Clemson University - Taps Yearbook (Clemson, SC)

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386 THE CLEMSOX COLLEGE CHRONICLE The second is : that the policy of conquest is entailing an immense debt upon the people of the United States. The statistics put the cost last year as eighty million dollars, mak- ing a total cost since the war began of over three hundred million dollars. Although real war has practically ceased, a war of conquest is bound to leave its legacy of hatred rank- ling in the breast of the conquered. Experienced officers tell us that it will take an army of thirty thousand men to garrison the islands for thirty years. The average cost per annum for a soldier is fifteen-hundred dollars ; hence to keep such an army as is needed there, requires the expenditure of one billion four hundred and fifty million dollars. Besides this enormous loss in dollars and cents, we have the many thousand lives sacrificed on the battlefield and in the hos- pitals. We have already sent one hundred and twenty thou- sand men to those islands ; how many we have left there and how many have returned to fill early graves God only knows. There are some who would justify this sacrifice of life and money upon the ground that it offers a field for increased commercial possibilities. Against the sordid doctrine of those who would put a price upon the head of an American soldier and justify a war of conquest upon the ground that it will pay, I desire to place the philosophy of Franklin, who said, To me, it seems that neither the obtaining nor retain- ing of trade is an object for which men may justly spill each others blood. Then, there is the further fact that our commerce in those islands has not increased, although we have owned them for three year-. We exported t them last year goods to the amount of a little over two million dollars, most of which was for our army, while Great Britain exported over twice as much. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not necessary to own a people before we can trade with them. The idea that we can control the Oriental trade through

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THE CLEMSOX COLLEGE CHRONICLE 385 tion is congratulating itself for the success which has crowned its efforts and is hoping that the time is not far hence when every knee shall bow in submission to the United States. I desire to call your attention to a few facts which, I think, should furnish not a reason for congratulations but rather a reason for profoundest thought on the part of our citizens. The first is : that the policy which we are pursuing is morally wrong. At the time of the Revolutionary War there was practically but one form of government in existence. It recognized that all powers of government were vested in one man. and that he could grant such privileges to his subjects as he deemed proper. Such a government was called a mon- archy. It was in the early years of our colonial history that the people along the Atlantic shore began to reason why one man should have power to rule another. Their reasoning ere long was crystallized in the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the grandest writing ever penned by man. Among other things this document declares that man is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and to attain these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the gov- erned. These principles are declared to be self-evident truths. They form the basis of the moral law. Any viola- tion of these truths is a violation of the moral law itself. I know that some will say that the Filipinos are ignorant and incapable of self-government and therefore we should gov- ern them that they might attain life, liberty, and the pur- suits of happiness. It is the doctrine of thrones that man is too ignorant to govern himself. In our colonial days. George III. spoke of us as ignorant backwoods men. and incapable of governing ourselves. There may be degrees of proficiency in self-government, but it is a reflection on the Creator himself to say that he denied to any people the ca- pacity for self-government.

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THE CLEMSON COLLEGE CHRONICLE 387 Manila is fanciful. That port is not on the route of ships from our Pacific coast ; in fact, it is a thousand miles from the line of travel of those steamships, that line passing by and within two hundred miles of the Aleutian Islands. If we want the trade of China we must seek it at the great sea- board cities of the empire. The American consul at Canton says that for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars we can obtain a concession across the river from that place. Such a concession would be ample enough for all our trade and manufacturing purposes. The third is : that the colonial system of government has proved in nearly every instance a miserable failure. The business of governing the world has largely for the last cen- tury devolved upon Great Britain, and I call your attention to the fact that Ireland, one of her oldest colonies, presents the only example of a civilized nation of the world declining in population, that the government in India is a government of tyranny and robbery from beginning to end. Look, if you please, at the miserable condition of Cuba and the Philip- pines, themselves, under the Spanish rule. The cruelties and atrocities perpetrated in those islands under the name of government are unparalleled in the history of the world. I do not believe that under American rule such crimes would be permitted. I believe that of all nations of the world the United States would exercise the most lenient form of col- onial government. But history teaches us that a long dis- tance government has always been a detriment to the people so governed. The fourth is : That a policy of colonization is a departure from our former practice. We, as a nation, have stood heretofore as a brilliant example to every people struggling for national independence. For seven long years we waged a war against Great Britain for libertv. For one hundred and twenty-five years we have posed as the guardians of that