The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 Part 16

Preparatory to an understanding of the fall campaign, in which patchwork and piecemeal warfare was superseded by the real thing, it will now be necessary to consider the political--or let us call it, the politico-military--aspect of the first half year of the war.

General Otis's folly had led him to advise Washington as early as November, 1898, that he could get along with 25,000 troops, [227]

and the Otis under-estimate of the resistance we would meet if we took the Islands had undoubtedly influenced Mr. McKinley in deciding to take them. Twenty-five thousand troops was only 5000 more than General Otis had with him at the time he made the recommendation, and signified that he was not expecting trouble. The Treaty of Paris was signed on December 10, 1898, and on December 16th, President McKinley's Secretary of War informed Congress that 25,000 troops would be enough for the Philippines. [228] When the treaty was ratified February 6, 1899, the war in the Philippines had already broken out. On March 2, 1899, two days before the 55th Congress expired, in fact on the very day that Congress appropriated the $20,000,000 to pay Spain for the Islands, an act was pa.s.sed authorizing the President to enlist 35,000 volunteers to put down the insurrection in the Islands. The term of enlistment of these volunteers was to expire June 30, 1901. As the New Thought people would say "Hold the Thought!" June 30, 1901, is the end of our government's fiscal year. That date, the date of expiration of the enlistment of the volunteer army raised under the act of March 2, 1899, is a convenient key to the whole history of the American occupation of the Philippines since the outbreak of our war with the Filipinos, February 4, 1899, including the t.i.tanic efforts of the McKinley Administration in the latter half of 1899 and the first half of 1900 to retrieve the Otis blunders; the premature resumption by Judge Taft, during and in aid of Mr. McKinley's campaign for the Presidency in 1900, of the original McKinley Benevolent a.s.similation programme, on the theory, already wholly exploded by a long and bitter war, that the great majority of the people welcomed American rule and had only been coerced into opposing us; and the premature setting up of the Civil Government on July 4, 1901. No candid mind seeking only the truth of history can fail to see that when President McKinley sent the Taft Commission to the Philippines in the spring of 1900, part of their problem was to facilitate Mr. McKinley in avoiding later on any further call for volunteers to take the place of those whose terms would expire June 30, 1901. The amount of force that has been needed to saddle our government firmly on the Filipino people is the only honest test by which to examine the claim that it is unto them as Castoria unto children. In February, 1899, the dogs of war being already let loose, President McKinley had resumed his now wholly impossible Benevolent a.s.similation programme, by sending out the Schurman Commission, which was the prototype of the Taft Commission, to yearningly explain our intentions to the insurgents, and to make clear to them how unqualifiedly benevolent those intentions were. The scheme was like trying to put salt on a bird's tail after you have flushed him. This commission was headed by President Schurman, of Cornell University. It arrived in March, armed with instructions as benevolent in their rhetoric as any the Filipinos had ever read in the days of our predecessors in sovereignty, the Spaniards. And the commission were of course duly astounded that their publication had no effect. The Filipinos in Manila tore them down as soon as they were put up. The instructions clothed the commission with authority to yield every point in issue except the only one in dispute--Independence. On this alone they were firm. But so were the people who had already submitted the issue to the arbitrament of war. Of course the Schurman Commission, therefore, accomplished nothing. It held frequent communication with the enemy in the field and came near an open rupture with General Otis, who was nominally a member of it. But even that unwise man knew war when he saw it, and knew the futility of trying to mix peace with war. War being h.e.l.l, the sooner 'tis over the better for all concerned. After Professor Schurman had been quite optimistically explaining our intentions for about three months, under the tragically mistaken notion Mr. McKinley had originally derived from General Otis that the insurrection had been brought about by "the sinister ambition of a few leaders,"

[229] General Otis wired Washington, on June 4th, "Negotiations and conferences with insurgent leaders cost soldiers' lives and prolong our difficulties," [230] adding with regard to the Schurman Commission: "Ostensibly it will be supported * * * here, and to the outside world gentle peace shall prevail," but intimating that he would be very much gratified if the Department would allow him to handle the enemy, and stop Dr. Schurman from having their leaders come in under flags of truce to parley. After that Dr. Schurman's activities seem to have been confined to the less mischievous business of gathering statistics. His mistake was simply the one he had brought with him, derived from President McKinley. He came back home, however, thoroughly satisfied that the Filipinos did of a verity want the independence they were fighting for, and quite as sure that republics should not have colonies as General Anderson's experience had previously made him. It has long been known throughout the length and breadth of the United States that Dr. Schurman is in favor of Philippine independence.

