“Mr. Perry Robinson, whose articles on the Philippines are now being published by the London Times, makes one point that offers a valuable, suggestion to our ardent friends of the Nationalist party.[7] While here, Mr. Robinson interviewed a number of the leaders of the party and discovered that they were all afraid of immediate independence. They admitted that the country and people would not be ready for it for years, and, when pressed for an explanation, said they feared, if they did not press the question now, it would not avail them to do so later on. The inconsistency of the present position must strike every sensible person who examines it. Let us assume that the United States Government decides at this time to give ear to the plea of those who are politically active in the Philippines—what will happen? It will dispatch a commission or committee to the Islands to examine the representations of those who make the plea. It is admitted by even the Nationalist leaders, when speaking privately on this question, that the people are not ready to shift for themselves and can not be made ready for some years. Surely it is not believed that the investigators are going to be deceived about the real truth as to conditions in the Islands, and we are unable to see what good is to be accomplished by having this inquiry made.
“Would it not be infinitely better for the Nationalist and other leaders in this country to squarely face the facts and base all their future operations on the facing of those facts? One difficulty is that they have made a lot of promises and professions to the people that they are incapable of fulfilling, and another is that they have largely aided in deceiving the people themselves as to where they really stand and as to what they are really capable of under present conditions. But to go on means discredit and failure in the end, and a greater work could be done for the country at large by squarely facing the facts. It must be admitted that neither position is especially pleasant. There has been created among the people a vanity of ability and power that will make the blow a hard one; but unless there are Filipino leaders capable of making the people realize the truth about their position, there is really not much hope for them in the future.
“The truth is, that the race must be built up physically and its numbers be enormously increased before it may seriously assume the obligations of statehood; and, for our part, we await the statesman who is prepared to drive this and other important lessons home to the minds and hearts of the people.
“Assurance and pretense serve their purposes on many occasions, but they must be set aside when it comes to the test that will be applied to the plea that Filipino leaders now make with such persistency.”
It is maintained that the matter of this short editorial deserves to be as deeply pondered by the people of the United States as by the Filipinos to whom it is specially addressed.
That all this talk of independence, the motions to that end occasionally made in Congress, the circulation of so-called anti-imperialistic literature, have so far endangered the real interests of the Philippines, there can be no reasonable doubt. The independence propaganda prevents, or tends to prevent, recognition of the fact that the Philippines will be greater with the United States than they can ever hope to be standing alone, if so be that they can stand alone at all. It has retarded the development of the Islands and has checked progress. It forces into the background the fact that with an infinitude of work lying before Americans and Filipinos alike, if the Islands are to have their full value in the world’s economy, the best way to do this work is for Americans and Filipinos to labor together, each contributing his share to the common result. Upon this safe ground both may stand. “The law of life is labor; the joy of life is accomplishment.” But we can not labor if the fruits of our toil may be torn from us; accomplishment is impossible in the face of uncertainty and dissension. If our people have the welfare of the Philippines genuinely at heart, it must thoroughly consider the question of permanent retention; for this course, on the one hand, would not only clear away all misunderstanding, but, on the other, it would meet the real responsibilities of the case. There is no disposition here to burke the fact that these responsibilities are serious, if not onerous; that they call for administrative statesmanship of a very high order. But we should also recognize the fact that these responsibilities are ours, created by us, and that our rejection of them is sure to be followed by consequences disastrous, not to us, but to the Filipinos themselves. If, on the other hand, we accept these responsibilities, then sooner or later Americans and Filipinos together could bend their energies to the development of a country in which they would now have the same interest. And if, under the prevailing uncertainty, so much has already been accomplished in preventing disease, abating epidemics, building roads and bridges, erecting telegraphs and telephones, lighting the coasts, establishing courts of law, equalizing taxation, conserving forests, founding schools and colleges, encouraging commerce and agriculture, what may not unreasonably be expected if all shall feel that the foundations of order, system, and justice are permanent, that life is secure, liberty assured, and the pursuit of happiness possible?
Surely there is significance in the effect at once produced in the sugar-raising islands by the passage of the Payne Bill: idle fields were planted to cane, and the elections took an unmistakable americanista trend. There is no better peacemaker than the pay-master. The Assembly, it is true, fulminated against the bill: success, prosperity, contentment under its operation might mean the dissolution of a dream. So they might; but the bill also categorically established the possibility, and more than the possibility, of permanently profitable relations under the ægis of the United States. It might even ultimately greatly reduce, if not entirely destroy, the racial issue. Here is already common ground, limited though it be, on which Americans and Filipinos may and do stand together. If any doubt should exist on this score, we have but to look at Porto Rico, whose total external commerce has grown, in round numbers, from 17½ million dollars in 1901 to 79 millions in 1911. During this same interval that of the Philippines has risen from 53 million to 90 million dollars, nearly 20 millions of the increase being due to the Payne Bill. The population of Porto Rico (census of 1910) is 1,120,000; that of the Philippines, 8,200,000: the area of Porto Rico is 3,606 square miles; that of the Philippines, 128,000 square miles. This comparison is frankly commercial; but thriving commerce means prosperity, and prosperity spells content. After eliminating certain natural and social advantages enjoyed by Porto Rico, and not by the Philippines, the vast economic difference between the two can be accounted for only by the different relation they respectively bear to the United States, a conclusion confirmed by the effect of the Payne Bill. In the case of one, this relation is defined; in that of the other, undefined. We intend to remain in Porto Rico; we do not know what we shall do with the Philippines.
VIII.
To conclude, and in part to repeat: when we took over the Philippines, we unquestionally at the same time acquired a burden. Of this burden we can rid ourselves by setting the Islands adrift; or we can declare that we intend to keep the Islands, as we have kept Porto Rico. In the light of the argument hereinbefore submitted, which of these courses appeals to the people of the United States? May we, or may we not, without incurring an accusation of injustice to a dependent population, honestly ask ourselves if actual conditions should not sometimes limit or control the application of an abstract principle? Does our duty in the premises consist or not in merely satisfying such a principle? Is it or is it not possible that practical considerations—and what is practical is not always sordid—may outweigh an abstraction? Is it or is it not conceivably our duty to use our superior knowledge, power and experience to the best advantage of those chiefly concerned, even if these should apparently for a time not agree with us in the application we purpose to make of our knowledge, power, and experience?