Under American government the Philippines would prosper, and it would be one of our tasks to frame legislation.

The laws of Congress would be the higher code of law, and the Philippines would desire, and be invited, of course, to send their ablest men to be Territorial representatives in the Congress of the United States.

In the name of peace, therefore, and in behalf of the dignity and authority of this Nation--in mercy to the Spaniards, in justice to the Filipinos, it is due ourselves, and should have the favor of all who would see our country expand with the ages, and walking in the footsteps of Washington and Jefferson, finding the path of empire that of freedom and taking our place as a great Power, accepting the logic of our history, and the discharge of the duties of destiny--we should hold on to the Philippines--and when the great distance of those islands from this continent is mentioned, remember that the Pacific may now be crossed in as few days as was the Atlantic forty years ago.
The labor questions and the silver questions even come into the Philippines problem to be scanned and weighed.

In Eastern Asia, which we have invaded, and a part of which we have appropriated for a time, the people use silver for the measure of value, and in the islands that interest us, as they do not deal in the mysteries of rupees, but in dollars, the facts in the case are plainly within the common understanding.

In Manila the Mexican dollar goes in ordinary small exchanges, payment of wages and settlement of bills, for fifty cents; but the banks sell the Mexicans twenty-one of them for ten gold dollars--an American eagle! So far as the native people go, labor and produce are counted in silver, and the purchaser, or employer gets as much for a silver dollar as for a gold dollar.