104
The Nation.
[Vol. 71, No. 1832
THE ALERT-PRESS FALLACY.
‘Memories are so short nowadays, and it has become 50 especially easy to for- get the things we do not like to remem- ber, that Imperialist newspapers may be surprised to be reminded at this late @ate of one of thelr glib assumptions of a year ago. This was that we had one sure bulwark against mlsgovernment or oppression in our new possessions. Grant that Congress might be apathetic, that the Administration might be indif- ferent, that our civil and military offi- clals in our added Islands might be supine, there was always the independent and enterprising press to fall back upon, Could there be Injustice in the Phillp- pines which the American journalist would leave for one day unwhipped? Could a Porto Rican be wronged In per- son or property without having the in- stant sympathy and championing of viel Jant and fearless newspapers in this country? Put one side all sense of public duty; as a mere matter of news, as the basis of a sensational attack upon the Administration, every crookedness was certain to be exploited. Oh no, there ‘would be no oppressive Imperialism any- where tn our new empire with the sleep- less Ainerican press ready to hound it down.
‘That was the theory. We freed our mind about it when it was first pro- duced. To us, it seemed only one of those “lounging opinions” which Lord Shelburne reproached the Duke ot Grafton for holding. It was easy-chair and summer-afternoon philosophy. No man who bent his mind seriously to the problem would adopt it. One had but to think of the muzziing of the native Hindu press, and the general silence of English journalism as to all that con- cerns native aspirations or native wrongs in Indla, to see what was the far more ikely Impertalistic course that our own press would pursue. Add its notorious fickleness, in response to @ public as eager as the Athentan to tell or hear some new thing; its well-known inability to be indignant on any subject more than a week; Itsconstantly changing per- sonnel and management—and the alert press which was going to defend and res- cue every tmperilled new subject of ours ‘was pretty certain to turn out a figment of the Impertalistlc imagination. So we felt and sald at the time.
‘We have now gone on with the thing long enough to take our bearings and ask how practice squares with theory. What do we see to be the facts? The special correspondents In the Philippines, Porto Rico, and Cuba have, almost without ex- ception, been recalled. The press asso- elations send but the most meagre dis- Datches, and those are censored. A few Weeks since the editor of a prominent Havana newspaper was in this city, and declared that the New York press nolong- er took any interest whatever in Cuba. ‘It was true, and he might have gaid the
same of the press of the country at large, so far as the matter of Cuban news goes. ‘The truth fs, that this whole business of our new possessions is, from the news- Paper point of view, an exploded sensa- tlon. There is nothing more in it. The biggest and reddest “‘scare-head” about the Philippines would not sell a copy. Our editors, like our reading public. wearily drop the entire subject. They take thelr cue from the sent!ment whicn Lamartine once uttered from the tribune, “I warn the Chamber that France {s be- Ing bored to death.” If a bulwark of IIb- erty, a champion of the oppressed, bores the public, why, it is his plain duty to give up those roles at once. So reasons the press, wiser in its generation than the children of theoret{c Imperialism.
To be more specific, of what smallest aid fe the press in righting wrongs in the Philippines? The native newspapers cannot speak above a whisper; if they do they are suppressed, and a file of sol- diers escorts their editors to jail. Of American newspapers in Manila, the less ‘said the better. They live by advertise- ments of beer and whiskey, One sees with what zeal and courage they would expose the canteen abuse! In fact, thelr entire attitude towards the natives Is one of antagonism and contempt. They would be the last resort in the world of @ wronged Filipino. Our newspapers at home, as we have said, do little but languldly print the doctored Philippine dispatches. Where is there any persistent and rational discussion of the infinitely difficult questions of taxation, of educa- tion, of religion, of municipal and gen- eral government with which the Phii- fppine Commission {s wrestling? The American public fs tired of it all. Nat- urally, therefore, the American press drops it all.
Which of our American newspapers know, or, if they do know, tell their readers, that great dissatisfaction with American rule now exists in Porto Rico, that the San Juan Chamber of Commerce ‘s out with a strong protest against the new system of taxation and custom- house administration, and that the in- creasing discontent was what led Gov, Allen to make his sudden and hurried trip to Washington? What editorial bul- warks of liberty have the Cuban planters, who say that the United States is taxing them worse than Spain, at the same time that it 1s shutting them out of a market for their sugar and tobacco? Who among the noble champions of the Cubans in the American press even knows that the University of Havana, faculty and stu- dents, is up in arms against the recent military decree reorganizing and (it is alleged) demoralizing that institution? ‘These are but specimen questions. The ‘answer to all of them {s that the Amer- fan press cares for none of these things. It has other sensations in hand. That old orange 1s squeezed and thrown away. One short year has sufficed to show that
this particular imperialistic doll—this theory that our colonists would safely repose under the sgis of an independent and lberty-loving press—tis stuffed with sawdust.
CURRENCY REFORM CONTINUED.
The Reform Club, through its Sound- Currency Committee, has issued an ap- peal for funds to carry on the work of currency reform from the point where it was left by the recent legisla- ton of Congress (act of March 14, 1900), to the real and indisputable establish- ment of the gold standard. “Though much has been accomplished,” it says, “the financial reforms advocated by this Committee and embodied in its enuncia- tion of principles, are still incomplete.” By way of showing its incompleteness the Committee publishes a tract embrac- ing the recent article on this subject by Professor Laughlin, the recent address of Congressman Hill of Connecticut, the statement of Secretary Gage published in the Journal of Commerce, which was call- ‘ed out by Professor Laughlin’s article, and the comments of the Journal of Commerce thereon. ‘These papers, in the opinion of the Committee, point to the conclusion that the law recently passed, if administered by public officers who are hostile to it, by no means assures the maintenance of the gold standard.
It will be observed that the work pro- posed by the Committee does not re- late to any point or subject in contro- versy among the friends of currency re- form, It does not touch the question of “panking on assets.” It does not relate to banknotes in any shape or form. It is directed solely to the defects of the present law regarding the gold standard. Those defects it may be well to point out again.
‘The chief defect in the act of March 14, 1900, 1s the omission of the law to make all contracts and obligations to pay dollars mean gold dollars. In this particular the only advance achleved is found in the clause which makes the new 2 per cent. bonds and the green- backs and Treasury notes payable speci fi- cally in gold. The legal character and status of silver dollars and sllver cortifi- cates remain unchanged. Private obliga- tlons remain unchanged. The old law of 1873 which made the gold dollar the unit of value 1s regnacted. This reaffirmation 1s not without moral effect, but its legal force Is not augmented. Professor Laugh- lin showed that more than one thousand millions of the Government debt remains payable in “coin,” under which phrase silver dollars are included. The House Dill, for which that of the Senate was substituted, had contained a clauso de- claring “that all interest-bearing obit- gations of the United States for the pay- ment of money, now existing or here- after to be entered Into, shall be deemed and held to be payable In the gokl coin
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