Page:Carl Schurz- 1900-05-24 For American Principles and American Honor.pdf/16

 aggression,” and to do that which is just and right and would be most honorable to the American people? Is their moral sense so enslaved by a wretched party spirit that it must humbly cower under a dictation which they cannot but detest and be ashamed of? Surely they could do no better service to themselves and to their country than by emancipating their consciences like men.

You will have observed that in reciting the acts of our government I said: “We have done this, and we have done that.” I used that form of expressson for the sake of brevity. In justice to the American people it should be corrected. No, it was not the American people that instigated or even sanctioned by their assent the betrayal of American principles in the attempt to subjugate a foreign population and in ruthlessly destroying them. Those things have indeed been done in the name of the American people; but it may justly be said that the history of Machiavelian politics shows few instances of a more unscrupulous “confidence game” than that of which the American people have in this case been made the victim by means of an artful censorship of news, of sanctimonious cant disguising evil deeds, and of other equally unscrupulous contrivances. What the American people really think, what understanding and appreciation they really have of their responsibilities, they will soon have the first opportunity for declaring; and as I began by saying, and now repeat, I am firmly convinced, that if the question were submitted to them on a reasonably clear issue, an overwhelming majority of the American people would show themselves eager to demonstrate their moral soundness by washing their hands of this bloody iniquity, and by thus making it manifest to all the world that they are an honest and just people, and that the republic of Washington and Lincoln still lives.

For copies, address the Anti-Imperialist League of New York, 150 Nassau St., Room 1502, or P. O. Box 1111, New York City.