j are earnestly asked to hand this after reading to some other 
 person who will also give it careful consideration 
 
 HE ENSLAVEMENT OF-A.M£R(eM ; 
 
 LABOR U r i; 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED IN FANEUIL HALL, JANUARY 22, 1902 
 
 ftlf HON. GEORGE S.BOUTWELL 
 
 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 
 
 BOSTON CENTRAL LABOR UNION 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE NEW ENGLAND ANTI-IMPERIALIST LEAGUE 
 44 KILBY STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 1902 
 
 10 
 
! 
 
 ! 
 
 The : tli@ # eti$g in Faneuil Hall, January 22d, was the 
 r5«ult\of # tlW follgwing correspondence : 
 
 “ Boston, Jan. 8, 1902. 
 
 \\ ‘Vk>fiAiS txpvryiNOR Bout well : The course of events 
 ’•since th^SjivkTgh-American war has raised problems which 
 .j)tcftoupjcffy. affect the interests of industrial and agricultu- 
 r&Vlaftor. The extension of the sovereignty of the United 
 States over remote and alien peoples has a very practical 
 bearing upon the well-being of American citizens, and 
 threatens to imperil the means of livelihood of the great 
 army of workers, while it involves a departure from the 
 principles of the Declaration of Independence and the ab¬ 
 negation of the political principle that governments derive 
 their just powers from the consent of the governed. 
 
 “The importance of the questions at stake transcend 
 party limits. The Democratic party has recorded its 
 opposition to the colonial polic} T , but it has also been stren¬ 
 uously resisted by many distinguished Republicans, like 
 the late ex-President Harrison, ex-Secretary Sherman, 
 Judge Edmunds, Senator Hoar, ex-Speaker Reed, and 
 Representative McCall. 
 
 “ None have been more courageous and persistent in 
 this opposition than yourself. Words of counsel from 
 one who may be justly called the first citizen of the Com¬ 
 monwealth, and whose services as governor, United States 
 senator, and secretary of the treasury, are held in hon¬ 
 ored remembrance, would be gratefully received by all 
 men, and especially by the labor world, in the present 
 crisis, and the Boston Central Labor Union respectfully 
 invites you to deliver an address upon its issues in Fan¬ 
 euil Hall at your earliest convenience. 
 
 “ Trusting for the favor of an early reply, I am respect¬ 
 fully yours, 
 
 “ GEORGE G. CUTTING, 
 u Chairman Educational Committee , 
 
 “ Boston Central Labor Union” 
 
 “Boston, Jan. 11, 1892. 
 
 “ George G. Cutting, Esq. : 
 
 “ My Dear Sir: In acknowledging the receipt of your 
 cordial letter of the 8th inst., I am able to say that it will 
 be agreeable and convenient to me to address the Boston 
 
V* 
 
 & 
 
 *r> 
 
 THE ENSLAVEMENT OF AMERICAN LABOR. 
 
 In the closing days of the month of Augtfst au an^rfge- 
 •>ment was made by the officers of the New England* 
 Anti-Imperialist League, in connection->ihe, labor 
 organizations of the city of Boston, for a mbetffig tO'be’ 
 held in Faneuil Hall the evening of the sixteenth day of 
 September, for the purpose of considering the interests of 
 the laboring and producing classes of the country, as they 
 may be affected by the acquisition of Hawaii, Porto Rico, 
 and the Philippine Islands, and with the prospect also that 
 the industrial and commercial relations of the Island of 
 Cuba might be controlled by the United States. 
 
 The criminal tragedy of the sixth of September led to 
 the postponement of that meeting without reference to 
 time. The meeting now held is for the purpose of con¬ 
 sidering the relations of the United States in an industrial 
 point of view to the islands mentioned. The tragical 
 death of President McKinley by the hand of an assassin 
 has divested the occasion and the discussion of all person¬ 
 ality. It is a great blot upon American character, if it be 
 not the most serious chapter in the history of this conti¬ 
 nent, that in the brief period of less than forty years three 
 Presidents of the United States have fallen by the hands 
 of assassins. It is not probable that a parallel can be 
 found either in the history of Rome, or of Russia, or of 
 any other country of the historical period. President 
 McKinley has now become an historical personage and he 
 takes his place for the purposes of discussion and of 
 history with the other Presidents of the United States, and 
 his administration and career are henceforth to be treated 
 without acrimony, without personality, and with reference 
 solely to the merits or demerits of the administration of 
 which he was the head and of the policy for which he has 
 become responsible. Of the three great crimes referred 
 to, the assassination of President McKinley, in a public 
 point of view and with reference to the future of mankind, 
 is the most serious and the most to be lamented. The 
 assassination of President Lincoln and the assassination 
 of President Garfield were due to local divisions and con¬ 
 troversies and to circumstances that were free from any 
 previous history and aside from any public policy that 
 might tend to other assassinations in the future. In these 
 
 r 
 
 Z-G 13 "5 
 
6 
 
 particulars they differ from the assassination of President 
 McKinleys 
 
 It is* $aid of his assassin that he traced his ancestry to ^ 
 
 /Poland, and that the assassination was due to the spirit of (** 
 
 what known,as, anarchy. If such are the facts, we may 
 .find' a, cau^e fdr his crime in the history of Poland. In 
 '•the kdtly part of ;, the last third of the eighteenth century, 
 
