The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 Part 21

When the last national convention met, over 70,000 American soldiers from more than 500 stations held a still vigorous enemy in check.

Between the date of their arrival in the Islands on June 3d, and the date of this August 21st telegram, the Taft Commission did little junketing, but remained in Manila imbibing the welcome views of the "Tories" or "Copperheads," and seeking very little information from the army. But it so happens that the Adjutant-General at Manila used to keep a record of the daily engagements during that period, which record was later published in the annual War Department Report, [326]

and it shows a total of about five hundred killings (of Filipinos) between June 3d, and August 21st, to say nothing of probably many times that number hit but not killed, and therefore able to get away. (You could not include any Filipino in your returns of your killings except dead you had actually counted.) It also happens that on June 4th, the day after Judge Taft's arrival, General MacArthur, in response to an order from Was.h.i.+ngton sent some time previous at the instance of Congress, had all the Filipino casualties our military records showed up to that time (i. e., during the sixteen months from the day of the outbreak, February 4, 1899, to June 3, 1900), tabulated and totalled, and the total Filipino killed accordingly reported by cablegram to the War Department on June 4, 1900, was 10,780. [327]

Ten thousand in sixteen months is 625 per month. So that by the time Judge Taft arrived, the Filipinos had been sufficiently beaten into submission to decrease the death-rate due to the Independence Bug from something over six hundred per month to about two hundred per month. Judge Taft called this enthusiasm. I call it exhaustion. Whereupon, exclaims a Boston Anti-Imperialist, "Why don't you issue Mr. Taft a certificate as a member of the Ananias Club at once, and be done with it?" My answer is that I do not believe the Taft Commission in 1900 either knew these figures or wanted to know them. They came out preaching a Gospel of Hope to the exclusion of all else, a species of mental healing. They said, soothingly to Dame Filipina, "Be not afraid; you are well; you are well"--of the desire for independence she had conceived, when what that lady needed was the surgical operation indispensable for the removal of a still-born child.

The will of the American people is ascertainable, and quadrennially announced, through certain prescribed methods. And (nearly) everybody takes the result good-humoredly, G.o.d bless our country, whatever the result. But just how Mr. Taft and his colleagues could a.s.sume to speak for the "great majority" of the Filipino people at the tremendous juncture in their destinies now under consideration during the Presidential election of 1900, does not clearly appear, except that in their first report they say:

Many witnesses were examined as to the form of government best adapted to these islands and satisfactory to the people, [328]

a statement which obviously takes for granted the only point involved in the war, viz., whether any kind of alien government would be "satisfactory to the people." And in their various other communications to Was.h.i.+ngton they describe themselves, with no small degree of benevolent satisfaction, as enthusiastically received by natives not under arms at the moment of such reception. As a matter of fact, a carpet-bag governor of Georgia might just as well have reported to Andrew Johnson an enthusiastic reception at the hands of the people whose homes had lately been put to the torch, and their kith and kin to the sword, while the whole fair face of nature from Atlanta to the sea lay bruised and bleeding under the iron heel of Sherman's army. Let no advocate of Indefinite Tutelage whet his scalping-knife for me because of the use of that word "carpet-bag." It was as free from ill-will as the explosion incident to flash-light photography. We are trying to develop a picture of those times. Two at least of the Commission, Messrs. Taft and Wright, were the kind of men who in all the personal relations of life, meet the ultimate test of human confidence and friends.h.i.+p--you would make either, if he would consent to act, executor of your will, or testamentary guardian of your child. But they came out with the preconceived notion that kindness would win the people over, whereas what those people wanted was not foreign kindness but home rule, not silken political swaddling clothes, but freedom. And as the acquisition of the Philippines has placed us under the necessity of getting up a new definition of freedom, one consistent with tariff taxation without representation--through legislation by a Congress on the other side of the world in which "our new possessions" have no vote--it should be added that one of the things Freedom meant with us before 1898, was freedom to frame the laws--tariff and other--which largely determine the selling price of crops and the purchase price of the necessities of life, freedom to see the intelligent and educated men of your own race in charge of your common destiny, freedom to have a flag as an emblem of your common interests, in a word, just Freedom. And that was what the war was about. They wanted to be free and independent. Whether they were fit for such freedom is wholly foreign to the reality and unanimity of their desire for it. General Otis used to be very fond of taking the wind out of the sails of their commissioners and other officials before the outbreak by saying that their people had not the slightest notion of what the word independence meant. It is true that they knew nothing about it by experience, but equally true that whatever it was, they wanted it. Of the ten thousand men we had already killed when Judge Taft arrived, there can be no question, as already heretofore suggested, that many of them may have been hit just as they were hurrahing for independence, in other words, died with the word "Independence" on their lips. When men have been thus fighting against overwhelming odds for some sixteen months for government of their people by their people for their people--however inarticulate the emotions of the rank and file on going into battle--it is idle to claim that they do not know what they want, whether the great majority of the rank and file can read and write or not. But pursuant to the idea that kindness would cure the desire for independence, Judge Taft ignored, in the outset, all advice from the military department, because that was not the kindness department, accepting as truly representative of the temper of the whole people the views of a few ultra-conservatives of large means who had always been part and parcel of the Spanish Administration.

