Benjamin Tillman 7 February 1899

Mr. TILLMAN. I ask that Senate joint resolution 240 be read.

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The joint resolution will be read.

The Secretary read the joint resolution introduced yesterday byMr. McENERY, as follows:

A joint resolution (S. R.210) declaring the purpose of the United States toward the Philippine Islands.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That by the ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain it is not intended to incorporate the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands into citizenship of the United States, nor is it intended to permanently annex said islands as an integral part of the territory of the United States: but it is the intention of the United States to establish on said islands a government suitable to the wants and conditions of the inhabitants of said islands to prepare them for local self-government, and in due time to make such disposition of said islands as will best promote the interests of the citizens of the United States and the inhabitants of said islands.

Mr. TILLMAN. Mr. President, but for the fact that I had given notice that I would speak I would not do so this morning, because I have been unwell all night. I am here now only after having passed a sleepless night, and I am suffering at this time great pain.

I have listened to the long and able debate on the general proposition of annexation or expansion, and have never at any time intended to obtrude my views upon the Senate, but to content myself with an occasional foray into the mêlée, or, in other words, to performing a little guerrilla warfare. But there has been such a radical change in the situation since Saturday evening, and things have now assumed such a shape, that I feel constrained to present some views on this question that have hitherto failed to strike the attention of those Senators who have addressed themselves to it.

The first thing, Mr. President, which strikes one who will read the joint resolution with an analytical mind is the absolute uselessness, and the cold-blooded purpose its language conveys. It is simply an assertion of power and of right on the part of this Government to buy and sell those islands for our interest, not for theirs, and to ignore in toto every consideration which those people have a right to expect at our hands.

I do not think anyone can justly charge that there is any politics or that there has been any politics in the determination of the vote of Senators on this question. It has been determined from other reasons than partisan purposes. While most of those who have opposed the ratification of the treaty belong to the party to which I belong, it may be said as a fact, upon which every American citizen can congratulate himself, that the other party gave to the opposition two of its ablest men, who have stanchly and from the very beginning stood here opposed to this new idea of imperialism. If I were actuated or had been actuated by any political purpose I should have been glad to see the treaty ratified, because, if I do not mistake the trend of public events, the results of the ratification of the treaty promise to bring but disaster to the party which is mainly responsible for it.

There are some things connected with the ratification which merit a little comment, as I pass along, in relation to the resolution which I am now discussing. I will not say, though I have seen it asserted in the newspapers, that the resolution is being pressed by the Senator from Rhode Island for the purpose of redeeming a pledge. I do not know whether that is true, and I do not care. I demand for myself here the recognition of the fact that I am a Senator and claim to exercise my functions as such from high and patriotic motives, and I do not presume to deny to every other one of my colleagues a similar high motive. I can only say that from my point of view. if it was right to defeat the treaty on Saturday, it was right to defeat it on yesterday.

I have never in my legislative experience in this body or in any other assemblage. heard so many speeches giving the most cogent reasons why a man should not vote for a proposition, followed by the acknowledgment that the speaker, notwithstanding, intended to give his vote in its support. So at least a great many votes that have gone to the treaty and have enabled it to become the law of the land, have been cast by men who have been in great doubt as to their duty, and have at last yielded rather to pressure than to any conscientious or calm consideration of the result.

There has been another phase or peculiarity connected with the discussion which we have had. Learned and able lawyers have exhausted themselves in the contention pro and con as to the constitutional right to annex those people in this way. Mr. President, as far as my observation goes, and as I understand the present status of the American people, we have no Constitution left. The only rule which governs Congress now is the rule of the majority. We had an illustration of that when the Hawaiian treaty was rejected by the constitutional one-third, more than one-third refusing to ratify it, and the majority brought in and passed its resolution of annexation by which the Constitution was overridden.

I will qualify the statement I have just made as regards our having no Constitution left, which the majority are bound to respect, by saying that the two-thirds vote to ratify a treaty is the only scintilla of the original instrument which now remains to hamper the majority.

But, Mr. President, while this is a cold-blooded fact which must excite surprise and cause forebodings in the minds of patriots, I wish to address myself to the merits of this question rather than to deal with the accompanying circumstances which have been surprising and in some degree disgusting.

