The Philippines: Past and Present Volume I Part 34

Seven days later we pa.s.sed an act for the establishment and maintenance of an efficient and honest civil service in the Philippine Islands. This measure was of basic importance. We had stipulated before leaving Washington that no political appointees should be forced upon us under any circ.u.mstances. The members of the second commission, like their predecessors of the first, were firm in the belief that national politics should, if possible, be kept out of the administration of Philippine affairs, and we endeavoured to insure this result.

Our tenth act appropriated $1500 Mexican to be paid to the widow of Salvador Reyes, vice-president of Santa Cruz in Laguna Province, a.s.sa.s.sinated because of his loyalty to the established government.

Our fifteenth act increased the monthly salaries of Filipino public school teachers in Manila.

Our sixteenth and seventeenth acts reorganized the Forestry Bureau and the Mining Bureau.

On October 15 we appropriated $1,000,000 United States currency, for improving the port of Manila, where there was urgent need of protection for shipping during the typhoon season.

On December 12 we pa.s.sed an act authorizing the establishment of local police in cities and towns in the Philippine Islands and appropriating $150,000 United States currency for their maintenance.

Two days later we pa.s.sed a much-needed act regulating the sale of intoxicating liquors within the city of Manila and its attached barrios.

On December 21, we appropriated $75,000 United States currency for the construction of the Benguet Road, little dreaming how much time would elapse and how many more dollars would be appropriated, before a vehicle pa.s.sed over it.

It will be sufficiently evident that I cannot here give an account of the several acts which we pa.s.sed when I say that they number four hundred forty-nine during the first year. We created the administrative bureaus of a well-organized government, established civil rule in numerous munic.i.p.alities and provinces, provided for the necessary expenses of government, organized courts and reformed the judiciary. So important were the results following the establishment of the Civil Service Act and the act providing for the organization of courts for the Philippine Islands that I have devoted a chapter to each.

Although there were no limits on our power to enact legislation other than those imposed by our instructions hereinbefore referred to, nothing was further from our desire than to exercise too arbitrarily the authority conferred upon us.

Taylor has correctly described our method of procedure in the following words:--

"On September 1, 1900, the Commission began its legislative and executive duties. In performing them it adopted the policy of pa.s.sing no laws, except in cases of emergency, without publishing them in the daily press, nor until after they had pa.s.sed a second reading and the public had been given an opportunity to come before the Commission and suggest objections or amendments to the bills. Before enacting them they were submitted to the military governor for his consideration and comment." [460]

The other especially important events of our first legislative year were the establishment of civil rule in the munic.i.p.alities as well as in thirty-eight provinces and the subst.i.tution of the military central government by the gradual creation of bureaus and the ultimate appointment of a civil governor and of five heads of executive departments.

On November 23, 1900, we pa.s.sed an act providing for the establishment of a civil government in the province of Benguet, and thus it happened that a province practically all of whose inhabitants were members of a non-Christian tribe was the first to enjoy the benefits of civil rule. This action grew out of investigations by General Wright and myself made when visiting Baguio during the latter part of July, which led us to the conclusion that civil government could be established in Benguet at any time and should be established as soon as possible. In view of the rather primitive state of civilization of the people for whom we were legislating, a special act adapted to local conditions was pa.s.sed providing for a provincial government and fixing a form of government for the several settlements.

On January 31, 1901, we pa.s.sed an act for the organization of munic.i.p.al governments in the Philippine Islands which, with various amendments, is still in effect and has been made applicable to all munic.i.p.al corporations of the Philippines inhabited chiefly by Filipinos, except the city of Manila, the city of Baguio and a few small settlements in the so-called special government provinces. [461]

On February 6, 1901, we pa.s.sed a general act for the organization of provincial governments in the Philippine Islands. A special act was required to make it applicable to any given province.

Having thus prepared for the serious work of establishing civil government throughout the archipelago so fast and so far as conditions might seem to justify, we determined to visit the several provinces and to familiarize ourselves with conditions on the ground in each case before taking action. We invariably sought the opinion of the military authorities as to the fitness of the provinces under consideration for civil rule, and never established it except with their approval. Indeed, in several cases we yielded to their judgment and organized provinces which we ourselves thought might better wait for a time.

