Clemson University - Taps Yearbook (Clemson, SC)

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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

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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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n $s • ' O THE C LEMSON COLLEGE CHRONICLE sacred right. It was in behalf of this right that Patrick Henry declared, ' ' Give me liberty, or give me death. When Monroe said to the European governments in 1803, You shall not colonize any more of the territory of the Western Hemisphere, he said it in behalf of the American people. Alas! how different our ideas are from what they were a hundred years ago! Then we protected liberty. Now we are endeavoring to crush it. The love of liberty, the aspirations for freedom, are nat- ural passions of the human heart. In all ages of the world, in all lands and climes, these passions have lived. They have defied the edict of kings. They have paid the last full measure of devotion at the stake. They have shed undying lustre upon countless fields of battle in all the dark and gloomy past. They are pouring out the life-blood of an unfortunate people upon the thirsty ground of the Philip- pine Islands. How long shall this be allowed to continue? How long will the people of the United States permit the subjugation of those islanders? The shades of our fore- fathers, of Patrick Henry, of George Washington, say, ' ' Stop it now ! ' I am not alarmed by the statements of any one who says that we are bound in honor to remain in the Philippines. Listen to him as he appeals to the nation ' s pride: Would you pull down our honored flag from the ramparts of Ma- nila after it has been placed there by our brave soldiers? Would you flee from the face of the enemy? The Ameri- can soldier has never before run from an enemy, though ever so formidable; would you have us flee from a small body t Filipinos? I can conceive of no greater service done in be- half of my country than to pull down its flag from where it has ceased to represenl the sentiments of its first defenders. Better a thousand times that our flag in the Philippines give way to a flag representing self-government than that it should become the emblem of an empire.