The substitution of white duck in the place of khaki and brass buttons as the dress of the American official in the Philippines may be said to characterize Governor Taft’s manner of quelling Filipino opposition and at the same time reconciling the McKinley representations with the actual state of affairs in the Islands. Therefore he proposed to establish Civil Government in order to pacify the natives and to assure the people at home that things were going along as they should. Of course, this policy was vehemently opposed by the military commanders whose real task was to combat the insurrection in some of the remaining islands. As late as October 8, 1901, for example, while the administration was publicly saying that the American representatives were getting along harmoniously, we find this significant telegram from Washington addressed to the commanding general in Manila,—

Chaffee, Manila.

I am deeply chagrined to use the mildest term possible over the trouble between you and Taft. I wish you to see him personally, and spare no effort to secure prompt and friendly agreement in regard to the differences between you. Have cabled him also. It is most unfortunate to have any action which produces friction and which may have a serious effect both in the Philippines and here at home. I trust implicity that you and Taft will come to agreement.

Signed: Theodore Roosevelt⁠[1].

These disagreements were the natural outcome of having two officials in the field—one who wanted civil government because he believed in it, and the other who said there was no place for civil government while several hundred thousand inhabitants were being herded together in reconcentration camps.

Now, the term “civil government” is most inviting. Although it does not necessarily imply a government by the consent of the governed, it at least distinctly negatives the idea of a government conducted by the military arm in a country of bleeding, prostrate and hostile people. To be able to tell the public at home, therefore, that there was civil government in the Philippines was to put everyone in good humour. What if General Bell and his army were searching every ravine and mountain side in Batangas province, a hundred miles or so from Manila, armed to the teeth and fully determined to kill “every able-bodied man in sight?” What care that General Smith was making Samar a “howling wilderness,” ordering his subordinates to “kill and burn,—the more you kill the better you will please me?” What matter that thousands were being herded together in reconcentration camps. Civil government it must be to please the public at home. All disorders in the Islands from that moment could be described as acts of mere banditti. Of course this vicious situation was not made known to the American people at that time, but six years later, when the true facts no longer affected the safety of the party in power, there came this blunt confession by the American Governor, General Smith. Said he in his inaugural address:

While the smoke of battle still hung over the hills and valleys of the Philippines, and every town and barrio in the Islands was hot with rebellion, she (the United States) replaced military with a civil régime and on the smouldering embers of insurrection planted civil government⁠[2].

We are naturally curious to learn what kind of government was thus being offered by Mr. Taft and what was the nature of the policy back of it. Under the new régime a civil governor in person of Governor Taft himself, took the place of the military commander. Though not wearing gilt braid like the other potentates in Asia he was absolute master of the central government, as will appear from the nature of his powers.

The legislative branch was composed of the so-called Philippine Commission. There were originally five members, all Americans, appointed by the President of the United States but drawing salaries in excess of that received by American cabinet officers, and like all the other expenses of the Government paid by the Filipino tax-payers. This constituted the central civil government. There were besides, of course, a host of subordinate officers in executive and judicial positions, Filipinos and Americans alike, the latter holding the best paid offices. But for all purposes of government, the Americans in the Commission, of which Mr. Taft, as Governor, was entitled to be one, ruled the destinies of the nation. They made laws and administered them; they appointed and removed; they were the “civil government.”

How absolute was the power residing in this body may be shown by an incident related by an American in the service of that government. One of the laws passed by the Commission in 1901 ⁠[3] had provided that an American, in order to qualify for a position in the Philippine judiciary should be more than thirty years of age, and should have the experience of a five years’ practice in American law courts. In 1903 President Roosevelt wished to give the Hon. Beekman Winthrop a position on the Philippine Bench. Winthrop, then a recent graduate of the Harvard Law School, was under thirty years of age. Judge Taft called his secretary, Mr. Ferguson, to acquaint him of this appointment. “Fergy,” he said, in his good natured manner, “make me out a commission for Beekman Winthrop as a judge of First Instance.”

“You can’t do it. Governor,” his secretary properly replied. “It’s against the law. He’s not old enough.”

“I can’t, eh?” said the Governor humorously. “I’ll show you. Send me a stenographer.”

The stenographer came and the Governor dictated a new law, striking out the thirty year old requirement from the old statute and inserting twenty-five in its place. In addition to the requirement that the appointee must have practiced law for a period of five years, another phrase was added, as follows: “or be a graduate of a reputable law school”⁠[4].

