told by a credible American that the chief deputy sheriff of the
court, an ex-insurgent officer, one of the "peace-at-any-price"
policy appointees, had remarked among some of his own people where he
did not expect the remark to be repeated: "I see no use persecuting
our brethren in the hills." The municipal officials of the provincial
capital, Catbalogan, were suspected by the native provincial governor,
and the latter in turn was suspected by the Manila government. In
fact the whole political atmosphere of the island had become full of
rumor and suspicion as to who was for the government, and who was
against the government. I left Samar, November 8th, which was the
day of the presidential election of 1904, determined to try no more
insurrections. By that time nearly everybody in the island was more
or less guilty of sedition, and I did not know the method of drawing
an indictment against a whole people.
CHAPTER XIX
GOVERNOR WRIGHT--1905
My heart is heavy with the fate of that unhappy people.
Speech of Hon. A. O. Bacon in U. S. Senate. [450]
Because the especially cordial relations which existed to the last
between Governor Wright and myself [451] are familiar to a number of
very dear mutual friends, I deem it due both to them and to myself,
in view of the contents of the preceding chapter, to state that I
see no reason why, in writing a history of the American Occupation
of the Philippines, I should omit or slur the facts which convinced
me that that occupation ought to terminate as soon as practicable,
and that any decent kind of a government of Filipinos by Filipinos
would be better for all concerned than the McKinley-Taft programme of
Benevolent Assimilation whereof Governor Wright was the legatee. By the
thousand and one uncandid threads of that programme, slowly woven from
1898 to 1904, as indicated in the first sixteen chapters of this book,
Governor Wright had found himself as hopelessly bound to concealment
from the American people of the real situation in Samar in the fall
of 1904, as a Gulliver in Lilliput.
When I finally left Samar and came to Manila, in November, 1904, I
was not prepared to figure out how or how soon, the blunder we made
by the purchase of the Philippine archipelago could be corrected. But
my mental attitude toward the whole Philippine problem had undergone
a complete change. In 1901 Governor Wright, then Vice-Governor, had
written me: "You younger men out here, who have cast your fortunes with
this country, are to be, in all likelihood, in the natural course of
events, its future rulers." Up to 1903 I had clung to that idea with
the devotion of what was really high and earnest purpose, untroubled
with misgivings of any kind. In November, 1903, in Albay, Judge Carson
and myself had talked over the long struggle of the civil government
to walk without leaning on the military, and, with the readiness of one
vested with authority to believe such authority wisely vested, and the
readiness of a civilian lawyer to jealously guard the American home
idea that the military should be subordinate to the civil authority,
I had cordially agreed with a sentiment one day expressed by Judge
Carson concerning Governor Taft about "the splendid moral fibre of
the man," meaning in keeping the military from prancing out of the
traces. After Governor Taft left the Islands to be Secretary of War
(December 23, 1903), and while I was still in Albay, I had learned of
the 120 men who had died in the Albay jail while awaiting trial, and
thereafter something of the magnitude of the Ola insurrection there,
and that had given me pause as to the practical benevolence of the
operation of "a benign civil government." Then the Samar massacres
of 1904, and the gory panorama I had there witnessed, had finally
convinced me that a republic like ours is wholly unfitted to govern
people against their consent. But I did not tell anybody in Manila
all these things. I simply pondered them. Grover Cleveland was the
only man in the world I would have liked to talk to just then freely
and fully. And he was not about. "My heart was heavy with the fate
of that unhappy people" as Senator Bacon had said in the Senate in
1902, after visiting the Islands in 1901. I did not condemn Governor
Wright. I quite realized that I was "up against" about the largest
ethical problem of world politics, one on which the nations are much
divided, and that I was not infallible. I did not say to the Governor:
"Governor, let's resign and go home and tell our people that this whole
business is a mistake." Nor did I ever lose faith in Governor Wright
personally. If I had, I might just as well have said: "After this,
the deluge." I would simply have lost faith in human nature. I had not
then, nor have I since, known a man of higher personal character. I
had simply lost faith in Benevolent Assimilation, and begun to take
the Filipino people seriously as a potential nation, probably better
able to handle their own domestic problems than we will ever be able
to handle them for them.
The day after I resigned, Mr. Justice Carson, of the Supreme Court,
and Mr. Wilfley, the Attorney-General, came to call on me. My friends
knew I was very much troubled over the Samar business. I was doing
some grumbling, but without specifying, because to specify would mean
that we all of us ought to give up the life careers we had planned for
ourselves in the Islands. I knew the old familiar answer a grumbler
was sure to get in the Philippines, viz., "Old man, you've been out
here too long. You better go home." But I did a little more grumbling
to my friends Judge Carson and Mr. Wilfley, during the course of their
visit. They could both pretty well guess what was the matter. But Judge
Carson and I had come out in 1899, and had served through the war
together. He knew all about the Albay business, and somewhat of the
Samar business. Wilfley had not come out until the civil government
was founded in 1901. Mr. Wilfley said cheerily: "Oh, Blount, you are
too conscientious." I shall never forget what happened then. Judge
Carson said, with a ring of something like anger in his tone: "No,
Wilfley, I'll be d--d if he is." Is it any wonder that ever since I
have worn that man, as Hamlet would say, "in my heart's core"? Here was
as brave and true an Irishman as ever gained distinction on battlefield
or bench. And he understood. He did not say--which was the implication
of Wilfley's tone--"Old man, you've been out here too long, and illness
has made you peevish." He knew what was the matter. He knew that as
trial judges he and I had not been small editions of Lord Jeffries,
as some of our American critics had implied, BUT HE ALSO KNEW THAT
THERE WAS NO METHOD OF DRAWING AN INDICTMENT AGAINST A WHOLE PEOPLE.
Possibly the intensity of my feelings on this great subject, then
and ever since, hampers the power of clear expression. Therefore,
a word more in attempt at elucidation. In 1898, Judge Carson and I,
with many thousands of other young Americans, had trooped down to
Cuba, in the wake of the impetuous Roosevelt, to free the inhabitants
of that ill-fated island from Spanish rule, drive the Spaniards from
the Western Hemisphere, and put a stop to Spain's pious efforts "to
spare the great island from the dangers of premature independence,"
as she always expressed her attitude toward Cuba. We had many of us
been fired by the catchy Roosevelt utterance which did so much to
bring on the Spanish War, viz., "The steps of the White House are
slippery with the blood of the Cuban reconcentrados." Then in 1899,
we had gone to the Philippines, and had ever since been engaged there
in "sparing the Islands from the danger of premature independence,"
and the Samar massacres of 1904 were, to me, the apotheosis of the
work. So that after November 8, 1904, I felt "The steps of the White
House are slippery with the blood of the people of my district." It had
all been done under the pious pretence that the Filipinos welcomed our
rule--a pretence which had taken the form for six years of systematic
asseveration that they did so welcome it. Yet it was not true that
they, or any appreciable fraction of them, had ever welcomed our
rule. And it never will be true. Surely no man can see in this book
any scolding or unkindness. It is an attempt merely to bring home to
my countrymen a strategic fact, a fact which it is folly to ignore. But
to return to the thread of our story.
Four days after the presidential election of 1904, to wit, on November
12th, Governor Wright left Manila and went to Samar, including in
his itinerary various others of the southern islands. [452] Soon
after their return, the seven hundred native troops in Samar were
increased to nearly two thousand, and sixteen companies of regulars
(say one hundred men to a company) were also thrown into Samar. It
took until the end of 1906 to end the trouble. You cannot find in the
reports of the civil authorities anything explaining their three or
four weeks' stay in the Visayan Islands in November-December, 1904,
that is not absolutely in accord with the original Taft obsession of
1900 about the popularity of the proposed alien "civil" government with
its subjects. Governor Wright's description of the trip says: "The
warm hospitality of the Filipino people made this trip of inspection
a most agreeable one." As a matter of fact, on such occasions, the
more disaffected a leader of the people was, the more he would seek,
by "warm hospitality," "warm" oratory telling the visiting mighty
what the visiting mighty longed to hear, parades, fiestas, etc.,
to divert suspicion of sedition from himself. The poor creatures
had met General Young's cavalry column in northern Luzon in 1899
with their town bands, doing the only thing they knew of to do to
"temper the wind to the shorn lamb"--i.e., to temper it to their
several communities--many of them doubtless expecting to be put
to the sword by General Young's troopers, as the Cossacks did the
Persians during the brief and sensational sojourn of that brilliant
young administrator, Hon. W. Morgan Shuster, in Persia in 1911-12. I
have no doubt that high on the list of those extending some of the
"warm hospitality" above mentioned appeared the name of Don Jaime de
Veyra. Yet in the summer of 1904 Don Jaime had gotten out of a sick
bed to attend a convention called to send delegates to the Democratic
National Convention in the United States that year, [453] and also,
in that same year, had run for Governor of Leyte on a platform
the principal plank of which was Carthago est delenda--"Carthago"
being us, the American regime. De Veyra was defeated that time,
but ran again the next time and was elected. While the writer is not
one of those who seek to show their "breadth of view" by gossiping
with outsiders regarding what is peculiarly our own affair, still,
the British view-point of the situation in the Visayan Islands, as
conveyed by an Englishwoman whose husband was engaged in mercantile
business there in 1904-5, and who therefore was certainly in a position
to know the opinion of the little circle of British people at Cebu and
Iloilo, may not be superfluous here. This lady, living then at Iloilo,
wrote a series of letters to friends back home in England which she
afterwards published in book form. [454] In a letter dated Iloilo,
January 22, 1905 (page 86), she says:
The Americans give out and write in their papers that the
Philippine Islands are completely pacified, and that the Filipinos
love Americans and their rule. This, doubtless with good motives,
is complete and utter humbug, for the country is honeycombed
with insurrection and plots; the fighting has never ceased; and
the natives loathe the Americans and their theories, saying so
openly in their native press and showing their dislike in every
possible fashion. Their one idea is to be rid of the U. S. A.
* * * and to be free of a burden of taxation which is heavier than
any the Spaniards laid on them.
Also an Englishman who was in Samar in 1904-5, a Mr. Hyatt, who,
with his brother, served with the American troops there in the bloody
Pulajan uprising, afterwards wrote a book called the Little Brown
Brother, wherein he fully corroborates Mrs. Dauncey's appreciation
of the situation during that period.
In its blindness to the unanimity of Visayan discontent, as manifested
in its report now under consideration, the civil government of
the Philippines was not trying wilfully to deceive anybody. It was
deceiving itself. It was obeying the law of its life, its existence
having been originally predicated on the consent of a great free
people to keep in subjection a weaker people eager to be also free,
such consent having been obtained through diligent nursing of the
original idea that the subject people were not in fact so eager, but
were, on the contrary, in a mental attitude of tearful welcome toward
the proffered protection of a strong power. In his report for 1905
[455] General William H. Carter, commanding the Department of the
Philippines which included Samar and the rest of the Visayan Islands,
gives the key to the Commission's twenty-six-day stay in his district
in the following part of said report:
Within a few days after the rendition of the annual report for
last year [456] a serious outbreak occurred in the Gandara valley,
Samar. This was followed by disorders in all the other large
islands of the department, Negros, Panay, Cebu, and Leyte.
