The problem we have before us is to give to people who have no conception of free government, as we understand it and carry it on, the opportunity to learn that lesson. What better proof could there be of their present unfitness for selfgovernment than their senseless attacks upon us before anything had been done? Could anything demonstrate more fully the need of time and opportunity to learn the principles of selfgovernment than this assault upon liberators and friends at the bidding of a self-seeking, self-appointed, unscrupulous autocrat and dictator? Some of the inhabitants of the Philippines, who have had the benefit of Christianity and of a measure of education, will, I have no doubt, under our fostering care and with peace and order, assume at once a degree of self-government and advance constantly, with our aid, toward a still larger exercise of that inestimable privilege, but to abandon those islands is to leave them to anarchy, to short-lived military dictatorships, to the struggle of factions, and, in a very brief time, to their seizure by some great Western power who will not be at all desirous to train them in the principles of freedom, as we are, but who will take them because the world is no longer large enough to permit some of its most valuable portions to lie barren and ruined, the miserable results of foolish political experiments. . .

From the dispatch of May 26 onward the attitude of our Government was clear and unmistakable. But every real hope, every proper promise, was freely offered and never violated. There are many duties imposed upon a President in which it is easy to imagine a personal or selfish motive, in which such motives might exist even if they do not. But here even the most malignant must be at a loss to find the existence of a bad motive possible.

Suddenly at the end of the Spanish war we were confronted with the question of what should be done with the Philippines. Their fate was in our hands. We were all able to discuss them and to speculate as to what that fate should be. No responsibility rested upon us. But one man had to act. While the

rest of the world was talking he had to be doing. The iron hand of necessity was upon his shoulder, and upon his alone. Act he must. No man in that high office seeks new burdens

and fresh responsibilities or longs to enter on new policies with the unforeseen dangers which lie thick along untried paths. Every selfish motive, every personal interest, cried out against it. Every selfish motive, every personal interest, urged the President to let the Philippines go, and, like Gallio, to care for none of these things. It was so easy to pass by on the other side. But he faced the new conditions which surged up around him. When others then knew little he knew much. Thus he came to see what duty demanded, duty to ourselves and to others. Thus he came to see what the interests of the American people required. Guided by this sense of duty, by the spirit of the American people in the past, by a wise statesmanship, which looked deeply into the future, he boldly took the islands. Since this great decision his policy has been firm and consistent. He has sought only what was best for the people of those islands and for his own people.

The policy we offer, on the other hand, is simple and straightforward. We believe in the frank acceptance of existing facts, and in dealing with them as they are and not on a theory of what they might or ought to be. We accept the fact that the Philippine Islands are ours to-day and that we are responsible for them before the world. The next fact is that there is a war in those islands, which, with its chief in hiding, and no semblance of a government, has now degenerated into mere guerilla fighting and brigandage, with a precarious existence predicated on the November elections. Our immediate duty, therefore, is to suppress this disorder, put an end to fighting, and restore peace and order. That is what we are doing. That is all we are called upon to do in order to meet the demands of the living present. Beyond this we ought not to go by a legislative act, except to make such provision that there may be no delay in re-establishing civil government when the war ends. The question of our constitutional right and power to govern those islands in any way we please I shall not discuss. Not only is it still in the future, but if authority is lacking, the Constitution can be amended. Personally, I have no doubt that our Constitution gives full right and authority to hold and govern the Philippines without making them either economically or politically part of our system, neither of which they should ever be.