Secretary Ferguson was then summoned anew. The governor told him to get the rest of the members of the Commission. This was done immediately, and within a few minutes the new statute had been passed and made the law of the land.

“Now,” said Governor Taft good naturedly to the law-abiding Ferguson, “make out that commission”⁠[5].

Although Mr. Winthrop with his Harvard record did make a good judge, the incident is narrated merely to show how absolutely five Americans could make, publish and execute Philippine laws. Even the English despots on the mainland of Asia could not have exercised more despotic power.

So much for the framework of Governor Taft’s civil government. Now what did it aim to accomplish? In judging the Taft policy as announced by its founder it is well to remember always that the statements of facts and conditions and the nature of the people dealt with come from the lips of persons who are speaking in their own defense and who in most cases were possible candidates for higher offices in the future. Being mere men, they naturally tend to present their own side of the case. In this matter, the men from whom we expect the desired information, become advocates of the policy to be examined rather than impartial reporters.

Now all that these high colonial officials then said may have been true. Certainly, a majority of their countrymen believed their statements, because they said them. Suppose the declarations had been false,—the American people would have believed them just the same. It is natural that what American governors say concerning the Filipino will be accepted as gospel truth by their countrymen however little they may believe the assertions of their rulers at home. Past events in the history of this nation itself have always shown that although statements of presidents, governors and mayors in describing their own administration are severely criticized by those directly concerned, yet these same people will accept the statements of their officers abroad as gospel truth. Thus, after the Civil War what the carpet-bag officers said was considered true, while the criticism of eminent Southerners was considered as “rebel talk.” And so this much can also be said of the future—that no matter who the governor may be in the Philippines, the declaration of the American will be accepted in the United States rather than that of a Filipino. This is the insurmountable difficulty, for the side of the Filipino will, therefore, never be understood by Americans.

Let us, however, judge the Taft programme on its face as the founder himself and those who have since followed him characterize the policy.

In the first place, then, it is noticed that Mr. Taft’s programme was founded on one great assumption, namely, that the American people were and would continue to be unselfish in their attitude towards the Filipino, and hence that they could be trusted to keep men in office who would carry out this policy, no matter how absolute a power they might be able to wield from that position.

Thus, Governor Taft clearly stated his first position:

The people of the United States have under their guidance and control in the Philippines, an archipelago of 3000 islands, the population of which is about 7,600,000 souls. Of this 7,000,000 are Christians, 600,000 are Moros or other Pagan tribes⁠[6].

Now, up to Mr. Taft’s régime, there had never been any talk at all in official circles about the possibility of ever letting the Filipinos have their independence. No such idea had ever been suggested by President McKinley, the man most responsible for the acquisition of the Islands. True it was that he had spoken of giving the Filipinos “individual rights,” and perhaps some ultimate participation in their government, but that the complete withdrawal of American sovereignty should ever follow had not been considered by him.

But in 1901 the imperialist flame had burned itself out and America’s second thought had succeeded. Hence Judge Taft’s purpose to improve the people and prepare them for the hour of their liberation. Just when this independence was to be granted, however, no one could or would tell. Mr. Taft, however, offered the solution of this intricate problem and we may believe his purpose has not changed since.

To put it briefly, Judge Taft insisted then and insists even today, that upon the American people rests the duty of solving the Philippine problem, asserting also that they are capable of accomplishing the task when the time comes to decide upon it once and for all. In the meantime,—well, let Judge Taft himself speak:

As a friend of the Filipinos [he said] it is my anxious desire to enlarge that class of Americans who have a real interest in the welfare of the Islands, and who believe that the United States can have no higher duty or function than to assist the people of the Islands to prosperity and a political development which shall enable them to secure to themselves the enjoyment of civil liberty⁠[7].

All of this sounded well indeed, but note in the first place that “civil liberty” does not mean political liberty, far less independence. The method by which this new structure was to be achieved was also carefully stated by its founder.

“The first requisite of prosperity in the Islands,” he said, “is tranquillity, and this should be evidenced by a well-ordered government.”

How long this upbuilding would require, Judge Taft was not sure then, but this much he was willing to concede.

It may be that when the Filipinos have been transformed into a people capable of safely maintaining an independent self-government they will ask it, and then I have no doubt that it will be accorded them.

