SOME RESULTS OF AMERICAN RULE
Having set forth at length what seem to me the more essential facts
relative to the American occupation of the Philippines and the results
of American rule, supporting my statements by a rather free use of
documents chiefly drawn from the Insurgent records, I will briefly
summarize some of the more important points which I have endeavoured
to establish, lest my readers should not see the forest for the trees.
Independence was never promised to Aguinaldo or to any other Filipino
leader by any officer of the United States, nor was there ever any
effort to deceive the Filipinos by arousing false hopes that it was
to be conceded.
The Insurgent force never coöperated with that of the United
States. The two had a common enemy and that was practically all that
they did have in common. Each proceeded against that enemy in its
own way. Each ignored requests of the other relative to the manner
in which it should proceed. The Insurgent officers planned from
the outset to utilize United States soldiers in bringing about the
termination of Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines, and then to
attack them if practicable and necessary in order to oust the United
States from the islands. If not, they planned to consider asking us
for a protectorate or for annexation.
The temporary government established by Aguinaldo and his associates
was not, in any sense of the word, a republic, nor was it established
with the consent of the people. It was a military oligarchy pure and
simple, imposed on the people by armed men and maintained, especially
during its latter days, by terrorism and by the very free use of murder
as a governmental agency. The conditions which arose under it were
shocking in the extreme. Property rights were not respected; human
life was cheap indeed; persons aggrieved had no redress, and there
was hardly a semblance of a system for the administration of justice.
There were individual instances in which Insurgents and Insurgent
sympathizers were treated with severity, and even with cruelty, by
officers and soldiers of the army of the United States, but it is
nevertheless undoubtedly true that never before have the officers and
men of any civilized nation conducted so humanely a war carried on
under conditions similar to those which prevailed in the Philippines.
Hostilities were deliberately provoked by the Insurgents, who had
previously prepared an elaborate plan for a simultaneous attack on
the American lines around Manila from within and without, and for the
killing of all Americans, Europeans and American sympathizers among
the Filipinos.
The war ended with a prolonged period of guerilla warfare, deliberately
inaugurated by the Insurgents, which bred crime and struck at the
very roots of good government.
At the earliest possible moment the Filipinos were given a share
in the control of their own affairs when municipal governments were
established, under military rule, by army officers. Many Filipinos who
accepted municipal offices under the Americans paid for their courage
with their lives, and a very large number saved their lives only by
serving two masters. Because of the special conditions which prevailed,
such persons were very leniently dealt with when their double dealing
was discovered, and in the effort to afford adequate protection to
those who had put their confidence in the United States, our armed
forces were divided to an extent probably previously unprecedented
in history, and more than five hundred separate garrisons were
established.
The first Philippine Commission was appointed in the hope of
bringing about a friendly understanding between Insurgent officers
and the representatives of the United States, and for the purpose
of gathering reliable information relative to people and conditions
which might serve as a basis for future legislation for the benefit
of all the inhabitants of the islands. As the result of the breaking
out of hostilities before the commission reached its destination,
its work was necessarily limited to the gathering of information and
to efforts to promote the earliest possible establishment of relations
of friendliness and usefulness between the two peoples.
The second Philippine Commission was endowed with far-reaching
powers. Shortly after its arrival in the islands it became the
legislative body, and proceeded gradually to establish civil government
as rapidly as practicable in a country under military rule, many
parts of which were in active rebellion.
This difficult undertaking was carried out with a minimum of friction
between civil and military authorities. The latter were invariably
consulted by the former before civil government was established in
any given region, and their wishes in the premises were respected. The
commanding general stated that the establishment of civil governments
was a help to him in his work, and in accordance with his desires and
recommendations they were established prematurely in three provinces,
with the result that the temporary restoration of military government
became necessary.