If we are to pass any resolution at all—and I desire that the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. ALDRICH] who has this matter in charge shall give me his especial attention now—I think that resolution ought to be one which will pave the way to peace in the Philippines, rather than one which will be an aggravation of the war which has begun there. I know that it is natural for the American blood to flame up in anger when the flag is fired upon; I know it is natural for our race to want to fight, very often whether we have provocation or not, and whether we are right or wrong; but, sir, in this great crisis in which so much is involved, it does seem to me that those Senators who have contended from the beginning that our policy should be to ratify the treaty first, and then deal with the results of that cession afterwards, should cause those who are responsible for the existing condition to take up carefully and calmly and seriously consider the proposition which I have just advanced: that we should either pass a resolution which may pave the way to peace, or that we should pass none at all.

This resolution, if it shall pass and be approved by the President, is nothing more, as I have said, than the cold-blooded enunciation of our power; and a declaration that we will deal with this question from the standpoint of our interests, regardless of the rights or the wishes of those 10,000,000 Asiatics who have come under our sway. And above all, notwithstanding the assertions which we heard here yesterday, that we "could not take time to enter into negotiations with the men who had pistols at our breasts, or with those who had fired upon the flag," it appears tome that of all times in our history we could and should at this moment give forth a sound that would be generous and worthy of the great American people.

Mr. President, what caused this last battle of Manila? The reports which we receive through our newspapers all come from American sources: they charge that the Filipinos wantonly attacked the American army, and that that army had a right to defend itself, which nobody assumes to deny. But when we recollect that the telegraph lines from those islands are in charge of the American commander there, or of those whom he designates to control them, it is natural for us to suppose that nothing would be let out under the censorship which has existed for the last three months or more that would be in the slightest degree derogatory to the good faith or the honor of the American army there. Time alone will tell whether this battle was provoked by the Filipinos for purposes of their own, or by the Americans for the purpose of endeavoring to sway men in this Senate to ratify the treaty and change the status.

I recall one of Æsop's fables in which a painter had depicted a lion lying on his back prone beneath the heel of a man, and when he showed the painting to the lion the lion said, "Yes, you painted that; but if you will let me paint it, the situation will be just the opposite."

I come now to make a statement, upon which I base what I have just said, to this effect: That I have seen in the last forty-eight hours an invalided officer of the American Army, one of the regulars, who has just reached this city from Manila. From what he told me of the situation before he left there, I dare to assert that the American Army has been in a state of siege in that city for three or four months; that the lines surrounding the city have been in the possession of the Filipino army outside: that no American was allowed to cross them; and that those Filipinos, while they had not been actively engaged in firing upon our troops, have enforced a strict recognition of the fact that they were in an attitude of antagonism, that they did not recognize this Government as having any rights outside of the city of Manila. If that be true, Mr. President, the question recurs as to who may be responsible or who was responsible for the battle of Saturday night last.

As I understand the legal status the ratification of the treaty will bring about this result: That in the eye of the law the Philippine Islands are ours and the inhabitants thereof are to-day rebels; they are now ours by right of cession from Spain, ratified yesterday by this body, and to be ratified soon by the Spanish Government; they are American subjects; and since they have fired upon the flag they are "rebels." That is the law of the situation as we see it and possibly as the world sees it.

Now, considering the fact, which can not be denied—for our consul, Mr. Williams, reported the fact as far back as February, 1898, before Dewey sailed into Manila Bay—that there was a rebellion against Spain: that the Filipino army was lying outside of the city of Manila and hostilities were active; considering the fact that they organized a government as far back as last June; considering the fact that they have been actively engaged in collecting munitions of war and have recruited their army until, as this officer told me, they have not less than 40,000 men outside of Manila to-day, we are brought face to face with the consideration as to whether it was not wise and proper and the best thing from their point of view for the Filipinos to make the attack which they did, or which it is said they did, on Saturday night last.

If they went to war with the United States before the United States had a title to those islands in law, what is their legal status in international law? They can not be called rebels to us except from the extreme standpoint of legal technicality. We had no right in Manila so far as they were concerned; we only had rights there so far as Spain was concerned; and if, after they had their representative here pleading and begging for some word of comfort, some promise as to our policy, or some dim outline even as to the purpose of recognizing their right to local self-government, they grew desperate at last and fired upon our troops, the firing upon those troops before we had any legal title must give them the right of belligerents in war, although they have been subjects of Spain, because by the cession to us we simply fall heir to Spain's residuary title in those islands, subject to the rights of the natives who were struggling for freedom before we went to war with Spain on an entirely different issue.

