"To repeat what ought not to need repetition anywhere within the limits of our Republic, any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos is better than the best possible government of Filipinos by Americans."

Governor-General Taft of the Philippines is of the opinion that it would have been better if we had never taken them. Public opinion is steadily moving in accordance with these views, and those statesmen abroad who, wishing the Republic no good, are so solicitous that we should remain entangled and embarrassed by continuing to hold territory in the tropics and to suppress the divine aspirations of the Filipinos for self-government are, in the opinion of the writer, to be grievously disappointed. The American Democracy has never yet failed to keep the Republic in the true path marked out by the Fathers.

Freed from this prolific source of possible danger, the sky above the American has no threatening clouds. All moves steadily to improved conditions; existing causes lead to her rapid development, material, moral, and intellectual. The central government growing in power and popularity, the individual

citizen more and more patriotic, the masses of the people more intelligent-the poor not so poor, and the rich more alive to the truth that their surplus is a sacred trust, to be administered during life for the general good.

Founded upon justice, the equality of its citizens, resting upon an educated and loyal people, immune from foreign attack, a fertile continent to develop, and the teachings of the Fathers as their guide-should Democracy fall under such conditions, it falls, like Lucifer, never to hope again. But the writer sees no premonitions of such fall in the horoscope of the Republic, the product and symbol of triumphant Democracy.

ANDREW CARNEGIE.

The Declaration

of Independence

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.—THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

W

HEN in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers

from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the estab

lishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected;