TEN YEARS IN THE PHILIPPINES 



The following article has been abstracted from the report of the Secretary of 

 War, Hon. William H. Taft, on his recent trip to the Philippines and the opening 

 of the Philippine National Assembly. The report contains a review of what the 

 United States have done in the Philippine Islands since our acquisition of them 

 nearly ten years ago. The Americans are driving Asiatic cholera, bubonic plague, 

 and smallpox, which formerly caused thousands and thousands of deaths annually, 

 out of the Philippine Islands as thoroughly as they have freed Panama from 

 yellow fever. President Roosevelt, in transmitting the report to Congress, could 

 rightly say: 



"No great civilised pozver has ever managed with such wisdom and disinter- 

 estedness the affairs of a people committed by the accident of war to its 

 hands. . . . Save only our attitude tozvard Cuba, I question whether there 

 is a brighter page in the annals of international dealing between the strong and 

 the zveak than the page zvhich tells of our doings in the Philippines." 



PEACE prevails throughout the 

 Philippines today in a greater 

 degree than ever in the history 

 of the islands, either under Spanish or 

 American rule, and agriculture is no- 

 where now impeded by the fear on 

 the part of the farmer of the incursion 

 of predatory bands. A community con- 

 sisting of 7,000,000 people, inhabiting 

 300 different islands, many of whom were 

 in open rebellion against the government 

 of the United States for four years, with 

 all the disturbances following from rob- 

 ber and predatory bands which broke out 

 from time to time, due to local causes, 

 has been brought to a state of profound 

 peace and tranquillity in which the people 

 as a whole are loyally supporting the 

 government in the maintenance of order. 

 This is the first and possibly the most im- 

 portant accomplishment of the United 

 States in the Philippines. 



Our national policy is to govern the 

 Philippine Islands for the benefit and 

 welfare and uplifting of the people of the 

 islands and gradually to extend to them, 

 as they shall show themselves fit to exer- 

 cise it, a greater and greater measure of 

 popular self-government. One of the 

 corollaries to this proposition is that the 

 United States in its government of the 

 islands will use every effort to increase 

 the capacity of the Filipinos to exercise 

 political power, both by general education 

 of the densely ignorant masses and by 

 actual practice, in partial self-govern- 

 ment, of those whose political capacity 

 is such that practice can benefit it with- 

 out too great injury to the efficiency of 

 government. What should be empha- 



sized in the statement of our national pol- 

 icy is that we wish to prepare the Fili- 

 pinos for popular self-government. 



THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY IS DEVISED TO 

 TRAIN THE EDUCATED CLASSES IN SELE- 

 GOVERNMENT WHILE THE IGNORANT 

 MASSES ARE BEING EDUCATED 



The organization of the National As- 

 sembly is one of the great steps in the 

 education of the Filipino people for com- 

 plete self-government. 



I do not for a moment guarantee that 

 there will not at times be radical action 

 by the Assembly, which cannot meet the 

 approval of those who understand the 

 legislative needs of the islands, but all I 

 wish to say is that the organization and 

 beginning of the life of the Assembly 

 have disappointed its would-be critics 

 and have given great encouragement to 

 those who were responsible for its exten- 

 sion of political power. 



The Assembly has shown a most 

 earnest desire, and its leaders have ex- 

 pressed with the utmost emphasis their 

 intention, to labor for the material pros- 

 perity of the Philippines and to encour- 

 age the coming of capital and the de- 

 velopment of the various plans for the 

 improvement of the agriculture and busi- 

 ness of the islands which have com- 

 mended themselves to those in the past 

 responsible for the government ther'e. 

 In other words, thus far the Assembly 

 has not manifested in any way that ob- 

 structive character which those who have 

 prophesied its failure expected to see. 



In arguing that the Philippines are en- 

 tirely fit for self-government now, a com- 



