of too great complacence; and it will be well for us to meditate quite as much upon our shortcomings as upon the incontestible fact that we are a leader of nations in altruistic activities. All the same, when our president calls our attention to the fact that we have established a new international precedent" in altruism, the educa tional, expanding and uplifting influence upon our people is an inestimable benefit.

What have we done in the Philippines? In President Roosevelt's message to congress last December occurs the following significant passage:

"In our anxiety for the welfare and progress of the Philippines, it may be that here and there we have gone too rapidly in giving them local self-government. It is on this side that our error, if any, has been committed. No competent observer, sincerely desirous of finding out the facts, and influenced only by a desire for the welfare of the natives, can assert that we have not gone far enough. We have gone to the very verge of safety in hastening the process. To have taken a single step further or faster in advance would have been folly and weakness, and might well have been crime. We are extremely anxious that the natives shall show the power of governing themselves. We are anxious, first, for their sakes, and next because it relieves us of a great burden. There need not be the slightest fear of our not continuing to give them all the liberty for which they are fit. The only fear is lest in our over-anxiety we give them a degree of independence for which they are unfit, thereby inviting reaction and disaster. As fast as there is any reasonable hope that in a given district the people can govern themselves, self-government has been given in that district. There is not a locality fit for self-government which has not received it. But it may well be that in certain cases it will have to be withdrawn because the inhabitants show themselves unfit to exercise it; such instances have already occurred. In other words, there is not the slightest chance of our failing to show a sufficiently humanitarian spirit. The danger comes in the other direction." President Roosevelt further says: "Our earnest effort is to help these people upward along the stony and difficult path that leads to self-government. . . . . Our aim is high. We do not desire to do for the islands merely what has elsewhere been done for tropic peoples by even the best foreign governments; we hope to do for them what has never before been done for any people of the tropics-to make them fit for self-government after the fashion of the really free nations."

This message was given at the beginning of De

cember last. In The Outlook for May 31st is published what may be called a report by Governor Taft on "Civil Government in the Philippines." Fortunately Governor Taft's character and reputation are such as to give confidence in the report he has made. In a discussion of this matter, the editor of The Outlook states:

"It is interesting to note, after so much misrepresentation of the situation in the Philippines, that the story of American control there is as definitely constructive and as fundamentally upbuilding as the story of American control in Cuba, recalled in another column. It is a history, not of conquest, but of the laying of the foundations of a superior civilization, with specific reference to the needs of the people who are to be governed, and with definite reference to the welfare of the islands, both material and moral. This aim, so distinct from that which has shaped the colonial policies of most other governments, and of all colonial policies at an earlier period in history, is clearly evidenced by the generous share which Filipinos receive in the government of the islands, a share which is as large as the exigencies of the situation will permit, and which will become larger as the population becomes more accustomed to popular government and the natives fitted to administer it increase in numbers.

"The United States has built up in the Philippines a popular government from the very foundation. It began by a large appropriation for the construction and improvement of roads in the archipelago and for the improvement of the harbor works at Manila, involving altogether an expenditure of not less than four millions of dollars, and designed, by making the harbor at Manila satisfactory and adequate, to give the islands facilities for commerce with the rest of the world, and, by the construction of good roads, to open up the interior of the country to the seaports. It has passed a general school law, laid the basis of a general school system and brought to the islands a thousand American teachers; so that more than half the towns in the archipelago now have an American teacher, whose chief function is to teach the Filipino teachers the English language and the proper methods of education. In other words, the government has established a popular flexible school system which will be coterminous with the islands themselves. Normal and manual training schools have already been organized at varions points."

It will be seen that the aim of our government in the Philippines has been substantially the same as that which has governed our action in Cuba, and very different from the colonial policies of other governments, even that of England herself, which has heretofore given the world the nearest ideal colonial policy.