Nowhere in the civil government reports do you find the slightest
recognition that these disorders had any relation to each other, or to
the fundamental problem of public order, or any political significance
whatsoever, each being treated as a purely local issue, the idea that
the circumstance of Samar's having been thrown into pandemonium by
the successes of the enemies of the American Government might have
encouraged its enemies in the neighboring islands, never seeming to
occur to the authors of the said reports. General Carter's report goes
on to state that within five months after the Samar outbreak of July,
1904, seven hundred native troops had been put in the field in that
turbulent island. In December, 1904, troops began to be poured into
Samar, so that it was not long before the seven hundred native troops
had become seventeen hundred or eighteen hundred, and, says General
Carter, "in order to free them from garrison work in the towns, sixteen
companies of the 12th and 14th Infantry were distributed about the
disaffected coasts to enable the people who so desired to come from
their hiding places"--whither they had gone because the American flag
afforded them no protection--"and undertake the rebuilding of their
burned homes." General Carter avoids touching on the civil government's
(to him well-known) obsession about its popularity, a state of mind
which could see no "political" significance in outbreaks of any
kind. But he does use this very straightforward language about Samar:
Whatever may have been the original cause of the outbreak, it was
soon lost sight of when success had drawn a large proportion of
the people away from their homes and fields. * * * Except in the
largest towns it became simply a question of joining the Pulajans
or being harried by them. In the absence of proper protection
thousands joined in the movement.
Early in 1905, Hon. George Curry, of New Mexico, who was an officer
of Colonel Roosevelt's regiment in Cuba, and had gone out to the
Philippines with a volunteer regiment in 1899, remaining with the
civil Government after 1901, was made Governor of Samar. Governor
Curry has since been Governor of the Territory of New Mexico,
and is now (1912) a member of Congress from the recently admitted
State of New Mexico. Governor Curry has told me since he was
elected to Congress that it took him all of 1905 and most of
1906, aided by several thousand troops, native and regular, to
put down that Samar outbreak. Yet a certificate signed March 28,
1907, by the Governor-General and his associates of the Philippine
Commission states that "a condition of general and complete peace"
had continued in the Islands for two years previous to the date
of the certificate. [457] We will come to this certificate in its
chronological order later. How many and what sort of uprisings were
blanketed in that "forget-it" certificate of 1907 is material to the
question whether or not the National Administration has ever been or
is now frank with the country about the universality of the desire of
the Philippine people for independence and local self-government, and
pertinent to the insistently recurring query: "Why should we make of
the Philippines an American Ireland?" But inasmuch as, in addition to
the Samar uprising which raged all through 1905, another insurrection
occurred in that year, which was duly "forgotten" by said certificate,
this last movement must now claim our attention.
The provinces which were the theatre of the outbreak last above
mentioned were all near Manila. They were: Cavite, a province of
135,000 people almost at the gates of Manila; Batangas, a province of
257,000 inhabitants adjoining Cavite; and Laguna, a province of 150,000
people adjoining both. Some five hundred brigands headed by cut-throats
claiming to be patriots were terrorizing whole districts. Far be it
from me to lend any countenance to the idea that the leaders of this
movement, Sakay, Felizardo, Montalon, and the rest of their gang,
were entitled to any respect. But they certainly had a hold on
the whole population akin to that of Robin Hood, Little John, and
Friar Tuck. In refusing in 1907 to commute Sakay's death sentence
after he was captured, tried, and convicted, Governor-General James
P. Smith gives some gruesome details concerning the performance of
that worthy, and his followers, yet in dealing with the nature and
extent of the trouble they gave the Manila government he says they
"assumed the convenient cloak of patriotism, and under the titles of
'Defenders of the Country' and 'Protectors of the People' proceeded
to inaugurate a reign of terror, devastation, and ruin in three of
the most beautiful provinces in the archipelago." [458]
It has already been made clear that, during the time of the
insurrection against both the Spaniards and Americans, the insurrecto
forces were maintained by voluntary contributions of the people. Major
D. C. Shanks, Fourth U. S. Regular Infantry, who was Governor of Cavite
Province in 1905, after calling attention to this fact, adds [459]:
When the insurrection was over a number of these leaders remained
out and refused to surrender. Included among them were Felizardo
and Montalon. The system of voluntary contributions, carried on
during the insurrecto period, was continued after establishment
of civil government.
Again Governor Shanks says, with more of frankness than diplomacy,
considering that he was a provincial governor under the civil
government:
The establishment of civil government of this province was
premature and ill-advised. Records show the capture or surrender
since establishment of civil government of nearly 600 hostile
firearms.
One of the causes contributory to the Cavite-Batangas-Laguna
insurrection is stated in the report of the Governor-General for
1905 thus:
In the autumn of 1904 it became necessary to withdraw a number
of the constabulary from these provinces to assist in suppressing
disorder which had broken out in the province of Samar. [460]
Another of the contributory causes is thus stated:
There was at the time [the fall of 1904] also considerable activity
among the small group of irreconcilables in Manila, who began
agitating for immediate independence, doubtless because of the
supposed effect it would have on the presidential election in
the United States, in which the Philippines was a large topic
of discussion. Evidently this was regarded as a favorable time
for a demonstration by Felizardo, Montalon, De Vega, Oruga, Sakay
[etc]. All these men had been officers of the Filipino army during
the insurrection.
Consider the benevolent casuistry necessary to include these fellows,
and the tremendous following they could get up, and did get up, in
Cavite, "the home of insurrection," and the adjacent provinces, in a
certificate to "a condition of general and complete peace" alleged
in the certificate to have prevailed for two years prior to March
28, 1907. To make a long story short, on January 31, 1905, a state
of insurrection was declared to exist, the writ of habeas corpus was
suspended in Cavite and Batangas, the regular army of the United States
was ordered out, and reconcentration tactics resorted to, as provided
by Section 6 of Act 781 of the Commission. This is the act already
examined at length, intended to meet cases of impotency on the part
of the insular government to protect life and property in any other
way. Political timidity is conspicuously absent from the resolution of
the Philippine Commission of January 31, 1905, formally recognizing
a break in the peerless continuity of the "general and complete
peace." It is virilely frank, the presidential election being then
safely over. [461] It concludes by authorizing the Governor-General
to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and declare martial law, "the
public safety requiring it." Then follows a proclamation of the same
date and tenor, by the Governor-General.
It appears from the case cited in the foot-note that in the spring of
1905, one, Felix Barcelon, filed in the proper court a petition for the
writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was one of the reconcentrados
corralled and "detained and restrained of his liberty at the town of
Batangas, in the province of Batangas," by one of Colonel Baker's
constabulary minions down there. The writ was denied by the lower
court. In one part of the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case it
is stated (p. 116) that the petitioner "has been detained for a long
time * * * not for the commission of any crime and by due process of
law, but apparently for the purpose of protecting him." The opinion of
the court, delivered by Mr. Justice Johnson, very properly held that
the detention was lawful under the war power, basing its decision on
the authority conferred on the Governor-General of the Philippines
by the Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, section 5 of which expressly
authorizes the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus "when in
cases of rebellion, insurrection, or invasion the public safety may
require it." A long legal battle was fought, the court holding that the
Executive Department of the Government is the one in which is vested
the exclusive right to say when "a state of rebellion, insurrection,
or invasion" exists, and that when it so formally declares, that
settles the fact that it does exist. At page 98 of the volume above
cited [462] the court held, as to the above mentioned resolution of
the Philippine Commission and the above mentioned executive order
declaring a state of insurrection in Cavite and Batangas:
The conclusion set forth in the said resolution and the said
executive order, as to the fact that there existed in the provinces
of Cavite and Batangas open insurrection against the constituted
authorities, was a conclusion entirely within the discretion of
the legislative and executive branches of the Government, after
an investigation of the facts.
Yet two years later the same "constituted authorities" certified to
the President of the United States, in effect, as we shall see, that
no open insurrection against the constituted authorities had occurred
during the preceding two years. They do not in their certificate
ignore Cavite and Batangas. They mention them by name, with a lot
of whereases, explaining that after all they really believe that the
majority of the people in the provinces aforesaid were not in sympathy
with the uprising. However, after they get through with their whereases
they face the music squarely, and certify to "the condition of general
and complete peace." Of the "nigger in the woodpile" more anon.
Governor Wright was not a party to the certificate of 1907. He
left the Islands on leave November 4, 1905. A speech made by him
prior to his departure, as published in a Manila paper, indicates
an expectation to return. He never did. In 1906 he was demoted to be
Ambassador to Japan, a place of far less dignity, and far less salary,
which he resigned after a year or so. Vice-Governor Ide acted as
Governor-General until April 2, 1906, on which date he was formally
inaugurated as Governor-General.
Just why Governor Wright did not go back to the Philippines as
Governor, after his visit to the United States in 1905-6, does
not appear. It would seem almost certain that if Secretary of War
Taft had wanted President Roosevelt to send him back, he would have
gone. Mr. Taft never did frankly tell the Filipinos until 1907 that
they might just as well shut up talking about any independence that
anybody living might hope to see. Governor Wright began to talk that
way soon after Mr. Taft left the Islands. Possibly Governor Wright
undeceived them too soon, and thereby made the Philippines more of
a troublesome issue in the presidential campaign of 1904. President
Roosevelt recognized the sterling worth of the man, by inviting
him to succeed Mr. Taft as Secretary of War in 1908. But President
Taft did not invite him to continue in that capacity after March 4,
1909. Gossip has it that when the incoming President Taft's letter
to the outgoing President Roosevelt's last Secretary of War, Governor
Wright, was handed to the addressee, and its conventional "hope to be
able to avail myself of your services later in some other capacity"
was read by him, the outgoing official quietly remarked: "Well, that
is a little more round-about than the one Jimmie Garfield [463] got,
but it's a dismissal just the same."
I have always thought that the reason Governor Wright did not go back
to the Philippines as Governor after 1905 was that he did not continue
to "jolly" the Filipinos, and abstain from ruthlessly crushing their
hopes of seeing independence during their lifetime, as Mr. Taft did
continuously during his stay out there. The inevitable tendency of
the Wright frank talk was from the beginning to discredit the Taft
pleasing and evasive nothings. Also, it was followed, as we have seen,
by quite a crop of serious disturbances of public order, and somebody
had to be "the goat."
CHAPTER XX
GOVERNOR IDE--1906
The Tariff is a local issue.
General W. S. Hancock.
After Governor Wright left the Islands finally on November 4, 1905,
Vice-Governor Henry C. Ide acted as Governor-General until April 2,
1906, when he was duly inaugurated as such. He resigned and left the
Islands finally in September thereafter.
All through 1905, Governor Curry, as Governor of Samar, which is the
third largest island of the archipelago, wrestled with the Pulajan
uprising there, aided, as has been stated in the previous chapter,
by the native troops, scouts, and constabulary, and also by the
regular army. But at the end of 1905 "the situation" was not yet
"well in hand." Since his election to Congress in 1912, Governor
Curry has told me that in 1905 many thousands of people of Samar
participated actively as part of the enemy's force in the field during
that period. By the spring of 1906 Governor Curry was getting a grip
on the situation, and in the latter part of March of that year, some
of the main outlaw chiefs agreed to surrender to him. The report of
Colonel Wallace C. Taylor, commanding the constabulary of the Third
District, which included Samar states [464]: "After several weeks of
negotiating, during which time the camp of the Pulahanes was visited
by Governor Curry, and the Pulahan officers visited the settlement
at Magtaon"--a settlement in south central Samar--"an understanding
was arrived at by which the Pulahanes were to surrender, March 24,
1906. Instead of surrendering as agreed, the Pulahanes, commanded by
Nasario Aguilar, made a treacherous attack on the constabulary garrison
on the day and hour appointed for the surrender." The constabulary
numbered some fifty men, the pulajans about 130. After the pulajans
opened fire they made a rush on the constabulary and a hand-to-hand
fight ensued. Colonel Taylor's report continues:
After the first rush the fighting continued fiercely, and when
the last of the pulahanes disappeared there remained but seven
enlisted men of the constabulary able to fight. Seven more were
lying about more or less seriously wounded and twenty-two were
dead. Captain Jones received a bad spear thrust in the chest early
in the fight, but fought on, regardless. Lieutenant Bowers received
a gunshot wound through the left arm, which, however, did not put
him out of the fight. Thirty-five dead pulahanes were found on the
field and eight more have since been found some distance off. The
number of wounded who escaped cannot be determined. The unarmed
Americans present with Governor Curry escaped to the river and
afterwards rejoined Captain Jones who armed them.
