The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-12
TAFT A BIASED JUDGE.
PROFESSOR JAMES COMMENTS
 UPON
he secretary's utteran,es Concerning
 the Philippines.

the Philippines.
 May humble citizen add his word to be discussion between the secretary of ar and those who are asking the com pg Presidential conventions to put hanks promising eventual independ- nce to the Filipinos into their plat prms? Secertary Taft thinks that ny such promise will unsettle the filipino mind. now in a fair way of be- g educated" politically. It will start the native politicians to intriguing r position in anticipation of the prom ed day, and if that day be less than nndred years off, Mir. Taft thinks it i'll find the natives still untrained, still lfit, and prove to be more of a calam- than blessing to them.
 Now, I yield to no one in esteem for fcretary Taft. whom I believe to be be of the finest characters now in pub ie life anywhere The candor of his eeches on this question wins my es- kcial admiration. Unlike the simple, azen official utterances to which we we grown accustomed in Filipino fairs. what he says is really in- ructive. Assuming that we are some ing more than partisan rooters, to hom he must supply phrases, he eks to persuade our intellects by the Try reason which persuades his own, Ad he conceals no facts. It would featly raise the tone of political dis ssion everywhere if his example could followed.
 On all these accounts, and because, has been there, and knows the places here the shoe pinches, MT. Taft's estige is naturally enormous. His owledge is concrete and solid, men y, while that of the bishops and llege presidents who have signed the tition for independence is vague and note. It would be no wonder if at e conventions his advice should car the day against all the voices that ge an independence plank. 'In the Try nature of things" the delegates II think This opinion must be wiser an that of all these people at this stance."
 wish now to give some reasons why e opinion of a man who has played Sv. Taft's position in the islands does at deserve to carry this preeminent thority, and why the remoter view long-range judges may well on the aole be wiser. believe that his close rsonal relations to the struggle, so from strengthing the prestige of y general views of policy which he ay utter, ought, on the contrary, to allowed for and discounted. It tms to me emphatically case for plying the personal equation
 iecretary Taft is himself the creator the present regime in the Phillip es. He was sent there to repair the rk of more destruction which Presi- 1t McKinley's Administration had h such light heart originally ndered into, and to turn, if possible, purely military conquest into a auine assimilation. He accepted the ssion in good faith, and organized a 1ernment, of which the sole animal B principle is the permanent welfare the natives-as We are able to con- ye that welfare. He started this k under incredible difficulties, in midst of war, with American army hion dead against him, with all the raff of American exploiters and edi-
 in Manila down upon him, with we support inefficient and suspicious n not actively treacherous no help that of his few official coadjutors
 of his conscience. The hard be- lin gs of the task are over, and the Int administration toddles on two
 successfully. Evolution on the attempted seems possible: one by
 the later features of the pro- nrlne may be ralized.
 it humanly conceivable that the tor of such an unfinished state of gs should willingly suffer its evolu- to be interrupted? It is the child is lions and he must insist upon it's wing to maturity. The good of the nds, as he is able to imagine It, is tified with that programme exclu- ly. Other good, as other people imagine 1t, is not that good, but is goods destruction. Secretary Taft the very nature of the case bound,
 though there were a fiagrantly er possible alternate, to remain a ionate advocate of the system of th he is himself the author. He is ally unable to be an impartial wit
 regards the systems prosperous ltion, his hopefulness ought to be n with a large discount by the erican delegate and voter. The srnor- general of an Oriental de- lency cannot possibly see into the rottenness of a situation, if it be rotten. The information he goes is certain to be accommodated and igested for his reception. Hardly tive meets him sincerely; and his al family, laboring under identical 5backs, cannot restore the balance Is sense of reality.
 Taft, in short, is too close to the ippine job to estimate it's general Prical bearings. These general ings are, 1t seems to me, probably
 justly apprehended by such edu- I men at home as these who have ed the petition to the conventions.
 myself, as one of the signers, the historical objection to Secretary S scheme is that it is so des- tely Utopian. 'The Philippines
 the Filipinos" is an admirable hword, but that it actually should watchword reveals the whole prig- less and spuriousness of the situa-