prejudice of army officers he found in the islands. The older men over
whom he had been promoted by President McKinley had no love for him.
They called him a doctor. He was not of the army fraternity. They had
heard that he had done well, but not by established methods. The
younger officers took their cue from their seniors and so did the
enlisted men. It was a difficult problem, or series of problems,
through which he had to steer a careful course. But he did it and
turned the tide entirely in the other direction.
He did it by always taking his share of the hard work. Object lessons
of this sort multiplied as time went on. When troops were sent out to
an engagement Wood went with them and kept in the front line. When
they camped for the night in the jungle he had the same bed--the
ground. When they had little or nothing to eat, he had the same. Once
when they came out upon the beach of one of the islands after a hard
trip Wood's launch was reported a hundred yards off the surf ready
with cooling fans, a good mattressed bed, excellent food and a bath.
He told {183} the orderly that he would stay with the men and sent him
back to the launch, taking no more notice of the matter except to
scrape out a new hollow in the burning sand in the hope of finding a
cooler spot to sleep.
Such episodes repeated again and again soon made a vital change of
views in regard to the new governor and commander. They occurred so
regularly and so often that it appeared true--this taking what came
along in the day's work with the others--not a case of trying to
produce effect now and then. Mr. R. H. Murray, in his article written
in 1912, quoted above, speaks of an officer who served under Wood at
this time and as he says quotes him as literally as he can:
"When Wood first came out in 1903, the army in the Philippines didn't
know him. There were plenty of officers who reviled him as a favorite
of the White House, and cussed him out for it. Pretty soon the army
began to realize that he was a hustler; that he knew a good deal about
the soldier's game; that he did things and did them right; that, when
reveille sounded before daybreak, he was usually up and dressed before
{184} us; that, when a man was down and out, and he happened to be
near, he'd get off his horse and see what the matter was and fix the
fellow up, if he could; that when he gave an order it was a sensible
one and that he didn't change it after it went out; and that he
remembered a man who did a good piece of work and showed his
appreciation at every chance.
"Well, the youngsters began to swear by Wood, and the old chaps
followed, so that from 'cussing him out' they began to respect him and
then to admire and love him. That's the word--love. It's the easiest
thing in the world to pick a fight out there now by saying something
against Wood. It is always the same when men come in contact with him.
I don't honestly believe there is a man in the department now who
wouldn't go to hell and back for Leonard Wood."
It was again much the same story as in Cuba. It was not only the
personality of the man himself, his personal magnetism, but the quiet
simplicity of his methods backed by knowledge and good judgment. It
was the absence of doing anything for effect, anything of the personal
{185} "ego;" the getting of things done quietly, without ferment or
conversation. And back of it all the absolute certainty of every one
who worked with or under him that Leonard Wood would do exactly what
he said he would, even though he said it quite quietly only once and
even though the doing of it meant a military expedition, a battle and
the death of many a good man who perhaps knew nothing of the real
reasons.
Here again space is too limited to permit of an account of the work
done by Wood which made a group of pirates into a relatively
law-abiding community. Yet some attempt to picture the situation is
necessary in order to give a slight idea of what the problem was.
It should be borne in mind that the country over which he was made
Governor-General consisted of two-thirds of the Island of Mindanao and
the Sulu Archipelago--a long chain of large and small islands
extending almost to Borneo. The inhabitants were principally
Mohammedans, known to the Spaniards as Moros. Along the coast of
Mindanao were scattered small Philippine settlements--Christian
Filipinos. Widely {186} separated back in the islands were numerous
tribes speaking different dialects. In appearance they were not unlike
the Diacs of Borneo. Some of them were headhunters. Among some of them
cannibalism still existed in the form of religious ceremonies.
The Moros were the masters of all the seas in this vicinity. They were
the old Malay pirates so well known in books of travel. The Spaniards
had waged intermittent war against them since early in 1600, but they
never effectively conquered them. They would send down a large
expedition, win a victory and withdraw. This procedure, however, made
little or no impression on the pirates, who shortly returned to their
trade when the Spanish victors had returned home.
The Moros were all fanatical Mohammedans, intolerant of Christians or
Christian influence, and when the Spaniards arrived in Manila about
1687 they dominated all the seas about the Philippine Islands. They
were armed with all kinds of firearms, ranging from the old Queen Bess
muzzle-loader to the most modern rifles. Their artillery ranged from
the broadside guns of battleships of {187} the 18th Century to a
smaller cannon of bronze, made principally in Borneo. They were bold,
adventurous sailors, slave traders and slave hunters and successfully
terrorized the hill tribes. Indeed, they were greatly feared along the
coast of Mindanao.
