UC-NRLF 
 
GIFT OF 
 

 THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 
 
 STATE OF NEW-YORK 
 
 APRIL 21st, 1904, 
 
 HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT, 
 
 Secretary of War. 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 1904. 
 
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 
 
 STATE OF NEW-YORK, 
 
 APRIL 21st, 19O4, 
 
 HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT. 
 
 Secretary of War. 
 
 NEW- YORK 
 19O4. 
 

 9fr 
 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Chamber of Commerce of New- York: 
 
 Your President, Mr. JESUP, has been good enough to invite 
 me to address you. I should have declined the invitation be- 
 cause of many other engagements, but for the opportunity 
 which it gives me to bring to the attention of the solid busi- 
 ness men of New-York the problem which we have on our 
 hands in the Philippines. 
 
 The people of the United States have under their guidance 
 and control in the Philippines an archipelago of 3,000 islands, 
 the population of which is about 7,600,000 souls. Of these, 
 7,000,000 are Christians and 600,000 are Moros or other Pagan 
 tribes. The problem of the government of the Moros is the 
 same as that which England has had in the government of the 
 Straits Settlements or India. The government of 7,000,000 
 Christian Filipinos is a very different problem, and one which 
 it has fallen to the lot of the United States only to solve. 
 
 The attitude of the American people toward the Philippine 
 Islands may be described as follows: There are those who 
 think that the Declaration of Independence forbids our accept- 
 ing or maintaining sovereignty over them ; there are those 
 who, without respect to the Declaration of Independence, be- 
 lieve that colonial possessions are likely to lead to expense 
 and corruption and demoralization, have little faith in the so- 
 lution of the problem by teaching the Filipino the art of self- 
 government, and are anxious to get rid of the Islands before 
 they have done any harm to the United States; then there are 
 those who hold that fate brought these Islands under our con- 
 trol, and that thus a duty was imposed upon us of seeing to it 
 that they were not injured by the transfer. As a friend of the 
 Hlipiiius, it is my anxious desire to enlarge that class of 
 Americans who have a real interest in the welfare of the Is- 
 lands and who believe that the United States can have no 
 higher duty or function than to assist the people of the Islands 
 
 380481 
 
to prosperity and a political development which shall enable 
 them to secure to themselves the enjoyment of civil liberty. 
 [Applause.] The war with Spain led us far from Cuba, whose 
 condition was its cause, to these beautiful Islands in the ori- 
 ental tropics. After DEWKV'S guns had brought the whole 
 Archipelago potentially within American control, there was no 
 escape from the dilemma which was then and thereafter pre- 
 sented to the people of the United States except the one which 
 they took. Three courses were suggested; first, that after 
 peace with Spain, we should turn the Islands back to her. But 
 in the legitimate course of the campaign, we had called to our 
 assistance as allies AGUINALDO and his forces, with whom the 
 people of the Islands were largely in sympathy. It would 
 have been a breach of faith on our part to have delivered them 
 over to Spain with the bloody conflict which would instantly 
 have followed. Could we have delivered the Islands over to 
 the Government of AGUINALDO? AGUINALDO'S Government 
 was a military dictatorship, having actual control and that 
 not always complete, in from eight or ten of forty provinces. 
 A convention had been called of AGUINALDO'S friends. A 
 large majority of the delegates had been directly appointed by 
 him. They formulated and adopted a Constitution as the basis 
 of a popular government. The constitution was mere paper. 
 It was taken from the Constitution of the United States, that 
 of Mexico and that of the Argentine Republic. It had no life, 
 for it was never at any time put in force. The actual govern- 
 ment was despotic and oppressive to even a greater degree 
 than the Spanish Government ever had been, and resistance to 
 its authority, caused by its dishonesty and oppressive meas- 
 ures in the provinces in which it had authority, was frequent 
 and disturbing. 
 
 The adoption of the constitution at Malalos was not indic- 
 ative of the then capacity of the people to maintain popular 
 self-government. It represented only an academic aspiration 
 by the drafters. The result was mere committee work, with- 
 out the slightest evidence of the practical o-perativeness of the 
 instrument from previous actual experience in government 
 by the people. The only real government which existed under 
 AGUINALDO was that of the one-man power, arbitrary and in- 
 considerate of the people. With these facts before the United 
 
States, I submit that there was no escape from the dilemma 
 except the acceptance of a transfer of the sovereignty of Spain 
 and the assumption of political control over the Filipino peo- 
 ple, until by proper measures and patient governmental train- 
 ing and experience they could be given self-governing ca- 
 pacity. 
 
