In my last annual message I dwelt at some length upon the condition of affairs in the Philippines.  While seeking to impress upon you that the grave responsibility of the future government of those islands rests with the Congress of the United States, I abstained from recommending at that time a specific and final form of government for the territory actually held by the United States forces and in which as long as insurrection continues the military arm must necessarily be supreme.  I stated my purpose, until the Congress shall have made the formal expression of its will, to use the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes to uphold the sovereignty of the United States in those distant islands as in all other places where our flag rightfully floats, placing, to that end, at the disposal of the army and navy all the means which the liberality of the Congress and the people have provided.  No contrary expression of the will of the Congress having been made, I have steadfastly pursued the purpose so declared, employing the civil arm as well toward the accomplishment of pacification and the institution of local governments within the lines of authority and law.

Progress in the hoped-for direction has been favorable.  Our forces have successfully controlled the greater part of the islands, overcoming the organized forces of the insurgents and carrying order and administrative regularity to all quarters.  What opposition remains is for the most part scattered, obeying no concerted plan of strategic action, operating only by the methods common to the traditions of guerrilla warfare, which, while ineffective to alter the general control now established, are still sufficient to beget insecurity among the populations that have felt the good results of our control and thus delay the conferment upon them of the fuller measures of local self-government, of education, and of industrial and agricultural development which we stand ready to give to them.

By the spring of this year the effective opposition of the dissatisfied Tagals to the authority of the United States was virtually ended, thus opening the door for the extension of a stable administration over much of the territory of the Archipelago.  Desiring to bring this about, I appointed in March last a civil Commission composed of the Hon. William H. Taft, of Ohio; Prof.  Dean C. Worcester, of Michigan; the Hon. Luke I. Wright, of Tennessee; the Hon. Henry C. Ide, of Vermont, and Prof.  Bernard Moses, of California.  The aims of their mission and the scope of their authority are clearly set forth in my instructions of April 7, 1900, addressed to the Secretary of War to be transmitted to them: