The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 Part 42

CHAPTER XXIX

THE WAY OUT

Respect for the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland has now taken such lodgment in the conscience of Europe that its violation would inevitably provoke a storm of indignation.

M. de Martens in the Revue des Deux Mondes.

On March 25, 1912, Honorable W. A. Jones, of Virginia, Chairman of the House Committee on Insular Affairs, introduced a resolution (H. J. 278) proposing the neutralization of the Philippines, to accompany his Philippine Independence Bill discussed in the preceding chapter. Such a resolution, accompanying such a bill, both introduced by one of the majority leaders in the House of Representatives, lifts the question of Philippine neutralization out of the region of the "academic,"

and brings it forward as a thing which must, sooner or later, command the serious consideration both of Congress and the country. There have been many such resolutions before that of Mr. Jones. But they are all the same in principle. All contemplate our guaranteeing the Filipinos their independence until the treaties they propose shall be consummated. In 1911, there were at least nine such resolutions proposing neutralization of the Philippines, introduced by the following named gentlemen, the first a Republican, the rest Democrats:

Mr. McCall, of Ma.s.sachusetts; Mr. Cline, of Indiana; Mr. Sabath, of Illinois; Mr. Garner, of Texas; Mr. Peters, of Ma.s.sachusetts; Mr. Martin, of Colorado; Mr. Burgess, of Texas; Mr. Oldfield, of Arkansas; and Mr. Ferris, of Oklahoma.

Because the neutralization plan to provide against the Philippines being annexed by some other Power in case we ever give them their independence would, if successfully worked out, reduce by that much the possible area of war, and be a distinct step in the direction of universal peace, it is certainly worthy of careful consideration by the enlightened judgment of the Congress and the world.

Mr. McCall is the father of the neutralization idea, so far as the House of Representatives is concerned, application of it to the Philippines having been first suggested at the Universal Peace Conference of 1904, by Mr. Erving Winslow, of Boston. Mr. McCall has been introducing his neutralization resolution at every Congress for a number of Congresses past.

The McCall Resolution (H. J. Res. 107) is the oldest, and perhaps the simplest, of the various pending resolutions for the neutralization of the Philippines, and is typical of all. It reads:

JOINT RESOLUTION

Declaring the purpose of the United States to recognize the independence of the Filipino people as soon as a stable government can be established, and requesting the President to open negotiations for the neutralization of the Philippine Islands.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress a.s.sembled:

That in accordance with the principles upon which its government is founded and which were again a.s.serted by it at the outbreak of the war with Spain, the United States declares that the Filipino people of right ought to be free and independent, and announces its purpose to recognize their independence as soon as a stable government, republican in form, can be established by them, and thereupon to transfer to such government all its rights in the Philippine Islands upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, and to leave the sovereignty and control of their country to the Filipino people.

Resolved, That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, requested to open negotiations with such foreign Powers as in his opinion should be parties to the compact for the neutralization of the Philippine Islands by international agreement.

If the McCall Resolution, or any one of the kindred resolutions, were pa.s.sed, and complied with by the President of the United States, and accepted by the other Powers, and the Filipinos were helped to organize territorial governments such as Arizona and New Mexico were before they became States, several such territories could form the nucleus about which to begin to build at once, as indicated in the chapter on "The Road to Autonomy." A number of such territories could be made at once as completely autonomous as the governments of the territories of Arizona and New Mexico were before their admission to our Union. With those examples to emulate, together with the tingling of the general blood that would follow a promise of independence and a national life of their own, similar territorial governments could be successively organized, as indicated in the preceding chapter, throughout the archipelago. These could, in less than ten years, be fitted for admission to a federal union of autonomous territories, with the string of our sovereignty still tied to it, and an American Governor-General still over the whole, as now. And when the last island knocked for admission and was admitted, the string could be cut, and the Federal Union of Territories admitted, through our good offices, to the sisterhood of nations, as an independent Philippine republic. They would not bother the rest of the world any more than Belgium and Switzerland do, which are likewise protected by neutralization.

The idea of international neutralization is not without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity. It was born out of the downfall of Napoleon I. The Treaty of Paris of 1815 declared that

the neutrality and inviolability of Switzerland, as well as its independence of outside influences, are in conformity with the true interests of European politics.

The Congress of Vienna, held afterwards in the same year, at which there were present, besides the various monarchs, such men as Wellington, Talleyrand, and Metternich, solemnly and finally reiterated that declaration. Would not "the neutrality and inviolability" of the Philippines be gladly acceded to by the great Powers as being "in conformity with the true interests of European politics," and Asiatic politics as well?

Says M. De Martens, in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes for November 15, 1903:

Respect for the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland has now taken such lodgment in the conscience of the civilized nations of Europe that its violation would inevitably provoke a storm of indignation.

At present, the Philippines are a potential apple of discord thrown into the Balance of Power in the Pacific. The present policy of indefinite retention by us, with undeclared intention, leaves everybody guessing, including ourselves. Now is the accepted time, while the horizon of the future is absolutely cloudless, to ask j.a.pan to sign a treaty agreeing not to annex the Philippine Islands after we give them their independence. By her answer she will show her hand. The overcrowded monarchies do not pretend any special scruples about annexing anything annexable. Germany very frankly insists that she became a great Power too late to get her rightful share of the earth's surface, and that she must expand somewhither. And only the virile menace of the Monroe Doctrine has so far stayed her heavy hand from seizing some portion of South America. But probably none of the Powers would object to converting the Philippines into permanently neutral territory, by the same kind of an agreement that protects Switzerland.