Under American rule there has been brought about in the Philippines
an admirable state of public order, and life and property are to-day
safe throughout practically the whole of an archipelago which, at the
close of Spanish sovereignty, was harried by tulisanes, ladrones and
Moros. There were also very extensive areas in undisputed possession
of wild and savage tribes where governmental control had never been
established, where a man was esteemed in proportion to his success
as a warrior, and where property was likely to find its way into the
hands of men brave enough to seize it and strong enough to hold it.
We have established friendly relations with the very large majority
of the wild people and the numerous changes for the better which we
have brought about in their territory have been effected practically
without bloodshed except in certain portions of the Moro country. By
effective legislation, strictly enforced, we have saved these backward
tribes from the threatened curse of alcoholism.
Good order was established in Filipino territory through the admirable
work of the United States Army, assisted toward the close of military
rule by the second Philippine Commission, which did much toward
securing the coöperation of the better element among the Filipinos.
Under civil control Filipinos and wild men have been utilized as
police officers and soldiers in their respective habitats, and have
been an important factor in bringing about present conditions. The
Philippine Constabulary, recruited in part from Filipinos and in part
from Moros and other non-Christian peoples, has not only proved a
most efficient body for the performance of ordinary police work but
has rendered invaluable assistance to other bureaus of the government;
notably to the Bureau of Health and the Bureau of Agriculture for which
it has effectively performed very important quarantine work. It has
furthermore proved to be a reliable and most useful body in meeting
great public calamities like those caused by the recent eruption of
Tall volcano, and the Cebú typhoon.
Reforms of radical importance in the judicial system have been another
important factor in making life and property safe, and have resulted
in bringing even-handed justice within the reach of many of the poor
and the weak.
We found Manila and numerous provincial towns pestholes of disease,
while the death-rate of the archipelago as a whole was so high that
its climate had gained an evil reputation.
We have given Manila a modern sewer system. We have supplied its people
with comparatively pure drinking water from a mountain watershed in
place of the contaminated water of the Mariquina River which they
were formerly forced to use. We have steadily reduced the death-rate
of the city, which is now a safe and healthful place of residence
for all who will observe a few simple precautions.
In the provinces, some eight hundred and fifty artesian wells have
brought pure water to hundreds of thousands who were previously
compelled to depend on infected wells, springs and streams. By making
many of the previously most unsanitary regions of the archipelago
healthful we have conclusively demonstrated that the lack of necessary
sanitary measures, not the character of the climate, was responsible
for the conditions which formerly prevailed.
The islands were periodically swept by frightful epidemics of
disease. We have eliminated smallpox, previously rightly considered
an almost inevitable disease of childhood, as an important factor in
the death-rate. We have practically stamped out cholera and bubonic
plague. Years have now passed since there has been a wide-spread
epidemic of disease among the inhabitants.
The United States Public Health and Marine Hospital Service has
not only thrown its protective line around the archipelago but has
sent its outposts to important neighbouring Asiatic centres for the
dissemination of disease, thus facilitating the exclusion from the
archipelago of dangerous communicable ailments and preventing the
introduction of pneumonic plague, the most fatal of them all. It
would unquestionably have entered the islands had it not been stopped
at quarantine.
We are giving humane care to a considerable number of insane persons
who were previously chained to floors or posts.
The lepers of the islands have been isolated and are being well cared
for. A few have apparently been permanently cured.
The scientific work of the insular government has been coördinated in
such a way as to insure maximum efficiency at minimum cost. Not only
has an immense amount of routine work been economically performed but
there has been a large amount of original investigation, some of which
has resulted in discoveries of far-reaching importance to mankind.
We have found the cause of beri-beri, have eliminated this disease from
government institutions and from among persons subject to governmental
control, and have shown the Filipinos how they may rid their country of
it, and save money at the same time, by a slight change in their food.
We have found a specific for that horribly disfiguring disease
"yaws," and have cured large numbers of persons afflicted with it,
thus earning their lasting gratitude.
We have made pure food and pure drugs purchasable throughout a country
which was formerly a dumping ground for products not allowed to be
sold elsewhere.
