and with the other Great Powers and discuss how the matter could be adjusted? If some one had done that when Austria was threatening Serbia, there would have been no European War. The whole purpose of this Conference is to provide some means where just, thoughtful, righteous peoples, who are not seeking to seize something which does not belong to them, can live peaceably together and eliminate causes of conflict. This is in the American heart and it is in the British heart and it is in the Japanese heart, in the French heart, in the Italian heart-it is everywhere in the world. If this present-day civilization cannot take advantage of this new realization, of that emphasized conviction, I would not give much for the civilization of the future. But there is a new spirit seeking and impelling peace, and it must add to our Christmas happiness, What President Harding had in mind and what the nations are planning in their Conference is frankly an experiment. It is not a declaration of policy like the Monroe Doctrine, which contains a threat. It is not an alliance which involves a mutual guaranty of armed protection. It is simply a plan to consider together any question at issue. It is an experiment that can be undertaken only by friends. Are these four nations good enough friends to undertake it? They have proved themselves good enough friends to try the experiment in Washington, and are apparently trying it successfully. No reason appears, so far as I know, why, whenever occasion demands, they may not keep on trying it. December 27, 1921. T LONG-RANGE PLANNING HERE is a bill now before Congress which is the first necessary step in an important change of public policy. It is S.-2749, on longrange planning of public works, introduced by Senator Kenyon on November 21, on the recommendation of the President's Conference on Unemployment. The Conference on Unemployment pointed out the need for long-range thinking and long-range planning in public affairs. This bill will help to make that thinking and planning an actuality. The Kenyon Bill advocates, as a definite policy, the expansion and contraction of Federal public works to accord with the periods of fall and rise in private industry and employment. Such a policy is a right-about-face on the part of the Federal Government. In the past it has been much more likely to expand its public works in boom times and to contract them in dull times. What this bill does is to call upon the various public works agencies of the Federal Government to be prepared in advance with engineering plans for proposed undertakings, so that when an appropriation is made in a time of depression the work can go forward immediately, rather than wait months or years until plans have been prepared and approved. Before the Kenyon legislation there has been no incentive for Federal public works agencies to keep ahead of the game. After this legislation it will be a breach of duty on the part of public works officials if they are not ready to proceed whenever called on to do so. Many Government projects contain intricate problems which will require years to solve. For instance, the Boulder Canyon Dam in Arizona would develop more power than Niagara Falls, would light southern California, and would run the railways and many factories. But before it can be built agreements must be had from various States not to divert the head-waters into other watersheds; the Government policy must be determined, involving Federal, State, city, and private corporations; and engineering work planned over hundreds of BY EDWARD EYRE HUNT miles, not to mention irrigation subsidiaries for hundreds of thousands of acres of land. Again, post offices and Federal buildings are needed in hundreds of towns. The Federal Government rents many cramped and inadequate quarters. There is constant pressure on members of Congress to fill Federal needs locally. These buildings will be built. The only question is when. The Kenyon Bill proposes that plans for these undertakings be ready wherever possible, and the bulk of them executed during bad times rather than during boom times. Vast areas are sure to be reclaimed through irrigation and drainage. The territory of the United States will eventually be increased, not by wars of conquest, but by the pick, the shovel, the dam, and the ditch. These great undertakings usually linger in Congress because there is no impetus to action. The Kenyon Bill would assist, not only in having ready the plans for such projects, but in giving the final impetus at a time when general industry and employment are in need of stabilization. How can Congress know the proper time to go ahead? The Kenyon Bill provides that the Department of Commerce shall publish monthly statements of the rise and fall in cyclical waves of business expansion and depression as a guide in preparing in advance for the expansion of public works. A few large corporations have kept such statistics and have been able to predict the peaks of the waves of expansion. By making few purchases of raw materials at such times, by keeping their stores low, they have been able to make profits by refraining from buying at the top and having the resources to buy and manufacture as the wave falls. Each corporation which follows this policy takes a little off the top and fills in a little of the trough of the wave of depression. The barometer of business proposed by this bill would enable more business men and corporations, as well as the Government, to obtain this information and protect themselves accordingly. The Kenyon Bill has value as an educational measure with respect to the public works policy of cities and States, the volume of whose public works is over five times that of the Federal Government. When Washington takes the lead, the cities and States will gradually follow. To-day advance planning of public works by American cities hardly exists. City plans over a period of years would enable a city to carry out some of its major improvements during periods of depression, when men and materials are plentiful. Municipal bonds are often in greatest demand when capital is timid about investment in