ng
the proposal of the American Commissioners that the United States
should maintain public order over the whole Philippine
Archipelago pending the exchange of ratifications of the treaty
of peace, stated that the answer of his Government was that the
authorities of each of the two nations shall be charged with the
maintenance of order in the places where they may be established,
those authorities agreeing among themselves to this end whenever
they may deem it necessary."

[Sidenote: The Carnival of Captious Objection.]

Meantime, in accordance with a well-known and probably unchangeable law
of human nature, this is the carnival and very heyday of the objectors.
The air is filled with their discouragement.

Some exclaim that Americans are incapable of colonizing or of managing
colonies; that there is something in our national character or
institutions that wholly disqualifies us for the work. Yet the most
successful colonies in the whole world were the thirteen original
colonies on our Atlantic coast; and the most successful colonists were
our own grandfathers! Have the grandsons so degenerated that they are
incapable of colonizing at all, or of managing colonies? Who says so?
Is it any one with the glorious history of this continental
colonization bred in his bone and leaping in his blood? Or is it some
refugee from a foreign country he was discontented with, who now finds
pleasure in disparaging the capacity of the new country he came to,
while he has neither caught its spirit nor grasped the meaning of its
history?

Some bewail the alleged fact that, at any rate, our system has little
adaptability to the control of colonies or dependencies. Has our system
been found weaker, then, than other forms of government, less adaptable
to emergencies, and with people less fit to cope with them? Is the
difficulty inherent, or is it possible that the emergency may show, as
emergencies have shown before, that whatever task intelligence, energy,
and courage can surmount the American people and their Government can
rise to?

It is said the conditions in our new possessions are wholly different
from any we have previously encountered. This is true; and there is
little doubt the new circumstances will bring great modifications in
methods. That is an excellent reason, among others, for some doubt at
the outset as to whether we know all about it, but not for despairing
of our capac