Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/319

Rh people and the devastation of a country, and the practice of torture as mere peccadillos—offenses more venial than the stealing of a loaf of bread by a beggar.

That the President is not pleased with those sentences I can readily believe. And I fear he has not much reason to be satisfied with the manner in which his promise of a thorough and merciless investigation and exposure of abuses is carried out by his subordinates. He can remedy this, however, by putting a different spirit into those proceedings, although he may have to do so by a change of instruments.

But he certainly can do a greater thing than even that. He can, by making the public declaration suggested, initiate a policy which would show that whatever may have been done in the Philippines, was not done to serve the ends of a selfish war of conquest—a policy substantially proclaiming to the world that this Republic repudiates the idea of deriving any selfish profit from what has been done in the Philippines. That would go farther than anything else to wash the dreadful stain from our National honor.

And if President Roosevelt makes such a declaration, and makes it in the name of the great fundamental principles of this Republic, it will place his name, as that of the restorer of those principles, immediately in line with those of Washington and Lincoln.

It is a wonderful opportunity that thus presents itself to him. But to secure the full benefit of it he should act soon, in the course of this campaign, while he can act with full freedom. If he waits, and the Congressional elections should go against the Republicans—which at any rate is not altogether impossible—he would, making the same declaration, appear to act under a certain compulsion.

Now, do you not think that the reasons I have given here in favor of such a step, greatly outweigh in importance