Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1898-07-01
OFFICIAL PAPER BuRLEIGH co.
GOVERNING THE PHILIPPINES.

GOVERNING THE PHILIPPINES.
10 the doubters who fear for the well
fare of the Philippine islands in the
control Of the United States there is an
excellent answer in the following letter
from a correspondent Of the New York
Tribune, which bring to mind the posi-
bilities of the islands: The Philippine
islands. with all their wealth of field
and forest and mine, have remained FOR
centuries with every voice that sounded
for enterprise promptly choked in the
clutch of Spanish d%espotism. With
drastic exactions and repressive laws;
with capricious administration of local
government: with s%courgings and
burnings and tortures and murder OF
natives, and with harassing and extor-
tiorate taxation Of foreigners. Spain has
immurcd this tropic empire in a dun
gcon of sloth and despotism until COM
paratively few people know of the vast
and inviting field which is there offered
for all forms of human effort.
There are mountains draped with
forests of rosewood, mahogany, dye
woods, oak, cedar and pine, in whose
solitudes the sound of the woodman's
axe has never echoed. There are hills
scanned with auriferous quartz veins,
upon which no prospector's pick has
ever rung. There are valleys whose fer
tile soil never felt the touch of a plough.
There are areas as large as the state of
New Jersey wherein no road for wheeled
vehicles exists.
The wall of commercial exclusiveness
which the mistaken policy Of Spain
erected around her possessions in the
south seas went down before the rever-
beration of Admiral Dewey's guns, and
it is a wall which we can never permit
to be rebuilt. Whether the Philippines
shall remain American territory or be
organized under u auspices into an in
dependent republic, it is certain that
they will never be returned to Spanish
rule, and it is equally certain
that their commercial and political des-
TIMES will hereafter be controlled by
American capital and American colon
lists.
Twenty thousand of the bravest,
brightest and most energetic young men
of the ultimate west will, within a few
weeks, form the army of occupation at
Manila. They are Argonauts, as ad-
venturous as those who embarked with
Jason. They are the Knight Paladins
Of their century, and no army that ever
marched was so we'll equipped as they,
not only with weapons of war, but with
the mightier weapons Of peace. Among
these soldiers are electricians, engineers,
chemists, assayers, miners, metallurg.
lists, lawyers, doctors, school teachers
and mechanics of every trade. There is
scarcely a regiment in General Merritt's
command that could rot, if called upon,
build a foundry, a factory or a mill or
construct a locomotive, IA bicycle Or a
knitting machine, or run a newspaper
or a hotel. 1t may be surmised also
that many of them are not unfamiliar
with caucuses and conventions, and,
occasion arising, they would be able to
furnish the Malayese with an adequate
supply of sheritfs, assessors, county
clerks and justices Of the peace.
These men-when peace is made-will
be followed by five times their number
OF Americans seeking to better their
condition, and theer will be ample op.
p~ortunity for all. There will be high
ways and steam and electric railroads to
build. There will be coffee and tea and
sugar and indigo and hemp and tobacco
plantations to be developed. There will
be mines of gold and silver and copper
and iron to open. There will be water
falls to harness, and rivers and harbors
to dredge. There will be furnaces and
steamboats, and machine shops to build
and run. There are hundreds of thous.
ands of docile, patient. cheap native
laborers, who will be organized by Amer
leans into armies of productive industry.
The application of old principles to new
conditions, and of modern discovery to
ancient resources, will give employment
to lawyer and scientist. The relics of
empire will puzzle the a%ntiquarian's re.
search, and the promise Of empire will
fire the philosophers thought.
The selection of a method to govern
the Philippines is a task that need not
perturb US. If We are to keep the
islands, We can govern them as Alaska
is governed. with the addition of a com
mission empowered to frame a code Of
laws for local government and taxation.
If we are to guarantee the inhabitants
an independent government Of Their