justify what we have done and what we propose, let us at least be brave enough to admit it. . . . Disguise it as we will, the claim of one people that it is superior to and therefore entitled to rule another rests upon no better moral foundation than the heathen maxim, " Might makes right."... If we concede that a civilized nation has the right to govern any people who are unfit to govern themselves, who shall decide that such unfitness exists? Can the decision safely be left to the stronger nation? Shall it be made by men who know nothing of the weaker people, who have never visited their country, who do not understand their language, their traditions, their character, or their needs? Shall it be made without hearing their representatives and learning all they can tell about their countrymen? Can we be sure that the judgment of the strong is not affected by appeals to national vanity, by apostrophes to the flag, by hopes of commercial advantage, by dreams of world power, by the exigencies of party politics, by personal ambitions . . . ? By what standards is inferiority to be measured?... Does it not seem the height of presumption for us, in our ignorance, to claim that brown men are necessarily our inferiors, or that Asiatics, whose ideas govern the moral world, cannot govern themselves? Said James Russell Lowell: "When the moral vision of a man becomes perverted enough to persuade him that he is superior to his fellow, he is in reality looking up at him from an immeasurable distance beneath." Let us proceed to a more important inquiry. If our new subjects cannot give themselves what we think a good government, are we likely to give them a better? Or is President Schurman right in saying, "Any decent government of the Filipinos by the Filipinos is better than the best possible government of Filipinos by Americans." Let us consider this question, bearing in mind certain fundamental principles. First. Every government should exist solely for the benefit of the governed. . . . Second. The object of every government should be to educate, develop, and elevate the people . . . not to develop mines, increase commerce, and add to the world's wealth without regard to the people. Third. In order to develop a people, their rulers must understand them and believe in them. . . . If a ruler feels contempt for his subjects, there is a mutual repulsion. . . . Finally. Human experience has amply proved that no man can safely be trusted with absolute power. The struggle of men for freedom has ever been an attempt to create "a government of laws, and not of men." . . . ... But we are confidently told that we have succeeded already. Let us concede the triumph of our arms; but where shall we look for the triumph of our principles and our laws? . . . We have destroyed a large part of the Filipino people. General Bell said that in two years before May, 1901, "one sixth of the natives of Luzon have either been killed or had died of dengue fever." . . . We have laid waste their fields, we have destroyed both crops and cultivators, we have burned villages and towns, leaving the people homeless, we have adopted the reconcentration policy of General Weyler, and have borrowed mediaval tortures from Spain, in order to aid our policy of conquest. We found 7,000,000 of people friendly and prosperous. We have reduced them to straits like these. We have destroyed more Filipino life and property in four years than Spain in her centuries of rule. Is this success? We have sent to the islands nearly 125,000 of our citizens, many of whom have been killed, many more disabled by wounds and disease, many made insane, and a very large number so demoralized as to regard torture, reconcentration, and the slaughter of prisoners and non-combatants as right! Is this success? We have spent hundreds of millions, drawn from the taxes of the people, on this war: and the end is not yet. . . . Is this success? We have stricken down the first republican government ever established in Asia, and have turned millions of cordial friends into bitter enemies. Is this success? Finally, we have abandoned the ideals and principles of liberty which we have cherished from our birth, and have adopted the principles and practices of tyranny, which we have always condemned. Again I ask, Is this success? We have proved abundantly the truth of Lincoln's words: "No man's good enough to govern another without that other's consent." ... What do we gain? Commercial expansion. If the whole commerce of the Orient were offered us at such a price, had we the right to pay it? . . . No, our policy has not succeeded. It has failed, and its failure is written in blood on every fold of the flag which we loved to call "the flag of the free." It is written on the fresh graves, the ruined homes, and the barren fields of the conquered islands. It is written in the sullen hearts of the Filipinos, who cannot but remember our cruelties, and, in the President's own words, "will for centuries remain alien and hostile to the conquerors." It is written also in the hardened hearts of our countrymen, who have forgotten their ideals and have learned to tolerate and to approve what they have always execrated. . . . When Guizot asked Lowell how long our republic would last, he replied, "As long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant." . . . We cannot destroy the ideals of the nation; we cannot insist that the Declaration of Independence is wrong; we cannot govern millions of men outside the Constitution; we cannot hold a single Filipino, like Mabini, a prisoner without trial or sentence, and hope to preserve in full strength that faith in the equal rights of man which is the soul of this nation. . . . The time will come, if this republic is to endure, when an overwhelming public sentiment will make itself felt, and we shall do what every true American in his heart would like to have his country do give the Filipinos their freedom, and thus regain that proud position among the nations of the world which we have lost, the moral leadership of mankind, becoming again . . . the great nation . . . beneath whose flag, wherever it floats in this wide world, there is no room for a subject, but a sure refuge for every man who desires that freedom which is the birthright of every human being. ... 117. The 1903 [602] THE ROOSEVELT POLICIES The following text of the convention of 1903 between the United States and the new Republic of Panama for the construction of a ship canal through the Isthmus is taken from W. M. Malloy's "Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols, and Agreements between the United States and Other Powers," a compilation, in two large volumes, made in accordance with a resolution of the Senate, January 18, 1909. The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was ratified and proclaimed in February, 1904. In May, 1904, the "dirt began to fly" at Panama. Almost exactly ten years later the first ship passed through the Canal. The United States of America and the Republic of Panama being desirous to insure the construction of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Congress of the United States of America having passed an act approved June 28, 1902, in furtherance of that object, by which the President of the United States is authorized to acquire within a reasonable time the control of the necessary territory of the Republic of Colombia, and the sovereignty of such territory being actually vested in the Republic of Panama, the high contracting parties have resolved for that purpose to conclude a convention and have accordingly appointed as their plenipotentiaries, The President of the United States, John Hay, Secretary of State, and The Government of the Republic of Panama, Philippe BunauVarilla, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Panama, thereunto especially empowered by said government: who after communicating with each other their respective full powers, found to be in good and due form, have agreed upon and concluded the following articles. ARTICLE I. The United States guarantees and will maintain the independence of the Republic of Panama. ARTICLE II. The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of said Canal, of the width of ten miles extending to the distance of five miles on each side of the center line of the route of Canal to be constructed . . . with the proviso that the cities of Panama and Colon and the harbors adjacent to said cities . . . shall not be included within this grant [see Article VII] ARTICLE V. The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity a monopoly for the construction, maintenance, and operation of any system of communication by means of canal or railroad across its territory between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. ARTICLE VI. The grants herein contained shall in no manner invalidate the titles or rights of private landholders or owners of private property in the said zone. . . . All damages caused to the owners of private lands or private property of any kind by reason of the grants contained in this treaty or by reason of the operations of the United States . . . shall be appraised and settled by a joint Commission appointed by the governments of the United States and the Republic of Panama, whose decisions as to such damages shall be final, and whose awards as to such damages shall be paid solely by the United States. . . . The appraisal of such private lands and private property and the assessment of damages to them shall be based upon their value before the date of this convention. ARTICLE VII. The Republic of Panama grants to the United States within the limits of the cities of Panama and Colon and their adjacent harbors and within the territory adjacent thereto the right to acquire by purchase or by the exercise of the right of eminent domain, any lands, buildings, water rights or other properties necessary and convenient for the construction . . . of the Canal, and of any works of sanitation, such as the collection and disposition of sewage and the distribution of water in the said cities of Panama and Colon. . . . All such works of sanitation . . . shall be made at the expense of the United States, and the Government of the United States . . . shall be authorized to |