-distorted steel of Vizcaya and Oquendo, tell how the navy has paid our debt to Spain. Nor is the renown which crowns the standards of our army one whit less glorious. ”

“ We are lonesome out here, and the Albatross sweeps beside us, hooded like a cobra, an evil creature trying to hoodoo us, with owlish eyes set in a frame like ghastly spectacle glasses.
General Merritt's blue eyes shone like diamonds through the stormy experiences while the young staff officers curled up as the scientists did on the floor, and smiled a sort of sickly smile! The highest compliment that can be paid them is that the group of officers and gentlemen surrounding the commander of the expedition to the Philippines, express his own character. ”

“ Marco Polo was not so great a traveler or so rare an adventurer as Bigelow, and, having left Florida under a thunder cloud of the scowl of an angry army for untimely criticisms, he has invaded the celestial empire in his quaint canoe, and he can beat the Chinese boatmen on their own rivers, and sleep like a sea bird on the swells of green water, floating like a feather, and safe in his slumbers as a solon goose with his head under his wing. ”

“ America, great and powerful, can afford to speak of peace. Words of peace from her will be the more gracious and timely, as they who do not know her say that, maddened by her recent triumphs, she is now committed beyond return to a policy of militarism and of conquest.
"Lead, my country, in peace—in peace for thyself, in peace for the world. When war is necessary, lead, we pray thee, in war; but when peace is possible, lead, we pray thee yet more, lead in peace; lead in all that makes for peace, that prepares the world for peace. ”

“ Evidently here was a man not posing, a hero because his character was heroic, a genuine personage—not artificial, proclamatory, a picker of phrases, but a doer of deeds that explain themselves; a man with imagination, not fantastic but realistic, who must have had a vision during the night after the May-day battle of what might be the great hereafter; beholding under the southern constellations the gigantic shadow of America, crowned with stars, with the archipelagoes of Asia under her feet and broad and mighty destinies at command. ”

“ This is a lesson for the American farmer—to be studied more closely than imitated—to grow grass, especially clover, to stop devastation by creeks, with shrubbery gifted with long roots to save the banks of considerable streams, and, where there is stone, use it to save the land now going by every freshwater rivulet and rivers to the seas, to the irreparable loss of mankind. It is the duty of man who inherits the earth that it does not escape from him, that his inheritance is not swept away by freshets. ”

“ A people which has given proofs of suffering and valor in tribulation and in danger, and of hard work and study in peace, is not destined to slavery; this people is called to be great, to be one of the strongest arms of Providence in ruling the destinies of mankind; this people has resources and energy sufficient to liberate itself from the ruin and extinction into which the Spanish Government has plunged it, and to claim a modest but worthy place in the concert of free nations. ”

“ Rizal wrote the night before he was executed:
My Last Thoughts.
Farewell! my adored country; region beloved of the sun; pearl of the Orient sea; our lost Eden! I cheerfully give for thee my saddened life, and had it been brighter, happier and more rosy, I would as willingly give it for thy sake.
Unhesitatingly and without regret others give thee their lives in frenzied fight on the battlefield. But what matter the surroundings! Be they cypress, laurel or lilies, scaffold or open country, combat or cruel martyrdom, it is all the same, when for country and home's redress. ”

“ The Spaniards believe themselves released from every legal obligation toward the Filipinos for the sole reason that the belligerency of the Revolution has not been recognized, taking no account of the fact that over and above every law, whether written or prescriptive, are placed with imprescriptible characters, culture, national honor and humanity. No; the Filipinos have no need ever to make use of reprisals because they seek independence with culture, liberty with unconditional respect for the law, as the organ of justice, and a name purified in the crucible of human sentiments. ”

“ Bryant sang of the water fowl that flew from zone to zone, guided in certain flight on the long way over which our steps are led aright, but the Pacific zones are too broad for even winged wanderers. The fish that swarm on our coast do not seem to find home life or sporting places in this enormous sea. Only the flying fish disturb the silky scene and flutter with silver wings over the sparkling laces that glisten where the winds blow gently, and woo the billows to cast aside the terrors of other climes and match the sky of blue and gold in beauty ”

“ Women carry burdens on their heads, and walk erect and posed as if for snap photographs. The young girls are fond of long hair, black as cannel coal, and streaming in a startling cataract to the hips. It seems that the crop of hair is unusually large, and it shines with vitality, as the breeze lifts it in the sunshine. The Philippine boys are still more lightly clad than the girls, who have an eye to queer combinations of colors, and the revelation of the lines that distinguish the female form without flagrant disclosure. ”

“ Tribunals have since taken to themselves the administration of justice, and how much better it is for the happiness and progress of mankind.
"It is force, or chance, that decides the issue of the battle. Justice herself is not heard; the decision of justice is what it was before the battle, the judgment of one party. Must we not hope that with the widening influence of reason and of religion among men, the day is approaching when justice shall be enthroned upon a great international tribunal, before which nations shall bow, demanding from it judgment and peace? ”

“ I ask you, gentlemen of the Clover Club, to unite with me in toasting the Army and Navy of the United States, without whose valor and sacrifice we could not celebrate the victory we have been celebrating to-day. Not only the men at the front, not only the men on the battleships and in the battle line, but the men at home with ambition to go to fight the battles of American civilization, should be the recipients of the gratitude of the American people. ”

“ On the Philippine Islands there is far less servility than on the other side of the sea of China, and the people are the more respectable and hopeful for the flavor of manliness that compensates for a moderate but visible admixture of savagery. We of North America may be proud of it that the atmosphere of our continent, when it was wild, was a stimulant of freedom and independence. The red Indians of our forests were, with all their faults, never made for slaves. The natives of the West Indies, the fierce Caribs excepted, were enslaved by the Spaniards, and perished under the lash. ”

“ What prowess in action, what intellect in planning, what skill in execution, were displayed by soldiers and seamen, by men and officers. Magnificent the sweep of Dewey's squadron in Manila harbor. Magnificent the broadsides from Sampson's fleet upon Cervera's fleeing ships. Magnificent the charge of regiments of regular infantry, and of Roosevelt's riders up the hills of El Caney. Never daunted, never calculating defeat, every man determined to die or conquer, every man knowing his duty, how to do it—the soldiers and seamen of America were invincible. ”

“ It is not inconsistent with the policy of magnanimity that is generally anticipated after the victory of a great power over a lesser one, that we should hold the Philippines. We have only to keep the power we have in peace, and let it work as a wholesome medicine, and all the islands of the group of which Manila is the central point, will be ours without conflict. In our system there is healing for wounds, and attraction for the oppressed. The holding of the islands by Spain would signify the continued shedding of blood, and drainage of the vital resources of the peninsula. ”