WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: (Note: Bold and/or underlined words are HTML links. Click on them to see the linked posting/article. Forwarding the postings to relatives and friends, especially in the homeland, is greatly appreciated).
"The HISTORY of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the HISTORY of the present." Ernest Dimnet, 1866-1954, French Clergyman & Author of "The Art of Thinking" (1928)
We Filipinos grew up and were schooled in books, including those on Philippine history, written primarily by American and/or Americanized Filipino authors. History, come to think about it if seriously studied, provides one an understanding of a people, a place, a culture. A history to understand ourselves: why are we what we are? what brought us here - to our current predicament?
Thinking about what transpired in the past provides a history buff a way of linking isolated, if not apparently unrelated events or historical milestones and therefore gives meaning and direction to the “who, what, when, where, how and why” questions concerning such past events. Learning and understanding history help provide a fresh perspective, the identification of a common thread, on recent and current events. Such obtained knowledge when applied to society can help formulate some and fundamental, even radical but necessary, approaches to problem solving of society’s current ills.
As to our Philippine history, I believe and think that the 50-year American intervention, occupation and colonization of our homeland need a deeper rethinking if one wants to understand the seemingly confusing and incomprehensibly perennial predicament of Filipinos in the Philippines.
The restudy of Philippine-American History by us Filipinos should aptly begin with the unknown and underlying rationalization and/or justification by Social Darwinism; the ignored and glossed over shift to expansionism by the formerly anti-imperialist and isolationist America; most especially its dominant racist mindset for both market- and military-driven expansions explained away by the so-called Manifest Destiny towards the Pacific Rim during the later decades of the 19th century.
Note that decades before, America declared and warned the Europeans, through its Monroe Doctrine, that the western hemisphere -all the Americas- was its sole domain, its "backyard."
The gradual shift at the turn of the 20th century from American isolationism to American imperialism, joining the exclusive imperialist club of England, France, Spain,etc. as the new global bully in the block, was demonstrated with the arrival of American armed forces in the Philippine islands, the latter's political trickery towards the Katipuneros.
The native Filipinos who had (have to this day) naïve sentimentality thus faith in the American revolutionary heritage led to their failure to perceive the fading of so-called heritage and the rising new American reality.The new American reality of imperialism, the ordinary American does not recognize/realize it due to his ignorance, imposed its subsequent brutal war against the Filipino natives, and with the subtle Americanization (cultural imperialism) of the Filipino natives -through public education--a new, more efficient and effective method, i.e. cheaper and not requiring American occupation troops in foreign soil (with native military substitutes beholden to the American military) and long-lasting way of re-colonization, i.e. neocolonialism aka neoliberalism, that strongly persists up to the present.
As a footnote, George Bush in his brief visit and speech to the Philippine Congress in 2003 spoke of our homeland as a model for Iraq. Thus America today pursues Iraqi occupation by American troops, now trapped in a quagmire as in Vietnam, after its brief but amoral intervention and invasion, and trying to impose its self-righteous belief that it has the best way for all civilizations and societies; an excuse for its ultimate goal of controlling Iraqi Oil, the second largest proven oil reserve in the world (second to Saudi Arabia). During the 2003 invasion, it is worth remembering that one of the very first places that the US troops took over is the Iraqi Oil Ministry and of course, all its documents.
And the Bush administration can do so thanks to the dominance of a similar ignorance of the American mind.
[A reading of the below articles will demonstrate American racist and self-righteous preconceptions about our earlier generations; and which we were taught to unquestioningly swallow and believe. Fast forward today, it will show that the 2003 invasion and present occupation of Iraq are "de javu" replay of the invasion, occupation and subtle miseducation of the Filipino (our) people; and of course, accompanied by disregard for our national sovereignty and our people, plus exploitation of our national patrimony, in the past and to the present --all facilitated by the consistent cooptation by our educated elite and rulers.]
“The HISTORY of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors.” - Meridel Le Sueur , American writer, 1900-1996"
We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know..." - SOCRATES
"Upang maitindig natin ang bantayog ng ating lipunan, kailangang radikal nating baguhin hindi lamang ang ating mga institusyon kundi maging ang ating pag-iisip at pamumuhay. Kailangan ang rebolusyon, hindi lamang sa panlabas, kundi lalo na sa panloob!" - Apolinario Mabini La Revolucion Filipina (1898)
“Nations whose NATIONALISM is destroyed are subject to ruin.” - Colonel Muhammar Qaddafi, 1942-Present, Libyan Political and Military Leader
“Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent” – Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)
“If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them”. – Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992
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Ever since the Battle of Manila, which left us in possession of the Philippines, after paying Spain $20,000,000, the - question has been "What shall we do with them?" Several ways out of the difficulty present themselves:
To sell the Islands to some foreign power;
To establish a protectorate, over them;
To grant them independence; To retain permanent possession.
The only phase of the question we shall consider here is that of independence. The amount of material on a subject that has been a plank in the platform of our two great political parties in three presidential campaigns is necessarily great, but only those articles have been chosen which concern themselves most closely with the question as stated, and will be of most use to the debater.
BRIEF
Resolved, That the United States should grant the Philippine Islands their independence.
INTRODUCTION
I. It is declared
A. That under our Constitution there can be no dependencies.
B. That retention of the Philippines would mark the beginning of a new era in our national history.
II. Our future policy in regard to the Philippines has been the source of much discussion both at home and abroad.
A. Various methods have been suggested for disposing of them.
III. The question at issue is Shall the Philippines be granted independence.
AFFIRMATIVE
The Philippine Islands should be granted their independence
I. For political reasons:— A. To hold them is contrary to the principles of the Monroe Doctrine.
B. Every nation has a right to self-government. C. The Constitution of the United States does not provide a government for colonies. D. The Philippines do not offer a satisfactory field of activity for young Americans wishing to enter upon administrative work.
II. For economic reasons:— A. The cost of government is very great. B. The resources of the Islands are overestimated. C. Distance from our shores is a great drawback. D. Trade cannot be secured by issuing orders to dependencies. E. They will not prove an advantage in developing trade with China and the East.
III. For military reasons:— A. Cost of keeping a large military and naval force. B. Cost of fortifications. C. They will weaken us in time of war by separating our forces. D. They will be the first point of attack in case of war.
IV.For moral reasons:— A. We have no right there. B. The Filipinos desire and deserve independence. C. They were led to believe the United States would grant them independence. D. They are capable of self government.
NEGATIVE
The Philippine Islands should not be granted their independence
I. For political reasons:A. To hold them is consistent with our past policy of territorial expansion. B. The tropics must be governed from the temperate regions.. C. We are experienced in colonization. D. The Philippines, will open a broader field for administrative ability.
II. For economic reasons: A. The government of the Philippines is self-supporting. B. The résources of the Islands are valuable. C. Telegraph and improved facilities for travel have eliminated the question; of distance, D. They will greatly increase our foreign commerce. E. They furnish a commercial center in developing trade with China and the East.
III. For military reasons: A. The United States must keep a large military and naval force. i. Does not cost more to keep them in the Philippines than in the United States. B. They furnish us a stronghold in the Orient. C. We shall have an army near in case of trouble in the East.
IV. For moral reasons: A. United States is morally responsible for the welfare of the Philippines. B. The majority of the Filipinos do not desire independence. _- - C. Their progress would be retarded if United States should withdraw. - D. They are not capable of self government.
BIBLIOGRAPHY A star (*) preceding a reference indicates that a part of the article has been reprinted in this pamphlet.
REPRINTS
Independent. 51: 2995-3000. November 9, 1899.
Our Duty to the Philippines. George F. Hoar.
In the winter of 1898-9 there was presented to the Senate of the United States by the President what I think the most important question ever submitted by the Executive from the beginning- of our whole history. It was a question which went down to the very roots of the Republic. It was to be decided by an application, not of the principles and policies which determine the ordinary administration of States, but of the principles which lie at the foundation of the moral law, upon which human societies are established, and which determine not merely the conduct of States but forms of government and the rights of States to exist.; We had in the interest of humanity undertaken a war with Spain to put an end to the cruelties committed close to our doors, which outraged the moral sense of mankind.
The result of the war left the United States a great liberator in both hemispheres. We had set Cuba free. We had overthrown the power of Spain in the Philippine Islands. The question came, What to do next?
Our action in regard to' Cuba was decided upon when war was declared. It was decided not as a matter of mere policy, not as a matter to be settled by consideration of gain or advantage to ourselves, but as settled by the eternal principles of righteousness and liberty, upon which the Republic itself is founded, and which determined forever thè righteous law of the dealing of one people with another. If there be anything to which the American people was committed; if there be anything to which President McKinley was committed; if there be anything to which the Republican party in House and Senate was committed down to the first day of January, 1899, it was the doctrine that just governments rest upon the consent of the governed; that every people "has the right to determine its own institutions and form of government for itself, the right to dissolve at will the political connection that binds it to another people, and to seek by its own paths its safety and happiness.
In dealing with Cuba we acted upon these principles according to our pledge made in the beginning. When the treaty of peace was made we exacted from Spain the renunciation of sovereignty over Cuba. We proceeded thereupon to restore order in Cuba; to protect her inhabitants from all foreign intervention and to aid them in establishing their Government according to their own desire. We shall carry out that policy to the end, unless our pledges are broken.
But the treaty unfortunately disclosed a different purpose as to the Philippine Islands. The inhabitants of that group of twelve hundred islands in number were much nearer actual independence when the treaty was signed than ever had been the people of Cuba. They were certainly entitled to be called a people. They had a population of from eight to twelve or fifteen millions—nobody knows how many. They had hemmed in Spain at Manila on the land side, and controlled- more than ninety-nine per cent, of their own territory. Their leader had been brought over to the islands in a United States ship by the United States authorities, and was in arms at the head ,of his forces, with our full concurrence and co-operation.' They had framed a provisional constitution, a model of its kind, establishing a dictatorship like those established by Bolivar in South America, to give place to a Republic, as soon as the military condition should make it possible.
1. Sovereignty over an unwilling people cannot, according to American ideas, rightfully be gained either by conquest or by purchase. That was the doctrine of Thomas Jefferson. It was the doctrine of Abraham Lincoln. It was the doctrine of Andrew Jackson. It was the doctrine of George Washington. It was the doctrine of Charles Sumner. Our friends talk about Alaska, They talk about Florida. They talk about Louisiana. There was in neither of those territories when we acquired it a people capable of governing them. The few scattered settlements did not constitute a people capable of Acting together in any political capacity. In the cases of Louisiana and Alaska and the territory obtained from Mexico, the few dwellers in those sparsely settled and generally uninhabited regions were entirely content to come to us. They were acquired with the expectation that they would be parts of the Republic, and would become in time equal, self-governing and powerful States.
