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IMPERIAL DEMOCRACY"

DUTCH COLONIZERS IN MALAYSIA

ANNEXATION OF THE PHILIPPINES

BY
JOHN J. VALENTINE
PRESIDENT OF WELLS FARGO & COMPANY

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Ffbkuapy 18, i8cjcj

PRESS OF
THE HICKS-IUDD COMPANY
SAN FRANCISCO

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b"7/3 I/.35

BAKER LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBRARY OF
VTOR NELSON W. ALDRICH

PREFACE.

The United States of America is confronted
by a crisis the most grave and serious since the
dawn of its history. We are brought face to face
with the portentous significance of the maxim
"Eternal vigilance is_ the price of liberty." In
short we have come to a parting of the ways, and
the problem to be solved is whether we shall remain
an American Democracy, or become a new-born
Hydra of Plutocratic Imperialism.
In presenting my own views on this issue, I
have, as is my practice in writing, drawn freely
from any source elucidative of my subject, and
amongst those not directly credited I wish to make
thankful acknowledgments to Mr. Chas. Francis
Adams, Mr. George Gunton and Mr. Carl Schurz.
JNO. J. VALENTINE.
San Francisco,
February 18, 1899.

"Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the highest truth, lest
it should be too much in advance of the time, may reassure himself by look.
ing at his acts from an impersonal point of view. Let him duly realize that
his opinion in a unit of force, constituting, with other such units, the general
power which works out sooial changes. It is not for nothing that he has in
him these sympathies with some principles and repugnance to others. He,
with all his capacities, and aspirations, and beliefs, is not an accident, but »
produot of the time. He must remember that while he is a descendant of the
past, he is a parent of the future; and that his thoughts are as children born
to him, which he may not carelessly let die." — Herbert Spencer.

SIDE LIGHT FROM HISTORY.

The Bomans were at war with the Tarentines, who, not being able to go on
with the war, nor yet, through the foolhardiness, and the viciousness of their
popular speakers, to come to terms and give it up, proposed now to make
Fyrrhus their general, and engage him in it, as of all the neighboring kings the
most at leisure, and the most skilful as a commander. The more grave and
discreet oitizens opposing these oounsels, were partly overborne by the noise
and violence of the multitude ; while others, seeing this, absented themselves
from the assemblies; only one, Meton, a very sober man, on the day this public
deoree was to be ratified, when the people were now seating themselves, came
danoing into the assembly like one quite drunk, with a withered garland and a
small lamp in his hand, and a woman playing on a flute before him. Aud as in
great multitudes met at such popular assemblies, no decorum can be well
observed, some clapped him, others laughed, none forbade him, but called to
the woman to play, and to him to sing to the company, and when they thought
he was going to do so, " ' Tis only right of you, O men of Tarentum, " he said,
"not to hinder any from making themselves merry, that have a mind to it,
while it is yet in their power; and if you are wiee, you will take out your
pleasure of your freedom while you can, for you must change your course of
life, and follow other diet when Pyrrhus comes to town. " These words made
a great impression upon many of the Tarentines and a confused murmur went
about that he had spoken much to the purpose; but some who feared they
should be sacrificed if a peace were made with the Bomans, reviled the whole
assembly for so tamely suffering themselves to be abused by a drunken sot, and
crowding together upon Meton, thrust him out. So the public order was
passed, and ambassadors sent into Epirus, not only in their own names, but in
those of all the Italian Greeks, carrying presents to Pyrrhus, aud letting him
know they wanted a general of reputation and experience; and that they could
furnish him with large forces of Lucanians, Messapians, Samnites, and
Tarentines, amounting to 20 thousand horse, and 350 thousand foot. This did
not only quicken Pyrrhus, but raised an eager desire, for the expedition in the
Epirots. There was one Oineas, a Thessalian, considered to be a man of very good
sense, a disciple of the great orator Demosthenes, who of all that werefairous
at that time for speaking well, most seemed, as in a picture, to revive in the
minds of the audience the memory of his force and vigor of eloquence, and
being always about Pyrrhus, and sent about in his service to several cities
verified the saying of Euripides, that
* * * "the force of words
Can do what e'er is done by conquering swords."
And Pyrrhus was used to say, that Cineas had taken more towns with his
words than with his arms, and always did him the honor to employ him in

Side I/iGHT From History.
his most important oocasions. This person, seeing Pyrrhus eagerly preparing
for Italy, led him one day when he was at his leisure into the following reason
ings: "The Bomans, sir, are reported to be great warriors and conquerors of
many warlike nations ; if God permit us to overcome them, how should we
use our victory t" "You ask," said Pyrrhus, "a thing evident of itself. The
Bomans once conquered, there is neither Greek nor barbarian city that will
resist us, but we shall presently be masters of all Italy, the extent and resources
and strength of which any one should rather profess to be ignorant of than
yourself." Cineas, after a little pause, "And having subdued Italy, what shall
we do next J" Pyrrhus, not yet discovering his intention, "Sicily," he
replied, "next holds out her arms to reoeive us, a wealthy and populous island,
and easily to be gained ; for since Agathocles left it, only faction and anarchy,
and the licentious violence of the demagogues prevail." "You speak," said
Cineas, "what is perfectly probable, but will the possession of Sicily put an
end to the war? " "God grant us," answered Pyrrhus, " victory and sucoess
in that, and we will use these as forerunners of greater things ; who could
forbear from Libya and Carthage then within reach, which Agathocles, even
when forced to fly from Syracuse, and passing the sea only with a few ships,
had all but surprised? These conquests once perfected, will any assert that of
the enemies who now pretend to despise us, any one will dare to make further
resistance?" "None," replied Cineas, " for then it is manifest we may with
such mighty forces regain Macedon, and make an absolute conquest of Greece;
and when all these are in our power, what shall we do then? " Said Pyrrhus,
smiling, " we will live at our ease, my dear friend, and drink all day, and divert
ourselves with pleasant conversation." When Cineas had led Pyrrhus with his
argument to this point : "And what hinders us now, sir, if we had a mind to be
merry, and entertain one another, since we have at hand without trouble all
those necessary things, to which through much blood and great labor, and
infinite hazards and mischief done to ourselves and to others, we design at
last to arrive ?"
Such reasonings rather troubled Pyrrhus with the thought of the happiness
he was quitting, than any way altered his purpose, being unable to abandon
the hopes of what he so much desired — the innate disease of Princes being
ambition of greater empire.  Plutarch') "Life of Pyrrhus."

Pyrrhus passed three years in Sicily but though want of political taot
gave offense to the Greek cities, which he treated too much in the fashion of a
despot, not paying any respect to their local constitutions, customs, usages,
etc., or harmonizing their democratic tastes and love of freedom. He waa
killed at Argos at forty-six years of age.

"IMPERIAL DEMOCRACY."
DUTCH COLONIZERS IN MALAYSIA.

American occupation of Manila very forcibly brings to
our attention the question of reputed benefits accruing to
Orientals in the appropriation of their lands and the en
slavement of their peoples by European powers. The advo
cates of expansion, who, by the way, are actuated more by
motives of prospective pecuniary gain than by sentiments of
loyalty to our Republic or solicitude for the Filipinos or
Cubans, cite for strikingly convincing arguments the Dutch as
" peaceful colonizers," and their gem possession, Java.
While in the Orient last spring among other books of
travel I came upon one descriptive of Java by Miss Scidmore,
containing many facts concerning the alleged civilizing influence
of Dutch rule, a few of which I think may not be uninteresting,
considering the mad craze for expansion, so-called Imperialism,
now prevailing in the United States.
The history of Netherlands India — the Dutch Colonies in
Malaysia — is a light and shadow picture. Its bright side
depicts the wealthy plantation owner in Europe surrounded by
every luxury of his home land, annually in receipt of millions
of guilders from his East Indian plantations. The contrast
is found in the humid tropic lands, where some 30,000,000
patient, cowed Malays, working under the harsh supervision
of agents, produce the wealth that rightfully is theirs,
because earned by them on lands which have been wrested
or tricked from them and held by the foreigners at the
expense of thousands of lives annually among the white
troops sent out to maintain a usurped supremacy, gained grad-

8 Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia.
ually over the unsuspecting and friendly natives by false
pledges, broken promises and ultimately by force of arms.
The story of Netherlands India is told in that of Java,
the garden of the East, the finest and most fascinating tropical
island of the world— best known because more frequently
visited than Amboyna, Borneo, the Celebes and Sumatra, the
other island possessions to which the Dutch lay claim. The
population of Java, 24,000,000, is greater than the total of all
the other islands in the Indian ocean, and it has a total area
equal only to that of New York State. Early in the last cen
tury it was a source of yearly remittances of millions of guilders
to Holland. In addition to this the colony was drained to pay
enormous sums to defray the cost of extravagant local admin
istration, the Dutch Governor receiving a yearly salary equiva
lent to $100,000, and additionally $60,000 for expensive
entertainments. Twenty-six local governors were each paid
$10,000 a year and given liberal allowances for incidental ex
penses. Besides this an army of 30,000 men, one-third of
whom were foreigners recruited in Holland, was thrown upon
the support of this little island, not larger than New York
State. Think of it !
When it becomes necessary to levy some new tax, the
native is asked for proof of title to his land and for a declara
tion of its producing capacity; also how much he thinks he
ought to pay. The unsophisticated Javanese usually replies
TEN PER CENT, and he is assessed accordingly and must be
contented, for he named the tax himself. The Dutch official
sits daily in the shade of the cement portico of the tiny town
hall, watching the natives, who from their palm-leaf bags
build up piles of copper and silver in payment of their taxes.
The Javanese rank after the Japanese, as the most attract
ive, gentle and innately refined people of the Par East. They
are the finer flowerof the Malayrace andincline to Moslemism,
if anything, but take their religion lightly, and are so lukewarm
in "The Firo and Sword" faith that they would easily
relapse into their former mild Brahmanism if Islam's power
were withdrawn. The Dutch have always prohibited pilgrim-

Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia. 9
ages to Mecca, because those returning with the green turban
were viewed with reverence and accredited with supernatural
powers, which made their influence a menace to Dutch rule.
The language of these people is soft and musical, — the
Italian of the tropics — their ideas are poetic and their love of
flowers, perfumes, music, dancing, heroic plays and emotional
art of every description proves them highly esthetic. Their
reverence for rank and age, coupled with an elaborate etiquette
and punctillious courtesy to one another, marked even in the
common people, when contrasted with their abject crouching
humility before their despotic Dutch masters, are themes for
sad reflection and arouse just indignation. The sight of quiet,
inoffensive peddlers, who beseech chiefly with their eyes,
being furiously kicked out of a hotel courtyard or any
other public place, when Mynheer does not choose to buy,
causes the casual looker-on to recoil; but to see little native
children actually lifted by the ear and hurled away from a
humble vantage point on the curbstone to make way for a
pajamaed Dutchman who wishes to view some troops that may
be marching by, makes one sick at heart.
Said a Dutch official to a visitor : " I noticed you looked
at the WHIPPING-POST in the jail. Yes ; we sometimes
flog them lightly. If a man on parole does not return to the
jail in time a gendarme generally finds him in his hut and
brings him back, when, as he expects, he gets a few lashes.
We don't punish severely — they would never forget that."
Query : CAN THEY EVER FORGET THE INDIGNITY
OF A SINGLE LASH, WHICH THOUGH LIGHTLY
LAID ON YET STIFLES OR DESTROYS THE SPIRIT
OF MANHOOD ?
The colonists (I quote liberally) do not welcome or en
courage tourists. The Dutch brain is slow and suspicious, and
they firmly believe that no stranger comes to Java on errand
friendly to the colonizers. Within twenty-four hours after
arrival the colonial authorities insist upon knowing the object
of his visit. All returning travelers dwell upon the conditions
due to the acts of the rapacious and merciless Hollanders who

10 Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia.
have gone to the tropics, 9000 miles away from home, to
acquire an empire by enslaving a race and infiioting their
hampering customs and restrictions even upon casual visitors.
Until recently no steps were taken to educate the Java
nese, and previous to 1864 they were not allowed to study the
Dutch language. All colonial officers are obliged to learn low
Malay, that being the recognized language of administration
and justice, instead of the many Javanese and Sudanese dia
lects, with their two forms of polite and common speech.
The few Javanese, even those of highest rank, who acquired
the Dutch language and attempted to employ it in conversation
with officials were bruskly answered in Malay — an implication
that the superior language was reserved for Europeans only.
This helped the conquerors to keep the line of distinction be
tween them and their subject people clearly and sharply drawn
and while the Dutch could understand what the natives were
saying they have their own talk always without reserve in a
tongue foreign to servants or even Malay princes.
Dutch is now taught in the schools maintained for natives by
the colonial government. Two hundred and one primary schools
were opened in 1887, with an attendance of 39,707 pupils. The
higher schools of Batavia have been opened to the sons of native
officials and such rich Javanese as can afford them. Conserva
tives lament the "spoiling of the natives" by all that the govern
ment does for them. They complain that the Javanese are be
coming too independent since schoolmasters, independent
planters and tourists came. The " Samarang Handelsblad"
newspaper comments as follows :
"The Javanese can no longer be led and driven with
facility as a flock of sheep, however much we may deplore this
change in their disposition. They now come freely into con
tact with Europeans, the education given them has had an
effect, and communication has been rendered easy. They do not
fear the Europeans as they formerly did. The time is past when
the entire population of a village could be driven with a stick
to a far-off plantation — the pruning knife and the ax would
be quickly turned against the driver in these latter days. They

Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia. 11
no longer believe that the European is interested in their welfare ,
and are well aware that they are cheated out of a large proportion
of the value of the coffee harvest. However much the colonist
may regret it, the period of darkness is passing away and the
time of coercion in Java giving place to better conditions, and
any attempt to stay the tide of progress will only call forth the
enmity of the natives. The Malay spirit of revenge has done
much, perhaps, to bring about the present governmental era of
comparative kindness, fair-dealing and -justice in Java." The
state committee on government coffee plantations says in
its latest reports: "If the native has not become more pro
gressive and sensible, he is, at least, wiser in matters about
which he should be kept in the dark, unless the government
means to remove coercion at the expense of the exchequer."
The Army of the Netherlands is well paid and cared for.
After the Indian Mutiny the Dutch were in great fear of an
uprising in Java and placed less confidence in native troops.
Only Europeans can hold officers' commissions. The native
troops are all Mohammedan ; care is exercised to prevent
natives of any one district or province from composing a majority
in any regiment, and they are frequently changed from one
post to another.
The Dutch officials condescend equally to the rich
planters and the native princes, while the planters hate and
deride the officials, and the natives hate the Dutch of either
class and despise their own princes who are subservient to the
foreigners. The wars and jealousies of rank and race, and the
caste distinction resulting from the intermingling of the white
and the dark races, flourish with tropical luxuriance.
The Dutch do not allow the yellow colonials (Arabs and
Chinese and their offspring) so-called European freedom, an ex
pression which constitutes a sufficient admission of the exist
ence of restraint over the Asiatics. The native hatred of the
Chinese is the inheritance of those past centuries when the
Dutch farmed out the revenue to Chinese. Under this system
the Chinese were given thousands of acres of land with its con-
commitant servile Malay labor. These boundaries were grad-

12 Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia.
ually extended and by increased exactions and secret levies the
wretched natives were oppressed by their Asiatic brethren in
a manner that the tyranny and rapacity of the Dutch never ap
proached. To-day the Chinese hold financial supremacy over
both Dutch and natives, in appreciation of which they are un
mercifully taxed by the Dutch. Formerly the Celestials were
assessed according to the length of their queues and for each
long finger nail. They are mulcted on arrival and departure,
for births, deaths, and for every business privilege. In 1740
the Chinese fomented insurrection against the Dutch, joining
with the disaffected natives. They intrenched themselves in a
suburban fort .which the Dutch invested, and the 20,000 Chinese
then within the walls were put to death, neither age nor sex
being spared.
Many officials and planters have married native wives and
in the eyes of the law these wives enjoy the privileges
in full of Europeans. No native man is allowed to marry
or employ a European, not even as a tutor or governess, and no
such subversion of social order as the employment of a Euro
pean servant is to be thought of. The laws allow a European
to put away his native wife, to be legally divorced from her
upon the slightest pretext, or to abandon her and her children
with small risk of their obtaining redress.
Railway trains in Java do not run at night, (though night
service would be a great advantage in a hot country) , for the
reason that train crews are composed entirely of natives (such
work being considered beneath the dignity of Europeans),
and the cautious Dutch will not trust native engineers after dark.
Dutch affairs in Sumatra are not so prosperous. In 1872
the Dutch received Sumatra from the English in exchange for
the imaginary rights of Holland in Ashantee and the Gold
Coast of Africa. The natives of Sumatra, warned by the
sad fate of the Javanese, have resisted, and the warfare is still
in progress. Dutch commanders are well satisfied to hold
their chain of forts along the western hills. In the province
of Atcheen the war has been almost continuous, and the
native population has in thirty years been reduced from

Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia. 13
450 thousand to less than 300 thousand. In one of four
years of the war, seventy million guilders were spent and seventy
out of every hundred Dutch soldiers succumbed to the climate
before going into an encounter.
At Batavia, the principal city of Java, which was originally
situated in the midst of a deadly swamp, the mortality was
appalling and the settlement in its early years was known as
the graveyard of Europeans. Dutch records show that at
Batavia 1,119,375 deaths occurred between the years 1730
and 1752, or in 22 years ; and 87,000 soldiers and sailors
died in the government hospitals between the years 1714 and
1776. To indicate the small percentage of Whites to Malays, I
mention, in passing, that at the present time the total popula
tion of the district known as the Malay Straits Settlements is
probably 550 thousand, of whom not four thousand are Whites.
" Our attention in these days is frequently called to the
admirable, and, in many respects, successful administrative
machinery introduced by Great Britain in India. But it must
not be forgotten that this machinery was evolved from several
centuries of rapine, corruption, disastrous blunders, savage
struggles, murderous revolts and indescribable cruelties, and
that even now many wise men in England gravely doubt in
their hearts whether it was best for their country to undertake
the conquest of India at all, and are troubled by gloomy
forebodings of a calamitous catastrophe that may some day
engulf that splendid fabric of Asiatic dominion."
A word as to colonies further north: Macao, a Portuguese
settlement, founded 350 years ago on a little peninsula some
50 miles south of Hong Kong, has a population of 80,000 ; of
whom 75,000 are Asiatics — Chinese, Siamese, a few Filipinos
and Japanese, and the usual quota of half castes, leaving but
5000 people who may be classed as Europeans . This colony
has a Portuguese Governor-General and a body of troops, and
its administration is but a travesty on colonial management.
The greatest local revenue is derived from the licenses issued
to keepers of Chinese gambling houses, where fan tan is played,

14 Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia.
and probably the next largest incomes accrue from opium
boiling licenses and the monopoly controlling 'ricksha rentals.
Hong Kong, the brightest jewel in Britain's imperial
colonial crown, more properly called the Victoria Colony, on
the little island at the mouth of the Pearl River, is one of the
world's greatest entrep6ts — a free port — and has a population
of 250,000, only 10,000 of whom are Whites. Here, as in
ALL Oriental colonies, there is no opportunity afforded the
White laboring man to earn a livelihood. To illustrate by
just one example: the Hong Kong Metropolitan Dock Co., has
seven docks, and large machine shops; employing in round fig
ures 8000 Chinese. All these are directed and controlled by
only half a dozen Caucasians. Most of the steamer lines
sailing from the Orient, including the three companies running
thence to San Francisco, are manned by Asiatic crews.
These facts I present for the consideration of the laboring
men of the United States of America.
In discussing the question of making tropical colonies
commercially profitable, and taking the Congo Free State, be
cause of its freedom from national rivalries, as a fair example,
Mr. Courtney, President of the Royal Statistical Society of
Great Britain, says that nine out of every ten Europeans
going to tropical colonies are either buried or return home
invalided within three years; that the largest of the 120 Bel
gian trading companies maintains a service of only seven
months out of every twenty-four. Against such a death rate
no commercial profits can be shown. The daring colo
nizers have labored and perished in vain. The trade of the
country ( Congo Free State ) costing so much in life and
treasure remains insignificant, being only seven-tenths of one
per cent of Belgian commerce. {The exports of the United
States of America to the Philippines are only four
one-hundredths of one per cent of our country's total
exports.) The same amount of energy and money spent in the
development of industries at home, would have resulted in a
far greater development of Belgian commerce, whereas the
colonial venture has only proven delusive and disastrous.

Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia. 15
In Mexico the topographical structure of the country is
such as to divide it naturally into three well-defined altitudinal
climatic sections — the first, sea level to about 2500 feet
above is known as the tierra caliente (hot); the second,
2500 to 5000 feet altitude, the tierra templada (temperate) , and
the third, 5000 feet and upward, the tierra fria (cool). The
' ' Tierra Caliente " of Yucatan, Campeachy and Tabasco is the
Van Dieman's land of Mexico, to which, from the cool or
temperate upland zones, certain offenders are exiled to eke out
their existence — if they can live at all — under the hot, debil
itating conditions of an extreme tropical climate. It is a tra
dition that the sacrifice of human life in the construction of the
Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Darien from Colon or
Aspinwall on the Atlantic, to Panama on the Pacific, was
equal to a man for every cross tie that lies in the road. And
it is to such places, and subject to such climatic conditions that
our crusade for Glory, Expansion, " Imperial Democracy, " is
exiling the flower of our youth.
According to a San Francisco Journal of February 7th,
" The Commanding General of the United States forces now
in Cuba, has reported that fifty per cent of the American
troops on the Island are on the sick list."
When the Government of the United States dis
patches shipload after shipload of unacclimated young
men to the everglades and jungles of tropical swamps,
whether in the East Indies or West Indies, it is consigning
the flower of American youth to unimaginable suffering and
too often, alas! to hapless and inglorious death.
Do you think this is overdrawn ? Do you think this is an
extreme view of the case ? Let me quote a sketch by an eye
witness, a well-known New York writer, of tho embarking of
sick and wounded soldiers on board a transport hospital ship
homeward bound.
" That day strange figures began to mount the sides of
the ship, and to occupy its every turn and angle of space.
Some of them fell on their knees and slapped the bare deck
with their hands, and laughed and cried out, ' Thank God,

16 Dutch Colonieers in Malaysia.
I'll see God's country again ! ' Some of the men were regu
lars, bound in bandages; some were volunteers, dirty and
hollow-eyed, with long beards on boy's faces. Some came on
crutches; others with their arms around the shoulders of their
comrades, staring ahead of them with a fixed smile, their lips
drawn and their teeth protruding. At every second step they
stumbled, and the face of each man was swept by swift rip
ples of pain. They lay on cots so close together that the
nurses could not walk between them. They lay on the wet
decks, in the scuppers, and along the skylights and hatches.
They were like shipwrecked mariners clinging to a raft, and
they asked nothing more than that the ship's bow be turned
toward home."
This is Glory — this is Expansion — this is ' : Imperial
Democracy." But to resume on the subject of Java : The record of mission
work is a short one, as after casting out the Portuguese
Jesuits, the Dutch forbade others to enter, and all missionaries
were strictly excluded until the humanitarian agitation took
place in Europe. This resulted in the formal abolition of
slavery and the abandonment of the Culture System while it
forced the government to do a little for the Christianizing and
educating of the natives. The government supports twenty-
nine Protestant pastors and ten Roman Catholic priests, pri
marily for the benefit of European residents, and their sphere
of usefulness is restricted; proselyting and sectarian rivalries
being forbidden. Missionaries from other countries are not
allowed to settle and work among the people. THE DUTCH
DO NOT POSE AS PHILANTHROPISTS NOR PRETEND
TO BE IN JAVA FOR THE GOOD OF THE NATIVES.
THEIR DOMINION IS ONE OF POWER; THEIR
GOVERNMENT, A DESPOTISM.
A few words on the Culture System, or ENFORCED
LABOR: The Dutch East India Company acquired control of
Java through pioneer preemption, purchase, conquest, strategy
and unfair diplomacy. One-fifth of the native's labor and one-
fifth of his crops were exacted by the government as ground

Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia. 17
rent. Each family was required to keep one thousand coffee
trees in bearing condition on village lands, and two-fifths of the
crop, clear and sorted, was to be delivered at the government
warehouses. As late as 1830 the natives were obliged to plant
one-fifth of the village lands in sugar cane and each man had to
give one day's labor in seven to cultivating the same. Each
native was obliged to plant six hundred Arabian or Mocha coffee
trees, keep them in bearing condition and deliver the crop
cleaned and sorted at the government warehouses at a price
fixed by the Dutch officials. Previous to 1874 nine to twelve
guilders per picul (133 lbs.) were paid, although forty to forty-
five was the price in open market. (A guilder is equal to 40
cents.) The great double post road from Anger Head to Banyu-
wangy was constructed at the cost of 20,000 lives, under this
system of enforced labor. Laboring men of the northern races
never did and never will go there or to other tropical climates,
en masse, to do the work of the country, agricultural or indus
trial, there to found permanent homes; and this not
merely because the rate of wages in such countries, owing
to native competition, is usually low, but because they cannot
thrive under the climatic conditions.
Into the despotic clutch of Enforced Labor, or a con
tract system to exploit humankind in the interest of capital,
through oriental conquest, the freedom-loving citizens of the
United States ' are sought to be dragooned under the specious
pleas of Glory, Expansion, — "Imperial Democracy." Will
this scheme for the BETRAYAL OF DEMOCRACY succeed?
If it does, it will be a crime against the human race.
To neglect the industrial and social conditions at home is
to sap the very foundations of national power and progress.
The Philippines would add one more problem to political gov
ernment, one more problem of industrial slavery, one more
problem of social barbarism to the list we have already con
fronting us. There is nothing morally, socially, politically,
or industrially in the situation which would make it to the
advantage of the United States to annex them. Our duty
to mankind is FIRST OF ALL TO MAINTAIN OUR

18 Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia.
OWN CIVILIZATION, and that is quite enough to tax us to
the utmost. James Brice, in Harper's Magazine for Septem
ber, wisely says: "The United States will render a far greater
service to humanity by developing a high type of industrial
civilization on her own continent, a civilization conspicuously
free, enlightened and pacific, than by any foreign conquests."
And what of the subjugated peoples ? I extract from
the press despatches reporting the battle of February 5th,
at Manila :
"The engagement proved a veritableslaughter of Filipinos,
thousands of them being killed. General King's brigade
charged upon a numerically stronger force of the enemy and
drove them yelling, helter-skelter into the Pasig river, where,
in a frenzy of terror, they were drowned like rats. The Ameri
cans are buoyantly elated over the punishment they have given
the treacherous natives."
"The account of 700 Ygorpte tribesmen, naked and
opposing their bows and arrows to the rifles and cannons of
the Americans, in a desperate but hopeless attempt to hold
their ground, is wonderfully pathetic. ' On all sides, ' says
one report, 'were lying dead natives, their bodies, in some
instances, being full of bullet holes.' Again: 'I saw a
number of bodies which had been literally torn into shreds
by the fire from the war-ships. In some places the shells had
torn great holes in the earth and around them were scattered
dead bodies. On all sides the scene was one of terrible deso
lation. ' "
But the Filipino has a right to be heard! Even in the
days of Nero that most despised of all beings, a Christian , had
the right of appeal to Caesar.
The Filipino agents say the Americans placed vessels
along the shores of the bay and commenced hostilities unex
pectedly at midnight on Saturday, simultaneously bombarding
the defenseless towns of Fondo, Malak and Malabon. " The
slaughter of women and children was frightful, the Americans
burning and devastating all before them, conducting a war of
extermination and shooting every Filipino."

Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia. 19
Suppose a similar conflict with the so-called "Insurgents"
of Cuba and such a wholesale slaughter had been reported
from Havana in 1897, as the work of Captain-General Weyler
— what would Americans have said ? Would they not in holy
horror have at once denounced him as a " Butcher ? "
' ' The expansionist clergymen, who have been most enthusi
astic about Christianizing and civilizing the natives must con
cede that it is a pity we are compelled to begin this benign
work by shooting the Filipinos full of rifle bullets or blowing
them to pieces with shells. "
Prospective events and the status existing to February
18th are summarized by one of our morning papers thus:
' ' The arrival of re-enforcements, which is now a matter of daily
expectation, would give General Otis the use of flying columns
and probably enable him to PACIFY Luzon — and after that
the rest of the group in short order."
To which I would remark that " Freedom shrieked when
Kosciusko fell", and ORDER reigned in Warsaw — when
Poland was PACIFIED !
I will add Rudyard Kipling's words :
" By all ye will or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent sullen peoples
Shall weigh your God and you."
To return again to Java : The spirit of the age is begin
ning to reach there, in fact, suggestions for its actual
autonomy have been uttered. There are ominous signs
everywhere, and the ruling power finds its petty remnant of
coffee culture and grocery business a more vexing and diffi
cult venture each year.
Whether, as pessimists foretell, a Mohammedan rebellion
shall desolate the island; whether it will remain in Dutch
leading strings; arrive at even the limited independence of a
British colony, or succumb to Germany's colonial ambitions,
(as the French so freely prophesy), Java seems destined soon to

20 Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia.
put forth larger claims to the world's attention and occupy for
a time at least, a prominent place on its stage of action.
If Americans think or imagine that they would do better
than or even as well as the Dutch, English or French, they are
mistaken. Let us consider the treatment of the North American
Indians. The justice of the United States Government has, as
a rule, given way to the clamor of greedy men for possession of
their lands, until the Indians are now, with but few exceptions,
driven back on to poor, barren reservations, where it would
be difficult for skilled white men to make a living. Indeed,
the press reports ten thousand of them moving from the
United States to Mexico. General Nelson A. Miles, referring
to the Indian problem, is reported to have said, " The wrecks
of broken promises on the part of the Government are strewn
all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific."
By consulting the pamphlets and leaflets issued by the Gos
pel Union of the United States on the subject of the ' 'Indians
of America," it will be seen that we have not provided for our
own. To the case of the Indians may be added the situation
or plight of our Negro population. But above and beyond our
failure to properly, care for these two races within our own con
fines, police reports and criminal statistics indisputably show
that we are not looking after the moral welfare of our own race.
The possibilities of progress in an Oriental people are
strikingly illustrated by the achievements of the Japanese
within the thirty years that have elapsed since the revolution
which resulted in the overthrow of the Shogun or Tycoon
power and the adoption of a constitution and the establish
ment of parliamentary government. After suffering for forty
years the grossest injustice in the way of a tariff status prac
tically imposed by Great Britain and the United States, and
participated in by other nations, an injustice which' was
denounced by eminent and rightly inclined Americans, the Jap
anese, by a long course of insistence, have come at last to the
partial attainment of some of the common international rights

Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia. 21
of nations, and this fact is really the ground for the present
general disparagement of that people by the resident and
hitherto specially favored and deferred-to foreigners, whether
American, British, French, Dutch, or of any other nationality.
There are no European colonies in Oriental — tropical —
lands, in the true and just sense of the word, There are only
military settlements and despotic dominion. The exploitations
of European colonizing nations have always been and will con
tinue to be for the benefit of the few — the high civil and
military officials sent out by the home government and the
plantation owners and rich traders — at the expense of the
toiling many, the subjugated people, and the common soldiers
also, who, in the fulfillment of their mission to terrorize the
natives into a state of abject subjugation, fall victims to cli
matic ills during their enforced stay in a region never intended
for the abiding place of the white man ; likewise to disease
and pernicious practices peculiar to the indolence of Oriental
life. But the day, let us hope, is not far distant when other of
these Eastern peoples will follow in the footsteps of the erst
while docile and submissive Japanese, and like them assert
their right to take their respective places among the nations
of the earth, and to live and RULE in the lands of their
ancestors, unmolested by the domineering selfish intervention
of the interloping Caucasian.
The;press dispatches report President McKinley as saying
the Filipinos must submit to the authority of the United States
government. I do not know that Captain-General Weyler
ever demanded more of Cuba for Spain, and this raises not
only an ethical question, but a political principle of the most
vital import — the inextinguishable love of liberty inherent in the
human breast. It not only raises such questions, but it brings
to light some of the skeletons of the past, gaunt spectres
with gory locks, looking out at us through the mists of mem
ory; long buried ghosts that will not down.

