in the Philippines we must go further. We must hold steadily in view
their ultimate independence, and we must move toward the time of that
independence as steadily as the way can be cleared and the foundations
thoughtfully and permanently laid.

Acting under the authority conferred upon the President by Congress, I
have already accorded the people of the islands a majority in both
houses of their legislative body by appointing five instead of four
native citizens to the membership of the commission. I believe that in
this way we shall make proof of their capacity in counsel and their
sense of responsibility in the exercise of political power, and that the
success of this step will be sure to clear our view for the steps which
are to follow. Step by step we should extend and perfect the system of
self-government in the islands, making test of them and modifying them
as experience discloses their successes and their failures; that we
should more and more put under the control of the native citizens of the
archipelago the essential instruments of their life, their local
instrumentalities of government, their schools, all the common interests
of their communities, and so by counsel and experience set up a
government which all the world will see to be suitable to a people whose
affairs are under their own control. At last, I hope and believe, we are
beginning to gain the confidence of the Filipino peoples. By their
counsel and experience, rather than by our own, we shall learn how best
to serve them and how soon it will be possible and wise to withdraw our
supervision. Let us once find the path and set out with firm and
confident tread upon it and we shall not wander from it or linger upon
it.

A duty faces us with regard to Alaska which seems to me very pressing
and very imperative; perhaps I should say a double duty, for it concerns
both the political and the material development of the Territory. The
people of Alaska should be given the full Territorial form of
government, and Alaska, as a storehouse, should be unlocked. One key to
it is a system of railways. These the Government should itself build and
administer, and the ports and terminals it should itself control in the
interest of all who wish to use them for the service and development of
the country and its people.

But the construction of railways is only the first step; is only
thrusting in the key to the storehouse and throwing back the lock and
opening the d