On the other hand, General MacArthur and the whole Eighth Army Corps had seen a great insurrection drag on from month to month and from one year to another, under General Otis, when short shrift would have been made of it in the outset, and far less life sacrificed, if Mr. McKinley had not needed, in aid of his Philippine policy, the support of both of those who believed it was right and of those who believed it would pay. The one central thought which had seemed to animate General Otis from the beginning, a thought which we have already traced through all its humiliating manifestations, was that he must neither do or permit anything that might hurt the Administration. When the "impatience of the people" at home, which figures so prominently in the correspondence already cited between the Adjutant General of the army, General Corbin, and General Otis at Manila, had begun to cast its shadows on the presidential year, 1900, the master mind of Mr. Root had interrupted the fatal Otis treatment of the insurrection, indicated by General Otis's long failure to call for volunteers, his stupid stream of "situation well in hand" and "insurrection about to collapse"

telegrams, and his utterly unpardonable persistence in calling it a purely "Tagalo insurrection," by sending him a competent force, and a plan of campaign, and directing him to carry out the plan. General Otis did this, because he was told to, and then began again to sing the same old song. MacArthur, Wheaton, Lawton, Bates, Young, Funston, and the rest of the fighting generals, had submitted to all the Otis follies without a murmur, because insubordination degrades an army into a rabble. But they [329] believed the army was there to put down that insurrection, not to have a symposium with its leaders on the rights of man. They had taken up "The White Man's Burden," after the manner of Lords Kitchener and Roberts, and they had no qualms. Above all, they wanted peace, no matter how much fighting it took to get it. Mindful of the attempts of the Schurman Commission of the year before to mix peace with war, and of the immense encouragement thus given the insurgents, they had not looked forward with enthusiasm to the coming of the Taft Commission, and to the highly probable renewal of negotiations with the insurgent leaders in the field, pursuant to a presidential policy of patching up a peace at any price, suggested by the exigencies of political expediency, to give the government a semblance of having more or less of the consent of the governed. That the antic.i.p.ations of the military authorities in this regard did not receive a pleasant disappointment, has already been suggested by the nature of the views adopted by the commission soon after its arrival.

The military view of the situation, as it stood when Judge Taft and his colleagues arrived at Manila in June, 1900, is set forth in the annual report of the commanding general, General MacArthur, rendered shortly thereafter; rendered, not in aid of any political candidate at home, nor of a sudden, but at the usual and customary annual season for the making of such reports; and rendered by a soldier of no mean experience and ability, who was a man of great kindliness of heart as well, to the war department of his government, to acquaint it with the facts of a military situation he had been dealing with for two years prior to the arrival of the Taft Commission. General MacArthur's views, as expressed in his report, must now be contrasted with the Taft view, not to show that MacArthur is a bigger man than Taft, nor for any other idle or petty purpose, but because, if, in 1900, General MacArthur was right, and Judge Taft was wrong, about the unanimity of the whole Filipino people against us, then the inst.i.tution of the Civil Government of the Philippines on July 4, 1901, was premature; and, therefore, by reason of the withdrawal of the strong arm of the military at a critical period of public order, it was not calculated to give adequate protection to the lives and property of those who were willing to abandon the struggle for independence and submit to our rule. And if, as we shall see later, it did in fact grossly fail to afford such adequate protection for life and property, it was derelict in the most sacred duty enjoined upon it by Mr. McKinley's instructions to the Taft Commission. But first let me introduce you to General MacArthur.

