Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7)Roosevelt, Theodore
History
Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 4 (of 7)
Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919; United States -- Politics and government -- 1901-1909
I do not anticipate that free trade between the islands and the United
States will produce a revolution in the sugar and tobacco production
of the Philippine Islands. So primitive are the methods of agriculture
in the Philippine Islands, so slow is capital in going to the islands,
so many difficulties surround a large agricultural enterprise in the
islands, that it will be many, many years before the products of those
islands will have any effect whatever upon the markets of the United
States. The problem of labor is also a formidable one with the sugar
and tobacco producers in the islands. The best friends of the Filipino
people and the people themselves are utterly opposed to the admission
of Chinese coolie labor. Hence the only solution is the training of
Filipino labor, and this will take a long time. The enactment of a law
by the Congress of the United States making provision for free trade
between the islands and the United States, however, will be of great
importance from a political and sentimental standpoint; and while its
actual benefit has doubtless been exaggerated by the people of the
islands, they will accept this measure of justice as an indication that
the people of the United States are anxious to aid the people of the
Philippine Islands in every way, and especially in the agricultural
development of their Archipelago. It will aid the Filipinos without
injuring interests in America.
In my judgment immediate steps should be taken for the fortification
of Hawaii. This is the most important point in the Pacific to fortify
in order to conserve the interests of this country. It would be hard
to overstate the importance of this need. Hawaii is too heavily taxed.
Laws should be enacted setting aside for a period of, say, twenty
years 75 per cent of the internal-revenue and customs receipts from
Hawaii as a special fund to be expended in the islands for educational
and public buildings, and for harbor improvements and military and
naval defences. It can not be too often repeated that our aim must
be to develop the Territory of Hawaii on traditional American lines.
That Territory has serious commercial and industrial problems to
reckon with; but no measure of relief can be considered which looks
to legislation admitting Chinese and restricting them by statute to
field labor and domestic service. The status of servility can never
again be tolerated on American soil. We can not concede that the proper
solution of its problems is special legislation admitting to Hawaii a
class of laborers denied admission to the other States and Territories.
There are obstacles, and great obstacles, in the way of building up a
representative American community in the Hawaiian Islands; but it is
not in the American character to give up in the face of difficulty.
Many an American Commonwealth has been built up against odds equal to
those that now confront Hawaii.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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