The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-07

the 1epers. has helped to make Manila the most healthful city in the orient, and to free life throughout the whole archipelago from its former dread dis eases, is nevertheless incomplete in many essentials of permanence in san
 tary policy. Even more remains to be accomplished. If freed from American control sanitary progress Is bound to
 be arrested and all that has been achieved likely to be lost
 Concurrent with the economic, social. and industrial development of the
 islands has been the development of the political capacity of the people. By their progressive participation in gov ernment the Filipinos are being stead ily and hopefully trained for self-gov- ernment. Under Spanish control they shared in no way in the government Under American control they have
 shared largely and increasingly. With in the last dozen years they have grad-
 ually been given complete autonomy in the municipalities, the right to elect two- thirds of the provincial governing boards and lower house of the insular legislature. They have four native members out of nine members of the commission or upper house. The chief justice and two justices of the supreme
 court about e-half of the higher ju- dieial positions, and all of the justices of the peace are natives. In the clas- sified civil service the proportion of
 Filipinos increased from 51 per cent in 1904 to CT per cent in 1911. Thus today
 all the municipal employees. over 90
 per cent of the provincial employees,
 and 50 per cent of the officials and em-
 ployees of the central government are Filipinos. The ideal which has been kept in mind in our political guidance of the islands has been real popular lf-government and not mere paper irs dependence. I am happy to say that the Filipinos have done well enough in the places they have filled and In the discharge of the political power with
 which they have been entrusted to war
 rant the belief that they can be educa- ted and trained to complete self-gov- ernment. But the present satisfactory results are due to constant support and supervision at every step by Americans. Patience Necessary
 If the task we have undertaken is hign-
 CT than that assumed by other nations, its accomplishment must demand even more patience We must not forget that we found the Filipinos wholly un- trained in government. Up to our ad- vent all other experience sought to re-
 press rather than encourage political power. It takes long time and much
 experience to ingrain political habits of steadiness and efficiency. Popular self government ultimately must rest upon common habits of thought and up- 1 on a reasonably developed public opin- l ion. No such foundations for self gov-
 ernment, let alone independence. are now present in the Philippine islands.
 Disregarding even their racial hetero- geneity and the lack of ability to think as a nation, it is sufficient to point out | that under liberal franchise privileges | only about three per cent of the Fill | ipinos vote and only about five per cent 1 of the people are said to read the pub | lie press. To confer independence Ip-
 on the Filipinos now is, therefore, to
 subject the great mass of their people
 to the dominance of an oligarchical
 and, probably exploiting minority.
 Such a course will be as cruel to those
 people as it would be shameful to us Our true course is to pursue steadily
 and ourageously the path we have thus
 far followed; to guide the F'ilipinos inso self sustaining pursuits; to continue 1 the cultivation of sound political hab- | it's through education and political ipractice; to encourage the diverslnca- | ton of industries, and to realize the
 advantages of their industrial education l by conservatively approved co-operative methods, at once checking the dangers
 of concentrated wealth and building up
 a sturdy, independent citizenship. We
 should do all this with disinterested l endeavor to secure for the Fiipinos l economic Independence and to fit them
 for complete self government, with the power to decide eventually, according
 to their own largest good, whether such
 self government shall be accompanied l by independence. A present declara- | tion even of future independence would
 retard progress by the dissension and disorder it would arouse Onfo our part lit would be disingenious attempt, un- der the guise of conferring benefit on them. to relieve ourselves rom the
 heavy and difficult burden which thus
 far we have been bravely and consist cntly sustaining. It would be dis guised policy of scuttle It would make
 the helpless Filipino the football of
 oriental politics, under the protection
 of a guaranty of their independence. which we would be powerless to en-
 force.
 Regulation of Water Power
 There are pending before Congress
 large number of bills proposing to
 grant privileges of erecting dams for
 the purpose of creating water power in
 our navigable rivers. The pendency of these bills has brought out an import
 ant defect in the existing general dam l act That act does not, in my opinion. :, grant sufficient power to the federal | government, as a condition of it's per-
 init, to require that a part Of the value l thus created shall be applied to the fur- | ther general improvement and proteo- | tion of the stream. l believe this 10 be one of the most important matters of internal improvement now confront (Continued on Page Nine.)