The Strenuous Life 19 



liberty. The Philippines offer a yet graver prob 

 lem. Their population includes half-caste and na 

 tive Christians, warlike Moslems, and wild pagans. 

 Many of their people are utterly unfit for self-gov 

 ernment, and show no signs of becoming fit. Oth 

 ers may in time become fit, but at present can only 

 take part in self-government under a wise super 

 vision, at once firm and beneficent. We have driven 

 Spanish tyranny from the islands. If we now let 

 it be replaced by savage anarchy, our work has been 

 for harm and not for good. I have scant patience 

 with those who fear to undertake the task of gov 

 erning the Philippines, and who openly avow that 

 they do fear to undertake it, or that they shrink 

 from it because of the expense and trouble; but I 

 have even scanter patience with those who make a 

 pretence of humanitarianism to hide and cover their 

 timidity, and who cant about "liberty" and the "con 

 sent of the governed/' in order to excuse themselves 

 for their unwillingness to play the part of men. 

 Their doctrines, if carried out, would make it in 

 cumbent upon us to leave the Apaches of Arizona 

 to work out their own salvation, and to decline to 

 interfere in a single Indian reservation. Their doc 

 trines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever 

 having settled in these United States. 



England's rule in India and Egypt has been of 

 great benefit to England, for it has trained up gen- 



