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: