The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 - James H. Blount

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$20,000,000.

      This alluring offer was accompanied with the stern announcement that

      Upon the acceptance * * * of the proposals herein made * * * but not otherwise, it will be possible * * * to proceed to the consideration * * * of other matters.

      Also, our Commissioners wired Washington:

      If the Spanish Commissioners refuse our proposition * * * nothing remains except to close the negotiations.

      This was very American and very final. Washington answered: “Your proposed action approved.”

      November 29th, Mr. Day wired Mr. Hay:

      Spanish Commissioners at to-day’s conference presented a definite and final acceptance of our last proposition.

      And that is how that twenty millions found its way into the treaty—not forgetting the prayers and other contemporaneous activities of Archbishop Chapelle.

      After the tremendous eight weeks’ tension had relaxed, and before the final reduction to writing of all the details, we see this dear little telegram, from Secretary of State Hay, himself a writer of note, come bravely paddling into port, where it was cordially received by both sides, taken in out of the wet, and put under the shelter of the treaty:

      Mr. Hay to Mr. Day: In renewing conventional arrangements do not lose sight of copyright agreement.

      And here is the last act of the drama:

      Mr. Day to Mr. Hay, Paris, December 10, 1898: Treaty signed at 8.50 this evening.

      Chapter VIII

       Table of Contents

       Table of Contents

      Prometheus stole the heavenly fire from the altar of Jupiter to benefit mankind, and Jupiter thereupon punished both Prometheus and the rest of mankind by creating and giving to them the woman Pandora, a supposed blessing but a real curse. Pandora brought along a box of blessings, and when she opened it, everything flew out and away but Hope.

      Tales from Æschylus.

      The ever-memorable Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation, the Pandora box of Philippine woes, was signed December 21, 1898, and its contents were let loose in the Philippines on January 1, 1899.

      Let us consider for a moment the total misapprehension of conditions in the islands under which Mr. McKinley drafted and signed that famous document—a misapprehension due to General Otis’s curious blindness to the great vital fact of the situation, viz., that the Filipinos were bent on independence from the first, and preparing to fight for it to the last. Take the following Otis utterance, for example, concerning a date when practically everybody in the Eighth Army Corps, and every newspaper correspondent in the Philippines, recognized that war would be certain in the event the Paris Peace negotiations should result, as common rumor then said they would result, in our taking over the islands:

      There can be no doubt that, at the date of that despatch, General Otis had been given to understand that under the Treaty of Paris we were going to keep the islands if the treaty should be ratified, and also that the if might give the Administration trouble, should trouble arise with the Filipinos before the if was disposed of at home. As heretofore intimated, in addition to his preference for legal and administrative work to the work of his profession, in the Philippines General Otis constituted himself from the beginning a political henchman. Ample evidence will be introduced later on to show beyond all doubt that all through the early difficulties, when the American people should have been frankly dealt with and given the facts, General Otis would, in the exercise of his military powers as press censor, always say to the war correspondents, “I will let nothing go that will hurt the Administration.”

      Let us see what the real facts of the Philippine situation were at the date of the Treaty of Paris, December 10th, or, which is the same thing, when General Otis sent his despatch of December 7th. When the Treaty of Paris was signed, General Otis was in possession of Manila and Cavite, with less than 20,000 men under his command, and Aguinaldo was in possession of practically all the rest of the archipelago, with between 35,000 and 40,000 men under his command, armed with guns, and the whole Filipino population were in sympathy with the army of their country. We have already seen the conditions in the various provinces at that time and also the inauguration of the native central government. Let us now examine the military figures.

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