For no nation does the U.S. feel such direct responsibility as for the 14-year-old Philippine Republic. A half-century of U.S. colonial tutelage, generously administered and gracefully relinquished, has left the Philippines a heritage of universal suffrage, widespread education, press freedom, managerial know-how, and a dedication both to the higher principles and some of the lower practices of American democracy.
This week, as President Dwight Eisenhower flew to Manila, he found the administration engaged in an activity familiar to machine politicians in any imperfect democracy: it was frantically trying to clean house before it faced the voters.
Easier in the Afternoon. Reform did...