How idle to cite those cases as indicating our right to conquer a reluctant people, to be held forever, as the advocates of that conquest now are proclaiming, as subjects and not as equals. When the President said that forcible annexation, according to our American code of morals, would be criminal aggression,-was he a copperhead? Was he disloyal to the flag? Was not he Republican? Was there ever an utterance so calculated to give courage to Aguinaldo and his people as that? When he said: "Human rights and constitutional privileges must not be forgotten in the race for wealth and commercial supremacy. The Government of the people must be by the people and not by a few of the people. It must rest upon the free consent of the governed and all of the governed.
Power, it must be remembered, which is secured by oppression or usurpation or by any form of injustice is soon dethroned. We have no .right in law or morals to usurp that which belongs to another, whether it is property or power," was he indulging in invective? Was he disloyal? Was he a square man? Was he a Little American? President McKinley, said at Pittsburg that until the treaty were ratified we had ' no authority beyond Manila city, bay and harbor. If we had not, who had? Had Spain? There was not a square mile of that whole territory that was. not then the undisputed and lawful and peaceful possession of the Philippine people.
2. Spain had no right to sell, and no actual title could we wrest from her.
3. The people of the Philippine Islands had control of their own territory when Spain was asked to capitulate at Manila, except one town- which they were investing on one side and we on the other.
4. They had restored order and peace throughout the islands.
5. They had already planned a Republican form of Government and framed a constitution, to take effect as soon as-the war was over. . ,
6. The dictatorship established by Aguinaldo was only temporary and provisional. It was just such a dictatorship as was established by Bolivar in the South American republics when they revolted from Spain, and as existed in Massachusetts under the Committee of Safety, in the five years preceding- the Constitution of 1780.
7. They are not savages. One high authority says— I think the statement is- an exaggeration—there is less illiteracy there than in Massachusetts. But there is doubtless less illiteracy than there was, quite likely, in some American States.
8. The charges against Aguinaldo have been refuted again and again on thè authority of the advocates of Imperialism themselves. Did the American commander carryback in his ship a traitor, corrupt and venal, to take again " the leadership of his people?
9. It can be of no advantage to our trade to conquer these people. The most earnest advocates of this policy of acquisition declare that we are to get hereafter oui' full share, even of the trade of Europe; that we are to maintain the open door policy in. the Philippines, where all nations are to be on terms of legal equality. Their whole trade will never be worth what it will have cost us, and we are to contend for it hereafter, according to these people, on equal terms, weighted down : as we shall be by this ineradicable hatred which our conduct has engendered.
United States. 62'd Congress, 2d Session. House Report, 606.
Independent Government for the Philippines.
When, the existing law was being considered by the Committee on Insular Affairs 10 years ago some of its advocates testified that a majority of the educated and substantial people of the Philippine Islands, whose opinions the Federal Party was said to represent, favored the permanent annexation of the islands to the United-States. A prominent Filipino who at one time occupied the position of secretary of state under the Malolos government, of which Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo was the president, but who subsequently, and at that very time, was an officeholder under the Taft Commission, claiming to be the authorized spokesman of the Federal Party, testified at the committee hearings that a majority of all the Filipino people favored American annexation rather than independent self-government.
Whatever influence this testimony may have had in shaping the Philippine legislation of 10 years ago, it should certainly have none in this day and generation, for the Federal Party itself, the only political organization in the Philippine Islands ever favoring permanent annexation, has long since ceased to exist, and its succcessor, the Progresista Party, is quite as outspoken in its advocacy of independence as is the Nacionalista, which has always stood for an independent self-government. There is, therefore, today practically, if not absolutely, no division of sentiment among the civilized, Christian inhabitants of the Philippine Archipelago in respect to this question, whatever may have been the case a decade ago. The highest aspiration, the one great, overmastering desire of the Philippine people is to see their country free and independent.
The blood shed and the untold privations for years endured for freedom's sake by this, the only Christian people in the vast Orient, abundantly testified in the past to their longing for independence. The unparalleled and phenomenal spread of education throughout the archipelago in recent years, a larger participation in public affairs, a wider and more intimate knowledge of the problems of government, and the valuable experience gained through actual practice in a popular legislative assembly have not only contributed immensely toward preparing the Filipinos for the exercise of self-government, but have at the same time quickened and intensified their desire to become a free and independent people.
It is doubtful if there is to-day any considerable or appreciable public sentiment in the United States favorable to the permanent retention of the Philippines. When these islands were first acquired, and for a few years thereafter, there was a more or less prevalent belief that their permanent retention would prove of great commercial advantage to the United States. It is true that during the past two years, those in which Philippine products have had free access to the markets of the United States, the value of the trade between the two countries was materially .increased, and yet if every dollar in value of the merchandise imported into the Philippine Islands from the United States during the fiscal year 1911 had been clear profit to the American manufacturer, the sum total would not have equaled the cost to the people of the United States of the maintenance for a single year of our military establishment in the Philippines. The total value of the importations, exclusive of those for the use of the Army, Navy, and the. Government of the Philippine Islands, and for government-aided railroads, all of which were free of duty, was $15,052,808, while the value of the Philippine products exported to the United States during the fiscal year was $16,813,864. Thus it is .apparent that the combined values of the exports and imports for the year 1911 do not equal in amount the total annual cost of the Philippine Islands to the American people. So the commercial argument which at one time was vigorously advanced in favor of the permanent retention of the Philippine Islands has now been practically abandoned.
Those who oppose fixing a definite time at which the Philippine Islands shall acquire their independence, although professing to favor their ultimate independence, .base their opposition upon the assumption that the Filipinos are not as yet capable of governing themselves. The facts, or alleged facts, relied upon to establish their incapacity for self-government are («) that the Philippine population is made up of many different tribes, inhabiting different islands, or different parts o/^the. same islands, and speaking different dialects or languages; (b) that because of this isolation and difference of language they possess no common means of intercommunication ;(c) that a number of these tribes are uncivilized and unchristianized and will always remain so and that the Moros, the most savage and adventurous, as well as the. most numerous, of the wild tribes, can never be brought to live peaceably under any government which may be established by Christian Filipinos; and, lastly (d}, that the percentage of illiteracy, even among the Christian inhabitants, is too great to permit of any intelligent administration of government.
In fine, it is contended that, wanting in education and civilization and lacking a common religion and a common language, it follows that the Philippine people have not that community of thought, of feeling, and of interest, that national unity and spirit, or that intelligence and educational capacity, essential to the successful establishment and permanent maintenance of a free, autonomous, and stable government. According 'to the census of 1903, the population of the Philippine Islands was 7,635,426. Of these, 6,987,686 are classified as' civilized. Only 647,740 are described as wild or uncivilized. Of the so-called uncivilized tribes, 277,547 are Moros, who inhabit the southeastern and western portions of the island of Mindanao, which is the southern-most and next to the largest of all the islands, and the islands of the Sulu group; 211,520 are Igoro^s dwelling in northern Luzon; 56,189 are Bukidnon* of the ^Province* of Agusan, in 17 eastern Mindanao and the remainder are scattered in small groups throughout the islands.
These official figures indisputably prove that the vast majority of the Philippine people are civilized, and many of the most beautiful cathedrals to be found anywhere in the world, as well as other substantial and costly church edifices scattered throughout the civilized portions of the islands, attest most strongly to the deep religious character of the Filipinos. But even were it admitted that the Moros are intractable and incapable of civilization, the census figures show that they constitute less than 4 per cent—or, to be .exact, just 3.7 per cent—of the whole population of the islands. Indeed, these figures show fhat they are actually outnumbered by the civilized Filipinos, of Mindanao, notwithstanding that 226,158 of the 277,547 Moros (2,323 of whom are themselves civilized) dwell in that island. It is a fact not generally appreciated, if known, that 296,845 Christian Filipinos also inhabit the island of Mindanao. In Zamboanga, in the Moro Province, one of the most delightful of the cities of tlie Philippine Archipelago and the fourth high commercial importance, there were 44,322 inhabitants in the year 1903, almost equally divided between Christians and non-Christians.
These facts conclusively prove that the Moros may well be regarded as a negligible quantity in considering the question of the capacity of the. Philippine people for self-government. But the work of education and civilization is progressing even among the Moros, with far better results than any of the historians, and writers- up'on this subject of a decade ago believed to be possible. Sit is true, of course, that the Philippine Archipelago is composed of many islands, and that there is no native language which is universally spoken. A large majority of the whole people, however, speak either Tagalog, Visayan, or Ilocano, which are the three principal languages of the islands. Nearly half of the Christian population or 3,219,030, are Visayans, and there are 1,460,695 Tagalogs in the island of Luzon, to say nothing of the members of her tribes who to the number of 2,000,000 speak Tagalog. For 300 years the official language of the Philippines has been Spanish, and whilst the percentage of the rural population speaking it was never very large, it was, nevertheless, spoken throughout the archipelago by the educated and office-holding classes and is quite universally spoken in Manila and other cities and large towns.
There has been a noticeable disposition in some quarters to create the impression that the Filipinos are an ignorant and illiterate people. This was very far from the truth, even prior to American advent. The late James A. Le JRoy, who, for two years was connected with the Philippine Commission, and who, therefore, possessed exceptional opportunities for securing information upon the subject, says in his admirable book on the Philippines, published in 1905, that "approximately one-half the Christian population over 10 years of age is literate," and that this included ''the people of the most backward and outlying Christian settlements in the mountains of north central Luzon, in unsettled islands like Mindoro and Palawan, and on the outskirts of Mindanao." In the Tagalog Provinces, wihere the percentage of literacy is highest, it is stated by this author that the number able to read "is something over 70 per cent of the population above 10 years of age." This was seven years ago, and before the American system of education was fairly underway.
Among other arguments advanced against granting the Filipinos independence is their alleged lack of homogeneity. The truth is they are more homogeneous than the people of the United States. The Director of the Philippine Census, Gen. J. P. Sanger, United States Army, says in his chapter on Population: As compared with the schedules of the Twelfth Census of the United States, those of the Philippine Census are somewhat simpler, the difference being due mainly -to the more homogeneous character of the population of the Philippine Islands. The Filipinos are not so lacking in administrative ability and in actual experience in government as has been frequently represented. There were Philippine deputies in the Spanish Cortes during portions of the first hajf of the nineteenth century, and in the year 1820 seventeen Filipinos sat in the Spanish Parliament.
The Philippine constitution, written by Apolinario Mabini, and proclaimed by the Malolos Government in 1899, is justly regarded as a notable intellectual achievement. Among those who represented the Philippine Republic, established by Gen. Aguinaldo in 1908, in "the Malolos Congress were many Filipinos of learning, great ability, and unquestioned patriotism. A number of these have held, and others are still holding, positions of trust and responsibility under the present Government. Two of its members have since been commissioned to represent the Philippine Islands in the capacity of Resident Commissioners to the United States, and one of them is torday occupying a seat on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Dr. Schurman, the distinguished president of Cornell University, who was-a member of the first Philippine. Commission, and therefore qualified to speak upon the subject, wrote of the Filipinos 10 years ago;
But whatever be done with them (the Mohammedans) the civilized and Christianized democracy of Luzon and the Visayans desire independence. They are fairly entitled .to it, and united as they now are, I think they might very soon be intrusted with it. In their educated men, as thorough gentlemen as one meets in Europe or America, this democracy of 6,500,000 Christians has its foreordained leaders.