We may say they are rebels, and in strict legal interpretation they may be rebels, but. Mr. President, let this war terminate how it will, history will declare that they are to-day patriots striving for what we fought for in our struggle with Great Britain in the last century; and we can not escape from the condition at least of doubt as to the course we ought to follow when we consider this fact. They were fighting for their freedom against Spanish tyranny two years ago, and they continued to fight up to the time when Aguinaldo left the islands and went to Singapore; they continued the fight, as our own consul said, after he left; they never did cease, some of them: there never was peace; and now the question which addresses itself to every American who loves his flag and loves his great country and loves the great principle upon which that flag rests and that country is founded is this: Are we to take the place of Spain as their taskmasters and oppressors? Do "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"?

I have looked back down the vista of what history I have read, and I appeal to any Senator here who may be versed in history to correct me if I am wrong when I say there never has been in the history of mankind a precedent for the existing condition now at Manila between the United States and the Filipino insurgents. The transition or transfer of the legal title to the islands during the period of their rebellion against one government and their effort to throw off the yoke and establish an independent government has never, so far as I recall, occurred before in the history of the world, and I would ask the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE], himself a historian, if he recalls any?

Mr. LODGE. I did not hear the Senator's question.

Mr. TILLMAN. I say the present situation in Manila is unique, it is sui generis, it is the first one of the kind that has ever existed in the history of the world where a colony of another nation at war with that nation for its freedom has been sold in the meantime to another power and their allegiance or sovereignty transferred.

Mr. LODGE. I think the situation is unique in the fact that the people whom we liberated down there have turned against us.

Mr. TILLMAN. Well, Mr. President, the question of liberation is one which will present two points of view. We can look at it from our side and then look at it from theirs. I have just presented a few of the ideas which have occurred to me as having actuated the Filipinos in firing upon the American flag, as they did last Saturday, and that was that they desired to obtain in the eye of international law the rights of belligerents and not become rebels after the cession, as would have occurred if they had fired yesterday evening or this morning, after we had ratified the treaty.

But, as strange as this condition and situation is, as anomalous as it may seem to those who think with the Senator from Massachusetts that we went to Manila for the purpose of liberating the Filipinos—

Mr. LODGE. I did not say we went there for the purpose of liberating the Filipinos; we went there to make war on Spain; but as a matter of fact, we did liberate them. They were absolutely helpless before the Spanish power and remained so until the destruction of the Spanish fleet by Admiral Dewey.

Mr. TILLMAN. I will grant that, if the Senator wishes to contend for it; but the question is whether that liberation carries with it the right of this country to take the sovereignty of those islands and control them against their will and against our own traditions and principles? That is the point.

I wish now to present for the consideration of Senators, and especially of those Senators who stand committed here to a proposition that they are opposed to expansion and are opposed to annexation, but desired to ratify the treaty in order to close the condition of war with Spain and then address themselves to what shall be done in the Philippine Islands afterwards—I say I wish to address to those Senators some remarks in regard to what appears to me our plain and bounden duty at this time, our duty not only to them, but more especially to ourselves.

Senators will recall the fact that some twenty years ago the South African Republic, known as the Transvaal, inhabited by the Boers, was annexed to the British Empire by proclamation. A British diplomatic agent bad gone into that country to spy out the land, so to speak, to feel the temper of the people. Having notified his Government that it was advisable to do so, a proclamation was issued, simply reaching out and swallowing the whole Republic, putting them under the British flag, and sending a British governor, accompanied by a regiment of soldiers, to take possession of the cities, towns, and forts, and lo, the thing was done; the Transvaal became a part of the British Dominions!

The Boers, a sturdy Dutch stock, who had fled from Natal and from the Orange Free State to get rid of the Englishmen, numbering only about 50,000 souls all told, met in mass meeting and in assembly time and again. They protested, they supplicated,they negotiated, they begged. In the meantime, while these proceedings were going on, there was a transfer of power in England from the wily, brilliant, but unscrupulous Disraeli to that grandest of English statesmen of this century, William Ewart Gladstone. But even Mr. Gladstone, though he felt that the incorporation of the Boers into the British Empire was wrong, did not feel called upon to say so officially or to take any action; and in the Queen's address to the Commons, written, of course, by the prime minister, it was stated that their request could not be granted.

