Next, ought we not to try to diagnose our case before we turn every quack doctor among us loose on it--understand what the problem is before beginning heated partizan discussions as to the easiest way of solving it?
Whitelaw Reid
The Public Record
Whitelaw Reid was an American politician, diplomat and newspaper editor, as well as the author of Ohio in the War, a popular work of history.
gutenberg.org
Some rules drawn from this experience might be distasteful to people who look upon new possessions as merely so much more government patronage, and quite repugnant to the noble army of office-seekers; but they surely mark the path of…
The first is to meddle at the outset as little as possible with every native custom and institution and even prejudice; the next is to use every existing native agency you can; and the next to employ in the government service just as few…
Convince the natives of your irresistible power and your inexorable purpose, then of your desire to be absolutely just, and after that--not before--be as kind as you can.
Meantime, if we have taught the heathen largely to govern themselves without being a hindrance and menace to the civilization and the commerce of the world, so much the better.
If not, we must even continue to be responsible for them ourselves--a duty we did not seek, but should be ashamed to shirk.
Nowhere else on the globe does absolute free trade prevail over so wide, rich, and continuous an expanse of territory, with such variety and volume of production and manufacture; and nowhere have its beneficent results been more…
Here was an archipelago practically without manufactures to protect, or need for protection to develop manufactures; and here were swarming populations with whom trade was sure to increase and ramify, in proportion to its freedom from…
Protectionists or Free-traders, I believe we may all rejoice in this as best for the Philippines and best for ourselves.
Great Britain is the nation which can do us the most harm of any one on all the earth, and with her on our side we need not fear the world.
But it is reasonable to think that some of the points insisted upon by the United States in the Treaty of Paris will be precedents as weighty, henceforth, in international policy as they are now novel to international practice.
It will make an end forever of Spain in this hemisphere.