The First Philippine Commission

I have elsewhere mentioned the appointment of the First Philippine Commission.

On January 18, 1899, its civilian members met at Washington and received the President’s instructions.

We were to aid in “the most humane, pacific and effective extension of authority throughout these islands, and to secure, with the least possible delay, the benefits of a wise and generous protection of life and property to the inhabitants.”

We were directed to meet at the earliest possible day in the city of Manila and to announce by a public proclamation our presence and the mission intrusted to us, carefully setting forth that while the established military government would be continued as long as necessity might require, efforts would be made to alleviate the burden of taxation, to establish industrial and commercial prosperity and to provide for the safety of persons and property by such means as might be found conducive to those ends.

We were to endeavour, without interfering with the military authorities, to ascertain what amelioration in the condition of the inhabitants and what improvements in public order were practicable, and for this purpose were to study attentively the existing social and political state of the several populations, particularly as regarded the forms of local government, the administration of justice, the collection of customs and other taxes, the means of transportation and the need of public improvements, reporting through the Department of State the results of our observations and reflections, and recommending such executive action as might, from time to time, seem to us wise and useful.

We were authorized to recommend suitable persons for appointment to offices, made necessary by personal changes in the existing civil administration, from among the inhabitants who had previously acknowledged their allegiance to the American government.

We were to “ever use due respect for all the ideals, customs and institutions of the tribes which compose the population, emphasizing upon all occasions the just and beneficent intentions of the United States,” and were commissioned on account of our “knowledge, skill, and integrity as bearers of the good-will, the protection and the richest blessings of a liberating rather than a conquering nation.”

Nothing could be more false than Blount’s insinuation that we were sent out to help Otis run the war. There was no war when we started, and we were expressly enjoined from interfering with the military government or its officers. We were sent to deliver a message of good-will, to investigate, and to recommend, and there our powers ended.

Mr. Schurman and I, with a small clerical force, sailed from Vancouver, January 31, 1899. On our arrival at Yokohama we learned with keen regret of the outbreak of hostilities at Manila.

Blount has incorrectly stated that President McKinley had sent the commission out when the dogs of war were already let loose. The dogs of war had not been loosed when we started, and one of the main purposes in sending us was to keep them in their kennels if possible.

Aguinaldo has made the following statements in his “Reseña Veridica":

“... We, the Filipinos, would have received said commission, as honourable agents of the great America, with demonstrations of true kindness and entire adhesion. The commissioners would have toured over all our provinces, seeing and observing at close range order and tranquillity, in the whole of our territory. They would have seen the fields tilled and planted. They would have examined our Constitution and public administration, in perfect peace, and they would have experienced and enjoyed that ineffable charm of our Oriental manner, a mixture of abandon and solicitude, of warmth and of frigidity, of confidence and of suspiciousness, which makes our relations with foreigners change into a thousand colours, agreeable to the utmost.

“Ah! but this landscape suited neither General Otis nor the Imperialists! For their criminal intention it was better that the American commissioners should find war and desolation in the Philippines, perceiving from the day of their arrival the fetid stench emitted by the mingled corpses of Americans and Filipinos. For their purposes it was better that that gentleman, Mr. Schurman, President of the Commission, could not leave Manila, limiting himself to listen to the few Filipinos, who, having yielded to the reasonings of gold, were partisans of the Imperialists. It was better that the commission should contemplate the Philippine problem through conflagrations, to the whiz of bullets, on the transverse light of all the unchained passions, in order that it might not form any exact or complete opinion of the natural and proper limits of said problem. Ah! it was better, in short, that the commission should leave defeated in not having secured peace, and would blame me and the other Filipinos, when I and the whole Filipino people anxiously desired that peace should have been secured before rather than now, but an honourable and worthy peace for the United States and for the Philippine Republic.”

These statements, made to deceive the public, make interesting reading in the light of our present knowledge as to the purposes and plans of Aguinaldo and his associates.

On our arrival at Yokohama we were promptly informed by a secretary from the United States Legation that no less a personage than Marquis Ito had been in frequent communication with the Filipinos since 1894, that they had been looking to him for advice and support, and that he had interested himself in the present situation sufficiently to come to the American minister and offer to go to the Philippines, not in any sense as an agent of the United States, but as a private individual, and to use his influence in our behalf. His contention was that the then existing conditions resulted from misunderstandings.

