The Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines Part 11

A month after the battle of Manila Bay Aguinaldo proclaimed himself "president" (in reality military dictator) of the "Filipino Republic."

But this republic existed only on paper. Dewey accurately states the condition of affairs when he says, "Our fleet had destroyed the only government there was, and there was no other government; there was a reign of terror throughout the Philippines, looting, robbing, murdering." A form of munic.i.p.al election was held, but if a candidate not favoured by the insurgents was elected, he was at once deposed. One candidate won his election by threatening to kill any one who got the office in his place. Persons "contrary minded" were not allowed to vote. These happenings hardly suggest a republican form of government, but they are typical of conditions at that time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AGUINALDO'S PALACE AT MALOLOS.]

Naturally the self-styled president was not recognized by the American officials, and they were justified, as is shown by the fact that before the year was up Aguinaldo himself had come to realize that he could not maintain order among his people, and tried to resign from his office.

Meanwhile his lack of recognition by the Americans, and his exclusion from the spoils of war, so far as Manila was concerned, showed him that his only hope of achieving his ambitions lay in driving these interlopers from the Islands. But for the time being, while awaiting a propitious moment for attack, he occupied himself and his men by conquering the Spaniards in the outlying provinces. Since there was no cooperation among the Spanish forces, he was quite successful. Having proclaimed the republic with himself at the head, he felt justified in maintaining, with the aid of his booty, a truly regal state in his palace at Malolos, aping the forms and ceremonies of the Spanish governors in Manila.

As fast as Church property, or property belonging to Spaniards, fell into his hands, it was confiscated and turned over to the State--if Aguinaldo can be considered the State. His houses and those of his generals were furnished from Spanish possessions, all t.i.tle deeds were systematically destroyed or hidden, and administrators were appointed for the property.

At the beginning of the new year (1899), he turned his attention to the Americans, and Manila. Because our forces seemed reluctant to fight, the Filipinos, like the Mexicans to-day, believed that they must be cowards and afraid to meet them. A Mexican paper has recently told its readers what a simple matter it would be, if war were declared, for their troops to cross the border and crush such slight opposition as may be offered to the capture of Was.h.i.+ngton. So it is no wonder that the Filipinos felt confident of success, especially after their victories over the Spaniards in the outlying regions.

By January, Admiral Dewey, General Anderson and General Merritt had left the Philippine Islands and General Otis was in command. He announced that the government of the United States would be extended over the islands of the archipelago. Next day Aguinaldo retorted with what was virtually a declaration of war. From then on he and his advisers hastened their preparations for the conflict. Members of the native militia who were living in Manila under the protection of the American garrison were warned to stand ready to receive the signal which should start the sack and pillage of the city and the ma.s.sacre of its inhabitants. By the end of January there were about thirty thousand Filipinos under arms fronting the American lines outside the city, all keyed up for the moment when they should be let loose to drive the Americans into the sea. This time the spoils of Manila should not be s.n.a.t.c.hed from them!

The signal for the advance was to be a conflagration in Manila. Ten thousand militiamen were to rise, set fire to the city, free the Spanish prisoners of war, arm them with arms stored in the a.r.s.enal, and attack the Americans. They were to be promptly aided in this last detail by the thirty thousand Filipinos waiting outside, who, surrounding the city, would drive back the fourteen thousand American soldiers upon their burning citadel and upon the two hundred thousand Filipinos, who would by this time have joined their countrymen. If everything had worked out as he had planned, Aguinaldo might very probably have entered the city.

He chose a night early in February, at a time when he knew the American reinforcements which had been ordered could not yet have arrived. Firing began about nine o'clock in the evening, near the San Juan bridge, and continued during the night. Meanwhile, the militia in the city tried to a.s.semble, but the groups were promptly fired on and dispersed. In the morning the s.h.i.+ps of Dewey's fleet opened fire from the flanks of the American line. A little later our troops sprang forward and swept their antagonists before their fierce attack. In this encounter the Filipinos lost about eight hundred, and the Americans two hundred and fifty.

For a week the insurgents were quite demoralized, and no wonder, for this was not the way they had expected the "cowardly" Americans to act.

But when they saw that our men did not follow up their advantage by pursuit, their courage revived and they began once more to believe those things which they wished to believe. Our troops had to stay where they were because they had not sufficient transportation to take them anywhere else, because the enemy within the city still needed their attention, and because their reinforcements had not arrived.