This promising remark, however, loses its value in the light of the language which followed it.

It may be however [added Judge Taft] and I think quite as likely that by that time the Filipinos will be so well satisfied with the good resulting from a union with the United States that they will prefer to maintain a relation like that which now binds Canada and Australia to Great Britain, and that the United States will then value its association with this pearl of the Oriental tropics. But whatever the ultimate decision it is certain that the time cannot arise for a considerable period, probably several generations.

Judge Taft thus advocated a policy of waiting several generations which means indefinitely, before the question could be decided. In the meantime he would oppose permitting the Filipinos to talk or ask for their freedom for, he said, “The Filipinos should learn the disadvantages that arise to everybody in the country from political agitation for a change in the form of government in the immediate future.”

During this wait of several generations, however, it is apparent from Judge Taft’s words that it was his hope that the United Sates would really learn to value its association with “this pearl of the Oriental tropics.”

It is estimated [he temptingly told the New York Chamber of Commerce] that not more than five million acres of land are owned by natives in the islands, and that remaining sixty-five million is owned by the government.

That is, the United States government. Now it so happened that soon after the acquisition of the Philippines, the American Congress had passed a law limiting the number of acres which a company might buy. This was intended to prevent a few Americans from monopolizing the land. This limitation in Judge Taft’s opinion was “much too low for the cultivation of sugar.” However, “there is a provision in the law,” added the Judge, “by which irrigation companies may own stock in land companies, so that probably the limitations may be evaded if private profit requires.” Curious that such a suggestion should have come from the highest officer of the land charged with the duty of enforcing the law.

Here then, was Judge Taft’s policy as he presented it in 1904, and as he would, no doubt, still present it today: The American people, a self-sacrificing and conscientious nation, having no object in view save the benefit of the Filipinos, should retain the absolute control of the Philippines indefinitely, or at least for several generations, meanwhile introducing education, sanitary improvements and other good things, all of which were to be paid for by the Filipinos. In due time the American people would decide, first—whether they had proved themselves fit for independence, and second, whether independence was good for them. The hope that the Filipinos themselves would in due time lose the desire for freedom was, of course, not to be abandoned. During this long period of several generations the Americans could and would in fact be invited to acquire larger and larger interests in the Islands while the Filipinos would be permitted such “civil liberties” as Congress might choose to grant them.

Finally, as if to support the wisdom of this policy and the reasonableness of giving the Filipinos such limited freedom, Judge Taft finally added: “To make the Declaration of Independence apply equally to the Filipinos as to the American colonists, is to be blind to the plainest facts and to sacrifice truth to an impossible dogma and a rhetorical phrase.”

Each of these proposals will now be taken up in order to show not only the fallacy of expecting to see the plan work out, but also to point out the viciousness underlying the policy which Judge Taft then believed to be right.

First, then, as to this “impossible dogma and rhetorical phrase” known as the Declaration of Independence. Did the framers of this document really mean it to apply only to the revolting colonists? Against Mr. Taft’s word we quote Abraham Lincoln’s estimate of that Declaration.

Its authors meant it to be [he said] as, thank God, it is now proving itself—a stumbling block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant that when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they would find at least one hard nut to crack.

But Governor Taft did try to crack this nut by confusing expansion with imperialism. He said,

Since the foundation of our government the people of the United States, that is the states as distinguished from the territories, have been engaged in governing other people. We did it in the case of Louisiana. We have done it in the case of every territory that was subsequently admitted to the United States.

finally adding that if this governing of other people who have no voice in the government is to violate the Declaration of Independence, then “we have been violating the Declaration of Independence for a hundred years.”

There is this to remember, however, in the cases with which Governor Taft sought to justify his action. The people of the United States beginning as a fringe of inhabitants on the edge of a continent adopted a Constitution to which they consented. This constitution gave to their Congress control over the unoccupied land not belonging to any state, and in the exercise of that power Congress adopted the policy of letting persons settle on this land and organize territorial government, and as the settlers became sufficiently numerous in any region, that region was admitted to statehood. To the establishment of this policy the people as a whole had consented beforehand, and every man who settled in that territory did so with knowledge of that policy. In the case of Louisiana, that huge tract of land was acquired by treaty and by purchase, whereby the United States bound itself to incorporate its inhabitants in the Union and to give them all the rights of American citizens.