The explanation of this treachery, as given by Governor Curry, is
curious and interesting. The outlaws had intended in good faith to
surrender as a result of his negotiation with them, but at the last
moment there arrived to witness the surrender certain native officials
and other natives bitterly hated by the Pulajans and wholly mistrusted
by them. Their arrival caused the outlaws to suspect treachery
themselves and that was the cause of their change of plans. It was not
until the end of the year 1906 that the various energetic campaigns
which followed the Magtaon incident finally began to work more or
less complete restoration of public order by gradual elimination of
the enemy through killings, captures, and surrenders. An idea of the
seriousness and magnitude of these operations may be gathered without
going into the details, from the annual report for 1906 of General
Henry T. Allen commanding the Philippines Constabulary. This report,
dated August 31, 1906 [465], states:
At present seventeen companies of scouts and four companies of
American troops under Colonel Smith, 8th U. S. Infantry, are
operating against the pulahanes, but with success that will be
largely dependent upon time and attrition.
General Allen adds: "The entire 21st Regiment [of Infantry] is also in
Samar." These facts are here given because they relate to the period
covered by the certificate of the Philippine Commission of March 28,
1907, heretofore alluded to, and which will be more fully dealt with
hereinafter, which stated that "a condition of general and complete
peace" had prevailed throughout the archipelago for two years prior
to March 28, 1907. Without a brief exposition of all these matters,
it would be impossible to enable the reader to feel the pulse of
the Filipino people as it stood at the time of the election of their
assembly in 1907. The fact of our having been unable to discontinue
Filipino-killing altogether for any considerable period from 1899 to
the end of 1906 is too obviously relevant to the state of the public
mind in 1907 to need elaboration.
The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1906 [466] deals at some
length with disturbances which occurred in the island of Leyte (area
3000 square miles, population nearly 400,000), beginning in the middle
of June. It describes among other things a visit of Governor-General
Ide to Tacloban, the capital of Leyte, made in consequence of said
disturbances, and conferences held by him there with Major-General
Wood, commanding all the United States forces in the Philippines,
Brigadier-General Lee, commanding the Department of the Visayas (which
included Leyte, headquarters, Iloilo), Colonel Borden, commanding
the United States forces in the island of Leyte, Colonel Taylor, the
chief of the constabulary of the District, etc. Certainly from this
formidable gathering of notables, it is clear that there was about to
take place in Leyte what our friends of the Lambs' Club in New York
would call "An all star performance." Leyte was four to five hundred
miles from Manila. Yet so serious was the disturbance that the highest
military and civil representatives of the American Government in the
archipelago deemed it necessary to meet in the island which was the
scene of the trouble with a view of handling it. Yet in the Report of
the Philippine Commission for 1906 one finds the usual rotund rhetoric
treating the disturbances as of no "political" significance--which
was only another way of claiming that they were not serious. It
is difficult to handle this aspect of the matter without imputing
to the civil authorities intent to deceive, but to leave such an
imputation unremoved would be to miss the whole significance of the
matter. As has already been made clear, when Judge Taft, Judge Ide,
and their colleagues of the Philippine Commission had left Washington
for Manila in 1900 Mr. McKinley had assured them he had no doubt that
the better element of the Philippine people, once they understood us,
would welcome our rule. As soon as they set foot in the Philippine
Islands they had at once begun to act upon the theory that there was
no real fundamental opposition to us on the part of the people of
the Philippines and had continued obstinately to act upon that theory
ever since. Certainly the attitude of the civil government toward the
disturbances in Leyte in 1906 is not surprising when the mind adverts
for a moment to the panorama of the five more or less sanguinary years
already fully described hereinbefore and then takes the following
bird's-eye glance at the official reports for those years.
The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1900, (page 17) had said:
A great majority of the people long for peace and are entirely
willing to accept the establishment of a government under the
supremacy of the United States.
The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1901 (page 7) had said:
The collapse of the insurrection came in May.
The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1902 (page 3) had said:
The insurrection as an organized attempt to subvert the authority
of the United States in these islands is entirely at an end,
referring farther on to "the whole Christian Philippine population"
as "enjoying civil government." If the "enjoyment" thus described had
been genuine, continued, profound, and sincere, it would have been
another story. But the net attitude of the civil government toward
the general health of the body politic, relatively to public order,
reminds one of the cheerful gentleman who remarked of his invalid
friend, "He seems to be 'enjoying' poor health."
The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1903 (page 25) says:
The conditions with respect to tranquillity in the islands have
greatly improved during the last year.
The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1904 (page 1) says:
The great mass of the people, however, were domestic and peaceable.
The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1905 (part 1, page 59)
says:
On the whole life and property have been as safe as in other
civilized countries.
The Report of the Philippine Commission for 1906 (page 40) says:
Viewing the entire situation the islands are in a peaceable and
orderly condition aside from----
various disorders which fill some ten pages of the report.
The inflexible attitude of the Commission from the beginning, of
treating each successive disturbance of public order as a purely
"local issue," after General Hancock's method with the tariff,
is thus sufficiently apparent. They always refuse to see in
successive outbreaks in various parts of the Islands any evidence
of general and unanimous lack of appreciation for a benign alien
civil government. Therefore it was of course clearly a foregone
conclusion, in 1906, that Governor Ide, who had been in the Islands
all these years, was going to be wholly unable to see anything in the
disturbances in Leyte in the least tending to show that American rule
was unpopular. And yet it was a matter of common knowledge all over
the Visayan Islands that Jaime Veyra, then Governor of Leyte, elected
by the people, was one of the most obnoxious anti-Americans in the
archipelago. Both the army and constabulary were ordered out in Leyte
and a good deal of fighting occurred before order was restored. The
report of General Allen, commanding the constabulary for that year
[467] shows one engagement with the outlaws in Leyte participated
in by the constabulary and the 21st Regular Infantry, in which the
enemy numbered 450 and left forty-nine dead upon the field. All
this period is covered by the certificate of general and complete
peace of 1907, in the fall of which year a Philippine legislature
was elected. And those of the membership of that body not in favor
of Philippine independence were almost as few as the Socialist party
in the American House of Representatives, which, I believe, consists
of Representative Berger. True, the peace certificate does not ignore
the Leyte outbreak. It "forgets and forgives it," so to speak, as we
shall see.
Governor Ide left the Islands finally on September 20, 1906, having
resigned. Why he should have resigned, it is difficult to say. Take
it all in all, he made a splendid Governor-General, and ought to
have been allowed to remain. He knew the Islands from Alpha to Omega
and had been there six years. His going out of office to make way
for still another Governor-General was wholly uncalled for. So far
as the writer is informed, he was, when he left, still blessed with
good health. He had filled a very considerable place in the history
of his country most creditably. He had drawn up a fine code of laws
for the Islands known as the Ide code. He had made a great minister of
finance, successfully performing the perilous task of transferring the
currency of the country from a silver basis to a gold basis, and in so
doing had proven himself fully a match, in protecting the interests
of the Government, for the wiley local financiers representing the
Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the chartered bank of India, Australia,
and China, and other institutions run by experienced men of more or
less piratical tendencies. As Governor-General of the Islands, his
justice, firmness, and courtliness of manner combined to produce an
administration in keeping with the dignity of his great office. After
returning to the United States, he remained in private life for a time,
and was finally given a comparatively unimportant post as minister to
a second-class country, Spain, which post he still occupies (in 1912).
When, fresh from the memory of the Samar massacres of 1904, I landed
at Seattle, at the end of my last homeward-bound journey across the
Pacific, in April, 1905, one of the "natives" of Seattle asked me:
"Have those people over there ever got quiet yet?" The question itself
seemed an answer to the orthodox official attitude at Manila, which had
so long been elaborately denying, as to each successive local outbreak,
that such outbreak bore any relation to the original insurrection,
or was any wise illustrative of the general state of public feeling
in the Islands. At the time the question was asked, the answer was,
"Not entirely." Not until toward the end of 1906 did "Yes" become
a correct answer to the question. In other words, there were no
more serious outbreaks after 1906, nor was a state of general and
complete peace ever finally established until then. Since 1906 there
have been occasional despatches from Manila recounting small episodes
of bloodshed, several of which have had quite a martial ring. These
have related merely to the country of the Mohammedan Moros, who are
as wholly apart from the main problem as the American Indian to-day
is from our tariff and other like questions. The Moros are indeed
what Kipling calls "half savage and half child." They never did have
anything more to do with the Filipino insurrection against us than
the American Indian had to do with the Civil War.
CHAPTER XXI
GOVERNOR SMITH--1907-9
Oh, but Honey, dis rabbit dess 'bleeged ter climb dis tree.
Uncle Remus.
"On September 20, 1906," says the Report of the Philippine Commission
for 1907, [468] "the resignation of the Hon. Henry Clay Ide as
Governor-General became effective, and on that date the Hon. James
F. Smith was inaugurated as Governor-General of the Philippine
Islands."
The year 1907 will be known most prominently to the future history of
our Far Eastern possession as the year of the opening of the Philippine
Assembly, which momentous event occurred on October 16th. But in the
departments both of Politics and Psychology it should be known as the
year of the Great Certificate. The Great Certificate was a certificate
signed by certain eminent gentlemen on March 28, 1907, which made the
preposterous affirmation that a condition of general and complete
peace had prevailed throughout the archipelago, except among the
non-Christian tribes, for the two years immediately preceding. Taken
in its historic setting, that certificate can by no possibility escape
responsibility, as "accessory after the fact" at least, to the pretence
that a similar condition had prevailed ever since President Roosevelt's
final war-whoop of July 4, 1902, published to the American troops in
the Islands on the day named. That war-whoop, it will be remembered,
was in the form of a presidential proclamation congratulating General
Chaffee and "the gallant officers and men under his command" on some
"two thousand combats, great and small," and declaring, in effect,
that Benevolent Assimilation was at last triumphantly vindicated,
and that opposition to American rule was at an end. The certificate of
March 28, 1907, appears at pages 47-8 of the Report of the Philippine
Commission for 1907, part 1. If we consider what is now going on in
the Islands as "modern" history, and the days of the early fighting as
"ancient" history, this certificate will serve as the connecting link
between the two. It furnishes the key-note to all that had happened
during the American occupation prior to 1907, and the key-note of
all that has happened since. Therefore, though somewhat long, it is
deemed indispensable to clearness to submit here in full the text of
THE GREAT CERTIFICATE OF 1907
Whereas the census of the Philippine Islands was completed and
published on the twenty-seventh day of March, nineteen hundred and
five, which said completion and publication of said census was,
on the twenty-eighth day of March, nineteen hundred and five, duly
published and proclaimed to the people by the governor-general of
the Philippine Islands with the announcement that the President
of the United States would direct the Philippine Commission to
call a general election for the choice of delegates to a popular
assembly, provided that a condition of general and complete peace
with recognition of the authority of the United States should be
certified by the Philippine Commission to have continued in the
territory of the Philippine Islands for a period of two years
after said completion and publication of said census; and
Whereas since the completion and publication of said census there
have been no serious disturbances of the public order save and
except those caused by the noted outlaws and bandit chieftains,
Felizardo and Montalon, and their followers in the provinces of
Cavite and Batangas, and those caused in the provinces of Samar
and Leyte by the non-Christian and fanatical pulahanes resident
in the mountain districts of the said provinces and the barrios
contiguous thereto; and
Whereas the overwhelming majority of the people of said provinces
of Cavite, Batangas, Samar, and Leyte have not taken part in said
disturbances and have not aided or abetted the lawless acts of
said bandits and pulahanes; and
Whereas the great mass and body of the Filipino people have,
during said period of two years, continued to be law-abiding,
peaceful, and loyal to the United States, and have continued to
recognize and do now recognize the authority and sovereignty of
the United States in the territory of said Philippine Islands:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Philippine Commission in formal session duly
assembled, That it, said Philippine Commission, do certify, and it
does hereby certify, to the President of the United States that for
a period of two years after the completion and publication of the
census a condition of general and complete peace, with recognition
of the authority of the United States, has continued to exist
and now exists in the territory of said Philippine Islands not
inhabited by Moros or other non-Christian tribes; and be it further
Resolved by said Philippine Commission, That the President of the
United States be requested, and is hereby requested, to direct
said Philippine Commission to call a general election for the
choice of delegates to a popular assembly of the people of said
territory in the Philippine Islands, which assembly shall be
known as the Philippine Assembly.