Early in the American occupation a treaty had been made with the
Sultan of Sulu, who claimed the headship of Moros from the Island of
Sulu northward to the great Island of Mindanao. In Mindanao there were
different sultans who claimed headships in their own districts, and
foremost amongst these was Datu Ali, who had waged a long and
successful war with the Spaniards.
Here then was a difficult problem: to establish civil government among
these wandering hill tribes, Filipino settlements, and piratical
Mohammedan groups, each fearing and hating the other. General Wood's
first task as he conceived it was to stop slave-trading and establish
relations of tolerance, if not friendship, between the Filipinos and
the Moros on the one hand and between the Moros and the hill tribes on
the other; to stop the Christian Filipinos from imposing {188} on the
hill tribes; and to begin some method for substituting respect for law
and order, for government and authority in the place of terror and
hatred. The ending of the slave trade resulted in many heavy,
long-drawn-out fights with the principal Moro bands. The Sultan of
Sulu had not lived up to the Bates Treaty and he had to be deposed,
therefore, as a sovereign in Sulu.
The next step was to organize some form of government that would fit
the situation. To start this Wood divided the entire Moro area,
including the islands, into districts and appointed American officers
of experience and ability as governors of the districts.
He then visited Borneo and studied carefully the laws and regulations
under which that chartered colony governed the Malays within its
borders. The policy laid down by him for the district governors was to
stop slave-trading and the taking of life and property at once; to
establish next friendly relations between the people living on the
coast and the timid tribes up in the hills; to build up commerce on a
fair basis; to open up trails and lines of communication between {189}
villages; to assure to every one, no matter what his religion, a fair
deal. He also laid great stress on the necessity of bringing the
headmen of the different tribes into contact with the district
governors and of doing all that could be done to build up and increase
commerce.
At the same time the new and energetic Governor-General instituted a
strong policy to stop forever the inhuman practices and customs highly
repugnant to what Americans considered humane conduct. Every effort
was made to insure better treatment of women, who up to that time had
been nothing more nor less than chattels. On the seacoast trading
stations were built and put in charge of men who spoke the dialect of
the wild people. At these stations there was always a provincial agent
who had authority to see that the hill people got fair prices for
their products and just treatment from the Malays. Little by little as
a result of this wise and sane policy they were all induced to come to
the stations and make their head-quarters there during the trading
period. In former times they had been accustomed to bring down their
heavy loads of jungle products on their {190} shoulders and rather
than stay in the neighborhood of the pirates over night they would
sell their goods for anything they could get and hurry up into the
hills again before dark. Moro, Filipino and Chinese traders had for
centuries systematically robbed them. Money was of little use to them
and therefore all trading was by barter. It was a long campaign of
education which Wood instituted to build up confidence amongst these
timid people, and he sent young American officers among them,
traveling often-times hundreds of miles on foot and practically
without any protection to help them and give them confidence.
Little by little confidence was built up; great peace meetings were
arranged among the different tribes; old grudges were wiped out;
scores were balanced and old feuds settled. It took time and brains
and painstaking patience, but it was done and done well.
At the same time, taking a leaf from his own Cuban notebook, Wood
started schools in the Filipino villages and took steps to do the same
among the Moros. It was very difficult to {191} find teachers who
would be received by these Moslems. It was at first almost impossible
to get them to send their children to school at all. Nothing but time
and sound, honest methods in dealing with these people made all or any
of this possible.
Patrol boats were put on duty in the waters about the islands.
Simultaneous with this building up went the organization of the
customs service, since the province had to be entirely
self-supporting. Native people from among the Moros and Filipinos were
organized into what was called the constabulary. Every effort was made
to turn the attention of the people from irregular and piratical
activities to the activities of commerce. School laws were put in
force, written in terms to meet the situation. Increased cultivation
of new land, cultivation of cocoanuts, cocoa, and various local
products, including hemp, was encouraged by exempting it from taxation
provided certain amounts of useful crops were planted thereon.
Communications by land and water were built up as fast as possible.
After a time taxation was {192} imposed very gradually in the form of
a cedula, or poll tax. The money so collected was spent so far as
possible in the district where it was collected. The headmen of the
tribes and sub-tribes were made officials of the province and given a
baldric bearing a brass shield with the seal of the province. In time
they were given certain police authority for the maintenance of order.
If the local headman could not handle the situation, the local
constabulary was called in. If they in turn were not sufficient, then
the troops were sent into the area.
A free man's life was worth fifty-two dollars and a half in gold; a
male slave one-half this amount; a free woman was worth as much as a
male slave; a female slave half as much as a male slave, and a modern
rifle about two hundred dollars in gold.
As the simple processes of law came to be better understood natives
were encouraged to appeal from the tribal to the district court,
consisting of the district governor and the local priests or headmen,
who advised the former upon tribal {193} customs and scales of
punishment, in order that no injustice should be done to any one.