That there are many highly educated and thoroughly cultured Filipinos has not been, and will not be, seriously questioned. ...
The free principles upon which the American Government is founded are wholly incompatible with the idea of holding and governing against their consent any people who aspire to independence and are capable of governing themselves. Moreover, the policy of the United States has always been against expansion beyond the seas. Such expansion as has marked the marvelous growth and progress of the United States has until very recently been over lanci and confined to this continent. It has embraced contiguous territory inhabited by a homogeneous people, and never land in another hemisphere, separated from us by thousands of miles of water and inhabited by an alien people differing from us in manners, customs, civilization, and race.
The incidents which led up to the War with Spain had not the remotest connection with the Philippines. It was not a war of conquest. It was a war waged to free from intolerable oppression a people almost within sight of our shores and not one to bring under the dominion of the United States a people struggling for their liberties and residing upon the opposite side of the globe. The Spanish-American War was fought to free Cuba and not to enslave the Philippines; to erect a republic in the Occident, not to establish a subject colony in the Orient. From the very beginning the Filipinos never welcomed American sovereignty. They accepted it only when unable longer to resist the superior strength of the United States. The late President McKinley declared in a speech delivered in the city of Chicago that "the War with Spain was undertaken, not, that the. United States should increase its territory, but that oppression at our very doors should be stopped."
Secondary only in importance to the high moral questions of principle and right involved in the indefinite retention of the Philippine Islands is that of their constant menace to the peace and well-being of the American people. Instead of constituting a source of strength to the United States in th'e event of war with a first-class naval power, they would, by reason of their geographical position, become one of great weakness. To fortify and defend all the principal ports of the Philippine Islands would require more money, ships, armies, munitions of war, and supplies than even a country possessing the enormous resources of the United States could command, and if, therefore, the purpose in holding the Philippines is merely to maintain in the Orient a base for military and naval operations, then that purpose can much more readily, and more effectively, be accomplished' by retaining only the naval bases, harborage waters, and coaling stations provided for * in the measure under consideration. "
As to whether or not the United States could successfully defend the Philippine Islands against a first-class naval power, that' is a question about which there may be honest differences of opinion. That their defense, whether ultimately successful or not, would involve the sacrifice of tens of thousands of American lives and the expenditure of vast sums of money does not admit of two opinions. That it would mean the destruction of American commerce on the high seas and the prostration of all legitimate American enterprise and business during- the continuance of the war will hardly be denied. It-has recently developed, however, that it is the opinion of our military experts that it would not be expedient, in the event of war with any strong naval power, for the United States to attempt to defend the Philippines.
The policy of the United States in such an event will be. we are told, to abandon the islands, and, for the time being at least, to leave them to their fate. If this is to be accepted as the .policy and purpose of the United States, then it is difficult to understand of what advantage the fortification of the islands, or any one of them, can possibly be to this country in case of a foreign war. On the contrary, it would seem to be the part of wisdom to discontinue at once the expenditure of the vast sums which Congress is annually asked to appropriate for the fortification of the islands, and the maintenance there of a large body of troops. Whether in the event of War our troops are voluntarily withdrawn as a wise strategic or precautionary measure, or they are driven out or captured by a superior hostile force,the result will be the same. The fortifications which have been constructed, and, those now in course of construction, will fall into the hands of the enemy, and will render more difficult the ultimate recovery of the islands should any attempt be made in that direction. If, therefore, the opinion expressed by the Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs is shared by other military authorities, and there is little room, for doubt as to 'this, then a decent regard for national pride,- if no higher consideration, would seem to dictate that the sooner we withdraw from the Philippine Islands, and relinquish sovereignty over them, the better it will be for the people of the United States.
Estimates vary widely as to the cost to the United States of maintaining American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands. It will never be possible to compute with any degree of accuracy what the total cost has been from the date of American advent up to the present time. The late Senator Hoar declared more than io years ago that the United States had expended up to that time the enormous sum of $600,000,000, and his figures have never been successfully challenged. Within the past 10 years the United States have expended many millions in the islands for strictly military purposes. More than $10,000,000 have been expended within that period in the construction and equipment of fortifications alone.
The mean number of troops maintained by the United States in the Philippines during the fiscal year 1911 was 17,3/0» of whom 12,277 were Americans and 5,093 natives. It is estimated that it costs the Government $1,500 annually to maintain each soldier in the foreign service. Computed upon this basis the cost alone of maintaining the military forces in the Philippine Islands last year was over $26,000,000. It would be difiicult to even estimate what part of the naval expenses of the United States, should properly be chargeable to this account. It is probably safe to affirm, that the sum which would be annually saved, under the conditions of peace and tranquillity which now prevail, were the United States to relinquish sovereignty over the Philippine Islands, would not fall much short, if any, of $50,000,000.
Arena. 41: 231-3. February, 1909. a. Democracy of Anti-imperialism.
R. E. Bisbee.
A stirring address made by Thomas Mott Osborne before the Chautauquan convention] in which he said:
To keep the islands for the mere sake of increasing our territory is silly; to keep them for the purpose of robbing them of their wealth is wicked. There remains one other consideration along this line, for there is wealth also to be secured without robbing—this wealth comes from honest legitimate trade. If there were time this point is worthy of development at length; but I must simply point out that the wealth of commerce—the honest wealth that comes to both sides through the natural exchange of commodities—can be just as well carried on and better with a friend as with a master. When Massachusetts was an unwilling dependency of England she refused to trade with the mother country; when the United States was at war with England in 1814 Massachusetts almost severed the Union rather than give up her trade with her old enemy. You cannot gain or secure the blessings of trade by issuing orders to dependencies, or even by treaties; for trade is done between individuals for the benefit of both parties and you cannot force individuals to trade where they do not wish to. Trade will be far better between the United States and the Philippines if the latter are set free, than if they are unwillingly held.
"Next we come to the arguments based upon nobler grounds—the welfare of the Filipinos" and the point is urged that we must maintain our rule over the islands because they are unable to uphold a government of their own. If we should withdraw, anarchy would ensue. The first answer is that ive have no right to assume anything of the kind; the second is that anarchy .is to be preferred to tyranny. So the anarchy argument fails whether looked at from the historical or the ethical point-of-view. As an historical fact, what we mean by anarchy in this case— serious social confusion—has been again and again the outward evidence of deep-seated movements which result in the formulation of some system of government best fitted for the time and circumstances. Never yet in the world's history has one nation been ultimately successful in forcing upon another its own civilization and ideals. The Philippines are entitled to their own form of development be it what we call anarchy or progress.
"Next we are told that we must hold the islands to prevent them being seized upon by some other power --Great Britain, Germany or Japan." This argument is no less flimsy than the others. One might begin by hazarding the suggestion that if it's a question of the Filipinos being held in subjection by some one, perhaps the inhabitants might prefer to choose their guardian, possibly they would gain by the rule of Japan or Great Britain rather than 'benevolent assimilation' by the United States. Why should we assume -that our particular rule is so necessary to the Philippines? Has it spared war and bloodshed? Does it satisfy the people of the Islands? Have we \een so successful in perfecting the details of our own fornrspf government that we are justified in deciding upon those for other people? And if these are answered satisfactorily, there still remains the fact that nothing could be simpler than to take the Philippines under our protection and say to every nation in the world, 'Hands off!'
"Next comes the argument that it is our duty to civilize and educate the inhabitants of the islands; with or without the implied admission that they are to be set free some time or other. If the true education of a people consists in material things—in good roads, fine bridges, uniformed police—all those wonderful evidences of administrative efficiency such as are to be seen in India, for example, then I grant that it can probably be produced in the Philippines under our rule much quicker than by home rule; a veneer of civilization under imperialism is comparatively easy to produce—there were no sights more impressive than the relics of Roman government of old or of British imperialism of today—but was not that the veiy kind of civilization which our ancestors spurned when they threw away the comforts and refinements of English sovereignty.
Education of a sort can be forced wherever you have the power—there are no places in the world so offensively and tragically clean as your prisons; but is that the education we demand for our children, or would accept even at the point of the bayonet? What business have we to go to the other side of the globe, to a land where by accident we have the power, and say, 'These are our ideas of what is good for you; and we propose tocivilize and educate you according to these ideas. You must submit—because we are stronger than you, and can beat you and, if necessary, will beat you into submission. England has been trying "this sort of thing in India for over a hundred years; and doing it much better than we can ever hope to do it. Is it a success? India is seething with discontent."
North American. 174: 606-12. May, 1902.
Opportunity of the United States. Andrew Carnegie.
The American people need only to be satisfied upon one point: Is it not our duty to continue forcing our rule upon these six and a half millions of Christian people, for their good?
If all our people really knew the Tropics, and had seen the result of foreign rule there, or had read its history, the question would be answered as soon as stated. All history teaches that the influence upon the inferior race of such members of a superior race as go to the Tropics, is injurious to both. Where a superior race can go freely, and settle.a land hitherto inhabited by an inferior race, as our race settled here among the Indians, genuine good is done—but even when not to the Indians, but to the cause of civilization as a whole. If is a step in advance. To a superior race no portion of the earth is closed which it can populate, and which it can make its dwelling-place. If Americans could and would go, in great numbers and of all classes, and make their permanent homes in the Philippines, their doing so would undoubtedly result in progress there.
As a matter of fact, there will go to the Philippines a few male adventurers, who, not being able to succeed here, will try abroad. There will have to go 40,000 soldiers; but let any one who has travelled the Tropics tell you of the malign influence an army has upon the natives, and of the not less serious influence exerted upon an army by its situation there. Contact is ruinous to both races. I have travelled round the world and talked to many people in the Tropics. India is a good illustration of the rule of our race over alien races. The British are the best governors of dependencies, and they have been in India for more than, two hundred years, time enough, one should think, to educate a people sufficiently to give them a trial of self-government. Yet, if Britain left India today she would leave behind scarcely a trace of her influence. .Railroads, telegraphs, and canals would remain, which might not have been so extensively built but for the British occupation—though even this may be doubted, for the Indépendence of a people stimulates action and ensures progress.
There is another important point. After two hundred and more years of occupation, it is still necessary for Britain to keep seventy thousand British troops in India, besides many Indian troops which are sent to regions far from their native homes, so as to be among strangers, and therefore trustworthy as oppressors. And, pray, let my readers mark this: Not one piece of artillery is given to any native regiment. That would never do. Why? Because no invader can ever trust the oppressed not to strike, when opportunity offers.
