people that follows such lead, accepts as guileless truth a shower of feathery fairy tales, takes a man seriously who says twice two are five, because he has political authority, is such a people any better in mind or character than its deceiver? The American people have changed since the ring of Expansion was put in their nose. The presence of this ring is public advertisement that the AngloSaxon race has already lost independence. To a people of independence and nerve a president could not have poured out a speech of bilge-water. The most hopeless sign for America is that that speech was not repudiated instantly by the whole continent.

9. The Honorable Solution of the Problem.

What ought we to have done, and what ought we to do? We ought to have signified unequivocally to the Filipinos that we had no intention of becoming their sovereigns in any form. As soon as Spain surrendered we should have made this irrevocable disclaimer. It cannot be said that this would have been impossible or impolitic, for the American Peace Commissioners had instructions from the Administration to require the cession of the island of Luzon. "The instructions of the President when we started out were to take Luzon," admitted Mr. Frye, one of the peace commissioners, when cross-examined in the Senate by Mr. Vest. This developed into a demand for the whole Philippine group. Then was the time to have pledged ourselves to make the entire archipelago free. Congress ought to have taken this stand and compelled the shilly-shallying president to make it. Congress ought to have pledged itself and the country before the departure of the peace commission that all territory obtained from Spain by cession should be made free and independent.

It was also politic. We have labored from the first under the suspicion that the disinterestedness of our demands from Spain did not ring true. We could have removed the suspicion by Congressional declaration that

we should hold none of the territory as ours, and much friction would have been saved. We were prevented from this honorable course by the conspiracy of the president to keep everything he could get, and by the pitiful servility of Congress to the president's orders. The president listened to corporate commands, transmitted them to congress, and congress obeyed.

If congress had pledged that all acquired territory should be free, our dastardly war to enslave the Philippines would have been averted. McKinley, being properly muzzled by congressional act, could not have issued his aggrandizing proclamation of peaceable sovereignty or forcible conquest. Our course would have been plain from the beginning: we should have aided the Cubans, Porto Ricans, and Filipinos to set up independent governments of their own, and should have been spared the fatal complications which the aggression of the president has loaded upon us. The questions of Imperialism, Expansion and Militarism would not have been raised at all.

What should our relation to the independent nations have been after we had established them? If we could have trusted ourselves not to be seized with the grabbing epilepsy, a simple guardianship to extend no farther than keeping other Powers off and assisting the native governments to police themselves as they learned self-governing forms, would have answered. This was one course. was ruled out because we very early showed that we could not trust ourselves in the presence of property without itching to steal it, and that whatever we assumed to protect in the mask of philanthropy would soon be transformed into our private property by circumvention or force.

It

But another, far wiser, course was open-one which preserved us from the evils of Imperialism and secured to those concerned a higher good than our single guardianship. We should have formed, and should now form,

with Great Britain, Switzerland, and perhaps Germany, a Joint Protectorate over the Philippines, upon a plan binding all to the two simple principles of protecting the islands from predatory powers, and assisting the free government constituted by the inhabitants to preserve internal order.

I name Switzerland because she represents advanced ideas of freedom, justice and democracy. Having no temptation to avaricious aggrandizement she would bring into the counsels of the protectorate elevated principles and impartial judgments.

There are decisive advantages in this method. A single nation might veer over to selfishness-it nearly always does-but several nations will act as checks on one another and adhere to the purpose of advancing the interests of their charge.

No private motives could be suspected and the joint protectorate would enjoy the full confidence of the natives; its suggestions would be honored and the progress of the people be as rapid as it is in them to make.

If there is any foundation for the belief of some that a reign of anarchy would follow if the natives were left alone, the misfortune would be prevented by the combined powers. If the Filipinos knew that internal wars would not be allowed they would have little inclination to attempt them, and would learn to govern themselves without the sword. The single nation makes the internal disturbances of a dependency the signal for taking more authority to itself, where a real protector would stand in the firm and friendly relation of arbitrator, striving to make the combatants feel the consequences of their folly, without robbing the nation of liberty.

The system would be an experiment before the world in the best methods of advancing backward races. All the trials made by single nations are of small importance because the commercial interests of the governing people shoulder every other aim out. But the results obtained

by an honest experiment would be so convincing that their adoption in all colonies would follow.

The United States would be saved from Imperialism. No increase either of army or navy would be required, the forces of the combined powers being equal to any emergency. But the existence of the combination would prevent an emergency from arising.

We should indicate to the world our continued and strengthened adherence to the principles of peace, our disgust at the orgies of selfishness of European Powers in their colonial affairs, which threaten to set the whole world in a blaze of war.

We should clear our skirts of deception. Duty is being made to carry the burden of rascally selfishness, and the way out of the dilemma for the nation is a plan extricatiny duty from selfishness. Accepting as true that the people mainly want to follow duty and that the commercial promoters are, by sharp practice, making them think that duty cannot be performed without expansion and imperialism, the one necessary thing is to drive these tricksters out of their cover and unmask them. A policy that needs in full all the philanthropic demands that they can urge, and yet without imperialism, one that does all the good that can be done for the Filipinos and yet without expansion, leaves their deceptive selfishness without a veil and joint protection is such a policy. Having this to advocate we know that any who oppose it, still demanding annexation or sole American guardianship, have a private axe to grind. We then have to face the proposition of commercial greed, without religion or morality to hide its sins, and the great mass of upright Americans will give it the doom it deserves.

It will cease then to be incumbent upon any one, in reality or imagination, to support a measure that contains the seeds of national destruction. From no side could suspicion of dishonor or failure to realize the highest conception of duty be brought against the United States, and

the principles and institutions of this country would remain firmly anchored to the rock of freedom.

What now remains of the favorite defenses of the wrong we have been doing? Absolutely nothing. It is said by those who have put us into the hole that we had no honorable way but to go into the hole, by taking the Philippines. They summon as the proof that every other course was 'not to be thought of,' and they enumerate the following possible courses: To turn the islands back to Spain; To give them to some other power or powers; or, To leave them to themselves, a prey to domestic anarchy and seizure by the predatory nations of Europe. Since we had to keep them, they say, we had to conquer them, and that made conquering them honorable. But since there was another honorable course we did not have to keep them, and therefore we did not have to conquer them, and the proof that it was honorable to conquer them is destroyed.

But the disingenuousness of our imperialist government will not bear scrutiny, even supposing that a joint protectorate had been impossible; for a formal protectorate by us which gave the islands independent government and freedom, warning other powers off and lending our aid to keep the internal peace and help the internal development of a nation recognized by us as free, would have borne no resemblance to the protectorate of possession which presidential majesty with the whipped consent of congress is going on to establish. This kind of protection is carefully ignored by imperialists, as if it were unimaginable. Their studied silence exposes the indecency of our position. They want a protectorate that contains sovereignty, and to extenuate the usurpation. and shame of it they call it a state of quasi sovereignty.

It is an awkward position to be in, that of slaying men to make them love us. What ought a great nation to do in such circumstances? Go on slaying to prove that we cannot be made to back down even when we are wrong?