The Act of Congress of 1902 had made the usual provision permitting the governor to declare martial law in a given locality in his discretion. But the reconcentration law passed by the Philippine Commission was a way of avoiding the exercise of that authority, so as to keep up the appearance of peace in the provinces to which it might be applied, regardless of how many lives it might cost. In its last analysis the reconcentration law was at once an admission of a duty to order out the military and a declaration of intention to neglect that duty. I suppose the eminent gentlemen who enacted it justified it on the idea of teaching the natives how to maintain order themselves by letting them stew in the dregs of their own insurrection. Yet no one can read the Commission's own description of the widespread lawlessness which so long ran riot after the guerrilla warfare degenerated into brigandage, without seeing, from their own showing, how obvious was their duty to have waited, originally, until law and order were restored, by not interfering with the war itself until it was over, and by keeping the country properly garrisoned for a decorous and sufficient period after it was over, until something like real peace conditions should exist, on which to begin the work of post-bellum reconstruction. After all, it all gets us back to the original pernicious programme outlined in President McKinley's annual message to Congress of December, 1899, wherein was announced the intention to send out the Taft Commission, which message also announced, in effect, that it was Mr. McKinley's purpose to begin the work of reconstruction as fast as the patient and unconsenting millions "loyal to our rule" should be rescued from the clutch of the hated Tagals. Recurring again to the reconcentration law itself, the moral quality of executive action putting it in operation was not unlike that which would attach should the Governor of Massachusetts, in lieu of ordering the state troops to the scene of great strike riots in half a dozen towns around Boston, issue a proclamation something like this: The situation has grown so serious that your local police force, as you see, is wholly inadequate to cope with the situation. You will all, therefore, thrust your tooth-brushes, night-gowns, and a change of clothing, into the family grip, and assemble on the Boston Common and in the public gardens, there to remain until the necessity for this order ceases to exist, and we will there take the best care of you we can, as was done in the case of the San Francisco fire. As governor I am unwilling to order out the military.