He said that Americans did not understand Asiatics, but he was an Asiatic himself and did understand the Filipinos, and thought that he eould settle the whole affair. The minister had cabled to Washington for instructions. Naturally the offer was not accepted.

I was reminded, by this extraordinary incident, of a previous occurrence. I spent the month of March, 1893, in Tokio when returning from my second visit to the Philippines, and was kindly invited to inspect the zooelogical work at the Imperial University. When I visited the institution for that purpose, I was questioned very closely on the islands, their people and their resources. The gentlemen who interrogated me may have been connected with the university, but I doubt it.

We reached Hongkong on February 22. Here I had an interview with Dr. Apacible of the junta, while Mr. Schurman visited Canton. Apacible told me that the Filipinos wanted an independent republic under an American protectorate. Pressed for the details of their desires, he said that “the function of a protector is to protect.” Further than that he could not go. I tried to convince him of the hopelessness of the course the Filipinos were then pursuing and of the kindly intentions of my government, but felt that I made no impression on him.

We arrived at Manila on March 4, 1899, too late to land. Firebugs were abroad. We watched a number of houses burn, and heard the occasional crackle of rifle fire along the line of the defences around the city. The next morning there was artillery fire for a time at San Pedro Macati. Everywhere were abundant evidences that the war was on.

This left little for us to do at the moment except to inform ourselves as to conditions, especially as Colonel Denby had not yet arrived, and General Otis was overwhelmed with work and anxiety.

I renewed my acquaintance with many old Filipino and Spanish friends and improved the opportunity, not likely to recur in my experience, to see as much as possible of the fighting in the field.

One day when I was at San Pedro Macati, Captain Dyer, who commanded a battery of 3.2-inch guns there, suggested that if I wished to investigate the effect of shrapnel fire I could do so by visiting a place on a neighbouring hillside which he indicated. Acting upon his suggestion, I set out, accompanied by my private secretary, who, like myself, was clad in white duck. The Insurgent sharpshooters on the other side of the river devoted some attention to us, but we knew that so long as they aimed at us we were quite safe. Few of their bullets came within hearing distance.

We were hunting about on the hillside for the place indicated by Captain Dyer, when suddenly we heard ourselves cursed loudly and fluently in extremely plain American, and there emerged from a neighbouring thicket a very angry infantry officer. On venturing to inquire the cause of his most uncomplimentary remarks, I found that he was in command of skirmishers who were going through the brush to see whether there was anything left there which needed shooting up. As many of the Insurgent soldiers dressed in white, and as American civilians were not commonly to be met in Insurgent territory, these men had been just about to fire on us when they discovered their mistake. We went back to Manila and bought some khaki clothes.

At first my interest in military matters was not appreciated by my army friends, who could not see what business I had to be wandering around without a gun in places where guns were in use. I had, however, long since discovered that reliable first-hand information on any subject is likely to be useful sooner or later, and so it proved in this case.

For several weeks after we reached Manila there was no active military movement; then came the inauguration of the short, sharp campaign which ended for the moment with the taking of Malolos. For long, tedious weeks our soldiers had sweltered in muddy trenches, shot at by an always invisible foe whom they were not allowed to attack. It was anticipated that when the forward movement began, it would be active. Close secrecy was maintained with regard to it. Captain Hedworth Lambton, of the British cruiser Powerful, then lying in Manila Bay, exacted a promise from me that I would tell him if I found out when the advance was to begin, so that we might go to Caloocan together and watch the fighting from the church tower, which commanded a magnificent view of the field of operations.

I finally heard a fairly definite statement that our troops would move the following morning. I rushed to General Otis’s office and after some parleying had it confirmed by him. It was then too late to advise Lambton, and in fact I could not properly have done so, as the information had been given me under pledge of secrecy. Accompanied by my private secretary, Dr. P. L. Sherman, I hastened to Caloocan, where we arrived just at dusk, having had to run the gantlet of numerous inquisitive sentries en route.

We spent the night in the church, where General Wheaton and his staff had their headquarters, and long before daylight were perched in a convenient opening in its galvanized iron roof, made on a former occasion by a shell from Dewey’s fleet.

From this vantage point we could see the entire length of the line of battle. The attack began shortly after daylight. Near Caloocan the Insurgent works were close in, but further off toward La Loma they were in some places distant a mile or more from the trenches of the Americans.