 Russia, Austfia; and Prussia combined for the subjugation 
 'of *fV>Iaild, and before the end of the century they had 
 succeeded in appropriating the territory of that kingdom 
 to their several jurisdictions. As the apparent result of 
 that usurpation of power over a weaker people, large 
 numbers of Poles became exiles to other continents or 
 scattered over Europe, they became the promoters of 
 revolution and the disseminators of the idea that all gov¬ 
 ernments are usurpations and tyrannies, and that they 
 ought not longer to exist. How far the assassination of 
 President McKinley may be due to the revolutionary and 
 anarchical spirit accepted by the Poles as the consequence 
 of the outrage perpetrated upon their country, cannot be 
 said. When we consider the ancestry of the assassin and 
 the circumstances that he could have had no reason for 
 the commission of the crime in his association with the 
 politics of the United States or any reason in the policy, per¬ 
 sonal character, or public conduct of President McKinley, 
 we may infer that his crime was due to the passion for 
 revenge engendered in the Polish heart and mind and 
 transmitted through four generations. The spirit of an¬ 
 archy, born of the injustice measured out to Poland, is a 
 passion and not a public policy which looks to improve¬ 
 ment in social and public life. If we may not trace the 
 assassination of President McKinley to the dismember¬ 
 ment of Poland, the recognized evils and crimes that have 
 come from that act of injustice are a warning to England 
 and America in presence of the wars in South Africa and 
 in the Philippine Islands. 
 
 The crime of President McKinley’s assassin is to be 
 considered as an assault upon the right of governments 
 to exist. The head of a government is, in the nature of 
 things, the enemy of that doctrine. President McKinley 
 was the duly constituted head of the government of the 
 United States, deriving his authority through well ascer¬ 
 tained and recognized processes and, standing in that 
 relation, he was the representative of the idea for which 
 the Anti-Imperialists are contending: I The right of all 
 people in communities to institute for themselves such 
 
7 
 
 forms of government as they think best adapted for the 
 accomplishment of the ends they may have in view.| It 
 was therefore an assault upon the right of the people to 
 govern themselves, and in that view of the case there 
 can be none more disposed than are the men known as 
 Anti-Imperialists to condemn the crime as a crime against 
 the person of the Chief Magistrate of a free country, and 
 a crime in its assault upon the right of the people to 
 govern themselves in their own way and through such 
 rulers as they may choose to place in power. 
 
 * Turning from the public aspect of the assassination of 
 
 President McKinley, there can be no hesitation in the 
 admission of the fact that on the humane and religious 
 side of his character he has not been over-estimated in 
 the claims that his friends have made for him. In the 
 long centuries there has not been a more humane declara¬ 
 tion than his demand for the protection of his assassin 
 against the possible assaults of an enraged populace, when 
 the fatal wound was fresh upon him. And from the 
 Christian side of his character his death illustrates the 
 sincerity of the belief that he professed in his life. It is 
 not for me to attempt to reconcile the humane and relig¬ 
 ious characteristics of President McKinley with the policy 
 of war and of conquest which must ever be identified with 
 the history of his administration. 
 
 We shall have met all the demands of the situation 
 occupied by Anti-Imperialists when we consider the wis¬ 
 dom and justice of President McKinley’s policy touching 
 the insular possessions in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, 
 which, by him, were brought within the jurisdiction of the 
 Republic. 
 
 To-night I am to speak of the enslavement of American 
 labor. The bearer of disagreeable news is an unwel¬ 
 come messenger and the public speaker who cannot in¬ 
 spire the hopes nor encourage the ambition of his hearers 
 must fail to command their approval. 
 
 Thus 1 forecast your opinion of the address that I am 
 now to deliver. 
 
 In the many speeches and papers that I have prepared 
 in aid of the effort that the Anti-Imperialists are making 
 . to arrest the subversion of the American Republic and 
 the creation of an Empire on its ruins, in two instances 
 only have I appealed to the laboring and producing classes 
 as bodies of men who are vitally interested in the success 
 of the cause which tiie Anti-Imperialist Leagues are organ¬ 
 ized to promote :l That cause includes the protection of 
 
8 
 
 American labor in all its forms against a competition 
 which is unnatural in its character and which in two 
 decades may force the American laborer into free com¬ 
 petition with the most degraded laboring populations of 
 the tropical Pacific Islands. 
 
