Page:Carl Schurz- 1900-05-24 For American Principles and American Honor.pdf/4

 the Spanish commander to surrender on the very ground, among others, that he was hemmed in on the land side by the Filipinos. And then we proceeded to conclude a peace treaty with Spain. That treaty was to decide the fate of the Philippine islanders. The Filipinos, our allies, whom we had permitted to believe that they were fighting for their independence, asked to be heard. We slammed the door in their faces. And behind their backs we extorted, or bought, as you like, from Spain, the common enemy, the sovereignty over our allies—the same sovereignty which in the Cuba precedent we had affirmed to have been forfeited by Spain and rightfully to belong to the people of the country. And now we recognized that sovereignty as still possessed by Spain, the common enemy, although we knew that Spain could not deliver any part of it, having not only morally but actually lost it; and we performed this amazing act of treacherous self-stultification, in order to make our late allies our subjects, because we coveted their land.

Thus we deliberately turned our loudly vaunted war of liberation and humanity into a shameless war of conquest, which, to adopt President McKiuley’s own phrase, was in the extreme sense an act of “criminal aggression”—for there was no element of criminality lacking. We did not stop with the diplomatic betrayal. Weeks before that treaty with Spain acquired any color of legal force by the assent of the Senate, President McKinley issued an order to our army—the notorious “benevolent assimilation order”—assuming that our sovereignty over the Philippines did actually exist, and directing the army to enforce it all over the archipelago—as flagrant a usurpation of power as Was ever committed. That order was of so inflammatory a character, so clear a declaration of war against the Filipinos demanding freedom and independence, that Gen. Otis, foreseeing with alarm the consequence it would bring on, tried to suppress it. But, through a subordinate, it became known to the Filipinos, and they understood it as what it was—a declaration of war against them. Then the conflict wantonly provoked