Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-22
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Addresses Delivered Before the Lake
Mohonk Conference.
PLATFORM GIVING AIMS READ
Interpretation of the Declaration of
Independence in It's Relations
to Sequel of Spanish War.

| MOfiONk LAKE, n. Y, October d..
Porto Rico Hawaii and the Mchonk plat
form were the themes under review today y
at the Mohonk conference. The spe lkers
| at the morning session who discussed the
present and future of Porto Rico were
Maj. Gen. George w. Davis, L. S. a., for
merlv governor of Porto Rico. and later
| governor of the Panama Canal Zone; Regis
| II. Post. ex-governor of Porto Rico: Will
| liam S. Willoughby, president Of the exc
cutive council: Charles Hartze'l, formerly
| secretary of state, and Cayetano Coll Y
! Cuchi of San Juan. members of the Porto
Rican house of delegates
The platform. describing the aims and
purposes of the conference was presented:
| Obligations to the Filipinos.
At last evenings session of the con-
| ference Dr. ]. d. Burks. director of the
Philadelphia bureau of municipal re-
! search, who has recently spent six
months in the Philippines. acted as
spokesman for the dissenters. He de-
clared that the Filipinos are pleased and
| satisfied with American control. Ex-
planning that he went to the archipelago
| as a commissioner of the United States
to study the development of the school
| system there, he continued, in answer to
Representative Driscolls address:
The nation will not have discharged
| the obligation which it deliberately took
upon itself until it has established not
merely in form, but in fact, the institu-
tions of democracy among this people,
who have hitherto known only the insti-
| tutions of monarchy and eervitude.
This is the greatest program to which
| nation has ever pledged its credit. It's
| final success means a complete readjust-
| ment of declarations between the east
| and west, for through our position in
opportunity and the obligation of leading
the orient in an intellectual and social
| reconstruction, perhaps the most signifi-
cant In all history. We must not, we
| cannot, prove unequal to this great task
The Declaration Of Independence.
THE Declaration of Independence has
been invoked as an unanswerable reason
why the United States should withdraw
at the earliest possible time from the
control of the Philippine Islands. This
instrument served in a most admirable
way its original purpose as a campaign
document in arOusing the enthusiasm of
| a people in successful revolt against their
mother country.
In our own civil war and at many
other times. however, this nation has put
| itself on record as ready to interpret the
principles of the Declaration by the logic
| of experience and of actual conditions in
| the interest of the fullest social welfare.
There is sense in which the ideas of
the Declaration are fundamentally and
eternally true. In that sense it is the
great obligation Of the United States to
insure life, liberty and the pursuit of hap
piness to S,OOO,OOo ignorant and helpless
people,
Among the other speakers at last
nights session was Prof. George Blakes
lee of Clark University, Worcester, Mass,
who discussed americas Philippine Pol
| icy in the Light of Recent Developments
| N the Far East"
| Edmund Enright, superintendent of Fill
| ipinO students in the United States, told
of their work and introduced Geronimo
| Fl. Huising, one of the students from the
| Lowell. Mass. textile school.
Success OF the Conference.
The platform follows:
"Twenty-seven years have passed since
the first Lake Mononk Indian conference
was assembled Then 1t was the policy
of the nation to push the Indians aside
when they were an impeachment to ma
tional progress; now 1t is the national
po icy to incorporate the Indians in the
| nation and enable them to contribute to
the national progress. The most impor-
tant of the reforms advocated by the con-
ference have been accepted by the nation
| specifically. the abolition of the reserva-
| ton system. the establishment of a fed
| eral public school system for the educa-
| ton of the Indians and the applicable to
| the Indian service of the civil service
rules.
| This change in the nations conception
| of the Indian problem and It's true so.u-
| tion has been accompanied by a great i'm
provement in the personnel of the Indian
| service and in public sentiment upon the
| Indian question Meanwhile new obiiga-
| tions have been laid upon the nation to-
ward other peoples who are not citizens
| of the Cnited States but are subject to
1 itrri lodi ovd ottfh t.lyx
| this occasion to reaffirm certain funda =
| mental principles which the nations fail
ures and successes in the Indian service
| have illustrated and enforced, and which
are equally applicable to these new wards
| of the nation. For the duty of the Amerl-
| can people to establish by the force Of it's
! laws and the influence of It's examples
| liberty and justice is the same toward all
| its nOn-citizen subjects whether these
subjects be the young men not yet grown
! to full citizenship or the aborigines under
our severe gnty or the newly landed i'm
migrants unfamiliar with the nature and
| operation of free institutions or the ne
| groes recently freed from slavery or the
| inhabitants of our insular possessions
with no historic preparation for democ-
| racy-that is. the reign of the people
The ultimote end of all just government
| is self-government.
Duty of the Nation.
| Keeping this end ever in mind. i; is
the duty Of the nation TO give to all
under It's authority adequate protection OF
person and property, whether personal
or communal; government by law, not by
the will of personal ruler. military or
civil: courts Of law accessible to the poor
est and humblest processes of law prompt
economical and equal in their operation; /;
| taxes no heavier than the expenses of
| their government. economically admin
istered require. sanitary provisions for
| the prevention OF preventable disease for
the establishment of hygienic conditions;
schools which shall furnish Industrial and
moral as we'll as academic instruction:
| and. through the voluntary efforts of the
churches. the inspiration of a religion
founded. not on the fear. but on the love
| of God.
| This means for the North American
Indian abolition of the tribal relation, in
which the fundamental rights of the in
| dividual are denied; the substitution of
personal for tribal property the ret ogni-
| ton Of the Indians right to travel f eely
| and peaceably and to buy and sell in the
open market. and his ultimate admission
to American citizenship It means for the
! Filipino opening to him the American
| U,optinued an Eleventh papeO