I venture to say of that course that neither our duty nor our interest will permit us to stop short of a pacification which can only end in the establishment of such local self-government as the people are found capable of conducting, and its extension just as far and as fast as the people prove fit for it.
Reid advocates for a gradual approach to self-government in the Philippines, contingent on the people's readiness.
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Let me repeat, that I think it best for all men—white men, black men, and brown men, if you make that distinction, that all men of proper age and unconvicted of crime, should have the right of suffrage.
It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social and political progress.
May it not prove, moreover, in that work of reorganization, which now engages the thoughts of all patriotic men, that universal suffrage is the best reconciler of the most comprehensive lenity with the most perfect public security and the…
They should persist in this claim respectfully, but firmly, taking care to bring no discredit upon it by their own action.