have managed so admirably the military and the civil affairs of the Philippine Islands and for those other men who have so heartily backed them in Congress, and without whose aid and support not one thing could have been accomplished.

When President McKinley spoke, the first duty was the restoration of order; and to this end the use of the Army of the United States— an Army composed of regulars and volunteers alike—was necessary. To put down the insurrection and restore peace to the islands was a duty not only to ourselves but to the islanders also. We could not have abandoned the conflict without shirking this duty, without proving ourselves recreants to the memory of our forefathers. Moreover, if we had abandoned it we would have inflicted upon the Filipinos the most cruel wrong and would have doomed them to a bloody jumble of anarchy and tyranny. It seems strange, looking back, that any of our people should have failed to recognize a duty so

obvious; but there was such failure, and the Government at home, the civil authorities in the Philippines, and above all our gallant Army, had to do their work amid a storm of detraction. The Army in especial was attacked in a way which finally did good, for in the end it aroused the hearty resentment of the great body of the American people, not against the Army, but against the Army's traducers. The circumstances of the war made it one of peculiar difficulty, and our soldiers were exposed to peculiar wrongs from their foes. They fought in dense tropical jungles against enemies who were very treacherous and very cruel, not only toward our own men, but toward the great numbers of friendly natives, the most peaceable and most civilized among whom eagerly welcomed our rule. Under such circumstances, among a hundred thousand hot-blooded and powerful young men serving in small detachments on the other side of the globe, it was impossible that occasional instances of wrongdoing should not oc

cur. The fact that they occurred in retaliation for well-nigh intolerable provocation can not for one moment be admitted in the way of excuse or justification. All good Americans regret and deplore them, and the War Department has taken every step in its power to punish the offenders and to prevent or minimize the chance of repetition of the offense. But these offenses were the exception and not the rule. As a whole our troops showed not only signal courage and efficiency, but great humanity and the most sincere desire to promote the welfare and liberties of the islanders. In a series of exceedingly harassing and difficult campaigns they completely overthrew the enemy, reducing them finally to a condition of mere brigandage; and wherever they conquered, they conquered only to make way for the rule of the civil government, for the introduction of law, and of liberty under the law. When, by last July, the last vestige of organized insurrection had disappeared, peace and amnesty were proclaimed.

As rapidly as the military rule was extended over the islands by the defeat of the insurgents, just so rapidly was it replaced by the civil government. At the present time the civil government is supreme and the army in the Philippines has been reduced until it is sufficient merely to provide against the recurrence of trouble. In Governor Taft and his associates we sent to the Filipinos as upright, as conscientious, and as able a group of administrators as ever any country has been blessed with having. With them and under them we have associated the best men among the Filipinos, so that the great majority of the officials, including many of the highest rank, are themselves natives of the islands. The administration is incorruptibly honest; justice is as jealously safeguarded as here at home. The government is conducted purely in the interests of the people of the islands; they are protected in their religious and civil rights; they have been given an excellent and well administered school system, and each of them now

enjoys rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" such as were never before known in all the history of the islands.

The Congress which has just adjourned has passed legislation of high importance and great wisdom in the interests of the Filipino people. First and foremost, they conferred upon them by law the present admirable civil government; in addition they gave them an excellent currency; they passed a measure allowing the organization of a native constabulary; and they provided, in the interests of the islands, for a reduction of twenty-five per cent in the tariff on Filipino articles brought to this country. I asked that a still further reduction should be made. It was not granted by the last Congress, but I think that in some shape it will be granted by the next. And even without it, the record of legislation in the interests of the Filipinos is one with which we have a right to feel great satisfaction.

Moreover, Congress appropriated three mil