22 Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia.
An orthodox clergyman had been in the habit of visiting
Old John Brown, of Harper's Ferry, Va., fame, in his prison
cell and endeavoring to minister to him the comforts of relig
ion. On one of these occasions he volunteered his services
as an attendant on the scaffold. The rugged old hero inter
posed the question, "Do you believe Slavery is sanctioned
by religion?" On being answered in the affirmative, Brown
declined to have anything further to do with him as a spiritual
adviser, saying that henceforth he could regard him only as a
heathen gentleman — not as a Christian.
Whittier has immortalized the incident in verse ;
" John Brown of Ossawatomie spake on his dying day:
' I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in slavery!s pay
But let some poor slave-mother whom I have striven to free
With her children, from the gallows-stair put up a prayer for me.' "
Of events subsequent to the execution , Thoreau said :
"All is quiet at Harper's Ferry, say the journals. What
is the character of that calm which follows when the law and
the slave holder prevail ? / regard this event as a touchstone
designed to bring out with glaring distinctness the character
of this government. We needed to be thus assisted to see it by
the light of history. It needed to see itself. When a govern
ment puts forth its strength on the side of injustice it reveals
itself simply as brute force. It is more manifest than ever
that tyranny rules. When you have caught and hung all its
human rebels you have accomplished nothing but your own
guilt. You have not struck at the fountain head. The same
indignation which cleared the temple once will clear it again."
At Atlanta, Ga. , recently, the President of the United
States, pointing towards Manila, said: "Our flag is there ;' who
will haul it down ? " If Americans of to-day have not become
degenerate sons of illustrious sires, but still love freedom and
cherish the spirit that animated their forefathers at Independ
ence Hall and Valley Forge, they will see to it that it is hauled

Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia. ' 23
down. The American flag was not unfurled to the world's ad
miration as the symbol of brute force, but as the emblem of
deathless devotion to liberty and light.
" Flag of the free ! flaunt not the creed
Of men who war for gain or greed;
For not the viotor's symbol thou —
Before which subject raoes bow,
Thy stars still teach us to aspire."
" Oh nag! baptized through thronging years
In fire, in blood, in holy tears —
In freedom's name — for freedom's fame —
By the dear land we love to name —
Thy glory shall not be our shame."

Livebmorb, Cal., February 24, 1899,

Mb. John J. Valentine, San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sir .-—Allow me, though not having the honor of knowing you per
sonally, to address a few lines to you.
I want to express my admiration of the interesting lecture delivered
by you on " Imperial Democracy " [Dutch Colonizers in Malaysia], of which
I read a resume iu last night's "Bulletin."
Being born and raised in Holland, where eight years ago I graduated as a
physician at the University of Leiden, I claim to be a good and competent
judge of one of the most striking features of your lecture, viz : the disastrous
effect of a tropical climate on the white race,
As a physician I could corroborate you by my own experience in the years
I was a student at Leiden, where existed also a college for the education of
officers for our colonies in the Dutch East Indies.
How many of my friends at that University, splendid speoimens of man
hood, the flower of the country, the pride of their parents and professors,
with a brilliant future before them, favored by the most auspicious official
positions in the gift of the Colonial Government, came back after a lapse of
five years from our " Insulinde " as mere wrecks, broken down in health, ruined
for life and many times victims of the accursed morphine habit !
I could write about many, many girls in Holland, who strong, healthy and
beautiful, left for Java to join their future husbands, and after two or three
years of life under the Equator, came home weak, debilitated and suffering from
the bad effects that a tropical climate can cause on members of the fair sex. In
the Dutch East Indies Europeans only survive to the second generation. A
third generation is unknown,
A common saying in Holland is, "If you had murdered your father and
mother you are yet too good to be sent to the East Indies."
But I don't want to take too much of your valuable time. I conclude
with the fervent hope that your efforts and those of many others, all over
this grand and liberty-loving country, to stir up the people, will check
the imperial aspirations of my adopted country, and that the eyes of our
government in Washington will be opened in time to see the abyss threatening.
Very respectfully yours, Jos. M. Benkebs, M. D,

" IH/lDEDir as nDMArniruii

ANNEXATION OF THE PHILIPPINES.

INTRODUCTION.

It is the fad of the hour to condemn Spain and everything
Spanish in season and out of season. Before Peter was
summoned to Joppa to minister to the Centurion Cornelius,
an object lesson was presented to him out of Heaven
in order to overcome certain of his race prejudices — he
saw a vision, the moral of which, as told by a supernatural
voice, was sufficient intimation to him that such discrimi
nation was reprehensible. Shakespeare, in "As You Like
It," makes Orlando say that he will chide no breather in the
world, save himself, of whom he knew most faults. I have
journeyed much and in many lands, and can truthfully say
that, so far as I have met them, I have never known more
worthy gentlemen or more admirable women than the
Spaniards, Mexicans, and descendants of those who originally
colonized California, and I am proud to believe that I can
number amongst these good people hosts of whole-hearted,
chivalrous friends. As to the place of the Spanish- American
people in the history of America, I am in accord with Mr.
Chas. F. Lummis's views as expressed in his charming book,
" The Awakening of a Nation," — Mexico. Mr. Lummis says :
' ' The seal of Spain is upon all things that she has ever
touched. To the thoughtful, few side-lights in history are

Annexation of the Philippines.
more striking than this vital individuality of the Spaniard.
Whatever page he opened in the New World, he wrote across
it his racial autograph in a hand so virile and so character
istic that neither time nor change can efface it. Three centuries
and a half of continuous evolution have not availed to make
that rubric illegible or mistakable. He mastered every
country between us and Patagonia ; and there is no land in
which he ever sat down which does not to this last day bear in
its very marrow the heritage of his religion, his language, and
his social creed. His Marcaia upon the faces, the laws, the
very landscapes.
' 'How significant this is we may better judge when we remem
ber that the Saxon, masterful though he is, has never anywhere
achieved these results. He has filled new lands with his speech
and his faith (or his lack of it), but only by filling them with
his own blood — ( or that of his victims ) never by changing the
native. The United States, for instance, is of his speech ; but
what Indian tribe ever spoke English ? In the vastly greater
area of Spanish-America every Indian tribe speaks Spanish,
and has done so for centuries. The Saxon has never impressed
his language or his religion upon the people he has overrun.
Something of his face goes to the half-breeds he begets and
will not father ; but even this physical impress is less marked
than in. the case of his Latin predecessor ; for he himself, of
course, is a less fixed type."
Of the 14 million of population in Mexico, the masses
to the number of 10 million are chiefly Indian, and the
presence in their daily life of the most attractive qualities of
human kind are notable. Let me here apply some words of
Mr. Hopkinson Smith, in the "White Umbrella in Mexico:"
"A distinct and peculiar people. An unselfish, patient,
tender-hearted people, of great personal beauty, courage and
refinement. A people offering instantly to the stranger and
wayfarer on the very threshold of their homes a hospitality so

Annexation of the Philippines. 27
generous, accompanied by a courtesy so exquisite, that one
stops at the next doorway to re-enjoy the luxury."
" My memory went back to my three friends of the morn
ing, standing in the sunlight, their sombreros in the dust ; to
the garrulous old gardener bending over his flowers ; to the
girl selling pottery ; to the tender courtesy and gentleness of
these people, their unchanging serenity of temper, their mar
velous patience, their innate taste, skill, etc."

At the beginning of the war craze in the United States,
Prof. Morse of Massachusetts, one of the most distin
guished evolutionists among American scientific men, made
the following observation upon the midsummer madness of
the American people :
"It has taken our race a million years to climb up from the beast to the
man ; it takes just fifteen minutes for a man to go back to the beast again."
On my return trip in June last from the Orient, whither I
had gone before war was declared, I wrote from on board the
steamer Coptic as follows:
"Tuesday, June 23d. — Last night at 1:30 a. m. , I was
awakened by three sharp blasts of our ship's whistle saluting
the passing transports to Manila. Alas! alas! and alas! — en
thusiasm now, but later on sickness, suffering, misery, squalid
death under the pitiless sun of a tropical sky in an alien land.
And later on for those who remain at home, taxes ! taxes ! taxes !
Such is the glory and the cost of war. When all the burdens
of it are settled on the backs of the people, then look out for
political and social revolutions at home. As the war has been
repeatedly referred to by my correspondents, I will say
I'm no Jingo; don't believe in the doctrines of island expan
sion, annexation or conquest, but fear that the American
people are lending a willing ear to the suggestions of pride,
ambition and avarice, rather than to the sober and wholesome
dictates of wisdom, prudence and justice. Spain's colonies
have ruined her."

28 Annexation of the Philippines.
The events affecting this question have confirmed and
intensified my opposition to the policy pursued by the United
States government during the past twelve months. I have
never believed that the war was necessary, and my convictions
have been strengthened by the averment of Mr. John
Sherman, Secretary of State up to less than a year ago, who
is responsible for the disclosure, since his retirement, that
the State Department had, prior to the declaration of war,
reached a point in diplomatic negotiations with Spain at
which the latter expressed a readiness to part with Cuba for
200 million dollars. I am further confirmed therein by the state
ment of General Woodford, the then Minister to Spain, who is
credited with saying substantially as follows:
That when in Madrid conducting negotiations he had progressed to a
point at which Spain conceded every demand we mada, aud that when the
government of Spain drafted the scheme of autonomy to be put in force in
Cuba, it comprehended therein all we had demanded ; and that i£ the Congress
of the Unitad States had let the question alone, he believed would have estab
lished a stable government in the isle of Cuba, and that within from three to
six months thereafter the flag of Spain would hava peaceably come down.
Thus verifying the saying of Euripides, that —
* * * " the force of words
Can do whate'er is done by conquering swords."
This, however, seems like generalizing; therefore let me
be specific: FIRST — Spain had never infringed or encroached upon
any American rights. On the contrary, she had at all times
exhibited the utmost deference and courtesy toward the United
States; she had yielded to our every demand.
SECOND— The Spanish government had released all
Americans caught in the act of aiding the Cuban insurgents,
though under the operation of martial law such persons were
punishable by death.
THIRD— The cruel Weyler had been recalled, and in his
stead the merciful Blanco had been appointed Governor-
General.

