The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 Part 19

In volume i., part 5, War Department Report, 1899, at pages 5 et seq., may be found a journal ill.u.s.trating the nature of the "police" work done by the volunteers of 1899, in 1900, and at pages 5 et seq. of the same report for 1900 (volume i., part 4) may be found a similar diary carried up to June 30, 1901. Throughout the period covered by those reports, scarcely a day pa.s.sed without what the military folk coolly call "contacts" with the enemy.

The Visayan Islands were in course of time duly organized, as Luzon had previously been, departmentally and by military districts. The Visayan Islands became the Department of Visayas, divided into districts commanded either by regimental commanders having a regiment or more with them, or by general officers. For a long time no attempt to make military occupation effective in these various islands, save in the coast towns, was attempted. However, the indicated disposition of troops completed, technically at least, the American occupation of the Visayan Islands.

Pursuant to the plan followed, as we have hitherto followed the army in our narrative, first throughout northern Luzon and later through southern Luzon, some data are now in order concerning the Visayan Islands.

As already made clear, there are but six of the Visayan Islands with which any one interested in the Philippines merely as a student of world politics or of history need bother. The area and population of these are as follows: [295]

Island Area (sq. m.) Population

Panay 4,611 743,646 Negros 4,881 460,776 Cebu 1,762 592,247 Leyte 2,722 356,641 Samar 5,031 222,090 Bohol 1,441 243,148

Whenever, if ever, an independent republic is established in the Philippines, the six islands above mentioned could and should const.i.tute self-governing commonwealths similar to the several States of the American Union. The rest of the islands lying between Luzon and Mindanao could easily be disposed of governmentally by being attached to the jurisdiction of one of the said six islands.

Mindanao and the adjacent islets called Jolo were organized as the Department of Mindanao and Jolo, under General Kobbe, with the 31st Volunteer Infantry, Colonel Pett.i.t's regiment, the 40th Volunteer Infantry, Colonel G.o.dwin's regiment, and the 23rd Regular Infantry. Thus the archipelago was completely accounted for, for the time being, just as all the territory of the United States was long accounted for by our military authorities at home, with the Department of the East, headquarters Governor's Island, New York; the Department of the Lakes, headquarters Chicago; the Department of the Gulf, headquarters Atlanta, etc. In this state of the case, General Otis re-embraced his early pet delusion--if it was a delusion, which charity and the probabilities suggest it should be called--about the insurrection having gone to pieces; and decided to come home. Possibly, also, he was homesick. General Otis was a very positive character, a strong man. But even strong men get homesick after long exile. When you hear the call of the homeland after long residence "east of Suez,"

you must answer the call, duty not forbidding. General Otis had stood by his ink wells and the Administration with unswerving devotion for twenty months, and was ent.i.tled to come back home and tell the public all about the fighting in the Philippines, and how entirely over it was, and how wholly right Mr. McKinley was in his theory that the visible opposition to our rule and the seeming desire to be free and independent did not represent the wishes of the Filipino people at all, but only the "sinister ambitions of a few unscrupulous Tagalo leaders." Accordingly on May 5, 1900, he was relieved at his own request, and departed for the United States. He was succeeded in command by a very different type of man, Major-General Arthur MacArthur, upon whom now devolved the problem of holding down the situation and of actually getting it stably "well in hand" by June 30, 1901, the date of expiration of the term of enlistment of the twenty-five volunteer regiments organized under the Act of March 2, 1899.

CHAPTER XIII

MACARTHUR AND THE WAR

d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n the Filipino, Pock-marked khakiac ladrone; [296]

Underneath the starry flag Civilize him with a Krag, And return us to our own beloved home.

