Coming from their mouths Mr. McKinley himself would have called such words hypocritical cant, if not blasphemy.
Let us now see in what manner the policy for which the President makes divine Providence responsible was carried out. We made war upon Spain, as our Congress solemnly declared to the American people and to all mankind, for the purpose of liberating the Cuban people from Spanish oppression, declaring that they were, and of right ought to be, free and independent. It was a grand spectacle—a great nation voluntarily undergoing the burdens and horrors of war merely to secure to a foreign population that freedom and independence they were painfully struggling for. It was a purpose so noble in its unselfishness that many persons abroad would not believe in its sincerity, but charged us with some secret selfish design of conquest. At this we were extremely angry.
Then came Dewey's victory in Manila Bay, and with it the temptation testing our sincerity. Dewey invited the chief of the Filipino insurgents, Aguinaldo, to join him and encouraged and aided him with arms and ammunition to organize the revolutionary movement against Spain on a great scale. Aguinaldo did so; he formed an army of about 30,000 men, set up a civil government which, according to the testimony of the imperialist agitator Barrett, who had seen it, compared in its Congress favorably with the Parliament of Japan, and had well constructed and active executive departments, and an internal administration working admirably, as described by gentlemen belonging to the Navy, and vouched for by Admiral Dewey—an army, a civil government and an internal administration infinitely superior to anything of the kind the insurgent Cubans ever had.
The Filipino army went to work fighting the Spaniards most successfully, taking many thousands of them prisoners. In fact, it virtually did the only fighting against the