 Concerning the objection that this is a new business for the 
 United States, which will have a demoralizing effect upon the 
 nation, I think no one is able to point out any injury which has 
 thus far resulted to the people of the United States except the 
 expense attendant upon the maintenance of law and order in 
 the Islands during the insurrection, and the regrettable loss of 
 life which occurred. Certainly no one thus far can show the 
 baleful effects of that dreadful spirit of greed which the oppo- 
 nents of the policy are so prone to see in everything done with 
 respect to the Philippines. I challenge them to point out in 
 anything which has been done to the Philippine Islands, either 
 immediately under the government there established, or by 
 the United States, which savors in the least of a selfish use of 
 those Islands for the benefit, either of the individuals in the 
 United States or of the Government itself. The only thing 
 which can be seriously made the basis of such a charge was 
 the attempt during the present session of Congress to put in 
 force the coastwise trading laws for the benefit of the shipping 
 of the United States in respect to the trans-oceanic trade be- 
 tween the Islands and the United States, and that by Act of 
 Congress has now been postponed for two years longer. 
 There has been a rebate provided of the export duty on hemp 
 imported directly from the Islands to the United States. This 
 has not affected injuriously the trade of the Islands, because 
 the demand for hemp is so great that the Islands have a mo- 
 nopoly in respect to it. There has unexpectedly been caused 
 by the rebate a reduction of the income in the Islands of about 
 $250,000, because the equivalent which was provided as a 
 counter benefit, to wit, the duties to be collected on imports 
 from the Islands into the United States, has not equalled the 
 aggregate rebate on the hemp. This, however, was a miscal- 
 culation by the legislators that was pardonable and can easily 
 be rectified. In every other respect the legislation which has 
 been enacted has been in favor of the Islands, including a gift 
 
\ 
 
 of three millions of dollars for the purpose of relieving distress 
 there. The attitude of those who support the Government in 
 its policy is altruistic. It is of one who out of a feeling- friend- 
 ly to the Filipinos would sacrifice much to accomplsh the pur- 
 poses of the Administration there. It is a feeling which does 
 the nation credit, and a feeling that a nation of the wealth and 
 power that this nation has, may well afford to encourage. 
 
 General denunciation of the Government's policy as one of 
 the suppression of freedom and an attack upon liberty has ren- 
 dered uneasy many of our people, but the charge is wholly un- 
 founded. There has been established in the islands a govern- 
 ment of law and order in which the administration of justice 
 is quite as good as it is in half the States of the Union. It has 
 secured to every man, woman and child among the Christian 
 Filipinos all the rights contained in the bill of rights in the 
 Constitution of the United States except the rght to bear 
 arms and the right to trial by jury. The right to bear arms is 
 one that might very well be restricted in the United States. 
 [Laughter and applause.] The freedom with which firearms 
 are sold, the unlicensed character of the business, will readily 
 account for many of the homicides which disgrace the criminal 
 annals of our country. The right of trial by jury is one which 
 the people of the islands do not understand, and which it is 
 wise to postpone the exercise of until they who are to consti- 
 tute the jury shall be better qualified to exercise the function 
 of administering justice. As it is to-day in the Islands no man 
 need be convicted of a crime except by the judgment of a 
 judge of first instance, concurred in by a majority of the seven 
 judges of the Supreme Court. The appeal on the facts and 
 law to the Supreme Court of the Islands, which consists of 
 three Filipinos and four Americans, certainly offers sufficient 
 security against mistakes or prejudices of one judge. All the 
 substantial civil rights then are secured to the Philippine peo- 
 ple. They do not themselves exercise complete political con- 
 trol, but that is a very different thing from civil liberty. Wo- 
 men and children, and other non-voters in this country, have 
 the civil liberty secured by the Constitution, but do not exer- 
 cise political control. If we abandoned the Islands we should 
 be turning their political control over to the violent and the 
 turbulent, and the agitators and civil liberty would at once 
 
cease to exist there. The great difficulty that we have now in 
 making our grant of civil liberty useful to the inhabitants is 
 their failure to understand what their rights are and their in- 
 capacity to maintain them. I remember one morning, early in 
 my experience in the Philippines, I was visited by an elderly 
 Tagalo who spoke no Spansh, but who presented a petition, 
 written for him by some one else, in Spanish, in which he set 
 forth that his son had been arrested for a crime under the 
 Spanish regime, had been held for six years without trial, and 
 was still in Bilibid prison. Calling on me at the same time 
 was a distinguished lawyer of the Islands, one of the three 
 persons who had drawn up the constitution adopted at Malo- 
 los, which has attracted so much admiration from our anti- 
 imperialistic friends. I turned the petition over to him and 
 asked him to confer with the old man, which he did. He said 
 to me, "How can we redress this grievance?" I suggested: 
 ''Under an order of General OTIS the writ of habeas corpus is in 
 force ; you ought to sue out such a writ." He asked me what 
 the writ of habeas corpus was, and I explained it to him, and at 
 his request drafted a petition for the writ. Taking the petition 
 he went to Bilibid prison and found that there were ninety 
 persons in prison in the same situation as that of the son of 
 my early caller. He filed a petition for the writ in each of 
 these cases and succeeded in securing the release of all. His 
 success in the matter was a revelation to him, as it was to the 
 people of the community, in- respect to what was practical civil 
 liberty of the individual. Yet it was he who had penned the 
 constitution supposed to secure such liberties to his fellow 
 citizens some two or three years before. My experience in the 
 Philippines, and that of others who have been there, justify 
 me in saying that, were the Americans to leave the Islands 
 to the government of AGUINALDO or some person of his views, 
 all the guaranties of civil liberty would be lost in the effort of 
 the executive head of the government to maintain his position 
 against hostile cabals and conspiracies. In other words a sur- 
 render by us of political control in the Islands, as they are at 
 present peopled, means the suppression of civil liberty. Hence 
 it is that those of us who are in favor of only the gradual ex- 
 tension to the Filipinos of political control, retaining a guid- 
 ance under the Government of the United States, are the real 
 
defenders and protectors of the liberties of the Philippine peo- 
 ple, while the so-called and self-styled "anti-imperialists" who 
 demand an immediate surrender of the Islands, are, in effect, 
 advocating a policy which makes for absolutism and tyranny, 
 or a political chaos, which is even w r orse than either, and 
 which will end for a long time to come all hope of the liberty 
 of the individual. The course which the so-called anti-im- 
 perialists seek is the easy one. The course which we have on 
 hand is a difficult one. 
 
