Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/105

Rh right” in the Cubans—nay, more; for, as Admiral Dewey telegraphed to our Government, “they are far superior in their intelligence, and more capable of self-government, than the natives of Cuba.” The Admiral adds: “I am familiar with both races, and further intercourse with them has confirmed me in this opinion.”

Indeed, the mendacious stories spread by our imperialists, which represent those people as barbarians, their doings as mere “savagery” and their chiefs as no better than “cut-throats,” have been refuted by such a mass of authoritative testimony, coming in part from men who are themselves imperialists, that their authors should hide their heads in shame; for surely it is not the part of really brave men to calumniate their victims before sacrificing them: We need not praise the Filipinos as in every way the equals of the “embattled farmers” of Lexington and Concord, and Aguinaldo as the peer of Washington; but there is an overwhelming abundance of testimony—some of it unwilling—that the Filipinos are fully the equals, and even the superiors, of the Cubans and the Mexicans. As to Aguinaldo, Admiral Dewey is credited with saying that he is controlled by men abler than himself. The same could be said of more than one of our Presidents. Moreover, it would prove that those are greatly mistaken who predict that the Filipino uprising would collapse were Aguinaldo captured or killed. The old slander that Aguinaldo had sold out the revolutionary movement for a bribe of $400,000 has been so thoroughly exploded by the best authority that it requires uncommon audacity to repeat it. (See 55th Cong., 3d session, Senate Doc. 62, Part 1, page 421.)

Now let us see what has happened. Two months before the beginning of our Spanish war, our Consul at Manila reported to the State Department: “Conditions here and in Cuba are practically alike. War exists, battles are of