They were put under the British yoke in 1877. In December, 1880, three years afterwards, the machinery of the Government had begun to move, and the British tax gatherer came around and levied on a wagon belonging to one of the Boers who had refused to pay taxes. He put it up for sale, but, instead of selling it, several Boers rode in on horseback, took charge of the wagon, and gave this British official notice to get out, and in a week's time the entire province was in rebellion against the British Crown—in rebellion from the standpoint of English law, as were our forefathers in 1776, but struggling for that inherent right of man, as Americans have been brought to believe—self-government.

The British troops began.to move; reinforcements were rushed from Cape Town, from the adjoining territory belonging to England. The Boers were farmers who had never drilled, but the best riflemen in the world. The result was that in the conflicts with the British regulars these un-drilled farmers whipped the redcoats, although they were officered by trained soldiers: and under the lead of one of their number, whose name was Joubert, they won some notable victories. Reading the history of his brilliant military deeds last night, I came to think that possibly under similar conditions, extended a thousandfold as to this man Aguinaldo, who is now called an upstart and an organiser of a 'tin-horn government" in Manila, in the Philippines, it may come to pass that under his inspiration and leadership a similar result will happen in those islands.

The last conflict between these Dutch farmers—half-civilized if you choose to term them so—and the British army was at Majuba Hill, where a thousand picked British regulars had taken an impregnable position, as they thought, in the cup of an extinct volcano, a natural fortification with a rim around it. The Boers surrounded them, crawled up to the rim of the cup, and shot to death over half of their number, put the rest to flight—those they did not capture—and "'all the world wondered." Of course the British bulldog barked and the British lion roared. The demand from the rabble was, "Rush more reinforcements down there and shoot those rebels to death. England's honor demands it."

What did Gladstone say and what did Gladstone do? Realizing that a continuation of the war involved the loss to Great Britain of many soldiers, but more clearly still feeling that his predecessor in office had committed a grave wrong, he sent a negotiator, Gen. Sir Evelyn Wood, with instructions to bring about an honorable peace by the restoration to those people of their republic, reserving only to the Queen of England the right of suzerain and the right to control the foreign policy of the republic.

When Parliament met, the leader of the opposition, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, moved a resolution censuring the Government for its disgraceful surrender to these struggling Boers in South Africa and the return to them of their inheritance of self-government. The English press—that portion of it which belonged to the opposition—clamored for punishment of the rebels and for their annihilation and extinction. Mr. Gladstone, in defending his conduct, made a speech in Parliament, an extract from which I shall read; and I would to God that it could be framed and hung up in every legislative chamber where the rights of man are discussed and passed on by legislators, as a guide as to what true statesmanship demands. Here is what that great Englishman said:

"Our case is summed up in this: We have endeavored to cast aside all considerations of false shame, and we have felt that we were strong enough to put aside those considerations of false shame without fear of entailing upon our country any sacrifice at all. We have endeavored to do right, and to eschew wrong, and we have done that in a matter involving alike the lives of thousands and the honor and character of our country. And, sir, whatever may be the sense of gentlemen opposite, we believe that we are supported, not only by the general convictions of Parliament, but by those of the country. We feel that we are entitled to make that declaration, for from every great center of opinion in Europe, from the remotest corners of Anglo-Saxon America, have come back to us the echoes of the resolution which we have taken, the favoring and approving echoes, recognizing in the policy of the Government an ambition higher than that which looks for military triumph or for territorial aggrandizement, but which seeks to signalize itself by walking in the plain and simple ways of right and justice, and which desires never to build up empire except In the happiness of the governed."

There is no parallel for the action of the English prime minister. He was the first who had the greatness of soul to rise up and do what was right regardless of consequences. Can the American nation, which we claim to be the home of liberty, a nation of freemen, imbued with ideas of self-government from their cradle—can we do less?

