And State Papers 409 



work is difficult and responsible. The difficulty and 

 responsibility impose upon us the high duty of doing 

 the work well, but they in no way excuse us for re- 

 fusing to do it. We had to do the work and 

 the question came of the choice of instruments in 

 doing it. The most important and most difficult 

 task after the establishment of order by the army 

 in the Philippines was the establishment of civil 

 government therein; and second only in impor- 

 tance to that came the administration of Cuba, 

 during the three years and over that elapsed be- 

 fore we were able to turn its government over to 

 its own people and start it as a free Republic. When 

 tasks are all-important the most important factor 

 in doing them right is the choice of the agents ; and 

 among the many debts of gratitude which this Na- 

 tion owes to President McKinley, no debt is greater 

 than the debt we owe him for the choice of his in- 

 struments, such a choice as that of Taft, such a 

 choice as that of Wood. We sent Taft to the Phil- 

 ippines; we sent Wood to Cuba; both of them as 

 tested by the standard of our commercial life, poor 

 men; each man with little more than his salary to 

 keep himself and his family; each man to handle 

 millions upon millions of dollars, to have the power 

 by mere conniving at what was improper to acquire 

 untold wealth and sent them knowing that we did 

 not ever have to consider whether such opportuni- 

 ties would be temptations toward them; sent them 

 knowing that they had the ideals of the true Ameri- 

 can and that, therefore, we did not have to con- 