Gradually appeals were taken from the district courts to the regular
insular courts, which were represented by itinerant judges of the
first instance. The latter belonged to the regular Philippine
judiciary and were at this time all Americans. Women were given equal
status before the law and the rights of property were safeguarded.
After the first hard fighting the need for the use of troops gradually
diminished and more and more of the policing work was done by the
native constabulary. The wildest regions became practically safe.
After the districts were in working order municipalities and townships
were established and the framework of civic organization begun. The
Mohammedan religion was left undisturbed. Religious freedom was
guaranteed to both Mohammedans and Christians. In addition to the
Catholic missionaries who had been working there for hundreds of
years, missionaries of other denominations commenced to take active
interest in the situation. The revenue was sufficient to maintain
{194} the province in good shape and there was a considerable amount
of money in reserve.
Thus in three years, with the knowledge he had acquired in Cuba
supplemented by his visits and study amongst the colonies of other
nations where similar problems existed, with his extraordinary energy
and capacity for working through innumerable subordinates, Leonard
Wood again built up a community out of nothing but land and human
beings. But in the Philippine instance he built up a community largely
governing itself upon a system of laws still in force--though three
governors have succeeded him--from a hopeless mass of Christian
Filipinos, Chinese traders, Malay pirates, Mohammedans, cannibals and
feudal tribes.
It was a remarkable instance of state building, which following upon
the Cuban episodes, stands out as the greatest achievement any man has
accomplished in Colonial history.
It is impossible to state the relative importance of this work without
appearing to overdo it. Yet if we could but collect the tributes that
have been paid to Wood upon its accomplishment they {195} would make a
volume, Richard Olney wrote: "... to congratulate you personally on
the most successful and deservedly successful career, whether as
soldier or public man of any sort, that the Spanish War and its
consequences have brought to the front." John Hay, then Secretary of
State, wrote Wood a note "with sincere congratulations on the
approaching fruition of all your splendid work for the regeneration of
Cuba," and Senator Platt, of Connecticut, wrote of his "admiration for
your administration under difficulties greater I think than have ever
had to be encountered by any one man in reconstruction work." So the
record of two statesmenlike and administrative works stands to this
day as a witness of Wood's qualities.
In 1905 after a visit to the United States he returned to the islands
and became commander-in-chief of the American forces in the
Philippines, General Bliss taking his place as Governor of the Moros,
who were now established under a basic form of government and
procedure which Wood had inaugurated.
By 1908 this work was practically completed {196} and the procedure
laid out for the future rule of that part of the Philippines. At that
time General Wood was transferred to Governor's Island in New York
Harbor as Commander of the Department of the East, strangely enough
the first command he had held within the United States since the
Geronimo days in the Southwest.
There followed in the next six years a diplomatic mission as special
Ambassador to the Argentine Republic upon the occasion of the
centenary of Argentina, where he met and talked with General von der
Groltz, the German officer, who had so much to do with the Great War
later. From this meeting Wood absorbed more of the necessity for
universal military training and more of the aversion to a standing
army such as existed in Germany. After this mission he became the head
of the American military forces under the President of the United
States and for four years held the position of Chief of Staff.
Thus beginning his army life in 1886 as an army surgeon he rose in
twenty-two years to the highest position in the regular army that any
one can hold. That, in a sense, closes a certain {197} period in
General Wood's career. For when in 1914 he was again made Commander of
the Department of the East he had already started upon his campaign of
national preparation which had been growing and growing in his mind as
he lived and served his own nation and observed and studied other
nations. The knowledge he had acquired in the four quarters of the
earth showed to him conclusively that a nation must be ready to resist
attack in order to live in peace, and yet that that nation must not
spend all its wealth and time and brains in building up a military
machine. In a strange way the attitude of this New England "Mayflower"
descendant resembled the attitude of his own native Cape Cod, which
stands at the outposts of New England with its clenched fist ready and
prepared, yet which lives on quietly in the lives of its inhabitants
who proceed in peace with their commercial occupations and their
family existence.
{198}
{199}
THE PATRIOT
{200}
{201}
VIII
THE PATRIOT
"There are many things man cannot buy and one of them is time. It
takes time to organize and prepare. Time will only be found in periods
of peace. Modern war gives no time for preparation. Its approach is
that of the avalanche and not of the glacier.
"We must remember that this training is not a training for war alone.
It really is a training for life, a training for citizenship in time
of peace.
"We must remember that it is better to be prepared for war and not
have it, then to have war and not to be prepared for it."
