of Chamberlain, Salisbury, Rosebery, Curzon and the rest. He speaks of our flag in the Philippines, "where it now floats, the symbol and assurance of liberty and justice." It floats over the graves of many dead Filipinos who died from accepting our assurances of liberty and justice.

The immortal lie that we have not sought to confiscate the Philippine archipelago is reiterated-"It was a trust we have not sought;" God thrust it upon us, he says. God was the cause of our treachery to the trusting natives, God compelled us to shoot them down when our dastardly intentions were discovered, God forces us against our virtuous wish to plant ourselves in the Orient in order to bring our mailed fist within arm's length of China to smash holes in her if necessary for our sacred trade. McKinley says: "Our concern was not for territory or trade or empire, but for people, whose interests and destiny, without our willing, had been put in our hands." "No imperial designs lurk in the American mind. They are alien to American sentiments, thought and purpose. Our priceless principles undergo no change under a tropical sun....They go with the fiat: 'Why read ye not the changeless truth, the free can conquer but to save.'

It is not pleasant, but the question must be asked: Does this man think that he is talking to a nation of fools? If his words are not mere re-election vapor, he is the only man in the United States who is ignorant that what is thrusting us into the Orient is not God but Greed-greed for trade. Unless his mind has been unsettled by greatness the pious McKinley knows as every other American knows that if our priceless principles had not undergone a change since we started on our errand of mercy to Cuba, to stop the Spaniards from shooting Cubans, we should not be shooting Filipinos now because they wanted the same mercy at our hands that we promised to Cuba. If we must be villains let us not sneak and deny it and pub

lish a guinea pig prospectus that we have taken God into partnership. There is only one defence for McKinley, if he is not a deceiver: he is dying of majesty. This was the fate of president Faure. A French statesman and physician, noting the signs of premature decay, said: "If M. Faure is not soon turned out of the Presidency he will die from general paralysis, the effect of 'folie de grandeur.' M. Faure was so great that no one could speak to him first. For charity's sake let us believe that McKinley is so great that he can see nothing as it is but only as his magnificence of mind shapes it.

More reading of his speech will not change our opinion:

"We could not discharge the responsibilities upon us until these islands became ours either by conquest or treaty. There was but one alternative, and that was either Spain or the United States in the Philippines. The other suggestion showed, first, that they should be tossed into the arena for the strife of nations; or, second, be lost to the anarchy and chaos of no protectorate at all, and were too shameful to be considered."

This is in defence of our policy of making ourselves masters of the Philippines and of exterminating the portion of their inhabitants who will not consent. But the truth is quite different.

8. Fooling All the People.

It is one of the recent novelties of free government to be obliged to defend the right of the governed to be consulted. Mr. McKinley has enunciated and acted upon the doctrine that we may govern a people against their will according to our own ideas of their good. The application of this tyrannical principle was the cause of our disgraceful war to prevent the independence of the Filipinos. The McKinley statement of this doctrine is the most remarkable and revolting expression of political bombast of the century, assuming that its author is not insane. It is this:

"Did we need their consent to perform a great act for humanity? We had it in every aspiration of their minds, in every hope of their hearts. Was it necessary to ask their consent to capture Manila, the

capital of their islands? Did we ask their consent to liberate them from Spanish sovereignty or to enter Manila Bay and destroy the Spanish sea power there? We did not ask these; we were obeying a higher moral obligation, which rested on us, and which did not require anybody's consent. We were doing our duty by them, as God gave us the light to see our duty, with the consent of our own consciences, and with the approval of civilization. Every present obligation has been met and fulfilled in the expulsion of Spanish sovereignty from their islands, and while the war that destroyed it was in progress we could not ask their views. Nor can we now ask their

consent."

