Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1904 — IMPERIALISM. [ARTICLE]

IMPERIALISM.

Judge Parker sounded a note of alarm in his speech of acceptance that should appeal to every thinking man in the slate, for it is not alone for the present that this country exists. Were it so, it might make little difference what examples were set for us in high places, for they could not reach further than the present. Every patriot looks to the future, and it is the danger from the precedents that are being established in the Philippines that we must tear. This thought was in the mind of Judge Parker when he said:

“Can we hope to instill Into the minds of our descendants reverence and devotion for a government by the people, while denying ultimately that right to the inhabitants of distant countries, whose territory we have acquired either by purchase or by force? Can we say to the Filipinos, ‘Your lives, your liberty and your property may be taken from you without due process of law for all time,’ and expect we will long glory In that feature of Magna Charta which has become incorporated, in substance and effect, into the constitution of every state, as well as into the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States? Can we hope for the respect of the civilized world, while proudly guaranteeing to every citizen of the United States that no law shall be made or enforced which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or deny to any person the equal protection of the laws, and at the same time not only deny similar rights to the inhabitants Of the Philippines, but take away from them the right of trial by jury, and place their lives and the disposition of their property in the keeping of those whom we send to them to be their governors? We shall certainly rue it as a nation if we make any such attempt.’’ And every thinking man will indorse this sentiment, which was.uttered in the same connection: “The most efficient work we can do in uplifting the people of other countries is by the presentation of a happy, prosperous, self-governing nation as an ideal to be emulated, a model to be followed. The general occupation of our citizens in the arts of peace, or the absence of large military armaments, tends to impair neither patriotism nor physical courage.”