Part 20 (1/2)

and by June, 1900, when Judge Taft arrived, they had gotten still warmer [307]; and in General Otis's successor they had a commander who understood his men thoroughly, and was determined to carry out honestly, with firmness, and without playing, as his predecessor had done, the role of political henchman, the purpose for which the army he commanded had been sent to the Islands to accomplish. In this state of the case, the Taft Commission came out.

This would seem rather an odd point at which to terminate a chapter on ”MacArthur and the War,” seeing that General MacArthur continued to command the American forces in the Philippines and to direct their strenuous field operations until July, 1901, more than a year later, when he was relieved by General Chaffee, on whom thereafter devolved the subsequent conduct of the war. But we must follow the inexorable thread of chronological order, and so yield the centre of the stage from June, 1900, on, to Mr. Taft, else the resultant net confusion of ideas about the American occupation of the Philippines might remain as great as that which this narrative is an attempt in some degree to correct.

All through the official correspondence of 1899 and 1900 between the Adjutant-General of the Army, General Corbin, and General Otis at Manila, one sees Mr. McKinley's sensitiveness to public opinion. ”In view of the impatience of the people” you will do thus and so, is a typical sample of this feature of that correspondence. [308]

Troubled, possibly, with misgivings, as to whether, after all, in view of the vigorous and undeniably obstinate struggle for independence the Filipinos were putting up, it would not have been wiser to have done with them as we had done in the case of Cuba, and troubled, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, about the effect of the possible Philippine situation on the fortunes of his party and himself in the approaching campaign for the presidency, Mr. McKinley sent Mr. Taft out, in the spring preceding the election of 1900, to help General MacArthur run the war. We must now, therefore, turn our attention to Mr. Taft, not forgetting General MacArthur in so doing.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TAFT COMMISSION

The papers 'id it 'andsome, But you bet the army knows.

Kipling, Ballad of the Boer War.

The essentials of the situation which confronted the Taft Commission on its arrival in the islands in June, 1900, and the mental att.i.tude in which they approached that situation, may now be briefly summarized, with entire confidence that such summary will commend itself as fairly accurate to the impartial judgment both of the historian of the future and of any candid contemporary mind.

It is not necessary to ”vex the dull ear” of a mighty people much engrossed with their own affairs, by repet.i.tion of any further details concerning the original de facto alliance between Admiral Dewey and Aguinaldo. Suffice it to remind a people whose saving grace is a love of fair play, that, after the battle of Manila Bay, when Admiral Dewey brought Aguinaldo down from Hong Kong to Cavite, both the Admiral and his Filipino allies were keenly cognizant of the national purpose set forth in the declaration of war against Spain, and that the Filipinos could not have been expected to make any substantial distinction between the casual remarks of a victorious admiral on the quarter-deck of his flags.h.i.+p in May, remarks concurrent and consistent with actual treatment of the Filipinos as allies, and the imperious commands of a general ash.o.r.e in December thereafter, acting under specific orders pursuant to the Treaty of Paris. The one great fact of the situation, ”as huge as high Olympus,” they did grasp, viz., that both were representatives of America on the ground at the time of their respective utterances, and that one in December in effect repudiated without a word of explanation what the other had done from May to August. They had helped us to take the city of Manila in August, and, to use the current phrase of the pa.s.sing hour, coined in this period of awakening of the national conscience to a proper att.i.tude toward double-dealing in general, they felt that they had been ”given the double cross.” In other words they believed that the American Government had been guilty of a duplicity rankly Machiavellian. And that was the cause of the war.