 On other occasions 1 have attempted to set forth the 
 duty resting upon the country, a duty arising from moral 
 and political considerations, to condemn the policy of 
 wars and conquests that has been pursued for three years 
 in defiance of popular sovereignty, and in violation of the 
 three amendments to the Constitution which were de¬ 
 signed as a guarantee of freedom and of equality of 
 rights to every person within the jurisdiction of the United 
 States. 
 
 The leading purpose of this address is to be found in 
 the appeal which I am to make to the laboring and pro¬ 
 ducing classes to unite in an effort to save themselves 
 from the social, moral, and political degradation that is to 
 follow a policj' of war and conquests. 
 
 For this occasion I pass over the grave charges that 
 rest upon the last administration without enlargement or 
 comment, but those charges are not to be forgotten : 
 The subversion of the protocol of August, 1898, and the 
 unjustifiable seizure of the Philippine Islands ; the usurpa¬ 
 tion, of power in the proclamation of Dec. 21, 1898, in 
 which we assumed sovereignty over ten million people 
 who at that date were not within the jurisdiction of the 
 United States; the refusal to suspend hostilities in the 
 Philippines, by which act the country became responsible 
 for the sacrifice of thousands and tens of thousands of 
 human lives ; the Chinese war of aggression without the 
 authority of Congress; the purchased friendship of a 
 tribal slave-holding chief whom we then claimed as our 
 subject; the violation of the Constitution and laws of 
 the United States in the recognition of chattel slavery 
 and polygamy in the Sulu Isles ; the denial of the right of 
 trial by jury to ten million persons who are within the 
 jurisdiction of the United States; the abolition of the 
 right of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus by 
 the intervention of the army ; the transportation of per¬ 
 sons to remote and unfrequented islands without trial; 
 the creation of courts in the Philippine Islands whose 
 judges are not required to recognize the Constitution of 
 the United States as binding upon them ; and, finally, 
 as a measure of peace, we have adopted the reconcentrado 
 policy of Spain in Cuba, which we denounced as a crime 
 
 > 
 
9 
 
 against humanity, and we are now assembling the aged 
 men, the women, the children, non-combatants all, in for¬ 
 tified encampments, where death multiplies :jjfe -victims 
 many times in excess of the casualties or open vab;’ *>li 
 of these acts being the necessary in&i^gtite pf a policy “of 
 Empire and the subversion of the Republic^ V :/ ’ 
 
 As preliminary to the main discussion on’whibh I am 
 entering, I invite your attention to New England; to some¬ 
 thing of its history, to a view of its resources^ and’.fitially 
 to the nature and vigor of the competition in industrial 
 pursuits which is inevitable in the near future. 
 
 Its deposits of silver, iron, and coal are of no value. 
 Its resources in agriculture, in commerce, interstate and 
 foreign, in the fisheries, in wood, timber, granite, and 
 marble, are equal only to the support of a third part of 
 the present population. In the last half of the nineteenth 
 century great changes were made in its industries. The 
 breeding of horses and cattle for sale was abandoned. 
 The cultivation of hops, corn, and wheat was transferred 
 to New York and the further West. The building of 
 locomotives with all the heavier products of iron was 
 given up under the superior advantages existing in Penn¬ 
 sylvania and Ohio. None of these industries can ever be 
 regained. In the same period of time the tanning indus¬ 
 try, the manufacture of agricultural implements, of house¬ 
 hold furnishings of wood, passed wholly or in a large 
 degree into other hands. To these appreciable losses and 
 as of signal importance, I add the loss of a considerable 
 part of the industry in shoes and leather which for a time 
 was almost a monopoly in New England. 
 
 For these losses compensation has been made by the 
 manufacture of metal products of light weight and by the 
 immense enlargement of textile fabrics. These manufact¬ 
 ures are now in peril, and for their loss who can suggest 
 an adequate compensation? 
 
 With the overthrow of slavery has come an immense 
 increase of old industries and the introduction of many 
 new industries in the South. The South has millions of 
 unused horse-power in its mountain streams, it has sources 
 of national wealth in its deposits of iron, coal, and oil, 
 and in its economy of labor it enjoys a never-ceasing ad¬ 
 vantage in the mildness of its climate. 
 
 The capacity of the South for progress in industrial pur¬ 
 suits may be realized in the fact that the production of 
 cotton has risen from four million bales of four hundred 
 pounds each, in the days of slavery, to more than eleven 
 
10 
 
 million bales of five hundred pounds each in the days of 
 freedom. Ik was my fortune in December, 1861, in a 
 speech chat I\th§n delivered in Tremont Temple and in 
 answer rtp *an In terruption in the galleries, to predict an 
 increase of one- hrmdred per cent, in the crop of cotton 
 afterf^w years, af freedom in the South. The speech 
 :was printed in th§ u Boston Journal.” 
 
