_Mr. Chairman, and you, my Fellow-Americans, men and women of
Hartford_:
I thank you, Senator Platt; through you I thank the State of
Connecticut; Mayor Sullivan, through you I thank the city of Hartford
for the greeting extended to me.
Before beginning the speech that I had intended, and still intend,
to make to you to-night, I wish to allude to an incident that
happened this afternoon. In being driven around your beautiful city,
I was taken through Pope Park, and stopped at a platform where I
was presented with a great horseshoe of flowers, the gift of the
workingmen of Hartford to the President of the United States. In
Father Sullivan’s speech he laid primary stress upon the fact that it
was a gift of welcome from the wage-workers, upon whom ultimately this
government depends. And he coupled the words of giving with certain
sentences in which he expressed his belief that I would do all that
I could to show myself a good representative of the wage-workers. I
should be utterly unfit for the position that I occupy if I failed
to do all that in me lies to act, as light is given me to act, so as
to represent the best thought and purpose of the wage-worker of the
United States. At the outset of the twentieth century we are facing
difficult and complex problems—problems social and economic—which
will tax the best energies of all of us to solve aright, and which
we can only solve at all if we approach them in a spirit not merely
of common-sense, but of generous desire to act each for all and all
for each. While there are occasions when through legislative or
administrative action the governmental representatives of the people
can do especial service to one set of our citizens, yet I think you
will agree with me that in the long run the best way in which to
serve any one set of our citizens is to try to serve all alike well,
to try to act in a spirit of fairness and justice to all—to give to
each man his rights—to safeguard each man in his rights; and so far as
in me lies, while I hold my present position I will be true to that
conception of my duty.
I want to speak to you to-night, not on our internal problems as a
nation, but on some of the external problems which we have had to
face during the last four years. The internal problems are the most
important. Keeping our own household straight is our first duty; but
we have other duties. Just exactly as each man who is worth his salt
must first of all be a good husband, a good father, a good bread
winner, a good man of business, and yet must in addition to that be
a good citizen for the State at large—so a nation must first take
care to do well its duties within its own borders, but must not make
of that fact an excuse for failing to do those of its duties the
performance of which lies without its own borders.
The events of the last few years have forced the American Republic to
take a larger position in the world than ever before, and therefore
more than ever to concern itself with questions of policy coming
without its own borders. As a people we have new duties and new
opportunities both in the tropical seas and islands south of us and in
the furthest Orient. Much depends upon the way in which we meet those
duties, the way in which we take advantage of those opportunities. And
remember this, you never can meet any duty, and after you have met it
say that your action only affected that duty. If you meet it well you
face the next duty a stronger man, and if you meet it ill you face
your next duty a weaker man.
From the days of Monroe, Clay and the younger Adams, we as a people
have always looked with peculiar interest upon the West Indies and
the isthmus connecting North and South America, feeling that whatever
happened there was of particular moment to this nation; and there
is better reason for that feeling now than ever before. The outcome
of the Spanish War put us in possession of Porto Rico, and brought
us into peculiarly close touch with Cuba; while the successful
negotiation of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, and the legislation
following it, at last cleared the way for the construction of the
Isthmian Canal. Porto Rico, it is a pleasure to say, may now serve
as an example of the best methods of administering our insular
possessions. Sometimes we have to learn by experience what to avoid.
It is much pleasanter when one can turn to an experience for the
purpose of learning what to follow; and the last is true of our
experience in Porto Rico. So excellent has been the administration
of the island, so excellent the effect of the legislation concerning
it, that their very excellence has caused most of us to forget all
about it. There is no opportunity for headlines about Porto Rico.
You don’t need to use large letters in order to say that Porto Rico
continues quiet and prosperous. There is hardly a ripple of failure
upon the stream of our success there; and as we don’t have to think of
remedies, we follow our usual custom in these matters, and don’t think
of it at all.
How have we brought that about? First and foremost, in Porto Rico
we have consistently striven to get the very best men to administer
the affairs of the island. It is desirable throughout our public
service to secure a high standard of efficiency and integrity. But
after all, here at home we ourselves always have in our own hands
the remedy whereby to supply any deficiency in integrity or capacity
among those that govern us. That is a fact that seems to have been
forgotten, but it is a fact. In a far-off island things are different.
There wrongdoing is more easy and those that suffer from it are more
helpless; while there is less efficient check in the way of that
public opinion to which public men are sensitive. In consequence,
the administration of those islands is beyond all other kinds of
administration under our government the one in which the highest
standard must be demanded. In making appointments to the insular
service, the appointing power must feel all the time that he is
acting for the country as a whole, in the interest of the good name
of our people as a whole, and any question of mere party expediency
must be wholly swept aside, and the matter looked at solely from the
standpoint of the honor of our own nation and the welfare of the
islands. We have gotten along so well in Porto Rico because we have
acted up to that theory in choosing our men down there—governor,
treasurer, attorney-general, judges, superintendent of education—every
one. You will find among those men all the shades of different
political opinion that we have here at home; but you will find them
knit together by the purpose of administering the affairs of that
island on the highest plane of decency and efficiency.
