MR. SPOONER. What date was that?

MR. PETTIGREW. February 5.

Now, Mr. President, under all these circumstances, I would like to know what more Aguinaldo could have done. What more could he have done than to continue to fight as long as resistance was possible? If I were a Filipino, I would fight until I was gray, if I were not killed before, against this unholy and infamous aggression.

I do not indorse the sentiment, Mr. President, of the Senator from Nevada, that having once commenced we must go on. That would compel him to join his brother if he found him stealing. That would compel him, if he found his comrades committing any crime, to join in the crime until it was consummated. If we are wrong, this Government can take no higher or grander position before the nations of the world than to acknowledge it.

My country, right or wrong, is a sentiment I indorse with this qualification: When right, to keep it right, and when wrong, to make it right. Neither do I confound the President with the Government. He is but our servant, and if he pursues a wrong course, if he precipitates us into a war unjustly and wrongfully and undertakes to override the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence, then I am against him, and it is my privilege to attack his position.

I believe my country

I believe he is wrong in this contest. can only be great and grand by pursuing that honorable course which has marked our career in the past, and by exercising that powerful influence which we can exercise and have exercised all over the world since we became a nation, because of the honor and dignity of our course and the respect we have always maintained for the rights of others. We have reached the turning point.

Are we to abandon this grand history; are we to pursue a course of aggression and wrong, plunder and robbery, on the English principle that having once commenced we must continue to the end? What would we think of the greatest athlete of the world to-day in insisting that, having begun the

beating of a boy of 12, he should beat the boy to death in order to convince the world that he was strong.

Mr. President, if it takes more courage to do right than to do wrong, then the American people and the American nation should commence at once. Empire has been acquired. before only to ruin the nation that started upon a career of conquest. Rome with her legions robbed the world. When the Roman Empire was founded most of the people owned 12 acres apiece-12 acres per family-indicating a dense rural population. But during the first century of the Christian era centralization had done its work; the lands had been absorbed by the usurer and gathered into vast estates, cultivated by tenants and often by slaves.

Spain once had an empire which covered almost the world -greater than Rome or any other people ever acquired. Where is Spain to-day? No nation can pursue a course of wrong toward others and long preserve its own liberties. No nation can long give to its people happiness and prosperity, equality, necessary to the preservation of its institutions, when it proceeds to disregard the rights of other nations or plunder other men, no matter what the color of their skin.

CHAPTER X

DEWEY AND AGUINALDO

HEN1 the present session of Congress convened six

W months ago, the Senate expected and had a right to

expect, and the American people expected, that the Administration in charge of the Government, in charge of events which were occurring in the Philippine Islands, would report to Congress the results of our operations in that distant country. A complete résumé of everything that had been done by our Army and our officers should have been laid before both Houses of Congress, but it was not done. The public was well aware that some information in regard to what had been occurring in the Philippines had reached us through the censored press and the correspondence of our soldiers. That such information was meager, that it was uncertain, and that the facts were hard to secure, was known to all. When Congress assembled, those statements regarding the situation which we had a right to expect were not forthcoming. December passed, and in January resolutions were introduced in this body calling for important facts in connection with the war on the Filipinos.

The resolutions introduced were promptly laid upon the table by the Administration majority in the Senate. Finally a resolution prepared by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] passed the Senate, asking the Administration for a detailed account of all its doings in connection with the Philippine Islands. We waited many weeks, and finally a partial statement was sent in. It did not cover the scope of the inquiry, and at the close of the session we are without the information. The report of the President in answer to our resolution of inquiry concerning transactions in the Philip1. Speech in the Senate June 4 & 5, 1900.

It contained only frag-
All that has come to us

pines did not convey all the truth. mentary selections from the record. in a direct way has been printed. I believe it is insufficient; that it does not cover the ground; that such information was withheld as the Administration desired to suppress; that the American people are no longer trusted by the party in power; they are no longer taken into the confidence of their administrative servants and intrusted with the facts. Proof conclusive that facts were withheld was furnished by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER] in his speech a few days ago. He read from the printed reports which came from the Administration in reply to our resolutions; but, Mr. President, he also read from manuscript, more than from anything else, that which was withheld from Congress, that which had not , been furnished to the whole people. He read what was accessible to Administration Senators and not accessible to other members of the Senate.

Congress is about to adjourn, the facts are withheld, and the American people are to go on another summer with such information as they are able to gather without the confidence of an Administration that again asks for their votes.

The friends of the Administration, the imperialists in this body, have complained that we were unwilling to believe the officers of the Government and their statements regarding the situation in the Philippines. Mr. President, up to the time the treaty with Spain was sent to this body there is no doubt that the Administration sent us all the facts in its possession. Document 62 contains the story of our operations in the Philippines up to November, 1898. Since that time, owing to a change in the policy of the Government, information upon this important subject has been withheld. We base our case on the arguments that have been made upon information drawn from Document No. 62, transmitted to us, accompanied by a message from the President. Aside from the matter contained in Document 62, we have been unable to secure facts, and we are accused of not believing what is said by the officers of the Government.

We have reason, Mr. President, to question the veracity of

the officers of the Government in their later utterances. There is no doubt that when our representatives first went to Manila they promised the people of those islands liberty and independence if they would help us destroy the Spanish power in the East. There is no doubt but that every American who talked with Aguinaldo and his followers gave them to understand that they would be assisted in setting up a government. There is no doubt that our consuls and our generals and Admiral Dewey gave Aguinaldo such promises in abundance; but since we decided to conquer the Philippines, to destroy republics in Asia-since we decided to deprive those people of the right to govern themselves, the reports we have received from our own officers are subject to question and to doubt-in the first place, because all the facts in possession of the Government have not been placed before us; and, in the second place, because we find our officers willing to pursue the course which Otis pursued, that of distorting the facts, or of changing the reports and placing a wrong construction upon words. It has been the general policy, from the President down, to deceive the public.

The commission we sent to the Philippines came back and made a partial repórt just before the election. This report is signed by Mr. J. G. Schurman, Admiral Dewey, Charles Denby, and Dean C. Worcester, and in it they say:

On the arrival of the troops commanded by General Anderson at Cavite, Aguinaldo was requested by Admiral Dewey to evacuate that place, and he moved his headquarters to the neighboring town of Bacoor. Now for the first time arose the idea of national independence.

This appears to have been on the 4th day of July, 1898. and Admiral Dewey had been in the islands and had had dealings with Aguinaldo since the previous May. Mr. Schurman had undoubtedly thoroughly investigated the question, but in order to make out a case which would justify the position they took in this report, they must insert a statement that Aguinaldo never had a notion that he desired independence until July 4, 1898.