CONGRESS. (THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.) 



157 



;States and also the rates and conditions upon 

 which our goods can be sold in the markets of 

 those islands. In other words, we practically fix 

 the price at which they must sell their goods to 

 us and also the price at which they must pur- 

 chase ours. This is precisely the same power 

 that was claimed by the British Parliament when 

 we were colonies. The British Parliament then 

 contended that the power of Parliament was ab- 

 solute in the American colonies and that Par- 

 liament had the right to impose taxes here and 

 to fix the duty on importations from the colonies 

 into Great Britain and also the duty on impor- 

 tations from Great Britain into the colonies. 



" Our fathers denounced this assumption of 

 power as tyranny and despotism. When it was 

 sought to be exercised they rebelled, separated 

 themselves from Great Britain, and established 

 this Union. Our fathers contended that the vast 

 power to control absolutely the trade and com- 

 merce, all the buying and the selling of the com- 

 modities of one nation by another, is such a dan- 

 gerous power, so liable to abuse, that no just 

 nation would ever try to exercise it, and that 

 it should never be conceded. Yet by this bill 

 this Congress will exercise, in a more aggravated 

 form, precisely the same power claimed and 

 sought to be exercised against us by the British 

 Parliament when we were colonies. Great Brit- 

 ain could not have succeeded in the Revolution- 

 ary War without destroying British institutions 

 and ultimately the liberty and freedom of her 

 people. We can not enact this bill without de- 

 stroying our institutions, without abandoning 

 .all our glorious traditions and perverting our 

 principles of justice and liberty, which have been 

 the foundations of our governmental structure." 



Mr. Swanson, after considering the provisions 

 of the bill in detail, denounced its injustice and 

 harshness as compared to the policy of reciproci- 

 ty proposed for foreign countries. 



" The President in his annual message says that 

 "we are under moral obligations to give Cuban 

 imports into the United States a substantial re- 

 duction from present tariff duties. The Secretary 

 of War is even more insistent upon this than the 

 President. The two chief products of Cuba, like 

 those of the Philippines, are sugar and tobacco. 

 This administration favors a great reduction 

 from the Dingley rates on sugar and tobacco 

 when imported from Cuba, and yet sustains this 

 bill, which collects the entire Dingley rates on 

 sugar and tobacco imported from the Philippines, 

 and in addition an export duty. The American 

 people will not sanction this. Our obligations to 

 Cuba have been fully and completely discharged 

 when they have established a free and independ- 

 ent government and we have withdrawn from the 

 island. This will soon happen. They owe us a 

 boundless debt of gratitude. When they were 

 oppressed by Spain and their cause was hope- 

 less, at a great expense and sacrifice to ourselves 

 we espoused their cause, drove their oppressors 

 from the island, and gave to them freedom and 

 independence. 



"At much expense we have kept peace and order 

 there and administered the government pending 

 the formation by them of a safe and stable gov- 

 ernment. No other nation has ever bestowed 

 upon another more generous, substantial, and 

 disinterested favors than we have bestowed upon 

 Cuba. With the Filipinos the case is reversed. 

 The Filipinos had overthrown Spanish author- 

 ity, except in Manila, before our troops arrived. 

 They could have driven their oppressors from the 

 islands without our aid. They were our valu- 

 able allies in a war that we had undertaken for 



the liberation of Cuba, They desired to estab- 

 lish an independent government under our 

 guidance, which would have made to us gener- 

 ous trade concessions. We denied this request, 

 and by war and conquest extended our domin- 

 ion over them. We now hold them as colonies 

 and as a part and parcel of this country. We 

 have granted to Cuba, and she has decided to 

 become, a state free and independent of us. 



" I can see no moral obligations on our part 

 to make any concessions to Cuba except such 

 as our own interest may demand. If reductions 

 in tariff duties are to be made for the introduc- 

 tion of sugar and tobacco into our markets, the 

 claims of the Philippine Islands are vastly supe- 

 rior to those of Cuba. The profits to be derived 

 from the sale of these two products in the mar- 

 kets of this country should certainly go, if pos- 

 sible, to our own people instead of to foreign- 

 ers. I can not understand the wisdom of a pol- 

 icy that urges such generous concessions to 

 Cuba and imposes such heavy exactions and re- 

 strictions upon the Philippines. So long as the 

 Philippine Islands are a part of this country, 

 justice and wisdom both demand that their sugar 

 and tobacco interests should be encouraged and 

 developed rather than the sugar and tobacco in- 

 terests of Cuba. 



" But, Mr. Chairman, the hostility of the Re- 

 publican party and of those in power to the 

 Philippine Islands is further exemplified, and in 

 a manner that can admit of no excuse, no de- 

 fense. As I have previously said, this bill im- 

 poses on the sugar of the Philippines the high 

 rates of the Dingley bill. Our Government has 

 already signed treaties with Great Britain for 

 the Barbados, for British Guiana, for Jamaica, 

 and for Bermuda, which have been sent to the 

 Senate and are being pressed by the present ad- 

 ministration and the Republican party for rati- 

 fication, and all provide for a reduction of 12J 

 per cent, from the duties imposed by the Dingley 

 bill upon all sugar imported from them into the 

 United States. A treaty has also been signed 

 with Argentina, which has been sent to the Sen- 

 ate and is likewise urged for ratification, that 

 provides for a reduction of 20 per cent, from 

 the rates of* the Dingley bill on sugar imported 

 into the United States from Argentina. 



" The Republican party places itself squarely 

 before the people and the country as favoring 

 that sugar shall be imported into this country 

 from British possessions and from Argentina at 

 more greatly reduced rates than it shall be im- 

 ported from our own possessions in the Philip- 

 pine Islands. No moral obligation can be urged 

 tor the extenuation of the extension of these re- 

 bates and privileges to foreigners while they are 

 denied to our own people. If this policy is to 

 prevail, in order to obtain trade advantages with 

 the United States, it is better to be a British 

 subject than to be a citizen of the United States. 

 History will fail to furnish another such exam- 

 ple where a government has so wantonly and 

 openly ignored the rights and privileges of its 

 own people in order to subserve foreigners and 

 strangers. I believe the American people will re- 

 pudiate a discrimination so suicidal, so unjust 

 as this. They would greatly prefer consuming 

 sugar raised by the unfortunate inhabitants of 

 the Philippine Islands than sugar raised by Brit- 

 ish subjects. 



"Mr. Chairman, I appeal to this Congress, to 

 its sense of justice and right, to its prudence and 

 its wisdom, not to inflict upon these defenseless 

 and helpless people such hardships and such in- 

 equalities. Do not teach them that dependence 



