Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-09-17

they shall have any government at all;
while it is, of course, equally evident
that under u conditions we have no
right whatever to garrison them against
outside interference any more than we
have to make such h garrison In the case
of the Boxers (who are merely Chinese
a~nalogies of Aguinaldo's' followers). IL
we have a right to establish a stable
government in the islands, it necessarily
follows that it is not only our right, but
our duty to support that government un-
til the natives gradually grow fit to sus-
tain it themselves. How else will it be
stable? The minute we leave it it ceases
to be stable.
SHALL WE CONTRACT.
Properly speaking. the question is
now not whether we shall eXpand-for
we have already expanded-but whether
we shall contract. The Philippines are
now part of American territory. To
surrender them would be to surrender
American territory. They must. of
course, be governed primarily in the in
terests of their own citizens. Our first
care must De for the people of the islands
which nave come under our guardian
ship as a result of the most righteous
foreign war that has been waged, in the
memory of the present generation. They
must be administered in the interests of
their inhabitants and that necessarily
means that any question of personal or
partisan politics in their administration
tlUS NC IN we must
continue to put at the head of affairs.
in the different islands. such men as
General Wood, Governor Allen and
Judge Taft: and it is a most
thing that we are able to illustrate what
ought to be done in the way of Sending
officers thither by pointing out what act
ually has been done. The minor places
in their administration, where it is i'm
possible to fill them by natives, must be
filled by the stricteSt application of the
merit SNStnn1 I is very imnOrtanf that
in our own home administration the min
isterial and administrative offices, where
the duties are entirely non-political.
shall De filled absolutely without refer
ence to partisan affiliations: but this is
many times more important in the newly
acquired islands. The merit system is in
it's essence as democratic as our COM
mon school system, for it simply means
equal chances and fair play for all.
A MINORITY GOVERNMENT.
1t must be remembered always that
governing these islands in the interests
Of the inhabitants may not necessarily
be to govern them as the inhabitants
at the homer prefer. To grant self
government to Luzon under Aguinaldo
would be like granting self-government
to an Apache reservation under some
local chief: and his is no more altered
by the fact thai the Filipinos f~oughtrthe
Spaniards, than it would be by the fact
that Apaches have long been trained
and employed in the United States army
and have rendered signal service there
in: just as the Pawnees did under the
administration of President Grant: just
as the Stockbridge Indians did in the
days of Washington, and the friendly
tribes Of the Six Nations did in the days
Of President Madison. &R
There are now in the United States
communities of Indians which have ad-
vanced so far that it has been possible
to embody them as a whole in our -po-
litical system, all the members of the
tribe becoming United States citizens.
There are other communities where the
bull of the tribe are still too wild for
it to be possible to take such a step.
There are individuals among the
Apaches, PaWnees, %1roquois, Sioux and
other tribes, who are now United States
citizens, and who are entitled to stand.
and do stand on an absolute equality
with all our citizens of pure white blood.
Men of Indian blood are now serving in
the army and navy and in congress and
occupy high positions both in the bust
ness and political world: There Is everv
reason why as rapidly as an Indian or
anv body of Indians becomes fit for self
government, he or they should be grant
ed the fullest equality with the whites:
but there would be no justification
whatever in treating this fact as a rea-
son for abandoning the wild tribes to
work out their own destruction. Ex-
actly the same reasoning applies in the
case of the Philippines. To turn over
the islands to Aguinaldo and his follow
ers would be to give self-government to
the islanders; under no circumstances
would the majority thus gain self-gov-
eminent. They would simply be put at
the mercy of a syndicate of Chinese
Ihalf-hreeds. under whom corruption
would flourish far more freely than eyer
it fourished under Tweed. while tyran-
meal oppression would obtain to a de-
gree only possible unde such an dig
archy.
Yours truly.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.