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shall tender an official assurance to the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands that they will encourage and assist in the organization of such a government in the islands as the people thereof shall prefer, and that upon its organization in stable manner the United States, in accordance with its traditional and prescriptive policy in such cases, will recognize the independence of the Philippines and its equality among nations, and gradually withdraw all military and naval forces."

There is nothing before us now save to make peace with the Filipinos, to get our money back if we can, to get a coaling station if we must-and get out. These people must first be free before they can enter a nation of freemen.

As to details, it rests with those who have the power to act to lay out a plan of action. It is useless for the plain citizen to urge or suggest anything, for there is no possible line of conduct not fraught with serious difficulties, and none which does not demand the highest order of statesmanship. The worst possible line of conduct is to let matters drift along the current of destiny, in the hope that some easy solution may develop. To postpone action on vital questions may be good politics but it is bad statesmanship. The handling of affairs like this demands indeed the services of "the best ye breed," not as soldiers but as doers of deeds.

I may quote in this connection the noble words of Carl Schurz:

"We are told that, having grown so great and strong, we must at least cast off our childish reverence for the teachings of Washington's farewell address-'nursery rhymes that were around the cradle of the republic.' I apprehend that

those who now so flippantly scoff at the heritage the Father of his Country left us in his last words of admonition, have never read that venerable document. I challenge those who have to show me a single sentence of general import in it that would not as a wise rule of national conduct apply to the circumstances of to-day. What is it that has given to Washington's farewell address an authority that was revered by all until our recent victories made so many of us drunk with wild ambitions? Not alone the prestige of Washington's name, great as that was and should ever remain. No, it was the fact that under a respectful observance of those teachings this Republic has grown from the most modest beginnings into a Union spanning this vast continent, our people having multiplied from a handful to 75,000,000; we have risen from poverty to a wealth the sum of which the imagination can hardly grasp; this American nation has become one of the greatest and most powerful on earth, and, continuing in the same course, will surely become the greatest and most powerful of all. Not Washington's name alone gave his teachings their dignity and weight; it was the practical results of his policy that secured to it, until now, the intelligent approbation of the American people. And unless we have completely lost our senses, we shall never despise and reject as mere 'nursery rhymes' the words of wisdom left us by the greatest of Americans, following which the American people have achieved a splendor of development without parallel in the history of mankind."

The grave responsibility we have assumed, that of bringing freedom to the oppressed, calls us to act with conscience and with caution. We are no longer a child nation, a band of irresponsible human colts, but mature men, capable of wielding the strongest influence humanity has felt. We must shun folly. We must despise greed. We must turn from glitter and cant and sham. We must hate injustice as we have hated intolerance and oppression. We must never forget among the nations we alone stand for the individual man.

The greatness of a nation lies not in its bigness but in its justice, in the wisdom and virtue of its people, and in the prosperity of their individual affairs. The nation exists for its men, never the men for the nation. At the end of our Civil War, in 1865, it was feared that by the compromise of reconstruction the principle of inequality before the law would be again engrafted on our polity. It was then that Lowell put these memorable words into the mouth of his Yankee patriot, Hosea Biglow :

I seem to hear a whisperin' in the air,

A sighin', like, of unconsoled despair,

Thet comes from nowhere an' from everywhere,
An' seems to say, "Why died we? warn't it, then,

To settle, once for all, thet MEN WUZ MEN?

Oh, airth's sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted,
The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz wasted!

Oh, you we lef', long-lingerin' et the door,
Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the more,

Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we should feel
Ef she upon our memory turned her heel,
An' unregretful throwed us all away

To flaunt it in a BLIND MAN'S HOLIDAY!"

IV.

COLONIAL LESSONS OF ALASKA.

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