And State Papers 217 



do our new work well and triumphantly and those 

 who said we would fail lamentably in the effort, the 

 contest was joined. We won. And now I ask you, 

 two years after the victory, to look across the seas 

 and judge for yourselves whether or not the promise 

 has been kept. The prophets of disaster have seen 

 their predictions so completely falsified by the event 

 that it is actually difficult to arouse even a passing 

 interest in their failure. To answer them now, to 

 review their attack on our army, is of merely aca 

 demic interest. They played their brief part of ob 

 struction and clamor; they said their say; and the 

 current of our life went over them and they sank 

 under it as did their predecessors who, thirty-six 

 years before, had declared that another and greater 

 war was a failure, that another and greater struggle 

 for true liberty was only a contest for subjugation in 

 which the United States could never succeed. The 

 insurrection among the Filipinos has been absolutely 

 quelled. The war has been brought to an end sooner 

 than even the most sanguine of us dared to hope. 

 The world has not in recent years seen any military 

 task done with more soldierly energy and ability; 

 and done, moreover, in a spirit of great humanity. 

 The strain on the army was terrible, for the condi 

 tions of climate and soil made their work harassing 

 to an extraordinary degree, and the foes in the field 

 were treacherous and cruel, not merely toward our 

 men, but toward the great multitude of peaceful isl 

 anders who welcomed our rule. Under the strain 

 of wellnigh intolerable provocation there were 



