"I am in favor of holding the Philippines because I cannot conceive of any alternative to our doing so, except the seizure of territory in China; and I prefer to hold them rather than to oppress further the helpless Government and people of China. I want China to preserve her autonomy, to become great and prosperous; and I want these results not for the interests of China, but for our interests. I am not the agent or attorney of China; and, as an American, I do not look to the promotion of China's interests, or Spain's, or any other country's-but simply of our own.

"The whole world sees in China a splendid market for our native products,—our timber, our locomotives, our rails, our coal oil, our sheetings, our mining-plants and numberless other articles."

"Dewey's victory is an epoch in the affairs of the Far East. We hold our heads higher. We are coming to our own. We are stretching out our hands for what nature meant should be ours. We are taking our proper rank among the nations of the world. We are after markets, the greatest markets now existing in the world. Along with these markets will go our beneficent institutions; and humanity will bless us.”

This is an exquisite example of the British cant and bathos which is exhibiting itself serenely in the new Imperial America. Wherever the basest of international principles of pilfering and freebooting are applied to gain markets, "along with these markets will go our beneficent institutions." The halo of our blessed institutions will pervade and rectify rapacity and wrong! But it will not. We shall not build beneficent institutions on ruffianism and rapacity. 'We are after markets, the greatest markets in the world,' we do not care what we do to get them; we will cheerfully rob and kill, we will wrench. their fatherland from the weak and call it ours, we admit it in cold blood, but like the praying professional murderer, we piously declare that God and humanity will bless us in it. How did our war of humanity to rescue

Cuba establish the irrelevant and unheard-of conclusion that unless we take the Philippines there is 'no alternative except the seizure of territory in China?' There is no bridge between these two irreconcilable opposites excepting the beneficent institutions of American rapacity. The Philippines have done us no wrong, China has done us no wrong, but because Spain wronged Cuba and we had compassion, we do no wrong in wronging either the Philippines or China. This is the Imperialists' creed.

Now we do not expect to reach such men as Mr. Denby or Mr. Denby's type-the president, the advisers of the president, the whole tribe of commercial, political and newspaper Imperialists, who are hounding the nation to crime. "Commerce, not politics, is king. The manufacturer and the merchant dictate to diplomacy, and control elections." We realize this. But we turn away from these classes to the people. We think that when they realize the brazen fraud being practised on them, they will decide to control elections, not only to put an end to the dishonest and ruffianly policy of Imperialism, but to put an end to the supremacy of commerce over

man.

But Mr. Denby has not even yet conveyed to us all the light he has in him. In a more recent article* he presents Imperialistic principles in their engaging nakedness without the usual shreds of moral clothing.

"If," he says, "the argument made herein has any force, the legal and constitutional difficulties which were quoted against expansion have disappeared, and the cold, hard, practical question alone remains. Will the possession of these islands benefit us as a nation? If it will not, set them free tomorrow, and let their people, if they please, cut each other's throats, or play what pranks they please. To this complexion we must come at last, that, unless it is beneficial for us to hold these islands, we should turn them loose."

We ask this question: Why, this being the mind and

*The Forum, February, 1899.

It is true we are

purpose of our imperialist politicians and commercialists, are they allowed to grimace and pose before the nation as philanthropists and moralists? Why do we not enforce upon them silence about the good they intend to do the conquered savages, when it is an acknowledged lie? Let the Filipinos cut each other's throats unless the appropriation of their country will help our trade. Damn the good we might do them. We are not in this expansion business for their good.' not, but we command you to stop telling us that we are. We propose to hold this argument on your basis, that of hard, brutal selfishness, and to decide whether it is best for us to put ourselves and the peoples absorbed into your selfish hands by adopting your Imperialist policy. And is it too solemn a question to press upon the moral expansionists, whether they think in their own unselfish minds that they will be able to overcome and rule these selfish commercial Imperialists and keep them in the paths of righteousness after the deed is done? If they are so moonstruck let them study the forces that now rule this country, and compare them with the paths of righteous

ness.

Mr. Denby, who is willing the Filipinos shall cut each other's throats if preventing them will not fill our pockets, has one more word which makes an easy transition from Imperialist theory to Imperialist practice. He writes as an inspired commercial prophet and a poet :

"In other lands and other wars the condition of the conquered people has been hard and deplorable. In our case we march bearing gifts, the choicest gifts-liberty and hope and happiness. We carry with us all that gives to the flower of life its perfume. The dusky East rises at our coming; and the Filipino springs to his feet and becomes a free man. This is not poetry, but reality wrought out by a people to whom freedom is the breath of life, and who would scorn to enslave a country or a race."

.

2. McKinley's Proclamation of War.

When our Congress passed the resolutions which involved us in war with Spain it pledged the following:

Fourth That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island [Cuba], except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.

In his message to Congress of December, 1897, McKinley recorded and pledged himself in now famous and memorable language. Said he:

"I speak not of forcible annexation, because that is not to be thought of, and under our code of morality that would be criminal aggression."

But one year later, on December 21, 1898, this man en his own initiative, without the authority of Congress or the people, more than a month before the Treaty of Peace was ratified by the Senate, and when there was no certainty that it would be ratified, issued the following astounding proclamation to the Filipinos:

"With the signature of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries, at Paris, on the 10th inst., and as the result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition, and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States. In fulfillment of the rights of sovereignty thus acquired and the responsible obligations of government thus assumed, the actual occupation and administration of the entire group of the Philippine Islands becomes immediately neccessary, and the military government heretofore maintained by the United States in the city, harbor and bay of Manila is to be extended with all possible despatch to the whole of the ceded territory.

"In performing this duty the military commander of the United States is enjoined to make known to the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, that in succeeding to the sovereignty of Spain, in severing the former political relations of the inhabitants and in establishing a new political power, the authority of the United States is to be exerted for the security of the persons and property of the people of the islands, and for the confirmation of all their private rights and relations. It will be the duty of the commander of the forces of occupation to announce and proclaim in the most public manner that we come, not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends, to protect the natives in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights.

"All persons who, either by active aid or by honest submission, co-operate with the government of the United States to give effect to these beneficent purposes, will receive the reward of its support and protection. All others will be brought within the lawful rule we have

assumed, with firmness if need be, but without severity so far as may be possible.

"Within the absolute domain of military authority, which necessarily is and must remain supreme in the ceded territory until the legislation of the United States shall otherwise provide, etc."

This proclamation drove the Filipinos into war against the United States. There was nothing left for them to do unless they consented to national enslavement. It was not only natural but right that they should go to war against us. Our Chief Man had notified them by arbitrary decree that if they did not submit to the usurped authority of the United States "the absolute domain of military authority," he called it-they would be forced into submission by shell and grapeshot. "Honest

submission," or death: they had their choice. "Honest submission," or "forcible annexation.” All who did not honestly submit to the proclamation of the tyrant were to be "brought within the lawful rule we have assumed, with firmness if need be." On the 5th of February that firmness began to be applied and 4000 heroic Filipinos who could not honestly submit to the self-made despot were killed. The man who killed them was William McKinley. The death of each one of them was groundless manslaughter, McKinley was their murderer. He was their self-condemned murderer, convicted by his own words of one year before. "I speak not of forcible annexation, because that is not to be thought of, and under our code of morality that would be criminal aggression."

Under the light of this solemn promise and its bloody repudiation McKinley reveals himself to be the crowning fraud and hypocrite of the age, who has no right to respect from any honest man in the United States. He originally declared a true American principle, that we cannot take any form of authority over a people that is cpposed to that authority without criminal aggression and breaking our code of morality; this code holds of Cuba, of the Philippines, and of every foot of ground not our own under the sun that our cupidity might be disposed to seize. The breaking of this code, con