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Manila. Many became ill from too free indulgence in the fruits
and manufactured drinks of the country, and indifference to
that care and attention of person which a tropical climate
makes necessary. Homesickness alone produced illness in
numerous cases, so that early in September the hospitals began
to be rapidly filled. This led to the adoption of judicious
precautionary measures. … In November improvement was
noticeable, and in January the health of this army would
compare favorably with those of any concentrated army of like
proportions in existence. To be sure the men had become by
this time fairly acclimatized, and new troops arriving here
will be obliged to pass through this period of acclimatization
before they become properly efficient for prolonged service in
the field.

{372}

"During my first weeks of duty here I was impressed with the


spirit of suspicion and the partially concealed unfriendly
feeling manifested by the Tagalos toward the American forces.
That they either had very little confidence in our promises or
were then forming conclusions to oppose any establishment of
United States authority in Luzon was apparent, however loudly
they might disclaim hostile intent or declare as an excuse for
their attitude fear of the return of Spain. I saw, however,
with satisfaction, their ablest men by education, and mental
equipment taking part in their authoritative deliberations,
and I had considerable confidence in the efficacy of their
suggestions and advice. Still, after carefully weighing
conditions, I was unable to arrive at any satisfactory
conclusions. …

"Measures were being applied constantly to improve the


sanitary condition of the city, to increase the efficiency of
the troops, and to meet any emergency which might develop from
an uprising of the inhabitants, or from hasty action by any
portion of our or the insurgent forces, which, though
maintaining amicable intercourse, were, in fact, in an
attitude of resistance and hostility upon all questions
involving the right of armed occupation of the suburbs and
defenses of Manila. The insurgent soldiers had looted
extensively the portions of the city to which they gained
access, and were greatly disappointed that this privilege over
other parts of the same was not accorded them. Their enforced
withdrawal to outer lines was the cause of discontent, and
augmented any desire which they may have formerly entertained
to resist or attack the American troops. This growing
discontent was observable among the lower classes of the
city's inhabitants, from whom a considerable share of
Aguinaldo's army was drawn, and was undoubtedly increased by
the reprehensible conduct and illegal actions of some of our
own men, who were severely punished for their misdeeds when
detected. Outwardly, however, relations of the most friendly
character were maintained. The officers and enlisted men of
the two armies mingled in friendly social intercourse. To the
casual observer the only discordant element in this dense
complex population, made up of every nation and tongue in
existence, were the hated Spanish prisoners, whom the
Filipinos still longed to persecute and kill, and who were
obliged to keep within the walls of Old Manila for safety.
Repeated conferences were held with influential insurgents,
whose chief aim appeared to be to obtain some authoritative
expression on the intent of the United States with regard to
the Philippines, and complained that they were unable to
discover anyone who could speak ex cathedra. They asserted
that their Malolos arrangement was a government de facto,
which had the right to ask an expression of intent from the
United States Government. …

"My own confidence at this time in a satisfactory solution of


the difficulties which confronted us may be gathered from a
dispatch sent to Washington on December 7, wherein I stated
that conditions were improving and that there were signs of
revolutionary disintegration; that I had conferred with a
number of the members of the revolutionary government and
thought that the most of them would favor peaceful submission
to United States authority. I had strong reasons for this
expressed confidence from assurances made to me by some of the
ablest Filipinos who had occupied positions of importance in the
insurgent government and had signified their intention to
withdraw from it."

Report of General Otis,


August 31, 1899
(Message and Documents: Abridgement, 1899-1900,
volume 2, pages 1048-1052).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1898 (August-December).


The state of things following the occupation of Manila,
as represented by English witnesses.

The writer of the following remarks, in an interesting book on


"The Inhabitants of the Philippines," published late in 1900, is
an English civil engineer, who had resided in Luzon for
fourteen years and knew the country and people thoroughly
well:

"Personally, I think that if a sympathetic and conciliatory


attitude had been adopted, had the local government
established been recognized, had Aguinaldo and his staff been
given commissions in the Native Army or Civil Service, and the
flower of the Tagal Army taken into the service of the United
States, a peaceful settlement could have been made on the
lines of a Protectorate. I therefore look upon the war as
unnecessary, and consider the lives already sacrificed, and
that will have to be sacrificed, as absolutely thrown away.
The tragical side of American unpreparedness is manifest in
the state of anarchy in which the whole Archipelago has been
plunged by the American unreadiness to occupy the military
posts as soon as they were vacated by the Spanish garrisons. A
hideous orgy of murder, plunder, and slave-raiding has
prevailed in Visayas, and especially in Mindanao.