 If we pursue the policy which is now being pursued in re- 
 spect to the Islands, the policy of holding the Islands for the 
 benefit of the Filipinos, and of doing everything we can to 
 elevate and educate the people, to increase their prosperity, 
 and to furnish them full opportunity for the pursuit of happi- 
 ness, we need trouble ourselves little about the alleged viola- 
 tion of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. If 
 that instrument is to be so construed as to prevent us from 
 taking the course which the dilemma already presented re- 
 quired us to take, then the history of the American Republic 
 has been nothing but a violation of the principles of that in- 
 strument from the beginning. Women and children and 
 slaves were not permitted to exercise any political control 
 at the time that the Declaration of Independence was signed. 
 Those who by their suffrages had all the political control 
 there was in the various colonies were, in many instances, in 
 the minority of male citizens. Every property qualification, 
 every educational qualification that excluded from the suffrage 
 any male citizen over twenty-one, violated the Declaration of 
 Independence, if it is to be given the wide construction con- 
 tended for by our opponents. When THOMAS JEFFERSON, who 
 penned the Declaration, directed the purchase of Louisiana, 
 the French residents and the Spanish residents of that coun- 
 try protested against the transfer by XAPOLEON to the United 
 States on the ground that it was made without their consent, 
 and they were thereby converted into subjects of a sovereign 
 to whom they had willingly sworn allegiance. When we took 
 in New-Mexico and Arizona from old Mexico we agreed that 
 we would ultimately give them State government and inde- 
 pendent control. More than fifty years have passed since that 
 time and they are still held in a condition of dependence, with- 
 
out the rights of sovereign States. For fifty years, then, we 
 have been violating the declaration with respect to those peo- 
 ple. When the war came on, and the issues of slavery and 
 State rights were presented, twenty millions of people coerced 
 ten millions of people to remain in the government from the 
 control of which they had withdrawn their consent, and now 
 to-day, in the Southern States, by grandfather's clauses and 
 by property qualifications and by educational qualifications, 
 the white people are seeking to exclude from the ballot those 
 colored voters whom they deem to be unfitted to exercise po- 
 litical control in their respective communities. For either the 
 Southerner or the New-Englander to rest his opposition to 
 what we are doing in the Philippines on the Declaration of 
 Independence involves an inconsistency that robs what he 
 says of weight. In every instance it will be seen that the 
 principles of the Declaration of Independence are always 
 qualified by the statement that the people who are to be con- 
 sulted with respect to their own government shall have suffi- 
 cient capacity to govern themselves and better themselves by 
 such self-government. 
 
 In the Philippine Islands ninety per cent, of the inhab- 
 itants are still in a hopeless condition of ignorance, and utterly 
 unable intelligently to wield political control. They are sub- 
 ject, like the waves of the sea, to the influence of the moment, 
 and any educated Filipino can carry them in one direction or 
 another, as the opportunity and the occasion shall permit. 
 The ten per cent, of the Filipinos who are educated have 
 shown by what they have done and what they have aspired to 
 and what they are, that they may be taught the lesson of self- 
 government, and that their fellows by further education may 
 be brought up to a condition of discriminating intelligence 
 which shall enable them to make a forceful and useful public 
 opinion. But that it will take more than one generation to 
 accomplish this, every one familiar with the facts must con- 
 cede. It is true that the marvelous development of the Japan- 
 ese in the last fifty years may justify the hope that the period 
 will be shorter than I have stated, but it is to be noted with 
 the Japanese; first, that they are a more industrious people 
 and a more thrifty people than the Filipinos ; and second, that 
 they have always had an independent and natural govern- 
 
10 
 
 ment, proceeding from the feudal system and the continuance 
 of the traditional governmental influence of the imperia} 
 household. The Spanish regime of four hundred years 
 stamped out all tribal relations and everything akin to the 
 feudal allegiance and to a natural government among the Fili- 
 pinos, and there is nothing but the dead-level of a people 
 whose only hope is education up to popular selfrgovernment 
 under the guidance of some power which meantime shall se- 
 cure to the people the inestimable benefits of civil liberty. 
 