Besides acting in good faith, we have acted with good sense, and that
is also important. We have not been frightened or misled into giving
to the people of the island a form of government unsuitable to them.
While providing that the people should govern themselves as far as
possible, we have not hesitated in their own interests to keep the
power of shaping their destiny.
In Cuba the problem was larger, more complicated, more difficult.
Here again we kept our promise absolutely. After having delivered the
island from its oppressors, we refused to turn it loose offhand, with
the certainty that it would sink back into chaos and savagery. For
over three years we administered it on a plane higher than it had
ever reached before during the four hundred years that had elapsed
since the Spaniards first landed upon its shores. We brought moral
and physical cleanliness into the government. We cleaned the cities
for the first time in their existence. We stamped out yellow fever—an
inestimable boon not merely to Cuba, but to the people of the Southern
States as well. We established a school system. We made life and
property secure, so that industry could again begin to thrive. Then
when we had laid deep and broad the foundations upon which civil
liberty and national independence must rest, we turned the island
over to the hands of those whom its people had chosen as the founders
of the new republic. It is a republic with which our own great
Republic must ever be closely knit by the ties of common interests
and common inspirations. Cuba must always be peculiarly related to
us in international politics. She must in international affairs be
to a degree a part of our political system. In return she must have
peculiar relations with us economically. She must be in a sense part
of our economic system. We expect her to accept a political attitude
toward us which we think wisest both for her and for us. In return we
must be prepared to put her in an economic position as regards our
tariff system which will give her some measure of the prosperity which
we enjoy. We can not, in my judgment, avoid taking this attitude if we
are to persevere in the course which we have outlined for ourselves
as a nation during the past four years; and therefore I believe that
it is only a matter of time—and I trust only a matter of a very short
time—before we enter into reciprocal trade relations with Cuba.
The Isthmian Canal is to be one of the greatest, probably the
greatest, engineering feat of the 20th century; and I am glad it
is to be done by America. We must take care that it is done under
the best conditions and by the best Americans. There are certain
preliminary matters to settle. When this has been done, the first
question will come upon choosing the commission which is to supervise
the building of the canal. And but one thought here is permissible—how
to get the very best men of the highest engineering and business
and administrative skill, who will consent to undertake the work.
If possible, I wish to see those men represent different sections
and different political parties. But those questions are secondary.
The primary aim must be to get men who, though able to control much
greater salaries than the nation is able to pay, nevertheless possess
the patriotism and the healthy ambition which will make them put their
talents at the government’s service.
So much for what has been done in the Occident. In the Orient the
labor was more difficult.
It is rare indeed that a great work, a work supremely worth doing,
can be done save at the cost not only of labor and toil, but of much
puzzling worry during the time of the performance. Normally, the
nation that achieves greatness, like the individual who achieves
greatness, can do so only at the cost of anxiety and bewilderment and
heart-wearing effort. Timid people, people scant of faith and hope,
and good people who are not accustomed to the roughness of the life
of effort—are almost sure to be disheartened and dismayed by the work
and the worry, and overmuch cast down by the shortcomings, actual or
seeming, which in real life always accompany the first stages even of
what eventually turn out to be the most brilliant victories.
All this is true of what has happened during the last four years in
the Philippine Islands. The Spanish War itself was an easy task, but
it left us certain other tasks which were much more difficult. One of
these tasks was that of dealing with the Philippines. The easy thing
to do—the thing which appealed not only to lazy and selfish men, but
to very many good men whose thought did not drive down to the root of
things—was to leave the islands. Had we done this, a period of wild
chaos would have supervened, and then some stronger power would have
stepped in and seized the islands and have taken up the task which we
in such a case would have flinched from performing. A less easy, but
infinitely more absurd course, would have been to leave the islands
ourselves, and at the same time to assert that we would not permit any
one else to interfere with them. This particular course would have
combined all the possible disadvantages of every other course which
was advocated. It would have placed us in a humiliating position,
because when the actual test came it would have been quite out of the
question for us, after some striking deed of savagery had occurred in
the islands, to stand by and prevent the re-entry of civilization into
them. While the mere fact of our having threatened thus to guarantee
the local tyrants and wrongdoers against outside interference by
ourselves or others, would have put a premium upon every species of
tyranny and anarchy within the islands.
Finally, there was the course which we adopted—not an easy course,
and one fraught with danger and difficulty, as is generally the
case in this world when some great feat is to be accomplished as
an incident to working out national destiny. We made up our minds
to stay in the islands—to put down violence—to establish peace and
order—and then to introduce a just and wise civil rule accompanied
by a measure of self-government which should increase as rapidly
as the islanders showed themselves fit for it. It was certainly a
formidable task; but think of the marvelously successful way in which
it has been accomplished! The first and vitally important feat was
the establishment of the supremacy of the American flag; and this
had to be done by the effort of these gallant fellow-Americans of
ours to whom so great a debt is due—the officers and enlisted men of
the United States regular and volunteer forces. In a succession of
campaigns, carried on in unknown tropic jungles against an elusive
and treacherous foe vastly outnumbering them, under the most adverse
conditions of climate, weather, and country, our troops completely
broke the power of the insurgents, smashed their armies, and harried
the broken robber bands into submission. In its last stages, the war
against our rule sank into mere brigandage; and what our troops had
to do was to hunt down the parties of ladrones. It was not an easy
task which it was humanly possible to accomplish in a month or a year;
and therefore after the first month and the first year had elapsed,
some excellent people said that it couldn’t be done; but it was done.
