Did she deserve so badly of us that, even in a hurry, we should do this thing to her in the name of humanity?
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.
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It legislates for a community like Porto Rico with reference to the situation and wants of that community--not with reference to somebody else.
It applies to Porto Rico a system devised for Porto Rico--not one devised for a distant and vastly larger country, with totally different situation and wants.
It makes no effort to exploit Porto Rico for the benefit of another country.
It does make a studied and scientific effort from the Porto Rico point of view (not from that of temporary Spanish holders of the present stocks of Porto Rican products) to see what system will impose the lightest burdens and bring the…
The result of that conscientious inquiry may be the discovery that the very best thing to provide for the wants and promote the prosperity of that little community out in the Atlantic Ocean is to bestow upon them the unmixed boon of the…
If so, give them the Dingley tariff, and give it straight.
If, on the other hand, it should be found that a lower and simpler revenue system, better adapted to a community which has practically no manufactures to protect, with freedom to trade on equal terms with all the world, would impose upon…
If it should be further found that, following this, such a system of reciprocal rebates as both Cuba and the United States thought mutually advantageous in the late years of Spanish rule, would be useful to Porto Rico, then give them that.
But, in any case, the starting-point should be the needs of Porto Rico herself, intelligently studied and conscientiously met--not the blacksmith's offhand attempt to fit on her head, like a rusty iron pot, an old system made for other…
And beyond and above all, give her the best system for her situation and wants, whether it be our Dingley tariff or some other, because it is the best for her and is therefore our duty--not because it is ours, and therefore, under the…
It will make an end forever of Spain in this hemisphere.