l qualities
without which the institutions of free government are but an empty
mockery. Our people are now successfully governing themselves, because
for more than a thousand years they have been slowly fitting themselves,
sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, toward this end. What
has taken us thirty generations to achieve, we cannot expect to see
another race accomplish out of hand, especially when large portions
of that race start very far behind the point which our ancestors had
reached even thirty generations ago. In dealing with the Philippine
people we must show both patience and strength, forbearance and
steadfast resolution. Our aim is high. We do not desire to do for the
islanders merely what has elsewhere been done for tropic peoples by even
the best foreign governments. We hope to do for them what has never
before been done for any people of the tropics--to make them fit for
self-government after the fashion of the really free nations.

History may safely be challenged to show a single instance in which a
masterful race such as ours, having been forced by the exigencies of war
to take possession of an alien land, has behaved to its inhabitants with
the disinterested zeal for their progress that our people have shown in
the Philippines. To leave the islands at this time would mean that they
would fall into a welter of murderous anarchy. Such desertion of duty on
our part would be a crime against humanity. The character of Governor
Taft and of his associates and subordinates is a proof, if such be
needed, of the sincerity of our effort to give the islanders a
constantly increasing measure of self-government, exactly as fast as
they show themselves fit to exercise it. Since the civil government was
established not an appointment has been made in the islands with any
reference to considerations of political influence, or to aught else
save the fitness of the man and the needs of the service.

In our anxiety for the welfare and progress of the Philippines, it may
be that here and there we have gone too rapidly in giving them local
self-government. It is on this side that our error, if any, has been
committed. No competent observer, sincerely desirous of finding out the
facts and influenced only by a desire for the welfare of the natives,
can assert that we have not gone far enough. We have gone to the very
verge of safety in hastening the process. To have taken a single step
farther or faster in advanc