of cities and demean honorable industry. But the trend of civilization is away from these depths, and its ideal is to make the favors and privileges of the few the endowments and rights of the many.

The state of uncivilized man socially and politically, admirably meets the requirements of his unsophisticated condition. But it is inadequate to the ends of organization in wider masses, and to those larger purposes for which national unity is demanded. Not until the higher stages of modern civilization are reached does the principle of self-government apply, on an extended scale, and even then only crudely as compared with the effectiveness which it exhibits in primitive units, and to a degree in the civilized local communities whose forms and methods have been evolved from the primitive. In all phases of national government short of those represented by the highest civilization coherence in the state is maintained only under the iron hand of absolutism. Democratic local forms exist in many parts of the world, as in the Russian mir and the Japanese village. In these and like instances the system is well developed for purely local purposes. But the type lacks the completion of that presented in the savage community, for the reason that into the midst of the former is thrust the autocratic hand of superior authority, modifying things with externally imposed limitations and profoundly affecting individual character by its cramping and warping influences.

Within historic times there migrated from the forests of central Europe various Germanic tribes who, with other savage virtues, carried to distant parts their crudely efficient institutions of self-government. These took root in the two extremes, Great Britain and

Iberia. In the latter the popular and representative governments of the several Spanish kingdoms were evolved from this heritage even before England achieved her parliament; in both lands self-government grew up under similar auspices. In Spain, however, these splendid growths, after flourishing and developing for centuries, were gradually, but relentlessly, uprooted by the usurping might of a kingcraft that had long recognized the derivation of its powers from the consent of the governed only at last to belie its origin and claim authority by right divine. It is remarkable that, even well into the nineteenth century, a genuine progress of civilization in Spain was thenceforward attended by a tightening of the grasp of absolutism. In England, however, the reverse has been the case; there has been a steady advance in selfgovernment.

Both countries planted mighty domains beyond the seas. Back to the depths of the German forests may be traced the lines of growth that have produced the imperial American republic.

The theory that a people, like an individual, if it is to achieve the robust character essential to a healthy existence, must be left to work out its own destiny unhampered and unaided, is widely held and seems highly attractive in its statement. The experience of the United States of America, the most powerful offshoot of Germanic self-government, is cited as strongly supporting this proposition. This great child of modern democracy has lately been brought to a new period in its development through the relations which it has assumed towards various transoceanic children of the decadent State wherein the other powerful expressions of Germanic democracy fell to ruin. It is therefore a matter of moment for us to

examine the aforesaid theory in its relation to existing conditions.

The great American republic was founded upon the principle of democratic self-government. Its people had been trained therein for more than a century before achieving their national independence. They had therefore well equipped themselves to go their own way to a mighty estate among the world's powers; moreover, their geographical position was peculiarly favorable to unimpeded development.

Now let us glance at the peoples for whose future our country has become sponsor, and in whose behalf many intelligent persons have urged that they be left to work out their own salvation on the basis of independent national existence! In the case of the islands at our doors, it will be seen that their inhabitants are chiefly of Spanish race, largely tinctured by contact with an interspersed African population that forms. something like one third of the whole. Perhaps the population of Spanish blood, under favoring conditions, might become as capable of self-government as were their sturdy ancestors. But all their experience with government in which they have participated but little -has been along the perverted and thoroughly corrupt lines exemplified by the masters sent them from the mother country. The African inhabitants are children of slavery-which has been extinct in these islands for much less than a generation and they are essentially ignorant of any principles of government whatever.

In the Oriental archipelago the enormous indigenous population is composed of numerous nationalities, different in language, and without bonds of unity. In the cultivated portions a dominion of more than three centuries has established the social in

stitutions, the political and economic methods, and to an extraordinarily limited extent the language, of the master race. The people at large have not the remotest idea of self-government beyond its very slight local applications; their conceptions of political functions, both local and general, are derived solely from corrupt and inefficient methods of Spanish civil and military control reinforced by the exactions and oppressions of the religious orders which there, alone in the whole Christian world, have retained their ancient secular prerogatives. The numerous wild tribes doubtless have their primitive savage democracy; in the more southerly islands various "sultans" maintain the despotism of barbarous or semi-barbarous States. It is remarkable that in this archipelago the Spanish explorers found the easternmost confines of the Mahometan faith that in their own land had only just been cast down from the last seat of a high and brilliant culture.

