The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-06-19

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want to go, and said so frankly, add
ing that he had not believed in holding
the Philippines, and that his ambition
was for judicial, not executive work
But here is one of the most difficult
tasks now confronting our nation, - said
Mckinley. You are the man to do it.
You must help me out. 1t is your duty -
And because he, too. saw that it was his
duty. and for no other reason, Taft at
length assented In this way Taft
started upon the real work of his life,
giving up his ambition. his congenial
post, taking on a responsibility in which
no one could see aught but killing work
and vexation and possibly failure at the
end of it. just because it was duty
HOW THE LAUGHING, WORKING
GIANT CARRIED THE WHITE
MAN S BURDEN.
That was only eight years ago. The
story of Taft IS achievements in these
eight years reads more like the MARIA
tive of some hero of fiction than the
sober chronicle of actual experience. In
three and half centuries Spanish rule
had given the people of the Philippines
one institutional church. In three
and a half years Taft nodded them into
nation,-a rudimentary nation, true,
but equipped with all the institutions
of modern civilization. He smiled upon
those people, and won their liking; he
laughed with them, and Won their good
humor; he worked for them, and won
their confidence; he made " the Philip
pines for the F'ilipinos' his guiding
star, and in the end won not only the
people of the islands but all those who
would exploit those people and those
islands; the strong human side of him
impelled him to make the Filipinos his
children. his wards, and for them he
worked and fought, not only at Manila,
but at Washington, in defiance of pref
udice, and politics, and tariff narrow
ness, and now the Filipinos affection
ately call him '}Santo Taft To them
he must indeed appear as something
like a saint. To the observing world his
work out there in the islands of the Pa
cific takes rank among the greatest
achievements of constructive states
manship shining among the pages which
tell the story how the white man has
carried his burden. 1t was Taft who
convinced a skeptical world that the
Americans not only had the power sue
cessfullv to administer a colonial trust,
but to administer it benefcently, unset
fshly. And we all know that during a
certain period of national doubt, uncer-
tainty. even reaction in veXation as to
the future of that trust, it was the will,
the purposefulness. the tenacity, the
success of this administrators working
like a human steam engine at Manila
and appealing to the American people
at home for justice and help and patti
ence,-that protected the national con
science and preserved the national honor.
That we did not make the failure in the
Philippines which the world had ex-
pected we should make was due to the
skill and genius of this young man who
had stepped from the bench to the most
difficult administrative task in the
world. The smiling. laughing, working
giant carried with full success his large
share of the white man s burden.
A QUICK FOOTED, WORKING,
FIGHTING, LAUGHING
ELEPHANT.
All along the path of this man from
boyhood to now, from the hulking
youth who out-wrestled every one at
Yale to the quick-footing fighting
elephant of our modern politics. - ready
to step into the Presidency if his party
can carry the country, we gather incl
dents which speak of his courage, his
strength, his self-sacrifice. his endur-
ance, his Justice his patience, his
hUmor, his wholesomeness, his irmness,
his intense humanness. He affords Us a
example that a man may
smile and smile and still be strong as a
giant and firm as a rock. He shows us
how true was that word of the late
Senator Hoar "that the best boy has
something manly about him, and the
hest man has much of the boy in him
Taft is man many of whose ways are
those of a boy. a big, husky, rollicking
boy, ever ready for a laugh or a joke
or a prank, vet never overStepping the
bounds of dignity, mixing jest and
laughter with work always bright. and
sunny, vet always a marvel of industry
and achievement.
At college we see him declining to ac-
cept a class post of honor because some
one had questioned the regularity of his
election. only to be unanimously chosen
to the same place Immediately after
ward At Cincinnati we see him Civ
ing a sound and well-deserved thrashing
to the editor of scurrilous sheet who
had slandered his father. As judge on
the federal bench we see him declining
an offer to go to New York as member
of a law firm. with a guaranty of $50
GOO a year. saying .'there are bigger |
things in this world than money In |
the Philippines we see him taking ad- |
Vant9 ore of every uOSSihle mans of
winning the affection and confidence of !
his wards, even going so far as to have |
a native prepare for him a diagram of |
the native rigodon, or Spanish quadrille, |
that he might study its movements and |