We have seen in the chapters on ”The Benevolent a.s.similation Proclamation” and ”The Iloilo Fiasco” that, in the Philippines at any rate, no matter how mellifluously pacific it may have sounded at home--no matter how soothing to the troubled doubts of the national conscience--the Benevolent a.s.similation Proclamation of December 21, 1898, was recognized both by the Eighth Army Corps and by Aguinaldo's people as a call to arms--a signal to the former to get ready for the work of ”civilizing with a Krag”; a signal to the latter to gird up their loins for the fight to the death for government of their people, by their people, for their people; and that the yearning benevolence of said proclamation was calculated strikingly to remind the Filipinos of Spain's previous traditional yearnings for the welfare of Cuba, indignantly cut short by us--yearnings ”to spare the great island from the danger of premature independence” [309] which that decadent monarchy could not even help repeating in the swan-song wherein she sued to President McKinley for peace. We did not realize the absoluteness of the a.n.a.logy then. It is all clear enough now. We can now understand how and why Mr. McKinley's programme of Annexation and Benevolent a.s.similation of 1898-9, blindly earnest as was his belief that it would make the Filipino people at once cheerfully forego the ”legitimate aspirations” to which we ourselves had originally given a momentum so generous that nothing but bullets could then possibly have stopped it, was in fact received by them in a manner compared with which Canada's response in 1911 to Speaker Champ Clark's equally benevolent suggestion of United States willingness to accord to Canada also, gradual Benevolent a.s.similation and Ultimate Annexation, was one great sisterly sob of sheer joy as at the finding of a long lost brother. From the arrival of the American troops on June 30, 1898, until the outbreak of February 4, 1899, there had been two armies camped not far from each other, one born of the idea of independence and bent upon it, the other at first groping in the dark without instructions, and finally instructed to deny independence. There was never any faltering or evasion on the part of Aguinaldo and his people. They knew what they wanted and said so on all occasions. At all times and in all places they made it clear, by proclamation, by letter, by conversation, and otherwise, that independence was the one thing to which, whether they were fit for it or not, they had pledged ”their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.”

We have seen how easily the war itself could have been averted by the Bacon Resolution of January, 1899, or some similar resolution frankly declaring the purpose of our government; how here was Senator Bacon at this end of the line pleading with his colleagues to be frank, and to make a declaration in keeping with ”the high purpose” for which we had gone to war with Spain, instead of holding on to the Philippines on the idea that they might prove a second Klondike, while justifying such retention by arbitrarily a.s.suming, without any knowledge whatever on the subject, that the Filipinos were incapable of self-government; how, there, at the other end of the line, at Manila, Aguinaldo's Commissioners, familiar with our Const.i.tution and the history and traditions of our government, were making, substantially, though in more diplomatic language, precisely the same plea, and imploring General Otis's Commissioners to give them some a.s.surance which would quiet the apprehensions of their people, and calm the fear that the original a.s.surance, ”We are going to lick the Spaniards and set you free,” was now about to be ignored because the islands might be profitable to the United States.

We have seen the war itself, as far as it had progressed by June, 1900, one of the bitterest wars in history, punctuated by frequent barbarities avenged in kind, and how, if the Taft Commission had not come out with McKinley spectacles on, they would have seen the picture of a bleeding, prostrate, and deeply hostile people, still bent on fighting to the last ditch, not only animated by a feeling against annexation by us similar to that the Canadians would have to-day if we should also try the Benevolent a.s.similation game on them--first with proclamations breathing benevolence and then with cannon belching grape-shot--but further animated by the instinctive as well as inherited knowledge common to all colored peoples, whether red, yellow brown, or black, that wheresoever white men and colored live in the same country together, there the white man will rule. Understand, this was before Judge Taft had had a chance to a.s.sure them, with the kindly Taft smile and the hearty Taft hand-shake, that their benevolent new masters were going to reverse the verdict of the ages, and treat them with a fraternal love wholly free from race prejudice. If Judge Taft could only have arrived in January, 1899, and told them that the Bacon Resolution really represented the spirit of the att.i.tude of the American people toward them, then the finely commanding bearing of Mr. Taft, and the n.o.ble genuineness of his desire to see peace on earth and goodwill toward men, might even have prevented the war. But this is merely what might have been. What actually was, when he did arrive, in June, 1900, was that the milk of human kindness had long since been spilled, and his task was to gather it up and put it back in the pail. When I, a Southern man who have taken part in the only two wars this nation has had in my lifetime, reflect that in this year of grace, 1912, Mr. Underwood's otherwise matchless availability as the candidate of his party for President is questioned on the idea that it might be a tactical blunder, because of ”the late war,” which broke out before either Mr. Underwood or myself were born, I cannot share the Taft optimism as to the rapidity with which the scars of ”the late war” in the Philippines will heal, and as to the affectionate grat.i.tude toward the United States with which the McKinley-Taft programme of Benevolent a.s.similation will presently be regarded by the people of the Philippine Islands.