On June 26th, just thirteen days after the Zapote River fight had stopped the insurgents on the south line from threatening almost the very gates of the city of Manila itself, General Otis had another attack of optimism. On that date he wired Washington: "Insurgent cause may collapse at any time." [231] Finally, the war correspondents at Manila, wearied with the military press censorship whereby General Otis had so long kept the situation from the people at home, with his eternal "situation-well-in-hand" telegrams, got together, inspired no doubt by the example of the Roosevelt round robin that had rescued the Fifth Army Corps from Cuba after the fighting down there, and prepared a round robin of their own--a protest against further misrepresentation of the facts. This they of course knew General Otis would not let them cable home. However, they asked his permission to do so, the committee appointed to beard the lion in his den being O. K. Davis, John T. McCutcheon, Robert Collins, and John F. Ba.s.s. General Otis threatened to "put them off the island." This did not bother them in the least. General Otis told the War Department afterwards that he did not punish them because they were "courting martyrdom," or words to that effect. As a matter of fact, they were merely determined that the American people should know the facts. That of "putting them off the island" was just a fussy phrase of "Mother" Otis, long familiar to them. They were under his jurisdiction. But they were Americans, and reputable gentlemen, and he knew he was responsible for their right treatment. After General Otis had duly put the expected veto on the proposed cablegram of protest, the newspaper men sent their protest over to Hong Kong by mail, and had it cabled to the United States from there. It was published in the newspapers of this country July 17, 1899. A copy of it may be found in any public library which keeps the bound copies of the great magazines, in the Review of Reviews for August, 1899, pp. 137-8. It read as follows:

The undersigned, being all staff correspondents of American newspapers stationed in Manila, unite in the following statement:

We believe that, owing to official despatches from Manila made public in Washington, the people of the United States have not received a correct impression of the situation in the Philippines, but that those despatches have presented an ultra-optimistic view that is not shared by the general officers in the field.

We believe the despatches incorrectly represent the existing conditions among the Filipinos in respect to internal dissension and demoralization resulting from the American campaign and to the brigand character of their army.

We believe the despatches err in the declaration that "the situation is well in hand," and in the a.s.sumption that the insurrection can be speedily ended without a greatly increased force.

We think the tenacity of the Filipino purpose has been under-estimated, and that the statements are unfounded that volunteers are willing to engage in further service.

The censorship has compelled us to partic.i.p.ate in this misrepresentation by excising or altering uncontroverted statements of facts on the plea that "they would alarm the people at home,"

or "have the people of the United States by the ears."

The men of the pen had been so long under military rule and had seen so much of courts-martial that their doc.u.ment savored of military jurisprudence. After making the above charges, it set forth what it called "specifications." These were:

Prohibition of hospital reports; suppression of full reports of field operations in the event of failure; numbers of heat prostrations in the field; systematic minimization of naval operations; and suppression of complete reports of the situation.

The paper was signed by John T. McCutcheon and Harry Armstrong, representing the Chicago Record; O. K. Davis and P. G. MacDonnell, representing the New York Sun; Robert M. Collins, John P. Dunning, and L. Jones, representing the a.s.sociated Press; John F. Ba.s.s and William Dinwiddie, representing the New York Herald; E. D. Skeene, representing the Scripps-McRae a.s.sociation; and Richard Little, representing the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Collins, the a.s.sociated Press representative, wrote his people an account of this whole episode, which was also given wide publicity. After describing the committee's interview with the General down to a certain point, he says:

But when General Otis came down to the frank admission that it was his purpose to keep the knowledge of conditions here from the public at home, and when the censor had repeatedly told us, in ruling out plain statements of undisputed facts, "My instructions are to let nothing go that can hurt the Administration," we concluded that protest was justifiable.