Our first trip was to the northward along the line of the Manila-Dagupan railway, and in the course of it we organized the provinces of Bulaean, Pampanga, Tarlac and Pangasinan.

On the 2d of March we crossed Manila Bay to Bataan and established a civil provincial government there.

The first provincial officers were necessarily appointed, not elected. I well remember the consternation which Mr. Taft created on this trip, when in announcing the appointment of a man of strong character who was much disliked by some of the people present, he said that if the appointee did not behave well his official head would be promptly removed. Surprise showed on almost every face in the audience. They had become sufficiently accustomed to the idea of being beheaded or otherwise sent out of the world by their own people, but had been led to believe that the Americans were a humane nation, and it took Mr. Taft at least five minutes to explain his joke.

During the second week in March the commission transferred its officers bodily to the United States Army Transport _Sumner_ and started on a long journey in the course of which it visited and established provincial governments in eighteen provinces, [462] returning to Manila on the 3d of May.

This trip was most interesting but dreadfully wearing. Everywhere we were overwhelmed by the hospitality of our Filipino friends. We arrived at some new place nearly every morning, and the programme in each was much the same. After an early breakfast we hurried ash.o.r.e, drove or walked about for a short time to see what the town was like, and then attended a popular meeting in its largest building, where we held long and frank converse with the people on local conditions, giving them every opportunity to air their views, with the result that the local orators, of whom there were usually more than a sufficiency, had an opportunity to bring their heavy guns into action. Then followed a recess in the course of which we partook of a very elaborate lunch, and when possible conferred privately with influential men, often learning things which they did not care to tell us in public. Then came another open meeting at which the actual organization of the province was effected and the officials were appointed and sworn in. After this there was a long formal dinner, with the endless courses which characterize such functions in the Philippines, and then came a ball which lasted till the wee small hours. When at last we got on board, tired out, our steamer sailed, and often brought us to some new place by sunrise.

In several instances we did not pa.s.s the act organizing a given province at the time of our visit, but for one reason or another postponed action until a later date. We visited a number of places like Jolo, Basilan, Zamboanga, Cotabato, Davao and Samar, where we had no intention of establishing civil government, in order to observe local conditions.

We touched at Marinduque on our trip south, and found that nothing could then be done there, but the better element were anxious for a change, and we promised them that if they would bring about certain specified results before our return we would give them a provincial government. They undertook to do so, and kept their word. Needless to say we also kept ours.

We had grave doubts as to the advisability of establishing civil governments in Cebu, Bohol and Batangas. In the first of these places the people were sullen and ugly. In the second there was a marked disinclination on the part of leading citizens to accept public office. There had been a little scattering rifle fire on the outskirts of the capital of the third very shortly before our arrival there, but the organization of all these provinces was recommended by the military authorities, and we decided to try an experiment which could do little harm, as we could return any one of them to military control in short order should such a course seem necessary.

An effort has been made to make it appear that in organizing Cebu, Bohol and Batangas, we acted prematurely and upon our own initiative, thus complicating the situation for the military authorities. I will let Blount voice this complaint. He says in part:--

"In his report for 1901 Governor Taft says that the four princ.i.p.al provinces, including Batangas, which gave trouble shortly after the civil government was set up in that year, and had to be returned to military control, were organized under civil rule 'on the recommendation' of the then commanding general (MacArthur). It certainly seems unlikely that the haste to change from military rule to civil rule came on the motion of the military. If the Commission ever got, _in writing,_ from General MacArthur, a 'recommendation' that any provinces be placed under civil rule while still in insurrection, the text of the writing will show a mere soldierly acquiescence in the will of Mr. McKinley, the commander-in-chief. Parol [463]

contemporaneous evidence will show that General MacArthur told them, substantially, that they were 'riding for a fall.' In fact, whenever an insurrection would break out in a province after Governor Taft's inauguration as governor, the whole att.i.tude of the army in the Philippines, from the commanding general down was 'I told you so.' They did not say this where Governor Taft could hear it, but it was common knowledge that they were much addicted to d.a.m.ning 'politics'

as the cause of all the trouble." [464]

Prophecy is always dangerous and when unnecessary seems rather inexcusable. I submit the essential portions of the record to show exactly what we did get from General MacArthur, and add the suggestion that it was really hardly essential that he should make his recommendations in writing, as he did, for the reason that he was a gentleman and would not have repudiated a verbal recommendation once made.