 My own idea of the mission of the United States in the Phil- 
 ippine Islands is that it ought to be maintained and encour- 
 aged by the people of the United States without regard to the 
 question of its cost or its profitable results from a commercial 
 or financial standpoint. Opponents. of the policy of the admin- 
 istration strive to frighten the taxpayer with a review of the 
 cost, which they say the Philippine Islands have been and 
 will prove to be to the United States. I am not familiar with 
 the statistics, but it is possible that the war of the insurrection 
 cost the United States about three hundred millions of dollars. 
 That is spent. The object of the war has been accomplished. 
 Tranquility and good order prevail in the Islands. The num- 
 ber of white troops in the Islands has been reduced from 
 75,000 to 15,000 men. The army of the United States numbers 
 65,000. In any event, whether we have the Philippines or not, 
 65,000 regular soldiers are not too many for a nation of eighty 
 millions of people. Therefore, all that can be properly charged 
 to the Philippine experiment from now on, is the additional 
 cost of keeping 15,000 men and transporting them from the 
 United States to the Philippines and back every three years, 
 over what it would cost to keep them in the United States and 
 transport them to arrd frofn the stations in the United States. 
 This is a comparatively small sum. Then it is said that our 
 Navy is enlarged on account of the Philippines. I do not 
 think that our Navy is too large, whether we have the Philip- 
 pines or not. Our commerce must be protected. Our nation 
 must occupy a dignified position before the other nations of 
 the world, and certain it is that the protests of a nation with 
 a respectable navy are more respectfullly listened to than 
 when it has only a few wooden hulks to represent its nation- 
 ality. There will be the additional cost of fortifying Manila, 
 
11 
 
 Iloilo, Cebu and Subig Bay as part of the coast line of the 
 United States. Beyond that there will be no considerable 
 additional expenditure out of the United States Treasury. 
 
 The Islands themselves give every indication of furnishing 
 revenue sufficient to carry out the plans which the United 
 States may properly carry out in the material and intellectual 
 development of the country and its people. The taxpaying 
 capacity of the country is, of course, determined by that which 
 it produces for domestic and .foreign use. For the last two 
 or three years the wealth produced in the Islands has been 
 seriously impaired and reduced, not only by the war and the 
 cholera, but also and chiefly by the loss of draft animals, 
 ninety per cent, of which have succumbed to the rhinderpest. 
 Agriculture has been dependent upon such animals and the 
 recovery from this blow must necessarily be slow. Congress 
 appropriated three millions of dollars to assist the Islands in 
 re-stocking plantations, but the enormous difficulties attend- 
 ing the importation of cattle from other countries which- are 
 able to live in the Philippines are only known to those who 
 have attempted it. I am glad to say, however, that our scien- 
 tists in the Islands have discovered a method of preventing 
 a recurrence and spread of the disease so that when the plan- 
 tations are re-stocked rhinderpest will have no terrors for the 
 farmers. With normal conditions in agriculture, when the 
 cattle shall have been restored by breeding and otherwise to 
 their usual number, the Islands will always be self-support- 
 ing, and will, doubtless, furnish a surplus of revenue with 
 which to meet the demands for improvements which present 
 themselves in every part of the Islands. 
 
 The Philippine Archipelago is the only country in which can 
 be produced what is known as Manila hemp, or what is called 
 in the Spanish language "abaca," This is a fibre of enormous 
 strength, of from six to fifteen feet in length, which is stripped 
 from the stalk of a banana plant, not the ordinary banana 
 plant, but a plant of the same family which does not produce 
 fruit. The leaf is slightly different from that of the fruit 
 banana, though one may easily be mistaken for the other. 
 The plant grows on the side hills. For the first two years it 
 needs the shade from the tropical sun and s.ome cultivation 
 around the foot of the stalk. After two years the stalk is 
 
12 
 
 strong- enough to afford the fibre of commerce, and though 
 cut down will reproduce itself each year for six or seven 
 years, and this with very little cultivation. The chief labor 
 in the production of the fibre is that of stripping the fibre of 
 the pith of the plant. It is done by pulling or drawing it 
 under a knife edge. If the fibre be drawn under a serrated 
 knife edge the work is very much easier than if drawn under 
 a straight edge, but the fibre is not so clean and its value and 
 quality are much reduced. The tremendous increase in the 
 demand for Manila hemp has made profitable the production 
 of the cheaper and poorer qualities. Women and children 
 are able to draw the hemp with a serrated knife, while only 
 the stronger adults are able to draw and. clean properly the 
 finer fibre. Many machines have been invented for the pur- 
 pose of drawing the hemp, but in none of them as yet has the 
 hemp producer been able to secure a result which justifies 
 their use commercially. They either break the fibre or they 
 discolor it. There is the opportunity for an invention which 
 will revolutionize the hemp business in the Philippines as 
 completely as the cotton gin revolutionized the production 
 and preparation of cotton in the South. Of the forty-one 
 provinces of the Philippine Islands, at least fifteen now pro- 
 duce commercial quantities of hemp. To-day, owing to the 
 insufficient means of communication and transportation, many 
 fields of hemp are allowed to rot and are not stripped or used. 
 In many of the provinces there is wild hemp which is not so 
 good in texture and which it would be necessary to replace 
 by cultivated plants were the opportunity offered to put it on 
 the market. From experiments by our Agricultural Bureau, 
 I have no doubt that the number of provinces in which hemp 
 could be raised might be doubled. The demand for hemp is 
 so great that while an increase in its production might reduce 
 the price, the total product would far exceed in value that 
 which the statistics now show. 
 
