McKinley on the great predominant question how we
should deal with the people of the Philippine Islands. But
the men who criticised me most bitterly were some of them
the men who applauded my purpose to do so when it was first
declared. One of them, the President of the Anti-Imperialist
League, wrote me a letter saying that I could be more useful
to that cause by remaining a Republican than in any other
way, and declared in a public interview that of course Mr.
Hoar would remain a Republican. The Secretary of the same
organization, after I had made a speech in which I had declared
my purpose to continue to support Mr. McKinley, in spite
of his grievous error in this respect, wrote me a letter
crowded with the most fulsome adulation, and declared that
my position was as lofty as that of Chatham or Burke. I
could cite many other instances to the same effect. But
what other men think, however respectable they may be, is
of course of no importance. Every man must settle for himself
the question of his individual duty. I could not find that
the chance that Mr. Bryan, who had urged the adoption of the
Spanish Treaty and had committed himself to the opinion that
it was right to do everything we promised to do in that Treaty,
would act wisely or righteously if he were trusted with power,
or that he could get his party to support him if he were disposed
to do so, warranted my running the risk of the mischief he
was pledged to accomplish; still less running the risk of
giving the government of this country to his supporters for
the next four years.
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