Collins had written what he considered a conservative review of the situation in June, saying reinforcements were needed. Of the suppression of this he says:

The censor's comment (I made a note of it) was: "Of course we all know that we are in a terrible mess out here, but we don't want the people to get excited about it. If you fellows will only keep quiet now we will pull through in time [232] without any fuss at home!"

Mr. Collins's letter proceeds: "When I went to see him [Otis] he repeated the same old story about the insurrection going to pieces."

As to the charge of suppressing the real condition of our sick in the hospitals, Mr. Collins says that General Otis remarked that the "hospitals were full of perfectly well men who were shirking and should be turned out." On June 2, 1899, according to General Otis's report (p. 121), sixty per cent. of one of the State volunteer regiments were in hospital sick or wounded and there were in its ranks an average of but eight men to a company fit for duty. The report of the regimental surgeon stating this was forwarded by General Otis to Washington with the comment that there were few cases of serious illness; that the then "present station of these troops"--the place where the fighting was hottest, San Fernando--"is considered by the Filipinos as a health resort," and that "when orders to take pa.s.sage to the United States are issued, both the Montana and South Dakota troops will recover with astonishing rapidity." [233]

This round robin of course produced a profound sensation in the United States. It was just what the American public had long suspected was the case. Shortly afterward Secretary of War Alger resigned. Coming as it did on the heels of the scandal about "embalmed beef" having been furnished to the army in Cuba, it made him too much of a load for the Administration to carry. He was succeeded by Mr. Root, an eminent member of the New York Bar, whose masterful mind soon saw the essentials of the situation and proceeded to get a volunteer army recruited, equipped, and sent to the Philippines without further unnecessary delay.

CHAPTER XII

OTIS AND THE WAR (Continued)

And now, a man of head being at the centre of it, the whole matter gets vital.--Carlyle's French Revolution.

There can surely be little doubt in any quarter that Mr. Root is, in intellectual endowment and equipment at least, one of the greatest, if he is not the greatest, of living American statesmen. Mankind will always yield due acclaim to men who, in great emergencies, see the essentials of a given situation, and at once proceed to get the thing done that ought to be done. Whether the war in the Philippines was regrettable or not, it had become, by midsummer of 1899, supremely important, from any rational and patriotic standpoint, to end it as soon as possible.

Mr. Root had not been in office as Secretary of War very long before fleets of troop-ships, carrying some twenty-five well-equipped volunteer regiments, [234] were swarming out of New York harbor bound for Manila by way of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, and out of the Golden Gate for the same destination via Honolulu. Nor was there any confusion as in the Cuban helter-skelter. Everything went as if by clockwork. Moreover, along with the new and ample force, went a clear, masterly, comprehensive plan of campaign, prepared, not by General Otis at Manila, but in the War Department at Washington, by officers already familiar with the islands.

It was the purpose of this government at last to demonstrate conclusively to the Filipino people that the representative of the United States at Manila was "the boss of the show," and that Aguinaldo was not--a demonstration then sorely needed by the exigencies of American prestige. The purpose can readily be appreciated, but to understand the plan of campaign, and the method of its execution, somewhat of the geography of Luzon must now be considered. Before we approach the sh.o.r.es of Luzon and the city of Manila, however, let us consider from a distance, in a bird's-eye view, as it were, the relation of Luzon to the rest of the archipelago, so as to know, in a comprehensive way, what we are "going out for to see." We may as well pause at this point, long enough to learn all we will ever need to know, for the purposes of the scope of this narrative, concerning the general geography of the Philippine archipelago, and the governmental problems it presents. (See folding map at end of volume.)

It is a common saying that Paris is France. In the same sense Manila is the Philippines. In fact, the latter expression is more accurate than the former, for Manila, besides being the capital city of the country, and its chief port, is a city of over 200,000 people, while no one of the two or three cities next to it in rank in population had more than 20,000. [235] By parity of reasoning it may be said that Luzon was the Philippines, so far as the problem which confronted us when we went there was concerned, relatively both to the original conception in 1898 of the struggle for independence, its birth in 1899, its life, and its slow, lingering obstinate death in 1900-1902, in which last year the insurrection was finally correctly stated to be practically ended. To know just how and why this was true, is necessary to a clear understanding of that struggle, including not only its genesis and its exodus, but also its gospels, its acts, its revelations, and the mult.i.tudinous subsequent commentaries thereon.