"Three conditions were essential to a peaceful settlement:

First.
A broad-minded and sympathetic representative of America,
fully authorized to treat, and a lover of peace.

Second.
A strict discipline amongst the American forces.

Third,
The principal aim and object of the Tagal insurrection must be
secured.

"General Otis does not seem to me to fulfil the first


condition, he lacked prestige and patience, and he showed that
he had an insufficient conception of the magnitude of his task
by occupying himself with petty details of all kinds and by
displaying an ill-timed parsimony. Apparently he had no power
to grant anything at all, and only dealt in vague generalities
which the Tagals could not be expected to accept.

"As regards the second point, I regret that I am not


personally acquainted with the gentlemen from Nebraska,
Colorado, Dakota and other states serving in the United States
Army or volunteers. I have no doubt that they are good
fighting-men, but from all I can hear about them they are not
conspicuous for strict military discipline, and too many of
them have erroneous ideas as to the most suitable drink for a
tropical climate. Manila was in the time of the Spaniards a
most temperate city; a drunken man was a very rare sight, and
would usually be a foreign sailor. Since the American
occupation, some hundreds of drinking saloons have been
opened, and daily scenes of drunkenness and debauchery have
filled the quiet natives with alarm and horror. When John L.
Motley wrote his scathing denunciation of the army which the
great Duke of Alva led from Spain into the Low Countries, to
enforce the high religious purposes of Philip II., he could
not foresee that his words would be applicable to an American
Army sent to subjugate men struggling to be free 'for their
welfare, not our gain,' nor that this army, besides bringing
in its train a flood of cosmopolitan harlotry, would be
allowed by its commander to inaugurate amongst a strictly
temperate people a mad saturnalia of drunkenness that has
scarcely a parallel.
{373}
Such, however, is undoubtedly the case, and I venture to think
that these occurrences have confirmed many of the Tagals in
their resolve rather to die fighting for their independence
than to be ruled over by such as these."

F. H. Sawyer,
The Inhabitants of the Philippines,
page 113-114 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons).

Substantially the same account of things at Manila in this


period has been given in a magazine article by Mr. John
Foreman, the well known writer on the Philippine Islands. "The
conduct," he declares, "of the boisterous, undisciplined
individuals who formed a large percentage of the first
volunteer contingents sent to Manila had had an ineffaceably
demoralizing effect on the proletariat, and has inspired a
feeling of horror and loathful contempt in the affluent and
educated classes who guide the Philippine public opinion. From
the outset it was a mistake to treat the Christian Philippine
population like savages ignorant of western civilization,
considering that there are thousands of Filipinos mentally
equal to the invading forces, and comparable, in intellectual
training, with the average middle-class Europeans.

"Within a fortnight after the capitulation of Manila the


drinking saloons had increased four-fold. According to the
latest advices, there are at least twenty to one existing in
the time of the Spaniards. Drunkenness, with its consequent
evils, is rife all over the city among the new white
population. The orgies of the new-comers, the incessant street
brawls, the insults offered with impunity to natives of both
sexes, the entry with violence into private houses by the
soldiery, who maltreated the inmates and laid hands on what
they chose, were hardly calculated to arouse in the natives
admiration for their new masters. Brothels were absolutely
prohibited under the Spanish rule, but since the evacuation
there has been a great influx of women of ill fame, whilst
native women have been pursued by lustful tormentors. During a
certain period after the capitulation there was indiscriminate
shooting, and no peaceable native's life was safe in the
suburbs. Adventurers of all sorts and conditions have flocked
to this centre of vice, where the sober native is not even
spoken of as a man by many of the armed rank and file, but, by
way of contempt, is called a yuyu. A few miles from Manila,
the villages of Mandaloyan and Sant Ana were looted by the
victors, much of the spoil being brought up to the capital and
included in auction sales or sold to the Chinese. In Taal the
houses of families, with whom I have been long acquainted,
were ransacked, effects of little value, or too difficult to
transport, being carelessly strewn about from sheer
wantonness. And presumably no greater respect for private
property was shown in the other numerous villages overrun by
the invaders. …