It was said that English honor demanded that these colonists should be punished. Everybody knows that England could have sent troops enough there to have killed the last man of them. Just as we can send troops enough to Manila to kill, as the Senator from Montana [Mr. CARTER] said the other day, "to shoot them to death," if need be, to make them respect our flag and our authority. We can do it. Nobody doubts that. The question is: ought we to do it? Is it honorable to do it? Is it right to do it?

What more do we want in the Philippines than the right of a protectorate, which will give us the control of their foreign policy, will keep away from those islands any outside interloper, or land-grabber, or robber who might desire to gobble them up and enslave the people? What right, or what advantage will it lie to us to do more than to occupy as to those islands a similar position as that existing in the Transvaal?

As though coming at the most opportune time possible, you might say, just before the treaty reached the Senate, or about the time it was sent to us, there appeared in one of our magazines a poem by Rudyard Kipling, the greatest poet of England at this time. Mr. President, this poem, unique, and in some places difficult to understand, is to my mind a prophecy. I do not imagine that in the history of human events any poet has ever felt inspired so clearly to portray our danger and our duty. It is called "The White Man's Burden." With the permission of Senators I will read a stanza, and I beg them to listen to it, for it is well worth their attention. This man has lived in the Indies. In fact he is a citizen of the world, and has been all over it, and knows whereof he speaks.

Take up the White Man's burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go, bind your sons to exile,

To serve your captive's need;

To wait, in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child.

Mr. President, I will pause here. I intend to read more, but I wish to call attention to a fact which may have escaped the attention of Senators thus far, that with five exceptions every man in this Chamber who has had to do with the colored race in this country voted against the ratification of the treaty. It was not because we are Democrats, but because we understand and realize what it is to have two races side by side that can not mix or mingle without deterioration and injury to both and the ultimate destruction of the civilization of the higher. We of the South have borne this white man's burden of a colored race in our midst since their emancipation and before.

It was a burden upon our manhood and our ideas of liberty before they were emancipated. It is still a burden, although they have been granted the franchise. It clings to us like the shirt of Nessus, and we are not responsible, because we inherited it, and your fathers as well as ours are responsible for the presence amongst us of that people. Why do we as a people want to incorporate into our citizenship ten millions more of different or of differing races, three or four of them?

But, Mr. President, we have not incorporated them yet, and let us see what this English poet has to say about it, and what he thinks.

Take up the White Man's burden—

No iron rule of kings,

But toil of serf and sweeper—

The tale of common things.

The ports ye shall not enter,

The roads ye shall not tread,

Go, make them with your living

And mark them with your dead.

Ah, if we have no other consideration, if no feeling of humanity, no love of our fellows, no regard for others' rights, if nothing but our self-interest shall actuate us in this crisis, let me say to you that if we go madly on in the direction of crushing the Philippines into subjection and submission we will do so at the cost of many, many thousands of the flower of American youth. There are 10,000,000 of these people. some of them fairly well civilized, and running to the other extreme of naked savages, who are reported in our press dispatches as having stood out in the open and fired their bows and arrows, not flinching from the storm of shot and shell thrown into their midst by the American soldiers last Sunday.

The report of the battle claims that we lost only 75 killed and a hundred and odd wounded; but the first skirmish has carried with it what anguish, what desolation, to homes in a dozen States! How many more victims are we to offer up on this altar of Mammon or national greed? When those regiments march back, if they return with decimated ranks, as they are bound to come, if we have to send thousands and tens of thousands of reinforcements there to press onward until we have subdued those ten millions, at whose door will lie these lives—their blood shed for what? An idea. If a man fires upon the American flag, shoot the last man and kill him, no matter how many Americans have to be shot to do it.

The city of Manila is surrounded by swamps and marshes, I am told. A few miles back lie the woods and jungles and mountains. These people are used to the climate. They know how to get about, and if they mean to have their liberties, as they appear to do, at what sacrifice will the American domination be placed over them? Here is another verse of Kipling. I have fallen in love with this man. He tells us what we will reap:

Take up the White Man's burden,

And reap his old reward—

The blame of those ye better,

The hate of those ye guard—

The cry of hosts ye humor

(Ah, slowly!) toward the light—

"Why brought ye us from bondage,

Our loved Egyptian night?”

Those peoples are not suited to our institutions. They are not ready for liberty as we understand it. They do not want it. Why are we bent on forcing upon them a civilization not suited to them and which only means in their view degradation and a loss of self-respect, which is worse than the loss of life itself?