When these came, General Otis divided his forces. General MacArthur began a movement from his right against the insurgents, who contested every village and locality capable of defense, and burned every train before abandoning it to American hands. The insurgent capital, Malolos, was occupied. In April, General Lawton took Santa Cruz. The American casualties during these operations were about ten thousand officers and men, but the sick report listed fifteen per cent of the expedition, mostly from heat prostration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAN JUAN BRIDGE.]

General Lawton, who went out early in 1899, and was killed in December of the same year at San Mateo, is believed to have been perhaps the most able of our commanders.

Uniformly the Filipinos lost, but when their courage waned their officers would announce that they had won a big victory somewhere else.

In one day, they reported, we had lost twenty-eight thousand men, in a region where in the entire month we had lost but fifty-six. On another occasion they announced that two thousand colonels had been killed. They must have thought our troops were all from Kentucky.

All summer and into the fall this more or less formal and regular warfare continued. But by that time Aguinaldo had decided that while a concentrated field army might appear more impressive to foreigners and be better for advertising purposes, it was not effective for his purpose, and some change must be made. The discontent among the conservative men who still had anything to lose was increasing, while the labourers in the fields, the fishermen, and the great ma.s.ses of the people were growing weary of the war and the exactions of the commanders of their troops. The spell which Aguinaldo had cast over Luzon was almost broken. The war was nearly over, it seemed--in a civilized country it would have been over.

To the Americans it appeared that the insurrection had been destroyed, and that all they now had to do was to sweep up the remnants of the insurgent forces by a system of police administration not likely to be either difficult or dangerous. In November, MacArthur had his force ready to strike anything within reach, but there seemed to be nothing within reach to strike. He soon came to the conclusion that there was no organized resistance left, that the insurgent army had broken into fragments which would soon become banditti. The disbandment of the insurgent field forces, which the American authorities took to mean the coming of a general submission to our rule, was followed by a long period of inactivity. This, of course, strengthened the impression, but the time was being used by the Filipinos to prepare for a new method of warfare and to organize for resistance by means of a general banding of the people together in support of the guerillas in the field.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL LAWTON.]

To obtain this necessary cooperation the leaders announced the inflexible principle that every native residing within the limits of the archipelago owed active individual allegiance to the insurgent cause.

This was enforced by severe penalties, including burial alive, which were systematically exacted. There was little resistance on the part of the victims, who accepted the new policy with a curious combination of loyalty, apathy, ignorance and timidity.

In this way there arose a strange system of dual government, in many cases the town officials openly serving the Americans while they were secretly aiding the insurrection, and with apparently equal solicitude for both. Each town was the base for the neighbouring guerillas, and when a band was too hard pressed it would dissolve and take refuge in its own community. This was easy enough to accomplish, with the aid of the people, for it took very little to transform a Filipino soldier into a good imitation of a peaceful native.

Several months before the formal declaration of guerilla warfare in November of 1899, the Filipino commanders had adopted a policy of occupying a succession of strong defensive positions and forcing our army to a never ending repet.i.tion of tactical deployments. This they did with such skill that they were for a time successful. The native force would hover within easy distance of the American camps, but would avoid close conflict and temporarily disband. This would not be regarded by them as a calamity, but simply as a change from one form of action to another, and even a positive advantage.

By February of 1900, General Bates had succeeded in scattering the larger bodies in the south of Luzon, and while some of the Filipino leaders and their followers abandoned the cause, which they saw was hopeless, others returned to the life of bandits, which in many cases had probably been their profession before the war. When their guns were gone they took up the knife and the torch. They did not cease to call themselves soldiers of the republic, but they were not in reality.

By September General MacArthur, who had succeeded General Otis in command of the American forces in the Islands, realized that the opposition to American control came from the towns, and that the guerilla bands could not exist without their support. At first he thought that on account of the efficiency of his troops, the natives would be actuated both by conviction and self-interest to support him.

But four months later he saw that further pressure was needed to secure this. So he ordered that all persons suspected of contraband traffic with insurgent organizations should be arrested and sent to Manila. In January, 1901, he ordered the deportation to Guam of twenty-six Filipino leaders, sympathizers, and agents, who were to remain there until peace had been formally declared. Two months later, Aguinaldo was captured by the dare-devil Funston of "the Suicide Squad."

