Such was the problem which confronted Governor Taft in 1903 as to public order and protection of the peaceably inclined people, in the two main provinces hereinafter dealt with. It is a great pity that in 1903 President Roosevelt could not have called in Secretary of War Root and sent for Senator Bacon, and those of the latter's colleagues whose philippics in the Senate of the year previous against Generals Jake Smith and J. Franklin Bell had reminded an aroused nation of the days of Cicero and Verres, Tacitus and Africa, etc., and had a frank talk with them somewhat after this fashion: Gentlemen, Governor Taft has a hard job out there in the Philippines. There is a big insurrection going on in the province of Albay, which is the very richest province in the whole archipelago, a province as big as the State of Delaware, [413] having a population of about a quarter of a million people, and he has, for police purposes, a crude outfit of native constabulary, officered mostly by ex-enlisted men of the mustered-out American volunteer regiments. The personnel of the officers may be weeded out later and made a fine body of men, but just at present there are a good many rather tough citizens among them. Moreover, as soon as the constabulary was gotten together they were at once set to work chasing little remnants of the insurgent army all over the archipelago. So as yet they are as undisciplined an outfit as you can well imagine, and have never had any opportunity to act together in any considerable command. Moreover, hardly any Filipinos have yet had a chance to learn much about how to shoot a rifle. Also, they know practically nothing about the interior economy of large commands, such as handling and distributing rations systematically for troops and for prisoners, or doing the same as to clothing, and nothing at all about medical care of the wounded, or the sick, or prisoners. So you can see that to handle this insurrection with such an outfit as this is sure to mean trouble of one sort or another. Wholly unauthorized overtures through officious natives, to the insurgent brigand chiefs, may, possibly, be made, promising them immunity, when they ought to be made an example of; and that will embarrass us in punishing them when we do finally get them, and be an encouragement to other cut-throats to do likewise in the future. Worst of all, you can see that if some five hundred or a thousand of these brigands, or insurgents, or whatever they are, suddenly surrender, the ordinary police accommodations for housing and feeding prisoners will be wholly inadequate; yet we will have to detain them all until our courts can sift them and see which are the mere dumb driven cattle and which are the mischievous fellows. Therefore, in case of such a surrender, the nature of this constabulary