Whitelaw Reid

It is safe to assume that Christendom will henceforth treat Privateering as under international ban.

The United States promoted the cause of genuine International Arbitration by promptly and emphatically rejecting an insidious proposal for a spurious one.

It taught those who deliberately prefer War to Arbitration, and, when beaten at it, seek then to get the benefit of a second remedy, that honest Arbitration must come before War, to avert its horrors, not after War, to evade its penalties.

The United States promoted peace among nations, and so served humanity, by sternly enforcing the rule that they who bring on an unjust war must pay for it.

For it firmly rejected in the Cuban adjustments the immoral doctrine that an ill-treated and revolting colony, after gaining its freedom, must still submit to the extortion from it of the cost of the parent country's unsuccessful efforts…

The United States thus asserted its right to the archipelago for indemnity, and at the same time committed itself to the principle of payment on account of the Philippine debt.

It is easy to say that we ought not to have got into this conflict, and to that I might agree.

The question just then was not what might have been done, but what can be done.

I wish to urge that we can only end this conflict by manfully fighting through it.

That species of diplomacy which consists in the tact of prompt action in the right line at the right time might, quite possibly, have prevented the present hostilities.

Any diplomacy now would seem to our Tagal antagonists the raising of the white flag--the final proof that the American people do not sustain their Army in the face of unprovoked attack.

It will make an end forever of Spain in this hemisphere.