We have seen the futile efforts of the Schurman Commission of 1899, sent out that spring, in deference to American public opinion, with definite instructions to try and patch up a peace, by talking to the leading spirits of a war for independence, now in full swing, about the desirability of benevolent leading-strings. ”They [meaning the Schurman Commission] had come,” says Mr. McKinley, in his annual message to Congress of December 5, 1899, [310] ”with the hope of co-operating with Admiral Dewey and General Otis in establis.h.i.+ng peace and order.” They came, they saw, they went, recognizing the futility of the errand on which they had been sent. And now came the Taft Commission a year later, on precisely the same errand, after the Filipinos had sunk all their original petty differences and jealousies in a very reasonable instinctive common fear of economic exploitation, and a very unreasonable but, to them, very real common fear of race elimination, amounting to terror, and been welded into absolute oneness--if that were somewhat lacking before--in the fierce crucible of sixteen months of b.l.o.o.d.y fighting against a foreign foe for the independence of their common country. President McKinley's message to Congress of December, 1899, is full of the old insufferable drivel, so grossly, though unwittingly, ungenerous to our army then in the field in the Philippines, about the triviality of the resistance we were ”up against.” The message in one place blandly speaks of ”the peaceable and loyal majority who ask nothing better than to accept our authority,” in another of ”the sinister ambitions of a few selfish Filipinos.” Thus was outlined, in the message announcing the purpose to send out the Taft Commission, the view that no real fundamental resistance existed in the islands. Basing contemplated action on this sort of stuff, the presidential message outlines the presidential purpose as follows--this in December, 1899, mind you:

There is no reason why steps should not be taken from time to time to inaugurate governments essentially popular in their form as fast as territory is held and controlled by our troops.

Then follows the genesis of the idea which resulted in the Taft Commission:

To this end I am considering the advisability of the return [to the islands] of the commission [the Schurman Commission]

or such of the members thereof as can be secured.

In Cuba, General Wood began the work of reconstruction at Havana with a central government and the best men he could get hold of, and acted through them, letting his plans and purposes percolate downward to the ma.s.ses of the people. Not so in the Philippines. Reconstruction there was to begin by establis.h.i.+ng munic.i.p.al governments, to be later followed by provincial governments, and finally by a central one; in other words, by placing the waters of self-government at the bottom of the social fabric among the most ignorant people, and letting them percolate up, according to some mysterious law of gravitation apparently deemed applicable to political physics. Of course, these poor people simply always took their cue from their leaders, knowing nothing themselves that could affect the success of this project except that we were their enemies and that they might get knocked in the head if they did not play the game. ”I have believed,”

says Mr. McKinley, in his message to Congress of December, 1899, ”that reconstruction should not begin by the establishment of one central civil government for all the islands, with its seat at Manila, but rather that the work should be commenced by building up from the bottom.” Whereat, the young giant America bowed, in puzzled hope, and worldly-wise old Europe smiled, in silent but amused contempt.

