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diff --git a/36542.txt b/36542.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42e967b --- /dev/null +++ b/36542.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21840 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The American Occupation of the Philippines +1898-1912, by James H. Blount + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 + +Author: James H. Blount + +Release Date: June 28, 2011 [EBook #36542] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF THE PHILIPPINES *** + + + + +Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by the +Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State University +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF THE PHILIPPINES + + 1898-1912 + + + By + JAMES H. BLOUNT + + Officer of United States Volunteers in the Philippines, 1899-1901 + United States District Judge in the Philippines, 1901-1905 + + + + With a Map + + G. P. Putnam's Sons + New York and London + The Knickerbocker Press + 1912 + + + + + + + Copyright, 1912 + By + James H. Blount + + The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + + + + To + JOHN DOWNEY WORKS + OF CALIFORNIA + AS FINE A TYPE OF CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN + AS EVER + GRACED A SEAT IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES + WHO + BELIEVING, WITH THE WRITER, AS TO THE PHILIPPINES, THAT + INDEFINITE RETENTION WITH UNDECLARED INTENTION + IS + INDEFINITE DRIFTING + HAS READ THE MANUSCRIPT OF THIS WORK + AS IT PROGRESSED + LENDING TO ITS PREPARATION THE AID AND COUNSEL OF + AN OLDER AND A WISER MAN + AND + THE CONTAGIOUS SERENITY OF + CONFIDENCE THAT RIGHT WILL PREVAIL + THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED BY + The Author + + + + + + +PREFACE + + Pardon, gentles all, + The flat unraised spirit that hath dared + On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth + So great an object. + + Henry V. + + +To have gone out to the other side of the world with an army of +invasion, and had a part, however small, in the subjugation of a +strange people, and then to see a new government set up, and, as +an official of that government, watch it work out through a number +of years, is an unusual and interesting experience, especially to +a lawyer. What seem to me the most valuable things I learned in the +course of that experience are herein submitted to my fellow-countrymen, +in connection with a narrative covering the whole of the American +occupation of the Philippines to date. + +This book is an attempt, by one whose intimate acquaintance with two +remotely separated peoples will be denied in no quarter, to interpret +each to the other. How intelligent that acquaintance is, is of course +altogether another matter, which the reader will determine for himself. + +The task here undertaken is to make audible to a great free nation the +voice of a weaker subject people who passionately and rightly long to +be also free, but whose longings have been systematically denied for +the last fourteen years, sometimes ignorantly, sometimes viciously, +and always cruelly, on the wholly erroneous idea that where the end is +benevolent, it justifies the means, regardless of the means necessary +to the end. + +At a time when all our military and fiscal experts agree that having +the Philippines on our hands is a grave strategic and economic mistake, +fraught with peril to the nation's prestige in the early stages of our +next great war, we are keeping the Filipinos in industrial bondage +through unrighteous Congressional legislation for which special +interests in America are responsible, in bald repudiation of the +Open Door policy, and against their helpless but universal protest, +a wholly unprotected and easy prey to the first first-class Power with +which we become involved in war. Yet all the while the very highest +considerations of national honor require us to choose between making +the Filipino people free and independent without unnecessary delay, +as they of right ought to be, or else imperilling the perpetuity +of our own institutions by the creation and maintenance of a great +standing army, sufficient properly to guard overseas possessions. + +A cheerful blindness to the inevitable worthy of Mark Tapley himself, +the stale Micawberism that "something is bound to turn up," and +a Mrs. Jellyby philanthropy hopelessly callous to domestic duties, +expenses, and distresses, have hitherto successfully united to prevent +the one simple and supreme need of the situation--a frank, formal, +and definite declaration, by the law-making power of the government, +of the nation's purpose in the premises. What is needed is a formal +legislative announcement that the governing of a remote and alien +people is to have no permanent place in the purposes of our national +life, and that we do bona fide intend, just as soon as a stable +government, republican in form, can be established by the people +of the Philippine Islands, to turn over, upon terms which shall be +reasonable and just, the government and control of the islands to +the people thereof. + +The essentials of the problem, being at least as immutable as human +nature and geography, will not change much with time. And whenever +the American people are ready to abandon the strange gods whose +guidance has necessitated a new definition of Liberty consistent with +taxation without representation and unanimous protest by the governed, +they will at once set about to secure to a people who have proven +themselves brave and self-sacrificing in war, and gentle, generous, +and tractable in peace, the right to pursue happiness in their own way, +in lieu of somebody else's way, as the spirit of our Constitution, +and the teachings of our God, Who is also theirs, alike demand. + +After seven years spent at the storm-centre of so-called "Expansion," +the first of the seven as a volunteer officer in Cuba during and after +the Spanish War, the next two in a like capacity in the Philippines, +and the remainder as a United States judge in the last-named country, +the writer was finally invalided home in 1905, sustained in spirit, +at parting, by cordial farewells, oral and written, personal and +official, but convinced that foreign kindness will not cure the +desire of a people, once awakened, for what used to be known as +Freedom before we freed Cuba and then subjugated the Philippines; and +that to permanently eradicate sedition from the Philippine Islands, +the American courts there must be given jurisdiction over thought +as well as over overt act, and must learn the method of drawing an +indictment against a whole people. + +Seven other years of interested observation from the Western Hemisphere +end of the line have confirmed and fortified the convictions above +set forth. + +If we give the Filipinos this independence they so ardently desire +and ever clamor for until made to shut up, "the holy cause," +as their brilliant young representative in the American House +of Representatives, Mr. Quezon, always calls it, will not be at +once spoiled, as the American hemp and other special interests so +contemptuously insist, by the gentleman named, and his compatriot, +Senor Osmena, the Speaker of the Philippine Assembly, and the rest of +the leaders of the patriot cause, in a general mutual throat-cutting +incidental to a scramble for the offices. This sort of contention is +merely the hiss of the same old serpent of tyranny which has always +beset the pathway of man's struggle for free institutions. + +When first the talk in America, after the battle of Manila Bay, +about keeping the Philippines, reached the islands, one of the +Filipino leaders wrote to another during the negotiations between +their commanding general and our own looking to preservation of +the peace until the results of the Paris Peace Conference which +settled the fate of the islands should be known, in effect, thus: +"The Filipinos will not be fit for independence in ten, twenty, or a +hundred years if it be left to American colonial office-holders drawing +good salaries to determine the question." Is there not some human +nature in that remark? Suppose, reader, you were in the enjoyment +of a salary of five, ten, or twenty thousand dollars a year as a +government official in the Philippines, how precipitately would you +hasten to recommend yourself out of office, and evict yourself into +this cold Western world with which you had meantime lost all touch? + +The Filipinos can run a far better government than the Cubans. In 1898, +when Admiral Dewey read in the papers that we were going to give Cuba +independence, he wired home from Manila: + + + These people are far superior in their intelligence, and more + capable of self-government than the people of Cuba, and I am + familiar with both races. + + +After a year in Cuba and nearly six in the Philippines, two as an +officer of the army that subjugated the Filipinos, and the remainder +as a judge over them, I cordially concur in the opinion of Admiral +Dewey, but with this addition, viz., that the people of those islands, +whatever of conscious political unity they may have lacked in 1898, +were welded into absolute oneness as a people by their original +struggle for independence against us, and will remain forever so +welded by their incurable aspirations for a national life of their +own under a republic framed in imitation of ours. Furthermore, the one +great difference between Cuba and the Philippines is that the latter +country has no race cancer forever menacing its peace, and sapping +its self-reliance. The Philippine people are absolutely one people, +as to race, color, and previous condition. Again, American sugar and +tobacco interests will never permit the competitive Philippine sugar +and tobacco industries to grow as Nature and Nature's God intended; +and the American importers of Manila hemp--which is to the Philippines +what cotton is to the South--have, through special Congressional +legislation still standing on our statute books--to the shame of the +nation--so depressed the hemp industry of the islands that the market +price it brings to-day is just one half what it brought ten years ago. + +If three strong and able Americans, familiar with insular conditions +and still young enough to undertake the task, were told by a President +of the United States, by authority of Congress, "Go out there and +set up a stable native government by July 4, 1921, [1] and then come +away," they could and would do it; and that government would be a +success; and one of the greatest moral victories in the annals of +free government would have been written by the gentlemen concerned +upon the pages of their country's history. + +We ought to give the Filipinos their independence, even if we have +to guarantee it to them. But, by neutralization treaties with the +other great Powers similar to those which safeguard the integrity and +independence of Switzerland to-day, whereby the other Powers would +agree not to seize the islands after we give them their independence, +the Philippines can be made as permanently neutral territory in +Asiatic politics as Switzerland is to-day in European politics. + + +James H. Blount. + +1406 G Street, N. W., +Washington, D. C., +July 4, 1912. + + +P.S.--The preparation of this book has entailed examination of a +vast mass of official documents, as will appear from the foot-note +citations to the page and volume from which quotations have been +made. The object has been to place all material statements of fact +beyond question. For the purpose of this research work, Mr. Herbert +Putnam, Librarian of Congress, was kind enough to extend me the +privileges of the national library, and it would be most ungracious +to fail to acknowledge the obligation I am under, in this regard, +to one whom the country is indeed fortunate in having at the head +of that great institution. I should also make acknowledgment of the +obligation I am under to Mr. W. W. Bishop, the able superintendent +of the reading-room, for aid rendered whenever asked, and to my +life-long friends, John and Hugh Morrison, the most valuable men, +to the general public, except the two gentlemen above named, on the +whole great roll of employees of the Library of Congress. + + +J. H. B. + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Pages +Chapter I + +Mr. Pratt's Serenade 1-15 + + Spencer Pratt, Consul-General of the United States at Singapore, + in the British Straits Settlements, finding Aguinaldo a political + refugee at that place at the outbreak of our war with Spain, + April 21, 1898, arranges by cable with Admiral Dewey, then at + Hong Kong with his squadron, for Aguinaldo to come to Hong Kong + and thence to Manila, to co-operate by land with Admiral Dewey + against the Spaniards, Pratt promising Aguinaldo independence, + without authority. Mr. Pratt is later quietly separated from the + consular service. + +Chapter II + +Dewey and Aguinaldo 16-45 + + After the battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898, Admiral Dewey brings + Aguinaldo down from Hong Kong, whither he had proceeded from + Singapore, lands him at Cavite, and chaperones his insurrection + against the Spaniards until the American troops arrive, June 30th. + +Chapter III + +Anderson and Aguinaldo 46-66 + + General Anderson's official dealings with Aguinaldo from June 30, + 1898, until General Merritt's arrival, July 25th, + +Chapter IV + +Merritt and Aguinaldo 67-87 + + General Merritt's five weeks' sojourn in the Islands, from July 25, + 1898, to the end of August, including fall of Manila, August 13th, + and our relations with Aguinaldo during period indicated. + +Chapter V + +Otis and Aguinaldo 88-106 + + Dealings and relations between, September-December, +1898. + +Chapter VI + +The Wilcox-Sargent Trip 107-120 + + Two American naval officers make an extended tour through + the interior of Luzon by permission of Admiral Dewey and with + Aguinaldo's consent, in October-November, 1898, while the Paris + peace negotiations were in progress. What they saw and learned. + +Chapter VII + +The Treaty of Paris 121-138 + + An account of the negotiations, October-December, 1898. How we came + to pay Spain $20,000,000 for a $200,000,000 insurrection. Treaty + signed December 10, 1898. + +Chapter VIII + +The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation 139-151 + + President McKinley's celebrated proclamation of December 21, + 1898, cabled out to the Islands, December 27, 1898, after the + signing of the Treaty of Paris on the 10th, and intended as + a fire-extinguisher, in fact acted merely as a firebrand, the + Filipinos perceiving that Benevolent Assimilation meant such + measure of slaughter as might be necessary to "spare them from + the dangers of" the independence on which they were bent. + +Chapter IX + +The Iloilo Fiasco 152-163 + + By order of President McKinley, General Otis abstains from + hostilities to await Senate action on Treaty of Paris. + +Chapter X + +Otis and Aguinaldo (Continued) 164-185 + + Still waiting for the Senate to act. + +Chapter XI + +Otis and the War 186-223 + + Covering the period from the outbreak of February 4, 1899, until + the fall of that year. + +Chapter XII + +Otis and the War (Continued) 224-269 + + From the fall of 1899 to the spring of 1900. + +Chapter XIII + +Macarthur and the War 270-281 + + Carries the story up to the date of the arrival of the Taft + Commission, sent out in the spring of 1900, to help General + MacArthur run the war. + +Chapter XIV + +The Taft Commission 282-344 + + Shows how the Taft Commission, born of the McKinley Benevolent + Assimilation theory that there was no real fundamental opposition + to American rule, lived up to that theory, in their telegrams + sent home during the presidential campaign of 1900, and in 1901 + set up a civil government predicated upon their obstinate but + opportune delusions of the previous year. + + + "The papers 'id it 'andsome + But you bet the army knows." + + +Chapter XV + +Governor Taft--1901-2 345-402 + + Shows the prematurity of a civil government set up under pressure + of political expediency, and the disorders which followed. + +Chapter XVI + +Governor Taft--1903 403-436 + + Shows divers serious insurrections in various provinces amounting + to what the Commission itself termed, in one instance, "a reign of + terror"--situations so endangering the public safety that to fail + to order out the army to quell the disturbances was neglect of + plain duty, such neglect being due to a set policy of preserving + the official fiction that peace prevailed, and that Benevolent + Assimilation was a success. + +Chapter XVII + +Governor Taft--1903 (Continued) 437-445 + + Shows the essentially despotic, though theoretically benevolent, + character of the Taft civil government of the Philippines, and + its attitude toward the American business community in the Islands. + +Chapter XVIII + +Governor Wright--1904 446-498 + + Shows the change of the tone of the government under Governor + Taft's successor, his consequent popularity with his fellow-country + men in the Islands, and his corresponding unpopularity with the + Filipinos. Shows also a long series of massacres of pacificos by + enemies of the American government between July and November, + 1904, permitted out of super-solicitude lest ordering out the + army and summarily putting a stop to said massacres might affect + the presidential election in the United States unfavorably to + Mr. Roosevelt, by reviving the notion that neither the Roosevelt + Administration nor its predecessor had ever been frank with the + country concerning the state of public order in the Islands. + +Chapter XIX + +Governor Wright--1905 499-514 + + Shows the prompt ordering of the army to the scene of the + disturbances after the presidential election of 1904 was safely + over, and the nature and extent of the insurrections of 1905. + +Chapter XX + +Governor Ide--1906 515-523 + + Describes the last outbreak prior to the final establishment of + a state of general and complete peace. + +Chapter XXI + +Governor Smith--1907-9 524-557 + + Describes divers matters, including a certificate made March 28, + 1907, declaring that a state of general and complete peace had + prevailed for the two years immediately the preceding. Describes + also the formal opening of First Philippine Assembly by Secretary + of War Taft in October, 1907, and his final announcement to them + that he had no authority to end the uncertainty concerning their + future which is the corner-stone of the Taft policy of Indefinite + Tutelage, and that Congress only could end that uncertainty. + +Chapter XXII + +Governor Forbes--1909-12 558-570 + + Suggests the hypocrisy of boasting about "the good we are doing" + the Filipinos when predatory special interests are all the while + preying upon the Philippine people even more shamelessly than + they do upon the American people, and by the same methods, viz.: + legislation placed or kept on the statute-books of the United + States for their special benefit, the difference being that + the American people can help themselves if they will, but the + Philippine people cannot. + +Chapter XXIII + +"Non-Christian" Worcester 571-586 + + Professor Worcester, the P. T. Barnum of the "non-Christian tribe" + industry, and his menagerie of certain rare and interesting wild + tribes still extant in the Islands, specimens of which you saw at + the St. Louis Exposition of 1903-4; by which device the American + people have been led to believe the Igorrotes, Negritos, etc., + to be samples of the Filipino people. + +Chapter XXIV + +The Philippine Civil Service 587-594 + + Showing how imperatively simple justice demands that Americans, + who go out to enter the Philippine Civil Service should, after + a tour of duty out there, be entitled, as matter of right, to + be transferred back to the Civil Service in the United States, + instead of being left wholly dependent on political influence to + "place" them after their final return home. + +Chapter XXV + +Cost of the Philippines 595-603 + + In life, and money, together with certain consolatory reflections + thereon. + +Chapter XXVI + +Congressional Legislation 604-622 + + Showing how a small group of American importers of Manila + hemp--hemp being to the Philippines what cotton is to the + South--have so manipulated the Philippine hemp industry as to + depress the market price of the main source of wealth of the + Islands below the cost of production; also other evils of taxation + without representation. + +Chapter XXVII + +The Rights of Man 623-632 + + Industrial slavery to predatory interests and physical slavery + compared. + +Chapter XXVIII + +The Road to Autonomy 633-646 + + Shows how entirely easy would be the task of evolving the American + Ireland we have laid up for ourselves in the Philippines into + complete Home Rule by 1921, the date proposed for Philippine + independence in the pending Jones bill, introduced in the House + of Representatives in March, 1912. + +Chapter XXIX + +The Way Out 647-655 + + Shows how, by neutralization treaties with the other powers, as + proposed in many different resolutions, of both Republican and + Democratic origin, now pending in Congress, whereby the other + powers should agree not to annex the Islands after we give them + their independence, the Philippines can be made permanently neutral + territory in Asiatic politics exactly as both Switzerland and + Belgium have been for nearly a hundred years in European politics. + +Index 657 + + + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Page +The Capture of Aguinaldo, March 23, 1901--The Central +Fact of the American Military Occupation Frontispiece + From the Drawing by F. C. Yohn + Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons + +Bird's-eye View of the Philippine Archipelago, Showing +Preponderating Importance of Luzon 228 + +Outline Sketch of the Theatre of Operations in Luzon, 1899 232 + +Sketch Map of the Philippines At End + + + + + + +THE AMERICAN OCCUPATIONS OF THE PHILIPPINES + + +CHAPTER I + +MR. PRATT'S SERENADE + + Had I but served my God with half the zeal + I served my king, he would not in mine age + Have left me naked to mine enemies. + + King Henry VIII., Act III., Sc. 2. + + +Any narrative covering our acquisition of the Philippine Islands +must, of course, centre in the outset about Admiral Dewey, and the +destruction by him of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on Sunday +morning, May 1, 1898. But as the Admiral had brought Aguinaldo down +from Hong Kong to Manila after the battle, and landed him on May +19th to start an auxiliary insurrection, which insurrection kept the +Spaniards bottled up in Manila on the land side for three and a half +months while Dewey did the same by sea, until ten thousand American +troops arrived, and easily completed the reduction and capture of the +beleaguered and famished city on August 13th, it is necessary to a +clear understanding of the de facto alliance between the Americans and +Aguinaldo thus created, to know who brought the Admiral and Aguinaldo +together and how, and why. + +The United States declared war against Spain, April 21, 1898, +to free Cuba, and at once arranged an understanding with the Cuban +revolutionists looking to co-operation between their forces and ours +to that end. For some years prior to this, political conditions in the +Philippines had been quite similar to those in Cuba, so that when, two +days after war broke out, the Honorable Spencer Pratt, Consul-General +of the United States at Singapore, in the British Straits Settlements, +found Aguinaldo, who had headed the last organized outbreak against +Spain in the Philippines, temporarily sojourning as a political +refugee at Singapore, in the Filipino colony there, he naturally +sought to arrange for his co-operating with us against Spain, as +Gomez and Garcia were doing in Cuba. Thereby hangs the story of +"Mr. Pratt's Serenade." However, before we listen to the band whose +strains spoke the gratitude of the Filipinos to Mr. Pratt for having +introduced Aguinaldo to Dewey, let us learn somewhat of Aguinaldo's +antecedents, as related to the purposes of the introduction. + +The first low rumbling of official thunder premonitory to the war +with Spain was heard in Mr. McKinley's annual message to Congress of +December, 1897, [2] wherein he said, among other things: + + + The most important problem with which this government is now + called upon to deal pertaining to its foreign relations concerns + its duty toward Spain and the Cuban insurrection. + + +In that very month of December, 1897, Aguinaldo was heading a +formidable insurrection against Spanish tyranny in the Philippines, +and the Filipinos and their revolutionary committees everywhere were +watching with eager interest the course of "The Great North American +Republic," as they were wont to term our government. + +The Report of the First Philippine Commission sent out to the Islands +by President McKinley in February, 1899, of which President Schurman +of Cornell University was Chairman, contains a succinct memorandum +concerning the Filipino revolutionary movement of 1896-7, which had +been begun by Aguinaldo in 1896, and had culminated in what is known as +the Treaty of Biac-na-Bato, [3] signed December 14, 1897. This treaty +had promised certain reforms, such as representation in the Spanish +Cortez, sending the Friars away, etc., and had also promised the +leaders $400,000 if Aguinaldo and his Cabinet would leave the country +and go to Hong Kong. "No definite time was fixed," says President +Schurman (vol. I., p. 171), "during which these men were to remain +away from the Philippines; and if the promises made by Spain were not +fulfilled, they had the right to return." Of course, "the promises made +by Spain" were not fulfilled. Spain thought she had bought Aguinaldo +and his crowd off. "Two hundred thousand dollars," says Prof. Schurman, +"was paid to Aguinaldo when he arrived in Hong Kong." But instead of +using this money in riotous living, the little group of exiles began +to take notice of the struggles of their brothers in wretchedness +in Cuba, and the ever-increasing probability of intervention by the +United States in that unhappy Spanish colony, which, of course, would +be their opportunity to strike for Independence. They had only been +in Hong Kong about two months when the Maine blew up February 15, +1898, Then they knew there would be "something doing." Hong Kong +being the cross-roads of the Far East and the gateway to Asia, and +being only sixty hours across the choppy China Sea from Manila, was +the best place in that part of the world to brew another insurrection +against Spain. But Singapore is also a good place for a branch office +for such an enterprise, being on the main-travelled route between the +Philippines and Spain by way of the Suez Canal, about four or five days +out of Hong Kong by a good liner, and but little farther from Manila, +as the crow flies, than Hong Kong itself. Owing to political unrest +in the Philippines in 1896-7-8, there was quite a colony of Filipino +political refugees living at Singapore during that period. Aguinaldo +had gone over from Hong Kong to Singapore in the latter half of April, +1898, arriving there, it so chanced, the day we declared war against +Spain, April 21st. He was immediately sought out by Mr. Pratt, who +had learned of his presence in the community through an Englishman +of Singapore, a former resident of Manila, a Mr. Bray, who seems to +have been a kind of striker for the Filipino general. Aguinaldo had +come incognito. Out of Mr. Pratt's interview with the insurgent chief +thus obtained, and its results, grew the episode which is the subject +of this chapter. + +A word just here, preliminary to this interview, concerning the +personal equation of Aguinaldo, would seem to be advisable. + +While I personally chased him and his outfit a good deal in the latter +part of 1899, in the northern advance of a column of General Lawton's +Division from San Isidro across the Rio Grande de Pampanga, over the +boggy passes of the Caraballa Mountains to the China Sea, and up the +Luzon West Coast road, we never did catch him, and I never personally +met him but once, and that was after he was captured in 1901. He +was as insignificant looking physically as a Japanese diplomat. But +his presence suggested, equally with that of his wonderful racial +cousins who represent the great empire of the Mikado abroad, both a +high order of intelligence and baffling reserve. And Major-General +J. Franklin Bell, recently Chief of Staff, United States Army, who +was a Major on General Merritt's staff in 1898, having charge of the +"Office of Military Information," in a confidential report prepared +for his chief dated August 29, 1898, "sizing up" the various insurgent +leaders, in view of the then apparent probability of trouble with them, +gives these notes on Aguinaldo, the head and front of the revolution: +"Aguinaldo: Honest, sincere, and * * * a natural leader of men." [4] + +Any one acquainted with General Bell knows that he knows what he is +talking about when he speaks of "a natural leader of men," for he is +one himself. Our ablest men in the early days were the first to cease +considering the little brown soldiers a joke, and their government an +opera-bouffe affair. General Bell also says in the same report that he, +Aguinaldo, is undoubtedly endowed in a wonderful degree with "the power +of creating among the people confidence in himself." He was, indeed, +the very incarnation of "the legitimate aspirations of" his people, +to use one of the favorite phrases of his early state papers, and +the faithful interpreter thereof. That was the secret of his power, +that and a most remarkable talent for surrounding himself with an +atmosphere of impenetrable reserve. This last used to make our young +army officers suspect him of being what they called a "four-flusher," +which being interpreted means a man who is partially successful in +making people think him far more important than he really is. But +we have seen General Bell's estimate. And the day Aguinaldo took the +oath of allegiance to the United States, in 1901, General MacArthur, +then commanding the American forces in the Philippines, signalized the +event by liberating 1000 Filipino prisoners of war. General Funston, +the man who captured him in 1901, says in Scribner's Magazine for +November, 1911, "He is a man of many excellent qualities and * * * +far and away the best Filipino I was ever brought in contact with." + +Aguinaldo was born in 1869. To-day, 1912, he is farming about twenty +miles out of Manila in his native province of Cavite; has always +scrupulously observed his oath of allegiance aforesaid; occasionally +comes to town and plays chess with Governor-General Forbes; and +in all respects has played for the last ten years with really fine +dignity the role of Chieftain of a Lost Cause on which his all had +been staked. He was a school-teacher at Cavite at one time, but is not +a college graduate, and so far as mere book education is concerned, he +is not a highly educated man. Whether or not he can give the principal +parts of the principal irregular Greek verbs I do not know, but his +place in the history of his country, and in the annals of wars for +independence, cannot, and for the honor of human nature should not, +be a small one. Dr. Rizal, the Filipino patriot whose picture we print +on the Philippine postage stamps, and who was shot for sedition by the +Spaniards before our time out there, was what Colonel Roosevelt would +jocularly call "one of these darned literary fellows." He was a sort of +"Sweetness and Light" proposition, who only wrote about "The Rights of +Man," and finally let the Spaniards shoot him--stuck his head in the +lion's mouth, so to speak. Aguinaldo was a born leader of men, who knew +how to put the fear of God into the hearts of the ancient oppressors +of his people. Mr. Pratt's own story of how he earned his serenade +is preserved to future ages in the published records of the State +Department. [5] We will now attempt to summarize, not so eloquently as +Mr. Pratt, but more briefly, the manner of its earning, the serenade +itself, and its resultant effects both upon the personal fortunes of +Mr. Pratt and upon Filipino confidence in American official assurances. + +It was on the evening of Saturday, April 23, 1898, that Mr. Pratt +was confidentially informed of Aguinaldo's arrival at Singapore, +incognito. "Being aware," says Mr. Pratt, "of the great prestige of +General Aguinaldo with the insurgents, and that no one, either at +home or abroad, could exert over them the same influence and control +that he could, I determined at once to see him." Accordingly, he did +see him the following Sunday morning, the 24th. + +At this interview, it was arranged that if Admiral Dewey, then +at Hong Kong with his squadron awaiting orders, should so desire, +Aguinaldo should proceed to Hong Kong to arrange for co-operation +of the insurgents at Manila with our naval forces in the prospective +operations against the Spaniards. + +Accordingly, that Sunday, Mr. Pratt telegraphed Dewey through our +consul at Hong Kong: + + + Aguinaldo, insurgent leader, here. Will come Hong Kong arrange + with Commodore for general co-operation insurgents Manila if + desired. Telegraph. + + +Admiral Dewey (then Commodore) replied: + + + Tell Aguinaldo come soon as possible. + + +This message was received late Sunday night, April 24th, and was +at once communicated to Aguinaldo. Mr. Pratt then did considerable +bustling around for the benefit of his new-found ally, whom, with +his aide-de-camp and private secretary, all under assumed names +he "succeeded in getting off," to use his phrase, by the British +steamer Malacca, which left Singapore for Hong Kong, April 26th. In +the letter reporting all this to the State Department, Mr. Pratt +adds that he trusts this action "in arranging for his [Aguinaldo's] +direct co-operation with the commander of our forces" will meet +with the Government's approval. A little later Mr. Pratt sends the +State Department a copy of the Singapore Free Press of May 4, 1898, +containing an impressive account of the above transaction and the +negotiations leading up to it. This account describes the political +conditions among the population of the Philippine archipelago, "which," +it goes on to say, "merely awaits the signal from General Aguinaldo to +rise en masse." Speaking of Pratt's interview with Aguinaldo, it says: + + + General Aguinaldo's policy embraces the independence of the + Philippines. * * * American protection would be desirable + temporarily, on the same lines as that which might be instituted + hereafter in Cuba. + + +Mr. Pratt also forwards a proclamation gotten up by the Filipino +insurgent leaders at Hong Kong and sent over to the Philippines in +advance of Admiral Dewey's coming, calling upon the Filipinos not +to heed any appeals of the Spaniards to oppose the Americans, but to +rally to the support of the latter. This manifesto of the Filipinos +is headed, prominently--for all we know it may have had a heading +as big as a Hearst newspaper box-car type announcement of the latest +violation of the Seventh Commandment--: "America's Allies." + +It begins thus: + + + Compatriots: Divine Providence is about to place independence + within our reach. * * * The Americans, not from mercenary motives, + but for the sake of humanity and the lamentations of so many + persecuted people, have considered it opportune * * * etc. [Here + follows a reference to Cuba.] At the present moment an American + squadron is preparing to sail for the Philippines. * * * The + Americans will attack by sea and prevent any reinforcements coming + from Spain; * * * we insurgents must attack by land. Probably + you will have more than sufficient arms, because the Americans + have arms and will find means to assist us. There where you + see the American flag flying, assemble in numbers; they are our + redeemers! [6] + + +For twelve days after his letter to the State Department enclosing +the above proclamation, Mr. Pratt, so far as the record discloses, +contemplated his coup d'etat in silent satisfaction. Since its +successful pulling off, Admiral Dewey had smashed the Spanish fleet, +and Aguinaldo had started his auxiliary insurrection. The former was +patting the latter on the back, as it were, and saying, "Go it little +man." But nobody was patting Pratt on the back, yet. Therefore, on June +2d, Mr. Pratt writes the State Department, purring for patting thus: + + + Considering the enthusiastic manner General Aguinaldo has been + received by the natives and the confidence with which he already + appears to have inspired Admiral Dewey, it will be admitted, + I think, that I did not over-rate his importance and that I + have materially assisted the cause of the United States in the + Philippines in securing his co-operation. [7] + + +A glow of conscious superiority, in value to the Government, over +his consular colleague and neighbor, Mr. Wildman, at Hong Kong, +next suffuses Mr. Pratt's diction, being manifested thus: + + + Why this co-operation should not have been secured to us during + the months General Aguinaldo remained awaiting events in Hong + Kong, and that he was allowed to leave there without having been + approached in the interest of our Government, I cannot understand. + + +Considering that in his letter accepting the nomination for the +Vice-Presidency two years after this Mr. Roosevelt compared Aguinaldo +and his people to that squalid old Apache medicine man, Sitting Bull, +and his band of dirty paint-streaked cut-throats, Mr. Pratt's next +Pickwickian sigh of complacent, if neglected, worth is particularly +interesting: + + + No close observer of what had transpired in the Philippines during + the past four years could have failed to recognize that General + Aguinaldo enjoyed above all others the confidence of the Filipino + insurgents and the respect alike of Spaniards and foreigners in + the islands, all of whom vouched for his high sense of justice + and honor. + + +In other words, knowing the proverbial ingratitude of republics, +Mr. Pratt is determined to impress upon his Government and on the +discerning historian of the future that he was "the original Aguinaldo +man." A week later (June 9th) Mr. Pratt writes the Department enclosing +copies of the Singapore papers of that date, giving an account of +a generous outburst of Filipino enthusiasm at Singapore in honor +of America, Admiral Dewey, and, last, if not least, Mr. Pratt. He +encloses duplicate copies of these newspaper notices "for the press, +should you consider their publication desirable." His letter begins: + + + I have the honor to report that this afternoon, on the occasion of + the receipt of the news of General Aguinaldo's recent successes + near Manila, I was waited upon by the Philippine residents in + Singapore and presented an address. * * * + + +He then proceeds with further details of the event, without +self-laudation. The Singapore papers which he encloses, however, not +handicapped by the inexorable modesty of official correspondence, +give a glowing account of the presentation of the "address," and +of the serenade and toasts which followed. Says one of them, the +Straits Times: + + + The United States consulate at Singapore was yesterday afternoon + in an unusual state of bustle. That bustle extended itself to + Raffles Hotel, of which the consulate forms an outlying part. From + a period shortly prior to 5 o'clock, afternoon, the natives of + the Philippines resident in Singapore began to assemble at the + consulate. Their object was to present an address to Hon. Spencer + Pratt, United States Consul-General, and, partly, to serenade him, + for which purpose some twenty-five or thirty of the Filipinos + came equipped with musical instruments. + + +First there was music by the band. Then followed the formal reading and +presentation of the address by a Dr. Santos, representing the Filipino +community of Singapore. The address pledged the "eternal gratitude" +of the Filipino people to Admiral Dewey and the honored addressee, +alluded to the glories of independence, and to how Aguinaldo had been +enabled by the arrangement so happily effected with Admiral Dewey +by Consul Pratt to arouse 8,000,000 of Filipinos to take up arms +"in defence of those principles of justice and liberty of which your +country is the foremost champion" and trusted "that the United States +* * * will efficaciously second the programme arranged between you, +sir, and General Aguinaldo in this port of Singapore, and secure to +us our independence under the protection of the United States." + +Mr. Pratt arose and "proceeded speaking in French," says the +newspaper--it does not say Alabama French, but that is doubtless what +it was--"to state his belief that the Filipinos would prove and were +now proving themselves fit for self-government." The gentleman from +Alabama then went on to review the mighty events and developments of +the preceding six weeks, Dewey's victory of May 1st, + + + the brilliant achievements of your own distinguished leader, + General Emilio Aguinaldo, co-operating on land with the Americans + at sea, etc. You have just reason to be proud of what has + been and is being accomplished by General Aguinaldo and your + fellow-countrymen under his command. When, six weeks ago, I + learned that General Aguinaldo had arrived incognito in Singapore, + I immediately sought him out. An hour's interview convinced me + that he was the man for the occasion; and, having communicated + with Admiral Dewey, I accordingly arranged for him to join the + latter, which he did at Cavite. The rest you know. + + +Says the newspaper clipping which has preserved the Pratt oration: +"At the conclusion of Mr. Pratt's speech refreshments were served, +and as the Filipinos, being Christians, drink alcohol, [8] there was +no difficulty in arranging as to refreshments." + +Then followed a general drinking of toasts to America, Dewey, Pratt, +and Aguinaldo. Then the band played. Then the meeting broke up. Then +the Honorable Spencer Pratt, Consul-General of the United States, +retired to the seclusion of his apartments in Raffles Hotel, and, +under the soothing swish of his plunkah, forgot the accursed heat of +that stepping-off place, Singapore, and dreamed of future greatness. + +A few days later the even tenor of Mr. Pratt's meditations was +disturbed by a letter from the State Department saying, in effect, +that it was all right to get Aguinaldo's assistance "if in so doing +he was not induced to form hopes which it might not be practicable to +gratify." [9] But it did not tell him to tell the Filipinos so. For +Aguinaldo was keeping the Spaniards bottled up in the old walled city +of Manila on short and ever shortening rations, and American troops +were on the way to join him, and the shorter the food supply grew +in Manila the readier the garrison would be to surrender when they +did arrive, and the fewer American soldiers' lives would have to be +sacrificed in the final capture of the town. Every day of Aguinaldo's +service under the Dewey-Pratt arrangement was worth an American life, +perhaps many. It was too valuable to repudiate, just yet. July 20th, +the State Department wrote Mr. Pratt a letter acknowledging receipt of +his of June 9th "enclosing printed copies of a report from the Straits +Times of the same day, entitled 'Mr. Spencer Pratt's Serenade,' +with a view to its communication to the press," and not only not +felicitating him on his serenade, but making him sorry he had ever +had a serenade. It said, among other things: + +"The extract now communicated by you from the Straits Times of the +9th of June has occasioned a feeling of disquietude and a doubt as +to whether some of your acts may not have borne a significance and +produced an impression which this government would feel compelled +to regret." [10] Hapless Pratt! "Feel compelled to regret" is State +Department for "You are liable to be fired." + +The letter of reprimand proceeds: + +"The address * * * discloses an understanding on their part that * * * +the ultimate object of our action is * * * the independence of the +Philippines * * *. Your address does not repel this implication * * *". + +The letter then scores Pratt for having called Aguinaldo "the man +for the occasion," and for having said that the "arrangement" between +Aguinaldo and Dewey had "resulted so happily," and after a few further +animadversions, concludes with this great blow to the reading public +of Alabama: + +"For these reasons the Department has not caused the article to be +given to the press lest it might seem thereby to lend a sanction to +views the expression of which it had not authorized." + +"The Department" was very scrupulous about even the appearance, at +the American end of the line, of "lending a sanction" to Pratt's +arrangement with Aguinaldo, while all the time it was knowingly +permitting the latter to daily risk his own life and the lives of +his countrymen on the faith of that very "arrangement," and it was +so permitting this to be done because the "arrangement" was daily +operating to reduce the number of American lives which it would be +necessary to sacrifice in the final taking of Manila. The day the +letter of reprimand was written our troop-ships were on the ocean, +speeding toward the Philippines. And Aguinaldo and his people were +fighting the Spaniards with the pent-up feeling of centuries impelling +their little steel-jacketed messengers of death, thinking of "Cuba +Libre," and dreaming of a Star of Philippine Independence risen in +the Far East. + +Such are the circumstances from which the Filipino people derived +their first impressions concerning the faith and honor of a strange +people they had never theretofore seen, who succeeded the Spaniards +as their overlords. Mr. Pratt was subsequently quietly separated from +the consular service, and doubtless lived to regret that he had ever +unloosed the fountains of his Alabama French on the Filipino colony +of Singapore. + + + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DEWEY AND AGUINALDO + + Armaments that thunderstrike the walls + Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake + And monarchs tremble in their capitals. + + Childe Harold. + + +The battle of Manila Bay was fought May 1, 1898. Until the thunder of +Dewey's guns reverberated around the world, there was perhaps no part +of it the American people knew less about than the Philippine Islands. + +We have all heard much of what happened after the battle, but +comparatively few, probably, have ever had a glimpse at our great +sailor while he was there in Hong Kong harbor, getting ready to go +to sea to destroy the Spanish armada. Such a glimpse is modestly +afforded by the Admiral in his testimony before the Senate Committee +in 1902. [11] + +Asked by the Committee when he first heard from Aguinaldo and his +people in 1898, Admiral Dewey said [12]: + + + I should think about a month before leaving Hong Kong, that is, + about the first of April, when it became pretty certain that there + was to be war with Spain, I heard that there were a number of + Filipinos in the city of Hong Kong who were anxious to accompany + the squadron to Manila in case we went over. I saw these men two + or three times myself. They seemed to be all very young earnest + boys. I did not attach much importance to what they said or to + themselves. Finally, before we left Hong Kong for Mirs Bay [13] + I received a telegram from Consul-General Pratt at Singapore + saying that Aguinaldo was there and anxious to see me. I said to + him "All right; tell him to come on," but I attached so little + importance to Aguinaldo that I did not wait for him. He did not + arrive, and we sailed from Mirs Bay without any Filipinos. + + +From his testimony before the Committee it is clear that Admiral +Dewey's first impressions of the Filipinos, like those of most +Americans after him, were not very favorable, that is to say, he did +not in the outset take them very seriously. It will be interesting +to consider these impressions, and then to compare them with those he +gathered on better acquaintance from observing their early struggles +for independence. The more intimate acquaintance, as has been the case +with all his fellow countrymen since, caused him to revise his first +verdict. Answering a question put by Senator Carmack concerning what +transpired between him and the Philippine Revolutionists at Hong Kong +before he sailed in search of the Spanish fleet, the Admiral said [14]: + + + They were bothering me. I was getting my squadron ready for battle, + and these little men were coming on board my ship at Hong Kong and + taking a good deal of my time, and I did not attach the slightest + importance to anything they could do, and they did nothing; that + is, none of them went with me when I went to Mirs Bay. There had + been a good deal of talk, but when the time came they did not + go. One of them didn't go because he didn't have any tooth-brush. + + Senator Burrows: "Did he give that as his reason?" + + Admiral Dewey: "Yes, he said 'I have no tooth-brush.'" + + They used to come aboard my ship and take my time, and finally + I would not see them at all, but turned them over to my staff. + + +Now the lack of a tooth-brush is hardly a valid excuse for not going +into battle, however great a convenience it may be in campaign. But +the absence of orders from your commanding officer stands on a very +different footing. Aguinaldo had not yet arrived. Three hundred years +of Spanish misgovernment and cruelty is not conducive to aversion +to fictitious excuses by the lowly in the presence of supreme +authority. The answer was amusingly uncandid, but disproved neither +patriotism nor intelligence. + +Aguinaldo arrived at Hong Kong from Singapore a day or so after +Admiral Dewey had sailed for Manila. Of the battle of May 1st, +no detailed mention is essential here. Every schoolboy is familiar +with it. It will remain, as long as the republic lasts, a part of +the heritage of the nation. But the true glory of that battle, to my +mind, rests, not upon the circumstance that we have the Philippines, +but upon the tremendous fact that before it occurred the attitude of +our State Department toward an American citizen sojourning in distant +lands and becoming involved in difficulties there had long been, +"Why didn't he stay at home? Let him stew in his own juice"; whereas, +since then, to be an American has been more like it was in the days +of St. Paul to be a Roman citizen. + +May 16th, our consul at Hong Kong, Mr. Wildman, succeeded in +getting the insurgent leader and his staff off for Manila on board +the U. S. S. McCulloch by authority of Admiral Dewey. Like his +colleague over at Singapore, Consul Wildman was bent on the role of +Warwick. Admiral Dewey was quite busy there in Manila Bay the first +two or three weeks after the battle, but yielding to the letters +of Wildman, who meantime had constituted himself a kind of fiscal +agent at Hong Kong for the prospective revolution in the matter of +the purchase of guns and otherwise, the Admiral told the commanding +officer of the McCulloch that on his next trip to Hong Kong he might +bring down a dozen or so of the Filipinos there. The frame of mind +they were in on reaching Manila, as a result of the assurances of +Pratt and Wildman, is well illustrated by a letter the latter wrote +Aguinaldo a little later (June 25th) which is undoubtedly in keeping +with what he had been telling him earlier: + + + Do not forget that the United States undertook this war for the + sole purpose of relieving the Cubans from the cruelties under + which they were suffering, and not for the love of conquest or + the hope of gain. They are actuated by precisely the same feelings + for the Filipinos. [15] + + +And at the time, they were. + +"Every American citizen who came in contact with the Filipinos at +the inception of the Spanish War, or at any time within a few months +after hostilities began," said General Anderson in an interview +published in the Chicago Record of February 24, 1900, "probably +told those he talked with * * * that we intended to free them from +Spanish oppression. The general expression, was 'We intend to whip +the Spaniards and set you free.'" + +The McCulloch arrived in Manila Bay with Aguinaldo and his outfit, +May 19th. Let Admiral Dewey tell what happened then [16]: + + + Aguinaldo came to see me. I said, "Well now, go ashore there; we + have got our forces at the arsenal at Cavite, go ashore and start + your army." He came back in the course of a few hours and said, + "I want to leave here; I want to go to Japan." I said, "Don't give + it up, Don Emilio." I wanted his help, you know. He did not sleep + ashore that night; he slept on board the ship. The next morning + he went on shore, still inside my lines, and began recruiting men. + + +Enterprises of great pith and moment have often turned awry and lost +the name of action for lack of a word spoken in season by a stout +heart. Admiral Dewey spoke the word, and Aguinaldo, his protege, +did the rest. "Then he began operations toward Manila, and he did +wonderfully well. He whipped the Spaniards battle after battle * * *." +[17] In fact, the desperate bravery of those little brown men +after they got warmed up reminds one of the Japs at the walls of +Peking, in the advance of the Allied Armies to the relief of the +foreign legations during the Boxer troubles of 1900. Admiral Dewey +told the Senate Committee in 1902 that Aguinaldo actually wanted to +put one of the old smooth-bore Spanish guns he found at Cavite on a +barge and have him (Dewey) tow it up in front of Manila so he could +attack the city with it. "I said, 'Oh no, no; we can do nothing until +our troops come.'" + +Otherwise he was constantly advising and encouraging him. Why? Let the +Admiral answer: "I knew that what he was doing--driving the Spaniards +in--was saving our troops." [17] In other words they were daily dying +that American soldiers might live, on the faith of the reasons for +which we had declared war, and trusting, because of the words of our +consuls and the acts of our admiral, in the sentiment subsequently +so nobly expressed by Mr. McKinley in his instructions to the Paris +peace Commissioners: + + + The United States in making peace should follow the same high + rule of conduct which guided it in facing war. [18] + + +"I did not know what the action of our Government would be," said +the Admiral to the Committee, [19] adding that he simply used his +best judgment on the spot at the time; presumably supposing that his +Government would do the decent thing by these people who considered +us their liberators. "They looked on us as their liberators," said +he. [20] "Up to the time the army came he (Aguinaldo) did everything I +requested. He was most obedient; whatever I told him to do he did. I +saw him almost daily. [21] I had not much to do with him after the +army came." [22] + +That was no ordinary occasion, that midsummer session of the +Senate Committee in 1902. It was a case of the powerful of the earth +discussing a question of ethics, even as they do in Boston. The nation +had been intoxicated in 1898 with the pride of power--power revealed +to it by the Spanish War; and in a spirit thus mellowed had taken +the Philippines as a sort of political foreign mission, forgetting +the injunction of the Fathers to keep Church and State separate, +but not forgetting the possible profits of trade with the saved. A +long war with the prospective saved had followed, developing many +barbarities avenged in kind, and the breezes from the South Seas were +suggesting the aroma of shambles. "How did we get into all this mess, +anyhow?" said the people. "Let us pause, and consider." Hear the +still small voice of a nation's conscience mingling with demagogic +nonsense perpetrated by potent, grave, and reverend Senators: + + + Admiral Dewey: "I do not think it makes any difference what my + opinion is on these things." + + Senator Patterson: "There is no man whose opinion goes farther + with the country than yours does, Admiral, and therefore I think + you ought to be very prudent in expressing your views." + + Senator Beveridge (Acting Chairman): "The Chairman will not permit + any member to lecture Admiral Dewey on his prudence or imprudence." + + +This of course would read well to "Mary of the Vine-clad Cottage" +out in Indiana, whose four-year-old boy was named George Dewey--, +or to her counterpart up in Vermont who might name her next boy +after the brilliant and distinguished Acting Chairman, in token of +her choice for the Presidency. + + + Senator Patterson: "I was not lecturing him." + + Senator Beveridge: "Yes; you said he ought to be prudent." + + Senator Patterson: "And I think it was well enough to suggest + those things." [23] + + +Thawed into theorizing by these indubitably genuine evidences of +a nation's high regard, the man of action tried to help the nation +out. He said he had used the Filipinos as the Federal troops used the +negroes in the Civil War. Senator Patterson struck this suggestion +amidships and sunk it with the remark that the negroes were expecting +freedom. Admiral Dewey had said "The Filipinos were slaves too" +and considered him their liberator. [24] But he never did elaborate +on the new definition of freedom which had followed in the wake of +his ships to Manila, viz., that Freedom does not necessarily mean +freedom from alien domination, but only a change of masters deemed +by the new master beneficial to the "slave." + +Apropos of why he accepted Aguinaldo's help, the Admiral also said: + + + I was waiting for troops to arrive, and I felt sure the Filipinos + could not take Manila, and I thought that the closer they invested + the city the easier it would be when our troops arrived to march + in. The Filipinos were our friends, assisting us; they were doing + our work. [25] + + +Asked as to how big a force Aguinaldo had under arms then and +afterwards, the Admiral said maybe 25,000, adding, by way of +illustration of the pluck, vim, and patriotism of his valuable new-made +friends, "They could have had any number of men; it was just a question +of arming them. They could have had the whole population." [26] +Eleven months after that, when we captured the first insurgent capital, +Malolos, General MacArthur, the ablest and one of the bravest generals +we ever set to slaughtering Filipinos, said to a newspaper man just +after a bloody and of course victorious fight: "When I first started in +against these rebels, I believed that Aguinaldo's troops represented +only a faction." "I did not like," said this veteran of three +wars, who was always "on the job" in action out there as elsewhere, +"I did not like to believe that the whole population of Luzon * * * +was opposed to us * * * but after having come thus far, and having +been brought much in contact with both insurrectos and amigos, I have +been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipino masses are +loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he heads". [27] + +Is it at all unlikely that Admiral Dewey did in fact say of his +proteges, the Filipinos, to an American visiting Manila in January, +1899, three or four weeks before the war broke out, "Rather than +make a war of conquest upon the Filipino people, I would up anchor +and sail out of the harbor." [28] + +If Dewey and MacArthur were right, then, about the situation around +Manila in 1898, it was a case of an entire people united in an +aspiration, and looking to us for its fulfilment. + +When the American troops reached the Philippines and perfected +their battle formations about Manila, and the order to advance +was given, they did "march in," to use Admiral Dewey's expression +above quoted. But they did not let the Filipinos have a finger in the +pie. The conquest and retention of the islands had then been determined +upon. The Admiral's reasons for saddling his protege with a series of +bloody battles and a long and arduous campaign are certainly stated +with the proverbial frankness of the sailorman: "I wanted his help, +you know." But what was Aguinaldo to get out of the transaction, +from the Dewey point of view? + +"They wanted to get rid of the Spaniards. I do not think they looked +much beyond that," [29] said the Admiral to the Senate Committee. Let +us see whether they did or not. Aguinaldo had been shipped by the +Honorable E. Spencer Pratt, Consul-General of the United States at +Singapore, from that point to Hong Kong on April 26th, consigned to +his fellow Warwick, the Honorable Rounseville Wildman, Consul-General +of the United States at the last-named place, and had been received +in due course by the consignee. May 5th, at Hong Kong, the Filipino +Revolutionary Committee had a meeting, the minutes of which we +subsequently came into possession of, along with other captured +insurgent papers. The following is an extract from those minutes: + + + Once the President [Aguinaldo] is in the Philippines with his + prestige, he will be able to arouse the masses to combat the + demands of the United States, if they should colonize that country, + and will drive them, the Filipinos, if circumstances render it + necessary, to a Titanic struggle for their independence, even + if later they should succumb to the weight of the yoke of a new + oppressor. If Washington proposes to carry out the fundamental + principles of its Constitution, it is most improbable that an + attempt will be made to colonize the Philippines or annex them. It + is probable then that independence will be guaranteed. [30] + + +The truth is that instead of leaving everything to the chance of +our continuing in the same unselfish frame of mind we were really in +when the Spanish-American War started, Aguinaldo and his people, not +sure but what in the wind-up they might even be thrown back upon the +tender mercies of Spain, played their cards boldly and consistently +from the beginning with a view of organizing a de facto government +and getting it recognized by the Powers as such at the very earliest +practicable moment. They believed that the Lord helps those who help +themselves. They had anticipated our change of heart and already had +it discounted before we were aware of it ourselves. They were already +acting on the idea that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty +while public opinion in the United States concerning them was in a +chrysalis state, and trying to develop a new definition of Liberty +which should comport with the subjugation of distant island subjects +by a continental commonwealth on the other side of the world based on +representative government. The prospective subjects did not believe +that a legislature ten thousand miles away in which they had no vote +would ever give them a square deal about tariff and other laws dictated +by special interests. They had had three hundred years of just that +very sort of thing under Spain and instinctively dreaded continuance +of it. That their instincts did not deceive them, our later study of +Congressional legislation will show. The Filipinos had greatly pondered +their future in their hearts during the last twelve months of Spain's +colonial empire, watching her Cuban embarrassments with eager eye. + +Having seen the frame of mind in which they approached the contract +implied in Admiral Dewey's cheery words, "Well now, go ashore there +and start your army," what were the facts of recent history within +the knowledge of both parties at the time? What had been the screams +of the American eagle, if any, concerning his moral leadership of +the family of unfeathered bipeds? + +President McKinley's annual message to Congress of December, 1897, +[31] calling attention to conditions in Cuba as intolerable, +had declared that if we should intervene to put a stop to them, +we certainly would not make it the occasion of a land-grab. The +other nations said: "We are from Missouri." But Mr. McKinley said, +"forcible annexation" was not to be thought of by us. "That by +our code of morality would be criminal," etc. So the world said, +"We shall see what we shall see." Then had come the war message +of April 11, 1898, [32] reiterating the declaration of the Cuban +message of December previous, that "forcible annexation by our code of +morality would be criminal aggression." In other words we announced +to the overcrowded monarchies of the old world, whose land-lust is +ever tempted by the broad acres of South America, and ever cooled +by the virile menace of the Monroe doctrine, that we not only were +against the principle of land-grabbing, but would not indulge in the +practice. Immediately upon the conclusion of the reading of the war +message, Senator Stewart was recognized, and said, among other things: +"Under the law of nations, intervention for conquest is condemned, +and is opposed to the universal sentiment of mankind. It is unjust, +it is robbery, to intervene for conquest." Then Mr. Lodge stood up, +"in the Senate House a Senator," and said: + + + We are there [meaning in this present Cuban situation] because we + represent the spirit of liberty and the spirit of the new time, and + Spain is over against us because she is mediaeval, cruel, dying. We + have grasped no man's territory, we have taken no man's property, + we have invaded no man's rights. We do not ask their lands. [33] + + +These speeches went forth to the world almost like a part of the +message itself. And Admiral Dewey, like every other American, in +his early dealings with Aguinaldo, after war broke out, must have +assumed a mental attitude in harmony with these announcements. But +the world said, "All this is merely what you Americans yourselves +call 'hot air.' We repeat, 'We are from Missouri.'" Then we said: +"Oh very well, we will show you." So in the declaration of war against +Spain we inserted the following: + + + Fourth: That the United States hereby disclaims any disposition or + intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over + said island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its + determination when that is accomplished, to leave the government + and control of the island to its people. + + +This meant, "It is true we do love the Almighty Dollar very dearly, +oh, Sisters of the Family of Nations, but there are some axiomatic +principles of human liberty that we love better, and one of them is the +'unalienable right' of every people to pursue happiness in their own +way, free from alien domination." All these things were well known to +both the contracting parties when Admiral Dewey set Aguinaldo ashore +at Cavite, May 20, 1898, and got him to start his insurrection "under +the protection of our guns," as he expressed it. [34] Accordingly, +when the insurgent leader went ashore, the declaration of war was +his major premise, the assurances of our consuls and the acts of our +Admiral pursuant thereto were his minor premise, and Independence was +his conclusion. Trusting to the faith and honor of the American people, +he took his life in his hands, left the panoplied safety of our mighty +squadron, and plunged, single-handed, into the struggle for Freedom. + +What was the state of the public mind on shore, and how was it +prepared to receive his assurances of American aid? Consider the +following picture in the light of its sombre sequel. + +Just as the war broke out, Consul Williams had left Manila and gone +over to Hong Kong, where he joined Admiral Dewey, and accompanied him +back to Manila, and was thus privileged to be present at the battle +of Manila Bay, May 1st. Under date of May 12th, from his consular +headquarters aboard the U. S. S. Baltimore, he reports [35] going +ashore at Cavite and being received with enthusiastic greetings by +vast crowds of Filipinos. "They crowded around me," says Brother +Williams, "hats off, shouting 'Viva los Americanos,' thronged about +me by hundreds to shake either hand, even several at a time, men, +women, and children, striving to get even a finger to shake. So I +moved half a mile, shaking continuously with both hands." + +Tut! tut! says the casual reader. What did the Government at +Washington know of all these goings on, that it should be charged +later with having violated as binding a moral obligation as ever a +nation assumed? It is true that the news of the Williams ovation, +as in the case of the Pratt serenade, reached Washington only by the +slow channels of the mail. But Washington did in fact receive the +said news by due course of mail. When it came, however, Washington +was nursing visions of savages in blankets smoking the pipe of peace +with the agents of the Great White Father in the White House--i.e., +thought, or hoped, the Filipinos were savages--and remained as deaf +to the sounds of the Williams ovation as it had been to the strains +of the Pratt serenade. + +However, hardly had Admiral Dewey taken his binoculars from the gig +that carried Aguinaldo ashore to raise his auxiliary insurrection, +when he called his Flag Secretary, or the equivalent, and dictated +the following cablegram to the Secretary of the Navy: + + + Aguinaldo, the rebel commander-in-chief, was brought down by + the McCulloch. Organizing forces near Cavite, and may render + assistance that will be valuable. [36] + + +This sounds a little more serious than "earnest boys" alleging the +lack of a toothbrush as an excuse for declining mortal combat, does +it not? How valuable did this assistance prove? Admiral Dewey had to +wait three and one half months for the army to arrive, and this is +how the commanding general of the American forces describes conditions +as he found them in the latter part of August: + + + For three and one half months Admiral Dewey with his squadron + and the insurgents on land had kept Manila tightly bottled. All + commerce had been interdicted, internal trade paralyzed, and food + supplies were nearly exhausted. [37] + + +And, he might have added, the taking of the city was thus made +perfectly easy. Otherwise, as Aguinaldo put it in one of his letters +to General Otis, we would not have taken a city, but only the ruins +of a city. Admiral Dewey said to the Senate Committee in 1902: "They +[the Spaniards] surrendered on August 13th, and they had not gotten +a thing in after the 1st of May." [38] + +In the early part of the next year, 1899, President McKinley sent +out a kind of olive-branch commission, of which President Schurman +of Cornell University was Chairman. The olive branch got withered +in the sulphur of exploding gun-powder, so the Commission contented +itself with making a report. And this is what they said concerning +what followed the Dewey-Aguinaldo entente: + + + Shortly afterwards, the Filipinos began to attack the + Spanish. Their number was rapidly augmented by the militia who + had been given arms by Spain, all of whom revolted and joined + the insurgents. Great Filipino successes followed, many Spaniards + were taken prisoners, and while the Spanish troops now remained + quietly in Manila, the Filipino forces made themselves masters + of the entire island [of Luzon] except that city. [39] + + +Of conditions in July, sixty days after Admiral Dewey had on May 20th +said to Aguinaldo in effect, "Go it, little man, we need you in our +business," Mr. Wildman, our Consul at Hong Kong, writing to the State +Department, said, in defending himself for his share in the business +of getting Aguinaldo's help under promises, both express and implied, +which were subsequently repudiated, that after he, Wildman, put the +insurgent chief aboard the McCulloch, May 16th, bound for Manila to +co-operate by land with our navy: "He * * * organized a government +* * * and from that day to this he has been uninterruptedly successful +in the field and dignified and just as the head of his government," +[40] a statement which Admiral Dewey subsequently endorsed. [41] + +We have seen the preliminaries of this "government" started under +the auspices of our Admiral and under what he himself called "the +protection of our guns" (ante). Let us note its progress. If you +turn the leaves of the contemporaneous official reports, you see +quite a moving picture show, and the action is rapid. On May 24th, +still "under the protection of our guns," Aguinaldo proclaimed his +revolutionary government and summoned the people to his standard for +the purpose of driving the Spaniards out forever. The situation was an +exact counterpart of the cotemporary Cuban one as regards identity of +purpose between "liberator" and "oppressed." His proclamation promised +a constitutional convention to be called later (and which was duly +called later) to elect a President and Cabinet, in whose favor he +would resign the emergency authority now assumed; referred to the +United States as "undoubtedly disinterested" and as considering the +Filipinos "capable of governing for ourselves our unfortunate country"; +and formally announced the temporary assumption of supreme authority +as dictator. Copies of these proclamations were duly furnished Admiral +Dewey. The latter was too busy looking after the men behind his guns +and watching the progress of his plucky little ally to study Spanish, +so he forwarded them to the Navy Department without comment--"without +reading them," said he to the Senate Committee in 1902. [42] When his +attention was called to them before the Committee by one of the members +reading them, his comment was, "Nothing about independence there, is +there?" [43] It seems to me it did not take an international lawyer +to see a good deal "there," about independence. In a proclamation +published at Tarlac in the latter part of 1899, which appears to have +been a sort of swan-song of the Philippine Republic, Aguinaldo had +said, in effect, "Certainly Admiral Dewey did not bring me from Hong +Kong to Manila to fight the Spaniards for the benefit of American +Trade Expansion," and in this proclamation he claimed that Admiral +Dewey promised him independence. It is true, that in a letter to +Senator Lodge, which that distinguished gentleman read on the floor +of the Senate on January 31, 1900, Admiral Dewey denounced this last +statement as false. It is also true that those Americans are few and +far between who will take Aguinaldo's word in preference to Admiral +Dewey's. Certainly the writer is not one of them. But Aguinaldo +is no Spanish scholar, being more of a leader of men than a master +of language, and what sort of an interpreter acted between him and +the Admiral does not appear. Certainly he never did get anything in +writing from Admiral Dewey. But after the latter brought him to Manila, +set him to fighting the common enemy, and helped him with guns and +otherwise in quickly organizing an army for the purpose, the Admiral +was at least put on inquiry as to just what Aguinaldo supposed he was +fighting for. What did the Admiral probably suppose? He told the Senate +Committee that the idea that they wanted independence "never entered +his head." The roar of mighty guns seems to have made it difficult for +him to hear the prattlings of what Aguinaldo's proclamations of the +time called "the legitimate aspirations of a people." The milk in the +cocoanut is this: How could it ever occur to a great naval commander, +such as Admiral Dewey, familiar with the four quarters of the globe, +that a coterie of politicians at home would be so foolish as to buy +a vast straggly archipelago of jungle-covered islands in the South +Seas which had been a nuisance to every government that ever owned +them? But let us turn from the Senate Committee's studies of 1902 to +the progress of the infant republic of 1898 at Cavite. + +The same day the above proclamations of May 24th were issued, we +find Consul Williams, now become a sort of amphibious civilian +aide to Dewey, having his consular headquarters afloat, on the +U. S. S. Baltimore, of the squadron, writing the State Department, +describing the great successes of the insurgents, his various +conferences with Aguinaldo and the other leaders, and his own +activities in arranging the execution of a power of attorney whereby +Aguinaldo released to certain parties in Hong Kong $400,000 then +on deposit to his credit in a Hong Kong bank, for the purpose of +enabling them to pay for 3000 stand of arms bought there and expected +to arrive at Cavite on the morrow, and for other needed expenses of the +revolutionary movement. He says, in part: "Officers have visited me +during the darkness of the night to inform the fleet and me of their +operations, and to report increase of strength. When General Merritt +arrives he will find large auxiliary land forces adapted to his service +and used to the climate." [44] Throughout this period Admiral Dewey +reports various cordial conferences with Aguinaldo, though he is not so +literary as to vivify his accounts with allusions to the weather. In +one despatch he states that he has "refrained from assisting him * * * +with the forces under my command" [45]--explaining to him that "the +squadron could not act until the arrival of the United States troops." + +Six days after the issuance of the Dictatorship proclamations above +mentioned, viz., on May 30th, Admiral Dewey cables the Navy Department +[46]: + + + Aguinaldo, revolutionary leader, visited Olympia yesterday. He + expects to make general attack May 31st. + + +He did not succeed entirely, but there was hard fighting, and the +cordon around the doomed Spaniards in Manila and its suburbs was +drawn ever closer and closer. + +The remarkable feat of Aguinaldo's raising a right formidable fighting +force in twelve days after his little "Return from Elba," which force +kept growing like a snowball, is difficult, for one who does not know +the Filipinos, and the conditions then, to credit. It is explained +by the fact that Admiral Dewey let him have the captured guns in the +Cavite arsenal, that Cavite was a populous hotbed of insurrection, +and that many native regiments, or parts of regiments, quite suited +to be the nucleus of an army, having lots of veteran non-commissioned +officers, deserted the Spaniards and went over to the insurgents, +their countrymen, as soon as Aguinaldo arrived. + +On June 6th, we have another bulletin sent to the Navy Department +by Admiral Dewey, transmitting with perceptible satisfaction further +information as to the progress of his indefatigable protege: + + + Insurgents have been engaged actively within the province of Cavite + during the last week; they have had several small victories, + taking prisoners about 1800 men, 50 officers; Spanish troops, + not native. [47] + + +Along about this period Aguinaldo happens to get hold of a belated +copy of the London Times of May 5, 1898. It contains considerable +speculation on the future of the Philippines which casts a shadow +over the soul of the president of the incipient republic. Having read +President McKinley's immortal State papers about the moral obliquity +of "forcible annexation," he is moved to write direct to the source +of those noble sentiments. The letter is dated June 10, 1898. It is +addressed, with a quaintness now pathetic, "To the President of the +Republic of the Great North American Nation." It greets the addressee +with "the most tender effusion of" the writer's soul, expresses his +"deep and sincere gratitude," in the name of his people, "for the +efficient and disinterested protection which you have decided to give +it to shake off the yoke of the cruel and corrupt Spanish domination, +as you are doing to the equally unfortunate Cuba" and then proceeds to +tell of "the great sorrow which all of us Filipinos felt on reading +in the Times the astounding statement that you, sir, will retain +these islands," etc. He proceeds: + + + The Philippine people * * * have seen in your nation, ever since + your fleet destroyed in a moment the Spanish fleet which was here + * * * the angel who is the harbinger of their liberty; and they + rose like a single wave * * * as soon as I trod these shores; and + captured in ten days nearly the whole garrison of this Province + of Cavite in whose port I have my government--by the consent of + the Admiral of your triumphant fleet. [48] + + +The writer closes his letter with an impassioned protest against +the occurrence of what is suggested in the Times, and speaks of +his fellow-countrymen as "a people which trusts blindly in you not +to abandon it to the tyranny of Spain, but to leave it free and +independent," and adds his "fervent prayers for the ever-increasing +prosperity of your powerful nation." [49] + +But the signer of the foregoing letter did not spend all his time +praying for us, as may be observed in this bulletin from Admiral Dewey +concerning the way he was lambasting the common enemy, sent the Navy +Department, June 12th: + + + Insurgents continue hostilities and have practically surrounded + Manila. They have taken 2500 Spanish prisoners, whom they treat + most humanely. They do not intend to attack city proper until + the arrival of United States troops thither; I have advised. [50] + + +Four days later Washington chided the hapless Pratt at Singapore about +having talked to Aguinaldo of "direct co-operation" with Admiral Dewey, +saying: "To obtain the unconditional personal assistance of General +Aguinaldo in the expedition to Manila was proper, if in so doing he +was not induced to form hopes which it might not be practicable to +gratify." [51] This communication goes on to advise Mr. Pratt that the +Department cannot approve anything he may have said to Aguinaldo on +behalf of the United States which would concede that in accepting his +co-operation we would owe him anything. Yet it did not tell Admiral +Dewey to quit coaching him, because the service he was rendering +was too valuable. There is no communication to Admiral Dewey about +"hopes which it might not be practicable to gratify" in the official +archives of those times. There was Admiral Dewey coaching Aguinaldo +and telling him to wait for the main attack until General Merritt +should arrive with our troops. Why? Because he expected Merritt to +co-operate with Aguinaldo, and of course Aguinaldo expected exactly +what Dewey expected. + +In reviewing the history of those times the writer has not been +so careless as to have overlooked Senator Lodge's elaborate speech +in the Senate on March 7, 1900, wherein attention is called to the +circumstance that a few days after Aguinaldo landed at Cavite, the +Navy Department cabled cautioning Dewey to have no alliance with him +that might complicate us, and that the Admiral answered he had made no +alliance and would make none. But if actions speak louder than words, +the Senator's point does not rise above the dignity of a technicality. + +The same day the State Department reprimanded Pratt, as above +indicated, viz., June 16th, Consul Williams at Manila wrote them +a glowing communication [52] about how "active and almost uniformly +successful" Aguinaldo was continuing to be. But no resultant enthusiasm +is of record. Two days later, on June 18th, Aguinaldo issued his +first formal Declaration of Independence. The infant republic was now +less than a month old, but it already had a fine set of teeth. The +Spaniards had seen them. The proclamation was of course addressed to +the Filipino people, and called on them to rally to the cause, but +he was also driving at recognition by the Powers. It read in part: +"In the face of the whole world I have proclaimed that the aspiration +of my whole life, the final object of all my wishes and efforts, +is your independence, because I have the inner conviction that it is +also your constant longing." [53] Many Americans insist that this is +mere "hot air" and that the average Filipino peasant does not think +much more than his plough animal, the scoffer himself being stupidly +unaware that this has been precisely the argument of tyranny in all +ages. But the pride a people will have in seeing the best educated +and most able men of their own race in charge of their affairs seems +to me too obvious to need elaboration. It was always accepted by us +as axiomatic until we took the Philippines. It is a cruel species of +wickedness for an American to tell his countrymen that the Filipino +people do not want independence, for some of them may believe it. + +The Declaration of Independence of June 18th is known to students +of Philippine political archaeology as the Proclamation establishing +the "dictatorial" government. The principal thing it did was to +supplement the absolute dictatorship proclaimed May 24th by provisions +for organizing in detail. It also declared independence. A more +elaborate Declaration followed on June 23d, known as the proclamation +establishing the "revolutionary" government. This made provision +for a Congress, a Cabinet, and courts. Of course it was only a paper +government the day the ink dried on it. But we will follow it through +its teething, and adolescence, to the attainment of its majority at +an inauguration where the president was driven to the place of the +taking of the oath of office in a coach and four, through a short +and very self-respecting heyday, and a longer peripatetic existence, +to final dissolution. The document of June 23d reminds us of a fact +which in reading it at this late date we are apt to forget, viz., +that the Filipinos did not know at what moment their powerful ally, +the American squadron, might up anchor and sail away to the high +seas, to meet another Spanish fleet; thus leaving them to the tender +mercies of the Spaniards, possibly forever. So they were losing no +time. In fact, they had set to work from the very beginning with a +determination to try and secure recognition from the Powers at the +earliest moment. In appealing to the public opinion of the world with a +view of paving the way to recognition by the Powers--which recognition +would mean getting arms for war with Spain or any other power without +the inconveniences of filibustering--Aguinaldo says on behalf of his +people in the proclamation of June 23d, above mentioned, that they +"now no longer limit themselves to asking for assimilation with the +political constitution of Spain, but ask for a complete separation +(and) strive for independence, completely assured that the time has +come when they can and ought to govern themselves." + +Mr. Frank D. Millet, who reached Manila soon enough (in July) to +see the ripples of this proclamation, describes the effect on the +people. While Mr. Millet is one of the best men that anybody ever knew, +a proposition as to which I am quite sure the President of the United +States and many people great and small in many lands would affirm my +judgment, [54] still, he writes from a frankly White Man's Burden or +land-grabbing standpoint--is in harmony with his environment. At +page 50 of his book, [55] he reproduces the proclamation last +above quoted from, and adds the following satirical comment: "This +flowery production was widely circulated and had a great effect on +the imagination of the people, who, in the elation of their present +success in investing the town and in their belief that the United +States was beginning a campaign in the Philippines to free them from +Spanish oppression (italics mine) shortly came to think that they +were already a nation." + +Copies of these June proclamations also, as in the case of those +of May 24th, were duly forwarded by Aguinaldo to Admiral Dewey +[56] and by him forwarded to Washington without comment. In his +letter transmitting them to Dewey, Aguinaldo announces that his +government has "taken possession of the various provinces of the +archipelago." Just exactly how many provinces he had control of on +June 23d will be examined later. The very same day the proclamation +of June 23d declaring independence was issued, Admiral Dewey cabled +the Navy Department [57]: "Aguinaldo has acted independently of the +squadron, but has kept me advised of his progress which has been +wonderful. I have allowed him to take from the arsenal such Spanish +arms and ammunition as he needed." After adding that "Aguinaldo +expects to capture Manila without any assistance," the Admiral, +evidently divining the temptation that was then luring the political +St. Anthonies at Washington, volunteers this timely suggestion: + + + In my opinion these people are superior in intelligence and more + capable of self-government than the natives of Cuba, and I am + familiar with both races. [57] + + +That there may be no doubt about the motive behind that suggestion, +it may be noted here that the Admiral told the Senate Committee in +1902: "I wrote that because I saw in the newspapers that Congress +contemplated giving the Cubans independence." [58] + +But this is not all. On August 13th, the day after the Peace +Protocol was signed, Mr. McKinley wired Admiral Dewey asking about +"the desirability of the several islands," the "coal and mineral +deposits," and in reply on August 29th, the Admiral wrote: + + + In a telegram sent the Department on June 23d, I expressed the + opinion that "these people are far superior in their intelligence + and more capable of self-government than the natives of Cuba, + and I am familiar with both races." Further intercourse with them + has confirmed me in this opinion. [59] + + +As a result of one year's stay in Cuba, and six in the Philippines--two +in the army that subjugated the Filipinos and four as a judge over +them--I heartily concur in the above opinion of Admiral Dewey, +but with this addition: Whatever of solidarity for governmental +purposes the Filipinos may have lacked at the date of the Admiral's +communications, they were certainly welded into conscious political +unity, as one people, in their war for independence against us. + +In the 1609 or Douay (pronounce Dewey) version of the Bible, the +Latin Vulgate, Luke's version of the Lord's Prayer only says "Lead +us not into temptation," while Matthew adds "but deliver us from +evil." The Dewey suggestions to the Washington Government in 1898 +remind a regretful nation of both the evangelical versions mentioned, +for the first seems to say what Luke says, and the second seems to +add what Matthew adds. + +There is not an American who has known the Filipinos since the +beginning of the American occupation who doubts for a moment that +but for our intervention a Republic would have been established out +there under the lead of Aguinaldo, Mabini, and their associates, +which would have compared well with the republican governments +between the United States and Cape Horn. The writer doubts very +much if President Taft is of a contrary opinion. The real issue is, +now that we have them, should we keep them in spite of the tariff +iniquities which the Trusts perpetrate on them through Congress, +until they have received the best possible tuition we can give them, +or be content to give them their independence when they are already at +least as fit for it as the Republics to the South of us, guaranteeing +them independence by international agreement like that which protects +Belgium and Switzerland? + +Now why did Admiral Dewey repeat to his home government and emphasize +on August 29th a suggestion so extremely pertinent to the capacity of +the Filipinos for self-government which he had already made in lucid +language on June 23d previous? The answer is not far to seek. General +Anderson had arrived between the two dates, with the first American +troops that reached the islands after the naval battle of May 1st, +and brought the Admiral the first intimation, which came somewhat as +a surprise of course, that there was serious talk in the United States +of retaining the Philippines. "I was the first to tell Admiral Dewey," +says General Anderson in the North American Review for February, 1900, +"that there was any disposition on the part of the American people to +hold the Philippines if they were captured." He adds: "Whether Admiral +Dewey and Consuls Pratt, Wildman, and Williams did or did not give +Aguinaldo assurances that a Filipino government would be recognized, +the Filipinos certainly thought so, judging from their acts rather +than from their words. Admiral Dewey gave them arms and ammunition, +as I did subsequently at his request." + +General Anderson might have added that whenever the Admiral captured +prisoners from the Spaniards he would promptly turn them over to the +Filipinos--1300 at one clip in the month of June at Olongapo. [60] +These 1300 were men a German man-of-war prevented the Filipinos from +taking until Aguinaldo reported the matter to Admiral Dewey, whereupon, +he promptly sent Captain Coghlan with the Raleigh and another of his +ships to the scene of the trouble, and Captain Coghlan said to the +German "Hoch der Kaiser" etc. or words to that effect, and made him +go about his business and let our ally alone. Then Captain Coghlan +took the 1300 prisoners himself and turned them over to Aguinaldo by +direction of Admiral Dewey. The motive for, as well as the test of, +an alliance, is that the other fellow can bring into the partnership +something you lack. The navy had no way to keep prisoners of war. There +can be no doubt that if Admiral Dewey's original notions about meeting +the problems presented by his great victory of May 1, 1898, had been +followed, we never would have had any trouble with the Filipinos; +nor can there be any doubt that he made them his allies and used +them as such. They were very obedient allies at that, until they +saw the Washington Government was going to repudiate the "alliance," +and withhold from them what they had a right to consider the object +and meaning of the alliance, if it meant anything. + +The truth is, as Secretary of War Taft said in 1905, before the +National Geographic Society in Washington, "We blundered into +colonization." [61] As we have seen, Admiral Dewey repeatedly +expressed the opinion, in the summer of 1898, that the Filipinos +were far superior in intelligence to the Cubans and more capable +of self-government. He of course saw quite clearly then, when +he was sending home those commendations of Filipino fitness for +self-government, just as we have all come to realize since, that a +coaling station would be; the main thing we should need in that part +of the world in time of war; that Manila, being quite away from the +mainland of Asia, could never supersede Hong Kong as the gateway to +the markets of Asia, since neither shippers nor the carrying trade of +the world will ever see their way to unload cargo at Manila by way of +rehearsal before unloading on the mainland; and that the taking of the +islands was a dubious step from a financial standpoint, and a still +more dubious one from the strategic standpoint of defending them by +land, in the event of war with Japan, Germany, or any other first-class +power. At this late date, when the passions and controversies of that +period have long since subsided, is it not perfectly clear that after +he destroyed the Spanish fleet, Admiral Dewey not only dealt with the +Filipinos, until the army came out, substantially as Admiral Sampson +and General Shatter did with the Cubans, but also that he did all he +properly could to save President McKinley from the one great blunder +of our history, the taking of the Philippine Islands? + + + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ANDERSON AND AGUINALDO + + Well, honor is the subject of my story. + + Julius Caesar, Act. I, Sc. 2. + + +The destruction of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, +ten days after the outbreak of the war with Spain, having necessitated +sending troops to the Philippines to complete the reduction of the +Spanish power in that quarter, Major-General Wesley Merritt was on +May 16th selected to organize and command such an expedition. + +"The First Expedition," as it was always distinguished, by the officers +and men of the Eighth Army Corps, there having been many subsequent +expeditions sent out before our war with the Filipinos was over, +was itself subdivided into a number of different expeditions, troops +being hurried to Manila as fast as they could be assembled and properly +equipped in sufficient numbers. The first batch that were whipped into +shape left San Francisco under command of Brigadier-General Thomas +M. Anderson, on May 25th, and arrived off Manila, June 30th. General +Merritt did not arrive until July 25th. It was General Anderson, +therefore, who broke the ice of the American occupation of the +Philippines. + +In his annual message to Congress of December, following, [62] +summing up the War with Spain and its results, Mr. McKinley gives +a brief account of the First Expedition. After recounting Admiral +Dewey's victory of May 1st previous, he states that "on the seventh +day of May the Government was advised officially of the victory at +Manila, and at once inquired of the commander of the fleet what troops +would be required." President McKinley does not give the Admiral's +answer, though he does state that it was received on the 15th day of +May. The Admiral's answer appears, however, in the Report of the Navy +Department for 1898, Appendix, page 98. It was: "In my best judgment, +a well-equipped force of 5000 men." But the President's message does +state that he at once sent a "total force consisting of 641 officers +and 15,058 enlisted men." + +The difference of view-point of the Admiral and the President is clear +from the language of both. In recommending 5000 troops, the Admiral +had said they would be necessary "to retain possession [of Manila] +and thus control Philippine Islands." This counted, of course, on the +friendship of the people, as in Cuba. "I had in view simply taking +possession of the city." said Admiral Dewey to the Senate Committee +in 1902. [63] + +The purpose of the President in sending three times as many troops as +were needed for the purpose Admiral Dewey had in mind is indicated in +his account of what happened. After describing the taking of Manila +by our troops on August 13th, the presidential message says: + + + By this the conquest of the Philippine Islands, virtually + accomplished when the Spanish capacity for resistance was destroyed + by Admiral Dewey's victory of May 1st, was formally sealed. [64] + + +Admiral Dewey contemplated that we should merely remain masters of the +situation out where he was until the end of the war. President McKinley +set about to effect "the conquest of the Philippine Islands." The +naval victory of Manila Bay having made it certain that at the +conclusion of our war against a decadent monarchy we would at last +have an adequate coaling station and naval base in the Far East, the +sending of troops to the Philippines, in appropriate prosecution of +the war, to reduce and capture Manila, the capital and chief port, +raised the question at once "And then what?" + +The genesis of the idea of taking over the archipelago is traceable +to within a few days after the destruction of the Spanish fleet. + +Within a few days after the official news of the battle of Manila +Bay reached Washington, the Treasury Department set a man to work +making a "Report on Financial and Industrial Conditions of the +Philippine Islands." [65] The Interior Department also awoke, about +the same time to possibilities of an El Dorado in the new overseas +conquest. "In May, 1898," says Secretary of the Interior, C. N. Bliss, +in a letter intended for the Peace Commissioners who met at Paris +that fall, "by arrangement between the Secretary of War with this +Department"--Mr. Bliss's grammar is bad, but his meaning is plain--"a +geologist of the United States Geological Survey accompanied the +military expedition to the Philippines for the purpose of procuring +information touching the geological and mineral resources of said +islands." [66] This report, which accompanies the Bliss letter, reads +like a mining stock prospectus. That summer an Assistant Secretary of +the Treasury, presumably echoing the sentiments of the Administration, +came out in one of the great magazines of the period, the Century, +with an article in which he said: "We see with sudden clearness that +some of the most revered of our political maxims have outlived their +force. * * * A new mainspring * * * has become the directing force +* * * the mainspring of commercialism." [67] Of course, the writer did +not mention that Manila is an out-of-the-way place, so far as regards +the main-travelled routes across the Pacific Ocean, and also forgot +that, as has been suggested once before, the carrying trade of the +world, and the shippers on which it depends, in the contest of the +nations for the markets of Asia, would never take to the practice of +unloading at Manila by way of rehearsal, before finally discharging +cargo on the mainland of Asia, where the name of the Ultimate +Consumer is legion. Nevertheless "Expansion"--of Trade, mainly--was +the slogan of the hour, and any one who did not catch the contagion +of exuberant allusion to "Our New Possessions" was considered crusty +and out of date. People who referred back to the political maxims of +Washington's Farewell Address, and the cognate set represented by the +Monroe Doctrine, were regarded merely as not knowing a good thing +when they saw it. So on rode the country, on the crest of the wave +of war. When President McKinley sent the troops to the Philippines, +their job was to hurry up and effect what his subsequent message to +Congress describing their work called "the conquest of the Philippine +Islands." That is, they were to effect a constructive conquest of +the archipelago before Spain should sue for peace. It never seemed +to occur to anybody at home that the Filipinos would object. If the +country had, through some divine interposition, gotten it into its +head that the Filipinos were quite a decent lot and really did object +very bitterly, it would have risen in its wrath and smitten down any +suggestion of forcing a government on them against their will. But +nobody knew anything about them. They were a wholly new proposition. + +General Anderson was of course furnished with a copy of the President's +instructions to his chief, General Merritt. They are quite long, +and go into details about a number of administrative matters that +would necessarily come up after the city should surrender, such as +the raising of revenue, the military commander's duty under the law +of nations with regard to the seizure of transportation lines by +land or sea, the protection of places of worship from desecration or +destruction, and the like. The only portion of them that is essential +to a clear understanding of subsequent events is now submitted: +They are dated Executive Mansion, May 18, 1898, and read in part [68]: + + + PRESIDENT McKINLEY'S INSTRUCTIONS TO GENERAL MERRITT + + The destruction of the Spanish fleet at Manila, followed by + the taking of the naval station at Cavite, the paroling of the + garrisons, and acquisition of control of the bay, have rendered + it necessary, in the further prosecution of the measures adopted + by this Government for the purpose of bringing about an honorable + and durable peace with Spain, to send an army of occupation to the + Philippines for the twofold purpose of completing the reduction of + the Spanish power in that quarter, and of giving order and security + to the islands while in the possession of the United States. + + For the command of this expedition I have designated Major-General + Wesley Merritt, and it now becomes my duty to give instructions + as to the manner in which the movements shall be conducted. + + The first effect of the military occupation of the enemy's + territory is the severance of the former political relations of the + inhabitants and the establishment of a new political power. Under + this changed condition of things the inhabitants, so long as they + perform their duties, are entitled to security in their persons + and property and in all their private rights and relations. It is + my desire that the people of the Philippines should be acquainted + with the purpose of the United States to discharge to the fullest + extent its obligations in this regard. It will therefore be + the duty of the commander of the expedition, immediately upon + his arrival in the islands, to publish a proclamation declaring + that we come not to make war upon the people of the Philippines + nor upon any party or faction among them, but to protect them + in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal + and religious rights. All persons who, either by active aid or + by honest submission, co-operate with the United States in its + efforts to give effect to this beneficent purpose will receive + the reward of its support and protection. Our occupation should + be as free from severity as possible. Though the powers of the + military occupant are absolute and supreme and operate immediately + upon the political condition of the inhabitants, the municipal + laws of the conquered territory, such as affect private rights + of persons and property and provide for the punishment of crime, + are to be considered as continuing in force, so far as they are + compatible with the new order of things, until they are suspended + or superseded by the occupying belligerents; and in practice they + are not usually abrogated, but are allowed to remain in force + and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals substantially as + they were before the occupation. This enlightened practice is, so + far as possible, to be adhered to on the present occasion. * * * + The freedom of the people to pursue their accustomed occupations + will be abridged only when it may be necessary to do so. + + While the rule of conduct of the American commander-in-chief will + be such as has just been defined, it will be his duty to adopt + measures of a different kind if, unfortunately, the course of the + people should render such measures indispensable to the maintenance + of law and order. He will then possess the power to replace or + expel the native officials in part or altogether, to substitute + new courts of his own constitution for those that now exist, or + to create such supplementary tribunals as may be necessary. In + the exercise of these high powers the commander must be guided + by his judgment and experience and a high sense of justice. + + +While this document declares the purpose of our government to be a "two +fold purpose," viz., first, to make an appropriate move in the game +of war, and, second, to police the Islands "while in the possession +of the United States," it is wholly free from inherent evidence of any +intention out of harmony with the policy as to Cuba. In fact when the +city of Santiago de Cuba surrendered to our forces in July thereafter, +and it became necessary to issue instructions for the guidance of the +military commander there, exactly the same instructions were given him, +[69] verbatim et literatim. But in respect of the Cuban instructions +there was never any concealment practised or necessary because the +Cubans had been assured by the Teller amendment to the resolutions +declaring war against Spain that we had no ulterior designs on their +country, and that, as soon as peace and public order were restored, +we intended "to leave the government and control of the island to its +people." The Cuban instructions were therefore frankly and promptly +published in General Orders No. 101 by the War Department, July 18, +1898, five days after they were received from the President, and +were then translated into Spanish and spread broadcast over Santiago +province without unnecessary delay. I remember poring over a Spanish +copy of General Orders 101, at Santiago de Cuba, shortly after the +fall of that city, which copy was one of many already posted about +that city by direction of General Wood. The words "the powers of the +military occupant are absolute and supreme and operate immediately +upon the political condition of the inhabitants" never disturbed the +Cuban leaders in the least, because they were read in the light of the +disclaimer contained in the declaration of war. On the other hand, +the proclamation which the military commander in the Philippines +was enjoined by his instructions to publish "immediately upon his +arrival in the islands," which arrival occurred July 25th, was not so +published until after we had taken Manila, August 13th, and then it +copied only the glittering generalities of the instructions themselves, +such as the part assuring the people that we had not come to make war +on them and that vested rights would be respected, but it carefully +omitted the words about the powers of the military occupant being +absolute and supreme, because when the army arrived it found a native +government that had already issued its declaration of independence, +was making wonderful progress against the common enemy, and was able +to put up a right good fight against us also, in case we should deny +them independence. [70] + +General Anderson arrived in Manila Bay, June 30, 1898, with about +2500 men, and when General Merritt arrived, July 25th, we had about +10,000 all told, while the Filipinos had half again that many, and +there were 12,000 Spanish soldiers in Manila. General Anderson had not +been long camped on the bayshore, under cover of the Navy's guns and +in the neighborhood of Aguinaldo's headquarters, before he understood +the whole situation clearly and wrote the War Department as follows: + + + Since reading the President's instructions to General Merritt, + I think I should state to you that the establishment of a + provisional government on our part will probably bring us in + conflict with insurgents. + + +This letter is dated July 18, 1898. [71] + +When General Anderson arrived in the islands on June 30th, +the Washington Government was still wrestling with the angel of +its announced creed about "Forcible Annexation" being "criminal +aggression," and Mr. McKinley had to get both that angel's shoulders on +the mat and put him out of business before he could get his own consent +to giving any instructions to his generals which might sanction their +killing people for objecting to forcible annexation. Hence his early +anxiety to avoid a rupture with the Filipino leaders. The first stage +of this wrestling coincides in point of time with General Anderson's +tenure as the ranking military officer commanding our forces in +the Philippines, which was from June 30th until the date of General +Merritt's arrival, July 25th. As already made plain, the President's +instructions for the guidance of the military commander were entirely +free from any land-grabbing suggestion. On the other hand, when General +Anderson left San Francisco for Manila, May 25th, there was already +talk in the United States about retaining the Islands, if they were +captured, for he so informed Admiral Dewey in the first interview +they had after the transports which brought his command cast anchor +near our squadron in Manila Bay on the last day of June. "I was the +first to tell Admiral Dewey," says he, in the North American Review +for February, 1900, "that there was any disposition on the part of the +American people to hold the Philippines, if they were captured. The +current opinion was setting that way when the expeditionary force +left San Francisco, but this the Admiral had no reason to surmise." + +Relegated by the circumstances to his own discretion as to how he +should act until Washington knew its mind, General Anderson's attitude +in the outset represented a "peace-at-any-price" policy, suffused +with benevolent pride at championing the cause of the oppressed, but +secretly knowing from the beginning that it might become necessary +later to slaughter said "oppressed," should they seriously object to +a change of masters. + +"On July 1st," says General Anderson, in the North American Review +article above quoted, "I called on Aguinaldo with Admiral Dewey." Of +the Admiral's dealings with the insurgent chief prior to this time, +the General says in this same article: + +"Whether Admiral Dewey and Consuls Pratt, Wildman, and Williams did +or did not give Aguinaldo assurances that a Filipino government would +be recognized, the Filipinos certainly thought so, probably inferring +this from their acts rather than from their statements." This last +quoted passage was read to Admiral Dewey by a member of the Senate +Committee in 1902, along with other parts of the magazine article +cited, and he was asked to comment on the same. He said: + +"These are General Anderson's statements. They are very interesting, +indeed; I am here to make my own statements." + +He had stated that he never did specifically promise Aguinaldo +independence, and the questioner was trying to show that his acts had +amounted to assurances and therefore had committed the Government to +giving the Filipinos their independence. Then Senator Patterson began +another question, and had gotten as far as "I want to know whether +your views--" when out came this, as of a sailor-man clearing decks +for action: + +"I do not like your questions a bit. I did not like them yesterday and +I do not like them to-day." So the Admiral's feelings were respected +and the question was not pressed. There is no doubt at all that in +the Philippines in the summer of 1898 the army turned the back of its +hand to Aguinaldo as soon as it got there and baldly repudiated what +the navy had done in the way of befriending the Filipinos. But both +had acted under the authority of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army +and Navy--the President. The Admiral's sensitiveness on the subject +ought to have been respected. And it was. + +By the time Admiral Dewey and General Anderson decided to call on +"Don Emilio," the day after the General's arrival, the unexpected +intimations which the latter brought, as to the Washington programme +for the Philippine revolutionists being different from that as to Cuba, +had begun to get in its work on the former. Not being a politician, +the gallant Admiral was there ready and able to carry out any orders +his government might send him, whenever the politicians should decide +what they wanted to do. But in the absence of orders, he began to +trim his sails a bit, so as to be prepared for whatever might be the +policy. Accordingly, before he and the General started out to pay their +call on "Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, President of the Revolutionary +Government of the Philippines and General in Chief of its Army"--as he +had styled himself in his proclamation of June 23d,--the Admiral said, +"Do not take your sword or put on your uniform, but just put on your +blouse. Do not go with any ceremony." And says he, in telling this, "We +went in that way." [72] The reason of thus avoiding too much ceremony +toward our "ally" claiming to represent an existing government which +had lately declared its independence, is explained by an expression +of the Admiral's concerning said Declaration of Independence itself: +"That was my idea, not taking it seriously." At that same hearing the +Admiral explained with much genuine feeling that from the day of the +naval battle of May 1st until the arrival of the army "these great +questions" were coming up constantly and he simply met them as they +arose by acting on his best judgment on the spot at the time. But what +a terrible mistake it was not to take that Declaration of Independence +of June 23d, seriously, backed as it was by an army of 15,000 men +flushed with victory, and under the absolute control of the author of +the Declaration! Of course the Declaration had been published to the +army. Could its author have checked them by repudiating it even if +he had wanted to? As Aguinaldo himself expressed what would happen in +such a contingency, "They would fail to recognize me as the interpreter +of their aspirations and would punish me as a traitor, replacing me +by another more careful of his own honor and dignity." [73] + +This Dewey-Anderson call on Aguinaldo was on July 1st. Admiral Dewey +now began to foresee that the Washington programme was going to +put him in an awkward position. So he began to take Aguinaldo more +seriously. On July 4th, he wired Washington: "Aguinaldo proclaimed +himself President of the Revolutionary Republic on July 1st." [74] +It was on July 7th that Admiral Dewey captured 1300 armed Spanish +prisoners, the garrison of Isla la Grande, off Olongapo, and turned +them over to the forces of the Aguinaldo government because he had +no way to keep them. [75] Was not that taking that government a +bit seriously? How wholly unauthorized by the facts was this of "not +taking it seriously," on the part of "The Liberator of the Filipinos," +[76] the immortal victor of Manila Bay, who two months before had +taught the nation the magnitude of its power for good, in a cause as +righteous as the crusades of old, and more sensible! + +But to return to General Anderson's account in the North American +Review of his call, with Admiral Dewey, on the insurgent chief: "He +asked me at once whether the 'United States of the North' either had, +or would recognize his government. I am not quite sure as to the form +of the question, whether it was 'had' or 'would'? In either form it was +embarrassing." General Anderson then tells of Aguinaldo's returning +his call: "A few days thereafter he made an official call, coming +with cabinet, staff, and band. He asked if we, the North Americans, +as he called us, intended to hold the Philippines as dependencies. I +said I could not answer that, but that in 122 years we had established +no colonies. He then made this remarkable statement: 'I have studied +attentively the Constitution of the United States, and I find in it no +authority for colonies, and I have no fear.'" General Anderson adds: +"It may seem that my answer was evasive, but I was at the time trying +to contract with the Filipinos for horses, fuel, and forage." + +While this history must not lapse into an almanac, it may not be +amiss to follow these early stages of this matter through a few more +successive dates, because the history of that period was all indelibly +branded into Filipino memory shortly afterward with the red-hot iron +of war. + +July 4th, General Anderson writes the Filipino candidate for +Independence inviting him to "co-operate with us in military operations +against the Spanish forces." [77] This was written not to arrange +any plan of co-operation but in order to get room about Cavite as a +military base without a row. In his North American Review article +General Anderson says that on that same day, the Fourth of July, +Aguinaldo was invited to witness a parade and review "in honor of +our national holiday." "He did not come," says the article, "because +he was not invited as President but as General Aguinaldo." An odd +situation, was it not? Here was a man claiming to be President of a +newly established republic based on the principles set forth in our +Declaration of Independence, which republic had just issued a like +Declaration, and he was invited to come and hear our declaration read, +and declined because we would not recognize his right to assert the +same truths. On subsequent anniversaries of the day in the Philippines +it was deemed wise simply to prohibit the reading of our Declaration +before gatherings of the Filipino people. It saved discussion. + +July 6th, General Anderson writes telling Aguinaldo that he is +expecting more troops soon and therefore "I would like to have your +excellency's advice and co-operation." [78] + +July 9th, General Anderson writes the War Department that Aguinaldo +tells him he has about 15,000 fighting men, 11,000 armed with guns, +and some 4000 prisoners, [79] and adds: "When we first landed he +seemed very suspicious, and not at all friendly but I have now come +to a better understanding with him and he is much more friendly and +seems willing to co-operate." + +July 13th, we find Admiral Dewey also still in a co-operative mood. On +that day he cables the Navy Department of the capture of the 1,300 +prisoners on July 7th, mentioned above, which capture was made, it +appears, because Aguinaldo complained to him that a German war-ship +was interfering with his operations, [80] the prisoners being at once +turned over to Aguinaldo, as stated above. + +July 18th, is the date of the letter to the War Department +in which General Anderson states that the establishment of a +provisional government by us will probably mean a conflict with the +insurgents. This was equivalent to saying that they will probably be +ready to fight whenever we assert the "absolute and supreme" authority +that the President's instructions had directed to be asserted by the +army as soon as it should arrive in the Philippines. Yet in the fall +of 1899, President McKinley said he "never dreamed" that Aguinaldo's +"little band" would oppose our rule to the extent of war against it. It +would have been more accurate if the martyred Christian gentleman +who used those words had said he "always hoped" they would not, +instead of "never dreamed" they would. This letter of July 18th, +informs the Department: + + + Aguinaldo has declared himself dictator and self-appointed + president. He has declared martial law and promulgated a minute + method of procedure under it. + + +July 19th, General Anderson sends Major (now Major-General) J. F. Bell, +to Aguinaldo, and asks of him a number of favors, such as any +soldier may properly ask of an ally, for example, permission to see +his military maps, etc., and that Aguinaldo "place at his [Bell's] +disposal any information you may have on the above subjects, and also +give him [Bell] a letter or pass addressed to your subordinates which +will authorize them to furnish him any information they can * * * +and to facilitate his passage along the lines, upon a reconnaissance +around Manila, on which I propose to send him." [81] All of which +Aguinaldo did. + +Military training is very keen on honor. Talk about what the French +call foi d'officier,--the "word of an officer"! Did ever a letter from +one soldier to another more completely commit the faith and honor of +his government, to recognition of the existence of an alliance? "In +122 years we have established no colonies," he had told Aguinaldo. "It +looks like we are about to go into the colonizing business," he had, +in effect, said to Admiral Dewey, about the same time. + +July 21st, General Anderson writes the Adjutant-General of the army +as follows: + + + Since I last wrote, Aguinaldo has put in operation an elaborate + system of military government. * * * It may seem strange that I + have made no formal protest against his proclamation as dictator, + his declaration of martial law, etc. I wrote such a protest but + did not publish it at Admiral Dewey's request. [82] + + +When he wrote this letter, General Anderson was evidently beginning +to have some compunctions about the trouble he now saw ahead. He was +a veteran of the Civil War, whose gallantry had then been proven on +many a field against an enemy compared with whom these people would +be a picnic. But things did not look to the grim old hero like there +was going to be a square deal. So he put this in the letter: + + + I submit, with all deference, that we have heretofore underrated + the natives. They are not ignorant savage tribes, but have + a civilization of their own, and although insignificant in + appearance are fierce fighters and for a tropical people they are + industrious. A small detail of natives will do more work than a + regiment of volunteers. + + +Of course, this slam at "volunteers" was a bit rough. But the +battle-scarred veteran's sense of fair play was getting on his +nerves. He foresaw the coming conflict, and though he did not shirk it, +he did not relish it. He understood the "game," and it seemed to him +the cards were stacked, to meet the necessity of demonstrating that +forcible annexation, instead of being criminal aggression, was merely +Trade Expansion, and that his government was right then irrevocably +committing itself, without any knowledge of, or acquaintance with, +the Filipinos, to the assumption that they were incapable of running +a government of their own. + +The next day, July 22d, General Anderson wrote Aguinaldo a letter +advising him that he was without orders as yet concerning the question +of recognizing his government. But that this letter was neither a +protest nor in the nature of a protest, is evident from its text: + + + I observe that Your Excellency has announced yourself dictator + and proclaimed martial law. As I am here simply in a military + capacity, I have no authority to recognize such an assumption. I + have no orders from my government on the subject. [83] + + +Yet General Anderson's letter to the Adjutant-General of the army +of July 18th [84] uses the words "since reading the President's +instructions to General Merritt," etc., showing that he had a copy +of them; and those instructions order and direct (see ante) that +as soon as the commanding general of the American troops arrives +he is to let the Filipinos know that "the powers of the military +occupant are absolute and supreme and immediately operate upon the +political condition of the inhabitants." A charitable view of the +matter would be that, technically, those were Merritt's orders, +not Anderson's. But the whole scheme was to conceal the intention +to assume supreme authority and keep Aguinaldo quiet "until," as +General Merritt afterwards expressed it in his report, "I should be +in possession of the city of Manila, * * * as I would not until then +be in a position to * * * enforce my authority, in the event that his +[Aguinaldo's] pretensions should clash with my designs." [85] + +The same day that General Anderson wrote Aguinaldo his billet doux +about the dictatorship, viz., July 22d, he cabled Washington a much +franker and more serious message; which read: "Aguinaldo declares +dictatorship and martial law over all islands. The people expect +independence." The very next day, July 23d, he wrote Aguinaldo asking +his assistance in getting five hundred horses, and fifty oxen and +ox-carts, and manifesting considerable impatience that he had not +already complied with a similar request previously made "as it was +to fight in the cause of your people." [86] The following day, July +24th, replying to General Anderson's letter of the 22d wherein General +Anderson had advised him that he was as yet without orders concerning +the question of recognizing his government, Aguinaldo wrote: + + + It is true that my government has not been acknowledged by any + of the foreign powers, but we expected that the great North + American nation, which had struggled first for its independence, + and afterwards for the abolition of slavery, and is now actually + struggling for the independence of Cuba, would look upon it with + greater benevolence than any other nation. [87] + + +That cablegram of July 22d, above quoted, in which the commanding +general of our forces in the Philippines advises the Washington +government, "The people expect independence," is the hardest thing in +the published archives of our government covering that momentous period +for those who love the memory of Mr. McKinley to get around. [88] After +the war with the Filipinos broke out Mr. McKinley said repeatedly in +public speeches, "I never dreamed they would turn against us." You do +not find the Anderson cablegram of July 22d in the published report of +the War Department covering the period under consideration. General +Anderson addressed it to the Secretary of War and signed it, and, +probably for lack of army cable facilities, got Admiral Dewey to send +it to the Secretary of the Navy for transmission to the Secretary of +War. [89] Certain it must be that at some Cabinet meeting on or after +July 22, 1898, either the Secretary of the Navy or the Secretary of War +read in the hearing of the President and the rest of his advisers that +message from General Anderson, "The people expect independence." The +object here is not to inveigh against Mr. McKinley. It is to show +that, as Gibbon told us long ago, in speaking of the discontent of +far distant possessions and the lack of hold of the possessor on the +affections of the inhabitants thereof, "the cry of remote distress +is ever faintly heard." The average American to-day, if told the +Filipinos want independence, will give the statement about the same +consideration Mr. McKinley did then, and if told that the desire +among them for a government of their people by their people for their +people has not been diminished since the late war by tariff taxation +without representation, and the steady development of race prejudice +between the dominant alien race and the subject one, he will begin +to realize by personal experience how faintly the uttered longings +of a whole people may fall on distant ears. + +We saw above that in a letter written July 21st, the day before the +telegram about the "people expect independence," which letter must +have reached Washington within thirty days, General Anderson not +only notified Washington all about Aguinaldo's government and its +pretensions, but stated that at the request of Admiral Dewey he had +made no protest against it. [90] Yet straight on through the period +of General Merritt's sojourn in the Islands, which began July 25th, +and terminated August 29th, we find no protest ordered by Washington, +and we further find the purpose of the President as announced in +the instructions to Merritt, "The powers of the military occupant +are absolute and supreme" throughout the Islands, not only not +communicated to the Filipino people, but deliberately suppressed +from the proclamation published by General Merritt pursuant to those +instructions. [91] + +Comments and conclusions are usually impertinent and unwelcome save as +mere addenda to facts, but in the light of the facts derivable from +our own official records, is it any wonder that General Anderson, +a gallant veteran of the Civil War, and perhaps the most conspicuous +figure of the early fighting in the Philippines, delivered an address +some time after he came back home before the Oregon Commandery of +the Loyal Legion of the United States [92] on the subject, "Should +republics have colonies?" and answered the question emphatically "No!" + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MERRITT AND AGUINALDO + + There are no tricks in plain and simple faith. + + Julius Caesar, Act IV., Sc. 2. + + +Major-General Wesley Merritt's account of the operations of the troops +under his command in the First Expedition to the Philippines may be +found in volume i., part 2, War Department Report for 1898. He left +San Francisco accompanied by his staff, June 29, 1898, arrived at +Cavite, Manila Bay, July 25th, received the surrender of the city of +Manila August 13th, and sailed thence August 30th, in obedience to +orders from Washington to proceed without unnecessary delay to Paris, +France, for conference with the Peace Commissioners. According to +General Merritt's report, about the time he arrived Aguinaldo had +some 12,000 men under arms, with plenty of ammunition, and a number +of field-pieces. The late lamented Frank D. Millet has preserved for +us, in his Expedition to the Philippines, some valuable and intimate +studies of this army of Filipino besiegers whom our troops found +busily at work when they arrived in the Islands: + + + It was an interesting sight at Camp Dewey to see the insurgents + strolling to and from the front. Pretty much all day long they + were coming and going, never in military formation, but singly, + and in small groups, perfectly clean and tidy in dress, often + accompanied by their wives and children, and all chatting as + merrily as if they were going off on a pigeon shoot. The men who + sold fish and vegetables in camp in the morning would be seen + every day or two dressed in holiday garments, with rifle and + cartridge boxes, strolling off to take their turn at the Spaniards. + + +The reader will readily understand that there were many times as many +volunteers as guns. Mr. Millet continues: + + + When they had been at the front twenty-four hours they were + relieved and returned home for a rest. They generally passed + their rifles and equipments on to another man and thus a limited + number of weapons served to arm a great many besiegers. They had + no distinctive uniform, the only badge of service being a red + and blue cockade with a white triangle bearing the Malay symbol + of the sun and three stars, and sometimes a red and blue band + pinned diagonally across the lower part of the left sleeve. * * * + Many of them * * * had belonged to the native volunteer force. + * * * The recruits were soon hammered into shape by the veterans + of the rank and file. * * * Their men were perfectly obedient + to orders * * * and they made the most devoted soldiers. There + was no visible Commissary or Quartermaster's Departments, but + the insurgent force was always supplied with food and ammunition + and there was no lack of transportation. The food issued at the + front was mostly rice brought up in carromatas to within a few + hundred yards of the trenches, when it was cooked by the women. + * * * Each man had a double handful of rice, sometimes enriched + by a small proportion of meat and fish, which was served him in + a square of plantain leaf. Thus he was unencumbered with a plate + or knife or fork and threw away his primitive but excellent dish + when he had "licked the platter clean." It was noticeable that + the insurgents carried no water bottles nor haversacks, and no + equipments indeed, but cartridge boxes. They did not seem to be + worried by thirst like our men. + + +"Although insignificant in appearance, they are fierce fighters," wrote +General Anderson to the Adjutant-General of the army in July. [93] + +General Merritt states in his report that Aguinaldo had "proclaimed an +independent government, republican in form, with himself as President, +and at the time of my arrival in the Islands the entire edifice +of executive and legislative departments had been accomplished, at +least on paper." [94] Of course at that time we were still officially +declining to take Filipino aspirations for independence seriously, +and preferred to treat Aguinaldo's government as purely a matter of +stationery. As a matter of fact, an exhaustive examination of the +official documents of that period, made with a view of ascertaining +just how much of that Aguinaldo government of 1898 was stationery +fiction and how much was stable fact, has absolutely surprised one +man who was out there from 1899 to 1905 (the writer), and I have no +doubt will be interesting, as mere matter of political necrology, +to any American who was there "in the days of the empire" as the +"ninety-niners" called it. + +Early in the spring of 1899, Mr. McKinley sent out the Commission of +which President Schurman of Cornell University was Chairman, to try to +stop the war. They bent themselves to the task in a spirit as kindly +as that in which we know Mr. McKinley himself would have acted. They +failed because the war was already on and the Filipinos were bent on +fighting for independence to the bitter end. But they learned a good +deal about the facts of the earlier situation. Speaking of these in +their report to the President [95] with especial reference to the +period beginning with Aguinaldo's landing at Cavite in May, after +describing how the Filipino successes in battle with the Spaniards +finally resulted in all of them being driven into Manila, where they +remained hemmed in, they say: + + + While the Spanish troops now remained quietly in Manila, the + Filipino forces made themselves masters of the entire island + except that city. + + +"For three and one half months," says General Otis in describing +the facts of this same situation a year later, "the insurgents on +land had kept Manila tightly bottled [meaning while Admiral Dewey +had been blockading the place by water] * * * and food supplies were +exhausted." [96] "We had Manila and Cavite. The rest of the island +was held not by the Spanish but by the Filipinos," said General +Anderson, in the North American Review for February, 1900. "It is a +fact that they were in possession, they had gotten pretty much the +whole thing except Manila," said Admiral Dewey to the Senate Committee +in 1902. [97] + +General Merritt took Manila August 13th, and sailed away for Paris +August 31st, and only a week after that General Otis wired Washington +(under date of September 7th) from Manila: "Insurgents have captured +all Spanish garrisons in island [of Luzon] and control affairs outside +of Cavite and this city." [98] + +The recruiting by Aguinaldo of an army of 40,000 men with guns +within one hundred days after his little "Return from Elba"--"15,000 +fighting men, 11,000 of them armed with guns," in fifty days, [99] +which number had swelled to nearly 40,000 men with guns in another +fifty days (by August 29th) [100]--is no more remarkable than his +progress in organizing his government and making its grip on the +whole island of Luzon effective in a short space of time. + +As all Americans who know the Filipinos know how fond they are of what +government offices call "paper work," and how their escribientes [101] +can work like bees in drafting documents, it might be easy to ignore +Aguinaldo's various proclamations, already hereinbefore noticed in +Chapter II., as representing merely "a government on paper," were +there no other proof. But among the insurgent captured papers we +found long afterward, there is a document containing the minutes of +a convention of the insurrecto presidentes from all the pueblos of +fifteen different provinces, on August 6, 1898, which throws a flood +of light on the subject now under consideration. [102] This convention +was held at Bacoor, then Aguinaldo's headquarters, a little town on +the bay shore between Manila and Cavite. The minutes of the convention +recite that its members had been previously chosen as presidentes +of their respective pueblos in the manner prescribed by previous +decrees issued by Aguinaldo (already noticed), and that thereafter +they had taken the oath of office before Aguinaldo as President of the +government, etc. They then declare that the Filipino people whom they +speak for are "not ambitious for power, nor honors, nor riches, aside +from the rational aspirations for a free and independent life," and +"proclaim solemnly, in the face of the whole world, the Independence +of the Philippines." They also re-affirm allegiance to Aguinaldo as +President of the government and request him to seek recognition of it +at the hands of the Powers, "because," says the paper, "to no one is it +permitted to * * * stifle the legitimate aspirations of a people"--as +if Europe cared a rap what we did to them except in the way of regret +that it did not have a finger in the pie. However, they were not only +apprehensive, on the one hand, lest we might be tempted to take their +country away from Spain for ourselves, but also, on the other hand, +lest we might in the wind-up decide to leave them to Spain at the end +of the war. That this last was not an idle fear is shown by the fact +that during the deliberations of the Paris Peace Commission, Judge +Gray urged, in behalf of his contention against taking the islands +at all, that if Dewey had sunk the Spanish fleet off Cadiz, instead +of in Manila Bay, and the Carlists had incidentally helped us about +that time, we would have been under no resulting obligation "to stay +by them at the conclusion of the war." [103] When the presidentes in +convention assembled as aforesaid got through with their whereases and +resolutions they presented them to His Excellency the President of the +Republic, Aguinaldo, who then issued a proclamation which recited, +among other things: "In these provinces [the fifteen represented +in the convention] complete order and perfect tranquillity reign, +administered by the authorities elected" [104] according to his +previous decrees as Dictator, which decrees have already been placed +before the reader. The proclamation claims that the new government +has 9,000 prisoners of war and 30,000 combatants. The former claim +no one having any acquaintance with those times and conditions +will question for a moment. As to the 30,000 combatants, if he had +11,000 men armed with guns on July 9th and 40,000 on August 29th, +why not 30,000 on August 6th? Of course, men without guns, bolo men, +do not count for much in a serious connection like this now being +considered. In November, 1899, at San Jose, in Nueva Ecija province, +I heard General Lawton tell Colonel Jack Hayes to disarm and turn +loose 175 bolo men the colonel had just captured and was lining up on +the public square as we rode into the town. But we are considering how +much of a government the Filipinos had in 1898, because the answer is +pertinent to what sort of a government they could run if permitted now +or at any time in the future; and, physical force being the ultimate +basis of stability in all government, when we come to estimate how much +of an army they had when their government was claiming recognition as a +legitimate living thing, we must remember that "It was just a question +of arming them. They could have had the whole population." [105] + +Now the great significant fact about this Bacoor convention of +presidentes of August 6th--a week before Manila surrendered to our +forces--is that in it more than half the population of the island of +Luzon was represented. The total population of the Philippines is +about 7,600,000, [106] and, of these, one-half, or 3,800,000 [107] +live on Luzon. The other islands may be said to dangle from Luzon +like the tail of a kite. Taking the tables of the American census +of the Philippines of 1903 (vol. ii., p. 123), as a basis on which +to judge what Aguinaldo's claims of August 6th amounted to if true, +the population of the provinces thus duly incorporated into the new +government and in working order on that date, was, in round numbers, +about as follows: South of Manila:--Cavite, 135,000; Batangas, 260,000; +Laguna, 150,000; Tayabas, 150,000; North of Manila:--Bulacan, 225,000; +Pampamga, 225,000; Nueva Ecija, 135,000; Tarlac, 135,000; Pangasinan, +400,000; Union, 140,000; Bataan, 45,000; Zambales, 105,000. This +represents a total of more than 2,000,000 of people. + +But Aguinaldo's claims of August 6th are not the only evidence as to +the political status of the provinces of Luzon in August, 1898. Toward +the end of that month, Maj. J. F. Bell, Chief of General Merritt's +Bureau of Military Information, made a report on the situation as +it stood August 29th, the report being made after most careful +investigation, and intended as a summary of the then situation +according to the most reliable information obtainable, in order that +General Merritt might know, as far as practicable, what he would be +"up against" in the event of trouble with the insurgents. [108] + +This report not only corroborates Aguinaldo's claims of August 6th, +but it also concedes to the Aguinaldo people eight other important +provinces--four south of the Pasig River with a total population of +about 630,000, [109] the only four of southern Luzon not included in +Aguinaldo's claim of August 6th, thus conceding him practically all +of Luzon south of the Pasig; and it furthermore concedes him four +great provinces of northern Luzon with a total population of nearly +600,000. [110] General Bell states that these last are "still in the +possession of the Spanish," but practically certain to be with the +insurgents in the very near future. "Insurgents have been dispatched +to attack the Spanish in these provinces," says the Bell report. + +In this same report Major Bell said: "There is not a particle of doubt +but what Aguinaldo and his leaders will resist any attempt of any +government to reorganize a colonial government here." [111] When the +insurgent government was finally dislodged from its last capital and +Aguinaldo became a fugitive hotly pursued by our troops, he started +for the mountains of northern Luzon, passing through provinces he +had never visited before. The diary of one of his staff officers, +Major Villa, in describing a brief stop they made in a town en route +(Aringay, in Union province) says: "After the honorable President +had urged them [the townspeople] to be patriotic, we continued the +march." [112] They certainly did "continue the march." The Maccabebe +scouts, of which the writer commanded a company at the time, took +the town a few hours later, Aguinaldo's rear-guard retiring after +a brief resistance, following which we found, among the dead in the +trenches, a major other than Villa. Certainly, to read this little +extract from the diary of Aguinaldo's retreat is to feel the pulse +of northern Luzon as to its loyalty to the revolution at that time, +and is corroborative of these claims of Aguinaldo made in August, +1898, supplemented, as we have seen them, by General Bell's appraisal. + +As to the political conditions which prevailed in southern Luzon, +particularly in the Camarines, in August and the fall of 1898, +information derived from one who was there then would seem appropriate +here. Major Blanton Winship, Judge Advocate's Corps, U. S. A., Major +Archibald W. Butt, the late lamented military aide to President Taft, +and the writer, lived together in Manila, in 1900, at the house of a +Spanish physician, a Dr. Lopez, who had been a "prisoner" at Nueva +Caceres, a town situated in one of the provinces of southern Luzon +(Camarines) in the fall of 1898. Dr. Lopez had a large family. They had +also been "prisoners" down there. No evil befell them at the hands of +their "captors." They had the freedom of the town they were in. They +had good reason to be pretty well scared as to what the insurgents +might do to them. But they were never maltreated. The main impression +we got from Dr. Lopez and his family was that the political grip of +the Aguinaldo government on southern Luzon was complete during the +time they were "prisoners" there. If anybody doubts the absoluteness +of the grip of the Revolutionary government on the situation in the +provinces which were represented at the Bacoor convention of August 6, +1898, above mentioned, when the Filipino Declaration of Independence +was signed and proclaimed, let him ask any American who had a part +in putting down the Philippine insurrection what a presidente, an +insurrecto presidente, in a Filipino town, was in 1899 and 1900. He +was "the whole thing." Even to-day the