Let us examine these amiable liberties thus taken with the facts of
history by men of irreproachable private character, briefly analyzing
their action. Such an examination and analysis are indispensable to
a clear understanding by a great free people whose proudest boast is
love of fair play, of whether the Filipino people, or any appreciable
fraction of them, have ever in the least consented, or do now in the
least consent, to our rule, as the small minority among us interested
in keeping the Islands, have systematically sought, all these years,
to have this nation believe. As the above certificate of 1907 was
the last hurdle that Benevolent Assimilation had to leap on the
Benevolent Hypocrisy course over which we had to gallop in order to
get from the freeing of Cuba to the subjugation of the Philippines,
let us glance back for a moment at the first hurdle or two, leapt
when Mr. Taft was in the Philippine saddle.
Judge Taft had said on November 30, 1900:
A great majority of the people long for peace and are entirely
willing to accept the establishment of a government under the
supremacy of the United States [469];
and, pursuant to that idea, he had set up his civil government on July
4, 1901. He never did thereafter admit that he was mistaken in his
original theory, but kept on trying to fit the facts to his theory,
hoping that after a while they would fit. He "clung to his policy
of disinterested benevolence with a tenacity born of conviction,"
to borrow a phrase from Governor-General Smith's inaugural address of
1907. But in this same inaugural address of Governor Smith of 1907,
you find, for the first time in all the Philippine state papers,
a frank admission of the actual conditions under which the civil
government of 1901 was in fact set up. Says he:
While the smoke of battle still hung over the hills and valleys
of the Philippines and every town and barrio in the islands was
smoking hot with rebellion, she [the United States] replaced the
military with a civil regime and on the smouldering embers of
insurrection planted civil government. [470]
That confession, made with the bluntness of a most gallant soldier,
is as refreshing in its honesty as the Roosevelt war-whoop of
1902. There shall be no tiresome repetition here concerning the
original withholding of the facts from the American people in 1898-9,
but to place in juxtaposition Secretary of War Root's representations
to the American public in the year last named, and the actual facts
as stated earlier in the same year by General MacArthur, one of
our best fighting generals, during the thick of the early fighting,
in an interview already noticed in its proper chronological place,
will forever fix the genesis of the original lack of frankness as to
conditions in the Philippines which has naturally and inexorably made
frankness as to those conditions impossible ever since. As late as
October 7, 1899, Mr. Root--who had not then and has not since been
in the Philippines--had said in Chicago, in a speech at a dinner of
the Marquette Club:
Well, against whom are we fighting? Are we fighting the
Philippine nation? No. There is none. There are hundreds of
islands, inhabited by more than sixty tribes, speaking more than
sixty different languages, and all but one are ready to accept
American sovereignty.
As early as the beginning of April, 1899, just after the taking on
March 31st of the first insurgent capital, Malolos, General MacArthur,
who commanded our troops in the assault on that place, had said, in
an interview with a newspaper man afterwards verified by the General
before the Senate Committee of 1902 as substantially correct:
When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that
Aguinaldo's troops represented only a faction. * * * I did not like
to believe that the whole population of Luzon * * * was opposed to
us * * *. But after having come thus far, and having been brought
much in contact with both insurrectos and amigos, [471] I have
been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipino masses
are loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he heads. [472]
The presidential election of 1900 had been fought out, in the midst of
considerable bitterness, on the idea that the Root view was correct
and the MacArthur view was altogether mistaken. So that after 1900,
the McKinley Administration was irrevocably committed to the Root
view. [473] The Philippine Government had, after 1900, diligently set
to work to live up to the Root view, and to fit the facts to the Root
view by prayer and hope, accompanied by asseveration. Hence in 1901 the
alleged joyous sobs of welcome with which the Filipino people are, in
effect, described in the report of the Philippine Commission for that
year as having received the "benign" civil government, said sobs or
other manifestations having spread, if the Commission's report is to
be taken at its face value, "like wild-fire." Hence also the attempt
of 1902 to minimize the insurrection of 1901-2, in Batangas and other
provinces of southern Luzon, conducted by what Governor Luke E. Wright,
in a speech delivered at Memphis in the latter part of 1902, called
"the die-in-the-last-ditch contingent." Hence the quiet placing of
the province of Surigao in the hands of the military in 1903 without
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and the failure to order
out the army in Albay in 1903 and in Samar in 1904. Hence also the
prompt use of the army in Samar, Batangas, and Cavite in 1905, after
the presidential election was safely over. Hence also the seething
state of sedition which smouldered in the Visayan Islands in 1906,
punctuated by the outbreak in Leyte of that year.
The psychologic processes by which the distinguished gentlemen
who signed the Great Certificate of March 28, 1907, got their
own consent to sign it make the most profoundly interesting study,
relatively to the general welfare of the world, in all our Philippine
experiments so far. They are the final flowering of the plant Political
Expediency. They are the weeds of benevolent casuistry that become from
time to time unavoidable in a colonial garden tended by a republic
based on the consent of the governed and therefore by the law of its
own life unfitted to run any other kind of a government frankly. These
processes find their origin in the provisions of the Act of Congress
of July 1, 1902, known as the Philippine Government Act. Three days
after President Roosevelt approved the Act, he issued his proclamation
of July 4, 1902, above noticed, declaring the insurrection at an
end. Section 6 of that Act provided:
Whenever the existing insurrection in the Philippine Islands shall
have ceased, and a condition of general and complete peace shall
have been established therein, and the fact shall be certified to
the President by the Philippine Commission, the President, upon
being satisfied thereof, shall order a census of the Philippine
Islands to be taken by said Philippine Commission.
This census was intended to be preliminary to granting the Filipinos
a legislature of their own, but as a legislature full of insurrectos
would of course stultify its American sponsors before all mankind,
it was announced in effect, in publishing the census programme, that
no legislature would be forthcoming if the Filipinos did not quit
insurrecting, and remain "good" for two years. If they did remain good
for two years after the census was finished, then they should have
their legislature. During the lull of "general and complete" peace
which, in the fall of 1902, followed the suppression of the Batangas
insurrection of 1901-2, and preceded the Ola insurrection of 1902-3 in
the hemp provinces of southern Luzon, the Commission made, on September
25, 1902, the certificate contemplated by the above Act of Congress,
and the taking of the census was accordingly ordered by the President
of the United States, Mr. Roosevelt, by a proclamation issued the
same day. [474] Section 7 of the aforesaid Act of Congress provided:
Two years after the completion and publication of the census, in
case such condition of general and complete peace with recognition
of the authority of the United States shall have continued in
the territory of said islands not inhabited by Moros or other
non-Christian tribes, and such facts shall have been certified
to the President by the Philippine Commission, the President
upon being satisfied thereof shall direct said Commission to
call, and the Commission shall call, a general election for the
choice of delegates to a popular assembly of the people of said
territory in the Philippine Islands, which shall be known as the
Philippine Assembly.
On March 27, 1905, the President of the United States was duly
advised that the census had been completed, and on March 28th,
the presidential proclamation promising the Filipinos a legislature
two years later if in the meantime they did not insurrect any, was
duly published at Manila. It is true that there is no Philippine
state paper signed by anybody, either by the President of the United
States, or the Governor-General of the Philippines, or any one else,
certifying to a condition of "general and complete peace" between
the certificate to that effect made by the Philippine Commission on
September 25, 1902, above mentioned, which authorized commencing the
census (and was justified by the facts), and the presidential promise
of March 28, 1905, that if they would "be good" for two years more,
they should have a legislature. But the whole manifest implication
of the representations of fact sought to be conveyed by the action
both of the Washington and the Manila authorities at the date of the
presidential promise of March 28, 1905, is that a condition of general
and complete peace had obtained ever since the last certificate to that
effect, the certificate of September 25, 1902. Yet, as we saw in the
chapter covering the last year of Governor Wright's administration,
besides the Samar disturbances that lasted all through 1905, a big
insurrection was actually in full swing in Cavite, Batangas, and Laguna
provinces, on March 28, 1905, had then been in progress since before
the first of the year, and continued until the latter part of 1905,
the then Governor-General, Governor Wright, having, by proclamation
issued January 31, 1905, declared Cavite and Batangas to be in a
state of insurrection, ordered the military into those provinces, and
suspended the writ of habeas corpus. President Roosevelt's proclamation
of March 28, 1905, can by no possibility be construed as saying to
the Filipinos anything other than substantially this: "You have not
insurrected any since my proclamation of July 4, 1902. If you will be
good two years more, you shall have a legislature." What then was the
Philippine Commission to do at the end of those two years, peppered,
as they had been, with most annoying outbreaks in various provinces
not inhabited by "Moros or other non-Christian tribes." During the
presidential campaign of 1904 the Commission had committed themselves,
as we have seen, to the proposition that nothing serious was going
on at that time in Samar. So how could they take frank official
cognizance on paper of the reign of terror let loose there by their
delay in ordering out the army until after the presidential election,
a delay which, like a delay of fire-engines to arrive at the scene of
a fire, had permitted the Samar outbreak to gain such headway that it
took two years to finally put it down? Then there was the outbreak
of 1906 in Leyte, described in the last chapter, as to which even
the Commission had admitted in their annual report for that year [475]:
Possibly its [Leyte's] immediate vicinity to Samar has had to do
with the disturbed conditions.
In other words, possibly, a fire may spread from one field of dry
grass to another near by.