On February 5, 1901, Governor Taft wrote General MacArthur a letter closing with the following paragraph:--

"As already communicated to you the purpose of the Commission is to make a Southern trip on the 23rd of February, or as soon thereafter as practicable, with the idea of arranging for provincial governments there, and I am directed by the Commission to request your opinion as to the provinces in which provincial governments may be safely established. It is understood that Panay, Romblon, Tayabas, and possibly one or two of the Camarines are ready for this. What has been said with reference to the Northern provinces applies to these, but we shall communicate with you further as to the Southern provinces when we have been advised as to the possibility of securing a steamer."

On February 9, General MacArthur gave the following instructions to the Commanding General, Department of the Visayas:--

"The Military Governor desires that you report to this office at the earliest date practicable the provinces in your department that may be considered ready for the establishment of civil governments therein and in this connection directs me to say that it should not be considered as necessary that complete pacification has been brought about in a province before reporting it as ready for such government; that the provincial civil governments to be established will doubtless prove useful agents in the further work of pacification."

On February 27, that officer reported that in his opinion Iloilo, Capiz, Oriental Negros and Occidental Negros were ready; that Antique might be in a few days, and that Cebu, Bohol and Leyte were not. These facts were reported to Governor Taft by General MacArthur on March 4, and on the same day Lieutenant-Colonel Crowder wrote to the commanding general of the Visayas:--

"The Military Governor directs me to say that he regards the initiation of provincial civil government as an aid in the work of pacification, in which view it is not necessary that a province should be completely pacified as a condition to the initiation of such government. He has expressed to the Commission the opinion that you may be able, upon their arrival at Iloilo, to submit a supplementary list of provinces in which it would be advisable to establish at once these governments."

Meanwhile General MacArthur wrote on February 13, to Governor Taft:--

"In partial reply to your letter of the 5th instant I have the honor to inform you that the Commanding General, Department of Southern Luzon, reports but one province, Tayabas, as ready at the present time for civil government. I add the provinces of Laguna, Batangas and Cavite, believing that the inst.i.tution of civil government in all these provinces will be in a.s.sistance of the military authorities in the work of pacification."

General MacArthur's communications seem to me to show something more than "a mere soldierly acquiescence in the will of Mr. McKinley,"

especially as the President had no knowledge of these provinces, and never made any recommendation whatsoever relative to the establishment of civil government there.

Similarly, in establishing civil government in Cebu and Bohol, the commission acted on the specific recommendation of the military, and rather against its own judgment. There seemed no very good reason for refusing to try civil government, if the commanding general wanted it tried, and when it failed, as it promptly did, in Cebu, Bohol and Batangas, these provinces were immediately returned to the full control of the military, and left there until conditions became satisfactory.

Having escaped the perils of the deep, and the much graver perils of the dinner table, during our southern trip, we returned to Manila, wearier, wiser and sadder men than when we started, for we had learned much of the superst.i.tions, the ignorance and the obsessions which prevailed among the Filipinos, and we knew that many of the men who from love of country had accepted office under us had done so at the peril of their lives. We had all had an excellent opportunity to come to know the Filipinos. Their dignity of bearing, their courtesy, their friendly hospitality, their love of imposing functions, and of _fiestas_ and display, their childishness and irresponsibility in many matters, their pa.s.sion for gambling, for litigation and for political intrigue, even the loves and the hatreds of some of them, had been spread before us like an open book. It is a fact that except for the inhabitants of Cebu, Bohol and Batangas, the people wanted what we had to give them and were grateful for it. Never before had they had their day in court, and they appreciated it.