industrial enterprises. Consequently the cities are able to go ahead during bad times when private industry is checked. Only a small part of the ordinary necessary public works needs to be deferred each year, in order to iron out an appreciable part of the inequalities of employment. In a growing country like the United States the amount of public works of Federal, State, and municipal governments is so great that if this policy were followed and the resulting accumulation, plus the normal, executed in a year of depression like the present, the actual wages paid in public works would be equal to a large percentage of the loss in wages in private industry during the period of depression. But the wages received in public works are only a small part of the total stimulus to industry. Orders for the necessary materials provide an additional wage payment. The wages received by direct workers and workers in production of materials create by their expenditure a demand for commodities and set new groups of workers to making garments, shoes, and textiles, and so liquefy the frozen credits in raw and finished materials. A concentrated public works programme is like dropping a pebble into a pond. The waves extend to the farthest shores of industry. But before the pebble is dropped there must be forethought, there must be planning, and these the Kenyon Bill is intended to stimulate. W ITH the election of Mr. Harding it became obvious that one of the first duties of the incoming Administration would be to take stock in that branch office of American democracy which we know as the Philippines. That particular branch of our Governmental a former Republican Governor-General ... to make there a study of the con sciousness that I am dealing justly my recommendations with a concern has always been a source of anxiety. It provided Mr. Bryan with one of the best-selling articles in his sample book. It moved William Vaughan Moody to passionate poetry. It has figured in the National platforms of the major parties ever since Admiral Dewey remarked to a gentleman by the name of Gridley, "You may fire when ready." With the accession of President Harding the country voted to give its affairs again into the hands of the same board of directors (or the political heirs of that board) which was responsible for the original Oriental investment in American Preferred. For eight years the management of this investment had been in the hands of men who because of party pledge and personal predilection had fought the venture from the start and who were eager to wipe the whole affair off the books at the earliest possible moment. It was in this attitude of mind that President Wilson sent a Message to Congress in December, 1920, in which he said: Allow me to call your attention to the fact that the people of the Philippine Islands have succeeded in maintaining a stable government since the last action of the Congress in their behalf, and have thus fulfilled the condition set by the Congress as precedent to a consideration of granting independence to the islands. I respectfully submit that this condition precedent having been fulfilled, it is now our liberty and our duty to keep our promise to the people of those islands by granting them the independence which they so honorably covet. When President Harding came into office, he quoted this Message in a letter to Secretary Weeks, pointing out the fact that Congress had not acted upon this recommendation and saying: Undoubtedly that non-action was due to the fact that all of the evidence available to Congress was not of this same tenor. Based, however, as it was, on official reports from the highest authority in the Philippine Islands, as well as on current reports from lesser authorities given the widest circulation in the United States, as well as in the islands, it cannot, with propriety, be ignored, nor yet can it, in the face of conflicting evidence from many sources, be accepted as the final word on so important a subject. In the same letter President Harding said that he had selected Major-General Leonard Wood and W. Cameron Forbes, In his instruction to General Wood In all the forms of government and Secretary Weeks declared to General Wood that no better guide for judgment of the adequacy of the Philippine Government as it now exists could be found than this statement of President McKinley. The conclusions reached by General Wood and Mr. Forbes have now been made public in one of the most illuminating governmental reports which we have ever read. It is marked throughout by breadth of vision and tolerance of spirit. It is the fruit of a truly judicial attempt to investigate the situation in the Philippines with scientific thoroughness and to derive from this investigation conclusions of the most constructive character. The report begins with a summary of the task confronting the Commission. This is followed by an outline history of the Philippines and of the American occupation of the islands. The study of the present condition of the islands covers the state of the public order, administration of justice, the question of land titles, the conduct of public institutions, such as prisons, hospitals, and the Bureau of Science, the development of the school system, economic conditions, and finances. It is in the administration of the schools that the Commission finds its best cause for congratulating the islands. Of their attitude towards education the Commission states: "The whole people have a consuming thirst for education," and again: "The Filipinos are deeply interested in public This high praise is modified only by the following condition: "Indeed, enthusiasm has at times outrun prudence. and expansion has taken place so rapidly that efficiency has not been able to keep pace. However, such mistakes as have been made have resulted from enthusiasm in a noble cause-the education of the youth of the islands." from other banks all government funds there deposited, except trust funds, which were held on deposit in the United States; later the bank was put into a position to get control of these moneys and reserve funds. The sum of $41,500,000, held for the