Army Song of the Philippines under MacArthur. [297]

Some one has said, "Let me write the songs of a people and I care not who makes their laws." Give me the campaign songs of a war, and I will so write the history of that war that he who runs may read, and, reading, know the truth. The volunteers of 1899 had, most of them, been in the Spanish War of '98. That struggle had been so brief that, to borrow a phrase of the princ.i.p.al beneficiary of it, Colonel Roosevelt, there had not been "war enough to go 'round." The Philippine insurrection had already broken out when the Spanish War volunteers returned from Cuba in the first half of 1899. Few of them knew exactly where the Philippines were on the map. They simply knew that we had bought the islands, that disturbances of public order were in progress there, and that the Government desired to suppress them. The President had called for volunteers. That was enough. When they reached the islands, instead of finding a lot of outlaws, brigands, etc., such as that pestiferous, ill-conditioned outfit of horse-thieves and cane-field burning patriots we volunteers of '98 had to comb out of the eastern end of Cuba under General Wood in the winter of 1898-9, they found Manila, on their arrival, practically almost a besieged city. They knew that the erroneous impression they had brought with them was the result of misrepresentation. Who was responsible for that misrepresentation they did not attempt to a.n.a.lyze. They simply set to work with American energy to put down the insurrection. n.o.body questioned the unanimity of the opposition. There it was, a fact--denied at home, but a fact. In the course of the fight against the organized insurgent army they lost a great many of their comrades, and in that way the unanimity of the resistance was quite forcibly impressed upon them. By kindred psychologic processes equally free from mystery, their determination to overcome the resistance early became very set--a state of mind which boded no good to the Filipinos. The army song given at the beginning of Chapter XI (ante), in which General Otis is made to sing, after the fashion of some of the characters in Pinafore, that pensive query to himself

Am I the boss, or am I a tool?

the first stanza of which closes

Now I'd like to know who's the boss of the show, Is it me or Emilio Aguinaldo?

was a point of departure, in the matter of information, which served to acquaint them with all that had gone before. They resented the loss of prestige to American arms and desired to restore that prestige. While engaged in so doing, they became aware, during the Presidential year 1900, that the campaign of that year in the United States was based largely upon the pretence that the majority of the Filipinos welcomed our rule. Naturally, their experience led them to a very general and very cordial detestation of this pretence. For one thing, it was an unfair belittling of the actual military service they were rendering. People hate a lie whether they are able to trace its devious windings to its source or sources, or to a.n.a.lyze all its causes, or calculate all its possible effects, or not. The real rock-bottom falsehood, not as fully understood then as it became later, consisted in the impression sought to be produced at home, in order to get votes, that the great body of the Filipino people were not really in sympathy with their country's struggle for freedom, and would be really glad tamely to accept the alien domination so benevolently offered by a superior people, but were being coerced into fighting through intimidation by a few selfish leaders acting for their own selfish ends. While our fighting generals in the field,--General MacArthur, for instance, whose interview with a newspaper man just after the fall of Malolos, in March, 1899, subsequently verified by him before the Senate Committee of 1902, has already been noticed--at first believed that it was only a faction that we had to contend with, they soon discovered that the whole people were loyal to Aguinaldo and the cause he represented. But, while the point as to how unanimous the resistance was remained a disputed matter for some little time among those of our people who did not have to "go up against it,"

the most curious fact of that whole historic situation, to my mind, is the absolute ident.i.ty of the disputed suggestion with that which had previously been used in like cases in all ages by the powerful against people struggling to be free, and the cotemporaneous absence of any notation of the coincidence by any conspicuous spectator of the drama, to say nothing of us smaller fry who bore the brunt of the war or any portion of it.

Those men of '99 in the Philippines realized in 1900, vaguely it may be, but actually, that they were waging a war of conquest after the manner of the British as sung by Kipling, but under the hypocritical pretence that they were doing missionary work to improve the Filipino. They did not know whether the Filipinos could or could not run a decent government if permitted. It was too early to form any judgment. And even then there was no unanimous feeling that they could not. Brigadier-General Charles King, the famous novelist, who was in the fighting out there during the first half of 1899, was quoted in the Catholic Citizen, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in June, 1899, as having said in an interview given at Milwaukee:

There is no reason in the world why the people should not have the self-government which they so pa.s.sionately desire, so far as their ability to carry it on goes.

The real reason why the war was being waged was stated with the honesty which heated public discussion always brings forth, by Hon. Charles Denby, a member of the Schurman Commission of 1899, in an article which appeared in the Forum for February, 1899, ent.i.tled "Why the Treaty Should be Ratified:" [298]

The cold, hard, practical question alone remains: "Will the possession of the islands benefit us as a nation?" If it will not, set them free to-morrow.