 Many parts of the Islands are very rich in cocoanuts. The 
 cocoanut grove is planted two hundred to a hectare, that is 
 two hundred to two and a half acres. It takes four or five 
 years for cocoanut trees to bear. After that they will bear 
 for a hundred years and a low r price per tree for annual rent is 
 one dollar, Mexican, or forty dollars, gold, a year an acre. In 
 
13 
 
 the province of Laguna within the last two years, since the 
 war was over, there have been planted more than five times 
 the number of trees which were there before. There is a con- 
 stant market for copra, which is the dried meat of the cocoa- 
 nut, and the price is rising. Since the demand for hemp and 
 cocoanuts have increased so largely planters have abandoned 
 the raising of rice, preferring to buy their food out of the profit 
 of the hemp or cocoanut industry. Therefore, for ten or fif- 
 teen years it has been the habit of the Islands to import rice, 
 although there are no islands where rice will grow to better 
 advantage than in the Philippines. The amount of importa- 
 tion, however, was comparatively small until the destruction 
 of the draft cattle, three years ago, which reduced the actual 
 amount of rice production in the Islands far below what was 
 necessary to feed the people, and during the last year about 
 $12,000,000, gold, had to be expended in importing rice from 
 French China. 
 
 The sugar and tobacco industries in the Islands are capable 
 of a considerable increase. The Island of 'Negros contains 
 sugar land as rich as any in the world, and the provinces of 
 Cagayan, Isabela and Union, contain tobacco lands which, 
 next to Cuba, produce the best tobacco in the world, but the 
 trouble is that the markets for such sugar and tobacco have 
 been by tariffs imposed in various countries very much re- 
 duced. Should the markets of -the United States be opened to 
 the Philippines, it is certain that both the sugar and the to- 
 bacoc industry would become thriving, and although the total 
 amount of the product in each would probably not effect the 
 American market at all, so extensive is the demand here for 
 both tobacco and sugar, it would mean the difference between 
 poverty and prosperity in the Islands. I know that the re- 
 duction of the tariff for this purpose is much opposed by the 
 interests which represent beet sugar and tobacco, but I believe 
 that a great majority of the people of the United States are in 
 favor of opening the markets to the Philippine Islands, con- 
 scious that it will not destroy either the beet sugar or the 
 tobacco industry of this country, and feeling that as long as 
 we maintain the association which we now have with the 
 Philippine Islands, it is our duty to give them the benefit of 
 the markets of the United States and bring them as close to 
 
14 
 
 our people and our trade as possible. Nothing- else will justify 
 the application of the coastwise trading laws to the trans- 
 oceanic trade between the United States and the Philippine 
 Islands, but if they are invited to partake of the benefits of 
 the protection theory, they may well be subjected to the rule 
 that as between the United States and themselves the pro- 
 ducts are to be transferred in American bottoms. 
 
 Another immense source of wealth in the Islands is the al- 
 most inexhaustible supply of the m'ost beautiful woods of 
 rubber and of the most valuable gums. These sources of 
 wealth are hardly developed. 
 
 And now what as to the existing- trade between the United 
 States and the Philippines. It is still quite small, not exceed- 
 ing five millions in any one year of merchandise transferred 
 from the United States to the Philippines, but increasing 
 largely in the products transferred from the Philippines to the 
 United States. The latter increase, however, is not a natural 
 one. It is brought about by Congressional legislation already 
 mentioned, which confers the benefit of $7.40 a ton rebate from 
 export tax upon all hemp transported directly from the Philip- 
 pines to the United States. The total business done between 
 the United States and the Philippines is something like seven- 
 teen millions. With the restoration of normal conditions in 
 the Islands, with the construction of railways and other ma- 
 terial development, then I have no doubt that this trade be- 
 tween the United States and the Islands would be trebled in 
 the course of five years. 
 
 The conditions with respect to the business of the United 
 States merchants in the Islands to-day is unfortunate, and 
 its cause can easily be traced. The Government of the United 
 States went into the Islands under a distinct promise that it 
 would govern the Philippines for the benefit of the Filipinos ; 
 that . it would extend self-government to 1 the Filipinos as 
 rapidly as they showed themselves fit for it, and that as many 
 Filipinos as possible would be used in the personnel of the 
 Government. This has always been the attitude of the Gov- 
 ernment, and never, so far as I know (has there been a single 
 step of departure from it. It was the attitude declared before 
 the war of insurrection began, while it was pending, and at 
 its close, and no resistance on the part of the natives has 
 
15 
 
 varied our position in that regard. This policy did not meet, 
 as was natural, the ready assent of all the army or of those 
 persons who were in sympathy with the army. The advent- 
 uresome spirits who followed the army for the purpose of 
 establishing a business in its wake found that they had all 
 that they could do to supply the demand made by the army 
 for American goods, and as American capital came in driblets 
 or in larger sums, it was turned into the business of supplying 
 the army with those things which the Government did not 
 supply. Four or five trading companies were thus organized, 
 embracing substantially all the American enterprise that has 
 appeared in the Islands during the first three or four years 
 of American occupation. American merchants thus situated 
 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 civil order. The American newspapers which 
 were established, readily took the tone of their advertisers 
 and their subscribers, and hence it is that the American com- 
 munity in the Philippines to-day is largely an anti-Filipino 
 community. The 75,000 soldiers whose demands for supplies 
 made their business so profitable, have now been reduced to 
 15,000, and the market which made the American merchants 
 for a time independent of the Filipinos, has now almost en- 
 tirely disappeared. The condemnation by such merchants of 
 the Civil Government continues, and they do> not hesitate to 
 make the Government the scapegoat for the failure of business 
 to improve. The fact is that their customers have gone back 
 to the United States and that their attitude towards the Fili- 
 pinos is such that the Filipinos are not disposed to- patronize 
 them. This is unfortunate, and there must come into the 
 Islands a new set of merchants who shall view the situation 
 from an entirely different standpoint. There are 7,600,000 
 Filipinos. Of these, the 7,000,000 Christian Filipinos are imi- 
 tative, anxious for new ideas, willing to accept them, willing 
 to follow. American styles, American sports, American dress 
 and American customs. A large amount of cotton goods is 
 imported into the Islands each year, but this is nearly all from 
 England and Germany. There is no reason why these cotton 
 
16 
 
 goods should not come from America, except the fact that 
 there are no American houses in the Islands that have devoted 
 their attention to winning Filipino trade. I am not a business 
 man, but I know enough to know that it is not the best way to 
 attract custom from an alien people to call them names, to 
 make fun of them, and to decry every effort towards their 
 advancement and development. In other words, the American 
 merchants in the Philippines have gotten off on the wrong- 
 foot. There should be a radical change. 
 
 There are a few projected railroad lines in the Philippines 
 which it would be possible to induce capital to build without 
 a guaranty of income, but it is wiser, it seems to the commis- 
 sion, to attempt to introduce a general system of railways than 
 to have a link built here and a link built there and to await 
 the process of time before trunk lines shall be established. 
 For instance, it is quite probable that a short line of forty or 
 fifty miles would be constructed without a guaranty in the 
 Province of Legaspi, where is the rich hemp business and 
 where it has been customary during the last two or three hemp 
 seasons to pay forty dollars Mexican a day for a caribou cart; 
 so, perhaps it would be possible to secure the construction 
 of a line without a guaranty from Manila south to Batangas, 
 though of this I am not certain. With the hope, however, of 
 bringing capital in considerable amount to the Islands, a bill 
 has been prepared, which has passed the House, authorizing 
 the Philippine Government to grant franchises for the con- 
 struction of railways with a guaranty of income of not more 
 than five per cent, on the amount actually invested for not 
 exceeding thirty years. In most cases a guaranty of a less 
 percentage would be sufficient, but my impression is that with 
 respect to the main trunk line from Aparri to Manila, the 
 difficulties of construction and the delay in securing a profit- 
 able business would probably require an assurance of five per 
 cent, dividends. The opposition of those who oppose the in- 
 vestment of any American capital in the Islands which shall 
 furnish a motive for a longer association between the two 
 countries than is absolutely necessary, may postpone the 
 passage of the bill until the next session of Congress. I shall 
 deeply regret the delay, but I am not discouraged, for as long 
 as I continue in my present position I expect to press the 
 
17 
 
 legitimate claims of the Philippine Islands upon a just and 
 generous Government for such authority in the local govern- 
 ment as will permit a proper development of the material re- 
 sources of the Islands; and the delay in legislation, which is 
 incident, not to the opposition of a majority but to the oppo- 
 sition of a small minority, while it is apt to try one's patience, 
 ought nevertheless not to discourage. 
 
 I come now to the question of labor, which has been made 
 the basis for the most discouraging accounts of conditions in 
 the Philippine Islands. The Filipino is a tropical laborer. In 
 times past a large amount of rice has been raised in the 
 Islands, a large amount of tobacco, a large amount of sugar, 
 and a large amount of hemp, and they all involve, as a material 
 part of the cost of their production, the labor of the natives. 
 The Chinamen, who have been said by mistaken persons to 
 number a million or a million and a half in the Islands, in 
 fact do not number 100,000, and none of them do any agri- 
 cultural work of any kind in the Philippine Islands. The 
 Filipino is naturally an agriculturalist. When you go through 
 his village in the middle of the day you will probably see him 
 lounging about the window or on the seat in front of his 
 house, and you will ascribe to him the laziest habits, because 
 you do not know that he has been up at four o'clock in the 
 morning and has worked from that time until nine or ten in 
 the fields, and that he will begin work again at four o'clock 
 and work for two or three hours until sun down or later. The 
 American merchant is loud in his denunciation of the insuffi- 
 ciency of the Filipino laborer. This is because the price of 
 labor has probably doubled since the Americans went there, 
 and he has heard the tale of how cheap labor was before the 
 Spanish regime ended. He also compared the cost of labor in 
 the Philippine Islands with that in Hong 1 Kong, and he finds 
 that is very considerably less all over China. I am not con- 
 tending that the labor in the Philippines is as good as Chinese 
 labor, for that labor is the best in the world, probably, when 
 economy in wages and efficiency in product are considered, 
 but what I wish to dispute is that the labor conditions in the 
 Philippines are hopeless. The city of Manila has under its 
 control,- and in its employment, about 3,000 laborers, and they 
 are paid all the way from fifty cents Mexican to $1.25 Mexi- 
 
