do not think that is at all true, however says that there was less illiteracy there than in the United States. But I have no doubt that there was less illiteracy there than in many parts of the United States, and in all parts of the continent south of the United States at a very recent period. The state papers which these people have issued show a high degree of intelligence. Their communications to our generals, whether oral or written, while they show something undoubtedly of the attitude of weakness dealing with strength, are, on the whole, highly creditable to their sagacity.

ANOTHER POLICY PROPOSED

But we are told if we oppose the policy of our imperialistic and expanding friends we are bound to suggest some policy of our own as a substitute for theirs. We are asked what we would do in

this difficult emergency. It is a question not difficult to answer. I for one am ready to answer it.

I. I would declare now that we will not take these islands to govern them against their will.

2. I would reject a cession of sovereignty which implies that sovereignty may be bought and sold and delivered without the consent of the people. Spain had no rightful sovereignty over the Philippine Islands. She could not rightfully sell it to us. We could dot rightfully buy it from her.

3. I would require all foreign governments to keep out of these islands.

4. I would offer to the people of the Philippines our help in maintaining order until they have a reasonable opportunity to establish a government of their own.

5. I would aid them by advice, if they desire it, to set up a free and independent government.

6. I would invite all the great powers of Europe to unite in an agreement that that independence shall not be interfered with by us, by themselves, or by any one of them with the consent of the others. As to this I am not so sure. I should like quite as well to tell them it is not to be done whether they consent or not.

7. I would declare that the United States will enforce the same doctrine as applicable to the Philippines that we declared as to Mexico and Haiti and the South American Republics. It is true that the Monroe Doctrine, a doctrine based largely on our regard for our own interests, is not applicable either in terms or in principle to a distant Asiatic territory. But undoubtedly, having driven out Spain, we are bound, and have the right, to secure to the people we have liberated an opportunity, undisturbed and in peace, to establish a new government for themselves.

8. I would then, in a not distant future, leave them to work out their own salvation, as every nation on earth, from the beginning of time, has wrought out its own salvation. Let them work out their own salvation, as our own ancestors slowly and in long centuries wrought out theirs; as Germany, as Switzerland, as France, in briefer periods, wrought out theirs: as Mexico and the South American Republics have accomplished theirs, all of them within a century, some of them within the life of a generation. To attempt to confer the gift of freedom from without, or to impose freedom from without on any people, is to disregard all the lessons of history. It is to attempt

"A gift of that which is not to be given

By all the blended powers of earth and heaven."

9. I would strike out of your legislation the oath of allegiance to us and substitute an oath of allegiance to their own country.

If you once get involved and entangled in this policy of dominion and empire, you have not only to get the assent of three powers-House, Senate, and President-to escape from it, but to the particular plan and scheme and method of such escape.

My friends say they are willing to trust the people and the future. And so am I. I am willing to trust the people as our fathers trusted them. I am willing to trust the people as they have, so far, trusted themselves; a people regulated, governed, constrained by the moral law, by the Constitution and by the Declaration. It is the constitutional, not the unconstitutional, will of the American people in which I trust. It is Philip sober and not

Philip drunk to whom I am willing to commit the destiny of myself and my children. A people without a constitution is, as I just said, like a man without a conscience. It is the least trustworthy and the most dangerous force on the face of the earth. The utterances of those gentlemen, who, when they are reminded of moral and constitutional restraints, answer us that we are timid, and that they trust the people, are talking in the spirit of the French, not of the American revolution; they are talking in the spirit which destroys republics, and not in the spirit that builds them; they are talking in the spirit of the later days of Rome, of the later days of Athens, and not in the spirit of the early days of any republic that ever existed on this side of the ocean or on the other.'