The general plan of attack was that the whole American line should rotate to the north and west on Caloocan as a pivot, driving the Insurgents in toward Malabon if possible. The latter began to fire as soon as the American troops showed themselves, regardless of the fact that their enemies were quite out of range. As most of them were using black-powder cartridges, their four or five miles of trenches were instantly outlined. The ground was very dry so that the bullets threw up puffs of dust where they struck, and it was possible to judge the accuracy of the fire of each of the opposing forces.

Rather heavy resistance was encountered on the extreme right, and the turning movement did not materialize as rapidly as had been hoped. General Wheaton, who was in command of the forces about the church, finally moved to the front, and as we were directly in the rear of his line and the Insurgents, as usual, overshot badly, we found ourselves in an uncomfortably hot corner. Bullets rattled on the church roof like hail, and presently one passed through the opening through which Major Bourns, Colonel Potter, of the engineer corps, and I were sticking our heads. Immediately thereafter we were observed by Dr. Sherman making record time on all fours along one of the framing timbers of the church toward its tower. There we took up our station, and thereafter observed the fighting by peeping through windows partially closed with blocks of volcanic tuff. We had a beautiful opportunity to see the artillery fire. The guns were directly in front of and below us and we could watch the laying of the several pieces and then turn our field-glasses on the particular portions of the Insurgent trenches where the projectiles were likely to strike. Again and again we caught bursting shells in the fields of our glasses and could thus see their effect as accurately as if we had been standing close by, without any danger of being perforated by shrapnel.

After the Insurgent position had been carried we walked forward to their line of trenches and followed it east to a point beyond the La Loma Church, counting the dead and wounded, as I had heard wild stories of tremendous slaughter and wanted to see just how much damage the fire of our troops had really done. On our way we passed the Caloocan railroad station which had been converted into a temporary field hospital. Here I saw good Father McKinnon, the champlain of the First California Volunteers, assisting a surgeon and soaked with the blood of wounded men. He was one chaplain in a thousand. It was always easy to find him. One had only to look where trouble threatened and help was needed. He was sure to be there.

On my way from the railway station to the trenches I met a very much excited officer returning from the front. He had evidently had a long and recent interview with Cyrus Noble, and was determined to tell me all about the fighting. I escaped from him after some delay, and with much difficulty. Later he remembered having met me, but made a grievous mistake as to the scene of our encounter, insisting that we had been together in “Wheaton’s Hole,” an uncommonly hot position where numerous people got hurt. He persisted in giving a graphic account of our experiences, and in paying high tribute to my coolness and courage under heavy fire. My efforts to persuade him that I had not been with him there proved futile, and I finally gave up the attempt. I wonder how many other military reputations rest upon so slender a foundation! This experience was unique. I never saw another officer under the influence of liquor when in the field.

At the time that we visited the Insurgent trenches, not all of our own killed and wounded had been removed, yet every wounded Insurgent whom we found had a United States army canteen of water at his side, obviously left by some kindly American soldier. Not a few of the injured had been furnished hardtack as well. All were ultimately taken to Manila and there given the best of care by army surgeons.

Sometime later a most extraordinary account of this fight, written by a soldier, was published in the Springfield Republican. It was charged that our men had murdered prisoners in cold blood, and had committed all manner of barbarities, the writer saying among other things:

“We first bombarded a town called Malabon and then entered it and killed every man, woman and child in the place.”

The facts were briefly as follows: There was an Insurgent regiment in and near a mangrove swamp to the right of this town. When it became obstreperous it was shelled for a short time until it quieted down again. None of the shells entered the town. Indeed, most of them struck in the water. Our troops did not enter Malabon that day, but passed to the northward, leaving behind a small guard to keep the Insurgents from coming out of Malabon in their rear. Had they then entered the town, they would not have found any women, children or non-combatant men to kill for the reason that all such persons had been sent away some time before. The town was burned, in part, but by the Insurgents themselves. They fired the church and a great orphan asylum, and did much other wanton damage.

Being able to speak from personal observation as to the occurrences of that day, I sent a long cablegram direct to the Chicago Times-Herald stating the facts. After my return to the United States, President McKinley was kind enough to say to me that if there had been no other result from the visit of the first Philippine Commission to the islands than the sending of that cablegram, he should have considered the expense involved more than justified. He added that the country was being flooded at the time with false and slanderous rumours, and people at home did not know what to believe. The statements of army officers were discounted in advance, and other testimony from some unprejudiced source was badly needed.

