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
Governor Taft's statement in his report for 1901, that the four
principal provinces, above named, Batangas and the rest, were organized
under civil rule "on the recommendation of General MacArthur,"
is fully explained in his testimony before the Senate Committee of
1902. From the various passages hereinbefore quoted from President
McKinley's state papers concerning the Philippines, especially
his messages to Congress, the political pressure Mr. McKinley was
under from the beginning to make a show of "civil" government, thus
emphasizing the alleged absence of any real substantial opposition
to our rule by a seeming absence of necessity for the use of force,
so as to palliate American repugnance to forcing a government upon an
unwilling people, has been made clear. There were to be no "dark days
of reconstruction." The Civil War in the United States from 1861 to
1865 was a love feast compared with our war in the Philippines. Yet the
work of reconstruction in the Philippines was to be predicated on the
theory of consent, so persistently urged by President McKinley before
the American people from the beginning, viz., that the insurrection
represented only a small faction of the people. We have seen how
General MacArthur also had originally, in 1898, entertained this
notion, and how by the time he took Malolos in March, 1899, he had
gotten over this notion, and had--regretfully--recognized that "the
whole people are loyal to Aguinaldo and the cause he represents." And
now came Governor Taft, after fifteen months more of continuous
fighting, to tell General MacArthur, on behalf of Mr. McKinley,
that he, MacArthur, did not know what he was talking about, and that
"the great majority" were for American rule. The representative
men of my own State of Georgia welcomed the return of the State to
military control in 1870. Most of them had been officers of the
Confederate army. The Federal commander simply told them that if
they could not restrain the lawless element of their own people, he
would. By premature setting up of the Philippine civil government,
the lawless element was allowed full swing. General MacArthur had
been in the Civil War. He knew something about reconstruction. But
here were the Taft Commission, with instructions from Mr. McKinley to
the effect that civil government, government "essentially popular in
form," was to be set up as fast as territory was conquered. It didn't
make any difference about the government being "essentially popular"
just so it was "essentially popular in form." To the Senate Committee
of 1902, Governor Taft said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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