Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/117

Rh not of conquest, but of liberation and humanity; that we sympathized with their desire for freedom and independence, and that we would treat them as we had specifically promised to treat the Cuban people in furthering the establishment of an independent government. And this task would have been much easier than in the case of Cuba, since, according to Admiral Dewey's repeatedly emphatic testimony, the Filipinos were much better fitted for such a government.

Our ingenious Postmaster-General has told us that the President could not have done that because he had no warrant for it, since he did not know whether the American people would wish to keep the Philippine Islands. But what warrant, then, had the President for putting before the Filipinos, by his “benevolent assimilation order,” the alternative of submission to our sovereignty or war? Had he any assurance that the American people willed that? If such was his dream, there may be a rude awakening in store for him. But I say that for assenting to the aspiration of the Filipinos to freedom and independence he would have had the fullest possible warrant in the spirit of our institutions and in the resolution of Congress stamping our war against Spain as a war of liberation and humanity. And such a course would surely have been approved by the American people, except perhaps some Jingoes bent upon wild adventure, and some syndicates of speculators unscrupulous in their greed of gain.

There are also some who, with the mysterious mien of a superior sense of responsibility, tell us that the President could not have acted otherwise, because Dewey's victory devolved upon us some grave international or other obligations which would have been disregarded had the President failed to claim sovereignty over the Philippines. What? Did not the destruction of Cervera's fleet and the taking of Santiago devolve the same obligations upon