General MacArthur is not only a soldier of a high order of ability, but a statesman as well. Moreover, he was a thoroughgoing "expansionist." He believed in keeping the Philippines permanently, just as England does her colonies. But he was perfectly honest about it. He recognized the fact that they were against our rule. But he did not attach any more weight to that circ.u.mstance than Lord Kitchener would have done. Also, he had come out to the islands with the first expedition, in 1898, had been in the field continuously for fifteen months prior to a.s.suming supreme military command, and knew the Filipinos thoroughly. As soon as he took command, on May 5, 1900, of the 70,000 troops then in the Islands, he set himself with patience and firmness to the great task of ending the insurrection, which at that time promised to continue indefinitely, the far more formidable guerrilla warfare that had followed the brief period of serried resistance having now settled down to a chronic stage, aided and abetted by the whole population. I have said General MacArthur was a "thoroughgoing" expansionist. This needs a slight qualification. At first he appears to have had a few qualms. Shortly after the outbreak of the war with the Filipinos, when he took the first insurgent capital Malolos, in March, 1899, he had said at Malolos, as we have seen, to a newspaper man who accompanied the expedition:

When I first started in against these rebels, I believed that Aguinaldo's troops represented only a faction. I did not believe that the whole population of Luzon was opposed to us; but I have been reluctantly compelled to believe that the Filipinos are loyal to Aguinaldo and the government which he represents. [330]

General MacArthur's reports concerning the war in the Philippines during the period of his command are succinct and luminous. He makes it perfectly clear that the original resistance offered by the insurgent armies in the field after the arrival of the overwhelmingly ample reinforcements sent out from this country in the fall of 1899, was little more than a mere flash in the pan, compared with the well-planned scheme of resistance which followed the dispersion of those armies to the several provinces which had furnished them to the cause, and Aguinaldo's simultaneous flight into the mountains "with his government concealed about his person," as Senator Lodge exultantly described that incident in his speech of April, 1900, in defence of the Administration's Philippine policy. Speaking of this period, General MacArthur says:

It has since been ascertained that the expediency of adopting guerrilla warfare from the inception of hostilities was seriously discussed by the native leaders, and advocated with much emphasis as the system best adapted to the peculiar conditions of the struggle. It was finally determined, however, that a concentrated field army, conducting regular operations, would, in the event of success, attract the favorable attention of the world, and be accepted as a practical demonstration of capacity for organization and self-government. The disbandment of the field army, therefore, having been a subject of contemplation from the start, the actual event, in pursuance of the deliberate action of the council of war in Bayambang about November 12, 1899 (already hereinbefore noticed), was not regarded by Filipinos in the light of a calamity, but simply as a transition from one form of action to another; a change which by many was regarded as a positive advantage, and was relied upon to accomplish more effectively the end in view. The Filipino idea behind the dissolution of their field army was not at the time of the occurrence well understood in the American camp. As a consequence, misleading conclusions were reached to the effect that the insurrection itself had been destroyed, and that it only remained to sweep up the f.a.g ends of the rebel army by a system of police administration not likely to be either onerous or dangerous. [331]

In his report covering the period from May 5th, to October 1, 1900, General MacArthur says of the policy of resistance above outlined:

The country affords great advantages for the practical development of such a policy. The practice of discarding the uniform enables the insurgents to appear and disappear almost at their convenience. At one time they are in the ranks as soldiers, and immediately thereafter are within the American lines in the att.i.tude of peaceful natives, absorbed in a dense ma.s.s of sympathetic people. [332]