The effect of this measure was to alarm the leaders, of course, who now realized that they could be held responsible for their acts. Orders were also issued that all men who surrendered should be disarmed but released at once, while those captured in the field or arrested in the towns should be held in custody till the end of the war. A letter was found, written by a bandit leader, in March, saying that he was ordered to "proceed more rapidly" with his operations, "as Bryan ordered Emilio (Aguinaldo) to keep the war going vigorously until April." However true that may have been, it is certain that the encouragement which the insurgents received from the country they were fighting much prolonged hostilities and caused the loss of many lives on both sides.

It is hard to realize at this distance the lengths to which the anti-imperialists went, or were willing to go, in those days. Governor Pack told me of an experience he had with one of them--a New Englander of good family and American antecedents. Pack was on his way out to the Islands at the time, and on arriving at Hongkong received the tidings of McKinley's a.s.sa.s.sination. He was surprised to see this man, a fellow-pa.s.senger, rush up to a Filipino with the news and shake his hand, congratulating him on what had happened. The Governor, then a young civilian, could not forget the shocking incident and later, when they shared the same stateroom on the small boat for Manila, he discovered papers which proved that his companion intended to furnish aid and encouragement to any natives who wished to fight against American "tyranny." This discovery gave Pack his appointment as one of the seven lieutenant governors of the hill tribes. But the other man was punished only by being refused entrance to the Islands. It was the stupid and foolish fas.h.i.+on in America then--as indeed it still is--to call this particular form of treason Idealism, and be lenient with it.

Our soldiers found it difficult to take seriously the bands of half naked men, who, they knew, had been pillaging the villages of their own race. It was true that these bands were difficult to pursue and capture, but an army which fought only from ambush, whose detachments fell only upon stragglers and carefully avoided the main body of its enemy, and which showed no regard for the sacredness of a flag of truce, could not inspire much respect. Plunder appeared to be the sole excuse for its existence, and the pompous t.i.tles a.s.sumed by its commanders were amusing for the leaders of robbers. The Americans followed the retreating bandits without hatred and without fear. But they became weary of the eternal pursuit, and felt a growing irritation.

The Filipinos, however, felt very differently about their soldiers, and it is only fair to give their side too, especially as it may throw some light on the Mexican situation. Even the richest and most highly educated men found nothing to laugh at in these poor bands which were after all composed of their own people fighting and suffering for a cause which they could at least understand, whether or not they sympathized with it. They did not regard the pillaging, tortures, and murders to which the Filipinos subjected their own people as we did.

They called the robbery "collecting contributions for the support of the war." As for the murders--in the Orient to kill is an immemorial right of the rulers of men. What if they did fight disguised as peaceful country folk? They were a weak people fighting against a strong. They were naked and they were hungry, and they were fighting for a cause.

Their arms were often of little use, and they made powder out of match heads and cartridge sh.e.l.ls out of the zinc roofs of parish buildings, and even then they had only ammunition enough to fire a few volleys and then run. But men so armed had forced the United States to send out nearly seventy thousand well equipped soldiers to subdue them. To the native Filipino, as perhaps to the Mexican to-day, the ragged and half savage figures of the guerillas stood for their vision of a united race.

But it was natural that our troops could not understand this, and that they should gradually become embittered against their antagonists. The officers, by the necessary division of our forces, found themselves confronted with conditions utterly alien to their experience. They had to live in native houses or churches, in the midst of four or five thousand people whose language they did not speak, and whose thoughts were not their thoughts. Most of them were young men. They came from all over the United States, and were neither monsters nor saints, but good examples of their time and country.

When these officers learned that the dignified Asiatics who called upon them daily, who drank with them, who talked with them, and who held offices under our government, were also spies of the guerilla leaders, secretly aiding those who were anxious to win the price set on their heads, they were hardly pleased. When they found that every movement of the guerillas was reported to them just too late to be of any use, while every movement of their own small forces was promptly made known to the enemy, and when they were present at the disinterment of the twisted bodies of the men who had been buried alive because they were loyal to us, they decided that stricter measures were necessary. This was a state of war. Within wide limits their will was law. Upon their judgment hung not merely their lives and those of their men, but the honour of their country and their regiment. Perhaps in some cases they met cruelty with cruelty, but they at least tried to be honest and just. And the people came to realize this, and also that they were not afraid, with the result that whole communities transferred their allegiance from their own guerilla leaders to a single young American, not because he understood them or sympathized with them, but because he was a man whom they could trust and respect.

