s to stand cowering back because it is
afraid to undertake tasks lest they prove too formidable, we may well
suppose that the decadence of our race has begun. No; the tasks are
difficult, and all the more for that reason let us gird up our loins and
go out to do them. But let us meet them, realizing their difficulty; not
in a spirit of levity, but in a spirit of sincere and earnest desire to
do our duty as it is given us to see our duty. Let us not do it in the
spirit of sentimentality, not saying we must at once give universal
suffrage to the people of the Philippines--they are unfit for it. Do not
let us mistake the shadow for the substance. We have got to show the
practical common sense which was combined with the fervent religion of
the Puritan; the combination which gave him the chance to establish here
that little group of commonwealths which more than any others have
shaped the spirit and destiny of this nation; we must show both
qualities.

Gentlemen, if one of the islands which we have acquired is not fit to
govern itself, then we must govern it until it is fit. If you cannot
govern it according to the principles of the New England town
meeting--because the Philippine Islander is not a New Englander--if you
cannot govern it according to these principles, then find out the
principles upon which you can govern it, and apply those principles.
Fortunately, while we can and ought with wisdom to look abroad for
examples, and to profit by the experience of other nations, we are
already producing, even in this brief period, material of the proper
character within our own border, men of our own people, who are showing
us what to do with these islands. A New Englander, a man who would be
entitled to belong to this Society, a man who is in sympathy with all
that is best and most characteristic of the New England spirit, both
because of his attitude in war and of his attitude toward civic morality
in time of peace, is at present giving us a good object lesson in
administering those tropic provinces. I allude to my former commander,
the present Governor-General of Santiago, Major-General Leonard Wood.
General Wood has before him about as difficult a task as man could well
have. He is now intrusted with the supreme government of a province
which has been torn by the most hideously cruel of all possible civil
wars for the last three years, which has been brought down to a
condition of savage anarchy, and from which our armies