“So far as concerns the warlike tribes, the work for their advancement thus far accomplished would promptly be lost; for they would instantly offer armed resistance to Filipino control, and the old haphazard intermittent warfare, profitless and worse than profitless for both peoples, would be resumed.”

“I say, in all kindness, but with deep conviction, that there is no reason for believing that Filipino control of the more pacific non-Christian tribes would not promptly result in the re-establishment of the old system of oppression which Americans have found it necessary to combat from the day when military rule was first established in these islands until now.  I speak whereof I know when I say that the people of these tribes have been warned, over and over again, by those interested in re-establishing the old regime, that American control in the Philippines will be only temporary, and that when the government is turned over to the Filipinos the tribesmen will be punished for their present ‘insubordination’ and failure tamely to submit to injustice and oppression, as many of them formerly did.”

These extracts speak for themselves.  So far as is known, the report from which they are drawn has gone unchallenged.  Is it necessary any further to consider the question of a transfer of control from the present authorities to the Filipinos or to any other authority?  Would not any change in the present administration be singularly unwise?  Of course, the views and arguments set forth here are extremely unpopular among the politicians of the native ruling class.  But then no Filipino likes the plain, unvarnished truth, a fact that should receive full weight in considering any demand or request of native or racial origin, involving questions of government.

With our own treatment of the American Indian in mind, our people should be the last to consent to any change in the relations or administration of the wild men of the Philippine Islands not fully justified by the amplest necessity, not warranted by well-grounded hopes of greater improvement.  These men, for the first time in their history, are having a chance.  That chance is fair to-day, and will continue fair so long as its administration lies in American hands., competent, trained, and experienced.

In taking over the Philippines, we have incidentally become responsible for a large number of wild men.  Their fate is bound up in that of the Islands.  Now, these islands may remain under our control, or they may not.  Obviously, then, the question has its political side:  we may grant full international independence to the Philippines.  In the belief of some this would be merely a signal for civil war in the Archipelago, the issue of which no man can guess.  But whether or not, in granting independence to the Philippines, we shall be signing the death-warrant of the highlander.  Let us repeat that, this people form one-tenth of the population of Luzon:  save as we arc helping him, he can not as yet assert himself beyond the reach of his spear.  Shall we be the ones to mark this as the limit beyond which he shall never go?  Let us not deceive ourselves:  a grant of independence means the abandonment of hundreds of thousands of people to perpetual barbarism.