"The situation then during this period was somewhat as


follows: The Filipinos, aided by Dewey's victory, had driven
the Spaniards from practically the whole Archipelago except
the city of Manila, they had established a government of their
own, and they looked upon the country as belonging both by
nature and by right of conquest to them. We upon the other
hand, having destroyed the Spanish fleet and captured the city
of Manila, and being in the process of acquiring by treaty the
Spanish title to the whole country regarded it as belonging to
us. The situation was therefore critical."
J. Foreman,
Will the United States withdraw from the Philippines?
(National Review, September, 1900).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1898 (September-December).


Instructions from the President of the United States to the
Commissioners for the negotiation of peace with Spain
concerning the Philippine Archipelago.
Cession of the Islands to the United States.

See (in this volume)


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1898 (JULY-DECEMBER).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1898 (October-November).


State of the country under the native government of Aguinaldo,
as witnessed by two U. S. naval officers who traversed it.-
Conflicting opinions as to the fitness of the Filipinos
for self-government.

During October and November, 1898, while the only authority in


Luzon, outside of Manila and Cavite, was that exercised by the
native government organized under Aguinaldo, two American
naval officers, Paymaster W. B. Wilcox and Cadet Leonard R.
Sargent, with permission from Admiral Dewey, made a tour of
observation through seven provinces of the island, and
rendered a report of what they saw and what they experienced,
which Admiral Dewey sent to Washington, commending it to the
attention of the government as containing "the most complete
and reliable information obtainable in regard to the present
state of the northern part of Luzon Island." Subsequently Mr.
Sargent wrote articles descriptive of the journey, which were
published in "The Outlook" and "The Independent," and which
were reprinted, with the official report, in a document
compiled for the U. S. Senate. The following is from the
article in "The Outlook," September 2, 1899:
"Although this government has never been recognized, and in
all probability will go out of existence without recognition,
yet it cannot be denied that, in a region occupied by many
millions of inhabitants, for nearly six months it stood alone
between anarchy and order. The military forces of the United
States held control only in Manila, with its environs, and in
Cavite, and had no authority to proceed further; while in the
vast remaining districts the representatives of the only
recognized power on the field were prisoners in the hands of
their despised subjects. It was the opinion at Manila during
this anomalous period in our Philippine relations, and
possibly in the United States as well, that such a state of
affairs must breed something akin to anarchy. I can state
unreservedly, however, that Mr. Wilcox and I found the
existing conditions to be much at variance with this opinion.
During our absence from Manila we travelled more than 600
miles in a very comprehensive circuit through the northern
part of the island of Luzon, traversing a characteristic and
important district. In this way we visited seven provinces, of
which some were under the immediate control of the central
government at Malolos, while others were remotely situated,
separated from each other and from the seat of government by
natural divisions of land, and accessible only by lengthy and
arduous travel. As a tribute to the efficiency of Aguinaldo's
government and to the law-abiding character of his subjects, I
offer the fact that Mr. Wilcox and I pursued our journey
throughout in perfect security, and returned to Manila with
only the most pleasant recollections of the quiet and orderly
life which we found the natives to be leading under the new
regime."

{374}

The following is from the official report, jointly made by


Cadet Sargent and Paymaster Wilcox:
"The Philippine officers, both military and civil, that we
have met in all the provinces we have visited, have, with very
few exceptions, been men of intelligent appearance and
conversation. The same is true of all those men who form the
upper class in each town. The education of most of them is
limited, but they appear to seize every opportunity to improve
it. They have great respect and admiration for learning. Very
many of them desire to send their children to schools in the
United States or Europe. Many men of importance in different
towns have told us that the first use to be made of the
revenues of their government, after there is no more danger of
war, will be to start good schools in every village. The
poorer classes are extremely ignorant on most subjects, but a
large percentage of them can read and write. …

"Of the large number of officers, civil and military, and of


the leading townspeople we have met, nearly every man has
expressed in our presence his sentiment on this question [of
independence]. It is universally the same. They all declare
that they will accept nothing short of independence. They
desire the protection of the United States at sea, but fear
any interference on land. …

"There is much variety of feeling among the Philippines with


regard to the debt of gratitude they owe the United States. In
every town we found men who said that our nation had saved
them from slavery, and others who claimed that without our
interference their independence would have been recognized
before this time. On one point they are united, however, viz.,
that whatever our Government may have done for them it has not
gained the right to annex them. They have been prejudiced
against us by the Spaniards. The charges made have been so
numerous and so severe that what the natives have since
learned has not sufficed to disillusion them. With regard to
the record of our policy toward a subject people, they have
received remarkable information on two points,—that we have
mercilessly slain and finally exterminated the race of Indians
that were natives of our soil, and that we went to war in 1861
to suppress an insurrection of negro slaves, whom we also
ended by exterminating. Intelligent and well-informed men have
believed these charges. They were rehearsed to us in many
towns in different provinces, beginning at Malolos. The
Spanish version of our Indian problem is particularly well
known."

United States, 56th Congress, 1st Session,


Senate Document 66.

In the third number of the first series of its publications,


the Philippine Information Society—see below: A. D. 1899
(JANUARY-FEBRUARY)—has brought together a number of
conflicting opinions expressed by various persons concerning
the capacity of the Filipinos for self-government, among them
the following:

"The population of Luzon is reported to be something over


3,000,000, mostly natives. These are gentle, docile, and under
just laws and with the benefits of popular education would
soon make good citizens. In a telegram sent to the department
on June 23 I expressed the opinion that 'these people are far
superior in their intelligence and more capable of
self-government than the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar
with both races.' Further intercourse with them has confirmed
me in this opinion."

Admiral Dewey,
Letter, August 29, 1898,
Replying to inquiry of War Department.

"They [the natives] would have to be educated up to it


[self-government]. They want a protectorate, but they do not
exactly understand what that means. Their idea is that they
should collect the revenues and keep them in their treasury,
and that we should be at the expense of maintaining an army
and a navy there for their protection, which is the kind of a
protectorate they would like very much."

General Merritt,
statement before United States Peace Commission at Paris,
October 4, 1898.

"If the United States should evacuate these islands, anarchy


and civil war will immediately ensue and lead to foreign
intervention. The insurgents were furnished arms and the moral
support of the navy prior to our arrival, and we cannot ignore
obligations, either to the insurgents or to foreign nations,
which our own acts have imposed upon us. The Spanish
Government is completely demoralized, and Spanish power is
dead beyond all possibility of resurrection. … On the other
hand, the Filipinos cannot govern the country without the
support of some strong nation. They acknowledge this
themselves, and say their desire is for independence under
American protection, but they have only vague ideas as to what
our relative positions would be—what part we should take in
collecting and expending the revenue, and administering the
government."

General F. V. Greene,
Memorandum concerning the Philippine Islands,
made August 27, 1898.

"The capability of the Filipinos for self-government cannot be


doubted. Such men as Arellano, Aguinaldo, and many others whom
I might name are highly educated; nine tenths of the people
can read and write, all are skilled artisans in one way or
another; they are industrious, frugal, temperate, and, given a
fair start, could look out for themselves infinitely better
than our people imagine. In my opinion they rank far higher
than the Cubans or the uneducated negroes to whom we have
given right of suffrage."
General Charles King,
Letter to Milwaukee Journal,
June 22, 1899.

"Concerning the capacity of the Filipinos to govern themselves


I regret to say that I see no reason to change the opinion
previously expressed, that they are unfit. I wish my opinion
might be otherwise, for I prefer to believe them capable of
self-government. There are a number of Filipinos whom I have
met, among them General Aguinaldo and a few of his leaders,
whom I believe thoroughly trustworthy and fully capable of
self-government, and the main reliance for small official
positions and many larger ones would be upon people who know
no standard of government other than that the Spaniards have
furnished. Their sense of equity and justice seems not fully
developed, and their readiness to coerce those who come under
their power has been strongly illustrated in this city since
our occupation. A regularly organized system of blackmail has
been instituted under the guise of making subscriptions to the
insurgent cause."

