66 Presidential Addresses 



selves by the labor of a thousand years, can not be 

 grasped in a day by a people only just emerging 

 from conditions of life which our ancestors left 

 behind them in the dim years before history dawned. 

 We believe that we can rapidly teach the people of 

 the Philippine Islands not only how to enjoy but 

 how to make good use of their freedom; and with 

 their growing knowledge their growth in self-gov 

 ernment shall keep steady pace. When they have 

 thus shown their capacity for real freedom by their 

 power of self-government, then, and not till then, 

 will it be possible to decide whether they are to 

 exist independently of us or be knit to us by ties 

 of common friendship and interest. When that day 

 will come it is not in human wisdom now to fore 

 tell. All that we can say with certainty is that it 

 would be put back an immeasurable distance if we 

 should yield to the counsels of unmanly weakness 

 and turn loose the islands, to see our victorious 

 foes butcher with revolting cruelty our betrayed 

 friends, and shed the blood of the most humane, the 

 most enlightened, the most peaceful, the wisest and 

 the best of their own number for these are the 

 classes who have already learned to welcome our 

 rule. 



Nor, while fully acknowledging our duties to 

 others, need we wholly forget our duty to ourselves. 

 The Pacific seaboard is as much to us as the Atlan 

 tic; as we grow in power and prosperity so our 

 interests will grow in that furthest west which is 

 the immemorial east. The shadow of our destiny 