 The •industries «of New England are now disturbed by 
 .the competition of Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas, 
 and the manufacturers of New England are erecting mills 
 in those States whose products will enter the markets of 
 the world in competition with the products of the mills in 
 Fall River, Lowell, Lawrence, and Manchester. New 
 England cannot avoid a period of active competition with 
 the South in the manufacture of fabrics on which the 
 prosperity of New England chiefly depends. That com¬ 
 petition will be serious and during the trial period the in¬ 
 dustries of New England will be depressed, and during 
 that period new perils in business ought not to be ac¬ 
 cepted voluntarily. 
 
 The following statement of facts is drawn from the ex¬ 
 perience of a New England manufacturer who is also the 
 manager of a cotton mill in Alabama. 
 
 In Alabama coal is $1.50 per ton. The same coal costs 
 $4.50 per ton in a New England interior city. A coarse 
 cotton fabric costs forty cents per piece for weaving in 
 Massachusetts and only twenty cents in Alabama. This 
 is an exceptional case, but there is a difference in the cost 
 of labor which runs against New England constantly. As 
 time passes the cost of labor may increase in the South, 
 and with the passing of time the wages of labor will 
 diminish in the North while the competition is going 
 on. 
 
 I am now to make a statement of a fact which must be 
 accepted as a truthful statement. It was the policy of 
 President McKinley to enlarge the jurisdiction of the 
 United States in the tropics and to maintain that jurisdic¬ 
 tion for an indefinite period of time. On that statement 
 I base this prediction: Not much time can elapse 
 before a policy of entire freedom of trade will be estab¬ 
 lished between our insular possessions and the States of 
 the Union. 
 
 An example has been set. Hawaii and Porto Rico are 
 recent acquisitions, and entire freedom of trade has been 
 established between Porto Rico and the United States and 
 to the benefit of the islanders. The advantages to the 
 
J1 
 
 sugar and tobacco interests of the United States have not 
 been set forth. 
 
 The policy of war and conquest has been inaugurated 
 and carried on, as is claimed, for the extension of the 
 American market. The extension of the American market 
 through war means freedom in trade — reciprocity in 
 trade. The Philippine Islands and Cuba cannot take 
 our cotton cloths unless we purchase their products of 
 sugar, fruits, tobacco, and hemp. The extension of the 
 American markets means competition in the production of 
 the articles which pass into and out of those markets. 
 The value of the markets of the world may be overesti¬ 
 mated, more especially those markets in which the demand 
 is limited to cotton cloths and intoxicating liquors. The 
 consumption of cotton fabrics of all varieties does not ex¬ 
 ceed two dollars for each inhabitant of the globe. The 
 insular possessions on which we have laid our hands may 
 be consumers of cotton fabrics to the amount of thirty 
 million dollars a year, — less in the total than the business 
 of a single railway in America. The trade will be divided 
 and in a short half century the oriental countries will share 
 most largely in it. Japan taught us a lesson at the Cen¬ 
 tennial Exposition of 1876. Her imitations of the hand 
 work of America and Europe were equal to the originals 
 and her exhibits of bronze and lacquer work had no com¬ 
 petition from the Western world. America aided in the 
 work of opening Japan to a career of progress and active 
 competition with the nations of Europe and in which the 
 fortunes of the United States are involved. The door 
 that we are opening through the walls of China will open 
 outward and not inward. Foreign merchants, residents 
 of China, are less numerous and less prosperous than the 
 same class were a half century ago. Henceforth China 
 will produce an increasing share of the goods it has been 
 accustomed to purchase from other countries and its prod¬ 
 ucts for export will increase with its knowledge of the 
 extent and value of the markets .abroad. Woe to the 
 laboring and producing populations of a country that 
 enters into a free competition with the unnumbered mill¬ 
 ions of India and the Chinese Empire. This is the end 
 to which this country is now invited. 
 
 I am now to consider the beginnings of that policy as 
 it is illustrated in our doings in Hawaii, Porto Rico, 
 Cuba, and the Philippines. The first two are Territories 
 already ; they are under the Constitution ; they are on 
 their way to Statehood, and as long as the policy of Presi- 
 
12 
 
 dent McKinley shall be maintained they have secured 
 freedom of trade with the United States. Under that 
 policy a like freedom will be established between the 
 United States and Cuba and the Philippines. 
 
 If we can assume the absolute independence of Hawaii, 
 Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines, and if we can also 
 assume that those States, each and all, should make a 
 proffer of immediate and absolute freedom in trade, can 
 there be a doubt that the United States would decline to 
 -accept the proffer? Freedom in trade ma} r be the 
 policy of the world ultimately, but let it come as a growth, 
 a development, and not as a catastrophe to American 
 labor and industries. 
 
