William James

“ The trouble is that every step in the success of the Taft programme will breed new kinds of trouble. Suppose the Filipinos take all the education we give them—that will only make them the more frantic for independence—it is the "educated" natives of India who are the really troublesome enemies of British rule there, and if independence is out of reach, there will be endless agitation for statehood, as even now in Puerto Rico it is beginning.
It is impossible seriously to believe that a hundred years or two hundred years will be different from twenty. ”

“ History shows that no force endures like hatred of the alien ruler. The Filipinos had it when we arrived there, and they have national ideals which no yellow race except the Japanese have ever possessed. We have immensely deepened this side of their nature, enriching their history with imperishable legends and traditions and with a procession of heroes and martyrs. Two hundred years will alter this no more than twenty.
Secretary Taft is too good a liberal to say the word "never" when independence is suggested. ”

“ If after twenty years or so we let the Filipinos part in peace, it is likely that some American commandments will be broken. But the situation will have this much of good about it, that it will then have become endogenous and spontaneous. It will express native ideals, and natives will be able to understand it. Continuity is essential to healthy growth. Let the Filipino leaders try their own system—no people learns to live except by trying. We can easily protect them against foreign interference ”

“ Is it humanly conceivable that the creator of such an unfinished state of things should willingly suffer its evolution to be interrupted? It is the child of his loins and he must insist upon its growing to maturity. ”

“ And if we turn from official life to private life, can the leopard change his spots or the Anglo-Saxon his unsociability? And can Americans of the sort that go to try their fortunes in the tropics ever be expected to succeed in the role of sympathetic friends and helpful elder brothers? ”

“ He started this work under incredible difficulties, in the midst of war, with American army opinion dead against him, with all the riff-raff of American exploiters and editors in Manila down upon him, with native support inefficient and suspicious when not actively treacherous, and with no help save that of his few official coadjutors and of his conscience. The hard beginnings of the task are over and the infant administration toddles on two legs successfully. Evolution on the lines attempted seems possible ”

“ May a humble citizen add his word to the discussion between the secretary of war and those who are asking the coming presidential conventions to put planks promising eventual independence to the Filipinos into their platforms? Secretary Taft thinks that any such promise will unsettle the Filipino mind, now in a fair way of being "educated" politically. It will start all the native politicians to intriguing for position in anticipation of the promised day, and if that day be less than a hundred years off, Mr. ”

“ It is then that we have to kill thousands in order to avert the killing of tens or hundreds by one another. It is then that the boss-ruled Yankee finds the sacred duty laid upon him of preserving alien races from being exploited by their own politicians. ”

“ Let things drift along as they are indefinitely." Does he forget that it was through the McKinley policy of drift that we lost our hold on the original situation? Benevolent drifting can hardly be much more satisfactory than crafty drifting. ”