"clarum et

When our great Chief Justice, John Marshall venerabile nomen". declared in the Cherokee case that the United States could have under its control, exercised by treaty or the laws of Congress, a "domestic and dependent nation," I think he solved the question of our constitutional relations to the Philippines. Further than the acts and the policy which I have just stated, I can only give my own opinion and belief as to the future, and as to the course to be pursued in the Philippines. I hope and believe that we shall retain the islands, and that, peace and order once restored, we shall and should re-establish civil government, beginning with the towns and villages, where the inhabitants are able to manage their own affairs. We should give them honest administration, and prompt and efficient courts. We should see to it that there is entire protection to persons and property, in order to encourage the development of the islands by the assurance of safety to investors of capital. All men should be protected in the free exercise of their religion, and the doors thrown open to missionaries of all Christian sects. The land, which belongs to the people, and of which they have been robbed in the past, should be returned to them and their titles made secure. We should inaugurate and carry forward, in the most earnest and liberal way, a comprehensive system of popular education. Finally, while we bring prosperity to the islands by developing their resources, we should, as rapidly as conditions will permit, bestow upon them self-government and home rule. Such, in outline, is the policy which I believe can be and will be pursued towards the Philippines. It will require time, patience, honesty, and ability for its completion, but it is thoroughly practicable and reasonable. . . .

I do not think the Filipinos are fit for self-government as we understand it, and I am certain that if we left them alone the result would be disastrous to them and discreditable to us. Left to themselves the islands, if history, facts, and experience teach anything, would sink into a great group of Haitis and St. Domingos, with this important difference, that there would be no Monroe doctrine to prevent other nations from interfering to put an end to the ruin of the people and the conversion of a fair land into a useless and unproductive waste. The nations of

Europe are not going to stand idly by and see the islands of the Philippines given over to anarchy and dictatorships of the Haitian type, while their waters swarm again with pirates whom Spain suppressed, and whom we have now the responsibility of keeping down and extinguishing. We have no right to give those islands over to anarchy, tyrannies, and piracy, and I hope we have too much self-respect to hand them over to European powers with the confession that they can restore peace and order more kindly and justly than we, and lead the inhabitants onward to a larger liberty and a more complete self-government than we can bestow upon them. Therefore, Mr. President, I desire to show why I feel so confident that the Filipinos are not now fit for self-government, and that their only hope of reaching the freedom, self-government, and civilization which we desire them to have lies in our now holding, governing, and controlling the islands.

HENRY CABOT LODGE, The Retention of the Philippine Islands. (Speech in the Senate, March 7, 1900.) 14-35 passim.

GIDDINGS (1900)

Never since the Constitution was ratified by the thirteen original commonwealths have the American people, as a whole, felt so confident of their place among the nations, or so sure of the excellence of their polity, and of the vitality of their laws and immunities. Never have they been so profoundly convinced that their greatest work for civilization lies not in the past, but in the future. They stand at the beginning of the twentieth century, in their own minds fully assured that the responsibilities which they are about to face, and that the achievements which they expect to complete, are immeasurably greater than are those which have crowned the century of their experiment and discipline.

From the Louisiana purchase to the annexation of Hawaii we have seized, with unhesitating promptness, every opportunity to broaden our national domain, and to extend our institutions to annexed populations. Even more convincingly has our vigour been shown in the fearlessness with which the cost of every new responsibility has been met. Whether this cost has been

paid in treasure or in blood, the American people has met it without one moment's hesitation. . . .

. Next to vitality, and supplementing it, the basis of faith in the future is a sound, full knowledge of the present and the past. The American people know facts about their own numbers, resources, and activities, which fully justify their belief that they are at the beginning, not approaching the end, of their evolution as a civilized nation. Only in a few spots within our national domain does the density of population yet approach the average density of the older European countries. . .

Into this domain the population of Europe continues to discharge its overflow; and the stream of immigration shows no marked decrease save in the exceptional years of industrial depression. Of chief significance, however, is the fact that the greater part of all the immigration that we have thus far reIceived has consisted of the same nationalities from whose amalgamation the original American stock was produced. . . .

When we remember that it was the crossing of the Germanic and the Celtic stocks that produced the English race itself, we are obliged to assume that the future American people will be substantially the same human stuff that created the English common law, founded the Parliamentary institutions, established American self-government, and framed the Constitution of the United States.

FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, Democracy and Empire. 295-297.