The Story of the Philippines Part 27

The war is ended. It would ill become me to say what details shall enter into the treaty of peace which America is concluding with her vanquished foe. I stand in the presence of the chief magistrate of the republic. To him it belongs by right of official position and of personal wisdom to prescribe those details. The country has learned from the acts of his administration that to his patriotism, his courage, his prudence, she may well confide her safety, her honor, her destiny, her peace. Whatever the treaty of Sapin, America will be pleased when appended to this treaty is the name of William McKinley.

"What I may speak of on this occasion is the results of the war, manifest even in this hour to America and to the world, transcending and independent of all treaties of peace, possessing for America and the world a meaning far mightier than mere acc.u.mulation of material wealth or commercial concessions or territorial extension.

"To do great things, to meet fitly great responsibilities, a nation, like a person, must be conscious of its dignity and its power. The consciousness of what she is and what she may be has come to America. She knows that she is a great nation. The elements of greatness were not imparted by the war; but they were revealed to her by the war, and their vitality and their significance were increased through the war.

"To take its proper place among the older nations of the earth a nation must be known as she is to those nations. The world to-day as ne'er before knows and confesses the greatness and the power of America. The world to-day admires and respects America. The young giant of the West, heretofore neglected and almost despised in his remoteness and isolation, has begun to move as becomes his stature; the world sees what he is and pictures what he may be.

"All this does not happen by chance or accident. An all-ruling Providence directs the movements of humanity. What we witness is a momentous dispensation from the master of men. 'Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo--with the revolution of centuries there is born to the world a new order of things,' sang the Mantuan poet at the birth of the Augustan age. So to-day we proclaim a new order of things has appeared.

"America is too great to be isolated from the world around her and beyond her. She is a world power, to whom no world interest is alien, whose voice reaches afar, whose spirit travels across seas and mountain ranges to most distant continents and islands--and with America goes far and wide what America in the grandest ideal represents--democracy and liberty, a government of the people, by the people, for the people. This is Americanism more than American territory, or American s.h.i.+pping, or American soldiery. Where this grandest ideal of American life is not held supreme America has not reached, where this ideal is supreme America reigns. The vital significance of America's triumphs is not understood unless by those triumphs is understood the triumph of democracy and of liberty.

"If it was ever allowed to nations to rejoice over the result of their wars, America may rejoice to-day. Shall we then chant the praises of war and change this jubilee of peace into a jubilee of war? Heaven forbid!

"'We love peace, not war.' The greatness of America makes it imperative upon her to profess peace--peace to-day, peace to-morrow. Her mission as a world power demands that she be a messenger, an advocate of peace before the world. Fain would we make her jubilee of peace a jubilee of peace for all nations. At least the message from it to the world shall be a message of peace.

"That at times wonderful things come through war, we must admit; but that they come through war and not through the methods of peaceful justice, we must ever regret. When they do come through war, their beauty and grandeur are dimmed by the memory of the sufferings and carnage which were their price.

"We say in defense of war that its purpose is justice; but is it worthy of Christian civilization that there is no other way to justice than war, that nations are forced to stoop to the methods of the animal and savage? Time was when individuals gave battle to one another in the name of justice; it was the time of social barbarism. Tribunals have since taken to themselves the administration of justice, and how much better it is for the happiness and progress of mankind.

"It is force, or chance, that decides the issue of the battle. Justice herself is not heard; the decision of justice is what it was before the battle, the judgment of one party. Must we not hope that with the widening influence of reason and of religion among men, the day is approaching when justice shall be enthroned upon a great international tribunal, before which nations shall bow, demanding from it judgment and peace? Say what we will, our civilization is a vain boast.

"'Till the war drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furled In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, wrapt in universal law.'

"It is America's great soldier who said:

"'Though I have been trained as a soldier, and have partic.i.p.ated in many battles, there never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not have been found of preventing the drawing of the sword. I look forward to an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will settle international differences, instead of keeping large standing armies, as they do in Europe.' Shall we not allow the words of General Grant to go forth as the message of America?

"Some weeks ago the Czar of Russia said: 'The maintenance of general peace and possible reduction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations present themselves in the existing condition of the whole world as an ideal towards which the endeavors of all governments should be directed,' and in accordance with those views he invited all nations to send representatives to an international peace congress, in which the question of reducing the armaments of the several countries of the world and otherwise preparing some plan for the prevention of wars might be discussed.

"Shall not America send to St. Petersburg a message of good will, a promise of earnest co-operation? America, great and powerful, can afford to speak of peace. Words of peace from her will be the more gracious and timely, as they who do not know her say that, maddened by her recent triumphs, she is now committed beyond return to a policy of militarism and of conquest.

