Spain is virtually ousted. When we have captured Manila and have no further use for our Filipino allies, our President directs that, behind their backs, a treaty be made with Spain transferring their country to us; and even before that treaty is ratified, he tells them that, in place of the Spaniards, they must accept us as their masters, and that if they do not, they will be compelled by force of arms. They refuse, and we shoot them down; and, as President McKinley said at Pittsburgh, we shall continue to shoot them down “without useless parley.”
I have recited these things in studiously sober and dry matter-of-fact language, without oratorical ornament or appeal. I ask you now what epithet can you find justly to characterize such a course? Happily, you need not search for one, for President McKinley himself has furnished the best when, in a virtuous moment, he said that annexation by force should not be thought of, for, according to the American code of morals, it would be “criminal aggression.” Yes, “criminal” is the word. Have you ever heard of any aggression more clearly criminal than this? And in this case there is an element of peculiarly repulsive meanness and treachery. I pity the American who can behold this spectacle without the profoundest shame, contrition and resentment. Is it a wonder, I repeat, that the American people, in whose name this has been done, should be troubled in their consciences?
To justify, or rather to excuse, such things, nothing but a plea of the extremest necessity will avail. Did such a necessity exist? In a sort of helpless way the defenders of this policy ask: “What else could the President have done under the circumstances?” This question is simply childish. If he thought he could not order Commodore Dewey away from Manila after the execution of the order to destroy the Spanish fleet, he could have told the people of the Philippine Islands that this was, on our part, a war
