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Not until the farm lobbies in Washington put their husky shoulders to the issue did Philippine independence make more than sentimental progress. Cane raisers in Louisiana, beet growers in Utah, were told that duty-free sugar from the Philippines was ruining their business. Philippine cocoanut oil was competing with domestic cottonseed oil. Manila hemp seemed to be hurting U. S. cordage producers. These miscellaneous economic units were pulled together in one grand and wholly selfish drive to put the Philippines outside the U. S. tariff wall by means of making them a free and foreign country. Louisiana's loud Senator Long frankly exclaimed; "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. That applies to the cotton for the Senator from Mississippi [Harrison] and to the sugar for the Senator from Louisiana [himself]. So what's the argument?" At such an unabashed expression of motive, the Senate rocked with laughter.
Machinery, H. R. 7233 proposes the following machinery: Within two years the Philippine Legislature is to call a convention to frame a republican constitution which must be approved by the U. S. President and the Philippine people. Thereafter an eight-year probationary period will follow during which the U. S. will retain control of the islands' International affairs, foreign loans and defense. A U. S. High Commissioner will replace the Governor General. Filipinos will be restricted to a U. S. immigration quota of 50 per year. Duty-free sugar imports to the U. S. will be limited to 850,000 tons per year, cocoanut oil to 200,000 tons, cordage fibre to 3,000,000 Ib. To give Filipinos a taste of the tariff, collection of an island export tax equal to 5% of the U. S. tariff rate on different goods will begin in the sixth year, rise to 25% in the tenth. On July 4 following the ten-year period the President will proclaim the Philippines a sovereign commonwealth and the U. S. will withdraw all civil (but not military) authority.
To prove to the House that the Philippines, which he visited last autumn, are ready for independence, South Carolina's Hare, H. R. 7233's sponsor, cited these personal observations: "The school is the best index to the character and intelligence of a people. . . . I was greatly impressed with the architectural design of all the school buildings. . . . They are all painted. ... I was further impressed with the lawns, flowers, shrubbery . . . the orderly arrangement of desks and chairs. . . . The furniture was not marred with pencil marks. Placards were placed high on the walls of schoolrooms. Some I noted:
Health and dissipation never go together.
The cost of a sanitary closet will be much less than your doctor's bill, if without.
A clean face produces no pimples.
A healthy scalp harbors no dandruff.
Vegetables are prods to lazy intestines.
"These prove to me that the people have an advanced conception of the modern rules of life and that they are capable of establishing and maintaining rules of conduct equal or superior to those found in many of the old and independent nations.''