Month by month, year by year, with unwearied and patient resolution,
our army in the Philippines did the task which it found ready at hand
until the last vestige of organized insurrection was stamped out. I
do not refer to the Moros, with whom we have exercised the utmost
forbearance, but who may force us to chastise them if they persist in
attacking our troops. We will do everything possible to avoid having
trouble with them, but if they insist upon it it will come. Among the
Filipinos proper, however, peace has come. Doubtless here and there
sporadic outbreaks of brigandage will occur from time to time, but
organized warfare against the American flag has ceased, and there is
no reason to apprehend its recurrence. Our army in the islands has
been reduced until it is not a fourth of what it was at the time the
outbreak was at its height.
Step by step as the army conquered, the rule of the military was
supplanted by the rule of the civil authorities—the soldier was
succeeded by the civilian magistrate. The utmost care has been
exercised in choosing the best type of Americans for the high civil
positions, and the actual work of administration has been done, so
far as possible, by native Filipino officials serving under these
Americans. The success of the effort has been wonderful. Never
has this country had a more upright or an abler body of public
representatives than Governor Taft, Vice-Governor Wright, and their
associates and subordinates in the Philippine Islands. It is a very
difficult matter, practically, to apply the principles of an orderly
free government to an Oriental people struggling upward out of
barbarism and subjection. It is a task requiring infinite firmness,
patience, tact, broadmindedness. All these qualities, and the
countless others necessary, have been found in the civil and military
officials who have been sent over to administer the islands. It was,
of course, inevitable that there should be occasional failures;
but it is astonishing how few these have been. Here and there the
civil government which had been established in a given district had
to be temporarily withdrawn because of some outbreak. Let me give
you an idea of some of the difficulties. We have been trying to put
into effect the principle of a popular choice of representative. In
one district it proved to be wholly impossible to make the people
understand how to vote. Finally they took a little hill, and put two
candidates, one on one side and one on the other, and made the people
walk up and stand by the candidate they wanted.
But at last, on the July 4th that has just passed—on the 126th
anniversary of our independence—it was possible at the same time to
declare amnesty throughout the islands and definitely to establish
civil rule over all of them, excepting the country of the Mohammedan
Moros, where the conditions were wholly different. Each inhabitant
of the Philippines is now guaranteed his civil and religious rights,
his rights to life, personal liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
subject only to not infringing the rights of others. It is worth
noting that during these three or four years under us the Philippine
people have attained to a greater degree of self-government, that they
now have more to say as to how they shall be governed, than is the
case with any people in the Orient which is under European rule. Nor
is this all. Congress has, with far-seeing wisdom, heartily supported
all that has been done by the Executive. Wise laws for the government
of the Philippine Islands have been placed upon the statute books,
and under those laws provision is made for the introduction into
the Philippines of representative government, with only the delay
absolutely necessary to allow for the establishment of definite peace,
for the taking of a census, and the settling down of the country. In
short, we are governing the Filipinos primarily in their interest,
and for their very great benefit. And we have acted in practical
fashion—not trying to lay down rules as to what should be done in the
remote and uncertain future, but turning our attention to the instant
need of things and meeting that need in the fullest and amplest way.
It would be hard to say whether we owe most to our military or our
civil representatives in the Philippines. The soldiers have shown
splendid gallantry in the field; and they have done no less admirable
work in preparing the provinces for civil government. The civil
authorities have shown the utmost wisdom in doing a very difficult and
important work, of vast extent. It would be hard to find in modern
times a better example of successful constructive statesmanship than
the American representatives have given to the Philippine Islands.
In the Philippines, as in Cuba, the instances of wrongdoing among
either our civil or military representatives have been astonishingly
few; and punishment has been meted with even-handed justice to all
offenders.
Nor should it be forgotten that while we have thus acted in the
interest of the islanders themselves, we have also helped our own
people. Our interests are as great in the Pacific as in the Atlantic.
The welfare of California, Oregon, and Washington is as vital to
the nation as the welfare of New England, New York, and the South
Atlantic States. The awakening of the Orient means very much to all
the nations of Christendom, commercially no less than politically;
and it would be short-sighted statesmanship on our part to refuse to
take the necessary steps for securing a proper share to our people of
this commercial future. The possession of the Philippines has helped
us, as the securing of the open door in China has helped us. Already
the government has taken the necessary steps to provide for the
laying of a Pacific cable under conditions which safeguard absolutely
the interests of the American public. Our commerce with the East is
growing rapidly. Events have abundantly justified, alike from the
moral and material standpoint, all that we have done in the Far East
as a sequel to our war with Spain.