In this same connection the report includes a copy of the original order of the insurgent government which was the corner stone of the guerrilla policy, and states that "systemized regulations" for its effective prosecution throughout the archipelago had been compiled and published by the Filipino junta, or revolutionary committee at Madrid, and distributed among the insurgent forces. The report also appends a copy of the "Army Regulations" under which the insurgent forces were to conduct the guerrilla warfare. It also describes in detail the system of warfare prescribed under these regulations, and states that as a result of the measures which he, General MacArthur, took to combat that warfare "the 53 stations of American troops occupied in the archipelago on November 1, 1899, had on September 1, 1900, expanded to 413," and that during this period, the casualties to our troops were 268 killed, 750 wounded, 55 captured, and to the insurgents, so far as our records showed, 3227 killed, 694 wounded, and 2864 captured. Says he:

The extensive distribution of troops has strained the soldiers of the army to the full limit of endurance. Each little command has had to provide its own service of security and information by never ceasing patrols, explorations, escorts, outposts, and regular guards. An idea seems to have been established in the public mind [he meant the public mind at home, of course] that the field work of the army is in the nature of police, in regulating a few bands of guerrillas, and involving none of the vicissitudes of war. [Here he is meeting the Otis theory, then being industriously circulated in the United States.] Such a narrow statement of the case is unfair to the service. In all things requiring endurance, fort.i.tude, and patient diligence, the guerrilla period has been pre-eminent. It is difficult for the non-professional observer [he means Judge Taft] to understand that apparently desultory work, such as has prevailed in the Philippines during the past ten months, [333] has demanded more of discipline and as much of valor as was required during the period of regular operations against the concentrated field forces of the insurrection. It is, therefore, a great privilege to speak warmly in respect of the importance of the service rendered day by day, with unremitting vigilance, by the splendid men who," etc. [334]

It was not until July 4, 1902, that President Roosevelt officially declared, by his amnesty proclamation of that date that the insurrection in the Philippines was at last ended. It was by no means beaten to a frazzle, as we shall later see. But of course, knowing the impatience of a large portion of the American people with a situation about which there was a wide-spread notion that much remained undisclosed, Mr. Roosevelt would have issued such a proclamation earlier, had the facts seemed to him to so authorize. General MacArthur's relentless "never ceasing patrols, explorations," etc., continued straight on through the presidential campaign of 1900 side by side in point of time with the roseate Taft cablegrams of the same period, and long thereafter--how long will be later indicated. Says General MacArthur, in his report for 1901:

It had been suggested that some of the Filipino leaders were willing to submit the issue to the judgment of the American people, which was soon to be expressed at the polls, and to abide by the result of the presidential election of November, 1900. [335]

But subsequent events demonstrated that the hope of ending the war without further effusion of blood was not well founded, and that as a matter of fact the Filipinos were organizing for further desperate resistance by means of a general banding of the people in support of the guerrillas in the field. [336]

General MacArthur then goes on to tell how, as part of this programme, the insurgent authorities,

announced a primal and inflexible principle, to the effect that every native, without any exception, residing within the limits of the archipelago, owed active allegiance to the insurgent cause. This jurisdiction was enjoined under severe penalties, which were systematically enforced.

This is what Judge Taft afterwards described as "a conspiracy of murder, a Mafia on a very large scale", [337] the characterization being made in support of his theory that "the great majority of the people" with whom we were then at war would welcome our rule if allowed to follow their real preferences, and that they were being cruelly coerced to fight for the independence of their country. General MacArthur's view, however, did not support this theory. His report deals with this branch of the subject thus:

The cohesion of Filipino society in behalf of insurgent interests is most emphatically ill.u.s.trated by the fact that a.s.sa.s.sination, which was extensively employed, was generally accepted as a legitimate expression of insurgent governmental authority. The individuals marked for death would not appeal to American protection, although condemned exclusively on account of supposed pro-Americanism.