We have not only made long strides in the improvement of sanitary
conditions in the provinces but have brought skilled medical and
surgical service within the reach of very large numbers of persons
who formerly had none at all, successfully overcoming the previous
universal prejudice against hospitals, to such an extent that those
of the government are now thronged with Filipinos seeking treatment.
In doing these things we have had to combat almost unbelievable
ignorance and superstition, the remedy for which is to be found,
we hope, in the generalization of education which is rapidly taking
place. The hundred and seventy thousand children, who formerly
took advantage of the meagre educational facilities provided under
the previous régime, consisting chiefly of very defective primary
instruction, usually given amidst most unsanitary surroundings,
and without adequate facilities of any sort, have been replaced
by a happy throng numbering no less than five hundred and thirty
thousand, who receive from well-trained teachers excellent primary
and secondary instruction, both academic and practical. Through the
school system we are generalizing the use of the English language
which is to-day, after a decade and a half of American rule, spoken
far more generally than Spanish was after it had been the official
language of the country for three and a half centuries. In this way
we are overcoming the very grave obstacle in the way of welding the
numerous peoples of the Philippines into one which is presented by
their lack of a common medium of communication.
At the same time we are teaching boys and girls the elements of
good sanitation and right living. Girls are also being taught to
cook, to sew, to embroider and to make lace. Both boys and girls are
receiving instruction in gardening, and boys may learn wood working,
iron working and other useful trades. Opportunities for higher academic
work have been provided in provincial high schools, and at Manila in
the Philippine Normal School and the University of the Philippines,
while the Manila Schools of Commerce and of Arts and Trades afford
ample opportunity for advanced work on industrial and commercial
lines, and the Manila School of Household Industries fits women to
go out into the provinces and start new centres for the manufacture
of laces and embroideries.
We are educating a constantly and rapidly increasing number of highly
trained nurses, physicians and surgeons.
The working forces of certain bureaus of the government have been
utilized for purposes of special instruction in surveying, printing
and binding, and forestry, and even the inmates of penal institutions
are not forgotten, but have good schools provided for them.
Quite as important as the development of the minds of the young is
the development of their bodies through the introduction of athletic
games and sports, which have incidentally promoted intercommunication
and mutual understanding between the several Filipino peoples. In
many regions baseball is emptying the cockpits, and thus aiding the
cause of good order and morality.
Educational work has not been limited to the Filipinos, but has been
carried on among the children of the wilder tribes, many of whom are
proving to be apt pupils and are making extraordinary progress in
industrial work.
By educating the masses we are giving to the Filipinos proper, as
distinguished from the mestizo politicians, the first opportunity
they have ever had to show what is in them.
The means of the government are at present insufficient to educate
all of the eight hundred thousand children who, it is believed,
would attend school voluntarily if given the opportunity. The
insular revenues are derived chiefly from import duties and internal
revenue taxes, so that there is a very direct relationship between
the amount of government receipts and the volume of business of the
country. Careful attention has long been given to stimulating the
development of the vast natural resources of the archipelago in order
to increase the prosperity of the people and that of the government,
which are inseparably united.
Owing to the breaking up of the land area of the country into a very
large number of small units, water transportation plays an unusually
important part in commercial development. More than two-thirds of the
very long coast line has been surveyed, as have the waters adjacent
thereto.
The former scarcity of lighthouses has been remedied. An admirable
weather service gives due warning of the approach of dangerous storms,
and travel and the transportation of freight by sea have thus been
rendered safe.
The previous almost complete lack of good roads has been remedied by
the construction of four thousand four hundred miles of well-built,
admirably maintained highways in the lowlands, supplemented in the
highlands of Luzón and Mindanao and in the lowlands of Mindoro and
Palawan, by some thirteen hundred miles of cart roads and horse
trails. Hundreds of thousands of small farmers, who previously had
no inducement to raise more than their families or their immediate
neighbours could consume, because they were unable to sell their
surplus products, have thus been brought within reach of the market.