Contrast this with the Philippine situation of 1904 when Governor Taft made these statements or even with the situation today. In those islands there were then some eight millions of people who had resisted American sovereignty until overcome by force of arms. United as a people in desiring their independence, Mr. Taft would refuse it to them because in the estimation of those who had conquered them they were not fit to govern themselves. Is it possible that so able a lawyer as Judge Taft failed to detect this difference between the American government of territories and the government of Filipinos against their will?

Still Mr. Taft seemed to be satisfied that it was enough to give the Filipinos “civil liberties.” This, he said, had been “secured to every man, woman and child among the Christian Filipinos,” these rights being equivalent to those “contained in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the United States except the right to bear arms and the right to be tried by jury.”

But was it true then, and is it true now, that such rights as the Filipinos were given were really equivalent to the Bill of Rights in the Constitution? They were not rights—they were mere privileges granted by an absolute foreign power resting on an Act of Congress which could be repealed at will. Was that freedom? A free man is one whose rights are his and cannot be taken away from him against his will. This was instead an absolute government, in name by the American people, and in fact by the President and his officers.

There are those, however, who might say that the course of events has since justified Judge Taft’s policy, and that creation of the Philippine Assembly in 1907 and the Senate in 1916, are convincing proofs of this gradual extension of liberty to the Filipinos. How much liberty these measures really meant will be taken up in the succeeding chapters. For the present—attention is focussed on Judge Taft’s policy alone.

Let us assume, therefore, that Judge Taft’s programme is faithfully carried out. The question remains who is to decide when the Filipinos are fit for independence? Certainly not the American residents in the Islands who, having invested their money there and having always regarded the Filipinos as inferiors would naturally exert their utmost influence to perpetuate American sovereignty. Governor Taft himself distrusted these Americans for, as he told the New York Chamber of Commerce,

The American merchants easily caught the feeling of hostility and contempt felt by many of the soldiers for the Filipinos, and were most emphatic in condemning the policy of the government in attempting to attract the Filipinos and make them so far as might be a part of the new order.

As for the organ of these American settlers which is so frequently heard in the United States, Judge Taft had this to say:

The American newspapers ... also took the tone of their advertisers and their subscribers and hence it is that the American community in the Philippines today is largely an anti-Filipino community, prone apparently in dealing with the natives to call them names, to make fun of them and to deride every effort toward their advancement and development.

Let the reader of today, therefore, read the reports of these papers and American residents with a grain of salt, for they are not disinterested and impartial judges.

Where, then, are we to find “the good sense and virtue of the American people,” which will in time adequately and faithfully decide the question? Can the Americans at home be entrusted with this task of deciding the destinies of several million Filipinos? It is submitted that they cannot do so, because nearly all, if not actually all the elements necessary for a real knowledge of the conditions existing in the islands or for the creation of genuine sympathy with the aspirations of the Filipinos, are sorely lacking in the hearts and minds of the American people.

First, as to a knowledge of the true conditions in the Islands. Well, we remember the censorship during the war. One cannot forget also that Governor Taft’s own testimony before the Senate Committee, when information was desired in 1902, gave no idea of the true extent to which torture, destruction and reconcentration had been carried on in the attempt to conquer the Islands. Men are human the world over and whenever they speak of that which may reflect on their personal positions they will put the best face possible upon the matter so as to provoke the least hostile criticism. When these men speak, therefore, their administration as well as the whole policy of the political party in Washington which placed them in power is put on trial. Governor Taft himself, may have been above temptation in these matters, but would there be many like him?

This mental attitude on the part of the highest officials in the Islands and those most closely connected with them is largely substantiated by a confession made by an ex-official himself, the Hon. W. Morgan Shuster, a former member of the Philippine Commission. Writing in 1914 in the January issue of the Century Magazine, he said:

The records of our congressional committee and of the War Department are filled with reports, speeches, letters, testimony and statistics going to show what the party then in power wanted the American people to think about the Filipinos. If any one thought differently, he became at once, in official eyes, a dreamer, an anti-imperialist, or a demagogue. His opinions were taboo in high governmental circles, and he was deemed an unsafe man to hold important office. This was only natural and I recall it merely to show how the opinion of the American people on the question has really been formed.

