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 The Philippines 
 
 WHAT IS DEMANDED OF THE UNITED 
 
 STATES BY THE OBLIGATIONS OF 
 
 DUTY AND NATIONAL HONOR 
 
 BY 
 
 M. Russell Thayer 
 
 A.M., LL.D. 
 
 Phti,adki,phia, Dkckmbh;r, 1898. 
 
 1 
 
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 I dedicate these pages to the Pennsyl- 
 vania Soldiers, who, with their comrades from 
 other States and of the regular army, are 
 now upholding the flag of the United States 
 in these distant seas. 
 
 M. RUSSELL THAYER. 
 Philadelphia, Dec. 7, i8<)8. 
 
THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 WHAT IS DEMANDED OF THE UNITED STATES BY THE 
 OBLIGATIONS OF DUTY AND NATIONAL HONOR. 
 
 By the Providence of God and the unfore- 
 seen issues of the war, but by no fault of ours, 
 we have unexpectedly, and without any previously 
 formed purpose or concerted plan, come into the 
 possession of a group of islands in the Pacific, 
 occupying an ocean area of fifteen degrees of 
 latitude and ten of longitude, with a land surface, 
 according to maps made in 1882, of 114,000 square 
 miles. First revealed to the civilized world by the 
 great Portuguese navigator, Magellan, who lost his 
 life there in 1521, the Philippines, after having been 
 for three hundred years under the dominion of 
 Spain, have come into our possession as one of the 
 unexpected results of the war waged with Spain to 
 liberate Cuba from a tyranny more oppressive, 
 more cruel, and more barbarous than any other 
 recounted in modern history — a tyranny which 
 not only seized and appropriated, with robber-like 
 
rapacity, the property and material resources of 
 her people, but turned their country — a natural 
 paradise — into a Golgotha, white with the bones 
 of its defenceless victims. The spectacle of the 
 wholesale slaughter of unarmed men, women and 
 children by the remorseless order of a Spanish 
 Governor-General of Cuba, driving from their 
 humble homes by thousands inoffensive and un- 
 armed peasants and their families, to perish by 
 starvation, exposure and disease in the pestilential 
 purlieus of the large cities and towns, was one so 
 barbarous and pitiful that it shocked the civilized 
 world. It was a crime of such stupendous propor- 
 tions that it filled to*overflowing the cup of Spanish 
 misrule in the island of Cuba. 
 
 Other nations began to regard with wonder the 
 attitude of forbearance so long maintained by the 
 United States in the face of these appalling attroci- 
 ties. These crimes were committed at our own door 
 and under our very eyes. They involved not only 
 the destruction of the natural and civil rights of an 
 entire people, but the almost total extinction of a 
 flourishing trade and commerce which had long ex- 
 isted between Cuba and the United States, as well 
 as heavy and irremediable losses to American citi- 
 zens prosecuting their lawful business in the island 
 of Cuba. That our interference was peremptorily 
 demanded by the highest obligations of humanity 
 and national duty, in order to put an end to the 
 
horrors of Spanish rule in Cuba, no impartial and 
 reasonable person, who believes in God, in justice, 
 and the inalienable rights of humanity, ought to 
 doubt. The Government of Spain having, after 
 repeated expostulations, evinced no other disposi- 
 tion than to continue the slaughterings, the burn- 
 ings and the devastations which had laid waste the 
 island and depopulated its fairest regions, no other 
 resource remained but the armed interference of 
 the United States. The Spanish war was the 
 result. 
 
 No war was ever waged for a more just or 
 sacred cause or for a nobler end. The nation felt 
 this from its centre to its remotest borders. The 
 call of the President thrilled the country like an 
 electric shock. Thousands leaped to arms and 
 wheeled into column ready to march at the first 
 sound of the trumpet — more thousands volunteered 
 for duty than could be accepted. The patriotism 
 of the country broke down all sectional boundaries, 
 imaginary or real, and burnt up instantly in its 
 fierce flame all political, sectional and geographical 
 differences and prejudices. The soldiers and the 
 sailors who marched for the liberation of Cuba were 
 animated by the same spirit which animated the 
 President. They maintained and, indeed, sur- 
 passed the reputation of their ancestors for valor 
 and coolness in the presence of danger. Providence 
 smiled upon our arms, for our cause was the cause 
 
