Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/193

Rh us have learned by experience to distinguish between the class of men who in their dealings with their neighbors are governed by an innate moral sense of right and who will never condescend to take an unfair advantage even when the law permits them to do so with impunity—and another class consisting of persons claiming to be respectable, but to whom the question of moral right is of no concern, and who do not scruple at any moral wrong for their own benefit, taking care only not to run foul of the penal code. The first class we call “gentlemen,” and we respect and trust them. The second class we do not—at least, we ought not to—call gentlemen, for we feel like carefully guarding our pockets when we meet them. Let there be no illusion about this. He who uses the technicalities of the law to take a wrongful advantage of his neighbor may keep clear of the penitentiary, but he is not an honest man.

And now I soberly ask you, does not the purchase of that Spanish sovereignty put the American people plainly into that category? How pitiably the Administration itself has been at sea as to the origin of our title to sovereignty! On December 21, 1898, in his famous “benevolent assimilation” order, which, in fact, was his declaration of war against the Filipinos, President McKinley said:

The destruction of the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila by the United States naval squadron, followed by the reduction of the city and the surrender of the Spanish forces, practically effected the conquest of the Philippine Islands and the suspension of Spanish sovereignty therein. With the signature of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain on the 10th instant, and as the result of the victories of American arms, the future control, disposition and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States. In fulfilment of the right of sovereignty thus acquired,

he ordered immediate military occupation.