The aspirations of a people for self-government may be suppressed for a time, but seldom if ever eradicated. We all remember the fearful Mutiny. Britain sits today upon a volcano. Many of the educated Indians have learned English in the schools. Those to whom I talked, knowing I was an American and not a Briton, quoted American ideas, and referred to Washington and the War for Independence, and always ended by saying: "Some day we shall be free like you." It was a crime to teach the slave to read—a mistake to teach the people of India English. We prohibited the reading of the Declaration of Independence in the Philippines last Fourth of July. To the incredulous reader let me repeat this fact. It is on record and acknowledged by our officials. We are engaged in work which requires suppression of American ideas hitherto held sacred.
All communities, however low they may be in the scale, have the germ of self-government. Without this they could not exist; there could not be communities. No tribe, not even the Africans, the most warlike of all; lïfe has its governors, orders and degrees. Whether a people are fit for self-government according to our state is unimportant. They are fit to improve if they are permitted, and in no other way has man improved in this domain than by experience. Our own race had many centuries of varied success and failure before it reached its present position.As well try to teach a boy how to swim without his sinking out for himself, as expect a people to learn the art of governing themselves by your doing the governing for them. There is nothing so enervating to a people as to relieve them of the task of looking after themselves. They deteriorate with every year of foreign control.
Leslie's Monthly. 48: 75-85. May, 1899.
Are the Filipinos Civilized? Felipe Agoncillo.
I venture to summarize as follows the arguments I have presented in detail elsewhere, in favor of the independence of the Philippine Republic:
1. The United States not having received from the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands authority to pass laws affecting them, its legislation as to their welfare possesses no binding force as against my people.
2. American authorities elsewhere cited demonstrate that the Philippine revolution was never more threatening than immediately before the breaking out of the Spanish- American war, five thousand revolutionists, being encamped near Manila three weeks before the American declaration of war, this army acting (though he was personally absent) under the direction of General Aguinaldo, in whom the consular representatives of the United States reposed the highest confidence.
3. The purpose of the revolution was independence, and, understanding this, the United States encouraged the revolutionists to believe their desires would attain fruition. This has been shown by citations from the archives of the State Department.
4. The Philippine Republic was entitled to receive from the United States recognition as an independent nation before the signing of the protocol with Spain, that government knowing that Philippine independence had been proclaimed in June, a government de facto and de jure established, laws promulgated, and Spain's further domination impossible, being acquainted with all these facts immediately upon their transpiring, through documents and written reports submitted to it by its officers.
5. The American Government has had in its possession for months evidence of the actual independence of the Filipinos.
6. Spain, could not deliver possession of the Philippines to the United States, being herself ousted by their people. Spain having no possession (except minor garrison posts), and no right of possession in the Philippines, could confer no right to control them.
7. Spain having no possession(except minor garrison posts), and no right of possession in the Philippines, could confer no right to control them.
8. American purchase of public buildings, etc., in the Philippine Islands was ineffective, because the islands, having been lost by Spain to the Philippine Republic, the last named government had already by conquest acquired public property.
9. Secretaries of State of the United States of America (including Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Pinckney) have denied the right of an ally of America to acquire by conquest from Great Britain any American territory while America was struggling for independence. The United States Supreme Court has sustained this view. We deny similarly the right of the United States to acquire Philippine territory by cession from Spain while the Filipinos wrere yet at war with that power.
10. From the foregoing, it would seem to follow that the recognition of the first Republic of Asia by the greatest Republic of America would be consonant with right, justice and precedent.
Congressional Record. 46: 3949-58. March 2, 1911.
Philippine Independence. Sergio Osmeña.
In September, 1898, the revolutionary congress opened its sessions. All the provinces of the archipelago were represented therein. After the work of organization, congress devoted all its time to drawing up a constitution. On the 20th of January, 1899, the Filipino constitution was approved and placed in force immediately thereafter.
If the spirit and letter of this constitution be considered, it will be seen that its provisions contain all the principles of law, order, and liberty contained in the modern constitutions of the world.
In the conditions of order, tranquillity, and progress which prevailed under the authority of the revolutionary government there was clearly displayed the good dispositions of these people for the direction of their own affairs. A decree of Aguinaldo abolishing all gambling privileges and cockfighting taxes, "because they tend only to ruin the people, with slight advantage to the public treasury," was sufficient that the people should give up completely their ancient favorite practices. Crimes and ordinary misdemeanors diminished notably in number. There were enjoyed as in no time entire security, well-being, and content. The parties of bandits which from the most remote periods were accustomed to disturb the order voluntarily disappeared. The spirit of cooperation of the people in the measures of the government for good order and progress was evidenced by the liberal treatment of the Spanish prisoners, the respect to foreigners, the attendance at school, and the return to customary field work, in those places in which the revolutionary condition had ceased.
Nothing can indicate better the capacity of the people for independent government than' the spontaneous adhesion that the same people is giving to the essential democratic principles which inspire the present government and its cooperation in the many steps that have been taken for the betterment of the intellectual, moral, social, and material conditions of the people.
If this people should be lacking in those conditions necessary for progress, doubtless any effort in that direction undertaken by the American Government would have been fruitless. It would not be true to affirm that all the progress realized in the Philippine Islands has been due to the energy and talent of the Government, since without the cooperation of the people, without the practical sense indispensablei to appreciate good, no beneficent work would have been carried successfully to a termination.
The satisfactory state of public order in the islands has been brought about with the aid and efforts of the Philippine people. The work of the American Army doubtless has been a factor in finishing the war and establishing peace, but the maintenance of order and tranquillity after the period of the war is due to the determined attitude and to the decided interest of the people to pursue in peace the struggle for their political ideals and to consecrate themselves to the cause of progress and prosperity destroyed by six years of disturbance. This attitude reveals nothing but good practical sense—the good disposition which this people has of considering existing conditions in the determination of its national convenience.
There has been observed on many occasions a tendency to suppress or postpone the payment of land tax by the municipal or provincial governments, while at the same time they have tried to continue in force that part of said tax destined to the schools, and when this has not been successful the consideration of closing the schools in case of failure to pay said tax has exercised such influence in the provincial and municipal governments that there have continued in full effect the provisions of the law.
In view of the foregoing demonstration, there can be no fear that the Filipino people will maintain itself in ignorance. A people that shows the live interest in being instructed, such as the Filipino has shown before and now, can not constitute a danger for a regular and orderly maintenance of a popular government.
One of the fears of those who considered the Filipinos incapable of popular self-government is that they would not have sufficient discretion to elect to those offices which must be filled by election the best people in the community. The exercise of suffrage by the Filipinos has shown, nevertheless, that they know how to make good use of this privilege. Up to the present the electors have been able to confide public offices to persons who could duly perform their duties as officials. In the majority of cases they are persons of intelligence and responsibility who have known how to justify their election and bring about during their official terms the betterment of their respective towns. An excellent proof of this fact is that with rare exceptions there has not been suspended or deprived of his office any provincial elective Filipino official since American domination.
There is a very general belief against the methods of administration of justice by oriental peopfè, especially when the parties in litigation are not natives, but of other races. The organization of tribunals of justice in the Philippine Islands, and the participation which has been given to the Filipinos in it, have shown the inconsistency of such belief. The Filipino magistrates and judges, whether they have sat together with Americans or alone, can not be accused of partiality or bad faith.
In the declarations made authoritatively of the American policy in the Philippine Islands there has been frequently stated the belief that the islands would be delivered to a bloody and horrible chaos if they should be left to their fate; that the United States has the duty of educating the ignorant masses of the people until they can know their civil rights and sustain them against the abuses of the superior classes and exercise with certainty their political rights; that if the islands should now be left to the Filipinos the probable result would be the organization of an oppressive and cacique oligarchy, which would exploit the inferior masses; and that the educated as well as the ignorant masses of the Filipino people must be, educated in the practice of political power, of which they have not had experience, until the Filipino people shows itself reasonably fit to control a popular government, maintaining law and preserving order and offering to the rich and poor the same protection of the laws and of civil rights.
The first point we must study, because it is the most important condition in the life of an independent government, is the question of order and the method of preserving it. The causes which are indicated as likely to' generate a condition of anarchy, the government being in the hands.of the Filipinos, are: (a) That in all periods, and from the earliest days of Philippine civilization, there have existed in the islands bands of ladrones, who infest, the Provinces and control pacific residents and the forces of the Government; (b) That the profound ignorance of the masses constitutes a constant danger to public tranquillity; (c] that the irresponsible power of the caciques over their ignorant fellow citizens would always be used in cases of discontent for purposes of vengeance and to destroy the peace. Before beginning to consider these characteristics, which are believed peculiar to the present state of the countny, we take note that many impartial observers have written concerning the character of the Filipino people. The Filipino people, according to these observers, who have associated familiarly with them, is pacific by temperament, is inclined to peace, is patient, and at times even indolent in seeking reparation for offenses committed against them when they may be borne. This opinion is proven by history. In the long period of Spanish domination history scarcely records a few local disturbances; not one had a general character, except the revolution of 1896, which reappeared in 1898 and which, as known, was based on political motives.
During the period of the revolutionary government no grave disturbances occurred affecting the interior order of the Provinces comprehended within the jurisdiction of Aguinaldo's government. Nothing, then, may be feared with respect to the public order and public tranquillity which may come from a natural propensity in the inhabitants of the islands for disorder and revolution, as occurs in many countries of Latin origin. There is pointed out as another of the grave menaces which might constitute a constant danger to order the ignorance of the Philippine masses who speak only one of the 15 or 16 Malay dialects, each one of which contains a very limited vocabulary, which offers no means of communication with modern thought and civilization.
We do not desire in any way to deny that there really exists among the Filipino people persons not educated in schools. No one laments this situation like the Filipinos themselves—a situation due to causes altogether foreign to their will. Nevertheless, while it may be said that there are some illiterate people not prepared in the schools, it can not be said that the people are profoundly ignorant. From the fact that there are people who do not know how to read and write does not necessarily indicate that the community in which they live does not know the rights and duties appropriate to a civilized community.
In the official reports there is noted with true satisfaction the natural inclination displayed by the Filipinos for education, the poorest families sending their children to school. There has been a constant increase in the number of children attending the public and private schools, so that in this year it may be reckoned that nearly 700,000 children and youths are receiving an education in the different public and private schools established throughout the archipelago.
There is likewise pointed out as another obstacle to good order and the establishment of democratic institutions and principles the so-called "caciquism" dominant in the country. There is mentioned the fact that in the rural municipalities of the Philippines the whole people is completely subject to the will of some educated person of alert intelligence living in the community, who knows the local dialect and who desires or knows how to excite the fears or the cupidity of his neighbors to organize a p.arty to resist imaginary wrongs or oppression, in order to satisfy vengeance or to obtain a livelihood without labor.
