nd there
also all the power they need for dealing with the difficult problem
that now confronts them. And when the constitutional objections are
surmounted, those as to policy are not likely to lead the American
people to recall their soldiers from the fields on which the Filipinos
attacked them, or abandon the sovereignty which Spain ceded. The
American Government has the new territories, and will hold and govern
them.

A republic like the United States has not been well adapted hitherto to
that sort of work. Congress is apt to be slow, if not also changeable,
and under the Constitution the method of government for territories
must be prescribed by Congress. It has not yet found time to deal with
the Sandwich Islands. Its harsher critics declare it has never yet
found time to deal fairly with Alaska. No doubt, Executive action in
advance of Congress might be satisfactory; but a President is apt to
wait for Congress unless driven by irresistible necessities. He can
only take the initiative through some form of military government. For
this the War Department is not yet well organized. Possibly the easiest
solution for the moment would be in the organization of another
department for war and government beyond the seas, or the development
of a measurably independent bureau for such work in the present
department. Whatever is done, it would be unreasonable to expect
unbroken success or exemption from a learner's mistakes and
discouragements. But whoever supposes that these will result either in
the abandonment of the task or in a final failure with it does not know
the American people.

VII

OUR NEW DUTIES

This commencement address was delivered on the campus at Miami
University, Oxford, Ohio, at the celebration of its seventy-fifth
anniversary, June 15, 1899.

OUR NEW DUTIES

Sons and Friends of Miami: I join you in saluting this venerable mother
at a notable waymark in her great life. One hundred and seven years ago
the Congress voted, and George Washington approved, a foundation for
this University. Seventy-five years ago it opened its doors. Now, si
monumentum quaeris, circumspice. There is the catalogue. There are the
long lists of men who so served the State or the Church that their
lives are your glory, their names your inspiration.[5] There are the
longer lists of others to whom kinder fortune did not set duties in the
eye of the world; but Miami made of them citizens who leavened the lump