Mr. President, I am nearly done. Nobody answers and nobody can. The commercial instinct, which seeks to furnish a market and places for the growth of commerce or the investment of capital for the money making of the few, is pressing this country madly to the final and ultimate annexation of these people regardless of their own wishes and at whatever cost to them or us.

We are face to face with the question as to whether we will be content to pass a resolution here which might be sent to the Filipinos as a flag of truce and a means of bringing about pacification and ultimate relinquishment of everything except the protectorate and such commercial advantages as we ought to keep, and which they will gladly give us. We are at a crisis in our own history, when we must turn our faces away from this temptation, turn our backs upon the incentive which has led us thus far, or we must move forward remorselessly and relentlessly, doing our own country and our own people more harm than can result to those people, though we exterminate them from the face of the globe. We have within our grasp, and possible of attainment, a glory and honor such as has never come to another nation in the history of the world-the honor of having fought a war for the love of liberty and humanity, animated by no greedy, selfish purposes hidden under the declaration.

We are still an undegenerate people. We have not yet become corrupted. We have in our veins the best blood of the northern races, who now dominate the world. While we make no pretenses—and it is a pity that we do not even stand up to the few we do make—we have here a religion whose essence is mercy. We have had an experience in free government, government based on the will of the governed—for government by majority is government with the consent of the governed—and we have been taught by that government what so few people of this world have learned, both the firmness to rule and the power of obedience to that rule. We are a Christian people, and our missionaries, or those imbued with the missionary spirit, clamor for the annexation of these islands for the purpose of shedding over them the light of the gospel. We are asked to do as Mahomet did with his creed—carry the Christian religion to these people upon the point of a bayonet, as he spread Islamism over western Asia and eastern Europe and northern Africa on his scimitar.

There are two forces struggling for mastery here, and the better instincts of every Senator within the hearing of my voice lead him to side with me in the proposition that we do not want to shoot people into a civilized condition if we know how to get around it. The two forces to which I have referred as struggling for mastery are liberty, light, and morality—in a word, Christianity—contending against ignorance, greed, and tyranny, against the empires of Mammon and Belial. In the summer seas of the Tropics in both hemispheres two flags are afloat to-day above two ancient cities. They both bear the emblem of this great Republic, the Stars and Stripes. One goes to Havana and is floating in the free air as a harbinger of peace, order, prosperity, happiness, liberty. The other floats in Manila as an emblem of power, cold-blooded, determined to do what? To subjugate those people and force on them such a government as we think is best for them, and then, according to the language of the resolution, determine afterwards as it may be to "our" advantage whether we will sell them or whether we will rule them in our "own" way, without regard to their rights or wishes.

Gladstone "hauled down" the English flag in the Boer Republic. He preserved the semblance of empire, but gave to them what they sought—local self-government. It is a question here whether we will "haul down the flag" in the Philippines or whether we will advance it until we have conquered the last island at whatever cost. It was planted there in honor and now it is proposed to fix it there in dishonor. Why not tell these people now before further blood is shed? "We do not intend to do with you differently from what we do with the Cubans. We went into the war for the purposes of freeing a nation oppressed beyond all historical precedent almost. By accident or without premeditation you have fallen in our grasp. We bought you from Spain and have title. We only want enough of your territory to give us a harbor of refuge, a naval station, the right to protect you from outside interlopers, and to get such commercial advantages as you of right ought to give us." Pass a resolution of that kind, and then if those people will not listen to reason and continue to fire on the flag, I for one will say their blood be on their own heads. Let slip the dogs of war and teach them to respect the Stars and Stripes. But we are there now upon a false pretense. We are there wrongfully. We are there without any justification to ourselves or to the civilized world.

Mr. President, I yield to no man in loyalty to the sentiment,"my country, may it ever be right, but right or wrong, my country." But, oh, my God! when I think how dishonorable the prosecution of the war promises to be to us as a people, how little justification for it we have, even to ourselves, I would that you, my brother Senators on this floor, would pass a resolution which could bring about immediately a cessation of hostilities and a condition which might give the Philippine people the same right to bless us as Cuba will possess, and command for us the admiration and respect of the civilized and pagan world.