Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1900 — Dr. Jordan on Political Issues. [ARTICLE]

Dr. Jordan on Political Issues.

Logansport, Aprir 3—Dr .David Starr Jordan, president of Leland Stanford university, California, was by far the most attractive personage on the program at the Teachers’ association convention l ist week. Every teacher of the 3,000 in attendance endeavored to see and hear this very distinguished educator who, although one of* the greatest of moden scholars, and in constant demand to address meetings of teachers, scientists end writers, is yet a decided man of the people. He regards that the purpose of a university and other public institutions is to serve the people and all the people. He is therefore greatly interested in all political affairs and speaks his mind without reserve. He has been our national representative in important foreign matters —notably our treaty with England concerning our seal fisheries and Alaskan boundaries. At the Barnett hotel Friday night after his lecture he was for two hours the center of a group of eager listeners and discussed current politics. “Politics is the business of all people and it is the duty of us all to know what our government is doing and to talk about it. War is always deplorable as it destroys not our inferior men, but our best. We, and not the Filipinos, are responsible parties for this war. If we had given to those people a definite statement of our intentions toward them and had our intentions been honorable the war would have died out. Our atttudj has held the Filipinos together. They have on assurance that they will ever have self-government again if they lost it now.”

“Have you any sympathy for the idea of territorial expansion?” asked a prominent city superintendent. “Indeed, I am really an expansionist in principle, but that has nothing to do with this question. I am not an imperialist. I would not hold lands as provinces or subjected territories, and that speaks for a great majority of the Americans.” “Do you think Bryan would or could proceed differently if he were president?” “Yes. He would have declared our intention at the ,very beginning to give them self-government and representation so soon as order is restored. And every man who would not give them representation in our government is an imperialist and not an expansionist. Bryan I think is a man of fair but not great intellect, of very strong convictions and is too honest and too brave te be corrupted or frightened from them. He is a good, safe, all around man. I did not vote for him in 1896 but I will now.” “What do you think of Beveridge’s speech?” The weakness of Beveridge’s speech is that he tries to make that the point that congress has control of onr possessions. Ships, forts, arms, stores, crops are possessions, but we dare not consider men as property and foist upon them a government they despise.” “Is it Bryan’s or McKinley’s view that is gaining among the people?” “After all this talk do you ask what I think?” Let me quote you Roosevelt on that. He said to me last week. ‘Jordan, I wish to God we were out of the Philippines and had them off our hands,’ and many republicans are thinking the same. lam free to quote Roosevelt because I consider him in many respects one of the greatest men in the republican party.” “How do you size up McKinley?” “Let me quote you Roosevelt again. He said: ‘McKinley has about as much backbone as a toy chocolate man that you see on the confectioner’s stand; he is a dreadful disappointment.’ ” “Whnt do you think of President Schurman’s report on the Phillippines?” “Shurman is a good man, but he is essentially an aristocrat and an aristocrat can not make a govment for the masses.”