112 



The National Geographic Magazine 



the utmost respect for Americans, a re- 

 spect rapidly ripening into confidence 

 and affection. This condition has come 

 about in spite of famine, the loss of their 

 farm animals through rinderpest and 

 surra, and a severe epidemic of cholera. 



WILL THE ISLANDS PAY? 



Another question frequently asked is, 

 ' 'Will possession of the islands pay us ?" 

 In the first place, it is not a question 

 which we should even ask ourselves. 

 The question of profit in any form should 

 not enter into the matter. When we 

 took the islands from Spain we assumed 

 a duty — that of reducing them to order 

 and of maintaining them as good neigh- 

 bors to the other peoples of the earth . 

 We might have shirked the duty, we 

 might have abandoned them to become 

 a Venezuela or a Haiti, or we might 

 have turned over the work of patrolling 

 and protecting to some other nation, 

 such as Germany, who was eager to 

 exploit them, or to Great Britain, who 

 might have been induced to accept the 

 responsibility for them. If, however, 

 we had been weak enough to have thus 

 shirked our responsibility, I think that 

 every one of us would have lost self- 

 respect, as he certainly would have lost 

 pride in his country. It is not, there- 

 fore, a question whether the islands will 

 pay us or not, for no one should stop to 

 consider whether it will pay him to do 

 what is right. 



But I think they will pay us in more 

 ways than one, and in one way at least 

 they are pa}dng us already — that is, as 



just suggested, in self-respect and in 

 national pride. We have unhesitatingly 

 assumed our duties and are fulfilling 

 them. We have reduced the people to 

 order, and have put them under civil 

 government. In our colonial adminis- 

 tration we have accepted the best of the 

 English methods — and they are far the 

 best heretofore in use — and have im- 

 proved upon them from the start in 

 many ways ; first of all, by giving this 

 people as great a measure of self-govern- 

 ment as they can carry on. Thus far our 

 colonial administration, although our 

 first attempt, and therefore somewhat 

 experimental, has proven eminently 

 successful, and it increases one's pride 

 in his citizenship to note the manner in 

 which we are carrying out this some- 

 what difficult work. 



Even in the matter of dollars and 

 cents it is probable that the islands will 

 ultimately pay us ; not that this is a 

 matter of importance, for when a ques- 

 tion of duty is involved, a great nation 

 like ours can not afford to debate cost 

 or profit, even if it be millions or hun- 

 dreds of millions of dollars. When we 

 see our people rapidly obtaining control 

 of the commerce of the Pacific and find 

 our government paper money, mere 

 promises to pay, received as readily as 

 gold in the Far East, in China, and in 

 Japan, we can realize what our advent 

 in the Philippines has done already and 

 what it is leading to. Because of our 

 possession of the Philippines we shall 

 become the dominant power of the Pa- 

 cific, both politically and commercially. 



Japan and Korea, with the surrounding 

 seas and the adjacent coastal region of 

 China, is the subject of a large chart, 

 26x48 inches, just published by the 

 U. S. Hydrographic Office. The chart 

 gives the depths of water along the 

 coasts and is a useful supplement to the 



land map published by the War Depart- 

 ment and issued as a supplement to this 

 number of the National Geographic 

 Magazine. The chart may be pur- 

 chased by sending forty cents to the 

 U. S. Hydrographic Office, Washing- 

 ton, D. C. 