"Lead, my country, in peace--in peace for thyself, in peace for the world. When war is necessary, lead, we pray thee, in war; but when peace is possible, lead, we pray thee yet more, lead in peace; lead in all that makes for peace, that prepares the world for peace.

"America, the eyes of the world are upon thee. Thou livest for the world. The new era is shedding its light upon thee, and through thee upon the whole world. Thy greatness and thy power daze me; even more, thy responsibilities to G.o.d and to humanity daze me--I would say affright me. America, thou failing, democracy and liberty fail throughout the world.

"And now know, in the day of thy triumphs and victories, what guards democracy and liberty, what is thy true grandeur. Not in commerce and industry, not in s.h.i.+ps and in armies, are the safety and the grandeur of nations, and, more especially, of republics. Intelligence and virtue build up nations and save them; without intelligence and virtue, material wealth and victorious armies bring corruption to nations and precipitate the ruin of liberty.

"And now, America, the country of our pride, our love, our hope, we remit thee for to-day and for to-morrow into the hands of the Almighty G.o.d, under whose protecting hand thou canst not fail, whose commandments are the supreme rules of truth and righteousness."

The Archbishop was followed by Judge Speer, of Georgia:

"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Spain had long been our near and dangerous neighbor. Its people have a degree of reverence almost superst.i.tious for monarchy, and regard republican inst.i.tutions with great disfavor. It has been said of Spain that some incurable vice in her organization, or it may be in the temper of her people, neutralizes all of the advantages she ought to derive from her st.u.r.dy hardihood, her nearly perfect capacity for endurance and the somber genius alike for war, for art and for literature, which has so often marked her sons. While this seems to be true, the Spaniard is not only a formidable antagonist, but there is a wealth of interest and charm in his rich, romantic history which commands the admiration of a generous foeman. This must be accorded, whether we contemplate that ancient people as they alternately resist the aggressions of Carthage and of Rome, the fierce cavalry of Hamilcar, the legions of Scipio, of Pompey and of Caesar, or in more recent times the achievements of their renowned infantry which broke to fragments the best armies of Europe, or the infuriated people in arms against the hitherto unconquered veterans of Napoleon, or but now as with patient and dogged courage, with flaming volleys, they vainly strive to hold the works of Caney and San Juan against the irresistible and rus.h.i.+ng valor of the American soldier. In art the Spaniard has been not less famous. In the royal collection of Madrid, in the venerable cathedrals of Seville, in the Louvre, in the London National Gallery, the lover of the beautiful may be charmed by the warmth of color, the accuracy of technique, the rounded outline and saintly salvation of Murillo.

"Many a quaint moralist, many a stately poet, many a priestly chronicler attests the genius of Spanish literature, but if these had not been, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had been its t.i.tle to immortality. The admirable attributes of Spanish character nowhere found warmer appreciation than with our own countrymen. What Prescott did for the statecraft, and stern martial renown of the Spaniards, Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, with melodious prose and gentle humor, surpa.s.sed in his kindly portrayal of Spanish character in his charming romance, The Conquest of Granada. It is perhaps due to the drollery and Addisonian humor of that gifted American that we have never been able to estimate the Spaniard quite so seriously as he estimates himself, or, indeed, as his stern and uncompromising nature deserves. The truth is, Spanish policy has ever been insidiously and persistently inimical to the American people, and has culminated in deeds more atrocious than those which have rendered infamous the baleful memory of Pedro the Cruel.

"We all know how in 1492 his holiness, Alexander VI., in order to prevent unseemly collisions between Christian princes, published a bull by which he a.s.signed to Spain all discoveries lying west of an imaginary line drawn 300 leagues to the westward of the Cape Verde islands. All discoveries to the east were confined to Portugal.

"All of South America save Brazil and the two Guineas, all Central America, Mexico, the entire territory west of the Mississippi, now embraced by the United States, beautiful Cuba, from whose eastern province of Santiago Ponce de Leon across the lucent waves of the tropical sea coveted the ambrosial forests and fertile meadows of Porto Rico, whence he was to sail to the floral empire of Florida. But this was not all of Spain's magnificent domain. Far across the waters of the South Pacific was the now famous cl.u.s.ter of islands bearing the name of the Spanish king. And from their great cities, via Guam, and Hawaii, and San Francisco, to Acapulco, sailed the famous Manila fleet, huge galleons, loaded to the gunwales with the silken and golden wealth of the orient. Where are her colonies now? The declaration of the senior senator from the n.o.ble state of Illinois has been fulfilled: No race outside of her own borders, even if Spanish by origin, has ever been able to endure her reign, and every race which has resisted her ultimately succeeded in withdrawing from her control.

