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THE FRUITS OF IMPERIALISM
ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE THE MASSACHUSETTS
REFORM CLUB JUNE 6, 1902
»
* t
L , *
by
Hon. THOMAS M. PATTERSON
Senator from Colorado
and
Rev.'CLAY MacCAULEY
together with the
TEXT OF A BILL AGREED TO BY THE MINORITY OF THE SENATE
COMMITTEE ON THE PHILIPPINES AND THE HOUSE COMMIT¬
TEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS, AND OFFERED AS A SUB¬
STITUTE FOR THE PHILIPPINE BILL PASSED
BY THE SENATE JUNE 3, 1902
PUBLISHED BY THE CLUB
BOSTON
Geo. H. Ellis Co., Printers, 272 Congress Street
1902
THE FRUITS OF IMPERIALISM.
I did not want to come to Boston as a speaker at a gathering of
Massachusetts notable men. I know the learning and calibre of
those who represent the State at Washington. The fame of their
constituents, as well as the resplendent talents of the senators, ad¬
monished me that my true place was that of a listener. I venture to
speak only because one of the^ gentlemen in charge of this function
expressed a strong desire for the views of a minority member of the
•Seriate Philippine Committee. Being about the only minority mem¬
ber unattached at the present, I concluded to respond to his emer¬
gency call. Of course, I appreciate the honor of addressing such a
distinguished body, and will cherish it among the most agreeable
favors that I have enjoyed.
Of the fruits of imperialism we may say, as the Psalmist said of
the enemies of the Lord, '' Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the
earth, and their seed from among the children of men.''
This country has just taken the first journey over the path to im¬
perialism. It is the same that has been travelled for centuries by the
predatory nations of the world. It winds in and out of the swamps
of cruelty and fraud. It is lighted by the flames of burning homes.
It is blazed by the sword drawn in dishonor, and is paved with the
skulls of the invaded country's unoffending people. And the nations
have travelled this awful path for glory and markets, — markets with
which to minister to the insatiate greed of their commercial classes.
Imperial governments are built at the sacrifice of a nation's honor
and humanity. They observe compacts made with the strong; but,
lured on by the dazzling spectre of glory and profit, they throw duty
and honor to the winds when the weak are involved.
A peace has just been signed by Great Britain and the leaders of
the two murdered but ever illustrious South African republics. I
want to record my regrets, not that peace came, but that it came with
the death of these two republics as the price their defenders were
forced to pay to obtain it. Their blotting out is a distinct and irrep¬
arable loss to the manhood of the world. From this time on the
world must get along with fewer of those sturdy, manly traits that
4
rebel against all oppression and vitalize the blood of civilization with
the virtues that make and maintain republics. What admirer of the
heroic, of the true strenuousness of a noble life, what lover of liberty,
as. he recalls the great battles for independence fought by Delarey,
Botha, and Dewet, under the bright skies and upon the veldt and
among the kopjes and fastnesses of their own dear native South
Africa, would not accept their present lot of humiliation rather than
the glory of the victories of Kitchener and Chamberlain, adorned
with thanks from Parliament, with titles of nobility, and with
stars and garters and the smiles of royalty ? And the dead Boers,
those who fell in the most dauntless struggle for independence that
adorns history's pages,
" Can never pass from memory
While fame her record keeps,
And honor guards the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps."
And, as the Boer flag goes down, the brave men of all the world
salute it. Though it must now be furled, for three years it waved
over a band of freemen, cheering them in a defence that makes the
finest epic of recorded history. While they surrendered, their valor
conquered a peace which amounts almost to victory.
But shame upon our own country! Part of the bitter fruit of its
experiment in imperialism is that the ruthless destroyer of those
heroic republics was permitted to openly use our land and ports for
the purchase and shipment to South Africa of war supplies that could
not have been sufficiently gotten elsewhere, and without which the
conquest of the Boers would have been impossible.
But this victory for the empire may in the end prove the ruin of
the empire. One more utterly irreconcilable dependency has been
added to Great Britain's possessions. It is an Ireland in South
Africa,— an irreconcilable, implacable, and watchful foe. Those
sturdy Boers give nature play in the getting of families. Their sons
will forever keep fresh the memory of Britain's crimes, and their
daughters will bear children who will drink in from their breasts an
unquenchable hatred of their country's despoilers. This British
empire, '' built step by step in blood and fraud, in rapacity and race
ascendency, without one thought of morality or anything but selfish
advancement,'' must in the end fall to pieces, as must all empires
5
composed of widely separated, discordant races, peoples incapable of
assimilation, and, for reasons founded on nature's laws, utterly irrec¬
oncilable to their conquerors' rule.
Of the fruits of American imperialism, the most deplorable is the
black stain it has placed upon our national honor. I want to see
the people aroused to a full realization of the depth of moral turpitude
into which the country has descended to hold the Philippines. In
this ethical and educational centre, where thought is freed from the
chains of authority and precedent, where Wilson and Sumner breathed
inspiration for human liberty, whose Republican voters return Hoar
to the Senate in admiration of his talents and unquailing defence of
the Filipino's right to national life, while he openly opposed his
party's stand against it, here should start a pitiless inquisition into
the nation's conduct, to lay bare its offences and urge condonation
and repentance.
During the seven weeks' debate upon the Philippine bill that just
passed the Senate, the truth of the facts upon which the Filipinos
rest their claim against the United States for independence was
never denied. The nearest approach to a denial was when Senator
Hoar challenged the eloquent senator from Wisconsin to deny that
the Filipinos constitute a people and had rendered such signal service
to our country in the Spanish War as to merit its gratitude.
" I deny it," said Senator Spooner. " I deny there is more than
superficial truth in it." The denial was an admission. Superficial
truth shows truth at least upon the surface; and no effort was made,
and none could have succeeded, to show that the truth which all the
world has seen at the surface did not extend solidly and continuously
through and through the mass of facts which constitute the Filipino
case. It is truth at the surface and throughout, massed and im¬
pregnable truth, which establishes that, if ever one nation was bound
in honor and justice to give independence to another, measured by the
crudest or the most refined rules by which national obligations are
determined, the United States are bound to give independence to the
Filipinos.
I venture to present a few of these facts. I know they are fa¬
miliar, but they are facts which should ever be kept green in the coun¬
try's memory; for, as it shall know and not forget them, so will the
honor and justice of the nation right the wrong which in ignorance it
inflicted upon the Filipinos.
