How we cite our quotes: (Sentence)
Quote #1
The white race will not live so near the equator. Other nations have tried to colonize in the same latitude. The Netherlands have controlled Java for three hundred years and yet today there are less than sixty thousand people of European birth scattered among the twenty-five million natives. (35)
Okay, we're just gonna tell it like it is: this is a weird one. We suppose Bryan was thinking that white people burn easily. Or that they melt in hot weather. Or maybe that they turn invincible in colder climates. Needless to say, there're some bizarre assumptions about skin color going on here.
Quote #2
Is he to be a citizen or a subject? Are we to bring into the body politic eight or ten million Asiatics, so different from us in race and history that amalgamation is impossible? Are they to share with us in making the laws and shaping the destiny of this nation? (44)
Imagine the United States as a tall, fit white male. While you're at it, make him devastatingly good looking. Take your time.
Don't be shy. We know that Bryan wouldn't be. We know this because this is sort of what he's doing. He's making the entire country look Chris-Hemsworth-gorgeous…
The point is that Bryan is calling the country a body. One that looks good. But it's also one that looks white, fit, speaks English, believes in one religion, etc. And he is claiming that once the Filipinos are allowed in, that body is gonna get all flabby and lose all of its hair. This is racism, folks.
Quote #3
In addition to the evils which he and the farmer share in common, the laboring man will be the first to suffer if oriental subjects seek work in the United States; the first to suffer if American capital leaves our shores to employ oriental labor in the Philippines to supply the trade of China and Japan; the first to suffer from the violence which the military spirit arouses and the first to suffer when the methods of imperialism are applied to our own government. (95)
If you thought that losing jobs overseas was a problem that we only started facing in recent years, think again. He's trying to conjure up the image of swarms of disgruntled workers screaming, "They took our jobs!" But, according to Bryan, if the U.S. doesn't imperialize, those jobs can stay at home where they belong.
Quote #4
The religious argument varies in positiveness from a passive belief that Providence delivered the Filipinos into our hands for their good and our glory, to the exultation of the minister who said that we ought to "thrash the natives (Filipinos) until they understand who we are," and that "every bullet sent, every cannon shot and every flag waved means righteousness." (98)
Unfortunately, people did believe this. All there really is to say is, "Wow. That's messed-up."
At least Bryan didn't want to have anything to do with it.
Quote #5
Third, to protect the Filipinos from outside interference while they work out their destiny, just as we have protected the republics of Central and South America, and are, by the Monroe doctrine, pledged to protect Cuba. (106)
Let's be clear: the notion that the United States has the right to intervene on the behalf of the entire Western Hemisphere is a tad narrow-minded. Who gave the U.S. the right to do this? No one. And what was the justification for all of this? Basically, just because.
But even Bryan had a hard time getting away from that arrogant perspective. That's why he's bringing up the Monroe doctrine. He wanted to say that the fighting the Spanish in Cuba was totally legit, but fighting the Filipinos? That's an entirely different territory. Not our turf, not our problem.