Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/89

Rh that those French armies brought to some of the peoples they overran certain beneficial reforms. But with those reforms they brought foreign rule, and most of the “liberated” peoples found foreign rule more hateful than they found the reforms beneficial; and they availed themselves of the first favorable opportunity to throw off the foreign rule of the “liberators” with great slaughter.

We may flatter ourselves that, as conquerors, we are animated with purposes much more unselfish, and we may wonder why not only in the Philippines, but even among the people of Porto Rico and of Cuba, our benevolent intentions should meet with so much sullen disfavor. The reason is simple. We bring to those populations the intended benefits in the shape of foreign rule; and of all inflictions foreign rule is to them the most odious, as under similar circumstances it would be to us. We have already seen in the Philippines the beginning—for it is a mere beginning—of the resistance to foreign rule by one of our “liberated” peoples—a bloody game far from exhilarating. We may expect by a vigorous application of our superior killing power to beat and disperse Aguinaldo's army; but it is by no means unlikely that more insurrections against foreign rule will follow. They may be suppressed, too, but the surviving spirit of them will oblige us to keep much stronger forces on the ground than we ever anticipated, in constant apprehension of further mischief. Our rule will continue to be foreign rule then with the smell of blood on it.

Nor is it by any means impossible that the vulnerable spots thus added to our dominions—a point of weakness we so far have never had—may encourage some jealous and unfriendly foreign Powers to take advantage of our embarrassments and to involve us in broils which so far we never had any reason to dread. Or the apparent necessity to protect what conquest we have made, by