Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/267

Rh upon to act with intelligent judgment upon their own affairs. This practice of secrecy in the conduct of our Government has gone so far that, for two years, one of the most fateful periods in our history, our people have not been permitted to see, a few items excepted, the most important diplomatic correspondence and the directions to Government agents entrusted with most momentous business. We are now witnessing the strange, the unprecedented, spectacle of the President, as a candidate for reelection, in his letter of acceptance, a partisan campaign paper, drawing upon hidden stores of official knowledge and publishing detached pieces of documents as they may be advantageous to his and his party's interest. He has no reason to complain of the widespread suspicion that, if all those documents were published entire, they might bring unwelcome light—for, as I have shown, his “benevolent assimilation” order, that usurping declaration of war against the Filipinos, standing up for freedom and independence, the whole of which happens to be known, appears in his letter of acceptance in a garbled condition, misleadingly omitting the most important parts. Here we have, I repeat, an attempt at secret government, one of the worst practices of unadulterated despotism. You deny the influence of imperialism on the character of our Government? Here you have an instance.

These are some of the known things imperialism has already done for us. What may be still in store you may conjecture. And what benefit have we to show for it? A shadowy prospect of commercial profit, which, so far as it depends upon our sovereign rule over the dependencies, will redound only to the benefit of a favored few at the heavy expense of the taxpayers; but which so far as the generally useful expansion of our foreign commerce is concerned, might have been, and might still be, fully