Later on, when we came to understand the Filipinos better, this summary method of dealing with the faint-hearted lost much of its initial horrifying force, and the failure of such to appeal to us for protection lost much of its strangeness. In the first place, n.o.body loves a traitor. Even those to whom he claims to have betrayed his countrymen do not trust him implicitly. Again, Latin countries never a.s.sume that before a man is punished for alleged crime he has been confronted with the witnesses against him. Such testimony is, under their jurisprudence, frequently received in his absence. The legal department of General MacArthur's office once got hold of a captured insurgent paper subscribed with the autograph of Juan Cailles, one of their best generals. It directed that a named Filipino residing in a certain town garrisoned by American troops be executed--we of course, would call it "a.s.sa.s.sinated"--at a certain hour on a certain day in a public street of the town, and that the soldier or soldiers performing the "execution" should declare to the bystanders, if any, in so doing, that it was done because the man was a traitor, a friend of the Americans. We kept this paper, intending to hang Juan whenever he should be captured. He held out a long time, and finally surrendered unconditionally--but he proved such an elegant fellow, game as a pebble, courteous as Chesterfield, and immensely popular with his people, that it was decided he could be of more service as a live governor of a province than he could as a dead general, [338] so he was appointed a provincial governor by Governor Taft, and made a splendid official.

Another reason why Filipinos suspected, during the insurrection, by the more obstinate and stout-hearted of their compatriots who held out longer in the struggle for independence, of weakening toward the cause of their country, in other words, suspected of what might be called "Copperhead" or "Tory" tendencies, would not appeal to us for protection, is strikingly presented in General MacArthur's report for 1901. He says they naturally had "grave doubt as to the wisdom" of siding with us, "as the United States had made no formal announcement of an inflexible purpose to hold the archipelago and afford protection to pro-Americans." [339]

The one great thing that has crippled progress in the Philippines from the beginning of the American occupation down to date is the uncertainty as to what our policy for the future is to be, the lack of some, "formal announcement of an inflexible purpose." And of course I mean, as General MacArthur meant, by "formal" announcement, an authoritative declaration by the law-making power of the government. If Congress should formally declare that it is the purpose of this government to hold the Philippines permanently, American and other capital would at once go there in abundance and the place would "blossom like a rose." If, on the other hand, Congress should formally declare that it is the purpose of this government to give the Filipinos their independence as soon as a stable native government can be set up, thus holding out to the present generation the prospect of living to see the independence of their country, the place would also quickly blossom as aforesaid, through the generous ardor of native love of country. In either event, everybody out there would know where he is "at." At present all is uncertainty, both with the resident members of the dominant alien race, and with those over whom we are ruling.

It took over 120,000 American troops, first and last, to put down the struggle of the Filipinos for independence. [340] The war began February 4, 1899, and the last public official announcement that it was ended was on July 4, 1902. [341] Of course this does not imply that every province was at all times during that period a theatre of actual war. Putting down the insurrection was something like putting out a fire in a field of dry gra.s.s. At first the trouble was general. Gradually it diminished toward the end. But for a while, no sooner was it quenched in one province than it would break out in another. How the Filipinos were able to prolong the struggle as long as they did against such apparently overwhelming odds is most interestingly explained by General MacArthur in his report for 1900. After describing the method he followed of establis.h.i.+ng native munic.i.p.al governments in territory as conquered, he says, with a patient stateliness that is almost humorous:

