LITMIR.BIZ

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leading up to it. This account describes the political conditions among the population of the Philippine archipelago, “which,” it goes on to say, “merely awaits the signal from General Aguinaldo to rise en masse.” Speaking of Pratt’s interview with Aguinaldo, it says:

      General Aguinaldo’s policy embraces the independence of the Philippines. * * * American protection would be desirable temporarily, on the same lines as that which might be instituted hereafter in Cuba.

      Mr. Pratt also forwards a proclamation gotten up by the Filipino insurgent leaders at Hong Kong and sent over to the Philippines in advance of Admiral Dewey’s coming, calling upon the Filipinos not to heed any appeals of the Spaniards to oppose the Americans, but to rally to the support of the latter. This manifesto of the Filipinos is headed, prominently—for all we know it may have had a heading as big as a Hearst newspaper box-car type announcement of the latest violation of the Seventh Commandment—: “America’s Allies.”

      It begins thus:

Compatriots: Divine Providence is about to place independence within our reach. * * * The Americans, not from mercenary motives, but for the sake of humanity and the lamentations of so many persecuted people, have considered it opportune * * * etc. [Here follows a reference to Cuba.] At the present moment an American squadron is preparing to sail for the Philippines. * * * The Americans will attack by sea and prevent any reinforcements coming from Spain; * * * we insurgents must attack by land. Probably you will have more than sufficient arms, because the Americans have arms and will find means to assist us. There where you see the American flag flying, assemble in numbers; they are our redeemers!5

      For twelve days after his letter to the State Department enclosing the above proclamation, Mr. Pratt, so far as the record discloses, contemplated his coup d’état in silent satisfaction. Since its successful pulling off, Admiral Dewey had smashed the Spanish fleet, and Aguinaldo had started his auxiliary insurrection. The former was patting the latter on the back, as it were, and saying, “Go it little man.” But nobody was patting Pratt on the back, yet. Therefore, on June 2d, Mr. Pratt writes the State Department, purring for patting thus:

Considering the enthusiastic manner General Aguinaldo has been received by the natives and the confidence with which he already appears to have inspired Admiral Dewey, it will be admitted, I think, that I did not over-rate his importance and that I have materially assisted the cause of the United States in the Philippines in securing his co-operation.6

      A glow of conscious superiority, in value to the Government, over his consular colleague and neighbor, Mr. Wildman, at Hong Kong, next suffuses Mr. Pratt’s diction, being manifested thus:

      Why this co-operation should not have been secured to us during the months General Aguinaldo remained awaiting events in Hong Kong, and that he was allowed to leave there without having been approached in the interest of our Government, I cannot understand.

      Considering that in his letter accepting the nomination for the Vice-Presidency two years after this Mr. Roosevelt compared Aguinaldo and his people to that squalid old Apache medicine man, Sitting Bull, and his band of dirty paint-streaked cut-throats, Mr. Pratt’s next Pickwickian sigh of complacent, if neglected, worth is particularly interesting:

      No close observer of what had transpired in the Philippines during the past four years could have failed to recognize that General Aguinaldo enjoyed above all others the confidence of the Filipino insurgents and the respect alike of Spaniards and foreigners in the islands, all of whom vouched for his high sense of justice and honor.

      In other words, knowing the proverbial ingratitude of republics, Mr. Pratt is determined to impress upon his Government and on the discerning historian of the future that he was “the original Aguinaldo man.” A week later (June 9th) Mr. Pratt writes the Department enclosing copies of the Singapore papers of that date, giving an account of a generous outburst of Filipino enthusiasm at Singapore in honor of America, Admiral Dewey, and, last, if not least, Mr. Pratt. He encloses duplicate copies of these newspaper notices “for the press, should you consider their publication desirable.” His letter begins:

      I have the honor to report that this afternoon, on the occasion of the receipt of the news of General Aguinaldo’s recent successes near Manila, I was waited upon by the Philippine residents in Singapore and presented an address. * * *

      He then proceeds with further details of the event, without self-laudation. The Singapore papers which he encloses, however, not handicapped by the inexorable modesty of official correspondence, give a glowing account of the presentation of the “address,” and of the serenade and toasts which followed. Says one of them, the Straits Times:

      The United States consulate at Singapore was yesterday afternoon in an unusual state of bustle. That bustle extended itself to Raffles Hotel, of which the consulate forms an outlying part. From a period shortly prior to 5 o’clock, afternoon, the natives of the Philippines resident in Singapore began to assemble at the consulate. Their object was to present an address to Hon. Spencer Pratt, United States Consul-General, and, partly, to serenade him, for which purpose some twenty-five or thirty of the Filipinos came equipped with musical instruments.

      First there was music by the band. Then followed the formal reading and presentation of the address by a Dr. Santos, representing the Filipino community of Singapore. The address pledged the “eternal gratitude” of the Filipino people to Admiral Dewey and the honored addressee, alluded to the glories of independence, and to how Aguinaldo had been enabled by the arrangement so happily effected with Admiral Dewey by Consul Pratt to arouse 8,000,000 of Filipinos to take up arms “in defence of those principles of justice and liberty of which your country is the foremost champion” and trusted “that the United States * * * will efficaciously second the programme arranged between you, sir, and General Aguinaldo in this port of Singapore, and secure to us our independence under the protection of the United States.”

      Mr. Pratt arose and “proceeded speaking in French,” says the newspaper—it does not say Alabama French, but that is doubtless what it was—“to state his belief that the Filipinos would prove and were now proving themselves fit for self-government.” The gentleman from Alabama then went on to review the mighty events and developments of the preceding six weeks, Dewey’s victory of May 1st,

      the brilliant achievements of your own distinguished leader, General Emilio Aguinaldo, co-operating on land with the Americans at sea, etc. You have just reason to be proud of what has been and is being accomplished by General Aguinaldo and your fellow-countrymen under his command. When, six weeks ago, I learned that General Aguinaldo had arrived incognito in Singapore, I immediately sought him out. An hour’s interview convinced me that he was the man for the occasion; and, having communicated with Admiral Dewey, I accordingly arranged for him to join the latter, which he did at Cavite. The rest you know.

Says the newspaper clipping which has preserved the Pratt oration: “At the conclusion of Mr. Pratt’s speech refreshments were served, and as the Filipinos, being Christians, drink alcohol,7 there was no difficulty in arranging as to refreshments.”

      Then followed a general drinking of toasts to America, Dewey, Pratt, and Aguinaldo. Then the band played. Then the meeting broke up. Then the Honorable Spencer Pratt, Consul-General of the United States, retired to the seclusion of his apartments in Raffles Hotel, and, under the soothing swish of his plunkah, forgot the accursed heat of that stepping-off place, Singapore, and dreamed of future greatness.

A few days later the even tenor of Mr. Pratt’s meditations was disturbed by a letter from the State Department saying, in effect, that it was all right to get Aguinaldo’s assistance “if in so doing he was not induced to form hopes which it might not be practicable to gratify.”8 But it did not tell him to tell the Filipinos so. For Aguinaldo

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