Then followed this convincing statement:

The opinion of the ordinary American citizen as to the Filipinos is largely influenced by the statements or the pronouncements of the very few men in public life who have had, or were thought to have had, exceptional facilities for knowing the real facts and situation. Thus the views of ex-Presidents Roosevelt and Taft, of ex-Secretary of War Root, of Senator Lodge, of the different Philippine governors and members of the Philippine Commission and of the commanding generals who have served in the islands have been the real source of “American Public opinion.”

As a matter of fact [confessed Mr. Morgan Shuster] it is doubtful whether the views of any of these gentlemen were reached in a strictly impartial and judicial manner. With the possible exception of Mr. Taft, they took up the subject as I did, with a previously formed conviction that the facts were going to sustain the accepted government belief and policy, which were that the Filipinos were not fit to be, and should not of right be, independent, at least for a very long time to come. How long few ventured to predict. It is said that Mr. Taft when invited by President McKinley to go to Manila as head of the Civil Commission, stated that he was opposed to our holding the islands. That, however, was before he had been intimately connected with the administrative policies already adopted, which were based on the opposite belief.

How about the minor American officials? How would they report the progress of the Filipino for self-government? Does the question warrant an answer? Pray, how else than in the same characteristic manner in which their superior officers approached the problem? Indeed how could they be expected to do otherwise? On that side was their bread buttered! Time has shown that many of these men did not stop there, but have gone to the extent of deliberately misrepresenting conditions in the Islands. While on leave of absence at home or having permanently retired from Philippine service, these men have launched a propaganda from the speaking platform and the printed page wilfully slandering the natives whom they detest.

Granting, therefore, that Americans at home might conceivably wish to know the true facts upon which to base the exercise of their good sense and judgment, there are no means by which they can easily learn them. This is the unhappy result of the intolerable situation where one nation insists on governing another without that other’s consent. For outside of these official dispatches and perhaps a few other accounts by prolific writers of sensationalism and trash, whose main object is to secure a wide circulation for their volumes, nothing from the side of the Filipino can ever be forthcoming. The political retentionist sees to it that nothing is printed except official dispatches and perhaps an occasional report concerning Filipino incapacity. The case for the petitioner is “crowded out by the press of other matter,” that the conspiracy of silence may continue.

But the question which always remains is whether the American people will ever take an interest in the matter even if they do have reliable information. Are they not so immersed in their own affairs, so busy in their struggles to make money and so indifferent by reason of the great distance separating them that even the intelligent men have not and cannot give the necessary time to understand the Philippine situation? If the people of the greatest American cities accept corrupt and ignorant government which affects them directly rather than take the time and trouble necessary to improve it, what chance is there of their devoting time to the affairs of an alien people thousands of miles away?

The Filipinos can, therefore, only rely for justice upon the American officials governing them. Now against a foreign oppressor men rely on armies and navies, but against domestic tyranny they can only raise the shield of a constitution. This restraint on arbitrary power is the only protection of the individual against the government which rules him. Great as is an Anglo-Saxon’s confidence in his fellowmen, for example, he has employed in the past, and he is today employing this device to protect himself from being ridden by men of the same blood and color as himself. The unwritten English Constitution has grown up from the efforts of English subjects to restrain English kings. Americans have erected similar safeguards to prevent American Presidents, governors, judges and even legislatures from oppressing American citizens.

If a citizen of Massachusetts needs protection against his fellow citizens, if the American people dare not give their President and Congress a power unfettered by a constitution, is it not too clear for argument that the shield of a constitution is far more needed by the Filipinos to protect them from a government authorized by men who do not know them and only learn of them through the reports of others who present their side of the case most strongly and who openly regard the natives as their inferiors?

But there is even another safeguard lacking against which laws and even constitutions are ineffectual when the true liberties of a people are threatened. This is public opinion, the force which, more than anything else will restrain the rulers of every modern state. An enlightened public opinion, however, can exist only where the public is informed and when the public is interested. Neither of these conditions can be relied upon in America’s dealing with the absolute government of the Philippines. The absence of the former has already been treated in this and preceding chapters. Of the latter it can safely be said that popular indifference and lack of genuine interest have characterized the occupation of the Philippines ever since the establishment of civil government. Once the novelty of the conquest had worn away, it has been impossible to induce the American people to take more than a passing interest in the conduct of Philippine affairs. The complaints of the Filipinos fall upon the ears of men, who though supposed to judge them, know nothing of them and care little to learn about them. Say what you will of an American’s intelligence, of his energy and high purposes and fitness to govern himself, it is because he knows not and cares not what is done in the Philippines that he and his fellowmen are unfit to govern the islands.