As to the Cavite-Batangas-Laguna insurrection of 1905, in an executive
order dated September 28, 1907, [476]--noticed in a previous chapter,
but too pertinent to be entirely omitted here--wherein are set forth
the reasons for withholding executive clemency from the condemned
leaders of that movement, Governor-General Smith describes in harrowing
terms "a reign of terror, devastation, and ruin in three of the most
beautiful provinces in the archipelago," wrought by the condemned
men, who he says "assumed the cloak of patriotism, and under the
titles of 'Defenders of the Country,' and 'Protectors of the People'
proceeded to inaugurate" said reign of terror. These men were most
of them former insurgent officers who had remained out after the
respectable generals had all surrendered. This Cavite-Batangas-Laguna
insurrection was the very sort of thing which the conditional promise
of a legislature made by Congress to the Filipino people in Sections 6
and 7 of the Act of July 1, 1902--the Philippine Government Act--had
stipulated should not happen. This is no mere dictum of my own. In
the case of Barcelon against Baker, 5 Philippine Reports, pp. 87 et
seq., already very briefly noticed in a previous chapter, the Supreme
Court of the Islands had, in effect, so held. Section 5 of the Act of
Congress of July 1, 1902, had provided that if any state of affairs
serious enough should arise, the Governor of the Philippines should
have authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus "when in cases
of rebellion, insurrection, or invasion the public safety may require
it." Sections 6 and 7 of the same Act had provided, on the other hand,
that if a condition of general and complete peace should prevail for
a stated period the Filipinos should have a legislature. In the case
of Barcelon against Baker the Supreme Court held that the situation
contemplated by Section 5 of the Act of Congress had arisen in the
provinces of Cavite and Batangas. That, of course, automatically, so
to speak, made the postponement of the Philippine Assembly a necessary
logical sequence, under the provisions of Sections 6 and 7. These
Sections 6 and 7 promised the Filipinos a legislature in the event
the conditions contemplated by Section 5 should not arise. Barcelon,
who was one of the (non-combatant) reconcentrados restrained of his
liberty at Batangas, claimed that his detention as such reconcentrado
by the defendant in the habeas corpus proceeding, the constabulary
officer, Colonel Baker, was unlawful, in that, he being charged with
no crime, such detention deprived him of his liberty without due
process of law. The Philippine Commission, however, had declared,
by virtue of the authority vested in it by Section 5 of the Act of
Congress aforesaid, that a state of insurrection existed in Cavite and
Batangas, and accordingly the Governor-General had suspended the writ
of habeas corpus and declared martial law in those provinces. The
Attorney-General representing the Philippine Commission before
the court rested the Government's case on the proposition that the
petitioner was not entitled to claim the ordinary "due process of
law" because "open insurrection against the constituted authorities"
existed in the provinces named. And the Supreme Court upheld his
contention. In so holding, they say, among other things (page 93),
in construing Section 5 of the Act of Congress we are considering:
Inasmuch as the President, or Governor-General with the approval
of the Philippine Commission, can suspend the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus only under the conditions mentioned in the
said statute, it becomes their duty to make an investigation of
the existing conditions in the archipelago, or any part thereof,
to ascertain whether there actually exists a state of rebellion,
insurrection, or invasion, and that the public safety requires the
suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. When
this investigation is concluded, and the President, or the
Governor-General with the consent of the Philippine Commission,
declares that there exists these conditions, and that the public
safety requires the suspension of the privilege of the writ of
habeas corpus, can the judicial department of the Government
investigate the same facts and declare that no such conditions
exist?
They answer "No!" The head note of the decision is as follows:
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus may be suspended in
the Philippine Islands in the case of rebellion, insurrection,
and invasion, when the public safety requires it, by the President
of the United States, or by the Governor-General of the Philippine
Islands with the approval of the Philippine Commission.
Thus the Supreme Court of the Islands squarely held that on the
fourth day of August, 1905 (the day the writ of habeas corpus
was made returnable), open insurrection existed against the
constituted authorities in the Islands, in the provinces named,
and had existed since the Executive Proclamation of January 31st,
previous, declaring a state of insurrection, and on that ground denied
the writ. Yet the Commission certified on March 28, 1907, that a state
of general and complete peace as contemplated by the Act of Congress
conditionally promising a legislature, had prevailed for the two
years preceding. In other words the Philippine Commission declared
a state of insurrection to exist in certain populous provinces, and
was upheld by the Supreme Court of the Islands in so doing, and later
certified to the continuance of a state of general and complete peace
covering the same period.
All the uncandid things--uncandid in failure to take the American
people into their confidence--that have been done by all the good men
we have sent to the Philippines from the beginning, have been justified
by those good men to their own consciences on the idea that, because
the end in view was truly benevolent, therefore the end justified the
means. As a matter of fact, American Benevolent Assimilation in the
Philippines has, in its practical operation, worked more of misery and
havoc, first through war, and since through legislation put or kept on
the statute books by the influence of special interests in the United
States with Congress, "than any which has darkened their unhappy past"
to use one of Mr. McKinley's early expressions deprecating doing for
the Philippines what we did for Cuba. [477]
But let us see just how much the Philippine Commission that signed the
peace certificate of March 28, 1907, swallowed, and how they swallowed
it. It will be observed that they sugar-coated their certificate with
a lot of whereases. The first of these recites President Roosevelt's
promise of March 28, 1905, that the Filipinos should have a legislature
two years thereafter "provided that a condition of general and
complete peace with recognition of the authority of the United States
should be certified by the Philippine Commission to have continued in
the territory of the Philippine Islands for a period of two years"
after the proclamation. Whereas number two, it will be noted, goes
on to state that there have been "no serious disturbances of public
order save and except" those in Cavite, Batangas, Samar, and Leyte,
[478] the magnitude of which has been fully described in previous
chapters. Of the Cavite-Batangas insurrection, the only one they had
previously formally admitted to be an insurrection, they say it was
"caused by certain noted outlaws and bandit chieftains [naming them],
and their followers." Obviously this was hardly sufficient to show
that an insurrection they had once officially recognized as such
was not in fact such at all. So in order to justify a statement
that "a condition of general and complete peace" had continued in
these two great provinces of Cavite and Batangas, which they had
but shortly previously declared to be in a state of insurrection,
and been upheld by the Supreme Court in so doing, they resort to the
old Otis expedient of 1898-9, worked on the American people through
Mr. McKinley to show absence of lack of consent-of-the-governed. This
expedient, as we have seen in the earlier chapters of this book,
consisted in vague use of the word "majority." It had stood Judge
Taft in good stead in the campaign of 1900, because when he then
said that "the great majority of the people" were "entirely willing"
to accept American rule, there was no earthly way to disprove it
in time for the verdict of the American people to be influenced by
the unanimity of the Filipinos against a change of masters in lieu
of independence. It was the only possible expedient for an American
conscience, because every American naturally feels that unless he
can, by some sort of sophistry, persuade himself that "the majority"
of the people want a given thing, then the thing is a wrong thing to
force upon them. So the ethical hurdle the Commission had to leap in
order to sign the certificate of 1907 was cleared thus:
The overwhelming majority of the people of said provinces have
not taken part in said disturbances and have not aided and abetted
the lawless acts of said bandits.
As a matter of fact, the report of the American Governor of Cavite--and
conditions were conceded to be identical in the two provinces of
Cavite and Batangas--shows that the reason it was so hard to suppress
the Cavite-Batangas troubles of 1905 was that the people would not
help the authorities to apprehend the outlaws. No doubt the King of
England would have signed a similar certificate as to the people of
the shires and counties in which Robin Hood, Little John, and Friar
Tuck, held high carnival. Of course I do not mean to libel the fair
fame of that fine freebooter Robin Hood and his companions by placing
the rascally leaders of the bands of outlaws now under consideration
in the same jolly and respectable class with those beloved friends of
the childhood of us all. But the Cavite-Batangas "patriots" of 1905
could never have given the authorities as much trouble as they did if
the people had not at least taken secret joy in discomfiture of the
American authorities. Until finally suppressed, all such movements
as these always grew exactly as a snow-ball does if you roll it on
snow. Says Governor Shanks, a Major of the 4th United States Infantry,
who was Governor of Cavite, in 1905 in his report for that year, [479]
in explaining the uprising under consideration, and the way it grew:
"The Filipino likes to be on the winning side." Certainly this is
not peculiar to the Filipino. Governor Shanks proceeds:
The prestige acquired (by the uprising) at San Pedro Tunasan,
Paranaque, Taal, and San Francisco de Malabon had great weight in
creating active sympathy for ladrone bands and leaders. Something
was needed to counterbalance the effect of their combined
successes, and the appearance of regular troops was just the
thing needed.
This explains how "the overwhelming majority" of which the certificate
of 1907 speaks was obtained in Cavite. It took six months to obtain
said "majority" at that. I suppose the campaigning of the American
regulars might be credited with obtaining the "majority," and the
reconcentration of brother Baker of the constabulary might be accorded
the additional credit of making the majority "overwhelming." If you
have, as election tellers, so to speak, a soldier with a bayonet on
one side, and a constabulary officer with a reconcentration camp
back of him on the other, you can get an "overwhelming majority"
for the continuance of American rule even in Cavite province.
Through men I commanded during the early campaigning, I have killed my
share of Filipinos in the time of war; and after the civil government
was set up I had occasion to hang a good many of them, under what
seemed to me a necessary application of the old Mosaic law, "An eye
for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life." But I thank
God I have never been a party to the insufferable pretence that they,
or any appreciable fraction of them, ever consented to our rule. This,
however, is the whole theory of the Philippine Commission's certificate
of March 28, 1907. It is curious how generously and supremely frank a
brave soldier will get when he forgets to be a politician. In one of
his state papers of 1907 Governor-General Smith [480] speaks of General
Trias, who had been Lieutenant-General of the insurgent army in the
days of the insurrection, and next in rank to Aguinaldo himself, as one
"whose love of country had been tested on many a well fought field
of honorable conflict." Contrast this tribute to the respectability
of the original Philippine war for independence against us with the
long list of stale falsehoods already reviewed in this volume, on the
faith of which, in the presidential campaign of 1900, the American
people were persuaded that to deny to the Filipinos what they had
accorded to Cuba was righteous! The leaders of the Cavite-Batangas
uprising of 1905 had been officers of the insurgent army, and that
was the secret of their hold upon the people of those provinces. It
is true that they must have been pretty sorry officers, and that they
were ladrones (brigands). They were cruel and unmitigated scoundrels
working for purely selfish and vainglorious ends. But it was the
cloak of patriotism, however, infamously misused, that gained them
such success as they attained in 1905. Says the American Governor of
Cavite province in his annual report for 1906 [481]:
The province should be most carefully watched. I am convinced
that ladrone leaders do not produce conditions, but that the
conditions and attitude of the public produce ladrones.
So much for the Cavite-Batangas hurdle. And now as to the Samar and
Leyte hurdle.
The signers of the certificate of 1907 justify their certificate as to
Samar and Leyte on a very ingenious theory. The Act of Congress of July
1, 1902, already cited, which had provided for the taking of a census
preliminary to the call of an election for delegates to a legislature,
had recognized the crude ethnological status of the Moros and other
non-Christian tribes. These had never had anything whatever to do
with the insurrection against us. Therefore in making the continuance
of a state of general and complete peace for a prescribed period a
condition precedent to granting the Filipinos a legislature, the Act
of 1902 had limited that condition precedent to "the territory of said
Islands not inhabited by Moros or other non-Christian tribes." In fact
President Roosevelt's proclamation of September 25, 1902, already
noticed, ordering the taking of the census on the theory that a
state of general and complete peace then existed, explains that this
theory is entirely consistent with trouble among the Moros and other
non-Christian tribes because they, it says, quoting from a statement
of the Philippine Commission previously made to the President,
"never have taken any part in the insurrection." The Moros and other
non-Christian tribes were, so to speak, in no sense assets of the
Philippine insurrection. All the rest of the population was--that is,
if there was anything in the veteran General MacArthur's grim jest of
1900, prompted by Governor Taft's half-baked opinion to the contrary,
that "ethnological homogeneity" was the secret of the unanimity of the
opposition we met, and that somehow people "will stick to their own
kith and kin." When the Philippine Government Act of 1902 was drawn
nobody pretended for a moment that there were any non-Christian tribes
either in Samar or Leyte. The whole population of those Islands were
valuable assets of the insurrection. If any one doubts it, let him
ask the 9th Infantry. You will find in the Census of 1903 that there
are no non-Christian tribes credited either to Samar or Leyte. [482]
When the Philippine Government Act of 1902 was drafted, the exception
about Moros and other non-Christian tribes was intended to except
merely certain types of people as distinct from the great mass of the
Philippine population as islands are from the sea. The fact is, no
person connected with the Philippine Government either before or after
the certificate under consideration, ever thought of classifying the
ignorant country people of the uplands and hills of Samar or Leyte,
as "non-Christian tribes." The Philippine Census of 1903 does not
so classify them. The very volume of the Report of the Philippine
Commission for 1907 in which the certificate aforesaid appears,
does not. In that volume, [483] the report of the Executive Secretary
deals elaborately with the subject of non-Christian tribes. Professor
Worcester of the Philippine Commission has for the last twelve years
been the grand official digger-up of non-Christian tribes. He takes
as much delight at the discovery of a new non-Christian tribe in
some remote, newly penetrated mountain fastness, as the butterfly
catcher with the proverbial blue goggles does in the capture of a
new kind of butterfly. The Executive Secretary's report, out of
deference to the professor, omits no single achievement of his
with reference to his anthropological hobby. It treats, with an
enthusiasm that would delight Mrs. Jellyby herself, of "the progress
that was made during the fiscal year in the work of civilizing
non-Christian tribes scattered throughout the archipelago." It
gives an alphabetical list of all the provinces where there are
non-Christian tribes, and, under the name of each province it gives
notes as to the progress during the year with those tribes. Neither
Samar nor Leyte appear in that list of provinces. So that the Samar
"Pulajans," or "Red Breeches" fellows,--"fanatical" Pulajans, they
are called in the certificate--were "non-Christian tribes" for peace
certificate purposes only. One thing which makes it most difficult
of all for me to understand how these gentlemen got their consent
to sign that certificate is that each non-Christian tribe in the
Philippines has a language of its own, whereas the country people
of the uplands and mountains of Samar and Leyte who are labelled--or
libelled--"non-Christian tribes" in the certificate of 1907, were no
more different from the rest of the population of those islands than,
for instance, the ignorant mountain people of Virginia or Kentucky
are different, ethnologically, from the inhabitants of Richmond or
Louisville. In his report for 1908, [484] Governor-General Smith
himself makes this perfectly clear, where he describes the Samar
Pulajan, or mountaineer, thus:
The Pulajan is not a robber or a thief by nature--quite the
contrary. He is hard working, industrious, and even frugal. He
had his little late [485] of hemp on the side of the mountain,
and breaking out his picul [486] of hemp, he carried it hank by
hank for miles and miles over almost impassable mountain trails
to the nearest town or barrio. There he offered it for sale,
and if he refused the price tendered, which was generally not
more than half the value, he soon found himself arrested on a
trumped-up charge, and unless he compromised by parting with his
hemp he found himself, after paying his fine and lawyer's fees,
without either hemp or money.
