LITMIR.BIZ

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The vice of this proposition, from the strategic as well as the ethical point of view, is of course clear enough now.

      Spain’s government was already tottering in the Philippines when the Spanish-American war broke out. To be “as complete masters as she had been” was like becoming the recipient of a quit-claim deed. Also, ours was not a case of taking “unopposed possession.” An adverse claimant, relying on immemorial prescription, was in full possession; all the tenants on the land had attorned to him, and he and they were ready to defend their claim against all comers with their lives. They reminded one of the recurrent small farmer whom some great timber or other corporation seeks to oust, patrolling his land lines rifle in hand, on the lookout for the corporation’s agent and the sheriff with the dispossessory warrant.

      Messrs. Davis, Frye, and Reid go on to say:

      Military and naval witnesses agree that it would be practically as easy to hold and defend the whole as a part.

      Hardly any one can fail to read with interest the following accurate and vivid picture which they give of the physical strategic unity of the Philippine Islands:

      There is hardly a single island in the group from which you cannot shoot across to one or more of the others—scarcely another archipelago in the world in which the islands are crowded so closely together and so interdependent.

      This explains also why the Filipino people are a people. Whenever the American people understand that, they will give them their independence, unless they get an idea that government of their people by their people for their people would be distasteful to them.

      In the memorandum of their views telegraphed to Washington on October 25th, Messrs. Davis, Frye, and Reid also say:

      Public opinion in Europe, including that of Rome, expects us to retain whole of Philippine Islands.

      Archbishop Chapelle was in Paris at the time of these negotiations. He afterwards told the writer in Manila that he got that $20,000,000 put in the Treaty of Paris. The Church preferred that our title should be a title by purchase rather than a title by conquest, and Mr. McKinley was vigorously urging the latter. Between the legal effects of the two, there is a world of difference. The Church outgeneralled the President—checkmated him with a bishop. Look at that part of the treaty which affects church property:

      Article VIII. The * * * cession * * * cannot in any respect impair the property or rights * * * of * * * ecclesiastical * * * bodies.

      The Church of Rome, or at least some of the ecclesiastical bodies pertaining to it in the Philippines, owned the cream of the agricultural estates. By the treaty they have not lost a dollar. It might have been otherwise, had not Mr. McKinley’s original claim of title by conquest been overcome at Paris.

      Judge Day’s memorandum of his own views, telegraphed on October 25th along with those of his colleagues, stated that he was unable to agree that we should peremptorily demand the entire Philippine group; that

      In the spirit of our instructions, and bearing in mind the often declared disinterestedness of purpose and freedom from designs of conquest with which the war was undertaken, we should be consistent in demands in making peace * * * with due regard to our responsibility because of the conduct of our military and naval authorities in dealing with the insurgents.

      Again, he says:

      We cannot leave the insurgents either to form a government [he of course did not know what a complete government they had already formed] or to battle against a foe which * * * might readily overcome them.

      He also was of course unaware how thoroughly anxious the Spaniards then in the Philippines were to get away, and how completely they were at the mercy of the new Philippine Republic and its forces. “On all hands” says Judge Day, “it is agreed that the inhabitants of the islands are unfit for self-government.” Of course we knew absolutely nothing worth mentioning about the Filipinos at that time. Judge Day then proposes, for the reasons indicated, to accept Luzon and some adjacent islands, as being of “strategic advantage,” and to leave Spain the rest, with a “treaty stipulation for non-alienation without the consent of the United States.” It seems to me that Judge Day’s scheme was the least desirable of all.

      Senator Gray’s memorandum of the same date is a red-hot argument against taking over any part of the archipelago. He begins thus:

      The undersigned cannot agree that it is wise to take Philippine Islands in whole or in part. To do so would be to reverse accepted continental policy of the country, declared and acted upon through our history. * * * It will make necessary * * * immense sums for fortifications and harbors * * * Climate and social conditions demoralizing to character of American youth * * *. On whole, instead of indemnity, injury * * *. Cannot agree that any obligation incurred to insurgents * * *. If we had captured Cadiz and Carlists had helped us, would not be our duty to stay by them at the conclusion of war * * *. No place for * * * government of subject people in American system * * *. Even conceding all benefits claimed for annexation, we thereby abandon * * * the moral grandeur and strength to be gained by keeping our word to nations of the world * * * for doubtful material advantages and shameful stepping down from high moral position boastfully assumed. * * * Now that we have achieved all and more than our object, let us simply keep our word * * *. Above all let us not make a mockery of the [President’s] instructions, where, after stating that we took up arms only in obedience to the dictates of humanity * * * and that we had no designs of aggrandizement and no ambition for conquest, the President * * * eloquently says: “It is my earnest wish that the United States in making peace should follow the same high rule of conduct which guided it in facing war.”

      The next day, October 26th, came this laconic answer:

      The cession must be of the whole archipelago or none. The latter is wholly inadmissible and the former must be required.

      Probably the one thing about the Paris Peace negotiations that is sure to interest the average American most at this late date is the matter of how we came to pay that twenty millions. It was this way. On October 27th, the Commission wired Washington:

      Last night Spanish ambassador called upon Mr. Reid.

It seems they talked long and earnestly far into the night, trying to find a way which would prevent the conference from resulting in sudden disruption, and consequent resumption of the war. Mr. Reid made plain the inflexible determination of the American people not to assume the Cuban debt. The Ambassador said: “Montero Rios6 could not return to Madrid now if known to have accepted entire Cuban indebtedness,” and asked delay to see “if some concessions elsewhere might not be found which would save Spanish Commissioners from utter repudiation at home.” There is no doubt that the talk we are now considering was a “heart-to-heart” affair, probably quite informal. Yet it is one of the most important talks that have occurred between any two men in this world in the last fifty years. Mr. Reid finally threw out a hint to the effect that as the preponderance of American public sentiment seemed rather inclined to retain the Philippines, “It was possible,” he said, “but not probable that out of these conditions the Spanish Commissioners might find something either in territory or debt7 which might seem to their people at least like a concession.!”8

      It was the leaven of this hint that leavened the whole loaf. There was doubtless much informal parleying after that, but finally, the American Commissioners, having become satisfied that Spanish honor would not be offended by an offer having the substance, if not the form, of charity, and being very tired of Spain’s sparring for wind in the hope of a European coalition against us should war be resumed, submitted the following proposal:

      The Government of the United States is unable to modify the proposal heretofore made for the cession of the entire archipelago of the Philippine Islands, but the American Commissioners are authorized to offer to Spain, in case the cession

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