But the Philippines present to the eye another and a broader question. Here is an archipelago removed from our center of population by one-half the circumference of the globe; peopled by a race--or, rather, races--wholly alien to any hitherto admitted to our citizenship, and--most important of all--plunged into the very vortex of that boiling cauldron known as the Eastern question. What is to be our policy toward those remote islands?--to retain them or to let them go? The objections that have thus far been raised to our retention of the Philippines come chiefly under these heads: 1, Constitutional; 2, Our "historic policy;" 3, Utility or self-interest. * * * * * And first as to the constitutional questions involved. For so young a nation the United States has already passed through numerous crises, chiefly arising over the acquisition of new territory, and it is noteworthy that in each of these the policy of the Government has been opposed by a conscientious minority on the plea of alleged unconstitutionality. Once more we are warned, in the present crisis, that the acquisition and proposed retention of the Philippines are without warrant in the constitution of the United States. Far be it from me to breathe disrespect for a document so respectable, but there can be no treason in pointing out the perfectly obvious fact that no constitution, and especially no written constitution, can be stronger than the men who made it; it cannot be--it is not--so strong as the men for whom it is made, because in them is vested the power to amend or even to annul it. The fathers of the Republic were wise in their generation; rarely, if ever, has a country been so blessed in the character of its founders as ours. But they were human, and hence fallible; mere men, and therefore not endowed with the gift of prophecy. They themselves would have been the first to disclaim such an attribute. They drafted a constitution admirably suited for the needs of thirteen colonies stretched along the Atlantic coast, recently liberated by the bravery of their own citizens from the tyranny of a stupid and stiff-necked English monarch and ministry. And then, proud, serene and happy in the consciousness of duty well done, they were gathered to the bosom of their fathers. The fathers and founders died, but the Republic lived on. Year by year it grew and waxed greater. No student of our history need be told that every instance of expansion of our territory presented unsolved problems beyond the apparent scope of the parchment constitution; or that as each of these occasions arose, arose also a party to declare that the constitution _could not_ be stretched to meet the demand. Yet the growth continued and the constitution survived.