Annexation of the Philippines. 29
FOURTH — Autonomy, or home rule — self-government —
had been granted to Cuba, and a Cuban Legislature had been
elected. FIFTH — The Spanish government had stopped the war
by the declaration of an armistice in accordance with the
request of President McKinley.
SIXTH — The reconcentradoes had received permission to
return to their homes.
SEVENTH — The Spanish government had appropriated
funds for the relief of the reconcentradoes.
EIGHTH — Permission had been given to the Americans
to feed the reconcentradoes.
It was said we could no more have averted the war than
we could stay the progress of Muir Glacier. That is the
unspeakably sad part of it. Marcus Aurelius saw the decad
ence of Rome, but was powerless to prevent it. New York
harbor has Bartholdi's statue " Liberty Enlightening the
World. " Are we engaged in that ennobling work by rivaling
the Romans in a policy of conquest and dominion ?
The most cherished political principles of the past — all
those contained in the Declaration of Independence — held by
the Democratic-Republican parties of the United States, for
example, that all men are born equal and endowed with certain
inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness; tbat all just government derives its
power from the consent of the governed; and the sacred
doctrine of the universal Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood
of man, are being trampled under foot in the sanguinary rush
toward— Glory— Expansion— "Imperial Democracy."
Advocates of island expansion constantly refer to the ac
quisition by the United States of Florida, the Louis
iana Territory, Texas, Arizona, and California as prece
dents for taking the Philippines. There is no analogy
whatever between these cases and the proposed annex-

30 Annexation of the Philippines-
ation of the Philippine or other tropical islands. These
were natural acquisitions of simply unoccupied wilds of contigu
ous territories suitable for settlement by the Caucasian race.
In this vast stretch of wilderness there was at no time an
average of one man of any race to every ten square miles, and
now, 300 years after our first colonies were founded, we have
in the whole United States only twenty-two people to the
square mile, while in the Philippines, 7000 miles distant,
there are sixty-six people to the square mile, and people too
who have occupied the land for countless generations, aye,
even for ages long gone and forgotten.
The policy of the'present United States Congress and the
Executive Administration may be summed up as having shown
four stages of progressive development :
First — Yellow Journalism and hysteria.
Second — Kevenge and elemental ferocity.
Third — Militarism and pride of power.
Fourth — Ambition, greed and ignorance.
At the meeting of the International Bar Association, a
year or itwo ago, Judge Storey made some pertinent remarks
to the effect that while the United States could endure short
crops, depressed business, hard times and domestic friction,
it would be hardest for it to bear successiin a foreign war; and
this has come true.
The good feeling between Great Britain and the United
States is something I have always believed in and sought to
promote, and without doubt England rendered the United
States Government an important service last year; yet it does
not appear to me that it is any part of the duty or to the
advantage of our Government to take a position in the Orient
that might require us to act as her military ally in matters
which are of no interest to the mass of our people.
I do not believe that we are under any responsibility
whatever in respect to the Philippines. Although technically
included in Oceanica, the Philippines properly belong to

Annexation of the Philippines. 31
Asia, and could never be naturally integrated with
the American Republic Because the necessities of war
resulted in the destruction of the 'Spanish fleets lying in
Manila Bay and at Santiago, does it follow, any more than
it would had they been in one of Spsjin's home ports, and
our flag raised over Cadiz, that w.e should take and
hold Spain? Shall we . renounce our professions and our
hallowed traditions and give vent to latent predatory
instincts, or shall we be true to the principles of our
honored sires, as the defenders and upholders of the
interests of humanity? We are not obligated to govern
the Filipinos in any manner or form. Let them look out
for themselves— work out their own salvation, in fear and
trembling if necessary. Give them a chance to try to walk
before saying they cannot. The fact that we have bargained
for 10,000,000 people at $2 per head, with a seller who cannot
deliver the goods, is no valid and sufficient reason for under
mining and overthrowing our own form of government. A
despotism like that in Java, or the bald exploitation of labor
in the interest of capital, as in Hawaii, would be a departure
from the spirit of our institutions so radical that if successful
it would mean the overthrow of democracy in the United
States. Let the poor and all men who earn their bread by
the labor of their hands pause and consider well before they
give their assent to a policy so deliberately forgetful of the
equality of rights. As for so-callei "Imperial Democracy," it
is only a thinly disguised scheme 1 o destroy American Democ
racy in the interests of what ? Wc rse than nothing ! Merely to
attract the notice of monarchical Europe and the plaudits of the
unthinking, — or, I repeat, to exploit Asiatic coolies in the inter
est of capital at the expense of American labor. I lack words
to express my scorn fo| it. In the language of Bourke Cock-
ran, "it is an effort on the part of this country to join in
the groveling, grabbing, degrading contest iof the family of
nations, a contest that has always filled the world with woe
and impeded human tbjought and human progress."

32 Annexation of the Philippines.
I realize that the United States can adopt Imperialism —
imperial liberty, as it is jauntily called — and engage in a policy
of conquering and to conquer for awhile; but would it be repre
sentative government? NO! The Queen of the Antilles, Porto
Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines. What an alluring seductive vis
ion of territorial Expansion! What intoxicating suggestion
of tropical felicities: the hula hula — • la media noche —
Tannhauser and Pleasure: from Plymouth Rock to Manila !
We know what has taken place in darkest South — the
Carolinas, Mississippi, and Louisiana; the colored vote has
simply been suppressed, — that is the plain English of it.
What is worse, the Republican organs of the country are
acquiescing in it, as being the only practical way out of that
perplexing and harrassing problem of more than thirty
years' duration. Yet the Negroes of the South are only as one
to ten of population in the United States and have enjoyed
close relations with the Whites for four or five generations,
one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty years.
With a country that turns out thirty criminals^ and
suffers twenty violent deaths ( an average of over 15,000
for three years past) to one for Great Britain, we
certainly are not in a position to start out on propagandas
of altruism. And for outrages on public highways— land
piracies — we out-rival the whole world — one hundred and
twenty-five trains dynamited in ten years past! As for admin
istrative plunderings it costs five times as much per capita for
municipal administration in San Francisco as it does in Bir
mingham or Glasgow. This degeneration is demoralizing the
whole body politic, yet seemingly is not enough. We scour
the seas for other distracting problems. I believe that we
will do better for mankind and for ourselves by cultivating
more peaceful methods, more Christian characteristics at home.
"Kighteousnes3 exalteth a nation; bat sin is a reproach to any people."
F®r Land Pi^oies
in United States
Ree page 5?,

Annexation of the Philippines. 33
To say nothing of the opinions of Imperialism expressed
in the declaration of the President of the United States that
"Territorial conquest would be criminal aggression," and of
the Congress of the United States that "Any disposition or
intention to exercise any sovereignty, jurisdiction or control
over said islands except for the pacification thereof, is dis
claimed," the mere itiea of conquest, race subjugation, and
colonial responsibility should be abhorrent to an American.
Senator Gray of Dela^ -are, one of the Peace Commissioners to
Paris, pleaded zealously against the policy of acquiring the
Philippines as unpatriotic, un-American, and inconsistent with
probity and good statesmanship. The Supreme Court of the
United States, December, 1856, declared, "There is certainly
no power given by the; Constitution to the Federal Government
to establish or maintaip colonies bordering on the United States,
or at distances, to be ruled and governed at its own pleasure.
No power is given to acquire a territory to be held and
governed permanently in that character." Now the current
laws of the United States will not permit us to make citizens
of the ten millions of Asiatics in the Philippine Islands.
In 1879 the vote of California on Chinese immigration was
154, 63S against, to 883 for. Ten years ago Congress precipi
tously passed a law prohibiting even the voluntary immigra
tion of Chinese to this country, for the sole purpose of sup
pressing in the United States a system of cheap contract labor.
On the Scott Bill for Chinese exclusion the U. S. Senate voted,
September 7, 1888, 37 yeas, only 3 nays. So late as 1892,
on the Geary Exclusion Act, Congress voted in the House
178 for, only 43 against. Despite this we have annexed the
Hawaiian Islands, a territory in which cheap contract labor
is the dominating characteristic of the laboring population—
so dominating, so overwhelming as to seem to our Commis
sioners a necessity to the industry of those islands,— and now
it is proposed to add 10 million Filipinos.

34 Annexation of the Philippines-
" The Anglo-Saxon in America has never shown a disposi
tion to ally himself with the aborigines, — has evinced no faculty
for dealing with inferior races, as tney are called, except through
a process of extermination. From the earliest days at Wes-
sagusset and in the Pequod war, down to the very last election
held in North Carolina— from 1623 to 1898— the knife and the
shotgun have been far more potent and active instruments in
his dealings with the inferior races than the code of liberty or
the output of the Bible Society."
Nor is the policy of island expansion or Imperialism justifi
able or defensible from even a merely mercenary point of view.
In the past six years England's trade has not appreciably
increased, while that of the United States has, and within the
six years mentioned, some 15 to 20 per cent.
What does this mean? It means that, as proved by the
United States and Germany, colo: ties are not necessary for the
expansion of trade ; and as proved by Great Britain, colonies
do not protect a nation against loss of trade. Every well
informed man knows that the loading British statesmen of
this generation have called the at( ention of their people to the
burdens of colonial administration — Lord Charles Beresford
to the contrary notwithstanding. The noble Lord's mission
may be summed up thus:
" ' Will you walk into my parlor? ' said the spider to the fly,
' ' Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy. ' "
Moreover the alleged fitness of the British for such service has
been attained by hundreds of years of experience. If Ameri
cans have ever displayed any ability in this line I am not
aware of it.
1 have said that colonies have ruined Spain. In the
report just made by Mr. Peletan to th/e French Chamber of
Deputies, he said that France spent /80 millions of dollars
annually on colonies. What benefit, hi demanded, did France
reap from those 80 millions— or rather 90, for the estimates

Annexation of the Philippines. 35
were always exceeded? In 1897 French exports to the
colonies amounted to 118 millions, and, assuming the profit
to be 20 per cent, t le cost price was 95 millions. This gave a
net loss of about 60 millions. He was aware that the West
Africa colonies were remunerative but why embark in adven
tures in which there was nothing to be gained ? This system
of conquests at a certain loss was an absurdity unprecedented
in history. Never before had a nation expended 60 million
dollars and many lives for the singular advantage of ruling by
force over distant populations. The root of the evil is that
there is no colonization, but only military occupation; and
conflicts between the colonists and the military authorities
have been of constant occurrence.
As to our exports to the Philippines, they are too insig
nificant to be thought of, having averaged less than>130-thou-
sand dollars for eighteen years — 1880 to 1897, inclusive; and the
amount for the last year, according to the published official
record of the Treasury Department,_was only 127 thousand
dollars and the average for five years past has been only 4-100
of 1 per cent of total exports. If we need the Philippines and
a navy to maintain the prestige of our commerce there, as
alleged statesmen tell us, how many islands, and how large a
navy do we need to maintain the prestige of our commerce
with the United Kingdom of Great Britain, etc., and Con
tinental Europe? To the latter countries the United States,
without either islands* or navy, exported during the fiscal year
1897, more than 770D times as much as to the Philippines,
and 22 times as mucn-as to the entire Orient; and our exports
to the Orient consist more largely of the precious metals than
of produce or manufactures. Manifestly we need Ireland, the
Azores, Guernsey, Heligoland, etc.
But further considering the purely sordid and mercenary
viasu_whence is to come our profit from Expansion to and
Imperialism in the Philippine Islands ? From what source are
the refulgent rays of glory to emanate ? If, as said in the
United States Senate by the Hon. William Mason, of Illinois,
there were only something to steal we might give ourselves

