The Nevada County picayune., 1908-11-12

comprehended thoroughly the size Of MT. Taft's undertaking, or the full meaning of his achievement. Through a bungle in our first dealings with Aguinaldo and the Filipinos the entire native population of the islands had come to believe, with some reason, that the Americans were their ene- mics and had betrayed them. MT. Taft arrived in Manila to find a people subdued by force of arms. but unanl- mously hostile, sullen and suspicious. They were still struggling, with the bitterness of despair, against the power in which they all saw only the hand of the oppressor.
 A Revelation to FiIipinos.
 That was what MT. Taft had to face and in three years he had overcome and changed all. He did it by the per suasive power of the most winning personality the Filipinos had ever known. He met them on their own level. He lived with them, ate with them, drank with them, danced with them, and showed them that there was an Occidental who could read and sympathize with the Oriental heart.
 MT. Taft gave them concrete ex- amples of disinterestedness and good faith which they could not fail to com prehend. He gave them schools and the opportunity of education, one of the dearest wishes of the whole peo- pie. No man who was not in the Philippines in the early days of the American occupation will ever under stand thoroughly with what pitiful eagerness the Filipino people desired to learn. Men, women and children, white haired grandfathers and grand mothers craved above everything the opportunity to go to school and receive instruction in the simplest rudiments. It is difficult to tell how deeply that eager desire touched MT. Taft and how earnestly he responded to it.
 But education was only a begin ming. MT. Taft gave the Filipinos the opportunity to own their own homes. It was another concrete example of simple justice. When they saw him negotiating for the friar lands, and at a great expense to the American government, securing for the Filipinos the right to buy those lands on easy terms. it went home to the dullest among them that he was working un- selfishly in their behalf
 And they saw his justice in their courts. For the first time in all their experience the poorest and humblest Filipino found himself able to secure an even-handed, honest decision, with out influence.
 Even that is not all. They saw MT. Taft literally and faithfully keep ing his promise and calling Filipinos to share in their own government, not merely in the subordinate and lowly places which they had been able to purchase from their old masters, but in the highest and most respon" sble posts. They saw men of their race called to membership in the commission, in the supreme court, and in all the other branches of their government. And they believed the promise of even wider experiences of self-government to come.
 Three times in the course of his service for the Filipinos the opportuni- ty to re-enter his judicial career came to him. each time with an offer of a place on the supreme bench which had been his lifelong goal. Each time he refused it. Not even President Roosevelt understood the call to MT. Taft from the Fillpinos, and when he offered Supreme Court judgeship to MT. Taft he accompanied it with al most a command. But MT. Taft de- clined. How the Filipinos felt was shown when on hearing of the danger that MT. Taft might be called away from Manila, they flocked in thous- ands about his residence and begged him not to go. When ultimately he did leave the islands it was only to come home as secretary of war, in which office he could continue his di- rection of Philippine affairs and make sure that there should be no deviation from the successful line of policy he had marked out.
 Secretary of War.
 It is not important here to discuss in detail MT. Taft's administration of the War Department since he sue ceeded Elihu Root as secretary of war on February 1, 1904. He has been at the head of it during the years of it's greatest range of activity. He is not merely secretary of the army, as al most all his predecessors were. He is secretary of the colonies. Under his di- rection are all matters of the uttermost importance affecting every one of the over-sea possessions of the United States. The affairs of the army alone have often proved sufficient to occupy the whole attention of an able secre- tary. MT. Taft has had to handle not only those and the Philippine and