THE

PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS
(cont.)
Mercado, Lindsay P.
 Another admirable feature of British
and Dutch colonial admiration lies in
its continuity and the choice of
really high-class men who devote
their lives to a service in which their
government assures them their
career.
 1913:

When Governor-
General Forbes
went back to the
Philippines, he
called on Lord
Cromer.
“I am sorry to hear it. It spells failure in your efforts
to administer dependencies overseas. Continuity of
service is essential in such administration, and so
long as your administrative personnelis subject to
change with change of parties at home, your effort
to administer peoples at a distance is doomed to
fail.”
The United States is
poorly organized to care
for dependencies.
 1909 – President Taft was
reported to have in
contemplation the creation of a
department to assume control
of all dependencies.
 The growth of trade between the Philippine Islands
and the United States will result to:

1. Enable the US States to obtain tropical products

from a people whom it maintains reciprocal trade
relations
2. The Islands will be a depot and emporium on the
shores of Asia which will place American merchants
in a much betterposition to reach out and secure
their share of the great trade with China
 Another item placed to the credit of the
Philippine Islands, and one of such
importance that it is hard to over-estimate,
is the service rendered by the Islands to
the American people and their allies in the
World War by training and developing the
capacities of the men who helped America
do its share in winning the war.
“Philippines was the
best investment the
US ever made.”
 There are people who feel that a complete
separation would be advantageous fail to
appreciate the great economic advantage
the US gives them. But there are some that
still hope that the US will retain enough
control to assure them the protection which
they know their people acquire.
“The best way to learn
how to govern is to
govern.”
 The whole cost of the increased
military establishment of the
United States should be
charged against the Philippine
Islands.
1911: President Taft said that
the army was no longer than
ought to be maintained by
the United States.
The Philippine Islands was
regarded as the military
weakness to the United
States.
Francis Burton Harrison

“The Philippines
is the United
States’ ‘heel of
Achilles’.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Any kind of
proposition by us in
the Philippines merely
results in making them
our heel of Achilles if
we were attacked by a
foreign power”.