36 Annexation of the Philippines.
over to the alluring, seductive worship of the Almighty Dollar.
But the whole group would be of no more commercial value to
the United States than the smallest island suitable for a coal
ing and naval station. We could not possibly enjoy a monopoly
of trade with the Islands, and the supposed point of vant
age in the Philippines (7000 miles from home to begin with)
as a distributing center for our trade with the Orient is not
discernible.
k Hong Kong, the southernmost English trade center for
China, is 650 miles northwest of Manila. Shanghai is 800
miles north of Hong Kong ; Hankow is 800 miles west of
Shanghai, and Chefu, — Wei-hai-Wei, — on the Shantung Penin
sula, the last station taken by Great Britain to insure com
munication with the north central portion of China, reached
from the Gulf of Pechili, is also 800 miles north of Shanghai.
From this it will be seen that the Phil-ippi«esy-«jgh4fire our
Glory, our Expansion and our Militarism are to shine with
such brilliant lustre, are 2300 miles distant from the northern
commercial centers of China, and therefore are futile as a point
of vantage. Manifestly what we need in the Orient is Corea!
Why not take that so as be fully ' ' in the swim " with Russia
and Great Britain ?
Commercial growth, let it not be overlooked, does not at
all depend upon terri'fSriaPor^^l^JaLespansion. We have
had the greater part of the trade of Hawaii, yet did not own
the Islands, and Great Britain enjoys the larger part of the
trade of the Philippines,~~yet "does not own them. Great
Britain probably controls eigb ty .. ,p.gx„aejit- of the foreign
trade of China, not because she has colonies, but because her
people have so far been the best traders in the world — except
ing the Dutch, for the same reason she carries in British
bottoms nearly all the foreign tonnage out of our own port of
San Francisco.
The following tables respecting Foreign Commerce of the
United States, including that with Oceanica and the Philip
pines, will be of interest to all those of a statistical turn of
mind:

A SUMMARY STATEMENT
Of the Foreign Commerce of the United States for the five years from 1893 to 1897, both
inclusive, showing the imports, exports and total Commerce for each division and their respective
trade balances; also the annual averages of the same, and the percentage of each:

Countries.

Imports.

Exports.

Total Commerce.

Balances.

Favorable.

Adverse.

$ 1,986,005,097 717,412,132530,739,909408,324,122 113,921,334 35,748,231 5,669,; 70

$ 3,477,204,621 589,583,652 169,443,639
119,325,103 76,072,892
47,322,068 1,992,447

$ 5,463,209,7181,306,995,784 700,183,548527,649,228 189,994,226 83,070,299 7,662,217

$ 1,491,199,524

$ 127,828,480
361,296,270 288,999,016 37,848,442
11,573,837
3,677,323
$ 3,797,820,595
$ 4,480,944,425
$ 8,278,765,020
| 1,502.773,361
& 819,649,531
$ 683,123,830
ANNUAL AVERAGES.
>
Moz
c
Countries
Europe 
North America 
South America 
Asia 
Ooeaniea 
Africa 
All others 
Imports.
397 143, 106 8126, 7. 1
201,019
482,420 107. 9S2
664,824 384,267 149,646133,955
759,564,119
Per
Cent.
52.0 19.014.110 8
3.0
0.90.2
100.0
Exports.
Per
Cent.
695,440, 117,916: 33,888, 23,885, 15,214, 9,464, 398,
024 730
728021
578414490
77.6 13 2
3 8
2.6 1.7 1.0
0.1
$ 896,188,885j 100.0
1,092,641,944 261,399,157 140,036,720105,529,845 37,998.845 16,614,060 1,532,443
$ 1,655,753,004 100.0
Per
Cent.
64.9 16.1 908.72.3090.1
en
'A SUMMARY STATEMENT
Of the Commerce of the United States with ASIA and OCEANICA for the five years from 1893
to 1897, both inclusive, showing imports, exports and total Commerce. Also, their respective
trade balances and the percentage of each on the total Commerce.

COUNTRIES.

IMPORTS.

EXPORTS.

TOTALS.

ADVERSE
BALANCES.

, China (ino. Hone Kong) 

1105,634,289 120.12J.493 103,001,908 58,161,487 16,303,353 1,726,478
3,373,114

$ 55,643,81832,762,179 18,406,083 7,724,221 4SH.331
1,496,327
2,806, 147

$161,278,107 152,885,672 121,407,991 65,885,708 16,789,684 3,222,805 6,379,261

% 49,990,471 87,361,314
84,595,82550,437,266 15,817,022 230,151 366 967

1 British India 
ASIA < Dutch East Indies 

J Turkey in Asia 
1 Russia " " 

^ All other countries 

r-

Totals 

.1408,324,122
' 81,664,824

1119,325,106 23,865,021 V1o

1527,649,228

Per Annum 

105,529,845

$288,^99,016

.Per Cent  ,;..,

. .

OCEANICA.
COUNTRIES.
IMPORTS.
EXPORTS.
TOTAL.
FAVORABLE BALANCE.
ADVERSE
BALANCES.
Net Adverse
Balance.
Australasia 
$ 29,384,06452,546,548
32,266,162 1,719,966
I 55,275,792 18,532,689 676,142
1,588,269
$ 84,659,85671,079,237
30,942,304 3,308,235
$ 25,891,728
% 34,013,85929, 590.1 '20
131,697
Philippine Islands 
All -others 
Totals 
1113,916,740
$ 76,072,892
$189,989,632
$ 25,891,728
$ 63,735,576
$ 37,843,848
Total Asia and Oceanica .
$522,240,862
$195,397,998
$717,638,860
% 326,842,864
OCEANICA. — Annual averages of imports and exports, and percentage of same on total commerce
COUNTRIES.
Australasia 
Hawaiian Islands . .
Philippine Islands.
All others 
Totals
IMPORTS.
$ 5,876,815
10,509,306 6,053,234 343,995
$22,783,350
Per
Cent.
0.77 1.50
0.800.04
EXPORTS.
$11,055,158 3,7.06,538 135,228
317,654
815,217,57fc
Per
Cent.
TOTAL.
1.23
0.40
0.04 0.35
$16,931,971 14,215,847 6,188,461 661,647
l'£ $37,997,926
Per
Cent.
1.00
0.860.370.01
2'g
FAVORABLE BALANCE.
ADVERSE
BALANCES.
$ 5,178,325
$ 5,178,325
$ 6,802,7725,918.004 26,333
$12,747,115
Net Adverse
Balance.
$ 7,568,769
>%
w >M
o
oa
M w
?dH
ww
Annexation of the Philippines. 39
To the advocates of Expansion and Imperialism who indulge
in the delusion that a mere change lin the suzerainty of the
colonial possessions of Spain will cause the movements of
commerce to change their natural channels and seek other
markets regardless of the laws of consumption, we commend a
study of the object-lesson presented by the tabular statement
•found below.
It is a simple statement, compiled from the Statesman's
Year Book of the foreign commerce of the four greatest
colonial nations , for thepast decade, divided into two quinquen
nial periods compared with each other, and also compared
with similar periods of the commerce of the United States,
destitute, as it is, of colonies and so poorly off in tonnage
that 82 per cent of its own exported products have to be
carried in foreign bottoms.
It will be observed that during the latter period of [five
years as compared with the "preceding one, these Hour ^colonial
natiqns have lost over 15II0.JDailli^n~dallars-af, their export trade
while the United States, ^jyjJ^nJL-Jsolauiesand with a very
limited tonnage, has increased_its export trade with foreign
markets over 270mjJJiQn^ollars. But the most remarkable ex
perience is sEown, where we should least expect it, in the
colonial commeT,ee-^f-theJ[Inite.d.Eingdi2m.
It is the boast of this little Kingdom, comprising
less than 122,000 square miles and 40,000,000 people, that
the sun never sets upon her domain, as by means of her
"Colonies," "Protectorates," and "Spheres of Influence" she
practically controls 22 per cent of the entire «, area of the
globe, and 400,006,000~of ~'its~peoples or 27" per cent
of the population of the world, and owns, besides, 55 per
cent of its carrying tonnage. And yet, notwithstanding these
signal advantages, it appears that while she sustained a loss of
over 566 million dqllaraor ._7i_per_cent of her exjport trade, the
loss of her exports to her own colomesexceeded 200 million
or over 10 per cent. This"sTibulaf afford conclusive evidence
to every reflecting mind that the commerce of the world has
inexorable laws of its own that are not to be controlled or
affected by ill-advised chauvinism or popular claptrap.

40

Annexation of the Philippines.

Great BrifciaiJ
1888-92.. 1893-97..
Germany 1887-91 . .
1892-96 . .
France 1887-91 . .
1892-96 . .
Spain 1888-92 . .
1893-97 . .
Br. Colonies
1887-91
1892-96
United States
1888-92 . .
1893-97 . .

IMPOBTS,

£ 2,095,200,481
2,122,769,841
Mks. 25,683,053,000
21,450,669,000
Fes. 26,840.000,00024,731,000,000
Pesetas 4,293,802,967 3,640,635,485
£ 463,606,406 471,786,163
$3,930,717,830 3,797,820,595

Exports.

£ 1,543,676,2221,427,319,398
Mks. 22,635,533.000 19,624,044,000
Fes. 22,909,000,000
22,185,000,000
Pesetas 4,193,023,244 3,699,739,635
£415,679,788 373,619,786
$4,210,943,524 4,480,944,425

Totals.

£ 3,638,876,703
3,550,089,239
Mks. 48,318,586,000
41,074,713,000
Fes. 49,749,000,000
46,916,000,000
Pesetas 8,486,826,211 7,340,375,120
£ S79,286,194845,405,949
$8,141,661,354 8,278,765,020

Great Britain, Loss of Export Trade. £

Germany,France,Spain,British Colonies

116,356,824 =

657,732= 7.53$

Mks. 3,011,489,000 = $716,734,382= 13,61$
.Fes. 723,000,000 = $139,732,000= 5.25$
.Ps. 493,283.609=$' 95,003,736=11.76$
.£ 42, 060, 002 = $204, 832, 209= 10.12$

•Total Loss (exclusive of British Colonies)  $1,518,127,850
United States, INCBEASE Total Gain  $ 270,000,901 = 6.41$
The Domestic Exports from the United States to the world
at large for the year 1898 were 1281 million dollars; to the
Philippines for the year ending June 30, 1898, 127 thousand
dollars — or less than 1-100 of one per cent. It is curious
there should be so much noise over a crate of goods to the
Philippines as compared to a shipload to Great Britain or
Continental Europe.
The cant that " tratje_ follows the -flag" is as shallow
sophistry as the designing claptrap that ' ' free silver would
bring prosperity." Trade is determined by fitness, price and
transportation, all of which may be summed up in the one
word, PRICE. It is asserted that "trade follows the flag,"
and that, as respects dependencies, at least, the " open door "

The footing of 81,618,127,860 does not inclade the item of British Colonies, $301,832,209.

