Life — December 22, 1898 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“ While there is Life there’s Hope.” VOL. XXXIL DECEMBE 1808, No. 19 Wesr Tuiery-Finst 8 Published every Thursday. $5.00 a year In ad- vance. Portage ( foreuen countries in the Postal Union, 81.044 year extra. Sinule current coples, locents Hack numbers, after three months from date of pablication 2 coats. No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in Lrve are copyrighted, anil are not to be reproduced without special arrangement with the publishers. Prompt notification should be sent by sub- scribers of any change of address, HE report that Japan was willing to pay two bun- dred millions for the Philip pines seems to have had no basis; but if there had been such a proposition, with the strongest fiscal backing, it is not apparent that it could have been entertained. The Philippines are now ours to hold or to leave, but that they are ours to sell, or even to swap, is far from clear. Our motives for taking them were pious motives, and our con- duct must justify them. If we should turn them over to anyone but the Filipinos themselves, especially if we were to scll them, it would be hard for us to persuade even ourselves that we did not wrest them from Spain merely because it was good business and we wanted them. We are at liberty to im- prove the Filipinos all we can; to teach them to wear more clothes, burn more kervsene, eat more bacon, ride cn rail- roads of all sorts, use telephones and tele- graphs, cabinet organs, pianos, plows, yachts, carriages, sewing machines, threshing machines, and all other ma. chines; play golf, drink whiskey and California wines, read the Bible and other books, read newspapers, and get satisfaction out of life according to our highly civilized ideas. In return for our trouble in giving instruction, we will be at liberty to sell them clothes, mineral oil, railroad iron, intoxicants, books, machinery, and anything else we can get paid for. If we are polite, we will give other nations a chance to do the same. But we are not at liberty to sell the Fili- “LIFE « pinos themselves, unless some purchaser comes along who is bigger than we are, and hammers us until we are willing to Jet go and take the purchaser's price. It is a serious matter to do anything from conscientious motives; but conscientious motives, once professed, impose embar- * rassing obligations, We might possibly reconcile it with our own professions to entrust the management of the Philip- pines to a commission, to be composed of representatives of the Pope, the Sultan, and the American Board of Commis- sioners for Foreign Missions; but that solution of our perplexitics has not as yet been seriously proposed. NSAK; W = have had a new illustration of the unreasonableness of the Span- ish mind in the obstinate dissatisfaction of the Spanish Government with Presi- dent McKinley’s allusion in his message to the blowing up of the Maine. Every- one must recall that after the Maine was destroyed we took great pains to find out what caused the explosion, and deter- mined, more or less to our satisfaction, that the explosive was of external appli- cation, and that the Spanish Government was morally responsible for it. All that the President said about the matter was in strict accordance with the findings of our Board, Yet his allusion seems to have given such offense at Madrid that a formal protest against the imputation of responsibility for that melancholy dis- aster is understood to have been made by the Spanish Commissioners before sign- ing the treaty of peace. There is no sat- isfying Spain, She objects toeverything. Her declaration that she intends to have the Maine disaster reinvestigated by a non-partisan commission Illustrates anew the sentimentality of her disposition. ama HE Commissioner of Internal Rev- enue reports an increase of three hundred and thirty-five millions in the consumption of cigars, which is interest- ing asevidence of the unusually disturbed state of the public mind this year, and the exceptional demand for a mental stimulant by persons engaged in the solu- tion of such public questions as (1) What blew up the Maine? (2) What's the mat- ter with Alger? (8)What’s the President's own opinion? and (4) What sball we do with the Philippines? <9 N the score of Speaker Recd’s oppo- sition to the late war with Spain, to the annexation of Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines, and to other measures with which the Republican party has been lately identified, it has been sarcastically suggested that Mr. Reed would make a timely leader for. the Democrats, Would that there were any chance of realizing that suggestion! Mr. Reed is pre-eminently qualified to sit on whatever needs repression. It has not been practicable of late for him to use his great natural gift in that direction to effectual purpose, but if he could once get the Democratic party behind him and sit down on it hard, be might become an instrument for great good in this leaderless country. <S ® HERE is nervousness over the cir- cumstance that Mr. Roberts, Con- gressmap elect from Utah, isa polygamist with three wives, Some excitable persons, including Mr. Dingley of Maine, think that Congress ought to take notice of bis condition, and perhaps exclude bim from his seat, That, however, seems of very doubtful expediency. Mr. Roberts ac- cumulated his wives years ago, when polygamy was more prevalent in Utah than now, and, having got them, he can- not very well unload. But he must not expect that they will all three be received in Washington society as his wives. Washington has never approved of ostentatious polygamy, even in mem- bers of Congress, If Mr. Roberts will select one of his wives and file her photograph with the clerk of the District of Columbia, and bring her and no other wife to Washington during his term in Congress, there ought to be no trouble or ground of complaint from any reasonable person. His‘ other wives, if they come to Washington at all, should come incognito, but it would be better for them to stay in Utah, or in New York, or somewhere where no one thinks about his neighbor and his families. ® comicbooks.com