Dean C. Worcester

“ There is profound truth in Sir Henry Maine’s remark that the men who colonized America and made its governments, to the admiration of the world, could never have thus masterfully taken charge of their own affairs and combined stability with liberty in the process of absolute self-government if they had not sprung of a race habituated to submit to law and authority, if their fathers had not been subjects of kings, if the stock of which they came had not served the long apprenticeship of political childhood during which law was law without choice of their own. ”

“ Is it not so, that though no existing military power, East or West, would fight America in order to secure possession of the Philippines, there are at least two nations which would seize the first opportunity for interference if American sovereignty ceased? Can America afford to protect a government halfway round the world, which she does not actually and constructively control? ”

“ It has been said that the civilization of a people may be measured by its forest practice, and in a sense this is true, for forestry as we know it to-day, and as the leading nations of Europe have known it for a long period, means the limiting of immediate gain in the hope of future reward, direct and indirect; in fact, it means present-day sacrifice for the sake of an unborn posterity. A wise national forest policy therefore involves not only foresight, but statesmanship and patriotism, which in their most advanced degree are to be found only among the people of the most enlightened nations. ”

“ The way to stimulate healthful development of the Filipinos is to let the apples hang high and make them climb for them, not to tell them to hold their hats and shake the tree.
This policy of setting right standards has already been very successfully pursued in the education of Filipino doctors, Filipino nurses, Filipino surveyors, Filipino printers and Filipino teachers.
A Filipino should never be appointed to public office merely because he is a Filipino, the clamour of politicians to the contrary notwithstanding. He should be appointed only if, and because, he is fit. ”

“ The blood of these men cries out against those who would deceive the American people into believing that the Filipinos were ever united in loyalty toward the Filipino Republic or the leaders who made murder a governmental agency in the Philippine Islands.
Most of the men who wrote the orders and perpetrated the acts which I have cited are alive and active to-day. Were independence granted, they would rule again the country that they ruled before. Is there any reason for believing that their warped intelligences have straightened, or their hard hearts softened? ”

“ The Filipinos dislike and despise the non-Christians. They take advantage of their ignorance and helplessness to rob or cheat them of the fruits of their labour, and often hold them as slaves or peons. The non-Christians in turn hate them, and the more warlike wild tribes do not hesitate to take vengeance on them when opportunity offers. The Filipinos as a whole are afraid of the Moros, and with good reason. The Moros frankly assert that if a Filipino government were established, they would resume their long-abandoned conquest of the archipelago, and this they would certainly do. ”

“ One may tire for the moment of catching fish, but with a glass-bottomed boat at his disposal he will never tire of looking at them as he floats over the wonderful coral reefs for which the archipelago is famous. Certainly there are no “sea gardens” anywhere which can excel those of the Philippines. The powerful tropical sun penetrates the marvellously clear sea water to a great depth, revealing marine animal and plant life in endlessly varied and marvellously beautiful forms which beggar description. ”

“ Conspicuous efficiency in good government has furnished a target for its denunciation. Truth has been garbled, motives maligned, race hatred kindled, falsehood fabricated and sedition practised, encouraged and lauded. The public school system, the intrinsic foundation to free institutions, instituted under the military régime and constantly expanded under the civil régime, has been interpreted by the native press as a pernicious effort to oppress the masses by the enforcement of a foreign language upon them. ”

“ It appears to me that it would be a measure of quixotry beyond the most altruistic administration, to stand sponsor for the order of an experimental government of more than doubtful stability ten thousand miles from our coasts. When the Philippines achieve independence they must swallow the bitter with the sweet, and accept the perils as well as the joys of walking alone. There are national risks involved even in a limited protectorate to which I trust America will never expose herself. ”

“ When cholera and plague have claimed their hundreds daily, efforts at prevention have persistently met with opposition from the native press. Officials with the most unselfish motives have been persistently insulted, slandered and maligned. The American flag, which is the only emblem giving assurance of safety in the home, peace from abroad, liberty of opportunity, and equality and justice before the law, has been constantly smeared with the opprobrium of a malignant, filthy native press. Progress of the Philippine people as a whole is retarded. ”

“ At many of the cañaos we have athletic contests, which the wild men, with their splendid physical development, greatly enjoy. It is much better for two hostile towns to settle their differences by a tug-of-war, or a wrestling match, than by fighting over them, and they are now often quite willing to adopt these more pacific means provided the audience is sufficiently large and enthusiastic, for the average wild man has a very human love of playing to the gallery. He takes to the athletic contests of the American like a duck to the water, and soon learns to excel in them. ”

“ Practically every important policy of the government has been viciously attacked, and the worst of it is that the people primarily responsible for this are not honest, or misled. They know perfectly well what they are doing and why they are doing it. They embitter that portion of the common people who are reached by newspapers at all, and doubtless many of their dupes really believe that the established government is a rotten farce, and that its highest officials are steeped in iniquity. ”

“ The educational policy which the United States has adopted in dealing with the Filipinos is without a parallel in history. I am glad to have assisted in its inauguration, and I am proud of its results, which will make themselves felt more and more as the years go by. Even now English is far more widely spoken in the Philippine Islands than Spanish ever was, and this is a boon the magnitude of which cannot be appreciated by those who have not had brought home to them by experience the disadvantages incident to the existence of very numerous dialects among the inhabitants of one country. ”