Annexation of the Philippines. 41
policy is the best policy. If "trade follows the flag" in
dependencies, and, by so doing, affords the American producer
all needful PROTECTION and every fair advantage in those
dependencies, it is not at once apparent why it fails so to do at
home. It may not be out of place here to say that at the rate we are
traveling in quest of imperial splendor, the year '99 will proba
bly show for administering the affairs of the Government a
budget in excess of that of any nation in the world; and that
the combined outlay for pensiqn^jarmy__and navy, will alone
approximate or exceed "Viree hundred and fifty millions of
dollars. Now, thirty-three years after the Civil War, we have
a pension roll of very nearly one million names. And still
they come. We paid to pensioners last year over 145 million
dollars, a sum larger than the annual cost of the whole military
peace establishment of the German Empire, including its
pension roll.
But there are questions in life that refuse to be settled by
equations. "Blot out the huckstering tale of gain or loss ;
Behold the LEADER of b vanquished Cause,
HIS arms extended on the bitter Cross.'1

A sophistry of the Spanish war craze is to the effect that
the added responsibilities imposed upon the American people
by the administration of government in foreign lands, over
conquered and subjugated alien peoples, would develop a scope
of mental and moral vision so broad as to beget a nobler and
more exalted sense of the obligations devolving upon our
people as members of a World Power.
Any one at all familiar with the administration of colonial
affairs in Africa, Asia or Malaysia well knows the fallacy of

42 Annex ation of the Philippines.
this theory. In view of the character and repute of the
political jobbers who, according to the public press, largely
influence the government of this country, it would be just as
consistent to argue that a confirmed roue", acknowledging, yet
violating his conjugal obligations, would have his moral vision
purified and his mental horizon extended by being provided
with a harem.
If this view of the case is questioned I offer these extracts
from five letters recently received from Manila, written by
different correspondents connected with the army. One of
the writers expresses himself as follows :
"If interest in our home country, if our desire to steer
clear of international and internecine complications are the
main factors to be considered, then don't hold the islands.
The majority of Spaniards, at least here, are willing, and I
might say anxious, for us to take charge of the islands, but it
were much better if politics in our own country were greatly
improved before we create larger fields for politicians to feed
in. Besides this our army officials should be taught not to
rob and neglect American soldiers before they i are given charge
of a foreign, ignorant and helpless people."
"The only 'imperialists,' " says another, "in all the Amer
ican forces now in these islands are to be found among the
temporary government appointees, who see coming within
their grasp large fat official plums, and a large percentage of
the well-paid army officers, surrounded by their large retinue
of cheap servants, a la ante-bellum days in the South."
A third says : " Prior to the advent of the Americans
there were but two saloons on the Escolta, the principal busi
ness street, a quarter of a mile long, whereas now there are
eighteen. In the city there are now 300 places where liquors
are sold. The income of the largest, the "Alhambra," is said
to be $700 nightly. Already the street cars are topped with
large signs detailing the exquisite qualities of certain whiskies,
and a quarter of the space in the newspapers printed in
English is devoted to beer advertisements, while the largest
drug store has a whole column of liquor announcements to the
exclusion of any mention of medicines."

Annexation of the Philippines. 48
Another writes he has just established a gambling shop,
making $287 in one week.
The fifth writes:
' ' The young man that looks upon the Philippines as an
Eldorado, who thinks life will be easier there, that a living
will come without effort, I say to him cordially, go, hasten by
first steamer, your country does not need nor want such as you;
it is a good place for you. To the serious, thinking man to
whom life is something more than bed and board; don't go,
you are leaving an Eden behind you, and will find but a moral
cess-pool awaiting you. If your own country is not large
enough for you, it is doubtless your own, not your country's
fault. "The young man willing to work is debarred from
exhibiting much energy by climatic conditions. The only
hard workers are the Chinese, and they also control nearly all
of the better class of retail trade and a large part of the
banking business. The bodily frame of the majority of our
men is not sufficiently immune from malaria and kindred ills
to permit of a residence in the Island .
" Moral suicide awaits nine out of every ten young mon:
who, lacking the elements of Christian training and influence,
visit the far East. The morality of the treaty ports from
Yokohama to Suez presents a darker picture than the
slums of Europe can offer. There temptation is all but
overpowering; it stalks on the streets, is registered at
the hotels, and put-up at the social clubs. Its repre
sentatives are prowling into Manila from Hong Kong and
Singapore. November and December last witnessed a verit
able Klondykan rush to the former Spanish capital. As a
result, Manila is becoming a den of vice. The Escolta, the
leading street, is facetiously referred to as the "Yankee beer
chute," resembles somewhat a midway, and is all but literally
lined with saloons. I counted four hundred in a little over a
mile. These are mostly kept by Americans. The largest
cafe, known as the Alhambra, has frequently closed its bar at
four in the afternoon because its stock of liquor was exhausted.

44 Annexation of the Philippines.
Do the Filipinos form the larger complement of their patrons ?
Not at 'all, our own boys are their customers, and many of
them boys, who prior to their arrival at Manila, had not, I
venture to say, ever touched a glass of intoxicating liquor.
" The young man without capital has no business in these
islands. Until order is brought out of chaos, the situation
becomes more stable, the clouds lift, and the necessity of main
taining a large force to hold in check the native population, the
best place for our young men is at home, and even under the
most favorable conditions had I a son, I would feel somewhat
as though I was consigning him to almost certain destruction
did I permit him to take up residence in the Orient, when
necessity did not compel his passing beyond our shores."
Prom this and the fact that 1100 coffins have been ordered
from a lumber establishment in San Francisco, doubters wiil
see that increased consumption does enliven business at Ma
nila. This is Glory — this is Expansion — this is "Imperial De
mocracy !"
Permit me to call the attention of the expansionist clergy,
those who seem to think that latter day ideas of political liberty
and the Protestant religion can, by quick-firing cannon
and Krag-Jorgeson rifles, be shot into struggling peoples
aspiring to freedom, to the pictures here presented of the
refining and elevating influences that are reaching Manila
through the medium of war. Yet these gentlemen tell us that
we are going abroad in the interests of Christian civilization.
"Ah, there is Woe when -wai-'s red banners rise,
"Woe when rapine's flames mount to the sorrowing skies."
The truth is that the moral progress made in Oriental
colonies has been a reflex of the moral advance of the Home
Government — not an expanded moral sense on the part of the
exploiters, e. g., witness the arraignment, though futile,
of Lord Clive and Warren Hastings. Nor have we to go
abroad or delve into the past for examples of official wrong
doing. Apart from corruption in our municipal, state and
national govfernment, the army has been, in the brief interval

Annexation of the Philippines. 45
of the past year, fruitful of cases, of venality and insubordi
nation. And the more Islands we plunder the more corruption
we shall suffer at home.
In the appendix to Pope's translation of the Odyssev
appears a Greek composition entitled "A Prayer to Apollo,"
wherein is recited the jealousy of Juno at what she deems
the slights of Jove, and because of which she proposes to
bring forth of her own volition and power a son that shall sur
pass all other men. The fruit of this abnormal conception
was a monster called Typhon, whom Juno entrusted for rear
ing to a dragoness on earth, and the two were prolific sources
of woe to the sons of men — relentless creatures who, as the
author relates : "Did oppress
" With many a misery to maintain the excess
"Of that inhuman monster, all the race
"Of men that were of all the world the grace."
"Imperial Democracy," as the outcome of righteous
democratic republican government would be a prodigy as evil
and pernicious as the misbegotten whelp of Juno.
Is this revolting? If so, take heed of the following : On
November 22, 1898, Hon. C. A. Sulloway, a member of the
U. S. Congress from New Hampshire, said: " China is suc
cumbing to the inevitable, and the United States, if she would
not retire to the background, must advance along the line with
the other great nations. She must acquire new territory, pro
viding new markets over which she must maintain control.
The Anglo-Saxon advances into the new regions with a Bible
in one hand and a shotgun in the other. The inhabitants of
those regions that he cannot convert with the aid of the Bible
and bring into his markets, he gets rid of with the shotgun.
It is but another demonstration of the survival of the fittest."
This is Science and Materialism gone mad.
In other words, like a jackal, we select a point of vantage
and watch the dismemberment of a carcass by lions awaiting
our opportunity to seize a few fragments.
In the language of a British statesman, uttered in an hour
of stress:

46 Annexation of the Philippines.
"Come the eleventh plague rather than this should be;
Come sink us rather in the sea;
Come, rather, pestilence, and reap us down;
Come God'g sword, rather than our own.
Let rather Boman come again,
Or Saxon, Norman, or the Dane.
In all the bonds we ever bore,
We grieved, we sighed, we wept; —we never blushed before." *
However, my opposition is not based upon commercial,
constitutional, legal, or technical grounds alone, but also upon
the doctrine of human rights, an^ common sense. The as
sumed analogy between England', and America is a fallacy,
and strikes at the very root of our governmental foundations.
England's institutions have been formed on the doctrine of
inequality (as are those of all Monarchical Governments);
America's on the declared principle of equality before the
law. It may without exaggeration be said of the North
American people that, from the beginning down to this
year just ended, its development has been one long protest
against, and divergence from, Old World methods and ideals.
Referring to the denial of his "inalienable rights" to the
African, Thomas Jefferson declared: "I tremble for my country,
when I reflect that God is just." And Abraham Lincoln said,
"The assertion that all men are created equal was of no
practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain,
and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future
use. Its author meant it to be, as, thank God, it is now prov
ing itself, a stumbling block to all those who, in after times,
might seek to turn a free people back into the paths of despot
ism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants,
and they meant, when such should reappear in this fair land,
and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at
least one hard nut to crack."
If we are now to abandon the Declaration of Independ
ence, the Constitution of the United States and American
Democracy for British Imperialism it is meet and right that
* (Lines by old Abraham Cowley, used by Sir Robert Peel in repelling an attack of
Wm. Cobett in the British Parliament, 1833).