But in the same magazine, the Forum, for June, 1900, in other words to the very same audience, in an article whose t.i.tle is a protest, "Do we Owe the Filipinos Independence?" we find this same distinguished diplomat sagaciously deferring to that not inconsiderable element of the American public which is opposed to wars for conquest, with the rank hypocrisy which must ever characterize a republic warring for gain against the ideals that made it great, thus:

A little time ought to be conceded to the Administration to ascertain what the wish of the people [meaning the people of the Philippine Islands] really is; [299]

adding some of the stale but ever-welcome salve originally invented by General Otis for use by Mr. McKinley on the public conscience of America, about the war having been "fomented by professional politicians," and not having the moral support of the whole people. "A majority of the Filipinos are friendly to us," he says. Even as early as January 4, 1900, in the New York Independent, we find Mr. Denby abandoning all his previous honesty of 1899 about "the cold, hard, practical question," and rubbing his hands with invisible soap to the tune of the following hypocrisy:

Let us find out how many of the people want independence, and how many are willing to remain loyal to our government. It is believed a large majority [etc.]. [300]

The same article even a.s.sumed an air of injured innocence and urged that as soon as the insurgent army laid down its arms [301] "the intentions of our government will be made known by Congress." That was just thirteen years ago, and "the intentions of our government"

have never yet been "made known by Congress," despite the fact that the omission has all these years been like a buzzing insect, lighting intermittently on the sores of race prejudice and political difference in the Philippines, to say nothing of the circ.u.mstance that such omission leaves everybody guessing, including ourselves. The omission has been due to the fact that both the McKinley Administration which committed the original blunder of taking the islands, and the succeeding Administrations which have been the legatees of that blunder, have always needed in their Philippine business the support both of those whose votes are caught by the Denby honesty of 1899 and those whose votes are caught by the Denby hypocrisy of 1900.

War is a great silencer of hypocrisy. In the presence of real sorrow and genuine anger, it slinks away and is seen no more until more piping times. The lists of casualties had been duly bulletined to the United States from time to time between February, 1899, and June, 1900, so that by the date last named it had become "good politics" to throw off the mask. Hence, at the Republican National Convention held in Philadelphia June 19-21, 1900, we find that astute past-master of the science of government by parties, Senator Lodge, boldly throwing off the mask thus:

We make no hypocritical pretense of being interested in the Philippines solely on account of others. We believe in trade expansion.

Now the words of a United States Senator are much listened to by an army in the field. When a war breaks out, it is usually your Senator who gets your commission for you originally, and has you promoted and made captain, colonel, or general, as the case may be, if you do anything to deserve it, or lifted from the ranks to a commission, if you do anything to deserve it, or sees that something fitting is done if you die in any specially decent way. An army in the field thinks a United States Senator is about one of the biggest inst.i.tutions going--which, seriously, is not far from the truth, with all due respect to the blase pessimists of the press gallery. Consider then how wholly uninspiring, as a sentiment to die by and kill by, the above senatorial utterance was to the men in the field in the Philippines, who did not even then believe the islands would pay. The "cold, hard, practical" fact was, if the Senator was to be believed, that we were fighting for what is generically called "Wall Street;" that it was primarily a Wall Street war: an expedition fitted out to kill enough Filipinos to make the survivors good future customers--"Ultimate Consumers"--and only incidentally a war to make people follow your way of being happy in lieu of their own. Yet we had most of us, but shortly previously to that, gone trooping headlong to Cuba, in the wake of the most inspiring single personality of this age--Senator Lodge's friend, Colonel Roosevelt--some of our American thoraxes inflated with sentiments thus n.o.bly expressed by the same distinguished Senator in his speech on the resolution which declared war against Spain:

"We are there" (meaning in the then Cuban situation), Senator Lodge had said in the Senate, in the matchless outburst of eloquence with which he set the keynote to the war with Spain--

We are there because we represent the spirit of liberty and the new time. * * * We have grasped no man's territory, we have taken no man's property, we have invaded no man's rights. We do not ask their lands. [302]

