Part 35 (2/2)

This explains how ”the overwhelming majority” of which the certificate of 1907 speaks was obtained in Cavite. It took six months to obtain said ”majority” at that. I suppose the campaigning of the American regulars might be credited with obtaining the ”majority,” and the reconcentration of brother Baker of the constabulary might be accorded the additional credit of making the majority ”overwhelming.” If you have, as election tellers, so to speak, a soldier with a bayonet on one side, and a constabulary officer with a reconcentration camp back of him on the other, you can get an ”overwhelming majority”

for the continuance of American rule even in Cavite province.

Through men I commanded during the early campaigning, I have killed my share of Filipinos in the time of war; and after the civil government was set up I had occasion to hang a good many of them, under what seemed to me a necessary application of the old Mosaic law, ”An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life.” But I thank G.o.d I have never been a party to the insufferable pretence that they, or any appreciable fraction of them, ever consented to our rule. This, however, is the whole theory of the Philippine Commission's certificate of March 28, 1907. It is curious how generously and supremely frank a brave soldier will get when he forgets to be a politician. In one of his state papers of 1907 Governor-General Smith [480] speaks of General Trias, who had been Lieutenant-General of the insurgent army in the days of the insurrection, and next in rank to Aguinaldo himself, as one ”whose love of country had been tested on many a well fought field of honorable conflict.” Contrast this tribute to the respectability of the original Philippine war for independence against us with the long list of stale falsehoods already reviewed in this volume, on the faith of which, in the presidential campaign of 1900, the American people were persuaded that to deny to the Filipinos what they had accorded to Cuba was righteous! The leaders of the Cavite-Batangas uprising of 1905 had been officers of the insurgent army, and that was the secret of their hold upon the people of those provinces. It is true that they must have been pretty sorry officers, and that they were ladrones (brigands). They were cruel and unmitigated scoundrels working for purely selfish and vainglorious ends. But it was the cloak of patriotism, however, infamously misused, that gained them such success as they attained in 1905. Says the American Governor of Cavite province in his annual report for 1906 [481]:

The province should be most carefully watched. I am convinced that ladrone leaders do not produce conditions, but that the conditions and att.i.tude of the public produce ladrones.

So much for the Cavite-Batangas hurdle. And now as to the Samar and Leyte hurdle.

The signers of the certificate of 1907 justify their certificate as to Samar and Leyte on a very ingenious theory. The Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, already cited, which had provided for the taking of a census preliminary to the call of an election for delegates to a legislature, had recognized the crude ethnological status of the Moros and other non-Christian tribes. These had never had anything whatever to do with the insurrection against us. Therefore in making the continuance of a state of general and complete peace for a prescribed period a condition precedent to granting the Filipinos a legislature, the Act of 1902 had limited that condition precedent to ”the territory of said Islands not inhabited by Moros or other non-Christian tribes.” In fact President Roosevelt's proclamation of September 25, 1902, already noticed, ordering the taking of the census on the theory that a state of general and complete peace then existed, explains that this theory is entirely consistent with trouble among the Moros and other non-Christian tribes because they, it says, quoting from a statement of the Philippine Commission previously made to the President, ”never have taken any part in the insurrection.” The Moros and other non-Christian tribes were, so to speak, in no sense a.s.sets of the Philippine insurrection. All the rest of the population was--that is, if there was anything in the veteran General MacArthur's grim jest of 1900, prompted by Governor Taft's half-baked opinion to the contrary, that ”ethnological h.o.m.ogeneity” was the secret of the unanimity of the opposition we met, and that somehow people ”will stick to their own kith and kin.” When the Philippine Government Act of 1902 was drawn n.o.body pretended for a moment that there were any non-Christian tribes either in Samar or Leyte. The whole population of those Islands were valuable a.s.sets of the insurrection. If any one doubts it, let him ask the 9th Infantry. You will find in the Census of 1903 that there are no non-Christian tribes credited either to Samar or Leyte. [482]

