3i 8 Presidential Addresses 



velopment of the people in order that, by means of 

 education and of labor, they might acquire the proper 

 individual character and force which would make 

 them worthy of it. In my writings I have com 

 mended to you study and civic virtue, without which 

 our redemption does not exist. ... I can not 

 do less than condemn, and I do condemn, this ab 

 surd and savage insurrection planned behind my 

 back, which dishonors us before the Filipinos and 

 discredits us with those who otherwise would argue 

 in our behalf. I abominate its cruelties and disavow 

 any kind of connection with it, regretting with all 

 the sorrow of my soul that these reckless men have 

 allowed themselves to be deceived. Let them return, 

 then, to their homes, and may God pardon those who 

 have acted in bad faith." 



This message embodied precisely and exactly the 

 avowed policy upon which the American Govern 

 ment has acted in the Philippines. What the pa 

 triot Rizal said with such force in speaking of the 

 insurrection before we came to the islands applies 

 with tenfold greater force to those who foolishly 

 or wickedly opposed the mild and beneficent gov 

 ernment we were instituting in the islands. The 

 judgment of the martyred public servant, Rizal, 

 whose birthday the Philippine people celebrate, and 

 whom they worship as their hero and ideal, sets 

 forth the duty of American sovereignty ; a duty from 

 which the American people will never flinch. 



While we have been doing these great and benefi 

 cent works in the islands, we have yet been steadily 



