Hoar Champions Filipinos

The speech of Senator Hoar of Massachusetts delivered in the United States senate on Thursday in opposition to the pending Philippine civil government bill is undoubtedly one of the greatest ever listened to in that body. It is the master effort of a statesman with a clear moral perception of our duty to the Filipinos according to all hitherto recognized fundamental principles of our republic. It represents the studied belief of a statesman with a conscience, a man who has lived beyond the storms and passions and strife of political ambitions and sees with the mind and vision of a philosopher. That which gives to the speech its great power is the fact that it is known to be of the heart as well as of the intellect and judgment of a man full of years and Christian culture, broad scholarship and masterful knowledge of oral history and institutions, a man whose better nature has never been warped and dwarfed by greed nor dazzled by military glory. Senator Hoar, although his fine, strong old face shines with the spirit of altruism, is no sentimentalist. He advocates the principles lie does because he believes them to be eternally right and in this he is undoubtedly in accord with the great constructive statesmen of the first century of our marvelous development.

He declared in his great speech that in our handling of the Philippine issue we are departing from the early ideals of the republic. He therefore asks the American people to halt and take stock of the meaning of this departure. He begged the administration to pause in its mad career of imperialism and quest and consider whether even in this instance, as we have proven in most others of our history, it be not better to substitute kindness and justice for brute force. He contrasted the policy pursued by us in Cuba with that we are pursuing in the Philippines and declared that "from one we have just come with honor, from the other we have come with nothing of honor." "Six hundred millions of treasure and nearly 10,000 lives- the flower of our youth," he declared, "we have sacrificed in the Philippines, and for what? To gain the undying hatred of the Filipino people." There never was a time, he insisted, when, if we had announced it to be our purpose to retire from the Philippines when we had kept our faith with Spain and restored order in the islands, that the strife there would not have terminated at once. In the case of Cuba we announced to the world that the Cuban people had a right to be free and independent, but in the Philippines we entered upon a light for sovereignty, and hence the different results. Had we done in Cuba what we have done in the Philippines we should now be right where Spain was when she excited the indignation of the civilized world and we proceeded to drive her out. He declared that no man who had sat in the senate since Charles Sumner had performed a more important single service to the country than that performed by Henry M. Teller in securing the passage of the resolution pledging us to deal with Cuba according to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. 

He said he had the greatest confidence in the American army as a whole. In the main the army was just and humane, but the responsibility for the offenses which have scandalized the nation were not upon the soldiers, but upon those who are responsible for the policy of subjugation that is being pursued. When a superior race makes war on an inferior race, cruelty and atrocity and degradation are sure to follow and those who are responsible for such a policy must shoulder the blame.

This great speech probably will change no votes directly in the senate, but it will unquestionably have much influence throughout the country and this influence may in turn reach the senate. The false steps already taken may yet be retraced and this great question settled right. Relative to the settlement of this question, Senator Hoar said in closing:

"You will not settle this thing in a generation or in a century or in ten centuries, until it is settled right. It never will be settled right until you look for your counsellor to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln, and not to the representatives of the war department.

"The American people have got this one question to answer. They may answer it now; they can take ten years, or twenty years, or a generation or a century to think of it. But it will not down. They must answer it in the end - Can you lawfully buy with money or get by brute force of arms the right to hold in subjugation an unwilling people and to impose on them such constitution as you, and not they, think best for them?

"The question will be answered again hereafter. It will be answered soberly and deliberately and quietly as the American people are wont to answer great questions of duty. It will be answered, not in any turbulent assembly, amid shouting and clapping of hands and stamping of feet, where men do their thinking with their heels and not with their brains. It will be answered in the churches and in the schools and in the colleges, and it will be answered in 15,000,000 American homes, and it will be answered as it has always been answered. It will be answered right."