When the Philippine Government Act of 1902 was drafted, the exception about Moros and other non-Christian tribes was intended to except merely certain types of people as distinct from the great ma.s.s of the Philippine population as islands are from the sea. The fact is, no person connected with the Philippine Government either before or after the certificate under consideration, ever thought of cla.s.sifying the ignorant country people of the uplands and hills of Samar or Leyte, as ”non-Christian tribes.” The Philippine Census of 1903 does not so cla.s.sify them. The very volume of the Report of the Philippine Commission for 1907 in which the certificate aforesaid appears, does not. In that volume, [483] the report of the Executive Secretary deals elaborately with the subject of non-Christian tribes. Professor Worcester of the Philippine Commission has for the last twelve years been the grand official digger-up of non-Christian tribes. He takes as much delight at the discovery of a new non-Christian tribe in some remote, newly penetrated mountain fastness, as the b.u.t.terfly catcher with the proverbial blue goggles does in the capture of a new kind of b.u.t.terfly. The Executive Secretary's report, out of deference to the professor, omits no single achievement of his with reference to his anthropological hobby. It treats, with an enthusiasm that would delight Mrs. Jellyby herself, of ”the progress that was made during the fiscal year in the work of civilizing non-Christian tribes scattered throughout the archipelago.” It gives an alphabetical list of all the provinces where there are non-Christian tribes, and, under the name of each province it gives notes as to the progress during the year with those tribes. Neither Samar nor Leyte appear in that list of provinces. So that the Samar ”Pulajans,” or ”Red Breeches” fellows,--”fanatical” Pulajans, they are called in the certificate--were ”non-Christian tribes” for peace certificate purposes only. One thing which makes it most difficult of all for me to understand how these gentlemen got their consent to sign that certificate is that each non-Christian tribe in the Philippines has a language of its own, whereas the country people of the uplands and mountains of Samar and Leyte who are labelled--or libelled--”non-Christian tribes” in the certificate of 1907, were no more different from the rest of the population of those islands than, for instance, the ignorant mountain people of Virginia or Kentucky are different, ethnologically, from the inhabitants of Richmond or Louisville. In his report for 1908, [484] Governor-General Smith himself makes this perfectly clear, where he describes the Samar Pulajan, or mountaineer, thus:

The Pulajan is not a robber or a thief by nature--quite the contrary. He is hard working, industrious, and even frugal. He had his little late [485] of hemp on the side of the mountain, and breaking out his picul [486] of hemp, he carried it hank by hank for miles and miles over almost impa.s.sable mountain trails to the nearest town or barrio. There he offered it for sale, and if he refused the price tendered, which was generally not more than half the value, he soon found himself arrested on a trumped-up charge, and unless he compromised by parting with his hemp he found himself, after paying his fine and lawyer's fees, without either hemp or money.

The non-Christian tribes, on the other hand, never have anything to do with the civilized people. The Act of Congress of 1902, therefore, had no sort of reference to the simple, ignorant, and ordinarily docile mountain folk who tilled the soil, revered the priests, paid their cedula or head tax like all the rest of the population of the Islands, and carried their agricultural products from season to season, their hemp and the like, to the coast towns to market. In other words, inclusion of the Samar ”Pulajans,” or ”Red Breeches” brigade, and the Leyte bandits, in the peace certificate of 1907, as ”non-Christian tribes” was an afterthought, having no foundation either in logic or fact. It was a part of Benevolent a.s.similation. This is clearly apparent from President Roosevelt's message to Congress of December, 1905. [487] You do not find any buncombe about ”non-Christian tribes” in that message. In there reviewing the Samar and other insurrections of 1905 in the Philippines, you find him dealing with the real root of the evil with perfect honesty, though adopting the view that the Filipino people were to blame therefor, because we had placed too much power in the hands of an ignorant electorate, which had elected rascally officials. ”Cavite and Samar,” he says, ”are instances of reposing too much confidence in the self-governing power of a people.” If we had let the Filipinos go ahead with their little republic in 1898, instead of destroying it as we did, they knew and would have utilized the true elements of strength they had, viz., a very considerable body of educated, patriotic men having the loyal confidence of the ma.s.ses of the people. But we proceeded to ram down their throats a preconceived theory that the only road to self-government was for an alien people to step in and make the ignorant ma.s.ses the sine qua non. Yet if there was one point on which Mr. McKinley had laid more stress than on any other, in his original instructions of April 7, 1900, to the Taft Commission, that point was the one consecrated in the following language of those instructions:

In all the forms of government and administrative provisions which they are authorized to prescribe, the commission should bear in mind that the government which they are establis.h.i.+ng is designed not for * * * the expression of our theoretical views, etc.