The non-Christian tribes, on the other hand, never have anything to
do with the civilized people. The Act of Congress of 1902, therefore,
had no sort of reference to the simple, ignorant, and ordinarily
docile mountain folk who tilled the soil, revered the priests, paid
their cedula or head tax like all the rest of the population of the
Islands, and carried their agricultural products from season to season,
their hemp and the like, to the coast towns to market. In other words,
inclusion of the Samar "Pulajans," or "Red Breeches" brigade, and the
Leyte bandits, in the peace certificate of 1907, as "non-Christian
tribes" was an afterthought, having no foundation either in logic
or fact. It was a part of Benevolent Assimilation. This is clearly
apparent from President Roosevelt's message to Congress of December,
1905. [487] You do not find any buncombe about "non-Christian
tribes" in that message. In there reviewing the Samar and other
insurrections of 1905 in the Philippines, you find him dealing with
the real root of the evil with perfect honesty, though adopting the
view that the Filipino people were to blame therefor, because we
had placed too much power in the hands of an ignorant electorate,
which had elected rascally officials. "Cavite and Samar," he says,
"are instances of reposing too much confidence in the self-governing
power of a people." If we had let the Filipinos go ahead with their
little republic in 1898, instead of destroying it as we did, they
knew and would have utilized the true elements of strength they had,
viz., a very considerable body of educated, patriotic men having
the loyal confidence of the masses of the people. But we proceeded
to ram down their throats a preconceived theory that the only road
to self-government was for an alien people to step in and make the
ignorant masses the sine qua non. Yet if there was one point on which
Mr. McKinley had laid more stress than on any other, in his original
instructions of April 7, 1900, to the Taft Commission, that point was
the one consecrated in the following language of those instructions:
In all the forms of government and administrative provisions which
they are authorized to prescribe, the commission should bear in
mind that the government which they are establishing is designed
not for * * * the expression of our theoretical views, etc.
Of course the ignorant electorate we perpetrated on Samar as an
"expression of our theoretical views" proved that we had "gone too
fast" in conferring self-government, or, to quote Mr. Roosevelt,
had been "reposing too much confidence in the self-governing power
of a people," if to begin with the rankest material for constructing
a government that there was at hand was to offer a fair test of
capacity for self-government. But President Roosevelt's message,
above quoted, shows you that the "ignorant electorate" was merely an
ignorant electorate, and not a non-Christian tribe, as the Philippine
Commission later had the temerity to certify they were. Now the plain,
unvarnished, benevolent truth is just this: The Commission knew that
nobody in the United States, whether they were for retaining the
Islands or against retaining them, had any desire to postpone granting
a legislature to the Philippine people. So in their certificate they
simply included everybody who had given trouble in Samar and Leyte
as "non-Christian tribes." The only justification for this was that
they had in fact acted in a most un-Christianlike manner,--i.e., for
people who devotedly murmur prayers to patron saints in good standing
in the church calendar. In making their certificate, the Commission
simply ignored the various uprisings of the preceding two years. They
simply said, generously, "Oh, forget it." They knew nobody in the
United States begrudged the Filipinos their conditionally promised
legislature, or cared to postpone it. The leading Filipinos begged the
authorities to "forget" the various disturbances that had occurred
since the publication of the census, and there was a very general
desire in the Islands to let bygones be bygones, wipe the slate, and
begin again. Any other attitude would have meant that the legislature
would have to be postponed. Then the opposition in the United States
would want to know why, and by 1908 Philippine independence might
become an issue again. In the eyes of the Commission, the end, being
benevolent, justified stretching the language of the Act of 1902
as if it had been the blessed veil of charity itself--i.e., the end
justified the means. In fact it did--almost--justify the means. But not
quite. The moral quality of the Great Certificate of 1907 was not as
reprehensible as General Anderson's dealings with Aguinaldo, already
described, which, like the certificate, were a necessary part of the
benevolent hypocrisy of Benevolent Assimilation of an unconsenting
people. Yet General Anderson is an honorable man. It was not as bad
as General Greene's juggling Aguinaldo out of his trenches before
Manila in a friendly way, and failing to give him a receipt for said
trenches, as he had promised to do, because such a receipt would show
co-operation and "might look too much like an alliance." This also was
done on the idea that the end justified the means. Yet General Greene
is an honorable man. The signers of the great peace certificate of
1907 are all honorable men. But they signed that certificate, just the
same. "Judge not that ye be not judged." All I have to say is, I would
not have signed that certificate. I would have said: "No, gentlemen,
the end does not justify the means. The Philippine Assembly must be
postponed, if we are going to deal frankly with Congress and the folks
at home. The conditions Congress made precedent to the grant of an
assembly have not been met, and we each and all of us know it. We owe
more to our own country and to truth than we do to the Filipinos. The
Act of Congress of 1902 did not vest in the Philippine Commission
authority to pardon disturbances of public order. It imposed upon
the Commission an implied duty to report such disturbances, fully
and frankly. It is not true that there has been a continuing state of
general and complete peace in these Islands for the last two years,
and I for one will not certify that there has been."
The truth is, the attitude of the signers of the certificate was like
that of Uncle Remus, when interrupted by the little boy in one of his
stories. When Uncle Remus gets to the point in the rabbit story where
the rabbit thrillingly escapes from the jaws of death, i.e., from the
jaws of the dogs, by climbing a tree, the rapt listener interrupts:
"Why, Uncle Remus, a rabbit can't climb a tree." To which Uncle
Remus replies, with a reassuring wave of the hand, "Oh, but Honey,
dis rabbit dess 'bleeged ter climb dis tree."
Should any of my good friends still in the Philippines feel disposed to
censure such levity as the above, I can only say, as Kipling writes
from England to his Anglo-Indian friends in a foreword to one of
his books:
I have told these tales of our life
For a sheltered people's mirth,
In jesting guise,--but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.
Moreover, my authority to speak frankly about these matters is also
aptly stated by the same great poet thus:
I have eaten your bread and salt,
I have drunk your water and wine,
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
And the lives that ye led were mine.
Was there aught that I did not share
In vigil or toil or ease,
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear friends across the seas?
The above reflections are not placed before the reader to show him
what a pity it is that the writer was not a member of the Philippine
Commission at the time of their certificate of 1907, or to show what
a fine thing for our common country it would be if he were made a
member of that Commission now. He is, personally, as disinterested
as if Manila were in the moon, for he cannot live in the tropics
any more. The effect of a year or so of residence there upon white
men invalided home for tropical dysentery and then returning to the
Islands is like the effect of water upon a starched shirt. However,
it is believed that the facts of official record collected in this
chapter up to this point are a demonstration of this proposition,
to wit: What the Philippine Government needs more than anything else
is that the minority party in the United States should be represented
on the Commission. By this I do not mean representation by what are
called, under Republican Administrations, "White House" Democrats,
nor what under a Democratic Administration, if one should ever occur,
would probably be called "Copperhead Republicans." I mean the genuine
article. A Democrat who has cast his fortunes with the Philippines
is no longer a Democrat relatively to the Philippines, because the
Democratic party wants to get rid of the Philippines and the Democrat
in the Philippines of course does not. How absurd it is to talk about
former Governors Wright and Smith, as "life-long Democrats," by way
of preliminary to using their opinions as "admissions." In the law
of evidence, an "admission" is a statement made against the interest
of the party making it.
The first election for representatives in the Philippine Assembly was
held on July 30, 1907, and on October 16th thereafter the Assembly
was formally opened by Secretary of War, William H. Taft. The various
"whereases" hereinabove reviewed, importing complete acquiescence in
American rule since President Roosevelt's Proclamation of July 4, 1902,
were first duly read, and then the Assembly was opened. Of course,
no man could have been elected to the Assembly without at least
pretending to be in favor of independence, and all but a corporal's
guard of them were outspoken in favor of the proposition. As the
present Governor-General Mr. Forbes, said, while Vice-Governor,
in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1909:
To deny the capacity of one's country for * * * self-government
is essentially unpopular.
When he visited the Philippines to open their Assembly in 1907,
Mr. Taft had said nothing definite and final on the question of
promising independence since his departure from the Islands in
1903. His then benevolent unwillingness to tell them frankly he did not
think they had sense enough to run a government of their own, and that
they were unfit for self-government, has already been reviewed. For
two years after 1903 Governor Wright had made them pine for the return
of Mr. Taft. They longed to hear again some of the siren notes of
the celebrated speech "the Philippines for the Filipinos." They had
gotten very excited and very happy over that speech. Of course they
would not have gotten very excited over independence supposed to be
coming long after they should be dead and buried. During the two dark
frank years of Governor Wright's regime, they had frequently been
told that they were not fit for independence. So that when Secretary
of War Taft had visited the Islands in 1905 they all had been on the
qui vive for more statements vaguely implying an independence they
might hope to live to see. During the visit of 1905 the time of the
visiting Congressional party was consumed principally with tariff
hearings, and comparatively little was said on the subject uppermost
in the minds of all Filipinos. It is true that Mr. Taft said then he
was of the opinion that it would take a generation or longer to get
the country ready for self-government, but he said it in a tactful,
kindly way, and did not forever crush their hopes. So when he went
out to the Islands to open the assembly in 1907, the attitude of the
whole people in expectation of some definite utterances on the question
of a definite promise of independence at some future time, was just
the attitude of an audience in a theatre as to which one affirms
"you could hear a pin fall." In this regard Mr. Taft's utterances
were as follows [488]:
I am aware that in view of the issues discussed at the election of
this assembly I am expected to say something regarding the policy
of the United States toward these islands. I cannot speak with
the authority of one who may control that policy. The Philippine
Islands are territory belonging to the United States, and by the
Constitution, the branch of that government vested with the power
and charged with the duty of making rules and regulations for their
government is Congress. The policy to be pursued with respect
to them is therefore ultimately for Congress to determine. * * *
I have no authority to speak for Congress in respect to the
ultimate disposition of the Islands.
