Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/254

 HOAR

SUBJUGATION OF THE PHILIPPINES INIQUITOUS^

(1902)

Bom in 1826, died in 1904; Member of Congress from Massachusetts

in 1869-77; Member of the Electoral Commission in 1877; United

States Senator from 1877 until his death.

We have to deal with a territory ten thousand miles away, twelve hundred miles in extent, con- taining ten million people. A majority of the Senate think that people are under the American flag and lawfully subject to our authority. We are not at war with them or with anybody. The country is in a condition of profound peace as well as of unexampled prosperity. The world is in a profound peace, except in one quarter, in South Africa, where a handful of republicans are fighting for their independence, and have been doing better fighting than has been done on the face of the earth since ThermopylaB, or cer- tainly since Bannockburn.

You are fighting for sovereignty. You are fighting for the principle of eternal dominion over that people, and that is the only question in issue in the conflict. We said in the case of Cuba that she had a right to be free and inde-

• From a speech in the United States Senate In May, 1902. 220

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