The inst.i.tution of munic.i.p.al government under American auspices, of course, carried the idea of exclusive fidelity to the sovereign power of the United States. All the necessary moral obligations to that end were readily a.s.sumed by munic.i.p.al bodies, and all outward forms of loyalty and decorum carefully preserved. But precisely at this point the psychologic conditions referred to above [meaning the unity against us], [342] began to work with great energy, in a.s.sistance of insurgent field operations. For this purpose most of the towns secretly organized complete insurgent munic.i.p.al governments, to proceed simultaneously and in the same sphere as the American governments and in many instances through the same personnel--that is to say, the presidentes and town officials acted openly in behalf of the Americans and secretly in behalf of the insurgents, and, paradoxical as it may seem, with considerable apparent solicitude for the interests of both. In all matters touching the peace of the town, the regulation of markets, the primitive work possible on roads, streets, and bridges, and the inst.i.tution of schools, their open activity was commendable; at the same time they were exacting and collecting contributions and supplies and recruiting men for the Filipino forces, and sending all obtainable military information to the Filipino leaders. Wherever, throughout the archipelago, there is a group of the insurgent army, it is a fact beyond dispute, that all contiguous towns contribute to the maintenance thereof. In other words, the towns, regardless of the fact of American occupation and town organization, are the actual bases for all insurgent military activities; and not only so in the sense of furnis.h.i.+ng supplies for the so-called flying columns of guerrillas, but as affording secure places of refuge. Indeed, it is now the most important maxim of Filipino tactics to disband when closely pressed and seek safety in the nearest barrio; a manoeuvre quickly accomplished by reason of the a.s.sistance of the people and the ease with which the Filipino soldier is transformed into the appearance of a peaceful native. [343]

To contrast a cold, hard military fact involving the lives of American soldiers with a lot of political nonsense intended for consumption in the United States during a presidential election, the next paragraph is particularly interesting in the light of the cotemporaneous Taft view: [344]

The success of this unique system of war depends upon almost complete unity of action of the entire native population. That such unity is a fact is too obvious to admit of discussion. Intimidation has undoubtedly accomplished much to this end, but fear as the only motive is hardly sufficient to account for the united and apparently spontaneous action of several millions of people. [345]

One traitor in each town would effectually destroy such a complex organization.

Then follows this bit of grim humor:

It is more probable that the adhesive principle comes from ethnological h.o.m.ogeneity which induces men to respond for a time to the appeals of consanguineous leaders.h.i.+p--

in other words, to stick to their own kith and kin. He had in a previous paragraph used that very expression thus: "The people seem to be actuated by the idea that in politics or war men are never nearer right then when going with their own kith and kin."

In all the foregoing, General MacArthur was not simply trying to score a point against Judge Taft, though his resentment of the effort of the Taft Commission of 1900 to mix politics with war in the presidential year was quite as decided, and quite as well known in the islands at the time, as was General Otis's similar att.i.tude toward the Schurman Commission of the previous year. [346] He is simply laying before the War Department, as a soldier, the familiar facts of a situation which he had been dealing with for two years past, as well known to the 70,000 officers and men under his command as to himself. And as the details into which he goes are simply prefatory to an account of the remedy he applied to the situation, that remedy must now claim our attention. The remedy General MacArthur finally applied was a proclamation, explaining to the Filipino people--"to all cla.s.ses throughout the archipelago," it read, and especially to the leaders in the field, many of whose captured comrades-in-arms he had now become thoroughly acquainted with--the severities sanctioned by the laws of civilized nations under such circ.u.mstances, and the reasons therefor; and, further, serving them with notice that thenceforward he proposed to enforce those laws with full rigor. [347]

The eminent lawyers of the Taft Commission were too busy about that time acquainting themselves with the situation through natives not in arms, to attach much importance to General MacArthur's proclamation, but the Eighth Army Corps always believed that that proclamation, and the army's work under it, was the main factor in making the civil government at all possible by the date it was set up, July 4, 1901. The issuance of this doc.u.ment was not only a wise military move, but a subtle stroke of statesmans.h.i.+p as well. It a.s.sumed that the Filipino people were a civilized people, an a.s.sumption never indulged by Spain during the whole of her rule, but always freely admitted by General MacArthur in all his dealings with their leading men to be a fact. It therefore appealed to their amour propre, and to the n.o.blesse oblige of many of the most obstinate and trusted fighting leaders. The writer was, at the date of the proclamation under consideration, on duty at General MacArthur's headquarters, as a.s.sistant to Colonel Crowder, his judge advocate, now Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, and prepared the first rough, tentative suggestions for the final draft of it, accompanying such suggestions with a memorandum showing the course taken by Wellington in France in 1815, and by Bismarck's generals at the close of the Franco-Prussian War, as well as that followed under General Order No. 100, 1863, for the government of the armies of the United States in the field. Having then entertained the opinion that that proclamation, though drastic, was wise and right under the facts of the situation which confronted us, and having nowise changed that opinion since, it may be well for the writer of this book to explain his reasons for that opinion. This must be done wholly without reference to "the authorities," for neither at the bar of public opinion, nor at the bar of final judgment, do "the authorities" count for much. In so doing, however, we must start with the a.s.sumption that it was a case of American military occupation of hostile territory, notwithstanding that Judge Taft began soon after his arrival in the islands in the June previous to the December now referred to, to cable home impressions which, if correct, amounted to a denial that the great body of the people were hostile. Military occupation is a fact which admits of no debate, and the necessity of making your country's flag respected is always fully and keenly recognized as the one supreme consideration by every good American except one who, obsessed with the idea that kindness will cure the desire of a people for independence, proceeds to act on that idea in the midst of a war for independence.