What chance is there that these insular peoples, either in the East or in the West, would ever work out their own destiny if left to themselves? There must necessarily be some foundation, some preparation, before such results can be expected. In the case of the individual the child must have some care, some training, for the life he is to lead when grown. If his training has been in disorderly and evil ways what may be expected of him? be expected of him? The prospects would be very much against the human waif cast loose in infancy in a city slum, or left exposed in a forest wild. What reason is there to believe that the socalled republic of Hayti, if left to work out its own destiny, would ever, between now and doomsday, grow to be anything else than the benighted land that it is at present-given over to cannibalism,

voodooism and anarchy? And what likelihood is there that Cuba, if left to itself, would become other than, if not a second Hayti, at least a nation in no way superior to, or more orderly than the most turbulent lands of South America? Moreover, is there any other way of leaving the Filipinos to achieve their own future than for us to stand aside and let them fight it out among themselves until the strongest race of the lot subdues the others?

In

In both Cuba and the Philippines the outcome of leaving them to themselves could be no other than the unfailing South American consequence-the establishment of chronic disorder. Cuba and the Philippines, as in Ecuador and Venezuela, in Guatemala and Nicaragua, the political leaders are of identically the same schooling, the same ambitions, the same motives, the same proclivities-all alike disposed to get affairs into their own hands for their own aggrandizement. The great masses would simply divide factionally according to the contentions of their leaders. There would be no lack of ostensible issues, framed with flaming eloquence, but these issues would all resolve themselves down to a matter of public plunder.

In the really heroic struggle for independence on the part of the various Spanish-American countries many of the leaders were unquestionably devoted to the cause of liberty. Like Bolivar, they were often men of cultivation, educated in Europe and fired with enthusiasm for the abstract ideals set forth in the writings of the French apostles of free government and free thought. But they were backed by no popular aspirations -at the most the negative aim to be rid of existing oppression, with no thought of remedy beyond that of a change of masters-and their rival ambitions sur

passed their patriotic devotion. Incessant civil strife has been the consequence. The familiar ring of the manifestos and the proclamas, already plentiful in the islands now in our charge, indicates that, given the opportunity, events there would take like

courses.

We are asked to look at Mexico as an instance of a country once the very example of misrule, but now, by merely being let alone, growing up into power and prosperity; and at Japan, which also we perhaps might have seized, as compared with India under British rule. Cuba, it is argued, might go the way of Mexico if left to herself, while the Filipinos might stand where the Japanese now do. But Mexico had to endure more than a half century of turmoil before a strong hand arose to compel tranquillity. And it was an impulse from without, the impulse of commercial development, together with the moral pressure exerted by the immediate neighborhood of our own powerful country, that aroused in that rich. land a sense of self-interest so strong as to override the tendencies towards internal disorder. In the case of Japan the comparison is hardly felicitous. For centuries Japan has been a great empire and has borne within herself all the seeds of self-development. British India has always been a collection of discordant states; whatever England may yet have failed to accomplish there, she has certainly put an end to internal strife and has done much for the betterment of the land. The Philippines, likewise, comprise no single nationality in one great people, as does Japan. There is no example of how the heterogeneous races that inhabit that archipelago could ever unify themselves into one independent state.

Having assumed the responsibilities

that we have, it would be nothing short of a national crime to permit such rash experiments to be tried. The loss of life attendant upon the processes of pacification is small in comparison with the perpetual bloodshed that would follow giving the islands over to the contentions of races and of factions. We cannot avoid grave mistakes at first. But the tendencies must steadily be for the better; our administration can hardly fail to assure a government immensely superior to anything possible under independent auspices.

Social disorder, with insecurity of life and property, is something just as calamitous in its relation to human welfare when it occurs without our borders as it would be in our own land. Therefore when it comes within our power to bring it to an end it is clearly our province and our duty to do it. The higher civilizations, under the community of interests that now embraces the whole world, have the responsibilities of a trusteeship for the weaker peoples. It is true that various recent events give a somewhat sinister, not to say ironical, cast to the conceptions of this function entertained by certain great powers. But it is only lately, that these duties have been recognized as such; it is natural that their exercise should be complicated with the ambitions of States, with international jealousies, with commercial greed, and with the various other motives that have long impelled men and peoples to play the meaner part. As time goes on these duties must stand out clearer, and will be pursued with increasing singleness of purpose.

Why should we take upon ourselves this new burden in the task of training foreign and inferior peoples in the ways of orderly self-government when we are already loaded down with vexed problems that proceed from our own de

ficient progress along the same path? Indeed, it may well be asked: To what extent have we ourselves really achieved self-government? We have made the principle the cornerstone of our political institutions; we have a very elaborate apparatus for carrying it into effect. In certain limited ways it really is effective, as in the town-meeting governments of New England; and also as expressed in the general elections of perhaps many States, so far as the popular will can therein find utterance. But, on the other hand, look at our city governments, corrupt and boss-ridden, as a rule, throughout the land; the worst in the civilized world, taken all in all, and wastefully extravagant the best of them! Look at our legislative bodies from the lowest to the highest, irresponsible to the public they were intended to represent, except under an overwhelming expression of sentiment upon exciting issues, but chronically pliable to the will of great corporations and powerful moneyed interests! Look at several of the greatest States of the Union, subjected to dictatorships as completely as any, South American country ever was-and one of these, at least, no more of a democratic republic than they; having no pretense of a fair ballot and with voting-lists that include the names of dogs and of dead men! Look at the manipulation of the ballot in various other States, notably in certain ones where at times the number of votes reported cast exceeds that of the entire voting population of the preceding census! Look at yet another group of States with suffrage provisions so framed as to disfranchise an ignorant class of one race-which is well-and enfranchise a correspondingly ignorant class of the dominant race, which certainly is not well! Look at the upper branch of the Congress, so constituted,

according to an inequitable theory of government, as to make it possible for a combination of sparsely settled States of the Union to exert their will superior to that of other States comprising a total population many times in excess. Look at the elections in which the ruler of the nation has been chosen by a minority of the people! And look at our subjection to the will of men long dead as embodied in organic law shaped for the requirements of an age when economic and social conditions were quite other than those of today! All this is certainly not democratic self-government.

We manifestly have our full share of wrongs to right at home, and in that respect have no call to go abroad to employ our reformative impulses. But the teacher learns in teaching. And somehow the logic of events has a way of manifesting itself quite different from that which the logic of sentiment might urge us to follow in taking up one question after another in orderly sequence. While we are all dutifully engaged in promoting our pet reforms with quiet ardor, a strange lot of new issues is thrust upon us without warning, bringing confusion into the midst of sedate groups, redistributing men in their affiliations and making much marvel at strange political bedfellows newly brought together. But though many

patriotic citizens stand aghast at the departure from long established traditions and from politics that seemed to have become part and parcel with the national fabric, there are others equally patriotic, and perhaps more comprehensive of vision, who, while realizing the greater strain to which our institutions must be put under the new tests, nevertheless feel no regret that we have exceeded the bounds of a comfortable continental isolation, and are even disposed to rejoice that conditions have

arisen to make us feel how closely we are a part of the whole world, our interests more definitely identified with those of humanity at large. With the greater energies demanded for dealing with greater problems may we not hope to be better equipped for meeting those that have long baffled us?

If we do not rightly cope with the new conditions we must fail alike both with them and with the old. In wide diffusion of popular intelligence we stand high among the nations. But we have applied that intelligence too little to the conduct of public concerns. Now, however, we see our national authority energetically and, on the whole, successfully exerted in the summary reform of long accumulations from medieval methods in administration; letting daylight into dark places, applying the principles of modern hygiene, of engineering science and of advanced civic economy to the conversion of diseasebreeding and fever-ridden cities into model municipalities-clean, well-paved, admirably administered, and brought under conditions of sanitation that not only enormously diminish their own mortality but protect our own land against a long-standing danger which has often inflicted upon us untold harm. This result alone is well worth many times the cost of the war with Spain and that in the Philippines. Must not such achievements make us more keenly alive to the practicability and the value of handling our own civic problems, of reforming our own misgoverned cities, by measures of like common sense? Will not the spectacle of a competent civil service giving excellent administration to the affairs of our colonies make us alive to the desirability of looking after home affairs with corresponding efficiency?

It is in this broader fashion that the