Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-04-08
THE PRESIDENT
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ourselves recreants to the memory of
our forefathers. Moreover, if we had
abandoned it we would have inflicted
upon the Filipinos the most cruel
wrong and would have doomed them
to bloody tumble of anarchy and
tyranny. 1t seems strange, looking
back, that any of our people should
have failed to recognize a duty SO OBJ
vious: but there was such failure, and
the government at home, the civil au-
thorities in the Philippines, and above
ell our gallant army, had to do their
work amid storm of detraction. The
army in especial was attacked in a way
which finally did good, for in the end
it aroused the hearty resentment of the
great body of the American people, not
against the army, but against the
army's traducers. The circumstances
of the war made it one of peculiar
difficulty, and our soldiers We're ex-
posed to peculiar wrongs from their
foes. They fought in dense tropical
juHgles against enemies who were very
treacherous and very cruel, not only
toward our own men, but toward the
great numbers of friendly natives, the
among who eagerly welcomed our rule.
Under such circumstances, among
hundred thousand hot-blooded and
powerful young men serving in small
detachments on the other side Of the
globe, 1t was impossible that occa-
sional instances of wrongdoing should
not occur The fact that they occurred
in retaliation for well-nigh intolerable
Go, hn
admitted in the way of excuse or
Justification. All good Americans re-
greet and deplore them, and the War
Department has taken every step in its
power to punish the offenders and to
prevent or minimize the chance Of
repetition of the offense. But these
spffenses were the exception and not the
rule AS a whole our troops showed
not only signal courage and efficiency,
but great humanity and the most sin
cere desire to promote the welfare and
liberties of the islanders. In series
Of exceedingly harassing and difficult
Z campaigns they completely overthreW
the enemy, reducing them finally to
/. condition of mere brigandage; and
awherever they conquered, they con-
-auered only to make way for the rule
of the civil government, for the intro
duction of law, and of liberty under
the law. When, by last July, the last
vestige Of organized insurrection had
disappeared, peace and amnesty were
proclaimed.
AS rapidly as the military rule was
extended over the islands by the defeat
of the insurgents, just so rapidly was
it replaced by the civil government. At
the present time the civil government
is supreme and the army in the Philip
pines has been reduced until It is
sufficient merely to provide against the
recurrence of trouble. In Governor
Taft and his associates We sent to the
Filipinos as upright, as conscientious,
and as able a group of administrators
rs ever any country has been blessed
with having. With them and under
them we have associated the best men
among the Filipinos, so that the great
majority of the officials, including
many of the highest rank, are them
selves natives of the Islands. The ad-
ministration is incorruptibly honest;
Justice is as jealously safeguarded as
here at home. The government is con-
sklucted purely in the interests of the
people of the islands: they are pro-
tected in their religious and civil
rights they have been given an eX-
cellent and we'll administered school
system, and each of them now enjoys
rights 10 life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness such as were never be-
fore known in all the history of the
islands.
t~ The. Congress which has just adj
iourned has passed legislation of high
Importance and great wisdom in the
interests of the Filipino people. First
and foremost, they conferred upon
them by law the present admirable
civil government; in addition they
gave them an excellent currency; they
passed a measure allowing the organ
iZa{ion of native constabulary; and
! they provided, in the interest of the
islands, for reduction of twenty-five
per cent in the tariff on Filipino ar
ticles brought to this country. l asked
that still further reduction should
at be made. 1t was not granted by the
last Congress, but | think that in some
shape it will be granted by the next
And even without it, the record OF
legislation in the interests of the Fill
pinos is. one with which we have {
. right to feel great satisfaction.
Moreover, Congress appropriated
three million dollars. following the
precedent it set when the people o
Porto Rico were afflicted by sudder
disaster; this money TO be used by the
. Philippine government in order to NEE
!, the distress occasioned primarily by
\ the terrible cattle disease which almos
2 annihilated the carabao or water-buf
falo, the chief and most important do
mestic animal in the islands. Coming
as this disaster did upon the heels o
the havoc wrought by the insured
tionary war great suffering has beef
caused; and this misery for which thi
government is in no way responsible
will doubtless in turn increase the diff
fieulties of the Philippine government
for the next year or so. In consequence
there will doubtless here and there oc
cur sporadic increases of the armed
brigandage to which the islands hav'
been habituated from time immemoria
.. and here and there for their own pur
poses the bandits may choose to styl