At the close of the Spanish-American War in 1898,Spain withdrew from the Philippine Islands after more than threecenturies of residence, and turned over the responsibilities ofPhilippine control to the people of the United States.

A number of years have elapsed since the American peopletook up the white man’s burden in the Orient, and althoughthousands of Americans have visited our new possessions during thistime, there are still many persons who think vaguely of the Philippinesas a tiny group of islands somewhere in the Pacific, inhabited by halfsavage people who wear little or no clothing and prefer dog meat to allother kinds of food.

When one stops to note that the archipelago consists ofmore than three thousand islands, which, if placed within the UnitedStates, would occupy an area extending from Minneapolis to New Orleansand from Denver [vi]to Kansas City, he secures amore definite idea of their magnitude. And when he learns further thatthe soil of these islands is astonishingly fertile, that they abound invaluable timber, coal, gold, copper, iron, lead, and platinum, and thatof the eight million inhabitants, only about half a million areuncivilized, the remainder being Christians, some of whom are highlyeducated, with all the graces and accomplishments of a European, heagain finds himself startled at the importance of these new Americanterritories across the seas.

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