Annexation of the Philippines. 47
we should make the amende honorable to King George the
Third, of gracious (?) memory, and publicly confess to the world
at large and to England in particular, that the masked rioters
who threw the tea overboard in Boston harbor, and the scat
tering mob of ranchers who caused tumult and bloodshed at
Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill were in reality "Lewd
fellows of the baser sort" bent on the subversion of law and
order; that they and their aiders and abbettors deserved con
dign punishment at the hands of British Red Coats, and that
their memories be now execrated. Nay more, should we not
go to Washington City, take down the portrait of the reputed
Father of our Country and substitute therefor that of Good
(?) King George the Third?
And when we have done all this let us exclaim, Ichabod!
Our glory has departed !
Of all we loved and honored, naught
Save power remains, —
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.
All else is gone, from those great eyea
The soul has fled:
When faith is loBt, when honor dies,
The man is dead!
Seventy-five years ago John Quincy Adams, in a Fourth
of July address delivered at Washington, in referring to the
"MISSION OF AMERICA" as a member of the great
family of nations, with a remarkable foresight of the political
heresies and philanthropic neonisms of to-day, raised a warn
ing voice in fervid tone against a departure from the spirit of
our institutions, which was prophetic of the dangers now
threatening our national life and which appeal to every senti
ment of true patriotism and love of country. He said —
" And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned
philosophers of the older world, the first observers of nutation
and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible
planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells,
should find their hearts disposed to enquire, what has America

48 Annexation of the Philippines.
done for mankind ? Let our answer be this:- — America, with
the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation,
proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human
nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.
America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission
among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held
forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom,
of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among
them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the
language of equal liberty, equal justice and equal rights. She
has in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single
exception, respected the independence of other nations, while
asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from
interference in the concerns of others even when the conflict
has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last
vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably
for centuries to come, all the contents of that Aceldama, the
European World, will be contest between inveterate power
and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and
independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her
heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. BUT SHE
GOES NOT ABROAD IN SEARCH OF MONSTERS TO
DESTROY. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator
only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by
the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of
her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under
other banners tlian her own, lucre they even the banners of
foreign independence, she tvould involve herself beyond the
power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of
individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors
and usurp the standard of freedom: The fundamental maxims of
her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The
frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable
splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would
soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and
tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion aud power.

Annexation of the Philippines. 49
SHE MIGHT BECOME THE DICTATRESS OF THE
WORLD; SHE WOULD NO LONGER BE THE RULER
OF HER OWN SPIRIT."
The press dispatches of February 17th report President
MoKinley as also saying ( to the Home Market Club of Boston)
that our country has a mission. Let me quote from an emi-
sent New York lawyer of to-day, Mr. Wheeler H. Peckham :
" I do, indeed, think that this nation has a noble mission
to mankind and humanity. That mission is to show them how
to live. To show that it is possible to form a vast political
organization which shall be just and honest and free; in which
the remedy of war shall be eliminated ; in which controversies
shall be those of the mind, and in which knowledge and
intellect and benevolence shall be the arms used; where the
forum shall not be the tented field; where hospitals and ambu
lances and surgeons and nurses and suffering and death shall
sot be weapons; but where the forum shall be a Court, where
great and good men shall listen to argument and reason, and
shall adjudge and decide as right and justice may appear, and
where their decisions shall be respected and observed because
they are just."
We all know that according to Greek mythology the blue-
eyed fair-haired goddess, Minerva, the most beautiful of all
Jove's daughters, was the patron saint or protecting goddess
of the Greeks in their campaign against the Trojans. She it
was who cheered them in their discomfitures and in their
hours of gloom inspired them with renewed courage to attempt
glorious achievements by heroic efforts for final victory in the
overthrow of Troy. But when, in the hour of triumph, the
impious Ajax profaned the temple of Liberty — Minerva's—
she called to her aid all the avenging furies and lashed the
offenders through the world. For this the army of the Greeks
was decimated; for this the noble Ulysses wandered painfully
over sea and land seeking his Argive home; for this the brand
of impiety was set indelibly upon the Greeks. Is there no
lesson here for Americans in this their hour of madness ?
la the midst of war and rumors of war and all its dread

50 Annexation of the Philippines.
accompaniments and consequences, its disastrous blunders of
policy at home, and savage struggles in the field, it renders
more imperative the consideration of the truths which, despite
all the blandishments of temporal power and place, were in
sistently proclaimed by our Lord and Master, Jesus of Nazar
eth. What shall it profit Americans if they gain the whole world
and lose their reverence for and loyalty to the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and all
the most cherished principles of our fair fabric of liberty,
broadbased on the immutable principles of the truth as it is in
Jesus ?
Confronted by the war-spirit madness which ^has prevailed
in the United States for a year past, I would ask every profess
ing Christian of whatsoever church, sect or denomination, if
he believes that, were the Galilean Himself present, looking on
at the slaughter of helpless people, He would approve it? Nay
more, I ask those ministers of the Gospel who have been so
swift to proclaim the benefits and blessings of Christian civili
zation to follow the triumphs of our arms, whether, in the face
of the wild outburst of savagery which has characterized our
latest victories, they believe that the evangelizing process which
has been adopted is in keeping with the spirit of Christ?
Also, whether they believe that war is any other than what
Bismark and Sherman have characterized it, " Hell on earth !"
" How long, 0 Lord! how long
Shall such a priesthood barter truth away,
And in Thy name, for robbery and wrong,
At Thy own altars pray?"
If the spirit of Christ prevail not in our civilization, it is of no
more worth than the imperial despotism built up and main-
tained by Roman Legions, and like it, liable to be overthrown
and trampled in the dust by Goths and Vandals in another
form. Entertaining the views that these words indicate, I believe
that the inexhaustible spirit of love and brotherhood, which
is in Christ Jesus is the only guide to the just and righteous
settlement of the difficulties in which our country is now

Annexation of the Philippines. 51
involved, and that it should be appealed to in the heart of
every human being who recognizes the fact that Christ died
that we might live.
For my own part I cherish a sympathy for all the dwellers
in any land, believing them to be our brethren, in a humani
tarian sense, if in no other, and not outside the pale of Christ's
redemption and the Fatherly compassion of the Almighty.
My opinion is that our coming national campaign
will be a.strenuous one, and that the issue will be between
American Democracy — broadbased , as it is, on the immutable
principles of the truth as it is in Jesus— and Plutocratic Im-
peralism, to the exclusion of all minor questions — standards
of value, currency reform, tariff revision and everything else
apart from a contest for and against the lust of ambition,
power and pelf. I do not believe that the democratic heart
of America will tolerate the sordid, vulgar and ignoble spirit
of avarice and vainglory which underlie the present situation,
To use Prof. Markham's words, the problem of labor is the
sphinx that sits at the threshold of the twentieth century.
And we must answer its terrible question, or — ? The riddle
must be solved. For myself I have Hope and Faith.
Amidst the tumuli of unmitigable scorn—
The old ancestral cries of mortal wrong,
Hope keeps undimmed the glory of the view,
Which once was hers when all our land was new.
Her ears still catch one strain that never dies,
Held firm through chance and change of earth and skies—
Her dumb unswerving Faith in good and true.
THE REIGN OF THE COMMON PEOPLE.

„ _ T San Francisco, March 1, 1899.
Mr. John J. Valentine, San Franoisoo, Cal.
_. ..Pear Sir-' — I had the pleasure to listen to your two leotureB dealing with the
Philippine question and have been very much impressed with your clear and
truthful statement of facts and the strong arguments; which ought to con
vince every intelligent American that MoKinley and his staff are on the wrong
path. I am a Hollander by birth aud eduoation, have lived seven years on the
Island of Java, and was during that time in olose contaot with the Malay natives
and their chiefs. I learned their language, their customs, and know their good and
bad habits, virtues and vices, and will say that it is an absurd proposition to even
think of absorbing such a race (and the Filipinos are their brothers) in the
American nation. Even if through centuries of education their intelligence had
vastly inoreased, even then American principles oould not be praotioed in their
country. Further; as you remarked so strongly, the Anglo-Saxon cannot live in the
tropios without physical, mental and moral degeneration, whioh degeneration
shows itself even after a few years of living in the tropics, and very plainly in the
second generation. The severity of the climate is acknowledged by the Dutoh
Government by the faot that all civil officers have a right to go to the mother
country one year for every five years of service in the colonies, and the time of
officers and men in the army counts double.
The death rate is high, and most deaths are caused by diseases produced
through olimatio influences. The natives are short-lived, they are mothers at
twelve years; a woman of twenty-five is old and natives of fifty years are rare.
That such a climate affects any other race of the temperate zones does not need
further argument, and it is fully explained by statistics.
If the American nation, or rather the government — because if the people
knew and realized what is in store for them in the future they would oppose as
one man — insist in holding these Philippine Islands it simply means the extermi
nation of the native population.
The disappearance of the natives will necessitate the importation of some other
tropical race, say Chinese, because manual labor cannot be performed by the
Anglo-Saxon in the tropics (even the Chinese in the Dutoh colonies abstain from
all manual field labor and are traders). A striking example of this course of
events are the Hawaiian Islands, since the Americans have settled that country:
The natives are fast disappearing ; Chinese and Japanese had to be imported to
cultivate the soil, and in suoh numbers that they are at present a menace to the
oountry and at any time when they should realize their power oould cripple the
industries of those Islands and make them worthless.
The same course of events will take plaoe in the Philippines when gun
powder and bullets have decimated the people and the remainder have been driven
back to the mountains — the deadly enemy of the white man who took their all.
If the course of actions now in exeoution will be continued there will be for
ever a black spot on the American flag, and the coming generation will dishonor
the name of McKinley and those who have been instrumental in forcing this
struggle under the most unjust, inhuman and false pretense of bettering the fate
of a people who never offended this nation and have the right to be free and own
their own.
Nature alone will, in the course of centuries to come, evolutionize and bring
those people to a higher level of intellect and make them fit to take plaoe among
advanced nations; powder and bullets won't.
And then there is so much to do at home for America, as you justly remarked.
Hoping not to have taken too much of your valuable time, I am, Dear Sir,
Respectfully yours, J. G. Vobstman.

In view of the national shotgun-meat-axe policy
as announced by Congressman Sulloway, of New
Hampshire, for the Christian civilization of Oriental
races, and called by President McKinley a policy of
"benevolent assimilation," it may not be out of
place to consider the condition of affairs at home,
and I respectfully call the especial attention of the
expansionist clergy to the train robbery statistics of
the past nine years in the United States of America,
as follows: The "Express Gazette" (Cincinnati),
has collected the data and significantly adds that
during the past year there was not even an attempt
at train robbery in Mexico.
1890  . 12
1891  16
1892  16
1893  33
1894  34
1895  49
1896  28
1897  30
1898  28
Total number of trains "held up" in nine years . . 246
Total number of people killed  88
Total number of people injured (shot)  77
The above are cold, hard, indisputable facts,
from official sources; and furnish a problem of "be
nevolent assimilation" that would tax the digestion
of an ostrich or a boa-constrictor. Jno. J. Valentine.

February 28, 1899.

IVERSITY

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