6
The Philippine Islands contain a smaller area by seven thousand
square miles than the populous States of Massachusetts, Indiana, and
Nebraska, while the population of the islands is at least two thousand
souls greater. The islands contain a smaller area by one million
square miles than the States of Maine and Minnesota, yet the
islands have nearly four times the population of those two States.
These figures may give some idea of the density of the population of
the islands we have invaded to subjugate, and will show in bold re¬
lief the difference between the Filipino territory we have annexed and
the condition of the territory annexed during previous administra¬
tions.
Before American imperialists undertook to defend the cruelties we
have practised upon the Filipinos, — cruelties that they tried to
soften by contrasting them with those of Nero and Torquemacla, of
Philip II. and the " Butcher Weyler, "—a defence which demanded
that they paint Filipinos as blood-thirsty savages, burning, mutilat¬
ing, and murdering our soldiers, ignorant or indifferent to the laws
of civilized warfare, the War Department and the reliable historians
of the islands had described the Filipinos in the manner I will recite:
Seven out of eight or nine millions of them are Christians, taught by
the priests and symbols of the Catholic Church. They are instructed
in the miraculous birth, the patient, saintly life, and the moral pre¬
cepts of the lowly Nazarene. Their religion, though primitive, is
securely grounded on the rock of faith in the divinity of the Saviour
and of his and his disciples' recorded miracles. They were further
described as a patient, simple, and kindly people, engaged chiefly in
agriculture; hospitable to a fault, honest as to debts, holding sacred
as any people in the world the domestic virtues; loving wives and
children, marrying and giving in marriage according to the rites of
their creed; submissive to authority; nearly all of them being able
to read and write either in the Spanish or their native tongue; pos¬
sessing extraordinary natural gifts and taste for music; boasting a
considerable literature, with numerous populous cities and villages,
in which are schools that all the children attended, and in many of
them universities, colleges, hospitals, and provisions for the aged and
needy. They had heard of the great republic, midway of the
oceans, eight thousand miles to the east, that it had been once op¬
pressed by a greater power, and threw off the chains of its rulers'
servitude to emerge from a seven years' war a free and independent
7
republic. The fundamental truths upon which that republic rested —
the inherent right of all men to liberty, and that government could
exercise such powers only as the governed granted it — became their
ideal, imperfectly understood it may be, with some lack of ready
adaptability to its exacting demands; but yet it was their ideal of
government, to the realization of which Rizal, before his martyrdom,
Aguinaldo, Agoncillo, and Lopez undertook to guide them.
In 1896 these people were stirred to rebellion by the atrocities of
Spanish rule. The insurrection at first failed; but the leaders, justi¬
fied by the wanton omission of Spain to institute the promised
reforms, had renewed their struggle for independence when our war
with Spain was declared. The orders were issued to Dewey to find
and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet. Before they were received,
anticipating the war and the work he would be called upon to per¬
form, Dewey had sent for Aguinaldo to consult with him about the
part the Filipinos might play. But the emergencies of neutrality re¬
quired Dewey to sail for the islands before Aguinaldo reached Hong
Kong. Having found the fleet and destroyed it, Dewey sent a ves¬
sel for Aguinaldo, and brought him to Manila. With Dewey's ap¬
proval Aguinaldo landed at Cavite, and unfurled the flag of Filipino
independence, and called upon Filipino patriots to rally beneath its
folds. The Americans and Filipinos had each their distinct ends to
gain, the Americans the defeat of Spain wherever it could be assailed,
and the Filipinos the possession and independence of their native
land. The attainment of one of those results was in no wise incon¬
sistent with the attainment of the other; and so, happily as it then
seemed, Americans and Filipinos both joined arms to overwhelm a
common foe.
The annals of our War Department relate in language of eulogy
the brave deeds arid great military accomplishments of that Filipino
army.
When the advance of the American land forces reached Manila,
what had the Filipino army accomplished ? They had hemmed the
Spanish army in Manila with ten miles .of earthworks extending
from shore to shore. They had driven the Spaniards within the
walled city, and cut off their water supply, and reduced them to horse¬
flesh diet. They had assaulted section after section of the Spanish
defences, killed and wounded many hundred of the enemy, and had
held eight thousand Spanish prisoners. If Dewey had but consented,
8
Aguinalclo would have stormed Manila at whatever loss of Filipino
life before an American soldier reached the field of action.
Dewey communicated to the War Department their wonderful suc¬
cess, and lauded their moderation and humanity in the treatment of
the Spanish prisoners. General Whittier, in his testimony before
the Treaty Commission in Paris, declared that " their conduct to
the Spanish prisoners has been deserving of the praise of the world,
and I may well include the rest of General Whittier's testimony.
He said, " With hatred of priests and Spaniards fairly held on ac¬
count of the conditions before narrated, and with every justification
to a savage mind for the most brutal revenge, I have heard no in¬
stance of torture, murder, or brutality since we have been in the
country.''
When the American land forces arrived, so closely were the Fili¬
pinos besieging Manila that General Anderson was compelled to re¬
quest from Aguinaldo permission to occupy with the American forces
a part of the Filipino fighting line and trenches. Out of an in¬
trenched fighting line more than eight miles long about Manila, the
Americans never occupied more than three-quarters of a mile, and
the Filipinos occupied the rest. Finally, on the thirteenth day of
August, 1898, by prearrangement with the Spanish commandant,
Manila surrendered in response to a feigned attack delivered to
satisfy the demands of Spanish honor. Were it not that an agree¬
ment, made possible by the brave deeds of the Filipinos, had been
reached between the American and Spanish commandants, it would
have been necessary to capture Manila by assault; and who can doubt
that the Filipinos would have been called upon to join in that as¬
sault, and that they would have responded with all the Filipino lives
that were necessary to relieve the capital of their country from the
hated oppressor ?
Then followed the period of negotiating a treaty, then the futile
effort of the emissaries to induce the Filipinos to abandon indepen¬
dence and accept American sovereignty, then the manoeuvring to
force Aguinaldo into an attack upon the American army, and, failing
in that, the openly transparent creation of a pretext to permit Otis to
attack the Filipino army.
That attack of Feb. 4 and 5, 1899, became an absolute necessity
for the success of the imperialistic marplots at Washington. The
treaty was before the Senate. It had been agreed that the vote upon
9
it should be taken on February 6. It was known to every one that
there were lacking two votes of the number required to ratify it.
The Filipinos were praying that its ratification would be defeated, for
then the treaty would be amended so that Spain would relinquish
sovereignty over the Philippines, as it was provided for Cuba. The
Filipinos had all to gain by preserving the status of the armies as
it was until after February 6. The imperialists had everything to
gain by precipitating a conflict. The President had, without right or
authority, in January, before the Senate acted upon the treaty, pro¬
claimed American sovereignty over all the archipelago, and. com¬
manded that American military power and occupation " be extended
over it with all possible despatch.'' It was a proclamation of war
against the Filipinos. If the Senate did not ratify the treaty, the
President would be made the laughing-stock of the world. His
orders for occupation and possession would have to be withdrawn, and
the then well-hatched scheme of the imperialist conspirators would
have come to mortifying grief.
The attack, deliberately falsified by the official despatches given ,
to the public, had the expected result. Senators who had. stood
against the treaty, incensed by what they were led to believe was a
wanton, deliberate, and unprovoked assault upon the American army
by Aguinaldo's forces, changed their purpose and voted for. its ratifi¬
cation. The treaty was pulled through by one vote. Its ratification
was accomplished by fraud and in dishonor. Had but one of. the
senators voted as he would have voted were it not for the false re¬
ports of that attack, the treaty would have been defeated and . our
country spared all the shame and sorrow that followed afterwards.
From the hour the protocol was signed and Manila surrendered,
the doom of Filipino independence had been sealed. Avarice had
fixed its baneful eye upon the archipelago; and honor, duty, and
humanity were abandoned to permanently attach it as an American
possession.
That the avowed and recognized purpose of the Filipinos, from the
first interview of Aguinaldo with the American consul at Singapore
in April and his meeting with Dewey on the latter's flag-ship, while
he was gathering his army and building his trenches and assaulting
the Spanish works, while the Filipino patriots were offering up their
lives and shedding their blood and enduring all the hardships of the
besieger's life, was the independence of their country, is not now
10
even denied. That the American government knew of those aspira¬
tions and never discouraged them, on the contrary that it encouraged
them by acquiescence, by the recognition of Aguinaldo's authority
as general commanding the revolutionary army, and by negotiating
with him as such commander foi* advantages and privileges, the
United States never demurring to their claims until after Manila was
surrendered, is equally well established by the archives of the nation.
I appeal to American history as it is on file in the War Depart¬
ment. I appeal to the then current history written by the newspaper
correspondents of the world. I appeal to many books written about
the islands and the heroic struggles they record. I appeal to the
American consuls at Hong Kong and Singapore, to Admiral Dewey
and to all his commanders, to the official acts and words of Merritt
and Otis and MacArthur and Anderson and Hughes, done and
spoken during the fateful days between the sinking of the Spanish
fleet in Manila Bay and the surrender of the city. I appeal to the
consciousness of all those who know the true history of the event to
say whether I speak the words of sober truth, coloring them with
neither partiality nor exaggeration.
The other day I attended the ceremony at Washington of unveil¬
ing the statue erected to the memory of Count de Rochambeau, the
commander of the French army at Yorktown, who, with Washing¬
ton at the head of the American forces, compelled the surrender of
Cornwallis. The success of that siege was the turning-point in
the American war for independence, and it was fitting that such a
statue should be erected and that the imposing ceremony of unveiling
it should be held. The learned junior senator from your State de¬
livered the address, and it was an intellectual effort quite fitted for
and worthy of that patriotic occurrence. But, while he was speaking,
my mind recurred to the struggle of the Filipinos for their indepen¬
dence. I could not refrain from wondering what would have been the
outcome if France, in those crucial days of the American struggle for
independence, had acted as did the United States in the crucial days
of the Filipinos' struggle for their independence.
The French came to our help in the darkest hour of the conflict.
Franklin had succeeded in negotiating a treaty with the French Di¬
rectory by which both French ships and soldiers were sent to the
succor of the colonies. The French fleet was welcomed to our ports.
The French army was received with joy on land. I recall that when
11
sailors from Dewey's fleet went among the Filipino army besieging
Manila, and the American soldiers landed to participate in the siege,
they were treated almost as gods by the trustful and confiding natives.
They kissed their hands and welcomed them as deliverers. Suppose,
while the siege of Yorktown was progressing, the English government
had negotiated a treaty with France, and France had paid Great
Britain $20,000,000 for a quitclaim to its sovereignty over the
American colonies. Suppose the purchase of that sovereignty had
been communicated to General de Rochambeau and the French
a
admiral, and the French government had proclaimed the sovereignty
of France over the colonies. Suppose, taking advantage of the
presence of French fleets in American ports and the French army
within American territory, De Rochambeau had demanded the sub¬
mission of Washington and the colonists to the newly acquired
French sovereignty over them and their country, and France had
'attempted to enforce it with the cannon of its fleet and the guns and
bayonets of its army! I pause at the thought. If such an infamy
could have occurred, what would have been the verdict of all the
world for all times ? Dark as are some of the pages of French his¬
tory, that transaction would have faced mankind as the most dam¬
nable of all the national infamies it had ever known.
Wherein would the deed I have imagined differ materially from
the actual occurrences in our dealings with the Philippines ? In this
alone: The Filipinos did not first invite us to their islands, but
they welcomed us there. We declared we went there as their de¬
liverers, and not to oppress them. They gladly received us as their
allies to co-operate for the overthrow of Spanish power in the col¬
onies. The co-operation proceeded; and, when the enemy was over¬
come, and after the Spanish Cornwallis had surrendered to the united
prowess of the American and Filipino allied armies, the American
government professed to buy from Spain the latter's sovereignty over
the Filipino country, for the independence of which our Filipino
allies had been fighting.
What does the American conscience say to this record of our coun¬
try? Even before the evils or benefits of the annexation of the
Philippines are discussed, even while the inherent rights of a people
to self-government may be left unsettled, even before a verdict is
asked upon the cruelties which have been practised by sections of our
army in the Philippines, I contend' that this question of national faith
12
and honor should be determined. It is a question for the pulpit, the
platform, the class-room, and the press. It has peculiar claims upon
the attention of the church. I was amazed when one of Christ's
ministers of high estate announced only the other day that it was
his belief that God had placed us in the Philippines. He surely
could not have had in mind his God, the Christians' God, that
Being of infinite love and justice and mercy and tenderness. But
rather it must have been some pagan god whose worship consists in
drinking blood from the skulls of slain unbelievers. In close associa¬
tion with the religion of Christ is the religion of humanity. It is
the cement that binds in a common hatred of deceit and cruelty the
professors of every creed and the followers of every religious sys¬
tem, whether it be that of Christ or Moses or Buddha or Confucius.
