THE FILIPINO MIND

RACIAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST PHILIPPINE ANNEXATION
"In order to read the destiny of a people, it is necessary to open the book of its past" - Dr. Jose P. Rizal

Hi All,

As described in previous posting, US Senator Albert J. Beveridge found the rationale of Social Darwinism to be a useful theme in the argument for expansionism, for American Imperialism --he maintained that Anglo-Saxon mastery of the world has been preordained by Divine Providence;

Ironically, opponents of the annexation of the Philippines, notably Senator John W. Daniel used racial arguments to support their case. Senator Daniel's speech below.

- Bert

(Source: US Congressional record, 55th Congress, 3rd session, pages 1430-1431)

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"Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray, Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may."

We are not only asked to annex the caldron and make it a part of our great, broad, Christian, Anglo-Saxon, American land, but we are asked also to annex the contents and take this brew --mixed races, Chinese, Japanese, Malay Negritos --anybody who has come along in 300 years, in all of their concatenations and colors: and the travelers who have been there tell us and have written in the books that they are not only of all hues and colors, but there are spotted people there, and, what I have never heard of in any other country, there are striped people there with zebra signs upon them.

This mess of Asiatic pottage, 7000 miles from the United States, in a land that we can not colonize and can not inhabit, we are told today by the fortune of a righteous war waged for liberty, for the ascendancy of the Declaration of Independence, for the gift of freedom to an adjoining State, we must take up and annex and combine with our own blood and with our own people, and concentrate them with the oil of American citizenship.

Mr. President, there has never been since time began such a fatuous notion in the breast of a nation. There has never been such condescension from a high ideal and from a noble and manifest destiny. Not only is the degradation of this American land and of this American race, but the scholars and thinkers of this country, the mighty men who ponder institutions and courses of events, look upon our adoption of these people and our force annexation of them as giving the lie to the whole current of American history and repudiating all the great principles of constitutional freedom which we proclaimed at our beginning and which have tended to nake us great.

Mr. President, I have no criticism to pronounce upon my colleagues who differ with me. I have no reproaches for those who see their duty differently. i believe the gentlemen who represented our country in Paris acted honestly and conscientiously.

I believe the honorable gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber mean only their country's good; but I am amazed, I am startled,I am thrown away from my ordinary bearings and conception of things to think that such gentlemen and such a body should contemplate the adoption of a treaty that utterly scorns and repudiates our position; that is essentially at war with our institutions; that embodies a country which is no part of the American continent and can not be made so, and that must inevitably take up and work into the destiny of the American people these alien races, or must make us get down from the throne of freedom which we have occupied for 125 years and condescend with the scrambling nations of the world to get what we can, where we can, and how we can, to the repudiation of our national character and of our settled doctrines and principles.

Not in a hundred years, may, not in a thousand years, can we lift the Philippine Islands and the mixed races that there inhabit to the level of civilization which this land, God-blessed, possesses. t is easier to let down and to go down than to rise up. We have risen up through the bloody sweat and turmoil of a thousand years of battle and through bitter experiences which have chastened us. Facilis descensus Averno.

The moment this treaty is ratified, in some future age, if such shall be the case, the historian will say at that moment commenced the decline of American institutions and of the great career which America had set forth to herself to lead upon this earth.

Anyway you go, this Republic will stand; this people will live for hundreds and a thousand of years to come; but I wish that the longevity of this nation might transcend to anything that ever happened before in all the story of time. I would wish that the Declaration of Independence, instead of being belittled, might be carried nearer and closer to every hearth and hearthstone in all this land; that it might go to the lonely and humble of whatever skin or complexion with the outstretched hand of friendship and with a message of God's love.

I would wish that all might be exalted. But whatever happens, let us not go down. We stand today by the bank of a broader and deepen Rubicon than ever Caesar meditated beside. At our feet we hear the swash of the great Pacific Ocean, and beyond lies the expansionists' dream --Caesar's Rome. Caesar never did wrong without just cause.

That is the imperialistic plea, America will not do wrong without a great temptation. That today is the expansionists' plea. For my country I hope that she will ne'er do wrong.

“The HISTORY of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors.” - Meridel Le Sueur, American writer, 1900-1996

"What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler

"We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know..." - SOCRATES

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PLEASE DONATE CORE/FUNDAMENTAL SUBJECT BOOKS TO OUR HOMELAND (i.e. your hometown public schools, Alma Mater, etc.). Those books that you and/or your children do not need or want; or buy books from your local library during its cheap Book Sales. Also, cargo/door-to-door shipment is best. It is a small sacrifice. [clean up your closets or garage - donate books.THANKS!]

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I consider these earleir posts and the RECTO READER as essential in knowing and understanding our homeland and ourselves, native, Malay Filipinos; and are therefore always presented in each new post. Click each to open/read.

THE RECTO READER is presented in several postings. Click each to open/read:

NOTE: Recto's cited cases, examples or issues were of his time, of course; but realities in our homeland in the present and the foreseeable future are/expectedly much, much worse. Though I am tempted to update them with current issues, it's best to leave them as they are since Recto's paradigms about our much deepened national predicament still ring relevant, valid and true. In short, Recto saw the forest and never got lost in the trees.- Bert

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"Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual; the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country." - Karl Kraus, 1874-1936.

"We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know..." – SOCRATES

“In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their WISDOM and UNWISDOM; we have to say, Like People like Government. “ - Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, Scottish Philosopher, Author

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

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