the islands for all future time with which anybody living has any practical concern. Until it is substituted by a definite declaration by Congress similar to the one we made in the case of Cuba, and the present American Governor-General and his associates are substituted by men sent out to report back how soon they think the Filipinos may safely be trusted to attend to their own domestic concerns, all crucial facts and situations that might jeopardize the continuance of the present American regime in the Philippines will continue, as heretofore, to remain unmentioned in the official reports of the American authorities now out there. Until that is done, you will never hear the Filipino side of the case from anybody whose opinion you are willing to make the basis of governmental action. These remarks will, obviously from the nature of the case, be quite as true long after President Taft, the reader, and I are dead as they are now. Mr. Taft would be very glad to have Congress declare frankly that it is the purpose of this Government to hold the Philippines permanently, i. e., permanently so far as the word means continuance of the "uplift" treatment long after everybody now on the earth is beneath it. But because public opinion in the United States is so much divided as to the wisdom of a policy of frankly avowed intention permanently to retain the islands, he prefers to leave the whole matter open and undetermined, so as to get the support both of those who think a definite programme of permanent retention righteous and those who think such a programme vicious. He wishes to please both sides of a moral issue, on the idea that, as the present policy is in his individual judgment best for all concerned, the end justifies the means. Yet, as the issue is a moral one, which concerns the cause of representative government throughout the world, and a strategic one which concerns the national defence, it should, in my judgment, no longer be dodged, but squarely met. You constantly hear President Taft talking quite out loud here at home, in his public utterances, about the great politico-missionary work we are doing in the Philippines by furnishing them with the most approved up-to-date methods for the pursuit of happiness, the avoidance of graft in government, the elimination of crimes of violence, in short the ideal way to minimize the ills that human governments are heir to, while every day and every dollar spent out there by Americans induced by him to go there, are time and money tensely arrayed against the ultimate independence he purports to favor. Give the Americans out there a square deal. Let them know whether we are going to keep the islands or whether we are not. Honesty is a far better policy than the present policy. The Americans in the islands, Mr. Taft's agents in the Philippines, talk no uncandid and misleading stuff about the Philippines being exclusively for the Filipinos. And they do considerable talking. They need looking