Silly Thinking

This applies today:




The Hypocrisy of It
Editorial from the Chicago Commons
Chicago Commons, rpt. The Public 2 (June 10, 1899).

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The shame of the "White Man's Burden" business is not that the Anglo-Saxon race is pursuing the course of its manifest destiny in taking possession of the islands of the sea, but that we attempt to deceive ourselves and each other by miscalling a campaign purely for commercial spoil a benevolent enterprise in the cause of freedom and true civilization. Its only real result is to brand us in the eyes of the keen-sighted world as the hypocrites we are. International robbery and extermination may indeed be in fulfillment of the survival of the fittest, but it is not international brotherhood or humanitarianism! The record of this government in its dealings with its own Indian wards gives the lie direct to all our shameless protestations of benevolent intentions. The last of the Yaqui Indians was "benevolently assimilated" into his grave a few days ago!