Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-06-30
PHILIPPINES FOR NEGROES.
Speech of T. Thomas Fortune on His
Return.

| New York, June 29.-T. Thomas For
tune, who was sent by the United States
Government last November to the Hawaii
an 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, $50 Lafayette avenue.
After the reception there was a dinner.
The POSTMASTER was Frederick r. Moore.
Sampel K. Scottron, formerly member
OF the Board of Education, delivered the
address of welcome. In response Mr.
evidences of their distinguished considera-
ton and, after telling of his Investigations
into the conditions 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 re-
assure the Filipino ipa let them appoint
Booker T. Washington to be Governor of
the Philippine Islands, with sympathetic
fellow commissioners, and ! believe that.
while such appointees would give general
Der of AfrO-American people would de-
sire 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.
Il have been to the Hawaiian Islands
and | am in love with the place, but l
would not care to live there. If | had un-
told wealth l 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, it is perfect, but it costs money
and lots of it to live there.
Those of the dominant element are de-
scendants of New Englanders who went
there two or three generations ago; they
are Yale and Harvard graduates; they are
immensely wealthy. and as they are about
one-tenth of the entire population and
control nearly all the wealth, one can see
fl,.,t tl,n tN1n 60,
man.
In the Philippines it is the direct oppo-
site. Although the country has just been
visited by war, pestilence and famine, it is
rapidly recovering. The Filipinos are
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 F'ilipnos did two
or three years ago. things would be vastly
different today. II you step on a t'ilpino's
corn he will step on yours ii 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-
slVe. But under proper Governmental
control it is the ideal place for the negro.
1t is the climate he likes. or the climate
he can stand. The whites cannot live
there and make a living. If they live at
all it is as parasite. The white man
may go there and suck blood-he cannot
make it; for the white man in that eli
mate is the most lstless being Imaginable.
The Filipino and the negro get along
Splendidly in social way. 1t seems that
the white and the negro cannot, and it is
just as much a matter of general know
ledge that the white man aud the Filipino
cannot agree; and from the knowledge of
these facts l do not hesitate to say that
l long for the time when the Afro Amer-
can may go to the Philippine Islands and
live there as he should and would live
The Islands are possessed of wonderful
possibilities. The mountains are the re-
positOries of untold mineral wealth, the
foothills are ideal grazing grounds; the
plains will grow almost any kind of grain
and in the fertile valleys may be cult
waited and brought to the highest perfcc-
ton almost any fruit that grows The
people are not only pleasant and sociable
but they are intelligent and active They
have had their former Ideas concerning
American institutions and American ideas
sadly abused within the past two or
three years, and it will take some hard
work and unccasing teaching to overcome
the prejudices already planted there"