It was July of 1902, four years after our taking of Manila, before the Islands could be officially declared pacified. Let us hope that the lessons which we learned then may not be forgotten in our dealings with Mexico.[14]

CHAPTER IV

FOLLOWING THE FLAG

They taught Filipinos the right way to work, And they taught as if teaching were fun; They taught them to spell and to build themselves roads, And the best way to handle a gun.

Were their salaries so big that the task was worth while?

Did they save a centavo of pay?

Have the average men an account with the bank?

Never a cent--not they.

So we haven't a job and we haven't a cent, And n.o.body cares a d.a.m.n; But we've done our work and we've done it well, To the glory of Uncle Sam, And we've seen a lot, and we've lived a lot In these islands over the sea-- Would we change with our brothers grown rich at home?

Praise be to G.o.d--not we.

_From "The Swan Song," in the Manila Bulletin._

It is, strangely enough, to the influence of that arch anti-imperialist, William Jennings Bryan, that we owe the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, which not only ended the war with Spain but expressly provided for the purchase of the Philippine Islands. The Democrats were opposed to the treaty and were powerful enough in the Senate to have held it up, had not Bryan used his authority to secure the two-thirds vote needed for its ratification. It is amusing to note that a year later, after enabling us to acquire the islands, he used all his power to prevent our keeping them. He was at this time in need of a popular plank in his third presidential platform, and the sorrows of the Filipinos suited his purpose admirably.

Soon after the Treaty of Paris, and long before the end of the insurrection, McKinley appointed a commission of experts to go out to the Islands and report to him on conditions there. They found a country whose civilization was, to put it hopefully, at a standstill. It was too big a problem to be straightened out by a few ambitious Filipinos. The Commission returned to America convinced of the necessity of our occupation.

Congress soon pa.s.sed a special organic act for the organization of a civil government in the Islands, to succeed the military rule then in force. In 1900, President McKinley appointed the second Commission, headed by Mr. Taft, which was instructed to a.s.sume control of the Islands, gradually relieving the army wherever conditions allowed of their doing so.

This Commission had five members, three of them lawyers (two of whom had been on the bench), and two professors. Its functions were at first legislative and judicial, but in 1901, when the president of the Commission, Mr. Taft, became Governor General of the Islands, the other members were given the portfolios of the different departments and executive power in the pacified parts of the Islands. Dean C. Worcester, a member of the earlier Commission and already an authority on the Philippines, became the first Minister of the Interior; Luke E. Wright, the Vice Governor, had the Department of Commerce and Police; H. C. Ide, former Chief Justice of Samoa, had charge of Finance and Justice, while Professor Moses was put at the head of Public Instruction. Governor Taft became really the "Father of the Philippines," for when he left the Islands in 1904 to become Secretary of War he had even higher authority over them than he had had as governor, while still later, as President of the United States, he was able to see that the same high standard of appointments was maintained.[15]

McKinley charged this Commission that their work was "_not to subjugate, but to emanc.i.p.ate_." We made many mistakes, for we were new to the business and dealing with a strange people, but until very lately even the selfishness which is supposed to be inherent in party politics has been absent in our dealings with this people, whom we considered our sacred charge. No one ever asked an American official in the Islands what his politics were. Even the governors.h.i.+p itself was out of the reach of the spoilsman. Of the five governors who were appointed by the Republican administrations, only one besides the first governor belonged to the dominant party, and he was in office but a few months.

Since the Taft Commission first organized, several changes have taken place. Filipino members have been added, and it has acquired the character of an upper house, rather than a legislature. The work of a lower house is done by the a.s.sembly, made up of eighty-one members chosen by the people of the Christian tribes. They have no authority over the Moro and other non-Christian tribes, which are legislated for by the Commission directly. To-day the Filipinos control their munic.i.p.al and county governments, but their finances are kept under supervision.

The problems which the Commissioners had to solve were many and varied.

Trade was at a standstill. During the last normal year under Spain the exports from the Islands had amounted to about sixteen million dollars.