What difference, however, did it make to men under military orders, and that far away from home, where American public opinion could not and never can affect any given situation in time to help it, whether they were serving G.o.d or the devil? Everything disappeared but the primal fighting instinct. So the slaughter proceeded right merrily, at a ratio of about sixteen to one, and many a Filipino died with the word "Independence" on his lips, [303] while many an obscure American life went out, fighting under the Denby-Lodge dollar-mark flag of pseudo-trade expansion. Can you imagine a more thankless job? Do you wonder at the song that heads the chapter? Still, war is war, once you are in it. All through 1900 the volunteers of 1899 kept on, cheerfully doing their country's work, not in the least hampered by whys or wherefores, so far as the quality of their work went. They knew that the Filipinos were not heathen, and they were not perfectly clear that they themselves were doing the Lord's work, unless "putting the fear of G.o.d into the heart of the insurrecto"--one of their campaign expressions--was the Lord's work. However, if any of them gave any special thought to the ethics of the situation, this did not in the least affect their efficiency in action, nor their determination to lick the Filipino into submission. When the brief organized resistance of the insurgent armies in the field (February to November, 1899) underwent its transition to the far more formidable guerrilla tactics, they realized that they were "up against" a long and tedious task, in which would be no special glamour, as there had been in Cuba, because the war was not much more popular at home than it was with them. The rank net hypocrisy of the whole situation, as they viewed it, is expressed in the song which heads this chapter. It is an answer to the Taft nonsense of 1900 about "the people long for peace and are willing to accept government under United States." [304]

That is why the Caribao Society do not sing it to Mr. Taft when he attends their annual banquet, notwithstanding that it is the star song of their repertoire. [305] This statement of Judge Taft's, as well as other like statements of his which followed it during the presidential campaign of 1900, would have been perfectly harmless in home politics. It was made in the same spirit of optimism in which a Taft man will tell you to-day, "The people are willing to see the Taft Administration endorsed." But at that time in the Philippines there was no possible way to prove or disprove the statement to the satisfaction of anybody at home--or elsewhere, for that matter. And, under the circ.u.mstances, it was at once a libel on Filipino patriotism and an ungracious belittling of the work of the American army. It was a libel on Filipino patriotism because it denied the loyal (even if ill-advised) unanimity of the Filipino people in their struggle for independence, and was a statement made recklessly, without knowledge, in aid of a presidential candidate in the United States. That it was highly inaccurate was well known to some 70,000 American soldiers then in the field, who were daily getting insurrecto lead pumped into them, and also well known to their gallant commander, General MacArthur, who told Judge Taft just that thing. That it was an ungracious belittling of the work of the army is certainly obvious enough, and it was so considered by the army, and its commanding general aforesaid, who practically told Judge Taft just that thing. But Mr. Root, then Secretary of War, was as much interested in Mr. McKinley's re-election as Judge Taft was. So he spread the Taft cablegrams broadcast throughout the United States during the presidential campaign, and pigeonholed the MacArthur messages and reports on the situation in the dusty and innocuous desuetude of the War Department archives. Four years later at the Republican National Convention of 1904, Mr. Root told the naked truth, thus:

When the last national convention met, over 70,000 soldiers from more than 500 stations held a still vigorous enemy in check. [306]

The foregoing is all a record made and unalterable. It is a fair sample of the initial stages of one more of the experiments in colonization by a republic which are scattered through history and teach but one lesson. All the gentlemen concerned were personally men of high type. But look at the net result of their work. The impression it produced in the United States, at a tremendously critical period in the country's history, when the men at the helm of state were bending every energy to railroad the republic into a career of overseas conquest, and using the army for that purpose, can be called by a short and ugly word. The splendor of Mr. Root's intellect is positively alluring, but he is a dangerous man to republican inst.i.tutions. Mr. Taft's part in that conspiracy for the suppression of the facts of the Philippine situation in 1900 was really due to kindliness of heart, regret at the war, and earnest hope that it would soon end. Mr. Denby's part was that of the out-and-out imperialist who has frank doubts in his own mind as to whether it is axiomatic, after all, that the form of government bequeathed us by our fathers is the best form of government yet devised. But the conspiracy was really a sin against the progress of the world, because it deceived the American people as to the genuineness and unanimity of the desire of the Filipino people to imitate the example set by us in 1776, which has since served as a beacon-light of hope to so many people in so many lands in their several struggles to be free.

By the spring of 1900, when General MacArthur relieved General Otis, the volunteers of 1899 had gotten thoroughly warmed up to the work of showing the Filipinos who was in fact "the boss of the show,"