As the years, and even as the months, come and go, the situation in the Philippines rapidly improves. In a letter from President Roosevelt, dated June 8th, written to the Rev. Charles E. St. John, of Boston, Secretary to the American Unitarian Association, the president says:

"I am happy to be able to say that the bill which has just passed the senate will, if enacted into law, enable us to proceed even more rapidly and efficiently than hitherto along the lines of securing peace, prosperity and personal liberty to the inhabitants of the Philippine islands. There is now almost no 'policy of coercion' in the Philippines because the insurrection has been so entirely overcome that, save in a few places, peace, and, with peace, the policy of conciliation and good will obtains throughout the islands. There has never been any coercion save what was absolutely inevitable in putting a stop to an armed attack upon the sovereignty of the United States, which, in its last phases, became mere brigandage."

The most important question involved in this discussion is whether the occupancy of the Philippines by the Americans tends to weaken our democracy and our sense of fair play, and whether it exerts any reactionary and injurious influence upon us; or whether, as I contend, our efforts to provide the Filipinos with selfgovernment as rapidly as they are able to utilize it, and giving them a stable government, the benefit of schools and an opportunity to pursue peaceful industries, will react upon our own people, as it undoubtedly has done and is doing in the case of Cuba, for the promotion and development of the higher qualities of our nature.

In the foregoing article there are a few points that need a word of correction. The fact that Dr. Densmore favors a United States colonial policy is a matter that calls for no special remark, only that he has endeavored to fasten his argument upon the economic theory and reasoning represented by this magazine, and in so doing he has made several important mistakes.

First of all, he says, "it is a part of the Guntonian

philosophy" that the law of social contact “applies with equal certainty to a collection of units, and if social contact is good for an individual and for any given community, it is equally good for larger and larger groups, until the nation is included.” But this is not the case; there is no social contact between groups as groups, and least of all, between nations as nations. The only social contact that ever takes place is between individuals. It is the influence of contact upon the individual that finally affects the character of the group, but the medium of social transmission is always the individuals. The civilization of nations may affect each other by the intercourse of their citizens, as the manners and fashions of Europe are transferred to this country, and vice versa; but this is not the intercourse of nations; it is the intercourse of individuals through travel. Trade with the peoples in different countries stimulates this effect, but that, too, is always individual and not national. But none of this requires conquest or political annexation.

He speaks of the present prosperity as in some way due to the Philippine policy, but it had absolutely nothing to do with it. The great strides in economic development at home took place before anything of importance was done abroad. Foreigners will not buy American rails or locomotives or have American built ships merely because we whipped Spain and have a stronger navy, or because foreign countries are a little more afraid of us. Those reasons have absolutely no influence on our trade either at home or abroad. The only reason why foreigners will buy our products is because they can get them cheaper, or that they are better than can be had elsewhere. The only extent to which our performances in the East have helped our domestic prosperity is in the consumption of arms and ammunition and clothing and rations by the army and navy.

We never suspected for a moment that annexing the Philippines or anything else would lessen the energy with which Morgan would organize trusts, or the United States steel company improve the methods of manufacturing armor plate and steel rails. Capitalists will develop the resources of the nation whenever the profitable opportunity presents itself.

On this point Dr. Densmore's remarks are without any foundation in fact. What we referred to by attracting attention to foreign affairs to the neglect of home was not in the doings of the capitalists at all, but in the public opinion and public policy of the nation, and on that point our prediction has been all too literally vindicated.

Congress, the press throughout the country, and the administration have been literally absorbed duringthe last two years with this foreign policy. Discussion in relation to these new possessions practically monopolized the attention of congress during the last session, and no question of great national importance had any chance for fair consideration.

There are several important measures which ought, and otherwise would have received discussion in the press and consideration in congress during this session. Conspiciously among these was an important banking law, and a comprehensive bill dealing with immigration. Because of the overshadowing character of the Cuban and Philippine business, the late session was distressingly barren of results.

Our present marvelous industrial growth is the outcome of our previous economic policy, a conspicuous feature of which was a wholesome protective system, now being demoralized by this colonial and foreign policy discussion.

Another point that Dr. Densmore makes is the altruistic effect of our Philippine experiences upon the