Note 10 — Chapter XXI · Governor Smith—1907–9

All the uncandid things—uncandid in failure to take the American people into their confidence—that have been done by all the good men we have sent to the Philippines from the beginning, have been justified by those good men to their own consciences on the idea that, because the end in view was truly benevolent, therefore the end justified the means. As a matter of fact, American Benevolent Assimilation in the Philippines has, in its practical operation, worked more of misery and havoc, first through war, and since through legislation put or kept on the statute books by the influence of special interests in the United States with Congress, “than any which has darkened their unhappy past” to use one of Mr. McKinley’s early expressions deprecating doing for the Philippines what we did for Cuba.10