 And yet we are expending hundreds of millions and 
 thousands of lives to secure conditions and opportunities 
 that w^e would not accept as free gifts. This is the states¬ 
 manship, this is the administrative policy by which, in the 
 opinion of Secretary Long, President McKinley has been 
 raised to an equality with Washington and Lincoln and 
 far in advance of Jefferson, the Adamses, Grant, and the 
 rest — the founders of the Republic and the saviors of the 
 Republic. 
 
 There are four great interests of labor and production 
 that are to be touched seriously and adversely when we 
 accept freedom of trade between the United States and 
 the islands named : The sugar interest, the tobacco inter¬ 
 est, the hemp culture, and the growing of tropical fruits. 
 Our producers of these articles are to be brought into 
 competition with producers who can employ laborers who 
 can live on foods that are less expensive than the meat 
 and breadstuff's which American laborers require and 
 which they are accustomed to consume, who do not need 
 fuel nor clothing for warmth, and whose wages are less 
 than sixty per cent, of the wages which are now paid to 
 American laborers. In such a contest the result cannot 
 be doubtful. America must abandon the field, or the 
 laborers from Louisiana to Minnesota, from Florida to 
 Connecticut, must accept the wages that may be paid in 
 Cebu and Luzon. The Sultan of the. Sulu Isles would 
 thus find his slave labor upon an equality with the free 
 labor of America, while he and his harem would be in the 
 enjoyment of a pension from the treasury of the United 
 States. 
 
 The tobacco growers of Connecticut have been assured 
 by the Secretary of Agriculture that the cultivation of 
 tobacco for cigar wrappers may be continued. This must 
 
13 
 
 be a gratifying assurance to Connecticut. The loss of 
 labor and the returns for labor will be followed by a con¬ 
 sequent evil in the reduced prices and in the reduced 
 value of all the lands that are now assigned to the culture 
 of sugar, tobacco, hemp, and tropical fruits. 
 
 This catastrophe to labor and to land will extend to 
 labor and to land in every branch of industry, and to 
 every State of the Union. 
 
 Between the year 1880 and the year 1900 important 
 manufacturing industries were established in several 
 States of the South. The inducements were cheap labor, 
 cheap materials, and mildness of climate. These consti¬ 
 tute the strength of the competition which New England, 
 New York, and other States of the North are called to 
 meet. In mildness of climate and in the cost of labor, 
 Luzon and Cebu have an advantage over Alabama more 
 than equal to the advantage which Alabama enjoys in a 
 comparison with New England. 
 
 In the year 1801 the city of Boston, measured in time, 
 was as far from New Orleans as is Manila Bay from San 
 Francisco in the year 1901. 
 
 The natural forces which now favor the transfer of 
 manufacturing industries from New England to Alabama, 
 Georgia, and the Carolinas will transfer the manufacturing 
 industries not of New England only, but of the States of 
 the South as well to the tropical islands of the Pacific 
 seas. A world power must be prepared to meet the power 
 of the world, and in an industrial contest in which climate 
 and the cost of labor are the controlling forces, the result 
 cannot be doubtful. 
 
 Does any one of those who appear for the Administra¬ 
 tion rise to say that beet-root sugar can be produced in 
 America in competition with the sugar plantations of 
 Cuba and the sugar growing districts of the Philippine 
 Islands ? Already it can be said that in a single year 
 160,000 tons of sugar were produced in the Philippine 
 Islands. But some one will rise to say that these predic¬ 
 tions of evil to American industries are not merely im¬ 
 probable, they are impossible. I answer, You must 
 admit two facts: first you must admit that industries 
 have been transferred from New England to the South, 
 and second, you must admit that the controlling forces 
 were cheap labor, proximity to the raw materials, coal, 
 iron, and cotton and the lesser cost of the same ; and, 
 finally, a milder climate which diminishes the demand 
 for clothing and for artificial heat for health and com- 
 
14 
 
 fort. Is not the merchantable value of labor less in 
 Cuba, Porto Pico, and the Philippines than it is in 
 Georgia and Alabama? And is not the climate milder? 
 And are there not millions of workers in the islands who 
 are accustomed to torrid heats ? The evils that I indicate 
 may not all come to pass, but some of them are certain, 
 many of them are probable, and none of them are 
 impossible. 
 
 Among the evils that are certain, I count these two: 
 The sugar and tobacco industries of America must disap¬ 
 pear whenever there is freedom of trade between the 
 United States and Cuba, Porto Pico, and the Philippines. 
 