Of course the ignorant electorate we perpetrated on Samar as an ”expression of our theoretical views” proved that we had ”gone too fast” in conferring self-government, or, to quote Mr. Roosevelt, had been ”reposing too much confidence in the self-governing power of a people,” if to begin with the rankest material for constructing a government that there was at hand was to offer a fair test of capacity for self-government. But President Roosevelt's message, above quoted, shows you that the ”ignorant electorate” was merely an ignorant electorate, and not a non-Christian tribe, as the Philippine Commission later had the temerity to certify they were. Now the plain, unvarnished, benevolent truth is just this: The Commission knew that n.o.body in the United States, whether they were for retaining the Islands or against retaining them, had any desire to postpone granting a legislature to the Philippine people. So in their certificate they simply included everybody who had given trouble in Samar and Leyte as ”non-Christian tribes.” The only justification for this was that they had in fact acted in a most un-Christianlike manner,--i.e., for people who devotedly murmur prayers to patron saints in good standing in the church calendar. In making their certificate, the Commission simply ignored the various uprisings of the preceding two years. They simply said, generously, ”Oh, forget it.” They knew n.o.body in the United States begrudged the Filipinos their conditionally promised legislature, or cared to postpone it. The leading Filipinos begged the authorities to ”forget” the various disturbances that had occurred since the publication of the census, and there was a very general desire in the Islands to let bygones be bygones, wipe the slate, and begin again. Any other att.i.tude would have meant that the legislature would have to be postponed. Then the opposition in the United States would want to know why, and by 1908 Philippine independence might become an issue again. In the eyes of the Commission, the end, being benevolent, justified stretching the language of the Act of 1902 as if it had been the blessed veil of charity itself--i.e., the end justified the means. In fact it did--almost--justify the means. But not quite. The moral quality of the Great Certificate of 1907 was not as reprehensible as General Anderson's dealings with Aguinaldo, already described, which, like the certificate, were a necessary part of the benevolent hypocrisy of Benevolent a.s.similation of an unconsenting people. Yet General Anderson is an honorable man. It was not as bad as General Greene's juggling Aguinaldo out of his trenches before Manila in a friendly way, and failing to give him a receipt for said trenches, as he had promised to do, because such a receipt would show co-operation and ”might look too much like an alliance.” This also was done on the idea that the end justified the means. Yet General Greene is an honorable man. The signers of the great peace certificate of 1907 are all honorable men. But they signed that certificate, just the same. ”Judge not that ye be not judged.” All I have to say is, I would not have signed that certificate. I would have said: ”No, gentlemen, the end does not justify the means. The Philippine a.s.sembly must be postponed, if we are going to deal frankly with Congress and the folks at home. The conditions Congress made precedent to the grant of an a.s.sembly have not been met, and we each and all of us know it. We owe more to our own country and to truth than we do to the Filipinos. The Act of Congress of 1902 did not vest in the Philippine Commission authority to pardon disturbances of public order. It imposed upon the Commission an implied duty to report such disturbances, fully and frankly. It is not true that there has been a continuing state of general and complete peace in these Islands for the last two years, and I for one will not certify that there has been.”

The truth is, the att.i.tude of the signers of the certificate was like that of Uncle Remus, when interrupted by the little boy in one of his stories. When Uncle Remus gets to the point in the rabbit story where the rabbit thrillingly escapes from the jaws of death, i.e., from the jaws of the dogs, by climbing a tree, the rapt listener interrupts: ”Why, Uncle Remus, a rabbit can't climb a tree.” To which Uncle Remus replies, with a rea.s.suring wave of the hand, ”Oh, but Honey, dis rabbit dess 'bleeged ter climb dis tree.”

Should any of my good friends still in the Philippines feel disposed to censure such levity as the above, I can only say, as Kipling writes from England to his Anglo-Indian friends in a foreword to one of his books:

I have told these tales of our life For a sheltered people's mirth, In jesting guise,--but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth.

Moreover, my authority to speak frankly about these matters is also aptly stated by the same great poet thus:

I have eaten your bread and salt, I have drunk your water and wine, The deaths ye died I have watched beside And the lives that ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share In vigil or toil or ease, One joy or woe that I did not know, Dear friends across the seas?

The above reflections are not placed before the reader to show him what a pity it is that the writer was not a member of the Philippine Commission at the time of their certificate of 1907, or to show what a fine thing for our common country it would be if he were made a member of that Commission now. He is, personally, as disinterested as if Manila were in the moon, for he cannot live in the tropics any more. The effect of a year or so of residence there upon white men invalided home for tropical dysentery and then returning to the Islands is like the effect of water upon a starched s.h.i.+rt. However, it is believed that the facts of official record collected in this chapter up to this point are a demonstration of this proposition, to wit: What the Philippine Government needs more than anything else is that the minority party in the United States should be represented on the Commission. By this I do not mean representation by what are called, under Republican Administrations, ”White House” Democrats, nor what under a Democratic Administration, if one should ever occur, would probably be called ”Copperhead Republicans.” I mean the genuine article. A Democrat who has cast his fortunes with the Philippines is no longer a Democrat relatively to the Philippines, because the Democratic party wants to get rid of the Philippines and the Democrat in the Philippines of course does not. How absurd it is to talk about former Governors Wright and Smith, as ”life-long Democrats,” by way of preliminary to using their opinions as ”admissions.” In the law of evidence, an ”admission” is a statement made against the interest of the party making it.

The first election for representatives in the Philippine a.s.sembly was held on July 30, 1907, and on October 16th thereafter the a.s.sembly was formally opened by Secretary of War, William H. Taft. The various ”whereases” hereinabove reviewed, importing complete acquiescence in American rule since President Roosevelt's Proclamation of July 4, 1902, were first duly read, and then the a.s.sembly was opened. Of course, no man could have been elected to the a.s.sembly without at least pretending to be in favor of independence, and all but a corporal's guard of them were outspoken in favor of the proposition. As the present Governor-General Mr. Forbes, said, while Vice-Governor, in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1909:

To deny the capacity of one's country for * * * self-government is essentially unpopular.

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