No religion should be prostituted to so unholy a cause.
I have no heart to consider the cruelties in the Philippines which
the Senate investigation disclosed. They are the necessary fruits of
attempts to subjugate the millions of the islands to American rule.
I have no doubt but that our dominion over those distant people,
would they quietly submit, would be more temperate than that of any
other government over conquered subjects similarly situated. But
that is not the question. Such a people, so dissimilarly conditioned,
foreign in civilization, in habits, in modes of thought, and of alien
blood, a people whose aspirations for independence had acquired
such vigorous strength, and who had independence in their grasp
when they were forced to yield it to our superior strength, never will,
and never should be expected to yield other than sullen obedience to
our power. Good as the American people are, they, no more than
others, are good enough to conquer and rule the Filipinos or any
other people against their will.
Whatever the cruelties may have been, it is impossible that any
considerable part of them could have been avoided. Dress the war
up to suit the American palate as well as you can, and after all it is
a war to subjugate ten millions of an alien race to a hated rule.
Such a war has only been commenced when the resisting army has
been conquered and scattered. Then the war must be resumed
against the people. It was in the effort to subjugate the people
after the Filipino army had been scattered that the cruelties chiefly
occurred, and they must continue if they are to be battered into
submission. And that is the only submission the Filipinos will give.
13
I repeat here what I said in the Senate: the crimes in the Philippines
are not the crimes of the army. They are the crimes of the impe¬
rialistic system. Such crimes, and more horrible ones, attended the
conquest of India * by Great Britain, of Mexico and Peru by the
^Spanish invaders, of Ireland by Cromwell and Elizabeth. The de¬
votion of entire provinces to fire and sword, the killing of all male
inhabitants over ten years of age, and the making of their country a
howling wilderness, are now and have always been the methods by
which unwilling peoples have been subjugated.
The soldier — the best and bravest — must fit into the army ma¬
chine, and without grumble or resistance obey orders and otherwise
do the work necessary to accomplish the given end. The intolerant
tyranny of that machine was witnessed in the open and flagrant in¬
sult from the President to the highest officer in the army, because he
spoke words of approval for the brave and upright decision of
Admiral Dewey in the Schley court of enquiry, and further in the
determination of the President to retire him in disgrace from the
high position he had won in more than a hundred battle-fields in
behalf of this government, because in an official communication to
the Secretary of War he said the war in the Philippines had been
conducted with unusual severity; and the President was restrained
from retiring him only on the urgent advice of wise friends.
Men subjected to such a regime can be expected neither to com¬
plain of the task that is set them nor to expose the doings of the ser¬
vice in which they are enrolled. It has only been since their return
to civil life that soldiers have freely spoken, while the horrible deeds
of Waller and the ghastly order of General Smith reached the public
by accident. I cannot believe that our President has been cognizant
of these infamous cruelties, or that he will condone them; but to me
the proof is quite convincing that the War Department has known
of them and connived at them all along. Probably the Secretary
learned for the first time, as the war progressed, that the subjugation
of eight or ten millions of alien people could only be accomplished in
the old, old way, — by fire and sword and famine and disease and tort¬
ure, by cruelties to which the conquerors' armies become inured,
but which yet, thank God, shock the humanity of the American peo¬
ple; and the Filipinos had to be subjugated.
I am bound to admit that the Filipinos have, in some instances,
practised torture upon American soldiers. That they should not
14
would prove them more than human. We are pursuing them in
their native land. They are not interfering with us in ours. They
never gave us offence. We are pursuing them to rob them of their
country and the independence they desire and fought for. The war
for this purpose, as the devotion of the Filipino to country and<
independence developed, grew '' stiffer and stiffer,'' as General
Hughes himself described it. That meant, as the testimony dis¬
closes, the destruction by fire of a great many populous cities, and
towns and villages almost innumerable; the scattering of their popu¬
lations to the mountains and jungles, to perish from exposure and
hunger; the gathering of nearly half a million of people into con¬
centration camps, with what degree of suffering I will not attempt to
describe; the proscription of all their priests by the generals in com¬
mand as worse than the insurrectos in arms; and the widespread
application of tortures to extort information and the surrender of
guns. If there was retaliation, and then retaliation followed retali¬
ation with increasing fury, culminating in such atrocities as the
massacre of the American garrison at Balangiga and the order of
General Smith to kill all the male population over ten years old and
make the island of Samar a howling wilderness, why should we be
surprised ? They are the natural and unavoidable fruits of imperial¬
ism at that stage of the system, whether being enforced in the Phil¬
ippines by the United States or elsewhere by some other country.
They tell us that to mention these things is to abuse the army;
that the army is our army, and is made up of our sons and brothers,
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Ah, Mr. Chairman, when
the American people find that the bone of their bone is decaying, and
the flesh of their flesh is festering, and that their sons and brothers
are slipping from the moorings of honor and humanity, what is left
for them but to find the cause and apply the remedy ? That remedy
is publicity. It is only publicity that will reach the War Depart¬
ment — for knowledge it had long ago — and force it to at least con¬
demn the crimes and promise to investigate them and punish the
guilty.
I stand here to defend the American army. I stand here to ask
the people of the country to rescue it from the cruel mission upon
which the government has sent it. It is the noblest, the best, the
bravest army, as a whole, that is in the world to-day. The soldiers
in the Philippines would, even more cheerfully than did our noble
15
boys in Cuba, turn all their efforts towards the uplifting of the Fili¬
pino people to the full stature of liberty and independence. It is only
for the government to speak the word, and in the twinkling .of an
eye our soldiers in the Philippines would take the role of the Good
-Samaritan, having compassion on the Filipinos, binding up their
Kvounds, pouring in oil and wine, and giving them out of their sub¬
stance, and ready to spend more to set them on their way.
I will not discuss the grave constitutional questions that your
senior senator has done so ably, nor the other questions in which our
Declaration of Independence plays so prominent a part. I have tried
to present but some of the fruits of imperialism, and there are none
that the palate of justice and righteousness will relish less than
those I have considered.
Almost at the same time, a short while ago, one new republic was
born into the family of nations, and two were made ready for the
tomb. The taking off of the two little Boer republics was the most
bloody and perfidious deed of this or the ninteeenth century, and will
live forever on the pages of history to England's everlasting shame.
The giving of life to the Cuban republic was a godlike deed, like
unto the manumission of our four millions of slaves. Were it not
for the timely resolution offered by my present colleague in the
Senate, so amending the resolutions for war against Spain as to de¬
clare that the war was not to be waged for the subjugation of Cuba,
but to give it independence and freedom, we would to-day be waging
the same inglorious war of subjugation in Cuba that we are waging
in the Philippines. But Cuba is a free and an independent nation.
I call attention to the fact that all the people, without regard to po¬
litical affiliations or religious faith, have united' in common acclaim
to the glory, the greatness, and the honor of the deed.
Over our course in the Philippines there are division and discord
throughout the country. Upon it the people are divided into hostile
political camps. Discussion of the subject has taken on harsh and
bitter tones. How soon could all this be changed! If the adminis¬
tration would declare that the Filipinos will be given independence,
that we will take them kindly by the hand and do with them as we did
by Cuba, — guide and sustain and protect them while they are form¬
ing a government suited to their state, and, when it is done, that we
will haul down Old Glory, glowing more richly in honor and beauty
than ever before, and salute the up-going flag of the new republic,
i6
wishing it God-speed and a career of usefulness among the Asiatic
peoples of the world, lifting them up and proving that neither skin
nor race nor sect nor creed is a bar to the realization of the funda¬
mental truth upon which our government rests, that all men are
created equal, that life and liberty are the inalienable rights of aV
mankind, and that governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed, — the people of the country would with one
voice applaud the deed, and all the world would look on in admira¬
tion and awe.
I join in the optimistic faith of your senior senator. I believe
that this, like other great questions, will not be settled until it is
settled rightly, and that in the not very far distant future the Philip¬
pine archipelago will, through the awakened conscience and righteous
deed of the American people take its place among the nations Of the
earth.
17
HOW TO RIGHT THE NATIONAL WRONG.
Clay MacCauley.
I am not a member of the party called '' Anti-imperialist,'' nor
am I opposed to our country's territorial expansion as such. I am a
Republican in national politics, and throughout my life have been
allied with this party. In what I am about to say, therefore, there
is not only no partisan opposition, but inclination, instead, to continue
the allegiance I have given that which bears the Republican party's
name. Let this fact be understood, then, when I now declare that,
in its Philippines policy, I have been compelled to differ with my
party. A colossal presumption, one may say. Yet hear me. In
this antagonism I stand free from and independent of the persuasions
and the specific interests of all individuals and factions. My posi¬
tion is, in largest measure, the result of personal observation and of
judgment guided by effort to possess only the truth, and to serve,
above all, the welfare of our country. Presumptuous, then, though
my personal opinion may be, and insignificant in the midst of the
judgments gathered about the Philippines problem, it has special
worth. I may claim for it a serious hearing. The numerous
letters I wrote from the Far East for publication here at a time
when something might have been done to stay our national adminis¬
tration in its dealings with the Filipinos; letters full of forewarning
of the long sequence of evils that came and are now our national per¬
plexity, are evidence that I saw clearly then and counselled wisely.
I shall again tell the truth, and, I believe, shall again counsel those
things that are best for our country and for the people of whom we
have taken possession.
A recreation voyage took me to Manila in January, 1899, just at
the time when the relations of the Americans and the Filipinos had
reached the verge of their tragic break. Peculiarly favoring condi¬
tions for acquaintance with the unfortunate development of the mis¬
understanding between the two peoples met me. I was privileged
also, during my visit, in the means I had for study of the question,
What should be the connection of the United States with the people
of those islands? Ten years of intimate association with closely
allied races, especially with the Japanese, helped me in finding an
i8
answer to this question. Soon after arriving in the Philippines, it
became evident to me that almost the whole course of events there, as
far as directed from Washington, had gone wrong from the time of
Admiral Dewey's victory in Manila Bay. I say, " as directed froj^?
Washington." The Americans holding official positions in the Fifc
East had, from the first, acted intelligently and wisely. They had I
seen the way to what, I believe, would be a prosperous and honorable
future for both the United States and the Philippines. So long as
they were left unembarrassed by our national administration, every¬
thing went well and was filled with splendid promise. But alien
and ignorant counsels at Washington began and compelled a sequence
of terrible events instead. Beyond question, when Admiral Dewey
sailed away from Mirs Bay for Manila his object was understood in'
the Far East to be not only the defeat of Spain, but an emancipation
of the Philippines after the manner that had been promised by Con¬
gress for Cuba. That purpose directed the actions of Spencer Pratt,
Wildman, and Williams, the American consuls directly concerned,
and of the officers of our navy and of our army first to go to Dewey's
help. Then, all the world had reason to believe that Aguinaldo had
been summoned by our own authorities to lead the revived rebellion
against Spain, to fight "a common enemy ".with us, he proclaim¬
ing repeatedly the coming freedom and independence of the Philip¬
pines and the birth of the Filipino republic under the fostering care
of the " Great Republic of North America." However, as it hap¬
pened, these facts seemed to have no place in the making up of the
policy formulating in Washington. Other considerations, we now
know, then directed the leaders of our national administration.
