The Philippines: Past and Present Volume I Part 59

[349] In this connection note Blount's statement:--

"But we are considering how much of a government the Filipinos had in 1898, because the answer is pertinent to what sort of a government they could run if permitted now or at any time in the future."--Blount, p. 73.

[350] Blount refers to

"The death-warrant of the Philippine republic signed by Mr. McKinley on September 16th."--Blount, p. 99.

Speaking of Mr. Roosevelt's opinion of the practicability of granting independence to the Filipinos, he says--

"Yet it represented then one of the many current misapprehensions about the Filipinos which moved this great nation to destroy a young republic set up in a spirit of intelligent and generous emulation of our own."--Blount, p. 230.

[351] "Here was a man claiming to be President of a newly established republic based on the principles set forth in our Declaration of Independence, which republic had just issued a like Declaration, and he was invited to come and hear our declaration read, and declined because we would not recognize his right to a.s.sert the same truths."--Blount, p. 59.

[352] "The war satisfied us all that Aguinaldo would have been a small edition of Porfirio Diaz, and that the Filipino republic-that-might-have-been would have been, very decidedly, 'a going concern,' although Aguinaldo probably would have been able to say with a degree of accuracy, as Diaz might have said in Mexico for so many years, 'The Republic? I am the Republic.'"--Blount, p. 292.

[353] "The war demonstrated to the army, to a Q. E. D., that the Filipinos are 'capable of self-government,' unless the kind which happens to suit the genius of the American people is the only kind of government on earth that is respectable, and the one panacea for all the ills of government among men without regard to their temperament or historical antecedents. The educated patriotic Filipinos can control the ma.s.ses of the people in their several districts as completely as a captain ever controlled a company."--Blount, p. 292.

[354] "Even to-day the presidente of a pueblo is as absolute boss of his town as Charles F. Murphy is in Tammany Hall. And a town or pueblo in the Philippines is more than an area covered by more or less contiguous buildings and grounds. It is more like a township in Ma.s.sachusetts, so that when you account governmentally for the pueblos of a given province, you account for every square foot of that province and for every man in it."

[355] "In there reviewing the Samar and other insurrections of 1905 in the Philippines, you find him (_i.e._ Roosevelt) dealing with the real root of the evil with perfect honesty, though adopting the view that the Filipino people were to blame therefor, because we had placed too much power in the hands of an ignorant electorate, which had elected rascally officials."--Blount, p. 297.

Also:--

"But we proceeded to ram down their throats a preconceived theory that the only road to self-government was for an alien people to step in and make the ignorant ma.s.ses the _sine qua non_."--Blount, p. 546.

Also:--

"Of course the ignorant elecorate we perpetrated on Samar as an 'expression of our theoretical views' proved that we had 'gone too fast' in conferring self-government, or to quote Mr. Roosevelt, had been 'reposing too much confidence in the self-governing power of a people,' if to begin with the rankest material for constructing a government that there was at hand was to offer a fair test of capacity for self-government."--Blount, p. 546.

[356] P.I.R., 499. 1 Ex. 134.

[357] Ibid., 206. 1.

[358] Ibid., 1124. 2.

[359] Ibid., 204. 6.

[360] P.I.R., 206. 6.

[361] P.I.R., 674. 1.

[362] _Ibid._, 206. 3.

[363] P.I.R., 206. 3.

[364] On July 7, 1898, the secretary of the revolutionary junta in Mindanao, in writing to Aguinaldo, closed his letter with the following formula: "Command this, your va.s.sal, at all hours at the orders of his respected chief, on whom he will never turn his back, and whom he will never forswear. G.o.d preserve you, Captain General, many years." P.I.R., 1080. 1. Every now and then we find a queer use of the term "royal family." This seems to have been common among the ma.s.s of the people. Heads of towns and men of position often used the expression "royal orders" in speaking of the orders and decrees issued by Aguinaldo. For example, the officials of Tayug, a town of 19,000 people in Pangasinan Province, certified, on October 9, 1898, that they had carried out the instructions for "the establishment of the popular government in accordance with the royal decree of June 18, 1898."--P.I.R., 1188. 1.

In October certain of Aguinaldo's adherents in Tondo wrote to him and protested against the acts of the local presidente, who, they held, had not been duly elected in accordance with the provisions of the "royal order" of June 18, 1898. They closed their respectful protest by requesting that said royal order should be obeyed.--Taylor, AJ., 63.

In 1899 an officer of the army in Union Province wrote: "In accordance with the orders of the secretary of war of our republican government of these islands, issued in compliance with royal decree, article 5, published on March 8." On September 1, 1898, the local presidente of the town of Mangatarem, writing to the head of the province, said that he had not furnished the estimates required because the elections provided for in "article 7 of the royal decree of the superior government, dated June 18 last," had not been approved. A young son of a member of Aguinaldo's cabinet, writing to his father in September, 1899, spoke of the "royal decree of June 18, 1898."--P.I.R., 1188. 3. In Romblon, in August, 1898, elections were held in compliance with the prescription of the "royal decree of June 18, 1898," and Aguinaldo approved them, apparently without considering that this was an anomalous way of describing a decree of the dictator of the so-called republic. On March 7, 1899, a general in the revolutionary service stated that an officer had been released from arrest by a "royal order." The att.i.tude of mind which made men speak of Aguinaldo's "royal orders" in 1898 did not change when he fled before the advance of the United States army. His orders remained royal orders. They were again and again referred to in this way.

[365] P.I.R., Books C-1.

[366] P.I.R., 1216. 1.

[367] P.I.R., 1216. 1.

[368] P.I.R., 223.

[369] P.I.R. 1133. 1.

[370] P.I.R., 1137. 4.

[371] _Ibid.,_ R., 1165. 2.

[372] P.I.R., 319. 1.

[373] _Ibid.,_ 3. 33.

[374] _Ibid.,_ 1022. 3.

[375] P.I.R., 1200.

[376] P.I.R., 907. 6.

[377] P.I.R., 39. 7.

[378] The following memorandum to accompany a letter from Senor Don Sixto Lopez, Secretary of Senor Don Felipe Agoncillo, to the Honorable the Secretary of State, written January 5, 1899, clearly sets forth this claim:--

"Pursuant to the action of said congress a detailed system of government has been provided for and is actually maintained in all the portions of the Philippine Islands, except so much of the provinces of Manila and Cavite as is now in the actual possession of the American Army, such excepted part containing only about 3 per cent. of the population of the entire islands and an infinitely smaller proportion of their area.

"From the foregoing it will appear that the Philippine government is now, as it has been practically ever since the 16th of June, 1898, in substantially full possession of the territory of the people it represents."--Taylor Ex. 530 57 KU., Congressional Record, June 3, 1902, Vol. 35, part 6, p. 6217.

[379] Blount, p. 70.

[380] "September, 1898.

"_Decree_

"Although article 11, Chapter 2, of the Organic Decree of June 23 (1898) last, prescribes that the appointment of provisional representatives of Congress be given to persons who have been born or have resided in the provinces which they are to represent; taking into consideration the urgent necessity that said body enter upon its functions immediately, I hereby decree the following:--

"1. The following are appointed provisional Representatives ...

"2. A meeting of Congress is called for the 15th instant, to be held in the town of Malolos, province of Bulacan.

"3. The Secretary of the Interior shall take steps to notify the persons appointed and those elected by the popular commanders in the provinces already occupied by the Revolution, of the call as soon as possible.

"Giv ...."