Major J. F. Bell
[of Engineers, on "secret service"]
Letter to General Merritt, Manila, August 29, 1898.

{375}

"The people are the most enlightened and vigorous branch of


the Malay race, and have been Christians for centuries, in
fact longer than the principles of the Reformation were
established in Great Britain, and are the nearest akin to
European people of any alien race, and it is simply ridiculous
to imagine that eight to ten millions of such people can be
bought and sold as an article of commerce without first
obtaining their consent. Let all those who are greedy for a
slice of the archipelago ponder well over this before burning
their fingers."
H. W. Bray
[merchant and planter in the islands for fifteen years],
Letter to Singapore Free Press, June 8, 1898.

"The native has no expansive ideas; he cannot go far enough to


understand what it is to rule matters for the benefit of the
common weal; he cannot get past his own most personal
interest, or his town, at the most. I think the greatest
length he would go would be his own town. But constructing
laws, and obeying them, for the benefit of the commonwealth, I
do not think he is capable of it at all. I think an attempt at
a native government would be a fiasco altogether."

John Foreman,
Testimony before United States Peace Commission at Paris.

"The excuse that they [the Filipinos] are not ripe for
independence is not founded on facts. The Filipinos number
more educated people than the kingdom of Servia and the
principalities of Bulgaria and Montenegro. They have fewer
illiterates than the states of the Balkan peninsula, Russia,
many provinces of Spain and Portugal, and the Latin republics
of America. There are provinces in which few people can be
found who do not at least read. They pay more attention to
education than Spain or the Balkan states do. There is no lack
of trained men fit to govern their own country, and indeed in
every branch, because under the Spanish rule the official
business was entirely transacted by the native subalterns. The
whole history of the Katipunan revolt and of the war against
Spain and America serves to place in the best light the
capability of the Filipinos for self-government."

F. Blumentritt,
The Philippine Islands,
page 61.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1898-1899 (December-January).
Instructions by the President of the United States to
General Otis, Military Governor and Commander in
the Philippines.
Their proclamation to the people of the Islands as
modified by General Otis.
The effect.

On the 27th of December, 1898, the following instructions,


dated December 21, and signed by the President, were cabled by
the Secretary of War to General Otis, in command of the United
States forces in the Philippines. They were not made public in
the United States until the 5th of January following, when
they appeared in the newspapers of that day: "The destruction
of the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila by the United
States naval squadron commanded by Rear Admiral Dewey,
followed by the reduction of the city and the surrender of the
Spanish forces, practically effected the conquest of the
Philippine Islands and the suspension of Spanish sovereignty
therein. With the signature of the treaty of peace between the
United States and Spain by their respective plenipotentiaries
at Paris, on the 10th inst., and as the result of victories of
the American arms, the future control, fulfilment disposition
and government of the Philippine Islands are ceded to the
United States. In of the offices of the sovereignty thus
acquired, and the responsible obligations of government thus
assumed, the actual occupation and administration of the
entire group becomes immediately necessary, and the military
government heretofore maintained by the United States in the
city, harbor and bay of Manila is to be extended with all
possible despatch to the whole of the ceded territory. In
performance of this duty, the military commander of the United
States is enjoined to make known to the inhabitants of the
Philippine Islands that in succeeding to the sovereignty of
the islands, in severing the former political relations of the
inhabitants and in establishing a new political power, the
authority of the United States is to be exerted for the
security of the persons and property of the people of the
islands and for the confirmation of all their private rights.
It will be the duty of the commander of the forces of
occupation to announce and proclaim in the most public manner
that we come, not as invaders or conquerors, but as friends,
to protect the natives in their homes, in their employments
and in their personal and religious rights. All persons who,
either by active aid or by honest submission, cooperate with
the government of the United States to give effect to these
beneficent purposes, will receive the reward of its support
and protection. All others will be brought within the lawful
rule we have assumed, with firmness if need be, but without
severity so far as may be possible.

"Within the absolute domain of military authority, which


necessarily is and must remain supreme in the ceded territory
until the government of the United States shall otherwise
provide, the municipal laws of the territory in respect to
private interests and property and the repression of crime are
continued in force, the authority to be administered by the
ordinary tribunals so far as practicable. The operations of
civil and municipal government are to be performed by such
officers as may accept the supremacy of the United States by
taking the oath of allegiance, or by officers chosen, as far
as may be practicable, from the inhabitants of the islands.
While the control of all the public property and the revenues
of the state passes with the cession, and while the use and
management of all public means are of necessity reserved to
the authority of the United States, private property, whether
belonging to individuals or corporations, is to be respected
except for cause duly established. The taxes and duties
heretofore payable by the inhabitants to the late government
become payable to the authorities of the United States, unless
it be seen fit to substitute for them other reasonable rates
or modes of contribution to the expenses of government,
whether general or local. If private property be taken for
military use, it shall be paid for when possible in cash at a
fair valuation, and when payment in cash is not practicable
receipts are to be given.

{376}

"All ports and places in the Philippine Islands in the actual


possession of the land and naval forces of the United States
will be opened to the commerce of all friendly nations. All
goods and wares not prohibited for military reasons by due
announcement of the military authority will be admitted upon
payment of such duties and other charges as shall be in force
at the time of their importation. Finally, it should be the
earnest and paramount aim of the military administration to
win the confidence, respect and affection of the inhabitants
of the Philippines by assuring to them in every possible way
that full measure of individual rights and liberties which is
the heritage of free peoples, and by proving to them that the
mission of the United States is one of benevolent
assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice and right
for arbitrary rule. In the fulfilment of this high mission,
supporting the temperate administration of affairs to the
greatest good of the governed, there must be sedulously
maintained the strong arm of authority, to repress disturbance
and to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings
of good and stable government upon the people of the
Philippine Islands under the free flag of the United States.

WILLIAM McKINLEY."

On receiving President McKinley's "proclamation," as the


instructions of December 21 were commonly described, General
Otis promptly forwarded a copy to General Miller, who had been
sent to occupy the city of Iloilo, and the latter made it public.
Meantime General Otis had studied the document with care and
arrived at conclusions which he sets forth in his subsequent
annual report as follows: "After fully considering the
President's proclamation and the temper of the Tagalos with
whom I was daily discussing political problems and the
friendly intentions of the United States Government toward
them, I concluded that there were certain words and
expressions therein, such as 'sovereignty,' 'right of
cession,' and those which directed immediate occupation, etc.,
though most admirably employed and tersely expressive of
actual conditions, might be advantageously used by the Tagalo
war party to incite widespread hostilities among the natives.
The ignorant classes had been taught to believe that certain
words, as 'sovereignty,' 'protection,' etc., had peculiar
meaning disastrous to their welfare and significant of future
political domination, like that from which they had recently
been freed. It was my opinion, therefore, that I would be
justified in so amending the paper that the beneficent object
of the United States Government would be brought clearly
within the comprehension of the people, and this conclusion
was the more readily reached because of the radical change [a
change of cabinet] of the past few days in the constitution of
Aguinaldo's government, which could not have been understood
at Washington at the time the proclamation was prepared. …