 But there are other perils, and of them I am to speak. 
 In the month of July, and again in the month of Novem¬ 
 ber, 1901, the “ New York Tribune” gave voice to its 
 apprehension that at some time our insular possessions 
 might become parts of the United States. The project of 
 such a union, although it had not been proposed openly 
 by any one in authority, was condemned, was denounced 
 without reserve. The apprehension was born of the be¬ 
 lief that the policy of the Administration was tending to 
 that result. That policy has received the support of the 
 u New York Tribune.” Thus we have before us a second 
 signal instance of support given to the Administration by 
 Pepublicans who condemned its policy, or who fear to 
 meet the logical and natural results of that policy. In 
 the opinion of the u Tribune ” the incorporation of the 
 insular possessions into the Union is not an impossibility, 
 and I proceed to the consideration of that peril, in case 
 the Administration shall continue to command the sup¬ 
 port of the country. The example of Porto Rico has 
 become a teacher. Without observation that island has 
 been made a member of the American Union in so far 
 that entire freedom of trade has been established between 
 its ports and the ports of the United States. 
 
 But more important than all things else is the fact that 
 in a day it may be made a State in the Union, with six or 
 seven electoral votes in a pending Presidential election. 
 In a close contest, is the Democratic party so pure that it 
 will decline the opportunity to continue in power? Or, 
 may I ask, is the Republican party so pure that in an 
 exigency it will neglect its only chance of avoiding de¬ 
 feat? The history of the admission of Texas contains an 
 instructive lesson. By a brief act of Congress Texas 
 was made a State in the Union with an option, which, 
 even now, may be enjoyed, of creating four additional 
 
15 
 
 States. This was done in the hope that the domination of 
 the slave power might be continued indefinitely. Already 
 there are American interests in Porto Rico that would be 
 promoted by its appearance as a State in the American 
 Union. Alread}^ there are plans and schemes for the 
 gratification of political ambitions. Already political 
 plots have been hatched ; already there are candidates for 
 seats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives 
 from the State of Porto Rico. 
 
 For a moment there may be a revival of faith in the 
 doctrines of Mr. Lincoln and the early fathers, and the 
 men who are carrying on a war for the subjugation of the 
 Filipinos will arouse the country as they demand the ad¬ 
 mission of Porto Rico by the cry: When before have we 
 kept a million people in a territorial condition ? If the 
 vote of Porto Rico should appear to be needed in the con¬ 
 test for the election of a President in 1904, there may be 
 an effusive exhibition of patriotism and justice demanding 
 the admission of Porto Rico into the Union of States. 
 Its opponents would become the enemies of national de¬ 
 velopment. Omitting for a moment all further considera¬ 
 tion of the steps by which the end may be reached, is 
 there any doubt that a way will be found, and without 
 much delay, for the admission of Porto Rico into the 
 Union, unless the policy of the Administration shall be 
 reversed ? 
 
 If the admission of Porto Rico would be a calamity 
 then the “ New York Tribune” has cause for alarm. 
 
 If Porto Rico has become a menace to the safety or to 
 the prosperity of the Republic, the responsibility is upon 
 the Republican party and especially upon those who have 
 effectively supported that party while denying the wisdom 
 of its policy. 
 
 The Administration may have been disturbed by the read¬ 
 ings of the several opinions given by the justices of the 
 Supreme Court. Those opinions offer only an alternative 
 in the Philippines : territorial governments or a continu¬ 
 ance of miltary rule indefinitely. 
 
 As territorial governments there will be freedom in 
 trade ; as military despotisms Congress will fix the terms 
 on which goods may be imported into the islands and the 
 terms on which their products may be sent out. Previous 
 to the 24th day of May, it was announced that on the 1st 
 day of July civil governments would beset up in the Phil¬ 
 ippines. The day named was abandoned, and on the 4th 
 day of July a system of civil goverment under military 
 
16 
 
 rule was proclaimed in defiance of the Declaration of In¬ 
 dependence in which these words are written : 
 
 “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men 
 are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator 
 with certain unalienable rights ; that among these are Life, 
 Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure 
 these rights governments are instituted among men, de¬ 
 riving their just powers from the consent of the gov¬ 
 erned.” 
 
 If Great Britain had secured the possession of the Phil¬ 
 ippine Islands, and if Edward VII. had chosen the 4th 
 day of July as the day for the announcement of a gov¬ 
 ernment over the people, against the people, and with¬ 
 out the consent of the people, we should have treated the 
 act as an insult to America and as a defilement of our 
 history. 
 
 And what shall we say, and what will history say, of a 
 President by whom such a proclamation was made on the 
 anniversary of the birthday of American independence, a 
 President twice called to administer a government born of 
 the great principle “ that all just governments derive their 
 powers from the consent of the governed,” he then well 
 knowing that the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands 
 had never consented to the government he was then at¬ 
 tempting to set up over them? 
 
 In presence of the alternative which the opinions of the 
 Supreme Court offer to the country, the Administration 
 may be forced to accept the territorial system of govern¬ 
 ment for the Philippines. A military system, as a per¬ 
 manency, would seem to be an impossibility. 
 
