When our commissioners met at Paris to draft the Treaty of Peace, one wished our demands in the Orient confined to Manila, with a few harbors and coaling stations. Two thought it well to take Luzon, or some such goodly portion of the archipelago. That the treaty at last called for the entire Philippine domain, allowing $20,000,000 therefor, was supposed due to insistence from Washington. Only the Vice-President's casting vote defeated a resolution introduced in the Senate by Senator Bacon, of Georgia, declaring our intention to treat the Filipinos as we were pledged to treat the Cubans. After ratification the Senate passed a resolution, introduced by Senator McEnery, of Louisiana, avowing the purpose not to make the Filipinos United States citizens or their land American territory, but to establish for them a government suited to their needs, in due time disposing of the archipelago according to the interests of our people and of the inhabitants. CHAPTER XV. THE UNITED STATES IN THE ORIENT WAR, CONTROVERSY, PEACE It was wholly problematical how long Aguinaldo unaided could dominate Luzon, still more so whether he would rule tolerably, and more uncertain yet whether centre or south would ever yield to him. The insurgents had foothold in four or five Visayan islands, but were never admitted to Negros, which of its own accord raised our flag. In Mindanao, the Sulu Islands, and Palawan they practically had no influence. Governor Taft was of opinion that they could never, unaided, have set up their sway in these southern regions. But should they succeed in establishing good government over the entire archipelago, clearly they must be for an indefinite period incompetent to take over the international responsibilities connected with the islands. To have at once conceded their sovereignty could have subserved no end that would have been from any point of view rational or humane. The American situation was delicate. We were present as friends, but could be really so only by, for the time, seeming not to be so. At points we failed in tact. We too little recognized distinctions among classes of Filipinos, tending to treat all alike as savages. When our thought ceased to be that of ousting Spain, and attacked the more serious question what to do next, our manner toward the Filipinos abruptly changed. Our purposes were left unnecessarily equivocal. Our troops viewed the Filipinos with ill-concealed contempt. "Filipinos" and "niggers" were often used as synonyms.