If at the time he formulated this scheme for their government Mr. McKinley had known anything about the Philippines, or the Filipinos, he would have known that what he so suavely called ”building from the bottom” was like trying to make water run up hill, i.e., like starting out to have ideas percolate upward, so that through ”the ma.s.ses” the more intelligent people might be redeemed. The ”n.i.g.g.e.r in the woodpile” lay in the words ”essentially popular in form.” Of course no government by us ”essentially popular” was possible at the time. But a government ”popular in form” would sound well to the American people, and, if they could be kept quiet until after the presidential election of 1900, maybe the supposed misunderstanding on the part of the Filipinos of the benevolence of our intentions might be corrected by kindness. Accordingly, the following spring, cotemporaneously with General Otis's final departure from Manila to the United States, in which free country he might say the war was over as much as he pleased without being molested with round-robins by Bob Collins, O. K. Davis, John McCutcheon, and the rest of those banes of his insular career, who so pestiferously insisted that the American public ought to know the facts, the Taft Commission was sent out, to ”aid” General MacArthur, as the Schurman Commission had ”aided”

General Otis. [311]

It would seem fairly beyond any reasonable doubt that the official information the Taft Commission were given by President McKinley concerning the state of public order they would find in the islands on arrival was in keeping with the information solemnly imparted to Congress by him in December thereafter, which was as follows: ”By the spring of this year (1900) the effective opposition of the dissatisfied Tagals”--always the same minimization of the task of the army as a sop to the American conscience--”was virtually ended.” Then follows a glowing picture of how the Filipinos are going to love us after we rescue them from the hated Tagal, but with this circ.u.mspect reservation: ”He would be rash who, with the teachings of contemporary history, would fix a limit” as to how long it will take to produce such a state of affairs. Looking at that mighty panorama of events from the dispa.s.sionate standpoint now possible, it seems to me that Mr. McKinley's whole Philippine policy of 1899-1900 was animated by the belief that the more the Philippine situation should resemble the really identical Cuban one in the estimation of the American people, the more likely his Philippine policy was to be repudiated at the polls in the fall of 1900. The Taft Commission left Was.h.i.+ngton for Manila in the spring of 1900, after their final conference with the President who had appointed them and was a candidate for re-election in the coming fall, as completely committed as circ.u.mstances can commit any man or set of men to the programme of occupation which was to follow the subjugation of the inhabitants, and to the proposition of present incapacity for self-government, its corner-stone; to say nothing of the embarra.s.sment felt at Was.h.i.+ngton by reason of having stumbled into a b.l.o.o.d.y war with people whom we honestly wanted to help, had never seen, and had nothing but the kindliest feelings for. While the serene and capacious intellect of William H. Taft was still pursuing the even tenor of its way in the halls of justice (as United States Circuit Judge for the 8th Circuit), the Philippine programme was formulated at Was.h.i.+ngton. Judge Taft went to Manila to make the best of a situation which he had not created, to write the lines of the Deus ex machina for a Tragedy of Errors up to that point composed wholly by others. It has been frequently stated and generally believed that when Mr. McKinley sent for him and proposed the Philippine mission, Judge Taft replied, substantially: ”Mr. President, I am not the man for the place. I don't want the Philippines.” To which Mr. McKinley is supposed to have replied: ”You are the man for the place, Judge. I had rather have a man out there who doesn't want them.” The point of the original story lay in what Mr. McKinley said. The point of the repet.i.tion of it here lies in what Mr. Taft said, the inference therefrom being that he did not think the true interests of his country ”wanted” them, and that had he been called into President McKinley's council sooner he would have so advised; an inference warranted by his subsequent admission that ”we blundered into colonization.” [312]

It is utterly fatal to clear thinking on this great subject, which concerns the liberties of a whole people, to treat Judge Taft's reports as Commissioner to, and later Governor of, the Philippines as in the nature of a judicial decision on the capacity of the Filipinos for self-government. When he consented to go out there, he went, not to review the findings of the Paris Peace Commission, but at the urgent solicitation of an Administration whose fortunes were irrevocably committed to those findings, including the express finding that they were unfit for self-government, and the implied one that we must remain to improve the condition of the inhabitants. He was thus not a judge come out to decide on the fitness of the people for self-government, but an advocate to make the best possible case for their unfitness, and its corollary, the necessity to remain indefinitely, just as England has remained in Egypt. The war itself convinced the whole army of the United States that Aguinaldo would have been the ”Boss of the Show”