There is mentioned likewise that with great frequency the presidente and other officials of the town make use of their offices to subject the ignorant residents of their respective towns to their control in the sale of agricultural products. The official acts as an intermediary in the sale and takes the greater part of the products of the person he represents. It is likewise alleged that caciquism is revealed in the most flagrant form when the Philippine municipal officials, and even provincial officials, are invested with" governmental power over non-Christian tribes or over others that are not of their" own race distributed through the Christian Philippine Provinces.
The series of acts mentioned which show the existence of the so-called "caciquism" in the Philippine Islands is not truly the result solely of the state of education of the masses, but a natural product of the perversity of man of whatever time and whatever race. The instinct of profiting at the expense of one's neighbor or of satisfying certain passions and taking advantages of other men who may be convinced or seduced is not only a quality peculiar to Filipinos, but a universal human sentiment.
The facts mentioned are not, however, very general nor are they of such gravity as those that occur in more civilized countries. The examples of caciques who have ordered the assassination or the torture of hostile persons are exceptionally rare, or so little known that there has not reached our knowledge specific cases registered in the tribunals of justice. The abuses by officials who take advantage of their official influence to serve as middlemen for some ignorant persons in the sale of ~their products, aside from being few, are assuredly less scandalous than those which are told of officials of independent countries who enter into illicit combinations to permit gambling houses or houses of prostitution, in the profits of which they participate.
In relation to the existence of caciquism, which thrives, as is believed, because the mass of the people is profoundly ignorant, there is likewise expressed the idea that in case of constituting an independent government the educated mass which would form, the government would make of this an oligarchy which would tend to oppress and exploit the ignorant mass. In other words, it would be a government of caciquism. It would not be possible .to ignore this fact, that by the force of circumstances and in virtue of our sociological conditions, the government .must be in a certain manner in the hands of the most capable and intelligent group having knowledge of the science of government and .of society. But far from this being an evil, if this group is to be the element favoring modern ideas always inspired in good and in the interest of the community, if it is to guide the others to conduct them to the object of their aspirations for progress and well- being through the means most appropriate and suitable to it and in the final analysis, it will be but the most faithful and suitable instrument of the will of the majority; there would be no mistake in placing on its shoulders the responsibility of a sovereign people.
The fact that there have occurred examples of abuse and oppression by Filipinos in office of persons belonging to the non-Christian tribes does not indicate a general policy, nor is it the general treatment extended by Christian people to the non-Christian tribes. The reference to these abuses seems to indicate the belief that the Christian people in their relation with the non-Christian people would not be disposed to give to the latter a just and liberal treatment, which would tend to lift them to the grade of civilization acquired by the Christian people. Nothing, however, can present with less accuracy the point of view and the intention which animates the Christian people with respect to those who are not so.
The inhabitants of the Christian Provinces understand that the non-Christian tribes are a very important and valuable factor, not only for the population, but likewise for the defense of the common country. The variety of people which inhabits the islands and speaks different dialects, with distinct religious creeds and customs, are susceptible of forming a true homogeneous unit, which they now have, through ethical reasons, assisted by the chains of common interests and ideals for the objects of progress and civilization. The belief that there is a true rivalry and hatred between the Christian and non-Christian people has been almost always exaggerated; nothing, however, is falser than this opinion. The simple knowledge of the non-Christian tribes of the establishment of the Filipino government in Malolos produced a distinct approximation in the ideas and relations of the Christian and non-Christian people, the latter having presented themselves spontaneously to the authorities of said government, giving it loyal support and recognition. There is, too, the fact that some Christians of Luzon and Visayas have established themselves in Moro territory or in various "rancherías" that live in the mountains from which the most skillful have succeeded in acquiring greater or less fortune.
The true reason for the- dissatisfaction and differences existing between the non-Christian people and the Christian people is based rather on the fact that the non-Christian people believe the Christians allied with the foreign government, anxious to pervert them with a change of their religious beliefs. But religious intolerance having disappeared, the principal factor which caused the existing differences between the two, it will not be difficult to convince the non-Christian people of the islands of the benefits of living under a common régime with the inhabitants of the Christian provinces. We are convinced that a Filipino government is the only one that could reach in a permanent manner and without violence: a definite understanding with the non-Christian communities of the islands, because the latter in spite of the differences of religion and customs, would not oppose, nor could they oppose, the influence of the ethical unit}' and relationship.
The Philippine Islands were acquired by the United States by virtue of the cession made by Spain through an indemnization of $20,000,000 in accordance with the Treaty of Paris. On the date that this treaty was signed a great part of the Philippine territory was in power of a government organized by the Filipinos. The organization of this government' was made with the knowledge, consent, and moral support of the Americans. On the opening of the Spanish-American War, Aguinaldo, who was considered the leader of the insurrection against Spain in 1896, came from Hongkong in an American transport of war, with the object of reopening the revolution against Spain, having been induced to believe that he might reckon on the aid of the American forces.
Although he made no use of the offers that were made to him, practically the attitude of the Americans and the relations that Aguinaldo maintained with them, created the impression that he might consider them as allies. For some time the launches and steamers that were at the service of Aguinaldo displayed the Filipino flag and were not prevented from circulating in the Bay of Manila and some provinces to carry forces and orders to Aguinaldo.
The 13th day of August, 1898, the city of Manila surrendered, and Gen. Merritt, as commander of the American forces of occupation, published a proclamation, in one of whose paragraphs he said that he had not come to the islands to take a piece of territory. From the date mentioned before and until the 4th of February, 1899, the Filipino government maintained cordial relations with the military troops of North America, and all of the differences were regulated through official communications of the representatives of the two governments.
These facts are mentioned with the object of showing that the persistency of the Filipinos in being independent is bound up in the recollections of that short period of their past, in which, associated with the Americans, they threw, down the secular power of a sovereignty and experienced the satisfaction and happiness of governing by themselves their interests and their future.
Congressional Record. 48: 9348-9. July 19, 1912.
Cost of Occupation of Philippines. Wm. H. Taft.
The cost to the Government of the United States resulting from the occupation of the Philippine Islands, through direct appropriations by Congress, is as follows:
a) By the act of March 3, 1901, to carry out the obligations of the treaty of November 7, 1900, covering the cession by Spain to the United States of certain small islands belonging- to the Philippine Archipelago lying outside the lines described in the treaty of Paris, $100,000.
(b) By the act of March 3, 1903, for the relief of distress in the Philippine Islands, $3,000,000.
(c) By the act of March 3, 1903, for completing the census of the Philippine Islands, $351,925.50.
The total cost accruing to tfre Government of the United States for the purposes defined by the three acts cited was therefore $3,451,925.50. There has been no other direct expenditure from public funds of the United States solely for and on account of the Philippine Islands not subsequently repaid from Philippine revenues. On the other hand, there was expended from the revenues of the Philippine Islands from 1898 to 1900, in the execution of the direct military purposes of the United States, a total of $4,975,747-52 for which no reimbursement to the Philippines has beeil made. There is consequently a difference in direct expenditures in favor of the Philippine Islands of $1,523,822.02. Whatever cost has accrued to the United States, in addition to the direct expenditures above cited as a result of the occupation of the Philippine Islands, has resulted from the military and naval operations in and about the archipelago and from the construction of fortifications and naval stations therein.
The cost of the military and naval operations in the Philippines resulting from the occupation of those islands, is and must always remain a matter of argument. These operations resulted in part from the War with Spain and in part from the insurrection in the Philippines incident thereto; but the Philippines were not a cause of the War with Spain, nor is it possible to separate the cost of the war in the Philippines from the cost of the war elsewhere, nor the cost of the War with Spain from the cost of the Philippine insurrection. Again, it is impossible to state what part of the cost of the support of the Army and Navy since the conclusion of the Philippine insurrection can be
regarded as resulting from the occupation of the archipelago. We maintained a fleet in the Orient for many years. It can not be said definitely that our occupation of the Philippine Islands increased this fleet. The military forces now in the islands would have to be supported at home were they not in the Philippines. On at least two occasions their presence there has resulted in saving to the United States in the cost of sending troops to China for the protection of American interests. It is impossible, in other words, to determine clearly what part of the naval and military expenditures in the Philippines is chargeable to the cost of the islands and what part to the cost of national defense. The cost of fortifications in the Philippines can be more readily computed, but this is an item chargeable clearly to national defense rather than to the occupation of the Philippine Islands. If we had a naval station in those islands, as all persons of whatever view propose, such fortifications are necessary.
Aside from the direct appropriations of Congress cited above, the expenditures incident to military and naval operations, and the support of the United States forces in the archipelago, the Philippine Islands have been in no way a charge against the Treasury of the United States.In other words, with the exceptions named, the Philippine Government has been entirely self-supporting. Moreover, it has been throughout self-supporting in a larger sense than any other territorial possession of the United States. All expenses attached to the collection of revenues, to the administration of the Post Office Department and of the courts, to the survey of the islands, to the conservation of their resources, and to the improvement of their rivers and harbors, and to all similar public works, which elsewhere, as in Porto Rico, Alaska, and the Hawaiian Islands, are a charge against the National Treasury, s are and have been paid from the revenues of the Philippine Islands.
United States. 62d Congress, 2d Session.
House Report, 606, pt. 2. Philippine Independence. M. E. Olmsted.
The inhabitants of the Philippine Islands do not constitute a homogeneous people. They are composed of many different tribes, some styled as civilized and some admittedly wholly wild. There are some 15 or 20 different languages or dialects spoken in the islands. In many instances those who speak one dialect can not speak or understand any other. Only about io per cent of all the people can read and write in any language or dialect, and less than 3 per cent possess what we call a fair common- school education. Of the entire 8,000,000, less than 2 per cent, or about 200,000, have been found qualified to vote under existing laws. A few of these, chiefly among the Tagalogs, are very well educated. A smaller number are ambitious to govern, and they have no difficulty in stirring up a very considerable popular sentiment in favor of entire independence. There are, on the other hand, many who- privately, if not publicly, look with fear and disfavor upon such a prospect, for Spain was not able, with all her power, to maintain decent government, and turned the islands over to us in a very disordered condition. It required some time, no small expenditure of money, and, unhappily, some sacrifice of human life, to restore order; but it was finally, restored. U
Under American rule order has been brought out of chaos; the people of the islands have enjoyed better government and more of self-government than ever before. Life, liberty, and property have never been so fully protected as at the present time.
The first governor of the Philippines was William Howard Taft. His administration was eminently successful and he became very popular with the inhabitants. In a special message, which, as Secretary of War, he made to President Roosevelt in 1908, he said:
Any attempt to fix the time in which complete self-government may be conferred upon the Filipinos in their own interest is, I think, most unwise. The key to the whole policy, outlined by President McKinley and adopted by Congress, was that of the education of the masses of the people and the leading them out of the dense ignorance in which they are now, with a view to enabling them intelligently to exercise the force of public opinion without which a popular self-government is impossible.
