The idea of these Americans was that our forefathers had fought for independence and that it was against our most cherished principles to hold any people against their will. But they didn’t take into consideration the fact that the Filipinos were Malays, not ten percent of them with even a primary education, used only to a theocratic and absolute government and without any experience in the rule of the people. Nor did they consider that our forefathers had, for a century and a half before the revolution, been carrying on what was really self-government and were better fitted by training and tradition to make self-government work than any people in the world. They indulged in sentiment to the exclusion of thought; and so the situation was created.