Dewey at 

 Manila 



"Lest we 

 forget!" 



The Days of a Man 



1898 



at a sacrifice of national honor humiliating to every 

 one acquainted with the facts. Documents dealing 

 with the origin of the war were afterward printed, 

 but too late to have any current relevance, for the 

 affair being over, very few have gone to the trouble 

 of reading them. 



The battle of Manila Bay took place on May i, 

 1898, and everywhere the press acclaimed Dewey's 

 great victory, placing it in the front rank of notable 

 achievements. On the evening of May 2, I was to 

 speak in Metropolitan Hall, San Francisco, on an 

 educational subject. Asking permission of the 

 audience to discuss instead the risks which might 

 follow our success, I took as the title of my address 

 Kipling's phrase, "Lest We Forget." 



There was great danger, I said, that in easy victory we might 

 lose sight of the basal principles of this Republic, a cooperative 

 association in which "all just powers are derived from the 

 consent of the governed." The temptation would then be to 

 hold Cuba and the Philippines, not as self-governing parts of 

 the nation but as districts to be dominated and exploited. 

 Such a policy would be imperialistic, and to carry it out our 

 democracy must necessarily depart from its best principles and 

 traditions. If we ruled the Philippines, to that same degree 

 the Philippines would rule us; if we held them as conquered 

 territory, we should be committing the folly and crime which 

 has always lain at the foundation of empire, and which is the 

 cause of its ultimate disintegration everywhere. 1 



The Spanish War actually under way, I refrained 

 from public criticism, as I believe the time to oppose 

 what seems a wrong policy is before its adoption, 

 and furthermore, I would put no obstacle in the way 

 of men engaged in loyal service. After the treaty 



1 See Appendix D for extracts from this address. There also will be found 

 the manifesto of the Anti-Imperialists, of which honorable group I was a member. 



n 





