Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/421

Rh in a manner which many of the best lawyers of the country hold to be flagrantly unconstitutional. Thus he joins to a naturally good heart a “lawless mind,” as Professor Nelson has properly called it. Sometimes very little or ill-digested knowledge suffices him to reach the conclusions he desires. In the speeches he delivered in his campaign for the Vice-Presidency he likened the Filipinos fighting for the independence of their country to savage Apaches on the warpath, to be treated accordingly. He is now quite sure that we did not take the Philippines “at will,” in face of the historic fact that we might have treated them just as we treated Cuba. He positively asserts that “the voice of the United States would now count for nothing in the Far East if we had abandoned the Philippines and refused to do what was done in China,” while even superficial study of American history would have taught him that the United States opened Japan to the world, and exercised, in Secretary Marcy's, and Caleb Cushing's, and Burlingame's time, great influence in China many decades before the possession of the Philippines was dreamed of. And so I might go on ad infinitum.

He is quite sure that in all these things he has been perfectly right. Whoever doubts this may read his letter of acceptance, the most extraordinary document of that kind ever presented to the American people. In self-glorification it is immense. According to it President Roosevelt's Administration has been positively perfect. Those who find fault with it are simply insincere or lamentably deluded. He does not hesitate to attack the motives of his opponents. He is firmly convinced that his policies were the only ones effectively to serve the interests and the honor of the country, which interests and honor absolutely demand that these policies be continued. To prove this his letter here and there twists