Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) was a Chicago journalist who in his newspaper columns created a saloon owner, Martin Dooley, and his acquaintances. Dooley was given to philosophizing on issues of his days. He delivered lectures to his old regulars in the form of dialogues in the manner of Plato, in which Dooley played the part of Socrates. Instead of an ancient Greek dialect, Dooley delivers his estimations in a lovely dialect, in the manner of Irish immigrants of the later part of the 19th and the earlier part of the 20th century, CE.
It is now May of 2003, and the military part of war in
Iraq conducted by the United States of America has officially been declared to
be over, though not really extinct. This war being on my mind has made me
notice intriguing similarities between this war and some earlier conflicts in
which the USA was involved, as reflected not in the somber works of politicians,
soldiers, chronologists or historians, but in the work of humorists. One
of the topics that Mr. Dooley was fond of was politics. In one of the
collections of Dooley's pronouncements called Mr. Dooley In the Hearts of His
Countrymen (1899), Dooley expatiates on an aspect of the Spanish-American
War of 1898, in a piece called "Expansion". It strikes me that
if a few fairly obvious substitutions are made, the first part of this piece
bears has a kind of haunting bearing on present events.
Here it is:
"Whin we plant what Hogan calls th' starry banner iv Freedom in th' Ph'lipeens," said Mr. Dooley, "an' give th' sacred blessin' iv liberty to the poor, down-trodden people iv thim unfortunate isles, -- dam thim! -- we'll larn thim a lesson."
"Sure," said Mr. Hennessy, sadly, "we have a thing or two to larn oursilves."
"But it isn't f'r thim to larn us," said Mr. Dooley. " 'Tis not f'r thim wretched an' degraded crathers, without a mind or a shirt iv their own, f'r to give lessons in politeness an' libery to a nation that mannyfacthers more dhressed beef than anny other imperyal nation in th' wurruld. We say to thim: 'Naygurs,' we say, 'poor dissolute, uncovered wretches,' says we, 'whin th' crool hand iv Spain forged man'cles f'r ye'er limbs, ad Hogan says, who was it crossed th' say an 'sthruck off th' comealongs? We did, -- by dad, we did. An' now, ye mis'rable, childesh-minded apes, we propose f'r to larn ye th' uses iv liberty. In ivry city in this unfair land we will erect school-houses an' packin' houses an' houses iv correction; an' we'll larn ye our language, because 'tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn oursilves yours. An' we'll give ye clothes, if ye pay f'r thim; an', if ye don't, ye can go without. An', whin ye're hungry, ye can go to th' morgue -- we mane th' resth'rant -- an' ate a good square meal iv ar-rm beef. An' we'll sind th' gr-reat Gin'ral Eagan over f'r to larn ye etiquett, an Andhrew Carnegie to larn ye pathriteism with blow-holes into it, an' Gin'ral Alger to larn ye to hould onto a job; an', whin ye've become edycated an' have all th' blessin's iv civilization that we don't want, that'll count ye one. We can't give ye anny votes, because we haven't more thin enough to go round now; but we'll threat ye th's a father shud threat his childher if we have to break ivry bone in ye'er bodies. So come to our ar-rms,' says we.
The rest of Mr. Dooley's analysis concerns Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino who had been the leader of a movement to gain independence from Spain since 1896, although to be sure there had been struggles to gain independence for centuries before that. It developed that Aguinaldo had been under the impression that the incursion into the Philippines by forces of the USA in 1898 would result in the independence of the Philippines. However, as things turned out, a war between USA and Filipino forces began in 1899. It continued to 1901, after which the Philippines officially became a possession of the USA. Filipinos continued to struggle for independence until they achieved it 1946, after World War 2. Whether or not Mr. Dooley's views on the episode during the Spanish-American War will bear any resemblance to events yet to happen in Iraq remains to be seen. Here is the rest of Mr. Dooley's dissertation. Speaking of the takeover of the Philippines by the USA, he says:
"But, glory be, 'tis more like a rasslin' match than a father's embrace. Up gets this little monkey iv an 'Aggynaldoo, an' says he, 'Not for us,' he says. 'We thank ye kindly; but we believe,' he says, 'in pathronizin' home industhries,' he says. 'An,' he says, 'I have on hand,' he says, 'an' f'r sale,' he says, 'a very superyor brand iv home-made liberty, like ye'er mother used to make,' he says. ' 'Tis a long way fr'm ye'er plant to here,' he says, 'an' be th' time a caro iv liberty,' he says, 'got out here an' was handled be th' middlemen,' he says, 'it might spoil,' he says. 'We don't want anny col' storage or embalmed liberty,' he says. 'What we want an' what th' ol' reliable house iv Aggynaldoo,' he saysm 'supplies to th' thrade,' he says, 'is fr-esh liberty r-right off th' far-rm,' he says. 'I can't do annything with ye'er proposition,' he says. 'I can't give up,' he says, 'th' rights f'r which f'r five years I've fought an' bled ivry wan I cud reach,' he says. 'Onless,' he says, 'ye'd feel like buyin' out th' whole business,' he says. 'I'm a pathrite,' he says; 'but I'm no bigot,' he says.