The establishment of civil government throughout so large a proportion of the provinces in the islands would have been impossible at this time had it not been for the helpful activities of the Federal Party organized on December 23, 1900, by many of the best and most influential Filipinos in the archipelago for the purpose of aiding in the establishment of peace and order. Its members were tireless in their activities. They succeeded in persuading many Insurgent leaders to lay down their arms, so that a normal condition could be restored in territory which the latter had previously harried. They convinced many of the common people of the true purposes of the American government, and in numerous other ways rendered invaluable services.

The officers and many of the members and agents of this party were promptly sentenced to death by Aguinaldo, and many of them were a.s.sa.s.sinated; [465] but the party persisted in its efforts until success was attained.

During June of 1901 Professor Moses and I made a horseback trip through Pangasinan, La Union, Benguet, Lepanto and Ilocos Sur, accompanied by our private secretaries. Professor Moses was in wretched health as the result of overwork and confinement, and needed out-of-door exercise.

I had been intrusted with the drafting of legislation for the government of the non-Christian tribes, and wanted to learn as much about them as possible, so that I could act intelligently.

We started from Dagupan mounted on horses kindly furnished us by the army, and escorted by four mounted infantrymen. None of us had ridden for years, and army officers were offering wagers that we would not get as far as Baguio. At Mangaldan a cavalry outfit replaced our mounted infantrymen, and while the members of our new escort were resting under the shade of a tree in the cemetery, I heard them voicing joyful antic.i.p.ations of the easy time they were to have travelling with tenderfeet. I made up ray mind to give them some healthful exercise on the trip.

Having first visited the work at the lower end of the Benguet Road and then travelled across country in a driving storm over wretched trails, we reached Bauang, our point of departure for the interior. Here I called the sergeant in charge and asked him where were the extra shoes for our horses. In some confusion he confessed that he had brought none, whereupon I read him a homily on the duties of a cavalryman, and sent the whole outfit to San Fernando to get the horses reshod and provided with extra shoes for the trip.

We arrived at Baguio in a howling typhoon. When we emerged from the hills into the open, and our horses got the full sweep of the storm, they at first refused to face it. We forced them into it, however, and a few moments later had found refuge in the house of Mr. Otto Scheerer, a hospitable German. The cavalrymen and the horses got in under the building. It gave me great joy to hear through the floor the voice of the sergeant remarking, with much emphasis of the sort best represented in print by dashes, that if he had known the sort of a trip he was starting on he would have been on sick report the morning of his departure.

We waited in vain three days for the storm to end and then rode on. Mr. Scheerer, who accompanied us, had sent ahead to arrange for lunch at the house of a rich Igorot named Acop, but when we arrived at this man's place, soaked, cold, and hungry, we found it shut up. He had not received the message and was away from home. Investigation showed that our only resource in the commissary line were some wads of sticky, unsalted, boiled rice which our Igorot carriers had inside their hats, in contact with their frowsy hair. We bolted as much of this as the Igorots could spare, killing its rather high flavour with cayenne peppers picked beside the trail, and continued our journey. In descending a steep hill my horse stumbled and while attempting to recover himself drove a sharp stone into his hoof and turned a complete somersault, throwing me over his head on to the rocks. When I got him up he was dead lame, and I walked the rest of the way to Ambuklao, where we arrived just at sunset.

This once prosperous little Igorot hamlet had been burned by the Spaniards, for no apparent reason, during their flight from the province in 1906, and we found only two houses standing. They were naturally crowded. I was so dead with fatigue that I threw my saddle on the ground, and using it as a pillow, lay down in a couple of inches of water and fell sound asleep. Later the Igorots vacated one of the houses, and placed it at our disposal. I spent the greater part of the night in a contest with an old Igorot woman, who for the commendable purpose of keeping us warm tended a smoky pitch-pine fire, and shut the door, which afforded our only means of ventilation, every time I dropped asleep. Awakened by the stifling smoke I would open it again, but as soon as I dozed she would shut it. I finally solved the problem by lying down with my head sticking out of the door.