The total land area of the Philippine archipelago, according to the American Census of 1903, is 115,000 square miles. [236] The area of Luzon, the princ.i.p.al island, on which Manila is situated, is 41,000 square miles, and that of Mindanao, the only other large island, is 36,000. [237] Between these two large islands, Luzon on the north, and Mindanao on the south, there are a number of smaller ones, but acquaintance with only six of these is essential to a clear understanding of the American occupation. Many Americans, too busy to have paid much attention to the Philippine Islands, which are, and must ever remain, a thing wholly apart from American life, have a vague notion that there are several thousand of them. This is true, in a way. American energy has made, for the first time in their history, an actual count of them, "including everything which at high tide appeared as a separate island." [238] The work was done for our Census of 1903 by Mr. George R. Putnam, now head of the Lighthouse Board of the United States. Mr. Putnam, counted 3141 of them. [239] Of these, of course, many--many hundred perhaps--are merely rocks fit only for a resting place for birds. 2775, have an area of less than a square mile each, 262 have an area of between 1 and 10 square miles, 73 between 10 and 100 square miles, and 20 between 100 and 1000 square miles. This accounts for, and may dismiss at once from consideration 3130--all but 11. Most of these 3130 that are large enough to demand even so much as a single word here are poorly adapted to human habitation, being in most instances, without good harbors or other landing places, and usually covered either with dense jungle or inhospitable mountains, or both. Their total area is only about 8500 square miles, of the 115,500 square miles of land in the archipelago. None of them have ever had any political significance, either in Spain's time, or our own, and therefore, the whole 3130 may at once be eliminated from consideration, leaving 11 only requiring any special notice at all--the 11 largest islands. Of these, Luzon and Mindanao have already been mentioned. The remaining 9, with their respective areas and populations, are:

Island Area [240] Population [241]

in Square Miles

Panay 4,611 743,646 Negros 4,881 560,776 Cebu 1,762 592,247 Bohol 1,411 243,148 Samar 5,031 222,690 Leyte 2,722 [242] 357,641 Mindoro 3,851 28,361 Masbate 1,236 29,451 Paragua 4,027 [243] 10,918 ------ --------- Total 29,532 2,788,878

The political or governmental problem being now reduced from 3141 islands to eleven, the last three of the nine contained in the above table may also be eliminated as follows: (See map at end of volume.)

Paragua, the long narrow island seen at the extreme lower left of any map of the archipelago, extending northeast southwest at an angle of about 45, is practically worthless, being fit for nothing much except a penal colony, for which purpose it is in fact now used.

Masbate--easily located on the map at a glance, because the twelfth parallel of north lat.i.tude intersects the 124th meridian of longitude east of Greenwich in its southeast corner--though noted for cattle and other quadrupeds, is not essential to a clear understanding of the human problem in its broader governmental aspects.

Mindoro, the large island just south of the main bulk of Luzon, pierced by the 121st meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, is thick with densely wooded mountains and jungle over a large part of its area, has a reputation of being very unhealthy (malarious), is also very spa.r.s.ely settled, and does not now, nor has it ever, cut any figure politically, as a disturbing factor. [244]

Eliminating Paragua, Masbate, and Mindoro as not essential to a substantially correct general idea of the strategic and governmental problems presented by the Philippine Islands, we have left, besides Luzon and Mindanao, nothing but the half-dozen islands which appear in large type in the above table: Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Samar, Leyte, with a total area of 20,500 square miles. Add these to Luzon's 41,000 square miles and Mindanao's 36,000, and you have the Philippine archipelago as we are to consider it in this book, that is to say, two big islands with a half dozen little ones in between, the eight having a total area of 97,500 square miles, of which the two big islands represent nearly four-fifths.