"An' there it stand, Hinnissy, with th' indulgent parent kneelin' on th' stomach iv his adopted child, while a dillygation fr'm Boston bastes him with an umbrella. There it stands, an' how will it come out I dinnaw. I'm not much iv an expansionist mesilf. F'r th' las' tin years I've been thryin' to decide whether 'twud be good policy an' thrue to me thraditions to make this here bar two or three feet longer, an' manny's th' night I've laid awake tryin' to puzzle it out. But I don't know what to do with th' Ph'lippeens anny more thin I did las' summer, befure I heerd tell iv thim. We can't give thim to anny wan without makin' th' wan that gets thim feel th' way Doherty felt to Clancy whin Clancy med a frindly call an' give Doherty's childer th' measles. We can't sell thim, we can't ate thim, an' we can't throw thim into th' alley whin no wan in lookin'. An' 'twud be a disgrace f'r to lave before we've poinded these frindless an' ongrateful people into insisnsibiility. So I suppose, Hinnissy, we'll have to stay an' do th' best we can, an' lave Andhrew Carnegie secede fr'm the Union. The'se wan consolation; an' that is, if th' American people can govern thimsilves, they can govern annything that walks."
"An' what 'd ye do with Aggy -- what-d'ye-call-him?" asked Mr. Hennessy.
"Well," Mr. Dooley replied, with brightening eyes, "I know what they'd do with him in this ward. They'd give that pathrite what he asks, an' thin they'd throw him down an' take it away fr'm him."
Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley In the Hearts of His Countrymen, 1899, Small, Maynard & Company, Boston MA, USA, p. 5-7.
By a curious coincidence, the following article from the English version of the Spanish newspaper El Pais turned up courtesy of the International News Alliance at https://www.inadaily.com/ the very next day after I posted the item above.
On December 10, 1898, a defeated Spain handed over Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the United States of America. So ended the Spanish-American war, the war of Cuba. In Spain there is a popular saying: in any setback or contretemps, you say "cheer up - more was lost in Cuba."
It was a war into which the then prime minister, Antonio Cánovas, like certain statesmen today, was prepared to sink the last peseta and, of course, the last Spanish soldier.
This war, too, produced collateral damage. Guantánamo was one of these. A little over a century has gone by since the incorporation of the Platt Amendment into the Constitution of Cuba, and 69 years since the US government agreed to abrogate it. But one of its byproducts remained, a vestige of that seventh section of the amendment by which the Cubans, theoretically independent, promised to sell or rent to Washington the land necessary to set up naval or fueling stations there. As a painful reminder of what was a manifest interference, bred no doubt of manifest destiny, the naval base - ceded to Washington by Tomás Estrada, first president of Cuba - is still there: the mark left, on withdrawing from the island after four years, by that stranger in the house, as it seems general Máximo Gómez said early in 1901.
Guantánamo combines the horrors and errors of past and present, two imperialisms and two prisons. Guantánamo is also the real or imaginary meeting point of Cubans, Yankees and Spaniards - but also of Taliban and Iraqis. Guantánamo is a synecdoche of our time.
It has always struck me how there has hardly been any talk of Guantánamo as a colonial remnant. As if this emblematic product of an unequal treaty, a new Caribbean Gibraltar in Anglo-Saxon hands, however distinct its origins and legal status, were not still a scandalous aberration. As if this early manifestation of bumptious American imperialism answered to the nature of things, to a pre-established harmony. It has also surprised me that so many voices raised in Madrid and Miami to condemn the outrages of Fidel Castro have not equally condemned this insult to Cuba which is Guantánamo, now used by Washington as its private garbage dump - one prison within another, an infra-legal space in which those who have proclaimed themselves policemen of the world also massively violate human rights. The distance that separates reality from desire.
And now, as John R. Brooke did on assuming all powers under the authority of President William McKinley, another American general is doing the same in Iraq; and now, as then, Jay Garner has issued a proclamation to the people, liberated from the yoke of the oppressor, assuring them a future of happiness and freedom. In the two cases, in Iraq as in Cuba, a brief war and a lightning victory. Then, the Cubans were told that the American troops would soon withdraw from the island.
Will anyone be surprised to see the Bush Administration sooner or later do what President Theodore Roosevelt did in the Pearl of the Antilles - create a new Guantánamo between the Tigris and the Euphrates? It might be said too, that as much or more than the alleged humanitarian considerations, the reasons that have motivated the liberator in both wars have been geopolitics, sugar and petroleum.
Eight months after the first centenary of the trade reciprocity treaty between the Republic of Cuba and the United States, I venture to propose to Washington and Havana a new pact: a historic agreement to celebrate the occasion - a fair deal. To President George W. Bush, that he renounce Guantánamo and leave Cuba, restoring its territorial integrity. To Fidel Castro, that he step down from power and leave the island too. That he come to Spain. Or go to any Latin American country ready to receive him and to guarantee him an unmolested retirement. Had he not, after all, offered a similar solution to Saddam Hussein? Does Castro, perhaps, wish to die there as Franco did here? In bed, stuck full of tubes and with half a dozen more executions to his name? If the two were to make such a gesture of generosity, everyone would gain, and so would the Revolution.
http://www.elpais.es/misc/herald/herald.html