ey
need the army an' the schools, still it's the army an' the schools as
America is going to give them, an' they can get along without the roads
an' the Chinese as best they can. They certainly must be gettin' a good
deal of schoolin', but the man says all the teachers teach is English,
an' as none of the children can speak English they don't get much
learned. I thought I could sort of see that he thought we 'd ought to
of straightened out the South of our own country afore we begun on any
other part of the world, an' it _is_ the other half of the world, too,
Mrs. Lathrop, for I looked it up on a map an' it begins right under
Japan an' then twists off in a direction as makes you wonder how under
the sun we come to own it anyway, an' if we did accidentally get it
hooked on to us by Dewey's having too much steam up to be able to stop
himself afore he'd run over the other fleet, we'd ought anyway to be
willin' to give it away like you do the kittens you ain't got time to
drown. The whole back of the book is full of figures to prove as it's
the truth as has been told in front, but the man who wrote it didn't
think much of even the figures in the Philippines for he says they put
down some of what they spend in Mexican money an' some in American an'
don't tell what they spend the most of it for in either case. He says he
met some very nice men there an' they was workin' the best they knew
how but they did n't think things were goin' well themselves an' it's
plain to be seen that he spoke of 'em just like you give a child a cooky
after a spankin'. What interested me most was there's a Malay country
over there as the English began on twenty-five years ago an' have got
railroaded an' telegraphed an' altogether civilized now, an' we've had
the Philippines ten years an' ain't even got the live ones quieted down
yet."

"What do you--" asked Mrs. Lathrop, earnestly.

"Oh," said her friend, "I ain't never had no ideas on the Philippine
question since Judge Fitch got his brother made a captain in the war
just because he was tired supportin' him. Mr. Kimball said then as all
wars was just got up to use up the folks as respectable people did n't
want to have around no longer an' I must say as I believe him. Mr.
Weskin told me as it's been quietly knowed around for hundreds of years
as the crusades was a great success as far as gettin' 'em off was
concerned just for that very reason, an' I guess we're hangin' on to the
Philippines beca