el of the Philippines Commission and of the
Administration of the country. Many American officials were replaced by
Filipinos, but the separatist agitation in the islands was not much
allayed by the extension of self-government. In October, 1914, the
Jones Bill, which practically promised independence "as soon as a
stable government shall have been established," was passed by the House
of Representatives, but Republican opposition was strengthened by those
who remembered Bryan's anti-imperialism in 1900 and by the supporters
of a strong policy in the Pacific. This issue, like others of the early
period, came back into greater prominence in the last years of the
second Wilson Administration, when war issues were temporarily disposed
of.

A specially conciliatory policy toward Latin America was one of the
chief characteristics of the early period of the Administration. At the
Southern Commercial Congress in Mobile, on October 27, 1913, the
President declared that "the United States will never seek one
additional foot of territory by conquest;" a statement which was
understood in direct relation to the demand for intervention in Mexico,
and which had a very considerable effect on public sentiment in Central
and South America. The passing of "dollar diplomacy," too, was
generally satisfactory to Latin America, and, though Mr. Bryan's
inexperienced diplomats made a good many blunders and could not help,
as a rule, being compared unfavorably with the professionals who had
held the Latin-American posts in the previous Administration, the
general policy of Wilson created much more confidence in the other two
Americas than did the spasmodic aggressiveness of Roosevelt or the
commercialized diplomacy of Taft.

One specific attempt was made to heal a sore spot left by Roosevelt in
relations with Latin America by the new Administration. Negotiations
with Colombia to clear up the strained situation left by the revolution
in Panama had been under way in the Taft Administration, but had come
to nothing. Under Wilson they were resumed, and on April 7, 1914, a
treaty was signed by which the United States was to pay to Colombia a
compensation of $25,000,000 for Colombian interests in the Isthmus. The
treaty further contained a declaration that the Government of the
United States expressed its "sincere regret for anything that may have
happened to disturb the relations" between the two countries, and this
suggestion of an apology for Ro