ication to colonies. We have had experience of it from the
first days of our Government. There is no commandment that a Territory
shall become a State in any given time, or ever. We can hold back a
Territory, as we have Arizona and New Mexico, or hasten the change
to Statehood according to the conditions, and the perfect movement of
the machinery requires only the presence in Congress of dominant good
sense. Congress is easily denounced, but no one has found a substitute
for it, and it is fairly representative of the country. Congress will
never gamble away the inheritance of the people. It will probably,
in spite of all shortcomings, have its average of ability and utility
kept up. Congress may go wrong, but will not betray. Our outlying
possessions must be Territories until they are Americanized, and we
take it Americans know what that word means. If a specification is
wanted as a definition, we have to say the meaning is just what has
happened in California since our flag was there. In the case of the
Philippines, if we stick, and we do not see how we can help doing so,
the President will, in regular course, appoint a Territorial Governor,
and as a strong Government capable of quick and final decisions must
be made, the Governor should be a military man, and have a liberal
grant, by special Act of Congress, of military authority. He should
be a prompt, and all around competent administrator. He will not have
to carry on war offensive or defensive. He need not be in a hurry
to go far from Manila. He will not be molested there. The country
will gravitate to him. The opponents of the Republican form of
Government, as it is in the United States and the Territories of the
Nation will become insignificant in the Philippines. They will have
no grievances, except some of them may not be called at once to put
on the trappings of personal potentiality. General Aguinaldo would
find all the reforms the Spanish promised when they paid him four
hundred thousand dollars to prove their good intentions, free as the
air. He could not make war against the benignancy of a Government,
Republican in its form and its nature, which simply needs a little
time, some years maybe, before erasing the wrongs that have had a
growth of centuries. The American Governor-General need not send out
troops to conquer districts, coercing the people. The people will soon
be glad to see the soldiers of the United States, the representatives
of the downfall a