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    "label": "Press Statement and Memorandum by Francis B. Sayre",
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    "id": "269703242",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Press Statement and Memorandum by Francis B. Sayre",
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        {
            "logicalDate": "1952-05-01",
            "month": 5,
            "year": 1952
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    "seq": 21,
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    "ocrText": "CONFIDENTIAL\n-20-\ndevelopment to pay for sorely needed schools and teachers and hospitals\nand doctors, there will be no genuine individual human freedom there\nten years from now.\nPolitical independence is a notable step along the way. But surely\nit is only a step, and in no sense the goal itself. Peoples can be as\neffectively manacled by economic and social forms of servitude as by\npolitical oppression. In other words, among the peoples living in many\nprimitive parts of Asia and Africa the real problems go far deeper than\npolitical status. In such areas genuine solutions can come only through\nslow processes of education and training in the fundamentals upon which\nsuccessful self-government must be built.\nWhen the United States undertook the administration of the Philippine\nIslands in 1898, in spite of insistent Filipino demands, we did not give\nthem independence for almost half a century. Instead we sent among them\narmies of school teachers and doctors and road builders. We helped them\nto learn what democracy means in action and we gave them practical\nexperience in the exasperating art of self-government. Even today we\nmust continue to assist them as they learn to stand alone.\nThe grant of premature political independence without adequate economic\nand social preparation for it can bring to a people untold harm. Indigenous\nleaders, unrestrained by the civic standards that come with widespread\neducation, can exploit their compatriots as ruthlessly as aliens or even\nmore so. Neither can the cause of international peace be served by giving\nfull independence to a people unable to defend themselves. Large parts of\nATIDLINTINAL"
}