The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-30
PHILIPPINES FOR NEGRO
SPEECH OF T. THOMAS FORTUNE
 ON HIS RETURN.
An Ideal Place for Afro-Americans, Suggests That Some Colored Man Like Booker Washington Be Put at the Head of the Philip
 pine Commission.

New York Sun.
 l. Ihomas Fortune. who was sent by the United States Government last No- vember to the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines. returned to America in the past week and last evening a reception was given him by members of his race at the rooms of the Fellowship Club. 554 Lafayette Avenue. After the recen. ton there was dinner. The toast master was Frederick R. Moore. Samuel h. Scottron. formerly a member of the Board of Education, delivered the ad- dress of welcome.
 In response MT. Fortune thanked the gentlemen for the evidences of their dis tinguisned consideration and. after tell ing or ms investigations into the condi- tions in the Philippines. said:
 At some future time when the Ameri- can people desire really to solve the race problem in the United States and to reassure the Filipino let them appoint some such able Afro American as Book CT T. Washington to be Governor of the Philippine Islands. with sympathetic fel- low commissioners. and I believe that, While such appointees would give gen. eral satisfaction to the Filipinos. a large number of Afro-American people would desire to live under the American flag in the Philippine Islands. with the firm hope and belief that at some future time the Constitution would follow
 have been to the Hawaiian Islands and | am in love with the place, but would not care to live there. If had untold wealth I would like to go there and dream-that is what the place is made for. As for going there to make a living, one could not make a greater mistake. The climate of the Hawaiian Islands is a dream 1t is perfect, but it costs money and lots of it to live there.
 Those of the dominant element are descendants of New Englanders who went there two or three generations ago; they are Yale and Harvard graduates: they are one-tenth of the entire popula- tion and control nearly all the wealth one can see that the country is no place for a poor man.
 In the Philippines 1t is the direct op- posite. Although the country has just been visited by war, pestilence and famine, it is rapidly recovering The Flhpinos are a very independent class of people. And they are right Had the negro instituted the same mode of conduct and retaliation twenty years ago as the Filipinos did two or three years ago things would be vastly different to- day. If you step on a Filipino's corn he will step on yours; If you pop him In the jaw he will pop you on the same place And in this way he has earned the respect of the whites.
 Living there at present is very expen- sive. But under proper governmental control it Is the ideal place for the negro. It is the climate he Hfes. or the climate he can stand. The whites cannot live there and make a living. If they live at all 1t is as a parasite. The white man may go there and suck hlood-he cannot make it; for the white man in that climate is the most listless being | imaginable.
 | The Filipino and the negro get along splendidly in a social way It seems that the white and the negro cannot, and 1t is just as much a matter of general knowledge that the white man and the Filipino cannot agree; and from the