islanders themselves. Under the wise administration of Governor Taft the islands now enjoy a peace and liberty of which they have hitherto never even dreamed. But this peace and liberty under the law must be supplemented by material, by industrial development. Every encouragement should be given to their commercial development, to the introduction of American industries and products; not merely because this will be a good thing for our people, but infinitely more because it will be of incalculable benefit to the people in the Philippines.

We shall make mistakes; and if we let these mistakes frighten us from our work we shall show ourselves weaklings. Half a century ago Minnesota and the two Dakotas were Indian hunting-grounds. We committed plenty of blunders, and now and then worse than blunders, in our dealings with the Indians. But who does not admit at the present day that we were right in wresting from barbarism and adding to civilization the territory out of which we have made these beautiful States? And now we are civilizing the Indian and putting him on a level to which he could never have attained under the old conditions.

In the Philippines let us remember that the spirit and not the mere form of government is the essential matter. The Tagalogs have a hundredfold the freedom under us that they would have if we had aban

doned the islands. We are not trying to subjugate a people; we are trying to develop them and make them a law-abiding, industrious, and educated people, and we hope ultimately a self-governing people. In short, in the work we have done we are but carrying out the true principles of our democracy. We work in a spirit of self-respect for ourselves and of good-will toward others, in a spirit of love for and of infinite faith in mankind. We do not blindly refuse to face the evils that exist, or the shortcomings inherent in humanity; but across blundering and shirking, across selfishness and meanness of motive, across short-sightedness and cowardice, we gaze steadfastly toward the far horizon of golden triumph. If you will study our past history as a nation you will see we have made many blunders and have been guilty of many shortcomings, and yet that we have always in the end come out victorious because we have refused to be daunted by blunders and defeats, have recognized them, but have persevered in spite of them. So it must be in the future. We gird up our loins as a nation, with the stern purpose to play our part manfully in winning the ultimate triumph; and therefore we turn scornfully aside from the paths of mere ease and idleness, and with unfaltering steps tread the rough road of endeavor, smiting down and battling for the right, as Greatheart smote and battled in Bunyan's immortal story.

THE LABOR QUESTION

AT THE CHICAGO LABOR DAY PICNIC, SEPT. 3, 1900

B

Y far the greatest problem, the most far-reaching in its stupendous importance, is that problem, or rather that group of problems, which we have grown to speak of as the labor question. It must be always a peculiar privilege for any thoughtful public man to address a body of men predominantly composed of wage-workers, for the foundation of our whole social structure rests upon the material and moral well-being, the intelligence, the foresight, the sanity, the sense of duty, and the wholesome patriotism of the wage-worker. This is doubly the case now; for, in addition to each man's individual action, you have learned the great lesson of acting in combination. It would be impossible to overestimate the far-reaching influences of, and, on the whole, the amount of good done through your associations.

In addressing you, the one thing that I wish to avoid is any mere glittering generality, any mere high-sounding phraseology, and, above all, any appeal whatsoever made in a demagogic spirit, or in

a spirit of mere emotionalism. When we come to dealing with our social and industrial needs, remedies, rights and wrongs, a ton of oratory is not worth an ounce of hard-headed, kindly common

sense.

The fundamental law of healthy political life in this great Republic is that each man shall in deed, and not merely in word, be treated strictly on his worth as a man; that each shall do full justice to his fellow, and in return shall exact full justice from him. Each group of men has its special interests; and yet the higher, the broader and deeper interests are those which apply to all men alike; for the spirit of brotherhood in American citizenship, when rightly understood and rightly applied, is more important than aught else. Let us scrupulously guard the special interests of the wage-worker, the farmer, the manufacturer, and the merchant, giving to each man his due and also seeing that he does not wrong his fellows; but let us keep ever clearly before our minds the great fact that, where the deepest chords are touched, the interests of all are alike and must be guarded alike.

We must beware of any attempt to make hatred in any form the basis of action. Most emphatically each of us needs to stand up for his own rights; all men and all groups of men are bound to retain their self-respect, and, demanding this same respect from

others, to see that they are not injured and that they have secured to them the fullest liberty of thought and action. But to feed fat a grudge against others, while it may or may not harm them, is sure in the long run to do infinitely greater harm to the man himself.

The more a healthy American sees of his fellowAmericans the greater grows his conviction that our chief troubles come from mutual misunderstanding, from failure to appreciate one another's point of view. In other words, the great need is fellow-feeling, sympathy, brotherhood; and all this naturally comes by association. It is, therefore, of vital importance that there should be such association. The most serious disadvantage in city life is the tendency of each man to keep isolated in his own little set, and to look upon the vast majority of his fellow-citizens indifferently, so that he soon comes to forget that they have the same red blood, the same loves and hates, the same likes and dislikes, the same desire for good, and the same perpetual tendency, ever needing to be checked and corrected, to lapse from good into evil. If only our people can be thrown together, where they act on a common ground with the same motives, and have the same objects, we need not have much fear of their failing to acquire a genuine respect for one another; and with such respect there must finally come fair play for all.