Page:Carl Schurz- 1900-05-24 For American Principles and American Honor.pdf/11

 govern themselves, and that the conduct of their municipal governments must therefore be entrusted to somebody else better fitted.

But let us once resolve with perfect good faith to aid the Philippine islanders in constructing an independent government suitable to their conditions, and let us have men in power who are honestly determined to accomplish that end, and the difficulties will rapidly diminish. Of course, the Philippines will not have an ideal republican government. We have not, for that matter. But let us honestly try together, and they can yet an independent government as good as that of Mexico, and better than those of most of the South American republics. They would probably have such a government now had we not perfidiously drowned it in blood.

The fine pretence that we must subjugate them in order to teach and secure to them honest government is perhaps not as proudly insisted upon to-day as it was a month ago. It is not too much to say that the recent disclosures in Cuba have advertised our disgrace in that respect to the whole world more glaringly than it had ever been advertised before. Nor can we flatter ourselves with the belief that the Cuban instance is an isolated one. Some time ago Gen. Otis issued an order against evil practices in our administration of things in the Philippines which clearly indicated that our service there was honeycombed with corruption. Neither is this surprising. My official experience in the conduct of Indian affairs as Secretary of the Interior taught me some pertinent lessons. Why is it so especially difficult to prevent corrupt practices in the Indian agencies? For two reasons: First, because these officers are comparatively far removed from the observation of the government and of the public. And, secondly, because a good many of our people have very little regard for the rights and interests of so-called inferior races, and consider cheating and robbing such races as a privilege of the superior being. To such men the Philippine Islander is only a “nigger,” and the Cuban and the