The Man Who Shook Hands with History

ROOSEVELT INDORSES McBRIDE

At a banquet given in honor of President Roosevelt at Tacoma, at which Senators Ankeny and Foster and Congressmen Humphrey and Cushman were present, the president unhesitatingly declared that Governor McBride was deserving of renomination and reelection. He especially commended the governor for the stand he took in opposing the Northern Securities merger.

It is said that this indorsement, the only one of the kind that the president has given to any governor, was made against the earnest protest of the two senators, of ex-Senator Wilson and of other bitter opponents of Governor McBride. Senator Ankeny is said to have made the open statement that President Roosevelt would not dare to come to this state and make an endorsement of Levi's personal and political enemy, Governor McBride. But Roosevelt took the dare.

As soon as he entered the state he took Governor McBride into his confidence and they were in frequent consultation during their tour of the state. At Spokane, as a special mark of distinction to ex-Senator Turner to give up his seat in the president's carriage to the governor, it was done. It is certain that Governor McBride would never have been invited to dine with the presidential party at the Ankeny residence last Monday evening had it not been for a fear on the part of Ankeny that a failure to invite the governor would offend the president and perhaps upset the whole program.

The indorsement of McBride by President Roosevelt means that in this state Ankeny and Foster and the railroad crowd with which they train will try to prevent Roosevelt from getting the delegates from this state to the republican national convention. McBride will be the champion of Roosevelt and with such an alignment McBride will have an excellent chance to win.

ROOSEVELT AND THE FILIPINO PINES

President Roosevelt has made a great many speeches on the Philippine question in which he has declared that the natives are not capable of self-government and that they would not be for several generations in the future. Yet the president knows little about the Filipinos except what he has read or has been told.

In this city last Monday he shook hands with the first Filipino that he ever saw. This Filipino is a bright young man, much more intelligent and capable than thousands of men who exercise the right of suffrage in the United States. All other natives who have been seen in Walla Walla were remarkably intelligent.

Admiral Dewey after studying the natives at Manila declared that they were more capable of self-government than the Cubans. Returning volunteers have told us that some of the Filipinos are men of broad culture, well versed in political economy, literature, philosophy, the arts and sciences. It is true that there is a great deal of illiteracy among the mass of the population, but it is not so dense as the ignorance among the negroes and poor whites of the South and it is doubtful whether the average was much better among the American colonists at the time of the Revolutionary War.

The natives of the Philippines are being given a large share in their municipal governments and they are proving more capable of governing themselves than are the citizens of some of our boodle-cursed American cities — such as Philadelphia and St. Louis. There is no reason whatever to doubt that the Filipinos are just as capable of self-government as the Cubans, a large majority of whom are negroes.

The Filipinos fought intermittently for three hundred years to throw off the Spanish yoke, and at the time of Dewey's victory they had the Spanish cowed up in Manila and had almost won their independence. Their sacrifices in the cause of freedom entitle them to a just consideration that has been given the Cubans, and it would be given them but for the demands of the greedy syndicates that wish to exploit the islands for their own benefit.

It would be well for President Roosevelt to learn more about the capabilities and the aspirations of the Filipinos before giving final judgment on their petitions for fair treatment and a chance to govern themselves. He should remember the words of Abraham Lincoln, who said: 'They who deny the blessings of liberty to others deserve it not themselves and under a just God they shall not long retain it.'