Chapter VI: +Conquest by Force of Arms+

The last chapter took us to the day when the Senate of the United States, with one vote to spare, finally ratified the treaty. But seven weeks before that momentous occasion the President had already started on his career of usurpation which finally ended in war. On December 21, 1898, he issued a proclamation which he caused to be broadcasted in the Islands. At that time the United States had no title to a foot of land in the Philippines, and whether it would have depended on the ratification of the treaty which was bitterly opposed by many leaders of the Republican party. Until this treaty was ratified the protocol of August 13 remained in force which by its terms merely provided that the United States forces should occupy “the city, bay and harbor of Manila, pending the conclusion of the treaty.” None the less the President began his proclamation by saying that,

the destruction of the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila by the
United States 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 instant,
and as a result of the victories of American arms, _the future
control, disposition, and government of the Philippine islands are
ceded to the United States_. In the fulfillment of the _rights of
sovereignty_ thus acquired and the responsible obligations thus
assumed, _the actual occupation and administration of the entire
group of the Philippine Islands 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 dispatch to the whole ceded territory_.

He concluded by urging the military administration to win the confidence, respect and affection of the Filipinos,

by assuring 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.

The President’s language thus made it clear that he considered the conquest of the Philippine Islands as practically complete, that the United States now owned them and could deal with them as it would and that it did not offer them any voice in their government, much less the independence for which they had struggled so long and which they thought the United States had fought to give them.

The President also went on to say:

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 possible.

Bearing in mind that this Proclamation was issued seven weeks before the treaty was ratified, what did the President assert by it? Simply this—in substance he told the Filipinos:

You are ours, the control of your public property and the revenues
of your state are ours, the use and management of your public means
of transportation and conveyance are controlled by our authority
and while we mean to rule you with benevolence, nevertheless you
must accept our sovereignty in order to receive our support and
protection, for if you fail to do so the armed forces of the United
States will compel you to submit.

The Filipinos realized this; it was not difficult for them to see what the United States really intended, notwithstanding the honeyed phrases of the proclamation. The American commander in Manila, General Otis, also realized it, and knowing the stern resolve of the people to assert their independence he took the liberty of censoring the proclamation by cutting out the words “sovereignty” and “immediate extension of authority.” Unfortunately the proclamation got out by mistake in its original form and served to increase the tension between the two armies.

In accordance with this proclamation, the American forces in Manila gradually extended their occupations beyond the city limits, forcing the Filipino army to retire farther and farther from its original lines. As long as the Filipino forces yielded gracefully to these illegal advances they certainly had a right to feel that no organized attack would be made upon them. But on February 4, two days before the treaty was ratified the American lines were again extended into the outlying territory.

That night an American sentry seeing a Filipino on the newly occupied sector challenged him. What transpired is best stated by this same American private.

I yelled, “Halt!” ... The man moved. I challenged him with another
“Halt.” Then he immediately shouted, “Halto” to me. Well, I thought
the best thing to do was to shoot him. He dropped. Then two
Filipinos sprang out of the gateway about fifteen feet from us. I
called “Halt” and Miller fired and dropped one. I saw that another
was left. Well, I think I got my second Filipino that time. We
retreated to where our six other fellows were and I said, “Line up,
fellows, the niggers are in here all through these yards.” We then
retreated to the pipe line and got behind the water workmain and
stayed there all night. It was some minutes after our second shots
before Filipinos began firing[1].

General Otis described the outbreak in his official report in very much the same manner. He said:

An insurgent approaching the picket (of a Nebraska regiment)
refused to halt or answer when challenged. The result was that
our picket discharged his piece (killing the Filipino) when the
insurgent troops near Santa Mesa opened fire on our troops there
stationed.... During the night it was confined to an exchange of
fire between opposing lines for a distance of two miles.... _It is
not believed that the chief insurgents wished to open hostilities
at that time_[2].

It has never been even suggested that this exchange of fire caused any casualties[3].

That the Filipino leaders did not desire an outbreak has also been substantiated from numerous reliable sources since then. Thus Charles B. Elliott, a defender of the American administration, writing as late as 1916 says:

The Filipinos at that particular hour were unprepared for attack or
defense. The expected battle came when they were off their guard,
most of the higher officers being absent in Malolos[4]. [While] the
American authorities in Manila, having taken a more positive stand
... let loose the dogs of war they had been holding ready[5].