“ Can they not grasp the fact that the influx of Americans and American capital sounds the death knell of slavery and peonage? It was Americans whose testimony enabled me to prove to the world the existence in the Philippines of these twin evils, and to bring pressure to bear which resulted in prohibitive legislation. It is Americans who are helping the poor Filipinos to become owners of land. It is Americans who are encouraging them to take contracts for cultivating cane, so that they have a direct interest in the crop. ”

“ It would have been within the choice of John to summon his barons to Runnymede and of his own initiative enter into a constitutional understanding with them; and it is within our choice to do a similar thing, at once wise and generous, in the government of the Philippine Islands. But we cannot give them self-government. Self-government is not a thing that can be ‘given’ to any people, because it is a form of character and not a form of constitution. No people can be ‘given’ the self-control of maturity. ”

“ By this pathway mankind is to travel, whithersoever it leads. Upon the success of this, our great undertaking, the hope of humanity depends.”
If what is needed to make a just and stable government possible is “an entity that knows how to obey, the popular masses” and an entity that thinks it “knows how to govern, the directing class,” then we might leave the islands at once, if willing to leave the wild tribes to their fate, but we have work to do before the civilization of the Filipinos can safely be intrusted to “the capacity of the popular mass to govern.” ”

“ We are giving the Filipinos a fair chance to develop every latent ability which they possess. In the very nature of the case, their future lies, and must lie, wholly with them. There is no royal road to real independence, much less is there any short cut. Our Filipino wards must tread the same long, weary path that has been trodden by every nation that has heretofore attained to good government. ”

“ There were always a dozen men on the pole, and whenever one set of carriers grew weary there was a scramble, closely approaching a fight, to determine who should be allowed next to take their places.
These jolly people constantly gave a peculiar shout which was ridiculously like an American college cheer. Ill as I was, I almost enjoyed the trip, and conceived a great liking for the splendidly developed men who were seeing me through in such gallant style. Had it not been for their kindness, I should certainly have left my bones somewhere between Mayoyao and Banaue. ”

“ The United States striving earnestly for the welfare and advancement of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands, there can be no real conflict between American sovereignty and the rights and liberties of the Philippine people. For, just as the United States stands ready to furnish armies, navies and all the infinite resources of a great and powerful nation to maintain and support its rightful supremacy over the Philippine Islands, so it is even more solicitous to spread peace and happiness among the Philippine people ”

“ Gratitude does not enter into the make-up of the average Filipino politician, and we must learn not to expect it. We must do what ought to be done because it ought to be done, and not look for appreciation to a small but very noisy body of men who curse us for standing between them and their prey, as we have stood from the day when Dewey first forbade Aguinaldo to steal cattle until now. ”

“ With all of our resources we have not as yet been able to establish a decent state of public order in the little island of Jolo. No serious minded person, familiar with the facts, with whom I have ever talked, believes for a moment that the Filipinos could establish an effective government over the Moros, or could keep them at home. They are wonderful boatmen and when once at sea in the little crafts of their own building are liable to strike the coast of the Philippine Islands at any point. ”

“ Upon all officers and employees of the United States, both civil and military, should be impressed a sense of the duty to observe not merely the material but the personal and social rights of the people of the islands, and to treat them with the same courtesy and respect for their personal dignity which the people of the United States are accustomed to require from each other. ”

“ I beg my fellow-countrymen to remember that the non-Christians of the Philippines constitute an eighth of the population; that the work undertaken for their physical, mental and moral advancement has succeeded far beyond the hopes of those who initiated it; that its [675] results would go down like a house of cards if American control were prematurely withdrawn. Shall the men who have devoted their lives to these things be forced to watch them broken, and then be denied the poor privilege of building them up again? ”

“ Having in my earlier days spent some four years in collecting natural history specimens in the islands I did not need to be enlightened as to the pleasure which might be had in hunting ducks, snipe, shore birds, jungle fowl, and wild pigeons; nor as to those afforded to the hunter of large game by bringing down wild carabaos, hogs, and deer, bagging an occasional man-eating crocodile, or trying to outwit the wily tamarau of Mindoro, which is one of the most difficult of all forest-inhabiting ruminants to track down and kill, and has an uncomfortable habit of hunting the hunter when molested ”

“ Through the school system we are generalizing the use of the English language which is to-day, after a decade and a half of American rule, spoken far more generally than Spanish was after it had been the official language of the country for three and a half centuries. In this way we are overcoming the very grave obstacle in the way of welding the numerous peoples of the Philippines into one which is presented by their lack of a common medium of communication. ”

“ The people of these three tribes, and the Ilongots, and the wild Tingians of Apayao, were fierce, war-like, unsubdued head-hunting savages at the time of the American occupation.
Friendly as is our present relationship with the former head-hunters of Luzón, and excellent as is now the condition of public order in their territory, we still often have the fact brought home to us that the blood-lust of these sturdy and brave fighters is only dormant. A steady hand must be held on them for many a year to come. ”