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF AMERICA

I yield to no man in my

I love and trust the American people. confidence in the future of the Republic. To me the dearest blessings of life, dearer than property, dearer than home, dearer than kindred, are my pride in my country and my hope for the future of America. But the people that I trust is the people that established the Constitution and which abides by its restraints. The people that I trust is the people that made the great Declaration, and their children, who mean forever to abide by its principles, The country in whose future I have supreme and unbounded confidence is the Republic, not a despotism on the one hand, or an unchecked. and unlicensed democracy on the other. It is no mere democracy. It is the indissoluble union of indestructible states, I disavow and spurn the doctrine that has been more than once uttered by the advocates of this policy of imperialism on the floor of the Senate, that the sovereignty of the American people is inferior to any other because it is restrained and confined within constitutional boundaries. If that be true, the limited monarchy of England is inferior to the despotism of Russia; if that be true, a constitutional republic is inferior to an unconstitutional usurpation; if that be ture, a man restrained by the moral law, and obeying the dictates of a conscience, is inferior to the reckless, hardened, unrestrained criminal.

CHAPTER X.

Porto Rico

Its Close Relations to This Country-The Earliest of the New' Possessions to Receive Attention-Its Revenues and Expenses-Its New Government-Senator Foraker's Defence of the Policy of the Administration-The Policy Criticised by Senators Proctor and Hoar

L

ITTLE did Americans expect when in their enthusiasm to

help poor Cuba in its struggle to free itself from the oppres

sion of the Spanish rule that they would be called upon to care for that beautiful gem of the Antilles, Porto Rico. The resources and beautiful physical features of the island are described elsewhere. Not only devastated by the uncertainties of war and the march of armies, but also laid waste by the hurricanes which, in a manner heretofore almost unknown even in these tropical climes, had visited the island.

Porto Rico at the beginning of 1900 was in a deplorable condition. Under our Republican form of Government-with Congress to take time to learn the needs of the island and requirements of the situation, time has been lost in rendering to the island the assistance it needed. In his annual message to Congress in December, the President-knowing full well' the desires of the people of the island and the trend of public sentiment here, reviewed the situation and spoke as follows:

"Since the session Porto Rico has been denied the principal markets she had long enjoyed, and our tariffs have been continued against her products as when she was under Spanish sovereignty. The markets of Spain are closed to her products except upon terms to which the commerce of all nations is subjected. The island of Cuba, which used to buy her cattle and tobacco without customs duties, now imposes the same duties upon these products as from any other country entering her ports. 169

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She has, therefore, lost her free intercourse with Spain and Cuba, without any compensating benefits in this market. Her coffee was little known and not in use by our people, and, therefore, there was no demand here for this, one of her chief products. The markets of the United States should be opened up to her products. Our plain duty is to abolish all customs tariffs between the United States and Porto Rico, and give her products free access to our markets."

Again on March 2, 1900, he sends a special message to Congress, as follows:

"Since the evacuation of Porto Rico by the Spanish forces on the 18th day of October, 1898, the Uuited States has collected on products coming from that island to the ports of the United States the duties fixed by the Dingley act, and amounting to $2,095,455.88, and will continue to collect under said law until Congress shall otherwise direct. Although I had the power, and, having in mind the best interests of the people of the island, used it, to modify duties on goods and products entering into Porto Rico, I did not have the power to remit or modify duties on Porto Rican products coming into the ports of the United States. In view of the pressing necessity for immediate revenue in Porto Rico for conducting the government there and for the extension of public education, and in view also of the provisional legislation just inaugurated by the House of Representatives and for the purpose of making the principle embodied in that legislation applicable to the immediate past as well as to the immediate future, I recommend that the above sum, so collected and the sums hereafter collected under existing law, shall, without waiting for the enactment of the general legislation now pending, be appropriated for the use and benefit of the island."

In response to this message message Congress at once passed a measure, authorizing the treasurer of the United States to refund to the account of Porto Rico all revenues collected from the island amounting to $2,000,000.

GOVERNMENT OF THE ISLAND

Subsequently and after sharp debate the bill was passed and signed by the President, providing for the government of the island.

It declares that the inhabitants of the island, except such as shall elect before a given date to remain subjects of Spain, are citizens of Porto Rico, and as such entitled to the protection of the United States; provides that all laws and ordinances now in force shall continue so, except as changed by this act or by military