Regret them if you choose, but do not, like children, seek to make them as though they were not, by shutting your eyes to them.
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
The new territories in the West Indies and the East are ours, to have and to hold, by the supreme law of the land, and by a title which the whole civilized world recognizes and respects.
The American people are in no mood to give them back to Spain, or to sell them, or to abandon them.
On these points I make bold to repeat what I felt warranted in saying a fortnight ago within sight of Bunker Hill--that there is every evidence that the American people have distinctly and definitely made up their minds.
So I venture to affirm the impossibility that any party in power, whether the present one or its opponent, could soon, if ever, abandon one foot of the territory gained in the late war.
Till then, let us as practical and sensible men recognize that what is past is settled.
Thus far have we come in these strange courses and to these unexpected and unwelcome tasks by following, at each succeeding emergency, the path of clear, absolute, and unavoidable duty.
From the day war was flagrant down to this hour there has been no forward step which a peremptory national or international obligation did not require.
It is not true that, in the final decision as to any one step in the great movement hitherto, our interests have been first or chiefly considered.
Who and where is the sentimentalist who arraigns us for descending to too sordid a level when we recognize our interest to hold what the discharge of duty has placed in our hand?
Since when has it been statesmanship to shut our eyes to the interests of our own country, and patriotism to consider only the interests or the wishes of others?
It will make an end forever of Spain in this hemisphere.