Page:Carl Schurz- 1900-05-24 For American Principles and American Honor.pdf/5

 by the President's order came. We destroyed by force the government the Filipinos had set up—a very respectable government, as all competent witnesses testify—a far better government than the insurgent Cubans ever had, We carried death and desolation into the towns and villages of our late allies. We killed many, maty thousands of them, and still go on killing them at the rate of 1,000 to 1,500 a month for no other reason than that, as we call it, they refuse to submit to our sovereignty; but as it may in truth be called, for no other reason than that our former allies object to being sold and brought like a herd of cattle, and that they still demand that liberty and independence to which, by the principle we ourselves had affirmed in the case of Cuba, they are rightfully entitled.

Some time ago in a public speech I challenged the defenders of our administration to point out in the whole history of the world a single act of perfidy ever committed by any republican government more infamous than that which has thus been committed by our government against our Filipino allies. That challenge has remained unanswered to this day. I now renew it. I call upon them all—from the highest to the lowest—members of the Cabinet, and Senators and Representatives who tell us that the honor and the best interests of the country demand us to approve and sustain such things; and the bishops to whom the moral aspects of the case should be of some consequence; and the laymen who listen to them—I call upon them all to show me in all the annals of mankind a similar instance of more knavish treachery. Let them answer me if they can. And then let them tell me what the responsibilities are growing from such conduct.

Is there any doubt about the facts? They are history. There has indeed been some quibbling as to whether the Filipinos were reaily our allies. That our government did not give them the title of allies, is true enough. But did we not use their services as those of allies so long as their services were of any advantage to us? Did we