on their own heads. They insulted the handkerchief which I had put up on their farms, by attacking me when I took possession. The stain they cast upon that Emblem of me can only be wiped out by an unmerciful beating and absolute submission to my slavery. That is the law of handkerchiefs, Christian nations, brigands, and dolls. I bought these men by compulsion from the thieves they had fallen among and I should never have my dignity among other dolls if I did not prove the justice of my purchase by force. I do not care how many of my men-servants die in vindication of me. It is not I who die. There are seventy million people around here on whom I can draw for servants. If a few hundred thousand die out of those for my honor, it is a very small thing. My handkerchief will feel all the better and I shall have touching material for speeches. A hundred thousand is only one sevenhundredth of the people, a mere song. Who would haul down the flag for that? Go back to your work, boys, and don't let me hear any complaining or you will be unpatriotic and I shall spank you with the shingle of treason. I cannot give up the lands and service and trade these wayfarers will bring me for a paltry hundred thousand other people's children.

So the fighting continued savagely until so many wayfarers were killed that the rest lost heart and gave up. The Christian doll then lifted a prayer of thanks to Heaven and remarked, "Sing unto the Lord a new song, for He hath done marvelous things for America."* She continued, I have conquered at a terrible price, and surely I cannot give up what has cost me so much. When I began to reduce these wayfarers to servitude I had no idea of reducing them to servitude. The idea occurred to me afterward when I saw how fiercely they resisted me and how ill-suited they are to governing themselves. Men who can fight like this are natural-born slaves anyIf I give them freedom now what recompense

way.

*Headlines of a daily paper on Spain's acceptance of the Paris treaty.

shall I have for all the loss of other people's lives they have cost me? It would be crime and shame. Moreover, it is my duty to dress the wounds which I have inflicted, of those who survive. They will work better. Humanity is always sweet. I shall be carrying out the sainted mission which I had begun when they rebelled.

"The humanity of our purposes and magnanimity of our conduct have given to war, always horrible, touches of noble generosity, Christian sympathy and charity and examples of human grandeur which can never be lost to mankind. Passion and bitterness formed no part of our impelling motive, and it is gratifying to feel that humanity triumphed at every step of the war's progress. (The President.)* They have triumphed serenely. I now have the enemy's farms and islands, gold mines and bodies. Having those I can afford to be magnanimous. I shall give him free schools which he will pay for, and military carpet-bag governors who will know how to take their own pay. It will be like Alaska, which I govern perfectly. Governor Brady of that plantation of mine tells me that the men who govern that ranch "have no interest in Alaska except to grab whatever they can and get away," that "they are like a lot of hungry codfish," and that "II per cent of the entire government are now under indictment for malfeasance in office."+ That is what I like, for then my governors are loyal to all my war policies. It is ideal on a little farm of mine Down East called Luzon. Man-servant-general Anderson assures me that my overseer "Otis is both civil and military Governor in the island. Exercising both of the functions, he is the most absolute and arbitrary ruler on earth, the Czar of Russia not excepted."

The Christian doll then retired to a pyramid of New Testaments in a corner of the stage, where she removed several layers of fleshly piety from her body and disclosed the whited skeleton. of Trade underneath. that had happened was then clear.

*In Omaha.

†N. Y. Evening Post, semi-weekly edition, June 1, '99. Associated Press account of Gen. Anderson's words, July 25, '99.

All

CHAPTER XXI.

Seduced By Destiny.

Destiny is a great word. It lights up the sorrows of life by taking away personal responsibility. It justifies crime by making it the work of God. If you have been a vicious spendthrift and squandered your substance on fast women and fast horses, convert yourself to Destiny in your latter days and edify your grandchildren by tracing the footprints of God through your miscreant career and showing them how good it was for your soul to have been a rogue. If you wish Naboth's field or his oil refinery, be a Sunday School Superintendent and a college settlement patron and tell him that the progress of the world demands the concentration of fields and the heaping up of refineries, and that you feel yourself divinely appointed to carry forward progress on the back of your bank account. You would not have bamfoozled Nathan of old, but the parsons who are gathering grains of gold on the shores of civilization, will chipperly rebuke the anguish of Naboth in your behalf. If you want another man's country, take it in the name of God and it shall be well with thee. If you wish the trade and territory of the earth for sordid gain thou art wicked, but if you wish them for sordid gain to glorify God therewith thou art a savior.

There is some subtlety in our relation to territory, but the Lord God is a subtle God visiting the sins of the oppressor upon the oppressed. We desire territory for the reason that propelled the children of Israel, the Vandals, the Huns, Napoleon, and Bismarck, which God knows because he knows all, but he is an accommodating

God in his old age and is pacified by assurance that our illimitable greed and graspingness are unselfish and impersonal, cherished and allowed only to serve Him. But although this is a distinction upon which all followers of true religion will rest in peace, it is a great gain for the ordinary conscience to know that the entire object of expansion is and has been premeditated commercial avarice, the dipping of which in the essence of divinity is the counterpart of immersing spoiled meat in chemistry to give it the outer gloss of perfection.

Now the question for us all is, Why has there been this pains to disguise the truth from us? The object of our political masters is to get more territory for the millionaires to exploit with monopoly which they still call by the obsolete word trade; God and civilization. play no part in the matter as a reality. Why do they dip their monopoly greed in liquor of God and civilization, if the expansion of greed is good in itself? Why do they not come bravely and say that trade is the whole affair? Only because expansion is rotten progress, not good for us, and they know we would not take it were we not deceived. Nevertheless some of the most frank have entirely thrown off the mask of holiness and based the entire argument on trade, and these are persons so related to the administration that their words furnish the last proof that absolute monopoly selfishness has been the only motive, at all times, of those steering the Ameri

can state.

I wish to meet this question at its most critical point. They say that we were forced to expand, against our will; they give the impression that there was no previous and settled intention to take the Philippines when our peace agents went to Paris, and that destiny gradually unfolded itself to our representatives and opened their eyes to what must be. This is all false. The men engaged in it know it is false. They know that they were selected because they would execute the directions of McKinley like so many pulleys and straps in a mill.

They were selected because they were good adobe. The president's purpose was fixed to require the Philippines, they virtually knew it and went to perform that mission. All appearance of doubt was a sham. They may not have been explicitly instructed to demand the whole group until after they reached Paris, but that was a mere matter of public policy, the people here were not ready for it, but the commissioners knew well that they would be directed to make that demand. The president had talked the subject over confidentially in all its bearings with them all and severally before they sailed. He may not have said directly, 'We must have the Philippines,' but he had said it by clearly carried implication. The case may be epitomized in five words-The commissioners were McKinley's tools.

Cushman K. Davis, U. S. senator from Minnesota, was one of them, and he made his attitude public before going abroad. To a reporter of the N. Y. World he said:

Events have made us one of the great powers of the earth. Whatever we may have desired ourselves heretofore, destiny bas forced upon us responsibilities that we must recognize and accept. We have become a potent factor in the world's progress. A greater actual naval and military power we are already. We are not strong enough yet, but not an hour must be lost in equipping ourselves to cope with any emergency that may confront us.. We must have a large regular army ready at call in the future. We must have as good a navy as any nation on earth. We have an excellent beginning. Ship for ship we need fear nobody. But we must build ships with true American energy. Nothing must deter us. A gun is the earliest thought of the American youth. Men are only grown up boys. . . . China is the coveted part of the earth's surface today, . . . Providence has stepped in to point the future course for us. We must police the Pacific ocean. Its coast has been our vulnerable point.

You understand, I am on record as favoring the retention of the territory which has been acquired by the splendid victories of our arms. Hereafter, I tell you, the maritime, commercial and political interests will not permit their governing power to be indifferent to their honor or their progress. The United States has ceased to be the China of the Western Continent. We are alive, thank God, and must not be insulted by any power in this world, great or small. And it is that change that ought to make every patriot glad. Wars are inevitable-or all history is false. . . . Can we contemplate for an instant the interference of any power that shall abridge the majesty and glory laid at our feet by the incomparable Dewey? I say, 'never.' Therefore you may quote me just as strongly as you can as saying 'More battleships, and, after that, more cruisers and battleships again."

*Associated Press, Aug. 29, '98.

*