to all the people by calling back
the leader who is in hiding, and his forces, which are scattered and
disorganized, and by now abandoning to such revengeful rule the great
majority of the islanders who have remained peaceful and orderly during
our occupation. For the present, at least, we unite in recognizing that
they are forced to retain that care themselves; forced to act in the
common interest of all the people there, not in the sole interest of a
warring faction in a single tribe--in the interest of all the islands
for which we have accepted responsibility, not simply of the one, or of
a part of the population on the one, that has made the most trouble.

There can be little disagreement in this company on the further
proposition that, in like manner, they must act in the interest of all
the people here. In the interest of the islanders, they will soon seek
to raise the needed revenue in the way least burdensome and most
beneficial to the islands; but in the interest of their country, we
cannot expect them to begin by assuming that the only way to help the
islanders is to throw products of tropic cheap labor into unrestricted
competition with similar products of our highly paid labor. In the
interest of the islanders, they will secure and guarantee the civil
rights which belong to the very genius of American institutions; but in
the interest of their country, they will not make haste to extend the
privilege of American citizenship, and so, on the one hand, enable
those peoples of the China Sea, Chinese or half-breed or what not, to
flood our labor market in advance of any readiness at home to change
our present laws of exclusion, while, on the other hand, opening the
door to them as States in the Union to take part in the government of
this continent. If, in the Providence of God, and in contempt of past
judicial rulings, the Supreme Court should finally command it, this
Commission, like every other branch of the Government, will obey. Till
then we may be sure it will not, in sheer eagerness and joyfulness of
heart, anticipate, or, as Wall Street speculators say, "discount," such
a decree for national degradation. But in their own land, and, as far
as may be, in accordance with their old customs and laws, the
Commission will secure to them, if it is to win the success we all wish
it, first every civil right we enjoy, and next the fullest measure of
political rights and local self-government they are found capable o