After that there was some talk about "mutually beneficial trade
relations" and "improvement of the people both industrially and in
self-governing capacity." But with regard to the "process of political
preparation of the Filipino people" for self-government the Secretary
said that was a question no one could certainly answer; and so far as
he was concerned he thought it would take "considerable longer than a
generation." Somewhere in the early Philippine State papers there is
a quotation used by Mr. Taft from Shakespeare about "Keeping the word
of promise to the ear and breaking it to the hope." The Filipinos have
eagerly read for the last twelve years every utterance of Mr. Taft's
that they could get hold of. If any of those embryonic statesmen of the
first Philippine Assembly, familiar with the various Taft utterances,
had looked up the context of the Shakespearian quotation above alluded
to, he would have found it to be as follows:
And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
That palter with us in a double sense:
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope. [489]
Since the announcement by Secretary of War Taft at the opening
of the Philippine Assembly in October, 1907, of the policy of
indefinite retention of the Islands with undeclared intention,
the Filipinos have of course clearly understood that if they were
ever to have independence they must look to Congress for it. But
they know Congress is not interested in them and that they have no
influence with it, and that the Hemp Trust, the Tobacco Trust, and the
Sugar Trust, have. So that since 1907, both the American authorities
in the Philippines and the Filipinos have settled down, the former
suffused with benevolence--hardened however by paternalistic firmness,
the latter stoically, to the programme of indefinite retention with
undeclared intention. No conceivable programme could be devised more
ingeniously calculated to engender race hatred. The Filipino newspapers
call the present policy one of "permanent administration for inferior
and incapable races." The Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, known as the
Philippine Government Act, which is the "Constitution," so to speak,
we have given the Filipinos, accords "liberty of the press" in the
exact language of our own Constitution. The native press does not
fail to use this liberty to the limit. Naturally the American press
does not remain silent. So here are a pair of bellows ever fanning
the charcoals of discontent. And the masses of the Filipino people
read the Filipino papers. If they cannot read, their children can. In
one of the reports of one of the American constabulary officials in
the Philippines, there is an account of the influence of the native
press too graphic to be otherwise than accurate. He says one can often
see, in the country districts, a group of natives gathered about some
village Hampden, listening to his reading the latest diatribe against
the American Occupation. Never was there such folly in the annals of
statesmanship. In their native papers, the race situation of course
comes in for much comment. Now the most notorious and inflexible
fact of that race situation is that the colonial Anglo-Saxon does
not intermarry with "the yellow and brown" subject people, as the
Latin colonizing races do. It would be an over-statement of the case
to say that the Filipinos to-day had rather have the Spaniards back
as their overlords instead of us. In 1898, they "tasted the sweets
of liberty," to use an expression of one of their leaders, and I
am perfectly sure that to-day the desire of all those people for a
government of their own is so genuine and universal as that it amounts
to a very hopeful positive factor in the equation of their capacity for
self-government. But there is no doubt that many of the Filipinos after
all have a very warm place in their hearts for the Spanish people. How
could it be otherwise when so many of the Filipinos are sons and
grandsons of Spaniards? Much of like and dislike in life's journey is
determined pre-natally. On the other hand, the American women in the
Philippines maintain an attitude toward the natives quite like that of
their British sisters in Hong Kong toward the Chinese, and in Calcutta
toward the natives there. The social status of an American woman who
marries a native,--I myself have never heard of but one case--is like
that of a Pacific coast girl who marries a Jap. This is merely the
instinct of self-defence with which Nature provides the weaker sex,
just as she provides the porcupine with quills. But look at the other
side of the picture. When an American man marries a native woman,
he thereafter finds himself more in touch with his native "in-laws"
it is true, but correspondingly, and ever increasingly, out of touch
with his former associations. This is not as it should be. But it is
a most unpleasant and inexorable fact of the present situation. In
an address delivered at the Quill Club in Manila on January 25,
1909, Governor Smith, after reciting the various beneficent designs
contemplated by the government and the various public works consummated
(at the expense of the people of the Islands) deplored, in spite of
it all, what he termed "the growing gulf between the races." Said he:
An era of ill feeling has started between Americans and Filipinos,
and, I hesitate to say it, race hatred.
Cherchez la femme! You find her, on the one hand, in the American woman
whose attitude has been indicated, and you find her, on the other,
in the refined and virtuous native woman, who finds her American
husband's relations to his compatriots altered--queered--since his
marriage to her, no matter how faithful a wife and mother she may
be. This is the unspeakably cruel situation we have forced upon the
Filipino people--whom I really learned to respect, and became much
attached to, before I left the Islands--and President Taft knows it
as well as I do. Yet he does not take the American people into his
confidence. He simply worries along with the situation, wishing it
would get better, but knowing it will get worse. That this situation
is a permanent one is clearly shown by all the previous teachings
of racial history. In his Winning of the West, written in 1889,
speaking of the French settlers in the Ohio valley before 1776,
and the cordial social relations of the dominant race with the
natives--relations which have always obtained with all Latin races
under like circumstances--Mr. Roosevelt says (vol. i., page 41):
They were not trammelled by the queer pride which makes a man
of English stock unwilling to make a red-skinned woman his wife,
though anxious enough to make her his concubine.
Men of English stock have changed but little in the matter of race
instinct since 1776. If we had a definite policy, declared by Congress,
promising independence, the American attitude in the Philippines toward
the Filipinos would at once change, from the present impossible one,
to our ordinary natural attitude of courtesy toward all foreigners,
regardless of their color.
On May 7, 1909, the Honorable James F. Smith took his departure from
the Philippine Islands forever and turned over the duties of his
office to the Honorable W. Cameron Forbes, as Acting President of the
Commission and Governor-General. As in the case of Governors Wright
and Ide, so in that of Governor Smith, no reason is apparent why the
Washington Government should have been willing to dispense with the
services of the incumbent. This was peculiarly true in the case of
General Smith. He was but fifty years of age when he left the Islands
in 1909. He has rendered more different kinds of distinguished public
service than any American who has ever been in the Philippine Islands
from the time Dewey's guns first thundered out over Manila Bay down to
this good hour. Going out with the first expedition in 1898 as Colonel
of the 1st California Regiment, he distinguished himself on more
than one battlefield in the early fighting and in recognition thereof
was made a brigadier-general. Subsequent to this he became Military
Governor of the island of Negros, that one of the six principal
Visayan Islands which gave less trouble during the insurrection and
after than any other--a circumstance doubtless not wholly unrelated
to General Smith's wise and tactful administration there. Later on
during the military regime he became Collector of Customs of the
archipelago. The revenues from customs are the principal source of
revenue of the Philippine Government and the sums of money handled
are enormous. The customs service, moreover, in most countries, and
especially in the Philippines, is more subject to the creeping in of
graft than any other. General Smith's administration of this post was
in keeping with everything else he did in the Islands. When the civil
government was founded by Judge Taft in 1901, he was appointed one of
the Justices of the Supreme Court and filled the duties of that office
most creditably. Thence he was promoted to the Philippine Commission,
which is, virtually, the cabinet of the Governor-General. Still later
he became Vice-Governor, and finally Governor, serving as such from
September, 1906, to May, 1909. Any other government on earth that has
over-seas colonies and recognizes the supreme importance of a maximum
of continuity of policy, would have kept Governor Smith as long
as it could have possibly induced him to stay, just as the British
kept Lord Cromer in Egypt. Governor Smith was succeeded by a young
man from Boston, who had come out to the Islands four years before,
and who, prior to that time, had never had any public service in the
United States of any kind, had never been in the Philippine Islands,
and probably had never seen a Filipino until he landed at Manila.
General Smith is now (1912) one of the Judges of the Court of Customs
Appeals at Washington.
CHAPTER XXII
GOVERNOR FORBES--1909-1912
The trouble with this country to-day is that,
under long domination by the protected interests,
a partnership has grown up between them and the
Government which the best men in the Republican
party could not break up if they would.--Woodrow Wilson.
When Governor Forbes assumed the duties of Governor-General of the
Philippines, some ten years after the ratification of the Treaty
of Paris whereby we bought the Islands, he was the ninth supreme
representative of American authority we had had there since the
American occupation began. The following is the list:
(1) Gen. Thomas M. Anderson June 30, 1898-July 25, 1898
(2) Gen. Wesley Merritt July 25, 1898-Aug. 29, 1898
(3) Gen. Elwell S. Otis Aug. 29, 1898-May 5, 1900
(4) Gen. Arthur MacArthur May 5, 1900-July 4, 1901
(5) Hon. William H. Taft July 4, 1901-Dec. 23, 1903
(6) Hon. Luke E. Wright Dec. 23, 1903-Nov. 4, 1905
(7) Hon. Henry C. Ide Nov. 4, 1905-Sept. 20, 1906
(8) Hon. James F. Smith Sept. 20, 1906-May 7, 1909
(9) Hon. W. Cameron Forbes May 7, 1909- [490]
No one of these distinguished gentlemen has ever had any authority to
tell the Filipinos what we expect ultimately to do with them. They
have not known themselves. Is not this distinctly unfair both to
governors and governed?
Before Governor Forbes went to the Philippines he had been a largely
successful business man. He is a man of the very highest personal
character, and an indefatigable worker. He has done as well as the
conditions of the problem permit. But he is always between Scylla
and Charybdis. American capital in or contemplating investment in the
Islands is continually pressing to be permitted to go ahead and develop
the resources of the Islands. To keep the Islands from being exploited
Congress early limited grants of land to a maximum too small to attract
capital. So those who desire to build up the country, knowing they
cannot get the law changed, are forever seeking to invent ways to get
around the law. And, being firm in the orthodox Administration belief
that discussion of ultimate independence is purely academic, i.e.,
a matter of no concern to anybody now living, Governor Forbes is of
course in sympathy with Americans who wish to develop the resources of
the Islands. On the other hand, he knows that such a course will daily
and hourly make ultimate independence more certain never to come. So
do the Filipinos know this. Therefore they clamor ever louder and
louder against all American attempts to repeal the anti-exploiting
Acts of Congress by "liberal" interpretation. Many an American just
here is sure to ask himself, "Why all this 'clamor'? Do we not give
them good government? What just ground have they for complaint?" Yes,
we do give them very good government, so far as the Manila end of
the business is concerned, except that it is a far more expensive
government than any people on the earth would be willing to impose
on themselves. But their main staples are hemp, sugar, and tobacco,
and we raise the last two in this country. Their sugar and tobacco
were allowed free entry into the United States by the Paine Law of
1909 up to amounts limited in the law, but the Philippine people know
very well that American sugar and tobacco interests will either dwarf
the growth of their sugar and tobacco industries by refusing to allow
the limit raised--the limit of amounts admitted free of duty--or else
that our Sugar Trust and our Tobacco Trust will simply ultimately
eliminate them by absorption, just as the Standard Oil Company used
to do with small competitors. In this sort of prospect certainly even
the dullest intellect must recognize just ground for fearing--nay for
plainly foreseeing--practical industrial slavery through control by
foreign [491] corporations of economic conditions. So much for the
two staples in which the Philippines may some day become competitors
of ours. It took Mr. Taft nine years to persuade American sugar and
tobacco that they would not be in any immediate danger by letting
in a little Philippine sugar and tobacco free of duty. Then they
consented. Not until then did they promise not to shout "Down with
cheap Asiatic labor. We will not consent to compete with it." Their
mental reservation was, of course, and is, "if the Philippine sugar
and tobacco industries get too prosperous, we will either buy them,
or cripple them by defeating their next attempt to get legislation
increasing the amounts of Philippine sugar and tobacco admitted into
the United States free of duty." And the Filipinos know that this is
the fate that awaits two out of the three main sources of the wealth
of their country. Their third source of wealth, their main staple, is
the world-famous Manila hemp. This represents more than half the value
of their total annual exports. And as to it, "practical industrial
slavery through control by foreign corporations of economic conditions"
is to-day not a fear, but a fact. The International Harvester Company
has its agents at Manila. The said company or allied interests,
or both, are large importers of Manila hemp. The reports of all the
governors-general of the Philippines who have preceded Governor Forbes
tell, year after year, of the millions "handed over" to American hemp
importers through "the hemp joker" of the Act of Congress of 1902,
hereinafter explained, in the chapter on Congressional Legislation
(Chapter XXVI.). Why did these complaints--made with annual
regularity up to Governor Forbes's accession--cease thereafter? You
will find these complaints of his predecessors transcribed in the
chapter mentioned, because if I had re-stated them you might suspect
exaggeration. The "rake-off" of the American importers of Manila hemp
for 1910 was nearly $750,000, as fully explained in Chapter XXVI.