Pardon must be asked for comment on fallacies so bare as these. Our forcing Spain to take herself out of the Philippines was the "great act of humanity" alluded to. To have this done was the mighty ‘aspiration and hope of their hearts,' and it was this aspiration and hope that gave consent to what we did, the capture of Manila, et cetera. McKinley justifies our course by the fact that we had this tacit consent. But then, by his own words, that consent extended no farther than the expulsion of Spain. That consent explicitly contradicted and forbade our taking Spain's place as sovereign. Even the consent to force Spain out did not exist if our entrance into her shoes was to be coupled with it. This is so undeniable that for McKinley to invoke God's sanction on our 'great act' after we have gone forward and stultified that act by taking the very place that Spain held, is raving blasphemy. "We were obeying a higher moral obligation”—was there anything higher or moral in our ousting Spain to seize her post of sovereignty? Neither our consciences nor civilization ever approved this.

Mr. McKinley knows well enough the logical thimblerigging in which he is engaged, always supposing that his mind has not failed. He seeks to make a fact which justifies one course justify a course that is the antithesis. and overthrow of the first. The Filipinos wanted freedom that justified us in driving their master out; they wanted freedom; that justified us in becoming their master ourselves. Listen reverently to the mind which can evolve such marvels. It says: 'Every present obligation has been met and fulfilled in the expulsion of Spanish sov

ereignty from the islands.' This was true provided we ourselves had then claimed no sovereignty there, otherwise it was absolutely false. In fact McKinley had already, before making this extravagant speech, declared his sovereignty and a war had issued from it. We had broken our obligation to the islands by replacing one sovereignty with another, and by not withdrawing or expelling our own sovereignty.

The most wonderful logical break of this demented man remains to be told. 'While the war that destroyed Spanish sovereignty was in progress we could not ask the Filipinos' views,' he says. Very well, grant this.

"Nor can we ask it now," he goes on.

"Indeed, can any one tell me in what form it could be marshaled and ascertained until after peace and order, so necessary to the reign of reason, shall be secured and established? A reign of terror is not the kind of rule under which right action and deliberate judgment are possible. It is not a good time for the liberator to submit important questions concerning liberty and government to the liberated while they are engaged in shooting down their rescuers."

By this, McKinley the Magnificent informs us that immediately after the Spanish war ceased the Filipino war began, that there was no time or space between them for asking the views of the Filipinos on what they would like to have us do. O McKinley, do you think that we are all besotted with grandeur like yourself? Do you

think that we have forgotten that there was a long period between those wars during which you might have 'marshaled and ascertained' the views of the islanders, and that you elected to cut the knot and settle the whole matter according to your own views, by proclaiming yourself their sovereign? After your carnival of murder is ended how else will you learn their views than by doing as you might and should have done prior to your proclamation? You did not wish to give them a chance to express their preferences, lest they might oppose your ambitions for empire, and that is the secret of your not inquiring. That is the secret of your insolent manifesto calling on them to obey you. And now, like a coward,

you would run away to evade even the memory of this interval and what happened in it, pretending that the 'misguided Filipinos,' as you arrogantly called them, began to 'shoot their rescuers down' as soon as Spain surrendered, and gave you no time to discover their will. But no one will be deceived, for all know that after your mind, under the dictation of corporation kings, was resolved to hold the Philippines as yours, there was no intention on your part of consulting them in good faith. Some farce of consultation may have gone through your mind for a later day-with their representative citizens, the whites and big property owners, in order to have them perform the mock-ceremony of voting authority for acts already done.

And you, Mr. McKinley, who out of a state of confidence and repose had brought a reign of terror and destruction in those islands, equalling and surpassing the terror and destruction under Spain, could say to the American people, "It is not a good time for the liberator to submit important questions concerning liberty and government to be liberated while they are engaged in shooting down their rescuers"! Who was shooting the rescued down? What did the 'liberators' deserve for turning into masters and coercers but to be shot down? You, McKinley, having by voluntary unlawful act made the blood of two races flow, arouse unbounded compassion for your suffering when in stately melancholy you close your comfortable Boston feast by allusion to the blood-stained trenches around Manila, where 'every red drop, whether from the veins of an American soldier or a misguided Filipino, is anguish to my heart.'

The effusive sophistries of the national executive, whether the result of aberration or dishonesty, have a public effect. They impose on many, for raw and brutal though they are, the people have allowed this executive to continue his course. It can only follow that the people are themselves either dull or devoid of conscience. Is a