"Some of those things do sound rather strange," answered Cleary, as
they walked away, "but you must look at the world in a broad way. Is
our civilization better than that of the Cubapinos?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Well, then, we must be conferring a favor upon them by giving it to
them. We can't slice it up and give them only the plums. That would be
ridiculous. They must take us for better and worse. In fact, I think we
should be guilty of hypocrisy if we pretended to be better than we are.
Suppose we gave them a better civilization than we've got, shouldn't we
be open to the charge of misrepresentation?"
"That's true," said Sam. "I didn't think of that.
"Yes," Cleary went on; "at first I had some doubts about that saloon
business particularly, but the more you think of it, the more you see
that it's our duty to introduce them there. It's all a part of our
civilization."
"So it is," said Sam. "And then people have always done things that
way, haven't they?"
"Yes, of course they have."
"Then it must be all right. What right have we to criticize the doings
of people so much wiser than we are? I think you are quite right. As a
correspondent you ought to be satisfied that you are doing the right
thing. To me as a soldier it's a matter of no importance anyway,
because a soldier only does what he's told, but you as a civilian
have to think, I suppose, and I'm glad you're satisfied and can make
such a conclusive case of it.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73