The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-12-03
CASE OF THE PHILIPPINES.
Hopes to Do For Them What Has
Not Been Done Before.

In the Philippines our problem II
larger They are very rich tropical is
ands, inhabited by many varying tribes,
representing widely different stages or
progress toward civilization. Our earn
est effort is to help these people upward
along the stony and difficult path that
leads to self government. We hope to
make our administration OF the Islands
honorable to our nation by making il
of the highest benefit to the f1lipinos
themselves; and as an earnest OF what
we intend to do, we point to what we
have done. Already a greater measur.
of material prosperity and of govern
mental honesty and efficiency has been
attained in the Philippines than ever
before in their history.
1t is no light task for a nation to
achieve the temperamental qualities
without which the institutions of free
government are but an empty mockery
Our people are now successfully gov
erning themselves, because Tor more
than a thousand years they have been
slowly fitting themselves. some time
consciously, sometimes uneonsciousiy,
toward this end. What has taken us
thirty generati lions to achieve, we can
not expect to see another race ac-
complish out of hand, especially when
large portions of that race start very
far behind the point which our ancest-
ors had rea ched even thirty generations
ago. In dealing with the Philippine
people we must show both patience and
strength. forbearance and steadfast
desire to do for the islanders merely
what has elsewhere been done for tropic
peoples by even the best foreign gov
ernments. We hope to do for them
what has never before been done for
any people of the tropics-to make them
fit for self government after the fashion
of the really free nations.
POINTS WITH PRIDE.
History may safely be challenged to
show a single instance in which a mas
terful race such ours, having been
forced by the e01gencies of war to take
possession Of an alien land, have be-
haved to its inhabitants with the dis
Interested zeal for their progress tnat
our people have shown in the Philip
pines. TO leave the islands at this time
would mean that they would fall into a
welter of murderous anarchy. such de-
sertion of duty on our part would be
a crime against humanity. The char
acter of Governor Taft and of his asso-
ciates and suDordinates is a proof. If
such be needed, of the sincerity Of our
effort to give the islanders a constant
ly increasing measure of self-govern-
ment, exactly as fast as they show
themselves fit to exercise it. Since the
civil government was established not
an appointment has been made in the
islands with any reference to consid-
erations of political influence. or to
aught else save the fitness of the man
and the needs of the service.
VERGE OF SAFETY.
In our anxiety for the welfare and
progress of the philippines, il may be
that here and there we have gone too
rapidly in giving them local self-gov-
eminent. 1t is on this side that our
error, if any, has been committed. No
competent observer. sincerely DESTROYS
Of finding out the facts and influenced
only by a desire for the welfare of the
natives, can assert that we have not
gone far enough. We have gone to the
very verge of safety in fastening the
process. To have taken a single step
farther faster in advance would
have been folly and weakness, and
might we'll haze been crime. We are
extremely anxious that the natives
shall show the power of governing
themselves. We are anxious. first for
their sakes, and next, because it re-
lieves us of a great burden. There
need not be the slightest fear of our
liberty for which they are fit.
The only fear is lest in our overanx-
iety we give them a degree of indie
pendence for which they are unfit,
thereby inviting reaction and disaster.
AS fast as there is any reasonable hope
that in a given district the people can
govern themselves, self-government has
been given in that district There Is
not a locality fitted for self-govern-
ment which has not received It, But it
may well be that in certain cases II
will have to be withdrawn because the
show themselves unfit to
exercise it; sucn instances have already
In other words. there is not
show a sufficiently humanitarian spirit
rection.