"In the meantime the Americans, as declared by the German philosopher, Lessing, were building in the new world the lodge of humanity. The determined malignity of the Spaniard toward the adventurous men of our race who were fringing the Atlantic coast with spa.r.s.ely peopled and widely separated settlements was promptly disclosed. They had threatened to send an armed s.h.i.+p to remove the Virginia planters. They laid claim to Carolina, and they directed powerful armed expeditions against the young colony of Georgia. They were now to meet, not the helpless savages who had been their victims, but men of that same fighting strain who in this good year breasted the hail of death, swarmed up the heights and planted the colors on the intrenchments of Santiago.

"That field where the Georgian and Spaniards on that momentous day in 1742 met is yet called the Blood Marsh. The commander of our colonial forces was James Edward Oglethorpe. To his military genius and the heroism of his slender force is due the fact that the southern territory of the United States was not added to the dependencies of Spain. That ill.u.s.trious Englishman should ever live in the memory and veneration of the American people. He did more to exclude the Spaniards from American soil than any other man of the English speaking race, save that successor of Was.h.i.+ngton, the president, who evinces his fervid love of country and graces the occasion by his presence to-day.

"Defeated in their scheme of invasion, the Spaniards remained intensely inimical to our fathers. What more striking demonstration of that superintending providence, which administers justice, not only to individuals, but to nations, than the spectacle in this mighty city, builded on the heritage of which Spain would have deprived this people of this gathering of Americans to mark the epoch when the last Spanish soldier has been driven from the last foot of soil of that hemisphere discovered by Columbus. May we not justly exclaim with the psalmist of old: 'Oh, clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto G.o.d with the voice of triumph.'

"It is perhaps impossible for Americans of this day and time to conceive how vast was the control Spain might have exerted over the destinies of our republic. The independence of the United States had been recognized, the const.i.tution had been adopted and the government organized, and yet for many years she claimed without dispute the peninsula of Florida, thence a strip along the gulf extending to and including the city of New Orleans, and she held all of that territory west of the Mississippi extending from the Father of Waters to the Pacific ocean, and from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the undefined boundaries of the British possessions.

"Even as it is to-day, that empire mentioned in Bishop Berkely's prophetic stanza, 'Westward the course of empire takes its way,' which sprang into being with the first shot of the simple, G.o.d-fearing husbandmen on the green at Lexington extends more than half way across the Pacific ocean, and the miner or the fisherman standing on the ultimate island of Alaska and gazing eastward across the icy waters may with the naked eye behold the dominions of the czar. Nor in this do we include those distant islands, where one May morning, ever to be famous in the annals of our race, the spicy breezes that blow o'er Manila bay were rent by the guns of the n.o.ble Dewey as they proclaimed that the genius of liberty had come to rid of cruelty and avarice and crime that charming land 'where every prospect pleases and only man is vile.'

"In this connection may it not be well for us and for some of our distinguished representatives now in Paris to consider if it can be ever possible for men with the American and Spanish ideas of government to live in proximity and in peace? Contrast the character of the average American citizen with that of the Spaniard. The native and distinctive modesty of the national character forbids me to p.r.o.nounce an extravagant eulogium upon the American citizen, but behold him and see what he has done and can do.

"While the human intellect has been making prodigious and unheard-of strides, while the world is ringing with the noise of intellectual achievements, Spain sleeps on untroubled, unheeding, impa.s.sive, receiving no impression upon it. There she lies at the farther extremity of the continent, a huge and torpid ma.s.s, the sole representative now remaining of the feelings and knowledge of the middle ages. And, what is the worst symptom of all, she is satisfied with her own condition. Though she is the most backward country in Europe she believes herself to be the foremost. She is proud of everything of which she ought to be ashamed.

"How incompatible is the temperament of the American and the Spaniard.

"May the worn and wasted followers of Gomez and Garcia come to appreciate the blessings of liberty under the law. No other wish is in consonance with the aims of the American people. We would not, if we could, be their masters. The gigantic power of the country has been put forth for their salvation and for their pacification. Connected with them by bonds of genuine sympathy and indissoluble interest, we will labor with them to secure for them established justice, domestic tranquility, general welfare and the blessings of liberty to themselves and to their posterity. For the common defense, in the blue ether above the beautiful island of Cuba is poised the eagle.'

'Whose golden plume Floats moveless on the storm and in the blaze Of sunrise gleams when earth is wrapt in gloom.'