The next day General Aguinaldo sent a member of his staff under a flag of truce to interview General Otis and to tell him that the firing of the night before had been against his orders and that he wished to stop further hostilities. To bring this about he proposed to establish a neutral zone wide enough to keep the opposing armies apart. But to this request Otis replied that the fighting having begun must go on “to the grim end”[6]. This refusal was followed by an attack on the Filipino forces which lasted all day and resulted in killing some three thousand natives.

These incidents reviewed by a Senate Committee of which Mr. Lodge was the chairman make other facts stand clear. General MacArthur was questioned as follows:

+Senator Patterson+: The question is whether the Filipino troops
made any attempt to advance upon American troops that night
(Feb. 4) or that morning (Feb. 5). You have no knowledge of
anything of that kind?

+Gen. MacArthur+: I have no knowledge of that kind and I presume it
was not so because—

+Sen. Patterson+: The result of that advance was the killing and
wounding of more than 3000 Filipinos and, I suppose, their
utter disorganization?

+Gen. MacArthur+: It resulted fortunately in a great victory for
the American arms.

+Sen. Patterson+: And from that time forward the war has gone on?

+Gen. MacArthur+: It has been in progress ever since[7].

Now, why did the American commander thus receive the request for parley, and why did he begin the war? Certainly, the incident of the night before was one that might well have been dealt with at a friendly conference. The discharge of the firearms was a mistake, an accident, at the most the act of an individual. Certainly it was nothing that would justify a war, so that when Otis not only refused Aguinaldo’s message but also attacked and killed thousands of Filipinos in one day, he acted either with or without orders. When General Otis made a report of this engagement to the War Department he said it “was one strictly defensive on the part of the _insurgents_ and one of _vigorous attack_ by our forces”[8].

The Constitution of the United States strictly provides that Congress alone may declare war. That body certainly had not done so, and no one familiar with the feeling in the United States at this time can believe that Congress would have declared war on their Philippine allies. The Filipinos had done nothing but help the Americans, and if there were any of the latter who were hostile to the natives they were those who, intending to rob the Filipinos of their country, feared that they would encounter resistance. Only one conclusion is possible—the bloody war that followed the attack of February 5 was caused by an act of usurpation.

It may be going too far to say that the attack on the Filipino army was ordered by McKinley, but this much is clear, that he never expressed any disapproval, and that when in dealing with the existing hostilities he told the American people that there would “be no useless parley,” he made himself a party to the usurpation.

The reader will no doubt ask,—what was the significance of this outbreak, what did it accomplish for the President and his administration? Senator Patterson of Colorado ably described the situation in these words:

That attack of February 4 and 5 [he said] became an absolute
necessity for the success of the imperialistic marplots at
Washington. The treaty was before the Senate. It had been agreed
that a vote upon it should be taken on February 6. It was known to
everyone that there were lacking two votes of the number required
to ratify it. The Filipinos were praying that its ratification
would be defeated, for then the treaty would be amended so that
Spain would relinquish sovereignty over the Philippines as it had
provided for Cuba. The Filipinos had all to gain by preserving the
status of the armies as it was before February 6. The imperialists
had everything to gain by precipitating a conflict[9].

This question may also well be asked—why did General Otis call the Filipinos “insurgents,” and why was that term constantly employed by the administration in Washington throughout the war? On the day when the battle of February 5 was fought the Filipinos were encamped on grounds assigned to them by the American commanders as their late allies. Following the accidental shooting of two Filipinos by American sentinels and an unauthorized exchange of shots between the lines the American forces had launched a “vigorous attack,” killing thousands of men who had resisted in a “strictly defensive” manner. When this attack was made the treaty was before the Senate and the United States had no title whatsoever to the Island. The Filipinos on the other hand certainly had the right to live in their own country and to defend themselves when attacked. Yet the skillful use of the word “insurrecto” in 1899 and during the years that followed carried an entirely false impression to the people of the United States. It was deception, pure and simple.