 The islands extend over fifteen or sixteen degrees of 
 latitude, the distance from Boston, Mass., to St. Augus¬ 
 tine, Fla. Mindanao is six hundred miles from Luzon. 
 These facts of space will justify and require the organi¬ 
 zation of separate governments, and thus the country 
 may note the beginnings of several States destined for 
 places in the American Union, — some of them Catholic 
 States, some of them Mohammedan States, thus dividing 
 the country upon questions of religion. Already there 
 are visions of wealth to be drawn from the Philippines re¬ 
 gardless of the prior rights of the ten million natives to 
 the undisturbed enjoyment of their heritage. Already 
 personal political ambitions have been aroused by the ex¬ 
 periences of Worcester, Schurman, Taft, and others, and 
 by the prospect of two, four, six, ten seats in the Senate 
 and a tenth part of all the seats in the House of Repre- 
 
17 
 
 sentatives. If to these forces we are to add the influence 
 of President Roosevelt and the support of the Republican 
 party, then more than the warning voice of the “ New York 
 ^ Tribune ” will be required when the contest is fairly on. 
 
 Secretary Long in his speech at Hingham sets forth a 
 policy with commendable frankness. We are to furnish 
 the Filipinos with good roads, good schools, better 
 homes, better business, then, in the course of twenty years, 
 or at the end of twenty years, 
 
 “ The question,” says Governor Long, “ shall be left 
 with them whether they prefer to remain with us and 
 enjoy our civilization, or set up for themselves. What 
 the result shall be,” says Governor Long, “ I can have no 
 question.” Thus Governor Long commits himself to the 
 policy of admitting the Philippine Islands into the Union 
 within the next twenty years. Did he speak for the Admin¬ 
 istration and does he forecast the purpose of the Repub¬ 
 lican party? President McKinley denounced those who 
 advocated a surrender of any part of the Spanish posses¬ 
 sions. He characterized that policy as a “ scuttle policy.” 
 
 Previous to May 24 it seemed possible for the United 
 States to follow England in its colonial policy, and such, 
 in appearance, was the purpose of the President. 
 
 Under the opinions given by the several justices of the 
 Supreme Court the English Colonial system is not possible 
 in America. The administration is called to face the al¬ 
 ternative : Territorial governments, or a continuous mili¬ 
 tary despotism such as was set up in the Philippine Islands 
 July 4, 1901. Shall that form of despotism be accepted 
 by Republican America? 
 
 In 1898 we guaranteed the complete independence of 
 Cuba, and for that independence we pledged the name of 
 the Republic. In 1900 we demanded concessions from 
 Cuba as conditions precedent to the formation of any gov¬ 
 ernment by the inhabitants of the island. Thus was 
 Cuba made a vassal State. The proceeding on our part 
 was glossed by the pretext that the only way to independ¬ 
 ence was through a system of subserviency, and thus has 
 Cuba been made a dependency of the United States. 
 
 Under the Platt resolutions of Congress the hold that we 
 now have over the policy and fortunes of the island will 
 be continued. It is within my knowledge that there has 
 been a purpose during a period of fifty years to secure the 
 annexation of Cuba either by purchase or conquest. 
 When General Pierce was elected President, it was under¬ 
 stood, even before the inauguration, that Mr. Soule of 
 
18 
 
 Louisiana was to be our minister to Spain. He came to 
 Boston previous to his departure. He informed me that 
 his main purpose was the acquisition of Cuba. This he 
 expected to accomplish by the payment of thirty million t 
 dollars. 
 
 I then expressed doubts as to the wisdom and possibil¬ 
 ity of the purchase. The movement was then in the in¬ 
 terest of slavery. The movement is now in the interest 
 of trade and speculation, and so it has been since 1868. 
 
 These forces are now augmented immensely. The owners 
 of sugar and tobacco lands, whether they reside in Cuba 
 or on this continent, will continue the contest until their 
 work has been accomplished, unless the people of the 
 United States repudiate these later proceedings and return 
 to the performance of the pledge of 1898. The Platt 
 resolutions are the beginning of the policy of annexation by 
 the Republican party. The issue can be comprehended. 
 
 On one side are the laborers and producers of the United 
 States. On the other side are the owners of the sugar 
 and tobacco lands of Cuba, aided by bodies of men who 
 wish to enlarge the field in which political ambitions may 
 be gratified, and by bodies of men who hope to add to the 
 vast fortunes already accumulated. It is not now certain 
 that any considerable reinforcements can be drawn from 
 the men who should be moved by moral and political con¬ 
 siderations, and hence the final effort for the salvation of 
 the Republic is to be made by the laboring and producing 
 classes, aud to them may come the honor of restoring the 
 country to a full recognition of the cardinal principles on 
 which the government was founded, by conceding to the 
 inhabitants of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands 
 the full right of self-government. 
 
