The only thing that kept me in the Philippine service for so long
a time was my interest in the work for the non-Christian tribes and
my fear that while my successor was gaining knowledge concerning it
which can be had only through experience, matters might temporarily
go to the bad. It has been my ambition to bring this work to such a
point that it would move on, for a time at least, by its own momentum.

I am now setting forth my views relative to the past and present
situation in the islands because I believe that their inhabitants
are confronted by a danger graver than any which they have before
faced since the time when their fate wavered in the balance, while the
question whether the United States should acquire sovereignty over them
or should allow Spain to continue to rule them was under consideration.

It is my purpose to tell the plain, hard truth regardless of the effect
of such conduct upon my future career. It has been alleged that my
views on Philippine problems were coloured by a desire to retain my
official position. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed,
no man who has not served for long and sometimes very weary years
as a public official, and has not been a target for numerous more
or less irresponsible individuals whose hands were filled with mud
and who were actuated by a fixed desire to throw it at something,
can appreciate as keenly as I do the manifold blessings which attend
the life of a private citizen.

I trust that I have said enough to make clear my view point, and
now a word as to subject-matter. It is my intention to correct some
of the very numerous misstatements which have been made concerning
past and present conditions in the Philippines. I shall quote, from