8 
 
 of Heaven, humanity and justice. The war was 
 conducted with such vigor and rapidity that in a 
 single summer it was brought to a victorious con- 
 clusion. Two powerful fleets of the enemy, one in 
 the Eastern, the other in the Western Hemisphere, 
 were so totally destroyed that not a single ship of 
 either squadron escaped complete and absolute de- 
 struction. Both fleets, and every ship of both 
 fleets, now lie rotting at the bottom of the China 
 and Caribbean Seas. Our land attacks were equally 
 successful, but the victories were won by hard and 
 persevering valor — a fearless valor that would not 
 yield to any danger, or difficulty, or hardship, and 
 at the cost of many lives of brave men. It was a 
 sharp, short and decisive conflict, reflecting a fresh 
 glory upon our arms and astonishing the world 
 with the speediness and completeness of our 
 victory. 
 
 When war was declared it was the duty of 
 the army and navy to strike the enemy wher- 
 ever he could be found. Admiral Dewey, then in 
 the Eastern Seas with his squadron, struck the 
 enemy so suddenly, and with such a heavy hand, 
 that the inhabitants of Manila were scarcely awake 
 in time to witness the burning and the sinking of 
 the Spanish fleet. And so it happened that one of 
 the unforeseen results of the war was the capture 
 of Manila by the navy and army and the utter 
 prostration of the Spanish power in these islands. 
 
We have thus, by the valor of our sailors and 
 soldiers in both hemispheres and b}^ the unlooked 
 for incidents of the war, come into the possession 
 of a vast island territory in the Pacific Ocean, 
 formerly owned and governed by the enemy — gov- 
 erned, as they were accustomed to govern their 
 colonies, by absolute power and with a cruel, ex- 
 acting and remorseless tyranny. The question 
 now arises, " What shall we do with these islands ?" 
 — now ours by treaty as well as by arms, by pur- 
 chase as well as by capture. ''Abandon them !" 
 says Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts, in his 
 recent address to the Boston Twentieth Century 
 Club. "Abandon them !" is echoed by another 
 Massachusetts statesman, from the rural districts 
 — the echo, however, like all other echoes, seem- 
 ing to grow fainter day by day, until now it is 
 well nigh lost amid hesitating explanations and 
 apologies. "Abandon them !" cry two or three 
 other gentlemen of distinction and experience in 
 public affairs — one of them, at least, a statesman 
 who has seen long service, and upon whose judg- 
 ment in civil affairs we have been accustomed, for 
 m^ny years, to rely with great confidence, and 
 whose patriotism we know to be as genuine and as 
 ardent as that of any man who has been in public 
 life in our time. 
 
 Well, let us see — let us consider what this prop- 
 osition means. If we are to abandon the islands. 
 
lO 
 
 to whom shall we abandon them ? Of conrse, it 
 must be to the enemy from whom we wrested them. 
 It would be absurd to talk of abandoning them to 
 anyone else. Of course, if we simphr sail away 
 and leave them, that means that the Spaniards are 
 to return with such ships as they have left, or can 
 buy, and with them and their army of veterans 
 reduce the islands and their inhabitants to their 
 ancient subjection, to set up and perpetuate the old 
 tyranny which the natives vainly attempted to 
 throw off before our intervention. 
 
 That is the plain meaning and the necessary re- 
 sult of the proposition. It can mean nothing else. 
 It can have no other outcome. We are to turn 
 over the people whom we have liberated, and whom 
 we armed to defend themselves against the com- 
 mon foe, to their old taskmasters and oppressors — 
 the Spaniards. We were victorious. We broke 
 their chains. We delivered them from the hated 
 thraldom of Spanish Governor-Generals and their 
 army of ravenous tax-gatherers and civil and mili- 
 tary bullies, which devoured their substance like the 
 locusts of Egypt, trampled upon their liberties and 
 harrassed their lives. This is to be one of the 
 fruits of our victory. This is to be the end of our 
 war for liberty and humanity — the result of all our 
 sacrifices and toil and expenditure — the harvest of 
 glory to be reaped by a powerful nation, which 
 lately startled the world by its appearance upon 
 
II 
 
 the scene as a youthful Goliath, equipped for battle 
 against foul wrong and injustice. And those 
 who advise us to this shameful and cowardly sur- 
 render, tell us in justification (i) that it is against 
 the policy and traditions of this government to 
 make acquisitions of foreign territory ; (2) that the 
 Monroe doctrine will be in danger ; (3) that the 
 islands will be an expensive possession ; (4) that 
 the climate is too hot for us to enjoy living there ; 
 (5) that we shall be at odds with other powers, and 
 much more argument of the same sort — the sum 
 of all of which is that we are to be frightened from 
 our duty and to steal away in a cowardly manner 
 from the responsibilities which have been fastened 
 upon us by the unexpected events of the war. 
 
 Traditions ? What traditions ? Cannot these 
 gentlemen who prate of traditions see that the 
 word suggests the very strongest argument against 
 their theories ? Where, they say, do you get your 
 authority for the purchase of sovereignties from 
 other nations ? Your right to acquire them by suc- 
 cessful war, or the right to extend your authority 
 over people never before subject to your rule? 
 Well, let us see. Was the acquisition of Louisiana, 
 by the cession of France, in consideration of the 
 payment by us of twelve millions of dollars, in 
 1803, an unlawful act? If not, why should that 
 of the Philippines be such in 1898 ? What of 
 the purchase of Florida from Spain in 18 19 for 
 
12 
 
 five millions ? Was that also contrary to tradition 
 and to the Constitution and the laws ? — a mere 
 unjustifiable usurpation of James Monroe and 
 his Congress ? If not, why should the twenty 
 millions proposed by the Peace Commission, to 
 be paid for a quit-claim deed to the Philip- 
 pines, be so denominated ? After the defeat of 
 Mexico and the conquest of her capital city by 
 General Scott and our brave fellows behind him, 
 was it lawful for the United States to acquire New 
 Mexico and Upper California from our late enemy 
 by the treaty of Gaudalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, 
 for fifteen millions of dollars ? Was that, too, 
 an unlawful acquisition and against our tradi- 
 tions ? If not, then why should that of the Phil- 
 ippines in 1898 be so characterized ? Was the pur- 
 chase of Alaska from Russia during the adminis- 
 tration of Andrew Johnson in 1867, ^^^ seven mil- 
 lions and two hundred thousand dollars, also un- 
 lawful, unconstitutional and contrary to our tradi- 
 tions ? It is remarkable, too, that its opponents 
 forgot to urge the coldness of the climate as an ad- 
 ditional ground of constitutional objection. Was 
 President Jefferson false to his country in 1803 ? 
 or President Monroe in 1819 ? or President Polk in 
 1848? or President Johnson in 1867? And who, 
 in the face of the glorious events of last summer, 
 will venture to make this charge; against our Presi- 
 dent in 1898 ? — a history which challenges for our 
 
13 
 
 country, as well as for the wisdom, sagacity. Hu- 
 manity, moderation and firmness of our Chief 
 Magistrate, the admiration of our own people, and 
 the respect, to say the least, of the civilized world ? 
 
 If the objection to the acquisition of the Phil- 
 ippines be their insular position, their climate 
 and their remoteness from Washington, then 
 let the objectors say so, and cease to prate 
 about national traditions and the policy of the 
 fathers. Both the traditions and the fathers are 
 point blank against them. The true question is, 
 Can the United States afford to own, and can she 
 protect and defend distant possessions acquired 
 by lawful war, and valuable for the enlargement of 
 her commerce and the extension of her trade in 
 distant regions ? 
 
 And what has the Monroe doctrine to do with this 
 question ? What is the Monroe doctrine ? A shib- 
 boleth, a political war cry, a Chinese mask which we 
 put on occasionally to frighten our enemies. It is 
 not to be found either in our Constitution or our 
 laws, and has no basis either in natural or inter- 
 national law ? Can anybody demonstrate it to be 
 anything more than a bugaboo, which some sup- 
 pose to be potent to hedge about the Western Hemi- 
 sphere as a kind of defence against European di- 
 plomacy and aggression, and to keep out kings and 
 czars and emperors and such like. Philosophically 
 and politically considered, anyone can see that the 
 
14 
 
 doctrine has no other foundation than what is 
 implied by the maxim sic volo sic jubeo — depend- 
 ing altogether for its vitality, not upon natural 
 reason or natural law, or the lex gentium^ but 
 partly upon the respect which other nations may 
 entertain for our power and position in the world, 
 and chiefly upon our ability to enforce it — that is, 
 upon the weight of our guns and the valor and 
 skill of the men behind them , and neither of these 
 considerations is likely to be diminished, but rather 
 increased by our acquisition of these islands, now 
 thrown upon our hands as one of the results of 
 the war. 
 
 What then has the Monroe doctrine to do with 
 the present question ? Absolutely nothing at all. 
 Was President Monroe, when he acquired Florida, 
 or when, as Jefferson's Minister Plenipotentiary to 
 France, he negotiated the treaty for the purchase 
 of Louisiana, inconsistent with himself and flying 
 in the face of the much-belabored doctrine which 
 bears his name ? So much for traditions and the 
 Monroe doctrine. 
 
 Whether we shall ratify the treaty and annex 
 these islands as territories to our domain, is un- 
 doubtedly a question of great importance. It is 
 not a question of constitutional power — the power 
 undoubtedly exists — but of practical statesman- 
 ship, to be dealt with as such upon principles 
 which concern the national honor, public utility, 
 
^5 
 
 and the security and welfare of the government. 
 The time will come when the legal argunient pre- 
 sented against the measure will be read with sur- 
 prise and regarded with as much curiosity as the 
 white monkeys of Mindanao, which our extended 
 commercial relations with these islands will prob- 
 ably before long introduce to our Zoological Gar- 
 dens. For what shall be thought of a nation that 
 has not the power to add a mile to its territory, or 
 to grow one inch beyond its present stature? 
 
 But what shall we do with the islands ? '^ They 
 are to be kept/' says Governor Boutwell, " in a 
 condition of vassalage." '^ Having abolished one 
 form of slavery," says he, '^ we are to create 
 another form of slavery. Having emancipated in- 
 dividuals, we are to enslave communities." " The 
 Hawaiians," he says, " are now vassals, and the 
 Americans their despots." It must be a jolly des- 
 potism, indeed, that produces such an outburst of 
 joy as that which we lately witnessed in Hawaii 
 upon the annexation of these islands to the United 
 States. But, seriously, is not this conservatism 
 gone stark mad ? 
 
 In the old days of slavery and reconstruction few 
 grander figures rose upon our political horizon than 
 that of Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts — I 
 speak of what I know and saw — and part of 
 which I was — if it be not immodest in me, at 
 this distance of time, to refer to that. No one 
 
i6 
 
 in those heroic days of the Civil War — which 
 stripped off the adventitious trappings and false 
 lights of all public men and revealed them in 
 their real proportions — had a greater admiration 
 for Governor Boutwell than the writer of these 
 fugitive and soon to be forgotten lines, for well 
 does he recall his genius, his eloquence, his 
 straightforward honesty, his strong, masculine 
 logic, his pure English and the irresistible flow 
 of his impassioned oratory, which was wont to 
 sweep before it all hollow pretences and all shams 
 clothed in fine raiment, as the debris and float- 
 ing wreckage of a majestic and swollen river 
 are swept before its irresistible current when 
 at flood. But somehow in these latter daj^s 
 he seems not entirely the same. He looms 
 upon us now like the portentous shade of some 
 weird prophet of old Hebrew times, reminding the 
 people of their sins and proclaiming the calamities 
 which are to fall upon their country. He breaks 
 upon our astonished vision in his pamphlet as the 
 shadowy but gigantic outlines of the genie in the 
 Arabian Nights rose before the terrified merchant, 
 accusing him of putting his son to death with the 
 date stones, which, during his repast, he was fling- 
 ing upon the ground. The terrified merchant was 
 unable exactly to realize his guilt, but under the 
 circumstances he was inspired, nevertheless, with 
 the highest respect for the genie. And so it should 
 
17 
 
 be with us. With all his faults we love him still. 
 It only means that the times, just now, seem to 
 him to be out of joint, quite as much out of joint 
 as they were with poor Hamlet : 
 
 The time is out of joint. O, cursed srpite, 
 That ever I was born to set it right ! 
 
 Supposing, for a moment, that instead of all this 
 frightful scare of the Philippines and the night- 
 mare of coming ruin in their wake, we contemplate 
 the subject through the medium of a cooler and 
 clearer atmosphere than the tropical mists and 
 mirage, which seem to have so transformed and dis- 
 torted every image in the landscape, in the eyes of 
 those who have lately undertaken to publicly crit- 
 icize the policy of the President of the United 
 States. 
 
 Since we cannot, consistently with our national 
 honor and with the obligations of duty which have 
 arisen out of the circumstances attending the war 
 and out of its results, return these islands and 
 their inhabitants to the oppressive dominion of 
 Spain, what other disposition is it possible to make 
 of them except to retain, for the present, the sov- 
 ereignty we have obtained over them, and to deal 
 with them in the future, intelligently and consci- 
 entiously, in the manner which our duty, our cir- 
 cumstances and our ability may demonstrate to be 
 just, wise and proper and in accord with the prin- 
 
i8 
 
 ciples wliicli underlie our own government. Who 
 talks of vassalage and slavery and wanton viola- 
 tion of the rights of communities and men, wastes 
 his breath in absurd and useless rhetoric. He is 
 fighting nightmares and shadows. No man of this 
 generation and at this time of day can rationally 
 believe that the United States will enter upon any 
 such cruel and wicked policy, or that, forgetting 
 their own history and the everlasting principles of 
 liberty, equality and justice, upon which their own 
 government is built, they will willingly become the 
 oppressors of others ; or that any such proceedings 
 would be tolerated by the seventy millions of free- 
 men who repose in security beneath the flag which 
 is the emblem of republican liberty, personal freedom 
 and representative government wherever it flutters 
 — whether it be in the icy winds of Alaska, or in 
 the tropical breeze which ruflles the interlacing 
 tides and channels that bind together, while they 
 separate, the island empire of the Philippines. 
 
 If it should be our duty at the outset, for the 
 maintenance of order, and that we may lay the 
 foundations of permanent and " free institutions in 
 these islands, to rule them with the strong hand of 
 military authority, and later by a form of terri- 
 torial government akin to that which has been the 
 mother of so many free and confederated States, 
 which have grown from a feeble infancy to the full 
 stature of independent and self-governing common- 
 
19 
 
 wealths ; or if the day shall come, at some time in 
 the future, when the inhabitants of these islands, 
 having demonstrated their capacity for self-govern- 
 ment, should desire to set up for themselves, and we 
 should deem it wise to turn over the government 
 into their own hands upon such terms as would be 
 just to them and satisfactory to ourselves, which of 
 us would repine while contemplating such an un- 
 folding of the leaves of history, or such a result of 
 American policy applied to its foreign possessions? 
 The world was not made in a day. Neither do new 
 States come to their maturity at a single heat. 
 
 The question now is not of the future but of the 
 present, and that question it is impossible for us to 
 determine except in one way. For the present, at 
 any rate, we must retain the conquest we have 
 made, for the simple reason that no other way is 
 open to us with honor and loyalty to our obliga- 
 tions. Abandonment being out of the question, 
 what else can we do ? Will some one say ? If any 
 man can improve upon the honorable, just, patri- 
 otic and manly policy of the President, let him 
 show his hand. No one yet has ventured upon 
 any alternative plan. Be not deceived. Retreat 
 from our position — the lowering of our flag, the 
 surrender of the solid advantages acquired by the 
 courage and self-sacrifice of our sailors and sol- 
 diers — these mean dishonor and national disgrace, 
 by whomsoever proposed. 
 
20 
 
 Let us not forget either our place in the world, 
 or the age we live in. It is no part of our 
 duty to embark in the business of making prose- 
 lytes in foreign parts for the propagation of our 
 political opinions. Neither does it become us, on 
 the other hand, wherever our ships may ride at 
 anchor and our flag may fly, to turn our backs 
 upon our principles, or to be ashamed of the figure 
 we have made in the world. There we stand — at 
 the golden gateway of the East — examples and 
 exponents — whether we will or no — of the liberty 
 and civilization of this western world, confronting 
 the ignorance, the superstition and oppression 
 under which one-half of the earth has groaned for 
 ages. Is it by accident and for no object in the 
 Divine government of the world we live in, that we 
 are there ? For one I do not believe so. 
 
 The path is plain. Having settled what honor 
 and justice and duty alike require of us, let us 
 not be driven from it by cowardly fears or mis- 
 givings of the future — but rather go steadily 
 forward, unfrightened by the apprehensions of 
 the timid, or the hesitation of those who always 
 fear to take a forward step, even though the 
 light of Heaven shines ever so clearly upon 
 the path. It may be that out of our altered cir- 
 cumstances — out of the present crisis in our affairs, 
 out of the sacrifices and sufferings of our brave 
 men, out of our altered and advanced position in 
 
21 
 
 the world-;— a new day may break for the East as 
 well as for the West, and the ancient prophecy, 
 
 Magnus ab integro Saeclorum nascitur ordo 
 ac toto surget gens aurea mundo. 
 
 *be fulfilled for them, as well as for ourselves, but in 
 a manner little dreamed of by the poet who sang his 
 pleasant pastorals upon the banks of the Mincius. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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