They were treating with Spain as the source of all authority over the
Philippine Islands. It was sufficient, they decided, should they
wrest from Spain the title to sovereignty over the islands, empty of
reality though that title might be. The Filipinos themselves re¬
ceived no consideration at Washington other than as " restless and
discontented subjects of Spain." They had no wishes to be recog¬
nized in the proposed transfer of their political status. They were
not even given the privilege of hearing that they were to have no
voice in the fixing of their political future. They were, instead, al¬
lowed by our government to proclaim to the world their coming free¬
dom and independence; to enter their " Fool's Paradise" ; to fight
our battles as though they were their own; to organize and to operate
19
their republic. I shall not repeat the story of the amazed awaken¬
ing of the Filipinos at last to the fact that in Washington they were
being dealt with as so many chattels, or, certainly, as a people in
■^kose disposition their own will should have no more part than the
^Pading of irresponsible children. These things belong to his-
pory. There they stand, not only as the sign of America's greatest
mistake, but as token, I am compelled to^ say, of recreancy to the
nation's fundamental principles by those to whom the guidance of
the nation had been entrusted. I say this in no way charging inten¬
tional wrong upon those who thus failed us. " A benevolent assim¬
ilation '' of the Philippines was doubtless intended. A mission aim¬
ing at their civil and social elevation, enlightenment, and progress,
we may believe, was the administration's purpose. There may have
been, and probably was, prompting the administration to assume con¬
trol of the islands, an expectation of industrial and commercial
aggrandizement for our country. And there may have been, and
probably was, a sense of obligation towards Great Britain and an
anticipation of the '' world politics '' of the future, to help to the deci¬
sion that the United States should take absolute sovereignty of the
Philippines. I charge no crime upon the national administration.
I state simply the fact — whatever else is true, whatever the motive
may have been—rthat the United States, by its legal administrators,
assumed sovereignty of the Philippines arbitrarily, ignoring, as prob¬
ably not worthy to be considered, or, it may be, as not a needed
factor in the consideration, all that the Filipinos themselves had
hoped for, labored for, and made proclamation for to the world, when
they greeted our coming into Manila Bay. The Washington admin¬
istrators, I say also, formulated their Philippines policy after they had
used the Filipinos as our country's allies in the war against Spain,
knowing at the same time that these allies were fighting to secure for
themselves their freedom and independence. And, further I say,
the policy involving this sovereignty was adopted without explana¬
tion to the Filipino leaders and without counselling with them as
to the political future which, by this policy, it had been determined
they must accept.
Three years have passed since that fateful January 4, when the
actual sovereignty of the United States over the Filipino people was
proclaimed and imposed. Just a month later, that people, which had
welcomed us as their political savior, counsellor and guard, had
20
fallen into a deadly struggle with us. Their resistance was the sign
of their defence of the liberty and of the political autonomy they had
had ample reason to believe we had gone to them to give. But, in
the judgment of our administration, this defence was met as the rfd'e
burst of "rebellion," though the so-called rebels had never b!;^
either our subjects or our fellow-citizens. At once the power of
country was devoted to prushing the "rebellion"; to annihilating
the republic which we had allowed to come into being dedicated by
the Filipinos to our pepublic and expected by them to grow into full
maturity under the tutelage and protection of the United States.
For three years now our national administration has persisted in its
purpose of compelling this people to an unquestioning submission to
our alien will. To-day the conquest of tbe Philippines has been
made almost complete. Tens of thousands of lives have been sacri¬
ficed; tens of thousands of homes have been made desolate; enormous
areas of land have been laid waste; many millions of dollars' worth of
property have been destroyed, and hundreds of millions of dollars
have been spent to support the army and navy engaged in the piti¬
able business. The determination of the authorities at Washington
to assume sovereignty for the' United States over this unwilling peo¬
ple has been fulfilled. The deed is done, nor can it now be undone.
The record against us stands fixed.
But, while we are powerless against the irrevocable Past, and must
bear the burden that this part of our history lays upon us as citizens
of our republic, the Present and the Future are here and are 'ours.
They are ours yet to use, — to use, it may be, so that our people
may prove themselves still to be worthy of the names " freemen,"
'' liberators,'' and '' defenders of the oppressed of mankind.''
The Filipinos are now a conquered people; their republic is de¬
stroyed; their " rebellion " is crushed; their civil freedom is gone;
they are at our mercy. What shall be done with them ? Among
answers to this question, two, especially, appear that might shape our
future relations with them. First, we may keep on as we have been
doing. We may hold this conquered people henceforth as our sub¬
jects. Or, declining to do that, we may tell them that now, having
had our will and having proven that we are their masters, they may
begin a process of education in self-government under our direction
and in time may assume autonomy among the world's peoples.
Either of these alternatives may be chosen. Which shall it be ?
21
I see no solution for our problem in the proposition to give to the
Philippines a territorial standing, with possible statehood. If noth¬
ing else were considered, the race-factor alone would stand an insur-
3 rentable barrier to any helpful intimate political association of the
ppinos and the Anglo-Saxons. Whatever my personal adaptability
r_such relationship may be, I agree with Senor Mabini, the master-
1 statesman of the Filipino people,— a man whom we seem able to<
use only by banishment from his country,— who has said: " Annexa¬
tion, in whatever form it may be adopted, will unite us [the Fili¬
pinos] forever to a nation whose manners and customs are different
from our own, a nation which hates the colored race with a mortal
hatred, and from which we could never separate ourselves except by
war." " Race-hatred pursued us before the laws of Spain; and that
hatred is much more violent, cruel, and pitiless among the Anglo-
Saxons." Here is a statement of the radical fact. This fact was,
in large measure, the source of the hostility which, in 1898, gradually
arose between the American army of occupation and the Philippines-
people. It made American soldiers aggressors from the start,
prompting the insults which many of them soon heaped upon their
brown associates. These insults naturally aroused resentment and
counter-insult. And, much as the assertion may sound extreme, I
dare to say that, if the lamentable cruelties of which both the Fili¬
pinos and the American soldiers have been proven guilty should be
traced back to their ultimate origins, we should find that they were
started in the expression of race-contempt by the white American
toward the dark-skinned Malay. No one honors the American
soldier more than I do.. I have been a soldier, but I know that a man
is not transfigured by his putting 011 the United States uniform.
He is yet the ordinary citizen, though enlisted in the army. He
may be a gentleman and a man of virtue and honor. He may be,
too, and he often is, a blackguard and a man of criminal impulse and
deed. He may be brave; he may be a coward. He may'be worthy
of the highest praise; he often needs the severest blame. Let us
accept him for just what he is, and glorify or condemn him for just
what he is and shows himself to be. It does not degrade the army
that there may be in it some who are degraded. It is not .to the dis¬
honor of the American army as such that some of our soldiers have
not only despised the Filipinos as " niggers," but have been ready,
as reciprocal provocation and insult increased, to subject them to tort-
22
ure. Race-antagonism, then, if nothing else, forbids us to consider
with favor the intimate political association with the Filipinos that is
involved in fellow-citizenship. ^
There are open to choice, then, these alternatives,—the holdi^ie
of Filipinos as subjects of our republic or their preparation uu
our protection for freedom and independence, as citizens of a separati^
i(r
state. y3
I am neither jurist nor legislator, and cannot, consequently, look
at these alternatives under the requirements of established law, but
I know somewhat of the ideals that this republic was ordained to
realize. I am familiar with our national history, and somewhat, also,
with the stories of nations and of mankind. For this reason, I say
now with all the conviction of which I am capable, that one of the
worst choices possible for our country, the world's greatest democ¬
racy, is the holding of the Filipinos henceforward as our subjects.
