The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912Blount, James H. (James Henderson)
History
The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912
Blount, James H. (James Henderson)
Philippines -- History -- 1898-1946; Philippines -- Politics and government -- 1898-1935
Now I'd like to know who's the boss of the show,
Is it me or Emilio Aguinaldo?
was a point of departure, in the matter of information, which
served to acquaint them with all that had gone before. They resented
the loss of prestige to American arms and desired to restore that
prestige. While engaged in so doing, they became aware, during the
Presidential year 1900, that the campaign of that year in the United
States was based largely upon the pretence that the majority of the
Filipinos welcomed our rule. Naturally, their experience led them to
a very general and very cordial detestation of this pretence. For one
thing, it was an unfair belittling of the actual military service
they were rendering. People hate a lie whether they are able to
trace its devious windings to its source or sources, or to analyze
all its causes, or calculate all its possible effects, or not. The
real rock-bottom falsehood, not as fully understood then as it became
later, consisted in the impression sought to be produced at home, in
order to get votes, that the great body of the Filipino people were
not really in sympathy with their country's struggle for freedom,
and would be really glad tamely to accept the alien domination so
benevolently offered by a superior people, but were being coerced into
fighting through intimidation by a few selfish leaders acting for their
own selfish ends. While our fighting generals in the field,--General
MacArthur, for instance, whose interview with a newspaper man just
after the fall of Malolos, in March, 1899, subsequently verified by
him before the Senate Committee of 1902, has already been noticed--at
first believed that it was only a faction that we had to contend with,
they soon discovered that the whole people were loyal to Aguinaldo and
the cause he represented. But, while the point as to how unanimous
the resistance was remained a disputed matter for some little time
among those of our people who did not have to "go up against it,"
the most curious fact of that whole historic situation, to my mind,
is the absolute identity of the disputed suggestion with that which
had previously been used in like cases in all ages by the powerful
against people struggling to be free, and the cotemporaneous absence
of any notation of the coincidence by any conspicuous spectator of
the drama, to say nothing of us smaller fry who bore the brunt of
the war or any portion of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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