The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-05-13
Set the Filipinos at Work and the Prot
lem of (s0yerument Il Solved

Set the Filfpinos at Work and the Prob
lem of Government Is Solved.
From the New York Times.
Men of any race can work in a eli
mate where they can fight. Our SOL
diers from Kansas, the Dakotas, Ne
braska, Minnesota, Iowa and Montana
have been in and about Manila some Of
them the better part of a year. For
more than three months they have been
constantly engaged in fighting the Fill
pinos. The war is being carried on in
| circumstances Of very great discom-
fort and even hardship. The heat is
great the humidity high. The soil is
| much of it swampy, so that whether in
camp or in the trenches the men are
exposed to unwholesome vapors which
! in that land of tropical luxuriance must
be well charged with the products of
| decaying vegetable matter.
Yet General Otis reports show sur
| prisingly little sickness among the
troops. If our home-bred men can keep
their health and strength and spirit
through the exposure privatlon and
terrible toll of a campaign in the Luzon
jungles and rice fields, there is no
! doubt that the Philippine climate is no
bar to career there for American
merchants, professional men and wage
earners. New York commercial houses
wishing to establish branches in Man
lila will send out their junior partners
or head clerks. Young American en-
gineers will find opportunities for work
and distinction in building the railroads,
bridges, highways and docks which
will open the new Industrial age in these
islands. Superintendent of farms and
factories will be chosen from the Amer
lean soldiers already there and acclim-
ated.
There is no natural reason, therefore,
why Senator Frye's prediction of a
rich commercial future for these isl
ands should not come true. The detnr-
mining factor, and at present it is be-
yond the power Of prophecy to say how
that factor will behave, is the oppor-
tunity for profit-that is, whether
American capital will find in the Phil
ippne field such promise of large re-
turn that it will leave other fields to go
there.
For our own part we heartily ap-
prove Senator Frye's plan for manag-
ing the Philippines. We have always
believed that if we could once set the
Filipinos at work the problem of gov
erning them would be solved Our pol
icy in the Philippines, as foreshadowed
by the Maine senator, is this:
I'VE will give them a good govern
ment, relief from burdensome taxation,
ample security IN all their CIVIL ana re-
ligious rights. We will build highways.
construct railroads, erect school houses
and churches. We will allow them to
participate in government so far and
so fast as we may find them capable
We will give employment to labor and
good wages to the laborer. We will
arouse in them an ambition to become
good citizens competent to manage
their own local affairs and interests. We
will make it possible for them, some
| time in the future, to form a stable re-
| publican government capable of max
| ing treaties, enforcing their rights I'M
der them, and observing their obliga-
| tons"
Our craftsmanship might be baftled
in the effort to establish political tran.
quillity in the islands. Our capital will
surely establish an industrial regime
| there if it can find profit in 1t, and 70.
litical tranquility and good government
would then establish themselves. A
people who have once learned to work
and are making money have laid the
solid foundations of civil order. The
short way in the Philippines and the
wise way is that which Senator Frye
points out.