"V.
'A
The Commoner.
VOLUME 4, NUMBER 22,
14
--W
t.or"!
i-
Taft a Biased Judge
4i!ny ft htimblo citlzon add his word
to the discussion between the secretary
,o war and those who aro asking tho
coming presidential conventions to put
Jplanlcs promising ovontual indopen-
1 donee to tho Filipinos into their plat
forms? Secrotary Taft thinks tha, any
such promiso will unsettle tho Fili
pino mind, now in a fair way of being
"educated" politically. It will start
all tho native politicians to intrigu
ing for position In anticipation of tho
promised day, and it that day bo less
than a hundred years off, Mr. Taft
thinks It will find tho nativos still un
trained, still unfit, and prove to bo
moro of a calamity than a blessing to
them. '"
Now, I yield to no one in esteem for
Secrotary Taft, whom I believe to bo
ono of tho finest characters now in
public Hfo anywhere Tho candor of
his speeches on this question wins my
cspocial admiration. Unlike tho slm
plo, brazen official utterances to which
wo havo grown accustomed in Fili
pino affairs, what ho says is really in
structive. Assuming that wo aro some
thing moro than partisan roottrs, to
whom ho must supply phrases, he
seeks to persuade our intellects by tho
vory reasons which porsuado his own,
and ho conceals no facts. It would
greatly ralso tho tono of political dis
cussion everywhere if his example
could be followed.
k On all these accounts, and because J
110 has boon there, and knows tho
places where tho shoo pinches, Mr.
Taft's prestige is naturally enormous.
His knowledgo is concroto and solid,
men say, while that of tho bishops and
college presidents who havo signed
tho petition for Independence Is vague
and romoto. It would bo no wonder
if at tho conventions his advlco should
carry tho day against all tho voices
that urgo an independence plank. "In
thc very nature of things," the dele
gates who think, "his opinion must bo
wiser than that of all these people at
this distance."
I wish now to give some reasons
why tho opinion of a man who has
played Governor Taft's position in the
islands does not deserve to carry this
pre-eminent authority, and why the
remoter view of lpng-range judges
may well on tho whole bo wiser. I
bellovo that his close persona) rela
tions to the struggle, so far from
strengthening the prestige of any gen
eral views of policy which ho may ut
ter, ought, on tho contrary, to be al
lowed for and discounted. It seems
to me emphatically a case for apply
ing tho "personal equation."
Secretary Taft Is himself the cre
ator of tho present regimo in tho
Philippines. Ho was sent there to re
pair the work of mere destruction
which President McKinley's adminis
tration had with such a light heart or
iginally blundered Into, and to turn,
If possible, a purely military conquest
Into a genuine assimilation. Ho ac
cepted tho mission in good faith, and
organized a government, of which the
sole animating principle is the perma
nent welfare of the natives as we are
able to conceive that welfare. Ho
started this work under Incredible dif
ficulties, in tho 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 inef
ficient and suspicious when not active
ly treacherous, and with no help save
that of his few official coadjutors and
of his conscience. The hard begin
nings of the task are over, and the In
fant administration toddles on two
legs successfully. Evolution on the
lines attempted seems possible; ono
by one tho later features of the pro
gram may bo realized.
Is it humanly conceivable that tho
creator of such an unfinished state of
things should willingly suffer its evo
lution to be interrupted? It is tho child
of his loins and he must Insist upon
its growing to maturity. The good of
tho islands, as he is able to imagine it,
is identified with that program exclu
sively. Other good, as other people
may imagine it, is not that good, is
but that good's destruction. Secretary
Taft is in the very nature of the case
bound, even though there were a flag
rantly better possible alternative to
remain a passionate advocate of the
system of which he is himself the au
thor. He is morally unablo to be an
impartial witness.
As regards the system's prosperous
evolution, his hopefulness ought also
to be taken with a large discount by
tlie American delegate and voter. The
governor general of an Oriental de
pendency cannot possibly see into the
full rottenness of a situation, if it
be really rotten. The information he
goes by is certain to be accommodated
and predigested for his reception.
Hardly a native meets him sincerely;
and his official family, laboring under
identical drawbacks, cannot restore
the balance to his sense of reality.
Mr. Taft, in short, is too close to the
Philippine job to estimate its general
historical bearings. These general
bearings are, It seems to me, probably
more justly apprehended by such edu
cated men at home as those who havo
signed the petition to the conventions.
To myself, as one of the signers, the
great historical objection to Secretary
Taft's scheme is that it Is so desperate
ly Utopian. "The Philippines for the
Filipino" is an admirable watc'aword,
but that it actually should be a watch-,
word reveals the whole priggishness
and spuriousness of the situation,
to remind us conquerors of our duty.
Countries that really are for their in
habitants have no such watchwords"
the fact that they are for them is ob
vious. The watchword in this case ia
We aro to "give" the Filipino true lib
erty Instead of the false liberty he as
pires to; we aro to reveal his better
self to him, to be his savior against
his own weakness.
The officials entrusted with the car
rying out of sucli a policy ought to bo
the offspring of a marriage between
angels and steam engines. Thoy
oughtj at least, to be an apostolic suc
cession of missionaries. -Secretary
Taft himself and a few of his col
leagues have the best missionary spir
it. But tho frankness with which he
admits his moral isolation is pathetic.
If the natives are ever to do tho Amer
ican character justice, lie thinks, the
Americans who go to tho Philippines
must, first of all, change their charac
ter and manners. Even the teachers,
if reports can be trusted, have become
rowdies, and scores of them deserve
to be deported, .
Mr. Taft says: ".Give us a hundred
years and we may outgrow these diffi
culties. Let the question of indepen
dence then be broached, if need be, but
not sooner. But is this anything but
the enthusiasm of an initiator over his
own work, and 'does not all history
speak loudly against it? Is it likely
that a succession of Tafts can be pro
vided? And if we turn from official
life to private life, can the leopard
cnango his spots, or tne Anglo-Saxon
his unsociability? And can Americans
of the sort that go to try, their for
tunes in the tropics ever be expected
to succeed in the role of sympathetic
friends and helpful eider brothers?
The trouble is that every step in the
success of the Taft program will breed
new kinds of trouble. Suppose tho
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
m ill
v A
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