If the American people are determined to seek empire, to become
imperialists in fact, then I must repeat the ancient lament, " Our
glory has departed,'' and grieve over another failure to realize the
human commonwealth which for ages has been the burden of man's
best hope and prophecy. Our national legislation seems, indeed,
just now to move us towards this fate. We had some reason for
holding the aborigines of this continent as alien subjects, although
the nation was thereby involved in a "century of dishonor," but
no good reason guides us to this end in the Malay Archipelago. Our
philanthropic ideals; our duty to spread the blessings of civilization;
our mission to preach the gospel of Christ to all the world, do not
require this: and, of a surety, our attempts to do these things will
fail. In dealing with the Filipinos as subjects, we should violate our
proclaimed national principle of not exercising government without
the consent of the governed. Our sense of race superiority would
lead us to contemn the subjects we command, and would inflate us
with aggressive power. In the most vital meaning of the word, we
should degrade the creatures of our will. Our high aim would for
us become a vain thing.
I am convinced that no lower purpose than guidance of this con¬
quered people towards self-government, in a state organically inde¬
pendent of and separated from our own nationality, would in the end
do them and us real good. The fruits of imperialism for the Ameri¬
can republic can only be, at the last, bitterness and ashes.
23
If it were but possible for us to say to this people now, that we
mean to care for them henceforth with the best we have; to protect
them from the greed of other nations; to help them to organize a
jje and progressive state of their own; to put at their service
sever we have of knowledge and the appliances of industry, com-
K? art, and religion, that in the end they may stand before the
Id as a self-reliant and independent nation, then we might do
something towards obliterating the shameful record we have made,
and prove ourselves at last faithful to the principles which gave us
national being.
But can we yet be equal to this high duty and privilege ? That _
we may become so is one of my most earnest desires. However, the
outlook in this direction is just now much overcast. When the
President of our republic, a man whom I honor for his sincerity and
his generous aims, is so blind to what is true of the people we have
conquered as to class them with separated and hostile savage tribes,
while I know that more than five-sevenths of them, the Tagals and
the Visayans, are no more unlike than are the Dutch and the Ger¬
mans, and are, as a whole, in civilization but a grade lower than the
Japanese, my confidence that our people will possess the truth and
be impelled to have justice done is without much support. And
when this same highest officer of the nation devotes, as he did de¬
vote, the last Memorial Day to a cruel arraignment of this same out¬
raged and helpless people, distorting, though in ignorance, the
revenge which some of them have taken for the wrongs to which they
were subjected by some of our own fellow-citizens, I have but little
reason to hope that the American people will become able to give heed
to what some of us know to be fact, and take measures to prevent
further the course of the oppressive subjugation to which they have
seemingly given their consent. Nor, from what has happened during
the present week, do I look for much help from our national legislat¬
ure. A law for the government of the Philippines has just passed
the United States Senate. In that law there is no expression tend¬
ing towards the establishment of Filipino self-government or civil
independence.
But, this all notwithstanding, I do not wholly lose hope.- It is
but needful, I still believe, that the American people should know
the truth, and be aroused to the danger now besetting their national
ideals, for them yet to set this wrong, as far as may be, right, and to
24
save the republic from its peril. So, then, let the voices of those
who know, and the loyalty of those who cherish the work of Wash¬
ington and Lincoln, persist. The day may yet come when reason
and justice shall resume their sway in our national councils. (^e
people will then seek to hide the evil that has been done in
name m the Far East, and, instead, to bring into being, for
pie we have smitten and made desolate, a kindred state, crownecf * Jg
power and prosperity like our own.
25
|T OF A BILL AGREED TO BY THE MINORITY OF THE
IgENATE COMMITTEE ON THE PHILIPPINES AND THE
■tbuSE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS, AND OF¬
FERED AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE PHILIPPINE BILL
PASSED BY THE SENATE JUNE 3, 1902.
That, subject to the provisions hereinafter set forth, the United States of
America hereby relinquish all claim of sovereignty over and title to the
archipelago known as the Philippine Islands.
Sect. 2. That the United States shall continue to occupy andgovern
said archipelago until the people thereof have established a government
in accordance with the provisions of this act, with sufficient guaranties for
the performance of our treaty obligations with Spain, and for the safety of
those inhabitants who have adhered to the United States, and for the
maintenance and protection of all rights which have accrued under the
authority thereof, as hereinafter provided.
Sect. 3. That upon the cessation of organized armed opposition to the
temporary sovereignty of the United States Government the President of
the United States shall proclaim the fact, and within ninety days after
the issuance of such proclamation the United States Philippine Commis¬
sion shall make and promulgate rules and regulations for the holding of an
election in the various provinces of said Philippine Archipelago for mem¬
bers of a house of representatives and a senate, to constitute a temporary
congress, which shall be vested with full legislative power, and also with
the power of appointing such judges as may to them seem proper and
necessary. The said Philippine congress shall prescribe rules and regula¬
tions for the election or appointment of all other officers, provincial or
municipal, as may to them seem proper or necessary. i> members of
the said senate and house shall hold their offices for the term of four years
from and after their election and qualification, unless said terms of office
are sooner terminated by the inauguration of the permanent government
created by the constitutional convention hereinafter provided for, and all
other officers shall hold office for such terms as may be prescribed by such
congress. Senators and representatives in congress are to receive com¬
pensation at the rate of dollars per annum and other officers shall
receive such compensation as may be prescribed by the congress.
26
Executive.
The chief executive shall be appointed by the President of the Uni
States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the
States, and shall be vested with a veto power over all acts of the
pine congress having relation to their foreign affairs, but shall h^ -at M
veto power with respect to other legislation, nor shall he be empowe|i ig
appoint any officer unless authorized to do so by the Philippine congas ^
He shall exercise such other executive powers as shall be vested in him by
the Philippine congress, and shall hold his office for a term of four years,
unless the temporary government shall within that time be superseded by
the inauguration of the permanent government herein provided for, and
said president shall receive a compensation of $10,000 per annum, to be
paid out of the Philippine treasury. There shall be such other executive
officers receiving such compensation and performing such duties as may
be prescribed by the Philippine congress, and they shall be appointed or
elected in such manner as may be prescribed by law.
During the period of the existence of the temporary government herein
provided for, which shall in no event extend beyond four years from and
after the date of its inauguration, the United States guarantee to the people
of said Philippine Archipelago their independence and a republican form
of government, and shall protect them against invasion and, upon applica¬
tion by the congress thereof, against domestic violence.
That all male inhabitants of said archipelago twenty-one years of age
and over who can speak and write either the English or Spanish language,
or any of the native languages of the said archipelago, and who shall have
resided therein for one year, shall be qualified to vote for members of con¬
gress and other elective officers, and any person so qualified as an elector
shall be qualified to become a member of said congress or to hold any
elective office.
The house of*representatives shall be composed of one hundred mem¬
bers and the i&nate of thirty members, and shall be apportioned by the
United States Philippine Commission among the several provinces of said
archipelago, so that the distribution of membership in the house of repre¬
sentatives shall be in proportion to their population, as near as may be,
and so that the membership of the senate shall be as nearly representative
of separate provinces as may be ; and, when said apportionment has been
determined upon, the said Commission shall by proclamation order an elec¬
tion of the members of said congress to be held throughout the said archi¬
pelago, at such time as shall be fixed by the said Commission, which elec¬
tion shall be held not more than one hundred and twenty days from the
date of the proclamation by the President of the United States, hereinbe-
27
fore provided for, and ample time shall be given before said election to
jrute said proclamation throughout the archipelago and arrange for the
K1^ of said election.
mT. 4. That the members of the congress thus elected shall meet at
wy*of Manila on a day to be fixed by the United States Philippine
fission, not more than ninety days subsequent to the day of election,
Hp for which meeting shall be stated in the proclamation aforesaid,
^xter organization the said congress and president, constituting the
temporary government herein provided for, shall proceed to the perform¬
ance of their duties as the temporary government of the Philippine Archi¬
pelago : Provided, That said congress shall provide by legislation and
treaty, irrevocable without the consent of the United States —
First. That there shall belong to the United States, and continue to be
the property thereof, such lands and waters as the President of the United
States shall designate to the Philippine government, and shall be agreed to
by it, for naval, military, and coaling stations, and terminal facilities for
submarine cables, the same to continue under the control and sovereignty
of the United States.
Second. To carry into effect the treaty obligations of the United States
with the Kingdom of Spain and for the maintenance and protection of all
rights and property acquired under the authority of the United States.
Third. That no inhabitant of said archipelago shall ever be molested
in person or property on account of his or her adherence to the United
States.
Sect. 5. That when the election herein provided for shall have taken
place and the congress thereby elected shall have convened, in compli¬
ance with the provisions of the act, the said United States Philippine Com¬
mission shall certify the fact to the President of the United States, where¬
upon it shall be the duty of the President to issue his proclamation
declaring the independence of the people of said archipelago and that they
constitute an independent state and nation: subject, however, to the con¬
trol and regulation by the United States of their intercour.il with foreign
nations during the period of the existence of the temporary*government
herein provided for.
Sect. 6. That immediately after the President shall have proclaimed
that all organized armed resistance to the United States has ceased in
said archipelago, he is requested to proclaim full amnesty to all inhabitants
thereof for and on account of political offences and the bearing of arms
against the United States, and all Filipinos or inhabitants of said archi¬
pelago who have been deported shall be returned to the place whence
they were so deported : Provided,» That such amnesty shall not apply to
any who have violated the rules of civilized warfare or who have been
28
guilty of murder or torture; that the latter, if any, shall be afforded a
speedy trial for their offences in the civil courts of said archipelago an, be
punished or acquitted, as the facts and law may warrant. / .
Sect. 7. That within sixty days from the election of officers unci
temporary government to be formed by the people of the Philippine,*^, v
pelago, in accordance with the provisions of this act, and the inapgu^J .
of said officers, the President shall cause the armed forces of the^'^ti J
States to be withdrawn from said archipelago as speedily as may lL-
cept such forces as may be maintained in such parts thereof as have beei
retained by the United States for naval, military, and coaling stations and
terminal facilities for cables; and the President of the United States and
the Secretary of War shall make all needful regulations to carry into' effect
the provisions of this section.
Sect. 8. That it shall be the duty of the Philippine congress herein
provided for to prescribe rules and regulations and qualifications for
electors for the election and holding of a constitutional convention which
shall be charged with the duty of framing a permanent government for the
people of the Philippine Archipelago. Said constitutional convention shall
be called to meet at such place and at such time, not later than the first
Monday of January, 1905, as may be prescribed by said Philippine con¬
gress. Upon the completion of the labors of said convention and the
inauguration of the government consequent thereupon, it shall be the duty
of the President of the United States to issue his proclamation declaring
the absolute and unqualified independence of the people of the Philippine
Archipelago and that they constitute an independent state and nation,
and upon the issuance of said proclamation the United States Govern¬
ment and the Philippine government shall become and be as fully separate
and independent as any other separate and independent nations are: Pro¬
vided,, however, That if the Philippine government request it, the United
States Government hereby agrees, to assume a protectorate over the Philip¬
pine Archipelagic) for a period additional to the period of the temporary
government J^rein provided for, said additional period of protectorate not
to exceed, however, the period of sixteen years: Provided further, That
the said Philippine government agree during the said period of additional
protectorate to surrender to the keeping of the United States Government
the regulation and control of the foreign affairs of the Philippine
Archipelago.
Sect. 9. That all terms of office of legislative, executive, and judicial
officers of the temporary government hereinbefore provided for, including
the term of office of the president, and the terms of office of the senators
and representatives in congress hereinbefore prescribed, shall terminate
with the existence of the temporary government herein provided for, and
29
said temporary government shall ipso facto cease to exist upon the inaugu-
k>n of the permanent government to be called into existence by the con-
■ional convention herein provided for; and nothing herein contained
«!be so construed as to prevent the congress of the Philippine Archi-
V^om calling the said constitutional convention at a date earlier than
^^Bherein fixed.