The victim of this

onet through the old man's chest. needless brutality begged in vain for mercy, and clutched the soldier's bayonet, reddening his hands with his own blood in a futile attempt to prevent a second thrust. No effort was made by any comrade or officer to prevent this gratuitous bit of butchery, nor, of course, could any officer have interfered very well, if the soldier as was said to be the case—was only acting in accordance with the wishes of the general in command."

The general in command was the Sirdar, that Lord Kitchener who has been making the noble appeals to the British purse to found a college near the site of these slaughters, for the advancement of humanity. Let us follow Mr. Bennett's description of British humanity a little farther.

"No attempt was made, either on the day of the battle or next day, to do anything for the wounded Dervishes.

To lie for two days without water in the heat of a Soudan August is bad enough, but when the natural thirst is augmented by the fever which invariably accompanies gunshot wounds the torture must be terrible. . . . Hundreds of wounded Dervishes who had failed to escape from the field were left to perish miserably within easy reach of our succor had it been forthcoming."

The story of unspeakable British barbarism continues: "There was another feature in our capture of Omdurman which was truly deplorable. By the time we had repulsed the last Dervish attack and were rapidly advancing upon Omdurman, the streets leading to the southern exits of the town were crowded with fugitives. In addition to mounted Baggaras and Dervish infantry, a chaotic mass of non-combatants, men, women and children, dragging after them camels, horses, and donkeys, laden with goods and chattels-all this confused stream of human beings and animals was pressing madly forward in panic-stricken flight. Orders were given to fire upon the fugitives, and, as the artillerymen on the gunboats from their raised positions could see well over the

walls, a deadly fire was opened upon the crowded thoroughfares. One street especially, which led down to the river, was swept by a frightful hail of Maxim bullets, which mowed the fugitives down in scores. . . . Next day some five hundred dead bodies lay scattered about the streets of Omdurman, and among them were corpses of women and little children. ... Two women were bending sorrowfully over the dead body of a Dervish, when a non-commissioned officer went up and deliberately shot one of the women with a revolver."

The attention of those who erroneously think that the Anglo-Saxon is an humane and civilizing race is respectfully called to Mr. Bennett's conclusions:

"I have written the above paragraphs with the utmost reluctance, but it is certainly high time that the conscience of civilized nations realized that some considerations are due even to a semi-civilized or barbarous enemy. The conduct of the Belgians in the Congo Free State, the French in Algeria, the Germans in the Camaroons, the Russians in Central Asia, ourselves in South Africa and the Soudan-the conduct of the various nations who are sharing in the partition of Africa and Asia, seems to be based on the assumption that the rights of the native in a state of war are practically nil....

"Christian England goes almost wild with indignation if Moslems commit atrocities. . . . . But Protestant sympathies seem almost incapable of extension beyond the limits of Christendom. No public sympathy is bestowed upon the wretched natives who, when they incur inevitable defeat at the hands of the civilized invader, are either butchered as they lie wounded on the field or are left to die without an effort to save them."

In the London Morning Post of September 29 Lieutenant Winston Churchill wrote.*

"We had not gone far when individual Dervishes began to walk toward the advancing squadrons, throwing down their weapons, holding up their hands, and implor

*Quoted by Mr. Bennett

ing mercy. The laws of war do not admit the right of a beaten enemy to quarter. The victor is not obliged to accept his surrender. Of his charity he may do so, but there is no obligation, provided, of course, that he makes it clear to the suppliant that he must continue to fight."

The presumption is that these suppliants for mercy were murdered by the world-civilizing and humane English.

If the general assumption of the civilized Powers of Europe, including England, is that 'the rights of the native in a state of war are practically nil,' what will be their opinion of these rights when the natives are not in a state of war? This question searches civilization through and through. The answer to it is that the treatment of the natives in peace will be as far below the standard of treatment of equal whites, as the treatment of the natives in a state of war is below the treatment of the whites in a state of war.

The just conclusion from this review of English purposes, achievement, and methods, is that we should not be helping the world by going to the aid of English Imperialism. The vaunted battle for civilization that she has been fighting has been for herself. By going to her rescue in the name of Anglo-Saxonism we should be helping to enthrone English methods of selfishness over mankind. Let England change before she asks this. Let us refuse to aid her until she does change. Let us act on the truth that the Anglo-Saxonism represented by British. Imperialism is not a good, that it is coarse, grasping, domineering and cruel, and if she will walk in that path let her walk alone. Let us save our branch of the race for better things, and restrain ourselves from being used as a tool of her folly. Let us denounce her too flimsy hypocrisy and do what we can, in conjunction with her real statesmen and her nobler citizens, to win her to a more honest and honorable national life.

CHAPTER III.

Our Crime in the Philippine Islands.

1. The New Policy of Corruption.

We now propose to show that the new American Imperialism is a strict reproduction of the British Imperialism that has been described. If that is lovely and desirable, so is its American imitation. But let us permit American Imperialists to speak for themselves and to disclose their own character as we have allowed the English to do. This will show whether the Anglo-Saxonism that would be carried to the Philippines and elsewhere is worth carrying, or should be watchfully kept at home and extinguished.

Charles Denby, our one time minister to China and now a member of McKinley's commission to study the Philippines, has published a brief paper in answer to the question "Shall We Keep the Philippines?"* Being a man of prominence and authority among the expansionists we give his words their due weight. They express the change in American morality toward the world which expansionists are inculcating and practising. This man is the type of those who surround and influence the president. He defines a hard and selfish national policy towards the weak. Every important thing that has happened, everything that is happening, goes to establish this proposition:

That hard and selfish men, and hard and selfish policies, will control our imperialist relations; that the kind and well-meaning will be overruled. There is no intention of mildness, humanity and justice, in the forces that are now gaining ascendency in American life.

*The Forum, November, 1898.

Here is Mr. Denby, the type of the hard and selfish imperialist politician of the new school, openly impressing upon the country this crass and vulgar European doctrine. Thus Mr. Denby :

...

We have become a great people. We have a great commerce to take care of. We have to compete with the commercial nations of the world in far-distant markets. Commerce, not politics is king. The manufacturer and the merchant dictate to diplomacy, and control elections. The art of arts is the extension of commercial relations,-in plain language, the selling of native products and manufactured goods.

"I learned what I know of diplomacy in a severe school. I found among my colleagues not the least hesitation in proposing to their respective Governments to do anything which was supposed to be conducive to their interests. There can be no other rule for the government of all persons who are charged with the conduct of affairs than the promotion of the welfare of their respective countries."

This then is what expansion and that noble 'world diplomacy' with which our ears are being daily tickled, bring us to! Here is Mr. Denby, corrupt and confessedly corrupted by this high diplomacy which is to make us a sainted and respected nation before mankind, glorying in the corruption and trying to corrupt his countryIf there was ever needed proof that we should keep ourselves unspotted from the filth and foulness of those European and Asiatic complications that territory stealing will assuredly bring, here is that proof. For contact with European codes inflicts those codes upon us. Denby continues his exposure of Imperialism, and applies its Christlike morality to the Philippines:

men.

"We have the right as conquerors to hold the Philippines. We have the right to hold them as part payment of a war indemnity. This policy may be characterized as unjust to Spain; but is the result of the fortunes of war. All nations recognize that the conqueror may dictate the terms of peace."