The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-12-03

by any other OrientalS under their own
/ governments, save the japanese alone.
/ We have not gone too far in granting
these rights of liberty and self-govern-
ment: but We have certainly gone to
the limit that in the interests of the
Philippine people themselves it was
i wise or just to go. To hurry matters,
to go faster than we are now going,
would entail calamity on the people of
the islands No policy ever entered in
| to by the American people has yindi-
Gated itself in more signal manner
than the policy of holding the Philip
pines. The triumph of our arms, above
all the triumph of our laws and prin-
/ ciples, has come sooner than We had
! any right to expect. Too much praise
can not be given to the Army for what
it has done in the Philippines both in
warfare and from an administrative
standpoint in preparing the way for
civil government; and similar credit
belongs to the civil authorities for the
way in which they have planted the
! seeds of self government in the ground
thus made ready for them. The cour-
! age, the unfiinching endurance, the
high soldierly efficiency, and the gen.
eral kind-heartedness and humanity of
| our troops have been strikingly mani
| Tested. There now remain only some
fifteen thousand troops in the islands.
All told, over one hundred have been
sent there. OF course, there have been
! individual instances of wrongdoing
among them. They warred under fear
| full difficulties of climate and sur
rOundinge; and under the strain of the
terrible provocations which they con-
| tinually received from their foes, occa-
| sional instances of cruel retaliation oc-
CURED. Every effort has been made to
prevent such cruelties, and finally these
| efforts have been completely success
| full. Every effort has also been made
/ to detect and punish the Wrongdoers.
After making all allowance for these
misdeeds, it remains true that few in
deed have been the instances in which
war has been waged by civilized pow
er semi-civilized or barbarous forces
where there has been so little wrong
doing by the victors as in the Philip
pine Islands On the other hand the
amount of difficult, important, and
beneficent work which has been done is
well-nigh incalculable.
! Taking the work of the Army and
! the civil authorities together, it may
be questioned whether anywhere else
in modern times the world has seen a
better example Of real constructive
craftsmanship than our people have
given in the Philippine Islands. High
praise should also be given those
Filipinos, in the aggregate very numer-
GUS who have accepted the new con-
ditions and joined with our representa-
tives to work with hearty good will for
the welfare of the islands.
THE INDIANS.
In dealing with the Indians our aim
should be their ultimate absorption in
to the body of our people. But in many
cases this absorption must and should
be very slow. In portions of the In
dian Territory the mixture of blood has
gone on at the same time with progress
in wealth and education, so that there
are plenty of men with varying degrees
of purity of Indian blood who are alb
solutely indistinguishable in point of
social, political, and economic ability
from their white associa ties. There are
JULIET tiipeS WHICH nave as yet hidue ho
perceptible advance toward such
equality. To try to force such tribes
too fast is to prevent their going for
ward at all. Moreover the tribes live
under widely different conditions.
Where tribe has made considerable
advance and lives on fertile farming
soil it is possible to allot the members
lands in severalty much as is the case
with white settlers. There are other
tribes where such a course is not de-
sirable. On the arid prairie lands the
effort should be to induce the Indians
to lead pastoral rather than agricul-
tural lives, and to permit them to set
tie in villages rather than to force
! them into isolation.