On April 2, 1899, Colonel Denby arrived, and our serious work began. The fighting continued and there was little that we could do save earnestly to strive to promote friendly relations with the conservative element among the Filipinos, and to gather the information we had been instructed to obtain.

On April 4, 1899, we issued a proclamation setting forth in clear and simple language the purposes of the American government. It was translated into Tagalog and other dialects and widely circulated. The Insurgent leaders were alert to keep the common people and the soldiers from learning of the kindly purposes of the United States. They were forbidden to read the document and we were reliably informed that the imposition of the death penalty was threatened if this order was violated. In Manila crowds of Filipinos gathered about copies of the proclamation which were posted in public places. Many of them were soon effaced by Insurgent agents or sympathizers.

This document unquestionably served a very useful purpose. For one thing, it promptly brought us into much closer touch with the more conservative Filipinos.

We soon established relations of friendliness and confidence with men like Arellano, Torres, Legarda and Tavera, who had left the Malolos government when it demonstrated its futility, and were ready to turn to the United States for help. Insurgent sympathizers also conferred freely with us. We were invited to a beautiful function given in our honour at the home of a wealthy family, and were impressed, as no one can fail to be, with the dignified bearing of our Filipino hosts, a thing which is always in evidence on such occasions. We gave a return function which was largely attended and greatly aided in the establishment of relations of confidence and friendship with leading Filipino residents of Manila.

The Filipinos were much impressed with Colonel Denby. He was a handsome man, of imposing presence, with one of the kindest hearts that ever beat. They felt instinctively that they could have confidence in him, and showed it on all occasions.

Meanwhile we lost no opportunity to inform ourselves as to conditions and events, conferring with Filipinos from various parts of the archipelago and with Chinese, Germans, Frenchmen, Belgians, Austrians, Englishmen, Spaniards and Americans. Among the witnesses who came before us were farmers, bankers, brokers, merchants, lawyers, physicians, railroad men, shipowners, educators and public officials. Certainly all classes of opinion were represented, and when we were called upon by the President, a little later, for a statement of the situation we felt fully prepared to make it.

Blount has charged that the commission attempted to interfere with the conduct of the war, and cites a cablegram from General Otis stating that conferences with Insurgents cost soldiers’ lives in support of this contention. No conference with Insurgent leaders was ever held without the previous knowledge and approval of the general, who was himself a member of the commission.

Late in April General Luna sent Colonel Arguelles of his staff to ask for a fifteen days’ suspension of hostilities under the pretext of enabling the Insurgent congress to meet at San Fernando, Pampanga, on May 1, to discuss the situation and decide what it wanted to do. He called on the commission and urged us to ask Otis to grant this request, but we declined to intervene, and General Otis refused to grant it.

Mabini continued Luna’s effort, sending Arguelles back with letters to Otis and to the commission. In the latter he asked for “an armistice and a suspension of hostilities as an indispensable means of arriving at peace,” stating explicitly that the Philippine government “does not solicit the armistice to gain a space of time in which to reenforce itself.”

The commission again referred Arguelles to General Otis on the matter of armistice and suspension of hostilities. We suspected that the statement that these things were not asked for in order to gain time was false, and this has since been definitely established.

Taylor says:

“On April 11 Mabini wrote to General Luna (Exhibit 719) that Aguinaldo’s council was of the opinion that no negotiations for the release of the Spanish prisoners should be considered unless the American Commission agreed to a suspension of hostilities for the purpose of treating, not only in regard to the prisoners, but for the purpose of opening negotiations between Aguinaldo’s government and the American authorities.

“’In arriving at this decision we have been actuated by the desire to gain time for our arsenals to produce sufficient cartridges, if, as would seem to be probable, they persist in not even recognizing our belligerency, as means for furthering the recognition of our independence.’”

Arguelles, on his return, was instructed to ask Otis for a

“general armistice and suspension of hostilities in all the archipelago for the short space of three months, in order to enable it to consult the opinion of the people concerning the government which would be the most advantageous, and the intervention in it which should be given to the North American Government, and to appoint an extraordinary commission with full powers, to act in the name of the Philippine people.”

General Otis naturally again declined to grant the request for a suspension of hostilities.

