William McKinley. The words used in the foregoing proclamation which were regarded by the Filipinos as "fighting words," i. e., as making certain the long anticipated probability of a war for independence, are those which appear in italics. The rest of the proclamation counted for nothing with them. They had been used to the hollow rhetoric and flowery promises of equally eloquent Spanish proclamations all their lives, they and their fathers before them. In suing to President McKinley for peace on July 22d, previous, the Prime Minister of Spain had justified all the atrocities committed and permitted by his government in Cuba during the thirty years' struggle for independence there which preceded the Spanish-American War by saying that what Spain had done had been prompted only by a "desire to spare the great island from the dangers of premature independence." [158] Clearly, from the Filipino point of view, the United States was now determined "to spare them from the dangers of premature independence," using such force as might be necessary for the accomplishment of that pious purpose. The truth is that, Prometheus-like, we stole the sacred fire from the altar of Freedom whereupon the flames of the Spanish War were kindled, and gave it to the Filipinos, justifying the means by the end; and "the links of the lame Lemnian" have been festering in our flesh ever since. The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation was a kind of Pandora Box, supposed to contain all the blessings of Liberty, but when the lid was taken off, woes innumerable befell the intended beneficiaries, and left them only the Hope of Freedom--from us. Verily there is nothing new under the sun. It is written: "Thou shalt not steal" anything--not even "sacred fire." There is no such thing as nimble morality. The lesson of the old Greek poet fits our case. So also, indeed, do those of the modern sage, Maeterlinck, for the Filipinos could have found their own Bluebird for happiness. The record of our experience in the Philippines is full of reminders, which will multiply as the years go by, that, after all, every people have an "unalienable right" to pursue happiness in their own way as opposed to somebody else's way. That is the law of God, as God gives me to see the right. Conceived during the Christmas holiday season and in the spirit of that blessed season and presented to the Filipino people on New Year's Day, received by them practically as a declaration of war and baptized in the blood of thousands of them in the battle of February 4th thereafter, the manner of the reception of this famous document, the initial reversal and subsequent evolution of its policies, and all the lights and shadows of Benevolent Assimilation will be traced in the chapters which follow. CHAPTER IX THE ILOILO FIASCO The King of France with forty thousand men Marched up the hill and then marched down again.