The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-04-20
Senator Beveridge at American Academy Political Science
BRYCE ON BRITISH POLICY
Today the Educational, Social and Other Problems of the Dependen- cies Will Claim Attention.
 Other Speakers.


 ing American colonial policy and admin | istration. There was discussion of indy
 trial and financial problems in the o
 pendencies of the United States 2
 the evening meeting American
 I Policies" were taken up. The pri Il
 speakers at the night session were Am
 baJsador Bryce, who spoke on Some | Difficulties in Colonial Government En-
 countered by Great Britain and United
 States Senator Beveridge on "The Devel-
 opment of Colonial Policy for the Unit
 ed States.'
 l Tomorrow the educational, social. legal
 ana political problems of the dependencies
 will claim attention. During the discus
 sion today of an educational policy for | Spanish American civilization, Prof. Mar
 tin G. Brumbaugh, former commissioner
 Of sduoation in Porto Rico and new su-
 perintendent of schools in Philadelphia,
 urged the establishment rrnewhere be-
 tween North and South America, prefer
 ably in Porto Rico, of a great insular
 school, its faculty to be made up from
 the United States and from the South American countries and its students to
 come from all over the Latin civilization. l This school, he said should be clear | ing house of ideas and a central point I from which should emanate the best | thought of the experienced minds of the continent.
 1 Banking. currency and finance of the 1 Philippines were discussed by Henry '. | Ide, former governor general Of those ls- lands, and Prof. J. w. 'Jenks of Cornell
 university spoke of an agricultural bank | there.
 Railroad building in the Philippines was | reviewed by Capt Frank Mcintyre. 1 When the American government took 1 over the islands, he said, there was Tn l operation T120 miles in railroads. There
 are now 205 miles in operation with seven | ty-nine miles under construction. i Former, Postmaster General smith pre- 1 sitled at the evening session and made the ] opnning address. which he concluded by 1 coAseying the greetings of the academy l iu James Bryce. the British ahibas sador, i presenting him as the permanent honor ary chairman of the annual meeting Senator Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana
 received afi ovation. He said in part: | Administration is the principle upon
 whi.h our colonial policy should proceed 1 fo .L century to come. Wherever we have l departed from the idea of administration | as such, we have made an error which
 natural conditions will gradually compel us to correct
 "Not sudden self-government' for peo- l pies who have not yet learned the alpha | bet of liberty; not territorial independ- l ence for islands whose ignorant, suspi- l ciols and primitive inhabitants, left to l themselves, would prey upon ole another un they become the inevitable spoil of 1 other powers not the flimsy application l of abstract governmental theories possi- | ble only to the most advanced races and | Il, ,,1, fa tn6a work out grotesque and fatal results-not l anything but the discharge of our great national trust and greater national duty l to our wards by common sense methods | will achieve the welfare of our colonies l and bring us success in the civilized work l to which we are called. And common
 sense in the management of our depend-
 encies means practica al administration of | Government until our wards are trained l in continuous industry, In orderly liberty
 and in that reserve and steadiness of
 character through which alone self-gov- ernment is possible.
 American Expansion Inevitable. ',Tais period of colonial administration
 he; been reached by the American nation. | That period was inevitable. The Spanish
 wa. was only its opportunity. Our rap l idl increasing power determined it; our 1 cor .merciaI needs determined it; more | tha.i either, geography determined 1t; and
 most of all our duty to the world as one l of it's civiizing powers determined it. It was inevitable that, in the end, American l co -rol should extend over Cuba, San Do
 mingo, Porto Rico and in the far future | o-er the whole chain of islands that con- l tro- the entrance to the gulf and consti-
 tute the maritime fence that guards it ] from the Atlantic. It was inevitable that | Hawaii-the halfway house of the Pa l cific-should become American-that great ,NII httn6 atra
 declared that the Pacific must and would l become The American Ocean And Ha- l w.. orce American, 1t was inevitable that l further expansion over the western seas
 s'l suld occur-fo- it is the genius of our
 ra.s not to stop forever at any halfway | horse.
 The Principle of Administration.
 "What of the development of our colonial
 policy? The ruling principle along which that policy must be evolved was clear 1 from the first. l repeat it Is the principle 1 of administration. From this principle We
 have departed somewhat-departed be- | cause of the supposed exegencies of party | politics: because oe the foolish attempt 1 to apply self government, which we our selves have taken thousand years to work out to a people who are centuries behind l us in development because of the ignor- ance of some of our public men-of the
 impatience of old school congressman and senators with the vast but simple duties
 which our colonial task presents. Both 1 parties have been playing politics" with
 our government dependencies. To these | causes are due every departure from the
 natural principle of administration. And
 it is from these departures that all our | future difficulties will flow.
 1 So-CaIIed SeIf-Government. we have extended self-government,'
 so-called, too rapidly in the Philippines. | The Philippine commission itself says so. | In its latest report the commission says: Undoubtedly. if there has been error | 1t has not been in the direction of restric- 1 tion but rather in the granting of per- | haps a larger measure of self-government i than a people absolutely untrained in the
 exercise of any of the functions of gov l ernment were prepared for
 "The election of chiefs of municipali- | ties by the people with power to raise and | distribute taxes of colonial government | now living, in a diversion of funds from
 proper purposes and the prostitution of 1 the local police to be the body servants
 of municipal officers. The election of provincial governors was a similar error both were done too, hastily and too soon. | The diffusion of power, from the very be- | ginning, in the government of people