Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

POLITICAL SECTION

153

In the first place, a foreign rule cannot infuse proper respect
for the government and the state. Loyalty for the government
is the first sine quanon of a democracy, The American government cannot infuse that loyalty. Herein lies the fundamental
defect of American rule. The stronger a nationalist movement
is in a subject community, the greater becomes the dissatisfaction
of the people towards the state organization. The independ.
ence movement breeds a dangerous discontent with the existing
government. One of the greatest problems of India after independence would be to go back from civil disobedience to civil
loyalty. The attitude of defiance at the state will have its
baneful effect when an independent state of Indian make is
established. Something similar may happen to the Philippines
unless the independence question is settled soon.
In the second place the qualities of self-sacrifice and selfreliance so necessary in the proper political development of any
people can be best cultivated under an independent existence.
When the people feel that they and they alone are responsible
for the success or failure of their government, when they realize
that they must provide both for internal security and external
safety, they will be forced to build a national morale and a
national discipline which will make them put up a decent and
orderly national organization, As masters of their national
destiny they will work for national cohesion; and their common dangers will make them give up their petty selfishness
and internicine wranglings. If independence will not produce
these results, they will probably lose it again.
In the third place, while the Filipinos are under the United
States, they are forced by the very nature of things to follow
American ideas and practices of government irrespective of
whether those ideas and practices are fitted to them or not. It
was the good fortune of the writer to be present in Washington
when the Jones Law was being discussed and he recalls perfectly what the late Congressman Jones, author of the Jones
Law, had as reasons for favoring a senate directly elected by
popular vote. The year was 1916 and the agitation for an
elective senate in the United States was at its height. Hence,
Mr. Jones, following the agitation in the United States, incorporated in the Jones Law a provision for a popularly elective