I think I am entitled to record, however, that this result
was not accomplished by any abatement of my opposition to
the policy of the Administration as to the Philippine Islands.
I made a great many speeches within a few weeks of the Presidential
election in 1900. The members of the Senate and House, of
the Massachusetts Legislature, who were to choose a Senator,
were to be chosen at the same time. I expressed my unchanged
and earnest opposition of disapproval to the whole business
at length.
In speaking of the habit of appealing to the love of the
flag in behalf of this policy of conquest, I said that there
was but one symbol more sacred than the American flag. That
was the bread and wine which represented the body and blood
of the Saviour of mankind; adding, that a man who would use
an appeal to the flag in aid of the subjugation of an unwilling
people, would be capable of using the sacramental wine for
a debauch.
The week before the election of Senator came on a bill for
the reorganization of the Army was before the Senate. That
contained a provision for increasing the Army to a hundred
thousand men, allowing the President, however, to reduce it
to seventy thousand, and to raise it again if necessary,
so it would in his discretion be elastic, within those limitations.
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