presidente of a pueblo is as +absolute boss of his town as Charles F. Murphy is of Tammany Hall. And +a town or pueblo in the Philippines is more than an area covered +by more or less contiguous buildings and grounds. It is more like a +township in Massachusetts. So that when you account governmentally for +the pueblos of a given province, you account for every square foot of +that province and for every man in it. For several years before our war +with Spain, nearly every Filipino of any education and spirit in the +archipelago belonged to the secret revolutionary society known as the +Katipunan. This had its organization in every town when Dewey sank the +Spanish fleet and landed Aguinaldo at Cavite. The rest may be imagined. + +By September, 1898, Aguinaldo was absolute master of the whole of +Luzon. Before the Treaty of Paris was signed (December 10, 1898), in +fact while Judge Gray of the Peace Commission was cabling President +McKinley that not to leave the government of the Philippines to the +people thereof "would be to make a mockery of instructions," Aguinaldo +had become equally absolute master of the situation throughout the +rest of the archipelago outside of Manila. + +Toward the end of July, 1898, our Manila Consul, Mr. Williams, who +was one of our consular triumvirate of would-be Warwicks, or "original +Aguinaldo men," of 1898, used to have nice talks with Aguinaldo about +the lion and the lamb lying down together without the lion eating the +lamb, and in one instance, at least, he goes so far as to represent +Aguinaldo as willing to some such arrangement--e. g., annexation, or +some vague scheme of dependence. But whenever we hear from Aguinaldo +over his own signature, we hear him saying whatever means in Tagalo +"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." For instance, at page 15, of Senate +Document 208, he writes Williams, under date of August 1st, with +fine courtesy: + + + I congratulate you with all sincerity on the acuteness and + ingenuity which you have displayed in painting in an admirable + manner the benefits which, especially for me and my leaders, and + in general for all my compatriots, would be secured by the union of + these islands with the United States of America. Ah! that picture, + so happy and so finished * * * This is not saying that I am not + of your opinion * * * You say all this and yet more will result + from annexing ourselves to your people * * * You are my friend + and the friend of the Filipinos and have said it. But why should + we say it? Will my people believe it? * * * I have done what they + desire, establishing a government * * * not only because it was my + duty, but also because had I acted in any other manner they would + fail to recognize me as the interpreter of their aspirations, + and would punish me as a traitor, replacing me by another more + careful of his own honor and dignity. + + +Now that we know what was in the Filipino mind when General Merritt +arrived in the Philippines, let us see what was in the American +military mind out there at the same time. Says General Merritt: +"General Aguinaldo did not visit me on my arrival nor offer his +services as a subordinate leader." We trust the reason of this +at once suggests itself from what has preceded, including General +Anderson's dealings with the insurgent chief. The latter wanted some +understanding as to what the intentions of our government were, and +what was to be the programme afterward, should he and his countrymen +assist in the little fighting that now remained necessary to complete +the taking of Manila. Those intentions were precisely what Merritt +was determined to conceal. "As my instructions from the President +fully contemplated the occupation of the Islands by the American +land forces, and stated that 'the powers of the military occupant +are absolute and supreme and immediately operate upon the political +condition of the inhabitants,' I did not consider it wise to hold any +direct communication with the insurgent leader until I should be in +possession of the city of Manila." [113] + +On one occasion General Merritt passed through the village of Bacoor +where Aguinaldo had his headquarters, but, says Mr. Millet [114] +in mentioning this, "They never met." After the taking of the city, +General Merritt remembered that with some 13,000 Spanish prisoners +to guard, and a city of 300,000 people, all but a sprinkling of whom +were in sympathy with the insurgent cause, on his hands, and an army +of at least 14,000 insurgents--probably far more than that--clamoring +without the gates of that city, and only 10,000 men of his own with +whom to handle such a situation, frankness was out of the question, +in view of his orders from the President. [115] Therefore, on the day +after the city surrendered, General Merritt issued a proclamation, +copying [116] verbatim from Mr. McKinley's instructions (ante) +such innocuous milk-and-water passages as the one which assured the +people that our government "has not come to wage war upon them * * * +but to protect them in their homes, in their employments, and in their +personal and religious rights; all persons who, by active aid or honest +submission, co-operate with the United States * * * will receive the +reward of its support and protection." But he carefully omitted the +words quoted above about the powers of the military occupant being +absolute and supreme, "lest his [Aguinaldo's] pretensions," to use +General Merritt's expression, "should clash with my designs." "For +these reasons," says General Merritt (p. 40), "the preparations for +the attack on the city were * * * conducted without reference to the +situation of the insurgent forces." + +Here General Merritt is speaking frankly but not accurately. He means +he made his preparations without any more reference to the situation +of the insurgent forces than he could help. As a matter of fact, +their situation bothered him a good deal. They were in the way. For +instance, there was a whole brigade of them at one point between +our people and Manila. "This," says General Merritt (p. 41), "was +overcome by instructions to General Greene to arrange if possible +with the insurgent brigade commander in his immediate vicinity to +move to the right and allow the American forces unobstructed control +of the roads in their immediate front. No objection was made," +etc. That reads very well--that about "arrange if possible," "no +objection was made," etc.,--does it not? Nothing there through which +"the lustre and the moral strength" of the motives that prompted the +Spanish war might be "dimmed by ulterior designs which might tempt +us," [117] is there? It was stated above that General Merritt was +speaking frankly in this report. He was. He probably did not know how +General Greene carried out the order to "arrange if possible with the +insurgent brigadier-commander." But it so happened that there was a +newspaper correspondent along with General Greene who has since told +us. This gentleman was Mr. Frank D. Millet, from whom we have already +above quoted, the correspondent of the London Times and of Harper's +Weekly. General Greene had known him years before in the campaigns of +the Turco-Russian war. Mr. Millet had been a war correspondent in those +campaigns also, and General Greene was there taking observations. So +that in the operations against Manila, Mr. Millet, being an old friend +of General Greene's, known to be a handy man to have around in a close +place, was acting as a civilian volunteer aide to the general. [118] +Here is Mr. Millet's account of what happened, taken from his book, +The Expedition to the Philippines: + + + On the afternoon of the 28th [of July, 1898], General Greene + received a verbal message from General Merritt suggesting that + he juggle the insurgents out of part of their lines, always on + his own responsibility, and without committing in any way the + commanding general to any recognition of the native leaders + or opening up the prospect of an alliance. This General Greene + accomplished very cleverly. + + +Mr. Millet then goes on to tell how General Greene persuaded one +of Aguinaldo's generals (Noriel) to evacuate certain trenches so he +(Greene) could occupy them, "with a condition attached that General +Greene must give a written receipt for the entrenchments." This +condition, Mr. Millet says, was imposed by "the astute leader" +(Aguinaldo). General Greene's "cleverness" consisted in purposely +failing and omitting to give the receipt, which Mr. Millet says +"looked very much like a bargain concluded over a signature, and was +a little more formal than General Greene thought advisable." The key +to this sorry business may be found in the first paragraph of General +Merritt's instructions to all his generals at the time: + + + No rupture with insurgents. This is imperative. Can ask insurgent + generals or Aguinaldo for permission to occupy trenches, but if + refused not to use force. [119] + + +"I am quite unable to explain," says Mr. Millet (p. 61), "why we +did not in the very beginning make them understand that we were +masters of the situation, and that they must come strictly under our +authority." The obvious reason was that a war of conquest to subjugate +a remote people struggling to be free from the yoke of alien domination +was sure to be more or less unpopular with many of the sovereign +voters of a republic, and more or less dangerous therefore, like all +unpopular wars, to the tenure of office of the party in power. So that +in entering upon a war for conquest, a republic must "play politics," +using the military arm of the government for the twofold purpose of +crushing opposition and proving that there is none. + +The maxim which makes all fair in war often covers a multitude of +sins. But let us turn for a moment from strategy to principle, and +see what two other distinguished American war correspondents were +thinking and saying about the same time. Writing to Harper's Weekly +from Cavite, under date of July 16th, concerning the work of the +Filipinos during the eight weeks before that, Mr. O. K. Davis said: +"The insurgents have driven them [the Spaniards] back over twenty +miles of country practically impassable for our men. * * * Aguinaldo +has saved our troops a lot of desperately hard campaigning * * *. The +insurgent works extend clear around Manila, and the Spaniards are +completely hemmed in. There is no hope for them but surrender." Writing +to the same paper under date of August 6th, Mr. John F. Bass says: +"We forget that they drove the Spaniards from Cavite to their present +intrenched position, thus saving us a long-continued fight through +the jungle." This gentleman did not tackle the question of inventing +a new definition of liberty consistent with alien domination. He +simply says: "Give them their liberty and guarantee it to them." In +the face of such plucky patriotism as he had witnessed, political +casuistry about "capacity for self-government" would have hung its +head. Yet Mr. Bass was by no means a novice. He had served with the +British army in Egypt in 1895, through the Armenian massacres of 1896, +and in the Cretan rebellion and Greek War of 1897. His sentiments were +simply precisely what those of the average American not under military +orders would have been at the time. After the fall of Manila he wrote +(August 17th): "I am inclined to think that the insurgents intend to +fight us if we stay and Spain if we go." + +There were 8500 American troops in the taking of the city of Manila, +on August 13, 1898. The Filipinos were ignored by them, although they +afterwards claimed to have helped. As a matter of fact, the Spanish +officers in command were very anxious to surrender and get back to +Spain. The Filipinos had already made them "long for peace," to use +a famous expression of General J. F. Bell. The garrison only put up +a very slight resistance, "to save their face," as the Chinese say, +i. e., to save themselves from being court-martialed under some +quixotic article of the Spanish army regulations. The assault was +begun about 9.30 A.M., and early that afternoon the Spanish flag +had been lowered from the flag-staff in the main square and the +Stars and Stripes run up in its stead, amid the convulsive sobs of +dark-eyed senoritas and the muttered curses of melodramatic Spanish +cavaliers. Thanks to the Filipinos' three and one half months' work, +the performance only cost us five men killed out of the 8500. The +list of wounded totalled 43. Our antecedent loss in the trenches +prior to the day of the assault had been fourteen killed and sixty +wounded. So the job was completed, so far as the records show, at a +cost of less than a score of American lives. [120] + +As Aguinaldo's troops surged forward in the wake of the American +advance they were stopped by orders from the American commander, and +prevented from following the retreating Spaniards into Manila. They +were not even allowed what is known to the modern small boy as "a +look-in." They were not permitted to come into the city to see the +surrender. President McKinley's message to Congress of December, +1898, describes "the last scene of the war" as having been "enacted +at Manila its starting place." [121] It says: "On August 13th, +after a brief assault upon the works by the land forces, in which the +squadron assisted, the capital surrendered unconditionally." In this +connection, by way of explaining Aguinaldo's treatment at the hands of +our generals from the beginning, the message says, "Divided victory +was not permissible." "It was fitting that whatever was to be done +* * * should be accomplished by the strong arm of the United States +alone." But what takes much of the virtue out of the "strong arm" +proposition is that Generals Merritt and Anderson were carrying out +President McKinley's orders all the time they were juggling Aguinaldo +out of his positions before Manila, and giving him evasive answers, +until the city could be taken by the said "strong arm" alone. For, +as the message puts it, in speaking of the taking of the city, "By +this the conquest of the Philippine Islands * * * was formally sealed." + +When General Merritt left Manila on August 30th, he proceeded to Paris +to appear before the Peace Commission there. His views doubtless +had great weight with them on the momentous questions they had to +decide. But his views were wholly erroneous, and that they were so +is not surprising. As above stated, he did not even meet Aguinaldo, +purposely holding himself aloof from him and his leaders. He never did +know how deeply they were incensed at being shut out of Manila when +the city surrendered. In his report prepared aboard the steamship +China, en route for Paris, he says: "Doubtless much dissatisfaction +is felt by the rank and file of the insurgents, but * * * I am of the +opinion that the leaders will be able to prevent serious disturbances," +etc. (p. 40). If General Merritt had caught the temper of the trenches +he would have known better, but he saw nothing of the fighting prior +to the final scene, nor did he take the field in person on the day of +the combined assault on the city, August 13th, and therefore missed +the supreme opportunity to understand how the Filipinos felt. Says +General Anderson in his report: + + + I understood from the general commanding that he would be + personally present on the day of battle. * * * On the morning of + the 13th, General Babcock came to my headquarters and informed + me that the major-general commanding would remain on a despatch + boat. [122] + + +Indeed, so reduced was Manila, by reason of the long siege conducted by +the insurgents, that the assault of August 13th, not only was, but was +expected to be, little more than a sham battle. Says Lieutenant-Colonel +Pope, chief quartermaster, "On the evening of August 12th an order was +sent me to report with two battalions of the Second Oregon Volunteers, +under Colonel Summers the next day on the Kwong Hoi to the commanding +general on the Newport, as an escort on his entrance into Manila. At +the hour named, I reported etc." [123] As soon as Spanish "honor" +was satisfied, up went the white flag and General Merritt was duly +escorted ashore and into the city, where he received the surrender +of the Spanish general. + +In the Civil War, General Merritt had received six successive +promotions for gallantry, at Gettysburg, Yellow Tavern, Five Forks, +etc., and had been with Sheridan at Winchester. So the way he +"commanded" the assault on Manila is proof only of the obligations +we then owed the Filipinos. They had left very little to be done. + +In his account of General Merritt's original personal disembarkation +at Cavite, Mr. Frank Millet acquaints his readers with a Philippine +custom we afterwards grew quite familiar with and found quite useful, +of keeping your shoes dry in landing from a rowboat on a beach +by riding astride the shoulders of some husky native boatman. The +boatmen make it a point of special pride not to let their passengers +get their feet wet. Mr. Millet tells us that a general in uniform +looks neither dignified nor picturesque under such circumstances, +and that therefore he will not elaborate on the picture, but that it +is suggestive "more of the hilarious than of the heroic." Presumably +when General Merritt went ashore on August 13th, from the despatch +boat from which he had been watching the assault on Manila, to +receive the surrender of the Spanish general, he followed the same +custom of the country he had used on the occasion of his original +disembarkation. So that in the taking of Manila, we were probably +literally, as well as ethically, like General Mahone of Virginia as +he is pictured in a familiar post-bellum negro story, according to +which the general met a negro on a steep part of the road to heaven, +told him that St. Peter would only admit mounted parties, mounted +the negro with the latter's consent, rode on his back the rest of +the toilsome journey to the heavenly gate, dismounted, knocked, +and was cordially welcomed by the saint at the sacred portal thus: +"Why how d' ye do, General Mahone; jess tie yoh hoss and come in." + + + + + + +CHAPTER V + +OTIS AND AGUINALDO + + Where people and leaders are agreed, + What can the archon do? + + Athenian Maxims. + + +Major-general Elwell S. Otis and staff arrived at Manila August 21, +1898. [124] He relieved General Merritt and succeeded to the command +of the American troops in the Philippines, August 29th. Archbishop +Chapelle, who was papal delegate to the Philippines in 1900, once +said to the writer at Manila, in that year, that General Otis was +"of about the right mental calibre to command a one-company post +in Arizona." The impatience manifested in the remark was due to +differences between him and the commanding-general about the Friar +question. The remark itself was of course intended, and understood, as +hyperbole. But the selection of General Otis to handle the Philippine +situation was a serious mistake. He was past sixty when he took +command. He continued in command from August 29, 1898, to May 5, +1900, a period of some twenty months. The insurrection was held in +abeyance for some five months after he took hold, the leaders hoping +against hope that the Treaty of Paris would leave their country to +them as it did Cuba to the Cubans; and during all that time General +Otis was apparently unable to see that war would be inevitable in the +event the decision at Paris was adverse to Filipino hopes. A member +of General Otis's staff once told me in speaking of the insurrection +period that his chief pooh-poohed the likelihood of an outbreak +right along up to the very day before the outbreak of February 4, +1899, occurred. Before the insurrection came he would not see it, +and after it came he--literally--did not see it; that is to say, +during fifteen months of fighting he commanded the Eighth Army Corps +from a desk in Manila and never once took the field. His Civil War +record was all right, but he was now getting well along in years. He +was also a graduate of the Harvard Law School of the Class of 1861, +rather prided himself on being "a pretty fair jack-leg lawyer," and had +a most absorbing passion for the details of administrative work. They +used to say that the only occasion on which General Otis ever went +out of Manila the whole time he was there was when he went up the +railroad once to Angeles to see that a proper valuation was put on a +then recently deceased Quartermaster's Department mule. When he left +the Islands he remarked to a newspaper man that he had had but one "day +off" since he had been there. Unswerving devotion to a desk in time of +war, on the part of the commanding general of the army in the field, +seemed to him an appropriate subject for just pride. This showed his +limitations. He was a man wholly unable to see the essentials of an +important situation, or to take in the whole horizon. He was known +to the Eighth Corps, his command, as a sort of "Fussy Grandpa," his +personality and general management of things always suggesting the +picture of a painfully near-sighted be-spectacled old gentleman busily +nosing over papers you had submitted, and finding fault to show he knew +a thing or two. However, he had many eminently respectable traits, and +did the best he knew how, though wholly devoid of that noble serenity +of vision which used to enable Mr. Lincoln, amid the darkest and most +tremendous of his problems, to say with a smile to Horace Greeley: +"Don't shoot the organist, he's doing the best he can." + +Before General Otis relieved General Merritt, the latter had written +Aguinaldo politely requesting him to move his troops beyond certain +specified lines about the city, [125] and Aguinaldo had replied +August 27th, agreeing to do so, but asking that the Americans promise +to restore to him the positions thus vacated in the event under the +treaty the United States should leave the Philippines to Spain. [126] +August 31st, Otis notified Aguinaldo, then still at Bacoor, his first +capital, that General Merritt had been unexpectedly called away, +and that he, Otis, being unacquainted with the situation must take +time before answering the Aguinaldo letter to Merritt of the 27th. On +September 8th, he did answer, in a preposterously long communication +of about 3000 words, which says, among other things: "I have not been +instructed as to what policy the United States intends to pursue in +regard to its legitimate holdings here"; and therefore declines to +promise anything about restoring the insurgent positions in the event +we should leave the Islands to Spain under the treaty. Commenting +on this in the North American Review for February, 1900, General +Anderson says: "I believe we came to the parting of the ways when we +refused this request." General Anderson was right. General Merritt +had on August 21st sent Aguinaldo a memorandum by the hand of Major +J. Franklin Bell which promised: "Care will be taken to leave him +[Aguinaldo] in as good condition as he was found by the forces of the +government." [127] In the role of political henchman for President +McKinley, which General Otis seems to have conceived it his duty to +play from the very beginning in the Philippines, it thus appears that +he was not troubled about keeping unsullied the faith and honor of +the government as pledged by his predecessor. His 3000-word letter to +Aguinaldo of September 8th ignores Merritt's promise as coolly as if +it had never been made. His only concern appears to have been to leave +the government free to throw the Filipinos overboard if it should +wish to. He peevishly implies later on that Aguinaldo's requests in +this regard were merely a cloak for designs against us (p. 40). But +his real reason is given in a sort of stage "aside"--a letter to +the Adjutant-General of the army dated September 12, 1898, wherein he +explains: "Should I promise them that in case of the return of the city +to Spain, upon United States evacuation, their forces would be placed +by us in positions which they now occupy, I thoroughly believe that +they would evacuate at once. But, of course, under the international +obligations resting upon us * * * no such promise can be given." [128] +In the sacred name of National Honor what of the Merritt promise? You +only have to turn a few pages in the War Department Report for 1899 +from the Merritt promise to the Otis repudiation of it. Yes, General +Anderson was right. It was when General Otis practically repudiated +in writing the written promise of his predecessor, General Merritt, +that we "came to the parting of the ways" in our relations with the +Filipinos. Let no American suppose for a moment that the author of +this volume is engaged in the ungracious, and frequently deservedly +thankless task of mere muck-raking. He never met General Otis but once, +and then for a very brief official interview of an agreeable nature. He +is only attempting to make a small contribution to the righting of a +great wrong unwittingly done by a great, free, and generous people to +another people then struggling to be free--a wrong which he doubts +not will one day be righted, whether he lives to see it so righted +or not. General Otis's letter to the Adjutant-General of the army of +September 12th, above quoted, shows that he was holding himself in +readiness to carry out in the Philippines any political programme the +Administration might determine upon, which would mean that he would +afterwards come home and tell how entirely righteous that programme +had been. Had the Administration hearkened back to Admiral Dewey's +suggestion that the Filipinos were far superior to the Cubans, and +decided to set before General Otis in the Philippines the same task +it had set before General Wood in Cuba, we would have heard nothing +about Filipino "incapacity for self-government." General Otis would +have taken his cue from the President, his commander-in chief, and +said: "I cordially concur in the opinion of Admiral Dewey." Then he +would have gone to work in a spirit of generous rivalry to do in the +Philippines just what Wood did in Cuba. And the task would have been +easier. Had the Administration taken the view urged by Judge Gray, +as a member of the Paris Peace Commission, that "if we had captured +Cadiz and the Carlists had helped us [we] would not owe duty to stay +by them at the conclusion of the war," [129] and therefore we were not +bound to see the Filipinos through their struggle, General Otis would +have adopted that view with equal loyalty and in the presidential +campaign of 1900, he would have furnished the Administration with +arguments to justify that course. This would have been an easy task, +also, for two of Spain's fleets had been destroyed by us, leaving +her but one to guard her home coast cities, and making the sending +of reinforcements to the besieged and demoralized garrison of Manila +impossible. The native army she relied on throughout the archipelago +had gone over bodily to the patriot cause, and there was no hope +of successful resistance to it. But General Otis did not have the +boundless prestige of Admiral Dewey and so volunteered no advice. As +soon as the Administration chose its course, he set to work to prove +the correctness of it. From him, of course, came all the McKinley +Administration's original arguments against doing for the Filipinos +as we did in the case of Cuba. He was the only legitimate source +the American people could look to at that time to help them in their +dilemma. They were standing with reluctant feet where democracy and +its antithesis meet, and Otis was their sole guide. But the guide +was of the kind who wait until you point and ask "Is that the right +direction?" and then answer "Yes." Four days after General Otis sent +his above quoted letter of September 12th, to Adjutant-General Corbin, +Mr. McKinley signed his instructions to the Paris Peace Commissioners, +directing them to insist on the cession of Luzon at least, the +instructions being full of eloquent but specious argument about the +necessity of establishing a guardianship over people of whom we then +knew nothing. From that day forward General Otis bent himself to the +task of showing the righteousness of that course. "I will let nothing +go that will hurt the Administration," was his favorite expression +to the newspaper correspondents when they used to complain about +his press censorship. Hypocrisy is defined to be "a false assumption +of piety or virtue." The false assumption of piety or virtue which +has handicapped the American occupation of the Philippines from the +beginning, and which will always handicap it, until we throw off the +mask and honestly set to work to give the Filipinos a square deal on +the question of whether they can or cannot run a decent government of +their own if permitted, is traceable back to the Otis letter to the +Adjutant-General of September 12, 1898, ignoring General Merritt's +promise to leave Aguinaldo "in as good condition as he was found by +the forces of the government" in case we should, under the terms of +the treaty of peace, leave the Islands to Spain. + +General Otis's letter of September 8th to Aguinaldo is apparently +intended to convince him that he ought to consider everything the +Americans had done up to date as exactly the correct thing, according +to the standards of up-to-date, philanthropic, liberty-loving nations +which pity double-dealing as mediaeval; and that he should cheer up, +and feel grateful and happy, instead of sulking, Achilles-like, in his +tents; and furthermore--which was the crux--that he must move said +tents. General Otis does not forget "that the revolutionary forces +under your command have made many sacrifices in the interest of civil +liberty (observe, he does not call it independence) and for the welfare +of your people"; admits that they have "endured great hardships, and +have rendered aid"; and avers, as a reason for Aguinaldo's evacuating +that part of the environs of Manila occupied by his troops: "It [the +war with Spain] was undertaken by the United States for humanity's sake +* * * not for * * * aggrandizement or for any national profit." After +stating, as above indicated, that he does not yet know what the +policy of the United States is to be "in regard to its legitimate +holdings here," General Otis proceeds to declare that in any event +he will not be a party to any joint occupation of any part of the +city, bay, and harbor of Manila--the territory covered by the Peace +Protocol of August 13th--and that Aguinaldo must effect the evacuation +demanded in the letter of General Merritt "before Tuesday the 15th" +(of September), i.e., within a week. Aguinaldo finally withdrew his +troops, after much useless parleying and much waste of ink. + +There was some of the parleying and ink, however, that was not wholly +wasted. But to properly appreciate it as illustrative of the fortitude +and tact which the early Filipino leaders seem to have combined in +a remarkable degree, some prefatory data are essential. + +Aguinaldo's capital was then at Bacoor, one of the small coast villages +you pass through in going by land from Manila to Cavite. From Manila +over to Cavite by water is about seven miles, and by land about three +or four times that. The coast line from Manila to Cavite makes a +loop, so that a straight line over the water from Manila to Cavite +subtends a curve, near the Cavite end of which lies Bacoor. Thus, +Bacoor, being at the mercy of the big guns at Cavite, and also easily +accessible by a land force from Manila, to say nothing of Dewey's +mighty armada riding at anchor in the offing, was a good place to +move away from. There it lay, right in the lion's jaws, should the +lion happen to get hungry. Aguinaldo had reflected on all this, +and had determined to get himself a capital away from "the city, +bay, and harbor of Manila," that is to say, to take his head out +of the lion's jaws. General Otis's demand of September 8th that +he move his troops out of the suburbs of Manila determined him to +move his capital as well. He moved it to a place called Malolos, in +Bulacan province. Bulacan lies over on the north shore of Manila Bay, +opposite Cavite province on the south shore. Malolos is situated some +distance inland, out of sight and range of a fleet's guns, and about +twenty-odd miles by railroad northwest of Manila. Malolos was also +desirable because it was in the heart of an insurgent province having a +population of nearly a quarter of a million people, a province which, +by reason of being on the north side of the bay, was sure to be in +touch, strategically and politically, with all Luzon north of the +Pasig River, just as Cavite province, the birthplace of Aguinaldo, +and also of the revolutionary government, had been with all Luzon +south of the Pasig. Should the worst come to the worst--and as has +already been indicated, the insurgents played a sweepstake game from +the beginning for independence, with only war as the limit--northern +Luzon had more inaccessible mountains from which to conduct such +a struggle for an indefinite period than southern Luzon. But while +the Otis demand of September 8th decided the matter of the change +of capital, Aguinaldo could not afford to tell his troops that he +was moving them from the environs of Manila because made to. He was +going to accept war cheerfully when it should become necessary to +fight for independence, but he still had some hopes of the Paris +Peace Conference deciding to do with the Philippines as with Cuba, +and wished to await patiently the outcome of that conference. Besides, +he was getting in shipments of guns all the time, as fast as the +revenues of his government would permit, and thus his ability to +protract an ultimate war for independence was constantly enlarging +by accretion. The Hong Kong conference of the Filipino revolutionary +leaders held in the city named on May 4, 1898, at which Aguinaldo +presided, and which mapped out a programme covering every possible +contingency, has already been mentioned. Its minutes say: + + + If Washington proposes to carry out the fundamental principles + of its Constitution, it is most improbable that an attempt will + be made to colonize the Philippines or annex them. [130] + + +On the other hand, the minutes of this same meeting as we saw +recognized that America might be tempted into entering upon a career +of colonization, once she should get a foothold in the islands. The +programme of Aguinaldo and his people was thus, from the beginning, +not to precipitate hostilities until it should become clear that, +in the matter of land-grabbing, the gleam of hope held out by the +American programme for Cuba was illusive. According to the minutes of +the meeting alluded to, such a contingency would, of course, "drive +them, the Filipinos * * * to a struggle for their independence, +even if they should succumb to the weight of the yoke," etc. Such +a struggle, as all the world knows, did ultimately ensue. That +part of the parleying following Otis's demand of September 8th +(that Aguinaldo move his troops) which was not useless was this: +In order to "save their face," with the rank and file of their +army, the Filipino Commissioners asked General Otis "if I [Otis,] +would express in writing a simple request to Aguinaldo to withdraw +to the lines which I designated--something which he could show to +the troops." [131] So, on September 13th, General Otis wrote such a +"request," and Aguinaldo moved his troops as demanded, but no farther +than demanded. He wanted to be in the best position possible in case +the United States should finally leave the Philippines to Spain, +and always so insisted. Long afterward General Otis insinuated in +his report that this insistence, which was uniformly pressed until +after the Treaty was signed, was mere dishonest pretence, to cloak +warlike intentions against the United States. Yet, as we have seen +above, one of our Peace Commissioners at Paris, Judge Gray, just +about the same time, was taking that contingency quite as seriously +as did Aguinaldo. And early in May, 1898, our Secretary of the Navy, +Mr. Long, had cabled Admiral Dewey "not to have political alliances +with the insurgents * * * that would incur liability to maintain their +cause in the future." [132] Before moving his troops pursuant to the +Otis demand of September 8th, the Otis "request" was duly published +to the insurgent army, and as the insurgents withdrew, the American +troops presented arms in most friendly fashion. "They certainly made a +brave show," says Mr. Millet (Expedition to the Philippines, p. 255), +"for they were neatly uniformed, had excellent rifles, marched well, +and looked very soldierly and intelligent." "The withdrawal," says +General Otis (p. 10), "was effected adroitly, as the insurgents marched +out in excellent spirits, cheering the American forces." Absolute +master of all Luzon outside Manila at this time, with complete +machinery of government in each province for all matters of justice, +taxes, and police, an army of some 30,000 men at his beck, and his +whole people a unit at his back, Aguinaldo formally inaugurated +his permanent government--permanent as opposed to the previous +provisional government--with a Constitution, Congress, and Cabinet, +patterned after our own, [133] just as the South American republics +had done before him when they were freed from Spain, at Malolos, the +new capital, on September 15, 1898. The next day, September 16th, at +Washington, President McKinley delivered to his Peace Commissioners, +then getting ready to start for the Paris Peace Conference, their +letter of instructions, directing them to insist on the cession by +Spain to the United States of the island of Luzon "at least." [134] +In other words, the day after the little Filipino republic, gay +with banners and glad with music, started forth on its journey, +Mr. McKinley signed its death-warrant. The political student of 1912 +may say just here, "Oh, I read all that in the papers at the time, +or at least it was all ventilated in the Presidential campaign of +1900." Mr. McKinley's instructions to the Paris Peace Commission were +not made public until after the Presidential election of 1900. To be +specific, they were first printed and given out to the public in 1901, +in Senate Document 148, having been extracted from the jealous custody +of the Executive by a Senate resolution. It was not until then that the +veil was lifted. By that time, no American who was not transcendental +enough to have lost his love for the old maxim, "Right or wrong, my +country," cared to hear the details of the story. The Filipinos and +"our boys" had been diligently engaged in killing each other for a +couple of years, and the American people said, "A truce to scolding; +let us finish this war, now we are in it." + +But to return from the death-warrant of the Philippine republic +signed by Mr. McKinley on September 16th, to its christening, +or inauguration, the day before. Mr. Millet gives an intensely +interesting account of the inaugural ceremonies of September 15th, +which as Manila correspondent of the London Times and Harper's Weekly +he had the good fortune to witness. Says he: + + + The date was at last * * * fixed for September 15th. A few days + before Aguinaldo had made a triumphant entry into Malolos in + a carriage drawn by white horses, and there had been a general + celebration of his arrival, with speeches, a gala dinner, open air + concerts, and a military parade. Mr. Higgins (an Englishman), the + manager of the Railway, kindly offered to take me up to Malolos to + witness the ceremony of the inauguration of the new government. + * * * The only other passenger was to be Aguinaldo's secretary + * * * a small boyish-looking young man. * * * [135] + + +It seems there had been a strike of the native employees of the +railway up the road. + + + Mr. Higgins calmly remarked to the secretary that, in his opinion, + if the affairs of the Filipino government were managed in the + future as they were at present, the proposed republic would be + nothing but a cheap farce. The secretary timidly asked what there + was to complain about. + + +Then came a tirade from Higgins, ending with, "I am going to lay this +* * * before Aguinaldo to-day, and I shall expect you to arrange an +interview for my friend and myself." Then, turning to the astonished +Millet, he said in English: "It does these chaps good to be talked +to straight from the shoulder. Since they came to Malolos, the earth +isn't big enough to hold them." + +This scene on the train is, decidedly, as Thomas Carlyle would say, +"of real interest to universal history." Mr. Millet's Government was +a lion about to eat a lamb, but the head of his nation, Mr. McKinley, +clothed with absolute authority in the premises for the nonce, was +balking at the diet. Now, Mr. Millet rather admired the British +boldness, just as a Northern man likes to hear a Southerner talk +straight from the shoulder to a "darkey." As soon as the era of good +feeling was over, our people quit treating the Filipinos as Perry +did the Japanese in 1854, and began calling them "niggers." In fact +the commanding general found it necessary a little later to put a +stop to this pernicious practice among the soldiers by issuing a +General Order prohibiting it. But Mr. Millet's admiration would have +been somewhat toned down had he known what we found out later. The +real secret of Higgins's personal arrogance was this. The Filipino +government needed his railroad in its business. During the war +which followed, the insurgents long controlled a large part of this +railway, from Manila to Dagupan, which was the only railway in the +Philippines. The railway properties suffered much damage incident +to the war, and--just how willingly is beside the question--the +company rendered material aid to the insurgent cause. So much did +they render, that when Higgins had the assurance later to want our +Government to pay the damages his properties had suffered at the +hands of the insurgents, our government at Manila promptly turned his +claim down. Subsequently the London office of his company actually +inveigled the British Foreign Office into making representation to +our State Department about the matter--obviously a very grave step, +in international law. The claim was promptly turned down by Washington +also, and, happily, that "closed the incident." [136] + +Having exploded Mr. Millet's bubble, let us resume the thread of +his story: + + + We reached the station [at Malolos] in about an hour and a half. + * * * The town numbers perhaps thirty or forty thousand people. + * * * From the first humble nipa shack to the great square where + the convent stands, thousands of insurgent flags fluttered from + every window and every post. * * * Every man had an insurgent + tri-color cockade in his hat. + + +Then follows a detailed account of being introduced, after some +ceremony, to Aguinaldo, who is described as "a small individual, +in full evening black suit, and flowing black tie." Higgins made his +complaint about the strikers, and Aguinaldo said, "I will attend to +this matter of the strikers," and then changed the topic, asking if +the visitors did not wish to attend the opening of the Congress--which +they did. + +From Mr. Millet's account, it is evident that, like Admiral Dewey +and most of the Americans who first dealt with the Filipinos except +Generals Anderson, MacArthur, and J. F. Bell, he failed to take +the Filipinos as seriously as the facts demanded. At that time the +Japanese had not yet taught the world that national aspirations are +not necessarily to be treated with contumely because a people are small +of stature and not white of skin. Consul Wildman at Hong Kong at first +wrote the State Department quite peevishly that Aguinaldo seemed much +more concerned about the kind of cane he should wear than about the +figure he might make in history. Wildman did not then know, apparently, +that canes, with all Spanish-Filipino colonial officialdom, were +badges of official rank, like shoulder-straps are with us. The reader +will also remember the toothbrush incident hereinbefore reproduced, +told by Admiral Dewey to the Senate Committee, in 1902. That incident, +naturally enough, amused the Committee not a little. But we who know +the Filipino know it was merely an awkward and embarrassed answer due +to diffidence, and made on the spur of the moment to cloak some real +reason which if disclosed would not seem so childish. + +Misunderstanding is the principal cause of hate in this world. When +you understand people, hatred disappears in a way strikingly analogous +to the disappearance of darkness on the arrival of light. The more +you know of the educated patriotic Filipino, the more certain you +become that the government we destroyed in 1898 would have worked +quite as well as most any of the republics now in operation between +the Rio Grande and Patagonia. The masses of the people down there, +the peons, are probably quite as ignorant and docile as the Filipino +tao (peasant), and I question if the educated men of Latin America, +the class of men who, after all, control in every country, could, +after meeting and knowing the corresponding class in the Philippines, +get their own consent to declare the latter their inferiors either +in intelligence, character, or patriotism. + +But to return to the inauguration. Mr. Millet saw the inaugural +ceremonies in the church, and heard Aguinaldo's address to the +Congress. Of the audience he says "few among them would have escaped +notice in a crowd for they were exceptionally alert, keen, and +intelligent in appearance." Of this same Congress and government, +Mr. John Barrett, who was American Minister to Siam about that +time, and is now (1912) head of the Bureau of American Republics +at Washington--an institution organized and run for the purpose +of persuading Latin-America that we do not belong to the Imperial +International Society for the Partition of the Earth and that we are +not in the business of gobbling up little countries on pretext of +"policing" them--said in an address before the Shanghai Chamber of +Commerce on January 12, 1899: + + + He [Aguinaldo] has organized a government which has practically + been administering the affairs of that great island [Luzon] since + the American occupation of Manila, which is certainly better + than the former administration; he has a properly constituted + Cabinet and Congress, the members of which compare favorably with + Japanese statesmen. + + +The present Philippine Assembly had not had its first meeting when I +left the Islands in the spring of 1905. It was organized in 1907. In +the summer of 1911, I had the pleasure of renewing an old and very +cordial acquaintance with Dr. Heiser, Director of Public Health +of the Philippine Islands, who is one of the most considerable men +connected with our government out there, and is also thoroughly in +sympathy with its indefinite continuance in its present form. The +Doctor is a broad-gauged man likely to be worth to any government, +in matters of Public Health, whatever such government could reasonably +afford to pay in the way of salary, and is doubtless well-paid by the +Philippine Insular Government. He can hardly be blamed, therefore, +for being in sympathy with its indefinite continuance in its present +form. Doctor Heiser is a man of too much genuine dignity to be very +much addicted to slang, but when I asked him about the Philippine +Assembly, I think he said it was "a cracker-jack." At any rate, +I have never heard any legislative body spoken of in more genuinely +complimentary terms than those in which he described the Philippine +Assembly. I learned from him incidentally that their "capacity for +self-government" is so crude, however, as yet, that the members have +not yet learned to read newspapers while a colleague whose seat is +next to theirs is addressing the house and trying to get the attention +of his fellows, nor do they keep up such a buzz of conversation that +the man who has the floor cannot hear himself talk. They listen to +the programme of the public business. + +Some five years ago in an article written for the North American Review +concerning the Philippine problem, the author of the present volume +said, among other things: "During nearly four years of service on the +bench in the Philippines the writer heard as much genuine, impassioned, +and effective eloquence from Filipino lawyers, saw exhibited in the +trial of causes as much industrious preparation, and zealous, loyal +advocacy of the rights of clients, as any ordinary nisi prius judge +at home is likely to meet with in the same length of time." [137] Any +country that has plenty of good lawyers and plenty of good soldiers, +backed by plenty of good farmers, is capable of self-government. As +President Schurman of Cornell University, who headed the first +Philippine Commission, the one that went out in 1899, said in closing +his Founder's Day Address at that institution on January 11, 1902: +"Any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos is better +than the best possible government of Filipinos by Americans." The +Malolos government which Mr. Millet saw inaugurated on September 15, +1898, would probably have filled this bill. Had the Filipino people +then possessed the consciousness of racial and political unity as a +people which was developed by their subsequent long struggle against +us for independence, and which has been steadily developing more and +more under the mild sway of a quasi-freedom whose princely prodigality +in spreading education is marred only by its declared programme that +no living beneficiary thereof may hope to see the independence of +his country, and that the present generation must resign itself to +tariff schedules "fixed" at Washington, there is no reasonable doubt +that the original Malolos government of 1898 would have been a very +"decent kind of government." + +All through the last four months of 1898, the two hostile armies faced +each other in a mood which it needed but a spark to ignite, awaiting +the outcome of the peace negotiations arranged for in September, +commenced in October, and concluded in December. While they are thus +engaged about Manila, let us turn to a happier picture, the situation +in the provinces under the Aguinaldo government. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE WILCOX-SARGENT TRIP + + A smiling, peaceful, and plenteous land + As yet unblighted by the scourge of war; + Where happiness and hospitality walk hand in hand + And new-born Freedom bows to Law. + + Anonymous. + + +In the last chapter, we saw Aguinaldo's republic formally established +at Malolos, September 15th, claiming jurisdiction over all Luzon. In +Chapter IV., entitled "Merritt and Aguinaldo," we saw the political +condition of southern Luzon in August, 1898, and the following months, +and verified the correctness of Aguinaldo's claims as to complete +mastery there then. Let us now examine the state of affairs in northern +Luzon in the fall of 1898. + +In Senate Document 196, 56th Congress, 1st Session, dated February +26, 1900, transmitted by Secretary of the Navy Long, in response to +a Senate resolution, may be found a report of a tour of observation +through the half of Luzon Island which lies north of Manila and the +Pasig River, made between October 8 and November 20, 1898,--note +the dates, for the Paris Peace Conference began October 1st and +ended December 10th,--by Paymaster W. B. Wilcox and Naval Cadet +L. R. Sargent. This report was submitted by them to Admiral Dewey under +date of November 23, 1898, and by him forwarded to the Navy Department +for its information, with the comment that it "in my opinion contains +the most complete and reliable information obtainable in regard to the +present state of the northern part of Luzon Island." The Admiral's +endorsement was not sent to the Senate along with the report. It +appears in a book afterwards published by Paymaster Wilcox in 1901, +entitled Through Luzon on Highways and Byways. The book is merely an +elaboration of the report, and reproduces most of the report, if not +all of it, verbatim. The book of Paymaster Wilcox may be treated as, +practically, official, for historical purposes. The preface recites +that in October, 1898, American control was effective only in Manila +and Cavite, that the insurgents, under Aguinaldo, who had proclaimed +himself President of the whole Archipelago, immediately after Dewey's +victory, were in supposedly complete possession of every part of +the Island outside of these two cities, that their lines were so +close to the outposts of our army that their people could at times +converse with our soldiers, and that General Otis's authority did +not extend much beyond a three-mile radius from the centre of Manila, +while Admiral Dewey held and operated the navy-yard at Cavite. "Even +the country between Manila and Cavite was in the hands of Aguinaldo, +so much so that our officers had been refused permission to land at +any intermediate point by water, and were prohibited from traversing +the distance by road." Wilcox and Sargent procured leave of absence +from Admiral Dewey to make their trip. They went first to Malolos, but +failed to get anything in the way of safe-conduct from Aguinaldo. He +is described, however, as of "great force of character * * * and +he dominates all around him with a power that seems peculiar to +himself." Wilcox had seen him before at Cavite. "He adroitly read +between the lines that the Government of the United States did not +then, nor would it at any future time, recognize his authority," +says the writer. + +Our travellers left Manila, October 8, 1898, on the Manila-Dagupan +Railway, for a place called Bayambang, which is the capital of +Pangasinan province, about one hundred miles north of Manila. In +Pangasinan "the people were all very respectful and polite and offered +the hospitality of their homes." From Bayambang they struck off from +the railroad and proceeded eastward comfortably and unmolested a day's +journey, to a town in the adjoining province of Nueva Ecija (Rosales) +where they received a cordial reception at the hands of the Presidente +(Mayor)--Aguinaldo's Presidente of course, not the Presidente left +over from the Spanish regime. "At this time all the local government +of the different towns was in the hands of Aguinaldo's adherents," +says the descriptive itinerary we are following. The tourists were +provided at Rosales by order of Aguinaldo with a military escort, +"which was continued by relays all the way to Aparri" (the northernmost +town of Luzon, at the mouth of the Cagayan River). Paymaster Wilcox +says he carried five hundred Mexican dollars in his saddle-bags, +but used only a trifling portion of this amount, "for in every town +my entertainment was given without pay." They went from Rosales to +Humingan, in Nueva Ecija. At Humingan they were again entertained +by the Presidente at dinner, with music following, and comfortably +housed. The Presidente made many inquiries about "the War with +Spain and their own future." Their future, as revealed by the raised +curtain of a year later, was that their country was being overrun by +Lawton's Division of the Eighth Army Corps, the author of this volume +having passed through this same town of Humingan in November, 1899, +as an officer of the scouts used to develop fire for General Lawton's +column. They journeyed eastward through the province of Nueva Ecija +from Humingan to a little village (Puncan) in the foothills of the +mountains they planned to cross. Of this place and the hospitality +there, our traveller remarks: "I shall never forget the welcome of the +local official" the Presidente. Thence they proceeded a few more stages +and parasangs, northward over the Caranglan pass, into Nueva Vizcaya +province, the watershed of north central Luzon, and thence down the +valley of the Cagayan River via Iligan and Tuguegarao to Aparri, being +always hospitably entertained in every town through which they passed +by the Presidente or Mayor of the town, the local representative of +the Philippine republic. In the New York Independent of September 14, +1899, Cadet Sargent, in an article about this trip, gives the words +of the new Filipino national Hymn, which he describes as sung with +great enthusiasm everywhere he and Wilcox were entertained in the +various towns. I desire to preserve a sample verse of it here. The +music it is set to is much like the Marseillaise--quite as stirring: + + + Del sueno de tres siglos + Hermanos Despertad! + Gritando "Fuera Espana! + Viva La Libertad!" + + +which, being interpreted, means: + + + From the sleep of three centuries + Brothers, awake! + Crying "Out with Spain! + Live Liberty!" + + +Had another Sargent and another Wilcox made a similar trip through +the provinces of southern Luzon about this same time, under similar +friendly auspices, before we turned friendship to hate and fear and +misery, in the name of Benevolent Assimilation, they would, we now +know, have found similar conditions. + +Some suspicions were aroused on one or two occasions, but once the +local authorities became convinced that the trip was being made +by consent of "The Illustrious Presidente" (Aguinaldo--"El Egregio +Presidente" is the Spanish of it) all was sunshine again. The Mayor +of each town--the Presidente--would receive from the escort coming +with them from the last town they had stopped at, a letter from the +Mayor, or Presidente, of said last town; the old escort would return to +their town, and a new one would be provided to give them safe-conduct +to the next town. This was no new-fangled scheme of Aguinaldo's. It +was an ancient custom of the Spanish Government, and was an ideal +nucleus of administration for the new government. Curiously enough, +the army knew practically nothing of this trip in the days of the +early fighting. All that country was to us a terra incognita, until +overrun by Captain Bacthelor, with a part of the 25th Infantry +in the fall of 1899, the following year. So was the rest of the +archipelago a like terra incognita, until likewise slowly conquered +by hard fighting. That is why we so utterly failed to understand +what a wonderfully complete "going concern" Aguinaldo's government +had become throughout the Philippine archipelago before the Treaty of +Paris was signed. Descending from the watershed of north central Luzon +in the province of Nueva Viscaya already mentioned, our travellers +reached the town of Carig, in the foothills which fringe that side +of the watershed. There they were met by Simeon Villa, military +commander of Isabela province, the man who was chief of staff to +Aguinaldo afterwards, and was captured by General Funston along +with Aguinaldo in the spring of 1901. Villa's immediate superior was +Colonel Tirona, at Aparri, the colonel commanding all the insurgent +forces of the Cagayan valley. Villa was accompanied by his aide, +Lieutenant Ventura Guzman. The latter is an old acquaintance of the +author of the present volume, who tried him afterwards, in 1901, for +playing a minor part in the murder of an officer of the Spanish army +committed under Villa's orders just prior to, or about the time of, +the Wilcox-Sargent visit. He was found guilty, and sentenced, but later +liberated under President Roosevelt's amnesty of 1902. He was guilty, +but the deceased, so the people in the Cagayan valley used to say, +in being tortured to death, got only the same sort of medicine he had +often administered thereabouts. At any rate, that was the broad theory +of the amnesty in wiping out all these old cases. Villa was a Tagal +and had come up from Manila with the expedition commanded by Colonel +Tirona, which expedition was fitted out with guns furnished Aguinaldo +by Admiral Dewey, or, if not furnished, permitted to be furnished. But +Guzman was a member of one of the wealthiest and most influential +native families of that province (Isabela). General Otis's reports +are full of the most inexcusable blunders about how "the Tagals" +took possession of the various provinces and made the people do this +or that. Villa's relations with Guzman were just about those of a New +Yorker or a Bostonian sent up to Vermont in the days of the American +Revolution to help organize the resistance there, in conjunction with +one of the local leaders of the patriot cause in the Green Mountain +State. Both were members of the Katipunan, the Filipino Revolutionary +Secret Society, an organization patterned after Masonry, membership +in which was always treated by the Spaniards as sedition, and usually +visited with capital punishment. Nearly every Filipino of any spirit +belonged to it on May 1, 1898, the date of the naval battle of Manila +Bay. It is the all-pervading completeness of this organization at that +time--it could give old Tammany Hall cards and spades--which explains +the astonishing rapidity of Aguinaldo's political success, i.e., the +astonishing rapidity with which the Malolos Government acquired control +of Luzon between May and October, 1898. Their cabalistic watchword was +"Paisano" (fellow-countryman), their battle cry "Independence." In +the fall of 1898, at the time of this Wilcox-Sargent trip through +Luzon, the Filipinos really "had tasted the sweets of Independence," +to use the phrase of the people of Iloilo in declining on that ground +to surrender to General Miller in December thereafter and electing the +arbitrament of war. The writer is perhaps as familiar with the history +of that Cagayan valley as almost any other American. It is true there +were cruelties practised by the Filipinos on the Spaniards. But they +were ebullitions of revenge for three centuries of tyranny. They do +not prove unfitness for self-government. I for one prefer to follow +the example set by the Roosevelt amnesty of 1902, and draw the veil +over all those matters. With the Spaniards it was a case of Sauve qui +peut. With the Filipinos, it was a case, as old man Dimas Guzman, +father to this Lieutenant Ventura we have just met, used to put +it, of Me las vais a pagar, which, liberally interpreted, means, +"The bad quarter of an hour has arrived for the Spaniards. The day +of reckoning has come." I sentenced both Dimas and Ventura to life +imprisonment for being accessory to the murder of the Spanish officer +above named, Lieutenant Piera. Villa officiated as archfiend of the +gruesome occasion. I am quite sure I would have hung Villa without any +compunction at that time, if I could have gotten hold of him. I tried +to get hold of him, but Governor Taft's Attorney-General, Mr. Wilfley, +wrote me that Villa was somewhere over on the mainland of Asia on +British territory, and extradition would involve application to the +London Foreign Office. The intimation was that we had trouble enough +of our own without borrowing any from feuds that had existed under +our predecessors in sovereignty. I have understood that Villa is now +practising medicine in Manila. More than one officer of the American +army that I know, afterwards did things to the Filipinos almost +as cruel as Villa did to that unhappy Spanish officer, Lieutenant +Piera. On the whole, I think President Roosevelt acted wisely and +humanely in wiping the slate. We had new problems to deal with, and +were not bound to handicap ourselves with the old ones left over from +the Spanish regime. + +It appears that Villa became a little suspicious of the travellers. He +detained them at Carig seven days. Finally there came a telegram from +his chief at Aparri, Colonel Tirona, to our two travellers, which read: +"I salute you affectionately, and authorize Villa to accompany you to +Iligan." At Iligan, the capital of Isabela province, the travellers +were lavishly entertained. They were given a grand baile (ball) and +fiesta (feast), a kind of dinner-dance, we would call it. To the light +Messrs. Sargent and Wilcox throw on the then universal acknowledgment +of the authority of the Aguinaldo government, and the perfect +tranquillity and public order maintained under it, in the Cagayan +valley, I may add that as judge of that district in 1901-2 there came +before me a number of cases in the trial of which the fact would be +brought out of this or that difference among the local authorities +having been referred to the Malolos Government for settlement. And +they always waited until they heard from it. The doubting Thomas will +attribute this to the partiality of the Filipinos to procrastination +in general. I know it was due to the hearty co-operation of the +people with, and their loyalty to, the then existing government, +and to their pride in it. Mr. Sargent tells a characteristic story +of Villa, whose vengeful feeling toward the Spaniards showed on all +occasions. The former Spanish governor of the province was of course +a prisoner in Villa's custody. Villa had the ex-governor brought in, +for the travellers to see him, and remarked, in his presence to them, +"This is the man who robbed this province of $25,000 during the last +year of his office." From Iligan our travellers proceeded to Aparri, +cordially received everywhere, and finding the country in fact, as +Aguinaldo always claimed in his proclamations of that period seeking +recognition of his government by the Powers, in a state of profound +peace and tranquillity--free from brigandage and the like. At Aparri +the visitors were cordially welcomed by Colonel Tirona, and much +feted. While they were there, Tirona transferred his authority to a +civil regime. Says Paymaster Wilcox: + + + The steamer Saturnus, which had left the harbor the day before + our arrival, brought news from Hong Kong papers that the Senators + from the United States at the Congress at Paris favored the + independence of the islands with an American protectorate. Colonel + Tirona considered the information of sufficient reliability to + justify him in regarding Philippine Independence as assured, + and warfare in the Islands at an end. + + +He then goes on to describe the inauguration of civil government +in Cagayan province. I hope all this will not weary the American +reader. It was vividly interesting to me when I read it for the first +time thirteen years afterward, in 1911, because it was such unexpected +information, so surprising. It will be equally interesting to all other +Americans who participated in putting down the subsequent insurrection +and in setting up the Taft civil government in that same valley three +years later. I was in that town, for a similar purpose, with Governor +Taft in 1901, after a bloody war which almost certainly would not +have occurred had the Paris Peace Commission known the conditions then +existing, just like this, all over Luzon and the Visayan Islands. Of +course the Southern Islands were a little slower. But as Luzon goes, +so go the rest. The rest of the archipelago is but the tail to the +Luzon kite. Luzon contains 4,000,000 of the 8,000,000 people out there, +and Manila is to the Filipino people what Paris is to the French and to +France. Luzon is about the size of Ohio, and the other six islands that +really matter, [138] are in size mere little Connecticuts and Rhode +Islands, and in population mere Arizonas or New Mexicos. Describing +the ceremonies of the inauguration of civil government in Cagayan, +the Wilcox-Sargent report to Admiral Dewey says: + + + The Presidentes of all the towns in the province were present at + the ceremony. * * * Colonel Tirona made a short speech. * * * He + then handed the staff of office to the man who had been elected + "Jefe Provincial" [Governor of the Province]. This officer also + made a speech in which he thanked the military forces * * * and + assured them that the work they had begun would be perpetuated + by the people, where every man, woman, and child stood ready to + take up arms to defend their newly won liberty and to resist with + the last drop of their blood the attempt of any nation whatever + to bring them back to their former state of dependence. He then + knelt, placed his hand on an open Bible, and took the oath of + office. [139] + + +Does not such language in an official report made by officers of +the navy to Admiral Dewey in November, 1898, show an undercurrent +of deep feeling at the position the Administration had put Admiral +Dewey in with Aguinaldo, when it decided to take the Philippines, +and accordingly sent out an army whose generals ignored his protege? + +The speech of the provincial governor was followed, says the +Wilcox-Sargent report (same page) by speeches from "the other +officers who constitute the provincial government, the heads of +the three departments--justice, police, and internal revenue. Every +town in this province has the same organization." Article III. of +Aguinaldo's decree of June 18th, previous, providing an organic +law or constitution for his provisional government (see Chapter +II., ante) had provided precisely the organization which Wilcox +and Sargent thus saw working at Aparri and throughout the Cagayan +valley in October, 1898. The importance of all this to the question +of how the Filipinos feel toward us to-day, in this year of grace, +1912, and to the element of righteousness there is in that feeling, +is too obvious to need comment. Americans interested in business in +the Philippines come back to this country from time to time and give +out interviews in the papers declaring that the Filipinos do not want +independence. What they really mean is that it makes no difference +whether they want it or not, they are not going to get it. And it +is precisely these Americans, and their business associates in the +United States, who have gotten through Congress the legislation which +enables them to give the Filipino just half of what he got ten years +ago for his hemp, and other like legislation, and the Filipinos +know it. The gulf in the Philippines between the dominant and the +subject race will continue to widen as the years go by, so long as +indirect taxation without representation continues to be perpetrated +at Washington for the benefit of special interests having a powerful +lobby. If the American people themselves are groaning under this very +sort of thing, and apparently unable to help themselves, what is the a +priori probability as to our voteless and therefore defenceless little +brown brother. Like the sheep before the shearer, he is dumb. But to +return to our travellers and their journey. + + + A Norwegian steamer came into port [meaning the harbor of Aparri] + that afternoon, and this seemed our only hope. She was chartered by + two Chinamen * * *. At first they refused us permission to embark, + and declined to put in at any port on the west coast. No sooner + was this related to Colonel Tirona than he sent notice that the + ship could not clear without taking us and making a landing where + we desired. This argument was convincing. + + +Colonel Tirona provided them with a letter addressed to Colonel +Tino at Vigan, the chief town of the west coast of Luzon and the +capital of the province of Ilocos Sur, which province fronts the China +Sea. Messrs. Wilcox and Sargent proceeded aboard the Norwegian steamer +from Aparri westward, doubling the northwest corner of Luzon, and +steaming thence due south to the nearest port. Vigan was the Filipino +military headquarters of the western half of northern Luzon, just as +Aparri was at the same time of the eastern half. On the west coast +the travellers were treated always courteously, but with considerable +suspicion. The explanation is easy. That region is in closer touch +with Manila, and with what is going on and may be learned at the +capital, than is the Cagayan valley which our tourists had just +left. They bade the commanding officer at Vigan good-bye, November +13, 1898. Passing south through Namacpacan (which the command I was +with took a year or so later), they came to San Fernando de Union, +some twenty miles farther south along the coast road. Here they met +Colonel Tino and presented their letter from Tirona. He gave them a +dinner, of course. How a Filipino does love to entertain, and make +you enjoy yourself! Talk about your "true Southern hospitality"! You +get it there. "Speeches were made, and great things promised by +the Philippine republic in the near future" says Mr. Wilcox. After +the dinner and speech-making came the inevitable dance. After that +Colonel Tino started them off on their journey southward toward Manila +duly provided with carriages. Passing Aringay on November 18, 1898 +[140] our travellers finally reached Dagupan, the northern terminus +of the Manila-Dagupan Railway, and there took a train for Manila, +120 miles away. + +In his report covering the fall of 1898, General Otis always scoldingly +says of the Filipinos that in all the parleyings of his commissioners +with Aguinaldo's commissioners before the outbreak, the latter never +did know what they really wanted. The truth was they believed the +Americans were going to do with them exactly as every other white +race they knew of had done with every other brown race they knew of, +but they did not tell General Otis so. Mr. Wilcox, a more friendly +witness of that same period states their position thus at page twenty +of the report to Admiral Dewey: "They desire the protection of the +United States at sea, but fear any interference on land." "On one +point they seemed united, viz., that whatever our government may have +done for them, it had not gained the right to annex them," adding, in +relation to the physical preparations to make good this contention, +in the event of war, "The Philippine Government has an organized +force in every province we visited." + +The whole tone of the Wilcox-Sargent report and the subsequent +Wilcox book is an implied reiteration, after intimate, extended, +and friendly contact with the people of all Luzon north of the Pasig +River, of Admiral Dewey's telegram sent to the Navy Department, June +23, 1898: "The people are far superior in intelligence and capacity +for self-government to the people of Cuba and I am familiar with both +races." In fact Messrs. Wilcox and Sargent do not raise the question of +"capacity for self-government" at all, any more than Commodore Perry +did when similarly welcomed in 1854 by the Japanese. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE TREATY OF PARIS + + No man can serve two masters. + + Matthew vi., 24. + + Confine the Empire within those limits which + nature seems to have fixed as its natural bulwarks + and boundaries. + + Augustus Caesar's Will. + + +This is a tale of three cities, Paris, Washington, and Manila. + +Article III. of the Peace Protocol signed at Washington, August 12, +1898, provided: + + + The United States will occupy and hold the city, bay, and harbor + of Manila, pending the conclusion of a Treaty of Peace which + shall determine the control, disposition, and government of the + Philippines. [141] + + +The "Papers relating to the Treaty with Spain" including the +telegraphic correspondence between President McKinley and our Peace +Commissioners pending the negotiations, were sent to the Senate, +January 30, 1899, just one week before the final vote on the treaty, +but the injunction of secrecy was not removed until January 31, +1901--after the presidential election of 1900. They then were +published as Senate Document 148, 56th Congress, 2d Session. It was +not until then that the veil was lifted. The instructions to the Peace +Commissioners were dated September 16, 1898. The Commissioners were: +William R. Day, of Ohio, Republican, just previously Secretary of +State, now (1912) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United +States; Whitelaw Reid, Republican, then editor of the New York Tribune, +now Ambassador to Great Britain, and three members of the United States +Senate, Cushman K. Davis, of Minnesota, William P. Frye, of Maine, +Republicans, and George Gray, of Delaware, Democrat. Senator Davis +died in 1900, and Senator Frye in 1911. Senator Gray has been, since +1899, and is now, United States Circuit Judge for the 3d Judicial +District. Among other things, the President's instructions to the +Commissioners said: + + + It is my earnest wish that the United States in making peace + should follow the same high rule of conduct which guided it in + facing war. * * * The lustre and the moral strength attaching + to a cause which can be confidently rested upon the considerate + judgment of the world should not under any illusion of the hour + be dimmed by ulterior designs which might tempt us * * * into an + adventurous departure on untried paths. + + +By elaborate rhetorical gradations, the instructions finally get down +to this: + + + Incidental to our tenure in the Philippines is the commercial + opportunity. * * * The United States cannot accept less than the + cession in full right and sovereignty of the island of Luzon. + + +Though already noticed, we venture, in this connection, again to +recall that in the month previous (August, 1898) a gentleman high in +the councils of the Administration [142] declared in one of the great +reviews of the period: "We see with sudden clearness that some of the +most revered of our political maxims have outlived their force." Among +these "revered maxims" thus suddenly fossilized by his ipse dixit, +Mr. Vanderlip exuberantly includes the teachings of "Washington's +Farewell Address and the later crystallization of its main thought +by President Monroe"--the Monroe Doctrine, adding that in lieu of +these "A new mainspring * * * has become the directing force * * * +the mainspring of commercialism." + +As permanent chairman of the Philadelphia convention which renominated +Mr. McKinley for the Presidency thereafter, in 1900, Senator Lodge, +speaking of the issues raised by the Treaty of Paris, said: "We make +no hypocritical pretence of being interested in the Philippines solely +on account of others. We believe in Trade Expansion." + +"Philanthropy and five per cent. go hand in hand," said Mr. Vanderlip's +Chief, Secretary of the Treasury Lyman J. Gage, about the same +time. Such was the temper of the times when the treaty was made. + +The first meeting with the Spanish Commissioners took place at Paris, +October 1st. The opening event of the meeting, the initial move of the +Spaniards, is extremely interesting in the light of subsequent events, +especially in connection with the Iloilo Fiasco, hereinafter described +(Chapter IX.). + +"Spanish communication represents," says Judge Day's cablegram to +the President, [143] "that status quo has been altered and continues +to be altered to the prejudice of Spain by Tagalo rebels, whom it +describes as an auxiliary force to the regular American troops." + +Even diplomacy, in a conciliatory communication limited to the obvious, +called the Filipinos our allies. + +The Spanish initial move was more immediately prompted by the fact +that in point of absolute astronomical time Manila, though captured +when it was morning of August 13th there, was captured when it was +evening of August 12th, at Washington, and the protocol was signed +at Washington in the evening of August 12th. While this point was +material, because we had captured $900,000 in cash in the Spanish +treasury at Manila and much other property, the title to which, under +the laws of war between civilized nations, depended on just what +time it was captured, the matter was finally swallowed up and lost +sight of in the agreement to give Spain a lump $20,000,000 for the +archipelago. But the initial move had other aspects. In the event we +should take the Philippines off her hands, Spain was going to insist +that we should get back from the Filipinos, our "allies," and restore +to her all the Spaniards they captured after August 12th. She knew +that in all probability if we bought the Islands we would be buying +an insurrection, and she was "taking care of her own" at our expense. + +The next feature of the proceedings entitled to attention in a +bird's-eye view like this, concerns the question whether we should +take only Luzon, or the whole archipelago. President McKinley cabled +Admiral Dewey on August 13th, the day after the protocol was signed, +asking as to "the desirability of the several islands," "coal and +other mineral deposits," and "in a naval and commercial sense which +(of the several islands) would be most advantageous." [144] Admiral +Dewey had replied, of course, that Luzon was "the most desirable," +but volunteered no advice. He did state, "No coal of good quality can +be procured in the Philippine Islands," which is still true. Allusion +is made to this telegram in the proceedings, but no copy of it is +there set forth. On October 4th, our Commissioners wired President +McKinley suggesting that he cable out to the Admiral and ask him +"whether it would be better * * * to retain Luzon * * * or the whole +group." Mr. McKinley answered that he had asked Admiral Dewey before +General Merritt left Manila to give the latter his views in writing "on +general question of Philippines," and that "his report is in your hands +in response to both questions." But the commission replied that Admiral +Dewey had sent only a copy of a report of General Francis V. Greene's +and nothing else. There is no record of any further advice or opinion +from Admiral Dewey on the point except that in General Otis's Report +(p. 67) we get glimpses of a telegram that has never yet, apparently, +been published, sent by Dewey to Washington early in December, 1898, +suggesting that we "interfere as little as possible in the internal +affairs of the Islands." No; Admiral Dewey must be acquitted of having +ever counselled the McKinley Administration to buy the Philippines. + +On October 7th the Commission telegraphed Washington that General +Merritt attaches much weight to the opinion of the Belgian Consul at +Manila, M. Andre, and that "Consul says United States must take all +or nothing"; that "if southern islands remained with Spain they would +be in constant revolt, and United States would have a second Cuba"; +that "Spanish government would not improve," and "would still protect +monks in their extortion." + +To this advice there was absolutely no answer. It was a case of "all or +nothing," and it had already become a case of "all" when on September +16th previous Mr. McKinley signed his original instructions to the +Commission stating "The United States cannot accept less than Luzon." + +The Commission's telegram of October 7th goes on to quote from the +Belgian Consul's opinion that "Present rebellion represents only one +half of one per cent. of the inhabitants." The Consul was not before +them in person. They were quoting from a memorandum submitted by him +to General Merritt at Merritt's request, made at Manila and dated +August 29th, the day General Merritt sailed away from Manila bound +for Paris via the Suez Canal. He had brought the memorandum along +with him. From the previous chapters the reader will, of course, +understand that Americans and Europeans at Manila in August, 1898, +were paying very little attention to Aguinaldo and his claims as to +the extent of his authority in the provinces. It is therefore not +surprising that M. Andre's memorandum of August 29th should have made +the foolish statement, "Present rebellion represents only one half of +one per cent. of inhabitants." But it is eternally regrettable that his +statement on this point had any weight with the Commissioners, for it +was, or by that time at least (October 7th) had become, just about 99 +1/2 per cent. wide of the mark. As a matter of fact, by October 7th +it would have been more accurate to have said, in lieu of the above, +"Present rebellion represents practically whole people." You see, +we started an insurrection in May, in October it had become a full +grown affair, and in December we bought it. The telegram of October +7th also quoted General Merritt as saying, "Insurgents would be +victorious unless Spaniards did better in future than in past," +and as considering it "feasible for United States to take Luzon +and perhaps some adjacent islands and hold them as England does her +colonies." These are about the only two sound suggestions General +Merritt made to that Commission. In the next breath they quote him as +saying, "Natives could not resist 5000 troops." The fact that they +did resist more than 120,000 troops, that it took more than that, +all told, to put down the insurrection, is sufficient to show how +much General Merritt's advice was worth. He was right on two points, +as indicated. Both Spanish fleets had been destroyed and Spain had but +one left to protect her home coast cities. The death knell of her once +proud colonial empire had sounded. Decrepit as she was, she could not +possibly have sent any reinforcements to the Philippines. Besides the +Filipinos would have "eaten them up." General Merritt's suggestion to +"hold them as England does her colonies" was also sensible. In fact +that was the only thoroughly honest thing to have done, if we were +going to take them at all. England never acts the hypocrite with her +colonies. She makes them behave. She does not let native people preach +sedition in native newspapers, because of "sentimental bosh" about +freedom of the press, until the whole country becomes a smouldering +hot-bed of sedition. She has blown offending natives from the cannon's +mouth, when deemed necessary to cure them and their country of the +desire for independence. If we are going to have colonies at all, we +ought to govern them with the upright downright ruthless honesty of +the British. It is more merciful in the long run. But we ought not to +have colonies at all. For if there is one thing this republic stands +for, above all other things, it is the righteousness of aversion to +a foreign yoke. + +In their telegram of October 7th, [145] the Peace Commissioners, +now squarely confronted with the question of forcible annexation, +begin to let the Administration down easy. They say: + + + General Anderson in correspondence with Aguinaldo in June and + July seemed to treat him and his forces as allies and native + authorities, but subsequently changed his tone. Merritt and Dewey + both kept clear of any compromising communications. + + +A despatch sent by Judge Day certainly comes from high authority. The +word "compromising" is therefore important. To say that Admiral +Dewey did not treat Aguinaldo as an ally is to raise a mere technical +point. But Aguinaldo never did get anything from him in writing. What +he got consisted more of deeds than words. And actions speak louder +than words. We had an alliance with Aguinaldo, a most "compromising" +alliance and afterwards repudiated it. Admiral Dewey made it and +General Merritt repudiated it. Dewey did, without the President's +knowledge, exactly what the President and the American people would +have had him do at the time. And Merritt did exactly what the President +ordered him to do. But between the making of the alliance, and the +repudiation of it, the President and the American people changed their +minds. I say the American people, because they afterwards ratified +all that Mr. McKinley did. You see the bitterness that lies away down +in the secret recesses of the hearts of the Filipino people to-day +has its source at this point. They had "a gentleman's agreement," +as it were, with us, not in writing, made at a time when the thought +of a colony had never entered our minds. They fought in a common +cause with us on the faith of that agreement--drove the Spaniards +into Manila in numerous victorious engagements involving much loss +of life, on their part, keeping the Dons thereafter bottled up in +Manila on the land side while their "ally" Admiral Dewey was doing the +same on the sea side. The said Dons were living on horses and rats, +and famine was imminent when our troops arrived and began to finish +the work of taking the beleaguered city. And then, having changed our +minds and decided to annex the islands, we repudiated our "gentleman's +agreement," on the idea that the end justified the means. And the end, +as it has turned out, did not even justify the means, seeing that the +islands have proved a heavy financial liability instead of a profitable +asset. Judge Day's telegram to Secretary Hay of October 12th (p. 27) +contains this curious and surprising passage as to Cuba: + + + Senator Gray in favor of accepting sovereignty unconditionally + * * * that we may thereby avoid future complications with Cubans, + claiming sovereignty while we are in process of pacifying island + * * * We desire instructions on this point. + + +The future of Cuba, however, trembled in the balance but for +a moment. Before "the shell-burred cables" had had time to quit +vibrating with the question thus propounded, there came back this +splendidly clean-cut answer from the President: + + + We must carry out the spirit and letter of the resolution of + Congress [declaring war]. + + +In characterizing Judge Gray's position, above indicated, as +"surprising," no reflection upon him is intended. On the contrary, such +a position, assumed by a man of such conceded intellectual probity, +is illuminating as to the attitude subsequently taken concerning the +Philippines by the Democratic Senators who voted for the treaty. This +attitude is stated by Senator Lodge, in his History of the War with +Spain, with all the incisive forcefulness to which the country has so +long been accustomed in the public utterances of that distinguished +man, and, seeing that no promise had been made, as in the case of +Cuba, Senator Lodge's statement of the position of those who voted +for the treaty should forever set at rest the stale injustice, still +occasionally repeated, that Mr. Bryan, "played politics" in 1898-9 in +urging his friends in the Senate to vote for its ratification. Says +Senator Lodge (History of the War with Spain, p. 231): + + + The friends of ratification took the very simple ground that + the treaty committed the United States to no policy, but left + them free to do exactly as seemed best with all the islands; + that the American people could be safely entrusted with this + grave responsibility, and that patriotism and common sense alike + demanded the end of the war and the re-establishment of peace, + which could only be effected by the adoption of the treaty. + + +October 14th, Washington wires the commission that Admiral Dewey has +just cabled: + + + It is important that the disposition of the Philippine Islands + should be decided as soon as possible. * * * General anarchy + prevails without the limits of the city and bay of Manila. Natives + appear unable to govern. + + +In this cablegram the Admiral most unfortunately repeated as true some +wild rumors then currently accepted by the Europeans and Americans +at Manila which of course were impossible of verification. I say +"unfortunately" with some earnestness, because it does not appear on +the face of his message that they were mere rumors. And, that they +were wholly erroneous, in point of fact, has already been cleared +up in previous chapters, wherein the real state of peace, order and +tranquillity which prevailed throughout Luzon at that time has been, +it is believed, put beyond all doubt. But what manna in the wilderness +to the McKinley Administration, now that it was bent on taking the +islands, was that Dewey message of October 14th, "The natives appear +unable to govern"! + +On October 17th, Mr. Day wires Mr. Hay that the Peace Commissioners +feel the importance of preserving, so far as possible, the condition +of things existing at the time of signing the protocol, to prevent +any change in the status quo. He says: + + + Might not our government * * * take more active and positive + measures than heretofore for preservation of order and protection + of life and property in Philippine Islands? + + +How could we, when Aguinaldo and his people were in the saddle all +over Luzon, had taken the status quo between their teeth and run away +with it, and were prepared to fight if bidden to halt and dismount; +and, which is more, were preserving order perfectly themselves? + +On October 19th, Mr. Hay repeated by wire to Mr. Day a cablegram from +General Otis which said: "Do not anticipate trouble with insurgents +* * * Affairs progressing favorably." + +General Otis was making a desperate effort to humor Mr. McKinley's +"consent-of-the-governed" theory and programme. But it was a situation, +not a theory, which confronted him. + +The date of the high-water mark of the Paris peace negotiations is +October 25th. On that day, Mr. Day wired Mr. Hay: + + + Differences of opinion among commissioners concerning Philippine + Islands are set forth in statements transmitted (by cable also) + herewith. On these we request early consideration and explicit + instructions. Liable now to be confronted with this question in + joint commission almost immediately. + + +Messrs. Davis, Frye, and Reid, sent a joint signed statement. They +urged taking over the whole archipelago, saying that, as their +instructions provided for the retention at least of Luzon, "we do not +consider the question of remaining in the Philippine Islands as at +all now properly before us." They also urged that as Spain governed +and defended the islands from Manila, we became, with the destruction +of her fleet and the surrender of her army, "as complete masters of +the whole group as she had been, with nothing needed to complete the +conquest save to proceed with the ample forces we had at hand to take +unopposed possession." The vice of this proposition, from the strategic +as well as the ethical point of view, is of course clear enough now. + +Spain's government was already tottering in the Philippines when the +Spanish-American war broke out. To be "as complete masters as she had +been" was like becoming the recipient of a quit-claim deed. Also, ours +was not a case of taking "unopposed possession." An adverse claimant, +relying on immemorial prescription, was in full possession; all the +tenants on the land had attorned to him, and he and they were ready to +defend their claim against all comers with their lives. They reminded +one of the recurrent small farmer whom some great timber or other +corporation seeks to oust, patrolling his land lines rifle in hand, +on the lookout for the corporation's agent and the sheriff with the +dispossessory warrant. + +Messrs. Davis, Frye, and Reid go on to say: + + + Military and naval witnesses agree that it would be practically + as easy to hold and defend the whole as a part. + + +Hardly any one can fail to read with interest the following accurate +and vivid picture which they give of the physical strategic unity of +the Philippine Islands: + + + There is hardly a single island in the group from which you cannot + shoot across to one or more of the others--scarcely another + archipelago in the world in which the islands are crowded so + closely together and so interdependent. + + +This explains also why the Filipino people are a people. Whenever +the American people understand that, they will give them their +independence, unless they get an idea that government of their people +by their people for their people would be distasteful to them. + +In the memorandum of their views telegraphed to Washington on October +25th, Messrs. Davis, Frye, and Reid also say: + + + Public opinion in Europe, including that of Rome, expects us to + retain whole of Philippine Islands. + + +Archbishop Chapelle was in Paris at the time of these negotiations. He +afterwards told the writer in Manila that he got that $20,000,000 put +in the Treaty of Paris. The Church preferred that our title should be +a title by purchase rather than a title by conquest, and Mr. McKinley +was vigorously urging the latter. Between the legal effects of the +two, there is a world of difference. The Church outgeneralled the +President--checkmated him with a bishop. Look at that part of the +treaty which affects church property: + + + Article VIII. The * * * cession * * * cannot in any respect impair + the property or rights * * * of * * * ecclesiastical * * * bodies. + + +The Church of Rome, or at least some of the ecclesiastical +bodies pertaining to it in the Philippines, owned the cream of the +agricultural estates. By the treaty they have not lost a dollar. It +might have been otherwise, had not Mr. McKinley's original claim of +title by conquest been overcome at Paris. + +Judge Day's memorandum of his own views, telegraphed on October 25th +along with those of his colleagues, stated that he was unable to agree +that we should peremptorily demand the entire Philippine group; that + + + In the spirit of our instructions, and bearing in mind the often + declared disinterestedness of purpose and freedom from designs + of conquest with which the war was undertaken, we should be + consistent in demands in making peace * * * with due regard to + our responsibility because of the conduct of our military and + naval authorities in dealing with the insurgents. + + +Again, he says: + + + We cannot leave the insurgents either to form a government [he of + course did not know what a complete government they had already + formed] or to battle against a foe which * * * might readily + overcome them. + + +He also was of course unaware how thoroughly anxious the Spaniards then +in the Philippines were to get away, and how completely they were at +the mercy of the new Philippine Republic and its forces. "On all hands" +says Judge Day, "it is agreed that the inhabitants of the islands are +unfit for self-government." Of course we knew absolutely nothing worth +mentioning about the Filipinos at that time. Judge Day then proposes, +for the reasons indicated, to accept Luzon and some adjacent islands, +as being of "strategic advantage," and to leave Spain the rest, with +a "treaty stipulation for non-alienation without the consent of the +United States." It seems to me that Judge Day's scheme was the least +desirable of all. + +Senator Gray's memorandum of the same date is a red-hot argument +against taking over any part of the archipelago. He begins thus: + + + The undersigned cannot agree that it is wise to take Philippine + Islands in whole or in part. To do so would be to reverse + accepted continental policy of the country, declared and acted + upon through our history. * * * It will make necessary * * * + immense sums for fortifications and harbors * * * Climate and + social conditions demoralizing to character of American youth * * *. + On whole, instead of indemnity, injury * * *. Cannot agree that + any obligation incurred to insurgents * * *. If we had captured + Cadiz and Carlists had helped us, would not be our duty to stay by + them at the conclusion of war * * *. No place for * * * government + of subject people in American system * * *. Even conceding all + benefits claimed for annexation, we thereby abandon * * * the moral + grandeur and strength to be gained by keeping our word to nations + of the world * * * for doubtful material advantages and shameful + stepping down from high moral position boastfully assumed. * * * + Now that we have achieved all and more than our object, let us + simply keep our word * * *. Above all let us not make a mockery + of the [President's] instructions, where, after stating that we + took up arms only in obedience to the dictates of humanity * * * + and that we had no designs of aggrandizement and no ambition for + conquest, the President * * * eloquently says: "It is my earnest + wish that the United States in making peace should follow the + same high rule of conduct which guided it in facing war." + + +The next day, October 26th, came this laconic answer: + + + The cession must be of the whole archipelago or none. The latter + is wholly inadmissible and the former must be required. + + +Probably the one thing about the Paris Peace negotiations that is +sure to interest the average American most at this late date is the +matter of how we came to pay that twenty millions. It was this way. On +October 27th, the Commission wired Washington: + + + Last night Spanish ambassador called upon Mr. Reid. + + +It seems they talked long and earnestly far into the night, trying to +find a way which would prevent the conference from resulting in sudden +disruption, and consequent resumption of the war. Mr. Reid made plain +the inflexible determination of the American people not to assume the +Cuban debt. The Ambassador said: "Montero Rios [146] could not return +to Madrid now if known to have accepted entire Cuban indebtedness," +and asked delay to see "if some concessions elsewhere might not be +found which would save Spanish Commissioners from utter repudiation at +home." There is no doubt that the talk we are now considering was a +"heart-to-heart" affair, probably quite informal. Yet it is one of +the most important talks that have occurred between any two men in +this world in the last fifty years. Mr. Reid finally threw out a hint +to the effect that as the preponderance of American public sentiment +seemed rather inclined to retain the Philippines, "It was possible," +he said, "but not probable that out of these conditions the Spanish +Commissioners might find something either in territory or debt [147] +which might seem to their people at least like a concession.!" [148] + +It was the leaven of this hint that leavened the whole loaf. There +was doubtless much informal parleying after that, but finally, the +American Commissioners, having become satisfied that Spanish honor +would not be offended by an offer having the substance, if not the +form, of charity, and being very tired of Spain's sparring for wind +in the hope of a European coalition against us should war be resumed, +submitted the following proposal: + + + The Government of the United States is unable to modify the + proposal heretofore made for the cession of the entire archipelago + of the Philippine Islands, but the American Commissioners are + authorized to offer to Spain, in case the cession should be agreed + to, the sum of $20,000,000. + + +This alluring offer was accompanied with the stern announcement that + + + Upon the acceptance * * * of the proposals herein made * * * + but not otherwise, it will be possible * * * to proceed to the + consideration * * * of other matters. + + +Also, our Commissioners wired Washington: + + + If the Spanish Commissioners refuse our proposition * * * nothing + remains except to close the negotiations. + + +This was very American and very final. Washington answered: "Your +proposed action approved." + +November 29th, Mr. Day wired Mr. Hay: + + + Spanish Commissioners at to-day's conference presented a definite + and final acceptance of our last proposition. + + +And that is how that twenty millions found its way into the treaty--not +forgetting the prayers and other contemporaneous activities of +Archbishop Chapelle. + +After the tremendous eight weeks' tension had relaxed, and before +the final reduction to writing of all the details, we see this dear +little telegram, from Secretary of State Hay, himself a writer of note, +come bravely paddling into port, where it was cordially received by +both sides, taken in out of the wet, and put under the shelter of +the treaty: + + + Mr. Hay to Mr. Day: In renewing conventional arrangements do not + lose sight of copyright agreement. + + +And here is the last act of the drama: + + + Mr. Day to Mr. Hay, Paris, December 10, 1898: Treaty signed at + 8.50 this evening. + + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION PROCLAMATION + + Prometheus stole the heavenly fire from the altar of Jupiter to + benefit mankind, and Jupiter thereupon punished both Prometheus + and the rest of mankind by creating and giving to them the woman + Pandora, a supposed blessing but a real curse. Pandora brought + along a box of blessings, and when she opened it, everything flew + out and away but Hope. + + Tales from AEschylus. + + +The ever-memorable Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, the Pandora +box of Philippine woes, was signed December 21, 1898, and its contents +were let loose in the Philippines on January 1, 1899. + +Let us consider for a moment the total misapprehension of conditions +in the islands under which Mr. McKinley drafted and signed that famous +document--a misapprehension due to General Otis's curious blindness +to the great vital fact of the situation, viz., that the Filipinos +were bent on independence from the first, and preparing to fight +for it to the last. Take the following Otis utterance, for example, +concerning a date when practically everybody in the Eighth Army Corps, +and every newspaper correspondent in the Philippines, recognized that +war would be certain in the event the Paris Peace negotiations should +result, as common rumor then said they would result, in our taking +over the islands: + + + My own confidence at this time in a satisfactory solution of + the difficulties which confronted us may be gathered from a + despatch sent to Washington on December 7th, wherein I stated + that conditions were improving, and that there were signs of + revolutionary disintegration. [149] + + +There can be no doubt that, at the date of that despatch, General +Otis had been given to understand that under the Treaty of Paris +we were going to keep the islands if the treaty should be ratified, +and also that the if might give the Administration trouble, should +trouble arise with the Filipinos before the if was disposed of at +home. As heretofore intimated, in addition to his preference for +legal and administrative work to the work of his profession, in the +Philippines General Otis constituted himself from the beginning a +political henchman. Ample evidence will be introduced later on to +show beyond all doubt that all through the early difficulties, when +the American people should have been frankly dealt with and given the +facts, General Otis would, in the exercise of his military powers +as press censor, always say to the war correspondents, "I will let +nothing go that will hurt the Administration." + +Let us see what the real facts of the Philippine situation were at +the date of the Treaty of Paris, December 10th, or, which is the same +thing, when General Otis sent his despatch of December 7th. When +the Treaty of Paris was signed, General Otis was in possession of +Manila and Cavite, with less than 20,000 men under his command, +and Aguinaldo was in possession of practically all the rest of the +archipelago, with between 35,000 and 40,000 men under his command, +armed with guns, and the whole Filipino population were in sympathy +with the army of their country. We have already seen the conditions +in the various provinces at that time and also the inauguration of +the native central government. Let us now examine the military figures. + +Ten thousand American soldiers were on hand when Manila was captured, +August 13th, and 5000 more had arrived under command of Major-General +Elwell S. Otis a week or so after the fall of the city. [150] They had +13,000 Spanish soldiers to guard. In addition to this, by the terms of +the capitulation, the city (population say 300,000), its inhabitants, +its churches and educational establishments, and its private property +of all descriptions had been placed "under the special safeguard of +the faith and honor of the American army." [151] Some 4500 to 5000 +more troops began to swarm out of San Francisco bound for Manila in +the latter part of October, 1898, the last of them reaching Manila +December 11th, the day after the Treaty of Paris was signed. After +that there were no further additions to General Otis's command prior +to the outbreak of war with the Filipinos, February 4, 1899. [151] Of +these (approximately) 20,000 men, only 1500 to 2000 were regulars, +having the Krag-Jorgensen smokeless gun. The rest were State volunteers, +armed with the antiquated Springfield rifles, the same the 71st New +York and the 2d Massachusetts had been permitted to carry into the +Santiago campaign the summer before. Aguinaldo's people were equipped +entirely with Mausers captured from the Spaniards, and other rifles, +bought in Hong Kong mostly, using smokeless ammunition. Major (now +Major-General) J. F. Bell, who is, in the judgment of many, one of the +best all-round soldiers in the American army to-day, was in charge +of the "Division of Military Information" at Manila both before and +after the taking of the city. General Bell has done many fine things, +in the way of reckless bravery in battle at the critical moment and of +bold reconnoitring in campaign, and what he fails to find out about +an enemy, or a prospective enemy, is not apt to be ascertainable. In +a report bearing date August 29, 1898, [152] prepared in anticipation +of possible trouble with the Filipinos, he estimated the number of +men under arms that Aguinaldo had at between 35,000 and 40,000. This +estimate is based by General Bell in his report on the number of guns +out in the hands of the Filipinos, which he figures thus: + + + Captured from Spanish militia 12,500 + From Cavite arsenal 2,500 + From Jackson & Evans (American merchants + trading with Hong Kong) 2,000 + From Spanish (captured in battle) 8,000 + In hands of Filipinos previous to May 1, 1898 15,000 + ------ + Total 40,000 + + +From this number General Bell deducts several thousands as having +been recaptured by the Spaniards, or bought in. I at once hear some +former comrade-in-arms of the Philippine insurrection say: "Oh, +no. They couldn't have had as many as 40,000 guns, or near that." I +thought the same thing when I first read General Bell's report on the +matter. But he removes the doubt thus: "They are being continually +sent away to other provinces." + +We did not understand Aguinaldo's movements then. All his troops were +not around Manila. From what I learned from General Lawton and his +staff in 1899, my belief is that Aguinaldo had perhaps 30,000 men +with guns around Manila, and out along the railroad, at the time of +the outbreak of February 4th. It is idle, of course, at this late +date, to claim that the Filipinos were not bent on independence +from the first. The matured plans of their leaders, formulated at +Hong Kong May 4, 1898, before they ever started the insurrection, +preserved in the captured minutes of the meeting already noticed, +[153] provide the programme to be adopted in the event we should be +tempted to keep the islands. In that event, they were prepared against +surprise, or any necessity for making new plans, and were agreed to +accept war as inevitable. From the first, they made ready for it. + +Governmentally and strategically, the Philippine Islands, except +Mohammedan Mindanao, which is a separate and distinct problem, +may be described very simply and sufficiently as consisting of the +great island of Luzon, on which Manila is situated, and the Visayan +group. [154] We are already familiar with the conditions in Luzon in +December, 1898. You hear a great deal about the Philippine archipelago +consisting of a thousand and one islands, but there are only eight +that are, broadly speaking, worth considering here. The moment a jagged +submarine ledge peeps out of the water it becomes an island. And even +before that it may wreck a ship. But we are talking about islands +that need to be charted on the sea of world politics. The Visayan +Islands that really count at all in a great problem such as that we +are now considering, are but six in number: Panay, capital Iloilo; +Cebu, capital Cebu; Bohol, Negros, Samar, and Leyte. [155] Iloilo is +some three hundred and odd miles south of Manila, and, besides being +the capital of Panay, is the chief port of the Visayas and the second +city of the archipelago, Cebu being the third. Under the Spaniards, +as now under us, a vessel might clear from either of these places +for any part of the world. As we saw in the chapter preceding this, +as early as November 18th, Admiral Dewey had cabled Washington that +the entire island of Panay was in possession of insurgents, except +Iloilo. By the end of December, all the Spanish garrisons in the +Visayan Islands had surrendered to the insurgents. (Otis's Report, +p. 61.) Iloilo did not surrender to the insurgents until the day +before Christmas. But let us not anticipate. + +December 13th, General Otis received a petition for protection signed +by the business men and firms of Iloilo (p. 54), sent of course +with the approval of the general commanding the imperilled Spanish +garrison. December 14th, he wired Washington for instructions as +to what action he should take on this petition, saying, among other +things, "Spanish authorities are still holding out, but will receive +American troops"; and adding one of his inevitable notes of optimism as +to the tameness of Filipino aspirations (at Iloilo) for independence: +"Insurgents reported favorable to American annexation." + +General Otis knew the Spanish troops were hard pressed by the +insurgents down at Iloilo, and eagerly awaited a reply. President +McKinley was then away from Washington, on a southern trip, to Atlanta +and Macon, Georgia, and other points, and nobody at home was giving +any thought to the Filipinos, while they were knocking successively +at the gates of the various Visayan capitals, and receiving the +surrender of their Spanish defenders. It was getting toward the +yuletide season. President McKinley was engaged, quite seasonably, +in putting the finishing touches to the great work of his life, +which was welding the North and the South together forever by wise +and kindly manipulation of the countless opportunities to do so +presented by the latest war. It was a season of general peace and +rejoicing in a thrice-blessed land, and nobody in the United States +was looking for trouble with the Filipinos. With our people it was a +case of ignorance being bliss, so far as the Philippine Islands and +their inhabitants were concerned. In his Autobiography of Seventy +Years, Senator Hoar tells of an interview with President McKinley +concerning his (the Senator's) attitude toward the Treaty of Paris, +early in December, 1898. [156] "He greeted me with the delightful and +affectionate cordiality which I always found in him. He took me by the +hand, and said: 'How are you feeling this winter, Mr. Senator?' I was +determined there should be no misunderstanding. I replied at once: +'Pretty pugnacious, I confess, Mr. President.' The tears came into +his eyes and he said, grasping my hand again: 'I shall always love +you whatever you do.'" + +It behooves this nation, and all nations, to consider those +tears. They explain all the subsequent history of the Philippines +to date. Mr. McKinley had proved himself a gallant soldier in his +youth, and he knew something of the horrors of war. He was also +one of the most amiable gentlemen that ever lived. But it is no +disrespect to his memory to say that while Mr. McKinley was a good +man, Senator Hoar was his superior in moral fibre, and he knew it, +and he knew the country knew it. He knew that Senator Hoar was going +to fight the ratification of the treaty to the last ditch, speaking +for the Rights of Man and such old "worn out formulae," and that his +only defence before the bar of history would have to rest on "Trade +Expansion," alias the "Almighty Dollar." Those tears were harbingers +of the coming strife in the Philippines. They were shed for such lives +as that strife might cost. They were an assumption of responsibility +for such shedding of blood as the treaty might entail. The President +returned to Washington from his southern trip on December 21st, and +on December 23d (p. 55) cabled General Otis the following reply to +his request of December 14th for instructions: + + + Send necessary troops to Iloilo, to preserve the peace and protect + life and property. It is most important that there should be no + conflict with the insurgents. Be conciliatory but firm. + + +Senator Hoar had put Mr. McKinley on notice that he was going to +present the ethics of the case in the debate on the treaty. Congress +had gone home for the holidays, and after it re-assembled in January +the treaty would come up. The vote was sure to be close, and a too +vigorous manifestation of belief on the part of the Filipinos that +this nation was not closing the war with Spain animated by "the same +high rule of conduct which guided it in facing war" (Mr. McKinley's +instructions to the Peace Commissioners) might defeat the ratification +of the treaty. Indeed, the final vote of February 6th, was so +close that the Administration had but one vote to spare. The final +vote was fifty-seven to twenty-seven--just one over the necessary +two-thirds. The smoke of a battle to subjugate the Filipinos might +"dim the lustre and the moral strength," as Mr. McKinley had expressed +it in his instructions to the Peace Commissioners, of a war to free +the Cubans. Therefore there must be no trouble, at least until after +the ratification of the treaty. President McKinley had invented in +the case of Cuba a very catchy phrase, "Forcible annexation would be +criminal aggression," and every time anybody now quoted it on him +it tended to take the wind out of his sails. So benevolently eager +was that truly kind-hearted and Christian gentleman to avoid the +appearance of "criminal aggression" that he evidently got to thinking +about that telegram of December 23d in which he had authorized General +Otis to send troops to the relief of the beleaguered Spanish garrison +at Iloilo, and also about the message from Admiral Dewey received +November 18th previous, to the effect that the entire island of Panay +except Iloilo was then already in the hands of the insurgents. The +result was that he decided not to let his conciliatory proclamation +of December 21st await the slow process of the mails, and therefore, +though it consisted of something like one thousand words, he had it +cabled out to General Otis in full on December 27th. It is now here +reproduced in full because it precipitated the war in the Philippines, +and is the key to all our subsequent dealings with them [157]: + + + THE BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION PROCLAMATION + + Executive Mansion, Washington, + December 21, 1898. + + + The destruction of the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila + by the United States naval squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral + Dewey, followed by the reduction of the city and the surrender + of the Spanish forces, practically effected the conquest of the + Philippine Islands and the suspension of Spanish sovereignty + therein. With the signature of the treaty of peace between the + United States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries at + Paris on the 10th instant, and as a result of the victories of + American arms, the future control, disposition, and government + of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the United States. In + the fulfilment of the rights of sovereignty thus acquired and + the responsible obligations of government thus assumed, the + actual occupation and administration of the entire group of the + Philippine Islands becomes immediately necessary, and the military + government heretofore maintained by the United States in the city, + harbor, and bay of Manila is to be extended with all possible + despatch to the whole of the ceded territory. In performing this + duty the military commander of the United States is enjoined to + make known to the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands that in + succeeding to the sovereignty of Spain, in severing the former + political relations, and in establishing a new political power, the + authority of the United States is to be exerted for the securing + of the persons and property of the people of the islands and for + the confirmation of all their private rights and relations. It + will be the duty of the commander of the forces of occupation to + announce and proclaim in the most public manner that we come not + as invaders or conquerors, but as friends, to protect the natives + in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and + religious rights. All persons who, either by active aid or by + honest submission, co-operate with the Government of the United + States to give effect to these beneficent purposes will receive + the reward of its support and protection. All others will be + brought within the lawful rule we have assumed, with firmness + if need be, but without severity, so far as possible. Within the + absolute domain of military authority, which necessarily is and + must remain supreme in the ceded territory until the legislation + of the United States shall otherwise provide, the municipal laws + of the territory in respect to private rights and property and + the repression of crime are to be considered as continuing in + force, and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals, so far + as practicable. The operations of civil and municipal government + are to be performed by such officers as may accept the supremacy + of the United States by taking the oath of allegiance, or by + officers chosen, as far as practicable, from the inhabitants of + the islands. While the control of all the public property and + the revenues of the state passes with the cession, and while + the use and management of all public means of transportation + are necessarily reserved to the authority of the United States, + private property, whether belonging to individuals or corporations, + is to be respected except for cause duly established. The taxes + and duties heretofore payable by the inhabitants to the late + government become payable to the authorities of the United States + unless it be seen fit to substitute for them other reasonable rates + or modes of contribution to the expenses of government, whether + general or local. If private property be taken for military use, + it shall be paid for when possible in cash, at a fair valuation, + and when payment in cash is not practicable, receipts are to be + given. All ports and places in the Philippine Islands in the actual + possession of the land and naval forces of the United States will + be opened to the commerce of all friendly nations. All goods and + wares not prohibited for military reasons by due announcement + of the military authority will be admitted upon payment of such + duties and other charges as shall be in force at the time of their + importation. Finally, it should be the earnest wish and paramount + aim of the military administration to win the confidence, respect, + and affection of the inhabitants of the Philippines by assuring + them in every possible way that full measure of individual + rights and liberties which is the heritage of free peoples, and + by proving to them that the mission of the United States is one of + + BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION + + substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary + rule. In the fulfilment of this high mission, supporting the + temperate administration of affairs for the greatest good of the + governed, there must be sedulously maintained the strong arm of + authority, to repress disturbance and to overcome all obstacles + to the bestowal of the blessings of good and stable government + upon the people of the Philippine Islands under the free flag of + the United States. + + + William McKinley. + + +The words used in the foregoing proclamation which were regarded by +the Filipinos as "fighting words," i. e., as making certain the long +anticipated probability of a war for independence, are those which +appear in italics. The rest of the proclamation counted for nothing +with them. They had been used to the hollow rhetoric and flowery +promises of equally eloquent Spanish proclamations all their lives, +they and their fathers before them. + +In suing to President McKinley for peace on July 22d, previous, the +Prime Minister of Spain had justified all the atrocities committed +and permitted by his government in Cuba during the thirty years' +struggle for independence there which preceded the Spanish-American +War by saying that what Spain had done had been prompted only by a +"desire to spare the great island from the dangers of premature +independence." [158] + +Clearly, from the Filipino point of view, the United States was now +determined "to spare them from the dangers of premature independence," +using such force as might be necessary for the accomplishment of that +pious purpose. + +The truth is that, Prometheus-like, we stole the sacred fire from the +altar of Freedom whereupon the flames of the Spanish War were kindled, +and gave it to the Filipinos, justifying the means by the end; and +"the links of the lame Lemnian" have been festering in our flesh ever +since. The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation was a kind of Pandora +Box, supposed to contain all the blessings of Liberty, but when the +lid was taken off, woes innumerable befell the intended beneficiaries, +and left them only the Hope of Freedom--from us. Verily there is +nothing new under the sun. It is written: "Thou shalt not steal" +anything--not even "sacred fire." There is no such thing as nimble +morality. The lesson of the old Greek poet fits our case. So also, +indeed, do those of the modern sage, Maeterlinck, for the Filipinos +could have found their own Bluebird for happiness. The record of +our experience in the Philippines is full of reminders, which will +multiply as the years go by, that, after all, every people have an +"unalienable right" to pursue happiness in their own way as opposed to +somebody else's way. That is the law of God, as God gives me to see the +right. Conceived during the Christmas holiday season and in the spirit +of that blessed season and presented to the Filipino people on New +Year's Day, received by them practically as a declaration of war and +baptized in the blood of thousands of them in the battle of February +4th thereafter, the manner of the reception of this famous document, +the initial reversal and subsequent evolution of its policies, and +all the lights and shadows of Benevolent Assimilation will be traced +in the chapters which follow. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE ILOILO FIASCO + + The King of France with forty thousand men + Marched up the hill and then marched down again. + + Old English Ballad. + + +We have already seen how busily Aguinaldo occupied himself during +the protracted peace negotiations at Paris in getting his government +and people ready for the struggle for independence which he early and +shrewdly guessed would be ultimately forthcoming. General Otis was in +no position to preserve the status quo. The status quo was a worm in +hot ashes that would not stay still. The revolution was a snow-ball +that would roll. The day after Christmas, General Otis at last sent +an expedition under General Marcus P. Miller to the relief of Iloilo, +but when it arrived, December 28th, the Spaniards had already turned +the town over to the insurgent authorities, and sailed away. When +General Miller arrived, being under imperative orders from Washington +to be conciliatory, and under no circumstances to have a clash with +the insurgents, the Administration's most earnest solicitude being +to avoid a clash, at least until the treaty of peace with Spain +should be ratified by the United States Senate, he courteously asked +permission to land, several times, being refused each time. With +a request of this sort sent ashore January 1, 1899, he transmitted +a copy of the proclamation set forth in the preceding chapter. The +insurgent reply defiantly forbade him to land. Therefore he did not +land--because Washington was pulling the strings--until after the +treaty was ratified. "So here we are at Iloilo, an exploded bluff," +wrote war correspondent J. F. Bass to his paper, Harper's Weekly. + +By the time the treaty was ratified the battle of Manila of February +4th had occurred, and the pusillanimity of self-doubting diplomacy +had given way to the red honesty of war. [159] + +As was noticed in the chapter preceding this, by the end of December, +1898, all military stations outside Luzon, with the exception of +Zamboanga, in the extreme south of the great Mohammedan island of +Mindanao near Borneo, had been turned over by the Spaniards to the +insurgents. When General Miller, commanding the expedition to Iloilo, +arrived in the harbor of that city with his teeming troop-ships and +naval escorts on December 28th, an aide of the Filipino commanding +general came aboard the boat he was on and "desired to know," says +General Miller's report, [160] "if we had anything against them--were +we going to interfere with them." General Miller then sent some of +his own aides ashore with a letter to the insurgent authorities, +explaining the peaceful nature of his errand. They at once asked if +our people had brought down any instructions from Aguinaldo. Answering +in the negative, General Miller's aides handed them his olive-branch +letter. They read it and said they could do nothing without orders +from Aguinaldo "in cases affecting their Federal Government." The grim +veteran commanding the American troops smoked on this for a day or +so, and then asked a delegation of insurgents that were visiting his +ship by his invitation--they would not let him land, you see--whether +if he landed they would meet him with armed resistance. The Malay +reverence for the relation of host and guest resulted in an evasive +reply. They could not answer. But after they went back to the city +they did answer. And this is what they wrote: + + + Upon the return of your commissioners last night, we * * * + discussed the situation and attitude of this region of Bisayas in + regard to its relations and dependence upon the central government + of Luzon (the Aguinaldo government, of course); and * * * I have + the honor to notify you that, in conjunction with the people, + the army, and the committee, we insist upon our pretension not + to consent * * * to any foreign interference without express + orders from the central government of Luzon * * * with which we + are one in ideas, as we have been until now in sacrifices. * * * + If you insist * * * upon disembarking your forces, this is our + final attitude. May God forgive you, etc." + + Iloilo, December 30, 1898. [161] + + +This letter is recited in General Miller's report to be from "President +Lopez, of the Federal Government of Visayas." General Miller then +wrote Otis begging permission to attack on the ground that upon the +success of the expedition he was in charge of "depends the future +speedy yielding of insurrectionary movements in the islands." War +correspondent Bass, who was on the ground at the time, also wrote +his paper: "The effect on the natives will be incalculable all over +the islands." But General Otis was trying to help Mr. McKinley nurse +the treaty through the Senate on the idea that there weren't going to +be any "insurrectionary movements in the islands," that all dark and +misguided conspiracies of selfishly ambitious leaders looking to such +impious ends would fade before the sunlight of Benevolent Assimilation. + +Cautioning Otis against any clash at Iloilo, Mr. McKinley wired January +9th: "Conflict would be most unfortunate, considering the present. +* * * Time given the insurgents cannot injure us, and must weaken and +discourage them. They will see our benevolent purpose, etc." [162] + +The Iloilo fiasco did indeed furnish to the insurgent cause aid and +comfort at the psychologic moment when it most needed encouragement to +bring things to a head. It presented a spectacle of vacillation and +seeming cowardice which heartened the timid among the insurgents and +started among them a general eagerness for war which had been lacking +before. In one of his bulletins [163] to Otis, General Miller tells of +two boats' crews of the 51st Iowa landing on January 5th, and being met +by a force of armed natives who "asked them their business and warned +them off," whereupon they heeded the warning and returned to their +transport. This regiment had then been cooped up on their transport +continuously since leaving San Francisco November 3d, previous, +sixty-three days. They were kept lying off Iloilo until January 29th, +and then brought back to Manila and landed, after eighty-nine days +aboard ship, all idea of taking Iloilo before the Senate should act +having been abandoned. + +The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation was received by cable in +cipher, at Manila, December 29th, and as soon as it had been written +out in long hand General Otis hurried a copy down to General Miller +at Iloilo by a ship sailing that day, so that General Miller might +"understand the position and policy of our government." But he +forgot to tell Miller to conceal the policy for the present. [164] +So the latter, on January 1st, not only sent a copy of it to the +"President of the Federal Government of Visayas," Mr. Lopez, [165] +but in the note of transmittal he "asked," says his report, "that they +permit the entry of my troops." [166] What a fatal mistake! Here was +a proclamation representing all the "majesty, dominion, and power" of +the American Government, signed by the President of the United States, +in terms asserting immediate, absolute, and supreme authority, and the +natives were "asked" if they would "permit" its enforcement. General +Miller's report says that he also had the proclamation "translated +into Spanish and distributed to the people." [167] "The people laugh +at it," he says. "The insurgents call us cowards and are fortifying +at the point of the peninsula, and are mounting old smooth-bore +guns left by the Spaniards. They are intrenching everywhere, +are bent on having one fight, and are confident of victory. The +longer we wait before the attack the harder it will be to put down +the insurrection." This is especially interesting in the light of +President McKinley's justification of the wisdom of temporizing--on +the idea that delay would weaken the insurgents and could not hurt +us. "Let no one convince you," writes Miller to Otis on January 5th, +"that peaceful means can settle the difficulty here." + +The appeal to Otis to permit commencement of operations was without +avail. Otis was the Manila agent of the Aldrich Old Guard in the +Senate, in charge of the pending treaty. He would simply send the +disgusted Miller messages not to be hasty, assuring him that the +firing of a shot at Iloilo would mean the precipitation of general +conflict about Manila and all over the place, and that this would +be "most disappointing to the President of the United States, who +continually urges extreme caution and no conflict." [168] + +The Administration was counting senatorial noses at the time, and +that its anxiety was justified is apparent from the fact already +noted, that on the final vote whereby the treaty was ratified it had +but one vote to spare. So General Miller sat sunning himself on the +deck of his transport, and watching the insurgents working like ants +at their fortifications, and vainly wishing his 2500 men could get +ashore at least long enough to stretch themselves a bit. John F. Bass, +correspondent for Harper's Weekly, left Iloilo, returned to Manila, +and wrote his paper on January 23d: "I returned to Manila well knowing +that there was nothing more to be done in Iloilo until the Senate +voted on the Treaty of Peace." + +On the eighth day after General Miller had asked permission of the +Iloilo village Hampdens to enforce the orders of the President of +the United States, the "Federal Government of the Visayas," through +its President, Senor Lopez, finally deigned to notice Mr. McKinley's +proclamation. It said under date of January 9th: + + + General: We have the high honor of having received your message, + dated January 1st, of this year, enclosing letter of President + McKinley. You say in one clause of your message: "As indicated in + the President's cablegram, under these conditions the inhabitants + of the island of Panay ought to obey the political authority of the + United States, and they will incur a grave responsibility if, after + deliberating, they decide to resist said authority." So the council + of state of this region of Visayas are, at this present moment, + between the authority of the United States, that you try to impose + on us, and the authority of the central government of Malolos. + + +Then follows this remarkable statement of the case for the Filipinos: + + + The supposed authority of the United States began with the + Treaty of Paris, on the 10th of December, 1898. The authority of + the Central Government of Malolos is founded in the sacred and + natural bonds of blood, language, uses, customs, ideas, (and) + sacrifices. [169] + + +General Otis was fond of throwing cold water on any particularly +eloquent Filipino insurrecto document he had occasion to put in +his reports by saying that Mabini was "the brains of" the Malolos +Government--meaning the only brains it had [170]--and that he probably +wrote such document, whatever it might be. But here is a piece of +real eloquence, originating away down in the Visayan Islands, as +far away from Malolos as Colonel Stark and his "Green Mountain Boys" +were from Washington and Hamilton in 1776 and after. What then is the +explanation of composition so forceful in its impassioned simplicity, +and in the light of subsequent events, so pathetic? There is but +one explanation. It came from the heart. It was the cry of the Soul +of Humanity seeking its natural affiliations. It was the language +of what Aguinaldo's early state papers always used to call the +"legitimate aspirations of" his people--legitimate aspirations which +we later strangled. The reason of the writer's earnestness is that a +few months later he helped do some of the strangling. Thirteen years +afterwards, a thorough acquaintance with the Filipino side of the +matter, derived from an examination of the information which has been +gradually accumulated and published by our government during that time, +causes him to say, "Father forgive me, for I knew not what I did." The +35,000 volunteers of 1899 knew nothing about the Filipinos or their +side of the case. We were like the deputy sheriff who goes out with +a warrant duly issued to arrest a man charged with unlawful breach +of the peace. It is not his business to inquire whether the man is +guilty or not. If the man resists arrest, he takes the consequences. + +On the second day after the above defiance of the President of the +United States was served up to General Miller, that gallant officer +having dutifully swallowed it, sent an officer ashore on a diplomatic +mission. The name and rank of this military ambassador were Acting +Assistant Surgeon Henry DuR. Phelan, who clearly appears to have been +a man of keen insight and considerable ability. His written report +to General Miller of what transpired is a document of permanent +interest and importance to the annals of men's struggles for free +institutions. [171] It states that at the meeting the spokesman +of the Filipinos, Attorney Raimundo Melliza, began by saying that +"all the Americans owned was Manila." That was unquestionably true, +so our ambassador, it seems, did not gainsay it. Dr. Phelan suggested +that the Americans had sacrificed lives and money in destroying the +power of Spain. The spokesman, Attorney Melliza, replied that "they +also had made great sacrifice in lives, and that they had a right to +their country which they had fought for, and that we are here now to +take from them what they had won by fighting; that they had been our +allies, and we had used them as such." Dr. Phelan's report goes on to +say: "I replied that military occupation was a necessity for a time, +* * * and that as soon as order was assured it would be withdrawn +* * *. They smiled at this." Well they might. Fourteen years have +elapsed since then, and the law-making power of the United States has +never yet declared whether the American occupation of the Philippine +Islands is to be temporary, like our occupation of Cuba was, or +permanent, like the British occupation of Egypt is. True, Dr. Phelan +said "military" occupation, but the smile was provoked by the +suggestion of temporariness. After the committee smiled, they remarked: + + + We have fought for independence and feel that we have the power + of governing and need no assistance. We are showing it now. You + might inquire of the foreigners if it is not so. + + +Dr. Phelan's report proceeds: + + + They stated that their orders were not to allow us to disembark, + and that they were powerless to allow us to come in without + express orders from their government. + + +In regard to the Treaty of Paris, the spokesman, Lawyer Melliza, said: + + + International law forbids a nation to make a contract in regard + to taking the liberties of its colonies. + + +Lawyer Melliza was wrong. If he had said "the law of righteousness," +instead of "international law," his proposition, thus amended, would +have been incontrovertible. On September 19, 1911, one of the great +newspapers of this country, the Denver Post, sent out to the members +of the Congress of the United States, and to "The Fourth Estate" also, +the newspaper editors, a circular letter proposing that we sell the +Philippine Islands to Japan. A member of the United States Senate +sent this answer: + + + I do not favor your proposition. Selling the Islands means selling + the inhabitants. The question of traffic in human beings, whether + by wholesale or retail, was forever settled by the Civil War. + + +About the same time a leading daily paper of Georgia had an editorial +on the Denver Post's proposition, the most conspicuous feature of +which was that Japan was too poor to pay us well, should we contemplate +selling the Filipinos to her, so it was no use to discuss the matter +at length. + +No; Lawyer Melliza's proposition has no standing in international +law yet. But it has with what Mr. Lincoln's First Inaugural called +"the better angels of our nature," if we stop to reflect. + +Another interesting feature of the Phelan report to General Miller +is the following: + + + I asked Lawyer Melliza if Aguinaldo said we could occupy the + city would they agree to it. He replied most emphatically that + they would. + + +At that time, in January, 1899, while the debate on the treaty was +in progress in the United States Senate, there was hardly a province +in that archipelago where you would not have encountered the same +inflexible adherence to the Aguinaldo government. + +Dr. Phelan's report closes thus: + + + At the conclusion of the meeting it was said that as this question + involved the integrity of the entire republic, it could not + be further discussed here, but must be referred to the Malolos + Government. + + +There is one other statement made by the spokesman of the Filipinos, +at their meeting with Dr. Phelan, which arrested and gripped my +attention. That it may interest the reader as it did me, it will need +but a word or so as preface. In the fall of that same year, 1899, +when my regiment, the 29th Infantry, U. S. Volunteers, reached the +Islands, it was supposed that the insurrection had about played out, +i.e., that it had been "beaten to a frazzle," because the Filipinos no +longer offered to do battle in force in the open. Yet all that fall, +and all through 1900 and after, a most obstinate guerrilla warfare +was kept up. Anywhere in the archipelago you were liable to be fired +on from ambush. At first we could not understand this. Later we found +out it was the result of an order of Aguinaldo's, faithfully carried +out, not to assemble in large commands, but to conduct a systematic +guerrilla warfare indefinitely. We learned this by capturing a copy +of the order, which was quite elaborate. Dr. Phelan's report says: + + + I told him [Melliza] that the city was in our power, and that we + could destroy it at any time * * *. Lawyer Melliza replied that + he cared nothing about the city; that we could destroy it if we + wished * * *. "We will withdraw to the mountains and repeat the + North American Indian warfare. You must not forget that." + + +Later, they did. + +On January 15th, General Otis wrote General Miller [172] again +cautioning him against any clash at Iloilo, and saying of conditions +at Manila and Malolos: "The revolutionary government is very anxious +for peaceful relations." + +Three days later Senator Bacon saw the situation with clearer vision +from the other side of the world than General Otis could see it +under his nose, and said on the floor of the Senate on January 18th +concerning the conditions at Manila and Malolos: + + + While there is no declaration of war, while there is no avowal + of hostile intent, with two such armies fronting each other with + such divers intents and resolves, it will take but a spark to + ignite the magazines which is to explode. [173] + + +The spark was ignited on February 4, 1899, by a sentinel of the +Nebraska regiment firing on some Filipino soldiers who disregarded +his challenge to halt, and killing one of them. War once on, General +Miller was directed on February 10th, after he had lain in Iloilo +harbor for forty-four days, to take the city. So at last he gave +written notice to the insurgents in Iloilo demanding the surrender +of the city and garrison "before sunset Saturday, the 11th instant" +and requesting them to give warning to all non-combatants. [174] +Thereupon the insurgents set fire to the city and departed. + + + + + + +CHAPTER X + +OTIS AND AGUINALDO (Continued) + + A word spoken in due season, how good is it! + + Proverbs xv., 23. + + +In the last chapter we saw the debut of the Benevolent Assimilation +programme at Iloilo. We are now to observe it at Manila. General Otis +says in his report for 1899 [175]: + + + After fully considering the President's proclamation and the + temper of the Tagalos with whom I was daily discussing political + problems and the friendly intentions of the United States + Government toward them, I concluded that there were certain + words and expressions therein, such as "sovereignty," "right of + cession," and those which directed immediate occupation, etc., + * * * which might be advantageously used by the Tagalo war party to + incite widespread hostilities among the natives. * * * It was my + opinion, therefore, that I would be justified in so amending the + paper that the beneficent object of the United States Government + would be clearly brought within the comprehension of the people. + + +Accordingly, he published a proclamation as indicated, on January 4th, +at Manila. In a less formal communication concerning this proclamation, +viz., a letter to General Miller at Iloilo, General Otis comes to +the point more quickly thus: + + + After some deliberation we put out one of our own which it was + believed would suit the temper of the people. [176] + + +The only thing in the Otis proclamation specifically directed toward +soothing "the temper of the people" was a hint that the United +States would, under the government it was going to impose, "appoint +the representative men now forming the controlling element of the +Filipinos to civil positions of responsibility and trust" (p. 69). And +this, far from soothing Filipino temper, was interpreted as an offer +of a bribe if they would desert the cause of their country. The bona +fides of the offer they did not doubt for a moment. In fact it caught +a number of the more timid prominent men, especially the elderly ones +of the ultraconservative element preferring submission to strife. But +the younger and bolder spirits were faithful, many of them unto death, +and all of them unto many battles and much "hiking." [177] + +General Otis's report goes on to tell how, about the middle of January, +after he had published his sugar-coated edition of the presidential +proclamation at Manila, it then at last occurred to him that General +Miller might have published the original text of it in full at Iloilo, +and, "fearing that," says he, "I again despatched Lieut. Col. Potter to +Iloilo"--evidently post-haste. But it appears that when the breathless +Potter arrived, the lid was already off. The horse had left the stable +and the door was open, as we saw in the preceding chapter. However, +as the Otis report indicates in this connection (p. 67), copies of +the original McKinley proclamation, as published in full at Iloilo by +General Miller, were of course promptly forwarded by the insurgents at +Iloilo to the insurgent government at Malolos. So all that General Otis +got for his pains was detection in the attempt to conceal the crucial +words asserting American sovereignty in plain English. He tells us +himself that as soon as the Malolos people discovered the trick, "it +[the proclamation] became"--in the light of the Otis doctoring--"the +object of venomous attack." His report was of course written long after +all these matters occurred, but its language shows a total failure +on the part of its author, even then, to understand the cause of the +bitterness he denominates "venom." This bitterness grew naturally +out of what seemed to the Filipinos an evident purpose of the United +States to take and keep the Islands and an accompanying unwillingness +to acknowledge that purpose, as shown by the conspicuous discrepancies +between the original text of the proclamation as published at Iloilo +by General Miller, on January 1st, and the modified version of it +given out by General Otis at Manila on January 4th. "The ablest of +the insurgent newspapers," says he (p. 69), "which was now issued +at Malolos and edited by the uncompromising Luna * * * attacked the +policy * * * as declared in the proclamation, and its assumption of +sovereignty * * * with all the vigor of which he was capable." The +nature of Editor Luna's philippics is not described by General Otis +in detail, the only specific notion we get of them being from General +Otis's echo of their tone, which, he tells us, was to the effect that +"everything tended simply to a change of masters." But in another part +of the Otis Report (p. 163) we find an epistle written about that +time by one partisan of the revolution to another, whose key-note, +given in the following extracts, was doubtless in harmony with the +Luna editorials: + + + We shall not have them (Filipinos enough to conduct a decent + government) in 10, 20, or a 100 years, because the Yankees + will never acknowledge the aptitude of an "inferior" race to + govern the country. Do not dream that when American sovereignty + is implanted in the country the American office-holders will + give up. Never! If * * * it depends upon them to say whether the + Filipinos have sufficient men for the government of the country + * * * they will never say it." + + +Is not the American who pretends that he would have done anything but +just what the Filipinos did, had he been in their place, i.e., fought +to the last ditch for the independence of his country, the rankest +sort of a hypocrite? General Otis was a soldier, and his views may +have been honestly colored by his environment. But how at this late +date can any fair-minded man read the above extracts illustrative +of the temper in which the Filipinos went to war with us without +acknowledging the righteousness of the motives which impelled them? + +Aguinaldo promptly met General Otis's proclamation of January 4th +by a counter-proclamation put out the very next day, in which he +indignantly protested against the United States assuming sovereignty +over the Islands. "Even the women," says General Otis (p. 70), "in a +document numerously signed by them, gave me to understand that after +the men were all killed off they were prepared to shed their patriotic +blood for the liberty and independence of their country." General +Otis actually intended this last as a sly touch of humor. But when +we recollect Mr. Millet's description (Chapter IV. ante) of the women +coming to the trenches and cooking rice for the men while the Filipinos +were slowly drawing their cordon ever closer about the doomed Spanish +garrison of Manila in July and August previous, fighting their way over +the ground between them and the besieged main body of their ancient +enemies inch by inch, while Admiral Dewey blockaded them by sea, +General Otis's sly touch of humor loses some of its slyness. "The +insurgent army also," he says (p. 70), "was especially affected * * * +and only awaited an opportunity to demonstrate its invincibility +in war with the United States troops * * * whom it had commenced to +insult and charge with cowardice." + +The benighted condition of the insurgents in this regard was directly +traceable to the Iloilo fiasco. It was that, principally, which made +the insurgents so foolishly over-confident and the subsequent slaughter +of them so tremendous. Further on in his report General Otis says, with +perceptible petulance, in summing up his case against the Filipinos: + + + The pretext that the United States was about to substitute itself + for Spain * * * was resorted to and had its effect on the ignorant + masses. + + +Speaking of his own modified version of the Benevolent Assimilation +Proclamation, General Otis says (p. 76): + + + No sooner was it published than it brought out a virtual + declaration of war from, in this instance at least, the wretchedly + advised President Aguinaldo, who, on January 5th, issued the + following + + +--giving the reply proclamation in full. No man can read the Otis +report itself without feeling that if he, the reader, had been playing +Aguinaldo's hand he would have played it exactly as Aguinaldo did. To +General Otis the government at Malolos--"their Malolos arrangement," he +used to call it--seemed quite an impudent little opera-bouffe affair, +"a tin-horn government," as Senator Spooner suggested in the same +debate on the treaty, in which he called his rugged and fiery friend +from South Carolina, Senator Tillman, "the Senator from Aguinaldo," +and immediately thereafter, with that engaging frankness that always so +endeared him to his colleagues on both sides of the Chamber, removed +the sting from the jest by admitting that neither he (Spooner), +nor Tillman, nor anybody else in the United States, knew anything +about Aguinaldo or his government. But in the calmer retrospect of +many years after, we have seen, through the official documents which +have become available in the interval, that said government was in +complete and effective control of practically the whole archipelago, +and had the moral support of the whole population at a time when our +troops controlled absolutely nothing but the two towns of Manila and +Cavite. Therefore, when we read in the Aguinaldo proclamation such +phrases as, "In view of this, I summoned a council of my generals and +asked the advice of my cabinet, and in conformity with the opinion of +both bodies I" did so and so; "My government cannot remain indifferent +to" this or that act of the Americans assuming sovereignty over the +islands; "Thus it is that my government is disposed to open hostilities +if" etc.; they do not sound to us so irritatingly bombastic as they +did to General Otis, distributed under his nose as the proclamation +containing them at once was, by thousands, throughout a city of which +he was nominally in possession, but nine-tenths of whose 300,000 +inhabitants he was obliged to believe in sympathy with the insurgents. + +"My government," says the Aguinaldo proclamation, "rules the whole +of Luzon, the Visayan Islands, and a part of Mindanao." Except as to +Mindanao, which cut absolutely no figure in the insurrection until well +toward the end of the guerrilla part of it, we have already examined +this claim and found by careful analysis that it was absolutely true +by the end of December, 1898. + +After a rapid review of how he had been aided and encouraged in +starting the revolution against the Spaniards by Admiral Dewey, and +then given the cold shoulder by the army when it came, Aguinaldo's +manifesto says: + + + It was also taken for granted that the American forces would + necessarily sympathize with the revolution which they had managed + to encourage, and which had saved them much blood and great + hardships; and, above all, we entertained absolute confidence + in the history and traditions of a people which fought for its + independence and for the abolition of slavery, and which posed as + the champion and liberator of oppressed peoples. We felt ourselves + under the safeguard of a free people. + + +That this statement also was authorized by the facts is evident from +the minutes of the Hong Kong meeting of May 4th, already noticed, +presided over by Aguinaldo, and called to formulate the programme +for the insurrection he was about to sail for the Philippines to +inaugurate, in which, after much discussion among the revolutionary +leaders it was agreed that while they must be prepared for all possible +contingencies, yet, + + + if Washington proposes to carry out the fundamental principles + of its constitution, it is most improbable that an attempt will + be made to colonize the Filipinos or annex them. [178] + + +In short, the Aguinaldo proclamation of January 5th suggests with +a briefness which Filipino familiarity with the great mass of +facts already laid before the reader in the preceding chapters made +appropriate, all the causes for which the Malolos Government was ready, +if need be, to declare war, and winds up by boldly serving General +Otis with notice that if the Americans try to take Iloilo and the +Visayan Islands "my government is disposed to open hostilities." + +On January 9th President McKinley cabled out to General Otis asking +if it would help matters to send a commission out to explain to +the Filipinos our benevolent intentions. This idea thus suggested +materialized, a few weeks later, in the Schurman Commission, of which +more anon. The next day, January 10th, General Otis answered endorsing +the sending of "commissioners of tact and discretion," and adding: [178] + + + Great difficulty is that leaders cannot control ignorant + classes. [179] + + +As a matter of fact the leaders were leading. They were not arguing +with the tide. They were merely riding the crest of it. Actually, +General Otis would have stopped "The Six Hundred Marseillaise Who +Knew How to Die"--the ones whose march to Paris, according to Thomas +Carlyle, inspired the composition of the French national air, "The +Marseillaise"--and tried to parley with the head of the column on the +idea of getting them to abandon their enterprise and disperse to their +several homes. He also says, in the cablegram under consideration: + + + If peace kept for several days more immediate danger will have + passed. + + +In other words, he was holding off the calf as best he could pending +the ratification of the treaty. From the text itself, however, of +General Otis's report, it is clear enough, that even he was getting +anxious to give the Filipinos a drubbing as soon as the treaty should +be safely passed. Referring to a message from the President enjoining +avoidance of a clash with the Filipinos he says (p. 80): + + + The injunction of his Excellency the President of the United + States to exert ourselves to preserve the peace had an excellent + effect upon the command. Officers and men * * * were restless + under the restraints * * * imposed, and * * * eager to avenge the + insults received. Now they submit very quietly to the taunts and + aggressive demonstrations of the insurgent army who continue to + throng the streets of the business portion of the city. + + +See the lamb kick the lion viciously in the face, and observe the +lion as he first lifts his eyes heavenward and says meekly: "Thy +will be done. This is Benevolent Assimilation"; and then turns them +Senate-ward and murmurs: "I cannot stand this much longer, kind +sirs. Say when!" The way war correspondent John F. Bass puts the +situation about this time in a letter to his paper, Harper's Weekly, +was this: + + + Jimmie Green [180] bites his lip, hangs on to himself, and finds + comfort in the idea that his time will come. + + +After Aguinaldo's ultimatum of January 5th about fighting if we took +Iloilo, General Otis refrained from taking Iloilo, and continued to +communicate with the insurgent chieftain, appointing commissioners +to meet commissioners appointed by him. These held divers and sundry +sessions, whose only result was to kill time, or at least to mark +time, while the Administration was getting the treaty through the +Senate. The object of these meetings is thus set forth in the military +order of January 9, 1899, appointing the Otis portion of the Joint +High Parleying Board: + + + To meet a commission of like number appointed by General Aguinaldo, + and to confer with regard to the situation of affairs and to arrive + at a mutual understanding of the intent, purposes, aim, and desires + of the Filipino people and the people of the United States, that + peace and harmonious relations between these respective peoples + may be continued. [181] + + +The minutes of the first meeting of this board, prepared by the +Spanish-speaking clerk or recorder, recite the above declared +purpose verbatim, in all its verbosity, and then go on to say that +our side asked + + + That the commissioners appointed by General Aguinaldo give + their opinion as to what were the purposes, aspirations, aims, + and desires of the people of the archipelago. + + +The next paragraph is almost Pickwickian in its unconscious terseness: + + + To this request the commissioners appointed by General Aguinaldo + made response that in their opinion the aspirations, purposes, + and desires of the Philippine people might be summed up in two + words "Absolute Independence." + + +Of course even General Otis does not reproduce this laconic answer +as part of his petulant summing up of how little the Filipinos knew, +before the outbreak of February 4th, as to what they really wanted. He +merely alludes to it as being of record elsewhere. It is one oL +the various pieces of jetsam and flotsam that have floated from the +sea of those great events to the shores of government publications +since. The minutes of these meetings may be found among the hearings +before the Senate Committee of 1902. [182] + +General Otis's report complains that Aguinaldo's commissioners did not +know what they wanted, "could not give any satisfactory explanation" +of the "measure of protection" they wanted, they having declared +that they would greatly prefer the United States to establish a +protectorate over them to keep them from being annexed by some other +power. But he fails to state, which is a fact shown by the minutes of +the meeting of January 14 (p. 2721), that the Filipino commissioners +did say that this was a question which would only be reached between +their government and ours when the latter should agree to officially +recognize the former. To quote their exact language, which is rather +clumsily translated, they said: "The aspiration of the Filipino +people is the independence with the restrictions resulting from the +conditions which its government may agree with the American, when +the latter agree to officially recognize the former." + +It is perfectly clear from the voluminous minutes of the proceedings +that the Filipinos were only seeking some declaration of the purpose +of our government which would satisfy their people that the programme +was something more than a mere change of masters. "They begged," +says General Otis (p. 82), "for some tangible concession from the +United States Government--one which they could present to the people +and which might serve to allay excitement." General Otis of course had +no authority to bind the government and so could make no promise. But +the day this Otis-Aguinaldo parleying board had its second meeting, +January 11th, and probably with no more knowledge of its existence +than the reader has of what is going on in the Fiji Islands at the +moment he reads these lines, Senator Bacon introduced in the United +States Senate some resolutions which were precisely the medicine the +case required and precisely the thing the Filipinos were pleading +for. These resolutions concluded thus: + + + That the United States hereby disclaim any disposition or + intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over + said islands except for the pacification thereof, and assert their + determination when an independent government shall have been duly + erected therein entitled to recognition as such, to transfer to + said government, upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, + all rights secured under the cession by Spain, and to thereupon + leave the government and control of the islands to their people. + + +They were a twin brother to the Teller Cuban resolution which was +incorporated into the resolution declaring war against Spain, being +verbatim the same, except with the necessary changes of name, of +"islands" for "island," etc. + +On January 18th, while the futile parleying board aforesaid was still +futilely parleying at Manila, Senator Bacon made an argument in the +Senate in support of his resolution, whose far-sighted statesmanship, +considered in relation to the analogies of its historic setting, +most strikingly reminds us of Burke's great speech on conciliation +with America delivered under similar circumstances nearly a century +and a quarter earlier. After alluding to the naturalness of the +apprehension of the Filipinos "that it is the purpose of the United +States Government to maintain permanent dominion over them," [183] +Senator Bacon urged: + + + The fundamental requirement in these resolutions is that the + Government of the United States will not undertake to exercise + permanent dominion over the Philippine Islands. The resolutions + are intentionally made broad, so that those who agree on that + fundamental proposition may stand upon them even though they + may differ materially as to a great many other things relative + to the future course of the government in connection with the + Philippine Islands. + + +Senator Bacon then quoted the following from some remarks Senator +Foraker had previously made in the course of the great debate on +the treaty: + + + I do not understand anybody to be proposing to take the Philippine + Islands with the idea and view of permanently holding them. + * * * The President of the United States does not, I know, and no + Senator in this chamber has made any such statement; + + +and added: + + + If the views expressed by the learned Senator from Ohio in + his speech * * * are those upon which we are to act, there is + very little difference between us; and there will be no future + contention between us * * * if we can have an authoritative + expression from The Law-Making Power of the United States in a + joint resolution that such is the purpose of the future. [184] + + +Says the Holy Scripture: "A word spoken in season, how good is it!" +Had the Bacon resolutions passed the United States Senate in January, +1899, we never would have had any war with the Filipinos. [185] +They would have presented at the psychologic moment the very thing +the best and bravest of the Filipino leaders were then pleading +with General Otis for, something "tangible," something "which they +could present to their people and which would allay excitement," +by allaying the universal fear that we were going to do with them +exactly as all other white men they had ever heard of had done with +all other brown men they had ever heard of under like circumstances, +viz., keep them under permanent dominion with a view of profit. + +In his letter accepting the nomination for the Presidency in 1900, +Mr. McKinley sought to show the Filipinos to have been the aggressors +in the war by a reference to the fact that the outbreak occurred +while the Bacon resolution was under discussion in the Senate. This +hardly came with good grace from an Administration whose friends in +the Senate had all along opposed not only the Bacon resolution but +also all other resolutions frankly declaratory of the purpose of our +government. The supreme need of the hour then was, and the supreme +need of every hour of every day we have been in the Philippines since +has been, "an authoritative expression from the law-making power of +the United States"--not mere surmises of a President, confessedly +devoid of binding force, but an authoritative expression from the +law-making power, declaratory of the purpose of our government with +regard to the Philippine Islands. Secretary of War Taft visited Manila +in 1907 to be present at the opening of the Philippine Assembly. In +view of the universal longing which he knew existed for some definite +authoritative declaration as to whether our government intends to +keep the Islands permanently or not, he said: + + + I cannot speak with authority * * *. The policy to be pursued + with respect to them is, therefore, ultimately for Congress to + determine. * * * I have no authority to speak for Congress in + respect to the ultimate disposition of the Islands. [186] + + +This bitter disappointment of the public expectation and hope +of something definite, certainly did not lessen the belief of +the Filipinos that we have no notion of ever giving them their +independence. Had the Senate known what the Filipino commissioners +were so earnestly asking of the Otis commissioners in January, +1899, the Bacon resolution would probably have passed. In fact it +is demonstrable almost mathematically that, had the Administration's +friends in the Senate allowed that resolution to come to a vote before +the outbreak of February 4th, instead of filibustering against it until +after that event, it would have passed. As stated in the foot-note, the +roll-call on the final vote on it, which was not taken until February +14th, showed a tie--29 to 29, the Vice-President of the United States +casting the deciding vote which defeated it. Much dealing with real +life and real death has blunted my artistic sensibilities to thrills +from the mere pantomime of the stage. But as here was a vote where, +had a single Senator who voted No voted Aye, some 300,000,000 of +dollars, over a thousand lives of American soldiers killed in battle, +some 16,000 lives of Filipino soldiers killed in battle, and possibly +100,000 Filipino lives snuffed out through famine, pestilence, and +other ills consequent on the war, would have been saved, I can not +refrain from reproducing the vote--perhaps the most uniquely momentous +single roll-call in the parliamentary history of Christendom [187]: + + +Ayes + + Bacon Jones of Nevada + Bate Lindsay + Berry McLaurin + Caffery Martin + Chilton Money + Clay Murphy + Cockrell Perkins + Faulkner Pettigrew + Gorman Pettus + Gray Quay + Hale Rawlins + Harris Smith + Heitfield Tillman + Hoar Turner + Jones of Arkansas + + +Nays + + Allison Mantle + Burrows Morgan + Carter Nelson + Chandler Penrose + Deboe Platt of Connecticut + Fairbanks Platt of New York + Frye Pritchard + Gear Ross + Hanna Shoup + Hawley Simon + Kyle Stewart + Lodge Teller + McBride Warren + McEnery Wolcott + McMillan + + +In January, 1899, the out-and-out land-grabbers had not yet made bold +to show their hand, the friends of the treaty confining themselves +to the alleged shame of doing as we had done with Cuba, on account +of the supposed semi-barbarous condition of "the various tribes out +there," leaving the possibility of profit to quietly suggest itself +amid the noisy exhortations of altruism. It was not until after the +milk of human kindness had been spilled in war that Senator Lodge +said at the Philadelphia National Republican Convention of 1900: + + + We make no hypocritical pretence of being interested in the + Philippines solely on account of others. We believe in Trade + Expansion. + + +Speaking (p. 82) of the meetings of what for lack of a better term +I have above called the Otis-Aguinaldo Joint High Parleying Board, +General Otis says in his report: + + + Finally, the conferences became the object of insurgent suspicion, + * * * and * * * amusement. + + +The Filipino newspapers called attention to the fact that large +reinforcements of American troops were on the way to Manila, and very +plausibly inferred that the parleying was for delay only. By January +26th the politeness of both the American and the Filipino commissioners +had been worn to a frazzle, and they adjourned, each recognizing that +the differences between them could ultimately be settled only on the +field of battle, in the event of the ratification of the treaty. + +January 27th, General Otis cabled to Washington a letter from +Aguinaldo, of which he says in his report: "I was surprised * * * +because of the boldness with which he therein indicated his purpose +to continue his assumptions and establish their correctness by the +arbitrament of war" (p. 84). General Otis was "surprised" to the +last. Aguinaldo's letter is not at all surprising, though extremely +interesting. It sends General Otis a proclamation issued January 21st, +announcing the publication of a constitution modelled substantially +after that of the United States, even beginning with the familiar +words about "securing the blessings of liberty, promoting the general +welfare," etc., and concludes with an expression of confident hope that +the United States will recognize his government, and a bold implication +of determination to fight if it does not. On the evening of February +4th an insurgent soldier approaching an American picket failed to +halt or answer when challenged, and was shot and killed. Nearly +six months of nervous tension thereupon pressed for liberation in +a general engagement which continued throughout the night and until +toward sundown of the next day, thus finally unleashing the dogs of +war. In the Washington Post of February 6, 1899, Senator Bacon is +quoted as saying: + + + I will cheerfully vote all the money that may be necessary to + carry on the war in the Philippines, but I still maintain that we + could have avoided a conflict with those people had the Senate + adopted my resolution, or a similar resolution announcing our + honest intentions with regard to the Philippines. + + +Said the New York Criterion of February 11, 1899: + + + Whether we like it or not, we must go on slaughtering the natives + in the English fashion, and taking what muddy glory lies in this + wholesale killing until they have learned to respect our arms. The + more difficult task of getting them to respect our intentions + will follow. + + +The Washington Post of February 6, 1899, may not have quoted Senator +Bacon with exactitude. But what the Senator did say on the floor of +the Senate is important, historically. Under date of February 22, +1912, Senator Bacon writes me, in answer to an inquiry: + + + I enclose a speech made by me upon the subject in the Senate + February 27, 1899, and upon pages 6, 7, and 8 of which you will + find a statement of my position, and the reasons given by me + therefor. Of course you cannot go at length into that question + in your narration of the events of that day, but my position was + that, while I did not approve of the war, and did not approve + of the enslavement of the Filipinos, and while if I had my way I + would immediately set them free, at the same time, as war was then + flagrant, and there were then some twenty odd thousand American + troops in the Philippine Islands, we must either support them or + leave them to defeat and death. I do not know how far you can use + anything then said by me, but if you make allusion to the fact + that I was willing to supply money and troops to carry on the war + in the Philippines, I would be glad for it to be accompanied by a + very brief statement of the ground upon which I based such action. + + +The above makes it unnecessary to quote at length from the speech +referred to, which may be found at pp. 2456 et seq of the Congressional +Record for February 27, 1899. However, there is one passage in the +speech to which I especially say Amen, and invite all whose creed of +patriotism is not too sublimated for such a common feeling to join +me in so doing. Senator Bacon will now state the creed: + + + The oft-repeated expression "our country, right or wrong" has a + vital principle in it, and upon that principle I stand. + + +The Senator immediately follows his creed with these commentaries: + + + In this annexation of the Philippine Islands through the + ratification of the treaty, and in waging war to subjugate the + Filipinos, I think the country, acting through constitutional + authorities, is wrong. But it is not for me to say because the + country has been committed to a policy that I do not favor and + have opposed, in consequence of which there is war, that I will + not support the government. + + +Under the civilizing influence of Krag-Jorgensen rifles and the moral +uplift of high explosive projectiles, what our soldiers used to call, +with questionable piety, "the fear of God," was finally put into the +hearts of the Filipinos, after much carnage by wholesale in battle +formation and later by retail in a species of guerrilla warfare as +irritating as it was obstinate. But they have never yet learned to +respect our intentions, because under the guidance of three successive +Presidents we have studiously refrained from any authoritative +declaration as to what those intentions are. We are loth to hark back +to the only right course, a course similar to our action in Cuba, +because of the expense we have been to in the Philippines. But we also +know that the islands are and are likely to continue, a costly burden, +a nuisance, and a distinct strategic disadvantage in the event of war; +and that Mr. Cleveland was right when he said: + + + The government of remote and alien people should have no permanent + place in the purposes of our national life. + + +The mistaken policy which involved us in a war to subjugate the +Filipinos, following our war to free the Cubans, will never stand +atoned for before the bar of history, nor can the Filipinos ever in +reason be expected to respect our intentions, until the law-making +power of the government shall have authoritatively declared what +those intentions are--i. e., what we intend ultimately to do with the +islands. Senator Bacon's resolutions of 1899 were, are, and always +will be the last word on the first act needed to rectify the original +Philippine blunder, "announcing" as they would, to use the language +attributed to their distinguished author by the Washington Post of +February 6, 1899, above-quoted, "our honest intentions with regard to +the Philippines." So eager is the exploiter to exploit the islands, +and so apprehensive is the Filipino that the exploiter will have more +influence at Washington than himself and therefore be able ultimately +to bring about a practical industrial slavery, that common honesty +demands such a declaration. To doctor present Filipino discontent +with Benevolent Uncertainty is a mere makeshift. The remedy the +situation needs is simple, but as yet untried--Frankness. The chief +of the causes of the present discontent among the Filipinos with +American rule is precisely the same old serpent that precipitated +the war thirteen years ago, to wit, lack of a frank and honest +declaration of our purpose. The trouble then lay, and still lies, +and, in the absence of some such declaration as that proposed by +the Bacon resolution, will always lie in what seemed then, and still +seems, to the Filipinos "an evident purpose to keep the islands and +an accompanying unwillingness to acknowledge that purpose." Some +may object that one Congress cannot bind another. The same argument +would have killed the Teller amendment to the declaration of war with +Spain avowing our purpose as to Cuba. Such an argument assumes that +this nation has no sense of honor, and that it should cling for a +while longer to the stale Micawberism that the Islands may yet pay, +before it decides whether it will do right or not, and signalizes +such decision by formal announcement through Congress. To men capable +of such an assumption as the one just indicated, this book is not +addressed. Three successive Presidents, Messrs. McKinley, Roosevelt, +and Taft, have with earnest asseveration of benevolent intention tried +without success all these years to win the affections of the Filipino +people, and to make them feel that "our flag had not lost its gift of +benediction in its world-wide journey to their shores," as Mr. McKinley +used to say. But the corner-stone of the policy was laid before we +knew anything about how the land lay, and on the assumption, made +practically without any knowledge whatever on the subject, that the +Filipino people were incapable of self-government. The corner-stone +of our Philippine policy has been from the beginning precisely that +urged by Spain for not freeing Cuba, viz., "to spare the people from +the dangers of premature independence." The three Presidents named +above have always been willing to imply independence, but never to +promise it. And the unwillingness to declare a purpose ultimately to +give the Filipinos their independence has always been due to the desire +to catch the vote of those who are determined they shall never have +it. In this inexorable and unchangeable political necessity lies the +essential contemptibleness of republican imperialism, and the secret +of why the Filipinos, notwithstanding our good intentions, do not like +us, and never will under the present policy. How can you blame them? + +Yet the more you know of the Filipinos, the better you like +them. Self-sacrificing, brave, and faithful unto death in war, they +are gentle, generous, and tractable in peace. Moreover, respect +for constituted authority, as such, is innate in practically every +Filipino, which I am not sure can be predicated concerning each and +every citizen of my beloved native land. And we can win the grateful +and lasting affection of the whole seven or eight millions of them any +day we wish to. How? Have done with vague, vote-catching Presidential +obiter, and through your Congress declare your purpose! + + + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +OTIS AND THE WAR + + Am I the boss, or am I a tool, + Am I Governor-General or a hobo--hobo; + Now I'd like to know who's the boss of the show, + Is it me, or Emilio Aguinaldo? + + Army Song of the Philippines under Otis. + + +"The thing is on," said General Hughes, Provost Marshal of Manila, to +General Otis, at Malacanan palace, on the night of February 4, 1899, +about half past eight o'clock, as soon as the firing started. [188] +He was talking about something which every American in Manila except +General Otis had for months frankly recognized as inevitable--the war. + +On the day of the outbreak of February 4th, General Otis had under +his command 838 officers and 20,032 enlisted men, say in round numbers +a total of 21,000. Of these some 15,500 were State volunteers mostly +from the Western States, and the rest were regulars. All the volunteers +and 1650 of the regulars were, or were about to become, entitled to +their discharge, and their right was perfected by the exchange of +ratifications of the treaty of peace with Spain on April 11, 1899. The +total force which he was thus entitled to command for any considerable +period consisted of less than 4000. Of the 21,000 men on hand as +aforesaid, on February 4th, deducting those at Cavite and Iloilo, +the sick and wounded, those serving in civil departments, and in the +staff organizations, the effective fighting force was 14,000, and of +these 3000 constituted the Provost Guard in the great and hostile +city of Manila. [189] Thus there were only 11,000 men, including +those entitled to discharge, available to engage the insurgent army, +"which," says Secretary of War Root, "was two or three times that +number, well armed and equipped, and included many of the native +troops formerly comprised in the Spanish army." + +Such was the predicament into which General Otis's supremely zealous +efforts to help the Administration get the treaty through the Senate +by withholding from the American people the knowledge of facts which +might have put them on notice that they were paying $20,000,000 for +a $200,000,000 insurrection, had brought us. This is not a tale of +woe. It is a tale of the disgust--good-humored, because stoical--which +finally found expression at the time in the army song that heads this +chapter, disgust at unnecessary sacrifice of American life which could +so easily have been prevented had General Otis only revealed the real +situation in time to have had plenty of troops on hand. It is a requiem +over those brave men of the Eighth Army Corps from Pennsylvania, +Tennessee, and the Western States that bore the brunt of the early +fighting, whose lives were needlessly sacrificed in 1899 as the +result of an unpreparedness for war due to anxiety not to embarrass +Mr. McKinley in his efforts to get the treaty through the Senate, +an unpreparedness which remained long unremedied thereafter in order +to conceal from the people of the United States the unanimity of the +desire of the Filipinos for Independence. + +It is quite true that none of our people then in the Islands realized +this unanimity in all its pathos at the outset, but it soon became +clear to everybody except the commanding general. It naturally dawned +on him last of all, because he did not visit the most reliable sources +of information, to wit, the battlefields during the fighting, and +therefore did not see how tenaciously the Filipinos fought for the +independence of their country. Moreover, General Otis tried to think +till the last along lines in harmony with the original theory of +Benevolent Assimilation. Hence Mr. Root's nonsense of 1899 and 1900 +about "the patient and unconsenting millions" dominated by "the Tagalo +tribe," which nonsense was immensely serviceable in a campaign for the +presidency wherein antidotes for sympathy with a people struggling +to be free were of supreme practical political value. General Otis +actually had Mr. McKinley believing as late as December, 1899, at +least, that the opposition to a change of masters in lieu of Freedom +was confined to a little coterie of self-seeking politicians who were +in the business for what they could get out of it, and that the great +majority would prefer him, Otis, to Aguinaldo, as governor-general. It +is difficult on first blush to accept this statement as dispassionately +correct, but there is no escape from the record. Mr. McKinley said +in his annual message to Congress in December, 1899, in reviewing +the direction he gave to the Paris peace negotiations which ended +in the purchase of the islands, and the war with the Filipinos which +had followed, and had then been raging since February 4th previous, +"I had every reason to believe, and still believe that the transfer +of sovereignty was in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of +the great mass of the Filipino people." + +Yet every American soldier who served in the Philippines at the time +knows that Aguinaldo held the whole people in the hollow of his hand, +because he was their recognized leader, the incarnation of their +aspirations. [190] + +During the presidential campaign of 1900, while the war with the +Filipinos was still raging, partisan rancour bitterly called in +question the sincerity of President McKinley's statement in his annual +message to Congress of December, 1899, that he then still believed "the +transfer of sovereignty was in accord with the wishes and aspirations +of the great mass of the Filipino people," on the ground that he must +by the time he made that statement have understood how grossly--however +honestly--General Otis had misled him as to the unanimity and tenacity +of the Filipino purpose. But it is only necessary to read Admiral +Dewey's testimony before the Senate Committee of 1902 to understand +Mr. McKinley's allusion in this same message to Congress of 1899 to +"the sinister ambition of a few leaders," and this, once understood, +explains the other statement of the message. Admiral Dewey came +home in the fall of 1899 and undoubtedly filled Mr. McKinley with +the estimate of Aguinaldo which makes such painful reading in the +Admiral's testimony of 1902 before the Senate Committee, where he +abused Aguinaldo like a pick-pocket, so to speak, saying his original +motive was principally loot. [191] In the fall of 1899 Aguinaldo had +issued a proclamation claiming that Admiral Dewey originally promised +him independence, and Admiral Dewey had bitterly denounced this as a +falsehood, so that the Admiral always cherished a very real resentment +against the insurgent chief thereafter. His estimate of the Filipino +leader as being in the insurrection merely for what he could get out +of it was wholly erroneous, and has long since been exploded, all our +generals of the early fighting and all Americans who have known him +since being unanimous that Aguinaldo was and is a sincere patriot; +but it undoubtedly explains Mr. McKinley's still clinging, in 1899, +to the notion derived from General Otis that the insurrection did not +have the moral and material backing of the whole Filipino people. The +Filipino leaders were familiar with the spirit of our institutions. The +men who controlled their counsels were high-minded, educated, patriotic +men. "For myself and the officers and men under my command," wrote +General Merritt to Aguinaldo in August, 1898, just after the fall +of Manila, "I can say that we have conceived a high respect for the +abilities and qualities of the Filipinos, and if called upon by the +Government to express an opinion, it will be to that effect." [192] + +The leaders believed that the American people did not fully understand +the identity of the Philippine situation with that in Cuba, and that +if they had, the treaty would not have been ratified. They also knew +the supreme futility of trying to get the facts before the American +people by peaceful means. And it was really with the abandon of genuine +patriotism that they plunged their country into war. We did not know +it then, but we do know it now. It would be simply wooden-headed to +affirm that they ever expected to succeed in a war with us. Of course +some of the jeunesse doree, as General Bell calls them in one of his +early reports, [193] grew very aggressive and insulting toward the +last. But the thinking men went into the war for independence in a +spirit of "decent respect to the opinions of mankind," to correct the +impression General Otis had communicated to Mr. McKinley, and through +him to our people, in the hope that the more lives they sacrificed +in such a war (they risked--and many of them lost--their own also), +the nearer they would come to refuting the idea that they did not +know what they wanted. It was the only way they had to appeal to +Caesar, i.e., to the great heart of the American people. As the war +grew more and more unpopular in the United States, the impression +was more and more nursed here at home that the people did not really +want independence, but were being coerced; and that they were like +dumb driven cattle. The striking similarity of these suggestions +to those by which tyranny has always met the struggles of men to +be free, did not seem to occur to the American public. They were +accepted as authoritative, being convenient also as an antidote to +sympathy. General Otis had suppressed such words as "sovereignty," +"protection," and the like from his original sugar-coated edition +of the Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, offering an elaborate +cock-and-bull explanation of why he did so. The Filipino answer to +this took the form of a very clever newspaper cartoon, representing an +American in a carromata--a kind of two-wheeled buggy--with a Filipino +between the shafts pulling it; which cartoon of course, never reached +the United States. The Filipinos had never heard the story on General +Mahone about "tie yoh hoss an' come in," [194] but they had heard of +the jinrickshaws of Japan, and they had read in Holy Writ and elsewhere +of conquered people becoming hewers of wood and drawers of water to +invading conquerors. And they are not without a sense of humor. It is +a common mistake with many Americans--for quite a few among us suffer +intellectually from over-sophistication--to suppose we monopolize all +the sense of humor there is, and that that alone is proof of a due +sense of proportion. At any rate, the Filipinos, with all due respect +to General Otis's good intentions, understood that "sovereignty" and +"protection" meant alien domination, so there was nothing in the Otis +notion that for them those words had a "peculiar meaning which might +be advantageously used by the Tagalo war party to incite," etc. [195] + +Having now gotten into a war on the theory that only a small fraction +of the Filipino people were opposed to a new and unknown yoke in +lieu of the old one, General Otis still continued to try to square +his theory with the facts. For many months he sat at his desk in +Manila cheerily waging war with an inadequate force, and retaining in +the service and on the firing line after their terms of enlistment +expired, under pretence that they consented to it willingly, a lot +of fellows from Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and the Western States, who +had volunteered for the war with Spain, with intent to kill Spaniards +in order to free Cubans, and not with intent to kill Filipinos for +also wanting to be free. Seeing nothing of the fighting himself, +he of course failed to get a correct estimate of the tenacity of +the Filipino purpose. No purpose is here entertained to suggest +that any of those early volunteers went around preaching mutiny, +or feeling mutinous. They did not originally like the Filipinos +especially; furthermore, they liked the Philippines less than they +did the Filipinos, and they had a vague notion that some one had +blundered. But it was not theirs to ask the reason why. Besides, +the orders from Washington being not to clash with the Filipinos +at least until the treaty was ratified, the Filipino soldiers and +subaltern officers had been calling them cowards for some time with +impunity. So that as soon as the treaty was safely "put over," they +were very glad to let off steam by killing a few hundred of them. But +their hearts were not in the fight, in the sense of clear and profound +conviction of the righteousness of the war. However, war is war, and +they were soldiers, and "orders is orders," as Tommy Atkins says. So +let us turn to an honester, if grimmer, side of the picture. + +The first battle of the war began about 8:30 o'clock on the night +of February 4th, and lasted all through that night and until about +5 o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. Our casualties numbered +about 250 killed and wounded. The insurgent loss was estimated at +3000. "Those of the insurgents will never be known," says General +Otis. [196] "We buried 700 of them." [197] There was fighting pretty +much all around Manila, for the insurgents had the city almost hemmed +in. An arc of a circle, broken in places possibly, but several miles +long, drawn about the city, would probably suggest the general idea +of the enemy's lines. They had been allowed to dig trenches without +interference while the debate in the Senate on the treaty was in +progress, pursuant to the temporary "peace-at-any-price" programme. The +arc was broken into smithereens by 5 P.M. of February 5th. When the +morning of February 6th came Col. James F. Smith, commanding the First +Californias, was non est inventus, and so was a large part of his +regiment. "No one seemed to know definitely his location," says the +Otis Report. [198] As a matter of fact he had taken two battalions of +his regiment and waded clean through the enemy's lines, and had to be +sent for to come back to form again with the line of battle needed to +protect the city. So the Californias probably carried off the pick of +the laurels of the first day's fighting. General Anderson, commanding +the First Division of the Eighth Corps, threw them some very handsome +well earned bouquets in his report, stating also that their colonel +had shown "the very best qualities of a volunteer officer"--why he +limited it to "volunteer" does not appear, but is inferable from the +well-known disposition of all regulars to consider all volunteers +"rookies" [199]--and recommended that he be made a brigadier general, +which shortly afterward was done. [200] + +It would be invidious to follow the various phases of the subsequent +early fighting, and single out one or more States [201] and tell of the +hard earned and well deserved honors they won, because space forbids +a proper tribute to the heroism of all of them. As for the regulars, +[202] they were the same they were at Santiago de Cuba, the same +they always are anywhere you put them. When a newspaper man would +come around a regular regiment during the fighting before Santiago +he would be told that they had no news to give him, "We ain't heroes, +we're regulars," they would say. After the outbreak of February 4th, +all our people did well, acted nobly, "Angels could no more." Neither +could devils, as shown by the losses inflicted on the enemy. + +There was more fighting outside Manila during the next two or three +days, and when that was done the somewhat shattered insurgent legions +had recoiled to the distantly visible foot-hills, convinced that +their notion they could take Manila was very foolish and very rash. + +At the town of Caloocan, some three or four miles out to the north +of Manila, were located the shops and round houses of the Manila and +Dagupan Railway, which runs from Manila in a northwesterly direction +about 120 miles to Dagupan, and was then the only railroad in the +archipelago. It was fed by a vast rich farming country, the great +plain of central Luzon. Naturally, the central plain which fed the +railroad that traversed it and kept its teeming myriads of small +farmers in touch with the great outside world was to be sooner or +later, the theatre of war. To seize transportation is instinctively +the first tactical move of a military man. Lieutenant-General Luna, +commander-in-chief, next to Aguinaldo, of the revolutionary forces, the +man whom later Aguinaldo had shot, was just then at Caloocan with 4000 +men. So it fell to General MacArthur, commanding the Second Division of +the Eighth Corps, to move on Caloocan, which he did on February 10th. + +John F. Bass, correspondent for Harper's Weekly, writing from Manila +a short time after this, describes this movement. It was our first +move away from the city of Manila. With a few masterly strokes of the +pen, which I regret there is not space to reproduce here in full, +Mr. Bass gives a vivid picture of the various engagements, and of +"a background of burning villages, smoke, fire, shot, and shell, the +ceaseless tramp of tired and often bleeding feet," etc. "Heroism," +he says, "became a matter of course and death an incident." Finally +his story pauses for a moment thus: "The natural comment is that +all this is merely war--the business of the soldier. True, nor do +I think Jimmie Green [Mr. Bass's name for our "Tommy Atkins"] is +troubled with heroics. He accepts the situation without excitement +or hysterics. He has little feeling in this matter for his heart is +not in this fight." Here brother Bass's moralizing ceases abruptly, +and the contagious excitement of the hour catches him, just as it +always does the average man under such circumstances: + + + From La Loma church you may get the full view of our long line + crossing the open field, evenly, steadily, irresistibly, like an + inrolling wave on the beach * * *. Watch the regiments go forward, + and form under fire, and move on and on, and you will exclaim: + "Magnificent," and you will gulp a little and feel proud without + exactly knowing why. Then gradually the power of that line will + force itself upon you, and you will feel that you must follow, + that wherever that line goes you must go also. By and by you will + be sorry, but for the present the might of an American regiment + has got possession of you. + + +Anybody who has ever been with an American regiment in action knows +exactly how the man who wrote that felt. The American who has never +had the experience Mr. Bass describes above has missed one way of +realizing the majesty of the power of the republic whereof he is +privileged to be a citizen. For if there is one national trait which +more than any other explains the greatness of our country, it is the +instinct for organization, the fondness for self-multiplication to +the nth power by intelligent co-operation with one's fellows to a +common end. Especially is the experience in question inspiring where +the example of the field officers is particularly appropriate to the +occasion. Take for instance the following, concerning the conduct of +Major J. Franklin Bell in this advance on Caloocan, from the report +of Major Kobbe, Commanding the Artillery: + + + As the right cleared the head of the ravine, I could see + Maj. J. F. Bell * * * leading a company of Montana troops in front + of the right * * * advancing, firing, toward intrenchments * * *. + He was on a black horse to the last * * * leading and cheering + the men. His work was most gallant and * * * especially cheering + to me. [203] + + +No mere scribe can magnify General Bell's matchless efficiency in +action, but it is certainly inspiring to contemplate. There are no +"fuss and feathers" about him. Yet his power, proven on many a field +in the Philippines, to kindle martial ardor by example, suggests the +ubiquitous "Helmet of Navarre" of Lord Macaulay's poem. + +A little later correspondent Bass develops what he meant by "by +and by you will be sorry." You see it is not comfortable business, +this of hustling about among the dead and dying. In the excitement, +you are so liable to step on the face of some poor devil you knew +well, maybe a once warm friend. In this connection Mr. Bass says: +"There is this difference between the manner in which American and +Filipino soldiers die. The American falls in a heap and dies hard; +the Filipino stretches himself out, and when dead is always found in +some easy attitude, generally with his head on his arms. They die +the way a wild animal dies--in just such a position as one finds a +deer or an antelope which one has shot in the woods." + +So far as the writer is advised and believes, nobody who knows +John F. Bass ever suspected him of being a quitter. He must have +been reading the London Standard, which said about that time: +"It is a little startling to find the liberators of Cuba engaged +in suppressing a youthful republic which claims the sacred right of +self-government." Bass had written his newspaper in August previous, +after observing how pluckily the Filipinos had fought and licked +the Spaniards: "Give them their independence and guarantee it to +them." The overwhelming sentiment of the Eighth Army Corps when we +took the Philippines was against taking them; and those who had kept +informed knew that the Senate had ratified the treaty by a majority +only one more than enough to squeeze it through, the vote having been +57 to 27, at least 56 being thus indispensable to make the necessary +constitutional two-thirds of the 84 votes cast; and that Wall Street +and the White Man's Burden or land-grabbing contingent--"Philanthropy +and Five per cent," as Secretary of the Treasury Lyman J. Gage put +it at the time--were responsible for these shambles Mr. Bass describes. + +At this juncture some soft-headed gentleman asks: "What is this +man who writes this book driving at? Is he trying to show that the +American soldiers in the Philippines in February, 1899, all wanted +to quit as soon as the war broke out?" Not at all. In the first +place it hardly lay in American soldier nature to want to quit when +Aguinaldo was telling us "if you don't take your flag down and out of +these islands at once and promptly get out yourselves along with it, +I will proceed to kick you out and throw it out." And in the next +place, in the war with the Filipinos, as in all other wars, fuel was +added to the flame as soon as the war broke out. Among the Americans, +charges soon came into general circulation and acceptance that the +Filipinos had planned (but been frustrated in) a plot looking to a +general massacre of all foreigners in Manila. This alleged plot was +supposed to have been scheduled to be carried out on a certain night +shortly after February 15, 1899. Among the Filipinos, on the other +hand, counter-charges soon followed, and met with general credence, +that the Americans made a practise of killing prisoners taken in +battle, including the wounded. Neither charge was ever proven, but +both served the purpose, at the psychologic moment, of possessing +each side with the desire to kill, which is the business of war. Let +us glance briefly at these recriminations. + +Between pages 1916 and 1917 of Senate Document 331, part 2 [204] may +be found a photo-lithograph of the celebrated alleged order of the +Filipino Revolutionary Government of February 15, 1899, to massacre +all foreign residents of Manila. In his report for 1899 [205] General +Otis himself describes this order as one "which for barbarous intent +is unequalled in these modern times in civilized warfare," and speaks +of it as "issued by the Malolos Government through the responsible +officer who had raised and organized the hostile inhabitants within +the city." After Aguinaldo was captured in 1901, according to an +account given by General MacArthur to the Senate Committee in 1902, of +a conversation with the insurgent leader, the latter was shown a copy +of this document purporting to have been signed by General Luna, one of +his generals. He disclaimed having in any way sanctioned it, in fact +disclaimed any prior knowledge of it whatsoever, [206] a disclaimer +which General MacArthur appears to have accepted as true, frankly and +entirely. At page 1890 of the same volume, Captain J. R. M. Taylor, +14th U. S. Infantry, a gallant soldier and an accomplished scholar, +who was in charge in 1901 of the captured insurgent records at Manila, +states that he was "informed" that the document was originally "signed +by Sandico, then Secretary of the Interior" of the revolutionary +government. Captain Taylor made an attempt to run the matter down, +but obtained no evidence convincing to him. A like investigation by +General MacArthur in 1901 had a like result. [207] + +On the other hand, Major Wm. H. Bishop, of the 20th Kansas, was +credited in a soldier's letter written home, which first came to light +in this country, with killing unarmed prisoners during the advance on +Caloocan. The charges originated with a private of that regiment. Major +Bishop denied the charges. [208] An investigation followed, in the +course of which somebody made an innuendo, or charge--it is not +important which--that other officers used their influence to prevent +a full ventilation of the matter, specifically, General Funston, +then Colonel of the 20th Kansas, and Major Metcalf, of the same +regiment. These last two also made a most vigorous general denial, +and nothing whatever was established against them. The whole matter +was finally disposed of by being forwarded to the War Department at +Washington by General Otis on July 13, 1899, some six months after the +occurrences alleged, with the remark that he (General Otis) "doubted +the wisdom of a court-martial" of the soldier who had made the charge +against Major Bishop, "as it would give the insurgent authorities a +knowledge of what was taking place, and they would assert positively +that our troops practised inhumanities, whether the charges could +be proven or not" and that they would use the incident "as an excuse +to defend their own barbarities." [209] The last endorsement on the +papers preceding General Otis's final endorsement was one by Colonel +Crowder, now (1912) Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, +in which he said: "I am not convinced from a careful reading of this +report, that Private Brenner has made a false charge against Captain +Bishop"; adding that "considerations of public policy, sufficiently +grave to silence every other demand, require that no further action +be taken in this case." [210] The "considerations of public policy" +were of course those indicated in General Otis's final endorsement on +the papers, already quoted. They were compellingly controlling, in my +judgment, independently of the merits. Washing one's soiled linen in +public is never advisable, and placing a weapon in your enemy's hand +in time of war is at least equally unwise. Some shreds of this once +much mooted matter doubtless still linger in the public memory. It +has been thus briefly ventilated here solely to trace the genesis of +the bitterness of that war, and of numerous later barbarities avenged +in kind. The bitterness thus early begun grew as the war went on, +until every time a hapless Filipino peasant soldier speaking only +two or three words of Spanish would falsely explain, when captured, +that he was a non-combatant, an amigo (friend), it usually at once +filled the captor with vivid recollections of slain comrades, and of +rumored or sometimes proven mutilation of their bodies after death, +and these reflections would at once fill him with a yearning desire +to blow the top of the amigo's head off, whether he yielded to the +desire or not. Of no instance where he did so yield am I aware. But +I do know that the invariable statement of all Filipinos unarmed and +un-uniformed when captured, to the effect that they were amigos, became +to the American soldier not remotely dissimilar to the waving of a red +rag at a bull. Of course this was also due, largely, to the guerrilla +practice of hiding guns when hard-pressed and actually plunging at +once into some make-believe agricultural pursuit. As for Major Bishop, +it is inconceivable to me that he gave any order to kill unarmed +prisoners. Even admitting for the sake of the argument that he is a +fiend, he is not a fool. As a matter of fact, he was a brave soldier, +as all the reports show, and is a reputable lawyer, having many warm +friends whose opinion of any man would command respect anywhere. The +truth of the whole matter probably is that just before going into +battle, when our troops were in an ugly temper by reason of the +rumors of barbarities alleged to have been perpetrated by the enemy, +or contemplated by him, the word was passed along the line to "Take no +more prisoners than we have to," and that that thought originated with +some irresponsible private soldier of the line inflamed by stories +of mutilation of our dead or of maltreatment of our wounded. Such a +"word," so passed from man to man, can, in the heat of conflict, +very soon evolve into something having for practical purposes all +the force and effect of an order. + +Through the foregoing, and like causes, including the "water cure," +later invented to persuade amigos to discover the whereabouts of hidden +insurgent guns or give information as to the movements of the enemy, +[211] our war with the Filipinos became, before it was over, a rather +"dark and bloody" affair, accentuated as it was, from time to time, +by occasional Filipino success in surprising detachments from ambush, +or by taking them unawares and off their guard in their quarters, +and eliminating them, the most notable instance of the first being +the crumpling of a large command of the 15th Infantry by General Juan +Cailles, in southern Luzon, and the most indelibly remembered and +important example of the second being the massacre of the 9th Infantry +people at Balangiga, in Samar, in the fall of 1901. Certainly more +than one American in that long-drawn-out war did things unworthy of +any civilized man, things he would have believed it impossible, before +he went out there, ever to come to. Personally, I have heard, so far +as I now recollect, of comparatively few barbarities perpetrated +by Filipinos on captured American soldiers. Barbarities on their +side seemed to have been reserved for those of their own race whom +they found disloyal to the cause of their country. Personally I +have never seen the water-cure administered. But I once went on +a confidential mission by direction of General MacArthur, in the +course of which I reported first, on arriving in the neighborhood +of the contemplated destination, to a general officer of the regular +army who is still such to-day. [212] That night the general was good +enough to extend the usual courtesy of a cot to sleep on, in the +headquarters building. Toward dusk I went to dine with a certain +lieutenant, also of the regular army. [213] As we approached the +lieutenant's quarters a sergeant came up with a prisoner, and asked +instructions as to what to do with him. The lieutenant said: "Take +him out and find out what he knows. Do you understand, Sergeant?" The +sergeant saluted, answered in the affirmative, and moved away with +his prisoner. We went in to the lieutenant's quarters, and while at +dinner heard groans outside. I said "What is that, Jones?" [214] +Jones said: "That's the water-cure he's giving that hombre. [215] +Want to see it?" I replied that I certainly did not. Returning that +night to the general's headquarters, after breakfast the next morning +I met my friend Jones coming out of the general's office. I said: +"What's the matter, what are you doing here," he having mentioned +the evening before an expedition planned for the morrow. He said: +"Well, I've just had a talk with the general to see if I could get my +resignation from the army accepted?" "Why?" said I. "Well," was the +reply, "that ----" (designating the prisoner of the night before by a +double barrelled epithet) "died on me last night." Just how the matter +was hushed up I have never known, but Jones was never punished. More +than one general officer of the United States Army in the Philippines +during our war with the Filipinos at least winked at the water-cure +as a means of getting information, and quite a number of subalterns +made a custom of applying it for that purpose. It was practically +the only way you could get them to betray their countrymen. Did +I report the incident to General MacArthur? Certainly not. It was +the business of the general commanding the district. The water-cure, +though very painful, was seldom fatal, and when not fatal was almost +never permanently damaging, and it was about the only way to shake +the loyalty of the average Filipino and make him give information +as to hidden insurgent guns, guerrilla bands, etc. It was a part of +Benevolent Assimilation. + +Let us now return to the early battlefields about Manila which we +left, initially, to analyze the extreme bitterness of the feeling +between the combatants that very early began to develop. + +We left war correspondent John F. Bass among the dead and dying on +one of these fields, supposedly musing on the White Man's Burden, +or Land-Grabbing, or Trust-for-Civilization theory, or whatever it +was that moved the fifty-seven senators whose votes had ratified +the treaty by a majority of just one more than the constitutionally +necessary two-thirds. + +The reason the writer lays so much stress on Mr. Bass's letters to +Harper's Weekly on the early fighting in the Philippines, is because +his remarks come direct from the battlefield, and are, as it were, +res gestae. They were made dum fervet opus, to use a law Latin phrase +which in plain English means "while the iron is hot." They reflect +more or less accurately the feelings of the men whose deeds he was +recording. He, and O. K. Davis, now Washington correspondent of the +New York Times, and John T. McCutcheon, of Chicago, the now famous +cartoonist (who was with Dewey in the battle of Manila Bay), and +Robert Collins, now London correspondent of the Associated Press, and +"Dick" Little of the Chicago Tribune,--a little man about six feet +three,--and lots of other good men and true, were all through that +fighting, and we will later come to an issue of personal veracity +between them and General Otis which culminated in the retirement from +office of Secretary of War Alger, and ought to have resulted in the +recall of General Otis, but did not, because to have acknowledged +what a blunderer General Otis had been and to have relieved him from +command, as he should have been relieved, would have been to "swap +horses crossing a stream," as Mr. Lincoln used to put it in declining +to change generals during a given campaign. The object here is to +bring out the truth of history as to how the men who bore the brunt of +the early fighting felt about it. Testimony as to what the officers +and men of the army said would be of no value, because a complaining +soldier's complaints are too often only a proof of "cold feet." [216] + +These newspaper men, not under military orders, were daily risking +their lives voluntarily, just to keep the American public informed, +and the American public were kept in darkness and only vouchsafed +bulletins giving them the progressive lists of their dead and wounded, +and this last only on demand made upon Secretary Alger by the people +of Minnesota, the Dakotas, etc., through their senators. The War +Department did not want the people to know, did not want to admit +itself, how plucky, vigorous, and patriotic the resistance was. The +period of the fighting done by the State Volunteers from February +until fall, when public opinion finally forced the Administration +to send General Otis an adequate force, is slurred by Secretary of +War Root in his report for 1899. I do not mean that it was slurred +intentionally. But the Philippines were a long way off, and Mr. Root +and Mr. McKinley naturally relied for their information on their +commanding general on the spot. There were gallant deeds done in the +Philippines by those Western fellows of the State regiments which +volunteered for the war with Spain, that would have made the little +fighting around Santiago look like--well, to borrow from "Chimmie" +Fadden's fertile vocabulary, "like 30 cents." But General Otis was +not in a position to get the thrill of such things from his office +window, so very few of them were given much prominence by him in his +despatches to the Adjutant-General of the army. This was wise enough +from a political standpoint, seeing that a presidential campaign +was to ensue in 1900 predicated on the proposition that American +sovereignty was "in accord with the wishes and aspirations of the +great mass of the Filipinos," to use the words of the President's +message to Congress of December, 1899. + +Caloocan was taken by General MacArthur on February 10th. The natural +line of advance thereafter was of course up the railroad, because +the insurgents held it, and needed it as much as we would. Throughout +February there were engagements too numerous to mention. The navy also +entertained the enemy whenever he came too near the shores of Manila +Bay. One incident in particular is worthy of note, and worthy of +the best traditions of the navy. I refer to the conduct of Assistant +Engineer Emory Winship off Malabon, March 4, 1899. Malabon is five +miles north of Manila, on the bay, not far from Caloocan. On the day +named, a landing party of 125 men from the U. S. S. Bennington went +ashore near Malabon to make photographs, in aid of navy gunnery, of +certain entrenchments and buildings that had been struck by shells +from the Monadnock. They foolishly failed to throw out scouts ahead +of their column, and were suddenly greeted with a withering fire from +a whole regiment of insurgents who had seen them first and lain in +wait for them. They retired with considerably more haste than they +had gone forth. The insurgents advanced, firing, at double quick, +toward the comparative handful of Americans, and would undoubtedly +have killed the last man jack of them, but Engineer Winship, who +had been left in charge of the tug that brought the landing party +shoreward, to keep up steam, saw the situation and promptly met it. He +unlimbered a 37mm. Hotchkiss revolving machine gun which stood in +the bow of the tug, and opened up with accurate aim on the advancing +regiment of Filipinos. Naturally he at once became a more important +target than the retreating body. Nevertheless, he kept pumping lead +into that long howling murderous advancing brown line until, when +within two hundred yards of where the tug lay, the line recoiled and +retreated, and the landing party got safely back to the ship. It was, +literally, a case of saving the lives of more than a hundred men, +by fearless promptness and dogged tenacity in the intelligent and +skilful performance of duty. The awnings of the tug were torn in +shreds by the enemy's rain of bullets, and her woodwork was much +peppered. Winship was hit five times, and still carries the bullets +in his body, having been retired on account of disability resulting +therefrom, after being promoted in recognition of his work. + +Soon after March 25th, General MacArthur, commanding the Second +Division of the Eighth Army Corps, advanced from Caloocan up the +railroad to Malolos, the insurgent capital, some twenty miles +away. Malolos was taken March 31st. Our February killed were six +officers and seventy-one enlisted men, total seventy-seven, and a total +of 378 wounded. By the end of March the list swelled to twelve officers +and 127 enlisted men killed, total 139, and a total of 881 wounded, +making our total casualties, as reported April 1st, 1020. Also 15% +of the command, or about 2500, were on sick report on that date from +heat prostrations and the like. [217] For these and other reasons, +farther advance up the railroad was halted for a while. + +Meantime, General Lawton, with his staff, consisting of Colonel +Edwards, Major Starr, and Captains King and Sewall, "the big four" they +were called, had come out from New York City by way of the Suez Canal, +bringing most welcome reinforcements, the 4th and 17th Infantry. These +people arrived between the 10th and the 22d of March. What happened +soon after, as a result of their arrival, must now become for a brief +moment, a part of the panorama, the lay of the land General Lawton +first swept over being first indicated. + +Luzon is practically bisected, east and west, by the Pasig River +and a lake out of which it flows almost due west into Manila Bay, +Manila being at the mouth of the river. Under the Spaniards, +all Luzon north of the Pasig had been one military district and +all Luzon south of the Pasig another. The Eighth Army Corps always +spoke of northern Luzon as "the north line," and of southern Luzon as +"the south line." The lake above mentioned is called the Laguna de +Bay. It is nearly as big as Manila Bay, which last is called twenty +odd miles wide by thirty long. On the map, the Laguna de Bay roughly +resembles a half-moon, the man in which looks north, the western +horn being near Manila, and the eastern near the Pacific coast of +Luzon. General Otis had learned that at a place called Santa Cruz, +toward the eastern end of the Laguna de Bay, there were a lot of steam +launches and a Spanish gun-boat, which, if captured, would prove +invaluable for river fighting and transportation of supplies along +the Rio Grande de Pampanga and the other streams that watered the +great central plain through which the railroad ran and which would +have to be occupied later. So as soon as possible after General +Lawton arrived and the necessary men could be spared, he was sent +with 1500 troops to seize and bring back the boats in question. Of +course the country he should overrun would have to be overrun again, +because there were not troops enough to spare to garrison and hold +it. But for the present, the launches would help. This expedition was +successful, leaving the head of the lake nearest Manila on April 9th, +and returning April 17th. It met with some good hard fighting on the +way, sweeping everything before it of course, inflicting considerable +loss, and suffering some. General Lawton's report mentions, among +other officers whose conspicuous gallantry and efficiency in action +attracted his attention, Colonel Clarence R. Edwards, now Chief of +the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Department, of whose conduct +in the capture of Santa Cruz on the morning of April 10th, he says: +"No line of battle could have been more courageously or intelligently +led." [218] The resistance was pretty real to Colonel Edwards then, +i.e., the Benevolent Assimilation was quite strenuous, and it continued +to be so until his great commander was shot through the breast in the +forefront of battle in the hour of victory in December thereafter, +and the colonel came home with the general's body. Since then the +colonel has soldiered no more, but has remained on duty at Washington, +the birthplace of the original theory that the Filipinos welcomed our +rule, charged with the duty of yearning over the erring Filipino who +thinks he can govern himself but is mistaken, and also with the still +more difficult task of trying to live up to the original theory as +far as circumstances will permit. As a matter of fact, the Filipinos +would probably have gotten along much better than the Cubans if we +had let General Lawton do there what he and General Wood were set to +work doing in Cuba shortly after Santiago fell. Public opinion is a +very dangerous thing to trifle with, and when, in September, 1899, +there was a story going the rounds of the American newspapers that +Lawton, the hero of El Caney, the man who had reflected more glory +on American arms in striking the shackles of Spain from Cuba than any +other one soldier in the army, had called the war in the Philippines +"this accursed war," the War Department got busy over the cable to +General Otis and obtained from him a denial that General Lawton had +made such a remark. But the public knew its Lawton and what he had done +in Cuba, and had a suspicion there might be some truth in the rumor. So +the War Department cabled out saying "Newspapers say Lawton's denial +insufficient," and then repeating the words attributed to him. So +General Otis sent another denial that filled the bill. [219] Of course +General Lawton made no such remark. He was too good a soldier. It would +have demoralized his whole command. But I served under him in both +hemispheres, and I will always believe that he had a certain amount +of regret at having to fight the Filipinos to keep them from having +independence, when they were a so much likelier lot, take it all in +all, than the Cubans we saw about Santiago. Moreover, I believe that +had it not been then too late to ask him, he would have subscribed +to the opinion Admiral Dewey had cabled home the previous summer: +"These people are far superior in their intelligence and more capable +of self-government than the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar with +both races." + +After the expedition down the lake, General Lawton went on "The North +Line." So let us now turn thither also. For wherever Lawton was, +there was fighting. + +In the latter half of April, General MacArthur advanced north along the +railroad, and took Calumpit, where the railroad crosses the Rio Grande, +on April 28th. This was the place where under cover of "the accurate +concentrated fire of the guns of the Utah Light Artillery commanded by +Major Young" [220] a few Kansas men with ropes tied to their bodies +swam the river in the face of a heavy fire from the enemy, fastened +the ropes to some boats on the enemy's side, and were pulled back +in the boats, by their comrades, to the side they had come from; the +Kansans then crossing the river under the lead of the gallant Funston, +and driving the enemy from his trenches. The desperate bravery of +the performance, like so many other things General Funston did in the +Philippines, was so superb that one forgets how contrary it was to all +known rules of the game of war. If it was Providence that saved Funston +and his Kansans from annihilation, certainly Providence was ably +assisted on that occasion by Major Young and his Utah Battery. [221] + +Shortly after this General MacArthur entered San Fernando, the second +insurgent capital, which is forty miles or so up the railroad from +Manila. + +During the month of May General Lawton kept the insurgents busy to +the east of the railroad, between it and the Pacific coast range, +taking San Isidro, whither the third insurgent capital was moved after +Malolos fell, on May 17th. Here he made his headquarters for a time, +as did General MacArthur at San Fernando. + +It had been supposed that practically the whole body of the insurgent +army was concentrated in the country to the north of Manila, but this +proved a mistake. They now began to threaten Manila from the country +south of the Pasig. Says General Otis: + + + The enemy had become again boldly demonstrative at the South and + it became necessary to throw him back once more. [222] + + +General Lawton was directed to concentrate his troops in the country +about San Isidro, turn them over to the command of some one else, +and come to Manila to organize for a campaign on the south line. The +details of this expedition belong to a military history, which this +is not. The expedition left its initial point of concentration near +Manila on June 9th. Its great event was the battle of Zapote River on +June 13th. Along this river in 1896 the insurgents had gained a great +victory over the Spaniards. They had trenches on the farther side of +the river which they deemed impregnable. General Lawton attacked them +in these intrenchments June 13th. At three o'clock that afternoon +he wired General Otis at Manila giving him an idea of the battle +and stating that the enemy was fighting in strong force and with +determination. At 3:30 o'clock he wired: + + + We are having a beautiful battle. Hurry up ammunition; we will + need it; + + +and at 4 o'clock: + + + We have the bridge. It has cost us dearly. Battle not yet over. It + is a battle however. [223] + + +It was in this battle of Zapote River that Lieutenant William L. Kenly, +of the regular artillery, did what was perhaps the finest single bit +of soldier work of the whole war, [224] in recognition of which his +conduct in the battle was characterized as "magnificent" by so thorough +a soldier as General Lawton, who recommended him to be brevetted for +distinguished gallantry in the presence of the enemy, with this remark: + + + As General Ovenshine says, speaking of Lieutenant Kenly and + his battery, "This is probably the first time in history that a + battery has been advanced and fought without cover within thirty + yards of strongly manned trenches." [225] + + +For what he did on that occasion, Kenly ought to have had a medal +of honor, which, except life insurance and a good education, is the +finest legacy any government can enable a soldier to bequeath to his +children. If the war had been backed by the sentiment of the whole +country, as the Spanish War was, he would have gotten it. As it was, +the only thing he ever got for it, so far as the writer is advised, +was to have his name spelt wrong in an account of the incident in +the only book wherein there has yet been attempted a record of the +many deeds of splendid daring that marked the only war into which +this nation ever blundered. [226] + +While there were divers and sundry movements of our troops hither +and thither, and much sacrifice of life, after General Lawton's +Zapote River campaign in June, no substantial progress was made in +conquering and occupying the Islands until the fall following the +Zapote River campaign above mentioned, when the twenty-five regiments +of volunteers were organized and sent out. All that was done until +then, after the capture of San Fernando, may be summed up broadly, +by saying that we protected Manila and held the railroad, as far as +we had fought our way up it. It is true that the city of Iloilo had +been occupied on February 11th, the city of Cebu shortly afterward, +the island of Negros, an oasis of comparative quiet in a great desert +of hostility, a little later; also that a small Spanish garrison at +the little port of Jolo in the Mohammedan country near Borneo had +also been relieved by a small American force on the 19th of May. But +these irresolute movements accomplished nothing except to deprive +our force at the front of about 4000 men and to awaken the Visayan +Islands to active and thorough organization against us. + +Preparatory to an understanding of the fall campaign, in which +patchwork and piecemeal warfare was superseded by the real thing, it +will now be necessary to consider the political--or let us call it, +the politico-military--aspect of the first half year of the war. + +General Otis's folly had led him to advise Washington as early as +November, 1898, that he could get along with 25,000 troops, [227] +and the Otis under-estimate of the resistance we would meet if we +took the Islands had undoubtedly influenced Mr. McKinley in deciding +to take them. Twenty-five thousand troops was only 5000 more than +General Otis had with him at the time he made the recommendation, and +signified that he was not expecting trouble. The Treaty of Paris was +signed on December 10, 1898, and on December 16th, President McKinley's +Secretary of War informed Congress that 25,000 troops would be enough +for the Philippines. [228] When the treaty was ratified February 6, +1899, the war in the Philippines had already broken out. On March 2, +1899, two days before the 55th Congress expired, in fact on the very +day that Congress appropriated the $20,000,000 to pay Spain for the +Islands, an act was passed authorizing the President to enlist 35,000 +volunteers to put down the insurrection in the Islands. The term +of enlistment of these volunteers was to expire June 30, 1901. As +the New Thought people would say "Hold the Thought!" June 30, 1901, +is the end of our government's fiscal year. That date, the date of +expiration of the enlistment of the volunteer army raised under the +act of March 2, 1899, is a convenient key to the whole history of the +American occupation of the Philippines since the outbreak of our war +with the Filipinos, February 4, 1899, including the titanic efforts of +the McKinley Administration in the latter half of 1899 and the first +half of 1900 to retrieve the Otis blunders; the premature resumption +by Judge Taft, during and in aid of Mr. McKinley's campaign for the +Presidency in 1900, of the original McKinley Benevolent Assimilation +programme, on the theory, already wholly exploded by a long and bitter +war, that the great majority of the people welcomed American rule and +had only been coerced into opposing us; and the premature setting up +of the Civil Government on July 4, 1901. No candid mind seeking only +the truth of history can fail to see that when President McKinley +sent the Taft Commission to the Philippines in the spring of 1900, +part of their problem was to facilitate Mr. McKinley in avoiding later +on any further call for volunteers to take the place of those whose +terms would expire June 30, 1901. The amount of force that has been +needed to saddle our government firmly on the Filipino people is the +only honest test by which to examine the claim that it is unto them +as Castoria unto children. In February, 1899, the dogs of war being +already let loose, President McKinley had resumed his now wholly +impossible Benevolent Assimilation programme, by sending out the +Schurman Commission, which was the prototype of the Taft Commission, +to yearningly explain our intentions to the insurgents, and to make +clear to them how unqualifiedly benevolent those intentions were. The +scheme was like trying to put salt on a bird's tail after you have +flushed him. This commission was headed by President Schurman, of +Cornell University. It arrived in March, armed with instructions +as benevolent in their rhetoric as any the Filipinos had ever read +in the days of our predecessors in sovereignty, the Spaniards. And +the commission were of course duly astounded that their publication +had no effect. The Filipinos in Manila tore them down as soon as +they were put up. The instructions clothed the commission with +authority to yield every point in issue except the only one in +dispute--Independence. On this alone they were firm. But so were +the people who had already submitted the issue to the arbitrament +of war. Of course the Schurman Commission, therefore, accomplished +nothing. It held frequent communication with the enemy in the field +and came near an open rupture with General Otis, who was nominally a +member of it. But even that unwise man knew war when he saw it, and +knew the futility of trying to mix peace with war. War being hell, +the sooner 'tis over the better for all concerned. After Professor +Schurman had been quite optimistically explaining our intentions for +about three months, under the tragically mistaken notion Mr. McKinley +had originally derived from General Otis that the insurrection had +been brought about by "the sinister ambition of a few leaders," +[229] General Otis wired Washington, on June 4th, "Negotiations and +conferences with insurgent leaders cost soldiers' lives and prolong our +difficulties," [230] adding with regard to the Schurman Commission: +"Ostensibly it will be supported * * * here, and to the outside +world gentle peace shall prevail," but intimating that he would be +very much gratified if the Department would allow him to handle the +enemy, and stop Dr. Schurman from having their leaders come in under +flags of truce to parley. After that Dr. Schurman's activities seem +to have been confined to the less mischievous business of gathering +statistics. His mistake was simply the one he had brought with him, +derived from President McKinley. He came back home, however, thoroughly +satisfied that the Filipinos did of a verity want the independence +they were fighting for, and quite as sure that republics should not +have colonies as General Anderson's experience had previously made +him. It has long been known throughout the length and breadth of the +United States that Dr. Schurman is in favor of Philippine independence. + +On June 26th, just thirteen days after the Zapote River fight had +stopped the insurgents on the south line from threatening almost the +very gates of the city of Manila itself, General Otis had another +attack of optimism. On that date he wired Washington: "Insurgent cause +may collapse at any time." [231] Finally, the war correspondents at +Manila, wearied with the military press censorship whereby General +Otis had so long kept the situation from the people at home, with his +eternal "situation-well-in-hand" telegrams, got together, inspired no +doubt by the example of the Roosevelt round robin that had rescued the +Fifth Army Corps from Cuba after the fighting down there, and prepared +a round robin of their own--a protest against further misrepresentation +of the facts. This they of course knew General Otis would not let +them cable home. However, they asked his permission to do so, the +committee appointed to beard the lion in his den being O. K. Davis, +John T. McCutcheon, Robert Collins, and John F. Bass. General Otis +threatened to "put them off the island." This did not bother them in +the least. General Otis told the War Department afterwards that he +did not punish them because they were "courting martyrdom," or words +to that effect. As a matter of fact, they were merely determined that +the American people should know the facts. That of "putting them off +the island" was just a fussy phrase of "Mother" Otis, long familiar to +them. They were under his jurisdiction. But they were Americans, and +reputable gentlemen, and he knew he was responsible for their right +treatment. After General Otis had duly put the expected veto on the +proposed cablegram of protest, the newspaper men sent their protest +over to Hong Kong by mail, and had it cabled to the United States from +there. It was published in the newspapers of this country July 17, +1899. A copy of it may be found in any public library which keeps +the bound copies of the great magazines, in the Review of Reviews +for August, 1899, pp. 137-8. It read as follows: + + + The undersigned, being all staff correspondents of American + newspapers stationed in Manila, unite in the following statement: + + We believe that, owing to official despatches from Manila made + public in Washington, the people of the United States have not + received a correct impression of the situation in the Philippines, + but that those despatches have presented an ultra-optimistic view + that is not shared by the general officers in the field. + + We believe the despatches incorrectly represent the existing + conditions among the Filipinos in respect to internal dissension + and demoralization resulting from the American campaign and to + the brigand character of their army. + + We believe the despatches err in the declaration that "the + situation is well in hand," and in the assumption that the + insurrection can be speedily ended without a greatly increased + force. + + We think the tenacity of the Filipino purpose has been + under-estimated, and that the statements are unfounded that + volunteers are willing to engage in further service. + + The censorship has compelled us to participate in this + misrepresentation by excising or altering uncontroverted statements + of facts on the plea that "they would alarm the people at home," + or "have the people of the United States by the ears." + + +The men of the pen had been so long under military rule and had seen +so much of courts-martial that their document savored of military +jurisprudence. After making the above charges, it set forth what it +called "specifications." These were: + + + Prohibition of hospital reports; suppression of full reports + of field operations in the event of failure; numbers of heat + prostrations in the field; systematic minimization of naval + operations; and suppression of complete reports of the situation. + + +The paper was signed by John T. McCutcheon and Harry Armstrong, +representing the Chicago Record; O. K. Davis and P. G. MacDonnell, +representing the New York Sun; Robert M. Collins, John P. Dunning, +and L. Jones, representing the Associated Press; John F. Bass and +William Dinwiddie, representing the New York Herald; E. D. Skeene, +representing the Scripps-McRae Association; and Richard Little, +representing the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Collins, the Associated Press +representative, wrote his people an account of this whole episode, +which was also given wide publicity. After describing the committee's +interview with the General down to a certain point, he says: + + + But when General Otis came down to the frank admission that it + was his purpose to keep the knowledge of conditions here from the + public at home, and when the censor had repeatedly told us, in + ruling out plain statements of undisputed facts, "My instructions + are to let nothing go that can hurt the Administration," we + concluded that protest was justifiable. + + +Collins had written what he considered a conservative review of +the situation in June, saying reinforcements were needed. Of the +suppression of this he says: + + + The censor's comment (I made a note of it) was: "Of course we all + know that we are in a terrible mess out here, but we don't want the + people to get excited about it. If you fellows will only keep quiet + now we will pull through in time [232] without any fuss at home!" + + +Mr. Collins's letter proceeds: "When I went to see him [Otis] he +repeated the same old story about the insurrection going to pieces." + +As to the charge of suppressing the real condition of our sick in +the hospitals, Mr. Collins says that General Otis remarked that the +"hospitals were full of perfectly well men who were shirking and should +be turned out." On June 2, 1899, according to General Otis's report +(p. 121), sixty per cent. of one of the State volunteer regiments +were in hospital sick or wounded and there were in its ranks an +average of but eight men to a company fit for duty. The report of +the regimental surgeon stating this was forwarded by General Otis +to Washington with the comment that there were few cases of serious +illness; that the then "present station of these troops"--the place +where the fighting was hottest, San Fernando--"is considered by the +Filipinos as a health resort," and that "when orders to take passage +to the United States are issued, both the Montana and South Dakota +troops will recover with astonishing rapidity." [233] + +This round robin of course produced a profound sensation in the United +States. It was just what the American public had long suspected was +the case. Shortly afterward Secretary of War Alger resigned. Coming +as it did on the heels of the scandal about "embalmed beef" having +been furnished to the army in Cuba, it made him too much of a load +for the Administration to carry. He was succeeded by Mr. Root, +an eminent member of the New York Bar, whose masterful mind soon +saw the essentials of the situation and proceeded to get a volunteer +army recruited, equipped, and sent to the Philippines without further +unnecessary delay. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +OTIS AND THE WAR (Continued) + + And now, a man of head being at the centre of it, + the whole matter gets vital.--Carlyle's French Revolution. + + +There can surely be little doubt in any quarter that Mr. Root is, in +intellectual endowment and equipment at least, one of the greatest, +if he is not the greatest, of living American statesmen. Mankind will +always yield due acclaim to men who, in great emergencies, see the +essentials of a given situation, and at once proceed to get the thing +done that ought to be done. Whether the war in the Philippines was +regrettable or not, it had become, by midsummer of 1899, supremely +important, from any rational and patriotic standpoint, to end it as +soon as possible. + +Mr. Root had not been in office as Secretary of War very long before +fleets of troop-ships, carrying some twenty-five well-equipped +volunteer regiments, [234] were swarming out of New York harbor +bound for Manila by way of the Suez Canal, and out of the Golden +Gate for the same destination via Honolulu. Nor was there any +confusion as in the Cuban helter-skelter. Everything went as if by +clockwork. Moreover, along with the new and ample force, went a clear, +masterly, comprehensive plan of campaign, prepared, not by General +Otis at Manila, but in the War Department at Washington, by officers +already familiar with the islands. + +It was the purpose of this government at last to demonstrate +conclusively to the Filipino people that the representative of the +United States at Manila was "the boss of the show," and that Aguinaldo +was not--a demonstration then sorely needed by the exigencies of +American prestige. The purpose can readily be appreciated, but to +understand the plan of campaign, and the method of its execution, +somewhat of the geography of Luzon must now be considered. Before +we approach the shores of Luzon and the city of Manila, however, +let us consider from a distance, in a bird's-eye view, as it were, +the relation of Luzon to the rest of the archipelago, so as to know, +in a comprehensive way, what we are "going out for to see." We may as +well pause at this point, long enough to learn all we will ever need to +know, for the purposes of the scope of this narrative, concerning the +general geography of the Philippine archipelago, and the governmental +problems it presents. (See folding map at end of volume.) + +It is a common saying that Paris is France. In the same sense Manila +is the Philippines. In fact, the latter expression is more accurate +than the former, for Manila, besides being the capital city of the +country, and its chief port, is a city of over 200,000 people, while +no one of the two or three cities next to it in rank in population +had more than 20,000. [235] By parity of reasoning it may be said that +Luzon was the Philippines, so far as the problem which confronted us +when we went there was concerned, relatively both to the original +conception in 1898 of the struggle for independence, its birth in +1899, its life, and its slow, lingering obstinate death in 1900-1902, +in which last year the insurrection was finally correctly stated +to be practically ended. To know just how and why this was true, +is necessary to a clear understanding of that struggle, including +not only its genesis and its exodus, but also its gospels, its acts, +its revelations, and the multitudinous subsequent commentaries thereon. + +The total land area of the Philippine archipelago, according to the +American Census of 1903, is 115,000 square miles. [236] The area of +Luzon, the principal island, on which Manila is situated, is 41,000 +square miles, and that of Mindanao, the only other large island, is +36,000. [237] Between these two large islands, Luzon on the north, +and Mindanao on the south, there are a number of smaller ones, +but acquaintance with only six of these is essential to a clear +understanding of the American occupation. Many Americans, too busy +to have paid much attention to the Philippine Islands, which are, +and must ever remain, a thing wholly apart from American life, have a +vague notion that there are several thousand of them. This is true, in +a way. American energy has made, for the first time in their history, +an actual count of them, "including everything which at high tide +appeared as a separate island." [238] The work was done for our Census +of 1903 by Mr. George R. Putnam, now head of the Lighthouse Board of +the United States. Mr. Putnam, counted 3141 of them. [239] Of these, +of course, many--many hundred perhaps--are merely rocks fit only for a +resting place for birds. 2775, have an area of less than a square mile +each, 262 have an area of between 1 and 10 square miles, 73 between 10 +and 100 square miles, and 20 between 100 and 1000 square miles. This +accounts for, and may dismiss at once from consideration 3130--all but +11. Most of these 3130 that are large enough to demand even so much +as a single word here are poorly adapted to human habitation, being +in most instances, without good harbors or other landing places, and +usually covered either with dense jungle or inhospitable mountains, or +both. Their total area is only about 8500 square miles, of the 115,500 +square miles of land in the archipelago. None of them have ever had +any political significance, either in Spain's time, or our own, and +therefore, the whole 3130 may at once be eliminated from consideration, +leaving 11 only requiring any special notice at all--the 11 largest +islands. Of these, Luzon and Mindanao have already been mentioned. The +remaining 9, with their respective areas and populations, are: + + + Island Area [240] Population [241] + in Square Miles + + Panay 4,611 743,646 + Negros 4,881 560,776 + Cebu 1,762 592,247 + Bohol 1,411 243,148 + Samar 5,031 222,690 + Leyte 2,722 [242] 357,641 + Mindoro 3,851 28,361 + Masbate 1,236 29,451 + Paragua 4,027 [243] 10,918 + ------ --------- + Total 29,532 2,788,878 + + +The political or governmental problem being now reduced from 3141 +islands to eleven, the last three of the nine contained in the above +table may also be eliminated as follows: (See map at end of volume.) + +Paragua, the long narrow island seen at the extreme lower left of any +map of the archipelago, extending northeast southwest at an angle +of about 45 deg., is practically worthless, being fit for nothing much +except a penal colony, for which purpose it is in fact now used. + +Masbate--easily located on the map at a glance, because the twelfth +parallel of north latitude intersects the 124th meridian of longitude +east of Greenwich in its southeast corner--though noted for cattle +and other quadrupeds, is not essential to a clear understanding of +the human problem in its broader governmental aspects. + +Mindoro, the large island just south of the main bulk of Luzon, +pierced by the 121st meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, is +thick with densely wooded mountains and jungle over a large part +of its area, has a reputation of being very unhealthy (malarious), +is also very sparsely settled, and does not now, nor has it ever, +cut any figure politically, as a disturbing factor. [244] + +Eliminating Paragua, Masbate, and Mindoro as not essential to a +substantially correct general idea of the strategic and governmental +problems presented by the Philippine Islands, we have left, besides +Luzon and Mindanao, nothing but the half-dozen islands which appear +in large type in the above table: Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Samar, +Leyte, with a total area of 20,500 square miles. Add these to Luzon's +41,000 square miles and Mindanao's 36,000, and you have the Philippine +archipelago as we are to consider it in this book, that is to say, +two big islands with a half dozen little ones in between, the eight +having a total area of 97,500 square miles, of which the two big +islands represent nearly four-fifths. + +While the great Mohammedan island of Mindanao, near Borneo, with +its 36,000 square miles [245] of area, requires that the Philippine +archipelago be described as stretching over more than 1000 miles +from north to south, still, inasmuch as Mindanao only contains +about 500,000 people all told, [246] half of them semi-civilized, +[247] the governmental problem it presents has no more to do with +the main problem of whether, if ever, we are to grant independence +to the 7,000,000 Christians of the other islands, than the questions +that have to be passed on by our Commissioner of Indian Affairs have +to do with the tariff. + +Mindanao's 36,000 square miles constitute nearly a third of +the total area of the Philippine archipelago, and more than that +fraction of the 97,500 square miles of territory to a consideration +of which our attention is reduced by the process of elimination +above indicated. Turning over Mindanao to those crudely Mohammedan, +semi-civilized Moros would indeed be "like granting self-government +to an Apache reservation under some local chief," as Mr. Roosevelt, +in the campaign of 1900, ignorantly declared it would be to grant +self-government to Luzon under Aguinaldo. [248] Furthermore, the Moros, +so far as they can think, would prefer to owe allegiance to, and be +entitled to recognition as subjects of, some great nation. [249] +Again, because, the Filipinos have no moral right to control +the Moros, and could not if they would, the latter being fierce +fighters and bitterly opposed to the thought of possible ultimate +domination by the Filipinos, the most uncompromising advocate of +the consent-of-the-governed principle has not a leg to stand on +with regard to Mohammedan Mindanao. Hence I affirm that as to it, +we have a distinct and separate problem, which cannot be solved +in the lifetime of anybody now living. But it is a problem which +need not in the least delay the advent of independence for the +other fourteen-fifteenths of the inhabitants of the archipelago +[250]--all Christians living on islands north of Mindanao. It is +true that there are some Christian Filipinos on Mindanao, but in +policing the Moros, our government would of course protect them from +the Moros. If they did not like our government, they could move to +such parts of the island as we might permit to be incorporated in an +ultimate Philippine republic. Inasmuch as the 300,000 or so Moros of +the Mohammedan island of Mindanao and the adjacent islets called Jolo +(the "Sulu Archipelago," so called, "reigned over" by the Sultan of +comic opera fame) originally presented, as they will always present, +a distinct and separate problem, and never did have anything more +to do with the Philippine insurrection against us than their cousins +and co-religionists over in nearby Borneo, the task which confronted +Mr. Root in the fall of 1899, to wit, the suppression of the Philippine +insurrection, meant, practically, the subjugation of one big island, +Luzon, containing half the population and one-third the total area of +the archipelago, and six neighboring smaller ones, the Visayan Islands. + +And now let us concentrate our attention upon Luzon as Mr. Root +no doubt did, with infinite pains, in the fall of 1899. Of the +7,600,000 people of the Philippines [251] almost exactly one-half, +i.e., 3,800,000, [252] live on Luzon, and these are practically all +civilized. [253] It so happens that the State of our Union which is +nearer the size of Luzon than any other is the one which furnished +the first American Civil Governor for the Philippine Islands, Governor +Taft. President Taft's native State of Ohio is 41,061 square miles in +area, and Luzon is 40,969. [254] Roughly speaking, Luzon may also be +said to be about the size of Cuba, [255] though it is about twice as +thickly populated as the latter, Cuba, having something over 2,000,000 +people to Luzon's nearly 4,000,000. [256] + +By all Americans in the Philippines since our occupation, the island +of Luzon is always contemplated as consisting of two parts, to wit, +northern Luzon, or that part north of Manila, and southern Luzon, +the part south of Manila. The great central plain of Luzon, lying +just north of Manila, is nearly as large as the republic of Salvador, +or the State of New Jersey, i.e., in the neighborhood of 7000 square +miles area [257]--and, like Salvador, it contains a population of +something over 1,000,000 inhabitants. The area and population of the +five provinces of this plain are, according to the Philippine Census +of 1903, as follows: + + + Province Area [258] (sq. m.) Population [259] + + Pangasinan 1,193 397,902 + Pampanga 868 223,754 + Bulacan 1,173 223,742 + Tarlac 1,205 135,107 + Nueva Ecija 1,950 134,147 + ----- --------- + 6,389 1,114,652 + + +Roughly speaking, the central plain comprising the above five provinces +is bounded as follows: On the north by mountains and Lingayen Gulf, on +the east by a coast range of mountains separating it from the Pacific +Ocean, on the west by a similar range separating it from the China +Sea, and on the south by Manila Bay and mountains. The Rio Grande de +Pampanga flows obliquely across it in a southwesterly direction into +Manila Bay, and near its western edge runs the railroad from Manila +to Dagupan on Lingayen gulf. Dagupan is 120 miles from Manila. This +plain, held by a well-equipped insurgent army backed by the moral +support of the whole population, became the theatre of war as soon +as the volunteers of 1899 began to arrive at Manila, the insurgent +capital being then at Tarlac, a place about two-thirds of the way up +the railroad from Manila to Dagupan. + +Of course the first essential thing to do was to break the backbone +of the insurgent army, and scatter it, and the next thing to do was +to capture Aguinaldo, the head and front of the whole business, the +incarnation of the aspirations of the Filipino people. The operations +to this end commenced in October, and involved three movements of +three separate forces: + +(1) A column under General Lawton, proceeding up the Rio Grande +and along the northeastern borders of the plain, and bending around +westward along its northern boundary toward the gulf of Lingayen, +garrisoning the towns en route, and occupying the mountain passes +on the northeast which give exit over the divide into the great +valleys beyond. + +(2) An expedition under General Wheaton, some 2500 in all, proceeding +by transports to the gulf of Lingayen, the chief port of which, +Dagupan, was the northern terminus of the railroad; the objective +being to land on the shore of that gulf at the northwest corner of +the plain, occupy the great coast road which runs from that point to +the northern extremity of the island, and also to proceed eastward +and effect a junction with the Lawton column. + +(3) A third column under General MacArthur, proceeding up the railroad +to the capture of Tarlac, the third insurgent capital, and thence +still up the railroad to its end at Dagupan, driving the enemy's +forces before it toward the line held by the first two columns. + +On October 12th, General Lawton moved up the Rio Grande from a place +called Aryat, a few miles up stream from where the railroad crosses the +river at Calumpit, driving the insurgents before him to the northward +and westward. His command was made up mainly from the 3d Cavalry and +the 22d Infantry, together with several hundred scouts, American and +Maccabebee. On the 20th San Isidro was again captured. That was the +place Lawton had evacuated in May previous. Arriving in the Islands +with Colonel E. E. Hardin's regiment, the 29th U. S. Volunteer +Infantry, on November 3, 1899, the writer was immediately detailed +to the Maccabebee scouts, to take the place of Lieutenant Boutelle, +of the regular artillery, a young West Pointer from Oregon, who had +been killed a day or two previous, and reported to Major C. G. Starr, +General Lawton's Adjutant-General in the field (whom he had known at +Santiago de Cuba the previous year) at San Isidro on or about November +8th. Major Starr said: "We took this town last spring," stating how +much our loss had been in so doing, "but, partly as a result of the +Schurman Commission parleying with the insurgents General Otis had +us fall back. We have just had to take it again." General Lawton +garrisoned San Isidro this time once for all, and pressed on north, +capturing the successive towns en route. Meantime, General Young's +cavalry, and the Maccabebee scouts under Major Batson, a lieutenant +of the regular army, and a medal-of-honor graduate of the Santiago +campaign, were operating to the west of the general line of advance, +striking insurgent detachments wherever found and driving them toward +the line of the railroad. By November 13th, Lawton's advance had +turned to the westward, according to the concerted plan of campaign +above described, garrisoning, as fast as they were taken, such of the +towns of the country over which he swept as there were troops to spare +for. We knew that Aguinaldo had been at Tarlac when the advance began, +and every officer and enlisted man of the command was on the qui vive +to catch him. By November 18th, General Lawton's forces held a line of +posts extending up the eastern side of the plain, and curving around +across the northern end to within a few miles of the gulf of Lingayen. + +On November 6th, General Wheaton set sail from Manila for Lingayen +Gulf, with 2500 men of the 13th Regular and 33d Volunteer Infantry, +and a platoon of the 6th Artillery, convoyed by the ships of the +navy, and next day the expedition was successfully landed at San +Fabian, "with effective assistance from the naval convoy against +spirited resistance," says Secretary of War Root, in his annual +report for 1899. The navy's assistance on that occasion was indeed +"effective," but such passing mention hardly covers the case. In +the first place, they selected the landing point, their patrols +being already familiar with the coasts. As soon as the transports +were sighted, about eleven o'clock on the morning of November +7th, Commander Knox, the senior officer present, who commanded the +Princeton, and Commander Moore, of the Helena, went out to meet and +confer with General Wheaton. This done, the landing was effected +under protection of the navy's guns. Besides the naval vessels +above named, there were also present the Bennington under Commander +Arnold, the Manila under Lieutenant-Commander Nazro, and two captured +Spanish gun-boats small enough to get close in shore, the Callao, +and the Samar. The troops were disembarked in two columns of small +boats towed by launches. Lieutenant-Commander Tappan in charge of +the Callao, and Ensign Mustin, commanding the Samar, were especially +commended in the despatches of Admiral Watson, commander-in-chief +of the Asiatic squadron. Both bombarded the insurgent trenches +at close range during the landing, and Mustin actually steamed in +between the insurgents and the head of the column of troop-boats, +so as to intercept and receive the brunt of their fire himself, and, +selecting a point about seventy-five yards from the enemy's trenches +whence he could effectually pepper them, ran his ship aground so she +would stick, and commenced rapid firing at point blank range, driving +the enemy from his trenches, and enabling Colonel Hare of the 33d, +and those who followed, to land without being subjected to further +fire while on the water. [260] + +On the 11th of November, Colonel Hare with the 33d Volunteer Infantry +and one Gatling gun under Captain Charles R. Howland of the 28th +Volunteer Infantry, a lieutenant of the regular army, and a member of +General Wheaton's staff, proceeded southeastward to San Jacinto, and +attacked and routed some 1200 to 1600 intrenched insurgents, Major John +A. Logan being among our killed. The enemy left eighty-one dead in the +trenches, and suffered a total loss estimated at three hundred. While +space does not permit dwelling on the details of engagements, it may be +remarked here, once for all, that the 33d Volunteer Infantry, Colonel +Luther R. Hare commanding, made more reputation than any other of the +twenty-five regiments of the volunteer army of 1899, except, possibly, +Colonel J. Franklin Bell's regiment, the 36th. This is no reflection on +the rest. These two were lucky enough to have more opportunities. In +meeting his opportunities, however, Colonel Hare, like Colonel Bell, +proved himself a superb soldier; his field-officers, especially Major +March, [261] were particularly indefatigable; and his men were mostly +Texans, accustomed to handling a rifle with effect. Space also forbids +following Captain Howland and his Gatling gun into the engagement of +November 11th, but from the uniformity with which General Wheaton's +official reports commend his young aide's bravery and efficiency +on numerous occasions in 1899-1900, it may be safely assumed that +those qualities were behind that Gatling gun at San Jacinto. There +was a vicious rumor started after the San Jacinto fight and given wide +circulation in the United States, that Major Logan was shot in the back +by his own men. I saw a major surgeon a few days later who had been +an eye-witness to his death. He said an insurgent sharpshooter shot +Major Logan from a tree, and that the said sharpshooter was promptly +thereafter dropped from his perch full of 33d Infantry bullets. Says +General Wheaton's despatch of November 12th: "Major Logan fell while +gallantly leading his battalion." [262] + +On November 5th, General MacArthur, with a strong column, composed +mainly of the 9th, 17th, and 36th Regiments of Infantry, two troops of +the 4th Cavalry, two platoons of the 1st Artillery, and a detachment +of scouts, advanced up the railroad from Angeles, in execution of his +part of the programme. [263] Angeles is some distance up the railroad +from Calumpit, where the railroad crosses the Rio Grande. [264] +General MacArthur's column encountered and overwhelmed the enemy +at every point, entering Tarlac on November 12th, and effecting a +junction with General Wheaton at Dagupan, the northern terminus of +the Manila-Dagupan Railroad, 120 miles from Manila, on November 20th. + +After General Lawton had finished his part of the round-up, he had +a final conference with General Young on November 18th at Pozorubio, +which is near the northeastern border of the plain, bade him good-bye, +and soon afterward went south to dispose of a body of insurgents who +were giving trouble near Manila. It was in this last expedition that +he lost his life at San Mateo about twelve miles out of Manila on +December 19, 1899. + +The first of the two purposes of the great Wheaton-Lawton-MacArthur +northern advance, viz., the dispersion of the insurgent army of +northern Luzon had been duly accomplished. The other purpose had +failed of realization. Aguinaldo had not been captured. He escaped +through our lines. + +Such is in brief the story of the destruction of the Aguinaldo +government in 1899 by General Otis, or rather by Mr. Root. But the +trouble about it was that it would not stay destroyed. It "played +possum" for a while, the honorable President retiring to permanent +headquarters in the mountains "with his government concealed about +his person," as Senator Lodge put it later in a summary of the case +for the Administration, before the Senate, in the spring of 1900. If +the distinguished and accomplished senator from Massachusetts, in +adding at that time to the gaiety of nations, had had access to a +certain diary kept by one of Aguinaldo's personal staff throughout +that period, subsequently submitted, in 1902, to the Senate Committee +of that year, he could have swelled the innocuous merriment with such +cheery entries as "Here we tightened our belts and went to bed on +the ground"--the time alluded to being midnight after a hard day's +march without food, the place, some chilly mountain top up which the +"Honorable Presidente" and party had that day been guided by the +ever-present and ever-willing paisano (fellow countryman) of the +immediate neighborhood--whatever the neighborhood--to facilitate them +in eluding General Young's hard riding cavalry and scouts. The writer +has no quarrel with Senator Lodge's witticism above quoted, having +derived on reading it, in full measure, the suggestive amusement it +was intended to afford. It is true that about all then left of the +"Honorable Presidente's" government, for the nonce, was in fact +concealed about his person. It was of a nature easily portable. It +needed neither bull trains, pack ponies, nor coolies to carry it. It +consisted solely of the loyal support of the whole people, who looked +to him as the incarnation of their aspirations. Said General MacArthur +to the Senate Committee in 1902 concerning Aguinaldo: "He was the +incarnation of the feelings of the Filipinos." "Senator Culberson: +'And represented the Filipino people?' General MacArthur: 'I think so; +yes'." [265] We of the 8th Army Corps did not know what a complete +structure the Philippine republic of 1898-9 was until, having shot +it to pieces, we had abundant leisure to examine the ruins. To admit, +in the same breath, participation in that war and profound regret that +it ever had occurred, is not an incriminating admission. In this case +as in any other where you have done another a wrong, by thrashing him +or otherwise, under a mistake of fact, the first step toward righting +the wrong is to frankly acknowledge it. As soon as Aguinaldo's flight +and wanderings terminated in the finding of permanent headquarters, +he began sending messages to his various generals all over Luzon and +the other islands, and wherever those orders were not intercepted they +were delivered and loyally obeyed. This kept up until General Funston +captured him in 1901. One traitor among all those teeming millions +might have betrayed his whereabouts, but none appeared. The obstinate +character and long continuance of the warfare in northern Luzon after +the great round-up which terminated with the final junction of the +Lawton, Wheaton, and MacArthur columns near Dagupan, as elsewhere +later throughout the archipelago, was at first very surprising to our +generals. It had been supposed that to disperse the insurgent army +would end the insurrection. As events turned out, it only made the +resistance more effective. So long as the insurgents kept together +in large bodies they could not hide. And as they were poor marksmen, +while the men behind our guns, like most other young Americans, +knew something about shooting, the ratio of their casualties to ours +was about 16 to 1. [266] When General MacArthur began his advance +on Tarlac, General Lawton his great march up the valley of the Rio +Grande, and General Wheaton his closing in from Dagupan, Aguinaldo +with his cabinet, generals, and headquarters troops abandoned Tarlac, +their capital, and went up the railroad to Bayambang. Here they held +a council of war, which General MacArthur describes in his report +for 1900 (from information obtained later on) as follows: + + + At a council of war held at Bayambang, Pangasinan, about November + 12, 1899, which was attended by General Aguinaldo and many of the + Filipino military leaders, a resolution was adopted to the effect + that the insurgent forces were incapable of further resistance + in the field, and as a consequence it was decided to disband the + army, the generals and the men to return to their own provinces, + with a view to organizing the people for general resistance by + means of guerrilla warfare. [267] + + +This had been the plan from the beginning, the council of war +simply determining that the time to put the plan into effect had +arrived. Accordingly, the uniformed insurgent battalions and regiments +broke up into small bands which maintained a most persistent guerrilla +warfare for years thereafter. During those years they seldom wore +uniforms, disappearing and hiding their guns when hotly pursued, +and reappearing as non-combatant peasants interrupted in agricultural +pursuits, with invariable protestations of friendship. Hence all such +came to be known as amigos (friends), and the word amigo, or friend, +became a bitter by-word, meaning to all American soldiers throughout +the archipelago an enemy falsely claiming to be a friend. And every +Filipino was an "amigo." + +Still, the volunteers had arrived in time to enable Mr. Root to make +a very nice showing to Congress, and through it to the people, in his +annual report to the President for 1899, dated November 29th. This +report is full of cheerful chirps from General Otis to the effect +that the resistance was practically ended, and the substance of the +information it conveyed duly found its way into the President's message +of December of that year and through it to the general public. One +of the Otis despatches said: "Claim to government by insurgents can +be made no longer." [268] This message went on to state that nothing +was now left but "banditti," and that the people are all friendly +to our troops. Thus misled, Mr. Root repeated to the President and +through him to Congress and the country the following nonsense: + + + It is gratifying to know that as our troops got away from the + immediate vicinity of Manila they found the natives of the country + exceedingly friendly * * *. This was doubtless due in some measure + to the fact that the Pampangos, who inhabit the provinces of + Pampanga and Tarlac, and the Pangasinanes, who inhabit Pangasinan, + as well as the other more northerly tribes, are unfriendly to the + Tagalogs, and had simply submitted to the military domination of + that tribe, from which they were glad to be relieved. + + +In characterizing this as nonsense no disrespect is intended to +Mr. Root. He did not know any better. He was relying on General +Otis. But it is sorely difficult to convey in written words what +utter nonsense those expressions about "the Pampangos" and "the +Pangasinanes" are to any one who was in that northern advance in the +fall of 1899. Imagine a British cabinet minister making a report to +Parliament in 1776 couched in the following words, to wit: + + + The Massachusetts-ites, who inhabit Massachusetts, and the + Virginia-ites who inhabit Virginia, as well as most of the other + inhabitants are unfriendly to the New York-ites, and have simply + submitted to the military domination of the last named, + + +and you have a faint idea of the accuracy of Mr. Root's report. It is +quite true that the Tagalos were the prime movers in the insurrection +against us, as they had been in all previous insurrections against +Spain. But the "Tagalo tribe" was no more alone among the Filipino +people in their wishes and views than the "unterrified" Tammany tribe +who inhabit the wilds of Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson +River, are alone in their views among our people. + +On page 70 of this report, Secretary Root reproduces a telegram from +General Otis dated November 18, 1899, stating that on the road from +San Nicolas to San Manuel, a day or so previous, General Lawton was +"cordially received by the inhabitants." He announces in the same +telegram the drowning of Captain Luna, a volunteer officer from New +Mexico, who was one of General Lawton's aides, and had been a captain +in Colonel Roosevelt's regiment of Rough Riders before Santiago. The +writer happens to have been on that ride with General Lawton from San +Nicolas to San Manuel, and was within a dozen feet of Captain Luna +when the angry current of the Agno River caught him and his pony +in its grip and swept both out of sight forever, along with divers +troopers of the 4th Cavalry, horses and riders writhing to their +death in one awful, tangled, struggling mass. He can never forget +the magnificent dash back into the wide, ugly, swollen stream made +by Captain Edward L. King of General Lawton's staff, as he spurred +his horse in, followed by several troopers who had responded to his +call for mounted volunteers to accompany him in an effort to save the +lives of the men who went down. Their generous work proved futile. But +it was inspired partly by common dread of what they knew would happen +to any half-drowned soldier who might be washed ashore far away from +the column and captured. If an army was ever "in enemy's country" it +was then and there. When we reached San Manuel that night, Captains +King and Sewall, the two surviving personal aides of General Lawton's +staff, and the writer, stopped, along with the general, in a little +nipa shack on the roadside. General Lawton, was in an upper room busy +with couriers and the like, but downstairs King, Sewall, and myself +set to work to buscar [269] something to eat. I got hold of an hombre +(literally, a man; colloquially a native peasant man), who went to work +with apparent alacrity, and managed to provide three ravenously hungry +young men with a good meal of chicken, eggs, and rice. After supper, +being new in the country, the writer remarked to the general on the +alacrity of the hombre. I had brought out from the United States the +notions there current about the nature of the resistance. General +Lawton said, with a humorous twinkle in those fine eyes of his: +"Humph! If you expected to be killed the next minute if you didn't +find a chicken, you'd probably find one too." It is true that in the +course of the campaign General Young sent a telegram to General Otis +at Manila characterizing his reception at the hands of the natives as +friendly. This was prompted by our column being met as it would come +into a town by the town band. It did not take long to see through +this, and other like hypocrisy entirely justifiable in war, though +such tactics deceived us for a little while at first into thinking +the people were genuine amigos (friends). General Otis, not being near +the scene, remained under our original brief illusion. Let us return, +however, from Mr. Root's "patient and unconsenting millions dominated +by the Tagalo tribe," of 1899, to the facts, and follow the course +of events succeeding Lawton's junction with Wheaton and MacArthur +and his farewell to Young. + +General Young, with his cavalry, and the Maccabebee scouts, continued +in pursuit of Aguinaldo through the passes of the mountains, the +latter having managed to run the gauntlet of our lines successfully +by a very close shave. How narrowly he escaped is illustrated by +the fact that after a fight we had at the Aringay River on November +19th, in which Major Batson was wounded while gallantly directing +the crossing of the river, we remained that night in the town of +Aringay, and at the very time we were "hustling for chow" in Aringay, +Aguinaldo was in the village of Naguilian an hour or so distant, +as was authoritatively ascertained long afterward from a captured +diary of one of his staff officers. [270] + +General Young proceeded up the coast road, in hot haste, taking +one town, San Fernando de Union, after a brief engagement led by +the general in person--imagine a brigadier-general leading a charge +at the head of thirty-seven men!