Little came of the conference between Arguelles and the commission, except that we really succeeded in convincing him of the good intentions of our government, and this promptly got him into very serious trouble, as we shall soon see. I took him to a tent hospital on the First Reserve Hospital grounds where wounded Insurgents were receiving the best of treatment at the hands of American surgeons, and he was amazed. He had been taught to believe that the Americans murdered prisoners, raped women, and committed similar barbarities whenever they got a chance. As we have seen, stories of this sort were industriously spread by many of the Insurgent leaders among their soldiers, and among the common people as well. They served to arouse the passions of the former, and stirred them up to acts of devilish brutality which they might perhaps not otherwise have perpetrated. Arguelles told the truth upon his return, and this, together with his suggestion that it might be well to consider the acceptance of the form of government offered by the United States, nearly cost him his life. Relative to this matter Taylor says:

“When Arguelles returned to the insurgent lines, it must have been considered that he had said too much in Manila. While he had been sent there to persuade the Americans to agree to a suspension of hostilities to be consumed in endless discussion under cover of which Luna’s army could be reorganized, he had not only failed to secure the desired armistice, but had come back with the opinion that it might after all be advisable to accept the government proposed by the United States. On May 22 General Luna ordered his arrest and trial for being in favour of the autonomy of the United States in the Philippine Islands. He was tried promptly, the prosecuting witness being another officer of Luna’s staff who had accompanied him to Manila and acted as a spy upon his movements (P.I.R., 285. 2). The court sentenced him to dismissal and confinement at hard labor for twelve years. This did not satisfy Luna’s thirst for vengeance, and he was imprisoned in Bautista on the first floor of a building whose second story was occupied by that officer. One night Luna came alone into the room where he was confined and told him that although he was a traitor, yet he had done good service to the cause; and it was not proper that a man who had been a colonel in the army should be seen working on the roads under a guard. He told him that the proper thing for him to do was to blow his brains out, and that if he did not do it within a reasonable time the sentinel at his door would shoot him. He gave him a pistol and left the room. Arguelles decided not to kill himself, but fully expected that the guard would kill him. Shortly afterwards Luna was summoned to meet Aguinaldo, and never returned. On September 29, 1899, his sentence was declared null and void and he was reinstated in his former rank (P.I.R., 285. 3, and 2030. 2).”

Colonel Arguelles has told me exactly the same story. For a time it seemed as if the views expressed by him might prevail.

“According to Felipe Buencamino and some others, the majority of the members of congress had been in favour of absolute independence until they saw the demoralization of the officers and soldiers which resulted in the American occupation of Malolos. In the middle of April, 1899, they remembered Arellano’s advice, and all of the intelligent men in Aguinaldo’s government, except Antonio Luna and the officers who had no desire to lay down their military rank, decided to accept the sovereignty of the United States. At about the same time copies of the proclamation issued by the American Commission in Manila reached them and still further influenced them toward the adoption of this purpose. By the time congress met in San Isidro on May 1, 1899, all of the members had accepted it except a few partisans of Mabini, then president of the council of government. At its first meeting the congress resolved to change the policy of war with the United States to one of peace, and this change of policy in congress led to the fall of Mabini and his succession by Paterno. The first act of the new council was the appointment of a commission headed by Felipe Buencamino which was to go to Manila and there negotiate with the American authorities for an honourable surrender.”

“Although Mabini had fallen from power, Luna and his powerful faction had still to be reckoned with. He was less moderate than Mabini, and had armed adherents, which Mabini did not, and when Paterno declared his policy of moderation and diplomacy he answered it on the day the new council of government was proclaimed by an order that all foreigners living in the Philippines except Chinese and Spaniards, should leave for Manila within forty-eight hours.”

Unfortunately Luna intercepted the Buencamino commission. Its head he kicked, cuffed and threatened with a revolver. One of its members was General Gregorio del Pilar. He was allowed to proceed, as he commanded a brigade of troops which might have deserted had he been badly treated, but Luna named three other men to go with him in place of those who had been originally appointed. They were Gracio Gonzaga, Captain Zialcita, and Alberto Baretto. They reached Manila on May 19, 1899, and during their stay there had two long interviews with the commission.

They said that they had come, with larger powers than had been conferred on Arguelles, to discuss the possibility of peace, the form of ultimate government which might be proposed in future, and the attitude of the United States government toward needed reforms.