It seems to me reasonable to say that a condition can not be reached until at least one generation shall have been subjected to the process of primary and industrial education, and that when it is considered that the people are divided into groups speaking from 10 to 15 different dialects, and that they must acquire a common medium of communication, and that one of the civilized languages, it is not unreasonable to extend the necessary period beyond a generation. By that time English will be the language of the islands, and we can be reasonably certain that a great majority of those living there will not only speak and read and write English, but will be affected by the knowledge of free institutions, and will be able to understand their rights as members of the community and to seek to enforce them against the pernicious system of caciquism and local bossism, which I have attempted in this report to describe.
But it is said that a great majority of the people desire immediate independence. I am not prepared to say that if the real wish of the majority of all the people, men, women, and children» educated and uneducated, were to be obtained, there would not be a very large majority in favor of immediate independence. It would not, however, be an intelligent judgment based on a knowledge of what independence means, of what its responsibilities are, or of what popular government in its essence is. But the mere fact that a majority of all the people are in favor of immediate independence is not a reason why that should be granted, if we assume at all the correctness of the statement, which impartial observers can not but fail to acquiesce in, to wit, that the Filipinos are not now fit for self-government.
The policy of the United States is not to establish an oligarchy, but a popular self-government in the Philippines. The presence of the Americans in the islands is essential to the due development of the lower, classes and the preservation of their rights.
At a still later period Hon. J. M. Dickinson, Secretary of War, having made an extended visit to the Philippines, in a special report to the President dated November 23, 1910, spoke of the attempt by politicians, through the press and in other ways, to stimulate a general demand for immediate independence. He said:
While, as stated, these are the only views, publicly expressed, I became convinced from reliable evidence that many of the most substantial men, while not openly opposing the demands publicly voiced, would regard such a consummation with, consternation. They realize that the Government would fall into the hands of a few who would dominate the masses; that the administration, even without outside interference, could not be successfully carried on; that there would be internal dissensions and probably civil war; and that if the United States did not interfere they would fall an easy prey to some foreign power.
The Moro Province is non-Christian and uncivilized, although it has a few intelligent people; They do not consider themselves as Filipinos, and were, when we took the Islands, in a state of war. They are now well satisfied to be governed by the United States, but wholly unwilling to be governed from Manila. When Secretary Dickinson was in that Province in 1910, he visited Zamboanga, where thousands of Moros came in to greet him. The following- are the speeches of a few of the Moro spokesmen, as interpreted into both English and Spanish and stenographically reported:
Datu Mandi spoke as follows, his remarks being interpreted in English by Mr. Edward Schuck: If the American Government does not want the Moro Province any more they should give it back to us. It is a Moro Province. It belongs to us.
Datu Sacaluran spoke as follows: I am an old man. I do not want any Moro trouble. But If it should come to that, that we shall be given over to the Filipinos, I still would fight.
Ulankaya Ujaton said: I am not a civilized man, but I have learned that slavery, killing, and stealing is a bad thing. We do it no more. But, if that it should be that we shall be give over to another race, we had better all be hanged.
Nadji Nungnui spoke as follows: The Secretary of War must look the matter in the face. We are a different race; we have a different religion; we are Mohammedans. And if we should be given over to the Filipinos, how much more would they treat us badly, when they treated even the Spanish badly, who were their own mothers and their own fathers in generation? How did they treat them? Think about it! Think twice! We far prefer to be in the hands of the Americans, who are father and mother to us now, than to be turned over to another people.
Secretary Dickinson was also presented with a set of resolutions, setting forth that "The Moro Province is inhabited by many races and different tribes, with differences in religion, customs, and habits, with a varying degree of civilization," and that "We have the best form of government possible under our existing conditions, and we want no changes at the present time."
The expense to the United States of preserving peace and order under an attempted government by the Filipinos themselves would be greater than under our present control.
Arena. 33: 486-93. May, 1905. America in the Philippines. G: F. Pentecost.
If I have rightly read the matter, the Philippine Islands with all their actual and potential material wealth and political possibilities have been given over to us that we might carry to seven or eight million Asiatic people American civilization, including universal education, political freedom, (which is something quite different from political independence), the modern mechanical arts and sciences, for the development of their vast material resources; better social ideals and conditions, better commercial methods, and especially better and larger knowledge of the love of'God and His great salvation; and that in so doing we might place an object lesson in higher Christian civilization at the front door of Asia and in the face of seven hundred millions of Asiatic people just now being awakened out of centuries of slumber and stirred into new life by the impact on the one hand of Western commercial and political oppression and on the other hand by the active aggressive work of Western missionary enterprise.
To fall back on the old cry, that it is the fixed policy of the American people to keep out of and .avoid all entanglements with foreign powers, European and Asiatic, is both inconsistent with our whole past history and certainly incongruous with our present position as a leading if not the dominant factor in the commercial and diplomatic affairs of the world. Even if our fathers sought to fix and bind us to such a policy, the progressive march of the world would render such a policy untenable. Besides it is essentially un-American to suffer the political dead hand to control the policy of a living nation.
But moreover, we have always been more or less mixed up with foreign powers. We began our political history with a war with England and a treaty of alliance with France. We asserted our rights to interfere in the affairs of foreign nations by our little war with Tripoli. We have interfered with Mexico and secured from her a large and most important share of our home territory. We today claim a practical protectorate over all the South American continent. We were present with our ships, and with England took part in opening the port of Canton in China to the commerce of the world. Alone we opened up the hermit kingdom of Corea and created the open door in Japan and have done more than any other nation to bring about the wonderful awakening of that wonderful people.
We took part with other Western powers and with Japan in suppressing the Boxer rebellion and compelling China to observe the sanctity of diplomatic relations. It may safely be said that if it had not been for the' fact that we had an army in the Philippines and, at that crisis, 5000 soldiers to spare, the disaster impending over the white race in Asia could scarcely have been averted. In the face of these facts, not to mention our recent victorious war for the deliverance of Cuba from the oppressions of Spain, how shall anyone say that we are stultifying ourselves and trampling under foot our most cherished traditions of non-interference in the foreign policies of the world. We never have had such a policy except in an academic sense. As a matter of fact we have from the beginning been foremost among the nations in far Eastern questions and always up to our very necks in Eastern affairs.
Independent. 53: 649-51. March 21, 1901.
Criticism of our Philippine Policy. Charles Denby.
Our legal right to acquire the islands "has never been disputed, except on the lawyers' quibble that an individual cannot buy land held in adverse possession to the grantor. This is an inoperative principle in private law, because the grantee could always have maintained an action for possession in the name of the grantor, and in some States in his own name. As to the city, and bay and harbor of Manila, the argument has no force whatever, because Aguinaldo was never in possession of these, but the Spanish always were until we took possession and they directly delivered all this property over to us.
The third article of the protocol made August 12, 1898 provided that: "The United States will occupy and hold the city, bay and harbor of Manila pending the conclusion of peace, which shall determine the control, disposition and government of the Philippines."
So that after August 13, when we captured Manila we were in the undoubted lawful possession of all this property. As to the territory outside of Manila it is claimed that Aguinaldo had title by possession. Aguinaldo was at the head of an insurrection against Spain.. The independence of the government established by him had never been recognized by any nation. He was simply a rebel without any status under the law of nations. He could not have made title to a foot of ground anywhere in the Philippines.
Suppose he [Dewey] had gone, what would have happened to the Philippines? "No one can tell. Aguinaldo might have held his own, might have conquered Manila, as he conquered the most of Luzon, or he might have been defeated by the Spanish troops. The best opinion in Manila leads to the conclusion that Spain would have overcome the rebellion if we had left her to herself; No man in Manila doubts that if Spain had sent to the Islands the troops which had been in Cuba, . the rebel would have had short shrift.
Overland, n* s. 34: 23-32; January, 1900.
The Philippines—the Oriental Problem. N. P. Chipman.
When so patriotic a citizen and so profound a statesman as Judge Edmunds puts forward the additional cost to our government in holding these island possessions as a reason for withdrawing our claims to them the objection cannot be ignored; and yet we rested the acquisition of the Northwest Territory and California on no such considerations. Governments do not annex territory as a man adds farm to farm. Motives much higher control the minds of statesmen in determining policies looking towards territorial aggrandizement. But let us consider this point for a moment. It is a part of the history of the Netherlands in India that a reasonable tax upon industries not only pays the expense of the army and navy, but there remains a surplus after expending eight million dollars in constructing public works and four million dollars in public instruction. The cost of administration is set down at $24,000,000, which includes the salary of $100,000 to the Governor-General and $100,000 for entertaining; and, numerous salaried officials, native and Dutch, who receive from $800 to $32,000 per annum.
I can conceive no necessity for such extravagance in controlling the Philippines. Mrs. Scidmore informs us in her book of travel in Java that the army consists of 30,000 men, two thirds of whom are natives, and it is only because of the outbreak in Sumatra that makes even this number necessary. There is no large force required in Java, where there are 23,000,000 people: We have a right to assume, I think, that under such government as we shall establish no large and costly army will be required, and no richly endowed list of civil functionaries.
Whether we hold the Philippines or not, it is certain we are to have a large navy. A large part of this navy will find its natural theater of action on the Asiatic coast. The cost will be the same whether our ships have waters and commerce of our own to patrol and protect or whether they are to observe merely the march of progress of other nations. But whatever the cost it can never reach the material benefits which must flow from our occupation of the Philippines. One word as to the danger of being embroiled in European wars by the ownership of the Philippines. Again I invite attention to the example of the Netherlands in India. I believe it was in 1816 when the English finally ceded the islands to Holland. I can point to no page in the history of this century which records that Holland has been involved in any European war by reason of her possessions in the East Indies. I do not recall at this moment that the powers of Europe have engaged in war with each other over any of their possessions in the Orient within1 the last half-century. I can see no European complications which our presence in the East Indies is at all likely to create.
The assertion that we are not a colonizing people because of a lack of experience, is a statement disputed by every line written in nearly three hundred years of American history. "Nothing is truer than that experience is an indispensable requisite in the successful colonization and settlement of any new country. With the American people this experience began, and the education has been continued, from Jamestown and Plymouth Rock down to the present day. In the beginning of that education and experience the Anglo-Saxon served an apprenticeship on the Atlantic seaboard of one hundred and fifty years before he dared penetrate the country three hundred miles beyond the point of his first landing. It took the Puritan one hundred and twenty-five years to ven- ture as far into the wilderness as the present State of Vermont; while Daniel Boone did not cross the Alleghanies until one hundred and sixty years after the first settlement had been made at the tide waters of the Chesapeake. But in these years of apprenticeship, these generations of education, there was bred a race of self-reliant men, trained and equipped with a pioneer experience, a confidence, and a courage, who were to colonize and settle the continent from the Alleghanies to the Pacific. Assuming "the son still equal to the sire," does it not rather suggest that thisVi'rained experience in conquest of new lands has equipped and qualified the American of today, above all others, to successfully colonize regardless of latitude, and to settle regardless of longitude, any new country that may tempt his enterprise with an honest reward for his industry?
It is true that the migrations of men have, ordinarily, been confined to climatic lines of latitude. But in America we find the Anglo-Saxon making permanent and successful set- tlement from the Saskatchawan, in latitude fifty-five degrees, down to as low as latitude twenty-four degrees, at Key West in Florida. In this wide range of changing climate this virile man has proved himself competent to endure and thrive un- der temperatures ranging from sixty degrees below zero, in Manitoba, to that of one hundred and twenty degrees above, in Arizona. No region of the earth of equal latitude shows greater varying temperature than does that found within the 48 boundary lines of the United States. A people so competent to settle thirty degrees of latitude and more than three thou- sand miles of longitude may well ask what natural law pro- hibits their further expansion?
In proof that the Anglo-Saxon is incapable of settling the tropical countries, we are pointed to England's long years of supremacy in India, and her failure to successfully colonize any part of that country.
At the time of her conquest in the Orient, Great Britain found her mainland possessions already swarming with the densest population on the globe, a population where surplus of teeming millions prohibited further settlement, nor did she ever seriously attempt it. But England is now and has been for several decades engaged in the successful settlement of her island and other tropical possessions. She has already successfully colonized and settled Australia up to a point within ten degrees of the equator, and is now rapidly ex- tending her settlements in Africa straight north toward the tropical heart of that continent.
Holland of late years has been rapidly increasing her settlements in Sumatra, until that island now contains a white population of not less than fifty thousand. Sumatra lies directly under the equator, and is universally conceded to be the most unhealthy of the islands in the eastern hemisphere.
Java is a neighbor of the Philippines. Her native popula- tion of 23,000,000 is not unlike that of the Philippines and possesses, as do the Filipinos, many characteristics of the Japanese. There are 48,000 Europeans residing on the island, who are helping to work out the problem of a better civiliza- tion for the people and to develop, the natural resources of the country. The Netherlands in the East India islands furnish a striking example of what may be done by a paternalism not altogether wise, under the direction of a superior race, in the control of these island people. The population of Java increased after 1831 from 6,000,000 to 23,000,000 and the revenue from $1,250,000 to $50,000,000. In 1889 the im- ports of Java were $70,000,000 and the exports $78,000,000.
I would not ignore the New England opposition to the annexation of the Philippines, of which Senator Hoar and ex-Governor Boutwell are perhaps the most sincere and among the ablest representatives. This opposition assumes to plant itself chiefly upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence, wherein our forefathers proclaimed that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and declare that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government."
As civilization has advanced in the world and in its on- ward march has displaced barbarism, it has never halted to obtain previous consent. They who would dispute the fact or condemn the means because violative of the principle of consent would relegate the inhabitants of the globe to a con- dition of irretrievable moral and material chaos. There has ever been, and there will ever continue to be, an irreconcilable conflict between civilization and barbarism, between Christianity and heathenism, between enlightenment and ignorance, between material progress and material sloth and inertia. The world is to be finally conquered and sub- dued by a higher civilization; and barbarism, heathenism, ignorance and sloth must stand aside in its onward march or be extirpated by it.
But let us find out the true meaning of the protest of our fathers as stated in the great Declaration of Freedom. They were then a part of the British Government; they had settled in America under its protection and subject to its guaranties. Their rights had been grossly trampled upon or de- nied them by the government whose sovereignty they cheerful acknowledged; they protested as citizens and subjects against usurpations and burdens which the government had no right to impose without their consent as intelligent and loyal subjects of that government. In accordance with the precedents of history, however, their ancestors had taken possession of the eastern portion of the continent without the consent of the native occupants and rightful owners of the soil; they had erected local governments in disregard of the native population, and they laid the foundation of this Republic in flagrant disregard of the principle of consent to which they appealed in the Declaration; they and their descendants have, in violation of that principle, practically exterminated an entire continent of native tribes and races; and today, after five hundred years, there exists alone in the Indian Territory any recognition of the primitive rights of the original occupants to be consulted as to their form of government, or of the truth that the just powers of govern- ment are derived from the consent of the governed. Let us come a little more closely to the point. For several centuries the inhabitants of the Philippines have been recog- nized by all nations as subjects of the Government of Spain. They had grievances against Spain, not against us, similar to those so eloquently recounted in our Declaration. Had these people possessed in themselves the elements of self- government and the seeds of an enlightened nation, and had addressed a protest to Spain, as the fathers of our Republic did to England, their petition would have found sympathetic response throughout the world. But this was not the situation presented upon our occupation as the result of a war unsought by us. The yoke of oppression was suddenly re- moved, but there was no organized government and no in- telligent source of power for us to consult, or which was capable of giving consent to our exercise of governmental control had we sought consent.^ It is idle to talk about the just powers of government being derived from the consent of the governed under the conditions existing in the Philip- pines upon their cession to the United States by Spain. "Be- fore it was possible even to make provision for the common safety, and before anything could be known concerning the form of government that was to be instituted for these un- tutored and unenlightened people, they broke into rebellion against their liberators and turned the day of their deliver- ance into hideous night of rapine and war. The maxim of the Declaration presupposes a people capable of giving consent; it presupposes a government seeking to oppress its subjects by a system of unjust laws, in the framing of which the subjects have had no part and which have been enacted against their repeated protests. The time has not yet arrived when the principle of consent can find application in the Philippines. It will come when, as the rightful successor of Spain, we shall have instituted and put in force some form of government for these unfortunate people. If, when this time comes, they can truthfully present such an indict- ment against us and our laws, as our fathers did against England in 1776, have no doubt their independence will as surely follow as did ours after the memorable struggle of the Revolution; and it ought to follow. We began the annexation of territory in 1803, without the consent of the people annexed, and the annals of our expansion thus far contain no protest, and in every instance the government we have offered our adopted citizens has met with their approval. In every instance we have had a subsequent ratification, and this is the equivalent of previous consent. I cannot doubt that when the people of the Philippines have reached a point in their intellectual development sufficiently advanced to discern what are the "just powers of government," they will have no hesitancy in expressing their "consent" to the system we shall have established for them.
Mr. Benjamin Kidd has portrayed the importance of the tropics to commerce in the graphic pages of his book "The Control of the Tropics," and his statistics will not be disputed. He calls attention to the salient fact that the northern or temperate-zone countries have found the products of the tropics indispensable to their life, and that they are mostly non-competing articles; and conversely the products of the temperate-zone are indispensable to and generally impossible of production in the tropics. We have here then a most advantageous field for commercial union and and interchange. In the article of raw cotton, of which the British formerly obtained their chief supply from the East and West Indies, the tropics have been forced to yield the market to the United States, the greatest cotton-producer on the globe.
The principal articles consumed but not produced in the temperate zone are coffee, tea, india-rubber, cocoa, and its products, drugs and dye-stuffs, gum, palm oils, and many ornamental hardwoods. I omit tobacco and sugar, of which we must for a long time be importers from the tropics, not- withstanding the cane and beet sugar and tobacco we pro- duce. I cannot stop to give the imports in detail.
Mr. Kidd states that the combined trade of the English- speaking countries with the tropics amounts to forty-four per cent, of their total trade with all the rest of the world. The United States buys from the region embraced between latitude thirty degrees north and south of the equator, $250,000,000 in value or over one third of our entire imports. Our export trade of over a billion dollars is with the topics but $96,000,000. While the balance of trade is elsewhere AS largely in our favor, we have overlooked the fact that this Jr balance is cut down over $150,000,000 by neglect of a region where the British have an export trade of $360,000,000. We are sending large sums of money to the tropics in excess of our exports to those regions, and this money goes back to England to purchase the articles which we ourselves should supply. This is the practical business situation which I am persuaded will rapidly improve, now that our flag, as repre- senting our sovereignty, is permanently raised in the tropics.
Baltimore News. 82: 1-3. February 19, 1913.
Retention of Philippines. Cardinal James Gibbons.
Cardinal Gibbons, in an interview with James T. Williams, Jr., editor-in-chief of the Boston Evening Transcript, which appears in that paper today, expresses his firm opposition to any declaration regarding the independence of the Philippines Islands in the near future.
He says: ''Those islands were taken as a war measure. Some may think it would have been better for us never to have exercised our jurisdiction over them, but once American sovereignty was established in that archipelago, the responsibility for the welfare and development of the Filipinos devolved upon the American people, and upon their shoulders it rests today. I am irrevocably opposed to any proposal that would commit this nation to a scuttle policy in the Philippine Islands today, tomorrow or at any fixed time in the future and I say this wholly in the interest of the social, material and moral advancement of the people of the United States, of whom I am proud to be a fellow-citizen, no less than of the Filipinos themselves."
In the first place, I maintain that the Filipinos the vast majority of them at any rate have never been consulted regarding their independence. The islands composing the archipelago number more than 3000 arid are widely scattered. The people of one island have little or no relation with the inhabitants of another. No attempt has been made to ascertain the views of these segregated groups upon the question so vital to them as to whether they shall be turned adrift to shift for themselves. There has been no plebescite, and it would require days and weeks for them to gather and register their opinions on the subject.
"Up to the present moment the Filipinos have no conception of the honor and responsibility which it is now proposed to thrust upon them. I hold it to be unreasonable in the extreme to impose both upon men who have not even been consulted as to their wishes and have no adequate conception of the duties and responsibilities involved in giving them their independence.
"But even could it be demonstrated that a large number of Filipinos desired that independence, in my judgment the inhabitants of those islands, as a whole, are utterly unprepared to shoulder the responsibility which independence will place upon them. Some authorities give the number of those capable of reading and writing as not more than 5 per cent. Nor have more than 3 per cent, an adequate idea of the duties required of those charged with self-government.
"It took 300 years to civilize and Christianize the Filipinos. The entire population is estimated at 8,000,000, of whom 7,000,000 are Christians and 1,000,000 are Moros and Mohammedans. If we were to withdraw now, it is much to be feared that these people would lapse into a state of barbarous infidelity, and thus undo the work of 300 years. It must be remembered that there are constant uprisings in the islands; that the fierce and warlike Moros continue to invade the different islands and keep their inhabitants in a state of constant turmoil and bloodshed. The missionaries there now, while willing to sacrifice their lives in the discharge of their sacred duty, are powerless unless they be sustained by the strong arm of the United States to enforce law and order.
To withdraw from the Philippines at a fixed time in the future, regardless of conditions in those islands, would work a serious injustice to the many Americans and far seeing citizens of other countries who have invested their money in developing the resources of those islands^ These in- vestments have been made on the assumption that the Ph^lip- pines would continue under our protection indefinitely.