The hundred and twenty-two miles of railway which we found in 1898
have been increased to six hundred eleven.
The government has utilized its coast-guard vessels to build up
new trade routes until they became commercially profitable, so that
private companies were willing to take them over.
Agriculture, the main source of the country's wealth, was conducted
in a most primitive manner, modern methods and modern machinery
being practically unknown. Worse yet, it was threatened with complete
prostration, owing to the prevalence of surra among the horses and of
rinderpest among the horned cattle. At a time when great areas were
lying uncultivated because of lack of draft animals, and when the
horses and cattle of the archipelago seemed doomed to extinction,
a vigorous campaign was inaugurated against animal diseases. It
has been carried out in the face of manifold obstacles up to the
present day, and is resulting in the re-stocking of the islands
through natural reproduction and the safeguarding of the young
animals. Strenuous efforts, made through the medium of the public
schools and through demonstration stations, are bringing about a slow
change in the previously existing antiquated agricultural methods,
and the example set by Americans is leading to the gradual introduction
of a considerable amount of modern farm machinery.
The placing of the currency of the country on a gold basis has been
a powerful factor in promoting material prosperity, and together with
the other measures previously enumerated, supplemented by favourable
tariff legislation giving the Philippines a market in the United
States, has led to an era of extraordinary commercial development.
There has been a very rapid increase in the trade between the
Philippines and the United States, the former country purchasing from
us, practically dollar for dollar, as much as it sells to us, and
furnishing us tropical products of a sort which we should otherwise
be obliged to buy from countries with which we have a trade balance
on the wrong side of the ledger.
The Philippines have a potential source of great wealth in their
fifty-four thousand square miles of forest. We have introduced
a conservation system which, if maintained and developed, will
permanently preserve the more important forests while at the same
time facilitating the establishment of a great lumber industry. The
free use of forest products from government lands for other than
commercial purposes has been granted to the people.
In the face of quiet but determined opposition from the cacique class,
material progress has been made in assisting the common people to
become owners of agricultural land, while in spite of the restrictions
imposed by unwise legislation, several modern agricultural estates have
been established. They are not only serving as great demonstration
stations, of far more practical value than any agricultural college
could be at the present stage of development of the Filipinos, but
have materially raised the daily wage of agricultural labourers in
the regions where they are situated.
We have established an efficient civil service in which national
politics have played no part, and appointments and promotion have
depended on merit alone. This rule has been made to apply to Filipinos
as well as to Americans, with the result that the former have for
the most part been compelled to enter the lower grades because of
defective preparation, but with the further consequence that they
have been promoted as rapidly as the result of subsequent careful
training has fitted them for advancement. The proportion of Filipino
employees as compared with Americans has increased from forty-nine
per cent in 1903 to seventy-one per cent in 1913.
We have given to the country religious liberty. We have also given
it free speech and a free press, both of which have been shamelessly
abused. We have created, prematurely in my opinion, a legislature
with an elective lower house composed exclusively of Filipinos and
having equal powers with the upper house in the matter of initiating
and passing legislation.
I reserve for the following chapter a statement of the opportunities
which we have given the Filipinos to participate in the executive
control of their towns and provinces, and of the results of these
experiments.
Never before in the history of the world has a powerful nation assumed
toward a weaker one quite such an attitude as we have adopted toward
the Filipinos. I make this statement without thought of disparaging
the admirable work which Great Britain has done in her colonies,
but on the contrary in the conviction that in some particulars we
ourselves have gone too fast and too far, and as a result are likely
in the end to have forcibly brought home to us the wisdom of making
haste somewhat more slowly, and paying more heed to the experience
of others, when dealing with new problems.
However, it will do those of us who thought that we were infallible,
if such there be, a world of good to learn that this is not the case;
and it will do our Filipino wards good to discover, one of these days,
that we can, if necessary, take away as well as give.
Up to the present time our successes certainly over-balance our
mistakes, and in my opinion we have just cause for pride in the
results of our Philippine stewardship.