Meanwhile, on May 4, we had laid before the President a plan of government informally discussed with Arguelles, and had received the following reply, authorizing, in substance, what we had suggested:

“Washington, May 5, 1899, 10.20 P.M.

“Schurman, Manila:

“Yours 4th received. You are authorized to propose that under the military power of the President, pending action of Congress, government of the Philippine Islands shall consist of a governor-general, appointed by the President; cabinet, appointed by the governor-general; a general advisory council elected by the people; the qualifications of electors to be carefully considered and determined; the governor-general to have absolute veto. Judiciary strong and independent; principal judges appointed by the President. The cabinet and judges to be chosen from natives or Americans, or both, having regard to fitness. The President earnestly desires the cessation of bloodshed, and that the people of the Philippine Islands at an early date shall have the largest measure of local self-government consistent with peace and good order.

“Hay.”

Our proclamation of April 4, 1899, was also taken up at their request and was gone over minutely, sentence by sentence. We were asked to explain certain expressions which they did not fully understand.

They told us that it would be hard for their army to lay down its arms when it had accomplished nothing, and asked if it could be taken into the service of the United States. We answered that some of the regiments might be taken over and employment on public works be found for the soldiers of others.

We endeavoured to arrange for an interview with Aguinaldo, either going to meet him or assuring him safe conduct should he desire to confer with us at Manila.

They left, promising to return in three weeks when they had had time to consider the matters under discussion, but they never came back.

Shortly thereafter there was an odd occurrence. Soon after our arrival we had learned that Mr. Schurman was a man of very variable opinions. He was rather readily convinced by plausible arguments, but sometimes very suddenly reversed his views on an important subject.

At the outset Archbishop Nozaleda made a great impression upon him. The Archbishop was a thoroughgoing Spaniard of the old school, and entertained somewhat radical opinions as to what should be done to end the distressing situation which existed. After talking with him Mr. Schurman seemed to be convinced that we ought to adopt a stern and bloody policy, a conclusion to which Colonel Denby and I decidedly objected.

A little later he made a trip up the Pasig River with Admiral Dewey and others and had a chance to see something of the aftermath of war. It was not at all pretty. It never is. I was waiting for him with a carriage at the river landing on his return and had hard work to keep him away from the cable office. His feelings had undergone a complete revulsion. He insisted that if the American people knew what we were doing they would demand that the war be terminated immediately at any cost and by whatsoever means, and he wanted to tell them all about it at once. By the next morning, however, things fortunately looked rather differently to him.

Mr. Schurman acquired a working knowledge of the Spanish language with extraordinary promptness. Shortly thereafter Colonel Denby and I discovered that when Filipinos came to see the commission in order to impart information or to seek it, he was conferring with them privately and sending them away without our seeing them at all.

Soon after we had made our formal statement of the situation to the President, Mr. Schurman had an interview with an Englishman who had been living in Insurgent territory north of Manila, from which he had just been ejected, in accordance with Luna’s order. This man told him all about the mistakes of the Americans and evidently greatly impressed him, for shortly thereafter he read to us at a commission meeting a draft of a proposed cablegram which he said he hoped we would approve. It would have stultified us, had we signed it, as it involved in effect the abandonment of the position we had so recently taken and a radical change in the policy we had recommended. Mr. Schurman told us that if we did not care to sign it, he would send it as an expression of his personal opinion. Colonel Denby asked him if his personal opinion differed from his official opinion, and received an affirmative reply. We declined to approve the proposed cablegram, whereupon he informed us that if his policy were adopted, he and General Aguinaldo would settle things without assistance from us, and that otherwise he would resign. He inquired whether we, too, would send a cable, and we told him certainly not, unless further information from us was requested. He sent his proposed message, in somewhat modified form, and received a prompt reply instructing him to submit it to the full commission and cable their views.

He did submit it to Colonel Denby and myself at a regularly called commission meeting, argued that in doing this he had obeyed the President’s instructions, and vowed that he would not show it to General Otis. I showed it to the General myself, allowing him to believe that I did so with Mr. Schurman’s approval, and thus avoided serious trouble, as he had been personally advised from Washington of the instructions to Mr. Schurman. The General then joined with Colonel Denby and myself in a cablegram setting forth our views, and so this incident ended.

