ary and commercial advantages of our position at the doorway of the
East, our duty to protect lives and property imperilled by the
insurgents, and our manifest destiny to lift up the Filipino races, were
dwelt upon. The argument having chief weight with most was that there
seemed no clear avenue by which we could escape the policy of American
occupation save the dishonorable and humiliating one of leaving the
islands to their fate--anarchy and intestine feuds at once, conquest by
Japan, Germany, or Spain herself a little later.

All demanded that abuses in connection with our rule should be punished
and the repetition of such made impossible, and that whatever power we
exercised should be lodged, without regard to party, in the hands of men
of approved fitness and high and humane character. American tutelage, if
it were to exist, must present to our wards the best and not the worst
side of our civilization, and do so with tact and sympathy.

[Illustration]
The Inauguration of Governor Taft, Manila, July 4. 1901.

On April 17, 1900, William H. Taft, of Ohio; Dean C. Worcester, of
Michigan; Luke E. Wright, of Tennessee; Henry C. Ide, of Vermont; and
Bernard Moses, of California, were commissioned to organize civil
government in the archipelago. Three native members were subsequently
added to the commission. Municipal governments were to receive attention
first, then governments over larger units. Local self-government was to
prevail as far as possible. Pending the erection of a central
legislature, the commission was invested with extensive legislative
powers. Civil government was actually inaugurated July 4, 1901. Judge
Taft was the first civil governor, General Adna R. Chaffee military
governor under him.

Educational work in the Philippines was pressed from the very beginning
of American control. Our military authorities reopened the Manila
schools, making attendance compulsory. In a short time the number of
schools in the archipelago doubled. By September, 1901, the commission
had passed a general school law, and had placed the schools throughout
the archipelago under systematic organization and able headship. About
1,000 earnest and capable men and women went out from the States to
teach Filipino youth. Five hundred towns received one or more American
teachers each. Associated with them there were in the islands some 2,500
Filipino teachers, mostly doing primary work.

[Illustration]
Group of American Tea