But the Taft policy, however, proposed and it has in fact succeeded in its proposal, that these inferior natives with whom the great body of Americans would not care to associate, should be given only such measure of free government as unenlightened and unsympathetic Americans think them qualified to use, exercising in doing so a power unfettered by any constitution and unrestrained by any informed and interested public opinion.

Now it may be that in the future as in the past, a group of really disinterested Americans of high calibre will take a serious view of their duty and responsibility in the Islands—that is, the kind of duty and responsibility that the Taft programme calls for. Such an instance occurred shortly after the establishment of the Taft régime when several thousands of Americans signed a petition for Philippine independence. Governor Taft described these men as “a number of excellent and prominent gentlemen.”—and well he might. Could not these “excellent and prominent gentlemen” be trusted with the problem? Apparently not in Mr. Taft’s opinion, for he told the New York Chamber of Commerce at the time when the petition was presented that “the good people who signed the petition” should not “intermeddle with something the effect of which they are very little able to understand⁠[8].”

Who were these men whose ability to understand the Philippine situation Judge Taft so seriously questioned? The list included Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Farley, more than fifty bishops, more than sixty judges, a long list of college presidents and leading educators, such as Eliot of Harvard, Schurman of Cornell, himself not without experience in the Philippines, and ex-President Cleveland. There were also Andrew Carnegie, Charles Francis Adams, Wayne McVeagh and thousands of other respected and prominent men in private life. Here were the spiritual and the intellectual leaders of America. If they were “little able to understand,” to whom in the United States could the Filipinos look for leadership in their behalf? If these American leaders must not “intermeddle,” how can Judge Taft justify his “abiding confidence in the power of the American people to reach a right conclusion?”

If, therefore, the Americans in the Islands as well as the good and intelligent Americans at home cannot be trusted, no one is left, unless by “the good sense and judgment of the American people,” Mr. Taft really meant the President, the Secretary of War, and their appointees, who in the past have been indifferent to human rights and only too ready to seek commercial advantage.

It has been constantly urged, however, that this “benevolent despotism,” for that is what the Taft programme really meant then and now, was merely a step towards preparing the Filipinos for eventual independence. This argument is being used to this day, and will continue to be so used by all those who seek to hide the vicious character of their scheme. For this method of dealing with the problem unfits rather than prepares the Filipinos for independence.

The policy of Governor Taft, in the first place, creates a new race problem because his position rests entirely upon the assumption that the Filipinos, being unfit to govern themselves, should be governed by a race of superior people. Everything, therefore, that the American officials in the Philippines say about the fitness of the Filipino will be accepted as gospel truth by the great majority. They will never take the word of the Filipino against the word of the American. The side of the Filipino will, therefore, not only never be understood in this country but will suffer greatly as the years go by because the more stubbornly the Filipino asserts his fitness for self-government, the more vehemently will his caretakers in the Islands deny it.

The Taft policy moreover creates a far more serious obstacle to independence, for during this period of education paid for by the Filipino it calls for the investment of large amounts of American capital in the Islands hoping that in that manner the Americans will, as the years go by, learn to value truly “this pearl of the Oriental tropics.” Stripped of its sugar coating the Taft policy is to keep the Islands for generations and to plant there in the meantime American citizens and American capital. Now there is nothing clearer in the history of all nations than the inevitable alliance between financial and political power. Wherever capital goes it seeks to control the government in its own interest. If invested in a weak foreign state its owners seek to own the government of that state or, failing in this, exert their efforts to make the home government interfere and control it. This was the origin of the Boer War. This laid the basis for the Indian Empire, and like influences have inspired English, French, and German aggression in Asia and Africa.

Such also are the vicious results which the Taft programme insures. Every dollar of American capital implanted in those Islands becomes a rivet which binds them to the United States, and every American residing there learns to argue soon enough against Philippine independence. State it as you will, the Taft policy means indefinite retention maintained by the absolute power of the United States until the Filipinos become contented subjects. The “Philippines for the Filipinos,” degenerates into the “Philippines for the Americans,” with as much liberty to the Filipinos thrown in as is not inconsistent with American interests. Well did Senator Lodge say several years before, “We believe in trade expansion.”