--but Aguinaldo had turned off to +the right and taken to the mountains. General Lawton wired General +Otis about that time, in effect, in announcing Aguinaldo's escape +through our lines and his own tireless brigade-commander's bold dash +in pursuit of him with an inadequate force of cavalry hampered by +lack of horseshoes and nails for the same, "If Young does not catch +Aguinaldo, he will at least make him very unhappy." The Young column +garrisoned the towns along the route over which it went, occupying +all the western part of Northern Luzon, hereafter described, and also +later on rescued Lieutenant Gilmore of the navy, Mr. Albert Sonnichsen, +previously an enlisted man and since a writer of some note, and other +American prisoners who had been in the hands of the insurgents for +many months. General Young finally made his headquarters at Vigan, +in the province of Ilocos Sur, a fine town in a fine country. The +Ilocanos are called "the Yankees of the Philippines," on account of +their energy and industry. Vigan is on the China sea coast of Luzon +(the west coast), about one hundred miles up the old Spanish coast +road, or "King's Highway" (Camino Real), from Lingayen Gulf (where +the hundred-and-twenty mile railroad from Manila to Dagupan ends) +and about eighty miles from the extreme northern end of the island +of Luzon. [271] + +As subsequent policies and their effect on one's attitude toward +a great historic panorama do not interfere in the least with a +proper appreciation of the bravery and efficiency of the army of +one's country, it is with much regret that this narrative cannot +properly chronicle in detail what the War Department reports record +of the stirring deeds of General Young, and the officers and men +of his command, Colonels Hare and Howze, Captains Chase and Dodd, +and the rest, [272] performed during the long course of the work now +under consideration. One incident, however, is appropriate in this +connection, not only to a collection of genre pictures of the war +itself, but also to a place among the lights and shadows of the general +picture of the American occupation. On December 2, 1899, Major March +of the 33d Infantry had his famous fight at Tila pass, in which young +Gregorio del Pilar, one of the ablest and bravest of the insurgent +generals, was killed. The locality mentioned is a wild pass in the +mountains of the west coast of Luzon, that overlook the China Sea, some +4500 feet above sea level. It was strongly fortified, and was believed +by the insurgents to be impregnable. The trail winds up the mountains +in a sharp zigzag, and was commanded by stone barricades loop-holed +for infantry fire. The advance of our people was checked at first by +a heavy fire from these barricades. The approach being precipitous, +it looked for a while as if the position would indeed be impregnable, +and the idea of taking it by a frontal attack was abandoned. But a +hill to the left front of the barricade was seized by some of our +sharpshooters--those Texans of the 33d were indeed sharpshooters--and +after that, under cover of their fire, our troops managed to get in +a fire simultaneously both on the flank and rear of the occupants of +the barricades, climbing the precipitous slope up the mountain side +by means of twigs and the like, and finally killing some fifty-two of +the enemy, General Pilar among the number. After the fight was over, +Lieutenant Quinlan, heretofore mentioned, moved by certain indignities +in the nature of looting perpetrated upon the remains of General Pilar, +buried them with such military honors as could be hastily provided, +after first taking from a pocket of the dead general's uniform a +souvenir in the shape of an unfinished poem written in Spanish by +him the night before, addressed to his sweetheart; and, the burial +finished, the American officer placed on the rude headstone left to +mark the spot this generous inscription: + + + General Gregorio Pilar, killed at the battle of Tila Pass, December + 2d, 1899, commanding Aguinaldo's rear-guard. An officer and a + gentleman. (Signed) D. P. Quinlan, 2d Lieutenant, 11th Cavalry. + + +The brief incident over, Quinlan hurried on, rejoined the column, +and resumed the work of Benevolent Assimilation and the war +against Home Rule with all the dauntless ardor of his impetuous +Irish nature. Whatever the ultimate analysis of the ethics of this +scene--Quinlan at the grave of Pilar--clearly the Second Lieutenant +Quinlan of 1899 would hardly have agreed with the vice-presidential +candidate of 1900, Colonel Roosevelt, that granting self-government +to the Filipinos would be like granting self-government to an Apache +reservation under some local chief. + +The territory occupied and finally "pacified" by General Young, +with the effective assistance of the officers heretofore mentioned, +and many other good men and true, was ultimately organized into +a military district, which was called the First District of the +Department of Northern Luzon. As territory was fought over, occupied, +and finally reduced to submission, that territory would be organized +into a military district by the commanding general or colonel of the +invading column, under the direction of the division commander. The +military "Division of the Philippines," which was succeeded by the +Civil Government of the Philippines under Governor Taft in 1901, +of course covered all the territory ceded by the Treaty of Paris. It +was divided into four "Departments," the Department of Northern Luzon, +the Department of Southern Luzon, the Department of the Visayas, [273] +and the Department of Mindanao and Jolo. General Young commanded the +First District of the Department of Northern Luzon--which included +the three west coast provinces north of Lingayen Gulf, and the three +adjacent mountain provinces--from the time he led his brigade into +that region in pursuit of Aguinaldo until shortly before Governor +Taft's inauguration in the summer of 1901. Many were the combats, +great and small, of General Young's brigade, in compassing the task +of crushing the resistance in that part of Luzon into which he led +the first American troops in the winter of 1899-1900. The resistance +was obstinate, desperate, and long drawn out, but when he finally +reported the territory under his command "pacified," it was pacified. +A soldier's task had been performed in a soldierly manner. The work +had been done thoroughly. General Young gave the Ilocano country a +lesson it never forgot, before politics had time to interfere. We +have never had any trouble in that region from that day to this. + +Before the army of occupation had had time to do in southern Luzon what +General Young did in northern Luzon and thereby secure like permanent +results in that region, a "peace-at-any-price" policy was inaugurated +to meet the exigencies of Mr. McKinley's campaign for the Presidency +in 1900. Our last martyred President clung all through that campaign +to his original assumption that Benevolent Assimilation would work, +and that the single burning need of the hour was to make clear to +the Filipinos what our intentions were--as if powder and lead did +not spell denial of independence plain enough, as if that were +not the sole issue, and as if that issue had not been submitted, +with deadly finality, to the stern arbitrament of war. However, +neither Lord Roberts in India, nor Lord Kitchener in Egypt ever more +effectively convinced the people of those countries that his flag +must be respected as an emblem of sovereignty, than General Young did +the Ilocanos. Take the month of April, 1900 for instance. Several +days after the expiration of said month (on May 5th) General Otis +was relieved and went home. During the month of April, General Young +killed five hundred insurgents in his district. [274] But this did +not prevent General Otis, arriving as he did in the United States +in the month of June, when the national political conventions meet, +from "repeating the same old story about the insurrection going to +pieces" [275]--only, not "going" now, but "gone." Nor did it, and like +sputterings of insurrection all over the place, prevent Judge Taft--the +"Mark Tapley of this Philippine business" as he humorously told the +Senate Committee of 1902 he had been called--from cabling home, during +the presidential campaign of 1900, a series of superlatively optimistic +bulletins, [276] based on the testimony of Filipinos who had abandoned +the cause of their country as soon as patriotism meant personal peril, +all such testimony being eagerly accepted, as testimony of the kind one +wants and needs badly usually is, in total disregard of information +directly to the contrary furnished by General MacArthur and other +distinguished soldiers who had been then on the ground for two years. + +The area and population of the territory occupied by General Young, +the "First District of the Department of Northern Luzon," was, +according to the Census of 1903, as follows: + + + Province Area (sq. m.) [277] Population [278] + + Ilocos Norte 1,330 178,995 + Ilocos Sur 471 187,411 + Union 634 137,839 + Abra 1,171 51,860 + Lepanto-Bontoc [279] 2,005 72,750 + Benguet 822 22,745 + ----- ------- + 6,433 651,600 + + +As this narrative purposes so to present the geography of the +Philippine Islands as to facilitate an easy remembrance of the +essentials only of the governmental problem there presented, +we will hereafter speak of the First District as containing, +roughly, 6500 square miles, and 650,000 people. Whenever, if ever, +a Philippine republic is set up, these six provinces are very likely, +for geographical and other reasons, to become one of the original +states comprising that republic, just as the states of Mexico are +made up of groups of provinces. [280] + +The rest of the story of the northern campaign of 1899-1900 immediately +following Aguinaldo's escape into the mountains through General Young's +and General Lawton's lines, being a necessary part of the American +occupation of the Philippines, may also serve as a text for further +acquainting the reader with the geography of Luzon. War is the best +possible teacher of geography, and it may be well to communicate +in broken doses, as we received them, the lessons on the subject +which the 8th Army Corps learned in 1899 and the subsequent years +so thoroughly that we could all pronounce with astonishing glibness, +the most unpronounceable names imaginable. + +When the great Wheaton-Lawton-MacArthur "Round-up" reached the +mountains on the northeast of the great central plain, in the +latter part of November 1899, Captain Joseph B. Batchelor, with +one battalion of the 24th (negro) Infantry, and some scouts under +Lieutenant Castner, a very intrepid and tireless officer, boldly cut +loose from the column of which he was a part, and, pressing on over the +Caranglan pass, overran the province of Nueva Vizcaya, which is part +of the watershed of north central Luzon, proceeding from Bayombong, +the capital of Nueva Vizcaya, down the valley of the Magat River, +by the same route Messrs. Wilcox and Sargent of the navy had made +their pleasant junket in the fall of 1898 as described in Chapter VI +(ante). Following this route Captain Batchelor finally came into +Isabela province, where the Magat empties into the Cagayan River, +reaching Iligan, the capital of Isabela, ninety miles northeast of +Bayombong, about December 8th. From Iligan Batchelor went on, promptly +overcoming all resistance offered, down the great Cagayan valley, some +110 miles due north, to the sea at Aparri, the northernmost town of +Luzon and of the archipelago, where he met two vessels of our navy, +the Newark and the Helena, under Captain McCalla, and found, to his +inexpressible (but partially and rather fervently expressed) chagrin, +that the insurgents who had fled before him, and also the garrison +at Aparri, had already surrendered to the navy. The territory thus +covered by Batchelor's bold, brilliant, and memorable march over two +hundred miles of hostile country from the mountains of central Luzon +down the Cagayan valley to the northern end of the island, at Aparri, +[281] consisted of the three provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, and Nueva +Vizcaya. The area and population of these three, according to the +census tables of 1903, are as follows: + + + Province Area (sq. m.) [282] Population [283] + + Cagayan 5,052 156,239 + Isabela 5,018 76,431 + Nueva Vizcaya 1,950 62,541 + ------ ------- + Total 12,020 295,211 + + +The troops of Captain Batchelor's command were later on relieved by +the 16th Infantry, commanded by Colonel Hood, under whom the above +group of three provinces finally became the "Second District of the +Department of Northern Luzon." As part of the plan to provide the +reader with a fair general idea of Luzon conveniently portable in +memory, he is requested to note, at this point, that hereinafter the +Cagayan valley, with its three provinces, [284] will be alluded to as +a district containing 12,000 square miles and 300,000 people. As was +remarked concerning the original military district commanded by General +Young, to wit, the First District, so of Colonel Hood's district, +the Second--that is to say, as the Ilocano country may some day become +the state of Ilocos, so, for like geographical and other governmental +reasons, the three provinces of the Cagayan valley may some day become +the state of Cagayan in the possible Philippine republic of the future. + +Having now followed the "far-flung battle line" of the volunteers of +'99 and their comrades in arms, the regulars, from Manila northward +across the rice paddies of central Luzon and over the mountains to the +northern extremity of the island, let us return to the central plain, +for reasons which will be stated in so doing. Between the China Sea +and the coast range which forms the western boundary of the central +plain of Luzon, there is a long strip of territory--a west wing of +the plain, as it were--about 125 miles long, with an average width +of not more than twenty miles, stretching from Manila Bay to Lingayen +Gulf. This is divided, for governmental purposes into two provinces, +Bataan on the south, whose southern extremity lay on Admiral Dewey's +port side as he entered Manila Bay the night before the naval battle +of May 1, 1898, and Zambales on the north. The area and population +of this territory are as follows: + + + Province Area (sq. m.) Population + + Bataan 537 46,787 + Zambales 2,125 104,549 + ----- ------- + 2,662 151,336 + + +Also, between the Pacific Ocean and the coast range which forms the +eastern boundary of the plain is a longer, narrower, and very sparsely +populated strip, or east wing, divided also into two provinces, +Principe on the north and Infanta on the south, each supposed to +contain about fifteen thousand people. Principe and Infanta are wholly +unimportant, except that, to avoid confusion, we must account for +all the provinces visible on the maps of Luzon. These two provinces +never gave any trouble and no one ever bothered about them. [285] +In the mountains of Zambales and Bataan, however, as in most of the +other provinces of the archipelago, the struggle was long kept up, +just as the Boers kept up their war for independence against Great +Britain about the same time, by guerrilla warfare. + +The central plain with five provinces has already been fully +described. If to this plain you add its two wings, above mentioned, +you have the nine provinces of central Luzon you see on the map. And +if to them you add the six provinces of the Ilocos country and the +three of the Cagayan valley, you have clearly before you the political +make-up of northern Luzon--eighteen provinces in all. When central +Luzon was arranged by districts under the military occupation, +it was divided into three parts, the Third, Fourth, and Fifth +districts of the Department of Northern Luzon, the Third District +being under General Jacob H. Smith of Samar fame, [286] the Fourth +under General Funston, and the Fifth under General Grant. The Sixth +and last district of northern Luzon was made up of the city of Manila +and adjacent territory. + +General Smith's district, the Third, comprised the provinces of + + + Province Area (sq. m.) Population + + Zambales 2,125 104,549 + Pangasinan 1,193 397,902 + Tarlac 1,205 135,107 + ----- ------- + 4,523 637,558 + + +Pangasinan with its near 400,000 people is the largest, in point +of population, of the twenty-five provinces of Luzon, and the third +largest of the archipelago. + +General Funston's district, the Fourth, comprised the provinces of + + + Province Area (sq. m.) Population + + Nueva Ecija 2,169 134,147 + Principe [287] 331 15,853 + ----- ------- + 2,500 150,000 + + +General Grant's district, the Fifth, comprised the provinces of + + + Province Area (sq. m.) Population + + Bataan 537 46,787 + Pampanga 868 223,754 + Bulacan 1,173 223,742 + ----- ------- + 2,578 494,283 + + 2,500 150,000 + ===== ======= + Totals, 4th and + 5th Districts: 5,078 644,283 + + +It will be seen from the foregoing that the Third District was nearly +equal in area to the Fourth and Fifth added together, and that the +same was true as to its population figure. + +Just as the six provinces of the Ilocano country, first occupied by +General Young and organized as "The First District of the Department of +Northern Luzon," should some day evolve into a State of Ilocos, and the +three provinces of the Cagayan valley, occupied by Colonel Hood as the +Second District, into an ultimate State of Cagayan, so the provinces +of General Smith's old district, the Third, should finally become a +State of Pangasinan. [288] This Third District may be conveniently +recollected as accounting for, roughly speaking, 4500 square miles +of territory and 625,000 people. The total combined area of General +Funston's old district, the Fourth, [289] and the adjacent one, +the Fifth, General Grant's district, is--roughly--5000 square miles, +and its total population 650,000. No reason is apparent why these two +districts, the Fourth and Fifth, should not ultimately evolve into a +State of Pampanga. The five original military districts, [290] which +in 1900 constituted all of the Department of Northern Luzon except +the city of Manila and vicinity, might make four ultimate states, +with names, areas, and populations as follows: + + + State Area (sq. m.) Population + + Ilocos 6,500 650,000 + Cagayan 12,000 300,000 + Pangasinan 4,500 625,000 + Pampanga 5,000 650,000 + ------ --------- + 28,000 2,225,000 + + +It may surprise the reader after all the blood and thunder to which +his attention has hereinabove been subjected, apropos of northern +Luzon and the winter of 1899-1900, to know that the insurgents were +still bearding the lion in his den, i. e., General Otis in Manila, +by operating in very considerable force in the village-dotted country +within cannon-shot of the road from Manila to Cavite in January, +1900. Nevertheless such was the case. + +On the 4th of January, 1900, General J. C. Bates was assigned to +the command of the First Division of the Eighth Army Corps, General +Lawton's old division, and an active campaign was commenced in southern +Luzon. The plan adopted was that General Wheaton with a strong force +should engage and hold the enemy in the neighborhood of Cavite, while +General Schwan, starting at the western horn of the half moon to which +the great lake called Laguna de Bay has already been likened, should +move rapidly down the west shore of the lake, and around its south +shore to Santa Cruz near its eastern end, or horn, garrisoning the +towns en route, as taken, instead of leaving them to be re-occupied by +the insurgents. Santa Cruz is the same place where General Lawton had +"touched second base," as it were, with a flying column in April, 1899. + +This plan was duly carried out. The Schwan column started from San +Pedro Macati, the initial rendezvous, a few miles out of Manila, +on January 4, 1900, now garrisoning the towns en route, instead of +leaving them to be fought over and captured again as heretofore. The +first stiff fight we had in that campaign was at Binan, on January 6, +1900, one of the places General Lawton's expedition had taken when +he fought his way over the same country the year before. O. K. Davis +and John T. McCutcheon, who were in that fight and campaign--in fact +one of them had the ice-cold nerve to photograph the Binan fight while +it was going on, as I learned when we all went down to the creek near +the town, after we took it, to freshen up--can testify that we did not +then hear any nonsense about a "Tagal" insurrection, such as Secretary +of War Root's Report for 1899, published shortly before, is full of, +and that on the contrary the whole country was as much a unit against +us and as loyal to the Aguinaldo government as northern Luzon had +been. And inasmuch as I am doing some "testifying" along here myself, +and assuming to brush aside without the slightest hesitation, as wholly +erroneous, information conveyed to the American public at the time +in the state papers of President McKinley and Secretary of War Root, +it is only due the reader, whose attention is being seriously asked, +that "the witness" should "qualify" as to the opportunities he may +have had, if any, to know whereof he speaks, concerning the character +of the opposition. To that end, the following document, which General +Schwan was kind enough to send me afterwards, is submitted as sent: + + + EXTRACT COPY. + + Headquarters Detachment Macabebe Scouts. + The Adjutant General, Schwan's Expeditionary Brigade: + + + Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report of the + operations of the Detachment of Macabebe Scouts, under my command, + while forming a part of your Brigade. + + The Detachment, consisting of five (5) officers and one hundred + and forty (140) men, was divided into two companies, commanded + by 1st Lt. J. Lee Hall, 33rd Inf., and 1st Lt. Blount, 29th Inf., + left San Pedro Macati the afternoon of Jan. 4th, 1900 * * *. + + * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * + + I wish to invite your attention, especially, to the good work + done in the fight at Binan by Lieut. Blount, 29th Inf., who led + the line by at least twenty-five yards * * *. + + + Very Respectfully, + Wm. C. Geiger, 1st Lt. 14th Inf., Com'd'g Det. + + + I hereby certify that the above is a true copy of extracts from + the report of the operations of the Detachment of Macabebe Scouts + forming part of an Expeditionary Brigade under my command, in + the months of January and February, 1900. + + + Theo. Schwan, + Brig. General, U. S. Vols. + Aug. 16, 1900. + + +The activities of Generals Bates and Wheaton, and the Schwan Expedition +of January-February, 1900, extended the American occupation, so far +as there were troops enough immediately available to go around, over +the lake-shore portions and the principal towns of the two great +provinces of southern Luzon bordering on the Laguna de Bay, viz., +Cavite and Laguna; and over parts of the two adjacent provinces of +Batangas and Tayabas. + +Batangas bounds Cavite on the south, and is itself bounded on the +south by the sea, where a fairly good port offered a fine gateway +for smuggling arms into the interior from abroad. Tayabas province +adjoins Laguna on the southeast. Cavite province has always been, +since the opening of the Suez Canal, about 1869, and the agitations +for political reform in Spain which culminated in the Spanish republic +of 1873, quickened the thought of Spain's East Indies, the home of +insurrection, the breeding place of political agitation. Aguinaldo +himself was born within its limits in 1869. Laguna province comprehends +most of the country lying between the southern and eastern lake-shore +of the Laguna de Bay and the mountains which skirt that body of water +in the blue distance, all parts of it being thus in easy and safe +touch by water transportation by night with Cavite, the home and +headquarters of insurgency. + +Just as northern Luzon had been gradually organized into military +districts as conquered, so was southern Luzon. The territory, over-run, +as above described, by Generals Bates, Wheaton, and Schwan, was divided +into two districts. [291] Colonel Hare commanded the First District, +Cavite province and vicinity. General Hall commanded the Second +District, Batangas, Laguna, and Tayabas. The area and population of +these four provinces, according to the Census of 1903, were as follows: + + + Province Area (sq. m.) Population + + Cavite 619 134,779 + Batangas 1,201 257,715 + Laguna 629 148,606 + Tayabas 5,993 153,065 + ----- ------- + 8,442 694,165 + + +For convenience of subsequent allusion, this group of provinces may +be treated as representing roughly 8500 square miles of territory +and 700,000 people. These four provinces group themselves together +naturally from a military standpoint. As physical force is the +final basis of all government, these four provinces constitute a +logical administrative governmental unit, as shown by the action +of our military authorities in their extension of the American +occupation. It would seem therefore that if there should ever be +a Philippine republic, they would probably constitute one of its +states--the State, let us say, of Cavite. + +The rest of southern Luzon below that part above described consists of +a peninsula which, owing to its odd formation, is easy to remember. The +mainland of Luzon, that is to-say, that part of the island which our +narrative has already covered, remotely suggests, in shape, the State +of Illinois. At least it resembles Illinois more than it does any other +State of our Union, in that its length runs north and south, and its +average length and width are nearer that of Illinois than any other. At +the southeast corner of this mainland, the observer of the map will +see, jutting off to the southeast from the mainland, the peninsula in +question. It is about a hundred and fifty miles long, with an average +width of possibly thirty miles--a minimum width of, say, ten miles, and +a maximum of fifty,--and is separated from Samar by the narrow, swift, +and treacherous San Bernardino Strait, which connects the Pacific +Ocean with the China Sea. This peninsula is frequently called "the +Hemp Peninsula." The importance of controlling the hemp ports prompted +General Otis to send General Bates with an expedition to those ports on +February 15, 1900. [292] This expedition did little more than occupy +those ports. The great interior continued under insurgent control +some time afterward. The report of the Secretary of War, Mr. Root, +for 1900, goes on to describe an engagement, or two, sustained by +the Bates Expedition shortly after it landed, and concludes, with +a complacency almost Otis-like, by stating that shortly thereafter +"the normal conditions of industry and trade relations with Manila +were resumed by the inhabitants." Of course Mr. Root believed this, +and so did Mr. McKinley. More the pity, as we shall later see. General +Otis was now getting anxious to go home, and hastened to "occupy" +and organize the rest of the archipelago, on paper, at least, the +hemp peninsula becoming, on March 20, 1900, the Third District of +the Department of Southern Luzon, Brigadier-General James M. Bell +commanding. The provinces comprised in this district, with their +areas and populations as given by the Census of 1903, were as follows: + + + Province Area (sq. m.) Population + + Camarines [293] 3,279 239,405 + Albay 1,783 240,326 + Sorsogon 755 120,495 + ----- ------- + 5,817 600,226 + + +For convenience of subsequent allusion, these three provinces of +the hemp peninsula which constituted the Third Military District of +the Military Department of Southern Luzon in 1900, may be regarded +as comprising, roughly, 6000 square miles of territory and 600,000 +people. If the Philippine republic of the future which is the dream +of the Filipino people, prove other than an idle dream, the hemp +peninsula will probably some day constitute a state of that republic, +an appropriate and probable name for which would be the State of +Camarines. + +The Fourth District of southern Luzon--there were but four--was +occupied by the 29th U. S. Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Colonel +E. E. Hardin, one of the best executive officers General Otis had in +his whole command. The Fourth District comprised a lot of islands +unnecessary to be considered at length in this bird's-eye view of +the panorama, but necessary to be mentioned in outlining the military +occupation. The 29th, like the other twenty-four volunteer regiments, +settled down with equanimity to the business of policing a hostile +country, sang with zest, like the rest of the twenty-five volunteer +regiments, that old familiar song, "Damn, Damn, Damn the Filipino," +etc., and waited with the uniquely admirable stoicism of the American +soldier for the season of their home-going to roll round, which, under +the Act of Congress, [294] would be the spring of the following year. + +In volume i., part 5, War Department Report, 1899, at pages 5 et seq., +may be found a journal illustrating the nature of the "police" work +done by the volunteers of 1899, in 1900, and at pages 5 et seq. of +the same report for 1900 (volume i., part 4) may be found a similar +diary carried up to June 30, 1901. Throughout the period covered by +those reports, scarcely a day passed without what the military folk +coolly call "contacts" with the enemy. + +The Visayan Islands were in course of time duly organized, as Luzon had +previously been, departmentally and by military districts. The Visayan +Islands became the Department of Visayas, divided into districts +commanded either by regimental commanders having a regiment or more +with them, or by general officers. For a long time no attempt to make +military occupation effective in these various islands, save in the +coast towns, was attempted. However, the indicated disposition of +troops completed, technically at least, the American occupation of +the Visayan Islands. + +Pursuant to the plan followed, as we have hitherto followed the +army in our narrative, first throughout northern Luzon and later +through southern Luzon, some data are now in order concerning the +Visayan Islands. + +As already made clear, there are but six of the Visayan Islands with +which any one interested in the Philippines merely as a student of +world politics or of history need bother. The area and population of +these are as follows: [295] + + + Island Area (sq. m.) Population + + Panay 4,611 743,646 + Negros 4,881 460,776 + Cebu 1,762 592,247 + Leyte 2,722 356,641 + Samar 5,031 222,090 + Bohol 1,441 243,148 + + +Whenever, if ever, an independent republic is established in +the Philippines, the six islands above mentioned could and should +constitute self-governing commonwealths similar to the several States +of the American Union. The rest of the islands lying between Luzon +and Mindanao could easily be disposed of governmentally by being +attached to the jurisdiction of one of the said six islands. + +Mindanao and the adjacent islets called Jolo were organized as +the Department of Mindanao and Jolo, under General Kobbe, with +the 31st Volunteer Infantry, Colonel Pettit's regiment, the 40th +Volunteer Infantry, Colonel Godwin's regiment, and the 23rd Regular +Infantry. Thus the archipelago was completely accounted for, for +the time being, just as all the territory of the United States was +long accounted for by our military authorities at home, with the +Department of the East, headquarters Governor's Island, New York; the +Department of the Lakes, headquarters Chicago; the Department of the +Gulf, headquarters Atlanta, etc. In this state of the case, General +Otis re-embraced his early pet delusion--if it was a delusion, which +charity and the probabilities suggest it should be called--about the +insurrection having gone to pieces; and decided to come home. Possibly, +also, he was homesick. General Otis was a very positive character, +a strong man. But even strong men get homesick after long exile. When +you hear the call of the homeland after long residence "east of Suez," +you must answer the call, duty not forbidding. General Otis had stood +by his ink wells and the Administration with unswerving devotion +for twenty months, and was entitled to come back home and tell the +public all about the fighting in the Philippines, and how entirely +over it was, and how wholly right Mr. McKinley was in his theory +that the visible opposition to our rule and the seeming desire to +be free and independent did not represent the wishes of the Filipino +people at all, but only the "sinister ambitions of a few unscrupulous +Tagalo leaders." Accordingly on May 5, 1900, he was relieved at his +own request, and departed for the United States. He was succeeded +in command by a very different type of man, Major-General Arthur +MacArthur, upon whom now devolved the problem of holding down the +situation and of actually getting it stably "well in hand" by June +30, 1901, the date of expiration of the term of enlistment of the +twenty-five volunteer regiments organized under the Act of March +2, 1899. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +MACARTHUR AND THE WAR + + Damn, damn, damn the Filipino, + Pock-marked khakiac ladrone; [296] + Underneath the starry flag + Civilize him with a Krag, + And return us to our own beloved home. + + Army Song of the Philippines under MacArthur. [297] + + +Some one has said, "Let me write the songs of a people and I care +not who makes their laws." Give me the campaign songs of a war, and +I will so write the history of that war that he who runs may read, +and, reading, know the truth. The volunteers of 1899 had, most of +them, been in the Spanish War of '98. That struggle had been so +brief that, to borrow a phrase of the principal beneficiary of it, +Colonel Roosevelt, there had not been "war enough to go 'round." The +Philippine insurrection had already broken out when the Spanish War +volunteers returned from Cuba in the first half of 1899. Few of them +knew exactly where the Philippines were on the map. They simply knew +that we had bought the islands, that disturbances of public order +were in progress there, and that the Government desired to suppress +them. The President had called for volunteers. That was enough. When +they reached the islands, instead of finding a lot of outlaws, +brigands, etc., such as that pestiferous, ill-conditioned outfit of +horse-thieves and cane-field burning patriots we volunteers of '98 +had to comb out of the eastern end of Cuba under General Wood in the +winter of 1898-9, they found Manila, on their arrival, practically +almost a besieged city. They knew that the erroneous impression +they had brought with them was the result of misrepresentation. Who +was responsible for that misrepresentation they did not attempt to +analyze. They simply set to work with American energy to put down the +insurrection. Nobody questioned the unanimity of the opposition. There +it was, a fact--denied at home, but a fact. In the course of the fight +against the organized insurgent army they lost a great many of their +comrades, and in that way the unanimity of the resistance was quite +forcibly impressed upon them. By kindred psychologic processes equally +free from mystery, their determination to overcome the resistance +early became very set--a state of mind which boded no good to the +Filipinos. The army song given at the beginning of Chapter XI (ante), +in which General Otis is made to sing, after the fashion of some of +the characters in Pinafore, that pensive query to himself + + + Am I the boss, or am I a tool? + + +the first stanza of which closes + + + Now I'd like to know who's the boss of the show, + Is it me or Emilio Aguinaldo? + + +was a point of departure, in the matter of information, which +served to acquaint them with all that had gone before. They resented +the loss of prestige to American arms and desired to restore that +prestige. While engaged in so doing, they became aware, during the +Presidential year 1900, that the campaign of that year in the United +States was based largely upon the pretence that the majority of the +Filipinos welcomed our rule. Naturally, their experience led them to +a very general and very cordial detestation of this pretence. For one +thing, it was an unfair belittling of the actual military service +they were rendering. People hate a lie whether they are able to +trace its devious windings to its source or sources, or to analyze +all its causes, or calculate all its possible effects, or not. The +real rock-bottom falsehood, not as fully understood then as it became +later, consisted in the impression sought to be produced at home, in +order to get votes, that the great body of the Filipino people were +not really in sympathy with their country's struggle for freedom, +and would be really glad tamely to accept the alien domination so +benevolently offered by a superior people, but were being coerced into +fighting through intimidation by a few selfish leaders acting for their +own selfish ends. While our fighting generals in the field,--General +MacArthur, for instance, whose interview with a newspaper man just +after the fall of Malolos, in March, 1899, subsequently verified by +him before the Senate Committee of 1902, has already been noticed--at +first believed that it was only a faction that we had to contend with, +they soon discovered that the whole people were loyal to Aguinaldo and +the cause he represented. But, while the point as to how unanimous +the resistance was remained a disputed matter for some little time +among those of our people who did not have to "go up against it," +the most curious fact of that whole historic situation, to my mind, +is the absolute identity of the disputed suggestion with that which +had previously been used in like cases in all ages by the powerful +against people struggling to be free, and the cotemporaneous absence +of any notation of the coincidence by any conspicuous spectator of +the drama, to say nothing of us smaller fry who bore the brunt of +the war or any portion of it. + +Those men of '99 in the Philippines realized in 1900, vaguely +it may be, but actually, that they were waging a war of conquest +after the manner of the British as sung by Kipling, but under the +hypocritical pretence that they were doing missionary work to improve +the Filipino. They did not know whether the Filipinos could or could +not run a decent government if permitted. It was too early to form +any judgment. And even then there was no unanimous feeling that they +could not. Brigadier-General Charles King, the famous novelist, +who was in the fighting out there during the first half of 1899, +was quoted in the Catholic Citizen, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in June, +1899, as having said in an interview given at Milwaukee: + + + There is no reason in the world why the people should not have + the self-government which they so passionately desire, so far as + their ability to carry it on goes. + + +The real reason why the war was being waged was stated with the honesty +which heated public discussion always brings forth, by Hon. Charles +Denby, a member of the Schurman Commission of 1899, in an article +which appeared in the Forum for February, 1899, entitled "Why the +Treaty Should be Ratified:" [298] + + + The cold, hard, practical question alone remains: "Will the + possession of the islands benefit us as a nation?" If it will not, + set them free to-morrow. + + +But in the same magazine, the Forum, for June, 1900, in other words +to the very same audience, in an article whose title is a protest, +"Do we Owe the Filipinos Independence?" we find this same distinguished +diplomat sagaciously deferring to that not inconsiderable element of +the American public which is opposed to wars for conquest, with the +rank hypocrisy which must ever characterize a republic warring for +gain against the ideals that made it great, thus: + + + A little time ought to be conceded to the Administration to + ascertain what the wish of the people [meaning the people of the + Philippine Islands] really is; [299] + + +adding some of the stale but ever-welcome salve originally invented +by General Otis for use by Mr. McKinley on the public conscience +of America, about the war having been "fomented by professional +politicians," and not having the moral support of the whole people. "A +majority of the Filipinos are friendly to us," he says. Even as early +as January 4, 1900, in the New York Independent, we find Mr. Denby +abandoning all his previous honesty of 1899 about "the cold, hard, +practical question," and rubbing his hands with invisible soap to +the tune of the following hypocrisy: + + + Let us find out how many of the people want independence, and + how many are willing to remain loyal to our government. It is + believed a large majority [etc.]. [300] + + +The same article even assumed an air of injured innocence and urged +that as soon as the insurgent army laid down its arms [301] "the +intentions of our government will be made known by Congress." That +was just thirteen years ago, and "the intentions of our government" +have never yet been "made known by Congress," despite the fact +that the omission has all these years been like a buzzing insect, +lighting intermittently on the sores of race prejudice and political +difference in the Philippines, to say nothing of the circumstance +that such omission leaves everybody guessing, including ourselves. The +omission has been due to the fact that both the McKinley Administration +which committed the original blunder of taking the islands, and +the succeeding Administrations which have been the legatees of that +blunder, have always needed in their Philippine business the support +both of those whose votes are caught by the Denby honesty of 1899 +and those whose votes are caught by the Denby hypocrisy of 1900. + +War is a great silencer of hypocrisy. In the presence of real sorrow +and genuine anger, it slinks away and is seen no more until more +piping times. The lists of casualties had been duly bulletined to +the United States from time to time between February, 1899, and June, +1900, so that by the date last named it had become "good politics" to +throw off the mask. Hence, at the Republican National Convention held +in Philadelphia June 19-21, 1900, we find that astute past-master of +the science of government by parties, Senator Lodge, boldly throwing +off the mask thus: + + + We make no hypocritical pretense of being interested in the + Philippines solely on account of others. We believe in trade + expansion. + + +Now the words of a United States Senator are much listened to by an +army in the field. When a war breaks out, it is usually your Senator +who gets your commission for you originally, and has you promoted +and made captain, colonel, or general, as the case may be, if you do +anything to deserve it, or lifted from the ranks to a commission, if +you do anything to deserve it, or sees that something fitting is done +if you die in any specially decent way. An army in the field thinks +a United States Senator is about one of the biggest institutions +going--which, seriously, is not far from the truth, with all due +respect to the blase pessimists of the press gallery. Consider then how +wholly uninspiring, as a sentiment to die by and kill by, the above +senatorial utterance was to the men in the field in the Philippines, +who did not even then believe the islands would pay. The "cold, hard, +practical" fact was, if the Senator was to be believed, that we were +fighting for what is generically called "Wall Street;" that it was +primarily a Wall Street war: an expedition fitted out to kill enough +Filipinos to make the survivors good future customers--"Ultimate +Consumers"--and only incidentally a war to make people follow your +way of being happy in lieu of their own. Yet we had most of us, but +shortly previously to that, gone trooping headlong to Cuba, in the wake +of the most inspiring single personality of this age--Senator Lodge's +friend, Colonel Roosevelt--some of our American thoraxes inflated with +sentiments thus nobly expressed by the same distinguished Senator in +his speech on the resolution which declared war against Spain: + +"We are there" (meaning in the then Cuban situation), Senator Lodge +had said in the Senate, in the matchless outburst of eloquence with +which he set the keynote to the war with Spain-- + + + We are there because we represent the spirit of liberty and the + new time. * * * We have grasped no man's territory, we have taken + no man's property, we have invaded no man's rights. We do not + ask their lands. [302] + + +What difference, however, did it make to men under military orders, +and that far away from home, where American public opinion could not +and never can affect any given situation in time to help it, whether +they were serving God or the devil? Everything disappeared but the +primal fighting instinct. So the slaughter proceeded right merrily, +at a ratio of about sixteen to one, and many a Filipino died with the +word "Independence" on his lips, [303] while many an obscure American +life went out, fighting under the Denby-Lodge dollar-mark flag of +pseudo-trade expansion. Can you imagine a more thankless job? Do +you wonder at the song that heads the chapter? Still, war is war, +once you are in it. All through 1900 the volunteers of 1899 kept on, +cheerfully doing their country's work, not in the least hampered by +whys or wherefores, so far as the quality of their work went. They knew +that the Filipinos were not heathen, and they were not perfectly clear +that they themselves were doing the Lord's work, unless "putting the +fear of God into the heart of the insurrecto"--one of their campaign +expressions--was the Lord's work. However, if any of them gave any +special thought to the ethics of the situation, this did not in the +least affect their efficiency in action, nor their determination to +lick the Filipino into submission. When the brief organized resistance +of the insurgent armies in the field (February to November, 1899) +underwent its transition to the far more formidable guerrilla tactics, +they realized that they were "up against" a long and tedious task, +in which would be no special glamour, as there had been in Cuba, +because the war was not much more popular at home than it was with +them. The rank net hypocrisy of the whole situation, as they viewed +it, is expressed in the song which heads this chapter. It is an +answer to the Taft nonsense of 1900 about "the people long for peace +and are willing to accept government under United States." [304] +That is why the Caribao Society do not sing it to Mr. Taft when he +attends their annual banquet, notwithstanding that it is the star +song of their repertoire. [305] This statement of Judge Taft's, as +well as other like statements of his which followed it during the +presidential campaign of 1900, would have been perfectly harmless in +home politics. It was made in the same spirit of optimism in which +a Taft man will tell you to-day, "The people are willing to see the +Taft Administration endorsed." But at that time in the Philippines +there was no possible way to prove or disprove the statement to the +satisfaction of anybody at home--or elsewhere, for that matter. And, +under the circumstances, it was at once a libel on Filipino patriotism +and an ungracious belittling of the work of the American army. It was +a libel on Filipino patriotism because it denied the loyal (even if +ill-advised) unanimity of the Filipino people in their struggle for +independence, and was a statement made recklessly, without knowledge, +in aid of a presidential candidate in the United States. That it was +highly inaccurate was well known to some 70,000 American soldiers then +in the field, who were daily getting insurrecto lead pumped into them, +and also well known to their gallant commander, General MacArthur, who +told Judge Taft just that thing. That it was an ungracious belittling +of the work of the army is certainly obvious enough, and it was +so considered by the army, and its commanding general aforesaid, +who practically told Judge Taft just that thing. But Mr. Root, +then Secretary of War, was as much interested in Mr. McKinley's +re-election as Judge Taft was. So he spread the Taft cablegrams +broadcast throughout the United States during the presidential +campaign, and pigeonholed the MacArthur messages and reports on the +situation in the dusty and innocuous desuetude of the War Department +archives. Four years later at the Republican National Convention of +1904, Mr. Root told the naked truth, thus: + + + When the last national convention met, over 70,000 soldiers from + more than 500 stations held a still vigorous enemy in check. [306] + + +The foregoing is all a record made and unalterable. It is a fair sample +of the initial stages of one more of the experiments in colonization +by a republic which are scattered through history and teach but +one lesson. All the gentlemen concerned were personally men of high +type. But look at the net result of their work. The impression it +produced in the United States, at a tremendously critical period in the +country's history, when the men at the helm of state were bending every +energy to railroad the republic into a career of overseas conquest, +and using the army for that purpose, can be called by a short and ugly +word. The splendor of Mr. Root's intellect is positively alluring, +but he is a dangerous man to republican institutions. Mr. Taft's part +in that conspiracy for the suppression of the facts of the Philippine +situation in 1900 was really due to kindliness of heart, regret +at the war, and earnest hope that it would soon end. Mr. Denby's +part was that of the out-and-out imperialist who has frank doubts +in his own mind as to whether it is axiomatic, after all, that the +form of government bequeathed us by our fathers is the best form of +government yet devised. But the conspiracy was really a sin against +the progress of the world, because it deceived the American people as +to the genuineness and unanimity of the desire of the Filipino people +to imitate the example set by us in 1776, which has since served as +a beacon-light of hope to so many people in so many lands in their +several struggles to be free. + +By the spring of 1900, when General MacArthur relieved General Otis, +the volunteers of 1899 had gotten thoroughly warmed up to the work +of showing the Filipinos who was in fact "the boss of the show," +and by June, 1900, when Judge Taft arrived, they had gotten still +warmer [307]; and in General Otis's successor they had a commander +who understood his men thoroughly, and was determined to carry out +honestly, with firmness, and without playing, as his predecessor had +done, the role of political henchman, the purpose for which the army +he commanded had been sent to the Islands to accomplish. In this +state of the case, the Taft Commission came out. + +This would seem rather an odd point at which to terminate a chapter on +"MacArthur and the War," seeing that General MacArthur continued to +command the American forces in the Philippines and to direct their +strenuous field operations until July, 1901, more than a year later, +when he was relieved by General Chaffee, on whom thereafter devolved +the subsequent conduct of the war. But we must follow the inexorable +thread of chronological order, and so yield the centre of the stage +from June, 1900, on, to Mr. Taft, else the resultant net confusion of +ideas about the American occupation of the Philippines might remain +as great as that which this narrative is an attempt in some degree +to correct. + +All through the official correspondence of 1899 and 1900 between the +Adjutant-General of the Army, General Corbin, and General Otis at +Manila, one sees Mr. McKinley's sensitiveness to public opinion. "In +view of the impatience of the people" you will do thus and so, +is a typical sample of this feature of that correspondence. [308] +Troubled, possibly, with misgivings, as to whether, after all, in view +of the vigorous and undeniably obstinate struggle for independence +the Filipinos were putting up, it would not have been wiser to have +done with them as we had done in the case of Cuba, and troubled, +beyond the peradventure of a doubt, about the effect of the possible +Philippine situation on the fortunes of his party and himself in the +approaching campaign for the presidency, Mr. McKinley sent Mr. Taft +out, in the spring preceding the election of 1900, to help General +MacArthur run the war. We must now, therefore, turn our attention to +Mr. Taft, not forgetting General MacArthur in so doing. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE TAFT COMMISSION + + The papers 'id it 'andsome, + But you bet the army knows. + + Kipling, Ballad of the Boer War. + + +The essentials of the situation which confronted the Taft Commission +on its arrival in the islands in June, 1900, and the mental attitude +in which they approached that situation, may now be briefly summarized, +with entire confidence that such summary will commend itself as fairly +accurate to the impartial judgment both of the historian of the future +and of any candid contemporary mind. + +It is not necessary to "vex the dull ear" of a mighty people much +engrossed with their own affairs, by repetition of any further +details concerning the original de facto alliance between Admiral +Dewey and Aguinaldo. Suffice it to remind a people whose saving +grace is a love of fair play, that, after the battle of Manila Bay, +when Admiral Dewey brought Aguinaldo down from Hong Kong to Cavite, +both the Admiral and his Filipino allies were keenly cognizant of the +national purpose set forth in the declaration of war against Spain, +and that the Filipinos could not have been expected to make any +substantial distinction between the casual remarks of a victorious +admiral on the quarter-deck of his flagship in May, remarks concurrent +and consistent with actual treatment of the Filipinos as allies, and +the imperious commands of a general ashore in December thereafter, +acting under specific orders pursuant to the Treaty of Paris. The +one great fact of the situation, "as huge as high Olympus," they did +grasp, viz., that both were representatives of America on the ground +at the time of their respective utterances, and that one in December +in effect repudiated without a word of explanation what the other +had done from May to August. They had helped us to take the city of +Manila in August, and, to use the current phrase of the passing hour, +coined in this period of awakening of the national conscience to +a proper attitude toward double-dealing in general, they felt that +they had been "given the double cross." In other words they believed +that the American Government had been guilty of a duplicity rankly +Machiavellian. And that was the cause of the war. + +We have seen in the chapters on "The Benevolent Assimilation +Proclamation" and "The Iloilo Fiasco" that, in the Philippines at +any rate, no matter how mellifluously pacific it may have sounded at +home--no matter how soothing to the troubled doubts of the national +conscience--the Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation of December 21, +1898, was recognized both by the Eighth Army Corps and by Aguinaldo's +people as a call to arms--a signal to the former to get ready for the +work of "civilizing with a Krag"; a signal to the latter to gird up +their loins for the fight to the death for government of their people, +by their people, for their people; and that the yearning benevolence +of said proclamation was calculated strikingly to remind the Filipinos +of Spain's previous traditional yearnings for the welfare of Cuba, +indignantly cut short by us--yearnings "to spare the great island +from the danger of premature independence" [309] which that decadent +monarchy could not even help repeating in the swan-song wherein +she sued to President McKinley for peace. We did not realize the +absoluteness of the analogy then. It is all clear enough now. We can +now understand how and why Mr. McKinley's programme of Annexation and +Benevolent Assimilation of 1898-9, blindly earnest as was his belief +that it would make the Filipino people at once cheerfully forego the +"legitimate aspirations" to which we ourselves had originally given +a momentum so generous that nothing but bullets could then possibly +have stopped it, was in fact received by them in a manner compared +with which Canada's response in 1911 to Speaker Champ Clark's equally +benevolent suggestion of United States willingness to accord to Canada +also, gradual Benevolent Assimilation and Ultimate Annexation, was +one great sisterly sob of sheer joy as at the finding of a long lost +brother. From the arrival of the American troops on June 30, 1898, +until the outbreak of February 4, 1899, there had been two armies +camped not far from each other, one born of the idea of independence +and bent upon it, the other at first groping in the dark without +instructions, and finally instructed to deny independence. There +was never any faltering or evasion on the part of Aguinaldo and his +people. They knew what they wanted and said so on all occasions. At +all times and in all places they made it clear, by proclamation, by +letter, by conversation, and otherwise, that independence was the one +thing to which, whether they were fit for it or not, they had pledged +"their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." + +We have seen how easily the war itself could have been averted by the +Bacon Resolution of January, 1899, or some similar resolution frankly +declaring the purpose of our government; how here was Senator Bacon +at this end of the line pleading with his colleagues to be frank, +and to make a declaration in keeping with "the high purpose" for +which we had gone to war with Spain, instead of holding on to the +Philippines on the idea that they might prove a second Klondike, +while justifying such retention by arbitrarily assuming, without any +knowledge whatever on the subject, that the Filipinos were incapable +of self-government; how, there, at the other end of the line, at +Manila, Aguinaldo's Commissioners, familiar with our Constitution +and the history and traditions of our government, were making, +substantially, though in more diplomatic language, precisely the +same plea, and imploring General Otis's Commissioners to give them +some assurance which would quiet the apprehensions of their people, +and calm the fear that the original assurance, "We are going to lick +the Spaniards and set you free," was now about to be ignored because +the islands might be profitable to the United States. + +We have seen the war itself, as far as it had progressed by June, +1900, one of the bitterest wars in history, punctuated by frequent +barbarities avenged in kind, and how, if the Taft Commission had +not come out with McKinley spectacles on, they would have seen the +picture of a bleeding, prostrate, and deeply hostile people, still +bent on fighting to the last ditch, not only animated by a feeling +against annexation by us similar to that the Canadians would have +to-day if we should also try the Benevolent Assimilation game on +them--first with proclamations breathing benevolence and then with +cannon belching grape-shot--but further animated by the instinctive +as well as inherited knowledge common to all colored peoples, +whether red, yellow brown, or black, that wheresoever white men +and colored live in the same country together, there the white man +will rule. Understand, this was before Judge Taft had had a chance to +assure them, with the kindly Taft smile and the hearty Taft hand-shake, +that their benevolent new masters were going to reverse the verdict +of the ages, and treat them with a fraternal love wholly free from +race prejudice. If Judge Taft could only have arrived in January, +1899, and told them that the Bacon Resolution really represented the +spirit of the attitude of the American people toward them, then the +finely commanding bearing of Mr. Taft, and the noble genuineness of +his desire to see peace on earth and goodwill toward men, might even +have prevented the war. But this is merely what might have been. What +actually was, when he did arrive, in June, 1900, was that the milk of +human kindness had long since been spilled, and his task was to gather +it up and put it back in the pail. When I, a Southern man who have +taken part in the only two wars this nation has had in my lifetime, +reflect that in this year of grace, 1912, Mr. Underwood's otherwise +matchless availability as the candidate of his party for President is +questioned on the idea that it might be a tactical blunder, because of +"the late war," which broke out before either Mr. Underwood or myself +were born, I cannot share the Taft optimism as to the rapidity with +which the scars of "the late war" in the Philippines will heal, and +as to the affectionate gratitude toward the United States with which +the McKinley-Taft programme of Benevolent Assimilation will presently +be regarded by the people of the Philippine Islands. + +We have seen the futile efforts of the Schurman Commission of 1899, +sent out that spring, in deference to American public opinion, +with definite instructions to try and patch up a peace, by talking +to the leading spirits of a war for independence, now in full swing, +about the desirability of benevolent leading-strings. "They [meaning +the Schurman Commission] had come," says Mr. McKinley, in his annual +message to Congress of December 5, 1899, [310] "with the hope of +co-operating with Admiral Dewey and General Otis in establishing +peace and order." They came, they saw, they went, recognizing the +futility of the errand on which they had been sent. And now came the +Taft Commission a year later, on precisely the same errand, after the +Filipinos had sunk all their original petty differences and jealousies +in a very reasonable instinctive common fear of economic exploitation, +and a very unreasonable but, to them, very real common fear of race +elimination, amounting to terror, and been welded into absolute +oneness--if that were somewhat lacking before--in the fierce crucible +of sixteen months of bloody fighting against a foreign foe for the +independence of their common country. President McKinley's message to +Congress of December, 1899, is full of the old insufferable drivel, +so grossly, though unwittingly, ungenerous to our army then in the +field in the Philippines, about the triviality of the resistance +we were "up against." The message in one place blandly speaks of +"the peaceable and loyal majority who ask nothing better than to +accept our authority," in another of "the sinister ambitions of a +few selfish Filipinos." Thus was outlined, in the message announcing +the purpose to send out the Taft Commission, the view that no real +fundamental resistance existed in the islands. Basing contemplated +action on this sort of stuff, the presidential message outlines the +presidential purpose as follows--this in December, 1899, mind you: + + + There is no reason why steps should not be taken from time to + time to inaugurate governments essentially popular in their form + as fast as territory is held and controlled by our troops. + + +Then follows the genesis of the idea which resulted in the Taft +Commission: + + + To this end I am considering the advisability of the return + [to the islands] of the commission [the Schurman Commission] + or such of the members thereof as can be secured. + + +In Cuba, General Wood began the work of reconstruction at Havana with +a central government and the best men he could get hold of, and acted +through them, letting his plans and purposes percolate downward to +the masses of the people. Not so in the Philippines. Reconstruction +there was to begin by establishing municipal governments, to be +later followed by provincial governments, and finally by a central +one; in other words, by placing the waters of self-government at +the bottom of the social fabric among the most ignorant people, +and letting them percolate up, according to some mysterious law of +gravitation apparently deemed applicable to political physics. Of +course, these poor people simply always took their cue from their +leaders, knowing nothing themselves that could affect the success of +this project except that we were their enemies and that they might get +knocked in the head if they did not play the game. "I have believed," +says Mr. McKinley, in his message to Congress of December, 1899, +"that reconstruction should not begin by the establishment of one +central civil government for all the islands, with its seat at Manila, +but rather that the work should be commenced by building up from the +bottom." Whereat, the young giant America bowed, in puzzled hope, +and worldly-wise old Europe smiled, in silent but amused contempt. + +If at the time he formulated this scheme for their government +Mr. McKinley had known anything about the Philippines, or the +Filipinos, he would have known that what he so suavely called "building +from the bottom" was like trying to make water run up hill, i.e., +like starting out to have ideas percolate upward, so that through "the +masses" the more intelligent people might be redeemed. The "nigger +in the woodpile" lay in the words "essentially popular in form." Of +course no government by us "essentially popular" was possible at the +time. But a government "popular in form" would sound well to the +American people, and, if they could be kept quiet until after the +presidential election of 1900, maybe the supposed misunderstanding +on the part of the Filipinos of the benevolence of our intentions +might be corrected by kindness. Accordingly, the following spring, +cotemporaneously with General Otis's final departure from Manila to +the United States, in which free country he might say the war was over +as much as he pleased without being molested with round-robins by Bob +Collins, O. K. Davis, John McCutcheon, and the rest of those banes of +his insular career, who so pestiferously insisted that the American +public ought to know the facts, the Taft Commission was sent out, +to "aid" General MacArthur, as the Schurman Commission had "aided" +General Otis. [311] + +It would seem fairly beyond any reasonable doubt that the official +information the Taft Commission were given by President McKinley +concerning the state of public order they would find in the islands +on arrival was in keeping with the information solemnly imparted +to Congress by him in December thereafter, which was as follows: +"By the spring of this year (1900) the effective opposition of the +dissatisfied Tagals"--always the same minimization of the task of the +army as a sop to the American conscience--"was virtually ended." Then +follows a glowing picture of how the Filipinos are going to love us +after we rescue them from the hated Tagal, but with this circumspect +reservation: "He would be rash who, with the teachings of contemporary +history, would fix a limit" as to how long it will take to produce +such a state of affairs. Looking at that mighty panorama of events +from the dispassionate standpoint now possible, it seems to me that +Mr. McKinley's whole Philippine policy of 1899-1900 was animated by +the belief that the more the Philippine situation should resemble the +really identical Cuban one in the estimation of the American people, +the more likely his Philippine policy was to be repudiated at the +polls in the fall of 1900. The Taft Commission left Washington for +Manila in the spring of 1900, after their final conference with the +President who had appointed them and was a candidate for re-election in +the coming fall, as completely committed as circumstances can commit +any man or set of men to the programme of occupation which was to +follow the subjugation of the inhabitants, and to the proposition +of present incapacity for self-government, its corner-stone; +to say nothing of the embarrassment felt at Washington by reason +of having stumbled into a bloody war with people whom we honestly +wanted to help, had never seen, and had nothing but the kindliest +feelings for. While the serene and capacious intellect of William +H. Taft was still pursuing the even tenor of its way in the halls of +justice (as United States Circuit Judge for the 8th Circuit), the +Philippine programme was formulated at Washington. Judge Taft went +to Manila to make the best of a situation which he had not created, +to write the lines of the Deus ex machina for a Tragedy of Errors +up to that point composed wholly by others. It has been frequently +stated and generally believed that when Mr. McKinley sent for him and +proposed the Philippine mission, Judge Taft replied, substantially: +"Mr. President, I am not the man for the place. I don't want the +Philippines." To which Mr. McKinley is supposed to have replied: +"You are the man for the place, Judge. I had rather have a man out +there who doesn't want them." The point of the original story lay in +what Mr. McKinley said. The point of the repetition of it here lies +in what Mr. Taft said, the inference therefrom being that he did not +think the true interests of his country "wanted" them, and that had +he been called into President McKinley's council sooner he would have +so advised; an inference warranted by his subsequent admission that +"we blundered into colonization." [312] + +It is utterly fatal to clear thinking on this great subject, which +concerns the liberties of a whole people, to treat Judge Taft's reports +as Commissioner to, and later Governor of, the Philippines as in the +nature of a judicial decision on the capacity of the Filipinos for +self-government. When he consented to go out there, he went, not to +review the findings of the Paris Peace Commission, but at the urgent +solicitation of an Administration whose fortunes were irrevocably +committed to those findings, including the express finding that they +were unfit for self-government, and the implied one that we must remain +to improve the condition of the inhabitants. He was thus not a judge +come out to decide on the fitness of the people for self-government, +but an advocate to make the best possible case for their unfitness, and +its corollary, the necessity to remain indefinitely, just as England +has remained in Egypt. The war itself convinced the whole army of the +United States that Aguinaldo would have been the "Boss of the Show" +had Dewey sailed away from Manila after sinking the Spanish fleet. The +war satisfied us all that Aguinaldo would have been a small edition +of Porfirio Diaz, and that the Filipino republic-that-might-have-been +would have been, very decidedly, "a going concern," although Aguinaldo +probably would have been able to say with a degree of accuracy, as +Diaz might have said in Mexico for so many years, "The Republic? I +am the Republic." The war demonstrated to the army, to a Q. E. D., +that the Filipinos are "capable of self-government," unless the kind +which happens to suit the genius of the American people is the only +kind of government on earth that is respectable, and the one panacea +for all the ills of government among men without regard to their +temperament or historical antecedents. The educated patriotic Filipinos +can control the masses of the people in their several districts as +completely as a captain ever controlled a company. [313] While the +municipal officials of the McKinley-Taft municipal kindergarten were +stumbling along with the strange new town government system imported +from America, and atoning to their benignant masters for mistakes by +writing them letters about how benignant they--the teachers--were, +they--the pupils,--according to the contemporaneous description by the +commanding general of the United States forces in the islands, were +running a superbly efficient municipal system throughout the whole +archipelago, "simultaneously and in the same sphere as the American +governments, and in many instances through the same personnel," +[314] in aid of the insurrection. General MacArthur humorously adds +that the town officials "acted openly in behalf of the Americans +and secretly in behalf of the insurgents, and, with considerable +apparent solicitude for the interest of both." In short, the war +at once demonstrated their "capacity for self-government" and made +granting it to them for the time being unthinkable. For the war was +fought not on the issue of the capacity, but on the issue of the +granting. The Treaty of Paris settled the "capacity" part. The army +in 1898, 1899, and 1900 can hardly be said to have had any much more +decided opinion on the capacity branch of the subject, than Perry did +about the Japanese in 1854. The Paris Peace Commission having solemnly +decided the "capacity part" adversely to the Filipinos and the war +having followed, thereafter Mr. Taft went out to make out the best case +possible in support of the action of the Peace Commission and, ex vi +termini, in support of everything made necessary by the fact of the +purchase. Unless some one goes out to present to the American people +the other side of the case, they will never arrive at a just verdict. + +Committed, a priori, to the task of squaring the McKinley +Administration with its course as to Cuba, the only course possible +for the Taft Commission was to set up a benevolent government based +upon the incompetency of the governed, which, being a standing affront +to the intelligence of the people, earns their hatred, however it may +crave their love. By the very bitterness of the opposition it permits +yet disregards, it binds itself ever more irrevocably to remain a +benevolent engenderer of malevolence. Government and governed thus get +wider apart as the years go by, and, the raison d'etre of the former +being the mental deficiencies of the latter, it must, in self-defence, +assert those deficiencies the more offensively, the more vehemently +they are denied. What hope therefore can there be that the light +that shone upon Saul on the road to Damascus will ever break upon +the President? What hope that he will ever re-attune his ears to the +voice of the Declaration of Independence, calling down from where +the Signers (we hope without untoward exception) have gone, crying: +"William, William, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to +kick against the right of a people to pursue happiness in their own +way"? The difference between the President and the writer is that +both went out to scoff and the latter remained--much longer--to pray. + +The Taft Commission arrived at Manila on June 3, 1900, loaded to the +guards with kindly belief in the stale falsehood wherewith General +Otis, ably assisted by his press censor, had been systematically +soothing Mr. McKinley's and the general American conscience during +the whole twenty months he had commanded the Eighth Army Corps, [315] +viz., that the insurrection was due solely to "the sinister ambitions +of a few selfish leaders," and did not represent the wishes of the +whole people. It is true that the insurrection originally started +under Admiral Dewey's auspices and under the initial protection of +his puissant guns was headed by a group of men most of whom, including +Aguinaldo, were Tagalos. But all Filipinos look alike, the whole seven +or eight millions of them. They differ from one another not one whit +more than one Japanese differs from another. And they all feel alike on +most things, [316] because they all have the same customs, tastes, and +habits of thought. Said Governor Taft to the Senate Committee in 1902: + + + While it is true that there are a number of Christian "tribes," + so-called,--I do not know the number, possibly eight or ten, or + twelve,--that speak different languages, there is a homogeneity + in the people in appearance, in habits, and in many avenues of + thought. To begin with, they are Catholics." [317] + + +Certainly this should forever crucify the stale slander, still +ignorantly repeated in the United States at intervals, which seeks +to make the American people think the great body of the Filipino +people are still in a tribal state, ethnologically. [318] A Tagalo +leader is about as much a "tribal" leader as is a Tammany "brave" +of Irish antecedents. In fact there is much in common between the +two. Both are clannish. Both have a genius for organization that +is simply superb. Both are irrepressible about Home Rule. Countless +generations ago the Filipinos were lifted by the Spanish priests out +of the tribal state, and the educated people all speak Spanish. But +the original tribal dialects, which the Spanish priests patiently +mastered and finally reduced for them to a written language, still +survive in the several localities of their origin. So that every +Filipino of a well-to-do family is brought up speaking two languages, +Spanish, and the local dialect of his native place, which is the only +language known to the poorer natives of the same neighborhood. Surely +even the valor of ignorance can see that we are presumptuously +seeking to reverse the order of God and nature in assuming that +an alien race can lead a people out of the wilderness better than +could a government by the leading men of their own race to whom the +less favored look with an ardent pride that would be a guarantee of +loyal and inspiring co-operation. You can beat a balking horse to +death but you cannot make him wag his tail, or otherwise indicate +contentment or a disposition to cordial co-operation which will +make for progress. Mr. Bryan has visited the Philippines, and his +evidence is simply cumulative of mine, as mine, based on six years' +acquaintance with the Filipinos, is simply cumulative of Admiral +Dewey's testimony of 1898, so often cited hereinbefore, and of the +opinion of Hon. George Curry, a Republican member of Congress from +New Mexico who served eight years in the Philippines, and believes +they can safely be given their independence by 1921. Mr. Bryan says: + + + So far as their own internal affairs are concerned, they do not + need to be subject to any alien government. + + +He further says: + + + There is a wide difference, it is true, between the general + intelligence of the educated Filipino and the laborer on + the street and in the field, but this is not a barrier to + self-government. Intelligence controls in every government, + except where it is suppressed by military force. Nine tenths of + the Japanese have no part in the law-making. In Mexico, the gap + between the educated classes and the peons is fully as great as, + if not greater than, the gap between the extremes of Filipino + society. Those who question the capacity of the Filipinos for + self-government forget that patriotism raises up persons fitted + for the work that needs to be done." [319] + + +It is because I believe that in the Philippines we are doing ourselves +an injustice and keeping back the progress of the world by depreciating +and scoffing at the value of patriotism as a factor in self-government +and in the maintenance of free institutions, that I have written this +book. There is no more patriotic people in the world than the Filipino +people. I base this opinion upon an intimate knowledge of them, and +in the light of considerable observation throughout most of Europe, +and in Asia from the Golden Horn to the mouth of the Yang-tse. Woe +to the nonsense, sometimes ignorant, sometimes vicious, wherewith +we are regaled from time to time by Americans who go to Manila, +smoke a cigar or two in some American club there, and then come back +home and depreciate the Filipino people without at least correcting +Col. Roosevelt's wholly uninformed and cruel random assertions of +1900 about the Filipinos being a "jumble of savage tribes," and about +Aguinaldo being "the Osceola of the Filipinos," or their "Sitting +Bull!" It is wonderfully inspiring to turn from such stale slander to +Mr. Bryan's above statement of the case for our Oriental subjects, +a statement framed in his own infinitely sympathetic and inimitable +way, which says for me just what I had long wanted to express, but +could not, so well. And in the midst of the recurring slander that the +Filipino people are "a heterogeneous lot," it is refreshing to find in +a preface to the American Census of the Philippines of 1903, by the +Director thereof, a passage where, in comparing the tables of that +census with those of the Twelfth Census of the United States, he says: + + + "Those of the Philippine Census are somewhat simpler, the + differences being due mainly to the more homogeneous character + of the population of the Philippine Islands." [320] + + +When we consider the above in the light of the past and present +operation of our own immigration laws, it is not flattering, but it +may and should tend to awaken some realization of the manifold nature +and blinding effects of current misapprehensions in the United States +concerning the inhabitants of the Philippines. One Filipino does not +differ from another any more than one American does from another +American--in fact they differ less, considering immigration. The +Filipino people are not rendered a heterogeneous lot by having three +different languages, Ilocano, Tagalo, and Visayan, [321] which are +respectively the languages spoken in the northern, the central, +and the southern part of their country, any more than the people +of Switzerland are rendered heterogeneous by the circumstance that +in northern Switzerland you find German spoken for the most part, +while farther south you find French, and near the southernmost +extremities some Italian. At this late date no credible person +acquainted with the facts will be so poor in spirit as to deny that +the motives of the men who originally started the insurrection were +patriotic. Nor will any one who served under General Otis's command +in the Philippines deny that that eminent desk soldier continued to +cling to his early theory that it was a purely Tagalo insurrection +long after the deadly unanimity of the opposition had seeped, with +all-pervading thoroughness, into the general mind of the army of +occupation. The white flag or rag of truce, alias treachery, used +to be hoisted to put us off our guard in pretence of welcome to our +columns approaching their towns and barrios. Such use of such a flag, +followed by treachery, the ultimate weapon of the weak, had been in +turn followed, with relentless impartiality in countless instances, +by due unloosening of the vials of American wrath, until every nipa +shack [322] in the Philippine Islands that remained unburned had +had its lesson, written in the blood of its occupants or their kin, +to the tune of the Krag-Jorgensen or the Gatling. Yet General Otis's +reports are always bland, and always convey the idea of an insurrection +exclusively Tagalo. + +In the summer of 1900, the newly arrived civilians, the Taft +Commission, had no special interest in the soldiers who, for better, +for worse, were "doing their country's work," as Kipling calls his +own country's countless wars against its refractory subjects in the +far East; and no especial sympathy with that work. Two years later we +find President Roosevelt, in connection with the general amnesty of +July 4, 1902, congratulating his "bowld lads," as Mr. Dooley would +call them--meaning General Chaffee and the Eighth Army Corps--on a +total of "two thousand combats, great and small" up to that time, +but you never find in any of Governor Taft's Philippine state +papers any more affirmative recognition of continued resistance to +American rule than some mild allusion to "small but hard knocks" +being administered here and there by the army. From the beginning +there was a systematic belittling, on the part of the Taft Commission, +of the work of the army, incidentally to belittling the reality and +unanimity of the opposition which was daily calling it forth. [323] +This was not vicious. It was essentially benevolent. It was part of +the initial fermentation of their preconceived theory. But the trouble +about their theory was that it was only a theory. It would not square +with the facts. They were trying to square the subjugation of the +Philippines with the freeing of Cuba, a task quite as soluble as the +squaring of a circle. They hoped, with all the kindly benevolence +of Mr. McKinley himself, that the opposition to our rule was not +as great as some people seemed to think. They had come out to the +islands earnestly wishing to find conditions not as bad as they +had been asserted to be. And the wish became father to the thought +and the thought soon found expression in words--cablegrams to the +United States presenting an optimistic view as to the prospects of +necessity for further shedding of blood in the interest of Benevolent +Assimilation, alias Trade Expansion. Some flippant person will say, +"That is a polite way of charging insincerity." This book is not +addressed to flippant persons. It is a serious attempt to deal with +a problem involving the liberties of a whole people, and will be, +as far as the writer can make it, straightforward, dignified, and +candid. Judge Taft's fearful mistake of 1900-1901 in the matter of his +premature planting of the civil government--a mistake because based +on the idea that "the great majority of the people" welcomed American +rule, and a fearful mistake because fraught with so much subsequent +sacrifice of life due to too early withdrawal of the police protection +of the army--was not the first instance in American history where an +ordinarily level-headed public man has, with egregious folly, mistaken +the mood and temper of a whole people. The key to his mistake lay in +the fact that, coming into a strange country in the midst of a war, +he ignored the advice of the commanding general of the army of his +country concerning the military situation, and took the advice of a +few native Tories, or Copperheads, of wealth, who had never really +been in sympathy with the insurrection and who, flocking about him +as soon as he arrived, told him what he so longed to be told, viz., +that the war did not represent the wishes of the people but was kept +up by "a conspiracy of assassination" of all who did not contribute +to it either in service or money. He thereupon decided that the men +who told him this really represented the voice of the people, and +that the men in the field who had then been keeping up the struggle +for independence for sixteen months, in season and out of season, +were simply "a Mafia on a very large scale." Consequently the Taft +Commission had been in the islands less than three months when +Secretary of War Root at Washington was giving the widest possible +publicity to cablegrams from them, such as that dated August 21, +1900, mentioned in the preceding chapter, conveying the glad tidings +that "large number of people long for peace and are willing to accept +government under United States" [324]; and by November next thereafter, +the "large number" had grown to "a great majority," and the "willing" +to "entirely willing." The November statement was: + + + A great majority of the people long for peace and are entirely + willing to accept the establishment of a government under the + supremacy of the United States. [325] + + +Yet, as we saw in the preceding chapter, the real situation in the +Philippines at this very time was described four years later at the +Republican National Convention of 1904 by Mr. Root thus: + + + When the last national convention met, over 70,000 American + soldiers from more than 500 stations held a still vigorous enemy + in check. + + +Between the date of their arrival in the Islands on June 3d, and the +date of this August 21st telegram, the Taft Commission did little +junketing, but remained in Manila imbibing the welcome views of the +"Tories" or "Copperheads," and seeking very little information from +the army. But it so happens that the Adjutant-General at Manila used +to keep a record of the daily engagements during that period, which +record was later published in the annual War Department Report, [326] +and it shows a total of about five hundred killings (of Filipinos) +between June 3d, and August 21st, to say nothing of probably many times +that number hit but not killed, and therefore able to get away. (You +could not include any Filipino in your returns of your killings except +dead you had actually counted.) It also happens that on June 4th, +the day after Judge Taft's arrival, General MacArthur, in response to +an order from Washington sent some time previous at the instance of +Congress, had all the Filipino casualties our military records showed +up to that time (i. e., during the sixteen months from the day of the +outbreak, February 4, 1899, to June 3, 1900), tabulated and totalled, +and the total Filipino killed accordingly reported by cablegram to +the War Department on June 4, 1900, was 10,780. [327] + +Ten thousand in sixteen months is 625 per month. So that by the +time Judge Taft arrived, the Filipinos had been sufficiently +beaten into submission to decrease the death-rate due to the +Independence Bug from something over six hundred per month to about +two hundred per month. Judge Taft called this enthusiasm. I call it +exhaustion. Whereupon, exclaims a Boston Anti-Imperialist, "Why don't +you issue Mr. Taft a certificate as a member of the Ananias Club at +once, and be done with it?" My answer is that I do not believe the +Taft Commission in 1900 either knew these figures or wanted to know +them. They came out preaching a Gospel of Hope to the exclusion of +all else, a species of mental healing. They said, soothingly to Dame +Filipina, "Be not afraid; you are well; you are well"--of the desire +for independence she had conceived, when what that lady needed was the +surgical operation indispensable for the removal of a still-born child. + +The will of the American people is ascertainable, and quadrennially +announced, through certain prescribed methods. And (nearly) +everybody takes the result good-humoredly, God bless our country, +whatever the result. But just how Mr. Taft and his colleagues could +assume to speak for the "great majority" of the Filipino people at +the tremendous juncture in their destinies now under consideration +during the Presidential election of 1900, does not clearly appear, +except that in their first report they say: + + + Many witnesses were examined as to the form of government best + adapted to these islands and satisfactory to the people, [328] + + +a statement which obviously takes for granted the only point +involved in the war, viz., whether any kind of alien government +would be "satisfactory to the people." And in their various other +communications to Washington they describe themselves, with no small +degree of benevolent satisfaction, as enthusiastically received by +natives not under arms at the moment of such reception. As a matter of +fact, a carpet-bag governor of Georgia might just as well have reported +to Andrew Johnson an enthusiastic reception at the hands of the people +whose homes had lately been put to the torch, and their kith and kin to +the sword, while the whole fair face of nature from Atlanta to the sea +lay bruised and bleeding under the iron heel of Sherman's army. Let no +advocate of Indefinite Tutelage whet his scalping-knife for me because +of the use of that word "carpet-bag." It was as free from ill-will +as the explosion incident to flash-light photography. We are trying +to develop a picture of those times. Two at least of the Commission, +Messrs. Taft and Wright, were the kind of men who in all the personal +relations of life, meet the ultimate test of human confidence and +friendship--you would make either, if he would consent to act, +executor of your will, or testamentary guardian of your child. But +they came out with the preconceived notion that kindness would win +the people over, whereas what those people wanted was not foreign +kindness but home rule, not silken political swaddling clothes, +but freedom. And as the acquisition of the Philippines has placed +us under the necessity of getting up a new definition of freedom, +one consistent with tariff taxation without representation--through +legislation by a Congress on the other side of the world in which +"our new possessions" have no vote--it should be added that one of +the things Freedom meant with us before 1898, was freedom to frame +the laws--tariff and other--which largely determine the selling +price of crops and the purchase price of the necessities of life, +freedom to see the intelligent and educated men of your own race in +charge of your common destiny, freedom to have a flag as an emblem +of your common interests, in a word, just Freedom. And that was what +the war was about. They wanted to be free and independent. Whether +they were fit for such freedom is wholly foreign to the reality and +unanimity of their desire for it. General Otis used to be very fond +of taking the wind out of the sails of their commissioners and other +officials before the outbreak by saying that their people had not +the slightest notion of what the word independence meant. It is true +that they knew nothing about it by experience, but equally true that +whatever it was, they wanted it. Of the ten thousand men we had already +killed when Judge Taft arrived, there can be no question, as already +heretofore suggested, that many of them may have been hit just as +they were hurrahing for independence, in other words, died with the +word "Independence" on their lips. When men have been thus fighting +against overwhelming odds for some sixteen months for government of +their people by their people for their people--however inarticulate +the emotions of the rank and file on going into battle--it is idle +to claim that they do not know what they want, whether the great +majority of the rank and file can read and write or not. But pursuant +to the idea that kindness would cure the desire for independence, +Judge Taft ignored, in the outset, all advice from the military +department, because that was not the kindness department, accepting +as truly representative of the temper of the whole people the views +of a few ultra-conservatives of large means who had always been part +and parcel of the Spanish Administration. + +On the other hand, General MacArthur and the whole Eighth Army Corps +had seen a great insurrection drag on from month to month and from one +year to another, under General Otis, when short shrift would have been +made of it in the outset, and far less life sacrificed, if Mr. McKinley +had not needed, in aid of his Philippine policy, the support of both +of those who believed it was right and of those who believed it would +pay. The one central thought which had seemed to animate General +Otis from the beginning, a thought which we have already traced +through all its humiliating manifestations, was that he must neither +do or permit anything that might hurt the Administration. When the +"impatience of the people" at home, which figures so prominently in +the correspondence already cited between the Adjutant General of the +army, General Corbin, and General Otis at Manila, had begun to cast its +shadows on the presidential year, 1900, the master mind of Mr. Root had +interrupted the fatal Otis treatment of the insurrection, indicated by +General Otis's long failure to call for volunteers, his stupid stream +of "situation well in hand" and "insurrection about to collapse" +telegrams, and his utterly unpardonable persistence in calling it a +purely "Tagalo insurrection," by sending him a competent force, and +a plan of campaign, and directing him to carry out the plan. General +Otis did this, because he was told to, and then began again to sing +the same old song. MacArthur, Wheaton, Lawton, Bates, Young, Funston, +and the rest of the fighting generals, had submitted to all the Otis +follies without a murmur, because insubordination degrades an army +into a rabble. But they [329] believed the army was there to put down +that insurrection, not to have a symposium with its leaders on the +rights of man. They had taken up "The White Man's Burden," after the +manner of Lords Kitchener and Roberts, and they had no qualms. Above +all, they wanted peace, no matter how much fighting it took to get +it. Mindful of the attempts of the Schurman Commission of the year +before to mix peace with war, and of the immense encouragement thus +given the insurgents, they had not looked forward with enthusiasm to +the coming of the Taft Commission, and to the highly probable renewal +of negotiations with the insurgent leaders in the field, pursuant to +a presidential policy of patching up a peace at any price, suggested +by the exigencies of political expediency, to give the government a +semblance of having more or less of the consent of the governed. That +the anticipations of the military authorities in this regard did not +receive a pleasant disappointment, has already been suggested by the +nature of the views adopted by the commission soon after its arrival. + +The military view of the situation, as it stood when Judge Taft and his +colleagues arrived at Manila in June, 1900, is set forth in the annual +report of the commanding general, General MacArthur, rendered shortly +thereafter; rendered, not in aid of any political candidate at home, +nor of a sudden, but at the usual and customary annual season for the +making of such reports; and rendered by a soldier of no mean experience +and ability, who was a man of great kindliness of heart as well, to +the war department of his government, to acquaint it with the facts +of a military situation he had been dealing with for two years prior +to the arrival of the Taft Commission. General MacArthur's views, +as expressed in his report, must now be contrasted with the Taft +view, not to show that MacArthur is a bigger man than Taft, nor for +any other idle or petty purpose, but because, if, in 1900, General +MacArthur was right, and Judge Taft was wrong, about the unanimity +of the whole Filipino people against us, then the institution of the +Civil Government of the Philippines on July 4, 1901, was premature; +and, therefore, by reason of the withdrawal of the strong arm of the +military at a critical period of public order, it was not calculated +to give adequate protection to the lives and property of those who +were willing to abandon the struggle for independence and submit +to our rule. And if, as we shall see later, it did in fact grossly +fail to afford such adequate protection for life and property, it was +derelict in the most sacred duty enjoined upon it by Mr. McKinley's +instructions to the Taft Commission. But first let me introduce you +to General MacArthur. + +General MacArthur is not only a soldier of a high order of +ability, but a statesman as well. Moreover, he was a thoroughgoing +"expansionist." He believed in keeping the Philippines permanently, +just as England does her colonies. But he was perfectly honest about +it. He recognized the fact that they were against our rule. But +he did not attach any more weight to that circumstance than Lord +Kitchener would have done. Also, he had come out to the islands with +the first expedition, in 1898, had been in the field continuously +for fifteen months prior to assuming supreme military command, and +knew the Filipinos thoroughly. As soon as he took command, on May 5, +1900, of the 70,000 troops then in the Islands, he set himself with +patience and firmness to the great task of ending the insurrection, +which at that time promised to continue indefinitely, the far more +formidable guerrilla warfare that had followed the brief period of +serried resistance having now settled down to a chronic stage, aided +and abetted by the whole population. I have said General MacArthur was +a "thoroughgoing" expansionist. This needs a slight qualification. At +first he appears to have had a few qualms. Shortly after the outbreak +of the war with the Filipinos, when he took the first insurgent capital +Malolos, in March, 1899, he had said at Malolos, as we have seen, +to a newspaper man who accompanied the expedition: + + + When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that + Aguinaldo's troops represented only a faction. I did not believe + that the whole population of Luzon was opposed to us; but I have + been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipinos are + loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he represents. [330] + + +General MacArthur's reports concerning the war in the Philippines +during the period of his command are succinct and luminous. He +makes it perfectly clear that the original resistance offered by the +insurgent armies in the field after the arrival of the overwhelmingly +ample reinforcements sent out from this country in the fall of 1899, +was little more than a mere flash in the pan, compared with the +well-planned scheme of resistance which followed the dispersion of +those armies to the several provinces which had furnished them to +the cause, and Aguinaldo's simultaneous flight into the mountains +"with his government concealed about his person," as Senator Lodge +exultantly described that incident in his speech of April, 1900, +in defence of the Administration's Philippine policy. Speaking of +this period, General MacArthur says: + + + It has since been ascertained that the expediency of adopting + guerrilla warfare from the inception of hostilities was seriously + discussed by the native leaders, and advocated with much emphasis + as the system best adapted to the peculiar conditions of the + struggle. It was finally determined, however, that a concentrated + field army, conducting regular operations, would, in the event + of success, attract the favorable attention of the world, and be + accepted as a practical demonstration of capacity for organization + and self-government. The disbandment of the field army, therefore, + having been a subject of contemplation from the start, the actual + event, in pursuance of the deliberate action of the council of + war in Bayambang about November 12, 1899 (already hereinbefore + noticed), was not regarded by Filipinos in the light of a calamity, + but simply as a transition from one form of action to another; + a change which by many was regarded as a positive advantage, + and was relied upon to accomplish more effectively the end in + view. The Filipino idea behind the dissolution of their field + army was not at the time of the occurrence well understood in + the American camp. As a consequence, misleading conclusions + were reached to the effect that the insurrection itself had been + destroyed, and that it only remained to sweep up the fag ends of + the rebel army by a system of police administration not likely + to be either onerous or dangerous. [331] + + +In his report covering the period from May 5th, to October 1, 1900, +General MacArthur says of the policy of resistance above outlined: + + + The country affords great advantages for the practical + development of such a policy. The practice of discarding the + uniform enables the insurgents to appear and disappear almost at + their convenience. At one time they are in the ranks as soldiers, + and immediately thereafter are within the American lines in + the attitude of peaceful natives, absorbed in a dense mass of + sympathetic people. [332] + + +In this same connection the report includes a copy of the original +order of the insurgent government which was the corner stone of the +guerrilla policy, and states that "systemized regulations" for its +effective prosecution throughout the archipelago had been compiled +and published by the Filipino junta, or revolutionary committee at +Madrid, and distributed among the insurgent forces. The report also +appends a copy of the "Army Regulations" under which the insurgent +forces were to conduct the guerrilla warfare. It also describes in +detail the system of warfare prescribed under these regulations, and +states that as a result of the measures which he, General MacArthur, +took to combat that warfare "the 53 stations of American troops +occupied in the archipelago on November 1, 1899, had on September 1, +1900, expanded to 413," and that during this period, the casualties +to our troops were 268 killed, 750 wounded, 55 captured, and to the +insurgents, so far as our records showed, 3227 killed, 694 wounded, +and 2864 captured. Says he: + + + The extensive distribution of troops has strained the soldiers + of the army to the full limit of endurance. Each little command + has had to provide its own service of security and information + by never ceasing patrols, explorations, escorts, outposts, and + regular guards. An idea seems to have been established in the + public mind [he meant the public mind at home, of course] that the + field work of the army is in the nature of police, in regulating a + few bands of guerrillas, and involving none of the vicissitudes of + war. [Here he is meeting the Otis theory, then being industriously + circulated in the United States.] Such a narrow statement of the + case is unfair to the service. In all things requiring endurance, + fortitude, and patient diligence, the guerrilla period has been + pre-eminent. It is difficult for the non-professional observer + [he means Judge Taft] to understand that apparently desultory + work, such as has prevailed in the Philippines during the past + ten months, [333] has demanded more of discipline and as much + of valor as was required during the period of regular operations + against the concentrated field forces of the insurrection. It is, + therefore, a great privilege to speak warmly in respect of the + importance of the service rendered day by day, with unremitting + vigilance, by the splendid men who," etc. [334] + + +It was not until July 4, 1902, that President Roosevelt officially +declared, by his amnesty proclamation of that date that the +insurrection in the Philippines was at last ended. It was by no +means beaten to a frazzle, as we shall later see. But of course, +knowing the impatience of a large portion of the American people with a +situation about which there was a wide-spread notion that much remained +undisclosed, Mr. Roosevelt would have issued such a proclamation +earlier, had the facts seemed to him to so authorize. General +MacArthur's relentless "never ceasing patrols, explorations," etc., +continued straight on through the presidential campaign of 1900 side +by side in point of time with the roseate Taft cablegrams of the same +period, and long thereafter--how long will be later indicated. Says +General MacArthur, in his report for 1901: + + + It had been suggested that some of the Filipino leaders were + willing to submit the issue to the judgment of the American people, + which was soon to be expressed at the polls, and to abide by + the result of the presidential election of November, 1900. [335] + But subsequent events demonstrated that the hope of ending the + war without further effusion of blood was not well founded, + and that as a matter of fact the Filipinos were organizing for + further desperate resistance by means of a general banding of + the people in support of the guerrillas in the field. [336] + + +General MacArthur then goes on to tell how, as part of this programme, +the insurgent authorities, + + + announced a primal and inflexible principle, to the effect that + every native, without any exception, residing within the limits + of the archipelago, owed active allegiance to the insurgent + cause. This jurisdiction was enjoined under severe penalties, + which were systematically enforced. + + +This is what Judge Taft afterwards described as "a conspiracy of +murder, a Mafia on a very large scale", [337] the characterization +being made in support of his theory that "the great majority of the +people" with whom we were then at war would welcome our rule if allowed +to follow their real preferences, and that they were being cruelly +coerced to fight for the independence of their country. General +MacArthur's view, however, did not support this theory. His report +deals with this branch of the subject thus: + + + The cohesion of Filipino society in behalf of insurgent + interests is most emphatically illustrated by the fact that + assassination, which was extensively employed, was generally + accepted as a legitimate expression of insurgent governmental + authority. The individuals marked for death would not appeal to + American protection, although condemned exclusively on account + of supposed pro-Americanism. + + +Later on, when we came to understand the Filipinos better, this +summary method of dealing with the faint-hearted lost much of its +initial horrifying force, and the failure of such to appeal to us for +protection lost much of its strangeness. In the first place, nobody +loves a traitor. Even those to whom he claims to have betrayed his +countrymen do not trust him implicitly. Again, Latin countries never +assume that before a man is punished for alleged crime he has been +confronted with the witnesses against him. Such testimony is, under +their jurisprudence, frequently received in his absence. The legal +department of General MacArthur's office once got hold of a captured +insurgent paper subscribed with the autograph of Juan Cailles, one +of their best generals. It directed that a named Filipino residing +in a certain town garrisoned by American troops be executed--we +of course, would call it "assassinated"--at a certain hour on a +certain day in a public street of the town, and that the soldier or +soldiers performing the "execution" should declare to the bystanders, +if any, in so doing, that it was done because the man was a traitor, +a friend of the Americans. We kept this paper, intending to hang Juan +whenever he should be captured. He held out a long time, and finally +surrendered unconditionally--but he proved such an elegant fellow, +game as a pebble, courteous as Chesterfield, and immensely popular +with his people, that it was decided he could be of more service +as a live governor of a province than he could as a dead general, +[338] so he was appointed a provincial governor by Governor Taft, +and made a splendid official. + +Another reason why Filipinos suspected, during the insurrection, by +the more obstinate and stout-hearted of their compatriots who held +out longer in the struggle for independence, of weakening toward the +cause of their country, in other words, suspected of what might be +called "Copperhead" or "Tory" tendencies, would not appeal to us for +protection, is strikingly presented in General MacArthur's report for +1901. He says they naturally had "grave doubt as to the wisdom" of +siding with us, "as the United States had made no formal announcement +of an inflexible purpose to hold the archipelago and afford protection +to pro-Americans." [339] + +The one great thing that has crippled progress in the Philippines +from the beginning of the American occupation down to date is the +uncertainty as to what our policy for the future is to be, the lack of +some, "formal announcement of an inflexible purpose." And of course +I mean, as General MacArthur meant, by "formal" announcement, an +authoritative declaration by the law-making power of the government. If +Congress should formally declare that it is the purpose of this +government to hold the Philippines permanently, American and other +capital would at once go there in abundance and the place would +"blossom like a rose." If, on the other hand, Congress should formally +declare that it is the purpose of this government to give the Filipinos +their independence as soon as a stable native government can be set up, +thus holding out to the present generation the prospect of living to +see the independence of their country, the place would also quickly +blossom as aforesaid, through the generous ardor of native love of +country. In either event, everybody out there would know where he is +"at." At present all is uncertainty, both with the resident members +of the dominant alien race, and with those over whom we are ruling. + +It took over 120,000 American troops, first and last, to put down +the struggle of the Filipinos for independence. [340] The war began +February 4, 1899, and the last public official announcement that it +was ended was on July 4, 1902. [341] Of course this does not imply +that every province was at all times during that period a theatre +of actual war. Putting down the insurrection was something like +putting out a fire in a field of dry grass. At first the trouble was +general. Gradually it diminished toward the end. But for a while, +no sooner was it quenched in one province than it would break out +in another. How the Filipinos were able to prolong the struggle +as long as they did against such apparently overwhelming odds is +most interestingly explained by General MacArthur in his report +for 1900. After describing the method he followed of establishing +native municipal governments in territory as conquered, he says, +with a patient stateliness that is almost humorous: + + + The institution of municipal government under American auspices, + of course, carried the idea of exclusive fidelity to the sovereign + power of the United States. All the necessary moral obligations + to that end were readily assumed by municipal bodies, and all + outward forms of loyalty and decorum carefully preserved. But + precisely at this point the psychologic conditions referred to + above [meaning the unity against us], [342] began to work with + great energy, in assistance of insurgent field operations. For this + purpose most of the towns secretly organized complete insurgent + municipal governments, to proceed simultaneously and in the + same sphere as the American governments and in many instances + through the same personnel--that is to say, the presidentes + and town officials acted openly in behalf of the Americans and + secretly in behalf of the insurgents, and, paradoxical as it may + seem, with considerable apparent solicitude for the interests + of both. In all matters touching the peace of the town, the + regulation of markets, the primitive work possible on roads, + streets, and bridges, and the institution of schools, their open + activity was commendable; at the same time they were exacting and + collecting contributions and supplies and recruiting men for the + Filipino forces, and sending all obtainable military information + to the Filipino leaders. Wherever, throughout the archipelago, + there is a group of the insurgent army, it is a fact beyond + dispute, that all contiguous towns contribute to the maintenance + thereof. In other words, the towns, regardless of the fact of + American occupation and town organization, are the actual bases + for all insurgent military activities; and not only so in the + sense of furnishing supplies for the so-called flying columns of + guerrillas, but as affording secure places of refuge. Indeed, it + is now the most important maxim of Filipino tactics to disband + when closely pressed and seek safety in the nearest barrio; + a manoeuvre quickly accomplished by reason of the assistance + of the people and the ease with which the Filipino soldier is + transformed into the appearance of a peaceful native. [343] + + +To contrast a cold, hard military fact involving the lives of American +soldiers with a lot of political nonsense intended for consumption in +the United States during a presidential election, the next paragraph is +particularly interesting in the light of the cotemporaneous Taft view: +[344] + + + The success of this unique system of war depends upon almost + complete unity of action of the entire native population. That such + unity is a fact is too obvious to admit of discussion. Intimidation + has undoubtedly accomplished much to this end, but fear as the + only motive is hardly sufficient to account for the united and + apparently spontaneous action of several millions of people. [345] + One traitor in each town would effectually destroy such a complex + organization. + + +Then follows this bit of grim humor: + + + It is more probable that the adhesive principle comes from + ethnological homogeneity which induces men to respond for a time + to the appeals of consanguineous leadership-- + + +in other words, to stick to their own kith and kin. He had in a +previous paragraph used that very expression thus: "The people seem to +be actuated by the idea that in politics or war men are never nearer +right then when going with their own kith and kin." + +In all the foregoing, General MacArthur was not simply trying to score +a point against Judge Taft, though his resentment of the effort of the +Taft Commission of 1900 to mix politics with war in the presidential +year was quite as decided, and quite as well known in the islands at +the time, as was General Otis's similar attitude toward the Schurman +Commission of the previous year. [346] He is simply laying before +the War Department, as a soldier, the familiar facts of a situation +which he had been dealing with for two years past, as well known to +the 70,000 officers and men under his command as to himself. And as +the details into which he goes are simply prefatory to an account of +the remedy he applied to the situation, that remedy must now claim +our attention. The remedy General MacArthur finally applied was +a proclamation, explaining to the Filipino people--"to all classes +throughout the archipelago," it read, and especially to the leaders in +the field, many of whose captured comrades-in-arms he had now become +thoroughly acquainted with--the severities sanctioned by the laws of +civilized nations under such circumstances, and the reasons therefor; +and, further, serving them with notice that thenceforward he proposed +to enforce those laws with full rigor. [347] + +The eminent lawyers of the Taft Commission were too busy about that +time acquainting themselves with the situation through natives not in +arms, to attach much importance to General MacArthur's proclamation, +but the Eighth Army Corps always believed that that proclamation, +and the army's work under it, was the main factor in making the +civil government at all possible by the date it was set up, July 4, +1901. The issuance of this document was not only a wise military move, +but a subtle stroke of statesmanship as well. It assumed that the +Filipino people were a civilized people, an assumption never indulged +by Spain during the whole of her rule, but always freely admitted by +General MacArthur in all his dealings with their leading men to be a +fact. It therefore appealed to their amour propre, and to the noblesse +oblige of many of the most obstinate and trusted fighting leaders. The +writer was, at the date of the proclamation under consideration, +on duty at General MacArthur's headquarters, as assistant to Colonel +Crowder, his judge advocate, now Judge Advocate General of the United +States Army, and prepared the first rough, tentative suggestions +for the final draft of it, accompanying such suggestions with a +memorandum showing the course taken by Wellington in France in 1815, +and by Bismarck's generals at the close of the Franco-Prussian War, +as well as that followed under General Order No. 100, 1863, for the +government of the armies of the United States in the field. Having then +entertained the opinion that that proclamation, though drastic, was +wise and right under the facts of the situation which confronted us, +and having nowise changed that opinion since, it may be well for the +writer of this book to explain his reasons for that opinion. This must +be done wholly without reference to "the authorities," for neither at +the bar of public opinion, nor at the bar of final judgment, do "the +authorities" count for much. In so doing, however, we must start with +the assumption that it was a case of American military occupation of +hostile territory, notwithstanding that Judge Taft began soon after +his arrival in the islands in the June previous to the December now +referred to, to cable home impressions which, if correct, amounted +to a denial that the great body of the people were hostile. Military +occupation is a fact which admits of no debate, and the necessity +of making your country's flag respected is always fully and keenly +recognized as the one supreme consideration by every good American +except one who, obsessed with the idea that kindness will cure the +desire of a people for independence, proceeds to act on that idea in +the midst of a war for independence. + +Under the laws of war the commanding general of the occupying force +owes protection, both of life and property, to all persons residing +within the territory occupied. The object of General MacArthur's +proclamation was to put a stop to such "executions," or assassinations, +as that perpetrated by Juan Cailles, mentioned above, and to separate +the insurgents in the field from their main reliance, the towns. The +latter end of a bloody war is no time for a discussion of the causes +of the war between victor and vanquished. Nor is it any time to +believe the representative of the enemy who tells you that most of +him is really in sympathy with you and merely coerced. Your duty is to +stop the war. You and your enemy having had a difference, and having +referred it to the arbitrament of war, which is, unfortunately, at +present the only human jurisdiction having power to enforce decisions +concerning such differences, if you win, and your enemy refuses to +abide the decision, he is simply, as it were in contempt of court, and, +in the scheme of things, as at present ordered, deserves punishment +as an enemy to the general peace. To state the ethics of the matter +juridically, "there should be an end of litigation"--somewhere. + +I do not believe in the doctrine that might makes right, and I cherish +the high hope that this human family of ours will survive to see war +superseded, as the ultimate arbiter, by something more like heaven and +less like hell. But in the Philippines in 1900 it was a situation, +not a theory, that confronted us, and, as far as my consciously +fallible thinking apparatus lights the way which then lay before us, +that way led to a shrine whereon was written "A life for a life." This +is no mere academic discussion. With me it is a tremendously practical +one. In the gravest possible acceptation of the term it is awe-fully +so. If I am wrong, every execution I approved by memorandum review +furnished Colonel Crowder and General MacArthur, of military commission +findings out there was wrong, and so were a number of the executions I +ordered as a judge appointed by Governor Taft under a government which, +though nominally a civil government, was no more "civil" in so far as +that term implies absence of necessity for the presence of military +force, than other governments immediately following conquest usually +are. The propriety of the imposition of capital punishment by the +constituted authorities of a nation as part of a set policy to make its +sovereignty respected, is wholly independent of whether you call your +colonial government a civil or a military one. So that in justifying +General MacArthur I am also justifying Governor Taft, and as it was +on the recommendation of the former that the latter appointed me to +the Bench, we are certainly all three in the same boat in the matter +of the capital punishments under consideration. And while the company +you were in on earth in a given transaction, however distinguished +that company, is not going to help you with the Recording Angel, +[348] still, it is some comfort to know that wiser and abler men than +yourself approved a course of imposing capital punishments to which +you were a party, such punishments having been inflicted as part of a +policy whose subsequent evolution revealed it to you as fundamentally +wrong. And this reflection is quite relevant in the present connection +to the question whether the government of Benevolent Assimilation we +have maintained over the Filipinos for the last fourteen years is one +which was originally imposed by force against their will, or whether +it was ever welcomed by them or any considerable fraction of them. + +That the MacArthur proclamation of December 20, 1900, concerning the +laws of war, was at the time a military necessity, is as perfectly +clear to me now as it was then. And yet it may well give the thoughtful +and patriotic American pause. It is sometimes difficult to understand +why men are so often entirely willing to go on fighting and dying in +a cause they must know to be hopeless. The famous passage of Edmund +Burke's speech on "Conciliation with America," + + + If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, so long as foreign + troops remained on my native soil, I never would lay down my arms, + no, never, never, never! + + +sounds well to us, but from the standpoint of a conqueror, there is +a good deal of wind-jamming to it, after all. It was the language of +a man who knew nothing of the horrors of war by actual experience, +or of what hell it slowly becomes to everybody concerned after most +of the high officials of the vanquished government have been captured +and are sleeping on dry, warm beds, eating good wholesome food, and +smoking good cigars, in comfortable custody, while the vanquished +army, no longer strong enough to come out in the open and fight, is +relegated to ambuscades and other tactics equally akin to the methods +of the assassin. The law of nations in this regard is an expression +of the views of successive generations of civilized and enlightened +men of all nations whose profession was war--men familiar with the +horrors inevitably incident to it and anxious to mitigate them as far +as possible. That law represents the common consensus of Christendom +resulting from that experience. It recognizes that after resistance +becomes utterly hopeless, it becomes a crime against society and +the general peace, and this is wholly independent of the merits +or demerits of the questions involved in the war. In other words, +the greatest good of the greatest number cries aloud that the war +must stop. The cold, hard fact is that the great majority of the men +who hold out longest are, usually, either single men having no one +dependent on them, or nothing to lose, or both, or else they are men +more or less indifferent to the ties of family affection, and callous +to the suffering fruitlessly entailed upon innocent noncombatants +by the various and sundry horrors of war, such as decimation of +the plough animals of the country due to their running at large +without caretakers or forage; resultant untilled fields and scant +food; pestilence and famine consequent upon insufficient nourishment; +arson, robbery, rape, and murder inevitably committed in such times +by sorry scamps and ruffians claiming to be patriots but yielding no +allegiance to any responsible head; and so on, ad infinitum. + +General MacArthur's proclamation of December 20, 1900, served +notice on the leaders of a hopeless cause that assassinations, such +as that ordered by Juan Cailles, above mentioned, must stop; that +the universal practice of the townfolk, of sending money, supplies, +and information concerning our movements to the enemy in the field, +must stop; that participating in hostilities intermittently, in +citizen garb, followed by return to home and avocation when too +hard pressed, must stop; in short that the war must stop. Yet the +proclamation explained in so firm and kindly a way why the penalties +it promised were only reasonable under the circumstances, that "as an +educational document the effect was immediate and far-reaching," [349] +to quote from an opinion expressed by its author in the body of it, +an opinion entirely consistent with modesty and fully justified by +the facts. General MacArthur also goes on to say of his unrelenting +and rigid enforcement of the terms of this proclamation that the +results "preclude all possibility of doubt * * * that the effective +pacification of the archipelago commenced December 20, 1900"--its +date. It is a part of the history of those times, familiar to all who +are familiar with them, that the Taft Civil Commission thought its +assurances of the benevolent intentions of our government were what +made the civil government possible by midsummer, 1901. But whatever +the Filipinos may think of us at present, now that they understand us +better, certainly in 1900-01, in view of the events of the preceding +two or three years, which formed the basis of the only acquaintance +they then had with us, and in view of the fact that their experience +for the preceding two or three hundred years had made force the only +effective governmental argument with them, and governmental promises a +mere mockery, and in view of the fact that the "never-ceasing patrols, +explorations, escorts, outposts," etc., of General MacArthur's 70,000 +men were relentlessly kept up during the six months immediately +following the proclamation and in aid of it, it at once becomes +obvious how infinitesimal a fraction of the final partial pacification +which made the civil government possible, the Taft assurances to the +Filipinos as to our intentions must have been. These matters are of +prime importance to any honest effort toward a clear understanding of +present conditions, because far and away the greatest wrong which we, +in our genuinely benevolent misinformation, have done the Filipinos, +not even excepting the tariff legislation perpetrated upon them by +Congress, lies in the insufferably hypocritical pretence that they +ever consented to our rule, or that they consent to it now--a pretence +conceived in 1898 by Trade Expansion, to beguile a nation the breath of +whose own life is political liberty based on consent of the governed, +into a career of conquest, but not even countenanced since by those +who believe the Government should go into the politico-missionary +business, after the manner of Spain in the sixteenth century. + +Having now exhaustively examined the differences of opinion between +Judge Taft and General MacArthur, when the former set to work, +in the summer of 1900, to get a civil government started by the +date of expiration of the term of enlistment of the volunteer army +(June 30, 1901), let us follow the facts of the situation up to the +date last named, or, which is practically the same thing, up to the +inauguration of Judge Taft as Civil Governor of the islands on July 4, +1901, pausing, in passing, for such reflections as may force themselves +upon us as pertinent to the Philippine problem of to-day. + +On September 19, 1900, General MacArthur wired Secretary of War +Root--General Corbin, the Adjutant-General of the Army, to be exact, +but it is the same thing--describing what he calls "considerable +activity" throughout Luzon, ominously stating that General Young (up +in the Ilocano country, into which we followed him and his cavalry +in Chapter XII, ante) "has called so emphatically for more force," +that he, MacArthur, feels grave concern; adding that Luzon north of +the Pasig is "very much disturbed," and that south of the Pasig the +same conditions prevail. [350] + +October 26th, General MacArthur cables outlining a plan for a great +campaign on comprehensive lines, stating that "Full development of this +scheme requires about four months and all troops now in the islands," +and deprecating any move on Mr. Root's part to reduce his force of +70,000 men by starting any of the volunteers homeward before it should +be absolutely necessary. [351] October 28th, General MacArthur wires, +"Shall push everything with great vigor," adding "Expect to have +everything in full operation November 15th." [352] November 5th, as +if to reassure General MacArthur that he and the General understand +each other and that the Taft cotemporaneous nonsense is not going to +be allowed to interfere with more serious business, Secretary Root, +through the Adjutant-General, sends this cable message: + + + Secretary of War directs no instructions from here be allowed + interfere or impede progress your military operations which he + expects you force to successful conclusion. [353] + + +So that while the American people were being pacified with the Taft +cablegrams to Secretary Root that the Filipino people wanted peace, +General MacArthur, under Mr. Root's direction, was simultaneously +proceeding to make them want it with the customary argument used +to settle irreconcilable differences between nations--powder and +lead. Mr. Root was all the time in constant communication with both, +but he gave out only the Taft optimism to the public, and withheld the +actual facts within his knowledge. December 25th, General MacArthur +wires Secretary Root, "Expectations based on result of election have +not been realized." "Progress," he says, is "very slow." [354] + +And now I come to one of the most important things that all my +researches into the official records of our government concerning +the Philippine Islands have developed. On December 28, 1900, General +MacArthur reports by cable the contents of some important insurgent +papers captured in Cavite Province about that time. The Filipinos have +a great way of reducing to writing, or making minutes of, whatever +occurs at any important conference. This habit they did not abandon +in the field. The papers in question belonged to General Trias, the +Lieutenant-General commanding all the insurgent armies in the field, +and, next to Aguinaldo, the highest official connected with the +revolutionary government. One of these papers, according to General +MacArthur's despatch of December 28th, purported to be the minutes of +a certain meeting had October 11th previous, between General Trias +and the Japanese Consul at Manila. As to whether or not the paper +was really authentic, General MacArthur says: "I accept it as such +without hesitation." Communicating the contents of the paper he says: + + + Consul advised that Trias visit Japan. Filipinos represented that + concessions which they might be forced to make to Washington would + be more agreeable if made to Japan, which as a nation of kindred + blood would not be likely to assert superiority. Consul said Japan + desired coaling station, freedom to trade and build railways. [355] + + +I consider these negotiations of the Japanese Government with the +Philippine insurgents important to be related here because they have +never been generally known, for the good reason, of course, that +the President of the United States cannot take the public into his +confidence about such grave and delicate matters when they occur. The +incident is not "ancient history" relatively to present-day problems, +for the following reasons: + +(1) Because it is credibly reported and currently believed in the +United States that in Japan, during the cruise of our battleship +fleet around the world in 1907, one of the reception committee of +Japanese officers who welcomed our officers was recognized by one of +the latter as having been, not a great while before that, a servant +aboard an American battleship. + +(2) Because of the following incident, related to me, in 1911, +without the slightest injunction of secrecy, by the Director of +Public Health of the Philippine Islands, then on a visit to the United +States. Shortly before the Director's said visit home, while he was out +in one of the provinces, there was brought to his attention a Filipino +with a broken arm. There was a Japanese doctor in the town, at least +a Japanese who had a sign out as a doctor. The Director carried the +sufferer to the "doctor," not being a surgeon himself. The "doctor" +turned out to be a civil engineer, who had been making maps and plans +of fortifications. The plans were found in his possession. + +(3) Because from one of the islands through which the northern line of +the Treaty of Paris runs, situated only a pleasant morning's journey +in a launch due north of Aparri, the northernmost town of Luzon, you +can see, on a clear day, with a good field-glass, the southern end of +Formosa, some 60 or 70 miles away. Japan can land an army on American +soil at Aparri any time she wants to, overnight--an army several +times that of the total American force now in the Philippines, [356] +or likely ever to be there. From Aparri it is 70 miles up the river to +Tueguegarao, 40 more to Iligan, and 90 more, all fairly good marching, +to Bayombong, in Nueva Viscaya (total distance, Aparri to Bayombong, +200 miles) the province which lies in the heart of the watershed of +Central Luzon. I know what I am talking about, because that region +was the first judicial district I presided over, and many a hard +journey I have had over it, circuit riding, on a scrubby pony. Part +of it I have been through in the company of President Taft. It thus +appears that from Aparri to Bayombong there would be but a week or +ten days of unresisted marching to reach the watershed region, Nueva +Viscaya. The Japanese soldier's ration is mainly rice, so that he can +carry more days' travel rations than almost any other soldier in the +world. Never fear about their making the journey inside of a week or +ten days, once they start. To descend from the watershed aforesaid, +over the Caranglan Pass, and down the valley of the Rio Grande de +Pampanga to Manila, another three or four days would be all that would +be needed. It would be a Japanese picnic. Fortifying Corregidor Island, +at the entrance to Manila Bay, which is about all the serious scheme +of defence against a foreign foe we have out there, is quite like +the reliance of the Spaniards on Morro Castle, at the mouth of the +harbor of Santiago de Cuba, against our landing at Guantanamo. Our +garrison in the Philippines, all told, is but a handful. Aparri is an +absolutely unfortified seaport, at which the Japanese could land an +army overnight from the southern end of Formosa. There are no military +fortifications whatsoever to stay the advance of an invading army +from Aparri down the Cagayan Valley, and thence over the watershed +of Nueva Viscaya Province, through the Caranglan Pass, and down the +valley of the Pampanga River to Manila. So that to-day Japan can +take Manila inside of two weeks any time she wants to. That is why +I object to the President's "jollying" the situation along as best +he can, without taking the American people into his confidence. Any +army officer at our War College will inform any member of the House +or Senate on inquiry, that Japan can take the Philippines any time +she wants to. President Taft and the Mikado may keep on exchanging the +most cordial cablegrams imaginable, but the map-making goes on just the +same. And, earnest and sincere as both the President and the Emperor +undoubtedly are in their desire to preserve the general peace, who +is going to restrain Hobson and Hearst, and several of Japan's public +men equally distinguished and equally inflammatory? Heads of nations +cannot restrain gusts of popular passion. The Pacific Coast is not so +friendly to Japan as the rest of our country, and as between Japan and +the Pacific Coast, we are pretty apt to stand by the latter without +inquiring with meticulous nicety into any differences that may arise. + +The reason I said in the chapter before this one that Mr. Root is +a dangerous man to Republican institutions was because he is of the +type who are constantly finding situations which they consider it best +for the people not to know about. After the McKinley election of 1900 +was safely "put over," Mr. Root, as Secretary of War, let Judge Taft +go ahead and ride his dove-of-peace hobby-horse in the Philippines, +duly repeating to the American people all the cheery Taft cluckings +to said horse, at a time when the real situation is indicated by such +grim correspondence as the following cablegram dated January 29, 1901: + + + Wood, Havana: Secretary of War is desirous to know if you can + give your consent to the immediate withdrawal Tenth Infantry + from Cuba. Imperative that we have immediate use of every + available company we can lay our hands on for service in the + Philippines. (Signed) Corbin. [357] + + +But let us turn from this sorry spectacle of Mr. Root pulling the wool +over the eyes of his countrymen to make them believe the Filipinos +were not quite so unconsenting as they seemed to be, and again look +at the sheer splendor of American military ability to get anything +done the Government wants done. I refer to the capture of Aguinaldo. + +One of the most eminent lawyers in this country once said to me, "I +would not let that man Funston enter my house." I tried to enlighten +him, but as I happened to be a guest in his house at the time, +which entitled him to exemption from light if he insisted--which he +did--General Funston and he have continued to miss what might have been +a real pleasure to them both. The following is, as briefly as I can +dispose of it, the story of the capture of Aguinaldo on March 23, 1901. + +Ever since Aguinaldo had escaped through our lines in November, +1899, his capture had been the one great consummation most devoutly +wished. It has already been shown how busy with the war the army +was all the time Judge Taft was gayly jogging away astride of his +peace hobby about the insurrection being really quite regretted +and over. However, in the favorite remark with which he used to +wave the insurrection into thin air, to the effect that it was +now merely "a Mafia on a large scale," there was one element +of truth. The general feeling of the people, both educated and +uneducated, was such as to countenance the attitude of the leaders +that pro-American tendencies were treason. Any leader who surrendered +of course was thereafter an object of at least some suspicion to his +fellow-countrymen, however assiduous his subsequent double-dealing. As +long as Aguinaldo remained out, this state of affairs was sure to +continue indefinitely, possibly for years to come. If captured, he +would probably himself give up the struggle, and use his influence +with the rest to do likewise. Therefore, in the spring of 1901, +each and every one of General MacArthur's 70,000 men was, and had +been since 1899, on the qui vive to make his own personal fortunes +secure for life, and gain lasting military distinction, by taking +any sort of chances to capture Aguinaldo. On February 8, 1901, an +officer of General Funston's district, the Fourth, in central Luzon, +intercepted a messenger bearing despatches from Aguinaldo to one of +his generals of that region, directing the general (Lacuna) to send +some reinforcements to him, Aguinaldo. General Funston's headquarters +were then at San Fernando, in the province of Pampanga--organized as a +"civil" government province by act of the Taft Commission just five +days later. [358] Through these despatches and their bearer, General +Funston ascertained the hiding-place of the insurgent chieftain to +be at a place called Palanan, in the mountains of Isabela Province, +in northeastern Luzon, near the Pacific Coast. Early in the war we had +availed ourselves of a certain tribe, or clan, known as the Maccabebes, +who look nowise different from all other Filipinos, but who had, under +the Spanish government, by reason of long-standing feuds with their +more rebellious neighbors, come to be absolutely loyal to the Spanish +authorities. When we came they had transferred that loyalty to us, and +had now become a recognized and valuable part of our military force. So +it occurred to General Funston; "Why not personate the reinforcements +called for, the American officers to command the expedition assuming +the role of captured American prisoners?" The plan was submitted to +General MacArthur and adopted. A picked company of Maccabebes was +selected, consisting of about eighty men, and General Funston decided +to go himself, taking with him on the perilous expedition four young +officers of proven mettle: Captain Harry W. Newton, 34th Infantry, +U. S. Volunteers, now a captain of the Coast Artillery; Captain +R. T. Hazzard, 11th Volunteer Cavalry; Lieutenant O. P. M. Hazzard, +his brother, of the same regiment, the latter now an officer of +the regular army, and Lieutenant Mitchell, "my efficient aid." [359] +March 6, 1901, the U.S.S. Vicksburg slipped quietly out of Manila Bay, +bearing the participants in the desperate enterprise--as desperate +an undertaking as the heart and brain of a soldier ever carried to a +successful conclusion. General Thomas H. Barry wrote Secretary of War +Root, after they left, telling of their departure, and stating that +he did not much expect ever to see them again. The chances were ten +to one that the eighty men would meet five or ten times their number, +and, as they were to masquerade as troops of the enemy, they could +not complain, under the recognized laws of war as to spies, at being +summarily shot if captured alive. And the whole Filipino people were a +secret service ready to warn Aguinaldo, should the carefully concocted +ruse be discovered anywhere along the journey. They went down to the +southern end of Luzon, and through the San Bernardino Straits into +the Pacific Ocean, and thence up the east coast of Luzon to Casiguran +Bay, about 100 miles south of Palanan, landing at Casiguran Bay, March +14th. The "little Macks," as General Funston calls the Maccabebes, were +made to discard their dapper American uniforms after they got aboard +the ship, and don instead a lot of nondescript clothing gathered by +the military authorities at Manila before the Vicksburg sailed, so +as to resemble the average insurgent command. Not a man of them had +been told of the nature of the expedition before sailing. This was +not for fear of treachery, but lest some one of the faithful "Macks" +should get his tongue loosed by hospitality before departing. Also, +their Krag-Jorgensen regulation rifles were taken from them, and a +miscellaneous assortment of old Springfields, Mausers, etc., given them +instead, to complete the deception. An ex-insurgent officer, well known +to Aguinaldo, but now in General Funston's employ, was to play the +role of commanding officer of the "reinforcements." To read General +Funston's account of this expedition is a more convincing rebuttal +of the contemporaneous Taft denials of Filipino hostility and of the +unanimity of the feeling of the people against us, than a thousand +quotations from official documents could ever be. It was necessary +to land more than 100 miles south of Aguinaldo's hiding-place, lest +the smoke of the approaching vessel should be sighted from a distance, +and some peasant or lookout give the alarm. Accordingly, they landed at +Casiguran Bay by night, with the ship's lights screened, the Vicksburg +at once departing out of sight of land, and agreeing to meet them off +Palanan, their destination, on March 25th, eleven days later. From the +beginning they vigilantly and consummately played the role planned, +the "Macks" having been drilled on the way up, each and all, in the +story they were to tell at the first village near Casiguran Bay, and +everywhere thereafter, to the effect that they had come across country, +and en route had met ten American soldiers out map-making, and had +killed two, wounded three, and captured five. They were to point to +General Funston and the four other Americans in corroboration of their +story. Speaking of himself and his four fellow "prisoners," General +Funston says, "We were a pretty scrubby looking lot of privates." The +villagers received the patriot forces, thus flushed with triumph, +in an appropriate manner, and supplied them with rations and guides +for the rest of their 100-mile journey to the headquarters of the +"dictator." General Funston is even at pains to say for the village +officials that they were very humane and courteous to himself and +the other four American "prisoners." They reached Palanan Bay, +eight miles from Palanan, on March 22d. Here Hilario Tal Placido, +the ex-insurgent officer whose role in the present thrilling drama +was that of "commanding officer" of the expedition, sent a note to +Aguinaldo, stating that he had halted his command for a rest at the +beach preparatory to marching inland and reporting to the Honorable +Presidente, that they were very much exhausted, and much in need of +food, and please to send him some. Of course that was the natural card +to play to put Aguinaldo off his guard. The food came, and the bearers +returned and casually reported to the Honorable Presidente that his +honorable reinforcements would soon be along, much to the honorable +joy--to make the thing a little Japanesque--of the president of the +honorable republic. This incident has been since made the occasion of +some criticism--that it was contrary to decency to accept Aguinaldo's +food and then attack him afterwards. General Funston very properly +replies in effect that the case would have been very different had he +thrown himself on Aguinaldo's mercy, taken his food, and used treachery +afterwards, but that his conduct was entirely correct, under the code +of war, for the reason that should he and his command be captured +while personating enemy's forces, Aguinaldo would have had a perfect +right, under the rules of the game, to shoot them all as spies. He +adds rather savagely, concerning "certain ladylike persons in the +United States" who have censured his course in the matter, that he +"would be very much interested in seeing the results of a surgical +operation performed on the skull of a man who cannot readily see the +radical difference between the two propositions," and that he doubts +if a good quality of calf brains would be revealed by the operation. + +At all events, the expedition was very much refreshed by the food +and highly delighted at the proof, contained in the sending of it, +that Aguinaldo did not suspect a ruse. But now came one of the many +emergencies which had to be met by quick wit in the course of that +memorable adventure. Aguinaldo sent word to leave the "prisoners" +under a guard in one of the huts by the sea-shore, where there was one +of the Aguinaldo retainers in charge, an old Tagalo. After a hurried, +whispered conversation, "prisoner" Funston instructed "Commanding +Officer" Placido to go ahead with his main column and then a little +later send back a forged written order purporting to be from Aguinaldo, +for the "prisoners" to come on also. This was shown to the old Tagalo, +thus disarming suspicion on his part. But now came the "closest shave" +they had. The column met a detachment from Aguinaldo's headquarters +sent down with instructions to relieve the necessarily worn-out +guard of the newly arrived "re-inforcements" that were supposed to +be guarding the five prisoners at the beach, and let said guard come +on up to headquarters with the rest of the "re-inforcements," the +idea being to still leave the prisoners at the beach so they would +not learn definitely as to the Aguinaldo whereabouts. Detaining the +officer commanding this detachment for a moment or so on some pretext, +the "Commanding Officer" of the "re-inforcements" whispered to a +Maccabebe corporal to run back and tell General Funston and the rest +of the "prisoners" to jump in the bushes and hide. This they did, +lying within thirty feet of the detachment, as it passed them en +route for the beach. Of course a fight would have meant considerable +firing, and the quarry might hear it, take fright, and escape. Finally +they reached Palanan, the "prisoners" quite far in the rear. Placido +got safely into Aguinaldo's presence, followed at a short distance +by the main body of his Maccabebes. Aguinaldo's life-guard of some +fifty men, neatly uniformed, presented arms as Placido entered the +insurgent headquarters building, and thereafter waited at attention +outside. Then the worthy Placido entertained the honorable Presidente +with a few cock-and-bull stories about the march across country, +etc., made obediently to the President's order, keeping a weather +eye out of the window all the time. As soon as the Maccabebes had +come up and formed facing the Aguinaldo life-guard, Placido went to +the window and ordered them to open fire. This they did, killing +two of the insurgents and wounding their commanding officer. The +rest fled, panic-stricken, by reason of the surprise. Then Placido, +a very stout individual, grabbed Aguinaldo, who only weighs about +115 pounds, threw him down, and sat on him, until General Funston, +the Hazzards, Mitchell, and Newton arrived. The orders were iron-clad +that under no circumstances, if it could be avoided, was Aguinaldo +to be killed. His signature to proclamations telling the people to +quit the war was going to be needed too much. The party rested two +days and then set out for the coast again, on March 25th, the day the +Vicksburg had agreed to meet them. "At noon" says General Funston, +"we again saw the Pacific, and far out on it a wisp of smoke--the +Vicksburg coming in!" In due course they reached Manila Bay. The +old palace of the Spanish captains-general, then occupied by our +commanding general, is up the Pasig River, accessible from the bay +by launch. By that method General Funston took his precious prisoner +to the palace without the knowledge of a soul in the great city of +Manila. He arrived before General MacArthur had gotten up. In a few +minutes the General came out. "Where is Aguinaldo?" said he, dryly. He +supposed General Funston simply had some details to tell, like the +commanding officers of hundreds of other expeditions that had gone out +before that on false scents in search of the illustrious but elusive +Presidente. "Right here in this house," said General Funston. General +MacArthur could hardly believe his ears. A few days later, General +Funston walked into General MacArthur's office. The latter said; +"Well, Funston, they do not seem to have thought much in Washington +of your performance. I am afraid you have got into trouble." "At the +same time he handed me," says General Funston in the Scribner Magazine +article above mentioned, "a cablegram announcing my appointment as +a brigadier-general in the regular army." + +In his annual report for 1901, [360] General MacArthur describes +the capture of Aguinaldo as "the most momentous single event of +the year," stating also that "Aguinaldo was the incarnation of the +insurrection." This last statement explains why he was so anxious to +capture him alive. If dead, he would be sure to get re-incarnated in +the person of some able assistant of his entourage, thus insuring +undisturbed continuance of the war. He was most graciously treated +by General MacArthur during his stay as that distinguished soldier's +"guest" at the Malacanan palace, from March 28th until April 20th. The +word "guest" is placed in quotations because the host thought so +much of him that he considered him worth many hundred times his +weight in gold, and had him watched night and day by a commissioned +officer. Everything that had been done by the Americans since November, +1899, was explained to him, and he was made to see that our purposes +with regard to his people were not only benevolent but also inflexible; +in other words that there was no altering our determination to make +his people happy whether they were willing or not. Seeing this, +Aguinaldo bowed to the inevitable. The programme explained to +Aguinaldo is wittily described by a very bright Englishwoman as a +plan "to have lots of American school teachers at once set to work +to teach the Filipino English and at the same time keep plenty of +American soldiers around to knock him on the head should he get a +notion that he is ready for self-government before the Americans +think he is"--a quaint scheme, she adds, "and one characteristic of +the dauntlessness of American energy." To be brief, on April 19th, +Aguinaldo took the oath of allegiance to the American Government, +which all agree he has faithfully observed ever since, and issued +a proclamation recommending abandonment of further resistance. This +proclamation was at once published by General MacArthur and signalized +by the immediate liberation of one thousand prisoners of war, on +their likewise taking the oath of allegiance. In his proclamation +Aguinaldo said, among other things: + + + The time has come, however, when they [the Filipino people] find + their advance along this path [the path of their aspirations] + impeded by an irresistible force. * * * Enough of blood, enough + of tears and desolation. + + +He concludes by announcing his final unconditional submission to +American sovereignty and advises others to do likewise. [361] + +Soon after this General Tino surrendered in General Young's district, +and in another part of northern Luzon, General Mascardo, commanding +the insurgent forces in the provinces of Bataan and Zambales, +heretofore described as "the west wing of the great central plain," +also surrendered. In the latter part of June, General Cailles, with +whom we have already had occasion to become acquainted, in connection +with Judge Taft's "Mafia on a large scale," also surrendered in +Laguna Province. After that, there was never any more trouble in +northern Luzon. But during the spring of 1901, the Commission had +been very busy organizing the provinces of southern Luzon under +civil government, thus cutting short the process of licking it into +submission and substituting a process of loving it into that state +through good salaries and otherwise--a policy which postponed the +final permanent pacification of that ill-fated region for several +years, as hereinafter more fully set forth. + +The unconditional absoluteness with which Judge Taft acted from the +beginning on the assumption that the Filipinos would make a distinction +between civil and military rule, and that their objection to us was +because we had first sent soldiers to rule them and not civilians, +and that these objections would vanish before the benignant sunlight +of a government by civilians, is one of the great tragedies of all +history, considering the countless lives it eventually cost. As a +matter of fact, the Filipino objection had little or no relation +to the kind of clothes we wore, whether they were white duck or +khaki. Their objection was to us, i.e., to an alien yoke. However, +to heal the bleeding wounds of war, the Filipinos were benevolently +told to forget it, and a civil government was set up on July 4, 1901, +pursuant to the amiable delusion indicated. That it has never yet +proved a panacea, and why, will be developed in the next and subsequent +chapters, but only in-so-far as such development throws light on the +present situation--which it is the whole object of this book to do. + +And now a few words by way of concluding the present chapter, as +preliminary to the inauguration of a civil government, cannot be +misconstrued, though they come from one who held office under it. I +have certainly made clear that Judge Taft and his colleagues were as +honest in their delusion about how popular they were with the Filipinos +as many other public men who have been known to have hobbies, and my +remarks must be understood as based on the comprehensive bird's-eye +view which we have had of the whole situation from the outbreak of +the war with Spain in 1898 to the end of June, 1901, as a summation +of that situation. It is quite true that all contemporary history is +as much affected by its environment as the writer of it is by his +own limitations. But it certainly seems clear now that, in regard +to the Philippine problem presented in 1898 by the decision to keep +the islands, the American people were played upon by the politicians +for the next few years thereafter, sometimes on the idea that the +Filipino people were not a people but only a jumble of semi-civilized +tribes incapable of any intelligent notion of what independence meant, +and sometimes on the idea that while there was no denying that they +were indeed a civilized, homogeneous, Christian people, yet the great +majority of them did not want independence, and would prefer to be +under a strong alien government. But the key-note to the McKinley +policy from the beginning, his answer to the eager question of his +own people, was that there was no real absence of the consent of the +governed. In Senator Lodge's history of the war with Spain, written in +1899, there is a description of the long struggle for independence in +Cuba, whose existence Spain denied year after year until we decided +that patience had ceased to be a virtue, which description is so +strikingly applicable to the situation in the Philippines during +the first years of American rule that I cannot refrain from quoting +it here: + + + And we were to go on pretending that the war was not there, + and that we had answered the unsettled question, when we really + had simply turned our heads aside and refused to look. And then + when the troublesome matter had been so nicely laid to sleep, + the result followed which is usual when Congressmen and Presidents + and nations are trying to make shams pass for realities." [362] + + +By the same high token the Philippine question will always remain +"the unsettled question" until it is settled right. In other words, +the American occupation of the Philippines, having been originally +predicated on the idea that the Filipino people did not really +want independence, a fiction which political expediency incident +to government by parties inexorably compelled it to try to live up +to thereafter, took the form, in 1901, of a civil government founded +upon a benevolent lie, which expressed a hope, not a fact, a hopeless +hope that can never be a fact. And that is what has been the matter +with it ever since. + + + The papers 'id it 'andsome, + But you bet the army knows. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +GOVERNOR TAFT--1901-2 + + For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of + my people slightly, saying--Peace, peace; when there + is no peace. Jeremiah viii., 11. + + +On February 22, 1898, the American Consul at Manila, Mr. Williams, +after he had been at that post for about a month, wrote the State +Department, describing the Spanish methods of keeping from the world +the outward and visible manifestations of the desire of the Filipino +people to be free from their yoke thus: + + + Peace was proclaimed and, since my coming, festivities therefor + were held; but there is no peace, and has been none for two years. + + +He adds: + + + Conditions here and in Cuba are practically alike. War exists, + battles are of almost daily occurrence, etc. [363] + + +As will hereinafter appear, this is not far from a correct description +of the conditions which prevailed successively in various provinces +of the Philippines in gradually lessening degree for the six years +next ensuing after the report of the Taft Commission of November 30, +1900, wherein they said: + + + A great majority of the people long for peace and are entirely + willing to accept the establishment of a government under the + supremacy of the United States. [364] + + +We have seen how from the date of the outbreak, February 4, 1899, to +the date of his final departure from the islands for the United States +on May 5, 1900, General Otis had diligently supplied the eager ear of +Mr. McKinley with his "situation well in hand" and "insurrection about +to collapse" telegrams, Secretary of War Alger having meantime been +forced out of the cabinet--in part, at least--by a public opinion which +indignantly believed that the real situation was being withheld. We +have seen how, from soon after the arrival of the Taft Commission at +Manila on June 3, 1900, until after the November elections of that +year, the same eager presidential ear aforesaid was supplied with +like material through the presumably innocent but opportunely deluded +optimism of the Commission, as manifested in the above sample message; +how the actual military situation as described by General MacArthur, +the military commander at the time, was one of "desperate resistance by +means of a general banding of the people in support of the guerrillas +in the field," [365] he having wired the War Department on January 4, +1901, "Troops throughout the archipelago more active than at any time +since November, 1899"; [366] and how this had been followed on July +4, 1901, by a civil government, the inauguration of which could by +no possibility be construed as affirming to the people of the United +States anything other than the existence of a state of peace. + +We are to trace in this and subsequent chapters how, a short time after +the civil government was instituted, the insurrection got its second +wind; how a year later came another public declaration of peace, on +July 4, 1902; and how this was followed by a long series of public +disorders, combated by prosecutions for sedition and brigandage, +until toward the end of 1906. The drama is quite an allegory--Uncle +Sam wrestling with his guardian angel Consent-of-the-governed. He +finally gets both the angel's shoulders on the mat, however, and so +the two have lived at loggerheads in the Philippines ever since. + +As soon as we had once blundered into the colonial business, the +rock-bottom frankness with which we so dearly love to deal with one +another, let carping Europe deny it as she will, was superseded +by a systematic effort on the part of the statesmen responsible +for the blunder to conceal it. It soon became clear to those on the +inside that the sovereign American people had "bought a gold brick," +that is to say, had made a grievous mistake and had done wrong. But +as it is not expedient for courtiers to tell the sovereign he has +done wrong, because "The king can do no wrong," thereafter all the +courtiers,--i. e. persons desiring to control the "sovereign" while +seeming to obey him--instead of risking loss of the "royal" favor +by boldly telling the people they had done wrong and ought to mend +the error of their ways, began to fill their ears and salve their +conscience with mediaeval doctrines about salvation of the heathen +through governmental missions maintained by the joint agencies of Cross +and Sword. For the foregoing and cognate reasons, Senator Lodge's +description of Spain's last thirty years in Cuba fits our first six +or seven in the Philippines, beginning in 1899 with the original +Otis press censorship policy of "not letting anything go that will +hurt the Administration," and coming on down to a certificate made +in 1907 by the Philippine Commission for consumption in the United +States, to the effect that a state of general and complete peace had +prevailed throughout the islands for a stated period preceding the +certificate, when, as a matter of fact, during the period covered by +the certificate, an executive proclamation formally declaring a state +of insurrection had issued, and the Supreme Court of the islands had +upheld certain drastic executive action as legal because of the state +of insurrection recognized by the proclamation. + +The Taft civil government of the Philippines set up in 1901 was an +attempt to answer the question which, during the crucial period of +our country's history following the Spanish War, rang so persistently +through the public utterances of both Grover Cleveland and Benjamin +Harrison: "Mr. President, how are you going to square the subjugation +of the Philippines with the freeing of Cuba?" Mr. McKinley's +answer had been, in effect: "Never mind about that, Grover; you and +Benjamin are back numbers. I will show you 'the latest thing' in the +consent-of-the-governed line, a government not 'essentially popular,' +it is true, nor indeed at all 'popular,' in fact very unpopular, +but 'essentially popular in form.' You lads are not experts on the +political trapeze." Accordingly, as Senator Lodge said concerning +the dreary years of continuous public disorders in Cuba under Spain, +which we finally put a stop to in 1898: + + + We were to go on pretending that the war was not there, etc. + + +Lack of frankness is usually due to weakness of one sort or +another. The weakness of the Spanish colonial system lay in the +impotent poverty of the home government and the graft tendencies +of the colonial officials. The weakness of the American colonial +system has always lain in the fundamental unfitness of republican +governmental machinery for boldly advocating and honestly enforcing +doctrines which deny frankly and as a matter of course that governments +derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. There +are so many people in a republic like ours who will always stand by +this last proposition as righteous, and as being the chief bulwark +of their own liberties, and so many who will always regard denial +of that proposition as an insidious practice calculated ultimately +to react on their own institutions, that no colonial government of +conquered subject provinces eager for independence can ever have the +sympathy and backing of all our people. Thus it is that to get home +support for the policy, the supreme need of the colonial government +is constant apology for its own existence, and constant effort to +show that the subject people do not really want freedom to pursue +happiness in their own way as badly as their orators say they do; +that the oratory is mere "hot air"; and that the people really like +alien domination better than they seem to. + +Always in a mental attitude of self-defence against home criticism, +in its official reports there is ever present with the Philippine +insular government the tendency and temptation not to volunteer to +the American people evidence within its possession calculated to +awaken discussion as to the wisdom of its continuance. It thus usurps +a legitimate function never intended to be delegated to the Executive, +but reserved to the people. It thus makes itself the judge of how much +the people at home shall know. The law of self-preservation prompts +it not to take the American people into its confidence, at least +not that portion of them who are opposed on principle to holding +remote colonies impossible to defend in the event of war without a +large standing army maintained for the purpose. There is always the +apprehension that the value of apparently unfavorable evidence will +not be wisely weighed by the people at home, because of unfamiliarity +with insular conditions. This is by no means altogether vicious. It +is a perfectly natural attitude and a good deal can be said in favor +of it. But the real vice of it lies in the fact that your colonial +government thus becomes not unlike the president of a certain naval +board before which a case involving the commission of an officer of +the navy was once tried. They had no competent official stenographer to +take down all that transpired. The Navy Department was asked for one, +but they referred it to the board. The president of the board knew very +well that "the defence" wanted to show bias on his part. He exuded +conscious rectitude and plainly resented any suggestion of bias. So +a stenographer was refused and the case proceeded, the proceedings +being recorded in long hand by a regular permanent employee of the +board. Under such circumstances, there is so much which transpires that +is absolutely irrelevant and immaterial, that the proceedings would +be interminable if every little thing were recorded. Consequently, +much that was material, including casual remarks of the president of +the board clearly indicative of bias sufficient to disqualify any +judge or juror on earth, failed of entry in the record. However, +enough was gotten into the record to satisfy the President of the +United States that the president of the board was not only not +impartial, but very much prejudiced, and he reversed the action of +the board. The case of that board is very much like the case of the +Philippine Government. The case of the latter is, as it were, a case +involving a question as to how long a guardianship ought to continue, +and they simply fail and omit to have recorded in a form where it may +be available to the reviewing authority, the American people, much that +is material (on the idea of saving the reviewing authority labor and +trouble), which they think the record ought not to be cumbered with, +or the reviewing authority bothered with. This practice is due to a +confident belief that the American people, being so far away, and being +necessarily so wholly unacquainted with all the ins and outs of the +situation in the Philippines, are not fitted to pass intelligently on +the questions which continually confront the colonial government. This +is not a mental attitude of insult to the intelligence of the people +of the United States. It is simply a belief that they, the colonial +officials, know much better than the American people can ever know, +what is wisest, in each case, to be done in the premises. And there +is much to be said in favor of this view, so far as details go. The +fundamental error of it, however, lies in the assumption that the +American people are forever committed to permanent retention of the +Philippines, i. e., permanent so far as any living human being is +concerned--an assumption wholly unauthorized by any declaration of +the law-making power of this government, and countenanced only by +the oft-expressed hope of President Taft that that will be the policy +some day declared, if any definite policy is ever declared. Thus it +is that throughout the last twelve years those particular facts and +events which (to me) seem most vitally relevant to the fundamental +question in the case, viz., whether or not we should continue to +persist in the original blunder of inaugurating and maintaining a--to +all intents and purposes--permanent over-seas colonial government, +have been withheld from the knowledge of the American public. The +present policy of indefinite retention with undeclared intention +is a mere makeshift to avoid a frank avowal of intention to retain +the islands for all future time with which anybody living has any +practical concern. Until it is substituted by a definite declaration +by Congress similar to the one we made in the case of Cuba, and the +present American Governor-General and his associates are substituted +by men sent out to report back how soon they think the Filipinos +may safely be trusted to attend to their own domestic concerns, all +crucial facts and situations that might jeopardize the continuance +of the present American regime in the Philippines will continue, +as heretofore, to remain unmentioned in the official reports of the +American authorities now out there. Until that is done, you will never +hear the Filipino side of the case from anybody whose opinion you are +willing to make the basis of governmental action. These remarks will, +obviously from the nature of the case, be quite as true long after +President Taft, the reader, and I are dead as they are now. + +Mr. Taft would be very glad to have Congress declare frankly that it +is the purpose of this Government to hold the Philippines permanently, +i. e., permanently so far as the word means continuance of the "uplift" +treatment long after everybody now on the earth is beneath it. But +because public opinion in the United States is so much divided as +to the wisdom of a policy of frankly avowed intention permanently +to retain the islands, he prefers to leave the whole matter open +and undetermined, so as to get the support both of those who think +a definite programme of permanent retention righteous and those who +think such a programme vicious. He wishes to please both sides of +a moral issue, on the idea that, as the present policy is in his +individual judgment best for all concerned, the end justifies the +means. Yet, as the issue is a moral one, which concerns the cause of +representative government throughout the world, and a strategic one +which concerns the national defence, it should, in my judgment, no +longer be dodged, but squarely met. You constantly hear President Taft +talking quite out loud here at home, in his public utterances, about +the great politico-missionary work we are doing in the Philippines +by furnishing them with the most approved up-to-date methods for +the pursuit of happiness, the avoidance of graft in government, the +elimination of crimes of violence, in short the ideal way to minimize +the ills that human governments are heir to, while every day and every +dollar spent out there by Americans induced by him to go there, are +time and money tensely arrayed against the ultimate independence he +purports to favor. Give the Americans out there a square deal. Let +them know whether we are going to keep the islands or whether we +are not. Honesty is a far better policy than the present policy. The +Americans in the islands, Mr. Taft's agents in the Philippines, talk no +uncandid and misleading stuff about the Philippines being exclusively +for the Filipinos. And they do considerable talking. They need looking +after, if the present pious fiction is to be kept up at this end of the +line. Nobody in the Philippines to-day, among the Americans, considers +talk about independence as anything other than political buncombe very +hampering to their work. Listen to this high official of the insular +government, who writes in the North American Review for February, 1912: + + + The somewhat blatant note with which we at the beginning + proclaimed our altruistic purposes in the Philippines has died + away into a whisper. To say much about it is to incur a charge + of hypocrisy. [367] + + +The most important problem which confronted Mr. McKinley when he +sent Judge Taft to the Philippines was how to so handle the supreme +question of public order as to avoid any necessity of having to +ask Congress later for more volunteers to replace those whose terms +of enlistment would expire June 30, 1901. We have already reviewed +the strenuous efforts of General MacArthur during the twelve months +immediately following the arrival of the Taft Commission in June, +1900, to get rid of the shadow of this necessity by the date named, +the regular army having been reorganized meantime and considerably +increased by the Act of February 2, 1901. On March 22, 1901, while +the Taft Commission was going around the islands with their Federal +party folk, holding out the prospect of office to those who would +quit insurging and come in and be good, General MacArthur reported +progress to Secretary of War Root by cable as follows: "Hope report +cessation of hostilities before June 30." [368] His idea was to get +a good military grip on the situation, if possible, by that time, +and, as a corollary, of course, that the grip thus obtained should +be diligently retained for a long time, not loosened, so that the +disturbed conditions incident to many years of war might have a few +years, at least, in which to settle. In his annual report dated July 4, +1901, the date of the inauguration of Judge Taft as "Civil Governor," +he says, in regard to the imperative necessity for continuing the +military grip by keeping on hand sufficient forces: + + + Anything in the immediate future calculated to impede the activity + or reduce the efficiency of these instruments will not only be a + menace to the present, but put in jeopardy the entire future of + American possibilities in the archipelago. [369] + + +General MacArthur believed in keeping the islands permanently. His +views were frankly imperialistic. He had no salve to offer to the +conscience of pious thrift at home anxious to believe that the +Filipinos were not bitterly opposed to our rule, and very much in +favor of what was supposed to be a glittering opening for Trade +Expansion. He was thoroughly imbued with the British colonial idea +known as The White Man's Burden. On the other hand, Governor Taft +firmly believed that kindness would cure the desire of the people for +independence. The difference between these two gentlemen was fully +ventilated afterward before the Senate Committee of 1902. A statement +of General MacArthur's embodying the crux of this difference was read +to Governor Taft by Senator Carmack, and the Governor's reply was: + + + We did not then agree with that statement, and we do not now + agree with it. [370] + + +A little later, in the same connection, he said to the same Senate +Committee, with the cheery tolerance of conflicting views which comes +only from entire confidence in the soundness of one's own: + + + I have been called the Mark Tapley of this Philippine business. + + +There is no doubt about the fact that President Taft is an +optimist. But while optimism is a very blessed thing in a sick-room or +a financial panic, it is a very poor substitute for powder and lead +in putting down an insurrection, or in weaning people from a desire +for independence accentuated by a long war waged for that purpose, +especially when your kindness must be accompanied by assurances to +the objects of it that on account of a lack of sufficient intelligence +they are not fit for the thing they want. It was upon a programme of +this sort that Governor Taft entered upon the task of reconciling the +Filipinos to American rule more than ten years ago. The impossibility +of the task is of course obvious enough from the mere statement of +it. The subsequent bitterness between him and the military authorities +was quite carefully and very properly kept from the American public +because it might get back to the Filipino public. The military folk +knew that to go around the country setting up provincial and municipal +governments, carrying a liberal pay-roll, with diligent contemporaneous +circulation of the knowledge that anybody who would quit fighting +would stand a good chance to get an office, would seem to many of the +Filipinos a confession of weakness and fear, sure to cause trouble +later. Many of them--of course it would be inappropriate to mention +names--simply did not believe that Mr. Taft was honest in his absurd +notion. They simply damned "politics" for meddling with war, and let +it go at that. But the real epic pathos of the whole thing was that +Mr. Taft was actually sincere. He believed that the majority of the +Philippine people were for him and his policies. As late as 1905, +he seems to have clung to this idea, according to various accounts +by Senators Newlands, Dubois, and others, in magazine articles +written after their return from a trip to the Philippines in that +year in company with Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War. In fact so +impressed were they with the general discontent out there, and yet so +considerate of their good friend Mr. Taft's feelings in the matter and +his confidence that the Filipinos loved benevolent alien domination, +that one of them simply contented himself with the remark: + + + When we left the islands I do not believe there was a single + member of our party who was not sorry we own them, except Secretary + Taft himself. + + +Indeed it is not until 1907 that, we find Mr. Taft's paternal +solicitude for his step-daughter, Miss Filipina, finally reconciling +itself to the idea that while this generation seems to want Home +Rule as irreconcilably as Ireland herself and "wont be happy 'til +it gets it," yet inasmuch as Home Rule is not, in his judgment, good +for every people, this generation is therefore a wicked and perverse +generation, and hence the Filipinos must simply resign themselves to +the idea of being happy in some other generation. This attitude was +freely stated before the Millers' convention at St. Louis, May 30, +1907, the speech being reported in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat the +next day. Said Mr. Taft on that occasion, after admitting that the +Islands had been a tremendous financial drain on us: + + + If, then, we have not had material recompense, have we had it in + the continuing gratitude of the people whom we have aided? + + +Answering this, in effect, though not in so many words, "Alas, no," +he adds, with a sigh which is audible between the lines: + + + He who would measure his altruism by the thankfulness of those + whom he aids, will not persist in good works. + + +Thus we see the Mark Tapley optimism of 1902 become in 1907 a species +of solicitude which Dickens describes in Bleak House as "Telescopic +Philanthropy," in the chapter by that title in which he introduces +the famous Mrs. Jellyby, mother of a large and interesting family, +"a lady of very remarkable strength of character, who devotes +herself entirely to the public," who "has devoted herself to an +extensive variety of public subjects, at various times, and is at +present devoted to the subject of Africa, with a general view to the +cultivation of the coffee berry--and the natives,"--to the woeful +neglect of her own domestic concerns and her large and expensive +family of children. Since 1907, Mr. Taft has frankly abandoned his +early delusion about the consent-of-the-governed, and boldly takes +the position, up to that time more or less evaded, that the consent +of the governed is not at all essential to just government. + +The apotheosis of Uncle Sam as Mrs. Jellyby is to be found in one of +Mr. Taft's speeches wherein he declared that the present Philippine +policy was "a plan for the spread of Christian civilization in the +Orient." + +Thus has it been that, under the reactionary influence of a colonial +policy, this republic has followed its frank abandonment of the idea +that all just government must derive its origin in the consent of +the governed by a further abandonment of the idea that Church and +State should be kept separate. I do not wish to make President Taft +ridiculous, and could not if I would. Nor do I seek to belittle him +in the eyes of his people,--for we are "his people," for the time +being. No one can belittle him. He is too big a man to be belittled +by anybody. Besides, he is, in many respects beyond all question, a +truly great man. But he is not the only great man in history who has +made egregious blunders. And there is no question that we are running +there on the confines of Asia, in the Philippines, a superfluous +governmental kindergarten whose sessions should be concluded, not +suddenly, but without unnecessary delay. The two principal reasons +for retaining the Filipinos as subjects, or "wards," or by whatever +euphemism any one may prefer to designate the relation, are, first, +that a Filipino government would not properly protect life and +property, and second, that although they complain much at taxation +without representation through tariff and other legislation placed or +kept on the statute books of Congress through the influence and for +the benefit of special interests in the United States, yet that such +taxation without representation is not so grievous as to justify them +in feeling as we did in 1776. Whether these reasons for retaining the +Filipinos as subjects indefinitely are justified by the facts, must +depend upon the facts. If they are not, the question will then arise, +"Would a Filipino government be any worse for the Filipinos than the +one we are keeping saddled on them over their protest?" + +In his letter of instructions of April 7, 1900, to the Taft Commission, +Mr. McKinley first quoted the noble concluding language with which +the articles of capitulation of the city of Manila gave an immediate +and supremely comforting sense of security to a city of some three +hundred thousand people who had then been continuously in terror of +their lives for three and one half months, thus: + + + This city, its inhabitants, * * * and its private property of + all description * * * are placed under the special safeguard of + the faith and honor of the American army; + + +and then added: + + + As high and sacred an obligation rests upon the Government of + the United States to give protection for property and life * * * + to all the people of the Philippine Islands. * * * I charge this + commission to labor for the full performance of this obligation, + which concerns the honor and conscience of their country. + + +How the premature setting up of the civil government of the Philippines +in 1901 under pressure of political expediency, and the consequent +withdrawal of the police protection of the army, was followed by a +long series of disorders combated by prosecutions for sedition and +brigandage, toward the end of which the writer broke down and left the +Islands exclaiming inwardly, "I do not know the method of drawing an +indictment against a whole people," will now be traced, not so much +to show that the Philippine insular government has failed properly and +competently to meet the most sacred obligations that can rest upon any +government, but to show the inherent unfitness of a government based +on the consent of the governed to run any other kind of a government. + +There were five officers of the Philippine volunteer army of 1899-1901 +appointed to the bench by Governor Taft in 1901. Their names and the +method of their transition from the military to the civil regime +are indicated by the following communication, a copy of which was +furnished to each, as indicated in the endorsement which follows the +signature of Judge Taft: + + + UNITED STATES PHILIPPINE COMMISSION + + President's Office, Manila, June 17, 1901. + + Major-General Arthur MacArthur, U. S. A., + + Military Governor of the Philippine Islands, Manila. + + + Sir: + + I am directed by the commission to inform you that it has made + the following appointments under the recent Judicial Act passed + June 11, 1901: + + You will observe that among our appointees are five army officers: + Brigadier General James F. Smith, Lieutenant James H. Blount, + Jr., 29th Infantry, Captain Adam C. Carson, 28th Infantry; Captain + Warren H. Ickis, 36th Infantry; and Lieutenant George P. Whitsett, + 32d Infantry. + + It is suggested that it would be well for these officers to resign + their positions in the United States military service to the end + that they may accept the civil positions, take the oath of office, + and immediately begin their new duties. + + I have the honor to be, very respectfully, + + + Your obedient servant, + + (Signed) Wm. H. Taft, + President. + + + Official extract copy respectfully furnished Lieutenant James + H. Blount, Jr., 29th Infantry, U. S. Vols., Manila, P. I. Your + resignation, if offered in compliance with above letter, will be + accepted upon the date preferred. + + By command of Major-General MacArthur: + + + (Signed) E. H. Crowder + Lieutenant-Colonel and Judge Advocate, U. S. A. Secretary. + Military Secretary's Office, + June 18, 1901. + + +General Smith had come out as colonel of the 1st Californias, and had +won his stars on the field of battle, as has already been described in +an earlier chapter. He went from the army to the Supreme Bench--at +Manila. The archipelago had been divided by the Taft Commission +into fifteen judicial districts, containing three or four provinces +each,--each district court to be a nisi prius or trial court. Judge +Carson (Va.) went to the Hemp Peninsula District in the extreme south +of Luzon, already described, and four years later to the Supreme Bench, +where he still is. Judge Ickis (Ia.) went to Mindanao, and later died +of the cholera down there. Judge Whitsett (Mo.) went to Jolo (the +little group of islets near British North Borneo), but his wife died +soon afterward, and he resigned and came home. The writer (Ga.) went +to northern Luzon, to the First District hereinafter noticed. + +Just here it may be remarked that the reader will need no long +complicated description of the details of the organization of the new +government, interspersed with unpronounceable names, if he will simply +assume the view-point Governor Taft had in the beginning. Governor +Taft simply analogized his situation to that of a governor of a State +or Territory at home. His fifty provinces were to him fifty counties, +twenty-five of them in the main island of Luzon, which, as heretofore +stated, is about the size of Ohio or Cuba (forty odd thousand square +miles), and contains half the population and over one-third the total +land area of the archipelago. However, each of his provincial governors +was liberally paid, and the authority of a governor of a province +was, on a small scale, more like that of one of our own state chief +executives than like the authority and functions of the chairman of +the Board of County Commissioners of a county with us. For instance, +the governorship of Cebu, with its 2000 square miles of territory +and 650,000 inhabitants, was quite as big a job as the governorship +of New Mexico, or some other one of our newer States. + +So that the task on which Governor Taft entered July 4, 1901, was +the governing of a potential ultimate federal union in miniature, +containing nearly eight millions of people. One slight mistake I +think he made was in providing that the governors of the provinces +should be ex-officio sheriffs of the Courts of First Instance +(of the fifteen several judicial districts aforesaid). This was to +enable the Judges of First Instance to keep a weather eye on the +provincial governors, the judiciary at first being largely American, +and it being the programme to have native governors, some of them +recently surrendered insurgent generals, as rapidly as practicable +and advisable. The scheme was good business, but not tactful. It +subtracted some wind from the gubernatorial sails to be a sheriff, +a provincial governor under the Spanish regime having been quite a +vice-regal potentate. But the judges were as careful to treat their +native governors with the consideration the authority vested in them +called for as Governor Taft himself would have been. So no substantial +harm was done, and the real power in the provinces of questionable +loyalty remained where it belonged, in American hands. + +Just after Governor Taft's inauguration, the four newly appointed +district judges just out of the army called on the governor. Judge +Carson was the spokesman, though without pre-arrangement. He said: +"Governor, we have called to pay our respects and say goodbye before +going to the provinces. We have been acting under military orders so +long, that while we are not here to get orders, we would like to have +any parting suggestions that may occur to you." Governor Taft said: +"Well, Gentlemen, all I can think of is to remind you that if what +we have all heard is true the Spanish courts usually operated to the +delay of justice, rather than to the dispensing of it. So just go +ahead to your respective districts, and get to work, remembering that +you are Americans." So we did. Of course none of us loaned ourselves +for a moment to the amiable Taft fiction that "the great majority of +the people are entirely willing to government under the supremacy +of the United States." We had all had a share in the subjugation +of the Islands as far as it had progressed at that time, and had +seen the Filipinos fight--unskilfully and ineffectively, it is true +(because they none of them understood the use of two sights on a rifle, +and simply could not hit us much), but pluckily enough. We knew the +Filipinos well, and our attitude was simply that of "Pharaoh and the +Sergeant," in Kipling's ballad of the conquest of Egypt. However, +we knew nothing of the Egyptians, except what we had learned in the +Bible, gave no thought to whether our occupation was to be "temporary" +like the British occupation of Egypt since 1882, or temporary like +the American occupation of Cuba in 1898. That was a matter for the +people of the United States to determine later. But somebody had to +govern the Islands, and there we were, and there were the Islands. In +the scheme of things some one had to do that part of the world's work, +and, as the salaries were liberal, we went to the work, not concerning +ourselves with amiable fictions of any kind. I think our attitude +was really one of more intimately sympathetic understanding of the +Filipinos than that of Governor Taft himself, because we had all known +them longer, and all spoke their language, i. e., the language of +the educated and representative men (Spanish), and knew their ways, +their foibles, and their many indisputably noble traits. But we did +not start out to play the part of political wet-nurses. Our attitude +was, if Mr. Filipino does not behave, we will make him. + +Judge Carson and myself had one peculiar qualification for fidelity +to the Taft policies for which we were entitled to no credit. We +instinctively resented any suggestion comparing the Filipinos to +negroes. We had many warm friends among the Filipinos, had shared +their generous hospitality often, and in turn had extended them +ours. Any such suggestion as that indicated implied that we had been +doing something equivalent to eating, drinking, dancing, and chumming +with negroes. And we resented such suggestions with an anger quite as +cordial and intense as the canons of good taste and loyal friendship +demanded. I really believe that the southern men in the Philippines +have always gotten along better with the Filipinos than any other +Americans out there, and for the reasons just suggested. Not only +is the universal American willingness to treat the educated Asiatic +as a human being endowed with certain unalienable rights going to +redeem him from the down-trodden condition into which British and +other European contempt for him has kept him, but the American from +the South out there is a guarantee that he shall never be treated as +if he were an African. The African is aeons of time behind the Asiatic +in development; the latter is aeons ahead of us in the mere duration +of his civilization. The Filipino has many of the virtues both of the +European and the Asiatic. Christianity has made him the superior in +many respects, of his neighbor and racial cousin, the Japanese. And +Spanish civilization has produced among them many educated gentlemen +whom it is an honor to call friend. + +The five lawyers, who on ceasing to be volunteer officers became +judges, had other incentives also to make the Taft Government a +success. The possession of power is always pleasant. We knew the +military folk were going to stand by and watch the civil government, +and prophesy failure. This of course put us on our metal to impress +upon the dictatorial gentry of the military profession, with didactic +firmness, the fundamental importance to all American ideals that the +military should be subordinate to the civil authority. + +The First Judicial District to which the writer was first assigned +comprised four provinces, Ilocos Norte, in the Ilocano country, the +province situated at the extreme northwestern corner of Luzon, in the +military district the conquest of which by General Young has already +been fully described; and the three provinces of the Cagayan valley, +[371] overrun by Captain Batchelor on his remarkable march from the +mountains to the sea in November, 1899, also already described. Here +I remained for a year, and then came home on leave, desperately +ill; being given, on returning to the Islands after my recovery, +an assignment in one of the southern islands, hereinafter dealt with. + +We volunteers were all commissioned as judges as of the 15th of June, +though none of us I believe were mustered out until June 30th. The +day after I was notified of my appointment as judge, as above set +forth, desiring to enter upon my judicial emoluments, which were +several times those I was receiving as a soldier, I removed the +shoulder-straps and collar ornaments from my white duck suit, and +went over and took the oath of office before the Chief Justice of +the Islands. We had not yet been mustered out of the army, but as +above stated, Governor Taft had suggested to General MacArthur that +we resign without waiting for the day of muster out, so we could +get to work that much sooner, and General MacArthur had notified us +that if we cared to resign at once as suggested, he would cable our +resignations to Washington. Immediately after qualifying before the +Chief Justice, I left his office and on emerging from the court-house +hailed a carromata, [372] but the driver said No, he would not carry +me. I suggested in a very rudimental way, in rather rudimental Spanish +suited to him, that he was a common carrier, and as such under a +duty to transport me. He said his horse was tired. His horse did +not look tired. He would not have thus casually toyed with veracity +if I had had my shoulder-straps on. An autoridad (a representative +of constituted authority) is to the masses of the Filipino people +something which instinctively challenges their respect and obedience, +more especially where the "authority" is firm and just. Respect for +authority is their most conspicuous civic trait, and it is on this +element in the lower ninety, on the intelligence and capacity to +guide them of the upper ten, and on the ardent patriotism of both, +that I predicate my difference with President Taft as to the capacity +of the Filipino people for self-government. However, as I was to all +appearances not an "authority," this ignorant man treated me as merely +one of the Americans who, having invaded his country, apparently were +not sure whether they were afraid of his people or not. Again I tried +diplomacy, offering him an exorbitant fare. "Nothing doing." It was +about siesta time, and he would not budge. Here then was the civil +government proposition in a nutshell, to take the ignorant people and +teach them their rights under theoretically free institutions, instead +of letting their own people do it in their own way; to reason directly +with such people as this cochero (hackman), to begin at the bottom of +the social scale right on the jump, the idea being to fit them, the +sacred (?) majority, to know their rights and "knowing dare maintain" +them against the educated minority, as if the latter did not have +a greater natural interest in their welfare than any stranger could +possibly have. That I indulged all these reflections at the time I +of course do not mean to say. The significance of the incident has +of course deepened in the light of the subsequent years. At any rate, +I did not succeed in budging that cochero. I walked home, forego the +difference between the military and the judicial salary for the two +weeks remaining before muster-out day, put my shoulder-straps back on, +and kept them on until June 30, 1901. [373] + +When I first landed on the China seacoast of the district I was to +preside over, I was met by quite a reception committee of the leading +men, who conducted me with great courtesy to the provincial capital. A +little later the justices of the peace paid their respects. One +of them came thirty miles to do so. The court-room was very long, +and when I first spied this last man, he was at the other end of +the room bowing very low. He would bow, then advance a few steps, +then bow again, then resume the forward march toward me. I reminded +myself of some ancient king, so profound were his obeisances. At +first I thought to myself, "He bows too low, he must have been up to +some devilment lately!" Experience showed me later that it was simply +one of the ever-present manifestations of the respect of the Filipino +for constituted authority. They positively love to show their respect +for authority, just as a good soldier loves to show his respect for +an officer. Here some American remarks: "Ah, but that is not good +proof of capacity for self-government. They would not 'cuss out' the +party in power enough." I answer: Who made you the judge to say that +our particular form of government and our particular way of doing +things is better for each and every other people under the sun than +any they can devise for themselves? But there was of course another +possible reason for the profundity of the obeisances of my judicial +subordinate above mentioned. When I reached that province of Ilocos +Norte in July, 1901, the people were in a state of submission that was +simply abject. They had at first worked the amigo business on General +Young, and treachery of that kind had been so inexorably followed by +dire punishment, that every home in the country had its lesson. Yet +that was the only way. The poor devils did not seem to know when they +were licked. This is not maudlin sentiment. It is a protest against the +cotemporary libel on Filipino patriotism about "the great majority" +being "entirely willing" to accept our rule, and the cotemporary +belittling of the work the army had to do to make them accept it. + +I remained in charge of the First Judicial District for more +than a year, and during that period tried few or no crimes of a +political character, that is to say, indictments for sedition or the +like--attempts to subvert the government. The district comprised a +total population of about a half million people, more than one-eighth +of the population of Luzon, and a total area of over 13,000 square +miles, nearly one-third of all Luzon. But remember, this was in +northern Luzon, where the work of pacification was lucidly completed +by the army before the "peace-at-any-price" policy began. We will see +what happened in my friend Judge Carson's district, and in the rest of +southern Luzon later. The principal broad general fact I now recall, +in connection with the administration of justice in the First Judicial +District during the year or more I had it, is that the main volume of +business on the court calendars was crimes of violence of a strictly +non-political character due to lack of efficient police protection +in the several communities, consequent on withdrawal of military +garrisons. The country was in an unsettled state. The aftermath +of war, lawless violence, was virulently present, and the presence +of troops scattered through a province, under such circumstances, +is a wonderful moral force to restrain lawlessness. However high +the purpose, however kindly the motive, the setting up of a civil +government in the Philippines at the time it was set up, when the +country was far from ready for it, was a terrible mistake. Of course +no one man in a given province or judicial district had a bird's-eye +view of the whole situation and the whole panorama at the time, +such as we can get at this distance, in retrospect. Of course it did +not lie in human nature for the men responsible for the mistake to +see it at first, and, the die once cast, they had to keep on, with +intermittent resort to military help, the extent of which help was +always minimized thereafter. To show how little the general state of +the archipelago was understood by American provincial officials busy in +a given part of it, and getting little or no news of the outside world, +I remained in the First Judicial District from July, 1901, to August, +1902, and heard nothing of the great insurrection in southern Luzon, +in Batangas, and the adjacent provinces, which raged during the winter +of 1901-02, except a vague rumor that there was trouble down there. The +Filipinos did, however. Of course for Mr. Root to be able to furnish +in December, 1901, a report, as Secretary of War, to the President, +for consumption by Congress and the people of this country, to the +effect that his volunteer army had been mustered out on schedule time, +June 30, 1901, and a "civil" government set up and in due operation, +was a nice showing, calculated to sooth latent public discontent with +wading through slaughter to over-seas dominion. Reports thereafter of +disturbances could always be waived aside as merely local in character, +and not serious. If it were stoutly asserted that everything was +quiet all over the archipelago except in certain parts of certain +localities, naming them, that sounded well, and as the public at home +simply skipped the unpronounceable names, not caring much whether they +represented molecules or hemispheres, all went well. For instance, +most of the provinces of the archipelago were organized under "civil" +government prior to the inauguration of Governor Taft, which occurred, +July 4, 1901, and on July 17th, thereafter, Batangas, Cebu, and Bohol +were restored to military control. [374] I suppose the fact that +Batangas, Cebu, and Bohol had been so restored was duly announced +at the time in the Associated Press despatches from Manila. But +what light did it throw on the situation? Who knew whether any one +of these names represented a mountain lair, a country village, a +remote islet, or a large and populous province? As a matter of fact, +each was a province, and the total population of the three provinces +was 1,180,655, [375] and their total area 4651 square miles. [376] +The eminent gentlemen charged with the government of the Islands, +once they committed themselves to their "civil" government, persisted +always in treating the insurrection, as General Hancock's campaign +speeches used to treat the tariff--as "a local issue." The true +analogy, that of a house on fire, with the fire partly but not wholly +under control, and momentarily subject to gusts of wind, never seems +to have occurred to them. Here were provinces aggregating nearly +twelve hundred thousand people, officially admitted to be still in +insurrection within less than two weeks after the announcement of +the inauguration of a civil government, which included them, with +its implied assertion of a state of peace as to them. + +If to the three provinces above named you add the province of Samar, +later of dark and bloody fame, you have a fourth province as to which +not only had there been no "civil" government organized on paper, but +no claim yet made by any one that we had ever conquered it. We had been +so busy in Luzon and elsewhere that we had not yet had time to bother +very much with Samar. The area of Samar is 5276 square miles, and its +population 266,237. (See the census tables already cited.) In their +report dated October 15, 1901, [377] you find the Commission admitting +that "the insurrection still continues in Batangas, Samar, Cebu" and +"parts of" Laguna and Tayabas provinces. Now the euphemistic limitation +implied in the words "parts of" is quite negligible, for any serious +purpose, since our troops kept the insurgents rather constantly on the +move, and the population in all the "parts of" any province that was +still holding out backed up the combatants morally and materially, +with information as to our movements, supplies, etc., whenever +the insurgent detachments, in the course of their peregrinations, +happened to pass through those "parts." So, to make a recapitulation +presenting the political situation admitted by the Commission to exist +a little over three months after the inauguration of civil government, +we have the insurrection still in progress as follows: + + + Province Area (sq. m.) Population + + Batangas 1,201 257,715 + Cebu 1,939 653,727 + Bohol 1,511 269,223 + Laguna 629 148,606 + Tayabas 5,993 153,065 + Samar 5,276 266,237 + ------ --------- + Total 16,549 1,748,573 + + +According to his own official statements, it thus appears that on +October 15th, after Governor Taft set up his "civil" government on +the Fourth of July, throughout one-fifth of the territory and among +one-fourth of the population insurrection was rampant. The total +area of the archipelago, if Mohammedan Mindanao be excepted (for the +reason that the Moros never had anything to do with the Filipinos +and their insurrection against us), is about 80,000 square miles, +having a total population of 7,000,000. So that, to restate the +case, one-fifth of the house was still on fire, and one-fourth of +the inmates were trying their best to keep the fire from being put out. + +Just here I owe it to President Taft, under whose administration +as governor I served as a judge, as well as to myself, to explain +why I have so frequently put the word "civil" in quotations in +referring to the civil government of the Philippines. Broadly +speaking, if "civil" does not imply consent of the governed, it +at least distinctly negatives the idea of a bleeding, prostrate, +and deeply hostile people. And, in that the civil government of the +Philippines founded in 1901 did so negative the actual conditions it +was a kindly humbug. When you go around the country sending people +to the penitentiary by scores for political crimes, and then get +criticised afterwards for "subserviency" to the government you are +thus serving, you get a trifle sensitive about such criticism. Now +the core of the charges made in this country against the Philippine +judiciary in the early days was that they were parties to a humbug, +pliable servants of a government which was trying to produce at home +an incorrect impression of substantial absence of unwillingness on +the part of the governed. I am very sure that the five ex-officers of +the volunteer army above named, who went from the army to the bench, +never did, by act or word, lend themselves to the idea that there was +any "consent" on the part of the governed. Those of us who had been +in Cuba with General Wood had but a little while previously observed +there a civil regime under a military name. We were now, in the +Philippines, serving a military regime under a civil name. We had all +of us doubtless--if there was an exception it is immaterial--served +on military commissions. We therefore felt, without immodesty, +that we could deal out to insurrectos and their political cousins, +the brigands, more even-handed justice, as a military commission +of one, than a board of several officers, booted, spurred, and +travel-stained from some recent man-hunt. Turning, however, from +the more inconspicuous objects of Professor Willis's attacks, [378] +the American trial judges in the Philippines in the pioneer days, to +the now wide-looming historic personage who was his real objective, +I was asked at a public meeting in Boston, rather significantly, +by one of the most eminent lawyers in this country, Mr. Moorfield +Storey, formerly president of the American Bar Association, whether +or not there had been attempts in the Philippines, while I was there, +to make the judiciary subservient to the executive. My answer was, "No, +the lawyers who have been in charge of the Philippine Government have +never been guilty of any unprofessional conduct." But the distinguished +Boston barrister above referred to has a nephew who is now and has been +since 1909, Governor of the Philippines--and who, before he went out +there was a representative of Big Business in Boston--Governor Forbes, +and I have no idea that any judge who during that time has rendered +any decision of importance he did not like has been promoted to the +Supreme Bench of the Islands, though I know that under Governor Taft, +Judge Carson unhesitatingly declared a certain act of the Commission +null and void as being in conflict with an Act of Congress, and +before the time-servers had gotten through wondering at his rashness, +Mr. Taft had him put on the Supreme Bench of the Philippines [379] +because he liked that kind of a judge. + +Having sown the wind by setting up his civil government too soon, +let us now observe the whirlwind Governor Taft reaped within six +months thereafter. Of course the civil and military folk were at +daggers' points. That goes without saying. But their differences +were decorously suppressed so that the Filipinos did not get hold +of them. To that end, the situation was also diligently concealed +in the United States. In his proclamation of July 4, 1902, you find +President Roosevelt publicly smoothing the ruffled feathers of that +rugged hero of many battles in two hemispheres, General Chaffee, and +also commending Governor Taft, and telling them how harmoniously they +had gotten along together to the credit of their common country. But +in 1901, shortly after General Chaffee had relieved General MacArthur, +you find the following cablegram: + + + Executive Mansion, Washington, + October 8, 1901. + + Chaffee, Manila: I am deeply chagrined, to use the mildest possible + term, over the trouble between yourself and Taft. I wish you + to see him personally, and spare no effort to secure prompt and + friendly agreement in regard to the differences between you. Have + cabled him also. It is most unfortunate to have any action which + produces friction and which may have a serious effect both in + the Philippines and here at home. I trust implicitly that you + and Taft will come to agreement. + + Theodore Roosevelt. [380] + + +The most important words of the above telegram are "and here at +home." The "serious effect here at home" so earnestly deprecated was +that the real issue between General Chaffee and Governor Taft might +be ventilated by some Congressional Committee, and thus bring out +the prematurity with which, to meet political exigencies, the civil +government had been set up. The issue was that General Chaffee was +recognizing the hostility of the people, and deprecating the withdrawal +of the police protection of the army from districts in which there +were many people who, though tired of keeping up the struggle, and +willing to quit, were being harried by the die-in-the-last-ditch +contingent. This would mean, ultimately, an examination, such as has +already been made in this volume, of the evidence on which Governor +Taft based his half-baked opinion of 1900 that "the great majority" +were "entirely willing" to American sovereignty. It would also show +up Mr. Root's nonsense about "the patient and unconsenting millions," +so shamelessly flouted in the presidential campaign of 1900, and his +pious Philippics against delivering said millions "into the hands of +the assassin, Aguinaldo," [381] and would reveal the truth confessed +by Secretary Root in a speech made to the cadets at West Point in July, +1902, after the trouble had blown over, in which, apropos of the valor +and services of the army, he referred proudly to its having then just +completed the suppression of "an insurrection of 7,000,000 people." + +On September 28, 1901, just prior to President Roosevelt's above +cablegram pouring oil on the troubled politico-military insular +waters, a company of General Chaffee's command, Company C, of the +9th Infantry, had been taken off their guard and massacred at a place +called Balangiga, in the island of Samar. [382] This had made General +Chaffee somewhat angry, and explains the subsequent dark and bloody +drama of which General "Jake" Smith was the central figure, whereby +Samar was made "a howling wilderness." But Governor Taft was filled +with much more solicitude about the success of his civil government +than he was about the obscure lives lost at Balangiga. Apropos +of the Balangiga affair he was wearing the patience of the doughty +Chaffee with remarks like this: "The people are friendly to the civil +government," and suavely speaking of "the evidence which accumulates +on every hand of the desire of the people at large for peace and +protection by the civil government." [383] The same Taft report goes +on to deprecate "rigor in the treatment" of the situation and the +"consequent revulsion in those feelings of friendship toward the +Americans which have been growing stronger each day with the spread +and development of the civil government." + +General "Jake" Smith was sent to Samar shortly after the Balangiga +massacre, and did indeed make the place a howling wilderness, with his +famous "kill-and-burn" orders, instructions to "kill everything over +ten years old" and so forth, and the army was in sympathy generally +with most of what he did,--except, of course, the unspeakable "10 year +old" part--piously exclaiming, as fallible human nature often will in +such circumstances, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." Now the civil +government could have put a stop to all this if it had wanted to. It +had the backing of President Roosevelt. But it quietly accepted the +benefit of such "fear of God"--to use the army's rather sacrilegious +expression about that Samar campaign--as the military arm put into +the heart of the Filipino, and went on the even tenor of its way, +still maintaining that the Filipinos must like us because the civil +government was so benevolent,--as if the Filipinos drew any nice +distinctions between Governor Taft and General Chaffee, or supposed +the two did not represent one and the same government, the government +of the United States. There was much investigation about that awful +Samar campaign afterward. General Smith was court-martialed and partly +whitewashed, at least not dismissed. At General Smith's court-martial, +there was some dispute about the alleged orders to "kill and burn," +to "kill everything over ten years old," etc. But the nature of the +campaign may be inferred from General Smith's famous circular No. 6, +which, issued on Christmas eve, 1901, advised his command, in effect, +that he did not take much stock in the civil commission's confidence +that the people really wanted peace; that he was "thoroughly convinced" +that the wealthy people in the towns of his district were aiding the +insurgents while pretending to be friendly and that he proposed to + + + adopt a policy that will create in all the minds of all the + people a burning desire for the war to cease; a desire or longing + so intense, so personal, and so real that it will impel them to + devote themselves in real earnest to bringing about a real state + of peace. [384] + + +During all his trial troubles, General Smith "took what was coming +to him" without a murmur, and General Chaffee stuck to him as far as +he could without assuming the primary responsibility for the fearful +orders above alluded to. If, when General Smith went to Samar, his +superior officer, General Chaffee, was in just the direly vengeful +frame of mind he, General Smith, afterwards displayed, and prompted +him to do, substantially, what he afterward did, which is by no +means unlikely, General Smith never whimpered or put the blame on his +chief. But a fearful lesson was given the Filipinos, and the civil +government profited by it. General Chaffee was never really pressed +on whether he did or did not prompt General Smith to do what he did; +Governor Taft was never even criticised for not protesting; but with +a flourish of presidential trumpets, General Smith was finally made +"the goat," by being summarily placed on the retired list, and that +closed the bloody Samar episode of 1901-02. I wonder General Smith +has not gone and wept on General Miles's shoulder and like him become +a member of the Anti-Imperialist League of Boston. Some of the best +fighting men in the army say that as a soldier in battle General +Smith is superb. At any rate he may find spiritual consolation in the +following passage of the Scriptures which fits and describes his case: + + + But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be + presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, + and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. [385] + + +In his Report for 1901 Governor Taft says that the four principal +provinces, including Batangas, which gave trouble shortly after the +civil government was set up in that year, and had to be returned +to military control, were organized under civil rule "on the +recommendation" of the then commanding general (MacArthur) [386]: It +certainly seems unlikely that the haste to change from military rule +to civil rule came on the motion of the military. If the Commission +ever got, in writing, from General MacArthur, a "recommendation" that +any provinces be placed under civil rule while still in insurrection, +the text of the writing will show a mere soldiery acquiescence in the +will of Mr. McKinley, the commander-in-chief. Parol contemporaneous +evidence will show that General MacArthur told them, substantially, +that they were "riding for a fall." In fact, whenever an insurrection +would break out in a province after Governor Taft's inauguration as +governor, the whole attitude of the army in the Philippines, from +the commanding general down, was "I told you so." They did not say +this where Governor Taft could hear it, but it was common knowledge +that they were much addicted to damning "politics" as the cause of +all the trouble. + +Governor Taft's statement in his report for 1901, that the four +principal provinces, above named, Batangas and the rest, were organized +under civil rule "on the recommendation of General MacArthur," +is fully explained in his testimony before the Senate Committee of +1902. From the various passages hereinbefore quoted from President +McKinley's state papers concerning the Philippines, especially +his messages to Congress, the political pressure Mr. McKinley was +under from the beginning to make a show of "civil" government, thus +emphasizing the alleged absence of any real substantial opposition +to our rule by a seeming absence of necessity for the use of force, +so as to palliate American repugnance to forcing a government upon an +unwilling people, has been made clear. There were to be no "dark days +of reconstruction." The Civil War in the United States from 1861 to +1865 was a love feast compared with our war in the Philippines. Yet the +work of reconstruction in the Philippines was to be predicated on the +theory of consent, so persistently urged by President McKinley before +the American people from the beginning, viz., that the insurrection +represented only a small faction of the people. We have seen how +General MacArthur also had originally, in 1898, entertained this +notion, and how by the time he took Malolos in March, 1899, he had +gotten over this notion, and had--regretfully--recognized that "the +whole people are loyal to Aguinaldo and the cause he represents." And +now came Governor Taft, after fifteen months more of continuous +fighting, to tell General MacArthur, on behalf of Mr. McKinley, +that he, MacArthur, did not know what he was talking about, and that +"the great majority" were for American rule. The representative +men of my own State of Georgia welcomed the return of the State to +military control in 1870. Most of them had been officers of the +Confederate army. The Federal commander simply told them that if +they could not restrain the lawless element of their own people, he +would. By premature setting up of the Philippine civil government, +the lawless element was allowed full swing. General MacArthur had +been in the Civil War. He knew something about reconstruction. But +here were the Taft Commission, with instructions from Mr. McKinley to +the effect that civil government, government "essentially popular in +form," was to be set up as fast as territory was conquered. It didn't +make any difference about the government being "essentially popular" +just so it was "essentially popular in form." To the Senate Committee +of 1902, Governor Taft said: + + + General MacArthur and the Commission did differ as to where the + power lay with respect to the organization of civil governments, + as to who should say what civil governments should be organized, + the Commission contending that, under the instructions, it was + left to them, and General MacArthur thinking that everything was + subject to military control ultimately, in view of the fact that + the islands were in a state of war. [387] + + +Governor Taft then added that he and General MacArthur reached a +modus vivendi. When a good soldier once finds out just what his +commander-in-chief wants done, he will endeavor, in loyal good +faith, to carry out the spirit of instructions, no matter how +unwise they may seem to him. As soon as General MacArthur saw what +President McKinley wanted done, he proceeded to co-operate loyally +with Governor Taft to carry out the plan. He well knew the country +was not ready for civil government, but if Mr. McKinley was bent on +crowding civil government forward as fast as territory was conquered, +he would make his recommendations on that basis. In the matter of +the utter folly of the prematurity with which the civil government +was set up in the Philippines in 1901, and the terrible consequences +to the hapless Filipinos, hereinafter described, which followed, +by reason of the premature withdrawal of the police protection of +the army and the sense of security its several garrisons radiated, +from a country just recovering from some six years of war, General +MacArthur's exemption from responsibility is shown by his reports +for 1900 and 1901. [388] The former has already been fully examined, +and the original sharp differences between him and Governor Taft +made clear. In the latter report dated July 4, 1901, the date of +the Taft inauguration as Governor, and also, if I mistake not, the +day of General MacArthur's final departure for the United States, +the latter washes his hands of the kindly McKinley-Taft nonsense, +born of political expediency, about there having never been any real +fundamental or unanimous resistance, in no uncertain terms thus: + + + Anything in the immediate future calculated to impede the + activity or reduce the efficiency of these instruments [our + military forces,] will not only be a menace to the present, but + put in jeopardy the entire future of American possibilities in + the archipelago. [389] + + +No, President Taft can never make General MacArthur "the goat" for +what General Bell had to do in Batangas Province in 1901-02 to make +our "willing" subjects behave. Nor can the ultimate responsibility +before the bar of history for the awful fact that, according to the +United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Atlas of the Philippines of +1899, the population of Batangas Province was 312,192, and according +to the American Census of the Philippines of 1903 it was 257,715, +[390] rest entirely on military shoulders. An attempt to place the +responsibility for the prematurity of the civil government on General +MacArthur was made by Honorable Henry C. Ide, who was of the Taft +Commission of 1900, and later Governor General of the Islands, and +is now Minister to Spain, in the North American Review for December, +1907. But Mr. Taft, a man of nobler mould, has at least maintained a +decorous silence on the subject except when interrogated by Congress, +and when so interrogated, his testimony, above quoted, if analyzed, +places the responsibility where it honestly belongs. In 1900 the Taft +Commission were not taking much military advice. + +Batangas province was first taken under the wing of the +peace-at-any-price policy by the Act of the Taft Commission of May 2, +1901, entitled "An Act Extending the Provisions of 'the Provincial +Government Act' [391] to the Province of Batangas." By the Act of +the Commission of July 17, 1901, the provinces of Batangas, Cebu, and +Bohol, were restored to military control. When the civil authorities +turned those provinces back to military control, they well knew the +frame of mind the military were in, and there is no escape from the +proposition that they, in effect, said to the military: "Take them +and chasten them; go as far as you like. After you are done with them, +it will be time enough to pet them again. But for the present we mean +business." General Bell was scathingly criticised on the floor of the +United States Senate for what he did in Batangas in 1901-02, but by +the time he took hold there it had become a case of "spare the rod +and spoil the child." The substitution by the Commission of kindness, +and a disposition to forget what the Filipinos could not forget, for +firmness and the policy of making them submit unreservedly to the +inevitable,--viz., abandonment of their dream of independence--had +created among them a well-nigh ineradicable impression that, for some +reason or other, whether due to disapproval in the United States +of the so-called "imperial" policy or what not, we were afraid of +them. General Bell's task in Batangas, therefore, was to eradicate +this impression all over the archipelago by making an example of the +Batangas people. + +In General Chaffee's report for 1902, [392] he prefaces his account +of General Bell's operations in Batangas as follows: + + + The long-continued resistance in the province of Batangas and + in certain parts of the bordering provinces of Tayabas, Laguna, + and Cavite, had made it apparent to me and to others that the + insurrectionary force keeping up the struggle there could exist + and maintain itself only through the connivance and knowledge + of practically all the inhabitants; that it received the active + support of many who professed friendship for United States + authority, etc. + + +This last was a thrust at Governor Taft's new-found Filipino friends +and advisers, in whose lack of sympathy with the cause of their +country the Governor so profoundly believed, but in whose continuing +co-operation in the killing of his soldiers General Chaffee believed +still more profoundly. + +General Bell's famous operations on a large scale in Batangas began +January 1, 1902. The great mistake of the Civil Commission, to which +they adhered so long, was in supposing that when the respectable +military element of the insurgents was pursued to capture or surrender, +these last could and would thereafter control the situation. As a +matter of fact, whether they could or not, they did not. + +In his celebrated circular order dated Batangas, December 9, 1901, +General Bell announced: + + + To all Station Commanders: + + A general conviction, which the brigade commander shares, + appears to exist, that the insurrection in this brigade continues + because the greater part of the people, especially the wealthy + ones, pretend to desire, but do not in reality want peace; that + when all really want peace, we can have it promptly. Under such + circumstances, it is clearly indicated that a policy should be + adopted that will, as soon as possible, make the people want + peace and want it badly. + + The only acceptable and convincing evidence of the real sentiments + of either individuals or town councils should be such acts + publicly performed as must inevitably commit them irrevocably to + the side of Americans by arousing the animosity of the insurgent + element. * * * No person should be given credit for loyalty simply + because he takes the oath of allegiance, or secretly conveys to + Americans worthless information and idle rumors which result in + nothing. Those who publicly guide our troops to the camps of the + enemy, who publicly identify insurgents, who accompany troops in + operations against the enemy, who denounce and assist in arresting + the secret enemies of the Government, who publicly obtain and + bring reliable and valuable information to commanding officers, + those in fact who publicly array themselves against the insurgents, + and for Americans, should be trusted and given credit for loyalty, + but no others. No person should be given credit for loyalty solely + on account of having done nothing for or against us so far as + known. Neutrality should not be tolerated. Every inhabitant of + this brigade should be either active friend or be classed as enemy. + + +In his Circular Order No. 5, dated Batangas, December 13, 1901, [393] +General Bell announced that General Orders No. 100, Adjutant General's +Office, 1863, approved and published by order of President Lincoln, +for the government of the armies of the United States in the field, +would thereafter be regarded as the guide of his subordinates in the +conduct of the war. This order is familiar to all who have ever made +any study of military law. Ordinarily, of course, a captured enemy +is entitled to "the honors of war," i. e., he must be held, housed, +and fed, unless exchanged, until the close of the war. But where an +enemy places himself by his conduct without the pale of the laws of +war, i. e., where he does not "play the game according to the rules," +he may be killed on sight, like other outlaws. + +Under General Orders No. 100, 1863, men and squads of men who, +without commission, without being part or portion of the regularly +organized hostile army, fight occasionally only, and with intermittent +returns to their homes and avocations, and frequent assumption of the +semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character +and appearance of soldiers; armed prowlers seeking to cut telegraph +wires, destroy bridges and the like, etc., are not entitled to the +protection of the laws of war and may be shot on sight. In other +words, the game being one of life and death, you must take even +chances with your opponent. General Bell's defenders on the floor of +the Senate simply relied on General Orders No. 100. However, there is +nothing about reconcentration in that order. We learned that from the +Spaniards. In fact we never did succeed in bringing to terms the far +Eastern colonies we bought from Spain, until we adopted her methods +with regard to them. Another of the expedients adopted by General Bell +in Batangas seems harsh, but it was used by Wellington in the latter +end of the Napoleonic wars, and by the Germans in the latter end of +the Franco-Prussian War. It was to promise the inhabitants of a given +territory that whenever a telegraph wire or pole was cut the country +within a stated radius thereof, including all human habitations, +would be devastated. It is in General Bell's Circular Order No. 7 +of December 15, 1901, [394] that we find the genesis of the idea of +basing tactics used by Weyler in Cuba on Mr. Lincoln's General Order +100. He there says: + + + Though Section 17, General Orders 100, authorizes the starving + of unarmed hostile belligerents as well as armed ones, provided + it leads to a speedier subjection of the enemy, it is considered + neither justifiable nor desirable to permit any person to starve + who has come into towns under our control seeking protection. + + +This order goes on to direct that all food supplies encountered +be brought to the towns. Of course this does not mean supplies +captured from the enemy's forces, which may lawfully be destroyed +at once. To those not familiar with reconcentration tactics it +should be explained that reconcentration means this: You notify, +by proclamation and otherwise, all persons within a given area, that +on and after a certain day they must all leave their homes and come +within a certain prescribed zone or radius of which a named town is +usually the centre, there to remain until further orders, and that +all persons found outside that zone after the date named will be +treated as public enemies. General Bell's order of December 20th, +provided that rice found in the possession of families outside the +protected zone should, if practicable, be moved with them to the town +which was the centre of the zone, that that found apparently cached +for enemy's use should be confiscated, and also destroyed if necessary. + + + Whenever it is found absolutely impossible to transport it [any + food supply] to a point within the protected zone, it will be + burned or otherwise destroyed. These rules will apply to all + food products. + + +No person within the reconcentration zones was permitted to go +outside thereof--cross the dead line--without a written pass. The +Circular Order of December 23d, apparently solicitous lest subordinate +commanders might become infected with the Taft belief in Filipino +affection, directs that after January 1, 1902, all the municipal +officials, members of the police force, etc., "who have not fully +complied with their duty by actively aiding the Americans and rendering +them valuable service," shall be summarily thrown into prison. [395] +Circular Order No. 19, issued on Christmas Eve, 1901, provided that, + + + in order to make the existing state oL war and martial law + so inconvenient and unprofitable to the people that they will + earnestly desire and work for the re-establishment of peace and + civil government, + + +subordinate commanders might, under certain prescribed restrictions, +put everybody they chose to work on the roads. [396] This was an +ingenious blow at the wealthy and soft-handed, intended to superinduce +submission by humbling their pride. Note also the seeds of affection +thus sown for the civil government under the reconstruction period +which was to follow. In one of Dickens novels there occurs a law +firm by the name of Spenlow and Jorkins. Mr. Spenlow was quite +fond of considering himself, and of being considered by others, as +tender-hearted. Mr. Jorkins did not mind. When the widow and the orphan +would plead with Mr. Spenlow to stay the foreclosure of a mortgage, +that benevolent soul would tell them, with a pained expression of +infinite sympathy, that he would do all he could for them, but that +they would have to see Mr. Jorkins, "who is a very exacting man," +he would say. In the dual American politico-military regime in the +Philippines of 1901-02, Governor Taft was the Mr. Spenlow, General +Chaffee the Mr. Jorkins. But the former always seemed to harbor the +amiable delusion that the Filipinos did not at all consider the firm as +the movants in each proceeding against them, and that on the contrary +they were sure to make a favorable contrast in their hearts between +the kindness of Mr. Spenlow and the harshness of Mr. Jorkins. He +seemed blind to the fact that the Filipinos, in considering what was +done by any of us, spelled us--U. S. + +General Bell's Circular Order No. 22, also a Christmas Eve product, +re-iterates the usual purpose to make the people yearn for civil +government, and the usual warning that none of them really and truly +want the blessings of American domination and Benevolent Assimilation +as they truly should, and adds: + + + To combat such a population, it is necessary to make the state of + war as insupportable as possible; and there is no more efficacious + way of accomplishing this than by keeping the minds of the people + in such a state of anxiety and apprehension that living under such + conditions will soon become unbearable. Little should be said. The + less said the better. Let acts, not words, convey intentions. [397] + + +Under date of December 26, 1901, General Bell reports: + + + I am now assembling in the neighborhood of 2500 men, who will be + used in columns of fifty each. I expect to accompany the command. + * * * I take so large a command for the purpose of thoroughly + searching each ravine, valley, and mountain peak for insurgents + and for food, expecting to destroy everything I find outside of + town. All able-bodied men will be killed or captured. + + +Such was the central idea animating the Bell Brigade that overran +Batangas in 1902. The American soldier in officially sanctioned +wrath is a thing so ugly and dangerous that it would take a Kipling +to describe him. I have seen him in that mood, but to describe it is +beyond me. Side by side with innumerable ambuscades incident to the +nature of the field service as it then was, in which little affairs +the soldier above mentioned had lost many a "bunkie," there had gone +on for some time, under the McKinley-Taft peace-at-any-price policy, +whose keynote was that no American should have a job a Filipino could +fill, much appointing to municipal and other offices of Filipinos, +many of whom had at once set to work to make their new offices useful +to the cause of their country by systematic aid to the ambuscade +business. With this and the Balangiga massacre ever in mind, the +men of General Bell's brigade began their work in Batangas in a mood +which quite made for fidelity in performance of orders to "make living +unbearable" for the Filipino "by acts, not words." Also, the American +soldier can sing, sometimes very badly, but often rather irrepressibly, +until stopped by his officer. Also, whether justly or unjustly is +beside the question, he considers a politician who pets the enemy +in the midst of a war a hypocrite. So General Bell's 2500 men began +that Batangas campaign on New Year's Day, 1902, giving preference, +out of their repertoire, to a campaign song whose ominous chorus ran: + + + "He may be a brother of William H. Taft + But he ain't no friend of mine," + + +and between songs they would say purringly to one another, "Remember +Balangiga." And their commanding officer was the very incarnation of +this feeling. So listen to the stride of his seven-league boots and +the ring of his iron heel: + + + I expect to first clean out the wide Looboo Peninsula. I shall then + move command to the vicinity of Lake Taal, and sweep the country + westward to the ocean and south of Cavite, returning through + Lipa. I shall scour and clean up the Lipa mountains. Swinging + northward, the country in the vicinity of [here follows a long + list of towns] will be scoured, ending at [a named mountain], + which will then be thoroughly searched and devastated. Swinging + back to the right, the same treatment will be given all the + country of which [two named mountains] are the main peaks. + + +And so on ad libitum. General Bell's course in Batangas was commended +in the annual report of his immediate superior, a very humane, as +well as gallant, soldier, General Wheaton, as "a model in suppressing +insurrections under like circumstances." [398] The Batangas programme +was approved by General Chaffee, the commanding general. In 1902 the +United States Senate rang with indiscriminate denunciation of the +Batangas severities and the Samar "kill and burn" orders. I tried +in 1903, without success, to satisfy my distinguished and beloved +fellow-townsman, Senator Bacon, that at the time it was adopted it +had become a military necessity, which it had. The fact was that the +McKinley-Taft policy of conciliation, intended to gild the rivets of +alien domination and cure the desire for independence by coddling, +had loaned aid and comfort to the enemy, by creating, among a people +used theretofore solely to force as a governmental agency for making +sovereignty respected, the pathetic notion that we were afraid of them, +and might be weakening in respect to our declared programme of denying +them independence. The Bell opinion of the Commission's confidence in +Filipino gladness at its advent among them is sufficiently apparent in +his orders to his troops. On May 23, 1902, Senator Bacon read in the +Senate a letter from an officer of the army, a West Point graduate and +a personal friend of the Senator's, whose name he withheld, but for +whose veracity he vouched, which letter alluded to "a reconcentrado, +pen with a dead line outside, beyond which everything living is +shot"; spoke of "this corpse-carcass stench wafted in" (to where the +letter-writer sat writing) as making it "slightly unpleasant here," +and made your flesh crawl thus: + + + At nightfall clouds of vampire bats softly swirl out on their + orgies over the dead. + + +This does not sound to me like Batangas and Bell. It sounds like +Smith and Samar. There were about 100,000 people, all told, gathered +in the reconcentrado camps in Batangas under General Bell, [399] +and they were handled as efficiently as General Funston handled +matters after the San Francisco fire. There was no starvation in +those camps. All the reconcentrados had to do was not to cross the +dead line of the reconcentration zone, and to draw their rations, +which were provided as religiously as any ordinary American who is +not a fiend and has plenty of rice on hand for the purpose will give +it to the hungry. The reconcentrado camps and the people in them were +daily looked after by medical officers of the American army. General +Bell's active campaigning began in Batangas January 1, 1902, Malvar +surrendered April 16 thereafter, and Batangas was thoroughly purged +of insurrectos and the like by July. During this period the total of +insurgents killed was only 163, and wounded 209; and 3626 insurgents +surrendered. [400] + +The truth is General Bell's "bark" was much worse than his +"bite." The inestimable value of what he did in Batangas in 1901-02 +lay in convincing the Filipinos once and for all that we were not +as impotent as the civil-government coddling had led them quite +naturally, but very foolishly, to think we were. Reference was +made above to the fact that the population of Batangas in 1899 was +312,192, and in 1903, 257,715. Those figures were inserted at the +outset to make General Bell's "bark" sound louder, but now that we +are considering his "bite"--how many lives his Batangas lesson to +the Filipino people cost--another bit of testimony is tremendously +relevant. On December 18, 1901, the Provincial Secretary of Batangas +Province reported to Governor Taft that the mortality in Batangas due +to war, pestilence, and famine "has reduced to a little over 200,000 +the more than 300,000 inhabitants which in former years the province +had." [401] Considering that General Bell's 1901-'02 campaign in that +ill-fated province cost outright but 163 killed,--how many of the 209 +wounded recovered does not appear; they may have all recovered--the +Bell programme in Batangas was indeed a very tender model, from +the humanitarian stand-point, of civilizing with a Krag, a model of +"suppressing insurrection under like circumstances." But it was never +again followed. It had made too much noise at home. Senator Bacon's +"corpse-carcass stench" from supposed reconcentrado pens and his +"clouds of vampire bats softly swirling on their orgies over the +dead," so vividly reminded our people of why they had driven Spain +out of Cuba, that the Administration became apprehensive. Until the +noise about the Batangas business, our people had been led by Governor +Taft and President Roosevelt to believe that the Filipinos were most +sobbingly in love with "a benign civil government" and had forgotten +all about independence. It was obvious that a repetition of such a +campaign in any other province might create in the public mind at home +a disgust with the whole Philippine policy which would be heard at +the polls in the next presidential election. So the Batangas affair +made it certain that the army was not going to be ordered out again +in the Philippines before said next presidential election, at least; +whatever castigation might be deemed advisable thereafter. + +It was intimated above that Senator Bacon's army friend's "clouds of +vampire bats softly swirling" over the corpses of reconcentrados, were +doing said swirling not over Batangas at all, but over Samar. Any man +familiar with the lay of the land in the two provinces can see from +the letter that it was written from Samar. Moreover, Colonel Wagner +afterwards testified before the Senate Committee of 1902 [402] that +if there had been any great mortality in the reconcentration camps +in Batangas, he would have known of it. He inspected practically +all those Batangas camps. Nobody who was in the islands at the time +doubts but what such conditions may have obtained in some places +under General Smith in Samar, or believes for a moment that any such +conditions would have been tolerated under General Bell. General Bell +has that aversion to either causing or witnessing needless suffering, +which you almost invariably find in men who are both constitutionally +brave and temperamentally generous and considerate of others. But the +moral sought to be pointed here is not that the Bell reconcentration +in Batangas was as merciful as the Smith performances in Samar were +hellish, but that, in all matters concerning the Philippines, the army, +as in the case of Senator Bacon's friend, is gagged by operation of +law, and its enforced silence is peculiarly an asset in the hands of +the party in power seeking to continue in power, in a distant colonial +enterprise. Senator Bacon withheld his friend's name, because for an +army officer to tell the truth about the Philippines would be likely +to get him into trouble with the President of the United States. The +President, be it remembered, is also the leader of the political party +to which he belongs. That is why the country has never been able to +get any light from those who know the most about the Philippines and +the wisdom or unwisdom of keeping them, viz., the army. In 1898 this +republic was beguiled into abandonment of the faiths of the founders +and started after a gold brick, thinking it was a Klondyke. Then and +ever since, the most important and material witnesses concerning the +wisdom or unwisdom of keeping the brick, viz., the army,--which best +of all knows the rank folly of it--have been gagged by operation +of law. All republics that have heretofore become monarchies, have +become so through manipulation of the army by men in power seeking +to continue in power. We should either resign our expensive kingship +over the Philippines or get a king for the whole business, and be +done with it. We have some ready-made coronet initials in T. R. [403] + +"On June 23, 1902," says General Chaffee, in his report for that year, +[404] "by Act No. 421 of the Philippine Commission, so much of Act +No. 173, of July 17, 1901, as transferred the province of Batangas +to military control was revoked. Civil government was re-established +in the province at 12 o'clock noon, July 4, 1902." The rest of the +1,748,573 people herein above mentioned as constituting the population +of Batangas, Cebu, Bohol, Laguna, Tayabas, and Samar, were also in +turn made to "want peace and want it badly," and on July 4, 1902, +President Roosevelt issued his proclamation declaring that a state of +general and complete peace existed. This is the famous proclamation +in which he congratulated General Chaffee and the officers and men of +his command on "a total of more than 2000 combats, great and small," +most of them subsequent to the Taft roseate cablegrams of 1900, +and the still more roseate reports of 1901 from the same source. The +proclamation appeared in the Philippines as General Orders No. 66, +Adjutant General's Office, Washington, dated July 4, 1902. [405] +It directed, in the body of it, that it be "read aloud at parade in +every military post." It thanked the officers and enlisted men of the +army in the Philippines, in the name of the President of the United +States, for the courage and fortitude, the indomitable spirit and loyal +devotion with which they had been fighting up to that time, alluded +to the impliedly lamb-like or turn-the-other-cheek way in which they +had been behaving (no special reference is made either to Batangas, +Samar, or the water-cure), and closes with a bully Rooseveltian +war-whoop about the "more than 2000 combats, great and small," above +mentioned. It also referred to how, "with admirable good temper and +loyalty to American ideals its (the army's) commanding generals have +joined with the civilian agents of the government" in the work of +superinducing allegiance to American sovereignty. This document is +one of the most remarkable state papers of that most remarkable of +men, ex-President Roosevelt, in its evidences of ability to mould +powerful discordant elements to his will. It put everybody in a good +humor. And yet, read at every military post, it served notice on the +military that if they knew which side their bread was buttered on, +they had better forget everything they knew tending to show the +prematurity of the setting-up of the civil government, sheath all +tomahawks and scalping knives they might have whetted and waiting +for Governor Taft's exit from office, abstain from chatty letters to +United States Senators telling tales out of school, such as the one +Senator Bacon had read on the floor of the Senate (already noticed), +and dutifully perceive, in the future, that the war was ended, as +officially announced in the proclamation itself. + +The report of the Philippine Commission for 1902, declares that the +insurrection "as an organized attempt to subvert the authority of +the United States" is over (p. 3). They then proceed, with evident +sincerity, to describe the popularity of themselves and their +policies with the same curious blindness you sometimes find in +your Congressional district, in the type of man who thinks he could +be elected to Congress "in a walk" if he should only announce his +candidacy, when as a matter of fact, the great majority of the people +of his district are, for some notorious reason connected with his +past history among them,--say his war record--very much prejudiced +against him. They repeat one of their favorite sentiments about the +whole country--always except "as hereinafter excepted"--being now +engaged in enjoying civil government. But they casually admit also that +"much remains to be done" in suppressing lawlessness and disturbances, +so as to perfect and accentuate said "enjoyment." + +Let us see just what the state of the country was in this regard +according to their own showing. They say: + + + The six years of war to which these islands have been subjected + have naturally created a class of restless men utterly lacking + in habits of industry, taught to live and prey upon the country + for their support by the confiscation of food supplies as a + war measure, and regarding the duties of a laborer as dull and + impossible for one who has tasted the excitement of a guerrilla + life. Even to the man anxious to return to agricultural pursuits, + the conditions existing present no temptation. By the war + and by the rinderpest, chiefly the latter, the carabaos, or + water-buffaloes, have been reduced to ten per cent. of their + former number. + + +Think of the condition of a country, any country, but especially one +whose wealth is almost wholly agricultural, which has just had nine +tenths of its plow animals absolutely swept off the face of the earth +by war and its immediate consequences. The report proceeds: + + + The chief food of the common people of these islands is rice, + and the carabao is the indispensable instrument of the people in + the cultivation of rice, + + +adding also that the carabao is the chief means of transportation +of the tobacco, hemp, and other crops to market, and that the few +remaining carabaos, the ordinary price of which in normal Spanish +times had been $10 was now $100. Then, after completing a faithful +picture of supremely thorough desolation such as the Islands had never +seen since they first rose out of the sea, certainly not during the +sleepy, easy-going Spanish rule, they say: "The Filipino people of +the better class have received the passage of the Philippine Act with +great satisfaction"--meaning the Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, the +Philippine Government Act. Gott im Himmel! What did the people care +about paper constitutions concerning benevolent assimilation? What they +were interested in was food and safety, not politics; food, raiment, +shelter, and efficient police protection from the brigandage which +immediately follows in the wake of all war, not details as to what we +were going to do with the bleeding and prostrate body politic. But +the Commission had started out to govern the Filipino people on a +definite theory,--apparently on the idea that if Americans wore white +duck and no brass buttons, in lieu of khaki and brass buttons, the +Filipinos would at once forget the war and be happy with an exceeding +great happiness. Now the real situation was this. The Islands had not +yet been thoroughly beaten into submission. Northern Luzon had been +conquered. The lake region of Southern Luzon had been conquered. The +most important of the Visayan Islands had been conquered. But the +extreme southern portion of Luzon, the enormously rich hemp peninsula +already described in a former chapter, and the adjoining hemp island of +Samar, were still seething with sedition which later broke out. All +through the winter of 1900-01 General MacArthur had tried to get +Mr. Root to let him close the hemp ports. But some powerful influence +at Washington had prevented the grant of this permission. On January 9, +1901, General MacArthur had wired Mr. Root: + + + Hemp in southern Luzon in same relation to present struggle as + cotton during rebellion. [406] + + +Nothing doing. General MacArthur must worry along with the +"blockade-runners" as best he could, no matter how much hemp money +might be poured into the insurgent coffers. So that in the latter +part of 1902, although the more respectable of the insurgent leaders +had then surrendered, even in the hemp country, the flames of public +disorder, which had flickered for a spell after the Batangas lesson, +broke out anew in the province of Albay, and in parts of Sorsogon, +the two provinces of the hemp peninsula having the best sea-ports. The +man at the head of this Albay insurrection was a sorry scamp of some +shrewdness by the name of Simeon Ola, with whom I afterwards had an +interesting and in some respects most amusing acquaintance. But that +is another story. I have simply brought the whole archipelago abreast +of the close of 1902, relatively to public order. In this way only +may the insurrections in Albay and elsewhere in 1902-03, described +in the chapter which follows, be understood in their relation to a +comprehensive view of the American occupation from the beginning, +and not be regarded as "a local issue" like General Hancock's tariff, +having no general political significance. In this way only may those +insurrections be understood in their true relation to the history of +public order in the Islands. The Commission always represented all +disturbances after 1902 as matters of mere banditti, such as have +been chronic for generations in Calabria or the Transcaucasus, wholly +distinct from, instead of being an inevitable political sequel of, +the years of continuous warfare which had preceded. Their benevolent +obsession was that the desire of the Philippine people for independence +was wholly and happily eradicated. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +GOVERNOR TAFT, 1903 + + Me miserable! Which way shall I fly? + + Paradise Lost. + + +Throughout the last year of Governor Taft's administration in the +Philippines, 1903, both he, and the peaceably inclined Filipinos in +the disturbed districts, were between the devil and the deep sea. The +military handling of the Batangas and Samar disorders of 1901-2 had +precipitated in the United States Senate a storm of criticism, at +the hands of Senator Bacon and others, which had reminded a public, +already satiated with slaughtering a weaker Christian people they had +never seen in the interest of supposed trade expansion, of "the days +when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, +before a senate which still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus +thundered against the oppressor of Africa." [407] He did not want to +order out the military again if he could help it, and this relegated +him to his native municipal police and constabulary, experimental +outfits of doubtful loyalty, [408] and, at best, wholly inadequate, as +it afterwards turned out, [409] for the maintenance of public order and +for affording to the peaceably inclined people that sort of security +for life and property, and that protection against semi-political as +well as unmitigated brigandage, which would comport with the dignity +of this nation. The better class of Filipinos, though not so enamored +of American rule as Governor Taft fondly believed, had by 1903 about +resigned themselves to the inevitable, and would have liked to see +brigandage masquerading under the name of patriotism stopped by that +sort of adequate police protection which was so obviously necessary in +the disturbed and unsettled conditions naturally consequent upon many +years of war, and which they of course realized could only be afforded +by the strong arm of the American army. But they knew that if the army +were ordered out, the burden of proof as to their own loyalty would +at once be shifted to them, by the strenuous agents of that strenuous +institution. The result was a sort of reign of terror for nearly a +year, in 1902-3, in the richest province of the whole archipelago, +the hemp-producing province of Albay, at the southern end of Luzon, +and also in portions of the province of Misamis. These conditions had +begun in those provinces in 1902, and, not being promptly checked, +because the army was held in leash and the constabulary were crude and +inadequate, by 1903 brigandage therein was thriving like a garden of +weeds. Super-solicitude concerning the possible effect of adequately +vigorous governmental action in the Philippines on the fortunes of the +Administration in charge of the Federal Government at Washington, an +attitude not surprising in the colonial agents of that Administration, +but which, as we have seen, had been from the beginning, as it must +ever be, the curse of our colonial system, had rendered American +sovereignty in the disturbed districts as humiliatingly impotent as +senile decadence ever rendered Spain. + +The average American citizen will admit that the average American +statesman, even if he be not far-sighted, looks at least a year +ahead, in matters where both his personal fortunes and those of the +political party to which he belongs are intimately related to what he +may be doing at the time. If in 1903 Governor Taft's administration +of affairs in the Philippines was wholly uninfluenced by any possible +effect it might have on President Roosevelt's chances for becoming an +elected President in 1904, then he was a false friend and a very poor +party man as well. Assuming that he was neither, let us examine his +course regarding the disturbances of public order in the Philippines +in that year, as related to the first and most sacred duty of every +government, adequate protection for life and property. + +In President McKinley's original instructions of April 7, 1900, +to the Taft Commission, after quoting the final paragraph of the +articles of capitulation of the city of Manila: + + + This city, its inhabitants * * * and its private property of all + descriptions * * * are hereby placed under the special safeguard + of the faith and honor of the American army; + + +the President had added: + + + As high and sacred an obligation rests upon the Government of + the United States to give protection for property and life + * * * to all the people of the Philippine Islands. + + * * * I charge this Commission to labor for the full performance + of this obligation, which concerns the honor and conscience of + their country. + + +We will probably never again have a better man at the head of the +Philippine Government than William H. Taft. We have no higher type of +citizen in the republic to-day than the man now [410] at the head of +it. In the Outlook of September 21, 1901, there appeared an article +on the Philippines written in the summer previous by Vice-President +Roosevelt, entitled "The First Civil Governor," which began as follows: + + + A year ago a man of wide acquaintance both with American public + life and American public men [411] remarked that the first Governor + of the Philippines ought to combine the qualities which would make + a first-class President of the United States with the qualities + which would make a first-class Chief Justice of the United States, + and that the only man he knew who possessed all these qualities was + Judge William H. Taft, of Ohio. The statement was entirely correct. + + +The writer subscribed then, and still subscribes, to the foregoing +estimate of Mr. Taft, whether Colonel Roosevelt still does or +not. Though I dissent most vigorously from more than one of President +Taft's policies, and though this book is one long dissent from his +chief pet policy, still it is to me an especial pleasure to do him +honor where I may, not merely because he has greatly honored me in +the past, but because my judgment approves the above estimate. Though +as a party leader he is a very poor general, as Chief Magistrate of +the nation he has certainly deserved and commanded the cordial esteem +of the whole country, and the respectful regard of all mankind. With +this admission freely made, if after reading what follows in this and +the next chapter, and weighing the same in the light of all that has +preceded, the reader does not decide that the writer, far from being +animated by any intelligent high purpose, is merely a foolish person +of the sounding-brass-and-tinkling-cymbal variety full of sound and +fury signifying nothing, then he can reach but one other conclusion, +viz., that colonization by a republic like ours, such as that we +blundered into by purchasing the Philippines, is a case of a house +divided against itself, a case of the soul of a nation at war with +the better angels of its nature, a case where considerations of what +may be demanded by home considerations of political expediency will +always operate to the detriment of the Filipino people, and be the +controlling factor in our government of them. And if I show that +in the Philippines in 1903 Governor Taft failed properly to protect +the lives and property of peaceably inclined people, as so sacredly +enjoined in the language above quoted from President McKinley's +original instructions to him, lest "the full performance of this +obligation" might prejudice the presidential prospects of his friend, +Mr. Roosevelt, and the success of the party to which they belonged, +then I will have shown that for this republic to be in the colonizing +business is an absolutely evil thing, and that any man who proposes +any honorable way out of the conceded blunder of 1898, is entitled to +a hearing at the hands of the American people, because it "concerns +the honor and conscience of their country." + +Having tried most of the cases which arose out of the public disorders +in the Philippines in 1903, and knowing from what I thus learned, +together with what I subsequently learned which Mr. Taft knew then, +that the most serious of those disorders were very inadequately handled +by native police, and constabulary, with much wholly unnecessary +incidental sacrifice of life, in order to preserve the appearance of +"civil" government and convey the impression of the state of peace +the name implied, at a time when a reign of terror due to brigandage +prevailed throughout wide and populous regions in whose soil lay the +riches of agricultural plenty, while the United States Army looked +on with a silent disgust which understood the reason, and a becoming +subordination which regretfully bowed to that reason as one which +must ever be the curse of colonization by a republic like ours, I +know whereof I shall speak, and will therefore speak neither lightly +nor unadvisedly, but soberly, charitably, and in the fear of God. + +The insurrection in the Philippines against American authority which +began with the outbreak of February 4, 1899, and whose last dying +embers were not finally stamped out until 1906, systematic denials +by optimist officialdom to the contrary notwithstanding, had three +distinct stages: + +(1) The original fighting in company, battalion, and regimental +formation, with the ordinary wide-flung battle line; this having +terminated pursuant to a preconcerted plan early in November, 1899. + +(2) A period of guerrilla warfare maintained by the educated, +patriotic, fighting generals, in a gradually decreasing number of +provinces, until the summer of 1902. + +(3) The final long drawn-out sputterings, which began to get serious +in the fall of 1902, in provinces prematurely taken under the civil +government, and stripped of adequate military protection before things +had been given time to settle down in them to normal. + +These last are the "gardens of weeds"--brigandage weeds--above +mentioned. While the horticultural metaphor will help some, to really +understand the case nothing so fits it as the more common illustration +applied to grave public disorders having a common cause which likens +such matters to a conflagration. The third and last stage through +which the Philippine insurrection degenerated to final extinction +is adequately and accurately described in the following extract from +one of the military reports of 1902: + + + The surrender or capture of the respectable military element left + the control of affairs and the remainder of the arms in the hands + of a lot of persons, most of them ignorant, some criminal, and + nearly all pertaining to a restless, irresponsible, unscrupulous + class of people, whose principal ambition seems to be to live + without work, and who have found it possible to so do under the + guise of patriotism. [412] + + +Such was the problem which confronted Governor Taft in 1903 as to +public order and protection of the peaceably inclined people, in the +two main provinces hereinafter dealt with. + +It is a great pity that in 1903 President Roosevelt could not have +called in Secretary of War Root and sent for Senator Bacon, and those +of the latter's colleagues whose philippics in the Senate of the year +previous against Generals Jake Smith and J. Franklin Bell had reminded +an aroused nation of the days of Cicero and Verres, Tacitus and Africa, +etc., and had a frank talk with them somewhat after this fashion: + + + Gentlemen, Governor Taft has a hard job out there in the + Philippines. There is a big insurrection going on in the province + of Albay, which is the very richest province in the whole + archipelago, a province as big as the State of Delaware, [413] + having a population of about a quarter of a million people, and he + has, for police purposes, a crude outfit of native constabulary, + officered mostly by ex-enlisted men of the mustered-out American + volunteer regiments. The personnel of the officers may be weeded + out later and made a fine body of men, but just at present there + are a good many rather tough citizens among them. Moreover, as + soon as the constabulary was gotten together they were at once set + to work chasing little remnants of the insurgent army all over + the archipelago. So as yet they are as undisciplined an outfit + as you can well imagine, and have never had any opportunity to + act together in any considerable command. Moreover, hardly any + Filipinos have yet had a chance to learn much about how to shoot + a rifle. Also, they know practically nothing about the interior + economy of large commands, such as handling and distributing + rations systematically for troops and for prisoners, or doing the + same as to clothing, and nothing at all about medical care of + the wounded, or the sick, or prisoners. So you can see that to + handle this insurrection with such an outfit as this is sure to + mean trouble of one sort or another. Wholly unauthorized overtures + through officious natives, to the insurgent brigand chiefs, may, + possibly, be made, promising them immunity, when they ought to be + made an example of; and that will embarrass us in punishing them + when we do finally get them, and be an encouragement to other + cut-throats to do likewise in the future. Worst of all, you can + see that if some five hundred or a thousand of these brigands, + or insurgents, or whatever they are, suddenly surrender, the + ordinary police accommodations for housing and feeding prisoners + will be wholly inadequate; yet we will have to detain them all + until our courts can sift them and see which are the mere dumb + driven cattle and which are the mischievous fellows. Therefore, + in case of such a surrender, the nature of this constabulary + force, as I have already described it to you, makes it plain + that its inadequacy to meet the serious conditions we are now + confronted with may result in our having on our hands a series + of little Andersonville prisons that will smell to heaven. The + majority of the people of the province are really sick of the + war. Their best men have all surrendered and come in. But there + is an ignorant creature calling himself a general, by the name of + Ola, who seems to have a great deal of influence with the lawless + element that do not want to work. Ola has gathered together + nearly a thousand malcontents, who obey him implicitly. He is + terrorizing Albay province and the regions adjacent thereto, + and as the constabulary are not adequate to patrol the whole + province, the people do not know whether self-interest demands + that they should side with Ola or with us. Clearly, therefore, + this is a case for vigorous measures, if we all have a common + concern for the national honor, for the maintenance of law and + order in a territory we are supposed to be governing, and for + the proper protection of life and property there. General Bell + or somebody else ought to be sent there to comb that province + just as Bell did Batangas. But we don't want any howl about it. + + +At this point of the supposed colloquy,--I say "colloquy," though +tradition has it that most of President Roosevelt's "colloquys" with +Senators were what Henry E. Davis, the Sidney Smith of Washington, +calls "unilateral conversation"--one can imagine the senatorial +Ciceros exchanging glances expressive of the unspoken thought: "The +man certainly has his nerve with him. Does he think the Senate is an +annex of the White House?" Then we can imagine President Roosevelt +bending strenuously to his task with infinite tactfulness thus: + + + I put Jake Smith out of business, as you gentlemen all know, for + his inhuman methods of avenging the Balangiga massacre in Samar, + and I am just as much opposed to cruelty as any of you Senators can + be. But Bell in Batangas is an altogether different case from Smith + in Samar. All this about the odor of decomposing bodies wafted from + reconcentration camps, and "clouds of vampire bats swirling out + on their orgies over the dead," that Senator Bacon's army friend, + whoever he may be, wrote the Senator, relates to Samar, and never + did have any application to Bell's methods in Batangas. Bell did + a clean job in a minimum of time and with a minimum sacrifice + of life, and, while he did have those reconcentration camps in + Batangas, he saw to it religiously that nobody starved, and that + all those people received daily medical treatment. + + +For the correctness of the picture of conditions presented in the +above hypothetical talk, I of course intend to be understood as +vouching. If such a talk could have been had in 1903 by President +Roosevelt with Senator Bacon and those of his colleagues who shared his +views, the Albay situation might have been handled creditably. But the +Administration was in no position to be frank with the Opposition. No +Administration has ever yet during the last fourteen years been in a +position to be frank with the Senate and the country concerning the +situation at any given time in the Philippines, because at any given +time there was always so much that it could not afford to re-open +and explain. Mr. Root, for instance, might have been questioned too +closely as to why, when Secretary of War, he had gone around the +country in the fall of 1900 speaking for Mr. McKinley, and talking +about "the patient and unconsenting millions" so anxious to be rid +of "Aguinaldo and his band of assassins," when at that very time his +(Mr. Root's) generals in the Philippines were engaged in activities, +the magnitude of which may be inferred from a telegram sent from +Washington to General Wood at Havana, asking if he could possibly +spare the 10th Infantry, and adding: + + + Imperative that we have immediate use of every available company + that we can lay our hands on for service in the Philippines, [414] + + +although at West Point in 1902 he told the cadets how nobly the army +had labored in putting down "an insurrection of 7,000,000 people." No, +the Administration in 1903 simply could not afford to be frank +concerning the situation in the Philippines. I need not recapitulate +here any more of the long train of reasons why, because they have all +been fully explained in the preceding chapters. Of course President +Roosevelt had no such guilty knowledge of the facts as Mr. Root. He +was not in constant daily contact with army officers at the War +Department, familiar with the actual situation in the Philippines, +as Mr. Root was. He was simply "sticking to Taft." Somewhere along +about the time the military folk in the Philippines were scoffing at +the unnecessary sacrifice of life incident to the lack of a strong +government, President Roosevelt had written his warm personal friend, +Hon. George Curry, now a member of Congress from New Mexico, who had +been a captain in his regiment before Santiago, was then an official +of the civil government of the Philippines, and later Governor of +New Mexico, by appointment of Mr. Roosevelt: "Stick to Taft, George" +or words to that effect. Mr. Roosevelt's attitude was simply that +of an intensely loyal friend of Mr. Taft who simply assumed that the +Philippine Government was not going to tolerate impotence in the matter +of protecting life and property. But everybody at both ends of the line +was too deep in the mire of all the long and systematic withholding +of facts from the American public which had been occurring ever since +1898, and which it has been the aim of the preceding chapters to +illuminate by the light since becoming available in the published +official records of the Government. Hence, in the hypothetical +conference above supposed, President Roosevelt was in no position +to take any high ground. He would have had to admit that the civil +government of 1901 was set up too soon in order to stand by half-baked +notions dished out in 1900 by the Taft Commission in aid of his own +and Mr. McKinley's campaign for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency, +respectively. In other words the truth about the Philippines from +the beginning might, and probably would, have seriously jeopardized +the Roosevelt presidential chances in 1904. So Governor Taft was left +to his own resources in struggling with the problem of law and order +in the Islands, intimately understanding the obvious bearing, just +suggested, of what he might do out there, on the election of 1904. What +then did Governor Taft do to meet the situation in 1903? Chronological +order, as well as other considerations making for clearness, would +suggest that I begin by telling what he did not do. + +In May, 1903, I was sent to the province of Surigao to try some cases +arising out of what has ever since been known in that out-of-the-way +region as "the affair of March 23d" (1903). In his annual report for +1903, pages 29 and 30, in describing the Surigao affair, Governor +Taft correctly states that a band of outlaws came into the town of +Surigao on the day above named, killed Captain Clark, the officer +in charge of the constabulary, took the constabulary's guns, while +they were all away at their mid-day meal, scattered about the town, +and departed. But Mr. Taft's report disposes of the whole incident +in a most casual way. As a matter of fact the gist of it was that +a heroic little band of Americans under Mr. Luther S. Kelly, the +provincial treasurer, an old Indian scout of the Yellowstone country, +hastily gathered the seven American women then in the town, one of +them in a delicate condition, into the stone government house, and +stood off those semi-civilized sensual brigands until reinforcements +arrived. Governor Taft's failure adequately to present the gravity of +the episode in his account of it does not argue well for the subsequent +solicitude he might feel about other American women in other remote +provinces which he was anxious to keep on his "pacified list," to +say nothing of politically negligible native life therein. [415] +Nor does this report include any of the material facts showing the +ineffectiveness of the rank and file of the constabulary to cope +with the situation, or the general feeling of insecurity I found in +the province as to how far the whole population might be in sympathy +with the brigands. As a matter of fact, after that Surigao affair, +Governor Taft had to turn the army loose in the province to go and +get back and restore to his constabulary the seventy-five to one +hundred stand-of-arms the brigands had so rudely and impolitely taken +away from them, and I held court there for a month trying the people +who were captured and brought in, with Colonel Meyer, of the 11th +Infantry, one of the most thorough and able soldiers of the United +States Army, and seven hundred soldiers of his regiment acting as +deputy sheriffs, and yet all the time the province was under "civil" +government, nominally. Colonel Meyer got the men who killed Clark, +and, upon due and ample proof, I hung them, but Surigao was never +taken for a day from the list of provinces enjoying "the peace and +protection of a benign civil government." The writ of habeas corpus +was never suspended for a moment. + +In the report above quoted from, Governor Taft remarks that if +the prompt steps he did take (he had already described the prompt +sending of the military to the scene) had not been taken, "the trouble +might have spread." But the Surigao affair seemed to teach the civil +government nothing in the matter of subsequent protection of life, +nor did it lessen their persistence in relying on their constabulary +for due extension of such protection in time of need. + +By June, 1903, another scheme was invented for avoiding calling on the +military. When you are in a foreign country building a new government +on the ruins of an old one, you naturally find out as much as you +can about how the old one met its problems. The Spaniards had had +the same problem in their day about not ordering out the military, +because they did not have any military to order out. They were too poor +to garrison the various provinces. They had long followed the plan, +from time to time, of reconcentrating in the main towns of disturbed +districts all the country population they could get to come in, and +then acting on the assumption that all who did not come in were public +enemies. This meant that when the country people came in, they simply +looked out for themselves, while away from their homes, and farms, +as best they could. Of course nobody at all looked after the farms, +and nobody provided medical attention for the reconcentrados, or +sanitary attention for the reconcentration camps. This general plan +was formally sanctioned by the Commission, in so far as the following +law sanctioned it. The law was enacted, June 1, 1903. It is section +6, of Act 781, which was an act dealing with all the constabulary +problems, of which this was one. It read: + + + In provinces which are infested to such an extent with ladrones or + outlaws that the lives and property of residents in the outlying + barrios [416] are rendered wholly insecure by continued predatory + raids-- + + +think of permitting a country to get into any such condition when you +have an abundance of American troops on hand available to prevent it-- + + + and such outlying barrios thus furnish to the ladrones or outlaws + their sources of food supply, and it is not possible with the + available police forces constantly to provide protection to + such barrios-- + + +there being all the time "available police forces," in the shape +of regular troops, amply able to handle these unsettled conditions, +which were the inevitable aftermath of lawlessness consequent on five +or six years of guerrilla warfare-- + + + it shall be within the power of the Governor-General, upon + resolution of the Philippine Commission, to authorize the + provincial governor to order that the residents of such outlying + barrios be temporarily brought-- + + +observe the length of time this may last is not limited-- + + + within stated proximity to the poblacion, or larger barrios, of + the municipality, there to remain until the necessity for such + order ceases to exist. + + +To house and ration the reconcentrados, the following provision is +made by the statute we are considering: + + + During such temporary residence, it shall be the duty of the + provincial board, out of provincial funds, to furnish such + sustenance and shelter as may be needed to prevent suffering + among the residents of the barrios thus withdrawn. + + +The act also provides that during the course of the reconcentration, +where the province does not happen to have the necessary ready +cash, it may apply to the Commission, in distant Manila, for an +appropriation to meet the emergency. What is to be done with those +who starve during the temporary deficit, it does not say. If you +must have reconcentration, to leave it to such agencies as the above, +with the native police and constabulary as understudies, in lieu of +availing yourself of the superb equipment of the American army, with +all its facilities for handling great masses of people, as they did, +for instance, after the San Francisco fire, is like preferring the +Mulligan Guards to the Cold-stream Guards. Furthermore, there is no +escape from the logic of the fact that reconcentration is essentially +a war measure. The difference between what is lawful in war and what +is lawful in peace is not a technical one. In war the innocent must +often suffer with the guilty. In peace the theory at least is that +only the guilty suffer. Hence it is that our Constitution is so +jealous that in time of peace no man's life, liberty, or property, +shall be taken from him without "due process of law," a provision +which becomes inoperative in war times, being superseded by martial +law. I know that the early question, "Does the Constitution follow +the flag?" was answered by the Supreme Court of the United States in +the negative as to the Philippines. But the Act of Congress of July +1, 1902, under which we were governing the Philippines in 1903, +and still govern them, known as the Philippine Government Act, +extended to the Islands all the provisions of the Bill of Rights of +our Constitution except the right of jury trial and the individual +right to go armed--"bear arms." It specifically said in section 5: + + + No law shall be enacted in said Islands which shall deprive any + person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. + + +It hardly needs argument to show that to bundle the rural population +of a whole district out of house and home, and make them come to town +to live indefinitely on such public charity as may drain through the +itching fingers of impecunious town officials, abandoning meantime +their growing crops, and the household effects they cannot bring with +them, is depriving people of their property, and restraining them +of their liberty, without due process of law. In fact, in 1905, in +the case of Barcelon vs. Baker, vol. v., Philippine Report, page 116, +during an insurrection in Batangas, to control which, the presidential +election of 1904 being then safely over, the writ of habeas corpus +had been suspended and martial law declared, the Supreme Court of the +Philippines held that detention of people as reconcentrados under +such circumstances "for the purpose of protecting them" was not an +illegal restraint of their liberty, because the ordinary law had been +suspended. This decision held it to be both the prerogative and the +duty of the Governor-General to suspend the writ of habeas corpus +when the public safety so required. + +I refuse to believe for a moment that President Taft, the former +wise and just judge, in whom is now vested by law the mighty power +of filling vacancies on the highest court in this great country of +ours, will seriously contend that that reconcentration law is not in +direct violation of the above quoted section of the Act of Congress +of July 1, 1902, for the government of the Philippines, and therefore +null and void. The truth is, it was a piece of careless legislation, +dealing with conditions that were essentially war conditions, under +a government which was forever vowing that peace conditions existed, +and determined not to admit the contrary. The civil government was +like Lot's wife. It could not look back. + +The Act of Congress of 1902 had made the usual provision permitting +the governor to declare martial law in a given locality in his +discretion. But the reconcentration law passed by the Philippine +Commission was a way of avoiding the exercise of that authority, +so as to keep up the appearance of peace in the provinces to which +it might be applied, regardless of how many lives it might cost. In +its last analysis the reconcentration law was at once an admission +of a duty to order out the military and a declaration of intention +to neglect that duty. I suppose the eminent gentlemen who enacted +it justified it on the idea of teaching the natives how to maintain +order themselves by letting them stew in the dregs of their own +insurrection. Yet no one can read the Commission's own description +of the widespread lawlessness which so long ran riot after the +guerrilla warfare degenerated into brigandage, without seeing, +from their own showing, how obvious was their duty to have waited, +originally, until law and order were restored, by not interfering +with the war itself until it was over, and by keeping the country +properly garrisoned for a decorous and sufficient period after it +was over, until something like real peace conditions should exist, +on which to begin the work of post-bellum reconstruction. After all, +it all gets us back to the original pernicious programme outlined in +President McKinley's annual message to Congress of December, 1899, +wherein was announced the intention to send out the Taft Commission, +which message also announced, in effect, that it was Mr. McKinley's +purpose to begin the work of reconstruction as fast as the patient +and unconsenting millions "loyal to our rule" should be rescued from +the clutch of the hated Tagals. + +Recurring again to the reconcentration law itself, the moral quality +of executive action putting it in operation was not unlike that which +would attach should the Governor of Massachusetts, in lieu of ordering +the state troops to the scene of great strike riots in half a dozen +towns around Boston, issue a proclamation something like this: + + + The situation has grown so serious that your local police force, + as you see, is wholly inadequate to cope with the situation. You + will all, therefore, thrust your tooth-brushes, night-gowns, + and a change of clothing, into the family grip, and assemble + on the Boston Common and in the public gardens, there to remain + until the necessity for this order ceases to exist, and we will + there take the best care of you we can, as was done in the case + of the San Francisco fire. As governor I am unwilling to order + out the military. + + +If any lawyer on the Commission gave any thought at the time to the +validity of the reconcentration law, in its relation to the "due +process of law" clause of the Philippine Government Act, which none +of them probably did, he must simply have justified the means by the +benevolence of the end, on the idea that he knew so much better than +Congress possibly could, the needs of the local situation. But if you +read this law in the light of a knowledge of its practical operation, +there is more suggestion between its lines of Senator Bacon's friend's +"corpse-carcass stench" and "clouds of vampire bats softly swirling +out on their orgies over the dead" than there is of benevolence. It +really was unsportsmanlike for the Commission to have entrusted +reconcentration to the native police and constabulary the native +governors had, and it was wholly indefensible for them to take the +liberty of violating an act of Congress in order to live up to their +pet fiction about the war being "entirely over." + +After the term of court at Surigao in the month of May, 1903, I was +sent to Misamis province, where I remained until September, handling an +insurrection down there. This province also was nominally in a state of +peace, i.e., there was no formal recognition of the existence of the +insurrection by suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Curiously +enough, as I wrote Governor Taft afterwards, the Misamis crowd of +disturbers of the peace were genuine insurrectos. Their movement +was not so formidable as the Ola insurrection in Albay I dealt with +later, but they were by no means unmitigated cut-throats. I have often +wondered how they managed to be so respectable at that late date. They +did not steal, as did most of the outlaws of 1903. Their avowed +purpose was to subvert the existing government. The use of this word +"insurrection" in connection with these various disturbances recalls +a pertinent incident. In 1904 there was a vacancy on the Supreme Bench +of the Islands. Some of my friends, members of the bar of my district, +got up a petition to the then Governor-General setting forth in most +partial terms my alleged qualifications for the place. Now in the +Philippines, in the candor of informal social intercourse, all of +us always called a spade a spade, i.e., we called an insurrection an +insurrection, instead of referring to the disturbance in the guarded +and euphemistic terms which you find in all the official reports +intended for home consumption. So in their petition, these gentlemen +recited, among my other supposed qualifications, that I had held +court in three different provinces "during insurrections in the same." + +The Albay insurrection was the worst one I had to deal with during +Governor Taft's administration as Governor of the Philippines. This +was the insurrection headed by Simeon Ola. The first appearance of +this man Ola in the official reports of the Philippine Government in +connection with the Albay disturbances of 1902-3 is in the report +of the colonel commanding the constabulary for the district which +included Albay, Col. H. H. Bandholtz, dated June 30, 1903. [417] This +report contains a sort of diary of events for the year preceding the +date of it. An entry for October 28, 1902, begins: + + + Early this month negotiations were opened with Simeon Ola, chief + of the ladrones in this province, with a view of inducing him + to surrender. + + +Think of this great government negotiating with the leader of a band +of thieves who were openly and flagrantly defying its authority! The +entry proceeds: + + + After many promises and conferences extending over a period of + forty days, during which hostilities were suspended, Ola broke + off negotiations and withdrew his entire force and a large number + of additional recruits that he had secured during the armistice. + + +Before Ola finally surrendered he is supposed to have had a total +command ranging at various times from a thousand to 1500 men. And I +think Colonel Bandholtz must have had in the field opposed to him, +first and last, at least an equal number of native forces. Ola also +makes an official reappearance in the report of the Governor of Albay +Province for 1904. [418] It there appears that reconcentration was +begun in Albay as part of the campaign against Ola and his forces, in +March, 1903, and continued until the end of October of that year. Says +this report of the Governor of Albay concerning reconcentration: + + + Naturally, the effect of this unusual volume of persons in a + limited area was disease and suffering for want of food and + ordinary living accommodations. + + +The Governor does not say how large the "unusual volume of persons" +was that was herded into the reconcentration zones, nor does he +furnish any mortality statistics. Nobody kept any. How much there was +of the awful mortality and "clouds of vampire bats softly swirling +out on their orgies over the dead," that Senator Bacon's army friend +correspondent encountered in Samar does not affirmatively appear. The +number of people affected by reconcentration in Albay and an adjacent +province that caught the contagion of unrest and had to be given +similar treatment, was about 300,000. [419] + +In his report for 1903, in describing the Ola insurrection of 1902-3, +Governor Taft says: "A reign of terror was inaugurated throughout +the province." He then goes on to state that to meet it he applied +the reconcentration tactics. In the same report he describes what +is to my mind the most humiliating incident connected with the +whole history of the American Government in the Philippines, viz., +Vice-Governor Wright's visit to Albay in 1903, apparently in pursuance +of the peace-at-any-price policy that the Manila Government was +bent on. Governor Taft says of the civil government's dealings with +His Excellency, the Honorable Simeon Ola, the chief of the brigands, +that General Wright and Dr. Pardo de Tavera, a Filipino member of the +Commission, went down to Albay and "talked to the people," the idea +apparently being that those poor unarmed or ill-armed creatures should +go after the brigands. This was to avoid ordering out the military, +and summarily putting a stop to the reign of terror as became the +dignity of this nation. I think these talks had something to do with +the origin of the charge afterwards made that immunity was promised +Ola and the men who finally did surrender with him. Of course General +Wright made no such promises. But the idea got out in the province +that the word was, "Get the guns," the inference being that if Ola +and his people would come in and surrender their guns they would be +lightly dealt with. In his book Our Philippine Problem, Professor +Willis, at page 140, gives what purports to be an agreement signed +by Colonel Bandholtz, dated September 22, 1903, whereby Bandholtz +promises Ola immunity, and also promises a number of other things +which are on their face rankly preposterous. Ola was much on the +witness stand before me during that term of court, and, everything +"came out in the wash." He was represented by competent, intelligent, +and fearless Filipino counsel, and they did not suggest the existence +of any such document. No proof of any offer of immunity was adduced +before me. I think Ola simply finally decided to throw himself on +the mercy of the government, on the idea that there would be more joy +over the one sinner that repenteth than over the ninety and nine that +are already saved. He was probably as much afraid that Governor Taft +would order out the military as the wretched pacificos were that he +would not. He immediately turned state's evidence against all the men +under him of whose individual actings and doings he had any knowledge, +the prosecuting attorney making, with my full approval, a promise +to ask executive clemency as a reward. This was in keeping with the +practice in like cases customary in all jurisdictions throughout the +English-speaking world. + +The magnitude of the Ola insurrection may be somewhat appreciated +from the financial loss it occasioned. Says Governor Taft, in his +report for 1903: + + + The Governor [of Albay] estimates that hemp production and sale + have been interfered with to the extent of some ten to twelve + millions of dollars Mexican [which is equivalent to five or six + million dollars American money]. [420] + + +As the population of the province was about 250,000, [421] a loss +of $5,000,000 meant a loss of $20 per capita for the six months or +so of reconcentration during which the farms were neglected. This +would be equivalent to a loss of $1,800,000,000, in the same length +of time to a country having a population of 90,000,000, which is the +total population figure for the United States according to the Census +of 1910. + +It was in the latter part of October, 1903, I believe, that Ola finally +surrendered with some five hundred or six hundred men. I was sent to +Albay about the middle of November, to assist the regular judge of +the district, Hon. Adam C. Carson, now one of the justices of the +Supreme Court of the Philippines, in disposing of the case arising +out of the Ola performances. Conditions at the time were also very +much perturbed in various neighboring and other provinces, and the +courts and constabulary were kept very busy. + +An incident recurs to memory just here which illustrates the state of +public order. But before relating it a decent respect to the opinions +of the reader requires me to state my own attitude toward that whole +situation at the time. I am perfectly clear in my own mind that as +society stands at present, capital punishment is a necessary part of +any sensible scheme for its protection. I have no compunction about +hanging any man for the lawless taking of the life of another. We owe +it to the community as a measure of protection to your life and mine +and all others. So far as public order was concerned in the country +now under consideration in 1903, the "civil" government was simply a +well-meaning sham, a military government with a civil name to it. When +the constabulary would get in the various brigands, cut-throats, etc., +who might be terrorizing a given district, some of them masquerading as +patriots, others not even doing that, the courts would try them. None +of the judges cared anything about any particular brigand in any +given case except to find out how many, if any, murders, rapes, +arsons, etc., he had committed during the particular reign of terror +of which he had been a part. Wherever specific murders were proven, +the punishment would always be "a life for a life." And you have no +idea how absolutely wanton some of the murders were, and how cruelly +some of the young women, daughters of the farmers, were maltreated +after they were carried off to the mountains. I would hate to try to +guess how much more of this sort of thing would have had to occur in +Albay in 1903 than did occur, to have moved Governor Taft to deprive +Albay of "the protection of a benign civil government"--one of the pet +expressions of contemporaneous official literature--and say the word +to the army to take hold of the situation and give the people decent +protection. But to come to the incident above broached. Shortly after I +reached Albay, and set to work to hold Part II. of the district court, +while my colleague, Judge Carson, held Part I. we had a call from a +third judge, Judge Linebarger, of Chicago, who was on his way to some +other perturbed region. I think that by that time, late in November, +1903, Governor Taft must have known he was soon to leave the Islands to +become Secretary of War, and therefore was anxious to be able to make +the best showing possible, in his farewell annual report as Governor, +as to the "tranquillity" conditions. At any rate Judge Linebarger +came to see us, for a few hours, his ship having touched en route at +the port near the provincial capital of Albay. Judge Carson had had a +gallows erected near the public square of the town, for the execution +of some brigand he had convicted, whether it was for maltreating some +poor farmer's daughter until she died, or burying an American alive, +or what, I do not now recollect. But in going around the town some +one suggested, as we passed this gallows, that we go up on it to +get the view. So we went--the three of us. Then each looked at the +other and all thought of the work ahead. Then Judge Carson smiled +and dispelled the momentary sombreness by repeating with grim humor, +an old Latin quotation he happened to remember from his college days +at the University of Virginia: Haec olim meminisse juvabit ("It will +be pleasant to remember these things hereafter"). + +The Ola insurrection had continued from October, 1902, to October, +1903, without suspension of civil government. During that period the +jail had been filled far beyond its reasonable capacity most of the +time. It sometimes had contained many hundreds. As to the sanitary +conditions, in passing the jail building one day in company with +one of the provincial officials, he remarked to me, nonchalantly: +"It's equivalent to a death sentence to put a man in that jail." I +afterwards found out that this was no joke. During most of my visit +to the province I was too busy holding court and separating the sheep +from the goats, to think much of anything else. But toward the close of +the term, after Christmas, after Governor Taft had left the Islands +and gone home to be Secretary of War, an incident happened that +produced a profound impression on me, suggested a new view-point, +and started troubled doubts as to whether the whole Benevolent +Assimilation business was not a mistake born of a union of avarice +and piety in which avarice predominated--doubts which certain events +of the following year, hereinafter related, converted in conviction +that any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos would +be better for all concerned than any government we could give them, +hampered as we always will be by the ever-present necessity to argue +that government against the consent of the governed is not altogether +wrong, and that taxation without representation may be a blessing in +disguise. The Yule-tide incident above alluded to was this. Most of +the docket having been disposed of, and there being a lull between +Christmas and New Year's day which afforded time for matters more or +less perfunctory in their nature, the prosecuting attorney brought in +rough drafts of two proposed orders for the court to sign. One was +headed with a list of fifty-seven names, the other with a list of +sixty-three names. Both orders recited that "the foregoing" persons +had died in the jail--all but one between May 20 and Dec. 3. 