The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1901-11-09
The Spoliation of the Philippines.

ffeeman's Journal: In the October
number of the American Catholic
Quarterly Review there is an article
entitled The Work of the Philippine
| Commission" from the pen of Mr..
! Bryan ). Ciinch. which should be read
by all who wish to get an insight into
| the Kind of work the Taft commission
is engaged in. In the first place, Taft
| ana his fellow commissioners. are at
| tempting the impossible in trying to
make the Filipinos abandon old Gus
| toms, old laws and old methods and &C
! cept instantly and without questioning
news that have the Endorsement of the
foreign rulers who have been forced
| upon them.
A student of history would have told
the TAFT commission that such at
| tempts, whenever and wherever made,
| nave proved abortive
| AS the writer in the American Cath
| ollc quarterly Review points out, the
Republicans Of France in the last quar-
ter OF the eighteenth century tried
what cur commissioners in the Phil
lppines are endeavoring to do The
miserable failure the French met with
in attempting to fit other people to the
French Procrustean bed should serve
as warning to the Taft commission,
work of remClding a whole people in
eW months. The writer of the article
N the American Catholic Quarterly
review to which We have referred
gives us the description of the task
they have undertaken to perform:
II ne Taft commission seems engaged
on task in the Philippines like that
which the French citizen commission
ers tried SO unsuccessfully in Milan and
Naples. 1t is trying to mold the Ian
guage. religion, schooling, laws, land
terures. methods OF taxation and cor
porate life of q people of 100000 with
in a few months. 1t is doing all this,
not in accordance to the wishes or
wants of that people, but on ideas bor-
foWed from the experience of a COM
munity foreign to them in language,
race, ideas of government and social
lie. The commissioners are not men
experienced in administration or ac-
euatnted with even the language much
less the character and the history of
he millions whose destiny they under
take to mold so confidently. Two of
them are college professors and three
lawyers. Moreover, their task is not
to apply the. principles of government
with which they are familiar, but to
devise new system for Philippine con-
ditions, different either from what the
tlipinoS are used to or Americans use
for themselves.
This is fair statement of the stu
pendous work our commissioners have
Undertaken to perform in the PARKWAY
philippines. They are in no way daunt-
ed by the task before them. They land
ed at Manila in June, and in Novem-
Der they sent to the secretary of war a
report the dominant note of which
was cock-suredness. In five months
the two college professors and three
lawyers had succeeded in learning all
that was worth knowing, and they rem
dered their judgments with the air of
experts. They were sure that the ma
tives were not fit for self-government,
and therefore advised that the fran
chise should be severely limited. TO
acknowledge that the Filipinos are
ca able of taking care of their own
affairs would be condemnation of
inn erialism, which is based on the as
sumption that the 100000 inhabitants
of these Pacificl islands must be gov
erned from Washington for their own
good.
One of these commissioners. Mr..
Dean Worcester. had visited the Phil
lppines twice before the Spanish |
American war, and had written a |
book, in which he roundIy abused the |
Catholic priests of the islands 1t is |
easy to guess his attitude toward the |