That is an excellent reason, among others, for some doubt at the outset as to whether we know all about it, but not for despairing of our capacity to learn.
Whitelaw Reid
The Public Record
Whitelaw Reid was an American politician, diplomat and newspaper editor, as well as the author of Ohio in the War, a popular work of history.
gutenberg.org
And why is life impossible to Americans in Manila and Cebu and Iloilo, but attractive to the throngs of Europeans who have built up those cities?
Can we mine all over the world, from South Africa to the Klondike, but not in Palawan?
Can we grow tobacco in Cuba, but not in Cebu; or rice in Louisiana, but not in Luzon?
The interpretation of the Constitution which would permit that is the interpretation which has been repudiated in an unbroken line of decisions for over half a century.
Only one possibility of danger to American labor exists in our new possessions--the lunacy, or worse, of the dreamers who want to prepare for the admission of some of them as States in the American Union.
Till then we can make any law we like to prevent the immigration of their laborers, and any tariff we like to regulate the admission of their products.
It is said we are pursuing a fine method for restoring order, by prolonging the war we began for humanity in order to force liberty and justice on an unwilling people at the point of the bayonet.
How else have these blessings been generally diffused?
How often in the history of the world has barbarism been replaced by civilization without bloodshed?
Some say a war to extend freedom in Cuba or elsewhere is right, and therefore a duty; but the war in the Philippines now is purely selfish, and therefore a crime.
It will make an end forever of Spain in this hemisphere.