governments have been, without exception, disgraceful and disastrous
to herself, and curses to the colonists, to her own peninsula. This
will be for her own good, as well as the redemption of mankind from
her unwholesome foreign influences, typified as they are in the
beautiful city of Havana, which has become the center of political
plagues and pestilential fevers, whose contagion has at frequent
intervals reached our own shores.

In the Philippine Islands the situation is for us absolutely novel. It
cannot be said to be out of the scope of reasonable American expansion
and is in the right line of enlarging the area of enlightenment and
stimulating the progress of civilization. The unexpected has happened,
but it is not illogical. It must have been written long ago on the
scroll of the boundless blue and the stars. The incident of war was
the "rush" order of the President of the United States to Admiral
Dewey to destroy the Spanish fleet at Manila, for the protection
of our commerce. The deed was done with a flash of lightning, and
lo! we hold the golden key of a splendid Asiatic archipelago of
a thousand beautiful and richly endowed islands in our grip. This
is the most brilliant and startling achievement in the annals of
navies. Never before had the sweep of sea power, ordered through
the wires that make the world's continents, oceans and islands one
huge whispering gallery, such striking exemplification. There was
glory and fame in it, and immeasurable material for the making of
history. We may paraphrase Dr. Johnson's celebrated advertisement
of the widow's brewery by saying: Admiral Dewey's victory was not
merely the capture of a harbor commanding a great city, one of the
superb places of the earth, and the security of a base of operations
to wait for reinforcements commensurate with the resources of the
United States of America--the victorious hero fixed his iron hand