conversion of currency, was transferred to the Philippine Islands, the bank making a large profit in exchange in doing so. Much of it was then loaned out to speculative concerns under circumstances which have led to grave doubt as to the good faith of the transactions. . . A partner of Messrs. Haskins & Sells, certified public accountants of New York, after a careful examination of the bank, makes the following comment: "Our examination thus far reveals the fact that the bank has been operated during almost the entire period of its existence prior to the appointment of Mr. Wilson as manager in violation of every principle which prudence, intelligence, or even honesty, dictate." The losses of the bank, the Commission points out, have involved the Philippine Government to a very grave extent: The currency resources have been depleted, the silver on deposit to redeem the currency has been pledged and used for other purposes. The fund for the maintenance of the parity of gold and silver is involved in these losses, with the result that instead of a metallic and cash basis for the currency, its principal support now is the pledge of the Philippine Government and the confidence on the part of the public that the United States will not permit these things to happen again. The currency is now practically a fiat currency. In view of good earnings, moderate expenses, inherent wealth, a small public debt, and backe by the credit of the United States, the problem of rehabilitating the credit of the Philipnine Islands should be an easy one. The lesson has been a bitter one for the Filipinos and the gravity of the mistake is generally appreciated. OPEN-AIR EXERCISES IN A MODERN MANILA SCHOOL As a result of the whole painstaking investigation General Wood and Mr. Forbes have reached conclusions which should be of interest to all students of our Government. These conclusions and recommendations are worth quoting in full: GENERAL CONCLUSIONS We find the people happy, peaceful, and in the main prosperous, and keenly appreciative of the benefits of American rule. We find everywhere among the Christian Filipinos the desire for independence, generally under the protection of the United States. The non-Christians and Americans are for continuance of American control. We find a general failure to appreciate the fact that independence under the protection of another nation is not true independence, We find that the Government is not reasonably free from those underlying causes which result in the destruction of government. We find that a reasonable proportion of officials and employees are men of good character and ability, and reasonably faithful to the trust imposed upon them; but that the efficiency of the public services has fallen off, and that they are now relatively inefficient, due to lack of inspection and to the too rapid transfer of control to officials who have not had the necessary time for proper training. We find that many Filipinos have shown marked capacity for Govern ment service and that the young generation is full of promise: that the Civil Service laws have in the main been honestly administered, but there is a marked deterioration due to the injection of politics. We find there is a disquieting lack of confidence in the administration of justice, to an extent which constitutes a menace to the stability of the Government. We find that the people are not organized economically nor from the standpoint of national defense to maintain an independent government. We find that the legislative chambers are conducted with dignity and decorum and are. composed of representative men. We feel that the lack of success in certain departments should not be considered as proof of essential incapacity on the part of Filipinos, but rather as indicating lack of experience and opportunity, and especially lack of inspection. We find that questions in regard to confirmation of appointments might at any time arise which would make a deadlock between the GovernorGeneral and the Philippine Senate. We feel that with all their many excellent qualities, the experience of the past eight years, during which they have had practical autonomy, has not been such as to justify the people of the United States relinquishing supervision of the Government of the Philippine Islands, withdrawing their Army and Navy, and leaving the islands a prey to any powerful nation coveting their rich soil and potential commercial advantages. In conclusion we are convinced that it would be a betrayal of the Philippine people, a misfortune to the American people, distinct a step backward in the path of progress, and a discreditable neglect of our National duty were we to withdraw from the islands, and terminate our relationship there without giving the Filipinos the best chance possible to have an orderly and permanently stable government. RECOMMENDATIONS 1. We recommend that the present general status of the Philippine Islands continue until the people have had time to absorb and thoroughly master the powers already in their hands. 2. We recommend that the responsible representative of the United States, the Governor-General, have authority commensurate with the responsibilities of his position. In case of failure to secure the necessary corrective action by the Philippine Legislature, we recommend that Congress declare null and void legislation which has been enacted diminishing, limiting, or dividing the authority granted the Governor-General under Act No. 240 of the Sixty-fourth Congress, known as the Jones Bill. 3. We recommend that in case of a deadlock between the Governor-General and the Philippine Senate in the confirmation of appointments that the President of the United States be authorized to make and render the. final decision. 4. We recommend that under no circumstances should the American Government permit to be established in the Philippine Islands a situation which would leave the United States in a position of responsibility without authority. LEONARD WOOD, Chairman. W. CAMERON FORBES. October 8, 1921. We wish that this report might have the fullest possible distribution. It is a historic document. |