Of course, this outbreak had to be justified by the administration in reporting it to the American people. Three different means of deception were therefore adopted. The first was to assert positively that the treacherous Filipinos were to blame for the outbreak. “The first blow was struck by the inhabitants,” said Mr. McKinley, “they assailed our sovereignty, and _there will be no useless parley, no pause_, until the insurrection is suppressed and American authority acknowledged and established”[10]. On another occasion he went on to say, “We never dreamed that the little body of insurgents whom we have just emancipated from oppression,—we never for a moment believed that they would turn upon the flag that had sheltered them against Spain”[11].

The second was to draw a veil of secrecy over the Philippine events and to establish a censorship of the press. How vigorously the censorship was enforced may be easily inferred from the fact that the staff correspondents of the leading American papers in Manila united in a statement to the American people.

We believe [they said] that owing to official dispatches from
Manila made public in Washington, the people of the United States
have not received a correct impression of the situation in the
Philippines.... The censorship has compelled us to participate in
these misrepresentations by excising or altering uncontroverted
statements of fact, on the plea as General Otis stated, that “they
would alarm the people at home” or “have the people of the United
States by the ears.”

Of course, the Manila censor would not permit such a dispatch to be sent from his office. The protest was, therefore, sent by mail to Hongkong and from there cabled to the United States. It was published in the newspapers of this country on July 17, 1899[12].

The American correspondent of the Associated Press, Mr. Robert M. Collins, more graphically described the situation which confronted them.

Recently [he wrote in his letter of July 30, 1899, to Mr. Melville
Stone, General Manager] I filed what I thought was the most
inoffensive statement that the business men who had appeared before
the commission had advocated a retention of the existing system of
currency. The censor said, “I ought not to let that go. That would
be a lift for Bryan. _My instructions are to shut off everything
that could hurt McKinley’s administration_”[13].

In this way, therefore, were facts being kept away, not from the enemy, but from the people of the United States who were being called upon to sanction the conquest of the Philippines. In this way truth was suppressed.

The third method was to assert that only a small fraction of the population was opposed to American sovereignty.

Well, whom are we fighting [said the Secretary of War Root]? Are
we fighting the Philippine nation? No! There is none. There are
hundreds of islands inhabited by more than sixty tribes, speaking
more than sixty languages, and all but one ready to accept American
sovereignty[14].

That this statement was also absolutely unjustified will be shown in the next chapter.

REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER VI

[1] Statement of Private W. W. Grayson quoted by C. E. Russell in
_The Outlook for the Philippines_, p. 93.

[2] Report: Maj. Gen. Commanding Army, 1899, vol. i, pt. 4, p. 92.

[3] Sen. Doc., 57th Cong., 1st Sess., No. 351, pt. 2 p. 1396.

[4] Elliott, _The Philippines_, p. 452.

[5] James LeRoy, _The Americans in the Philippines_, (1914), ii,
p. 16.

[6] See Statement of General C. McC. Reeve, at that time Provost
Marshall of Manila, Cong. Record, Jan. 11, 1900; Proceedings
of the Senate, p. 770.

[7] Sen. Doc., 57th Cong., 1st Sess., No. 331, pt. 2, p. 1356.

[8] See Otis Report, 1899, p. 99.

[9] Speech before Mass. Reform Club, June 6, 1902.

[10] Speech at Pittsburg, Aug. 28, 1899.

[11] Speech at Fargo, N. D., Oct. 13, 1899.

[12] A copy of this protest may be found in the _Review of
Reviews_ for August, 1899, pp. 137-8. It was signed by John
T. McCutcheon and Harry Armstrong representing the _Chicago
Record_; O. K. Davis and P. G. MacDonnell, representing
the _New York Sun_; Robert M. Collins, John P. Dunning and
L. Jones, representing the Associated Press; John Bass and
William Dinwiddle, representing the _New York Herald_; E. D.
Skeene, representing the _Scripps-McRae Association_; and
Richard Little, representing the _Chicago Tribune_.

[13] Cong. Record, vol. xxxiii, Proceedings in the Senate, Jan.
11, 1900, p. 768.

[14] Speech before the Marquette Club of Chicago, Oct. 7, 1899.