The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-07-17
MOI Conquest, bdt
Wise Home Rule
From the Philadelphia Press.

From the Philadelphia Press.
h0 OTHING has disappointed the
IMI opponents of the discharge of
IMI national duty in the Philip
u " pines more than the arrange
ment reached with the Sultan of the
Sulu Islands. What the anti-eXpan-
sionists would like to persuade this
country is that it is about to enter on
the conquest" foot by foot and island
by island, of all the archipelago. The
United States has never done this with
new acquisition. 1t never will.
1t was eighty years before the last
of the Louisiana purchase was finally
taken up. 1t was over thirty years
before even the western bank of the
Mississippi had been brought to order
along all its course. Supremacy and
sovereignty were asserted at once. Ad-
ministration came later. Any Indian
tribe able to govern itself was left
to do so. The like is before US in the
Philippines. Where, as in the Sulu
Islands, there is a native rule which
suits the people it governs, which
protects the trader and which keeps
down rapine and disorder, it will be
aided, directed and improved. It's ef-
forts Will be supported and strength
ened, It's injustice will be curbed.
Time and opportunity will be given
for native development. This course
lay open to the Tagals. 1t is open to-
day. II was they that attacked
American troops. 1t was their leaders
who planned massacre in Manila. 1t
was Aguinaldo and not General Otis
who preCipitated war. When the
sovereignty of the United States is
once admitted the Tagals are free to
organize their own government in their
own way.
The German and French colonial
plan is to fill the colony with colonial
administrators. It is not the English
plan. 1t has not been ours. In Alaska
we have even gone too far in letting
a territory take care of itself. In In
dia itself, out Of 1860, 100 square miles,
595,1G7 square miles, or one-third Of
British India. is today ruled by native
sovcreigns like the Sultan of Sulu.
| Nothing so becomes English admins
tration as its success in maintaining
these states, improving their manage.
HenL ana SLOWLY raising Inem out or
Oriental despotism. Jeypoor, a Malay
state. is ruled this way. The Straits
Settlements are governed through ma
tive chiefs. All over the word the
! same plan is followed, and 212 years
after English rule began in India with
| the cession Of Bombay third the
area of India is under native rulers.
.
| Why should we be wiser or try to
| better the most successful of coloniz-
| ing powers and the methods of the
| largest of colonial empires? The first
| duty Of n civilized power with the re-
| sponsibilitics Of region like the
| Philippines Is not to tear down and
| destroy but to preserve ana to give
native rule the largest possible field.
| The one Indispensable requisite is the
| admission of sovereignty. When that
| is secured native rule follows when
| possible. II war has come in Luzon
it is because Aguinaldo attacked the
| American troops and believed he
would be supported in his attack on
! the American flag by anti-expansion-
lists as he was aided by those who de-
| layed the organization Of a new army
| until March.