Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/274

250 pendent government? We are endeavoring to put the people of Cuba in power, not any particular person. And is there anybody proposing to do anything else in the case of the Philippines? Why does Mr. McKinley find it necessary to conjure up such scarecrows for the purpose of frightening the unwary?

It is said that before all things we must “establish order.” What kind of order are we seeking to establish? It is our sovereignty, our arbitrary rule under the name of order, for which we have already killed more human beings than the bloody Spaniards ever killed there in all the insurrections of this century. It is the kind of “order” that Louis Napoleon established in Paris when he shot down those who resisted him in destroying the constitution of the French Republic, and in transforming the Republic into an empire. The speediest and surest way to establish order is to give full assurance to the Philippine Islanders that their right to independence will be recognized. There is no reason for doubting that the fighting will quickly cease and that the Filipinos and our troops will then heartily coöperate in quelling disturbances, if, indeed, any should arise, and that the same conditions of peace and order would prevail there which we now, under the same assurance, witness in Cuba.

Lastly, it is said that if we voluntarily give up the subjugation of the Philippines we shall lose our prestige in the world. Ah, yes! We shall indeed lose our prestige with the land-robbers; our prestige with the oppressors of weak peoples; our prestige with the swashbucklers who are constantly spoiling for a fight; our prestige with the scoffers at democratic institutions; our prestige with the devotees of despotic rule. Yes, with them our prestige will be irretrievably gone. We shall even be in danger of being regarded the world over as an honest people; as a just, generous, noble and liberty-loving people; as a