The Treaty of London of 1831, relative to Belgium and Holland, declares:

Within the limits indicated, Belgium shall form an independent and perpetually neutral state. She shall be required to observe this same neutrality toward all the other states.

The signatories to this treaty were Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Forty years after it was made, during the Franco-Prussian war, when Belgium's neutrality was threatened by manifestations of intention on the part both of France and of Prussia to occupy some of her territory, England served notice on both parties to the conflict that if either violated the territorial integrity of Belgium, she, England, would join forces with the other. And the treaty was observed. The specific way in which observance of it was compa.s.sed was this: Great Britain made representations to both France and Germany which resulted in two identical conventions, signed in August, 1870, at Paris and Berlin, whereby any act of aggression by either against Belgium was to be followed by England's joining forces with the other against the aggressor. So long as human nature does not change very materially, "the green-eyed monster" will remain a powerful factor in human affairs. The mutual jealousy of the Powers will always be the saving grace, in troubled times, of neutralization treaties signed in time of profound peace. If "Balance of Power" considerations in Europe have protected the Turkish Empire from annexation or dismemberment all these years, without a neutralization treaty, why will not the mutual jealousy of the Powers insure the signing and faithful observance of a treaty tending to preserve the Balance of Power in the Pacific? Who would object?

The Panama Ca.n.a.l is to be opened in 1913. We want South America to be a real friend to the Monroe Doctrine, which she certainly is not enthusiastic about now, and will never be while we remain wedded to the McKinley Doctrine of Benevolent a.s.similation of unconsenting people--people anxious to develop, under G.o.d, along their own lines. In 1906, while Secretary of State of the United States, Mr. Root made a tour of South America. He told those people down there, at Rio Janeiro, by way of quieting their fears lest we may some day be moved to "improve" their condition also, through benevolent a.s.similation and vigorous application of the "uplift" treatment:

We wish for * * * no territory except our own. We deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations ent.i.tled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong.

That Rio Janeiro speech of Mr. Root's is as n.o.ble a masterpiece of real eloquence, its setting and all considered, as any utterance of any statesman of modern times. Among other things, he said:

No student of our times can fail to see that not America alone but the whole civilized world is swinging away from its old governmental moorings and intrusting the fate of its civilization to the capacity of the popular ma.s.s to govern. By this pathway mankind is to travel, whithersoever it leads. Upon the success of this, our great undertaking, the hope of humanity depends.

As Secretary of War, "civilizing with a Krag," Mr. Root reminds one of Cortez and Pizarro. As Secretary of State, he permits us to believe that all the great men are not dead yet.

If, in making that Rio Janeiro speech, Mr. Root laid to his soul the flattering unction that the minds of his hearers did not revert dubiously to his previous grim missionary work in the Philippines, where the percentage of literacy is superior to that of more than one Latin-American republic, he is very much mistaken. If he is laboring under any such delusion, let him read a book written since then by a distinguished South American publicist, called El Porvenir de La Americana Latina ("The Future of Latin America"). If he does not read Spanish, he can divine the contents of the book from the cartoon which adorns the t.i.tle-page. The cartoon represents the American eagle, flag in claw, standing on the map of North America, looking toward South America as if ready for flight, its beak bent over Panama, the shadow of its wings already darkening the northern portions of the sister continent to the south of us. To get the trade of South America, in the mighty struggle for commercial supremacy which is to follow the opening of the Panama Ca.n.a.l, we must win the confidence of South America. We will never do it until we do the right thing by the Filipinos. Concerning the Philippines, South America reflects that we annexed the first supposedly rich non-contiguous Spanish country we ever had a chance to annex that we had not previously solemnly vowed we would not annex. We must choose between the Monroe Doctrine of mutually respectful Fraternal Relation, which contemplates some twenty-one mutually trustful republics in the Western Hemisphere, all a unit against alien colonization here, and the McKinley Doctrine of grossly patronizing Benevolent a.s.similation, which contemplates some 8,000,000 of people in the Eastern Hemisphere, all a unit against alien colonization there--a people, moreover, whose friendship we have cultivated with the Gatling gun and the gallows, and watered with tariff and other legislation enacted without knowledge and used without shame.

We should stop running a kindergarten for adults in Asia, and get back to the Monroe Doctrine. There are only two hemispheres to a sphere, and our manifest destiny lies in the Western one. We do not want the earth. Our mission as a nation is to conserve the republican form of government, and the consent-of-the-governed principle, and to promote the general peace of mankind by insuring it in our half of the earth. The first thing to do to set this country right again is to get rid of the Philippines, and give them a square deal, pursuant to the spirit of the neutralization resolutions now pending before Congress. All these resolutions contain the one supreme need of the hour, an honest declaration of intention. The longer we fight shy of that, the less likely we are ever to give the Filipinos their independence, and the deeper we get into the mire of mistaken philanthropy and covert exploitation.

We should resume our original programme of blazing out the path and making clear the way up which any nation of the earth may follow when it will. That path lies along the line of actually attempting as a nation a practical demonstration of the Power of Righteousness, or, in other words, the existence of an Omnipotent Omniscient Benevolent Good (whether you spell it with one o or with two is not important) shaping, guiding, and directing human affairs, such demonstration to be made through the concerted action of a self-governing people under a written Const.i.tution based on equality of opportunity and the Golden Rule.

As a people we are very young yet. It is not yet written in the Book of Time how long this nation will survive. So far, our government is only an experiment. But, as John Quincy Adams once said, it and its Const.i.tution are "an experiment upon the human heart," to see whether or not the Golden Rule will work in government among men.