"The amended proclamation of January 4 appeared in the


English, Spanish, and Tagalo languages, and was published in
Manila through newspapers and posters. The English text is as
follows: 'To the people of the Philippine Islands:
Instructions of His Excellency the President of the United
States relative to the administration of affairs in the
Philippine Islands have been transmitted to me by direction of
the honorable the Secretary of War, under date of December 28,
1898. They direct me to publish and proclaim, in the most
public manner, to the inhabitants of these islands that in the
war against Spain the United States forces came here to
destroy the power of that nation and to give the blessings of
peace and individual freedom to the Philippine people; that we
are here as friends of the Filipinos; to protect them in their
homes, their employments, their individual and religious
liberty, and that all persons who, either by active aid or
honest endeavor, co-operate with the Government of the United
States to give effect to these beneficent purposes, will
receive the reward of its support and protection. The
President of the United States has assumed that the municipal
laws of the country in respect to private rights and property
and the repression of crime are to be considered as continuing
in force in so far as they be applicable to a free people, and
should be administered by the ordinary tribunals of justice,
presided over by representatives of the people and those in
thorough sympathy with them in their desires for good
government; that the functions and duties connected with civil
and municipal administration are to be performed by such
officers as wish to accept the assistance of the United
States, chosen in so far as it may be practicable from the
inhabitants of the islands; that while the management of
public property and revenues and the use of all public means
of transportation are to be conducted under the military
authorities, until such authorities can be replaced by civil
administration, all private property, whether of individuals
or corporations, must be respected and protected. If private
property be taken for military uses it shall be paid for at a
fair valuation in cash if possible, and when payment in cash
is not practicable at the time, receipts therefor will be
given to be taken up and liquidated as soon as cash becomes
available. The ports of the Philippine Islands shall be open
to the commerce of all foreign nations, and goods and
merchandise not prohibited for military reasons by the
military authorities shall be admitted upon payment of such
duties and charges as shall be in force at the time of
importation. The President concludes his instructions in the
following language: "Finally, it should be the earnest and
paramount aim of the Administration to win the confidence,
respect, and affection of the inhabitants of the Philippines
by insuring to them in every possible way the full measure of
individual rights and liberty which is the heritage of a free
people, and by proving to them that the mission of the United
States is one of beneficent assimilation, which will
substitute the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary
rule. In the fulfillment of this high mission, while upholding
the temporary administration of affairs for the greatest good
of the governed, there will be sedulously maintained the
strong arm of authority to repress disturbance, and to
overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings of
good and stable government upon the people of the Philippine
Islands."

"'From the tenor and substance of the above instructions of


the President, I am fully of the opinion that it is the
intention of the United States Government, while directing
affairs generally, to appoint the representative men now
forming the controlling element of the Filipinos to civil
positions of trust and responsibility, and it will be my aim
to appoint thereto such Filipinos as may be acceptable to the
supreme authorities at Washington. It is also my belief that
it is the intention of the United States Government to draw
from the Filipino people so much of the military force of the
islands as is possible and consistent with a free and
well-constituted government of the country, and it is my
desire to inaugurate a policy of that character.
{377}
I am also convinced that it is the intention of the United
States Government to seek the establishment of a most liberal
government for the islands, in which the people themselves
shall have as full representation as the maintenance of law
and order will permit, and which shall be susceptible of
development, on lines of increased representation and the
bestowal of increased powers, into a government as free and
independent as is enjoyed by the most favored provinces of the
world. It will be my constant endeavor to cooperate with the
Filipino people, seeking the good of the country, and I invite
their full confidence and aid.
E. S. OTIS, Major-General,
U. S. V., Military Governor.'
"Before publication of this proclamation I endeavored to
obtain from able Filipino residents of the city an expression
of opinion as to its probable effect upon the population, but
was not much encouraged. A few days thereafter they declared
the publication to have been a mistake, although the foreign
residents appeared to believe the proclamation most excellent
in tone and moderation, offered everything that the most
hostile of the insurgents could expect, and undoubtedly would
have a beneficial influence. It was received by the better
classes of natives with satisfaction, as it was the first
authoritative announcement of the attitude which the United
States assumed toward the islands and declared the policy
which it intended to pursue, and because the declared policy
was one which, in their opinion, conditions imperatively
demanded should be imposed for the interests of the Filipino
people who were incapable of self-government. The publication
separated more widely the friendly and war factions of the
inhabitants and was the cause of exciting discussion. The
ablest of insurgent newspapers, which was now issued at
Malolos and edited by the uncompromising Luna, … attacked the
policy of the United States as declared in the proclamation,
and its assumption of sovereignty over the islands, with all
the vigor of which he was capable. …

"Aguinaldo met the proclamation by a counter one in which he


indignantly protested against the claim of sovereignty by the
United States in the islands, which really had been conquered
from the Spaniards through the blood and treasure of his
countrymen, and abused me for my assumption of the title of
military governor. Even the women of Cavite province, in a
document numerously signed by them, gave me to understand that
after all the men were killed off they were prepared to shed
their patriotic blood for the liberty and independence of
their country. The efforts made by Aguinaldo and his
assistants made a decided impression on the inhabitants of
Luzon outside of Manila. … Shortly before this time the
insurgents had commenced the organization of clubs in the

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