316 Presidential Addresses 



government for the next year or so. In consequence 

 there will doubtless here and there occur sporadic 

 increases of the armed brigandage to which the isl 

 ands have been habituated from time immemorial, 

 and here and there for their own purposes the ban 

 dits may choose to style themselves patriots or in 

 surrectionists ; but these local difficulties will be of 

 little consequence save as they give occasion to a 

 few men here at home again to try to mislead our 

 people. Not only has the military problem in the 

 Philippines been worked out quicker and better than 

 we had dared to expect, but the progress socially and 

 in civil government has likewise exceeded our fond 

 est hopes. 



The best thing that can be done in handling such 

 a problem as that in the Philippine Islands, so pecu 

 liar, so delicate, so difficult and so remote, is to put 

 the best man possible in charge and then give him 

 the heartiest possible support, and the freest pos 

 sible hand. This is what has been done with Gov 

 ernor Taft. There is not in this Nation a higher 

 or finer type of public servant than Governor Taft. 

 He has rendered literally inestimable service, not 

 only to the people of the Philippine Islands but 

 also to the people of the United States, by what he 

 has done in those islands. He has been able to do 

 it, because from the beginning he has been given 

 absolute support by the War Department, under 

 Secretary Root. With the cessation of organized 

 resistance the civil government assumed its proper 

 position of headship. The army in the Philippines 



