Evening star., 1925-09-09

GOV. LEONARD WOOD.
They bore excellent fruit. We were
making splendid progress. Our Fill
pino pupils in the theory and practice
of democracy, responding eagerly to
the experience, ideals, methods and
authority of the Americans. acquired
discipline, efficiency, thoroughness, a
high sense of responsibility. Then in
judiciouS idealism entered \ great
folly was committed. Excessive and
too rapid Filipinization from 1914 to
1921 eliminated American experience
and installed Filipino ineXperience to
such an extent that there was an all
around retrogression, legislative, eX-
ecutive and judicial, and in the Philip
pine constabulary.
Sees Self-Rule as Disaster.
1--WE must return to our old slow
but sure method; short cuts are allur-
ing, but perilous. l do not mean that
the system inaugurated by the Jones
law-the system of House and Senate
and sovereign eXecutive-must be
abandoned 1t probably should be
somewhat modified and it certainly
should be made to work. 1t did not
work during the period of spur back
sliding in the Philippines. There was
d
of the governor general under the
law. There was too much surrender
ing of executive authority. combined
with too much legislative uSurpation,
interference of political leaders in the
general supervision and control of de-
partments and bureaus and the infec-
ton of the civil service with politics
Disastrous SocialiStic experiments We're
made and the Philippine National
20 l. Loo @ 4
darkest pages in Philippine history. 1t
has been my work, with the unmis-
taxable good viii of the people-of
every one but a few leaders-to re-
store the authority of the governor
general under the law"
What do you think would be the
immediate results of our leaving?"
Strife, disorder, bloodshed. They
might not come instantly, but they
would come soon. Moros, whom we
have disarmed and who want us to
stay and protect them, and Christian
F1lipinos would fight. Industry. trade
and credit would be ruined, with the
inevitable Concomitants of idleness.
hunger and anarchy. We should look
back upon the plight of these 12,000-
600 people, who never have known
what it means to defend or sustain
themselves, who never have known
given them-we should look back
upon their plight with national sor-
row, pity and shame. Japanese would
come in, not necessarily as an army,
but with their vigorous business meth
DDS, and Chinese would swarm hither
for all sorts of pursuits AS l have
said to Filipino friends, Chinese would
hold your valleys; you fellows would
be sitting on the hilltops.'"
UnsettIing the Far East. E.
Would that be alp"
mo; that would not be all We
should unsettle the Pacific and the
Far East. We should create a situa-
tion replete with sinister possibilities.
Political impotence, social disorganiza-
ton and intertribal conflicts in the
Philippines would not be allowed to
continue for a great while. Civilized
strength, from one quarter or another,
would move toward this vortex of
trouble and suffering and such a
movement might precipitate the worst
consequences. In any event, the hope
of Philippine independence would be
dashed for ages if not for all time.
Filipino leaders should be able to see
these dangers, but they see only a
vision of personal powers. They are
They are bent upon gambling with
the fate of their own people and with
the peace of the Pacific.
"Conceivably, this peace might not
be broken, but the risk is there and
if there were no other consideration in
the matter, that risk should impose
upon America a sacred obligation to
hold the Philippines until it is reason
ably sure that all such peril was
past.
Our presence here, in existing con-
ditions, is needed on the side of the
Occident?"
TT is needed on the side of both Oc-
cident and Orient. Equilibrium be-
tween them promises stability; dis
equilibrium threatens instability. Our
position in the Philippines does not
give the Occident overweening
strength in the Pacific. 1t in no sense
jeopardizes either the peace or the
peaceful trading rights of any power.
We are here with the loftiest ideals,
not only toward the Filipinos, but to-
ward all our Asiatic neighbors. We
want to live on terms of amity and
equality with them all We stand for
the open door. We stand for a solu-
ton of every industrial and CONNER
cial, as well as every political, ques-
ton on a basis of reason and justice
and not of force. We have earned,
we have paid for our right to carry
our experiment in the Philippines to
full fruition, and meanwhile the
possession of this archipelago re-
enforces our diplomacy touching all
international matters in the Orient,
among them the principles of the
Washington treaties and the open
door.
Advancing Christian Culture.
1--WE cannot think of this Philippine
question" said Gen. Wood, with in
tensifed earnestness, without think
ing of civilization as a whole. And
civilization, to us, is Christian civili-
eaton. We are stone, if not the. key
stone. of the arch of Christian civil
lization in the Pacific. Filipinos, as to
all but a tenth of the population, are
Christians. Christianity's humanizing
influence shows in their faces and is
recorded in their steady moral ad-
vance. Paganism and non-Christian-
ity can be broken down only by the
impact of spiritual and cultural in
fluences and these will be projected
from the base of a highly-developed
Christian Philippines as they cannot
be projected from the distant bases
of America and Europe.
America in the Philippines, in
other words, insures the effective de-
velopment of Christianity for the re-
generation of the world. These are
solemn obligations and great opportu-
mites. We can be false to them only
at the cost of treason to that faith
which we believe to be essential to
the highest human development. Let
us 20 out of the Philippines only when
Na SaR leaYa the. torch of that faith