Mr. Schurman did not resign, but thereafter we saw very little of him. He made a hasty trip to the Visayas and the Southern Islands and sailed for the United States shortly after his return to Manila, being anxious to get back in time for the opening of the college year at Cornell.

Colonel Denby and I were instructed to remain at Manila, where we rendered such assistance as we could give, and continued to gather information relative to the situation, the country and the people. In this latter work we were given invaluable help by Jesuit priests, who prepared for us a comprehensive monograph embodying a very large amount of valuable information, and furnished us a series of new maps as well. The latter were subsequently published by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in the form of an Atlas of the Philippines.

Early in September we had a most interesting interview with Sr. Jose de Luzuriaga, a distinguished and patriotic Filipino from western Negros, where American sovereignty had been accepted without resistance. Up to that time it had been possible for the people of Negros to keep out Tagalog invaders. Sr. Luzuriaga assured us that so long as this condition continued, there would be no trouble, and he was quite right.

Aguinaldo’s agents eventually gained a foothold there for a short time, and did some mischief, but it did not result very seriously.

We felt an especial interest in this island, as General Otis had asked us carefully to study and to criticise a scheme for its government which had been drafted by General James F. Smith, who afterward became justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, secretary of public instruction and governor-general of the islands, and was then in command of the troops in Negros.

General Lawton arrived in the Philippines during our stay. His coming had been eagerly looked forward to by the army. He had sailed with the understanding that he was to be put in charge of field operations. While he was at sea, influences were brought to bear which changed this plan.

It is my firm conviction that if Lawton had been put in command, the war would have ended promptly. He was a wonderful man in the field. He possessed the faculty of instilling his own tremendous energy into his officers and men, whose privations and dangers he shared, thereby arousing an unfaltering loyalty which stood him in good stead in time of need. If there was fighting to be done, he promptly and thoroughly whipped everything in sight. He punished looting and disorder with a heavy hand, treated prisoners and noncombatants with the utmost kindness, and won the good-will of all Filipinos with whom he came in contact.

General MacArthur was always declaring that the Filipinos were a unit against us and that he could never get information from them. General Lawton never lacked for such information as he needed, and constantly and successfully used the Filipinos themselves as messengers and for other purposes. I came to know him intimately, and learned to admire and love him as did all those who had that great privilege.

For some time I had charge of his spies. Never have men taken longer chances than did the faithful few who at this time furnished us with information as to events in Insurgent territory. Discovery meant prompt and cruel death. For a long time Major F. S. Bourns had performed the uncongenial task of directing the spies. He was then the chief health officer of Manila, and as all sorts of people were compelled to consult him on sanitary matters, visits to his office aroused no suspicion. He spoke Spanish, and this was imperatively necessary. Our spies simply would not communicate results through interpreters. The facts revealed by the Insurgent records show how right they were in refusing to do so.

Major Bourns eventually returned to the United States. His work was taken over by an army officer, with the result that two of our best men died very suddenly in that gentleman’s back yard. As I spoke Spanish, and as all sorts of people came to see the commission, I was the logical candidate for this job, which I thereupon inherited.

Each morning, if there was news, I myself laboriously thumped out my notes on the typewriter, making an original and one copy. The copy I took at once to General Lawton. The original I took, later, to General Otis.

General Lawton was firmly convinced that most army officers were unfitted by their training to perform civil functions. He organized municipal governments with all possible promptness in the towns occupied by his troops, and in this work he requested my assistance, which I was of course glad to give. Sr. Felipe Calderon drafted a simple provisional scheme of municipal government which I submitted for criticism to that most distinguished and able of Filipinos, Sr. Cayetano Arellano. When the final changes in it had been made, I accompanied General Lawton on a trip to try putting it into effect. We held elections and established municipal governments in a number of the towns just south of Manila, and in some of those along the Pasig River.

General Otis watched our operations and their results narrowly, and was sufficiently well pleased with the latter to order General Kobbe to follow a similar course in various towns on or near the railroad north of Manila. Kobbe did not profess to know much about municipal government, and asked me to go with him and help until he got the hang of the thing, which I did.

Thus it happened that the first Philippine Commission had a sort of left-handed interest in the first municipal governments established in the islands under American rule.

