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Show BELIEVES FILIPINOS CAN STAND ALONE PRESIDENT DECLARES TIME HAS COME TO GRANT PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE. Secretary Baker Delivers Message Left by Wilson to Members of Special Commission of Forty Prominent Residents of Islands. Washington. Members of the special spec-ial commission of the Philippine legislature leg-islature here seeking immediate independence inde-pendence for the islands were on April 4 told by Secretary Baker that he spoke President Wilson's mind when he said he believed the time had come to grant the complete independence desired by the Filipino people. The war secretary also said he believed be-lieved the mission would be able to carry home word that the American people loved liberty too dearly to deny it to others. He read a letter left by President Wilson when he went to Europe expressing ex-pressing the hope that the mission would result in bringing about the desirable de-sirable ends set forth in the joint resolution of the legislature. 'Obstacles Have Vanished' Francis Burton Harrison, governor general of the Philippines, followed Mr. Baker with the statement that his experience in the islands Jiad convinced con-vinced him that the obstacles to independence inde-pendence that appeared to exist a few years ago had been cleared away. The mission, including forty prominent prom-inent Filipinos and headed by Manuel Quezon, president of the senate, upon being received in Secretary Baker's office, presented a formal memorial asking independence and pointing particularly par-ticularly to the record of the Philippines Philip-pines in the great war. |
