The Philippine Islands

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Excerpt from The Philippine Islands: Illustrated Few Citizens of the United States, I believe, fully appreciate the fact that the Philippine Islands are made up of 3, 141 separate islands, and contain 76, 800, 000 acres of land. Few of them wholly realize, too, that this vast acreage is largely made up of valuable timber and good soil for the production of sugar, tobacco, corn, hemp, rice, fruits and other sources of wealth and sustenance for the human family. They are also, I believe, only vaguely aware of the fact that this splendid possession is just as much a part of the United States as Kansas or Alaska, and, further, they are only partly awake to the truth that, to gratify political party promises, there is a movement under way to hand this vast property of theirs back to the ignorant natives of the Islands, free and without cost. Comparatively few people in the United States, in my opinion, have ever seriously weighed the fact of our ownership of these Islands and what that ownership means and what it has cost us. In the first place, the Philippine Islands cost the people of the United States a pro rata share, amounting to many million dollars, of the enormous expense of the Spanish-American War, second, upon taking over the Islands we paid Spain $20, 000, 000 from the United States Treasury, and paid for the transportation of the Spanish soldiers back to Spain, all of which was contributed by the taxes of the people, third, in order to hold the Islands, we spent $170, 000, 000 in stamping out the Aguinaldo rebellion, besides a payment of hundreds of American lives. The cost of local government and improvements has been paid by the people of the Islands, the same as any State or city in the Union pays its separate expenses. Then, unquestionably, the Philippine Islands are the property of the people of the United States, and I protest against the legal or moral right of any political party or group of men to hand over the peoples property to others, unless upon receipt of full compensation or the voluntary consent of all the owners. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.