Such sentiments quoted from General Wood's many speeches and writings
might be continued until they alone made a volume--a book of the Creed
of the Patriot. For in his crusade up and down our land for the last
six years he has developed an unsuspected ability for epigrammatic
phraseology, for stating in concise, homely {202} language the
principle that no one in any successful operation has failed to get
ready. This was unsuspected in him, because up to 1913 he had had
little to say outside of his official reports. His motto of doing the
thing without talking about it had been followed to the letter by
himself.
When he finally arrived at a position which was important and powerful
enough to give him an opportunity for putting his beliefs into effect,
when he furthermore arrived at a point where there was not the
immediate necessity for feeding a starving people, or fighting a
hostile military force, or reorganizing a tumbled-down state, or doing
any of the things demanding immediate action with which he had been
employed during most of his life--then with characteristic energy he
did begin. Time could not be bought by him any more than it could be
by others and his work of preparedness had to await a period of peace
when the time was at hand. This period having arrived in 1912 and 1918
he found that in order to produce any impression, to get action upon
this plan, he must not only have a high and powerful position but he
must awaken the public {203} to its importance before he could expect
legislative or departmental action. Hence the volume of the Creed of
the Patriot.
With his accustomed energy therefore he started upon a campaign of
writing, speaking and promoting in all ways open to him to bring this
new plan before the people of this country and in doing so he
developed the hitherto unsuspected qualities of a speaker of the
highest, because the simplest and most homely order.
To him there was nothing new in the plan of preparedness for the
nation. He might have said to himself in 1913: "I have found that in
order to be a doctor a young man must study so many years; in order to
fight Apache Indians successfully a man must train for a physical
condition that permits him to walk and ride and live harder than his
already trained opponents, that he must train soldiers for that
particular job, must train and care for horses to cover that
particular country. I have found by sad experience that to have a
regiment of Rough Riders in proper condition to fight Spaniards in
Cuba the men must be taught by long training to understand military
principles, {204} subordination to military rule of procedure, the use
of guns and animals and the laws and tactics of military action in the
field; that these men must be taught to take care of themselves in the
open, that ammunition and equipment must be at hand and in use. I have
found that in order to produce order in a community where there is no
order, health in a land where there is only sickness, happiness
amongst a people where there is only misery and fear and worry--in
order to do all this laws must be made and respected, people must
learn that they owe something to their state and that they are
responsible for honest care, administration and thoughtfulness of
those who look to them as they look to their state. I have found that
where nothing but force will do the trick, force must be prepared and
ready in advance. I have seen innocent persons go under because they
were not ready to offset depredations. I have seen nations injured and
destroyed because they were not ready to resist force, whether that
force were used in a just or an unjust cause. And now I have arrived
at the place where I can prove this to a nation instead of to a
military platoon, or a military staff, or a few Cuban or Philippine
officials."
[Illustration: THE PATRIOT]
{205}
He might have said all this to himself--doubtless has done so many,
many times with much more to the same effect--but the outcome is a
witness of the fact that he has from a long and active life as
fighter, soldier, organizer, administrator, diplomat and statesman in
the West, the South, in Europe, in Asia, in Cuba, in the Philippines,
in South America, in Washington--in most parts of the earth--learned
again and again that nothing can be really done on the spur of the
moment, that everybody must prepare from school days to death. And in
1913 he had his first real opportunity to preach this nationally to
all the people of his own native land.
That within a year of that time prepared Germany should have upset the
world and found the British Empire, the French Republic and the
Italian Kingdom unprepared--to say nothing of the United States--may
have been one of the accidents--strokes of fortune--that some people
say have made General Wood. But it would seem that the only thing this
Great War did in this {206} connection was to prove by a terrific
example that Wood and those with him were right and that those who
were against him were wrong.
If the war had not come, it would have taken longer to awaken this
country to the facts and it would have delayed perhaps the growth of
General Wood's name as that of a national and international character
of highest importance. But it would not have changed the truth of his
Creed--or rather the creed of which he has become the great
protagonist. Nor does the fact that the war did come when it did give
any ground for making Wood one of the greatest citizens of our country
to-day because he preaches preparedness. General Wood stands at the
forefront of the leaders in America at this time because of his own
personal make-up and character and because of the amazing variety and
extent of his services to his country which are written upon every
page of its history during the last thirty years. It is the variety of
things done which puts him in his present position, just as it is the
variety of high qualities that has made the great men of all times
great. King David was not only the greatest {207} general of his time.
He was one of the greatest administrators of all time and perhaps the
greatest poet that ever lived. Washington was not only a fighter of
the highest order. He was one of the great generals of history; and a
statesman and ruler of a higher order still.
It might very aptly be said, therefore, that General Wood's campaign
for national preparedness was only the accomplishment of a task for
which he had all his life been preparing himself.