 / I am not to close this address in Faneuil Hall with an 
 / appeal to the personal and class interests of my fellow- 
 citizens, however important those interests may be to 
 bodies of men or even to the fortunes of the country. 
 
 There are higher, there are holier considerations. When 
 the laboring and producing classes shall strike for their 
 pecuniary and class interests, they should realize that they 
 are struggling for a policy of peace for America and for 
 justice for all mankind. 
 
 The fate of Republican ideas, of Republican institu¬ 
 tions, of Republican government, is involved in the struggle 
 we are now carrying on. If there have been political 
 crimes in the history of mankind, the chiefest of them all 
 may be found in the records of America since the open- 
 
19 
 
 mg of the year 1898. In these four years America has 
 reversed its public policy of a century ; the Declaration 
 of Independence is spurned by some and disregarded by 
 many; the men who founded the republic and the men j 
 who saved the republic can no more be quoted as ex¬ 
 amples and guides for the youth of the country; the 
 ideals of liberty are spurned or neglected and the institu¬ 
 tions of liberty cannot long survive the loss of the ideals 
 of liberty. 
 
 The Republican party was born into the principles of 
 the Declaration of Independence and it became the libera¬ 
 tor of a race and an example to the nations. 
 
 In its abandonment of its early principles it has become 
 the servile imitator of the worst despotisms that have dis¬ 
 graced the ages. Every step that we take in the Philip¬ 
 pines gives fresh evidence of the general purity of the 
 islanders in their daily lives, of their love of liberty, of 
 learning, and of their capacit} 7 for self-government. 
 
 Every step that we have taken in the Philippines illus¬ 
 trates with painful fidelity the injustice of our domination 
 over the islands, the brutality of our policy and doings, the 
 hypocrisy of the claim that we are making in America 
 that we have millions of friends among the Filipinos and 
 only thousands of enemies, and, finally, at the end of 
 three years of war we are forced to admit that the peace 
 which we have conquered can only be kept by the pres¬ 
 ence, through an unknown future, of an army twice as 
 large as has been required for the peace of seventy million 
 people in the Uuited States and the security of a territory 
 which extends over four and twenty degrees of latitude 
 and embraces a sixth part of the circumference of the 
 globe. 
 
 In the presence of these facts of recent history the 
 laboring and producing classes should realize that when 
 they demand a policy of protection for their own rights, 
 they demand for all their countrymen a policy of peace in 
 the place of a policy of wars and conquests, of justice to 
 all men at home and abroad, in place of a policy of domi¬ 
 nation and servitude, under the pretext of giving to man¬ 
 kind a better education, a better religion, a better form 
 of government. When the laboring and producing 
 classes demand justice for themselves they should realize 
 ' that they are co-operating with those who are struggling 
 ^for a policy of liberty, of equality, of self-government for 
 |11 men in place of the assumption that the Supreme Being 
 las conferred upon the United States an authority to hold 
 
20 
 
 2 06 
 
 898836 
 
 freedom as a right for itself and as a privilege to be 
 grauted to others by the President of the United States 
 when in his view or in the opinion of Congress they may 
 be fitted to receive and to enjoy the benign privilege. 
 
 What is the situation and what is the prospect? We; 
 are far along in the third year of the war in the Philippines' 
 and our army orders indicate that the condition is more 
 strenuous than ever before. For the soldier there is no 
 peace and for the civilian there is no safety except in the 
 constant presence of the soldier. Our army of forty 
 thousand men is inadequate. We have conquered only 
 the ground which our soldiers stand upon, and when we 
 contemplate a like occupation of territories equal in area 
 to New England and New York combined, and with a 
 population that is less by one-tenth part only, it is not 
 within the range of reason or the scope of prophecy 
 to estimate or to limit the demands that are to be made 
 upon the country if the policy of subjugation is to be pur¬ 
 sued until through war we shall have first of all established 
 order, then secured tranquility, then the submission of the 
 ten million Filipinos who will have no memory of America 
 ^except as an enemy and the author of innumerable woes. 
 
 Such is the situation, and what is the prospect? Scanty 
 wages for the laborers of America, reduced incomes for 
 the producing classes, and for the youth enforced military 
 service in foreign lands, and burdensome taxation for all 
 those who may remain at home. 
 
 ** What is the alternative that we offer? Freedom, 
 absolute, unconditional freedom to Hawaii, Porto Rico, 
 Cuba, and the Philippines, thus aiding in the creation of 
 self-governing States that will thereby and therefor be 
 bound to us by ties of friendship such as war can never 
 weave. And thus may America be wrested from a poliov 
 of empire and despotism, and thus may the time again 
 come when the Declaration of Independence can be read 
 with emphasis and universal acceptance in Faneuil HaM 
 and in all assemblies of the American people.