best in the world-a reason, too, most honorable to them as well as to the American people. They knew that, when beginning the war against Spain, we had loudly disclaimed all idea of conquest and had declared the Cubans of right entitled to their independence. They knew that in all things which in our eyes gave the Cubans their right and title to independence, the people of the Philippines held the same, if not a superior, title. They would have considered it an insult to the great and magnanimous American Republic to entertain on their part even the slightest suspicion that our professions of unselfish purpose were a mere humbug, and that while liberating one people we were capable of scheming the subjugation of another because we coveted their land. In one word, as ever so many of their proclamations showed, they expected their independence because they believed the American people to be an honest people, and the American Government to be an honest government. And in this belief they acted as our allies against the common enemy. We permitted them to entertain that belief while so acting. It is true, in Washington the scheme was meanwhile hatched to rob them of their fairly earned independWas the Administration at least honest enough then to inform them that their expectation of independence might be disappointed? It was not. Indeed, the Administration did secretly instruct our consuls and commanders not to make any promises to the Filipinos that might embarrass the execution of the treacherous scheme. But the Filipinos themselves were left in their happy confidence so long as their service as our allies was of any value to us. I say, therefore, although there was no written engagement promising them their independence, our solemn proclamation at the beginning of the war that this would be a war of liberation, and not of conquest, and our permitting them to expect their independence accord

ence.

ingly while we accepted their aid as our allies, constituted a promise so complete and morally so binding that it is difficult to understand how any honest man can so forget himself as to question it.

And thus when the Spaniards were thoroughly defeated everywhere, and Manila was taken, and our Filipino allies were of no further practical use to us, the Administration instructed our Peace Commissioners in Paris to obtain from Spain the cession of her sovereignty over the Philippines, not to the people of those islands, but to the United States. Now I shall show, I trust, to the satisfaction of every candid mind, that this proceeding involved on our part the grossest betrayal of our own professed principles, and one of the most glaring self-stultifications ever committed by any Government. When we made war upon Spain for the liberation of Cuba, we could not, and did not, deny that Spain, historically, possessed the sovereignty of Cuba. But we maintained that Spain by her tyrannical and oppressive misgovernment had morally forfeited that sovereignty; that she had ceased to possess it as a matter of right, and that, although the Spanish forces were still in actual occupation of the principal cities and harbors, and of a very large portion of the interior of the island, the people of Cuba, having risen up against Spanish misrule, had won the right of sovereignty for themselves. We therefore solemnly declared in that famous resolution of Congress, not merely that Spain must be driven out of Cuba, but that the people of Cuba "of right ought to be and are free and independent”—that is, that the sovereignty of Spain over Cuba was no longer valid, but of right ought to be possessed, and actually was possessed, by the Cuban people themselves.

How does this bear upon the case of the Philippines? It is a fact, not questioned by anybody, that Spanish sovereignty was historically no better founded in the

Philippines than in Cuba; that Spanish misrule was fully as grievous in the Philippines as in Cuba; that the people of the Philippines had risen against the misrule as the Cubans had; that the case of the Philippines was, therefore, identical with that of Cuba-with this difference, that the Filipinos had achieved much greater military successes, and organized a far better and stronger native government than the Cubans ever had; so that, in the Philippines, the Spaniards had not only, as they had in Cuba, forfeited the moral title to sovereignty, but had actually lost also the exercise and possession of it. The right of the Filipinos to sovereignty over their country was, therefore, according to our own professed principles, even stronger than that of the Cubans.

The Spanish title to sovereignty over the Philippines was thus utterly discredited by ourselves. By word and act we had, in the parallel case of Cuba, maintained that the Spanish title had rightfully passed to the people of the country. And yet that Spanish title so utterly discredited by ourselves we then recognized again as valid, in order to enable Spain to sell our Filipino allies to us. And we bought that title, although we knew full well that Spain had actually lost it all, and could not deliver anything of it; but we bought the sham, in order to steal the substance from the Philippine Islanders, to whom, by our own doctrine, it rightfully belonged. This is the farcical and contemptible predicament in which the action of the Administration has placed the great American Republic.

I am well aware that astute lawyers may find some quirk or quibble to persuade people who wish to be so persuaded that under the law of nations Spain had still a technical title to a sovereignty which she had morally forfeited and practically lost and could not deliver, and that this she could sell, and we could buy. But will such a technicality satisfy our consciences and protect our honor? Most of

us have learned by experience to distinguish between the class of men who in their dealings with their neighbors are governed by an innate moral sense of right and who will never condescend to take an unfair advantage even when the law permits them to do so with impunity-and another class consisting of persons claiming to be respectable, but to whom the question of moral right is of no concern, and who do not scruple at any moral wrong for their own benefit, taking care only not to run foul of the penal code. The first class we call "gentlemen," and we respect and trust them. The second class we do not—at least, we ought not to call gentlemen, for we feel like carefully guarding our pockets when we meet them. Let there be no illusion about this. He who uses the technicalities of the law to take a wrongful advantage of his neighbor may keep clear of the penitentiary, but he is not an honest man.

And now I soberly ask you, does not the purchase of that Spanish sovereignty put the American people plainly into that category? How pitiably the Administration itself has been at sea as to the origin of our title to sovereignty! On December 21, 1898, in his famous "benevolent assimilation" order, which, in fact, was his declaration of war against the Filipinos, President McKinley said:

The destruction of the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila by the United States naval squadron, followed by the reduction of the city and the surrender of the Spanish forces, practically effected the conquest of the Philippine Islands and the suspension of Spanish sovereignty therein. With the signature of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain on the 10th instant, 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 fulfilment of the right of sovereignty thus acquired,

he ordered immediate military occupation.

That this was not a truthful statement of the casethat is, that we had then acquired no rights by the treaty, which at that time, not yet having been ratified, was of no force; and that we had not acquired the Philippines by conquest, for which we are still fighting-everybody will admit. Why, even the President himself admitted it, for several months later he said in a speech at Pittsburgh:

Until the treaty of peace was ratified [which it was only seven weeks after the issue of the order before quoted], we had no authority beyond Manila city, bay and harbor. Spain was in full possession of the remainder of the archipelago.

This was correct as to the extent of our authority, but it was again strikingly erroneous as to the status of Spain; for, as everybody knows, Spain was not only not "in full possession of the remainder of the archipelago," but she was not in possession of any part of it. The so-called remainder of the archipelago was possessed, if by anybody, by the people thereof a notorious fact of which the President of this Republic was strangely unmindful.

At last Mr. Day, late Secretary of State, and chairman of the commission that made the peace treaty, comes to the rescue, and declares in a public letter that we have acquired the Philippines not by conquest-for, says he, "the United States has never undertaken, so far as I know, to wrest from a foreign country lands or possessions simply by right of conquest"-but by purchase, paying $20,000,000 for them. But he does not say in his letter what everybody knows, that we bought something from Spain which Spain no longer owned, and did not and could not deliver, as we are painfully aware, inasmuch as we have ever since been engaged in killing our late Filipino allies, who defend the rightful title belonging to the people. And finally comes the President, who coolly