While the great Mohammedan island of Mindanao, near Borneo, with its 36,000 square miles [245] of area, requires that the Philippine archipelago be described as stretching over more than 1000 miles from north to south, still, inasmuch as Mindanao only contains about 500,000 people all told, [246] half of them semi-civilized, [247] the governmental problem it presents has no more to do with the main problem of whether, if ever, we are to grant independence to the 7,000,000 Christians of the other islands, than the questions that have to be pa.s.sed on by our Commissioner of Indian Affairs have to do with the tariff.

Mindanao's 36,000 square miles const.i.tute nearly a third of the total area of the Philippine archipelago, and more than that fraction of the 97,500 square miles of territory to a consideration of which our attention is reduced by the process of elimination above indicated. Turning over Mindanao to those crudely Mohammedan, semi-civilized Moros would indeed be "like granting self-government to an Apache reservation under some local chief," as Mr. Roosevelt, in the campaign of 1900, ignorantly declared it would be to grant self-government to Luzon under Aguinaldo. [248] Furthermore, the Moros, so far as they can think, would prefer to owe allegiance to, and be ent.i.tled to recognition as subjects of, some great nation. [249]

Again, because, the Filipinos have no moral right to control the Moros, and could not if they would, the latter being fierce fighters and bitterly opposed to the thought of possible ultimate domination by the Filipinos, the most uncompromising advocate of the consent-of-the-governed principle has not a leg to stand on with regard to Mohammedan Mindanao. Hence I affirm that as to it, we have a distinct and separate problem, which cannot be solved in the lifetime of anybody now living. But it is a problem which need not in the least delay the advent of independence for the other fourteen-fifteenths of the inhabitants of the archipelago [250]--all Christians living on islands north of Mindanao. It is true that there are some Christian Filipinos on Mindanao, but in policing the Moros, our government would of course protect them from the Moros. If they did not like our government, they could move to such parts of the island as we might permit to be incorporated in an ultimate Philippine republic. Inasmuch as the 300,000 or so Moros of the Mohammedan island of Mindanao and the adjacent islets called Jolo (the "Sulu Archipelago," so called, "reigned over" by the Sultan of comic opera fame) originally presented, as they will always present, a distinct and separate problem, and never did have anything more to do with the Philippine insurrection against us than their cousins and co-religionists over in nearby Borneo, the task which confronted Mr. Root in the fall of 1899, to wit, the suppression of the Philippine insurrection, meant, practically, the subjugation of one big island, Luzon, containing half the population and one-third the total area of the archipelago, and six neighboring smaller ones, the Visayan Islands.

And now let us concentrate our attention upon Luzon as Mr. Root no doubt did, with infinite pains, in the fall of 1899. Of the 7,600,000 people of the Philippines [251] almost exactly one-half, i.e., 3,800,000, [252] live on Luzon, and these are practically all civilized. [253] It so happens that the State of our Union which is nearer the size of Luzon than any other is the one which furnished the first American Civil Governor for the Philippine Islands, Governor Taft. President Taft's native State of Ohio is 41,061 square miles in area, and Luzon is 40,969. [254] Roughly speaking, Luzon may also be said to be about the size of Cuba, [255] though it is about twice as thickly populated as the latter, Cuba, having something over 2,000,000 people to Luzon's nearly 4,000,000. [256]

By all Americans in the Philippines since our occupation, the island of Luzon is always contemplated as consisting of two parts, to wit, northern Luzon, or that part north of Manila, and southern Luzon, the part south of Manila. The great central plain of Luzon, lying just north of Manila, is nearly as large as the republic of Salvador, or the State of New Jersey, i.e., in the neighborhood of 7000 square miles area [257]--and, like Salvador, it contains a population of something over 1,000,000 inhabitants. The area and population of the five provinces of this plain are, according to the Philippine Census of 1903, as follows:

Province Area [258] (sq. m.) Population [259]

Pangasinan 1,193 397,902 Pampanga 868 223,754 Bulacan 1,173 223,742 Tarlac 1,205 135,107 Nueva Ecija 1,950 134,147 ----- --------- 6,389 1,114,652