"It was not enough, however, for the American people to recognize the independence of the Spanish-American republics. It soon became our duty to notify the world that in certain eventualities it was our purpose to defend their national existence. The holy alliance, as it was termed, had been formed. The great powers who signed the famous compact declared its purpose to maintain as Christian doctrine the proposition that useful or necessary changes in legislation, or in the administration of states, can only emanate from the free will and well-weighed convictions of those whom G.o.d has rendered responsible for power. Whom had G.o.d made responsible for power? What is a well-weighed conviction? These are questions about which the irreverent Americans might perchance differ with royalty. We had been lead to believe, and yet believe, that the voice of the people is the voice of G.o.d. When, therefore, the absolution of the holy alliance, not content with smothering a feeble spark of liberty in Spain, initiated a joint movement of their arms against the Spanish-American republics, it gave the people of our country the gravest concern. In the meantime our relations with Great Britain had grown cordial. That they may grow ever stronger and more cordial should be the prayer of every man of the English speaking race. An unspeakable blessing to mankind of the struggle from which we are now emerging is the genuine brotherly sympathy for the people of the United States flowing from that land.

"And it is returned in no unstinted measure. But two months ago the flags.h.i.+p of Admiral Dewey steamed slowly into the battle line at Manila. As she pa.s.sed the British flags.h.i.+p Immortalite its band rang out the inspiring air 'See the Conquering Hero Comes,' and as the gorgeous ensign of the republic was flung to the breeze at the peak of the Olympia there now came thrilling o'er the waters from our kinsmen's s.h.i.+p the martial strains of the 'Star Spangled Banner.'

"Finally, when our gallant seamen, reposing in fancied security in the scorching blast of the treacherous explosion were cruelly and remorselessly slain, and calm investigation had developed the truth, we had been despicable on the historic page had we not appealed to the G.o.d of battle for retribution. The pious rage of seventy millions of people cried aloud to heaven for the piteous agony, for the shameful slaughter of our brethren. Our n.o.ble navy was swiftly speeding to its duty. Poetic genius bodied forth the spirit of our gallant seamen as the mighty s.h.i.+ps sped on their way.

"Let the waters of the orient as they moan through the sh.e.l.l-riven wrecks at Cavite, the booming waves of the Caribbean as fathoms deep it sweeps over Pluton and Furor and breaks into spray on the shapeless and fire-distorted steel of Vizcaya and Oquendo, tell how the navy has paid our debt to Spain. Nor is the renown which crowns the standards of our army one whit less glorious. Nothing in the lucid page of Thucydides nor in the terse commentaries of Caesar, nothing in the vivid narrative of Napier or the glowing battle scenes of Allison, can surpa.s.s the story how, spurning the chapparal and the barbed wire, pressing their rifles to their throbbing hearts, toiling up the heights, and all the while the machine guns and the Mausers mowing the jungle as if with a mighty reaper, on and yet right on, they won the fiery crests, and Santiago fell. Well may we exclaim with the royal poet of Israel:

"'Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm hath gotten him the victory.'

"America! Humane in the hour of triumph, gentle to the vanquished, grateful to the Lord of Hosts, a reunited people forever:

"'Great people. As the sands shalt thou become; Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade The mult.i.tudinous earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.'"

The band burst into the strains of "Dixie" in honor of the Southern birth of Judge Speer, as he concluded his oration. President McKinley, as on other occasions during the program, joined in the hearty applause. Cries of "McKinley," "McKinley," "The President,"

"The President," were heard all over the hall, and in a moment it was seen that the President was going to respond. Every one stood up. Ex-Governor Oglesby approached the front of the box, and said, "I have the honor to introduce the guest of the occasion, the President."

"Leaning forward," we quote the Tribune, "from his box in the earnestness of his utterance, speaking in the tones of emotion having birth in the fullness of heart, President William McKinley, at the Auditorium jubilee meeting yesterday morning gave to the people a message of simple thanks and significant augury. Save for a wave of applause at the mention of American charity, the terse, reverent address was heard in silence. An added hush fell upon the intent throng when the President began the portentous concluding paragraph, and when he ceased speaking and stood before them grave and masterful, the quiet was breathless, tense under the force of repression. Then the meaning of the words of the Executive coursed from heart to brain, and men's minds grasped the fact that they had heard the President's lips declare that he had seen the direction of the flow of the currents of destiny, that he recognized their majesty, and that his purpose was in harmony with the common will--the force working for the retention of the conquered islands in the distant Pacific and for the policy of national growth.

"The applause broke the louder for the preceding calm and the deeper for the inspiring motive. Hats were swung and handkerchiefs waved. Men climbed on chairs to lead the cheering and women forgot gloved hands and applauded with energy. At the last, ex-Governor Richard J. Oglesby, who had a seat in the President's box, led in three cheers."

The message of the President was: