Whimsies
By Ernest Crosby
The
Whim 3 (Feb. 1902).
Senator
Hoar proposes to have all murderously disposed anarchists deported to some
solitary island, presumably in the Philippines, where they are to be left to
themselves. The idea of isolating in this way men whose hearts are believed to
be full of hatred for the human race is a striking one and not without a certain
degree of dramatic awfulness. When these dynamiters & bomb-throwers once get
together without the restraining influences of civilisation and law, what fell
engines of destruction their unholy imaginations will devise,--what immense
infernal machines charged with the most violent explosives and bristling with
every kind of implement of massacre and slaughter! But after all in their
wildest moments will they contrive anything worse in this line than the
battle-ship? or the torpedo? What is a torpedo but a submarine anarchist with
unlimited powers of holding its breath? What are the farmburning hosts of
Britain occupied in spreading over South Africa but anarchy? What is it but
anarchy that we are introducing & keeping alive in the Philippines?
It
may be well to select an island in the Philippines for the proposed anarchist
colony, as there are several anarchists out there already and the colony could
be started without much expense for transportation. I nominate Lieut. William L.
Fletcher for the original charter member. He is reported to have destroyed
recently "twelve salt manufactories, thirty-five tons of hemp, and twelve
tons of rice." If this is not anarchy, what is it? General Smith might well
be sent to keep him company for distinguished services in having ordered
"all male Filipinos to leave the coast for the interior." And
Lieutenant-Commander Helm must not be forgotten who during November destroyed
147 boats engaged in "smuggling" supplies to the
"insurgents," that is, engaged in providing necessities to the natural
owners & inhabitants of the soil from time immemorial.
But
perhaps the most promising candidate for a place in the proposed colony is
Colonel Crane, who, according to the New York Evening Post, speaks as follows:
"The
best thing to do with them would be to kill off the people, and then put a bomb
under each island and blow it from the face of the earth. I would never leave
here, however, so long as there was one of these fellows left to stick his
fingers to his nose at us when we were going."
In
connection with these enlightened remarks we may note that the Atlanta
Constitution gives the following account of the military programme in the island
of Bohol:
"The
officer commanding the battlion over on Bohol has been given instructions to
kill off everybody suspected of connection with the insurgents. He has been told
that these orders give him the widest latitude; that he is not to be very
particular whether the suspect is bearing arms or has been; if he is a suspect,
he is to be treated as an outlaw and shot down."
In
view of the foregoing facts I ask the question in all seriousness. In what
profession are anarchists most easy to find?
The
fight of the Boers and the Filipinos is the old fight for freedom in which our
ancestors were time and again engaged. All mankind has a stake in their success
and the war departments of England and United States in so far as they are
stamping out these heroic efforts for liberty, are departments of anarchy and
nothing else. Is it possible that President Roosevelt and Mr. Root do not know
that if they were Filipinos they would be leaders of the very
"brigands" and "Apaches" who haunt their imaginations?
There
is one thing to be said of the vulgar anarchist in comparison with his uniformed
brother,--he pays for his own bombs and poniards. None of them has ever forced
me to contribute to the purchase of his vile weapons, nor to buy and affix to
every cheque that I draw pictures of his infernal machines. I abhor this whole
business of bloodshed in the Philippines & yet I am forced to pay for it.
When we become more civilised, some way will be found to excuse persons from
taking an active part in perpetrating acts which they regard as crimes.
It
is no new idea, this one of mine regarding the horrid character of our enginery
of war. Dean Swift in Gulliver's Travels employs his admirable wit to show what
he thought of it. Gulliver has just explained to the king of Brobdignag the
nature of gun-powder and artillery, and has offered to show him how to make
them. "The king was struck with horror at the description I had given him
of these terrible engines and the proposal I had made. He was amazed how so
impotent & groveling an insect as I (these were his expressions) could
entertain such inhuman ideas, & in so familiar a manner as to appear wholly
unmoved at all the scenes of blood & desolation which I had painted as the
common effects of those destructive machines; whereof he said some evil genius,
enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver. As for himself, he
protested that, although few things delighted him so much as new discoveries in
art and nature, yet he would rather lose half his kingdom than be privy to such
a secret; which he commanded me, as I valued my life, never to mention any
more."
I
believe in calling a spade a spade and giving these bomb-abominations their
appropriate names. I understand we have a man-of-war called the
"Philadelphia," the "brotherly love!"--& yet we think
that Americans have a sense of humor! We shall be calling a torpedo-boat the
"William Penn" next! No, let us quit such fooling with the truth. Let
us call the new torpedo-boats that we are about to build after the most famous,
or rather, infamous of anarchists. Let us have a steel "Ravachol," a
"Bresci," a "Czolgosz," engaged in the congenial work of
destruction, & when it comes to battle-ships, why not call the next one
"Anarchy" & be done with it?
There
is just one thing worth conquering in the Philippines & that is the hearts
of the Filipinos. Instead of addressing ourselves to this task, which all the
circumstances of the expulsion of Spain rendered especially easy, we have with
true Yankee energy made ourselves as much hated in three years as the Spaniards
did in three hundred. There is a lesson for us here of universal application to
all our foreign relations,--the wisest policy is to make ourselves loved. This
may sound very sentimental & unpractical and effeminate, but it is none the
less true. If we once gain the affections of the world we shall have all the
trade and coaling-stations and treaties that we want and more too, and we shall
have the isles of the sea trooping in and imploring us to take them under our
flag. And it would be such an easy thing to do! I sometimes wish I could be
president of the United States for a few days just to show how to do it!
The
Whim 4 (Oct. 1902).
The
flag has come down in Cuba. It has not stayed "put," although the
freedom represented by the new Cuban flag is more or less of a sham. Still Cuba
has a certain measure of freedom and it is safe to say that she owes it to the
anti-imperialists and to them alone. Does anyone suppose that the McKinley and
Roosevelt administrations, if they had not been subject to a running fire of hot
criticism from the beginning of their benevolent expansion operations, would
have stopped short of annexation? It is claimed now that the refusal of
reciprocity to Cuba by the Republican Party has for its object the forced
annexation of the island and this may be true, but, true or false, such freedom
as Cuba has been able to obtain, be it permanent or temporary, was won for her
by the anti-imperialists, and it is something of an achievement. Now let us try
to do as well in the Philippines, where, according to Admiral Dewey the natives
are better fitted for self-government than in Cuba. I am glad to see that the
Filipinos are to be rid of the Friars at last. Let us hope it will not be a case
of "out of the friar's pan into the fire."