18 
 
 can, and there is no complaint whatever on the part of the 
 authorities that their work is not properly and well done. The 
 Quartermaster's Department of the army has about the same 
 number, and their reports of the efficiency of Filipino labor 
 are exceedingly encouraging. We have now employed really 
 as coolies on the Benguet Road in the most difficult drilling 
 and construction work about 3,000 natives, and while their 
 efficiency is nothing like that of the American, in the accom- 
 plishment of work in proportion to the pay. they probably 
 get through about as much. The men who are constructing 
 the harbor works at Manila The Atlantic, Pacific & Gulf 
 Company have employed upwards of 800 to 1 ,000 Filipinos 
 in their quarries. At first they found it very difficult to secure 
 workmen, but now they have more labor than they need. 
 They use about eight per cent of white foremen and the rest 
 natives. They give to the natives houses, furnish a church, 
 a band, a cock pit and a school. On their fiesta days they give 
 them vacation. They have less desertions, less absenteeism, 
 than with Americans. These experiments only show that the 
 solution of the labor problem in the Philippines is teaching 
 the Filipinos how to work. Sir WILLIAM VAN HORNE reports 
 that he found much difficulty originally in the construction 
 of the Cuban railways because the natives were not acquainted 
 with how the work should be done, but that by means of 
 white foremen they were easily taught, and that then they 
 made good laborers. I feel sure that the same thing will prove 
 to be true of the Filipinos. 
 
 There is doubtless a great deal of mineral wealth in the 
 Islands, but it will only be available after transportation shall 
 have been introduced. It is not an island with a bonanza mine 
 in it, though at some distant day such a vein may be dis- 
 covered there. There is certainly coal in the Islands in con- 
 siderable quantities. There is now between the islands a con- 
 siderable inter-island trade, and there are quite a large number 
 of ships engaged therein. Without it the Islands could not 
 live; it is their arterial circulation. The present system might 
 be much improved by introducing American generous methods 
 of dealing with the public. About two and a half millions of 
 capital has been invested in a street railway in Manila, which 
 will be completed next Thanksgiving Day. This will certainly 
 
19 
 
 change one of the annoying and expensive features of Manila 
 life, and will give to the residents of the city opportunity to 
 cut down their present expense of living, at least twenty-five 
 per cent. There is no city in the world where there is so 
 much traveling done in carriages, due to the fact that people 
 may not walk about safely under the tropical sun. The 
 presence of a street railway will do away with the necessity 
 for many of these conveyances, and the streets will be less 
 used and their condition much improved. 
 
 There is a sufficient continuous fall of water in streams 
 within practicable distance of Manila to furnish electrical 
 power exceeding fifteen thousand horse power. With the 
 high price of coal this is an important aid to manufacturers. 
 
 The English houses and the Spanish houses who have dealt 
 in the export trade in the Islands have earned large profits 
 during the occupancy of the United States. 
 
 It is said that the health of the Islands is such as to pre- 
 clude Americans from going there. This is not true. The 
 climate does prevent one from going out into the sun in the 
 middle of the day and so prevents his working in the fields 
 as a laboring man, but it is entirely possible for one to live 
 in the Islands for years, and if- he does not neglect the ordinary 
 rules of hygiene to be free from bad health. The Province of 
 Benguet, which is 150 miles from Manila, and which will soon 
 be reached by a railroad and an electric road in twelve hours, 
 offers a climate quite like the summer climate of the Adiron- 
 dacks or of Canada. Under the land regulations, which go 
 into force at the time of the adjournment of Congress, a sum- 
 mer capital is to be established at Baguio, and town lots in the 
 same place will be offered at public auction. Americans en- 
 gaged in business may. at small cost, buy lots and erect houses 
 and live there as many months of the year as they choose, 
 except the months of August and September, which are usu- 
 ally so wet as to make it unprofitable. During remaining 
 months of the year the climate is beautiful, the temperature 
 going down as low as 35 degrees FAHRENHEIT, and rarely if 
 ever reaching 80 degrees. 
 
 It is estimated that not more than five millions of acres of 
 land are owned by natives in the Islands, and that the remain- 
 der, sixty-five millions, is owned by the Government. This 
 
20 
 
 remainder will under the land regulations be opened for settle- 
 ment and purchase at the adjournment of the present session 
 of Congress. There is every prospect that the land will be 
 taken up by both Filipinos and Americans. The maximum 
 limitation for purchase *by a company is 2,500 acres. This 
 limitation is much too low for the cultivation of sugar, but is 
 sufficiently extensive for the cultivation of other products. 
 There is a provision in the law by which irrigation companies 
 may own stock in land companies, so that probably the limita- 
 tion may be evaded if private profit requires. The future of 
 the Philippine Islands of course it would be dangerous to 
 prophesy with certainty, but with a change in the hygienic 
 conditions that surround life, due to an effective board of 
 health, with a supply of pure water from the sinking of driven 
 wells all over the country which the pending Bill in Congress 
 will encourage, I feel sure that the population will rapidly 
 increase. 
 
 We hold the Philippines for the benefit of Filipinos and we 
 are not entitled to pass a single act or approve a single meas- 
 ure that has not that as its chief purpose. But it so happens, 
 and it fortunately so happens, that generally everything we 
 do for the benefit of the Filipinos and the Philippines will only 
 make their association with the United States more profitable 
 to the Unted States. I do not base my prayer for a continu- 
 ance of the present policy toward the Philippine Islands on 
 selfish grounds, but as this is the Chamber of Commerce, and 
 as it is naturally interested in the possibilities of commerce 
 in these distant Islands, I have felt justified in referring more, 
 than heretofore to the industrial conditions existing there 
 and the possibility of improvement and the increase of trade 
 between -the United States and the Philippines. 
 