1903 +(roughly six and one-half months) as will appear from an examination +of the dates of death--and concluded by directing that the indictments +be quashed. The writer was only holding an extraordinary term of court +there in Albay, and was about to leave the province to take charge +of another district to which Governor Taft had assigned him before +leaving the Islands. The newly appointed regular judge of the district, +Judge Trent, now of the Philippine Supreme Court, was scheduled soon +to arrive. Therefore the writer did not sign the proposed orders +but kept them as legal curios. A correct translation of one of them +appears below, followed by the list of names which headed the other +(identical) order: + + + THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, EIGHTH + JUDICIAL DISTRICT + + In the Court of First Instance of Albay + + The United States against + + Cornelio Rigorosa died December 3, 1903 + Fabian Basques died September 25, 1903 + Julian Nacion died October 14, 1903 + Francisco Rigorosa died October 18, 1903 + Anacleto Solano died November 25, 1903 + Valentin Cesillano died November 6, 1903 + Felix Sasutona died September 26, 1903 + Marcelo de los Santos died June 3, 1903 + Marcelo Patingo died November 15, 1903 + Julian Raynante died September 7, 1903 + Dionisio Carifiaga died October 4, 1903 + Felipe Navor died September 17, 1903 + Luis Nicol died November 23, 1903 + Balbino Nicol died September 23, 1903 + Damiano Nicol died November 23, 1903 + Leoncio Salbaburo died November 20, 1903 + Catalino Sideria died July 25, 1903 + Marcelo Ariola died October 26, 1903 + Francisco Cao died November 26, 1903 + Martin Olaguer died November 13, 1903 + Juan Neric died November 16, 1903 + Eufemio Bere died November 21, 1903 + Julian Sotero died October 30, 1902 + Juan Payadan died September 10, 1903 + Benedicto Milla died July 30, 1903 + Placido Porlage died June 13, 1903 + Gaudencio Oguita died October 11, 1903 + Alberto Cabrera died September 8, 1903 + Julian Payadan died August 4, 1903 + Eusebio Payadan died August 10, 1903 + Leonardo Rebusi died November 2, 1903 + Julian Riobaldis died October 2, 1903 + Victor Riobaldis died October 23, 1903 + Mauricio Balbin died September 27, 1903 + Tomas Rigador died July 23, 1903 + Miguel de los Santos died July 28, 1903 + Eustaquio Mapula died November 18, 1903 + Eugenio Lomibao died November 1, 1903 + Francisco Luna died August 7, 1903 + Gregorio Sierte died October 31, 1903 + Teodoro Patingo died November 21, 1903 + Teodorico Tua died September 23, 1903 + Ceferino Octia died November 10, 1903 + Graciona Pamplona died September 12, 1903 + Felipe Bonifacio died November 26, 1903 + Baltazer Bundi died October 12, 1903 + Julian Locot died October 13, 1903 + Francisco de Punta died August 20, 1903 + Pedro Madrid died August 24, 1903 + Felipe Pusiquit died July 17, 1903 + Rufo Mansalan died July 14, 1903 + Ignacio Titano died June 20, 1903 + Alfonso Locot died June 29, 1903 + Gil Locot died May 23, 1903 + Regino Bitarra died September 7, 1903 + Bonifacio Bo died August 2, 1903 + Francisco de Belen died September 29, 1903 + + + DECREE + + The defendants above named, charged with divers crimes, having + died in the provincial jail by reason of various ailments, upon + various dates, according to official report of the jailer, it is + + ORDERED BY THIS COURT, That the cases pending against the said + deceased persons be, and the same are hereby, quashed, the costs + to be charged against the government. + + + Judge of the Twelfth District acting in the Eighth. + + Albay, December 28, 1903. + + +The foregoing order contains fifty-seven names. As already indicated, +the second order was like the first. It contained the names of +sixty-three other deceased prisoners, as follows, to wit: + + + Anacleto Avila died September 2, 1903 + Gregorio Saquedo died July 21, 1903 + Francisco Almonte died October 11, 1903 + Faustino Sallao died October 9, 1903 + Leocadio Pena died October 16, 1903 + Juan Ranuco died October 16, 1903 + Esteban de Lima died February 4, 1903 + Estanislao Jacoba died October 7, 1903 + Macario Ordiales died October 19, 1903 + Laureano Ordiales died October 27, 1903 + Reimundo Narito died October 4, 1903 + Antonio Polvorido died September 12, 1903 + Norverto Melgar died June 14, 1903 + Bartolome Rico died November 8, 1903 + Simon Ordiales died September 13, 1903 + Candido Rosari died September 29, 1903 + Saturnino Vuelvo died October 18, 1903 + Vicente Belsaida died May 26, 1903 + Felix Canaria died June 12, 1903 + Pedro Cuya died July 26, 1903 + Evaristo Dias died July 24, 1903 + Felix Padre died July 8, 1903 + Alberto Mantes died August 7, 1903 + Joaquin Maamot died September 5, 1903 + Santiago Cacero died May 28, 1903 + Hilario Zalazar died July 26, 1903 + Tomas Odsinada died October 1, 1903 + Julian Oco died October 4, 1903 + Julian Lontac died August 27, 1903 + Ambrosio Rabosa died September 19, 1903 + Mariano Garcia died September 12, 1903 + Ramon Madrigalejo died August 19, 1903 + Albino Oyardo died October 1, 1903 + Felipe Rotarla died September 29, 1903 + Urbano Saralde died October 5, 1903 + Gil Mediavillo died June 13, 1903 + Egidio Mediavillo died June 16, 1903 + Mauricio Losano died October 5, 1903 + Bernabe Carenan died September 27, 1903 + Pedro Sagaysay died September 29, 1903 + Laureano Ibo died August 5, 1903 + Vicente Sanosing died July 17, 1903 + Francisco Morante died June 10, 1903 + Anatollo Sadullo died September 16, 1903 + Lucio Rebeza died August 27, 1903 + Eugenio Sanbuena died August 13, 1903 + Nicolas Oberos died August 26, 1903 + Eusebio Rambillo died September 13, 1903 + Tomas Rempillo died August 19, 1903 + Daniel Patasin died August 19, 1903 + Ignacio Bundi died September 7, 1903 + Juan Locot died May 23, 1903 + Zacarias David Padilla died August 7, 1903 + Juan Almazar died September 12, 1903 + Rufino Quipi died June 13, 1903 + Antonio Brio died June 13, 1903 + Timoteo Enciso died September 12, 1903 + Hilario Palaad died August 28, 1903 + Ventura Prades died May 24, 1903 + Alejandro Alevanto died May 22, 1903 + Rufino Pelicia died May 20, 1903 + Alejo Bruqueza died July 19, 1903 + Prudencio Estrada died September 15, 1903 + + +These lists were printed in an article by the author which appeared +in the North American Review for January 18, 1907, which article was +reprinted by Hon. James L. Slayden, of Texas, in the Congressional +Record for February 12, 1907. There can be little doubt that President +Taft saw the article, and that if it had contained any inaccuracies +they would long since have been noticed. So that in the Albay jail in +1903 we had a sort of Andersonville prison, or Black Hole of Calcutta, +on a small scale. + +If the military authorities had had charge of the Albay insurrection +and of the prisoners in the Albay jail in 1903, it is safe to say +that the great majority of those who died would have lived. But to +have ordered out the troops would have been to abandon the official +fiction that there was peace. + +Of Ola's five or six hundred men, Judge Carson and I, assisted by +the chief prosecuting attorney of the government, Hon. James Ross, +turned several hundred loose. Another large batch were disposed of +under a vagrancy law, which allowed us to put them to work on the +roads of the provinces for not exceeding two years, usually six to +twelve months. Most of the remainder, a few score, we tried under the +sedition law, and sent to Bilibid, the central penitentary at Manila, +for terms commensurate with their individual conduct and deeds. The +more serious cases were sent up for longer terms under the brigandage +law. We indulged in no more maudlin sentiment about those precious +scamps who had been degrading Filipino patriotism by occasionally +invoking its name in the course of a long season of preying upon +their respectable fellow-countrymen than Aguinaldo or Juan Cailles +would have indulged. I am quite sure that either Aguinaldo or Juan +Cailles would have made much shorter shrift of the whole bunch than +Judge Carson and I did. It was only the men shown to have committed +crimes usually punished capitally in this country that we sentenced +to death--a dozen or more, all told. Ola was the star witness for the +state. He held back nothing that would aid the prosecuting attorney +to convict the men who had followed him for a year. He was given a +sentence of thirty years (by Judge Carson), as a sort of expression +of opinion of the most Christian attitude possible concerning his +real deserts, but his services as state's evidence entitled him to +immunity, and for that very good and sufficient reason Judge Carson, +Prosecuting Attorney Ross, and myself so recommended to the Governor. + +Ola could read and write after a fashion, though he was quite an +ignorant man. But to show what his control must have been over the +rank and file of his men, let one incident suffice. On the boat going +up to Manila from Albay, after the term of court was over, Ola was +aboard, en route for the penitentiary. But, as he was a prospective +recipient of executive clemency, though the guards kept an eye on him, +he was allowed the freedom of the ship. One night on the voyage up, +the weather being extremely warm, I left my stateroom sometime after +midnight, carrying blanket and pillow, and went back to the storm +steering-gear at the stern of the ship, to spend the rest of the night +more comfortably. Waking sometime afterward for some unassignable +cause, I realized that the crown of another head was tangent to the +crown of my own, and occupying part of my pillow. It was Ola, the +chief of the brigands. I raised up, shook the intruder, and said: +"Hello, Ola, what are you doing here?" He wakened slowly. He had no +idea of any first-class passenger being back there, and had taken +it for granted that I was one of the ship's crew, when he decided to +share my pillow. As soon as he realized who I was, he sprang to his +feet with profound and effusive apologies, and paced the deck until +morning, perhaps thinking over the possible effect of the incident +on my recommendation concerning himself. + +After I had recovered the use of all my pillow I went back to +sleep for a spell. About dawn I was wakened by some of the guards +chattering. But I heard Ola, who had apparently been keeping watch +over my august slumbers in the meantime, say in an imperious tone to +the guards, his keepers, "Hush, the judge is sleeping." They looked +at the brigand chief, and cowed, obeyed. + +Ola was pardoned. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +GOVERNOR TAFT, 1903 (Continued) + + The Philippines for the Filipinos. + + Speech of Governor Taft. + + +Just before Governor Taft left the Islands in 1903, he made a speech +which made him immensely popular with the Filipinos and immensely +unpopular with the Americans. The key-note of the speech was "The +Philippines for the Filipinos." The Filipinos interpreted it to +mean for them that ultimate independence was not so far in the dim +distance of what is to happen after all the living are dead as to +be a purely academic matter. And there was absolutely nothing in +the speech to negative that idea, although he must have known how +the great majority of the Filipinos would interpret the speech. On +the other hand, the Americans in the Islands, popularity with whom +was then and there a negligible factor, interpreted the speech, +not inaccurately, to mean for them: "If you white men out here, not +connected with the Government, you Americans, British, Germans and +Spaniards, and the rest of you, do not like the way I am running this +country, why, the boats have not quit running between here and your +respective homes." [422] Then he came back to the United States and +has ever since been urging American capital to go to the Philippines, +all the time opposing any declaration by the law-making power of the +Government which will let the American who goes out there know "where +he is at," i.e., whether we are or are not going to keep the Islands +permanently, and how to formulate his earthly plans accordingly, though +the educated Filipinos are concurrently permitted to clamor against +American "exploitation," American rule, and Americans generally, +and to keep alive among the masses of their people what they call +"the spirit of liberty," and what the insular government calls the +spirit of "irreconcilableness." Clearly, a policy which makes for race +friction and race hatred is essentially soft-headed, not soft-hearted, +and ought not to be permitted to continue. Yet it has been true for +twelve years, as one of President Taft's admiring friends proudly +boasted concerning him some time since: + + + One man virtually holds in his keeping the American conscience + with the regard to the Philippines. [423] + + +This is true, and it is not as it should be. We should either stop +the clamor, or stop the American capital and energy from going to +the Islands. After an American goes out to the Islands, invests his +money there, and casts his fortunes there, unless he is a renegade, +he sticks to his own people out there. Then the Taft policy steps in +and bullyrags him into what he calls "knuckling to the Filipinos," +every time he shows any contumacious dissent from the Taft decision +reversing the verdict of all racial history--which has been up to +date, that wheresoever white men dwell in any considerable numbers +in the same country with Asiatics or Africans, the white man will +rule. Yet the American in the Philippines, once he is beguiled into +going there, must bow to the Taft policies. He has taken his family to +the Islands, and all his worldly interests are there. Yet he is living +under a despotism, a benevolent despotism, it is true, so long as the +non-office-holding American does not openly oppose the government's +policies, but one which, however benevolent, is, so far as regards any +brooking of opposition from any one outside the government hierarchy, +as absolute as any of the other despotic governments of Asia. Though +the Governor of the Philippines does not wear as much gilt braid +as some of his fellow potentates on the mainland of Asia, still, +in all executive matters he wields a power quite as immediate and +substantial, in its operation on his subjects, as any of his royal +colleagues. It never for a moment occurs either to the American +Government official in the Philippines, or to the American citizen +engaged in private business there who is in entire accord with the +policies of the insular government and on terms of friendship with +the officials, that the government under which he is living is any +more of a despotism than the Government of the United States. The +shoe never pinches the American citizen engaged in private business +until he begins, for one reason or another, to be "at outs" with the +insular government, and to have "opinions" which--American-like--he +at once wants to express. If he permits himself to get thoroughly +out of accord with the powers that be, the sooner he gets out of the +Islands the better for him. This is the most notorious single fact +in the present situation. There is no public opinion to help such a +person, in any case where he differs with any specific act or policy +of the insular government. The American colony is comparatively small, +say between ten and twenty thousand all told, outside the army (which +consists of ten or twelve thousand individuals living wholly apart +from the rest of the community). The doctor who is known to have +the patronage of high government officials is sure of professional +success, and his wife is sure to receive the social recognition her +husband's position in the community naturally commands; and this +permits her to make auspicious entrance into the game of playing at +precedence with her next neighbor called "society," so dear to the +hearts of many otherwise sensible and estimable women--to say nothing +of carpet knights, callow youths, cads, and aging gourmands. Also +if the doctor and his lady have adult children, their opportunities +to marry well are multiplied by the sunlight from the seats of the +mighty. Thus the doctor and his wife are a standing lesson to the man +"with convictions" that yearn for utterance, but who is also blessed +with a discreet helpmate, more concerned in the general welfare and +happiness of all the family than in seeing her husband's name in +the paper. What is true of the doctor is also true of the lawyer +known to be persona grata to the government. Again, the newspaper +man in favor with the government is sure to get his share of the +government advertising, according to a very liberal construction, +and that insures his being able to command reportorial and editorial +talent such as will sell his paper, and the consequent circulation is +sure to get him the advertising patronage of the mercantile community, +thus placing success for him on a solid, comfortable basis. Also, a +contrary course will, slowly, maybe, but surely, freeze out any rash +competitor. Consequently, the American in the Philippines is deprived +of one of his most precious home pleasures, viz., letting off steam, +in some opposition paper, about the real or imagined shortcomings of +the men in charge of the government. For the reasonable expectancy +of life of an opposition paper in Manila is pathetically brief. The +hapless editor on the prosperous paper, whatever his talents, +who happens to become afflicted with "views" which he airs in his +editorial columns, is soon upbraided by his friends at his club as +"getting cranky," and is told by the orthodox old-timers among them, +"John, you've been out here too long. You better go home." If he does +not change his tone, the receipts of the advertising department of his +paper soon fall off, and his friend, the more tactful proprietor, who +"knows how to get along with people," is not long in agreeing with +the rest of his friends that he has "been out here too long." Again +the successful merchant has too many interests at stake in which he +needs the cordial friendship of the government to be able to afford +to antagonize it. And so on, through every walk of life, the influence +of the government permeates every nook and corner of the situation. + +The average public man in the United States would not feel "nat'ral" +unless intermittently bedewed with steam from the exhaust valve of +the soul of some "outraged citizen," through the medium of the public +press. But in the Philippines a public man occupying a conspicuous +position with the government may be very generally detested and +actually not know it. [424] The American in the Philippines, with +all his home connections severed, might as well send his family to +the poor-house at once as to come out in a paper with an interview or +speech,--even supposing any paper would publish it--which, copied by +the papers back in the United States, would embarrass the National +Administration's Philippine policy in any way. The same applies to +talking too freely for the newspapers when home on a visit. + +I think the foregoing makes sufficiently obvious the inherent +impossibility of the American people ever knowing anything about +current governmental mistakes in the Philippines, of which there +must be some, in time for their judgment to have anything to do with +shaping the course of the government out there for which they are +responsible. And therefore it shows the inherent unfitness of their +governmental machinery to govern the Filipinos so long as they do not +change the home form of government to meet the needs of the colonial +situation, by providing a method of invoking the public judgment on +a single issue, as in the case of monarchical ministries, instead of +lumping issues as we now do. It is certainly a shame that the fate and +future of the Philippines are to-day dependent upon issues as wholly +foreign to anything Philippine as is the price of cheese in Kamchatka +or the price of wool in the United States. Whether the Filipinos are +fit for self-government or not, under our present form of government +we are certainly wholly unfit to govern them. In our government of +the Filipinos, the nature of the case eliminates our most valuable +governmental asset, to wit, that saving grace of public opinion +which stops public men, none of whom are infallible, before they can +accomplish irreparable mischief, through uncorrected faith in plans of +questionable wisdom and righteousness to which their minds are made up. + +To show how absolute was the executive and legislative power over +8,000,000 of people entrusted by the sole authority of President +McKinley to Governor Taft--without consulting Congress, though +afterwards the authority so conferred was ratified by Congress and +descended from Governor Taft to his successor--an incident related +to me in the freedom of social intercourse, and not in the least +in confidence, by my late beloved friend Arthur W. Fergusson, +long Executive Secretary to Governor Taft, will suffice. In 1901 +the Commission had passed a law providing for the constitution of +the Philippine judiciary, [425] according to which law an American, +in order to be eligible to appointment as a Judge of First Instance +(the ordinary trial court, or nisi prius court, of Anglo-Saxon +jurisprudence) must be more than thirty years old, and must have +practised law in the United States for a period of five years before +appointed. In 1903 President Roosevelt wanted to make Hon. Beekman +Winthrop (then under thirty years of age) now (1912), Assistant +Secretary of the Navy, a Judge of First Instance. Governor Taft called +Fergusson in and said: "Fergy, make me out a commission for Beekman +Winthrop as a Judge of First Instance." Fergusson said: "You can't do +it, Governor. It's against the law. He's not old enough." Winthrop was +a graduate of the Harvard Law School. Governor Taft said humorously, +"I can't eh? I'll show you. Send me a stenographer." A law was dictated +[426] striking out thirty years and inserting twenty-five, and adding +after the words "must have practised law for a period of five years" +the words "or be a graduate of a reputable law school." Fergusson +was then called in, and told to go down the hall, see the other +commissioners, [427] and get them together, which he did, and +the law was passed in a few minutes. Then Fergusson was sent for, +and the Governor said, handing him the new "law"; "Now make out +that commission." Even if Fergusson colored the incident up a bit, +in the exercise of his inimitable artistic capacity to make anything +interesting, his story was certainly substantially correct relatively +to the absoluteness of the authority of the Governor, as will appear +by reference to the two laws cited. + +It is only fair to say that Winthrop made a very good judge. There +used to be current in the Philippines a story that Governor Taft +had said, in more or less humorous vein: "Gentlemen, I'm somewhat +of an expert on judges. What you need in a judge is"--counting with +the index finger of one hand on the fingers of the other--"firstly, +integrity; secondly, courage; thirdly, common sense; and fourthly, +he must know a little law." Winthrop's integrity, courage, and common +sense were beyond all question. It could hardly have been otherwise. He +came of a long line of sturdy and distinguished men, the first of whom +had come over in the Mayflower days to the Massachusetts coast. And, +he did know a little law. But the manner of his appointment is none +the less illustrative of how much quicker, Governor Taft could make +and publish a law than any of his fellow despots [428] over on the +mainland of Asia, considering how slow-moving all their various grand +viziers were, compared with Fergy, and his corps of stenographers. + +Having now given, I hope, a more or less sympathetic insight into +what absolute rulers our governors in the Philippines have been, in +the very nature of the case, from the beginning, let us observe the +change of tone of the government, after the reign of the first ended, +and the reign of the second began. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +GOVERNOR WRIGHT--1904 + + The blame of those ye better + The hate of those ye guard. + + Kipling's White Man's Burden. + + +Governor Taft left the Philippines on or about December 23, 1903, +to become Secretary of War in President Roosevelt's Cabinet, and +shortly afterward Vice-Governor Luke E. Wright succeeded to the +governorship. After the accession of Governor Wright, there was +no more hammering it into the American business men having money +invested in the Islands that the Filipino was their "little brown +brother," for whom no sacrifice, however sublime, would be more +than was expected. Governor Wright was quite unpopular with the +Filipinos and immensely popular with the Americans and Europeans, +because, soon after he came into power, he "let the cat out of the +bag," by letting the Filipinos know plainly that they might just as +well shut up talking about independence for the present, so far as +he was advised and believed; in other words, that Governor Taft's +"Philippines for the Filipinos" need not cause any specially billowy +sighs of joy just yet, because it had no reference to any Filipinos +now able to sigh, but only to unborn Filipinos who might sigh in +some remote future generation; and that the slogan which had caused +them all to want to sob simultaneously for joy on the broad chest +of Governor Taft was merely a case of an amiable unwillingness to +tell them an unpleasant truth, viz., that in his opinion they were +wholly unfit for self-government--all of which, in effect, meant +that Governor Taft had been merely "Keeping the word of promise to +the ear and breaking it to the hope." + +The Wright plain talk made the Filipinos one and all feel: +"Alackaday! Our true friend has departed." But as Secretary of War +Taft, after four years more of trying to please both sides, at home, at +last frankly told the Filipinos when he went out to attend the opening +of the first Philippine legislature, in 1907, practically just what +Governor Wright had begun to tell them from the moment his predecessor +had exchanged the parting tear with them on the water-front at Manila +in 1903, the net result of the Wright policy of uncompromising honesty +on the present political situation, may easily be guessed. + +Governor Wright's method of repudiating the Taft straddle took for its +key-note, in lieu of "The Philippines for the Filipinos," the slogan +"An Equal Chance for All." What Governor Wright meant was merely that +there would be no more browbeating of Americans to make them love +their little brown brother as much as Governor Taft was supposed +to love him, but that everybody would be treated absolutely alike +and nobody coddled. However, the Filipinos of course knew that they +could not compete with American wealth and energy, and so did the +Americans in the islands. So what the Wright slogan, unquestionably +fair as was its intent, inexorably meant to everybody concerned except +the dignified, straightforward and candid propounder of it, was, in +effect, the British "White Man's Burden" or Trust-for-Civilization +theory, a theory whereunder the white man who wants some one else's +land goes and takes it on the idea that he can put it to better +use than the owner. Thus early did the original "jollying" Mr. Taft +had given them become transparent to his little brown brother. Thus +early did it become clear to the Filipinos that behind the mask of +executive protestations that they shall some day have independence +when fit for it, lurks a set determination industriously to earn for +an indeterminate number of generations yet to come + + + The blame of those ye better + The hate of those ye guard. + + +This book has been written, up to this point, in vain, if the +preceding chapters have not made clear how much political expediency, +looking to the welfare of a party in power naturally seeking to +continue in power, necessarily dominates Philippine affairs under +American rule. We have observed under the microscope of history, +made available by the official documents now accessible, the long +battle between the political expediency germ and the independence +bug which began in General Anderson's dealings with Aguinaldo and +continued through General Merritt's and General Otis's regimes. We +have seen General MacArthur's attempt at a wise surgical operation +to excise the independence bug from the Philippine body politic--so +that the expediency germ might die a natural death from having nothing +to feed on. We have seen that operation interfered with by the Taft +Commission during the presidential campaign of 1900, because the men +in control of the republic could not ignore considerations of political +expediency; and we saw the consequent premature setting up of the civil +government in 1901, with all its dire consequences in the then as yet +unconquered parts of the archipelago, southern Luzon, and some of the +Visayan Islands. We have observed the effective though heroic local +treatment administered to the Philippine body politic by General Bell +in Batangas in 1901-2, with a view of killing off the independence +bug there. We have seen the fierce struggle between some of the bug's +belated spawn and the expediency germ's now more emboldened forces +in Albay in the off year, 1903. We are now to take our fifth year's +course in the colonial department of politico-entomological research, +the presidential year 1904. + +It was the way the Samar insurrection of 1904-5-6 was handled which +finally convinced me that the Filipinos would not kill any more of +each other in a hundred years than we have killed, or permitted to +be killed, of them, in the fell process of Benevolent Assimilation. + +American imperialism is not honest, like the British variety. American +imperialism knows that Avarice was its father, and Piety its +mother, and that it takes after its father more than it does +after its mother. British imperialism frankly aims mostly to make +the survivors of its policies happy, not the people it immediately +operates on. American imperialism pretends to be ministering to the +happiness of the living, and, though it realizes that it is not a +success in that line, it resents identification with its British +cousin, by sanctimonious reference to the alleged net good it is +doing. Yet in its moments of frankness it says, with an air of infinite +patience under base ingratitude, "Well, they will be happy in some +other generation," and that therefore the number of people we have +had or may have, to kill, or permit to be killed, in the process of +Benevolent Assimilation, is wholly negligible. This is simply the old, +old argument that the end justifies the means, the argument that has +wrought more misery in the world than any other since time began. + +When Judge Taft, General Wright, and their colleagues of the Taft +Commission, came out to the Philippines in 1900, they came full of the +McKinley convictions about a people whom neither they or Mr. McKinley +had ever seen, bound hand and foot by political necessity to square the +freeing of Cuba with the subjugation of the Philippines. A perfectly +natural evolution of this attitude resulted in the position they +at once took on arriving in the Islands, viz., that to do for the +Filipinos what we have done for the Cubans would mean a bloody welter +of anarchy and chaos. And the presidential contest of 1900 was fought +and won largely on that issue. After 1900, for all the gentlemen above +referred to, the proposition was always res adjudicata. All protests +by Filipinos to the contrary caused only resentment, and welded the +authorities more and more hermetically to the correctness of the +original proposition. Loyalty to the original ill-considered decision +became impregnated, in their case, with a fervor not entirely unlike +religious fanaticism, and belief in it became a matter of principle, +justifying all they had done, and guiding all they might thereafter +do. So that when General Wright "came to the throne" in our colonial +empire, as Governor, and legatee of the McKinley-Taft Benevolent +Assimilation policies, his attitude in all he did was thoroughly +honest, and also thoroughly British. He honestly believed in the +"bloody welter of anarchy and chaos" proposition, and was prepared, +in any emergency that might arise, to follow his convictions in that +regard whithersoever they might lead, without variableness or shadow +of turning. Take him all in all, Governor Wright was about the best +man occupying exalted station I ever knew personally, President Taft +himself not excepted; although I still adhere to Colonel Roosevelt's +opinion of 1901 concerning Mr. Taft, quoted in the chapter preceding +this, from the Outlook of September 21, 1901, notwithstanding that in +the contest for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1912, +the Colonel "recalled" that opinion. Seriously, a man may "combine the +qualities which would make a first class President of the United States +with the qualities which would make a first class Chief Justice of the +United States" and still cut a sorry figure trying to fit a square peg +into a round hole, or a scheme of government, the breath of whose life +is public opinion, into the running of a remote colonial government, +the breath of whose life is exemption from being interfered with by +public opinion. + +After the Albay insurrection of 1903 had been cleaned up, I took charge +of the Twelfth Judicial District, having been appointed thereto by +Governor Taft just before he left the islands to become Secretary of +War. In those trying pioneer days they always seemed to give me the +insurrections to sift out, but it was purely fortuitous. Whenever you +ceased to be busy, prompt arrangements were made for you to get busy +again. Judge Ide, the Minister of Justice, wasted no government money. + +The Twelfth District consisted of the two island provinces of Samar and +Leyte, two of the six Visayan Islands heretofore noticed as the only +ones worth considering in a general view of the archipelago such as +the student of world politics wants or needs. Leyte had a population +of 388,922, [429] and an area of 3008 square miles. [430] Samar's +population was 266,237, and its area, 5276 square miles, makes it the +third largest island of the Philippine Archipelago. So that as Judge +of the Twelfth District, consisting of two provinces, the Governor of +each of which was ex-officio sheriff of the court for his province, +I was, in a sense, a sort of shepherd of a political flock of some +650,000 people, whom I always thought of as a whole as "my" people. + +Samar and Leyte are separated, where nearest together, by a most +picturesque winding strait bordered with densely wooded hills. San +Juanico Strait is much narrower than the inland sea of Japan at its +narrowest point, and almost as beautiful. In fact, at its narrowest +point it seems little more than a stone's throw in width. It is as +pretty as the prettiest part of the Golden Horn. Leyte had been put +under the Civil Government in 1901, and this premature interference +with the military authorities in the midst of their efforts to pacify +the island had had the usual result of postponing pacification, by +filling local politicians, wholly unable to comprehend a government +which entreated or reasoned with people to do things, with the notion +that we were resorting to diplomacy in lieu of force because of fear +of them. Leyte and Samar were strategically one for the insurgents, +just as the provinces of the Lake district of Luzon, described in +an earlier chapter, were, because they could flee by night from +one province to another in small boats without detection, when hard +pressed by the Americano. The main insurgent general in Samar, Lucban, +had surrendered to General Grant in 1902, but the cheaper fellows +stayed out much longer, preying upon those who preferred daily toil +to cattle-stealing and throat-cutting as a means of livelihood, +and continuing the political unrest intermittently in gradually +diminishing degree, through 1903. By the spring of 1904, however, +there still remained in Samar riffraff enough, the jetsam and flotsam +of the insurrection--professional outlaws--to get up some trouble, +so that, as brigand chiefs, they might resume the roles of Robin +Hood, Jesse James, et al. During the first half of that year the +opportunity these worthies had been waiting for, while resting on +their oars, developed. The crop of municipal officials resulting from +the original McKinley plan of beginning the work of reconstruction +during, instead of after, the war, and among the potential village +Hampdens, instead of among the Cromwells, had resulted in some very +rascally municipal officials who oppressed the poor, getting the hemp +of the small farmer, when they would bring it to town, at their own +prices--hemp being to Samar what cotton is to the South. From the +lowland and upland farmers the ever-widening discontent spread to +the hills, where dwelt a type of people constituting only a small +fraction of the total population of the Islands--"half savage and +half child"--but loving their hills, and wholly indisposed, of their +own initiative, to start trouble, unless manipulated. Obviously, +then, "the public mind" of Samar--those who know Samar will smile +with me at the phrase, but it will do, for lack of a better--was +likely soon to be in a generally inflammable condition. By July, +1904, the Robin Hoods, Jesse Jameses, et al., touched the match to +the material and a political conflagration started, apparently as +unguided--save by the winds of impulse--and certainly as persistent, +as a forest fire. Every native of the Philippine Islands, whether +he be of the 7,000,000 Christians or of the 500,000 non-Christian +tribes, is born with a highly developed social instinct either to +command or to obey. The latter tendency is quite as common in the +Philippines as the former is in the United States. Hence the Samar +disturbances of 1904-5-6, though made up at the outset of raids and +depredations by various roving bands of outlaws yielding allegiance +only to their immediate chief, soon took on a very formidable military +and political aspect. [431] The roving bands would ask the peaceably +inclined people our flag was supposed to be protecting, "Are you for +us or for the Americans?" promptly chopping their heads off if they +showed any lack of zeal in denouncing American municipal institutions +and things American in general. Pursuant to Mr. McKinley's original +scheme--concocted for a people he had never seen, under pressure of +political necessity--to rig up in short order a government "essentially +popular in form," a lot of most pitiable municipal governments had +been let loose on the people, a part of our series of kindergarten +lessons. The plan was as wise as it will be for the Japanese--some +one please hold Captain Hobson while I finish the analogy--when +they conquer the United States, to go to the Bowery and the Ghetto +for mayors of all our cities. Thus by our pluperfect benevolence, +we had contrived in Samar by 1904 to rouse the highland folk, or hill +people, whom the Spaniards had always let alone, against the pacific +agricultural lowland people and the dwellers in the coast villages. The +latter, or such of them as did not join the hill folk for protection, +we permitted to be mercilessly butchered by wholesale, from August to +November, 1904, as hereinafter more fully set forth, because ordering +out the army to protect them might have been construed at home to mean +disturbances more serious and widespread than actually existed, and +might therefore affect the presidential election in the United States +by renewing the notion that the Administration had never been frank +with the American people concerning conditions in the Philippines. + +The annual report of the Philippine Commission for 1904 is dated +November 1st, which was just a week before the presidential election +day of that year. Their annual report for 1905 is dated November 1, +1905. In their report for 1904, the Commission deal with the general +state of public order in the same roseate manner which, as we have +seen, had made its first appearance during the political exigencies +of 1900 in the language about "the great majority of the people" +being "entirely willing" to benevolent alien domination in lieu +of independence. When Rip Van Winkle was trying to quit drinking, +he used to say after each drink: "Oh, we'll just let that pass." In +their report for 1904, the Commission swallow the conditions in Samar +with equal nonchalance. After stating that some (impliedly negligible) +disturbances had occurred in Samar "two months since," they add that +"the constabulary of the province took the field" against the bands +of Pulajans, or outlaws, and that "as a result, they were soon broken +up, and are being pursued and killed or captured" (p. 3). In their +report dated November 1, 1905, by way of preface to an account of +the extensive military operations inaugurated in Samar shortly after +the presidential election of 1904, which operations had not only +been in progress for nearly a year on the date of the 1905 report, +but continued for more than a year thereafter, the Commission explain +their 1904 nonchalance about Samar thus: "It was then believed that +the constabulary forces had succeeded in checking the further progress +of the outbreak" (p. 47). + +Let us examine the facts on which they based this statement, since it +meant that they believed that a duly reported epidemic of massacres +of peaceably inclined people, over whom the American flag was floating +as a symbol of protection to life and property, had stood effectually +checked by November 1, 1904, the date of their report. And first, +of the massacres themselves, their nature and extent. + +The Samar massacres of 1904 began with what we all called down there +"the outbreak of July 10th." In August, 1904, I went to Samar to +handle the cases arising out of the disturbances there, assisted by +the (native) Governor of the province, who, under the law already +alluded to, was ex-officio sheriff of the court, and an army of +deputy sheriffs, as it were, the constabulary, numbering several +hundred. The outbreak of July 10th was always known afterwards as +"the Tauiran affair." This Tauiran affair was a raid by an outlaw +band on the barrio of Tauiran, one of the hamlets of the municipal +jurisdiction of the township called Gandara, in the valley of the +Gandara River, in north central Samar, wherein one hundred houses, +the whole settlement, were burned, and twenty-one people killed. The +term of court lasted from early in August until early in November. The +day after the Tauiran affair, over on the other fork of the Gandara +River, occurred what was called "the Cantaguic affair." Cantaguic was +a hamlet or barrio about the size of Tauiran. The brigands killed the +lieutenant of police of Cantaguic and some others, but they did not +kill everybody in the place. Instead, after killing a few people, +they went to the tribunal (town hall), seized the local teniente, +or municipal representative of American authority, tied the American +flag they found at the tribunal about the head of the teniente, turban +fashion, poured kerosene oil on it, and took the teniente down stairs +and out into the public square, where they lighted and burned the +flag on his head, the chief of the band, one Juliano Caducoy by name, +remarking to the onlookers that the act was intended as a lesson to +those serving that flag. They then cut off the lips of the teniente +so he could not eat (he of course died a little later), burned the +barrio and carried off fifty of the inhabitants. Caducoy was captured +some time afterward, and I sentenced him to be hanged. There was +practically no dispute about the facts. After the Cantaguic affair, +during the term of court mentioned, the provincial doctor, Dr. Cullen, +an American who had been a captain doctor of volunteers, had occasion +to run up to Manila. The doctor was a most accomplished gentleman, +but he had a fondness for the grewsome in description equal to Edgar +Allan Poe himself. After he came back he told me about having told the +Governor-General of the Cantaguic affair, and repeated with an evident +pleased consciousness of his ability to make his hearer's blood curdle, +how the Governor had said to him slowly, "Doctor, that--is--awful!" + +Blood seemed to whet the appetite for slaughter. The records of the +August-November, 1904 term of the court of first instance of Samar show +all the various barrios of the Gandara Valley in flames on successive +days, after the affairs of July 10th and 11th. I do not speak from +memory, but from documents contained in a large bundle of papers +kept ever since, in memory of that incarnadined epoch. You find one +barrio burned one day and another another day, until all the people +of the Gandara Valley were made homeless. One of the constabulary +officers, Lieutenant Bowers, a very gallant fellow, testified before +me that from July 10th to the date of his testimony, which was on or +about September 28th, some 50,000 people had been made homeless in +Samar by the operations of the outlaws. I deem Lieutenant Bowers's +estimate quite reasonable. His figures include only one-fifth of the +population of an island which was in the throes of an all-pervading +brigand uprising. The conservative nature of Lieutenant Bowers's +estimate concerning the mischief that had already been wrought +by the end of September, 1904, and was then gathering destructive +potentiality like a forest or prairie fire, may be inferred from the +contents of a memorandum appearing below, furnished me by a Spanish +officer of the constabulary, a Lieutenant Calderon, who had been an +officer of the Rural Guard in the Spanish days. It contains a list +of fifty-three towns, villages, and hamlets (a barrio may be quite a +village, sometimes even quite a town, though usually it is a hamlet) +burned up to the date the memorandum was furnished me. + +In order to a clear understanding of these Samar massacres and +town-burnings of 1904, as well as for general geographical purposes, +a few preliminary words of explanation will be appropriate just here. +A province in the Philippines has heretofore been likened to a county +with us. But in the largest provinces, the subdivisions of provinces +called municipalities are more like counties; and each municipality +is in turn subdivided into sections called barrios. A municipality +(Spanish, pueblo) in the Philippines is not primarily a city or town, +as we understand it, i.e., a more or less continuous settlement +of houses and lots more or less adjacent, but a specific area of +territory, a township, as it were. This area or territory may be 5 x +10 square miles, or 10 x 20, or more, or less. For example, Samar's +area is 5276 square miles. Yet it contained in 1904, and probably still +contains, only twenty-five townships or municipalities all told, each +municipality being subdivided in turn into barrios. Municipalities +in the Philippines vary in size as much as counties do with us, and +their total area accounts for and represents the total area of the +province, just as the total area of the counties of a State represents +with us the total area of the State. The seat of government of the +municipality always bears the same name as the municipality itself, +just as the county seat of a county usually, or frequently, bears +the same name as the county, with us. Take for instance, the name of +the first municipality or township in the list which appears below, +Gandara. The municipality of Gandara might be described by analogy +as the "county" of Gandara, the list of barrios burned as a list of +towns and villages of the "county" of Gandara. + +The municipality of Gandara included a watershed in north central Samar +from which the Gandara River flowed in a southwesterly direction to +the sea. Within this watershed, parallel 12 1/2 north of the equator +intersects the 125th meridian of longitude east of Greenwich. Northern +Samar is a very rich hemp country, Catarman hemp being usually quoted +higher than any hemp listed on the London market. If you stand at the +highest point of the Gandara watershed you can see four streams flowing +off north, northwest, northeast, and southwest to the sea. There are +some half dozen streams having their source there. Brigands making +their headquarters there could always, when hard pressed, get away +in canoes toward the sea in almost any direction they wished. The +following is Lieutenant Calderon's list: + + + RELACION POR MUNICIPIOS DE LOS BARRIOS QUEMADOS. + + (List by Municipalities of the Barrios Burned.) + + MUNICIPALITY OF GANDARA + + Tauiran July 10 + Cantaguic July 12 + Cauilan July 13 + Erenas July 16 + Blanca Aurora July 19 + Bulao [432] July 21 + Pizarro August 8 + Cagibabago August 8 + Nueva August 10 + Hernandez August 10 + San Miguel August 10 + Buao August 15 + El Cano August 17 + San Enrique August 20 + San Luis August 25 + + + MUNICIPALITY OF CATBALOGAN + + (Calderon's List of Barrios Burned, continued) + + Malino July 31 + Silanga August 9 + Ginga August 13 + San Fernando August 15 + Maragadin August 20 + Talinga August 21 + Santa Cruz August 22 + Dap-dap August 29 + Palencia August 31 + Albalate (date not given) + Villa Hermosa (date not given) + + +The above list of villages burned in the township of Catbalogan +shows how bold the Pulajans had then grown. By that time they were +committing depredations, robbery, murder, and town-burning, in all the +various villages within the municipal jurisdiction of the township +of Catbalogan, coming often within a few miles of the town proper +of Catbalogan itself, the seat of the provincial government. In the +attack on Silanga, which occurred August 9th, a number of people +were killed. Silanga was but little more than an hour's walk from +the court-house at Catbalogan. The Governor at once wired Manila +as follows: + + + Catbalogan, Samar, Aug. 9, 1904. + + Executive Secretary, Manila: + + The peaceably inclined people of the barrios near here are + collecting here in large numbers, terrorized by Pulajans who are + boldly roaming the country, burning barrios within seven or eight + miles from Catbalogan. They kill men, women, and children without + distinction. These Pulajans have fled from Gandara where they are + being actively pursued by constabulary. All forces that could be + spared have gone out. We have about thirty available fighting + men here. Pulajans liable at any time to enter Catbalogan. We + are in danger of some occurrence quite as serious as the Surigao + affair. [433] There are buildings here which I must protect at all + hazards--Treasury, Provincial Jail with ninety-five prisoners, and + commissary and ordnance stores of constabulary. We need at once at + least three hundred men, scouts if possible, to handle situation, + between here and Gandara. Pulajans undoubtedly have friends in + Catbalogan. I suspect certain of the municipal authorities here. I + estimate number of Pulajans now operating at about five hundred. + + (Signed) Feito, Governor. + + +On September 2d, the Provincial Governor of Samar sent to Manila the +following telegram: + + + Catbalogan, Sept. 2, 1904. + + Carpenter, Actg. Ex. Secy., Palace, Manila: + + Seven-thirty this evening simultaneous reports from north + and south sides of town Pulajans approaching. They have not + entered yet and may not, but have gathered Americans with wives + and children in my house. Arms supplied. Treasury twenty-five + thousand Conant. [434] One hundred forty prisoners in jail. Only + forty-seven constabulary here. If Pulajans enter much needless + sacrifice life pacific citizens here. Feel sure Pulajans have + friends in Catbalogan. Request company either scouts or soldiers + from Calbayog stationed here, preferably former. Their presence + guarantee stability. + + (Signed) Feito, Governor. + + +Of course Governor Feito did not call for the regular army of the +United States. His job, poor devil, was to demonstrate as best he +could that the military were not needed. He would at once have been +suspected of trying to scuttle the ship of "benign civil government" +if he had admitted that the regular army was needed. But to return +to Calderon's list: + + + MUNICIPALITY OF CALBAYOG [435] + + (Calderon's List of Barrios Burned, continued) + + + Ylo August 17 + Napuro August 17 + Balud August 17 + + + MUNICIPALITY OF WRIGHT + + (Calderon's List of Barrios Burned, continued) + + Guinica-an July 25 + Calapi July 28 + Bonga August 4 + Tutubigan August 19 + Motiong September 1 + Lau-an October 10 + Sao Jose (date not given) + + +A sample of the distressing communications I was getting as these +massacres progressed is the notification of the Motiong affair +of September 1st set forth below, which I give as a type of the +methodical stoicism of those bloody times. Motiong was seven miles +down the coast road from Catbalogan: + + + In the district of Motiong, municipality of Wright, province of + Samar, Philippine Islands, September 1, 1904. + + In the presence of the undersigned Peregrin Albano, member of + the village council, there being also present the president of + the Municipal Board of Health, Mr. Tomas San Pablo, and the + principal men of the place, there has this day occurred the + burial of the corpses, victims of the Pulajans, in the cemetery + of this place, to wit: The officer of volunteers, Rafael Rosales, + and the following volunteers, viz., Gualberto Gabane, Juan Pacle, + Dionisio Daisno, Pedro Damtanan, Carmelo Lagbo; also the two women, + Eustaquia Sapiten and Apolinaria N., also one unknown Pulajan. This + in fulfilment of the official letter of instructions No. 136, + from the office of the presidente of the town of Wright dated + to-day. Said burial ceremonies were conducted by the Reverend + Father Marcos Gomez, and were attended by the whole volunteer + force of this place because of the death of their officer Rosales. + + + Tomas San Pablo, + President of the Board of Health. + + Peregrin Albano, + Councillor. + + (Illegible)----Moro, Captain of Volunteers. [436] + + +Fancy having documents like the foregoing handed you with +ever-increasing regularity as you sauntered, morning after morning, +from your bath to your coffee and rolls, preparatory to the daily +sifting of incidents such as that which included the burning of +the American flag on the head of the municipal representative of +American authority already mentioned, and other like acts of poor +misguided peasants stirred up by trifling scamps representing the +dregs of insurrection. Motiong was not only within seven miles of +the court-house at Catbalogan, but it was so near to Camp Bumpus, +over in Leyte, where the 18th Infantry lay, that an order to them +to move in the morning would have made life and property in all that +brigand-harried region safe that night and continuously thereafter. + +General Wm. H. Carter, Major-General U. S. A., well known to the +American public as the able officer who, in 1911, commanded the United +States forces mobilized on the Mexican border during the Mexican +revolution of that year, that ousted President Diaz and seated +President Madero, was in command at the time--the fall of 1904--of +the military district of the Philippines which included Samar and +Leyte. A word of request to him would have made life definitely safe +in all the coast towns and their vicinity within two or three days +after receipt of such a request. + +Besides Gandara, Catbalogan, Calbayog, and Wright, Lieutenant +Calderon's list included the trio of ill-fated municipalities set +forth below, concluding with the illustrious name of Taft: + + + MUNICIPALITY OF CATUBIG + + Poblacion September 5 + Tagabiran August 11 + San Vicente August -- + + +Catubig was toward the north end of Samar. On the day of the burning +and sacking of the poblacion of Catubig, September 5th, which was done +by a force of several hundred Pulajans, the scouts and constabulary, +so it was afterward reported, killed a hundred of the Catubig Pulajans +in an engagement. If this report were correct, as is likely, it was +the biggest single killing of natives since the early days of the +insurrection. [437] But it did not in the least check the Pulajan +insurrection, which simply swerved its fury from the Catubig region +toward the coast (the Pacific coast), descending upon the towns, +villages, and hamlets of the townships of Borongan and Taft, thus: + + + MUNICIPALITY OF BORONGAN + + (Calderon's List of Barrios Burned, continued) + + Sepa Sept. 23 + Lucsohong Sept. 23 + Maybocog Sept. 23 + Maydolong Sept. 23 + Soribao Sept. 23 + Bugas Oct. 10 + Punta Maria Oct. 10 + Canjauay Oct. 11 + + + MUNICIPALITY OF TAFT + + (Calderon's List continued) + + Del Remedio Sept. 22 + San Julian Sept. 22 + Nena Sept. 22 + Libas Sept. 22 + Pagbabangnan Sept. 22 + San Vicente Sept. 21 + Jinolaso Oct. 3 + + +Of the twenty-five pueblos or townships of Samar, the Calderon +list only pretended to throw light on events in nine of them, +those being the only ones from which definite news had then reached +headquarters. But as a reign of terror prevailed all over Samar at the +time, the rest may be imagined, though it can never be ascertained. Of +these nine, the last two were: + + + MUNICIPALITY OF LLORENTE + + Pagbabalancayan Sept. 23 + + + MUNICIPALITY OF ORAS + + Concepcion Sept. 23 + Jipapad -- + + +Now it feels just as uncomfortable to be boloed in Pagbabalancayan +as it would in a place with a more pronounceable name, and the same +is true of the comparatively mellifluous Jipapad. True, some of +these places were mere hamlets of twenty to forty houses, but you +may be sure there were five or six people, on an average, to each +house. On the other hand, glance back again at the list of towns of +the township of Taft that were sacked and burned, and consider that +San Julian was about the size of the provincial capital, Catbalogan, +and that Catbalogan, the town proper, contained a population of +four thousand, though looked at from the amphitheatre of hills which +surround it, Catbalogan does not look like such a very large group +of houses. Filipino houses are usually full of people. It is easier +to live that way than to build more houses. + +After the Pulajan descent on Llorente, the people of Llorente all went +off to the hills to the Pulajans for safety. They were not allowed +to have firearms. This was forbidden by law, except on condition of +making formal application for permission, getting it finally approved, +and giving a bond, conditions which, in practical operation, made +the prohibition all but absolute. The law was general for the whole +archipelago. The theory of the law was that the inhabitants were under +"the peace and protection of a benign civil government." The real +reason of the law was that if the people were allowed to bear arms it +was very uncertain which side they would use them on, our side or the +other. But, by 1904, the lowland and coast people of Samar would have +been glad enough to have stuck to us and gone out after the mountain +robber bands had we armed them. Left unprotected, a feeling seemed +to spread in many places that about the only thing to do to be safe +was to depart from under the "protection" of the American flag and +take to the hills and join, or seem to join, the uprising. + +Toward the last of September, the provincial treasurer of Samar, an +American, a Mr. Whittier, visited the east coast of Samar, including +Taft. On October 5th, he stated before me as follows: + + + All the presidentes that I have talked with, and this man Hill, + [438] said that they wanted some protection for their towns. Except + at Borongan there are no guns in the hands of the municipal + police. [439] This band near Taft was said to have nineteen + guns, and they felt they could not defend their towns with spears + against these guns. There were reported to be between 200 and 600 + in operation on the coast at that time, and they felt that they + could not defend their towns with the means at hand. I found at + Taft that they had taken all the records of the municipality, + and the money, and taken it over to an island away from the + main coast, in order to protect their money and their records, + and I understand the same thing was done at Llorente. At Oras + they had practically decided to take the same step if it became + necessary. All of the commercial houses on the east coast and + a large number of people congregated at Borongan, which was + safe on account of the protection of the constabulary; and the + constabulary there were doing very good work, doing everything + they could with their small force, and they (the presidentes) + felt that if they had guns in the hands of the municipal police + or if they had the constabulary to guard their towns, they could + go out after these people themselves. + + +The importance of all this testimony, relatively to its forever +sickening any one acquainted with it with colonization by a republic, +is that a transcript of Mr. Whittier's statement of October 5th +was placed in the hands of the Governor-General a few days later by +Mr. Harvey, the Assistant Attorney-General, and yet this situation +continued until shortly after the presidential election. Several +years afterwards, in the North American Review, Judge Ide, who +was Vice-Governor in 1904, after admitting that he was in constant +consultation with the Governor-General all through that period (by +way of showing his opportunities for knowing whereof he spoke), +denied that the failure to order out the military to protect the +people from massacre had any relation whatever to the presidential +election then going on in the United States. + +Mr. Whittier also stated before me that the total population of the +municipality of Taft was 18,000, and that twenty-five men armed with +guns in each of the four principal villages thereof that were burned +would have prevented the destruction of those villages. So we did not +protect the people, and we would not let them protect themselves. I +do not select the pueblo of Taft on account of its distinguished +name. "What's in a name?" The fate of Taft and its inhabitants was +simply typical of the fate which descended upon scores of other places +in "dark and bloody" Samar between the outbreak of July 10, 1904, and +the presidential election of November 8th, of that year, and between +those two dates the shadow of such a fate was over all the towns of +the island on which it did not in fact descend. Mr. Whittier stated to +me informally that at the time he was speaking of in the above formal +statement, there were pending and had been pending for a long time +(he seemed to think they must have been pigeon-holed) applications +for permission to bear arms from fifteen different pueblos. After +Mr. Whittier had finished his statement the Presidente of Taft made +a like statement on the same day, October 5th. My retained copy +shows that this official bore the ponderous name of Angel Custodio +Crisologo. He declared a willingness to lead his people against +the Pulajans if given guns, though the fervent soul did qualify +this martial remark by adding, "If I am well enough," explaining +that the presidential body was subject to rheumatism. Mr. Crisologo +stated among other things that there had been eight hundred houses +burned in the jurisdiction of Taft before he left the east coast +for Catbalogan--about a week before. Like Mr. Whittier's, a copy +of Mr. Crisologo's statement was delivered a few days later to +the Governor-General in person by the Assistant Attorney-General, +Mr. Harvey, who had been present when it was made and taken down. + +This Mr. Harvey need not be, to the western hemisphere reader, a +mere nebulous antipodal entity, as the Hon. Angel Custodio Crisologo +might. He is a very live American, a very high-toned gentleman, and +an excellent lawyer, and was at last accounts still with the insular +government of the Philippine Islands, though in a higher capacity +(Solicitor General) than he was at the date of the events herein +narrated. There was very little congenial society in Catbalogan when +Mr. Harvey came there to help dispose of the criminal docket, and his +advent was to me a very welcome oasis in a desert of "the solitude +of my own originality"--or lack of originality. On September 19th I +had wired Vice-Governor Ide that there were 172 prisoners in the jail +awaiting trial and "many more coming." Of course no justice of the +peace would be trusted to pass on whether an alleged outlaw should +or should not be held for trial. If he were secretly in sympathy +with the discomfiture American authority in Samar was having, he +might let the man go, no matter what the proof. Also he might seek to +clear himself of all suspicion in each case by committing men against +whom there was no proof, thus unnecessarily crowding an already fast +filling provincial jail of limited dimensions, wherein beriberi [440] +was already making its dread appearance. + +So the writ of habeas corpus remained unsuspended, thus making it +possible to so state in later official certificates covering that +period. But habeas corpus cut no more figure in the situation than +it did at the battle of Gettysburg, or at the crossing of the Red +Sea by the chosen people, or at the sinking of the Titanic. The +constabulary would worry along with such force as they had in the +island of Samar, only a few hundred, certainly nearer five hundred +than one thousand. And, whenever they had a battle with the outlaws, +if they themselves were not annihilated, which happened more than +once, they would bring back prisoners in droves and put them in +the jail, and I was expected to sift out how much proof they had, +or claimed to have, of overt acts by persons not actually captured +in action. Of course a race then began, a race against death, to see +whether death or I would get to John Doe or Richard Roe first. And +though I held court every day except Sunday from August to November +8th, sometimes getting in sixteen hours per day by supplementing a +day's work with a night session, death would often beat me to some +one man on the jail list whom I happened to have picked out to get to +the next day. Men so picked out were men as to whom something I might +have heard held out the hope of being able to dispose of their cases +quickly by letting them loose, [441] thus getting that much farther +from the danger limit of crowding in the jail. Some of these would be +specially picked out because reported sick. I kept track of the sick +by visiting them myself when practicable, and talking to them. Of +course many of them were brigands---Pulajans--but some of them were +the saddest looking, most abject little brigands that anybody ever +saw. Of course you might catch some nasty disease from them, but +nobody, somehow, ever seemed to have any apprehension on that score +in the Philippines. This does not argue bravery at all. It is merely +the listless stoicism that lurks in the climate. I recollect going +to walk one afternoon, after adjourning court at 5 o'clock, saying to +the prosecuting attorney before adjourning, "We will take up the case +of Capence Coral in the morning; there does not seem, from what I can +understand, to be enough proof to convict him of anything." Of course +when you were dealing with hundreds of people, you did not have any +nerve-racking hysterics about any one man. Leaving the court-house I +passed by the hospital, where Capence had been transferred, pending +the arrival of witnesses against him and the rest of the crowd captured +with him. I asked the hospital steward how Capence was. The answer was +he had died at 4:45--some twenty minutes before. Death had beat me to +Capence. When I meet Capence he will know I did the best I could. I +was under a great strain, a sort of writ of habeas corpus incarnate, +the only thing remotely suggesting relief from unwarranted [442] +detention on the whole horizon of the situation. I was trying to do +the best I could by the Constitution, in so far as the spirit of it +had reached the Philippines. I broke down totally under the strain +about November 8th, came home in the spring of the following year +and remained an invalid for several years thereafter; and as a noted +corporation lawyer once said after recovery from a similar illness, +"I haven't had much constitution since, but have been living mostly +under the by-laws." + +American office-holding in the Philippines is not so popular with +the Filipinos as to have moved them to any outburst of gratitude in +the shape of an effort to create a pension system for Americans who +lose their health in the government service out there. When they +leave the Islands they become as one dead so far as the Philippine +insular government is concerned. And the men whose health is more or +less permanently impaired by disability incurred in line of duty in +the Philippines are not and will never be numerous or powerful enough +back home to create any sentiment in favor of a pension system for +former Philippine employees, since the Philippine business is not a +subject of much popular enthusiasm at best. So if I had not had private +resources, the results of the Samar insurrection of 1904 would have +left me also in the pitiable plight in which I have beheld so many +of my repatriated former comrades of the Philippine service in the +last seven years, to whom the heart of the more fortunate ex-Filipino +indeed goes out in sympathy. But to return to the race to beat death +to prisoners in that grim and memorable fall of 1904. + +In September the crowded condition of the jail had begun to tell on +the inmates. The constabulary force at Catbalogan was quite inadequate +for the varied emergencies of the situation, there being, besides +the town itself to protect, the provincial treasury to guard, the +governor's office, the court-house, and the jail. Consequently the jail +guard was too small. The jail buildings were in an enclosure a little +larger than a baseball diamond, surrounded by high stone walls. But +it was not safe to let the inmates sleep out in the enclosure at +night. They had to be kept at night in the buildings. Any American +who has visited the central penitentiary at Manila called Bilibid +has seen a place almost as clean as a battleship. This is American +work. But the Filipinos are not trained in sanitary matters, and all +they know about handling large crowds of prisoners they learned from +the Spaniards. The Governor was a native half-caste, a very excellent +man, but free from that horror, which I think is an almost universal +American trait, of seeing unnecessary and preventable sacrifice of +human life, no matter whose the life. I inspected the jail as often +as was practicable, and managed to keep down the death-rate below +what it might have been, the prisoners being allowed to go out in +the open court during the day. They also had such medical attention +as was available. However, during the last five or six weeks of that +term of court I would be pretty sure to find on my desk every two or +three days, on opening court in the morning, a notice like this: + + + Carcel Provincial de Samar, I. F. + Oficina del Alcaide + + Catbalogan, Samar, I. F., + 22 de Septiembre de 1904. + + Hon. Sr. Juez de Ia Instancia de esta provincia, + Catbalogan, Samar, I. F. + + Senor: + + Tengo el honor de poner en conocimiento de ese juzgado, que + anoche entre 12 y 1 de ella, fallecio el procesado, Ramon Boroce, + a consecuencia de la enfermedad de beriberi, que venia padeciendo. + + Lo que tengo el honor de communicar a ese Juzgado para su superior + conocimiento. + + De U. muy respetuosamente, + Gonzalo Lucero, + + Alcaide de la Carcel Provincial. + + +which being interpreted means: + + + Provincial Jail of Samar, P. I. + + Catbalogan, Samar, P. I., + September 22, 1904. + + His honor, the Judge of First Instance of this province, + Catbalogan, Samar, P. I. + + Sir: + + I have the honor to bring to the knowledge of the court that last + night between 12 and 1 o'clock, the accused person Ramon Boroce + died in consequence of the disease of beriberi from which he has + been suffering; which fact I have the honor to communicate to + the court for its superior knowledge. + + Very respectfully, + Gonzalo Lucero, + + Warden of the Provincial Jail. + + +Now a jail death-rate of only ten or twelve a month was not at all a +bad record for an insurrection in a Philippine province. It would be +rank demagoguery at this late date to be a party to anybody's getting +excited about it. I was rather proud of it by comparison with the jail +death-rate of the Albay insurrection of the year before, where 120 +men had died in the jail in about six months. But it began to get on +one's nerves to have to expect a billet-doux like the above on your +desk at the opening of court each day, when the accused person had +had no commitment trial and may have been wholly innocent. It all +came back to the difference between war and peace, viz., that in war +it is to be expected that many innocent persons will suffer, but that +in peace only the guilty should suffer. Moreover, in war that admits +it is war, your agents, your army, are better able to handle crowds +of prisoners than native police and constabulary, and the percentage +of innocent who suffer with the guilty in such war will be far less; +whereas the contrary is true of war--waged by constabulary checked +by courts--which pretends that a state of peace exists, i.e., which +pretends there is no need for declaring martial law and calling on +your army. + +It was this Samar insurrection which convinced me that waging war +with courts and constabulary in lieu of the recognized method was, +in its net results, the cruelest kind of war, and that the civil +government of the Philippines was a failure, in so far as regarded +Mr. McKinley's original injunction to the Taft Commission; where, +after alluding to the articles of capitulation of the city of Manila +to our forces, which concluded with the words: + + + This city, its inhabitants * * * and its private property of all + descriptions * * * are placed under the special safeguard of the + faith and honor of the American Army, + + +he added: + + + As high and sacred an obligation rests upon the Government of + the United States to give protection for property and life * * * + to all the people of the Philippine Islands. I charge this + commission to labor for the full performance of this obligation, + which concerns the honor and conscience of their country. + + +Commenting on this in his inaugural address as Governor of the +Philippines, Governor Taft had said: + + + May we not be recreant to the charge, which he truly says, + concerns the honor and conscience of our country. + + +No matter who was to blame, here we were in Samar, with the +14th Infantry three hours away in one direction at Calbayog, +doing nothing, and the 18th Infantry five hours away in another +direction, at Tacloban, doing nothing, and a reign of terror going +on in Samar, with the peaceably inclined people of the lowlands +and coast towns appealing to us for protection and not getting it, +sometimes crouching in abject terror without knowing which way to fly, +sometimes taking to the hills and joining the outlaws as a measure +of self-preservation. 'Twas pitiful, wondrous pitiful! I then and +there decided that we ought to get out of the Philippines as soon +as any decent sort of a native government could be set up, and that +our republic was not adapted to colonization. In his North American +Review article above cited, in denying that the unwillingness of +the Manila government to order out the army in Samar in the fall +of 1904 had anything to do with the possible effect so doing might +have had on the presidential election, then in progress in the United +States, Governor Ide rebuked me with patronizing self-righteousness +thus: "Was Judge Blount opposed to kindness?" He means in giving +the Filipinos, under such circumstances, the "protection of civil +government," instead of ordering out the army. No, but I was opposed +to using a saw, in lieu of a lancet, in excising the ulcers of that +body politic at that time. In protesting that there was "nothing +sinister" about the failure to use the troops, Judge Ide cunningly +wonders whether my attitude was subsequently assumed after I left +the Islands because of "proclivities as a Democrat," or whether it +was merely due to "predilections in favor of military rule." Read +Mr. McKinley's instructions to the Taft Commission, above quoted, +that to protect life and property concerned the honor and conscience +of their country, and consider if the Ide suggestion does not seem to +hide its head and slink away in shame before the strong clear light +of what was then a plain duty. As a matter of fact Judge Charles +S. Lobinger, who is still with the Philippine judiciary, visited me +en route to another point, during that Samar term of court, and he +will recall, should he ever chance upon this book and this chapter, +with what vehemence I said to him at the time, in effect, "Judge, +we belong in the Western Hemisphere. We have no business out here +permanently." If proclivities and predilections in favor of affording +decent protection to the lives and property of defenceless people +by properly garrisoning their towns constitutes lack of kindness, +then the Ide rebuke was well taken. + +These details are not related with Pickwickian gravity in order to +acquaint the reader with my utterances as being important per se. But +it is important to make clear to the reader, and he is entitled, +in all frankness, to have it made clear by one who has now so long +detained his attention on this great subject, to know just when "the +light from heaven on the road to Damascus" broke upon this witness, +and how and why he came to be in favor of Philippine independence, +because the reasons which convinced him may seem good in the sight +of the reader also. If the man who reads this book shall see that +the man who wrote it was, in Samar in 1904, neither a Republican nor +a Democrat, but simply an American in a far distant land, jealous +of the honor of his country's flag in its capacity as a symbol of +protection to those over whom it floated, then the work will not have +been written in vain. + +The presidentes or mayors of the various pueblos were in session +at Catbalogan in semi-annual convention during the first few days +of October, 1904, when the Assistant Attorney-General, Mr. Harvey, +visited Catbalogan. Mr. Harvey and the writer had taken a number of +long walks together in the suburbs of Catbalogan, though Major Dade, +commanding the Samar constabulary, an officer of the regular army, +had warned us it was not safe outside of town. We had talked over +the situation fully. Besides all its other aspects, there were a +number of American women in Catbalogan, an American lawyer's wife, +the wife of the superintendent of schools, her sister, and others. It +was not at all likely that the Pulajans would enter Catbalogan, but +there was always the possibility, not to be wholly ignored, that some +such episode as that of March 23d, of the preceding year, at Surigao, +already described, might be repeated. As hereinbefore noted, on August +9th, the Pulajans had done some killing and burning at Silanga, less +than ten miles north of Catbalogan and likewise at Motiong, less than +ten miles south of Catbalogan, on September 1st, and on the evening +of September 2d, about 7:30, there had been a false alarm caused +by some native of Catbalogan running down the main street yelling, +"Pulajans! Pulajans!" All of which did not tend to make you feel +that your American women were quite as entirely safe from harm as +they ought to be. + +In the course of one of our walks Mr. Harvey and I had stopped on the +mountain side overlooking Catbalogan, to catch our breath and take in +the view of the town below and the sea beyond. I said to him, because +I knew his mind also was on the one great need of the hour: "Yes sir, +if President Roosevelt were here, and could see this situation as we +do, he would order out the army and protect these defenceless people, +no matter which way the chips might fly." Mr. Harvey agreed with +me. He promised to go back to Manila and tell the authorities there +so. After we came back to town, we were advised that the convention of +presidentes desired to have Mr. Harvey favor them with an address. He +said, "What shall I tell them?" I said, "Tell them that if they will +do their duty by the American Government, the American Government will +do its duty by them." He spoke Spanish fluently, made a good speech, +and told them in effect just that thing. Then he went back to Manila, +and shortly afterward wrote me the two letters which follow: + + + Department of Justice, Philippine Islands, + Office of the Assistant Attorney-General + for the Constabulary, + + Manila, P. I., October 15, 1904. + + + My dear Judge: We arrived in Manila on Tuesday morning, + the 11th instant, and I prepared my report and submitted it + to the attorney-general on the 12th, in the meantime making a + transcript of your summary and delivering a copy of same with other + information to the attorney-general along with my report. After + dictating the report and before delivering it I had a conversation + with General Allen on the situation in Samar and told him what + my recommendations would be. He agreed that rewards should be + offered for the capture of Pablo Bulan, Antonio Anogar, and Pedro + de la Cruz, but took issue on the other recommendations, and to my + mind he takes a very extreme view; but I thought at the time and + still think that he wanted to tone me down in my feelings in the + matter. I think the real cause for his opposition is the effect + that he fears an aggressive attitude might have on the presidential + election. In other words, whatever they do aggressively might be + misconstrued and made use of as political capital. + + At Governor Wright's request I got the report from the + attorney-general before it was sent up and went over to the + Malacanan, and the governor read the report and read most of the + data that I submitted with the report, including your summary, and + while he did not say much what he did say convinced me that there + would be something doing if it were not on the eve of election, + and in my opinion there will be things doing in Samar within + thirty days. + + I inclose herewith a copy of your summary, and also a copy of my + report to the attorney-general. On the 18th instant I received + your telegram to hold the completion of your summary until receipt + of a letter mailed by you that day. I telegraphed you in reply + that my report and your summary were placed in the hands of the + attorney-general on the 12th instant. If there is any additional + data in your letter mailed on the 13th I will submit it to the + proper authorities. + + For the lack of time, I will close, and write more next time. + + + Very truly yours, + (Signed) Geo. R. Harvey, + Assistant Attorney-General. + + + + + Department of Justice, Philippine Islands, + Office of the Assistant Attorney-General, + for the Constabulary, + + Manila, P. I., October 19, 1904. + + + My dear Judge Blount: Since mailing my letter to you of last + Saturday I have found the copies of your summary on the situation + in Samar and inclose two herewith, in accordance with my promise. + + This week we have received some good news from Samar with + reference to important captures and killings of Pulajans. I + am not in touch with what is going on with reference to Samar, + and can give you no information along that line. As I remember, + the governor told me the other day when I was talking with him + that one more company of scouts will be sent down right away. + + I sincerely hope the situation is improving, and that you are + getting along rapidly in disposing of the large docket before + you. If there is not a very great improvement in the situation + by the 9th of November, I think there will be a considerable + movement of troops in Samar within thirty days. For the good of the + government, I hope the situation will improve materially before + that time. I would like to see them put the troops there right + now. I am of the opinion that it would not affect the election a + half-dozen votes, and it might save two or three or a half-dozen + massacres and the destruction of much property. + + With best wishes for your success in your work, and with regards + to Mr. Block, I am, + + + Very truly yours, + + Geo. R. Harvey, + + Assistant Attorney-General, Philippines Constabulary. + To Hon. James H. Blount, + Judge of First Instance, Catbalogan, Samar, P. I. + + +These two letters may be found at p. 2532, Congressional Record, +February 25, 1908, where they were the subject of remark in the House +of Representatives by Hon. Thomas W. Hardwick of Georgia, apropos of +Governor Ide's North American Review article of December, 1907. + +A few weeks after the presidential election I saw Mr. Harvey +in Manila. We naturally talked about Samar and his two letters +to me. The troops had then been ordered out. He referred to his +conference with the Governor-General and stated, "Yes, he told me +that was the reason," meaning that the reason for not ordering out +the troops was the one assigned in his (Harvey's) letter to me, viz., +"Whatever we do aggressively might be misconstrued and made use of +as political capital." + +On October 18, 1904, there was received at Manila the following +cablegram concerning the presidential campaign in the United States: + + + New York, 16th. Judge Parker, in addressing campaign clubs at + Esopus the past week returned to the subject of the Philippines + in the evident hope of making it a paramount issue of the + campaign. He repeated his former declaration that the retention + of the Philippines and the carrying out of the policy of the + Republican Administration have cost six hundred and fifty millions + of dollars and two hundred thousand lives. Secretary of War Taft, + in addressing a mass meeting held in Baltimore, Saturday night, + ridiculed Judge Parker's statement and characterized his figures + as alarmist. + + +Of course Judge Parker's figures were rather high--of which more +anon. He was not going to miss anything in the way of a chance of +"getting a rise" out of the Administration, by understatement. But some +statement from the Philippines at once became a supremely important +desideratum, to counterbalance Judge Parker's over-statement, some +optimism to meet the Parker pessimism. Encouraged by the public +interest aroused by the figures furnished him, and the consequent +apparent uneasiness it created in "the enemy's camp," Judge Parker +soon had the whole Philippine group of islands going to "the demnition +bow-wows." On October 20th, Secretary of War Taft cabled Governor +Wright, then Governor-General of the Islands, a long telegram, quoting +Judge Parker as having used, among other language descriptive of the +beatitudes we had conferred on our little brown brother, the following: +"The towns in many places in ruins, whole districts in the hands of +ladrones." [443] + +At that time the whole archipelago was absolutely quiet for the nonce, +except Samar. Samar was the only island where Judge Parker's statement +was true, and as to Samar, it was absolutely true. On October 23d +Governor Wright wired Secretary of War Taft as follows: + + + There is nothing warranting the statement that towns are in + ruins. It is not true that there are whole districts in the hands + of ladrones. Life and property are as safe here as in the United + States. [444] + + +This was followed by a perfectly true and correct picture of the +peace and quiet which then prevailed for the time being everywhere +throughout the archipelago, except in Samar, which dark and bloody +isle was specifically excepted. Then followed a statement as to +Samar, full of allusions as elaborately optimistic as any of the Taft +cablegrams of 1900, to impliedly inconsiderable "prowling bands" of +outlaws in Samar. Of course nobody at home knew the answer to this, +so it silenced the Parker batteries, and the Samar massacres proceeded +unchecked. Meanwhile the 14th Infantry at Calbayog, Samar, and the 18th +Infantry, at Tacloban, Leyte, smiled with astute, if contemptuous, +tolerance, at the self-inflicted impotence of a republic trying to +make conquered subjects behave without colliding too violently with +home sentiment against having conquered subjects; sang their favorite +barrack room song, + + + He may be a brother of Wm. H. Taft, + But he ain't no friend of mine; + + +and continued to enjoy enforced leisure. They did chafe under the +restraint, but it at least relieved them from the not altogether +inspiring task of chasing Pulajans through jungles and along the +slippery mire of precipitous mountain trails, and at the same time +permitted the secondest second lieutenant among them to swear fierce +blase oaths, not wholly unjustified, about how much better he could +run the Islands than they were being run. + +On October 26th, I wired Governor Wright at Manila as follows: + + + Since my letter of October 6th, situation appears worse. Additional + depredations both on east and west coast. Smith-Bell closing + out. [445] Reliable American residing in Wright says that during + week ending last Sunday thirteen families living along river + Nacbac, barrio of Tutubigan, said pueblo, kidnapped by brigands + and carried off to hills. This means some sixty people having + farms along river, rice ready to be harvested. Seven of the eleven + barrios of Wright have been burned. + + Blount. + + +When I sent that telegram of October 26th, the situation in the pueblo +of Wright was typical of the reign of terror throughout the island. +Wright could have been reached by the 18th Infantry (then over at +Tacloban, in Leyte), and garrisoned on eight hours' notice. But I had +little hope that the telegram would stir the 18th. The best man I had +ever personally known well in high station was at the head of the +government of the Islands, and as he was my friend, I sat down to +think the situation out, determined, with the prejudice which is the +privilege of friendship, to analyze his apparent apathy, and to +conjecture how many times thirteen families "having farms along river, +rice ready to be harvested" would have to be carried off to the hills +by the brigands in order to move the 18th Infantry before the +presidential election. Then I wondered just how many seconds it +would have taken a British governor-general, backed by unanimous +home sentiment concerning the wisdom of having colonies, to have +acted, had a great British colonial mercantile house like Smith, +Bell & Co. appealed to him for protection of its interests. And that +brought me, there on "the tie-ribs of earth," as Kipling would phrase +it, to the fundamentals of the problem. The British imperial idea of +which Kipling is the voice and Benjamin Kidd the accompanist is based, +superficially, upon a supposed necessity for the control of the tropics +by non-tropical peoples, though fundamentally, it is an assertion of +the right of any people to assume control of the land and destinies +of another when they feel sure they can govern that other better than +that other can govern itself. Is this proposition tenable, and if so, +within what limits? Is it tenable to the point of total elimination of +the people sought to be improved? If not, then how far? How far is +incidental sacrifice of human life negligible in the working out of +the broader problem of "the greatest good of the greatest number?" In +his article in the North American Review for December, 1907, Governor +Ide makes exhaustive answer to "the doctors who for some months past, +in the columns of the North American Review and elsewhere, have +published prescriptions for curing the ills of the Filipino people," +including Senator Francis G. Newlands, Hon. William J. Bryan, and the +writer. In the course of disposing of the quack last mentioned, +Governor Ide gets on rather a high horse, asking, with much dignified +indignation, "How many people in the United States would have known or +cared whether the army was or was not ordered out in Samar in 1904?" +I concede that the solicitude was a super-solicitude, as do the Harvey +letters, but like them, I must recognize its reality. However, when +Governor Ide reaches this rhapsody of conscious virtue: "It is +inconceivable that the Commission could have been animated by the +base and ignoble partisan prejudices thus charged against them," +capping his climax by triumphantly pointing out that "Governor-General +Wright was a life-long Democrat," he doth protest too much. For the +angelic pinions he thus attaches to himself are at once rudely snapped +by the reflection that a very short while after his article came out +in the North American Review Governor Wright became Secretary of War +in President Roosevelt's Cabinet, and a little later took the stump +for Taft and Sherman, in 1908. Governor Wright did not stoop to deny +or extenuate his share in the matter, and I honor him for it. [446] +But to stick to your own crowd and then deny afterwards that you did +so--that is another story. However, let us brush aside such petty +attempts to cloud the real issue, which is: How many people would +Governor Wright and Vice-Governor Ide have permitted to be massacred +by the Pulajans in Samar in 1904 before they would have ordered out +the military prior to the presidential election? Let us consider the +case, not with a view of clouding the issue, but of clearing it. The +truth is, Governor Wright was very gravely concerned about the Samar +situation from August to November, 1904. Of course it is due to him +to make perfectly clear that he did not realize the gravity of that +situation as vividly as those of us who were on the ground in Samar, +four or five hundred miles away. But the information hereinbefore +reviewed, conveyed to him by the Provincial Governor, by Mr. Harvey, +the Assistant Attorney General sent to Samar for the express purpose +of getting the Manila government in possession of the exact situation, +and by myself, was certainly sufficient to make him "chargeable with +notice" of all that happened thereafter, certainly chargeable with +knowledge of all that had happened theretofore. Of course there +was General Allen, the commander-in-chief of the constabulary, at +Manila, presumably speaking well of his command--the right arm of +the civil government--presumably giving industrious and tactful aid +and comfort to the idea that the authorities could afford to worry +along with the constabulary alone until after the presidential +election. But that could not discount the actual facts reported +from the afflicted province by the officials on the ground. General +Allen, it should be noted, remained in Manila all this time. So that +any Otis-like "situation-well-in-hand" bouquets he may have thrown +at his subordinates in Samar, and the situation there generally, +were mere political hothouse products, surer to be recognized as +such by the shrewd kindliness of the truly considerable man at the +head of the government than by most any one else he could hand them +out to. That man knew, to all intents and purposes, in the great and +noble heart of him, what was really going on in Samar. He knew that +massacres had been occurring, and that they were likely to keep on +occurring. In other words, he knew that preventable sacrifice of life +of defenceless people was going on, and that he could put a stop to it +any time he saw fit. The question he had to wrestle with was, should he +stop it, knowing the "Hell fer Sartin" the Democratic orators in the +United States would at once luridly describe as "broke loose" in the +Philippines? I insist that there is no use for any holier-than-thou +gentleman to become suffused with any glow of indignant conscious +rectitude based on the premises we are considering. Better to look +a little deeper, on the idea that you are observing your republic in +flagrante colonizatione, with as good a man as you ever have had, or +ever will have, among you, as the principal actor. Governor Wright's +course was entirely right, if the Philippine policy was right. If his +course was not right, it was not right because the Philippine policy +is fundamentally wrong. Governor Wright of course believed that the +Philippine policy was right. I myself did not come finally to believe +it was wrong until it was revealed in all its rawness by the period now +under discussion. Of course the Governor did not vividly realize that +the American women in Catbalogan were not entirely safe. If he had, +he would have rushed the troops there, politics or no politics. But +native life was politically negligible. What difference would a few +score, or even a few hundred, natives of Samar make, compared with +that pandemonium of anarchy and bloodshed all over the archipelago +which Messrs. Taft, Wright, and Ide had long been insisting would +follow Philippine independence? Was the whole future of 8,000,000 of +people to be jeopardized to save a few people in Samar? That was the +moral question before the insular government, in its last analysis. And +the government faced the proposition squarely, and answered it "No." + +I will go farther than this. If I had believed, with Messrs. Taft, +Wright, and Ide, that Philippine independence meant anarchy in the +Islands, and the orthodox "bloody welter of chaos," I too might have +hesitated to order out the troops on the eve of the election, and +my hesitation, like theirs, might have continued until the election +was safely over. So might yours, reader. Don't be so certain you +would not. Practically absolute power, sure of its own benevolence, +has temptations to withhold its confidence from the people that you +wot not of. Don't condemn Governor Wright. Condemn the policy, and +change your republic back to the course set by its founders. Give +the Philippine people the independence they of right ought to have, +instead of secretly hoping to unload them on somebody else, through +the medium of your next great war. + +The question of whether the troops should have been ordered out +or not at the time above dealt with is by no means without two +sides. On the "bloody welter" side, you have the well-known opinions +of Messrs. Taft, Wright, and Ide. On the other side you have before +you--for the moment--only my little opinion. So instead of having in +Governor Wright a Bluebeard, you simply have a man of great personal +probity and unflinching moral courage, following his convictions to +their ultimate logical conclusion without shadow of turning, in the +act of colonization. In other words, Mr. American, you see yourself, +as others see you. So face the music and look at yourself. In your +colony business, you are a house divided against itself, which +cannot stand. On the other hand, I knew the Filipino people far more +intimately than either Mr. Taft, Governor Wright, or Judge Ide. I spoke +their language--which they did not. I had met them both in peace and +in war--which they had not. I had held court for months at a time in +various provinces of the archipelago from extreme northern Luzon to +Mindanao--which they had not. I had met the Filipinos in their homes +for years on terms of free and informal intercourse impracticable +for any governor-general. It was therefore perfectly natural that I +should know them better than any of these eminent gentlemen. I was +not prepared to be in a hurry about recommending myself out of office +by assenting that our guardianship over the Filipinos should at once +be terminated, but I knew there was nothing to the "bloody welter" +proposition. The home life of the Filipino is too altogether a model +of freedom from discord, pervaded as it is by parental, filial, and +fraternal love, and their patriotism is too universal and genuine, +to give the "bloody welter" bugaboo any standing in court. + +But whosoever questions for one moment Governor Wright's high personal +character, simply does not know the man. To do so, moreover, would +fatally cloud the issue I have sought to make clear between his +view of the duty of our government and my own. In his moods that +reminded one of Lincoln, Governor Wright used to say: "Don't shoot +the organist, he's doing the best he can." It is true that his +answer to Judge Parker was not a full and frank statement of the +case. But did it lie in American human nature, when your antagonist +was recklessly over-stating the case in the heat of debate on the +eve of a presidential election, to take him into your confidence +and tell him all you knew, in simple trusting faith that he would +thereafter quit exaggerating? To permit the dispute to boil down to +the real issue, viz., how many lives it was permissible to abandon on +the "greatest good to the greatest number" theory, would obviously +jeopardize the existence of a government which the Governor of the +Philippines naturally believed to be better for all concerned than +any other. And there is your cul-de-sac. Hinc illae lachrymae. + +We can point with pride to many things we have done in the +Philippines, the public improvements, [447] the school system, the +better sanitation, and a long list of other benefits conferred. But in +the greatest thing we have done for them, we have builded wiser than +we knew. "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." In +fourteen years we have welded the Filipinos into one homogeneous +political unit. In a most charming book, entitled An Englishwoman in +the Philippines, [448] we can see our attempts to fit government by +two political parties into over-seas colonization caricatured without +sting until we really remind ourselves of a hippopotamus caressing a +squirrel. In one passage the British sister describes our programme +as one "to educate the Filipino for all he is worth, so that he may, +in the course of time, be fit to govern himself according to American +methods; but at the same time they have plenty of soldiers to knock +him on the head if he shows signs of wanting his liberty before the +Americans think he is fit for it"--"A quaint scheme," she naively adds, +"and one full of the go-ahead originality of America." + +The more we teach the Filipinos, the more intimately they will become +acquainted, in their own way, with the history of the relations +between our country and theirs from the beginning, including the +taxation without representation, through Congressional legislation +(hereinafter noticed) placed or kept on our statute-books by the hemp +trust and other special interests in the United States. And they will +learn all these things in the midst of a "growing gulf between the +two peoples." [449] + +In fourteen years we have made these unwilling subjects, whom we +neither want nor need any more than they want or need us, a unit; a +unit for Home Rule in preference to alien domination, it is true; but, +nevertheless, a patriotic unit--one people--a potential body politic +which can take a modest, but self-respecting place in the concert of +free nations, with only a little more additional help from us. + +In the handling of an insurrection in any given province with +courts and constabulary during the first four or five years after +the Taft government of the Philippines was founded, the function of +a representative of the office of the Attorney-General, coming from +Manila to help the local prosecuting attorney handle a large docket +and a crowded jail, was by no means remotely analogous to that of a +grand jury. He originated prosecutions, found "No Bill," etc. When +Mr. Harvey came to Samar, he came direct to the court room, and I +suspended the trial of the pending case, and, after greeting him, +began an informal talk which was akin to the nature of a charge to +a grand jury, putting him in possession of the general aspects of +the uprising. He was a very just and kindly man, and entered into +the spirit of the task. I elaborated on the class of cases where +the defendant claimed, as most of them did, "Yes, I joined the band +of brigands, but I was made to do so." It was also indictable to +furnish supplies to the public enemy. This presented the class of +cases where the brigands would swoop down on a town and demand rice, +and not getting it, would sometimes kill the persons refusing it, +and so intimidate the rest into finding rice for them. Also there was +the class of cases where a man would claim to have been one of the +inhabitants of an unprotected town who had gone off to the hills in a +body, for safety, to propitiate the mountain people by becoming part of +them. This sort of thing at one time threatened to become epidemic with +all the coast towns. It did not, however. A modus vivendi of some sort, +sometimes express, sometimes merely tacit, would be arranged between +the coast people and the hill people. These modus vivendi arrangements +enabled the coast people to obtain a certain degree of safety, in +lieu of that we should have secured them but did not, by making the +hill folk believe that the coast men were against us and for them. At +one time the prosecuting attorney got hold of evidence sufficient to +authorize the issuance of a warrant for the Presidente of Balangiga, +the man supposed to have engineered the massacre of the 9th Infantry +in September 1901. I authorized the issuance of the warrant for his +arrest. But the native governor of the province, and also Major Dade, +the American regular officer commanding the constabulary, satisfied me +that we did not have force sufficient to protect Balangiga from the +Pulajans, if we arrested the presidente, who, being persona grata to +the Pulajans, was able to keep them from descending on his town. To +arrest him would therefore mean, in their opinion, that the people +of Balangiga would take to the hills for protection, and join the +hill folk, or Pulajans, and if a town as large as Balangiga set any +such example all the coast towns might follow it. So the supposed +perpetrator of the 9th Infantry massacre was allowed to remain +unmolested. The American court was impotent to enforce its processes. + +In my mass of Philippine papers there is one containing a copy of my +remarks to the Assistant Attorney-General on his arrival at Catbalogan, +above referred to as analogous to a charge to a grand jury at home. It +is dated Catbalogan, Samar, September 28, 1904, and is headed: +"Remarks by the court upon the occasion of the arrival of Assistant +Attorney-General Harvey, with regard to the recent disturbances in +Samar, and the cases for brigandage and sedition growing out of the +same." Certain parts of this contemporary document will doubtless +give the reader a more vivid apprehension of the then situation than +he can get from mere subsequent description. Of course the visiting +representative of the Attorney-General's office was familiar in a +general way with the manner of the handling of the Albay insurrection +in the previous year, described in the chapter preceding this. In +discussing the Samar situation the "remarks" of the court contain, +among other things, this passage: + + + In the cases growing out of the Albay disturbances there were + a great many people who strayed out to the mountains just like + cattle. They did not know why or whither they went. As to those + persons, Judge Carson, Mr. Ross, and myself were unanimous in the + opinion that some of them could be indicted under the vagrancy + law. There were others of a greater degree of guilt, but who did + not appear to have been what you might call ordinary thieves, + and we were all agreed to indict those under the sedition law, + the limit of which is ten years and ten thousand dollars. Thus you + do not force upon a Judge of First Instance the responsibility of + sentencing a man to twenty years of his life for a connection with + bandits which may be but little more than technical. Besides those + two classes, there were in Albay of course the bandits proper, + to whom the bandolerismo [brigandage] law was specially intended + to apply. There cannot be any doubt about the fact that this + bandolerismo law is one of the most stringent statutes that ever + was on the statute-books of any country. It is very far from the + purpose of this court to attempt to say what would be the wisest + legislation, or to say that this is not the very best legislation, + under the circumstances. How we administer the several laws + alluded to governing public order, will settle whether or not + substantial justice is done. + + +The men in the United States who in those days were slinging mud at +the Philippine trial judges as being "subservient," wholly missed +the core of the whole matter. In the provinces where so many heavy +sentences were imposed, the real situation was that a state of war +existed, and the judges believed, and I think correctly, that they were +practically a military commission of one, and much more able to give +a prisoner a square deal, tempering justice with mercy, than officers +briefly gathered from the scenes of the fighting to act as a military +commission. We tried those men with as little prejudice as if they had +just come from the moon. Moreover, from the italicized concluding words +of the above excerpt from my talk to the Assistant Attorney-General, +it will be seen that the court had practically unlimited discretion +in the matter of punishment, and was, in fact, about the only court +of criminal equity in the annals of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. + +In the last analysis, the righteousness or unrighteousness of a civil +government in a country not yet entirely subjugated, depends on whether +more innocent people suffer through completing the work of subjugation +with constabulary whose "prisoners of war" are tried, to see what +they may have done, if anything, by one-man courts, or whether more +innocent people suffer through completing the work of subjugation as +any other great power on earth but ourselves would have completed it, +with an army, trying the prisoners by military commission. Unless you +yourself were a traitor to your country, you considered as criminal +attempts to subvert your government by cut-throats that no one of +the respectable Filipinos, from Aguinaldo and Juan Cailles down, +would have hesitated to have shot summarily. But you sought to +make the punishment in each case fit the crime, by ascertaining +as dispassionately as if the defendant were fresh from the moon, +just what each accused man had himself done. Either Aguinaldo, or +an American military commission would have had such people shot in +bunches, as not entitled to be treated as prisoners of war. The trouble +with the civil government did not lie in its judiciary, but in its +constabulary. It was the physical handling of the crowds of prisoners +by the constabulary, and their failure, because not numerous enough, +to protect peaceably inclined people, which made it a fact that turning +the situation over to the military would have meant less sacrifice of +the innocent along with the guilty. It is much more merciful to kill +a few hundred people, as a lesson to the rest, and let the rest go, +with the clear understanding that if they insurrect again you will +promptly kill a few hundred more, than to permit a reign of terror +from one month to another and from one year to another, with all the +untilled fields, famine, pestilence, and other disease this involves, +merely in order to be able to invoke the blessing of the Doctor Lyman +Abbots of the world on a supposedly benign "civil" government. + +In all my sentences, and in all his indictments, Mr. Harvey and the +writer sailed close to the wind, by holding only those responsible +who had taken active parts in the sacking and burning of villages and +the massacre of their inhabitants. I knew that sooner or later some +officious prosecuting attorney of less noble mould than Harvey would +ask me to convict some poor creature of brigandage for giving a little +rice to the brigands, and my mind was made up to refuse to do so, +and in so refusing to commit heresy once and for all by expressing my +sentiments, in the decision, concerning the failure to give adequate +protection to defenceless people, along the lines indicated in this +chapter. No such case was in fact presented. I broke down under the +strain of graver cases early in November and left Samar forever, +bound for Manila. + +Before I left, the whole island was seething with sedition. I was +told by a credible American that the chief deputy sheriff of the +court, an ex-insurgent officer, one of the "peace-at-any-price" +policy appointees, had remarked among some of his own people where he +did not expect the remark to be repeated: "I see no use persecuting +our brethren in the hills." The municipal officials of the provincial +capital, Catbalogan, were suspected by the native provincial governor, +and the latter in turn was suspected by the Manila government. In +fact the whole political atmosphere of the island had become full of +rumor and suspicion as to who was for the government, and who was +against the government. I left Samar, November 8th, which was the +day of the presidential election of 1904, determined to try no more +insurrections. By that time nearly everybody in the island was more +or less guilty of sedition, and I did not know the method of drawing +an indictment against a whole people. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +GOVERNOR WRIGHT--1905 + + My heart is heavy with the fate of that unhappy people. + + Speech of Hon. A. O. Bacon in U. S. Senate. [450] + + +Because the especially cordial relations which existed to the last +between Governor Wright and myself [451] are familiar to a number of +very dear mutual friends, I deem it due both to them and to myself, +in view of the contents of the preceding chapter, to state that I +see no reason why, in writing a history of the American Occupation +of the Philippines, I should omit or slur the facts which convinced +me that that occupation ought to terminate as soon as practicable, +and that any decent kind of a government of Filipinos by Filipinos +would be better for all concerned than the McKinley-Taft programme of +Benevolent Assimilation whereof Governor Wright was the legatee. By the +thousand and one uncandid threads of that programme, slowly woven from +1898 to 1904, as indicated in the first sixteen chapters of this book, +Governor Wright had found himself as hopelessly bound to concealment +from the American people of the real situation in Samar in the fall +of 1904, as a Gulliver in Lilliput. + +When I finally left Samar and came to Manila, in November, 1904, I +was not prepared to figure out how or how soon, the blunder we made +by the purchase of the Philippine archipelago could be corrected. But +my mental attitude toward the whole Philippine problem had undergone +a complete change. In 1901 Governor Wright, then Vice-Governor, had +written me: "You younger men out here, who have cast your fortunes with +this country, are to be, in all likelihood, in the natural course of +events, its future rulers." Up to 1903 I had clung to that idea with +the devotion of what was really high and earnest purpose, untroubled +with misgivings of any kind. In November, 1903, in Albay, Judge Carson +and myself had talked over the long struggle of the civil government +to walk without leaning on the military, and, with the readiness of one +vested with authority to believe such authority wisely vested, and the +readiness of a civilian lawyer to jealously guard the American home +idea that the military should be subordinate to the civil authority, +I had cordially agreed with a sentiment one day expressed by Judge +Carson concerning Governor Taft about "the splendid moral fibre of +the man," meaning in keeping the military from prancing out of the +traces. After Governor Taft left the Islands to be Secretary of War +(December 23, 1903), and while I was still in Albay, I had learned of +the 120 men who had died in the Albay jail while awaiting trial, and +thereafter something of the magnitude of the Ola insurrection there, +and that had given me pause as to the practical benevolence of the +operation of "a benign civil government." Then the Samar massacres +of 1904, and the gory panorama I had there witnessed, had finally +convinced me that a republic like ours is wholly unfitted to govern +people against their consent. But I did not tell anybody in Manila +all these things. I simply pondered them. Grover Cleveland was the +only man in the world I would have liked to talk to just then freely +and fully. And he was not about. "My heart was heavy with the fate +of that unhappy people" as Senator Bacon had said in the Senate in +1902, after visiting the Islands in 1901. I did not condemn Governor +Wright. I quite realized that I was "up against" about the largest +ethical problem of world politics, one on which the nations are much +divided, and that I was not infallible. I did not say to the Governor: +"Governor, let's resign and go home and tell our people that this whole +business is a mistake." Nor did I ever lose faith in Governor Wright +personally. If I had, I might just as well have said: "After this, +the deluge." I would simply have lost faith in human nature. I had not +then, nor have I since, known a man of higher personal character. I +had simply lost faith in Benevolent Assimilation, and begun to take +the Filipino people seriously as a potential nation, probably better +able to handle their own domestic problems than we will ever be able +to handle them for them. + +The day after I resigned, Mr. Justice Carson, of the Supreme Court, +and Mr. Wilfley, the Attorney-General, came to call on me. My friends +knew I was very much troubled over the Samar business. I was doing +some grumbling, but without specifying, because to specify would mean +that we all of us ought to give up the life careers we had planned for +ourselves in the Islands. I knew the old familiar answer a grumbler +was sure to get in the Philippines, viz., "Old man, you've been out +here too long. You better go home." But I did a little more grumbling +to my friends Judge Carson and Mr. Wilfley, during the course of their +visit. They could both pretty well guess what was the matter. But Judge +Carson and I had come out in 1899, and had served through the war +together. He knew all about the Albay business, and somewhat of the +Samar business. Wilfley had not come out until the civil government +was founded in 1901. Mr. Wilfley said cheerily: "Oh, Blount, you are +too conscientious." I shall never forget what happened then. Judge +Carson said, with a ring of something like anger in his tone: "No, +Wilfley, I'll be d--d if he is." Is it any wonder that ever since I +have worn that man, as Hamlet would say, "in my heart's core"? Here was +as brave and true an Irishman as ever gained distinction on battlefield +or bench. And he understood. He did not say--which was the implication +of Wilfley's tone--"Old man, you've been out here too long, and illness +has made you peevish." He knew what was the matter. He knew that as +trial judges he and I had not been small editions of Lord Jeffries, +as some of our American critics had implied, BUT HE ALSO KNEW THAT +THERE WAS NO METHOD OF DRAWING AN INDICTMENT AGAINST A WHOLE PEOPLE. + +Possibly the intensity of my feelings on this great subject, then +and ever since, hampers the power of clear expression. Therefore, +a word more in attempt at elucidation. In 1898, Judge Carson and I, +with many thousands of other young Americans, had trooped down to +Cuba, in the wake of the impetuous Roosevelt, to free the inhabitants +of that ill-fated island from Spanish rule, drive the Spaniards from +the Western Hemisphere, and put a stop to Spain's pious efforts "to +spare the great island from the dangers of premature independence," +as she always expressed her attitude toward Cuba. We had many of us +been fired by the catchy Roosevelt utterance which did so much to +bring on the Spanish War, viz., "The steps of the White House are +slippery with the blood of the Cuban reconcentrados." Then in 1899, +we had gone to the Philippines, and had ever since been engaged there +in "sparing the Islands from the danger of premature independence," +and the Samar massacres of 1904 were, to me, the apotheosis of the +work. So that after November 8, 1904, I felt "The steps of the White +House are slippery with the blood of the people of my district." It had +all been done under the pious pretence that the Filipinos welcomed our +rule--a pretence which had taken the form for six years of systematic +asseveration that they did so welcome it. Yet it was not true that +they, or any appreciable fraction of them, had ever welcomed our +rule. And it never will be true. Surely no man can see in this book +any scolding or unkindness. It is an attempt merely to bring home to +my countrymen a strategic fact, a fact which it is folly to ignore. But +to return to the thread of our story. + +Four days after the presidential election of 1904, to wit, on November +12th, Governor Wright left Manila and went to Samar, including in +his itinerary various others of the southern islands. [452] Soon +after their return, the seven hundred native troops in Samar were +increased to nearly two thousand, and sixteen companies of regulars +(say one hundred men to a company) were also thrown into Samar. It +took until the end of 1906 to end the trouble. You cannot find in the +reports of the civil authorities anything explaining their three or +four weeks' stay in the Visayan Islands in November-December, 1904, +that is not absolutely in accord with the original Taft obsession of +1900 about the popularity of the proposed alien "civil" government with +its subjects. Governor Wright's description of the trip says: "The +warm hospitality of the Filipino people made this trip of inspection +a most agreeable one." As a matter of fact, on such occasions, the +more disaffected a leader of the people was, the more he would seek, +by "warm hospitality," "warm" oratory telling the visiting mighty +what the visiting mighty longed to hear, parades, fiestas, etc., +to divert suspicion of sedition from himself. The poor creatures +had met General Young's cavalry column in northern Luzon in 1899 +with their town bands, doing the only thing they knew of to do to +"temper the wind to the shorn lamb"--i.e., to temper it to their +several communities--many of them doubtless expecting to be put +to the sword by General Young's troopers, as the Cossacks did the +Persians during the brief and sensational sojourn of that brilliant +young administrator, Hon. W. Morgan Shuster, in Persia in 1911-12. I +have no doubt that high on the list of those extending some of the +"warm hospitality" above mentioned appeared the name of Don Jaime de +Veyra. Yet in the summer of 1904 Don Jaime had gotten out of a sick +bed to attend a convention called to send delegates to the Democratic +National Convention in the United States that year, [453] and also, +in that same year, had run for Governor of Leyte on a platform +the principal plank of which was Carthago est delenda--"Carthago" +being us, the American regime. De Veyra was defeated that time, +but ran again the next time and was elected. While the writer is not +one of those who seek to show their "breadth of view" by gossiping +with outsiders regarding what is peculiarly our own affair, still, +the British view-point of the situation in the Visayan Islands, as +conveyed by an Englishwoman whose husband was engaged in mercantile +business there in 1904-5, and who therefore was certainly in a position +to know the opinion of the little circle of British people at Cebu and +Iloilo, may not be superfluous here. This lady, living then at Iloilo, +wrote a series of letters to friends back home in England which she +afterwards published in book form. [454] In a letter dated Iloilo, +January 22, 1905 (page 86), she says: + + + The Americans give out and write in their papers that the + Philippine Islands are completely pacified, and that the Filipinos + love Americans and their rule. This, doubtless with good motives, + is complete and utter humbug, for the country is honeycombed + with insurrection and plots; the fighting has never ceased; and + the natives loathe the Americans and their theories, saying so + openly in their native press and showing their dislike in every + possible fashion. Their one idea is to be rid of the U. S. A. + * * * and to be free of a burden of taxation which is heavier than + any the Spaniards laid on them. + + +Also an Englishman who was in Samar in 1904-5, a Mr. Hyatt, who, +with his brother, served with the American troops there in the bloody +Pulajan uprising, afterwards wrote a book called the Little Brown +Brother, wherein he fully corroborates Mrs. Dauncey's appreciation +of the situation during that period. + +In its blindness to the unanimity of Visayan discontent, as manifested +in its report now under consideration, the civil government of +the Philippines was not trying wilfully to deceive anybody. It was +deceiving itself. It was obeying the law of its life, its existence +having been originally predicated on the consent of a great free +people to keep in subjection a weaker people eager to be also free, +such consent having been obtained through diligent nursing of the +original idea that the subject people were not in fact so eager, but +were, on the contrary, in a mental attitude of tearful welcome toward +the proffered protection of a strong power. In his report for 1905 +[455] General William H. Carter, commanding the Department of the +Philippines which included Samar and the rest of the Visayan Islands, +gives the key to the Commission's twenty-six-day stay in his district +in the following part of said report: + + + Within a few days after the rendition of the annual report for + last year [456] a serious outbreak occurred in the Gandara valley, + Samar. This was followed by disorders in all the other large + islands of the department, Negros, Panay, Cebu, and Leyte. + + +Nowhere in the civil government reports do you find the slightest +recognition that these disorders had any relation to each other, or to +the fundamental problem of public order, or any political significance +whatsoever, each being treated as a purely local issue, the idea that +the circumstance of Samar's having been thrown into pandemonium by +the successes of the enemies of the American Government might have +encouraged its enemies in the neighboring islands, never seeming to +occur to the authors of the said reports. General Carter's report goes +on to state that within five months after the Samar outbreak of July, +1904, seven hundred native troops had been put in the field in that +turbulent island. In December, 1904, troops began to be poured into +Samar, so that it was not long before the seven hundred native troops +had become seventeen hundred or eighteen hundred, and, says General +Carter, "in order to free them from garrison work in the towns, sixteen +companies of the 12th and 14th Infantry were distributed about the +disaffected coasts to enable the people who so desired to come from +their hiding places"--whither they had gone because the American flag +afforded them no protection--"and undertake the rebuilding of their +burned homes." General Carter avoids touching on the civil government's +(to him well-known) obsession about its popularity, a state of mind +which could see no "political" significance in outbreaks of any +kind. But he does use this very straightforward language about Samar: + + + Whatever may have been the original cause of the outbreak, it was + soon lost sight of when success had drawn a large proportion of + the people away from their homes and fields. * * * Except in the + largest towns it became simply a question of joining the Pulajans + or being harried by them. In the absence of proper protection + thousands joined in the movement. + + +Early in 1905, Hon. George Curry, of New Mexico, who was an officer +of Colonel Roosevelt's regiment in Cuba, and had gone out to the +Philippines with a volunteer regiment in 1899, remaining with the +civil Government after 1901, was made Governor of Samar. Governor +Curry has since been Governor of the Territory of New Mexico, +and is now (1912) a member of Congress from the recently admitted +State of New Mexico. Governor Curry has told me since he was +elected to Congress that it took him all of 1905 and most of +1906, aided by several thousand troops, native and regular, to +put down that Samar outbreak. Yet a certificate signed March 28, +1907, by the Governor-General and his associates of the Philippine +Commission states that "a condition of general and complete peace" +had continued in the Islands for two years previous to the date +of the certificate. [457] We will come to this certificate in its +chronological order later. How many and what sort of uprisings were +blanketed in that "forget-it" certificate of 1907 is material to the +question whether or not the National Administration has ever been or +is now frank with the country about the universality of the desire of +the Philippine people for independence and local self-government, and +pertinent to the insistently recurring query: "Why should we make of +the Philippines an American Ireland?" But inasmuch as, in addition to +the Samar uprising which raged all through 1905, another insurrection +occurred in that year, which was duly "forgotten" by said certificate, +this last movement must now claim our attention. + +The provinces which were the theatre of the outbreak last above +mentioned were all near Manila. They were: Cavite, a province of +135,000 people almost at the gates of Manila; Batangas, a province of +257,000 inhabitants adjoining Cavite; and Laguna, a province of 150,000 +people adjoining both. Some five hundred brigands headed by cut-throats +claiming to be patriots were terrorizing whole districts. Far be it +from me to lend any countenance to the idea that the leaders of this +movement, Sakay, Felizardo, Montalon, and the rest of their gang, +were entitled to any respect. But they certainly had a hold on +the whole population akin to that of Robin Hood, Little John, and +Friar Tuck. In refusing in 1907 to commute Sakay's death sentence +after he was captured, tried, and convicted, Governor-General James +P. Smith gives some gruesome details concerning the performance of +that worthy, and his followers, yet in dealing with the nature and +extent of the trouble they gave the Manila government he says they +"assumed the convenient cloak of patriotism, and under the titles of +'Defenders of the Country' and 'Protectors of the People' proceeded +to inaugurate a reign of terror, devastation, and ruin in three of +the most beautiful provinces in the archipelago." [458] + +It has already been made clear that, during the time of the +insurrection against both the Spaniards and Americans, the insurrecto +forces were maintained by voluntary contributions of the people. Major +D. C. Shanks, Fourth U. S. Regular Infantry, who was Governor of Cavite +Province in 1905, after calling attention to this fact, adds [459]: + + + When the insurrection was over a number of these leaders remained + out and refused to surrender. Included among them were Felizardo + and Montalon. The system of voluntary contributions, carried on + during the insurrecto period, was continued after establishment + of civil government. + + +Again Governor Shanks says, with more of frankness than diplomacy, +considering that he was a provincial governor under the civil +government: + + + The establishment of civil government of this province was + premature and ill-advised. Records show the capture or surrender + since establishment of civil government of nearly 600 hostile + firearms. + + +One of the causes contributory to the Cavite-Batangas-Laguna +insurrection is stated in the report of the Governor-General for +1905 thus: + + + In the autumn of 1904 it became necessary to withdraw a number + of the constabulary from these provinces to assist in suppressing + disorder which had broken out in the province of Samar. [460] + + +Another of the contributory causes is thus stated: + + + There was at the time [the fall of 1904] also considerable activity + among the small group of irreconcilables in Manila, who began + agitating for immediate independence, doubtless because of the + supposed effect it would have on the presidential election in + the United States, in which the Philippines was a large topic + of discussion. Evidently this was regarded as a favorable time + for a demonstration by Felizardo, Montalon, De Vega, Oruga, Sakay + [etc]. All these men had been officers of the Filipino army during + the insurrection. + + +Consider the benevolent casuistry necessary to include these fellows, +and the tremendous following they could get up, and did get up, in +Cavite, "the home of insurrection," and the adjacent provinces, in a +certificate to "a condition of general and complete peace" alleged +in the certificate to have prevailed for two years prior to March +28, 1907. To make a long story short, on January 31, 1905, a state +of insurrection was declared to exist, the writ of habeas corpus was +suspended in Cavite and Batangas, the regular army of the United States +was ordered out, and reconcentration tactics resorted to, as provided +by Section 6 of Act 781 of the Commission. This is the act already +examined at length, intended to meet cases of impotency on the part +of the insular government to protect life and property in any other +way. Political timidity is conspicuously absent from the resolution of +the Philippine Commission of January 31, 1905, formally recognizing +a break in the peerless continuity of the "general and complete +peace." It is virilely frank, the presidential election being then +safely over. [461] It concludes by authorizing the Governor-General +to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and declare martial law, "the +public safety requiring it." Then follows a proclamation of the same +date and tenor, by the Governor-General. + +It appears from the case cited in the foot-note that in the spring of +1905, one, Felix Barcelon, filed in the proper court a petition for the +writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was one of the reconcentrados +corralled and "detained and restrained of his liberty at the town of +Batangas, in the province of Batangas," by one of Colonel Baker's +constabulary minions down there. The writ was denied by the lower +court. In one part of the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case it +is stated (p. 116) that the petitioner "has been detained for a long +time * * * not for the commission of any crime and by due process of +law, but apparently for the purpose of protecting him." The opinion of +the court, delivered by Mr. Justice Johnson, very properly held that +the detention was lawful under the war power, basing its decision on +the authority conferred on the Governor-General of the Philippines +by the Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, section 5 of which expressly +authorizes the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus "when in +cases of rebellion, insurrection, or invasion the public safety may +require it." A long legal battle was fought, the court holding that the +Executive Department of the Government is the one in which is vested +the exclusive right to say when "a state of rebellion, insurrection, +or invasion" exists, and that when it so formally declares, that +settles the fact that it does exist. At page 98 of the volume above +cited [462] the court held, as to the above mentioned resolution of +the Philippine Commission and the above mentioned executive order +declaring a state of insurrection in Cavite and Batangas: + + + The conclusion set forth in the said resolution and the said + executive order, as to the fact that there existed in the provinces + of Cavite and Batangas open insurrection against the constituted + authorities, was a conclusion entirely within the discretion of + the legislative and executive branches of the Government, after + an investigation of the facts. + + +Yet two years later the same "constituted authorities" certified to +the President of the United States, in effect, as we shall see, that +no open insurrection against the constituted authorities had occurred +during the preceding two years. They do not in their certificate +ignore Cavite and Batangas. They mention them by name, with a lot +of whereases, explaining that after all they really believe that the +majority of the people in the provinces aforesaid were not in sympathy +with the uprising. However, after they get through with their whereases +they face the music squarely, and certify to "the condition of general +and complete peace." Of the "nigger in the woodpile" more anon. + +Governor Wright was not a party to the certificate of 1907. He +left the Islands on leave November 4, 1905. A speech made by him +prior to his departure, as published in a Manila paper, indicates +an expectation to return. He never did. In 1906 he was demoted to be +Ambassador to Japan, a place of far less dignity, and far less salary, +which he resigned after a year or so. Vice-Governor Ide acted as +Governor-General until April 2, 1906, on which date he was formally +inaugurated as Governor-General. + +Just why Governor Wright did not go back to the Philippines as +Governor, after his visit to the United States in 1905-6, does +not appear. It would seem almost certain that if Secretary of War +Taft had wanted President Roosevelt to send him back, he would have +gone. Mr. Taft never did frankly tell the Filipinos until 1907 that +they might just as well shut up talking about any independence that +anybody living might hope to see. Governor Wright began to talk that +way soon after Mr. Taft left the Islands. Possibly Governor Wright +undeceived them too soon, and thereby made the Philippines more of +a troublesome issue in the presidential campaign of 1904. President +Roosevelt recognized the sterling worth of the man, by inviting +him to succeed Mr. Taft as Secretary of War in 1908. But President +Taft did not invite him to continue in that capacity after March 4, +1909. Gossip has it that when the incoming President Taft's letter +to the outgoing President Roosevelt's last Secretary of War, Governor +Wright, was handed to the addressee, and its conventional "hope to be +able to avail myself of your services later in some other capacity" +was read by him, the outgoing official quietly remarked: "Well, that +is a little more round-about than the one Jimmie Garfield [463] got, +but it's a dismissal just the same." + +I have always thought that the reason Governor Wright did not go back +to the Philippines as Governor after 1905 was that he did not continue +to "jolly" the Filipinos, and abstain from ruthlessly crushing their +hopes of seeing independence during their lifetime, as Mr. Taft did +continuously during his stay out there. The inevitable tendency of +the Wright frank talk was from the beginning to discredit the Taft +pleasing and evasive nothings. Also, it was followed, as we have seen, +by quite a crop of serious disturbances of public order, and somebody +had to be "the goat." + + + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +GOVERNOR IDE--1906 + + The Tariff is a local issue. + + General W. S. Hancock. + + +After Governor Wright left the Islands finally on November 4, 1905, +Vice-Governor Henry C. Ide acted as Governor-General until April 2, +1906, when he was duly inaugurated as such. He resigned and left the +Islands finally in September thereafter. + +All through 1905, Governor Curry, as Governor of Samar, which is the +third largest island of the archipelago, wrestled with the Pulajan +uprising there, aided, as has been stated in the previous chapter, +by the native troops, scouts, and constabulary, and also by the +regular army. But at the end of 1905 "the situation" was not yet +"well in hand." Since his election to Congress in 1912, Governor +Curry has told me that in 1905 many thousands of people of Samar +participated actively as part of the enemy's force in the field during +that period. By the spring of 1906 Governor Curry was getting a grip +on the situation, and in the latter part of March of that year, some +of the main outlaw chiefs agreed to surrender to him. The report of +Colonel Wallace C. Taylor, commanding the constabulary of the Third +District, which included Samar states [464]: "After several weeks of +negotiating, during which time the camp of the Pulahanes was visited +by Governor Curry, and the Pulahan officers visited the settlement +at Magtaon"--a settlement in south central Samar--"an understanding +was arrived at by which the Pulahanes were to surrender, March 24, +1906. Instead of surrendering as agreed, the Pulahanes, commanded by +Nasario Aguilar, made a treacherous attack on the constabulary garrison +on the day and hour appointed for the surrender." The constabulary +numbered some fifty men, the pulajans about 130. After the pulajans +opened fire they made a rush on the constabulary and a hand-to-hand +fight ensued. Colonel Taylor's report continues: + + + After the first rush the fighting continued fiercely, and when + the last of the pulahanes disappeared there remained but seven + enlisted men of the constabulary able to fight. Seven more were + lying about more or less seriously wounded and twenty-two were + dead. Captain Jones received a bad spear thrust in the chest early + in the fight, but fought on, regardless. Lieutenant Bowers received + a gunshot wound through the left arm, which, however, did not put + him out of the fight. Thirty-five dead pulahanes were found on the + field and eight more have since been found some distance off. The + number of wounded who escaped cannot be determined. The unarmed + Americans present with Governor Curry escaped to the river and + afterwards rejoined Captain Jones who armed them. + + +The explanation of this treachery, as given by Governor Curry, is +curious and interesting. The outlaws had intended in good faith to +surrender as a result of his negotiation with them, but at the last +moment there arrived to witness the surrender certain native officials +and other natives bitterly hated by the Pulajans and wholly mistrusted +by them. Their arrival caused the outlaws to suspect treachery +themselves and that was the cause of their change of plans. It was not +until the end of the year 1906 that the various energetic campaigns +which followed the Magtaon incident finally began to work more or +less complete restoration of public order by gradual elimination of +the enemy through killings, captures, and surrenders. An idea of the +seriousness and magnitude of these operations may be gathered without +going into the details, from the annual report for 1906 of General +Henry T. Allen commanding the Philippines Constabulary. This report, +dated August 31, 1906 [465], states: + + + At present seventeen companies of scouts and four companies of + American troops under Colonel Smith, 8th U. S. Infantry, are + operating against the pulahanes, but with success that will be + largely dependent upon time and attrition. + + +General Allen adds: "The entire 21st Regiment [of Infantry] is also in +Samar." These facts are here given because they relate to the period +covered by the certificate of the Philippine Commission of March 28, +1907, heretofore alluded to, and which will be more fully dealt with +hereinafter, which stated that "a condition of general and complete +peace" had prevailed throughout the archipelago for two years prior +to March 28, 1907. Without a brief exposition of all these matters, +it would be impossible to enable the reader to feel the pulse of +the Filipino people as it stood at the time of the election of their +assembly in 1907. The fact of our having been unable to discontinue +Filipino-killing altogether for any considerable period from 1899 to +the end of 1906 is too obviously relevant to the state of the public +mind in 1907 to need elaboration. + +The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1906 [466] deals at some +length with disturbances which occurred in the island of Leyte (area +3000 square miles, population nearly 400,000), beginning in the middle +of June. It describes among other things a visit of Governor-General +Ide to Tacloban, the capital of Leyte, made in consequence of said +disturbances, and conferences held by him there with Major-General +Wood, commanding all the United States forces in the Philippines, +Brigadier-General Lee, commanding the Department of the Visayas (which +included Leyte, headquarters, Iloilo), Colonel Borden, commanding +the United States forces in the island of Leyte, Colonel Taylor, the +chief of the constabulary of the District, etc. Certainly from this +formidable gathering of notables, it is clear that there was about to +take place in Leyte what our friends of the Lambs' Club in New York +would call "An all star performance." Leyte was four to five hundred +miles from Manila. Yet so serious was the disturbance that the highest +military and civil representatives of the American Government in the +archipelago deemed it necessary to meet in the island which was the +scene of the trouble with a view of handling it. Yet in the Report of +the Philippine Commission for 1906 one finds the usual rotund rhetoric +treating the disturbances as of no "political" significance--which +was only another way of claiming that they were not serious. It +is difficult to handle this aspect of the matter without imputing +to the civil authorities intent to deceive, but to leave such an +imputation unremoved would be to miss the whole significance of the +matter. As has already been made clear, when Judge Taft, Judge Ide, +and their colleagues of the Philippine Commission had left Washington +for Manila in 1900 Mr. McKinley had assured them he had no doubt that +the better element of the Philippine people, once they understood us, +would welcome our rule. As soon as they set foot in the Philippine +Islands they had at once begun to act upon the theory that there was +no real fundamental opposition to us on the part of the people of +the Philippines and had continued obstinately to act upon that theory +ever since. Certainly the attitude of the civil government toward the +disturbances in Leyte in 1906 is not surprising when the mind adverts +for a moment to the panorama of the five more or less sanguinary years +already fully described hereinbefore and then takes the following +bird's-eye glance at the official reports for those years. + +The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1900, (page 17) had said: + + + A great majority of the people long for peace and are entirely + willing to accept the establishment of a government under the + supremacy of the United States. + + +The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1901 (page 7) had said: + + + The collapse of the insurrection came in May. + + +The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1902 (page 3) had said: + + + The insurrection as an organized attempt to subvert the authority + of the United States in these islands is entirely at an end, + + +referring farther on to "the whole Christian Philippine population" +as "enjoying civil government." If the "enjoyment" thus described had +been genuine, continued, profound, and sincere, it would have been +another story. But the net attitude of the civil government toward +the general health of the body politic, relatively to public order, +reminds one of the cheerful gentleman who remarked of his invalid +friend, "He seems to be 'enjoying' poor health." + +The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1903 (page 25) says: + + + The conditions with respect to tranquillity in the islands have + greatly improved during the last year. + + +The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1904 (page 1) says: + + + The great mass of the people, however, were domestic and peaceable. + + +The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1905 (part 1, page 59) +says: + + + On the whole life and property have been as safe as in other + civilized countries. + + +The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1906 (page 40) says: + + + Viewing the entire situation the islands are in a peaceable and + orderly condition aside from---- + + +various disorders which fill some ten pages of the report. + +The inflexible attitude of the Commission from the beginning, of +treating each successive disturbance of public order as a purely +"local issue," after General Hancock's method with the tariff, +is thus sufficiently apparent. They always refuse to see in +successive outbreaks in various parts of the Islands any evidence +of general and unanimous lack of appreciation for a benign alien +civil government. Therefore it was of course clearly a foregone +conclusion, in 1906, that Governor Ide, who had been in the Islands +all these years, was going to be wholly unable to see anything in the +disturbances in Leyte in the least tending to show that American rule +was unpopular. And yet it was a matter of common knowledge all over +the Visayan Islands that Jaime Veyra, then Governor of Leyte, elected +by the people, was one of the most obnoxious anti-Americans in the +archipelago. Both the army and constabulary were ordered out in Leyte +and a good deal of fighting occurred before order was restored. The +report of General Allen, commanding the constabulary for that year +[467] shows one engagement with the outlaws in Leyte participated +in by the constabulary and the 21st Regular Infantry, in which the +enemy numbered 450 and left forty-nine dead upon the field. All +this period is covered by the certificate of general and complete +peace of 1907, in the fall of which year a Philippine legislature +was elected. And those of the membership of that body not in favor +of Philippine independence were almost as few as the Socialist party +in the American House of Representatives, which, I believe, consists +of Representative Berger. True, the peace certificate does not ignore +the Leyte outbreak. It "forgets and forgives it," so to speak, as we +shall see. + +Governor Ide left the Islands finally on September 20, 1906, having +resigned. Why he should have resigned, it is difficult to say. Take +it all in all, he made a splendid Governor-General, and ought to +have been allowed to remain. He knew the Islands from Alpha to Omega +and had been there six years. His going out of office to make way +for still another Governor-General was wholly uncalled for. So far +as the writer is informed, he was, when he left, still blessed with +good health. He had filled a very considerable place in the history +of his country most creditably. He had drawn up a fine code of laws +for the Islands known as the Ide code. He had made a great minister of +finance, successfully performing the perilous task of transferring the +currency of the country from a silver basis to a gold basis, and in so +doing had proven himself fully a match, in protecting the interests +of the Government, for the wiley local financiers representing the +Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the chartered bank of India, Australia, +and China, and other institutions run by experienced men of more or +less piratical tendencies. As Governor-General of the Islands, his +justice, firmness, and courtliness of manner combined to produce an +administration in keeping with the dignity of his great office. After +returning to the United States, he remained in private life for a time, +and was finally given a comparatively unimportant post as minister to +a second-class country, Spain, which post he still occupies (in 1912). + +When, fresh from the memory of the Samar massacres of 1904, I landed +at Seattle, at the end of my last homeward-bound journey across the +Pacific, in April, 1905, one of the "natives" of Seattle asked me: +"Have those people over there ever got quiet yet?" The question itself +seemed an answer to the orthodox official attitude at Manila, which had +so long been elaborately denying, as to each successive local outbreak, +that such outbreak bore any relation to the original insurrection, +or was any wise illustrative of the general state of public feeling +in the Islands. At the time the question was asked, the answer was, +"Not entirely." Not until toward the end of 1906 did "Yes" become +a correct answer to the question. In other words, there were no +more serious outbreaks after 1906, nor was a state of general and +complete peace ever finally established until then. Since 1906 there +have been occasional despatches from Manila recounting small episodes +of bloodshed, several of which have had quite a martial ring. These +have related merely to the country of the Mohammedan Moros, who are +as wholly apart from the main problem as the American Indian to-day +is from our tariff and other like questions. The Moros are indeed +what Kipling calls "half savage and half child." They never did have +anything more to do with the Filipino insurrection against us than +the American Indian had to do with the Civil War. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +GOVERNOR SMITH--1907-9 + + Oh, but Honey, dis rabbit dess 'bleeged ter climb dis tree. + + Uncle Remus. + + +"On September 20, 1906," says the Report of the Philippine Commission +for 1907, [468] "the resignation of the Hon. Henry Clay Ide as +Governor-General became effective, and on that date the Hon. James +F. Smith was inaugurated as Governor-General of the Philippine +Islands." + +The year 1907 will be known most prominently to the future history of +our Far Eastern possession as the year of the opening of the Philippine +Assembly, which momentous event occurred on October 16th. But in the +departments both of Politics and Psychology it should be known as the +year of the Great Certificate. The Great Certificate was a certificate +signed by certain eminent gentlemen on March 28, 1907, which made the +preposterous affirmation that a condition of general and complete +peace had prevailed throughout the archipelago, except among the +non-Christian tribes, for the two years immediately preceding. Taken +in its historic setting, that certificate can by no possibility escape +responsibility, as "accessory after the fact" at least, to the pretence +that a similar condition had prevailed ever since President Roosevelt's +final war-whoop of July 4, 1902, published to the American troops in +the Islands on the day named. That war-whoop, it will be remembered, +was in the form of a presidential proclamation congratulating General +Chaffee and "the gallant officers and men under his command" on some +"two thousand combats, great and small," and declaring, in effect, +that Benevolent Assimilation was at last triumphantly vindicated, +and that opposition to American rule was at an end. The certificate of +March 28, 1907, appears at pages 47-8 of the Report of the Philippine +Commission for 1907, part 1. If we consider what is now going on in +the Islands as "modern" history, and the days of the early fighting as +"ancient" history, this certificate will serve as the connecting link +between the two. It furnishes the key-note to all that had happened +during the American occupation prior to 1907, and the key-note of +all that has happened since. Therefore, though somewhat long, it is +deemed indispensable to clearness to submit here in full the text of + + + THE GREAT CERTIFICATE OF 1907 + + Whereas the census of the Philippine Islands was completed and + published on the twenty-seventh day of March, nineteen hundred and + five, which said completion and publication of said census was, + on the twenty-eighth day of March, nineteen hundred and five, duly + published and proclaimed to the people by the governor-general of + the Philippine Islands with the announcement that the President + of the United States would direct the Philippine Commission to + call a general election for the choice of delegates to a popular + assembly, provided that a condition of general and complete peace + with recognition of the authority of the United States should be + certified by the Philippine Commission to have continued in the + territory of the Philippine Islands for a period of two years + after said completion and publication of said census; and + + Whereas since the completion and publication of said census there + have been no serious disturbances of the public order save and + except those caused by the noted outlaws and bandit chieftains, + Felizardo and Montalon, and their followers in the provinces of + Cavite and Batangas, and those caused in the provinces of Samar + and Leyte by the non-Christian and fanatical pulahanes resident + in the mountain districts of the said provinces and the barrios + contiguous thereto; and + + Whereas the overwhelming majority of the people of said provinces + of Cavite, Batangas, Samar, and Leyte have not taken part in said + disturbances and have not aided or abetted the lawless acts of + said bandits and pulahanes; and + + Whereas the great mass and body of the Filipino people have, + during said period of two years, continued to be law-abiding, + peaceful, and loyal to the United States, and have continued to + recognize and do now recognize the authority and sovereignty of + the United States in the territory of said Philippine Islands: + Now, therefore, be it + + Resolved by the Philippine Commission in formal session duly + assembled, That it, said Philippine Commission, do certify, and it + does hereby certify, to the President of the United States that for + a period of two years after the completion and publication of the + census a condition of general and complete peace, with recognition + of the authority of the United States, has continued to exist + and now exists in the territory of said Philippine Islands not + inhabited by Moros or other non-Christian tribes; and be it further + + Resolved by said Philippine Commission, That the President of the + United States be requested, and is hereby requested, to direct + said Philippine Commission to call a general election for the + choice of delegates to a popular assembly of the people of said + territory in the Philippine Islands, which assembly shall be + known as the Philippine Assembly. + + +Let us examine these amiable liberties thus taken with the facts of +history by men of irreproachable private character, briefly analyzing +their action. Such an examination and analysis are indispensable to +a clear understanding by a great free people whose proudest boast is +love of fair play, of whether the Filipino people, or any appreciable +fraction of them, have ever in the least consented, or do now in the +least consent, to our rule, as the small minority among us interested +in keeping the Islands, have systematically sought, all these years, +to have this nation believe. As the above certificate of 1907 was +the last hurdle that Benevolent Assimilation had to leap on the +Benevolent Hypocrisy course over which we had to gallop in order to +get from the freeing of Cuba to the subjugation of the Philippines, +let us glance back for a moment at the first hurdle or two, leapt +when Mr. Taft was in the Philippine saddle. + +Judge Taft had said on November 30, 1900: + + + A great majority of the people long for peace and are entirely + willing to accept the establishment of a government under the + supremacy of the United States [469]; + + +and, pursuant to that idea, he had set up his civil government on July +4, 1901. He never did thereafter admit that he was mistaken in his +original theory, but kept on trying to fit the facts to his theory, +hoping that after a while they would fit. He "clung to his policy +of disinterested benevolence with a tenacity born of conviction," +to borrow a phrase from Governor-General Smith's inaugural address of +1907. But in this same inaugural address of Governor Smith of 1907, +you find, for the first time in all the Philippine state papers, +a frank admission of the actual conditions under which the civil +government of 1901 was in fact set up. Says he: + + + While the smoke of battle still hung over the hills and valleys + of the Philippines and every town and barrio in the islands was + smoking hot with rebellion, she [the United States] replaced the + military with a civil regime and on the smouldering embers of + insurrection planted civil government. [470] + + +That confession, made with the bluntness of a most gallant soldier, +is as refreshing in its honesty as the Roosevelt war-whoop of +1902. There shall be no tiresome repetition here concerning the +original withholding of the facts from the American people in 1898-9, +but to place in juxtaposition Secretary of War Root's representations +to the American public in the year last named, and the actual facts +as stated earlier in the same year by General MacArthur, one of +our best fighting generals, during the thick of the early fighting, +in an interview already noticed in its proper chronological place, +will forever fix the genesis of the original lack of frankness as to +conditions in the Philippines which has naturally and inexorably made +frankness as to those conditions impossible ever since. As late as +October 7, 1899, Mr. Root--who had not then and has not since been +in the Philippines--had said in Chicago, in a speech at a dinner of +the Marquette Club: + + + Well, against whom are we fighting? Are we fighting the + Philippine nation? No. There is none. There are hundreds of + islands, inhabited by more than sixty tribes, speaking more than + sixty different languages, and all but one are ready to accept + American sovereignty. + + +As early as the beginning of April, 1899, just after the taking on +March 31st of the first insurgent capital, Malolos, General MacArthur, +who commanded our troops in the assault on that place, had said, in +an interview with a newspaper man afterwards verified by the General +before the Senate Committee of 1902 as substantially correct: + + + When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that + Aguinaldo's troops represented only a faction. * * * I did not like + to believe that the whole population of Luzon * * * was opposed to + us * * *. But after having come thus far, and having been brought + much in contact with both insurrectos and amigos, [471] I have + been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipino masses + are loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he heads. [472] + + +The presidential election of 1900 had been fought out, in the midst of +considerable bitterness, on the idea that the Root view was correct +and the MacArthur view was altogether mistaken. So that after 1900, +the McKinley Administration was irrevocably committed to the Root +view. [473] The Philippine Government had, after 1900, diligently set +to work to live up to the Root view, and to fit the facts to the Root +view by prayer and hope, accompanied by asseveration. Hence in 1901 the +alleged joyous sobs of welcome with which the Filipino people are, in +effect, described in the report of the Philippine Commission for that +year as having received the "benign" civil government, said sobs or +other manifestations having spread, if the Commission's report is to +be taken at its face value, "like wild-fire." Hence also the attempt +of 1902 to minimize the insurrection of 1901-2, in Batangas and other +provinces of southern Luzon, conducted by what Governor Luke E. Wright, +in a speech delivered at Memphis in the latter part of 1902, called +"the die-in-the-last-ditch contingent." Hence the quiet placing of +the province of Surigao in the hands of the military in 1903 without +suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and the failure to order +out the army in Albay in 1903 and in Samar in 1904. Hence also the +prompt use of the army in Samar, Batangas, and Cavite in 1905, after +the presidential election was safely over. Hence also the seething +state of sedition which smouldered in the Visayan Islands in 1906, +punctuated by the outbreak in Leyte of that year. + +The psychologic processes by which the distinguished gentlemen +who signed the Great Certificate of March 28, 1907, got their +own consent to sign it make the most profoundly interesting study, +relatively to the general welfare of the world, in all our Philippine +experiments so far. They are the final flowering of the plant Political +Expediency. They are the weeds of benevolent casuistry that become from +time to time unavoidable in a colonial garden tended by a republic +based on the consent of the governed and therefore by the law of its +own life unfitted to run any other kind of a government frankly. These +processes find their origin in the provisions of the Act of Congress +of July 1, 1902, known as the Philippine Government Act. Three days +after President Roosevelt approved the Act, he issued his proclamation +of July 4, 1902, above noticed, declaring the insurrection at an +end. Section 6 of that Act provided: + + + Whenever the existing insurrection in the Philippine Islands shall + have ceased, and a condition of general and complete peace shall + have been established therein, and the fact shall be certified to + the President by the Philippine Commission, the President, upon + being satisfied thereof, shall order a census of the Philippine + Islands to be taken by said Philippine Commission. + + +This census was intended to be preliminary to granting the Filipinos +a legislature of their own, but as a legislature full of insurrectos +would of course stultify its American sponsors before all mankind, +it was announced in effect, in publishing the census programme, that +no legislature would be forthcoming if the Filipinos did not quit +insurrecting, and remain "good" for two years. If they did remain good +for two years after the census was finished, then they should have +their legislature. During the lull of "general and complete" peace +which, in the fall of 1902, followed the suppression of the Batangas +insurrection of 1901-2, and preceded the Ola insurrection of 1902-3 in +the hemp provinces of southern Luzon, the Commission made, on September +25, 1902, the certificate contemplated by the above Act of Congress, +and the taking of the census was accordingly ordered by the President +of the United States, Mr. Roosevelt, by a proclamation issued the +same day. [474] Section 7 of the aforesaid Act of Congress provided: + + + Two years after the completion and publication of the census, in + case such condition of general and complete peace with recognition + of the authority of the United States shall have continued in + the territory of said islands not inhabited by Moros or other + non-Christian tribes, and such facts shall have been certified + to the President by the Philippine Commission, the President + upon being satisfied thereof shall direct said Commission to + call, and the Commission shall call, a general election for the + choice of delegates to a popular assembly of the people of said + territory in the Philippine Islands, which shall be known as the + Philippine Assembly. + + +On March 27, 1905, the President of the United States was duly +advised that the census had been completed, and on March 28th, +the presidential proclamation promising the Filipinos a legislature +two years later if in the meantime they did not insurrect any, was +duly published at Manila. It is true that there is no Philippine +state paper signed by anybody, either by the President of the United +States, or the Governor-General of the Philippines, or any one else, +certifying to a condition of "general and complete peace" between +the certificate to that effect made by the Philippine Commission on +September 25, 1902, above mentioned, which authorized commencing the +census (and was justified by the facts), and the presidential promise +of March 28, 1905, that if they would "be good" for two years more, +they should have a legislature. But the whole manifest implication +of the representations of fact sought to be conveyed by the action +both of the Washington and the Manila authorities at the date of the +presidential promise of March 28, 1905, is that a condition of general +and complete peace had obtained ever since the last certificate to that +effect, the certificate of September 25, 1902. Yet, as we saw in the +chapter covering the last year of Governor Wright's administration, +besides the Samar disturbances that lasted all through 1905, a big +insurrection was actually in full swing in Cavite, Batangas, and Laguna +provinces, on March 28, 1905, had then been in progress since before +the first of the year, and continued until the latter part of 1905, +the then Governor-General, Governor Wright, having, by proclamation +issued January 31, 1905, declared Cavite and Batangas to be in a +state of insurrection, ordered the military into those provinces, and +suspended the writ of habeas corpus. President Roosevelt's proclamation +of March 28, 1905, can by no possibility be construed as saying to +the Filipinos anything other than substantially this: "You have not +insurrected any since my proclamation of July 4, 1902. If you will be +good two years more, you shall have a legislature." What then was the +Philippine Commission to do at the end of those two years, peppered, +as they had been, with most annoying outbreaks in various provinces +not inhabited by "Moros or other non-Christian tribes." During the +presidential campaign of 1904 the Commission had committed themselves, +as we have seen, to the proposition that nothing serious was going +on at that time in Samar. So how could they take frank official +cognizance on paper of the reign of terror let loose there by their +delay in ordering out the army until after the presidential election, +a delay which, like a delay of fire-engines to arrive at the scene of +a fire, had permitted the Samar outbreak to gain such headway that it +took two years to finally put it down? Then there was the outbreak +of 1906 in Leyte, described in the last chapter, as to which even +the Commission had admitted in their annual report for that year [475]: + + + Possibly its [Leyte's] immediate vicinity to Samar has had to do + with the disturbed conditions. + + +In other words, possibly, a fire may spread from one field of dry +grass to another near by. + +As to the Cavite-Batangas-Laguna insurrection of 1905, in an executive +order dated September 28, 1907, [476]--noticed in a previous chapter, +but too pertinent to be entirely omitted here--wherein are set forth +the reasons for withholding executive clemency from the condemned +leaders of that movement, Governor-General Smith describes in harrowing +terms "a reign of terror, devastation, and ruin in three of the most +beautiful provinces in the archipelago," wrought by the condemned +men, who he says "assumed the cloak of patriotism, and under the +titles of 'Defenders of the Country,' and 'Protectors of the People' +proceeded to inaugurate" said reign of terror. These men were most +of them former insurgent officers who had remained out after the +respectable generals had all surrendered. This Cavite-Batangas-Laguna +insurrection was the very sort of thing which the conditional promise +of a legislature made by Congress to the Filipino people in Sections 6 +and 7 of the Act of July 1, 1902--the Philippine Government Act--had +stipulated should not happen. This is no mere dictum of my own. In +the case of Barcelon against Baker, 5 Philippine Reports, pp. 87 et +seq., already very briefly noticed in a previous chapter, the Supreme +Court of the Islands had, in effect, so held. Section 5 of the Act of +Congress of July 1, 1902, had provided that if any state of affairs +serious enough should arise, the Governor of the Philippines should +have authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus "when in cases +of rebellion, insurrection, or invasion the public safety may require +it." Sections 6 and 7 of the same Act had provided, on the other hand, +that if a condition of general and complete peace should prevail for +a stated period the Filipinos should have a legislature. In the case +of Barcelon against Baker the Supreme Court held that the situation +contemplated by Section 5 of the Act of Congress had arisen in the +provinces of Cavite and Batangas. That, of course, automatically, so +to speak, made the postponement of the Philippine Assembly a necessary +logical sequence, under the provisions of Sections 6 and 7. These +Sections 6 and 7 promised the Filipinos a legislature in the event +the conditions contemplated by Section 5 should not arise. Barcelon, +who was one of the (non-combatant) reconcentrados restrained of his +liberty at Batangas, claimed that his detention as such reconcentrado +by the defendant in the habeas corpus proceeding, the constabulary +officer, Colonel Baker, was unlawful, in that, he being charged with +no crime, such detention deprived him of his liberty without due +process of law. The Philippine Commission, however, had declared, +by virtue of the authority vested in it by Section 5 of the Act of +Congress aforesaid, that a state of insurrection existed in Cavite and +Batangas, and accordingly the Governor-General had suspended the writ +of habeas corpus and declared martial law in those provinces. The +Attorney-General representing the Philippine Commission before +the court rested the Government's case on the proposition that the +petitioner was not entitled to claim the ordinary "due process of +law" because "open insurrection against the constituted authorities" +existed in the provinces named. And the Supreme Court upheld his +contention. In so holding, they say, among other things (page 93), +in construing Section 5 of the Act of Congress we are considering: + + + Inasmuch as the President, or Governor-General with the approval + of the Philippine Commission, can suspend the privilege of the + writ of habeas corpus only under the conditions mentioned in the + said statute, it becomes their duty to make an investigation of + the existing conditions in the archipelago, or any part thereof, + to ascertain whether there actually exists a state of rebellion, + insurrection, or invasion, and that the public safety requires the + suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. When + this investigation is concluded, and the President, or the + Governor-General with the consent of the Philippine Commission, + declares that there exists these conditions, and that the public + safety requires the suspension of the privilege of the writ of + habeas corpus, can the judicial department of the Government + investigate the same facts and declare that no such conditions + exist? + + +They answer "No!" The head note of the decision is as follows: + + + The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus may be suspended in + the Philippine Islands in the case of rebellion, insurrection, + and invasion, when the public safety requires it, by the President + of the United States, or by the Governor-General of the Philippine + Islands with the approval of the Philippine Commission. + + +Thus the Supreme Court of the Islands squarely held that on the +fourth day of August, 1905 (the day the writ of habeas corpus +was made returnable), open insurrection existed against the +constituted authorities in the Islands, in the provinces named, +and had existed since the Executive Proclamation of January 31st, +previous, declaring a state of insurrection, and on that ground denied +the writ. Yet the Commission certified on March 28, 1907, that a state +of general and complete peace as contemplated by the Act of Congress +conditionally promising a legislature, had prevailed for the two +years preceding. In other words the Philippine Commission declared +a state of insurrection to exist in certain populous provinces, and +was upheld by the Supreme Court of the Islands in so doing, and later +certified to the continuance of a state of general and complete peace +covering the same period. + +All the uncandid things--uncandid in failure to take the American +people into their confidence--that have been done by all the good men +we have sent to the Philippines from the beginning, have been justified +by those good men to their own consciences on the idea that, because +the end in view was truly benevolent, therefore the end justified the +means. As a matter of fact, American Benevolent Assimilation in the +Philippines has, in its practical operation, worked more of misery and +havoc, first through war, and since through legislation put or kept on +the statute books by the influence of special interests in the United +States with Congress, "than any which has darkened their unhappy past" +to use one of Mr. McKinley's early expressions deprecating doing for +the Philippines what we did for Cuba. [477] + +But let us see just how much the Philippine Commission that signed the +peace certificate of March 28, 1907, swallowed, and how they swallowed +it. It will be observed that they sugar-coated their certificate with +a lot of whereases. The first of these recites President Roosevelt's +promise of March 28, 1905, that the Filipinos should have a legislature +two years thereafter "provided that a condition of general and +complete peace with recognition of the authority of the United States +should be certified by the Philippine Commission to have continued in +the territory of the Philippine Islands for a period of two years" +after the proclamation. Whereas number two, it will be noted, goes +on to state that there have been "no serious disturbances of public +order save and except" those in Cavite, Batangas, Samar, and Leyte, +[478] the magnitude of which has been fully described in previous +chapters. Of the Cavite-Batangas insurrection, the only one they had +previously formally admitted to be an insurrection, they say it was +"caused by certain noted outlaws and bandit chieftains [naming them], +and their followers." Obviously this was hardly sufficient to show +that an insurrection they had once officially recognized as such +was not in fact such at all. So in order to justify a statement +that "a condition of general and complete peace" had continued in +these two great provinces of Cavite and Batangas, which they had +but shortly previously declared to be in a state of insurrection, +and been upheld by the Supreme Court in so doing, they resort to the +old Otis expedient of 1898-9, worked on the American people through +Mr. McKinley to show absence of lack of consent-of-the-governed. This +expedient, as we have seen in the earlier chapters of this book, +consisted in vague use of the word "majority." It had stood Judge +Taft in good stead in the campaign of 1900, because when he then +said that "the great majority of the people" were "entirely willing" +to accept American rule, there was no earthly way to disprove it +in time for the verdict of the American people to be influenced by +the unanimity of the Filipinos against a change of masters in lieu +of independence. It was the only possible expedient for an American +conscience, because every American naturally feels that unless he +can, by some sort of sophistry, persuade himself that "the majority" +of the people want a given thing, then the thing is a wrong thing to +force upon them. So the ethical hurdle the Commission had to leap in +order to sign the certificate of 1907 was cleared thus: + + + The overwhelming majority of the people of said provinces have + not taken part in said disturbances and have not aided and abetted + the lawless acts of said bandits. + + +As a matter of fact, the report of the American Governor of Cavite--and +conditions were conceded to be identical in the two provinces of +Cavite and Batangas--shows that the reason it was so hard to suppress +the Cavite-Batangas troubles of 1905 was that the people would not +help the authorities to apprehend the outlaws. No doubt the King of +England would have signed a similar certificate as to the people of +the shires and counties in which Robin Hood, Little John, and Friar +Tuck, held high carnival. Of course I do not mean to libel the fair +fame of that fine freebooter Robin Hood and his companions by placing +the rascally leaders of the bands of outlaws now under consideration +in the same jolly and respectable class with those beloved friends of +the childhood of us all. But the Cavite-Batangas "patriots" of 1905 +could never have given the authorities as much trouble as they did if +the people had not at least taken secret joy in discomfiture of the +American authorities. Until finally suppressed, all such movements +as these always grew exactly as a snow-ball does if you roll it on +snow. Says Governor Shanks, a Major of the 4th United States Infantry, +who was Governor of Cavite, in 1905 in his report for that year, [479] +in explaining the uprising under consideration, and the way it grew: +"The Filipino likes to be on the winning side." Certainly this is +not peculiar to the Filipino. Governor Shanks proceeds: + + + The prestige acquired (by the uprising) at San Pedro Tunasan, + Paranaque, Taal, and San Francisco de Malabon had great weight in + creating active sympathy for ladrone bands and leaders. Something + was needed to counterbalance the effect of their combined + successes, and the appearance of regular troops was just the + thing needed. + + +This explains how "the overwhelming majority" of which the certificate +of 1907 speaks was obtained in Cavite. It took six months to obtain +said "majority" at that. I suppose the campaigning of the American +regulars might be credited with obtaining the "majority," and the +reconcentration of brother Baker of the constabulary might be accorded +the additional credit of making the majority "overwhelming." If you +have, as election tellers, so to speak, a soldier with a bayonet on +one side, and a constabulary officer with a reconcentration camp +back of him on the other, you can get an "overwhelming majority" +for the continuance of American rule even in Cavite province. + +Through men I commanded during the early campaigning, I have killed my +share of Filipinos in the time of war; and after the civil government +was set up I had occasion to hang a good many of them, under what +seemed to me a necessary application of the old Mosaic law, "An eye +for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life." But I thank +God I have never been a party to the insufferable pretence that they, +or any appreciable fraction of them, ever consented to our rule. This, +however, is the whole theory of the Philippine Commission's certificate +of March 28, 1907. It is curious how generously and supremely frank a +brave soldier will get when he forgets to be a politician. In one of +his state papers of 1907 Governor-General Smith [480] speaks of General +Trias, who had been Lieutenant-General of the insurgent army in the +days of the insurrection, and next in rank to Aguinaldo himself, as one +"whose love of country had been tested on many a well fought field +of honorable conflict." Contrast this tribute to the respectability +of the original Philippine war for independence against us with the +long list of stale falsehoods already reviewed in this volume, on the +faith of which, in the presidential campaign of 1900, the American +people were persuaded that to deny to the Filipinos what they had +accorded to Cuba was righteous! The leaders of the Cavite-Batangas +uprising of 1905 had been officers of the insurgent army, and that +was the secret of their hold upon the people of those provinces. It +is true that they must have been pretty sorry officers, and that they +were ladrones (brigands). They were cruel and unmitigated scoundrels +working for purely selfish and vainglorious ends. But it was the +cloak of patriotism, however, infamously misused, that gained them +such success as they attained in 1905. Says the American Governor of +Cavite province in his annual report for 1906 [481]: + + + The province should be most carefully watched. I am convinced + that ladrone leaders do not produce conditions, but that the + conditions and attitude of the public produce ladrones. + + +So much for the Cavite-Batangas hurdle. And now as to the Samar and +Leyte hurdle. + +The signers of the certificate of 1907 justify their certificate as to +Samar and Leyte on a very ingenious theory. The Act of Congress of July +1, 1902, already cited, which had provided for the taking of a census +preliminary to the call of an election for delegates to a legislature, +had recognized the crude ethnological status of the Moros and other +non-Christian tribes. These had never had anything whatever to do +with the insurrection against us. Therefore in making the continuance +of a state of general and complete peace for a prescribed period a +condition precedent to granting the Filipinos a legislature, the Act +of 1902 had limited that condition precedent to "the territory of said +Islands not inhabited by Moros or other non-Christian tribes." In fact +President Roosevelt's proclamation of September 25, 1902, already +noticed, ordering the taking of the census on the theory that a +state of general and complete peace then existed, explains that this +theory is entirely consistent with trouble among the Moros and other +non-Christian tribes because they, it says, quoting from a statement +of the Philippine Commission previously made to the President, +"never have taken any part in the insurrection." The Moros and other +non-Christian tribes were, so to speak, in no sense assets of the +Philippine insurrection. All the rest of the population was--that is, +if there was anything in the veteran General MacArthur's grim jest of +1900, prompted by Governor Taft's half-baked opinion to the contrary, +that "ethnological homogeneity" was the secret of the unanimity of the +opposition we met, and that somehow people "will stick to their own +kith and kin." When the Philippine Government Act of 1902 was drawn +nobody pretended for a moment that there were any non-Christian tribes +either in Samar or Leyte. The whole population of those Islands were +valuable assets of the insurrection. If any one doubts it, let him +ask the 9th Infantry. You will find in the Census of 1903 that there +are no non-Christian tribes credited either to Samar or Leyte. [482] +When the Philippine Government Act of 1902 was drafted, the exception +about Moros and other non-Christian tribes was intended to except +merely certain types of people as distinct from the great mass of the +Philippine population as islands are from the sea. The fact is, no +person connected with the Philippine Government either before or after +the certificate under consideration, ever thought of classifying the +ignorant country people of the uplands and hills of Samar or Leyte, +as "non-Christian tribes." The Philippine Census of 1903 does not +so classify them. The very volume of the Report of the Philippine +Commission for 1907 in which the certificate aforesaid appears, +does not. In that volume, [483] the report of the Executive Secretary +deals elaborately with the subject of non-Christian tribes. Professor +Worcester of the Philippine Commission has for the last twelve years +been the grand official digger-up of non-Christian tribes. He takes +as much delight at the discovery of a new non-Christian tribe in +some remote, newly penetrated mountain fastness, as the butterfly +catcher with the proverbial blue goggles does in the capture of a +new kind of butterfly. The Executive Secretary's report, out of +deference to the professor, omits no single achievement of his +with reference to his anthropological hobby. It treats, with an +enthusiasm that would delight Mrs. Jellyby herself, of "the progress +that was made during the fiscal year in the work of civilizing +non-Christian tribes scattered throughout the archipelago." It +gives an alphabetical list of all the provinces where there are +non-Christian tribes, and, under the name of each province it gives +notes as to the progress during the year with those tribes. Neither +Samar nor Leyte appear in that list of provinces. So that the Samar +"Pulajans," or "Red Breeches" fellows,--"fanatical" Pulajans, they +are called in the certificate--were "non-Christian tribes" for peace +certificate purposes only. One thing which makes it most difficult +of all for me to understand how these gentlemen got their consent +to sign that certificate is that each non-Christian tribe in the +Philippines has a language of its own, whereas the country people +of the uplands and mountains of Samar and Leyte who are labelled--or +libelled--"non-Christian tribes" in the certificate of 1907, were no +more different from the rest of the population of those islands than, +for instance, the ignorant mountain people of Virginia or Kentucky +are different, ethnologically, from the inhabitants of Richmond or +Louisville. In his report for 1908, [484] Governor-General Smith +himself makes this perfectly clear, where he describes the Samar +Pulajan, or mountaineer, thus: + + + The Pulajan is not a robber or a thief by nature--quite the + contrary. He is hard working, industrious, and even frugal. He + had his little late [485] of hemp on the side of the mountain, + and breaking out his picul [486] of hemp, he carried it hank by + hank for miles and miles over almost impassable mountain trails + to the nearest town or barrio. There he offered it for sale, + and if he refused the price tendered, which was generally not + more than half the value, he soon found himself arrested on a + trumped-up charge, and unless he compromised by parting with his + hemp he found himself, after paying his fine and lawyer's fees, + without either hemp or money. + + +The non-Christian tribes, on the other hand, never have anything to +do with the civilized people. The Act of Congress of 1902, therefore, +had no sort of reference to the simple, ignorant, and ordinarily +docile mountain folk who tilled the soil, revered the priests, paid +their cedula or head tax like all the rest of the population of the +Islands, and carried their agricultural products from season to season, +their hemp and the like, to the coast towns to market. In other words, +inclusion of the Samar "Pulajans," or "Red Breeches" brigade, and the +Leyte bandits, in the peace certificate of 1907, as "non-Christian +tribes" was an afterthought, having no foundation either in logic +or fact. It was a part of Benevolent Assimilation. This is clearly +apparent from President Roosevelt's message to Congress of December, +1905. [487] You do not find any buncombe about "non-Christian +tribes" in that message. In there reviewing the Samar and other +insurrections of 1905 in the Philippines, you find him dealing with +the real root of the evil with perfect honesty, though adopting the +view that the Filipino people were to blame therefor, because we +had placed too much power in the hands of an ignorant electorate, +which had elected rascally officials. "Cavite and Samar," he says, +"are instances of reposing too much confidence in the self-governing +power of a people." If we had let the Filipinos go ahead with their +little republic in 1898, instead of destroying it as we did, they +knew and would have utilized the true elements of strength they had, +viz., a very considerable body of educated, patriotic men having +the loyal confidence of the masses of the people. But we proceeded +to ram down their throats a preconceived theory that the only road +to self-government was for an alien people to step in and make the +ignorant masses the sine qua non. Yet if there was one point on which +Mr. McKinley had laid more stress than on any other, in his original +instructions of April 7, 1900, to the Taft Commission, that point was +the one consecrated in the following language of those instructions: + + + In all the forms of government and administrative provisions which + they are authorized to prescribe, the commission should bear in + mind that the government which they are establishing is designed + not for * * * the expression of our theoretical views, etc. + + +Of course the ignorant electorate we perpetrated on Samar as an +"expression of our theoretical views" proved that we had "gone too +fast" in conferring self-government, or, to quote Mr. Roosevelt, +had been "reposing too much confidence in the self-governing power +of a people," if to begin with the rankest material for constructing +a government that there was at hand was to offer a fair test of +capacity for self-government. But President Roosevelt's message, +above quoted, shows you that the "ignorant electorate" was merely an +ignorant electorate, and not a non-Christian tribe, as the Philippine +Commission later had the temerity to certify they were. Now the plain, +unvarnished, benevolent truth is just this: The Commission knew that +nobody in the United States, whether they were for retaining the +Islands or against retaining them, had any desire to postpone granting +a legislature to the Philippine people. So in their certificate they +simply included everybody who had given trouble in Samar and Leyte +as "non-Christian tribes." The only justification for this was that +they had in fact acted in a most un-Christianlike manner,--i.e., for +people who devotedly murmur prayers to patron saints in good standing +in the church calendar. In making their certificate, the Commission +simply ignored the various uprisings of the preceding two years. They +simply said, generously, "Oh, forget it." They knew nobody in the +United States begrudged the Filipinos their conditionally promised +legislature, or cared to postpone it. The leading Filipinos begged the +authorities to "forget" the various disturbances that had occurred +since the publication of the census, and there was a very general +desire in the Islands to let bygones be bygones, wipe the slate, and +begin again. Any other attitude would have meant that the legislature +would have to be postponed. Then the opposition in the United States +would want to know why, and by 1908 Philippine independence might +become an issue again. In the eyes of the Commission, the end, being +benevolent, justified stretching the language of the Act of 1902 +as if it had been the blessed veil of charity itself--i.e., the end +justified the means. In fact it did--almost--justify the means. But not +quite. The moral quality of the Great Certificate of 1907 was not as +reprehensible as General Anderson's dealings with Aguinaldo, already +described, which, like the certificate, were a necessary part of the +benevolent hypocrisy of Benevolent Assimilation of an unconsenting +people. Yet General Anderson is an honorable man. It was not as bad +as General Greene's juggling Aguinaldo out of his trenches before +Manila in a friendly way, and failing to give him a receipt for said +trenches, as he had promised to do, because such a receipt would show +co-operation and "might look too much like an alliance." This also was +done on the idea that the end justified the means. Yet General Greene +is an honorable man. The signers of the great peace certificate of +1907 are all honorable men. But they signed that certificate, just the +same. "Judge not that ye be not judged." All I have to say is, I would +not have signed that certificate. I would have said: "No, gentlemen, +the end does not justify the means. The Philippine Assembly must be +postponed, if we are going to deal frankly with Congress and the folks +at home. The conditions Congress made precedent to the grant of an +assembly have not been met, and we each and all of us know it. We owe +more to our own country and to truth than we do to the Filipinos. The +Act of Congress of 1902 did not vest in the Philippine Commission +authority to pardon disturbances of public order. It imposed upon +the Commission an implied duty to report such disturbances, fully +and frankly. It is not true that there has been a continuing state of +general and complete peace in these Islands for the last two years, +and I for one will not certify that there has been." + +The truth is, the attitude of the signers of the certificate was like +that of Uncle Remus, when interrupted by the little boy in one of his +stories. When Uncle Remus gets to the point in the rabbit story where +the rabbit thrillingly escapes from the jaws of death, i.e., from the +jaws of the dogs, by climbing a tree, the rapt listener interrupts: +"Why, Uncle Remus, a rabbit can't climb a tree." To which Uncle +Remus replies, with a reassuring wave of the hand, "Oh, but Honey, +dis rabbit dess 'bleeged ter climb dis tree." + +Should any of my good friends still in the Philippines feel disposed to +censure such levity as the above, I can only say, as Kipling writes +from England to his Anglo-Indian friends in a foreword to one of +his books: + + + I have told these tales of our life + For a sheltered people's mirth, + In jesting guise,--but ye are wise, + And ye know what the jest is worth. + + +Moreover, my authority to speak frankly about these matters is also +aptly stated by the same great poet thus: + + + I have eaten your bread and salt, + I have drunk your water and wine, + The deaths ye died I have watched beside + And the lives that ye led were mine. + + Was there aught that I did not share + In vigil or toil or ease, + One joy or woe that I did not know, + Dear friends across the seas? + + +The above reflections are not placed before the reader to show him +what a pity it is that the writer was not a member of the Philippine +Commission at the time of their certificate of 1907, or to show what +a fine thing for our common country it would be if he were made a +member of that Commission now. He is, personally, as disinterested +as if Manila were in the moon, for he cannot live in the tropics +any more. The effect of a year or so of residence there upon white +men invalided home for tropical dysentery and then returning to the +Islands is like the effect of water upon a starched shirt. However, +it is believed that the facts of official record collected in this +chapter up to this point are a demonstration of this proposition, +to wit: What the Philippine Government needs more than anything else +is that the minority party in the United States should be represented +on the Commission. By this I do not mean representation by what are +called, under Republican Administrations, "White House" Democrats, +nor what under a Democratic Administration, if one should ever occur, +would probably be called "Copperhead Republicans." I mean the genuine +article. A Democrat who has cast his fortunes with the Philippines +is no longer a Democrat relatively to the Philippines, because the +Democratic party wants to get rid of the Philippines and the Democrat +in the Philippines of course does not. How absurd it is to talk about +former Governors Wright and Smith, as "life-long Democrats," by way +of preliminary to using their opinions as "admissions." In the law +of evidence, an "admission" is a statement made against the interest +of the party making it. + +The first election for representatives in the Philippine Assembly was +held on July 30, 1907, and on October 16th thereafter the Assembly +was formally opened by Secretary of War, William H. Taft. The various +"whereases" hereinabove reviewed, importing complete acquiescence in +American rule since President Roosevelt's Proclamation of July 4, 1902, +were first duly read, and then the Assembly was opened. Of course, +no man could have been elected to the Assembly without at least +pretending to be in favor of independence, and all but a corporal's +guard of them were outspoken in favor of the proposition. As the +present Governor-General Mr. Forbes, said, while Vice-Governor, +in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1909: + + + To deny the capacity of one's country for * * * self-government + is essentially unpopular. + + +When he visited the Philippines to open their Assembly in 1907, +Mr. Taft had said nothing definite and final on the question of +promising independence since his departure from the Islands in +1903. His then benevolent unwillingness to tell them frankly he did not +think they had sense enough to run a government of their own, and that +they were unfit for self-government, has already been reviewed. For +two years after 1903 Governor Wright had made them pine for the return +of Mr. Taft. They longed to hear again some of the siren notes of +the celebrated speech "the Philippines for the Filipinos." They had +gotten very excited and very happy over that speech. Of course they +would not have gotten very excited over independence supposed to be +coming long after they should be dead and buried. During the two dark +frank years of Governor Wright's regime, they had frequently been +told that they were not fit for independence. So that when Secretary +of War Taft had visited the Islands in 1905 they all had been on the +qui vive for more statements vaguely implying an independence they +might hope to live to see. During the visit of 1905 the time of the +visiting Congressional party was consumed principally with tariff +hearings, and comparatively little was said on the subject uppermost +in the minds of all Filipinos. It is true that Mr. Taft said then he +was of the opinion that it would take a generation or longer to get +the country ready for self-government, but he said it in a tactful, +kindly way, and did not forever crush their hopes. So when he went +out to the Islands to open the assembly in 1907, the attitude of the +whole people in expectation of some definite utterances on the question +of a definite promise of independence at some future time, was just +the attitude of an audience in a theatre as to which one affirms +"you could hear a pin fall." In this regard Mr. Taft's utterances +were as follows [488]: + + + I am aware that in view of the issues discussed at the election of + this assembly I am expected to say something regarding the policy + of the United States toward these islands. I cannot speak with + the authority of one who may control that policy. The Philippine + Islands are territory belonging to the United States, and by the + Constitution, the branch of that government vested with the power + and charged with the duty of making rules and regulations for their + government is Congress. The policy to be pursued with respect + to them is therefore ultimately for Congress to determine. * * * + I have no authority to speak for Congress in respect to the + ultimate disposition of the Islands. + + +After that there was some talk about "mutually beneficial trade +relations" and "improvement of the people both industrially and in +self-governing capacity." But with regard to the "process of political +preparation of the Filipino people" for self-government the Secretary +said that was a question no one could certainly answer; and so far as +he was concerned he thought it would take "considerable longer than a +generation." Somewhere in the early Philippine State papers there is +a quotation used by Mr. Taft from Shakespeare about "Keeping the word +of promise to the ear and breaking it to the hope." The Filipinos have +eagerly read for the last twelve years every utterance of Mr. Taft's +that they could get hold of. If any of those embryonic statesmen of the +first Philippine Assembly, familiar with the various Taft utterances, +had looked up the context of the Shakespearian quotation above alluded +to, he would have found it to be as follows: + + + And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, + That palter with us in a double sense: + That keep the word of promise to our ear + And break it to our hope. [489] + + +Since the announcement by Secretary of War Taft at the opening +of the Philippine Assembly in October, 1907, of the policy of +indefinite retention of the Islands with undeclared intention, +the Filipinos have of course clearly understood that if they were +ever to have independence they must look to Congress for it. But +they know Congress is not interested in them and that they have no +influence with it, and that the Hemp Trust, the Tobacco Trust, and the +Sugar Trust, have. So that since 1907, both the American authorities +in the Philippines and the Filipinos have settled down, the former +suffused with benevolence--hardened however by paternalistic firmness, +the latter stoically, to the programme of indefinite retention with +undeclared intention. No conceivable programme could be devised more +ingeniously calculated to engender race hatred. The Filipino newspapers +call the present policy one of "permanent administration for inferior +and incapable races." The Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, known as the +Philippine Government Act, which is the "Constitution," so to speak, +we have given the Filipinos, accords "liberty of the press" in the +exact language of our own Constitution. The native press does not +fail to use this liberty to the limit. Naturally the American press +does not remain silent. So here are a pair of bellows ever fanning +the charcoals of discontent. And the masses of the Filipino people +read the Filipino papers. If they cannot read, their children can. In +one of the reports of one of the American constabulary officials in +the Philippines, there is an account of the influence of the native +press too graphic to be otherwise than accurate. He says one can often +see, in the country districts, a group of natives gathered about some +village Hampden, listening to his reading the latest diatribe against +the American Occupation. Never was there such folly in the annals of +statesmanship. In their native papers, the race situation of course +comes in for much comment. Now the most notorious and inflexible +fact of that race situation is that the colonial Anglo-Saxon does +not intermarry with "the yellow and brown" subject people, as the +Latin colonizing races do. It would be an over-statement of the case +to say that the Filipinos to-day had rather have the Spaniards back +as their overlords instead of us. In 1898, they "tasted the sweets +of liberty," to use an expression of one of their leaders, and I +am perfectly sure that to-day the desire of all those people for a +government of their own is so genuine and universal as that it amounts +to a very hopeful positive factor in the equation of their capacity for +self-government. But there is no doubt that many of the Filipinos after +all have a very warm place in their hearts for the Spanish people. How +could it be otherwise when so many of the Filipinos are sons and +grandsons of Spaniards? Much of like and dislike in life's journey is +determined pre-natally. On the other hand, the American women in the +Philippines maintain an attitude toward the natives quite like that of +their British sisters in Hong Kong toward the Chinese, and in Calcutta +toward the natives there. The social status of an American woman who +marries a native,--I myself have never heard of but one case--is like +that of a Pacific coast girl who marries a Jap. This is merely the +instinct of self-defence with which Nature provides the weaker sex, +just as she provides the porcupine with quills. But look at the other +side of the picture. When an American man marries a native woman, +he thereafter finds himself more in touch with his native "in-laws" +it is true, but correspondingly, and ever increasingly, out of touch +with his former associations. This is not as it should be. But it is +a most unpleasant and inexorable fact of the present situation. In +an address delivered at the Quill Club in Manila on January 25, +1909, Governor Smith, after reciting the various beneficent designs +contemplated by the government and the various public works consummated +(at the expense of the people of the Islands) deplored, in spite of +it all, what he termed "the growing gulf between the races." Said he: + + + An era of ill feeling has started between Americans and Filipinos, + and, I hesitate to say it, race hatred. + + +Cherchez la femme! You find her, on the one hand, in the American woman +whose attitude has been indicated, and you find her, on the other, +in the refined and virtuous native woman, who finds her American +husband's relations to his compatriots altered--queered--since his +marriage to her, no matter how faithful a wife and mother she may +be. This is the unspeakably cruel situation we have forced upon the +Filipino people--whom I really learned to respect, and became much +attached to, before I left the Islands--and President Taft knows it +as well as I do. Yet he does not take the American people into his +confidence. He simply worries along with the situation, wishing it +would get better, but knowing it will get worse. That this situation +is a permanent one is clearly shown by all the previous teachings +of racial history. In his Winning of the West, written in 1889, +speaking of the French settlers in the Ohio valley before 1776, +and the cordial social relations of the dominant race with the +natives--relations which have always obtained with all Latin races +under like circumstances--Mr. Roosevelt says (vol. i., page 41): + + + They were not trammelled by the queer pride which makes a man + of English stock unwilling to make a red-skinned woman his wife, + though anxious enough to make her his concubine. + + +Men of English stock have changed but little in the matter of race +instinct since 1776. If we had a definite policy, declared by Congress, +promising independence, the American attitude in the Philippines toward +the Filipinos would at once change, from the present impossible one, +to our ordinary natural attitude of courtesy toward all foreigners, +regardless of their color. + +On May 7, 1909, the Honorable James F. Smith took his departure from +the Philippine Islands forever and turned over the duties of his +office to the Honorable W. Cameron Forbes, as Acting President of the +Commission and Governor-General. As in the case of Governors Wright +and Ide, so in that of Governor Smith, no reason is apparent why the +Washington Government should have been willing to dispense with the +services of the incumbent. This was peculiarly true in the case of +General Smith. He was but fifty years of age when he left the Islands +in 1909. He has rendered more different kinds of distinguished public +service than any American who has ever been in the Philippine Islands +from the time Dewey's guns first thundered out over Manila Bay down to +this good hour. Going out with the first expedition in 1898 as Colonel +of the 1st California Regiment, he distinguished himself on more +than one battlefield in the early fighting and in recognition thereof +was made a brigadier-general. Subsequent to this he became Military +Governor of the island of Negros, that one of the six principal +Visayan Islands which gave less trouble during the insurrection and +after than any other--a circumstance doubtless not wholly unrelated +to General Smith's wise and tactful administration there. Later on +during the military regime he became Collector of Customs of the +archipelago. The revenues from customs are the principal source of +revenue of the Philippine Government and the sums of money handled +are enormous. The customs service, moreover, in most countries, and +especially in the Philippines, is more subject to the creeping in of +graft than any other. General Smith's administration of this post was +in keeping with everything else he did in the Islands. When the civil +government was founded by Judge Taft in 1901, he was appointed one of +the Justices of the Supreme Court and filled the duties of that office +most creditably. Thence he was promoted to the Philippine Commission, +which is, virtually, the cabinet of the Governor-General. Still later +he became Vice-Governor, and finally Governor, serving as such from +September, 1906, to May, 1909. Any other government on earth that has +over-seas colonies and recognizes the supreme importance of a maximum +of continuity of policy, would have kept Governor Smith as long +as it could have possibly induced him to stay, just as the British +kept Lord Cromer in Egypt. Governor Smith was succeeded by a young +man from Boston, who had come out to the Islands four years before, +and who, prior to that time, had never had any public service in the +United States of any kind, had never been in the Philippine Islands, +and probably had never seen a Filipino until he landed at Manila. + +General Smith is now (1912) one of the Judges of the Court of Customs +Appeals at Washington. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +GOVERNOR FORBES--1909-1912 + + The trouble with this country to-day is that, + under long domination by the protected interests, + a partnership has grown up between them and the + Government which the best men in the Republican + party could not break up if they would.--Woodrow Wilson. + + +When Governor Forbes assumed the duties of Governor-General of the +Philippines, some ten years after the ratification of the Treaty +of Paris whereby we bought the Islands, he was the ninth supreme +representative of American authority we had had there since the +American occupation began. The following is the list: + + + (1) Gen. Thomas M. Anderson June 30, 1898-July 25, 1898 + (2) Gen. Wesley Merritt July 25, 1898-Aug. 29, 1898 + (3) Gen. Elwell S. Otis Aug. 29, 1898-May 5, 1900 + (4) Gen. Arthur MacArthur May 5, 1900-July 4, 1901 + (5) Hon. William H. Taft July 4, 1901-Dec. 23, 1903 + (6) Hon. Luke E. Wright Dec. 23, 1903-Nov. 4, 1905 + (7) Hon. Henry C. Ide Nov. 4, 1905-Sept. 20, 1906 + (8) Hon. James F. Smith Sept. 20, 1906-May 7, 1909 + (9) Hon. W. Cameron Forbes May 7, 1909- [490] + + +No one of these distinguished gentlemen has ever had any authority to +tell the Filipinos what we expect ultimately to do with them. They +have not known themselves. Is not this distinctly unfair both to +governors and governed? + +Before Governor Forbes went to the Philippines he had been a largely +successful business man. He is a man of the very highest personal +character, and an indefatigable worker. He has done as well as the +conditions of the problem permit. But he is always between Scylla +and Charybdis. American capital in or contemplating investment in the +Islands is continually pressing to be permitted to go ahead and develop +the resources of the Islands. To keep the Islands from being exploited +Congress early limited grants of land to a maximum too small to attract +capital. So those who desire to build up the country, knowing they +cannot get the law changed, are forever seeking to invent ways to get +around the law. And, being firm in the orthodox Administration belief +that discussion of ultimate independence is purely academic, i.e., +a matter of no concern to anybody now living, Governor Forbes is of +course in sympathy with Americans who wish to develop the resources of +the Islands. On the other hand, he knows that such a course will daily +and hourly make ultimate independence more certain never to come. So +do the Filipinos know this. Therefore they clamor ever louder and +louder against all American attempts to repeal the anti-exploiting +Acts of Congress by "liberal" interpretation. Many an American just +here is sure to ask himself, "Why all this 'clamor'? Do we not give +them good government? What just ground have they for complaint?" Yes, +we do give them very good government, so far as the Manila end of +the business is concerned, except that it is a far more expensive +government than any people on the earth would be willing to impose +on themselves. But their main staples are hemp, sugar, and tobacco, +and we raise the last two in this country. Their sugar and tobacco +were allowed free entry into the United States by the Paine Law of +1909 up to amounts limited in the law, but the Philippine people know +very well that American sugar and tobacco interests will either dwarf +the growth of their sugar and tobacco industries by refusing to allow +the limit raised--the limit of amounts admitted free of duty--or else +that our Sugar Trust and our Tobacco Trust will simply ultimately +eliminate them by absorption, just as the Standard Oil Company used +to do with small competitors. In this sort of prospect certainly even +the dullest intellect must recognize just ground for fearing--nay for +plainly foreseeing--practical industrial slavery through control by +foreign [491] corporations of economic conditions. So much for the +two staples in which the Philippines may some day become competitors +of ours. It took Mr. Taft nine years to persuade American sugar and +tobacco that they would not be in any immediate danger by letting +in a little Philippine sugar and tobacco free of duty. Then they +consented. Not until then did they promise not to shout "Down with +cheap Asiatic labor. We will not consent to compete with it." Their +mental reservation was, of course, and is, "if the Philippine sugar +and tobacco industries get too prosperous, we will either buy them, +or cripple them by defeating their next attempt to get legislation +increasing the amounts of Philippine sugar and tobacco admitted into +the United States free of duty." And the Filipinos know that this is +the fate that awaits two out of the three main sources of the wealth +of their country. Their third source of wealth, their main staple, is +the world-famous Manila hemp. This represents more than half the value +of their total annual exports. And as to it, "practical industrial +slavery through control by foreign corporations of economic conditions" +is to-day not a fear, but a fact. The International Harvester Company +has its agents at Manila. The said company or allied interests, +or both, are large importers of Manila hemp. The reports of all the +governors-general of the Philippines who have preceded Governor Forbes +tell, year after year, of the millions "handed over" to American hemp +importers through "the hemp joker" of the Act of Congress of 1902, +hereinafter explained, in the chapter on Congressional Legislation +(Chapter XXVI.). Why did these complaints--made with annual +regularity up to Governor Forbes's accession--cease thereafter? You +will find these complaints of his predecessors transcribed in the +chapter mentioned, because if I had re-stated them you might suspect +exaggeration. The "rake-off" of the American importers of Manila hemp +for 1910 was nearly $750,000, as fully explained in Chapter XXVI. + +Governor Forbes will be in this country when this book is issued. I +think he owes it to the American people to explain why he does not +continue the efforts of his predecessors to halt the depredations +of the Hemp Trust. Why does he content himself in his last annual +report with a mild allusion to the fact that the condition of +the hemp industry is "not satisfactory"? I have said that Governor +Forbes is a man of high character, and take pleasure in repeating that +statement in this connection. The truth is we are running a political +kindergarten for adults in the Philippines, and those responsible +for the original blunder of taking them, and all their political +heirs and assigns since, have sought to evade admitting and setting +to work to rectify the blunder. Unmasked, this is what the policy of +Benevolent Assimilation now is. They allege an end, and so justify +all the ways and means. Benevolent Assimilation needs the support +of the International Harvester Company and of all other Big Business +interested directly or indirectly in Manila hemp. The end justifies +the means. Hence the silence. Philippine gubernatorial reticence is +always most reticent about that particular subject on which at the time +the American people are most peculiarly entitled to information. As +long as public order was the most pressing question, Philippine +gubernatorial reticence selected that branch of our colonial problem +either for especial silence or for superlatively casual allusion, as +we have already seen. So now with the economic distresses. Frankness +would obviously furnish too much good argument for winding up this +Oriental receivership of ours. The Philippine Government will never +tell its main current troubles until after they are over. But as +the present trouble--the economic depredations of powerful special +interests--must necessarily be fruitful of discontent which will +crop out some day to remind us that as we sow so shall we reap, +any one who helps expose the root of the trouble is doing a public +service. No Congressman who in silence would permit Big Business to +prey upon his constituents as Governor Forbes has, could long remain in +office. Taxation without representation may amount to depredation, and +yet never be corrected, when the powers that prey have the ear of the +court, and the victims cannot get the ear of the American people. So +the Hemp Trust continues to rob the Filipinos under the forms of law, +and the Mohonk Conference continues to kiss Benevolent Assimilation +on both cheeks. And Dr. Lyman Abbott periodically says Amen. I am not +speaking disrespectfully of Dr. Abbott. I am deploring the lack of +information of our people at home as to conditions in the Philippines. + +It is a relief to turn from such matters to some of the real +substantial good we have done out there to which Governor Forbes +has heretofore publicly pointed with just pride. In an article +in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1909, Governor Forbes (then +Vice-Governor) said, among other things: + + + We have completed the separation of Church and State, buying out + from the religious orders their large agricultural properties, + which are now administered by the government for the benefit of + the tenants. + + +This statement I cannot too cordially endorse. It would be grossly +unfair not to accord full measure of acclaim to Governor Taft for the +way he worked out the problem of the Friar Lands. He has been attacked +in some quarters in this regard, and most unjustly. Not being a +Catholic, and all my people being Protestants, I have no fear of being +suspected of special pleading in the matter. The working out of the +Friar Land problem by Governor Taft in the Philippines was a splendid +piece of constructive statesmanship. He was at his greatest and best +in that very transaction. The Treaty of Paris had guaranteed that all +vested rights should be respected, including those of ecclesiastical +bodies. The friars had long owned the lands in question. There can be +no particle of doubt on this point. The tenants on the land had all +long ago attorned to them, father and son, from time out of mind, +paying rent regularly. But by claiming jurisdiction over their +tenants' souls also, and getting that jurisdiction effectively +recognized, the thrifty friars used to raise the rent regularly, +quieting incipient protest with threats of eternal punishment, +or protracted stay in purgatory. The advent of our government let +loose a revolt against the authority of the friars generally, and, +their spiritual hold once loosened, this led the tenants to dispute +the land titles of their spiritual shepherds, who were also their +temporal landlords. Of course the titles had all been long recorded, +and looked after by the best legal talent the country afforded. As +long as you control the future of your tenant's soul, you can make him +pay his last copeck for rent. But as soon as that control is lost, +the man on whom the governing of the country thereafter devolves +has a certain prospect of a great agrarian revolution on his hands, +having in it many elements of substantial righteousness. Governor +Taft's capacious mind, prompted by his strongest instinct, love of +justice, conceived the idea of having the Philippine Government raise +the money to buy the Friar Lands, by issuing bonds, and then buying +the Friars out and re-selling the land to the tenants on long time, +on the instalment plan, the instalments to be so graduated as to be +equal to a moderate rental. Each tenant stayed right where he had +been all the time, in possession of the tract he had always tilled, +he and his father before him. To arrange all this it took an Act of +Congress authorizing the bond issue, and a visit to Rome to arrange +the bargain with the Pope. Some say His Holiness drove a hard bargain +with Governor Taft, or to put it another way, that Governor Taft paid +the Church people too much for the land. He did not. He may not have +counted pennies with them, but the lands were worth what he paid for +them. And the purchase protected the faith and honor of our government, +as pledged by the Treaty of Paris, and at the same time prevented an +agrarian revolution--which would have had a lot of elemental justice +on its side. + +Another of the good works we have done in the Philippines, to which +Governor Forbes points in his magazine article above mentioned, +is thus noted by him: + + + We have put the finances on a sound and sensible basis. + + +To this also I say Amen. The Forbes article then goes on to say +that the government of the Islands is self-supporting. This is +true, except the $14,000,000 a year it costs us to keep out there a +garrison of 12,000 American troops (supplemented by certain native +scouts--see chapter on "Cost of the Philippines," hereafter). This +garrison is conceded to be a mere handful, sufficient merely, +and intended merely--as a witty English woman has put it in a book +on the Philippines--"to knock the Filipino on the head in case he +wants his liberty before the Americans think he is fit for it." In +other words, we only attempt to keep force enough there to quell any +outbreak that might occur. So far as possible invasion by any foreign +power is concerned, our $14,000,000 per annum is an absolutely dead +loss. Brigadier-General Clarence Edwards, U. S. A., commanding the +Bureau of Insular Affairs, said recently [492] before the Finance +Committee of the Senate: + + + I would never think of the Philippines as a military problem for + defence. If any nation wants them, it is merely a declaration + of war. + + +What a shameful admission for a great nation to subscribe to, +relatively to people it pretends to be protecting! The programme of +the War Department is to abandon the Islands to their fate, for the +time being at least, in our next war, letting them remain a football +until the end of such war, when, as an independent republic they +could, and would, rally as one man to the defence of their country +against invasion, and would, with a little help from us, make life +unbearable for an invading force. As things stand, we are just as +impotent as Spain was out there in 1898, and it is utter folly to +forget what happened then. + +But to return to Governor Forbes's article and to a pleasanter feature +of the situation. He says: + + + We have established schools throughout the archipelago, teaching + upward of half a million children. + + +This also is true, and greatly to our credit. But as the American +hemp trust mulcts the Philippine hemp output about a half million +dollars a year (as above suggested, and later, in another chapter, +more fully explained), it follows that each Filipino child pays the +hemp trust a dollar a year for the privilege of going to school. + +And now let us consider the most supremely important part of Governor +Forbes's magazine article above quoted. The burden of the song of +the adverse minority report on the pending Jones bill (looking to +Philippine independence in 1921) [493] is that because there are +certain "wild tribes" scattered throughout the archipelago, in the +mountain fastnesses, therefore we should cling to the present policy of +indefinite retention with undeclared intention until the wild tribes +get civilized. Governor Forbes's article is an absolute, complete, +and final answer to the misinformed nonsense of the minority report +aforesaid. He says, apropos of public order: + + + It is now safe to travel everywhere throughout the Islands without + carrying a weapon, excepting only in some of the remote parts of + the mountains, where lurk bands of wild tribes who might possibly + mistake the object of a visit, and in the southern part of the + great island of Mindanao which is inhabited by intractable Moros. + + +The foregoing unmasks, in all its contemptible falsehood, the pretence +that the presence of a few wild tribes in the Philippines is a reason +for withholding independence from 7,000,000 of Christian people in +order that a greedy little set of American importers of Manila hemp may +fatten thereon. True, hemp is not edible, but it is convertible into +edibles--and also into campaign funds. That the existence of these wild +tribes--the dog-eating Igorrotes and other savages you saw exhibited at +the St. Louis Exposition of 1903-4--constitute infinitely less reason +for withholding independence from the Filipinos than the American +Indian constituted in 1776 for withholding independence from us, will +be sufficiently apparent from a glance at the following table, taken +from the American Census of the Islands of 1903 (vol. ii., p. 123): +[494] + + + Island Civilized Wild Total + + Luzon 3,575,001 223,506 3,798,507 + Panay 728,713 14,933 743,646 + Cebu 592,247 592,247 + Bohol 243,148 243,148 + Negros 439,559 21,217 460,776 + Leyte 357,641 357,641 + Samar 222,002 688 222,690 + Mindanao 246,694 252,940 499,634 + + +I think the above table makes clear the enormity of the injustice I am +now trying to crucify. Without stopping to use your pencil, you can +see that Mindanao, the island where the "intractable Moros" Governor +Forbes speaks of live, contains about a half million people. Half +of these are civilized Christians, and the other half are the wild, +crudely Mohammedan Moro tribes. Above Mindanao on the above list, +you behold what practically is the Philippine archipelago (except +Mindanao), viz., Luzon and the six main Visayan Islands. If you will +turn back to pages 225 et seq., especially to page 228, where the +student of world politics was furnished with all he needs or will +ever care to know about the geography of the Philippine Islands, +you will there find all the rocks sticking out of the water and all +the little daubs you see on the map eliminated from the equation +as wholly unessential to a clear understanding of the problem of +governing the Islands. That process of elimination left us Luzon and +the six main Visayan Islands above, as constituting, for all practical +governmental purposes all the Philippine archipelago except the Moro +country, Mindanao (i.e., parts of it), and its adjacent islets; +Luzon and the Visayan Islands contain nearly 7,000,000 of people, +and of these the wild tribes, as you can see by a glance at the above +table, constitute less than 300,000, sprinkled in the pockets of their +various mountain regions. Nearly all these 300,000 are quite tame, +peaceable, and tractable, except, as Governor Forbes suggests, they +"might possibly mistake the object of a visit." The half million +"intractable Moros" of Mindanao, plus those in the adjacent islets, +make up another 300,000. These last, it is true, will need policing +for some time to come, but whether we do that policing by retaining +Mindanao, or whether we let the Filipinos do it, is a detail that has +no standing in court as a reason for continuing to deny independence +to the 7,000,000 of people of Luzon and the Visayan Islands because +they have some 300,000 backward people in the backwoods of their +mountains. Yet see how the ingenuity of inspired ignorance states the +case, by adding the 300,000 tame tribes of Luzon and the Visayas to +the 300,000 fierce Moro savages away down in Mindanao, near Borneo, +so as to get 600,000 "wild" people, and then alluding to the fact +that so far only 200,000 Filipinos are qualified to vote. Says the +report of the minority of the Committee on Insular Affairs on the +pending Jones bill (proposing independence in 1921): + + + The wild and uncivilized inhabitants of the islands outnumber, 3 + to 1, those who would be qualified to vote under the pending bill + [the Jones bill]. + + +You see the minority report is counting women and children, +when it talks about the wild tribes, but not when it talks about +voters. According to universally accepted general averages, among +7,500,000 people you should find 1,500,000 adult males. No one doubts +that of these, by 1921, 500,000 will have become qualified voters. No +one can deny that any such country having 500,000 qualified voters, the +bulk of whom are good farmers, and the cream of whom are high-minded +educated gentlemen, and all of whom are intensely patriotic, will be in +good shape for promotion to independence. What wearies me about this +whole matter is that the minority report above mentioned is permitted +to get off such "rot," and the New York Times, the Army and Navy +Journal, and others, to applaud it, while the Administration sits by, +silent, and reaps the benefit of such stale, though not intentional, +falsehoods, without attempting to correct them, so that our people +may get at the real merits of the question. You see this silence +inures to the benefit of the interests that have cornered the Manila +hemp industry. + +In the campaign of 1912 for the Republican nomination for the +Presidency, there was much mutual recrimination between Colonel +Roosevelt and Mr. Taft about which of them had been kindest to +the International Harvester Company. It seems to me it is "up to" +Governor Forbes, who in the Philippines has served under the present +President and his predecessor also, to explain why he has abandoned +the fight, so long waged by previous governors-general, to get what +former Governor-General James F. Smith calls "the [hemp] joker" of +the Act of Congress of 1902 concerning the Philippines, wiped from +the statute books of this country. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +"NON-CHRISTIAN" WORCESTER + + The cry of remote distress is ever faintly heard. + + Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. + + +In the year 1911, the editor of one of the great metropolitan +papers told me that President Taft told him that the Honorable +Dean C. Worcester, the Secretary of the Interior of the Philippine +Government, was "the most valuable man we have on the Philippine +Commission." Certainly, reproduction of such an indorsement from +so exalted a source shows a wish to be fair, in one who considers +Professor Worcester the direst calamity that has befallen the +Filipinos since the American occupation, neither war, pestilence, +famine, reconcentration, nor tariff-wrought poverty excepted. During +all my stay in the Philippines I never did have any official relations +of any sort with the Professor, and only met him, casually, once, +in 1901. The personal impression left from the meeting was distinctly +that of an overbearing bully of the beggar-on-horseback type. Conscious +of liability to error, and preferring that the reader should judge for +himself, I give the main circumstances upon which this impression is +based. Soon after the central insular government was set up, in 1901, +Judge Taft and certain other members of the Philippine Commission, +the Professor among the number, came into my judicial district to +organize provincial governments. Their coming to each town where they +stopped was telegraphed in advance, and before they reached the town +where I then was holding court each one of the American colony of +the town was designated by common consent to look after a fraction +of the Taft party during their stay. The Professor fell to my lot. I +always was unlucky. However, their stay was only a few hours. While +they were there, I had occasion to observe that the Professor spoke +Spanish quite well and so remarked to him. The well-bred reply was: +"You'll find that I know a great many things you might not think I +knew." Whether this was merely "The insolence of office" cropping +out in a previously obscure young man suddenly elevated to high +station, or whether it was an evidence of the Commissioner's idea +of the relation of the Executive Department of a government to its +Judiciary, is a question. [495] At all events I think the incident +gives an insight into the man not irrelevant to what is hereinafter +submitted. I have met a number of other Americans since who had +received impressions similar to my own. And the Professor's whole +subsequent course in the Islands corroborates those impressions. I +have never talked to any American in the Philippines who had a good +word for him. Of course, Power, like Property, will always have +friends. So that even Professor Worcester may have some friends, +among his fellow-countrymen in those far-away Islands. But it has +already been made clear in a former chapter how entirely possible it +is for a man occupying high position in the government out there to +be very generally and cordially disliked by his own countrymen there +and actually not know it. Whether this is true of Professor Worcester, +or not, as a general proposition it is quite possible. One thing is +certain, namely, that he is very generally and very cordially detested +by the Filipinos. That this detestation is perfectly natural under +the circumstances, and entirely justifiable, and that it is a cruel +injustice to those people, as well as a monumental piece of folly, +to keep the Professor saddled upon them, it is now in order to show. + +In Chapter VI (ante), we made the acquaintance of two young naval +officers. Paymaster W. B. Wilcox and Naval Cadet L. R. Sargent, who, +in the fall of 1898, while the fate of the Philippines hung in the +balance at Paris, and peace still reigned in the Islands between us +and the Filipinos, made a trip through the interior of Luzon, covering +some six hundred miles, and afterwards furnished Admiral Dewey with +a written report of their trip, which was later published as a Senate +document. Professor Worcester's greatest value to President Taft, and +also the thing out of which has grown, most unfortunately, what seems +to be a very cordial mutual hatred between him and the Filipinos, +is his activities in the matter of discovering, getting acquainted +with, classifying, tabulating, enumerating, and otherwise preparing +for salvation, the various non-Christian tribes. These tribes have +already been briefly dealt with in Chapter XXI. (ante), apropos of +that part of the Great Peace Certificate of 1907 which related to the +"Moros and other non-Christian tribes"--uncivilized tribes which, +being as distinct from the great mass of the Filipino people as +islets from the sea, had had no more to do with the insurrection +against us, than the Pawnees, Apaches, and Sioux Indians had to do +with our Civil War of 1861-5. They were also dealt with, somewhat, +in the chapter preceding this. Long before Professor Worcester was +permanently inflicted upon the Filipino people, one of the young +naval officers above mentioned, Mr. Sargent, published an article in +the Outlook for September 2, 1899, [496] based on this trip through +the interior of Luzon, made by authority of Admiral Dewey the year +before. In the course of his article Mr. Sargent says: + + + Some years ago, at an exposition held at Barcelona, Spain, + a man and woman were exhibited as representative types of the + inhabitants of Luzon. The man wore a loin cloth, and the woman + a scanty skirt. It was evident that they belonged to the lowest + plane of savagery. + + +He adds: + + + I think no deeper wound was ever inflicted upon the pride of the + real Filipino people than that caused by this exhibition, the + knowledge of which seems to have spread throughout the island. The + man and woman, while actually natives of Luzon, were captives of + a wild tribe of Igorrotes of the hills. + + +Professor Worcester was originally a professor of zoology, or something +of that sort, in a western university. In the early nineties he had +made a trip to the Philippines, confining himself then mostly to +creeping things and quadrupeds--lizards, alligators, pythons, unusual +wild beasts, and other forms of animal life of the kind much coveted as +specimens by museums and universities. In 1899, just after the Spanish +War, he got out a book on the Philippines, and as an American who had +been in the Philippines was then a rara avis, it came to pass that +the reptile-finder ultimately became a statesman. He was brought, +possibly by conscious worth, to the notice of President McKinley, +accompanied the Schurman Commission to the Islands, in 1899, and +the Taft Commission in 1900, and finally evolved into his present +eminence as Secretary of the Interior and official chief finder of +non-Christian tribes for the Philippine Government. + +The best known of the wild tribes in the Philippines are the Igorrotes, +the dog-eating savages you saw at the St. Louis Exposition in 1903-4, +the same Mr. Sargent speaks of in his article in the Outlook. Of +course it was not a desire to misrepresent the situation, but only the +enthusiasm of a zoologist, anthropologically inclined, and accustomed +to carry a kodak, which started the Professor to photographing the +dog-eating Igorrotes and specimens of other non-Christian tribes +soon after the Taft Commission reached the Philippines. But you +cannot get far in the earlier reports of the Taft Commission, which +was supposed to have been sent out to report back on the capacity of +the Filipinos for self-government, without crossing the trail of the +Professor's kodak--pictures of naked Igorrotes and the like. This, +however innocent, must have been of distinct political value in +1900 and 1904 in causing the heart of the missionary vote in the +United States to bleed for those "sixty different tribes having sixty +different languages" of which Secretary Root's campaign speeches made +so much. It must also have greatly awakened the philanthropic interest +of exporters of cotton goods to learn of those poor "savage millions" +wearing only a loin cloth, when they could be wearing yards of cotton +cloth. By the time the St. Louis Exposition came off, in 1903-4, +it was decided to have the various tribes represented there. So +specimens were sent of the Igorrote tribe, the Tagalos, the Visayans, +the Negrito tribe, and various other tribes. The Tagalos, the Visayans, +etc., being ordinary Filipinos, did not prove money-makers. But it was +great sport to watch the Igorrotes preparing their morning dog. So it +was the "non-Christian tribes" that paid. It was they that were most +advertised. It was the recollection of them that lingered longest +with the visitor to the Exposition, and there was always in his mind +thereafter an association of ideas between the Igorrotes and Filipino +capacity for self-government generally. Many representative Filipinos +visited the St. Louis Exposition, saw all this, and came home and told +about it. One very excellent Filipino gentleman, a friend of mine, +who was Governor of Samar during my administration of the district +which included that island, sent me one day in October, 1904, a +satirical note, enclosing a pamphlet he had just received called +Catalogue of Philippine Views at the St. Louis Exposition. He knew I +would understand, so he said in the note, that the pamphlet was sent +"in order that you may learn something of certain tribes still extant +in this country." Concerning all this, I can say of my own knowledge +exactly what Naval Cadet Sargent said concerning the lesser like +indignity of the one Igorrote couple exhibited at Barcelona while +the Filipinos were asking representation in the Spanish Cortes, viz.: + + + I think no deeper wound was ever inflicted upon the pride of + the real Filipino people than that caused by this exhibition, + the knowledge of which seems to have spread throughout the islands. + + +You see our Census of 1903 gave the population of the Philippines +at about 7,600,000 of which 7,000,000 are put down as civilized +Christians; and of the remaining 600,000, about half are the +savage, or semi-civilized, crudely Mohammedan Moros, in Mindanao, +and the adjacent islets down near Borneo. The other 300,000 or so +uncivilized people scattered throughout the rest of the archipelago, +the "non-Christian tribes," which dwell in the mountain fastnesses, +remote from "the madding crowd," cut little more figure, if any, +in the general political equation, than the American Indian does +with us to-day. Take for instance the province of Nueva Vizcaya, +in the heart of north central Luzon. That was one of the provinces +of the First Judicial District I presided over in the Islands. I +think Nueva Vizcaya is Professor Worcester's "brag" province, in the +matter of non-Christian anthropological specimens, both regarding +their number and their variety. Yet while I was there, though we knew +those people were up in the hills, and that there were a good many +of them, the civilized people all told us that the hill-tribes never +bothered them. And on their advice I have ridden in safety, unarmed, +at night, accompanied only by the court stenographer, over the main +high-road running through the central plateau that constitutes the +bulk of Nueva Vizcaya province, said plateau being surrounded by a +great amphitheatre of hills, the habitat of the Worcester pets. + +The non-Christian tribes in the Philippines have been more +widely advertised in America than anything else connected with +the Islands. That advertisement has done more harm to the cause +of Philippine independence by depreciating American conceptions +concerning Filipino capacity for self-government, than anything that +could be devised even by the cruel ingenuity of studied mendacity. And +Professor Worcester is the P. T. Barnum of the "non-Christian tribe" +industry. The Filipinos, though unacquainted with the career of +the famous menagerie proprietor last named, and his famous remark: +"The American people love to be humbugged," understand the malign +and far-reaching influence upon their future destiny of the work +of Professor Worcester, and his services to the present Philippine +policy of indefinite retention with undeclared intention, through +humbugging the American people into the belief that the Islands must be +retained until the three hundred thousand or so Negritos, Igorrotes, +and other primitive wild peoples sprinkled throughout the archipelago +are "reconstructed." Is it any wonder that the Filipinos do not love +the Professor? To keep him saddled upon them as one of their rulers +is as tactful as it would be to send Senator Tillman on a diplomatic +mission to Liberia or Haiti. + +Not long ago the famous magazine publisher Mr. S. S. McClure, who, I +think, is trying to make his life one of large and genuine usefulness +for good, said to me that if we gave the Filipinos self-government +we would shortly have another Haiti or Santo Domingo on our hands. He +must have seen some of Professor Worcester's pictures of Igorrotes and +Negritos scattered through public documents related to the question +of Filipino capacity for self-government. Mr. McClure has never, +I believe, been in the Islands; and the cruelly unjust impression he +had innocently received was precisely the impression systematically +developed all these years through the Worcester kodak. + +In February, 1911, there appeared an article in the Sunset magazine for +that month entitled "The Philippines as I Saw them." The contributor +of the article is no less a personage than the Honorable James +F. Smith, former Governor-General of the Islands. At the top of the +article one reads the legend "Illustrated by Photographs through +the Courtesy of the Bureau of Insular Affairs." If you read this +legend understandingly, you can, in so doing, hear the click of the +Worcester kodak. General Smith's article is smeared all over with +such pictures. One is merrily entitled "Eighteen Igorrot Fledglings +Hatched by the American Bird of Freedom." Another is entitled "Subano +Man and woman, Mindanao." Another is a picture of an Ifugao home +in the province of Nueva Vizcaya, hereinabove mentioned. Ifugao is +the name of one of the wild tribes, one of the results of Professor +Worcester's anthropological excavations of the last few years. In +front of the Ifugao home stands the master of the house, clothed in a +breech-clout. Next in the menagerie in the article under consideration +you find a group of Ifugao children, then a Bagobo of Mindanao, then +some other specimen with a curious name, in which there is a woman +naked from the waist up and a man in a loin-cloth. Then follows a +picture of a Tingyan girl from Abra province. And, to cap the climax, +among the last of these pictures you find a Filipino couple pounding +rice. The rice pounders are ordinary Filipinos. The woman is decently +dressed; the man is clothed only from the waist down, having divested +himself of his upper garment, as is customary in order to work at hard +labor more comfortably in hot weather. I do not so much blame General +Smith for this libellous panorama of pictures, scattered though they +are through an article by him on "The Philippines as I Saw them." He +probably illustrated his article with what the Bureau of Insular +Affairs sent him, without giving much thought to the matter. But the +Bureau of Insular Affairs appears to neglect no occasion to parade the +Philippine archipelago's sprinkling of non-Christian tribes before +the American public, fully knowing that the hopes of the Filipinos +for independence must depend upon impressions received by the American +people concerning the degree of civilization they have reached. + +For all these wanton indignities offered their pride and self-respect, +the Filipinos well know they are primarily indebted to Professor +Worcester and his non-Christian tribe bureau. The feud between the +Professor and the Filipino people--the bad blood has been growing so +long that the incident hereinafter related justifies its being called +a feud--has been peculiarly embittered by the missionary aspect of +the non-Christian industry. The great body of the Filipino people, +the whole six or seven millions of them, are Catholics--most of them +devout Catholics. Presumably, their desire for salvation by the method +handed down by their forefathers would not be affected by a change +from American political supervision to independence. Yet the darkest +thing ahead of Philippine independence prospects is the Protestant +missionary vote in the United States. Bishop Brent, Episcopal Bishop +of the Philippines, one of the noblest and most saintly characters +that ever lived, has devoted his life apparently to missionary work +in the Philippines, having twice declined a nomination as Bishop of +Washington (D.C.). The only field of endeavor open to Bishop Brent and +his devoted little band of co-workers is the non-Christian tribes. It +seems that the Catholic and Protestant ecclesiastical authorities in +the Islands get along harmoniously, a kind of modus vivendi having +been arranged between them, by which the Protestants are not to do +any proselyting among the seven millions of Catholic Christians. So +this field of endeavor is the one Professor Worcester has been +industriously preparing during the last twelve years. Obviously, +every time Professor Worcester digs up a new non-Christian tribe +he increases the prospective harvest of the Protestants, thus +corralling more missionary vote at home for permanent retention of +the Philippines. Professor Worcester is quoted in a Manila paper as +saying, "I am under no delusion as to what may be accomplished for +the primitive wild people. It takes time to reconstruct them." This +remark is supposed to have been made in a speech before the Young Men's +Christian Association of Manila. Neither is Mr. Taft under any delusion +as to how valuable is religious support for the idea of retaining the +Philippines as a missionary field. The nature of the above allusion to +Bishop Brent should certainly be sufficient to show that the writer +yields to no one in affectionate reverence and respect for that rare +and noble character. But neither Bishop Brent nor any one else can +persuade him that it is wise to abandon the principle that Church +and State should be separate, in order that our government may go +into the missionary business. Since it has become apparent that the +Philippines will not pay, the Administration has relied solely on +missionary sentiment. In one of his public utterances Mr. Taft has +said in effect, "The programme of the Republican party with regard +to the Philippines is one which will make greatly for the spread of +Christian civilization throughout the Orient." + +The foregoing reflections are not intended to raise an issue as to the +wisdom of foreign missions. They are simply intended to illustrate +how it is possible and natural for President Taft to consider +Professor Worcester "the most valuable man we have on the Philippine +Commission." The Professor's menagerie is a vote-getter. Also, +President Taft's whole Philippine policy being founded upon the theory +that "the great majority" of the Filipino people are in favor of +alien thraldom in lieu of independence, he tolerantly permits their +editors to "let off steam" through clamor for independence. This +privilege they do not fail to exercise to the limit. The attitude +of the Insular Government permits the native press much latitude of +"sauciness," in deference to the American idea about liberty of the +press. In the exercise of this privilege during the last few years +the native press has gone the limit. However, there was no way to +stop them, on the principle to which we had committed ourselves. The +thing was very mischievous, and became utterly intolerable. There was +a native paper called Renacimiento (Renaissance). This paper was long +permitted to say things more or less seditious in character which +no self-respecting government should have tolerated. This was done +pursuant to the original theory, obstinately adhered to up to date, +that there was no real substantial unwillingness to American rule. Of +course, if this were true, newspaper noise could do no harm. Therefore +it was permitted to continue. Finally, however, like a boy "taking a +dare," the Renacimiento published an article on Professor Worcester +which intimately and sympathetically voiced the general yearning of +the Filipino people to be rid of the Professor. In so doing, however, +the hapless editor overstepped the limits of American license, and +got into the toils of the law, by saying things about the Professor +that rendered the editor liable to prosecution for criminal libel. The +Professor promptly took advantage of this misstep, to the great joy of +the authorities, who had been previously much goaded by independence +clamor. The result was that the paper was put out of business and the +editor was put in jail. No doubt the editor ought to have been put in +jail, but his incarceration incidentally served to tone down Filipino +clamor for independence. Subsequent to this coup d'etat, the Professor +did a little venting of feelings in his turn. He made a speech at +the Y. M. C. A. on October 10, 1910, which was a highly unchristian +speech to be gotten off in an edifice dedicated to the service +of Christ. The Manila papers give only extracts from the speech, +and I have never seen a copy of it. From the newspaper accounts, +it seems that the Professor was determined to, and did, relieve his +feelings about the Filipinos. The Manila Cable-News of October 11, +1910, quotes the Professor as referring to his pets, the non-Christian +tribes, as "ancestral enemies of the Christians." Thus for the first +time is developed an attitude of being champion of the uncivilized +pagan remnant, left from prehistoric times, against the Christians +of the Islands. The Cable-News also says that Professor Worcester +"laughed at the idea that the Islands belonged to the so-called +civilized people and held that if the archipelago belonged to any +one it certainly belonged to its original owners the Negritos." This +remark about the "so-called civilized people" was as tactful as +if President Taft should address a meeting of colored people in a +doubtful state and call them "niggers." Another of the Manila papers +gives an account of the speech from which it appears that the burly +Professor succeeded in amusing himself at least, if not his audience, +by suggestions as to the superior fighting qualities of the Moros over +the Filipinos, which suggestions were on the idea that the Moros would +lick the Filipinos if we should leave the country. (The Moros number +300,000, the Filipinos nearly 7,000,000.) The Professor's remarks +in this regard, according to the paper, were a distinct reflection +upon the courage of the Filipinos generally as a people. The effect +of Professor Worcester's speech before the Y. M. C. A. may be well +imagined. However the facts of history do not leave the imagination +unaided. The Philippine Assembly, representing the whole Filipino +people, and desiring to express the unanimous feeling of those people +with regard to the Worcester speech, unanimously passed, soon after +the speech was delivered, a set of resolutions whereof the following +is a translation: + + + Resolved that the regret of the Assembly be recorded for the + language attributed to the Honorable Dean C. Worcester, Secretary + of the Interior of the Philippine Government in a discourse + before the Young Men's Christian Association, October 10, + 1910. It is improper and censurable in a man who holds a public + office and who has the confidence of the government. And as the + statements made as facts are false, slanderous, and offensive to + the Philippine people, their publication is a grave violation of + the instructions given by President McKinley which required that + public functionaries should respect the sensibilities, beliefs, + and sentiments of the Philippine people, and should show them + consideration. The words and the conduct of Mr. Worcester tend + to sow distrust between the Americans and the Filipinos, whose + aspirations and duties should not separate them but unite them + in the pathway which leads to the progress and emancipation of + the Philippine people. The influence of Mr. Worcester has caused + injury to the feelings of the Filipinos, encouraged race hatred, + and tended to frustrate the task undertaken by men of real good + will to win the esteem, confidence, and respect of the Philippine + people for the Americans. + + Resolved further that this House desires that these facts should + be communicated to the President of the United States through + the Governor of the Philippines and the Secretary of War. + + +Presumably these resolutions were forwarded "to the President +of the United States through the Governor of the Philippines and +the Secretary of War." But apparently they were pigeonholed when +they reached Washington. I stumbled on them in the Insular Affairs +Committee of the House of Representatives whither they had landed +through Mr. Slayden of Texas. The distinguished veteran Congressman +from Texas, being known as an enemy of all wrong things, was appealed +to by certain persons in the United States to bring the matter to +the attention of Congress. He did so by presenting to the House of +Representatives an American petition which embodied a copy of the +resolutions of the Philippine Assembly. + +It thus becomes apparent that one of Professor Worcester's principal +elements of value is in bullying the Filipinos, and thereby smothering +manifestations of a desire for independence, the existence of which +desire is denied by President Taft's Administration. The more the +Filipinos cry for independence the greater seems the sin of holding +them in subjection. So that Professor Worcester is very valuable in +silencing independence clamor and thereby creating an appearance of +consent of the governed, when there is no consent of the governed +whatsoever. + +In describing the discontent in distant provinces under brutal +pro-consuls, which contributed largely to the final disintegration +of the Roman Empire, Gibbon says: + + + The cry of remote distress is ever faintly heard. + + +The total failure of the above temperate, dignified, and vibrant +protest of the Philippine Assembly to reach the ears of the American +people is but another reminder that history repeats itself. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE PHILIPPINE CIVIL SERVICE + + Is our Occupation of the Philippines to be temporary, + like our occupation of Cuba after the Spanish War, or + "temporary" like the British Occupation of Egypt since + 1882? The Unsettled Question. + + The policy to be pursued is for Congress to determine. + I have no authority to speak for Congress in respect + to the ultimate disposition of the Islands. + + Secretary of War Wm. H. Taft to Philippine Assembly, 1907. + + +The Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, known as the Philippine Government +Act, is entitled "An Act temporarily to provide" a government for the +Philippine Islands. The young American who goes out to the Philippines +to take a position with the Insular Government there has usually +read his share of Kipling, and his imagination likes to analogize +his prospective employment to the British Indian Civil Service. The +latter, however, offers a career. But what does the former offer? Take +the prospects of the rank and file, as set forth by Mr. J. R. Arnold, +of the Executive Bureau of the Philippine Government, in an article +published in the North American Review for February, 1912. Suppose a +young man goes out to the Philippines at a salary of $1200. Mr. Arnold +discusses fully and frankly the cost of living in the Islands, and +how much higher board, lodging, etc., are out there than in the United +States. He states that board and lodging will cost $15 to $20 a month +more than here. So that, so far, a salary of $1200 in the Philippines +would seem equivalent to a salary of say approximately $950 in the +United States--say in Washington. Also he calls attention to the +fact that the government will pay your way out, but you must get +back the best way you can. He does not say so, but the walking is not +good all the way from Manila to Washington. Seriously, according to +the authority from whom we are quoting, it costs $225 to $300 to get +back. So if you come back at the end of a three years' stay--you must +contract to stay at least that long--you must have laid by, taking +his maximum return fare as the more prudent figure to reckon on, one +hundred dollars a year to buy your return ticket. Mr. Arnold does not +say so, but it is a fact, that various little expenses will creep in +that are sure to amount, even with the most rigidly frugal, to $50 +per annum that you would never have spent in the United States. You +are hardly respectable in the Philippines if you do not have a +muchacho. Muchacho, in Spanish, means the same as garcon in French, +or valet in English. But muchachos are as thick as cigarettes in the +Philippines. And you can hire one for about $5 a month. To resolve not +to have a muchacho in the Philippines would be like resolving at home +never to have your shoes shined, or your clothes pressed. It would be +contrary to the universal custom of the country, and would therefore be +"impossible." You have not been long in the Philippines before you get +tired of telling applicants for the position of muchacho that you do +not want one, and, benumbed by the universal custom, you accept the +last applicant. You must figure on a muchacho as one of your "fixed +charges." Count then an extra $50 annual necessary expense that you +would not have at home. If you do not succumb to the muchacho custom, +you will get rid of the $50 in other ways fairly classifiable as +necessary current expenses. Thus, if you take from your $1200, worth +$950 in Manila, as above stated, the $100 per annum necessary to be +laid by against your home-coming, and the other $50 last suggested, +your salary of $1200 per annum in Manila becomes equivalent to one of +$800 at home, so far as regards what you are likely to save by strict +habits of economy. In other words, to figure how you are going to come +out in the long run, if you go out as a $1200 man, while your social +position will be precisely that of a man commanding the same salary +in a government position in Washington, you must knock off a third of +the $1200. This is not the way Mr. Arnold states the case exactly. I +am simply taking his facts, supplemented by what little I have added, +and stating them in a way which will perhaps illustrate the case +better to some people. Mr. Arnold says you are apt to get up as high +as $1500 and finally even to $1800 in three to five years. Suppose +you do have that luck. Still, if, as has been made plain above, you +must consider $1200 in Manila as equal to only $800 in Washington +(so far as regards what you are going to be able to save each year), +by the same token you must consider $1500 in Manila as being equal +to only $1000 in Washington, and $1800 as only $1200. + +The utmost limit of achievement in the Philippine Government service, +the only one of the higher positions not subject to political caprice, +the only one regarded out there as a "life position"--and this excepts +neither the Governorship of the Islands nor the Commissionerships--is +the position of Justice of the Supreme Court. The salary is $10,000 +per annum, American money. But there is not an American judge on that +bench who would not be glad at any moment to accept a $5000 position +as a United States District Judge at home. All of them whom I know +are most happily married. But I believe their wives would quit them +if they refused such an offer from the President of the United States, +or else get so unhappy about it that they would accept and come home. + +While we have now considered the case from bottom to top, we did not +originally figure on the young American going out to the Philippines +otherwise than single. In this behalf Mr. Arnold himself says: + + + I do not think it can be fairly called other than risky for + an American to attempt to practise love in a cottage in the + Philippines. + + +Says the late Arthur W. Fergusson--who gave his life to the Philippine +Civil Service--in his annual report for 1905, as Executive Secretary: + + + The one great stumbling-block, and which no legislative body + can eradicate, is the fact that very few Americans intend to + make the Philippines their permanent home, or even stay here + for any extended period. This is doubtless due to the location + of the islands, their isolation from centres of civilization + and culture, the enervating climate, lack of entertainment and + desirable companionship, and distance from the homeland. Every + clerk, no matter what his ideals or aspirations, realizes after + coming here that he must at some time in the future return to + the United States and begin all over again. After spending a + year or more in the islands, the realization that the sooner the + change is made the better, becomes more acute. This condition + causes, doubtless, the class of men who are not adventurous or + fond of visiting strange climes to think twice before accepting + an appointment for service in these islands, and generally to + remain away, and a great majority of those who do come here to + leave the service again after a very short period of duty. [497] + + +Then Mr. Fergusson comes to the obvious but apparently unattainable +remedy, which he says is + + + to make a Philippine appointment a permanent means of livelihood + by providing an effective system of transfers to the Federal + service after a reasonable period of service here. * * * Under + the present regulations influence must be brought to bear at + Washington in order that requisition may be made by the Chief of + some bureau there for the services of a clerk desiring to transfer. + + +You see, if a Washington Bureau, say the Coast and Geodetic Survey, +or the Geological Survey, sends a man out to the Islands, he is never +for a moment separated from the Federal Civil Service or the Federal +Government's pay-roll. The same is true of civilian employees of the +army. But the man in the Insular Service, when he wants to get back +home, is little better off than if he were in the employ of the Cuban +Government, or the British Indian Government, or that of the Dutch +East Indies. Mr. Fergusson also says: + + + It is believed to be useless to try to influence men to come out + here unless there is something permanent offered to them at the + expiration of a reasonable term of service. * * * The average + European is content to live and die "east of Suez"; the average + American is not. * * * I am firmly convinced that a permanent + service under present conditions is entirely out of the question. + + +How can you have "a permanent service" unless you have a definite +declared policy? Why not declare the purpose of our Government with +the regard to the Islands? + +In his annual report for 1906 [498] Mr. Fergusson says: + + + Our relations to the islands are such that the education and + specialization of a distinct body of high class men purposely + for this service as is done in England for the Indian service, + will probably be always a practical impossibility. + + +He then goes on to reiterate his annual plea for a law providing for +transfer as a matter of right, not of influence, from the Philippine +Civil Service to the Federal Civil Service in the United States, +and tells of a very capable official of his bureau who got a chance +during the year just closed to transfer from the Philippines to a +$1400 government position in the United States, and was glad to get +it, although $1400 was "considerably less than half what he received +here." Mr. Fergusson quickly gives the key to all this in what he calls +"the haunting fear of having to return to the States in debilitated +health and out of touch with existent conditions, only to face the +necessity of seeking a new position." He adds: + + + That this is not a mere theory is proven by the number of army + (civilian) employees who contentedly remain year after year. + + +In 1907, Mr. Fergusson reports on the same subject [499]: "Matters +do not seem to be improving," and that the Director of the Insular +Civil Service informs him that "during the fiscal year there were five +hundred voluntary separations from the service by Americans, of whom +one hundred were college graduates." He adds: "When the expense of +getting and bringing out new men, and of training them to their new +work is considered, the wastefulness of the present system is evident." + +You do not find any quotations from any of the Fergusson disclosures +in Mr. Arnold's North American Review article. He would probably have +lost his job, if he had quoted them. Yet the evils pointed out by +Mr. Fergusson come from one permanent source, the uncertainty of the +future of every American out there, due to the failure of Congress +to declare the purpose of the Government. + +On January 30, 1908, Arthur W. Fergusson died in the service of the +Philippine Government. No general law putting that service on the basis +he pleaded for to the day of his death has ever yet been passed. Since +his death, his tactful successor appears to have abandoned further +pleading, and concluded to worry along with the permanently lame +conditions inherent in the uncertainty as to whether we are to keep +the Islands permanently or not, rather than embarrass President Taft +by discouraging young Americans from going to the Islands. + +The report of the Governor-General of the Philippines for 1907, +Governor Smith, says [500]: + + + American officials and employees have rarely made up their minds + to cast their fortunes definitely with the Philippines or to make + governmental service in the tropics a career. Many of those who + in the beginning were so minded, due to ill health or the longing + to return to friends or relatives, changed front and preferred to + return to the home land, there to enjoy life at half the salary + in the environment to which they were accustomed. * * * That + which operates probably more than anything else to induce good men + drawing good salaries to abandon the service * * * is the knowledge + that they have nothing to look forward to when broken health or + old age shall have rendered them valueless to the government. + + +If Congress should ever care to do anything to improve the Philippine +Civil Service and the status of Americans entering the same, certainly +the one supremely obvious thing to do is to make transfer back to +the civil service in the United States after a term of duty in the +Islands a matter of right. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +COST OF THE PHILIPPINES + + If 't were well to do right, 't were better still + if 't were more profitable. + + Cynic Maxims. + + +General Otis's annual report for 1899, [501] dated August 31st, gives +the number of Americans killed in battle in the Philippines, from +the beginning of the American occupation to that date, as 380. This +includes those wounded who afterwards died of such wounds. His report +for 1900, [502] covering the period from his 1899 report to May 5, +1900, gives the number of Americans killed in battle from August 31, +1899, to May 1, 1900, as 258. General MacArthur succeeded General +Otis in command of the American forces in the Philippines on May 5, +1900. General MacArthur's annual report for 1901, [503] gives the +number of Americans killed in battle between May 5, 1900, and June 30, +1901, as 245. Thus the total number of Americans killed in battle up +to the time the Civil Government was set up in 1901, was 883. The +military reports do not always give the insurgents killed during +the periods they cover. But on June 4, 1900, as we saw in a previous +chapter, General MacArthur reported the number of Filipinos killed +up to that time, so far as our records showed, to be something over +10,000. General MacArthur's report, above quoted, giving our killed +for the period it covers (May 5, 1900, to June 30, 1901), at 245, +gives the insurgent killed for the same period as 3854. If we add this +3854 to the 10,000 killed up to about where May merged into June in +1900, we have 13,854 Filipinos killed up to the time Judge Taft was +inaugurated as Governor, in 1901. There was no record, of course, +obtainable or attempted, by the Eighth Army Corps, of Filipinos who +were wounded and not captured and who subsequently died. It is quite +safe to assume that such fatalities must have swelled the enemy's list +up to the time of the setting up of the Civil Government far above +16,000 killed. Thus, as has heretofore been stated, the ratio of the +enemy's loss to our loss was, literally, at least 16 to 1, up to the +time the civil government was set up. General MacArthur's report for +1900 [504] would seem to bear out the above ratio. He there gives the +number of our killed, from November 1, 1899, to September 1, 1900, +including the wounded who afterwards died of such wounds, at 268, and +the Filipinos killed, "as far as of record," 3227. While these last +figures make our killed for the period they relate to, considerably +over 200, and the enemy's killed but a very small figure over 3200, +still, making allowances for the enemy's wounded that died afterwards, +of which of course we have no record, the 16 to 1 ratio would seem to +give a fairly accurate probable estimate of the relative loss of life. + +These figures are explained by the facts, already noticed hereinbefore, +that most of our people knew how to shoot and the Filipinos did +not. The great part of their army were raw recruits who did not +understand the use of two sights on a rifle, and frequently relied +solely on the one at the muzzle, not even lifting up the sight near +the lock which when not in use lies flat along the gun-barrel, with +the result that they almost invariably got the range too high and +shot over our heads. + +Because the military reports overlap each other in many instances, +it is not possible to state accurately how many men the Eighth Army +Corps lost by disease, but our loss chargeable to this account was +not far from our fatalities on the battlefield. [505] + +It is not possible to even approximate the enemy's loss other than +on the battlefield. The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey +Philippine Atlas gives the table estimating the population of the +various provinces of the Philippine archipelago prior to the American +occupation. This estimate gives the population of Batangas province +at 312,192. The American Census of the Philippines of 1903 gives +the population of Batangas province at 257,715. [506] This would +present a difference in the population of Batangas prior to 1898 and +its population after the war of 54,477. The provincial secretary of +Batangas province made a report to Governor Taft on December 18, 1901 +[507] on the condition of the province generally. This report, as it +appears in the Senate Document, is a translation from the Spanish. The +portion which relates to the reduction of the population of Batangas +province reads as follows: + + + The mortality, caused no longer by the war, but by disease, + such as malaria and dysentery, has reduced to a little over + 200,000 the more than 300,000 inhabitants which in former years + the province had. + + +Of course these appalling figures [508] must be taken with a grain +of salt. In the first place, the man who furnished them was merely +reproducing the general impression of his neighbors as to the +diminution of the population of the province. He does not pretend +to be dealing with official statistics. On the other hand, all of +the yearly reports of the various native provincial officers are, +as a general rule, pathetically optimistic. They all seem to think +it their duty to present a hopeful view of the situation. In fact if +you read these reports one after the other, the various signers seem +to vie with one another in optimism as if their tenure of office +depended upon it. So that, balancing probabilities, it would seem +unlikely that the provincial secretary of Batangas would have stated +more than what he at least believed to represent actual conditions, +and the results of the war. A comparison of the Atlas population +tables above mentioned with the census tables of 1903 shows no very +startling difference in the population of any of the other provinces +of the archipelago before and after the war except Batangas. It is +also notorious that Batangas suffered by the war more than any other +province in the Philippine Islands. However, a glance at the table +of population of the various provinces of the Census of 1903 [509] +shows you fifty provinces with a total of 7,635,426 people. While +we will never know whether Batangas did or did not lose one hundred +thousand as a result of the war and its consequences, still, if it did, +the other forty-nine provinces above mentioned must have lost as many +more, that is to say, must have lost another hundred thousand. So that +while it is all a matter of surmise, with nothing more certain to go on +than the foregoing, it would really seem by no means absurd to assume +the Filipino loss of life, other than on the battlefield, caused by the +war, and the famine, pestilence, and other disease consequent thereon, +at not far from 200,000 people. In more than one province, the people +died like flies, especially the women and children, as a result of +conditions incident to and consequent upon the war. This will not +seem an over-statement to men who have lived much among people that +do not know much about how to take care of themselves in the midst +of great calamities, people who will eat meat of animals carried off +by disease, in time of famine; who will drink water contaminated by +what may for euphony be called sewage; and who are unprovided with +any save traditional home remedies against cholera, small-pox, etc. + +As to the cost of the Philippines in money, it used to be said +in the early days that we paid $20,000,000 for a $200,000,000 +insurrection. Just what the Islands have cost us up to date in money +it is utterly impossible to figure out with any degree of certainty, +except that a safe minimum may be arrived at. Said the distinguished +Congressman from Texas, Honorable James L. Slayden, in a speech which +appears in the Congressional Record of February 25, 1908 (pp. 2532 +et seq.): + + + On this point, and in reply to a resolution of the Senate in + 1902, the Secretary of War reported that the cost of the army + in the Philippines from June 30, 1898, to July 1, 1902, had been + $169,853,512.00. To this let us add $114,515,643.00, the admitted + cost of the army in the Philippines from May 1, 1902, to June 30, + 1907, and we will have a grand total of $284,369,155.00. That + does not take into account the additional cost of the navy. + + +Nor, be it noted, does it count the $20,000,000 we paid Spain for +the Islands, which item, is, however included in another part of +Mr. Slayden's speech. + +The only other estimate of what the Islands have cost, made in the +last few years, which seems to be specially worthy of consideration, +is one which appeared in the New York Evening Post of March 6, +1907. This estimate was prepared by one of the best trained and +most conservative newspaper men in the United States, Mr. Edward +G. Lowry, then Washington correspondent of the Evening Post, and +since 1911, its managing editor. The total which Mr. Lowry arrives +at is $308,369,155, up to that time. There have been various absurd +estimates made recklessly without knowledge, but Mr. Lowry's estimate +is very carefully studied out, and presented in detail in the newspaper +referred to. From the testimony of Mr. Slayden and Mr. Lowry, given +as a result of their inquiries into the matter, it would thus seem +that the Islands must have cost us by the end of 1907 something like +$300,000,000. The Insular Government is now self-sustaining, except +as to military affairs. + +The cost per annum of the Philippine (native) scouts, of which there +are 4000, is paid out of the United States Treasury, and amounts +to $2,000,000 per annum. [510] The number of American troops in the +islands for the last few years has been about 12,000. Those who are +wedded to the present Philippine policy of indefinite retention +with undeclared intention, insist that our military expenses in +the Philippines, in respect to the regular army out there, are not +fairly chargeable as a part of the current expenses of the Philippine +occupation. This argument must be admitted to have some force as far +as the navy is concerned, but as to the army it is clearly without +merit. Under the Act of Congress reorganizing the army of the United +States after the Spanish War, provision was made for a skeleton army +of about 60,000 men capable of expansion to something like 100,000 +in time of war. The method of expansion thus contemplated was to have +companies of, say, for illustration, sixty men, in time of peace, which +companies could be recruited up to a war footing of one hundred men, +in time of war. The suggestion that the cost of the part of the regular +army which we have to keep in the Philippines is not chargeable to +the Philippines because those same troops would have to be somewhere +in the United States if they were not where they are, is not well +taken. If we did not need 12,000 men continually in the Philippines, +the army could be at once reduced by that much without affecting its +present organization. If we had no troops in the Philippines this would +not mean the absolute elimination from the army of enough regiments +to represent twelve thousand men. It would not eliminate any existing +organization. It would simply mean contraction of the number of men in +the several companies of the several regiments of the army toward a +peace basis to the extent of a total of twelve thousand men, more or +less. The War Department has long figured on the cost of an American +soldier in the Philippines per annum including his pay, allowances, +and transportation out and back, at $1000 per annum. The cost of +12,000 soldiers at $1000 per annum is $12,000,000, per annum. The +conclusion would, therefore, seem inevitable that the extra military +current expense chargeable to our occupation of the Philippines is +$12,000,000, per annum, outside the Philippine scouts, or, a total +of $14,000,000. Even if the Philippines have cost us $300,000,000, +that is no reason why we should continue to run a kindergarten for +adults out there, and let the Monroe Doctrine run to seed. "Something" +is not "bound to turn up." The Philippine Islands will not prove a +blessing in disguise. In every war with a nation having discontented +colonial subjects, the enemy will always strike the colony first, +and hope for aid from the inhabitants thereof. + +Even if the Philippines have cost us $300,000,000, we are a nation +of nearly 100,000,000 people. So they have cost us, all told, in +the neighborhood of only about $3 a piece. And we subjugated them by +mistake, after freeing a less capable people, the Cubans. + +The Panama Canal is to be finished in 1913. This means a splendid, +but free-for-all contest, for the trade of South America. In South +America we will meet a tremendous pro-German sentiment, and a by no +means inconsiderable anti-"Yankee" sentiment. The bigger Germany's +army and navy grows, the more she will loom up as the one great +menace to the peace of the world, and the one avowed enemy of the +Monroe Doctrine. We need to build up a Pan-American esprit de corps, +based on the instinct of self-defence. We must win the good will of +South America, and we cannot do it so long as we insist, in another +part of the world, upon the righteousness of the principle of one +Christian people policing a weaker Christian people, ostensibly to +keep them from having revolutions, and really in the hope of ultimate +profit. To free the Filipinos should be the first step we take after +the Panama Canal is completed toward getting ourselves foot-loose +entirely, with a view of getting everything from the Canadian border +to the Argentine wheat fields and beyond, solidly and sincerely +for the Monroe Doctrine. In that direction lies our only sensible +and reasonable hope that the canal will get for us the trade and +friendship of South America. With such tremendous issues at stake, +what does it matter to the richest nation on earth what the Philippines +cost? What does it matter, anyhow, how much it costs to do right? + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION + + Taxation without representation is good cause for revolt. + + American Speech of 1776. + + +As a colony of Spain the Philippines enjoyed certain special +privileges in the way of trade with the "mother country." When at the +beginning of our military occupation in 1898 General Otis detailed +an army officer to take charge of the Customs House, he continued +for the time being the Spanish tariff laws concerning imports and +exports. On September 17, 1901, the Philippine Commission passed +a tariff act [511] fixing the duties on imports into the Islands +and also continuing to a considerable extent the system of duties +on Philippine exports inherited from the Spanish regime. Among the +products of the Philippine Islands on which the Act of September 17, +1901, imposed an export tax were the following: + + + Hemp, 75c. per 100 kilos [512]; sugar, 5c. per 100 kilos; + manufactured tobacco, $1.50 per 100 kilos; raw tobacco, $1.50 + down to 75c. per 100 kilos. [513] + + +On March 8, 1902, the United States Congress passed an Act, +"temporarily to provide revenue for the Philippine Islands and for +other purposes." The Act of 1902 re-enacted the Commission's tariff +law for the Philippines of September 17, 1901, with one change, +hereinafter to be discussed, as to its export tax features. As +to the tariffs to be collected at our custom-houses on Philippine +products shipped to the United States, the Act of 1902 reduced the +rates fixed by the Dingley tariff to seventy-five per cent. of said +rates. That was all Congress did in the way of lowering our tariff +wall to Philippine products until 1909, when the Payne-Aldrich tariff +bill became a law. This twenty-five per cent. reduction was no better +than no reduction whatever would have been. + +Governor Taft pleaded very earnestly with Congress, at the time +of the passage of the Philippine Tariff Act of March 8, 1902, for a +substantial reduction of the Dingley tariff rate on sugar and tobacco, +so as to give his "constituents"--his Filipinos--something in lieu +of the markets they had had under Spain. But our sugar and tobacco +interests defeated his efforts, because they feared what they termed +"competition with cheap Asiatic labor." + +The Act of Congress of March 8, 1902, repealed the export duties +imposed by the Act of the Philippine Commission of September 17, +1901, as to exports to the United States, leaving unrepealed, +however, the export duty on Philippine products shipped to foreign +countries. Section 2 of said Act of 1902 provided, as to exports +from the Philippines to the United States, that the rates of duty +upon products of the Philippine Archipelago coming into the United +States, should be less any duty or tax levied, collected, and paid +thereon (under the Act of the Philippine Commission of September +17, 1901, aforesaid) upon the shipment thereof from the Philippine +Archipelago. This sounds liberal enough. It is, as far as it goes. But +what those familiar with the hemp infamy of the Act of 1902 call +"the joker" in it, is as follows: + + + All articles, the growth and product of the Philippine Islands, + admitted into the ports of the United States free of duty + under the provisions of this act, and coming directly from said + islands to the United States, for use and consumption therein, + shall be hereafter exempt from any export duties imposed in the + Philippine Islands. + + +This also sounds liberal, on first reading, but its object was, and +its effect has been, to enable the American Hemp Trust to corner +and control the Manila hemp industry. There is but one article of +Philippine export which any one in the United States is interested +in, that was admitted into the United States free of duty under the +Dingley Act. [514] That article is hemp. The object of the law was +to favor Americans interested in exporting hemp from Manila to the +United States as against Europeans exporting it to England and other +foreign countries. This does not look, on its face, either unpatriotic +or un-Christian. It is not unpatriotic or un-Christian, ordinarily, +to favor your own people, as against their foreign competitors. The +moral quality of such favoritism, however, must depend on who is to +pay for it. Under the Act of 1902, the Manila authorities have always +collected an export tax on hemp coming to the United States, just as +they do on hemp going from Manila to foreign countries, exactly as +if the law abolishing the export tax on hemp coming to the United +States had never been passed. Later, on proof that the hemp was in +fact carried to the United States and used and consumed therein, they +refund the export tax. This is on the idea that they cannot tell where +the hemp is going to until they know where it went to, nor where it +is going to be "used and consumed" until they know where it was in +fact finally "used and consumed." Of course the small farmer is in +no position to follow his bale of hemp into the markets of the world +and show, if it happens to go to the United States, that it did in +fact go there and that it was there "used and consumed," and, finally +obtaining the proof of this, submit it to the Manila Government and +get his little export tax on his bale of hemp refunded. Only the big +buyer's agents at Manila are in a position to do this. So the hemp +crop is bought and moved under conditions which are the same as if +all hemp were subject to an export tax. And only the big fish get +the benefit. For instance, the International Harvester Company has +its hemp buyers at Manila. And as to the part of the Philippine hemp +crop it handles, it can, of course, follow the hemp to its ultimate +consumption in the United States, make the proof, and get the refund. + +The wealth of the Philippines is practically entirely +agricultural. Neither mining nor manufactures cut any appreciable +figure. Hemp, sugar, tobacco, and copra [515] are the chief staples +and main exports, and of the first of these Secretary of War Taft +says in one of his reports: [516] + + + The chief export in value and quantity from the Philippines is + Manila hemp, it amounting to between 60 and 65 per cent. of the + total exports. + + +Let us see just how far, according to the annual reports of our +own agents in the Philippines--those charged by us with governing +them,--this piece of legislation gotten through by "special privilege" +has depressed the Manila hemp industry, the chief source of wealth of +the Islands. And before we even get to the main trouble, let us permit +the Insular Government to "place on the screen," as a preliminary +"view," a glance at what the instinct of self-preservation of American +sugar and tobacco interests, fearing competition from "cheap Asiatic +labor," have deemed it necessary to do to the Philippine sugar and +tobacco industries, through the Dingley tariff. The annual report of +the Philippine Commission for 1904, before it gets to the subject of +hemp, draws a most gloomy picture of how we killed the markets for +sugar and tobacco the Islands had under Spain, and gave them none +instead. They speak of "the languishing state of these industries" +(p. 26), and describe a state of affairs that sounds more like Egypt +under Pharaoh than anything else, including a cattle disease that +carried off ninety per cent. of the beasts of burden of the country, +and wholesale destruction of crops by locusts. [517] What they have to +say of the annual tribute levied by the American Hemp Trust, through +Congress, on the Manila hemp industry, should not be re-stated, +but quoted. They say: [518] + + + We desire to call attention to the injustice effected upon the + revenues of the islands by section 2 of the Act of Congress + approved March 8, 1902, which provides that the Philippine + Government shall refund all export duties imposed upon articles + exported from the islands into and consumed in the United + States. Under the provisions of this section there has been + collected in the Philippine Islands, since its enactment down to + the close of the fiscal year 1904, the sum of $1,060,460.20 United + States currency, which is refundable. These refundable duties + are principally upon hemp exportations to the United States, + and are in effect a gift of that amount to the manufacturers of + the United States who use hemp in their operations. + + +They add: + + + It is manifestly a discrimination in favor of our manufacturers + as against those of foreign countries. No good reason is perceived + why this bounty to American manufacturers should be extracted from + the treasury of the Philippine Islands, and it is respectfully + submitted that the law authorizing it should be repealed. + + +The annual report of the Philippine Commission for 1905, after the +usual complaint about being made a political football by Benevolent +Assimilation on the one side, and Louisiana and our sugar-beet +States on the other, and the usual annual and true description of +the consequent poverty, says concerning hemp: + + + We have several times in our reports called attention to the + practical workings of that portion of the Act of Congress approved + March 8, 1902, which provides for the refund of duties paid + on articles exported from the Philippine Islands to the United + States and consumed therein, and have as repeatedly recommended + its repeal. It is a direct burden upon the people of the Philippine + Islands, because it takes from the insular treasury export duties + collected from the people and gives them to manufacturers of hemp + products in the United States. These manufacturers were already + prosperous before this bounty was given them and it seems hardly + consistent with our expressions of purpose to build up and develop + the Philippine Islands when we are thus enriching a few of our + own people at their expense. [519] + + +By the end of the fiscal year 1905 (June 30), the American importers of +Manila hemp--of whom the International Harvester Company and its allied +interests are the most influential--had, under the operation of the +rebate system based on the Act of 1902, milked the Philippine people to +the tune of about $1,000,000. Says the Philippine Commission's annual +report for 1905, immediately after the passage last above quoted: + + + The amount of duties refunded under this act to manufacturers in + the United States during the three years ending June 30, 1905, + is $1,057,251.12. Many of the departments of the government are + much hampered in their operations because of the lack of funds, + notably the bureau of education, and were the sum thus taken + available for educational purposes, to say nothing of any other, + the government would be enabled to give instruction to thousands + of Filipino children whom they are now unable to reach and who + must remain steeped in ignorance because of the lack of funds to + provide such instruction. + + +Said the Manila Chamber of Commerce to the Taft Congressional party in +August, 1905: "The country is in a state of financial collapse." [520] + +Says the Philippine Commission's report for 1906 (pt. 1, p. 68): + + + The Commission has repeatedly called attention in its reports + to the action of Congress providing for a refund of duties paid + on articles exported from the Islands to the United States and + consumed therein. The reasons that led the Commission heretofore to + recommend the repeal of that provision are still operative. Since + the passage of that act on March 8, 1902, the amount of duties + collected and paid into the Philippine treasury and handed over + to manufacturers in the United States down to June 30, 1906, + is $1,471,208.47. This money has been taken out of the poverty + of the insular treasury to be delivered directly into the hands + of manufacturers of cordage and other users of Philippine hemp in + the United States for their enrichment. The cordage interests are + prosperous and do not need this help; the Philippine Islands are + poor. Legislation which takes money directly from the Philippine + treasury and passes it over to a particular industry in the United + States is not founded on sound principles of political economy + or of justice to the Filipinos. We renew our recommendation for + the repeal of this provision. + + +You also find in the Commission's report for 1906 the usual +annual protests against the Dingley tariff on Philippine sugar and +tobacco. Said the Honorable Henry C. Ide in an article in the New York +Independent for November 22, 1906, written shortly after he retired +from the office of Governor-General of the Philippines and returned +to the United States: "By annexation we killed the Spanish market for +Philippine sugar and tobacco, and our tariff shuts these products +from the United States market, and to-day both these [industries] +are practically prostrated." In their annual report for 1907, +the Philippine Commission say with regard to the American corner on +Philippine hemp: [521] "The price of hemp has fallen from an average of +twenty pesos ($10 American money) per picul [522] to thirteen pesos +per picul." It thus appears that by judicious manipulation of the +hemp market at Manila, through the leverage of the refund system, +based on collection and subsequent refunding of the export tax on +hemp coming to the United States, the Manila agents of the American +hemp manufacturers had, as early as 1907, beat the price of hemp down +to not far above half of what it had been formerly. To-day (1912) +the Filipino hemp farmer gets for his hemp just one half what he got +just ten years ago. During all this period of economic depression, +the public utterances and State papers both of President Roosevelt +and Mr. Taft are full of such preposterous stuff as the following: + + + No great civilized power has ever managed with such wisdom and + disinterestedness the affairs of a people committed by the accident + of war to its hands. [523] + + +This is what Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft were publicly pretending to +believe. But at practically the same time, during as dark a year, +economically, as the American occupation has seen, 1907, let us see +what they were privately admitting to their intimate friends. + +In the North American Review for January 18, 1907, in an article +contributed to that Review by the author of this volume, our +treatment of the Philippine people, through our Congress, was briefly +discussed. The article chanced to attract the attention of Mr. Andrew +Carnegie, who gave a considerable sum of money to have it reprinted and +distributed. Some correspondence followed between us, in the course +of which Mr. Carnegie stated that he had been at the White House +shortly before writing me, and described what happened as follows: + + + When at supper with the President [Mr. Roosevelt] recently, + pointing to Judge Taft [then Secretary of War], who sat opposite, + he [President Roosevelt] said: "Here are the two men in all the + world most anxious to get out of the Philippines." + + +In another letter Mr. Carnegie described this same incident, this other +letter's version of President Roosevelt's supper-table remark being: + + + Here are the two men in America most anxious to get rid of them + [the Philippines]. [524] + + +Now why all this public boasting about our "disinterestedness," +when, if he had been a Filipino, Colonel Roosevelt would probably +have hunted up all the American speeches of 1776 about taxation +without representation, and played hide-and-seek with the public +prosecutor at Manila, to see how far he could violate the sedition +statute without getting in jail? And why this private admission +to his friend Mr. Carnegie, which neither he nor Mr. Taft has ever +publicly made? Why did he not send a message to Congress showing up +the hemp rebate system? Simply because to do so would lose support +for the Administration, would alienate powerful interests from the +fatuous policy of Benevolent Assimilation bequeathed to Mr. Roosevelt +by Mr. McKinley. His party was irrevocably committed to indefinite +retention of the Islands. It was like Lot's wife. It could not turn +back. So the protected and subsidized interests were permitted to +continue to prey upon the Philippine people. Tariff evils were never +President Roosevelt's specialty. Nor has war against intrenched +privilege of any sort ever been Mr. Taft's specialty. Mr. Taft went +out to the Philippines in 1907 to open the Philippine Assembly. In +1908 he came back and made a report to President Roosevelt which is +as bland as his Winona declaration that the Payne-Aldrich bill is +"the best tariff bill the Republican party ever passed." It makes +the American reader's heart swell with pious pride at what he is +doing for his "little brown brother," in the matter of vaccination, +sewers, school-books, and the like. President Roosevelt sent this +report to Congress, accompanied by a message, from which we have +already quoted. In that same message he said: + + + I question whether there is a brighter page in the annals of + international dealing between the strong and the weak than the + page which tells of our doings in the Philippines. + + +Apparently, Messrs. Roosevelt and Taft thought, in 1907, that granting +the Filipinos a little debating society solemnly called a legislative +body, but wholly without any real power, was ample compensation for +deserted tobacco and cane plantations and for the price of hemp being +beat down below the cost of production by manipulation through an Act +of Congress passed for the benefit of American hemp manufacturers. If +we had had a Cleveland in the White House about that time, he would +have written an essay on taxation without representation, with the +hemp infamy of this Philippine Tariff Act of 1902 as a text, and sent +it to Congress as a message demanding the repeal of the Act. But the +good-will of the Hemp Trust is an asset for the policy of Benevolent +Assimilation. The Filipino cannot vote, and the cordage manufacturer in +the United States can. No conceivable state of economic desolation to +which we might reduce the people of the Philippine Islands being other +than a blessing in disguise compared with permitting them to attend +to their own affairs after their own quaint and mutually considerate +fashion, the Hemp Trust's rope, tied into a slip-knot by the Act of +1902, must not be removed from their throats. By judicious manipulation +of sufficient hemp rope, you can corral much support for Benevolent +Assimilation. Therefore, to this good hour, the substance of the hemp +part of the Philippine Tariff Act of March 8, 1902, remains upon the +statute books of the United States, to the shame of the nation. + +At last, under the Payne tariff law of 1909, Mr. Taft's long and +patient quiet work with Congressional committees prevailed upon +Congress and the interests to admit Philippine sugar and tobacco to +this country free of duty, up to amounts limited in the Act. [525] +Since then you find the reports of our American officials in the +Philippines palpitating with gratitude to Congress. As a matter +of fact all Congress had said to the Filipinos by its action may be +summed up about thus: "The sugar and tobacco interests of this country +have at last realized that such little of the sugar and tobacco you +raise as may stray over to this side of the world will not be in the +least likely to hurt them. Therefore they have graciously decided, +in their benignity, to permit you to live, provided you do not get +too prosperous." But this very same Payne bill continued the export +tax features of the Act of 1902. Section 13 of the Payne bill is +as follows: + + + Section 13. That upon the exportation to any foreign country from + the Philippine Islands, or the shipment thereof to the United + States or any of its possessions, of the following articles + there shall be levied, collected, and paid thereon the following + export duties: Provided, however, that all articles the growth + and product of the Philippine Islands coming directly from said + islands, to the United States or any of its possessions for use + and consumption therein shall be exempt from any export duties + imposed in the Philippine Islands: + + 352. Abaca (hemp), gross weight, 100 kilos, 75 cents. + 353. Sugar, gross weight, 100 kilos, 5 cents. + 354. Copra, gross weight, 100 kilos, 10 cents. + 355. Tobacco, gross weight: + + (a) Manufactured or unmanufactured, except as otherwise provided, + 100 kilos, $1.30. + + (b) Stems, clippings, and other wastes of tobacco, 100 kilos, + 50 cents. + + +Let us briefly glance at the net results of this law, and its +predecessor, the Act of 1902, the export features of which it +re-enacted. It is important that every fair-minded American who can +possibly spare the time should take such a glance at what Congress has +done to the Philippine hemp industry, because of the obvious bearing +that such taxation without representation will probably have on the +attitude of the Philippine people whenever we get into a war with a +foreign power. Certainly the legislation Congress has perpetrated upon +them, at the behest of special interests in the United States, has not +soothed the original desire of those people to be free and independent. + +At page 27 of the report of the Philippine Collector of Customs for +1910, a table is given showing the export duties subject to refund +collected under the Act of Congress of March 8, 1902, and deposited +in the Philippine treasury to the credit of the Insular Government +at the end of each fiscal year (June 30), as follows: + + + 1902 $ 71,064.69 + 1903 527,228.10 + 1904 462,433.83 + 1905 486,475.56 + 1906 433,991.79 + 1907 433,458.58 + 1908 370,513.36 + 1909 598,917.69 + ------------- + $3,384,083.60 + + +The following table, taken from this same annual report of the +Collector of Customs of the Philippines for 1910 (p. 22) shows the +size (weight in kilograms), and value, of the annual Philippine hemp +crop from 1899 to 1910, both inclusive. It gives in one set of columns +the total exported to all countries, and in the other the part which +comes to the United States: + + + To All Countries. To United States. + Kilos Value Kilos Value + + 1899 59,840,368 $ 6,185,293 23,066,248 $ 2,436,169 + 1900 76,708,936 11,393,883 25,763,728 3,446,141 + 1901 112,215,168 14,453,110 18,157,952 2,402,867 + 1902 109,968,792 15,841,316 45,526,960 7,261,459 + 1903 132,241,594 21,701,575 71,654,416 12,314,312 + 1904 131,817,872 21,794,960 61,886,592 10,631,591 + 1905 130,621,024 22,146,241 73,351,136 12,954,515 + 1906 112,165,384 19,446,769 62,045,088 11,168,226 + 1907 114,701,320 21,085,081 58,388,504 11,326,864 + 1908 115,829,080 17,311,808 48,813,720 7,684,000 + 1909 149,991,866 15,883,577 79,210,362 8,534,288 + 1910 170,788,629 17,404,922 99,305,102 10,399,397 + + +If you have the time and inclination, you can easily figure out the +annual "rake-off" of the American hemp importers from the above +table. For instance, take the last year, 1910: 99,305,102 kilos +at 75 cents per 100 kilos is $744,788.26, which is more than 4% +of $17,404,922, the total value of the hemp crop of the archipelago +for that year. Add this $744,788.26 to the $3,384,183.60 shown by the +above table of refundable duties collected from 1902 to 1909 inclusive, +and you have over $4,000,000 rebates accruing to American importers +of Manila hemp from 1902 to 1910 inclusive. + +In his remarks on Section 13 of the Payne Law of 1909 (above set +forth), in the House of Representatives, May 13, 1909, [526] Hon. Oscar +W. Underwood said, in part: + + + When you put a tax on your people for engaging in export trade, + to that extent you lessen their ability to successfully meet + their foreign competitor and reduce the territory in which they + can successfully dispose of their surplus products abroad. Our + forefathers in writing the Constitution of the United States, + recognizing the false principle on which an export tax was based, + put it in the fundamental law of our land that the United States + Government should not lay export taxes. If we enact this law, + we write into the statute book for the Philippine Islands, + legislation which is little short of barbarous, legislation that + no government in the civilized world except Turkey, and Persia, + and other second-class nations countenance to-day. + + +But the hemp interests won out and the section was adopted. In an +argument for the repeal of the export tax, delivered in the House of +Representatives August 19, 1911, the Philippine delegate, Hon. Manuel +L. Quezon, said: + + + There is one section in the Philippine tariff law, approved + August 5, 1909, which is seriously injuring the proper commercial + development of the islands. + + +Of course the earnestness with which Mr. Quezon pleaded his cause may +be imagined from the circumstance that, as he says, he is continually +advised by letters from his people, and verily believes that if the +export tax is not taken off soon the Philippine hemp industry will be +entirely destroyed, and the hemp farmers will have to take to raising +something else in lieu of hemp, because the present prices hardly +permit them to live. In the course of his speech Mr. Quezon offered +the following truly eloquent and absolutely unanswerable argument: + + + Although it has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United + States that the provisions of the Constitution are not in force in + the Philippines, I have serious doubts as to whether said decision + also meant that this Government has the power to enact laws for + the islands which are expressly prohibited by the Constitution + in the United States. + + +It is through the courtesy of Mr. Quezon that such light as I may +have been able to throw on the subject has been obtained. He has +shown me letters from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce at Manila +and other commercial organizations prophesying ruin to the Manila +hemp industry in the event the export tax should continue. One of +these letters is addressed to the two Philippine Commissioners in +Congress, Mr. Legarda and Mr. Quezon. It informs them of the hopes of +the Filipinos at Manila that they, Messrs. Legarda and Quezon, may be +successful in their campaign to get the law repealed and that many +of them (the Filipinos at Manila) feel hopeful of results in that +regard. Speaking for their fellow countrymen at Manila, they say, +"The optimists are of the opinion that the matter being in such good +hands as yours will be carried to a successful conclusion." Then they +give the darker side of the picture thus: + + + But the representatives at this capital of the famous syndicate, + the International Harvester Company, are of the opinion that we + will be able to accomplish nothing, and theirs is an opinion to + which great weight should be attached, because the vast interests + which that concern represents can set in motion powerful influences + to keep the present law as it is, since it concerns their interest + to do so. + + +Mr. Quezon has also shown me a letter written to him, March 30, 1911, +by his and my warm personal friend, Hon. James F. Smith, formerly +Governor-General of the Philippines, now (1912) Judge of the Court of +Customs Appeals at Washington, D. C., in which letter General Smith +says, concerning the operation of that part of the export tax act of +March 8, 1902 (continued by the Payne Tariff Law of 1909) by which +American manufacturers are relieved from the payment of the export +tax on Manila hemp: + + + In effect this really and truly amounts to the payment by the + Philippine Government and the Filipino people of a large subsidy + to American manufacturers of hemp. More than that, this concession + to the American manufacturer, by enabling him to undersell his + British competitor, gives him an undue control of the situation + and has put him in a position, to some extent, to control prices + for the raw product. + + +It seems to me that the American people had better look to their +own liberties, when they remember that in the campaign for the +Republican nomination in 1912, the Roosevelt Headquarters gave out +that pending the Roosevelt dictation of Mr. Taft's nomination in +1908, the International Harvester Company furnished a floor of its +Chicago building to the Taft people, this interesting fact being +part of the leakage from the Roosevelt-Taft quarrel caused by the +Roosevelt charge that Mr. Taft was unfit for re-election because he +"meant well feebly"; and when it is recalled, on the other hand, that +in the Roosevelt campaign of 1912 for the presidential nomination for +a third term, Mr. George W. Perkins, [527] the very personification +of undue corporation influence with the Government, assumed the role +of Warwick for an ex-President who, when President, had repudiated +the advice of his counsel, Governor Harmon, that a railroad company +[528] be prosecuted for taking rebates because the vice-president of +the company was his personal friend. [529] But let us return to the +Philippine rebates, and their corner-stone, the export tax, Section +13 of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff. + +In the case of Fairbanks vs. United States, 181 U. S. Supreme Court +Reports, page 290, a case in which the court was asked to declare a +certain Act of Congress unconstitutional and void, because it imposed +what was virtually an export tax, the opinion of the court cites +the absolute inhibition against such a tax imposed by our Federal +Constitution, and says concerning the wise theory on which this +fundamental tenet of our government rests: + + + The requirement of the Constitution is that exports should be + free from any governmental burden. + + +The decision then goes on to elaborate on what it terms "that freedom +from governmental burden in the matter of exports which it was the +intention of our Constitution to protect and preserve." Finally, +the court uses an expression which is certainly a stinging rebuke to +any law-making power that permits the selfish greed of a little set +of importers to get a law passed imposing for their special benefit +a paralyzing export tax on the chief staple of a helpless colony: + + + The power to tax is the power to destroy. + + +But Mr. Quezon has no vote in Congress and his voice was not heard, +at least not heeded. + +The summation of the whole matter is this: Both the Philippine +people and the American people are, and long have been, suffering +from unjust taxation through laws for which special selfish financial +interests in the United States, exercising grossly undue influence on +governmental action, are responsible. Neither will ever get relief +until the government of this nation is wrested from the control +of the money-hogs and restored to the people. Until that is done, +selfish greed will continue to sow sedition in the Philippines, +and socialism in the United States. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE RIGHTS OF MAN + + The rights of man cannot be changed. It is + the government which attempts to change them + that must change.--Webster. + + +It was the homely common sense of Mr. Lincoln that first reminded +us most vividly how like to the sins of an individual are those of a +nation. To the Southern man who admires Mr. Lincoln as one of the great +figures of all time, he seems like a great physician, who, with malice +toward none and with charity for all, kept vigil for four years at the +bedside of a sick nation through all the long agony of its efforts to +throw off from its system the inherited curse of slavery. Of course, +human slavery was a relic of barbarism. But in fixing the Rights of +Man, the founders of the Republic actually overlooked the fact that a +negro was a human being. So that, vast property rights having accrued +pursuant to that mistake, the march of progress had to wipe them out, +no matter whom it hurt financially. The enormity of the iniquity of +human slavery did not dawn suddenly and exclusively upon William Lloyd +Garrison. He is not the sole, original inventor and patentee of the +idea. Lord Macaulay's father was doing the same sort of agitating in +England about the same time. Westminster Abbey has its monument to +the elder Macaulay, just as Commonwealth Avenue has its monument to +the elder Garrison. Simultaneous like stirrings occurred elsewhere +throughout Christendom. But, of course, in America, arguments for +the emancipation of the slave first took root most readily in a +thrifty section of our liberty-loving country which had nothing to +lose by abolition. + +John Quincy Adams once said that our government was "an experiment +upon the heart of man." It is because this government of the people +by the people for the people was a deliberate and thoughtful attempt +upon the part of its founders to apply the Golden Rule as a doctrine +of international and inter-individual law, that we believe our form +of government is the last hope of mankind. It is, as we conceive +it, the voice of humanity raised in protest against the proposition +that might makes right. It is, as we conceive it, a government which +entered the lists of the nations as the champion of the human mind, +in the great struggle of Mind for the mastery over Matter, the +world-old struggle between Good and Evil, Light and Darkness. Our +government, like everything else, must follow the law of its being, +or die. Its first great sin in violation of the Rights of Man was due +to heredity. We inherited the institution of slavery, the governmental +exception to the rule that all men are created with equal right to +life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This was a sin against +human liberty, one of the "unalienable" Rights of Man, upon which +the Republic purported to be builded. The consequences of that sin +are still with us; but, except for the occasional bloody-shirt waver, +whose intellectual resources are not sufficient to provide him with a +live issue, we are meeting those consequences, as a nation, bravely, +and with the mutual forbearance born of the fact that none are wholly +free from responsibility for present difficulties. + +Our second great national sin was a yielding to the temptation of +the environment which arose, unforeseen, after a splendid war waged +for the Rights of Man against Spain in Cuba. The Philippine war was +waged to subjugate the Filipino people, because Mr. McKinley believed +it would be financially profitable to us to own the islands, and in +the face of the fact that the only thing he knew officially about +the Filipino people was that Admiral Dewey thought them superior +to the Cubans and more capable of self-government. The war in the +Philippines was, therefore, a war against the Rights of Man. Nowhere +in any state paper has any American statesman, soldier, or sailor, +had the temerity to invoke the name of God in connection with the +retention of the Philippine Islands. Nowhere in any American state +paper connected with the Philippines is there any reference to "a +decent respect to the opinions of mankind." The sin of our Philippine +policy is that it is a denial of the right of a people to pursue +happiness in their own way instead of in somebody else's way. It is a +denial of the very principles in maintenance of which we went to war +against Spain to free Cuba, as we had previously gone to war against +England to free ourselves. + +Now the reason the nation blundered into taking the Philippines was +that it believed the Filipinos to be, not a people, but a jumble +of savage tribes. But the reason the men who controlled the action +of the government at the time took the Philippines was because they +believed they would pay. Nevertheless, there was a sufficient number +of our fellow-citizens--controlled, some by altruistic motives and +some by sordid motives--to cause the nation to follow the lead of +those then in control. If the men then in control had taken the people +into their confidence, the blunder would never have been made. If the +correspondence between Mr. McKinley and the Paris Peace Commission +in the fall of 1898, from which the injunction of secrecy was not +removed until 1901, had been given out at the time, the treaty would +never have been ratified except after some such declaration as to +the Philippines as was made concerning Cuba, some reaffirmance of +allegiance to faith in our cardinal tenet--the right of every people +to pursue happiness in their own way, free from alien domination. The +Bacon resolution of 1899, which was along this line, was defeated only +by the deciding vote of the presiding officer, the Vice-President of +the United States. The passage of that resolution would have prevented +the Philippine Insurrection. Had it passed, the Filipinos would no more +have had occasion to think of insurrection than the Cubans did. It was +Mr. McKinley alone who decided to take the Philippines. Congress was +not called together in extra session. The people were not consulted, +except from the rear-end of an observation car. + +Most people, whether they be lawyers or not, are more or less +acquainted with the doctrine of what is called in law a "bona +fide purchaser without notice." No man can claim to be a bona fide +purchaser without notice, when he knows enough about the subject +matter of his purchase to put him on reasonable notice of the +existence of facts which, had he taken the trouble to verify them, +would have caused him to halt and not purchase. The correspondence +in 1898, made public in 1901, withheld by Mr. McKinley until after +his second election in 1900, is sufficient to have made any honest +man ask himself some such question as this: "After all, is it not +quite possible that those people can run a decent government of +their own? Admiral Dewey says they are superior to the Cubans." But +Mr. McKinley did not pursue this inquiry, as it was his duty to +do. He took the islands because he believed they would pay, knowing +nothing in particular about the Filipinos, except what he had learned +from Admiral Dewey's brief comment, yet hoping in spite of it that +they would turn out sufficiently unfit for self-government for the +event to vindicate the purchase. To demonstrate that the Filipinos +were wholly unfit for the treatment accorded the Cubans was the only +possible justification of the initial departure from the traditions of +the Republic and from the principles which were its corner-stone. And +he made the departure because the business "interests" of the country +then believed--erroneously they all now admit--that it would pay. He +decided to treat eternal principles as "worn-out formulae." Senator Hoar +once declined an invitation extended by his own city of Worcester, +to deliver a eulogy on Mr. McKinley, because of his Philippine +policy. True, he tempers the asperity of this action thus: "It was +not because I was behind any other man in admiration or personal +affection for that lofty and beautiful character. But * * * if a great +Catholic prelate were to die, his eulogy should not be pronounced +by a Protestant." [530] But all Senator Hoar's speeches against the +McKinley Philippine policy were as emphatic as Luther's ninety-five +theses. He was in possession at the time, along with the rest of the +Senate, of the correspondence with the Paris Peace Commission made +public after the presidential election of 1900. + +Ever since Mr. McKinley took the Philippines, it has been the awkward +but inexorable duty of the defenders of that good man's fame to +deprecate Filipino capacity for self-government. President Taft's +chief life-work since this century began has been to take care +of his martyred predecessor's fame, by proving that Mr. McKinley +guessed right in 1898 when he bought the Philippines and trusted +to luck to be able to make out, in spite of what Admiral Dewey had +said, a case sufficiently derogatory to Filipino intelligence to +justify the purchase and subjugation of the islands at the very +time we were freeing Cuba. Obviously, then, the more utterly unfit +for self-government in the present or the near future Mr. Taft can +make the Filipinos out, the nearer he gets to vindicating the memory +of Mr. McKinley, that is, with men of his own, (Mr. Taft's) high +character. He insists on treating as children a people who got up a +well-armed army of thirty-odd thousand men in three or four months +and held at bay, for two years and a half, some 125,000 husky American +soldiers, over five times as many as it took to drive Spain from the +Western hemisphere. Physical force is the basis of all government +among men. If President Taft had anything of the soldier instinct +of his immediate predecessor, he would not sniff demagoguery in the +proposition that military efficiency is a better guaranty of capacity +for self-government than all the school-books in the world, and that +proven passionate willingness to die for freedom from alien domination +is the best guaranty conceivable against internecine strife. It was +a tremendous struggle with his own conscience that Mr. McKinley went +through with before he decided to repudiate the principles on which we +took Cuba in order, for a money consideration euphemistically called +"trade expansion," to take the Philippines. He had advices before him +at the time making it reasonably certain that this meant trouble with +the Filipinos, i.e., bloodshed in the Philippines, the extent of which +none could foresee, and about which he was of course apprehensive. In +the matter of instructing our Paris Peace Commissioners to insist on +Spain's ceding us the Philippines, Mr. McKinley took no moral ground +tenable like a rock, such as truly great men take in great crises of +their country's history. He did not attempt to lead the people. He +simply decided that it would be a popular thing to do to take the +islands. Fresh from a war entered upon to emancipate the Cubans from +alien domination, he took a step which both Admiral Dewey and General +Merritt warned him beforehand would probably mean war--to subjugate, +against their will, a people superior to the Cubans. And in taking +this step, he took into his confidence, neither the people who paid +for the war, nor the soldiers who fought it. To deny that his motives +were benevolent would be simply stupid. But he followed the mob which +shouted from the rear-end of his observation car and repeated by cable +to the Paris Peace Commission, what the mob yelled. Ever since the +supposed Philippine Klondyke whispered in President McKinley's ear +"Eat of the imperial fruits of a colonial policy," the archives of +this government--the reports of the State, War, and Navy Departments, +and the Congressional Documents--have reeked with the inevitable +consequences of our fall from our high estate. No man can serve two +masters. Philanthropy for pecuniary profit is a paradox. Duplicity +ever follows deviation from principle. In our dealings in 1898 with +Aguinaldo you find vacillation on the part of military commanders who +personally did not know what fear was, and embarrassed hypocrisy in +dealing with him on the part of men wearing the shoulder-straps of the +American army, athwart the frankness of whose gaze no such shadow had +ever fallen before. You find systematic concealment of our intentions +in dealing with the insurgents, for fear they would insurge before the +Treaty was signed, and thus cause such a revulsion of feeling in our +country against the purchase of theirs as to defeat the ratification +of the treaty. After that, you find a systematic minimizing of +the opposition to our rule, reinforced by subtle depreciation of +Filipino intelligence, and backed up by a "peace-at-any-price" policy, +periodically punctuated by the horrors of war without its dignity. The +denial of Filipino opposition to our rule, which opposition means +merely a natural longing for freedom from alien rule, has gradually +been abandoned. Nobody now clings to that stale fiction. Also, a long +course of chastening, through reconcentration and kindred severities +subsequent to the official announcement of a state of general peace, +has at last gotten the situation as to public order well in hand. The +only question for those who affect that "decent respect to the opinions +of mankind" which the men of 1776 had in mind is, "Are the Filipinos +a people?" President Taft was originally with Senator Hoar on the +Philippine question. At least he was an "anti-expansionist." In all +the heat of subsequent controversy he has never made bold to deny +the general proposition of the unalienable right of every people to +liberty and the pursuit of happiness in their own way. His position +is that the Filipino people must be made an exception to the rule +because they are not a people. This is the strongest I can state his +proposition for him. It is very difficult to state even with apparent +plausibility, anything which denies the right of every community of +people to immunity from alien domination. The case must be an extreme +one. The issue which the writer raises with the President's policy +is that the Filipinos are a people. + +I know of no graver responsibility that an American statesman can +take upon himself before the bar of history than to deny the right +of any given people to self-government. Certainly any man who denies +that right at least assumes the burden of proof that they are unfit +to attend to their own affairs. Mr. McKinley assumed it without +pretending to know anything much about the Filipinos, the motive being +that the Islands would be profitable to us. When Mr. Taft went to the +Philippines in 1900, he went, not to investigate the correctness of +Mr. McKinley's assumption, which was implied in the purchase, but to +champion it; not to give advice concerning the righteousness of having +taken over the Philippines, but to bolster up the policy. He assumed +the burden of proof before he knew anything about the facts. The +burden has been on him ever since. Any subordinate who helps him +to bear that burden, finds favor in his eyes. But the burden is +greater than he can bear. The proof fails. The proof shows that the +Filipino people ought to be allowed to pursue happiness in their +own way instead of being made to pursue it in Mr. Taft's way. Once +you pretend that our true object in the Philippines is the "pursuit +of happiness" for them, The Taft policy is condemned by the facts; +and that is why I am opposed to it. The record shows this. He admits +it. But he insists, with a sigh, that in some other generation they +will be happy. Meantime, we are drifting toward our next war carrying +in tow 8,000,000 of human beings who, if neutralized and let alone +would not be disturbed by our next war, but whose destinies now must +be dependent upon the outcome of such war, however little they may +be concerned in the issues which bring it about. + +The shifty opportunism which once actually held out to the Filipinos +the hope of some day becoming a State of the United States of America, +has long since lapsed into the silence of shame, because no American +ever honestly believed that the American people would ever countenance +any such preposterous proposition. And so a free republic based on +representative government is face to face with the proposition of +having a "crown colony" on its hands which wishes to be, and could +soon be made fit to be, a free republic also. + +If a federal republic cannot live half slave and half free, can it +live with millions of the governed denied a voice in the federal +government confessedly forever? + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE ROAD TO AUTONOMY + + Oh be ye not dismayed + Though ye stumbled and ye strayed. + + Kipling--A Song of the English. + + +He who points out a wrong without being prepared to suggest a remedy +presumes upon the patience of his neighbor without good and sufficient +cause. Up to this point the wrong has been unfolded, with such ability +as was vouchsafed the narrator, "from Genesis to Revelations," so to +speak; also his own attitude as an eye-witness, and its evolution from +the Mosaic doctrine of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, +to the more Christian doctrines of the New Testament. Let us now +consider the remedy. + +In the course of our travels with the army in the earlier chapters of +this book, we first followed its northern advance, from Manila over +the great central plain drained by the Rio Grande and crossed by the +railroad connecting Manila Bay with Lingayen Gulf; its further advance +from the northern borders of the plain over the mountains of Central +Luzon; and its march from the central mountains to the northern sea, +at the extreme northern end of the archipelago. We thus saw in detail +the military conquest and occupation of that part of Luzon lying +north of the Pasig River. Before leaving that part of the subject, the +way the provinces thus occupied were grouped into military districts +was indicated. Following the lines of the military occupation, it was +shown that Northern Luzon was naturally and conveniently susceptible of +division into four groups of provinces, which groups might ultimately +be evolved into self-governing commonwealths--States of a Philippine +Federal Union, as follows: + + + Name of State Area (sq. m.) Population + + Ilocos [531] 6,500 650,000 + Cagayan [532] 12,000 300,000 + Pangasinan [533] 4,500 625,000 + Pampamga [534] 5,000 650,000 + ------ --------- + Total 28,000 2,225,000 + + +It will be remembered that after our narrative had followed the +occupation of Northern Luzon by the American forces to practical +completion, we turned to that part of Luzon lying south of Manila, +and followed the military occupation as it was gradually extended +from the Pasig River to the extreme point of Southern Luzon. Before +closing the review of that military panorama, suggestions were made +for an ultimate grouping of the provinces of Southern Luzon into two +governmental units intended to be ultimately evolved into states. Those +suggestions contemplated grouping the provinces of the lake region +bordering on the Laguna de Bay and the adjacent provinces, into a +territory designated for convenience as Cavite. [535] This territory +was to include all of Southern Luzon except the hemp peninsula, +which lies to the south of the Lake country. It was also suggested +in the same connection that the three provinces of the hemp peninsula +might form a convenient ultimate State of Camarines. In other words, +two states can be made out of Southern Luzon as follows: + + + Name of State Area (sq. m.) Population + + Cavite 8,500 700,000 + Camarines 7,000 600,000 + ------ --------- + Total 15,500 1,300,000 + + +To recapitulate: All of Luzon except Manila and the vicinity +can at once be divided into the six groups of provinces above +mentioned--"territories," having what we are accustomed in the United +States to call a "territorial form of government," and intended to +be made states later. Luzon is about the size of Cuba (a little over +40,000 sq. miles), is twice as thickly populated (nearly 4,000,000 to +Cuba's 2,000,000), and is not cursed with a negro question, as Cuba is. + +The above totals, be it remembered, are only round numbers, but +they get us "out of the woods" so to speak, and away from a lot of +unpronounceable names. They show you how to handle Luzon as if it were +about the size of Ohio--which it is. And, as has already been made +clear in the earlier part of this volume, Luzon "is" the Philippines, +in a very suggestive sense of the phrase, since it contains half the +land area of the archipelago (outside of the Mohammedan island of +Mindanao), and half the total population of the whole archipelago, +besides being eight or ten times as large as any other island of the +group except Mindanao; and it also contains the city which is the +capital and chief port of the archipelago, and has been the seat of +government for over three hundred years--Manila. And Manila is eight +or ten times as large as any other town in the archipelago. + +After the occupation of Luzon, General Otis's extension of our +occupation to the Visayan islands was reviewed, and in that connection +it was pointed out that each of the six largest of those islands to +wit, Panay, Negros, Cebu, Leyte, Samar, Bohol, might be ultimately +evolved into six states. [536] + +The smaller islands lying between Luzon and Mindanao could easily be +disposed of governmentally by being attached to the jurisdiction of +one of the said six islands. + +There is to-day no reason why a dozen Americans could not be at +once appointed governors of the twelve prospective autonomous +commonwealths above indicated, just as the President of the United +States has in the past appointed governors for New Mexico, Arizona, +and other territories of the United States which have subsequently +been admitted to the Union. If the Congress of the United States should +promise the Filipinos independence, to be granted as soon as American +authority in the Islands should so recommend, the dozen territorial +governments intended to be evolved into states of an ultimate federal +union could soon be whipped into shape where they could take care of +themselves to the extent that our state governments to-day take care +of themselves. American representatives of American authority in the +Islands, sent out to work out such a programme, might be instructed +to watch these twelve territorial governments, granting to each the +right to elect a governor in lieu of the appointed governor as soon +as in their judgment a given territory was worthy of it. I have no +doubt that such recommendations would follow successively as to all +of said prospective states inside of four or five years. Whether this +plan is wise or not, it certainly is not, as far as I am concerned, +"half baked." Some five years ago, in the North American Review, +[537] I suggested that Luzon could be so organized within less than +ten years by American territorial governors selected for the work, +naming the Honorable George Curry of New Mexico, formerly Governor of +the territory of New Mexico, and now a member of Congress therefrom, +as an ideal man to organize one such territory. It is true that there +are not eleven other men as well qualified for the work as Governor +Curry. In fact he is probably better qualified for the work than +any man living. The language used as to Governor Curry in the North +American Review article referred to was as follows: + + + If the inhabitants of these regions were told by a man whom they + liked and would believe, as they would Curry, that they were to + have autonomous governments like one of the Western Territories + of the United States, at the very earliest possible moment, + and urged to get ready for it, they could and would, under his + guidance. We would get a co-operation from those people we do not + now get and never will get, so long as we keep them in uncertainty + as to what we are going to do with them. If next year we should + formally disclaim intention to retain the islands permanently, and + set to work to create autonomous Territories destined ultimately + to be States of a Federated Philippine Republic, whenever fit, + we would soon see the way out of this tangle, and behold the + beginning of the end of it. + + +Whenever the twelve territorial governments should be gotten into +smooth working order under elected native governors, the Philippine +archipelago would then be nearly ready for independence, so far as +its internal affairs are concerned. The danger of their being annexed +on the first pretext by some one of the great land-grabbing powers +should be met by our guaranteeing them their independence, as we +do Cuba, until they could be protected by neutralization treaties, +such as protect Belgium and Switzerland to-day, as explained in +the chapter which follows this. Powers not specifically granted +to the several states-in-embryo should of course, until the final +grant of independence, be reserved to the central government at +Manila. Manila and Rizal province would be available at almost any +time as a thirteenth state. So that when the twelve states above +suggested had shown themselves capable of local self-government, +Manila and Rizal province might be added to make the final one of +thirteen original states of a Philippine Republic. + +Any American who has seen a Filipino pueblo transformed, as if by +magic, from listless apathy to a state of buzzing and busy enthusiasm +suggestive of a bee-hive, by preparations for some church fiesta, +or for the coming of some dignitary from Manila, has seen something +analogous to what would happen if the Filipino body politic should +suddenly be electrified by a promise of independence under some such +programme as the above. A generous rivalry would at once ensue all +over the archipelago in each of the twelve prospective states. Each +would seek to be the first to be recommended by American authority as +ready for statehood. I do not believe the annals of national experience +contain any analogy where every member of a given community has rallied +to a common cause more completely than the whole Filipino people would +rally to such a prospective programme of independence. The unanimity +would be as absolute as the kind we saw among the American people at +the outbreak of the Spanish War, when Congress one fine morning placed +fifty millions of dollars at the disposal of President McKinley by +a unanimous vote. + +I especially invite attention to the fact that the above programme +throws away nothing that has been done by us in the Islands in the +last twelve years in the way of organization. It simply takes it and +builds upon it. Congress should not attempt to work out the details +from this end of the line. We should send men out there from here to +work them out, with local co-operation from the leading Filipinos. Men +animated by the idea of working out a programme under which the living +may hope to see the independence of their country, should be sent out +to take the place of the men now there who are irrevocably committed +to the programme of indefinite retention with undeclared intention, +which holds out no hope to the living. It is not wise to arrange +the details of the programme by act of Congress without a year or +two of study of the situation by such men on the ground. An act of +Congress which goes into details before getting the recommendations +of such men will inevitably set up a lot of straw men easy for the +other side to knock down. All you need is a program, sanctioned by +Congress, containing a promise of independence, and men sent out to +the islands to work out the program. They would report back from time +to time, and the Congress by whose authority they went out would have +no hesitation in being guided by their recommendations. If unpatriotic +greed for office among the Filipinos, or other opposition animated by +evil motives, should block the game, your Americans so sent out would +have to recommend the calling of a halt. This ever-present shadow +in the background would in turn throw the shadow of ostracism over +all demagogues. + +Meantime the Filipinos should be given a Senate, or upper house, +in which, the thirteen prospective "states" should be represented by +two men, the bill therefor to be framed out there, and sent back here +to Congress for approval. This would give them under the plan here +suggested, as soon as the Americans sent out should so recommend, +a Senate of twenty-six members. At present, if the native Assembly, +or lower house, does not pass the annual appropriations necessary +to run the government, the appropriation act of the preceding year +again becomes law. At present, the upper house is the Philippine +Commission. By withholding its consent, it can prevent any legislation +whatsoever. So, at present, the Assembly is little more than a debating +society. All questions as to appropriations, veto of legislation, and +other details, in the event the Filipinos are given a Senate also, +should be left to be fixed in the bill recommended by the men sent +out to work out the program of promise. + +On March 20, 1912, Honorable W. A. Jones, the distinguished veteran +Congressman from Virginia, who is Chairman of the Committee on Insular +Affairs, introduced in the House of Representatives a bill entitled +"A bill to establish a qualified independence for the Philippines, and +to fix the date when such qualified independence shall become absolute +and complete." The greater part of what precedes this paragraph of +this chapter was written prior to March 20, 1912. Mr. Jones's bill +works out the details of the independence problem in a manner somewhat +different from the plan I suggest, but that does not make me any the +less heartily in favor of the principle which his bill embodies. The +supreme virtue of the Jones bill is that it promises Independence at +a fixed date, July 4, 1921. It ends the cruel uncertainty, so unjust +to both the Filipinos and to the Americans in the Philippines, that +is contained in the present program of indefinite retention with +undeclared intention. Five years ago, in the North American Review +for January 18, and June 21, 1907, the writer hereof expressed the +belief that an earlier date was feasible, thus: + + + If three strong and able men, familiar with insular conditions, + and still young enough to undertake the task [538] were told by + a President of the United States, by authority of the Congress, + "Go out there and set up a respectable native government in + ten years, and then come away," they could and would do it, + and that government would be a success; and one of the greatest + moral victories in the annals of free government would have + been written by the gentlemen concerned upon the pages of their + country's history. + + +As Mr. Jones's bill allows four years more of time, I believe it to +be absolutely safe. + +Governor Curry, the Congressman from New Mexico hereinabove mentioned, +who spent eight years in the Philippines, agrees with the fundamental +principle of the Jones bill, that as to making a definite promise of +Independence within a few years, and does not consider 1921 too early. + +Under the present law, the Philippine Assembly has some eighty +members, each supposed to represent 90,000 people, more or less. This +tallies, roughly, with the census total of population, which is +7,600,000. [539] Under the existing law in the Philippines, the +qualifications for voting are really of two kinds, though nominally +of three kinds. There is a property qualification, and there is +an educational qualification. In any case, in order to vote, the +individual must be twenty-one years old, and must have lived for six +months in the place where he offers to vote. The property qualification +requires that the would-be voter own at least $250 worth of property, +or pay a tax to the amount of $15. The explanation of how a man may +not own $250 worth of property and yet pay $15 taxes is that under the +old Spanish system, which we partially adopted, a man might pay such +cedula or poll-tax as he preferred, according to a graduated scale, +certain civic rights being accorded to those voluntarily paying the +higher poll-tax which were denied to those paying less. The educational +qualification requires the would-be voter to speak, read, and write +either English or Spanish, or else to have held certain enumerated +small municipal offices under the Spaniards--before the American +occupation. Mr. Jones's bill proposes to add the speaking, reading, +and writing of the native dialect of a given locality [540] to the +educational qualification. This would double, or perhaps triple, +the electorate, and would, in my judgment, be wise. Thousands upon +thousands of natives who only speak a little Spanish can both speak, +read, and write their native Tagalo, Ilocano, or Visayan, as the +case may be. The total of those qualified to vote for members of the +Assembly in 1907 was only about 100,000. At a later election, that +number was doubled. If there are 7,500,000 people in the archipelago, +one fifth of these should represent the adult male population, say +1,500,000. Under Mr. Jones's bill, the electorate would probably +increase to half a million long before the date he proposes for +independence, July 4, 1921. But all such details as qualification for +voting might, it seems to me, be left to people on the ground, their +recommendations controlling. Under a promise of independence by 1921, +a very fair electorate of at least one third, possibly one half, of +the adult male population, could be built up. As the majority report +on the Jones Bill, dated April 26, 1912, says: + + + For nearly ten years the average public-school enrolment has not + been less than 500,000. [541] + + +I believe that the Moros should be left as they are for the +present. The time for solving that problem has not yet been +reached. Mr. Jones himself evidently bases his idea of allowing the +Moro country representation in the Philippine Congress, or legislature +provided by his bill, on the probability that enough Christian people +will vote, down there, to make up an electorate that would not be +"impossible," i.e., absurd. For instance, he tells me that a great +many people have moved into Mindanao from the northern islands for +commercial reasons, and, if I recollect correctly, that Zamboanga, +the most beautiful little port in Mindanao, which hardly had 10,000 +people when I was there, now has possibly 50,000. But the Moro +question need not stand in the way of setting up an independent +government in the Philippines in 1921, as proposed by his bill. You +have material for thirteen original states, representing a population +of nearly seven million Christian people, in Luzon and the six main +Visayan Islands. Why delay the creation of this republic on account +of 250,000 semi-civilized, crudely Mohammedan Moros in Mindanao--a +separate island lying off to the south of the proposed republic? [542] +A happy solution of the matter would be to send Mr. Jones out there as +Governor-General and let him work out the problem on the ground. He +has had a long and distinguished career in the public service, +twenty-two years in Congress. His public record and speeches on the +Philippine question from the beginning would make him to the Filipinos +the very incarnation of a bona fide intention on our part to give +them their independence at the earliest practical moment, that is, +at some time which the living might hope to see. When Governor Taft +and Mr. Root drew the Philippine Government Act of 1902, the former +had already been president of the Philippine Commission for two +years, had been all over the archipelago, and knew it well. Suppose +the Taft policy should be substituted by the more progressive Jones +policy. Mr. Jones, or whoever is to change the policy, ought to have +as much acquaintance with the subject, acquired on the ground, as +Mr. Taft had when he formulated his policy of indefinite retention +with undeclared intention. The nucleus of the Taft policy was stated +by Governor Taft to the Senate Committee in 1902, as follows [543]: + + + My own judgment is that the best policy, if a policy is to be + declared at all, is to declare the intention of the United States + to hold the islands indefinitely, until the people shall show + themselves fit for self-government, under a gradually increasing + popular government, when their relation to the United States, + either of statehood, or of quasi-independence, like the colony + of Australia or Canada, can be declared after mutual conference. + + +The policy which Mr. Jones has favored for the last twelve years is +almost as well known to the Filipinos as are the views of Mr. Taft +himself. + +In conclusion, the writer desires to say, with especial emphasis, +that the suggestions outlining the plan which forms the bulk of this +chapter are presented in a spirit of entire deference to the views +of any one else who may have considered this great subject carefully, +especially to the views of Mr. Jones, whose bill is so entirely right +in principle. The one supreme need of the situation is a definite +legislative declaration which shall make clear to all concerned--to the +Filipino demagogue and the American grafter, as well as to the great +body of the good people of both races out there--that the governing +of a remote and alien people is to have no permanent place in the +purposes of our national life; and that we do bona fide intend to +give the Filipinos their independence at a date in the future which +will interest the living, by extending to the living the hope to see +the independence of their country. And the Jones Bill does that. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE WAY OUT + + Respect for the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland + has now taken such lodgment in the conscience of + Europe that its violation would inevitably provoke + a storm of indignation. + + M. de Martens in the Revue des Deux Mondes. + + +On March 25, 1912, Honorable W. A. Jones, of Virginia, Chairman of the +House Committee on Insular Affairs, introduced a resolution (H. J. 278) +proposing the neutralization of the Philippines, to accompany his +Philippine Independence Bill discussed in the preceding chapter. Such +a resolution, accompanying such a bill, both introduced by one of the +majority leaders in the House of Representatives, lifts the question +of Philippine neutralization out of the region of the "academic," +and brings it forward as a thing which must, sooner or later, command +the serious consideration both of Congress and the country. There +have been many such resolutions before that of Mr. Jones. But they +are all the same in principle. All contemplate our guaranteeing the +Filipinos their independence until the treaties they propose shall +be consummated. In 1911, there were at least nine such resolutions +proposing neutralization of the Philippines, introduced by the +following named gentlemen, the first a Republican, the rest Democrats: + +Mr. McCall, of Massachusetts; Mr. Cline, of Indiana; Mr. Sabath, +of Illinois; Mr. Garner, of Texas; Mr. Peters, of Massachusetts; +Mr. Martin, of Colorado; Mr. Burgess, of Texas; Mr. Oldfield, of +Arkansas; and Mr. Ferris, of Oklahoma. + +Because the neutralization plan to provide against the Philippines +being annexed by some other Power in case we ever give them their +independence would, if successfully worked out, reduce by that much +the possible area of war, and be a distinct step in the direction of +universal peace, it is certainly worthy of careful consideration by +the enlightened judgment of the Congress and the world. + +Mr. McCall is the father of the neutralization idea, so far as +the House of Representatives is concerned, application of it to +the Philippines having been first suggested at the Universal Peace +Conference of 1904, by Mr. Erving Winslow, of Boston. Mr. McCall has +been introducing his neutralization resolution at every Congress for +a number of Congresses past. + +The McCall Resolution (H. J. Res. 107) is the oldest, and perhaps the +simplest, of the various pending resolutions for the neutralization +of the Philippines, and is typical of all. It reads: + + + JOINT RESOLUTION + + Declaring the purpose of the United States to recognize + the independence of the Filipino people as soon as a stable + government can be established, and requesting the President to + open negotiations for the neutralization of the Philippine Islands. + + Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United + States of America in Congress assembled: + + That in accordance with the principles upon which its government + is founded and which were again asserted by it at the outbreak of + the war with Spain, the United States declares that the Filipino + people of right ought to be free and independent, and announces + its purpose to recognize their independence as soon as a stable + government, republican in form, can be established by them, and + thereupon to transfer to such government all its rights in the + Philippine Islands upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, + and to leave the sovereignty and control of their country to the + Filipino people. + + Resolved, That the President of the United States be, and he hereby + is, requested to open negotiations with such foreign Powers as in + his opinion should be parties to the compact for the neutralization + of the Philippine Islands by international agreement. + + +If the McCall Resolution, or any one of the kindred resolutions, +were passed, and complied with by the President of the United States, +and accepted by the other Powers, and the Filipinos were helped to +organize territorial governments such as Arizona and New Mexico were +before they became States, several such territories could form the +nucleus about which to begin to build at once, as indicated in the +chapter on "The Road to Autonomy." A number of such territories could +be made at once as completely autonomous as the governments of the +territories of Arizona and New Mexico were before their admission to +our Union. With those examples to emulate, together with the tingling +of the general blood that would follow a promise of independence and +a national life of their own, similar territorial governments could +be successively organized, as indicated in the preceding chapter, +throughout the archipelago. These could, in less than ten years, be +fitted for admission to a federal union of autonomous territories, +with the string of our sovereignty still tied to it, and an American +Governor-General still over the whole, as now. And when the last island +knocked for admission and was admitted, the string could be cut, and +the Federal Union of Territories admitted, through our good offices, to +the sisterhood of nations, as an independent Philippine republic. They +would not bother the rest of the world any more than Belgium and +Switzerland do, which are likewise protected by neutralization. + +The idea of international neutralization is not without pride of +ancestry or hope of posterity. It was born out of the downfall of +Napoleon I. The Treaty of Paris of 1815 declared that + + + the neutrality and inviolability of Switzerland, as well as its + independence of outside influences, are in conformity with the + true interests of European politics. + + +The Congress of Vienna, held afterwards in the same year, at +which there were present, besides the various monarchs, such men as +Wellington, Talleyrand, and Metternich, solemnly and finally reiterated +that declaration. Would not "the neutrality and inviolability" of +the Philippines be gladly acceded to by the great Powers as being +"in conformity with the true interests of European politics," and +Asiatic politics as well? + +Says M. De Martens, in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes for +November 15, 1903: + + + Respect for the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland has now taken + such lodgment in the conscience of the civilized nations of Europe + that its violation would inevitably provoke a storm of indignation. + + +At present, the Philippines are a potential apple of discord thrown +into the Balance of Power in the Pacific. The present policy of +indefinite retention by us, with undeclared intention, leaves everybody +guessing, including ourselves. Now is the accepted time, while the +horizon of the future is absolutely cloudless, to ask Japan to sign +a treaty agreeing not to annex the Philippine Islands after we give +them their independence. By her answer she will show her hand. The +overcrowded monarchies do not pretend any special scruples about +annexing anything annexable. Germany very frankly insists that she +became a great Power too late to get her rightful share of the earth's +surface, and that she must expand somewhither. And only the virile +menace of the Monroe Doctrine has so far stayed her heavy hand from +seizing some portion of South America. But probably none of the Powers +would object to converting the Philippines into permanently neutral +territory, by the same kind of an agreement that protects Switzerland. + +The Treaty of London of 1831, relative to Belgium and Holland, +declares: + + + Within the limits indicated, Belgium shall form an independent + and perpetually neutral state. She shall be required to observe + this same neutrality toward all the other states. + + +The signatories to this treaty were Great Britain, France, Austria, +Prussia, and Russia. Forty years after it was made, during the +Franco-Prussian war, when Belgium's neutrality was threatened by +manifestations of intention on the part both of France and of Prussia +to occupy some of her territory, England served notice on both parties +to the conflict that if either violated the territorial integrity of +Belgium, she, England, would join forces with the other. And the treaty +was observed. The specific way in which observance of it was compassed +was this: Great Britain made representations to both France and Germany +which resulted in two identical conventions, signed in August, 1870, +at Paris and Berlin, whereby any act of aggression by either against +Belgium was to be followed by England's joining forces with the other +against the aggressor. So long as human nature does not change very +materially, "the green-eyed monster" will remain a powerful factor in +human affairs. The mutual jealousy of the Powers will always be the +saving grace, in troubled times, of neutralization treaties signed in +time of profound peace. If "Balance of Power" considerations in Europe +have protected the Turkish Empire from annexation or dismemberment all +these years, without a neutralization treaty, why will not the mutual +jealousy of the Powers insure the signing and faithful observance of +a treaty tending to preserve the Balance of Power in the Pacific? Who +would object? + +The Panama Canal is to be opened in 1913. We want South America to +be a real friend to the Monroe Doctrine, which she certainly is not +enthusiastic about now, and will never be while we remain wedded +to the McKinley Doctrine of Benevolent Assimilation of unconsenting +people--people anxious to develop, under God, along their own lines. In +1906, while Secretary of State of the United States, Mr. Root made +a tour of South America. He told those people down there, at Rio +Janeiro, by way of quieting their fears lest we may some day be moved +to "improve" their condition also, through benevolent assimilation +and vigorous application of the "uplift" treatment: + + + We wish for * * * no territory except our own. We deem the + independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member + of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of + the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the + chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong. + + +That Rio Janeiro speech of Mr. Root's is as noble a masterpiece of +real eloquence, its setting and all considered, as any utterance of +any statesman of modern times. Among other things, he said: + + + No student of our times can fail to see that not America alone + but the whole civilized world is swinging away from its old + governmental moorings and intrusting the fate of its civilization + to the capacity of the popular mass to govern. By this pathway + mankind is to travel, whithersoever it leads. Upon the success + of this, our great undertaking, the hope of humanity depends. + + +As Secretary of War, "civilizing with a Krag," Mr. Root reminds one +of Cortez and Pizarro. As Secretary of State, he permits us to believe +that all the great men are not dead yet. + +If, in making that Rio Janeiro speech, Mr. Root laid to his soul +the flattering unction that the minds of his hearers did not revert +dubiously to his previous grim missionary work in the Philippines, +where the percentage of literacy is superior to that of more than one +Latin-American republic, he is very much mistaken. If he is laboring +under any such delusion, let him read a book written since then by +a distinguished South American publicist, called El Porvenir de La +Americana Latina ("The Future of Latin America"). If he does not read +Spanish, he can divine the contents of the book from the cartoon which +adorns the title-page. The cartoon represents the American eagle, +flag in claw, standing on the map of North America, looking toward +South America as if ready for flight, its beak bent over Panama, +the shadow of its wings already darkening the northern portions of +the sister continent to the south of us. To get the trade of South +America, in the mighty struggle for commercial supremacy which is to +follow the opening of the Panama Canal, we must win the confidence of +South America. We will never do it until we do the right thing by the +Filipinos. Concerning the Philippines, South America reflects that +we annexed the first supposedly rich non-contiguous Spanish country +we ever had a chance to annex that we had not previously solemnly +vowed we would not annex. We must choose between the Monroe Doctrine +of mutually respectful Fraternal Relation, which contemplates some +twenty-one mutually trustful republics in the Western Hemisphere, all +a unit against alien colonization here, and the McKinley Doctrine of +grossly patronizing Benevolent Assimilation, which contemplates some +8,000,000 of people in the Eastern Hemisphere, all a unit against +alien colonization there--a people, moreover, whose friendship we +have cultivated with the Gatling gun and the gallows, and watered +with tariff and other legislation enacted without knowledge and used +without shame. + +We should stop running a kindergarten for adults in Asia, and get back +to the Monroe Doctrine. There are only two hemispheres to a sphere, +and our manifest destiny lies in the Western one. We do not want the +earth. Our mission as a nation is to conserve the republican form +of government, and the consent-of-the-governed principle, and to +promote the general peace of mankind by insuring it in our half of +the earth. The first thing to do to set this country right again is +to get rid of the Philippines, and give them a square deal, pursuant +to the spirit of the neutralization resolutions now pending before +Congress. All these resolutions contain the one supreme need of the +hour, an honest declaration of intention. The longer we fight shy +of that, the less likely we are ever to give the Filipinos their +independence, and the deeper we get into the mire of mistaken +philanthropy and covert exploitation. + +We should resume our original programme of blazing out the path and +making clear the way up which any nation of the earth may follow when +it will. That path lies along the line of actually attempting as a +nation a practical demonstration of the Power of Righteousness, or, +in other words, the existence of an Omnipotent Omniscient Benevolent +Good (whether you spell it with one o or with two is not important) +shaping, guiding, and directing human affairs, such demonstration +to be made through the concerted action of a self-governing people +under a written Constitution based on equality of opportunity and +the Golden Rule. + +As a people we are very young yet. It is not yet written in the Book +of Time how long this nation will survive. So far, our government is +only an experiment. But, as John Quincy Adams once said, it and its +Constitution are "an experiment upon the human heart," to see whether +or not the Golden Rule will work in government among men. + + + + + + +NOTES + + +[1] The date contemplated by the pending Philippine Independence +Bill, introduced in the House of Representatives in March, 1912, +by Hon. W. A. Jones, Chairman of the Committee on Insular Affairs. + +[2] Congressional Record, December 6, 1897, p. 3. + +[3] Split Rock. + +[4] Senate Document 62, p. 381. + +[5] See pages 341 et seq., Senate Document 62, part 1, 55th Cong., +3d Sess., 1898-9. + +[6] Senate Document 62, p. 346. + +[7] Ib., 349. + +[8] The natives in and about Singapore are Mohammedans, forbidden by +their religion to use alcoholic beverages. + +[9] Senate Document 62, p. 354. + +[10] Senate Document 62, p. 356. + +[11] Hearings on Philippine affairs, Senate Document 331, part 3, +57th Cong., 1st Sess., 1901-2, proceedings of June 26-8, 1902. + +[12] S. D. 331, pt. 3, p. 2927. + +[13] The Senate Document has it backwards "left Mirs Bay for Hong +Kong," clearly an error. + +[14] S. D. 331, pt. 3, p. 2932. + +[15] Cong. Record, April 17, 1900, p. 4287. + +[16] S. D. 331, pt. 3, p. 2928. + +[17] Ib. + +[18] S. D. 148, 56th Cong., 2d Sess., 1901, p. 6. + +[19] S. D. 331, pt. 3, p. 2937. + +[20] S. D. 331, pt. 3, p. 2934. + +[21] Ib., p. 2967. + +[22] See pp. 2928 and 2956, S. D. 331, part 3. + +[23] S. D. 331, pt.3, p. 2965. + +[24] S. D. 331, pt. 3, p. 2939. + +[25] Ib., p. 2936. + +[26] Ib., p. 2940. + +[27] See letter of H. Irving Hancock, American war correspondent in +the field, dated Manila, May 3, 1899, published New York Criterion, +June 17, 1899. This Hancock interview with General MacArthur was +quoted in debate on the floor of the Senate on April 17, 1900 (see +Cong. Rec. of that date), and was corroborated by General MacArthur +himself as substantially correct in that officer's testimony before +the Senate in 1902, S. D. 331, pt. 2, 57th Congress, 1st Session, +p. 1942, in answer to questions put by Senator Culberson. + +[28] Rev. Clay Macaulay, who afterwards made that statement in a +letter to the Boston Transcript. + +[29] S. D. 331, pt. 3, p. 2939. + +[30] S. D. 208, part 2, 56th Congress, 1st Sess., pp. 7, 8. + +[31] Cong. Record, December, 1897. + +[32] See Cong. Record, April 11, 1898, pp. 3699 et seq. + +[33] Cong. Record, April 13, 1898, pp. 3701 et seq. + +[34] Navy Dept. Report, 1898, Appendix, p. 103. + +[35] S. D. 62, p. 327. + +[36] Navy Dept. Report, 1898, App., p. 100. Dispatch May 20, 1898. + +[37] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i, pt. 4, p. 13. + +[38] S. D. 331, pt. 3, p. 2930. + +[39] Report Schurman Commission, vol. i., p. 172. + +[40] S. D. 62, p. 337. + +[41] S. D. 331, pt. 3, 1902, p. 2951. + +[42] S. D. 331, p. 2955. + +[43] Ib., p. 2954. + +[44] S. D. 62, pp. 328-9. + +[45] Navy Dept. Report, 1898, Appendix, p. 103. + +[46] Ib., p. 102. + +[47] Navy Dept. Report, 1898, Appendix, p. 102. + +[48] S. D. 62, p. 362. + +[49] Ib., pp. 360-1. + +[50] Navy Dept. Report, 1898, Appendix, p. 106. + +[51] S. D. 62, p. 354. + +[52] S. D. 62, p. 329. + +[53] Ib., p. 432. + +[54] Alas, that rare man, Frank Millet, perished in the Titanic +disaster of April, 1912, since the above was written. + +[55] Expedition to the Philippines. + +[56] Navy Dept. Report, 1898, Appendix, p. 111. + +[57] See p. 2934, S. D. 331, pt. 3, 57th Cong., 1st Sess. + +[58] See p. 2934, S. D. 331, pt. 3, 57th Cong., 1st Sess. + +[59] S. D. 62, p. 383. + +[60] See Admiral Dewey's testimony before the Senate Committee of 1902, +S. D. 331, pp. 2942, 2957. + +[61] See National Geographic Magazine, August, 1905. + +[62] Congressional Record, December 5, 1898. + +[63] See p. 2938, S. D. 331 (1902). + +[64] Congressional Record, December 5, 1898, p. 5. + +[65] Senate Document 169, 55th Cong., 3d Sess. (1898). + +[66] Ib. + +[67] Hon. Frank A. Vanderlip, August, 1898 Century Magazine. + +[68] See p. 85, S. D. 208, 1900. + +[69] See General Orders No. 101, series 1898, Adjutant-General's +Office, Washington, July 18, 1898, a copy of which accompanied the +President's message to Congress of December, 1898, and may be seen +at p. 783, House Document No. 1, 55th Cong., 3d Sess., 1898-9. + +[70] For a copy of this proclamation, see p. 86, S. D. 208, 56th Cong., +1st Sess. + +[71] S. D. 208, p. 8. + +[72] S. D. 331, p. 2976, Hearings before Senate Committee, 1902. + +[73] S. D. 208, 56th Cong., 1st Sess., 1900, p. 16. + +[74] Correspondence, War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 720. + +[75] For Admiral Dewey's cable report of this, see Navy Dept. Report, +1898, Appendix, p. 110. For particulars, given by him subsequently, +see S. D. 331, 1902, p. 2942. + +[76] S. D. 331, pt. 3, 1902, p. 2942, and thereabouts. + +[77] S. D. 208, 56th Cong., 1st Sess., 1900, p. 4. + +[78] S. D. 208, p. 4. + +[79] Anderson only had about 2500 troops then. + +[80] See Navy Dept. Report, 1898, Appendix, p. 110; S. D. 331, 1902, +p. 2942. + +[81] Senate Document 208, 1900, p. 8. + +[82] Ib., pp. 12-13. + +[83] S. D. 208, 1900, p. 9. + +[84] Ib., p. 8. + +[85] See page 40 of General Merritt's Report, War Dept. Report, 1898, +vol. i., part 2. + +[86] S. D. 208, 1900, 56th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 11. + +[87] Ib., p. 10. + +[88] The writer is certainly one of these, and while calling in +question the wisdom and righteousness of our Philippine policy, +he cannot refrain from avowing just here a feeling of individual +obligation to Mr. Root for his exquisite tribute to the personal +equation of Mr. McKinley, delivered at the National Republican +Convention of 1904, which was, in part, as follows: "How wise and +skilful he was. How modest and self-effacing. How deep his insight +into the human heart. How swift the intuitions of his sympathy. How +compelling the charm of his gracious presence. He was so unselfish, +so genuine a lover of his kind. And he was the kindest and tenderest +friend who ever grasped another's hand. Alas, that his virtues did +plead in vain against his cruel fate." + +[89] See Navy Dept. Report, 1898, Appendix, p. 117. + +[90] S. D. 208, 1900, p. 13. + +[91] For the Merritt proclamation, see S. D. 208, p. 86. + +[92] In 1906. + +[93] S. D. 208, 1900, p. 13. + +[94] Ib., p. 40. + +[95] Report First Philippine Commission, vol. i., p. 172. + +[96] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4. Otis report, p. 13. + +[97] S. D. 331, 1902, p. 2941. + +[98] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 788. + +[99] May 19th-July 9th; see General Anderson's report to the +Adjutant-General of the army of July 9, 1898, S. D. 208, p. 6. + +[100] See Major J. F. Bell's report to Merritt of August 29, 1898, +S. D. 62, p. 379. + +[101] Clerks. + +[102] See S. D. 208, pp. 101-2. + +[103] Senate Document 148, 56th Cong., 2d Sess., 1901, p. 34. + +[104] S. D. 208, p. 99. + +[105] Admiral Dewey to Senate Committee, 1902, S. D. 331, 1902, +p. 2940. + +[106] 7,635,426. See Philippine Census of 1903, vol. ii., p. 15. + +[107] 3,798,507. See Philippine Census of 1903, vol. ii., p. 125. + +[108] See Senate Document 62, 1898, p. 379. + +[109] Albay, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, and Sorsogon. + +[110] Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Isabela, Cagayan. + +[111] S. D. 62, p. 380. + +[112] Diary of Major Simeon Villa, p. 1898, Senate Document 331, +pt. 3, 56th Congress, 1st Session, 1902. + +[113] See Merritt's Report for 1898, War Dept. Report, 1898, vol. i., +pt. 2, p. 40. + +[114] Expedition to the Philippines, p. 61. + +[115] "With 10,000 men, we would have had to guard 13,300 Spanish +prisoners, and to fight 14,000 Filipinos," says General Anderson, +North American Review for February, 1900. + +[116] Senate Document 208, p. 86. + +[117] Mr. McKinley's instructions to the Peace Commissioners, Senate +Document 148, 56th Cong., 2d Sess., 1901, p. 6. + +[118] See General Greene's Report, W. D. R., 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, +p. 72, where Mr. Millet's conduct in the assault on the city receives +special mention. + +[119] War Dept. Report, 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 73. + +[120] See War Dept. Report, 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 58. + +[121] Congressional Record, December 5, 1898, p. 5. + +[122] War Dept. Report, 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 57. + +[123] Ib., vol. i., pt. 4, p. 190. + +[124] See his Report, War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 3. + +[125] On August 20th. War Dept. Report,1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 345. + +[126] Ib., p. 5. + +[127] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. 1., pt. 4, pp. 346-7. + +[128] Ib. p. 335. + +[129] Senate Document 148, 56th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 34. + +[130] S. D. 208, pt. ii., pp. 7, 8. + +[131] Otis's Report, p. 10. + +[132] Navy Dept. Report, 1898, Appendix, p. 101. + +[133] To say nothing of the "chariot and four, and a band of a hundred +pieces, and everything in the grandest style," of which Admiral Dewey +told the Senate Committee in 1902 (S. D. 331, 1902, p. 2972). + +[134] See p. 7, S. D. 148, 56th Cong., 2d Sess. + +[135] Expedition to the Philippines, p. 255. + +[136] "Putting the road and accessories into the same state as they +were on February 4, 1899," was the language in which Mr. Higgins +formulated his demand in a letter to General Otis on Jan. 25, 1900. See +War Dept. Record, 1900, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 516. + +[137] North American Review, January 18, 1907, p. 140. + +[138] The six main Visayan Islands. Mohammedan Mindanao is always +dealt with in this book as a separate and distinct problem. + +[139] Senate Document 196, 56th Cong., 1st. Sess., p. 14. + +[140] Here the author's commanding officer, Major Batson, was shot +a year and a day later while directing with his usual clear-headed +intrepidity the fire of a part of his battalion to protect the crossing +of the rest of it over the Aringay River, we being at the time in hot +pursuit of Aguinaldo, whose rear-guard made a stand in the trenches +on the other side of the river. + +[141] Senate Document 62, pt. 1, 55th Cong., 3d Sess., 1898-9, p. 283. + +[142] Hon. Frank A. Vanderlip, then Assistant Secretary of the +Treasury, now (1912) President of the National City Bank, New York, +in the Century Magazine, August, 1898. + +[143] S. D. 148, p. 15. + +[144] Navy Department Report for 1898, Appendix, p. 122. + +[145] Senate Document 148, p. 19. + +[146] Chairman of the Spanish Commission. + +[147] Meaning evidently payment of some of Spain's debts with money +she could probably get from us for the asking, as a matter of sympathy +for the fellow who is "down and out." + +[148] Mr. McKinley had before that sent word significantly that he +was not unmindful of the distressing financial embarrassments of Spain. + +[149] Otis's Report for 1899, p. 43. + +[150] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i, pt. 4, p. 3. + +[151] Ib., pt. 2, p. 75. + +[152] Senate Document 62, p. 379. + +[153] Published at page 7 of Senate Document 208, pt. 2, 56th Congress, +1st Session (1900). + +[154] Called in Spanish "Visayas," or Bisayas. Visayas is an +adjective derived from the name of the Bay of Biscay, "b" and "v" +being interchangeable in Spanish. + +[155] For a fuller description of the archipelago, see Chapter XII. + +[156] Vol. ii., p. 315. + +[157] This proclamation has been printed many times, in various +government publications, e.g., War Department Report, 1899, vol. i., +pt. 4, pp. 355-6; Senate Document 208, 56th Congress, 1st Session +(1900), pp. 82-3, etc. + +[158] Senate Document 62, pt. 1, 55th Congress, 3d Session, p. 272. + +[159] The "self-doubting" lay in the doubt of the Administration as +to whether its programme of conquest would or would not be ratified +by the Senate. The "pusillanimity" lay, wholly unbeknown to Washington +of course, in the estimate of us it produced among the Filipinos. + +[160] War Department Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 62. + +[161] War Department Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 64. + +[162] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 79. + +[163] Ib., p. 67. + +[164] "I sent you the President's proclamation, not for publication, +but for your information," wrote Otis to Miller after the latter had +let the cat out of the bag. Senate Document 208, p. 58. + +[165] Senate Document 208, 56th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 54. + +[166] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 66. + +[167] Ibid. + +[168] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 59. + +[169] Senate Document 208, 56th Cong., 1st Sess. (1900), pp. 54-5. + +[170] Colonel Enoch H. Crowder, General Otis's Judge Advocate, was +"the brains of" the Otis government. But the difference between General +Otis and Aguinaldo was that Aguinaldo always had the good sense to +follow Mabini's advice, while Otis did not always follow Crowder's. + +[171] Senate Document 208, p. 56. + +[172] S. D. 208, p. 58. + +[173] See Congressional Record, January 18, 1899, p. 734. + +[174] Senate Document 208, p. 59. + +[175] War Department Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 66. + +[176] Senate Document 208, 56th Cong., 1st Sess., 1900, p. 58, letter +to General Miller. + +[177] A campaign synonym for forced marching. It has no known +etymology, but to the initiated it suggests torrential downpouring +of rain and bedraggled mud-spattered columns of troops. + +[178] Senate Document 208, pt. 2, p. 7. + +[179] Otis Report, p. 80. + +[180] The American "Tommy Atkins." + +[181] Otis Report, 1899 War Dept. Rpt., 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 81. + +[182] See Senate Document 331, 1902, p. 2709 et seq. + +[183] Congressional Record, January 11, 1899, p. 735. + +[184] Ib., January 18, 1899, p. 733. + +[185] The vote on the Bacon resolution was a tie, 29 to 29, and +the Vice-President of the United States then cast the deciding vote +against it. Cong. Rec., Feby. 14, 1899, p. 1845. + +[186] See Present-Day Problems, by Wm. H. Taft, p. 9; Dodd, Mead, & +Co., N. Y., 1908. + +[187] Congressional Record, February 14, 1899, p. 1846 (55th Cong., +3d Sess.). + +[188] See General Hughes's testimony before Senate Committee, 1902, +Senate Document 331, p. 508. + +[189] See Annual Report of the Secretary of War to the President for +1899, pp. 7 et seq. + +[190] This is no mere attempt at rhetorical decoration. Said General +MacArthur to the Senate Committee in 1902 concerning Aguinaldo: +"He was the incarnation of the feelings of the Filipinos." Senate +Document 331, 1902, p. 1926. + +[191] Senate Document 331, 1902, pp. 2927 et seq. + +[192] Senate Document 208, 56th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 23. + +[193] Senate Document 62, 55th Cong., 3d Sess., 1898-9, p. 383. + +[194] See end of Chapter IV. ante. + +[195] Otis Report for 1899, p. 66. + +[196] Report, p. 99. + +[197] Ib., p. 100. + +[198] Ib., p. 150. + +[199] Raw recruits. + +[200] War Department Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 375. + +[201] There were thirteen States represented by at least one +organization. These were the First Californias, Second Oregons, First +Colorados, First Nebraskas, Tenth Pennsylvanias, Major Young's Utah +Battery, the First Idahos, Thirteenth Minnesotas, the North Dakota +Artillery, the Twentieth Kansas, and the Tennessees, Montanas, +and Wyomings. + +[202] The regular regiments represented were the 14th, 8th, and +23d Infantry and 4th Cavalry. There were also some batteries of the +Third Regular Artillery, and a number of Engineers, Hospital Corps, +and Signal Corps people. + +[203] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 440. + +[204] Hearings on affairs in Philippine Islands, 1902. + +[205] War Department Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 109. + +[206] Senate Document 331, p. 1890. + +[207] Senate Document 331, pp. 1890 et seq. + +[208] Ib., p. 1436. + +[209] Senate Document 331, p. 1448. + +[210] Ib., pt. 2, p. 1447. + +[211] The "water cure" (a cure for reticence) consisted in placing +a bamboo reed in the victim's mouth and pouring water down his +throat thus painfully distending his stomach and crowding all his +viscera. Allowed to void this after a time, he would, under threat +of repetition, give the desired information. + +[212] Since the above was written, the officer in question has joined +the Great Majority. It was that fearless, faithful, and kindly man, +General Fred. D. Grant, who died in April, 1912. + +[213] The lieutenant is no longer in the army, but he resigned +voluntarily long after the incident related in the text, and for +reasons wholly foreign to said incident. + +[214] Of course my host's name was not Jones, but Jones will do. + +[215] Spanish for man. + +[216] A Philippine campaign expression for losing one's nerve and +wanting to quit. + +[217] Otis's Report, p. 133. + +[218] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 35. In this handsome +commendation General Lawton also included Maj. Charles G. Starr, +one of the best all-round soldiers I ever knew. + +[219] See Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., +pp. 1068 et seq. + +[220] Otis's Report, p. 115. + +[221] An interesting account of this experience is given by General +Funston himself in the October, 1911, number of Scribner's Magazine, +in an article entitled "From Malolos to San Fernando." + +[222] Otis's Report, p. 136. + +[223] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 138. + +[224] Except, of course, the capture of Aguinaldo by General Funston +nearly two years later. + +[225] See General Lawton's Report on the Zapote River fight, War +Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 282. + +[226] See Harper's History of the War in the Philippines, p. 214, +where the name of the gentleman is spelled "Kanly." + +[227] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, Otis Despatches +of November 27th, vol. ii., p. 846. + +[228] House Document 85, 55th Cong., 3d Sess. + +[229] The words quoted are from President McKinley's message to +Congress of December, 1899. + +[230] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1002. + +[231] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1020. + +[232] Meaning, of course, in time not to embarrass President McKinley's +prospective candidacy for re-election in 1900, in a campaign in +which all knew the acquisition of the Philippines was sure to be the +paramount issue. + +[233] War Dept. Report, 1899, vol. i., part 4, p. 122. + +[234] Strictly speaking, only twenty-three regiments were sent out +from the United States. Under the Act of March 2, 1899, providing the +volunteer army of 35,000 men for the Philippines, twenty-four regiments +of infantry and one of cavalry were organized. The infantry regiments +were numbered Twenty-six to Forty-nine, both inclusive, the numbering +taking up where the numbering of the regular infantry regiments then +ended, with the Twenty-fifth. The cavalry regiment was called the +Eleventh Cavalry, the regular cavalry regimental enumeration ending at +that time with the Tenth. The Eleventh Cavalry and the Thirty-sixth +Infantry were organized, officered, and largely recruited from men +of the State Volunteers sent out in '98, who, in consideration of +liberal inducements offered by the Government, consented to remain. + +[235] The population of the city of Manila according to the Philippine +Census of 1903, vol. ii., p. 16; was 219,928. The three next largest +towns are: Laoag, in the province of Ilocos Norte, about 270 miles +north of Manila, near the northwest corner of Luzon, population 19,699; +Iloilo, capital of the island of Panay and chief city and port of the +Visayan Islands, some 300 miles south of Manila, population 19,054; +and Cebu, capital and chief port of the island of Cebu, a day's +voyage from Iloilo, population 18,330. See Philippine Census of 1903, +vol. ii., p. 38. + +[236] 115,026 is the exact figure. See Philippine Census, vol. i., +p. 57. + +[237] The exact figure for Luzon is 40,969, and that for Mindanao, +36,292. Ib. + +[238] Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 56. + +[239] Ibid. + +[240] Table of Areas, Census, 1903, vol. i., p. 263. + +[241] Table of Populations, ib., vol. ii., p. 126. + +[242] Total of these six in large type 20,418 square miles, say +roughly 20,500. + +[243] Total of these last three in smaller type 9114 square miles. + +[244] There is a large sugar estate on Mindoro, supposed to contain +over 60,000 acres or, say, ninety odd square miles, which in 1911 +figured in a congressional investigation of certain charges against +Professor Worcester, a member of the Philippine Commission, but this +is wholly separate from the original problem of public order. + +[245] The exact figure is 36,292. Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 263. + +[246] 499,634, Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 126. + +[247] The semi-civilized Moros of Mindanao live mostly in the interior, +and have a crude form of Mohammedanism. The civilized Christian +Filipinos of Mindanao live mostly on the littoral. + +[248] This was said in no mere speech. Speeches are often +misquoted. It was a letter signed by the foremost man of this age, +Mr. Roosevelt, written September 15, 1900, accepting the nomination +for the Vice-Presidency. (See Proceedings of the Republican National +Committee, 1900, p. 86.) Yet it represented then one of the many +current misapprehensions about the Filipinos which moved this great +nation to destroy a young republic set up in a spirit of intelligent +and generous emulation of our own. + +[249] One of the sultans, or head-men, was believed in 1899, to have +tried on his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca made before we took +the Philippines, by some dickering at Singapore or near there in +the Straits Settlements, to sell out for a consideration to Great +Britain, so as to be under the protection and in the pay of British +North Borneo. + +[250] The fraction used is based on 500,000 (the population of +Mindanao), being that fraction of 7,500,000 (which last is, roughly +speaking, the total population of the archipelago). The census figures +being 499,634 and 7,635,426 respectively, as heretofore stated. + +[251] 7,635,426. Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 15. + +[252] 3,798,507. Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 125. + +[253] 223,506 is the total of the uncivilized tribes still extant +in Luzon, Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 125, but they live in the +mountains and you might live in the Philippines a long lifetime +without ever seeing a sample of them, unless you happen to be an +energetic ethnologist fond of mountain climbing. + +[254] Philippine Census of 1903, vol. i., p. 57. + +[255] The area of Cuba is about 44,000 square miles. + +[256] Except Ohio, the States of Pennsylvania and Tennessee are nearer +the size of Luzon than any others of the Union, the former containing +about 45,000 square miles and the latter about 42,000. + +[257] This comparison does not pretend to be mathematically exact. New +Jersey's area is nearer 8000 than 7000 square miles. For further +illustration by comparison, it may be noted in this connection that +the area of Massachusetts is over 8000 square miles (8315) and that of +Vermont between 9000 and 10,000 (9565). As Costa Rica has only 368,780 +inhabitants (Statesman's Year Book), the province of Pangasinan alone +contains more people than the republic of Costa Rica. The average of +intelligence and industry of the masses in both is doubtless about +the same, with the probabilities in favor of Pangasinan. + +[258] Table of Areas, Philippine Census of 1903, vol. i., p. 58. + +[259] Table of Populations, ib., vol. ii., p. 123. + +[260] In alluding, in complimentary terms, to this officer's +gallant conduct on that occasion, Harper's History of the War in the +Philippines spells the name "Hustin," as it had previously misspelled +the name of the star actor among the younger officers who participated +in the Zapote River fight "Kanly." "Such is fame." The gentleman's +right name is Mustin. He is now a lieutenant-commander, well known +in the navy to-day, as the inventor of the "Mustin gun-sight." + +[261] There is a notable unanimity, among the men in the army of about +Major March's age and rank, in the opinion that he is a man of very +extraordinary ability. This unanimity is so generous and genuine that +I deem it a duty as well as a pleasure to emphasize it here. + +[262] See Otis's Report covering September 1, 1899, to May 5, 1900, +War Dept. Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 261. + +[263] The 12th, part of the 25th, and the 32d Infantry being used to +guard the railroad and for other purposes. + +[264] Calumpit will be remembered as the place where in the previous +spring Colonel Funston and his Kansans performed the daring and +successful manoeuvre of crossing the Bagbag River under fire. + +[265] Senate Document 331, pt. 2 (1902), p. 1926. + +[266] This ratio is no jest. It is a statistical fact, figured out +from one of the War Department Reports. + +[267] War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 59. + +[268] Report of Secretary of War, 1899, p. 12. + +[269] Campaign Spanish for "look for." Generals Lawton and Young had +cut loose from their base of supplies and their command was trusting +for subsistence to living upon the country. + +[270] See translation of diary of Major Simeon Villa, Senate Document +331, pt. 3, 57th Cong., 1st Sess. (1902), p. 1988. It was in this +Aringay fight that one of the narrowest escapes from death in battle +ever officially authenticated occurred. Lieutenant Dennis P. Quinlan, +now a captain of the 5th U. S. Cavalry, was struck just over the heart +by an insurgent bullet (probably more or less spent) while crossing the +river in the face of a hot fire, the bullet being deflected by a plug +of tobacco carried in the breast pocket of the regulation campaign +blue shirt he was wearing, which pocket, any one acquainted with +that shirt will remember, is at the left breast just over the heart +(War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 6, pp. 166, 279). He was +knocked over, but soon recovered and went on. The flesh of the left +breast over the heart was bruised black and blue. He was recommended +for a medal of honor on account of the incident (War Department Report, +1900, vol. i., pt. 7, p. 136). + +[271] If these figures are not exact, they are approximately +correct. We always called it three hundred miles from Manila to the +northern end of Luzon via Vigan and the lighthouse at Cape Bojeador. + +[272] For instance, there was what used to be known to the 8th Corps +as "Col. Jim Parker's night attack at Vigan," which occurred early in +December, 1899, soon after that place was occupied, the insurgents +coming into the town in large numbers, at night under command of +General Tinio, through a tunnel so it was said, and being driven +out only after desperate close quarters' fighting from about two +o'clock in the morning until after broad daylight, leaving the streets +and plaza of Vigan much cumbered with their dead. Again, later on, +there was the sudden order, swiftly executed, in obedience to which +Lieutenant Grayson V. Heidt with a part of a troop of the 3d Cavalry, +rode from Laoag to Batac to the rescue of a besieged garrison at the +latter place, arriving in time to prevent a small Custer massacre, +the garrison having gotten short of ammunition, and having just managed +to telegraph for reinforcements a few moments before the enemy cut the +telegraph wire. Then, there was Lieutenant Hannay, of the 22d Infantry, +who being at the front, received an order from General Lawton to come +back to build a bridge. The order made him sick, the surgeon reported +him sick, the messenger returned with that message, and then Hannay +promptly got well, and stayed at the front. And so on, ad infinitum. + +[273] The Visayan Islands--the half-dozen islands between Luzon and +Mindanao already mentioned, as the only ones worth mentioning for +our purposes, together with the various smaller islands, islets, +and rocks "visible at high water." + +[274] "During April, in the First District, comprising the provinces +of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Union, Abra, Lepanto, Benguet, and Bontoc, +Brigadier General S. B. M. Young, commanding, the insurgents manifested +considerable activity and endeavored to take the offensive against +the scattered detachments in the district. The insurgents were in +every instance defeated, and lost more than 500 men killed." War +Dept. Report 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 196. + +[275] The language quoted is that employed by Robert Collins, +Associated Press Correspondent, in connection with the Round Robin +incident of nine months previous, described in the concluding part +of the chapter preceding this. + +[276] Hereinafter more fully set forth. + +[277] For the Table of Areas, see Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 58. + +[278] For the Table of Populations, see Philippine Census, vol. ii., +p. 123. + +[279] Under the Spaniards, these were two provinces. They were combined +by us. + +[280] A province in Latin countries corresponds more nearly to what +we call a county than to anything else familiar to our system of +political divisions. + +[281] For the details of this march, see War Department Report, 1900, +vol. i., pt. 4, p. 309. Captain Batchelor had neither orders nor +permission to do what he did. When he cut loose from the command he +belonged to, he took very long chances on finding subsistence for +his men in the unknown country he had set out to conquer, to say +nothing of the highly probable chances of annihilation of his whole +command. When an officer commanding troops does this in time of war, +he does so at his peril, and signal success is his only salvation. + +[282] Area tables, Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 58. + +[283] Population tables, Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 123. + +[284] Though Nueva Vizcaya is not in the Cagayan valley, but on a +plateau of the great divide, still, its streams all flow into the +Cagayan valley, and that term will be used in this book, as it is +colloquially in the Philippines, to include not only the Cagayan valley +proper, but also the adjoining tributary province of Nueva Vizcaya. + +[285] The only thing of interest to the American people that ever +happened over there was the capture of Lieutenant Gilmore of the Navy, +and his men, at Baler, on the Pacific coast, in Principe, a capture +which, it will be recollected, was followed by long captivity, and +ultimately terminated in rescue. The interested student will see +these two provinces on the American maps of the islands, but they +were each attached by the Taft government for administration purposes +to another province, and do not appear in the American census list +of provinces. Therefore, they cut no figure in the census totals, +either of area or population. + +[286] The officer on whom public attention in the United States was +later focussed by an alleged order, charged to have been issued by him +in a campaign in Samar to "kill everything over ten years old." This +alleged order was called by the American newspapers of the period +"Jake Smith's Kill and Burn Order." + +[287] The figures as to Principe are mere arbitrary guesses, the exact +figures used being fixed on merely to get convenient round numbers, +there being no statistics as to Principe. + +[288] Of course the Filipinos should be consulted as to what provinces +should constitute each state, but I am simply sketching a tentative +governmental scheme based upon the way our army perfected its original +grip on public order and the general administrative situation. + +[289] All along here we, of course, deal in round numbers only. + +[290] See War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., part 5, pp. 45 et +seq. The city of Manila and vicinity constituted the Sixth District +of the Department of Northern Luzon. + +[291] War Dept. Report, 1900, vol. i., part 5, pp. 47-8. + +[292] War Dept. Report, 1900, vol. i., part 1, p. 9. + +[293] The Spanish word camarin means a warehouse. The province of +Camarines was originally two provinces, and is still referred to as +two, though governmentally but one. + +[294] Of March 2, 1899. Under it the term of enlistment of the +volunteers was to expire June 30, 1901. + +[295] Table of Areas, Philippine Census of 1903, vol. i., p. 263. Table +of Population, ib., vol. ii., pp. 123 et seq. + +[296] Copper-colored thief. + +[297] Sung to the tune of "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching." + +[298] See Forum, vol. xxvi., p. 647. + +[299] See Forum, vol. xxix., p. 403. + +[300] These quotations are not taken from a scrap-book. Many +readers forget that the bound volumes of all the great magazines are +permanently available in the great libraries of the country. + +[301] Hostilities had not yet broken out when the article now being +considered appeared on January 4th, and did not break out until thirty +days later, to wit, on February 4th. + +[302] Congressional Record, April 13, 1898, p. 3701. + +[303] In the early days of the fighting they used to hurrah a good +deal, and shout "Viva la Independencia" (Live Independence). + +[304] See Judge Taft's cablegram to Secretary of War Root of August +21, 1900, War Department Report, vol. i., pt. 1, p. 80. + +[305] The Caribao Society is an organization composed mainly of +officers of the regular army, but to which any one who served as an +officer, volunteer or regular, in the Philippine Insurrection, is +eligible. Their principal function, like that of the famous Gridiron +Club, is to give an annual dinner. + +[306] Addresses at Republican National Convention (1904), p. 62, +published by Isaac H. Blanchard & Co., New York, 1904. The Republican +National Convention of 1900 met June 19th, just sixteen days after +the Taft Commission arrived at Manila. + +[307] General MacArthur relieved General Otis May 5, 1900, and the +Taft Commission arrived at Manila June 3d thereafter. + +[308] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1051. + +[309] Letter of July 22, 1898, by Duc d'Almodovar del Rio, Prime +Minister of Spain, to President McKinley, suing for peace. Senate +Document 62, pt. 1, 55th Congress, 3d Session, pp. 272-3. + +[310] See Congressional Record of that date, p. 33. + +[311] General Otis's appreciation of such "aid" was thus expressed +in his cablegram to Washington of June 4, 1899: "Negotiations +and conferences with insurgents cost soldiers' lives and prolong +our difficulties." Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, +vol. ii., p. 1002. + +[312] Address by Secretary of War Taft before the National Geographic +Society at Washington, published in the official organ of that Society, +National Geographic Magazine for August, 1905. + +[313] Says General Chaffee in his annual report for 1902: "The +intelligent element controlled the ignorant masses as perfectly as +ever a captain controlled the men of his company." War Department +Report, 1902, vol. ix., p. 191. + +[314] War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 61. + +[315] August 29, 1898, to May 5, 1900. + +[316] Especially independence. + +[317] Senate Document 331 (1902), pt. 1, page 50. + +[318] A slander ignorantly repeated by the adverse report of the +minority of the Insular Affairs Committee of the House, on the Jones +Bill, introduced in March, 1912, proposing ultimate independence +in 1921. + +[319] See The Commoner, April 27, 1906. + +[320] Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 9. + +[321] These are the three main lines of cleavage, linguistically +speaking. Nearly all the minor dialects are kin to some one of the +principal three. + +[322] Peasant's hut, usually of bamboo, thatched with stout straw +(nipa). It is the log cabin of the Philippines. + +[323] By way of protest against this kind of belittling of the army's +work, General MacArthur says in his annual report (War Dept. Rept., +1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 60), "Such a narrow statement of the case is +unfair to the service," adding a handsome tribute, which might have +come very graciously from the Commission had it felt so disposed, to +"the endurance, fortitude, and valor" of his 70,000 men during the +precise period while the Commission was filling the American papers +with politically opportune nonsense about "Peace, peace," when there +was no peace. + +[324] See Report of Secretary of War Root for 1900. War Department +Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 1, p. 80. + +[325] See Report of Taft Philippine Commission of 1900, p. 17. + +[326] War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, pp. 34-42. + +[327] S. D. 435, 56th Cong. 1st Sess. + +[328] Report U. S. Philippine Commission, November, 1900, p. 15. + +[329] General Lawton was killed in battle in the hour of victory at a +point only about twelve miles out of Manila, in the winter preceding +the spring of 1900 in which the Taft Commission left the United States +for Manila. + +[330] This interview was indorsed as substantially correct by General +MacArthur before the Senate Committee of 1902, Senator Culberson first +reading it to him and then asking him if it quoted him correctly. See +hearing on Philippine affairs, 1902, Senate Document 331, pt. 2, +p. 1942. + +[331] War Department Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 88. + +[332] Ibid., 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 60. + +[333] November, 1899, to September, 1900, both inclusive. + +[334] W. D. R., 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 60. + +[335] Judge Taft had cabled Secretary of War Root on August 21, 1900, +after his arrival in June: "Defining of political issues in United +States reported here in full, gave hope to insurgent officers still +in arms, * * * and stayed surrenders to await result of election." See +War Department Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 80. + +[336] War Department Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 89. + +[337] See Report of Taft Commission to Secretary of War, dated November +30, 1900. + +[338] A sample of one of these death sentences that Cailles and all +the rest of the insurgent generals were accustomed to issue against +their "Copperheads" may be seen in General MacArthur's report for +1900. War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 63. + +[339] War Department Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 90. + +[340] See Report of Secretary Root for 1902, p. 13. + +[341] Just how correct this was will be examined later. + +[342] "The people seem to be actuated by the idea that men are +never nearer right than when going with their own kith and kin." War +Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 61. + +[343] General MacArthur's Annual Report dated October 1, 1900. War +Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, pp. 61-2. + +[344] General MacArthur's report which we are now quoting from, +dated October 1, 1900, was forwarded by the ordinary course of mail, +and even if it arrived before the day of the November election, the +Secretary of War certainly did not at once place it before the public. + +[345] Compare this MacArthur, October 1, 1900, statement with the Taft +statements of the same situation between June and November, 1900, as +expressed for instance in his November, 1900, report to the Secretary +of War thus: "A great majority of the people long for peace and are +entirely willing to accept the establishment of a government under +the supremacy of the United States. They are, however, restrained +by fear. * * * Without this, armed resistance to the United States +authority would have long ago ceased. It is a Mafia on a very large +scale." Report, Taft Commission, November 30, 1900, p. 17. This was +before Judge Taft met Juan Cailles above mentioned and liked him well +enough to make him governor of a province, in spite of his being an +"assassin," in other words a Filipino general who had a few weak-kneed +fellows shot for being too friendly with the Americans. + +[346] Chapter XI., ante. + +[347] See War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, pp. 65-6. + +[348] As for my share as a soldier in that Philippine Insurrection, +admitting, as I now do, that it was a tragedy of errors, the President +of the United States would indeed be a very impotent Chief Executive +if it were every American's duty to deliberate as a judge on the +Bench before he decided to answer a president's call for volunteers +in an emergency. I am not yet so highly educated as to find no +inward response to the sentiment, "Right or wrong, my country." If +this sentiment is not right, no republic can long survive, for the +ultimate safety of republics must lie in volunteer soldiery. + +[349] Page 93. + +[350] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1211. + +[351] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1222. + +[352] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 1223. + +[353] Ibid., p. 1226. + +[354] Ibid., p. 1237. + +[355] See Correspondence Relating to War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1239. + +[356] Ten or twelve thousand. + +[357] Correspondence Relating to War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1249. + +[358] See Public Laws, U. S. Philippine Commission Division of Insular +Affairs, War Department, Washington, 1901, p. 181. + +[359] See General Funston's article on "The Capture of Aguinaldo," +which appeared in Scribner's Magazine for November, 1911. + +[360] War Department Report, 1901, vol. i. pt. 4, p. 99. + +[361] For a copy of this proclamation see War Department Report, +1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 100. + +[362] The War with Spain, by H. C. Lodge, p. 20. + +[363] Mr. Williams to Mr. Cridler, Senate Document 62 (1898), p. 319. + +[364] See First Report of Taft Philippine Commission to the Secretary +of War, p. 17. + +[365] General MacArthur's report for 1901, War Department Report, +1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 90. + +[366] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1241. + +[367] J. R. Arnold, of the Philippine Civil Service Board, in North +American Review, for February, 1912. + +[368] Correspondence Relating to War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1261. + +[369] War Department Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 98. + +[370] Senate Document 331, pt. 1, 57th Congress, 1st Session, 1902, +p. 136. + +[371] Cagayan, Isabela, and Nueva Vizcaya. + +[372] A kind of two-wheeled buggy, the principal public vehicle +of Manila. + +[373] As it turned out, I lost nothing in the end, because my +resignation of my military commission was not acted on at Washington, +and I only ceased to be an officer of the army by operation of law +at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 1901, as had been provided +by the Act of Congress of March 2, 1899, organizing the twenty-five +regiments for Philippine service. + +[374] See the Act of the U. S. Philippine Commission of July 17, +1901, entitled, "An act restoring the provinces of Batangas, Cebu, +and Bohol, to the executive control of the military governor," in +Public Laws, U. S. Philippine Commission, Division of Insular Affairs, +War Department. + +[375] See American Census of the Philippines, vol. ii., p. 123. + +[376] Ib., vol. i., p. 58. + +[377] War Department Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 8, p. 7. + +[378] See pages 102 et seq. of Our Philippine Problem by H. Parker +Willis, Professor of Economics and Politics in Washington and Lee +University. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1905. + +[379] Where he still is. + +[380] Correspondence Relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1297. + +[381] The words quoted were used by Mr. Root in a speech delivered +at Youngstown, Ohio, October 25, 1900. + +[382] Sixty-six men and three officers were surprised at breakfast +and cut off from their guns by several hundred bolo men who had come +into town as unarmed natives under pretence of attending a church +fiesta. Forty-five men and officers were killed after a desperate +resistance. Twenty-four only were able to escape. War Department +Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 8, p. 8. + +[383] Governor Taft's Report for 1901, War Department Report, 1901, +vol. i., pt. 8, p. 8. + +[384] War Department Report, 1902, vol. ix., p. 208. + +[385] Leviticus xvi., 10. + +[386] War Department Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 8, p. 12. + +[387] Senate Document 331, pt. 1, p. 86, 57th Congress, 1st Session +(1902). + +[388] War Department Report for 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 59 et +seq. Ibid., 1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 88 et seq. + +[389] Report for 1901, p. 98. + +[390] See Philippine Census, vol. ii, p. 123. + +[391] The Provincial Government Act was an act passed February 6, +1901, outlining the general scheme of government for the several +provinces, and indicating the various tempting official positions +attaching thereto. + +[392] War Department Report, 1902, vol. ix., p. 191. + +[393] Senate Document 331, p. 1612 et seq. + +[394] Senate Document 331, 1902, p. 1614. + +[395] S. D. 331, 1902, p. 1622. + +[396] Ibid., p. 1623. + +[397] S. D. 331, 1902, p. 1628. + +[398] War Department Report, 1902, vol. ix., p. 221. + +[399] Colonel Wagner's testimony before Senate Committee of +1902. Senate Document 331, pt. 3, p. 2873. + +[400] War Department Report, 1902, vol. ix., p. 284. + +[401] Senate Document 331, 1902, p. 887. + +[402] Senate Document 331, pt. 3, p. 2878. + +[403] Theodore Rex. + +[404] War Department Report, 1902, vol. ix., p. 192. + +[405] Correspondence relating to the War with Spain, vol. ii., +pp. 1352-3. + +[406] Military Correspondence Relating to War with Spain, vol. ii., +p. 1244. + +[407] Macaulay's Trial of Hastings. + +[408] Says Gen. Henry T. Allen, commanding the Philippines +constabulary, in his report for 1903 (Report U. S. Philippine +Commission, 1903, pt. 3, p. 49), "For some time to come the number of +troops (meaning American) to be kept here should be a direct function +of the number of guns put into the hands of natives." He adds, "It +is unwise to ignore the great moral effect of a strong armed force +above suspicion." + +[409] The constabulary force was about 5000. When disturbances in one +province would become formidable, constabulary from provinces would +be hurried thither, thus denuding the latter provinces of proper +police protection. + +[410] 1912. + +[411] The reference is supposed to be to Mr. McKinley. + +[412] War Department Report, 1902, vol. ix., p. 264. + +[413] Delaware has 2050 square miles, Albay 1783. + +[414] Correspondence Relating to War with Spain, vol. ii., p. 1249. + +[415] President Roosevelt cabled Kelly, whom he had known in the West +many years before, congratulating him on the results of his cool +and determined fearlessness and presence of mind on that occasion, +but elaboration on the Surigao affair was not part of the insular +programme, which was one of irrepressible optimism as to the state +of public order. + +[416] Every province in the Philippines is divided into so many +pueblos. Pueblo, in Spanish, means town. But the Spanish pueblo is more +like a township. It does not mean a continuous stretch of residences +and other buildings, but a given municipal area. Each pueblo is +likewise subdivided into barrios, dotted usually with hamlets, and +groups of houses. + +[417] Report U. S. Philippine Commission, 1903, pt. 3, p. 92. + +[418] Report U. S. Philippine Commission, 1903, pt. 1, p. 366. + +[419] Senate Document 170, 58th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 16. + +[420] Report U. S. Philippine Commission, 1903, pt. 1, p. 32. + +[421] 240, 326, Philippine Census, 1903, vol. ii., p. 123. + +[422] The speech referred to in the text was made at Manila in +December, 1903, but the same "Philippines for the Filipinos" policy had +already been proclaimed much earlier. The Manila American of February +28, 1903, reprints from the Iloilo Times of February 21, 1903, an +account of Governor Taft's celebrated Iloilo speech of February 19, +1903, which was received with such profound chagrin by the American +business community in the Islands. There had been much bad blood +between the American colony at and about Iloilo and the native +Americano-phobes. The following is from the Iloilo paper's account +of Governor Taft's speech: "The Governor then gave some advice to +foreigners and Americans, remarking that if they found fault with the +way the government was being run here, they could leave the islands; +that the government was being run for the Filipinos." + +[423] James LeRoy in The World's Work for December, 1903. + +[424] A familiar instance of this will occur to any one acquainted +with the situation in the Islands for any considerable part of the +last ten years. + +[425] Act No. 136, U. S. Philippine Commission, passed June 11, 1901. + +[426] Act 1024, Philippine Commission, passed Oct. 10, 1903. + +[427] There were five members of the original Taft Commission, +including President Taft. + +[428] I neither forget nor gainsay the generally benevolent character +of his despotism; and having been a beneficiary of it myself I am +therefore disposed to see much of wisdom in the way it was exercised. + +[429] Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 123. + +[430] Ib., vol. i., p. 58. + +[431] Says Brigadier-General Wm. H. Carter, in his annual report for +1905 covering the Samar outbreak of 1904-5: "Whatever may have been +the original cause of the outbreak, it was soon lost sight of when +success had drawn a large proportion of the people away from their +homes and fields. Except in the largest towns it became simply a +question of joining the pulajans or being harried by them. In the +absence of proper protection thousands joined in the movement." See +War Department Report, 1905, vol. iii., p. 286. + +[432] Bulao was situated on a high bluff on the left bank of a river +called the Bangahon. The Pulajans entered before daybreak, on July +21st. There was a stiff fight at Bulao, also, between our native +troops and the enemy on August 21st, but Calderon seems to have +left it out of his list. See Gen. Wm. H. Carter's Report for 1905, +War Department Report, 1905, vol. iii., p. 290. Capt. Cary Crockett, +a descendant of David Crockett, commanded the constabulary, and though +badly wounded himself, as were also half his command, he defeated +a force of Pulajans greatly outnumbering his, killing forty-one of +them. Report U. S. Philippine Commission, 1905, pt. 3, p. 90, Report +of Col. Wallace C. Taylor. I think he was awarded a medal of honor +for his work. He certainly earned it. + +"Pulajan" means "red breeches," the uniform of the mountain clans, +worn whenever they set out to give trouble. + +[433] Of March 23d of the previous year, already described in a +previous chapter, where Luther S. Kelly--"Yellowstone" Kelly--saved +the American women by gathering them and a few men in the Government +House and bluffing the brigands off. + +[434] The "Conant" peso, named for the noted fiscal expert, +Mr. Conant. It was worth fifty cents American money. + +[435] The Fourteenth U. S. Infantry was stationed in garrison just +outside the town proper of Calbayog, which was three hours by steam +launch from the provincial capital, Catbalogan. But the depredations +might have been carried to just outside the line of the military +reservation, and the military folk would not have dared to make a +move save on request first made by the Civil Government at Manila. In +other words the above three villages were burned under their noses. + +[436] One seems to get the stoicism better in the original, somehow, +so I give the body of the original Spanish, as it came to me: + + + En el distrito de Motiong, municipio de Wright, provincia de + Samar, Islas Filipinas, a primero de septiembre de mil novecientos + quatro. Ante mi Peregrin Albano, consejal del mismo, y presente el + Presidente de Sanidad Municipal, D. Tomas San Pablo y principales + del mismo se procedio al enterramiento de los cadaveres victimas + de los Pulajans en el sementerio de esta localidad el oficial de + voluntarios, Rafael Rosales y otros voluntarios, Gualberto Gabane, + Juan Pacle, Dionisio Daisno, Pedro Damtanan, Carmelo Lagbo, y + particulares Eustaquia Sapiten y Apolinaria N: con otro tanto + Pulajan desconocido; en conformidad de la carta oficial de la + presidencia municipal de Wright de fecha de hoy registrada con + el numero 136. + + Del citado enteramiento ha sido asistido por el Reverendo Padre + Marcos Gomez y acompanado por toda la fuerza voluntaria del mismo + por la muerte del oficial Rosales. + + +[437] See War Department Report, 1905, vol. iii., p. 290. + +[438] Hill was Whittier's deputy at Llorente. + +[439] Even if the municipal police had been like Caesar's wife, they +were like chaff before the wind in a Pulajan foray, though they were +somewhat better if well led by some prominent and forceful man of +the community in an expedition after Pulajans. + +[440] A disease of a dropsical variety, usually attacking the legs +first, which easily becomes epidemic. It had been the cause of many +of the 120 deaths in the Albay jail during the Ola insurrection. Ideal +conditions for it are a steady diet of poor rice and lack of exercise. + +[441] It was not well to be too hasty. You might have the head of the +whole uprising in custody, or one of his most important lieutenants, +and find it out by the merest accident in the course of hearing a +case against some apparently abject "private of the rear rank." + +[442] By unwarranted I mean without warrant. Nobody bothered much +with warrants. The times were too strenuous. + +[443] See New York Tribune, Oct. 25, 1904. + +[444] Ibid. + +[445] Smith, Bell & Co. are an old British mercantile house, well +known in Manila and Hong Kong. + +[446] The North American Review article by the writer, to which Judge +Ide was replying, appeared in the issue of that magazine for January +18, 1907, and could hardly have escaped the attention of anybody +concerned, having been given wide circulation; (1) by Mr. Andrew +Carnegie through pamphlet reprints; (2) by Hon. Wm. J. Bryan, in his +paper, the Commoner; (3) by Hon. James L. Slayden, M. C. of Texas, +through reprinting in the Congressional Record. + +[447] Such as the breakwater at Manila, the road-building in various +provinces, etc.--all, however, be it remembered, being paid for by +the Filipino people, out of the insular revenues and assets. + +[448] By Mrs. Campbell Dauncey. + +[449] Words used by Governor-General James F. Smith, in an address +at the Quill Club, Manila, January 25, 1909. + +[450] Delivered in 1902, after the Senator visited the Islands in 1901. + +[451] The following is a copy of the letter accepting my resignation: + + Office of the Civil Governor of the Philippine Islands, + January 25, 1905. + + My dear Judge Blount: + + I have to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of + yesterday in which you tender your resignation as Judge of First + Instance at large. I regret extremely that your ill-health has made + this course imperative. Under all the circumstances, however, I am + satisfied that you have acted wisely, as I have feared for some + time that you would be unable to perform the duties pertaining + to your office because of your physical condition. I, therefore, + though with much regret accept your resignation. + + At the same time I beg to express my appreciation of the faithful + and efficient services you have rendered in the past. I hope very + much that a rest and change of climate may have the effect of + restoring you again to vigorous health, and I assure you that + you carry with you my best wishes for your future prosperity + and happiness. + + Sincerely yours, + Luke E. Wright, + Civil Governor. + + To the Honorable James H. Blount, Judge of First Instance at large, + Manila, P. I. + +[452] See annual report of the Governor-General for 1905, in Report +of the Philippine Commission for 1905, pt. 1, p. 85. + +[453] Which delegates were denied admission to the Convention on the +ground that no American living in the Philippines could be in sympathy +with the Democratic programme as to them. + +[454] An Englishwoman in the Philippines, by Mrs. Campbell Dauncey. + +[455] War Department Report, 1905, vol. iii., p. 285. + +[456] Army reports are usually made right after the expiration of +the American governmental fiscal year, June 30th. + +[457] Report, U. S. Philippine Commission, 1907, pt. 1, p. 47. + +[458] See Report, U. S. Philippine Commission, 1907, pt. 1, p. 38. He +means Cavite, Batangas, and Laguna. + +[459] Report, U. S. Philippine Commission, 1905, pt. 1, p. 212. + +[460] Report, U. S. Philippine Commission, 1905, pt. 1, p. 52. + +[461] For a copy of it, see the case of Barcelon vs. Baker, Philippine +Supreme Court Reports, vol. v., p. 89. + +[462] Volume v., Philippine Reports. + +[463] Mr. Garfield was President Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior. + +[464] Report, U. S. Philippine Commission, 1906, pt. 2, p. 255. + +[465] See page 227, Report of Philippine Commission, 1906, pt. 2. + +[466] Report, Philippine Commission, 1906, pt. 1, p. 37. + +[467] See Report of Philippine Commission, 1906, pt. 2, p. 228. + +[468] Pt. 1, p. 36. + +[469] Report of Taft Philippine Commission for 1900, p. 17. + +[470] See Report of U. S. Philippine Commission, 1907, pt. 1, p. 229. + +[471] Amigo, in Spanish, means friend. Every non-combatant Filipino +with whom our people came in contact in the early days always claimed +to be an "amigo," and never was, in any single instance. + +[472] See testimony of General MacArthur before the Senate Committee +of 1902, Senate Document 331, 1902, p. 1942. + +[473] The adverse minority report on the pending Jones bill, which +bill proposes ultimate Philippine independence in 1921, is full of +the old insufferable drivel about "tribes," and of the rest of the +Root views of 1900. + +[474] See Report of U. S. Philippine Commission, 1907, pt. 1, p. 211. + +[475] Part 1, p. 38. + +[476] Report of Philippine Commission, 1907, pt. 1, p. 37. + +[477] See President McKinley's annual message to Congress of December, +1899, Congressional Record, December 5, 1899, p. 34. + +[478] Provinces totalling about a million people. + +[479] Report of U. S. Philippine Commission, 1905, pt. 1, p. 211. + +[480] Report of Philippine Commission, 1907, pt. 1, p. 38. + +[481] Ibid., 1906; pt. 1, p. 225. + +[482] To be absolutely accurate, there are 688 people classified as +"wild" in the Census figures as to Samar, and 265,549 are put down +as civilized; the total of population being 266,237. All the 388,922 +people of Leyte are put down as civilized. See Philippine Census, +Table of Population, vol. ii., p. 123. + +[483] Report of Philippine Commission for 1907, pt. 1, p. 195. + +[484] See Report of Philippine Commission, 1908, pt. 1, p. 62. + +[485] Tract. You speak of the small farmer's "late of hemp" in the +Philippines as you do of his "patch of cotton" in the United States. + +[486] A picul is a bale of a given quantity--weight. "Breaking out +a picul of hemp" is analogous, colloquially, to "picking a bale +of cotton." + +[487] See Congressional Record, December 5, 1905, p. 103. + +[488] See Report of Philippine Commission, 1907, pt. 1, p. 215. + +[489] Macbeth, Act V., Sc. 8. + +[490] In June, 1912, Governor Forbes was still Governor-General. + +[491] By "foreign" I mean, of course, American, i.e., non-resident. + +[492] Hearings on Sugar, April 5, 1912. + +[493] Introduced in the House of Representatives by Hon. W. A. Jones, +of Va., Chairman of the Committee on Insular Affairs of the House, +in March, 1912. + +[494] See also, in connection with this table, the folding map of +the archipelago at the end of the book. + +[495] The greatest defect of the Philippine Government was in the +beginning, and still is, that the Philippine Commission, which is +the executive authority, controls the appointment and assignment of +the trial judges, and also, largely, their chances for promotion +to the Supreme Bench of the Islands. The Justices of the Supreme +Court are appointed by the President of the United States, often on +recommendation of the Commission, but thereafter they are absolutely +independent. The trial judges ought also to be appointed by the +President of the United States. + +[496] Republished, Congressional Record, January 9, 1900, p. 715. + +[497] See Report U. S. Philippine Commission, 1905, pt. 1, p. 89 +et seq. + +[498] Report Philippine Commission, 1906, pt. 1, p. 99. + +[499] U. S. Philippine Commission Report, 1907, pt. 1, p. 149. + +[500] See Report Philippine Commission for 1907, pt. 1, p. 80. + +[501] War Department Report, 1899, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 142. + +[502] Ibid., pp. 559-560. + +[503] See War Department Report, 1901, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 98. + +[504] War Department Report, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 60. + +[505] From July 31, 1898, to May 24, 1900, we lost 1138 men by +disease. See special report of the Surgeon-General of the Army, Senate +Document 426, 56th Cong., 1st Sess. By the middle of 1900 our soldiers +had pretty well learned how to take care of themselves in the tropics. + +[506] See vol. ii., p. 102. + +[507] See Senate Document 331, 1902, p. 887. + +[508] Appalling, because there are forty-nine other provinces besides +Batangas. + +[509] Vol. ii., p. 123. + +[510] See page 78 of the special report of the Secretary of War +Taft on the Philippines, January 23, 1908, transmitted by President +Roosevelt to Congress, January 27, 1908, Senate Document 200, 60th +Cong., 1st Sess. + +[511] Act 230, U. S. Philippine Commission. + +[512] For the convenience of readers who do not constantly use the +metric system: A kilo is about 2.25 lbs. + +[513] According to what part of archipelago grown. + +[514] The Payne law of 1909 continued the export tax, etc. + +[515] Dried cocoa-nut meat, used to make soaps and oils. I do not +deal with copra because it nearly all goes to Europe, principally +to Marseilles. + +[516] Senate Document 200, 1908, Sixtieth Congress, First Session. + +[517] I have myself seen a cloud of locusts three miles long. + +[518] Report, U. S. Philippine Commission, 1904, pt. 1, pp. 26-7. + +[519] Report, U. S. Philippine Commission, 1905, pt. 1, pp. 72-3. + +[520] Senator Newlands, North American Review, December, 1905. Senator +Newlands was one of the party. + +[521] Part 1, p. 99. + +[522] 137 1/2 lbs. + +[523] President Roosevelt's message to Congress of January 27, 1908, +transmitting report of Secretary of War Taft on the Philippines. + +[524] Before assuming to use these letters in this book, I sent them +to Mr. Carnegie and asked his permission to so use them. He returned +them to me with his consent entered on the back of one of them. + +[525] 300,000 tons of sugar, 150,000,000 cigars, etc. + +[526] Congressional Record, May 13, 1909, p. 2009. + +[527] Mr. Perkins is chairman of the Finance Committee of the +International Harvester Company, a hundred million dollar corporation +owning divers subsidiary companies which make twine and cordage. See +Moody's Manual. + +[528] The Atcheson, Topeka & Santa Fe. + +[529] Paul Morton. + +[530] Autobiography of Seventy Years, vol. ii., p. 317. + +[531] P. 252, ante. + +[532] P. 255. + +[533] P. 258. + +[534] Pp. 258-9. + +[535] The name is immaterial, but the grouping is convenient and +practicable, though not the only grouping practicable. + +[536] See p. 267, ante. + +[537] For June 21, 1907. + +[538] In the article quoted from I named three men, adding "or +any three men of like calibre." One of the three was Justice Adam +C. Carson, of the Philippine Supreme Court, who has been a member +of the Philippine Judiciary since the Taft Civil Government was +founded in 1901. If this book has gained for me any character in +the estimation of any reader who is or may hereafter be clothed with +authority, I desire to say here, on the very highest public grounds, +that, in my judgment, Judge Carson is the most considerable man we +have out there now (1912)--a good man to have in an emergency. Though +not as learned in the law as his colleague, Justice Johnson--who is +quite the equal, as a jurist, of most of the Federal judges I know +in the United States, Judge Carson is a man of great breadth of view, +and is peculiarly endowed with capacity to handle men and situations +effectively and patriotically. + +[539] Says the census of the Philippines of 1903, vol. ii., p. 15: +"The total population of the Philippine Archipelago on March 2, +1903, was 7,635,426. Of this number, 6,987,686 enjoyed a considerable +degree of civilization, while the remainder, 647,740, consisted of wild +people." By this same Census, the Moros are classified as uncivilized, +and the population of the island on which they live, Mindanao, is +given at about 500,000 (499,634, vol. ii., p. 126), of which about +half only (252,940) are Moros, the rest being civilized. The total of +the uncivilized people of the archipelago, according to the Census, is +647,740 (vol. ii., p. 123), less than 400,000, leaving out the Moros. + +[540] Tagalo, Ilocano, and Visayan are the three main dialects +that have been evolved into written language by the patience of the +Spanish priests in the last couple of hundred years or so. Probably +five sixths of the people of the archipelago speak some one of these +three dialects. In fact they can hardly be called "dialects," for there +are plenty of books--novels, plays, grammars, histories, dictionaries, +etc.--written in Tagalo, Ilocano, or Visayan. Every educated Filipino +of the well-to-do classes grows up speaking Spanish and the dialect +of his native province, while the latter is the only language spoken +by the less fortunate people of his neighborhood, the poorer classes. + +[541] This report is numbered Report 606, 62d Cong., 2d Sess., and +accompanies H. R. 22143 (the Jones Bill). + +[542] According to the American Census of the Philippines, of 1903, +the total population of Mindanao is 499,634 (see vol. ii., p. 126), +of which 252,940 are Moros, and the rest civilized. In addition to +said 252,940 Moros on Mindanao, the adjacent islets contain some +25,000 Moros. + +[543] See Senate Document 331, 1902, p. 339. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The American Occupation of the +Philippines 1898-1912, by James H. 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