Under the laws of war the commanding general of the occupying force owes protection, both of life and property, to all persons residing within the territory occupied. The object of General MacArthur's proclamation was to put a stop to such "executions," or a.s.sa.s.sinations, as that perpetrated by Juan Cailles, mentioned above, and to separate the insurgents in the field from their main reliance, the towns. The latter end of a b.l.o.o.d.y war is no time for a discussion of the causes of the war between victor and vanquished. Nor is it any time to believe the representative of the enemy who tells you that most of him is really in sympathy with you and merely coerced. Your duty is to stop the war. You and your enemy having had a difference, and having referred it to the arbitrament of war, which is, unfortunately, at present the only human jurisdiction having power to enforce decisions concerning such differences, if you win, and your enemy refuses to abide the decision, he is simply, as it were in contempt of court, and, in the scheme of things, as at present ordered, deserves punishment as an enemy to the general peace. To state the ethics of the matter juridically, "there should be an end of litigation"--somewhere.

I do not believe in the doctrine that might makes right, and I cherish the high hope that this human family of ours will survive to see war superseded, as the ultimate arbiter, by something more like heaven and less like h.e.l.l. But in the Philippines in 1900 it was a situation, not a theory, that confronted us, and, as far as my consciously fallible thinking apparatus lights the way which then lay before us, that way led to a shrine whereon was written "A life for a life." This is no mere academic discussion. With me it is a tremendously practical one. In the gravest possible acceptation of the term it is awe-fully so. If I am wrong, every execution I approved by memorandum review furnished Colonel Crowder and General MacArthur, of military commission findings out there was wrong, and so were a number of the executions I ordered as a judge appointed by Governor Taft under a government which, though nominally a civil government, was no more "civil" in so far as that term implies absence of necessity for the presence of military force, than other governments immediately following conquest usually are. The propriety of the imposition of capital punishment by the const.i.tuted authorities of a nation as part of a set policy to make its sovereignty respected, is wholly independent of whether you call your colonial government a civil or a military one. So that in justifying General MacArthur I am also justifying Governor Taft, and as it was on the recommendation of the former that the latter appointed me to the Bench, we are certainly all three in the same boat in the matter of the capital punishments under consideration. And while the company you were in on earth in a given transaction, however distinguished that company, is not going to help you with the Recording Angel, [348] still, it is some comfort to know that wiser and abler men than yourself approved a course of imposing capital punishments to which you were a party, such punishments having been inflicted as part of a policy whose subsequent evolution revealed it to you as fundamentally wrong. And this reflection is quite relevant in the present connection to the question whether the government of Benevolent a.s.similation we have maintained over the Filipinos for the last fourteen years is one which was originally imposed by force against their will, or whether it was ever welcomed by them or any considerable fraction of them.

That the MacArthur proclamation of December 20, 1900, concerning the laws of war, was at the time a military necessity, is as perfectly clear to me now as it was then. And yet it may well give the thoughtful and patriotic American pause. It is sometimes difficult to understand why men are so often entirely willing to go on fighting and dying in a cause they must know to be hopeless. The famous pa.s.sage of Edmund Burke's speech on "Conciliation with America,"