At the close of the Spanish-American War President McKinley sent word to a lawyer in New York City that he wanted him to be secretary of war. The lawyer sent word back to the President that he knew nothing about the army. The President replied that he had plenty of officers to look after the army, but for secretary of war he wanted a man who could work out a system for the government of our insular possessions. The lawyer accepted the cabinet position and in a short time the new secretary of war formulated the now famous McKinley Instructions to the second Philippine commission, and thereby established the policy for the government of the Philippine Islands. Twenty-two years of development under this policy bear testimony to the political genius and high statesmanship of Elihu Root.

The gist of this policy was that we should train the Filipinos to govern themselves. The task set for this paper is to explain the part played by the local governments in training the Filipinos for self-government. Any discussion of autonomy for the insular government must necessarily be mere academic speculation unless the parties to the discussion have some comprehension of the progress achieved in training the Filipinos for self-government in local affairs. And certainly there has been no scientific treatment of the local government side of our Philippine policy in the innumerable books and articles published in America on the Philippine problem.