"For the United States to reverse its repeatedly declared policy with respect to these islands would, in my earnest belief, be a dishonorable act. It would work great harm to those investors, as well as to the Filipinos themselves, for this country to withdraw and witness a resultant reign of anarchy. It should be borne in mind that the development of tljose islands is essential to the development of the Filipinos. Many capitalists are disposed by an enlightened self-interest to invest their capital in the building of railroads and in the development of the mines and other re- sources of the archipelago, a development that, I repeat, would contribute vastly to the interest and welfare of the Filipinos, but these investors are not willing to enter upon such enterprises unless given the guarantee of permanent law and order in those islands which can alone come under the benevolent protection and guidance that has characterized the American occupation.
"I have no patience with the argument that the Philippine Islands are the source of an annual deficit to this country. Even were that true, the fact would not warrant a cowardly abandonment of the clear and accepted duty of the American people toward the Filipinos. Surely as a nation we owe that much to the world and to ourselves; we owe it to the cause of peace and good order the world over. But I am credibly informed that those Islands are self-supporting and that the only item in which the expenditures exceed the receipts is in the difference of cost between maintaining an army there and at home. Certainly that difference is not worthy of consideration by a nation of our resources and of our large responsibilities to the world.
Objections raised against .our continuing to rule a people 8000 miles away. In answer I would say that when we acquired California in 1847 President Polk is said to have remarked that a territory so far removed from what was then the United States would be a doubtful possession. We know now how fallacious was his reasoning. Although the Philippine Islands are so far removed from us geographically, it is easier for us today to reach Manila than it was 60 years ago to go from New York to San Francisco, and, in fact, it might be said that we are in hourly communication with the islands by cable."
Overland, n.s. 52: 175-180. August, 1908.
Ten Years After: Have we Failed in the Philippines? George Amos Miller.
A decade is a short period in a nation's life, but it is long enough to inaugurate a policy, and its close may be a good time to take a trial balance of the most remarkable colonial experiment in all history. We began in the Philippine Islands by breaking the Spanish yoke, and we have continued by trying to compress into a single generation the whole age-long evolution of humanity.
1. We have established peace.
2. We have administered justice.
3. We have improved the public health.
4. We have provided popular education.
5. We have instituted religious liberty.
6. We have inaugurated an era of industrial development.
7. We have protected the Filipino from exploitation.
8. We have begun to develop a middle class.
9. We have promised these people their independence and we have already granted them progressive self-government.
10. We have elevated labor.
These ten things we have done, or are in process of doing. None of them are finished, the final form of no one of them may be now predicted, but they indicate the direction of our path.
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Josephson, A. G. Bibliographies of the Philippine Islands.Boston Book Co.
Library of Congress. Division L of Bibliography. List of Works Relating to American Occupation of the Philippine Islands, 1898-1903. A. P. C. Griffin. Supt. of Doc. 1905.
Library of Congress. Division of Bibliography. Select List of References on the Independence of the Philippines. H. H. B. Meyer. Lib. :of Congress, Washington. 1913.
Ringwalt, Ralph C. Briefs on Public Questions, pp. 75-83. Longmans. 1908.
Robbins, E. C. High School Debate Book. pp. 146-57. Mc- Clurg. 1911.
Wisconsin. University. Annexation of Cuba; and Independence of Philippines. Univ. of Wisconsin. 1911.
GENERAL REFERENCES
Chamberlin, Frederick. Philippine Problem. Little. 1913.
Foreman, John. Philippine Islands. Scribner. 1906.
Hart, Albert B. Obvious Orient, pp. 245-81. Appleton. 1911.
Jernegan, Prescott F. Philippine Citizen. 4th ed. Philippine . Education Co., Manila. 1912.
Wiljcox, Cornélis D. Head-Hunters of Northern Luzon; with Appendix on the Independence of the Philippines. 'Franklin Hudson Co. 1912.
Willoughby, William F. Territories and Dependencies. Century. 1905.
Wright, Hamilton M. Handbook of the Philippines. 3d ed. McClurg. 1907.
Magazine Articles
Atlantic. 89:360-5. Mr. '02. Educational Problem in the Philippines. Fred W. Atkinson.
Atlantic. 89:366-71. Mr. '02. Economic Future of the Philippines., Charles A. Conant.
Atlantic. 94:577-94. N. '04. United States in the Philippines. A. Ireland.
Bureau of Statistics. Ja. '07. Commercial and Industrial Conditions and Opportunities from a Philippine Standpoint.
Contemporary. 86:392-404. S. '04. Americans in the Philippines. John Foreman.
Cosmopolitan. 23:587-600. 0. '97. Spanish Rule in the Philippines. D. C. Worcester and F. S. Bourns.
Everybody's. 24:587-92. My. 'n. Gods and Brothers. H: K, Webster.
Literary Digest. 45: 1045-7. D. 7, '12. Will the Democrats Free the Philippines?
Nation. 96: I2O-I. F. 16, '13. Governing Aliens.
New England Magazine, n. s. 32:567-74. Jl. '05. Outlook in the Philippines. Henry L. Shumway.
North American.; 170:295-304. F. 'oo.
Eastern Conimerce: What Is It Worth? Edward Atkinson.
Outlook. 67: 196-9. Ja. 26, 'oí. Philippine Petition.
Outlook. 90:451-6. O. 24, '08. American Achievements in the Philippines. N. W.: Gilbert.
Outlook. 91:75-82. Ja. 9. '09. What Shall Wre Do with the Philippines? Edward A. Filene.
World Today. 15:847-52. Ag. '08. Philippine Assembly. James A. Leroy.\Vorld-s Work. 4:2344-50. Jl. '02. Philippine Problem.
AFFIRMATIVE REFERENCES
Blount, James H. American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912. Putnam. 1912.
Congressional Record. 33:4278-307. Philippine Islands: Speech of George F. Hoar in Senate, April 17, 1900.
Congressional Record. 33:936-40. Purpose of the Government of the United States with Reference to Philippine Islands: Speech of G: L.. Wellington in Senate, Jan. 18, 1900.
Congressional Record. 35:5788-98. Civil Government for the Philippine Islands: Speech of George F. Hoar in Senate, May 22, 1902.
Congressional Record. 35:6178-86. Civil Government for thé Philippines: Senate Document, June 2, 1902.
Congressional Record. 42: Appendix 210-2. Philippine Independence; Speech of George K. Favrot in House of Representatives, May 26, 1908.
Congressional Record. 46:3949-58. Philippine Independence: House Report, March 2, 1911.Smith, Goldwin. Commonwealth or Empire. Macmillan. 1902.
United States. 62d Congress. 2d Session. House Report 606. Independent Government for the Philippines. April 26, 1912.
Willis, Henry P. Our Philippine Problem. Holt. 1905.
Magazine Articles
Arena. 25:465-7. My. '01. Will the Philippines Pay? F. Doster.
Arena. 34: 173-4. Ag. '05. Is God Responsible for the American Occupation of the Philippines. Samuel Brazier.
Arena. 41:231-3. F. '09. Democracy of Anti-Imperialism. R. E. Bisbee.
Everybody's. 19:64od-64of. N. '08. Why the Philippines Should Be Independent.
William J. Bryan.Forum. 32:594-7. Ja. '02. Philippines and Our Military Power.
Leslie's Monthly. 48:75-85. My. '99. Are the Filipinos Civilized? F. Agoncillo.
Nation. 70: 50. Ja. '18, 'oo. Our Title to the Philippines.
Nation. 95:474-5. N. 21, '12. Philippine Outlook.
North American. 174:606-12. My. '02. Opportunity of the United States. Andrew Carnegie.
North American. 179:860-7. D. '04. Philippine Problem from a Filipino Standpoint. Juan Sumulong.
North American. 184: 135-49. Ja. '07. Philippine Independence, When? J. H. Blount.
North American. 184:383-8. F.> 15, '07. Plea for the Filipinos. William H. Carter.
North American: 185:365-77. Je. 21, '07. Philippine Independence, Why? J. H. Blount.
North American. 189:708-18. My. '09. Conditions and Future of the Philippines. E. Winslow.
World Today. 11:1147-51. N.' '06. Playing at Governing the Philippines. Hamilton Wright.
World Today. 14: 315-9- Mr. '07. Can the United States Ad- ministeprColonies? Henry P. Willis.
World Today. 15:950-3.. S. '08. Can the United States Americanize Her Colonies. P. S. Reinsch.
NEGATIVE REFERENCES
Atkinson, Fred W. Philippine Islands. Ginn. 1905.
Congressional Record. 35:704-12. Policy Regarding the Philippines: Speech of Albert J. Beveridge in Senate, January 9, 1900.
Congressional, Record. 48:9348-9. Cost of Occupation of Philippines, by William H. Taft. July 19, 1912.
Millard, Thomas F. F. America and the Far Eastern Question. M offa t. 1909.
United States. 62d Congress. 2d Session. House Report606, pt. 2. Philippine Independence. Ml E. Olmsted.
Magazine Articles
Annals of American Academy. 30: 130-4. Jl. '07. Problem of the Philippines. Louis L. Seaman.
Arena. 33:486-93. My. '05, America in the Philippines. George F.. Pentecost.
Atlantic. 103:200-9. F. '09. Decade of American Rule in the Philippines. W. C. Forbes.
Atlantic, i io : 649-52. N. '02. Question of Philippine Neutrality.
Baltimore News. 82: 1-3. F. 19, '13. Retention of Philippines. Cardinal James Gibbons.
Everybody's. 19:640a-64od. N. '08. What the United States Has Done for the Philippines. William ;H. Taft.
Everybody's. 19: 64of-64oh. N. 'öS.America's Record in the Philippines. E. F. Egan.
Forum. £9:401-8,: Je. 'oo. Do We Owe Independence to the Filipinos? Charles Denby.
Independent. 53: 649-51. Mr. 21, '01. Criticism of Our Philippine Policy. Charles Denby.
Living Age. 268:304-7. Fw 4, 'n. Problem Reviewed.
North American. 171:246-58. Ag. 'oo. Imperialism America's Historic Policy. W. A. Peffer.
North American. 179:282-300. Ag. '04. Can Congress Constitutionally Grant Independence to the Filipinos.
Outlook. 64: 709.-I2. Mr. 31, 'oo. Bishop Potter on the Philippine Question.
Outlook.-96: 921-31. D. 24, 'io. Turning Savages into Citizens.! A. Brownell.
Outlook. 99:559-61. N. 4, '11. Flag in the Philippines.
Overland, n. s. 34:23-32.10»Ja. 'oo. The Philippines—the Oriental Problem. N. P. Chipman.
Overland, n. s. 52: 175-80. Ag. '08. Ten years After; Have We Failed in the Philippines. George A. Miller.
Overland, n. s. 59:63-9. Ja. '12. Problem of the United States in th-e Philippines. W. F. Norris.
Review of Reviews. 32:99-100. Jl. '05. Philippines for the Americans.
Source: The Abridged Debaters' Handbook Series
SELECTED ARTICLES ON INDEPENDENCE FOR THE PHILIPPINES
COMPILED BY EMMA L. TEICH.
MINNEAPOLIS THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY 1913
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