In his endeavour to show that the Commission interfered with military operations, Blount has ascribed certain statements to Major Starr. He says: " ... at San Isidro on or about November 8, Major Starr said: ‘We took this town last spring,’ stating how much our loss had been in so doing, ’but partly as a result of the Schurman commission parleying with the Insurgents, General Otis had us fall back. We have just had to take it again.’”

If Major Starr ever made such a statement he was sadly misinformed. General Lawton was the best friend I ever had in the United States Army. I saw him almost daily when he was in Manila, and he showed me the whole telegraphic correspondence which passed between him and General Otis on the subject of the withdrawal from San Isidro and Nueva Ecija, which was certainly one of the most ill advised moves that any military commander was ever compelled to make. General Lawtons unremitting attacks had absolutely demoralized the Insurgent force, and my information is that when he finally turned back, Aguinaldo and several members of his cabinet were waiting, ten miles away, to surrender to him when he next advanced, believing that they could never escape from him. I have not the telegraphic correspondence before me, but I remember its salient features. Otis ordered Lawton to withdraw, and Lawton, convinced of the inadvisability of the measure, objected. Otis replied that, with the rainy season coming on, he could neither provision him nor furnish him ammunition. Lawton answered that he had provisions enough to last three weeks and ammunition enough to finish the war, whereupon Otis peremptorily ordered him to withdraw. The Philippine Commission had no more to do with this matter than they had to do with the similar order against advancing which Otis sent Lawton on the day the latter won the Zapote River fight, when the Insurgents were running all over the Province of Cavite. Lawton wanted to push forward and clean the whole place up. The reply to his request to be allowed to do so ran, if memory serves me well, as follows:

“Do nothing. You have accomplished all that was expected of you.”

Later on, Lawton and his devoted officers and men had to duplicate the fierce campaign which had resulted in the taking of San Isidro. This made possible the movement that Lawton had had in mind in the first instance, which was made with the result that organized armed resistance to the authority of the United States promptly ceased in northern Luzon.

While on this subject I wish to record the fact that shortly after his return from the San Isidro campaign General Lawton asked me to accompany him on a visit to General Otis and act as a witness. I did so. In my presence Lawton said to Otis that if the latter would give him two regiments, would allow him to arm, equip and provision them to suit himself, and would turn him loose, he would stake his reputation as a soldier, and his position in the United States Army, on the claim that within sixty days he would end the insurrection and would deliver to General Otis one Emilio Aguinaldo, dead or alive. The general laughed at his offer. General Lawton asked me some day to make these facts public. As life is an uncertain thing, I deem it proper to do so now. Personally I am convinced that if his offer had been accepted he would have kept his promise.

On September 15, 1899, Colonel Denby and I sailed for the United States, having been recalled to Washington. Shortly after our arrival there the commission issued a brief preliminary report. The winter was spent in the preparation of our final report, which constituted a full and authoritative treatise on the islands, the people and their resources. Father Jose Algue, the distinguished head of the Philippine Weather Bureau, was called to Washington to help us, and gave us invaluable assistance.

Our preliminary report, dated November 2, 1899, and the first volume of our final report, published on January 31, 1900, contained our observations and recommendations relative to political matters.

Mr. Schurman has been credited with saying in an address made on January 11, 1902: “Any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos is better than the best possible government of Filipinos by Americans.”

On November 2, 1900, he signed the following statement:

“Should our power by any fatality be withdrawn, the commission believe that the government of the Philippines would speedily lapse into anarchy, which would excuse, if it did not necessitate, the intervention of other powers and the eventual division of the islands among them. Only through American occupation, therefore, is the idea of a free, self-governing, and united Philippine commonwealth at all conceivable. And the indispensable need from the Filipino point of view of maintaining American sovereignty over the archipelago is recognized by all intelligent Filipinos and even by those insurgents who desire an American protectorate. The latter, it is true, would take the revenues and leave us the responsibilities. Nevertheless, they recognize the indubitable fact that the Filipinos cannot stand alone. Thus the welfare of the Filipinos coincides with the dictates of national honour in forbidding our abandonment of the archipelago. We cannot from any point of view escape the responsibilities of government which our sovereignty entails; and the commission is strongly persuaded that the performance of our national duty will prove the greatest blessing to the peoples of the Philippine Islands.”

More than fourteen years’ experience in governmental work in the Philippines has profoundly impressed me with the fundamental soundness of these conclusions of the first Philippine Commission. Every statement then made still holds true.