 The first requisite of prosperity in the Philippine Islands 
 is tranquility, and this should.be evidenced by a well ordered 
 government. The' Filipinos must be taught the advantages 
 of such a government, and they should learn from the govern- 
 ment which is given them the disadvantages that arise to 
 everybody in the country from political agitation for a change 
 in the form of government in the immediate future. Hence it 
 is that I have ventured to oppose with all the argument that 
 I could bring to bear the petition to the political conventions 
 
21 
 
 asking that independence be promised to the Filipinos. It 
 is not that I am opposed to independence in the Islands, 
 should the people of the Philippines desire independence when 
 they are fitted for it, but it is that the great present need in the 
 Islands is tranquility, the great present need in the Islands 
 is the building up of a permanent well-ordered government, 
 the great present need in the Islands is trie increase of the 
 saving remnant of conservative Filipinos whose aid in uplift 
 ing and maintaining the present government on a partly popu^ 
 lar and strictly civil liberty basis, shall be secured. A promise 
 such as that which is petitioned for cannot but introduce at 
 once into the politics of the Islands the issue of independence, 
 of present fitness for self-government, and will frighten away 
 from the support of the present government the conservative 
 element which is essential to its success, and yet which is 
 always timid lest by a change bringing the violent and the 
 irreconcilable to the front, they shall suffer by reason of their 
 prominence in aid of the present government. The promise 
 to give independence helps no one. There is no need of that 
 promise to secure tranquility because we have tranquility in 
 the Islands. It is certain to be misunderstood as a promise 
 to be complied with in the present generation, and if, as is 
 probable, the people shall not be fitted for self-government 
 in the present or the next generation, then the failure to give 
 it will be regarded as a breach. Why not let the politics of the 
 Islands take care of themselves? Why should the good peo- 
 ple who signed the petition intermeddle with something, the 
 effect of which they are very little able to understand. Why 
 not take the broader policy, which is that of doing everything 
 beneficial to the Philippine Islands, of giving them a full 
 market, of offering them an opportunity to have railroads built 
 extensively through the Islands, and of having a tranquility 
 which is essential to the development of their business and 
 their prosperity; why not insist on the spread of the educa- 
 tional system, of an improvement in the health laws, and sub- 
 ject everything that is done in the Islands to an examination 
 as to whether it is beneficial to the Filipino people, and then 
 when all has been done for the Philippines that a government 
 can do, and they have been elevated and taught the dignity 
 of labor, the wisdom of civil liberty and self-restraint in the 
 
political control indispensable to the enjoyment of civil liberty, 
 when they have learned the principles of successful popular 
 s'elf-government from a gradually enlarged experience therein, 
 we can discuss the question whether independence is what 
 they desire and grant it, or whether they prefer the retention 
 of a closer association with the country which, by its guid- 
 ance, has unselfishly led them on to better conditions. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, there remains one thing to say which 
 is more or less a matter of business. In order to familiarize 
 the people of the United States with the Philippine Islands, 
 and in order to bring the Filipinos closer to the United States, 
 the commission has deemed it wise to expend about three- 
 quarters of a million dollars in making a satisfactory exhibit 
 at the World's Fair at St. Louis. In making the ethnographi- 
 cal exhibit, the collectors have brought here natives of the 
 various tribes of the Islands. Naturally, as an exhibit, they 
 would not bring the civilized tribes, except as they are shown 
 in the battalions of scouts and constabulary which are here. 
 The educated, the cultured and the refined Filipinos would, of 
 course, not appear in an exhibit, and yet the attention likely 
 to be attracted to the wild tribes may blind the people to the 
 fact that these wild tribes do not correctly represent the gene- 
 ral average of civilization in the Islands. For that reason the 
 Commission deems it proper to appropriate a considerable 
 sum of money to bring to the United States a delegation of 
 from forty to fifty Filipinos prominent at the bar, prominent 
 in business, prominent in the provinces, prominent in litera- 
 ture, in order that by going about the country and the differ- 
 ent cities they may become acquainted with the institutions 
 and appearances of this country, and at the same time the 
 business and prominent men of the cities of the United States 
 may have acquaintance with the best elements of the Filipinos. 
 The appropriation is not large enough to justify such exten- 
 sive visiting to the various cities as we should like, and there- 
 fore we have thought it wise to appeal to the commercial 
 bodies of each city to assist us in the entertainment of these 
 gentlemen while they are here. I venture to suggest, there- 
 fore, to the Chamber of Commerce, that some action be taken 
 in the nature of the appointment of a Committee to confer with 
 Dr. WILSON, who is in chargk of the Philippine Exhibit, and 
 
also in charge of the delegation of Filipinos, and to care for 
 them while in New-York. I am sure that there is in New- 
 York, as there is elsewhere, a sufficient interest in the people 
 of those far-distant Islands to invoke some effort on the part 
 of the individuals to see that the hospitality of the City of 
 New- York is properly extended to them. The first virtue of 
 a Filipino city or village is hospitality, and should any of your 
 number ever visit the Philippines and become acquainted with 
 the Filipinos, you will understand why it is that those of us 
 who have enjoyed the hospitality of the people of those 
 Islands are so anxious that the Filipino gentlemen with their 
 standards of hospitality shall not be disappointed in what 
 they receive here. 
 
 I thank you, gentlemen of the Chamber of Commerce and 
 Mr. Chairman, for your attention. [Great applause.] 
 
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