National Affairs: Mission of Delicacy

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Col. Carmi A. Thompson (member of the onetime "Ohio gang"), held in awe by many a Filipino as the Personal Representative of Big White President Coolidge, has come home. He landed at Seattle, Wash., last week after some five months of poking through tropic seas, doffing his white helmet to Sulu chieftains, smiling blandly at high-strung Filipino politicos. Much more than all that is recorded judiciously in his comprehensive report to the President on the economic and governmental condition of the Philippines.

It is expected that Colonel Thompson's report will urge, in effect, the striking of a bargain with the Philippines which will make them more restive but no more independent. Probable Filipino advantages to be recommended are: 1) Transfer of U. S. supervision from the War Department to a special bureau in one of the civil departments; 2) Replacement of Governor General Leonard Wood's "Cavalry Cabinet" of military advisers by U. S. civilian departmental experts; 3) Internal self-government with an elective Filipino Governor General to be allowed within a decade, provided the Filipinos behave themselves in the meantime.

In return for these allowances, Colonel Thompson will probably urge the U. S. to demand: 1) That the Filipinos postpone their independence dreams indefinitely; 2) That they withdraw their government in Manila from private business enterprises; 3) That they amend their land laws so as to aid in the large scale development of the rubber industry (in such event, the U. S. Congress will not interfere with these laws); 4) That stronger U. S. control be exercised in the Moro districts to prevent Filipino high-handed rule.

Of all Colonel Thompson's recommendations, the ones demanding most immediate attention will be those which are intended to break the bitter hostility between Governor General Wood and the Philippine legislature.

With such mighty probabilities in his brief case, the Personal Representative entrained for Cleveland, where jubilant Spanish-American War Veterans held a pow-wow to welcome their returning onetime president, where he prepared to put the finishing niceties on his report before going to the President. Said he: "My mission to the Philippines has been one of some delicacy, . . ."