Governor Forbes will be in this country when this book is issued. I
think he owes it to the American people to explain why he does not
continue the efforts of his predecessors to halt the depredations
of the Hemp Trust. Why does he content himself in his last annual
report with a mild allusion to the fact that the condition of
the hemp industry is "not satisfactory"? I have said that Governor
Forbes is a man of high character, and take pleasure in repeating that
statement in this connection. The truth is we are running a political
kindergarten for adults in the Philippines, and those responsible
for the original blunder of taking them, and all their political
heirs and assigns since, have sought to evade admitting and setting
to work to rectify the blunder. Unmasked, this is what the policy of
Benevolent Assimilation now is. They allege an end, and so justify
all the ways and means. Benevolent Assimilation needs the support
of the International Harvester Company and of all other Big Business
interested directly or indirectly in Manila hemp. The end justifies
the means. Hence the silence. Philippine gubernatorial reticence is
always most reticent about that particular subject on which at the time
the American people are most peculiarly entitled to information. As
long as public order was the most pressing question, Philippine
gubernatorial reticence selected that branch of our colonial problem
either for especial silence or for superlatively casual allusion, as
we have already seen. So now with the economic distresses. Frankness
would obviously furnish too much good argument for winding up this
Oriental receivership of ours. The Philippine Government will never
tell its main current troubles until after they are over. But as
the present trouble--the economic depredations of powerful special
interests--must necessarily be fruitful of discontent which will
crop out some day to remind us that as we sow so shall we reap,
any one who helps expose the root of the trouble is doing a public
service. No Congressman who in silence would permit Big Business to
prey upon his constituents as Governor Forbes has, could long remain in
office. Taxation without representation may amount to depredation, and
yet never be corrected, when the powers that prey have the ear of the
court, and the victims cannot get the ear of the American people. So
the Hemp Trust continues to rob the Filipinos under the forms of law,
and the Mohonk Conference continues to kiss Benevolent Assimilation
on both cheeks. And Dr. Lyman Abbott periodically says Amen. I am not
speaking disrespectfully of Dr. Abbott. I am deploring the lack of
information of our people at home as to conditions in the Philippines.
It is a relief to turn from such matters to some of the real
substantial good we have done out there to which Governor Forbes
has heretofore publicly pointed with just pride. In an article
in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1909, Governor Forbes (then
Vice-Governor) said, among other things:
We have completed the separation of Church and State, buying out
from the religious orders their large agricultural properties,
which are now administered by the government for the benefit of
the tenants.
This statement I cannot too cordially endorse. It would be grossly
unfair not to accord full measure of acclaim to Governor Taft for the
way he worked out the problem of the Friar Lands. He has been attacked
in some quarters in this regard, and most unjustly. Not being a
Catholic, and all my people being Protestants, I have no fear of being
suspected of special pleading in the matter. The working out of the
Friar Land problem by Governor Taft in the Philippines was a splendid
piece of constructive statesmanship. He was at his greatest and best
in that very transaction. The Treaty of Paris had guaranteed that all
vested rights should be respected, including those of ecclesiastical
bodies. The friars had long owned the lands in question. There can be
no particle of doubt on this point. The tenants on the land had all
long ago attorned to them, father and son, from time out of mind,
paying rent regularly. But by claiming jurisdiction over their
tenants' souls also, and getting that jurisdiction effectively
recognized, the thrifty friars used to raise the rent regularly,
quieting incipient protest with threats of eternal punishment,
or protracted stay in purgatory. The advent of our government let
loose a revolt against the authority of the friars generally, and,
their spiritual hold once loosened, this led the tenants to dispute
the land titles of their spiritual shepherds, who were also their
temporal landlords. Of course the titles had all been long recorded,
and looked after by the best legal talent the country afforded. As
long as you control the future of your tenant's soul, you can make him
pay his last copeck for rent. But as soon as that control is lost,
the man on whom the governing of the country thereafter devolves
has a certain prospect of a great agrarian revolution on his hands,
having in it many elements of substantial righteousness. Governor
Taft's capacious mind, prompted by his strongest instinct, love of
justice, conceived the idea of having the Philippine Government raise
the money to buy the Friar Lands, by issuing bonds, and then buying
the Friars out and re-selling the land to the tenants on long time,
on the instalment plan, the instalments to be so graduated as to be
equal to a moderate rental. Each tenant stayed right where he had
been all the time, in possession of the tract he had always tilled,
he and his father before him. To arrange all this it took an Act of
Congress authorizing the bond issue, and a visit to Rome to arrange
the bargain with the Pope. Some say His Holiness drove a hard bargain
with Governor Taft, or to put it another way, that Governor Taft paid
the Church people too much for the land. He did not. He may not have
counted pennies with them, but the lands were worth what he paid for
them. And the purchase protected the faith and honor of our government,
as pledged by the Treaty of Paris, and at the same time prevented an
agrarian revolution--which would have had a lot of elemental justice
on its side.
Another of the good works we have done in the Philippines, to which
Governor Forbes points in his magazine article above mentioned,
is thus noted by him:
We have put the finances on a sound and sensible basis.
To this also I say Amen. The Forbes article then goes on to say
that the government of the Islands is self-supporting. This is
true, except the $14,000,000 a year it costs us to keep out there a
garrison of 12,000 American troops (supplemented by certain native
scouts--see chapter on "Cost of the Philippines," hereafter). This
garrison is conceded to be a mere handful, sufficient merely,
and intended merely--as a witty English woman has put it in a book
on the Philippines--"to knock the Filipino on the head in case he
wants his liberty before the Americans think he is fit for it." In
other words, we only attempt to keep force enough there to quell any
outbreak that might occur. So far as possible invasion by any foreign
power is concerned, our $14,000,000 per annum is an absolutely dead
loss. Brigadier-General Clarence Edwards, U. S. A., commanding the
Bureau of Insular Affairs, said recently [492] before the Finance
Committee of the Senate:
I would never think of the Philippines as a military problem for
defence. If any nation wants them, it is merely a declaration
of war.
What a shameful admission for a great nation to subscribe to,
relatively to people it pretends to be protecting! The programme of
the War Department is to abandon the Islands to their fate, for the
time being at least, in our next war, letting them remain a football
until the end of such war, when, as an independent republic they
could, and would, rally as one man to the defence of their country
against invasion, and would, with a little help from us, make life
unbearable for an invading force. As things stand, we are just as
impotent as Spain was out there in 1898, and it is utter folly to
forget what happened then.
But to return to Governor Forbes's article and to a pleasanter feature
of the situation. He says:
We have established schools throughout the archipelago, teaching
upward of half a million children.
This also is true, and greatly to our credit. But as the American
hemp trust mulcts the Philippine hemp output about a half million
dollars a year (as above suggested, and later, in another chapter,
more fully explained), it follows that each Filipino child pays the
hemp trust a dollar a year for the privilege of going to school.
And now let us consider the most supremely important part of Governor
Forbes's magazine article above quoted. The burden of the song of
the adverse minority report on the pending Jones bill (looking to
Philippine independence in 1921) [493] is that because there are
certain "wild tribes" scattered throughout the archipelago, in the
mountain fastnesses, therefore we should cling to the present policy of
indefinite retention with undeclared intention until the wild tribes
get civilized. Governor Forbes's article is an absolute, complete,
and final answer to the misinformed nonsense of the minority report
aforesaid. He says, apropos of public order:
It is now safe to travel everywhere throughout the Islands without
carrying a weapon, excepting only in some of the remote parts of
the mountains, where lurk bands of wild tribes who might possibly
mistake the object of a visit, and in the southern part of the
great island of Mindanao which is inhabited by intractable Moros.
The foregoing unmasks, in all its contemptible falsehood, the pretence
that the presence of a few wild tribes in the Philippines is a reason
for withholding independence from 7,000,000 of Christian people in
order that a greedy little set of American importers of Manila hemp may
fatten thereon. True, hemp is not edible, but it is convertible into
edibles--and also into campaign funds. That the existence of these wild
tribes--the dog-eating Igorrotes and other savages you saw exhibited at
the St. Louis Exposition of 1903-4--constitute infinitely less reason
for withholding independence from the Filipinos than the American
Indian constituted in 1776 for withholding independence from us, will
be sufficiently apparent from a glance at the following table, taken
from the American Census of the Islands of 1903 (vol. ii., p. 123):
[494]
Island Civilized Wild Total
Luzon 3,575,001 223,506 3,798,507
Panay 728,713 14,933 743,646
Cebu 592,247 592,247
Bohol 243,148 243,148
Negros 439,559 21,217 460,776
Leyte 357,641 357,641
Samar 222,002 688 222,690
Mindanao 246,694 252,940 499,634
I think the above table makes clear the enormity of the injustice I am
now trying to crucify. Without stopping to use your pencil, you can
see that Mindanao, the island where the "intractable Moros" Governor
Forbes speaks of live, contains about a half million people. Half
of these are civilized Christians, and the other half are the wild,
crudely Mohammedan Moro tribes. Above Mindanao on the above list,
you behold what practically is the Philippine archipelago (except
Mindanao), viz., Luzon and the six main Visayan Islands. If you will
turn back to pages 225 et seq., especially to page 228, where the
student of world politics was furnished with all he needs or will
ever care to know about the geography of the Philippine Islands,
you will there find all the rocks sticking out of the water and all
the little daubs you see on the map eliminated from the equation
as wholly unessential to a clear understanding of the problem of
governing the Islands. That process of elimination left us Luzon and
the six main Visayan Islands above, as constituting, for all practical
governmental purposes all the Philippine archipelago except the Moro
country, Mindanao (i.e., parts of it), and its adjacent islets;
Luzon and the Visayan Islands contain nearly 7,000,000 of people,
and of these the wild tribes, as you can see by a glance at the above
table, constitute less than 300,000, sprinkled in the pockets of their
various mountain regions. Nearly all these 300,000 are quite tame,
peaceable, and tractable, except, as Governor Forbes suggests, they
"might possibly mistake the object of a visit." The half million
"intractable Moros" of Mindanao, plus those in the adjacent islets,
make up another 300,000. These last, it is true, will need policing
for some time to come, but whether we do that policing by retaining
Mindanao, or whether we let the Filipinos do it, is a detail that has
no standing in court as a reason for continuing to deny independence
to the 7,000,000 of people of Luzon and the Visayan Islands because
they have some 300,000 backward people in the backwoods of their
mountains. Yet see how the ingenuity of inspired ignorance states the
case, by adding the 300,000 tame tribes of Luzon and the Visayas to
the 300,000 fierce Moro savages away down in Mindanao, near Borneo,
so as to get 600,000 "wild" people, and then alluding to the fact
that so far only 200,000 Filipinos are qualified to vote. Says the
report of the minority of the Committee on Insular Affairs on the
pending Jones bill (proposing independence in 1921):
The wild and uncivilized inhabitants of the islands outnumber, 3
to 1, those who would be qualified to vote under the pending bill
[the Jones bill].