The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 Part 29

The Wright plain talk made the Filipinos one and all feel: "Alackaday! Our true friend has departed." But as Secretary of War Taft, after four years more of trying to please both sides, at home, at last frankly told the Filipinos when he went out to attend the opening of the first Philippine legislature, in 1907, practically just what Governor Wright had begun to tell them from the moment his predecessor had exchanged the parting tear with them on the water-front at Manila in 1903, the net result of the Wright policy of uncompromising honesty on the present political situation, may easily be guessed.

Governor Wright's method of repudiating the Taft straddle took for its key-note, in lieu of "The Philippines for the Filipinos," the slogan "An Equal Chance for All." What Governor Wright meant was merely that there would be no more browbeating of Americans to make them love their little brown brother as much as Governor Taft was supposed to love him, but that everybody would be treated absolutely alike and n.o.body coddled. However, the Filipinos of course knew that they could not compete with American wealth and energy, and so did the Americans in the islands. So what the Wright slogan, unquestionably fair as was its intent, inexorably meant to everybody concerned except the dignified, straightforward and candid propounder of it, was, in effect, the British "White Man's Burden" or Trust-for-Civilization theory, a theory whereunder the white man who wants some one else's land goes and takes it on the idea that he can put it to better use than the owner. Thus early did the original "jollying" Mr. Taft had given them become transparent to his little brown brother. Thus early did it become clear to the Filipinos that behind the mask of executive protestations that they shall some day have independence when fit for it, lurks a set determination industriously to earn for an indeterminate number of generations yet to come

The blame of those ye better The hate of those ye guard.

This book has been written, up to this point, in vain, if the preceding chapters have not made clear how much political expediency, looking to the welfare of a party in power naturally seeking to continue in power, necessarily dominates Philippine affairs under American rule. We have observed under the microscope of history, made available by the official doc.u.ments now accessible, the long battle between the political expediency germ and the independence bug which began in General Anderson's dealings with Aguinaldo and continued through General Merritt's and General Otis's regimes. We have seen General MacArthur's attempt at a wise surgical operation to excise the independence bug from the Philippine body politic--so that the expediency germ might die a natural death from having nothing to feed on. We have seen that operation interfered with by the Taft Commission during the presidential campaign of 1900, because the men in control of the republic could not ignore considerations of political expediency; and we saw the consequent premature setting up of the civil government in 1901, with all its dire consequences in the then as yet unconquered parts of the archipelago, southern Luzon, and some of the Visayan Islands. We have observed the effective though heroic local treatment administered to the Philippine body politic by General Bell in Batangas in 1901-2, with a view of killing off the independence bug there. We have seen the fierce struggle between some of the bug's belated sp.a.w.n and the expediency germ's now more emboldened forces in Albay in the off year, 1903. We are now to take our fifth year's course in the colonial department of politico-entomological research, the presidential year 1904.

It was the way the Samar insurrection of 1904-5-6 was handled which finally convinced me that the Filipinos would not kill any more of each other in a hundred years than we have killed, or permitted to be killed, of them, in the fell process of Benevolent a.s.similation.

American imperialism is not honest, like the British variety. American imperialism knows that Avarice was its father, and Piety its mother, and that it takes after its father more than it does after its mother. British imperialism frankly aims mostly to make the survivors of its policies happy, not the people it immediately operates on. American imperialism pretends to be ministering to the happiness of the living, and, though it realizes that it is not a success in that line, it resents identification with its British cousin, by sanctimonious reference to the alleged net good it is doing. Yet in its moments of frankness it says, with an air of infinite patience under base ingrat.i.tude, "Well, they will be happy in some other generation," and that therefore the number of people we have had or may have, to kill, or permit to be killed, in the process of Benevolent a.s.similation, is wholly negligible. This is simply the old, old argument that the end justifies the means, the argument that has wrought more misery in the world than any other since time began.

When Judge Taft, General Wright, and their colleagues of the Taft Commission, came out to the Philippines in 1900, they came full of the McKinley convictions about a people whom neither they or Mr. McKinley had ever seen, bound hand and foot by political necessity to square the freeing of Cuba with the subjugation of the Philippines. A perfectly natural evolution of this att.i.tude resulted in the position they at once took on arriving in the Islands, viz., that to do for the Filipinos what we have done for the Cubans would mean a b.l.o.o.d.y welter of anarchy and chaos. And the presidential contest of 1900 was fought and won largely on that issue. After 1900, for all the gentlemen above referred to, the proposition was always res adjudicata. All protests by Filipinos to the contrary caused only resentment, and welded the authorities more and more hermetically to the correctness of the original proposition. Loyalty to the original ill-considered decision became impregnated, in their case, with a fervor not entirely unlike religious fanaticism, and belief in it became a matter of principle, justifying all they had done, and guiding all they might thereafter do. So that when General Wright "came to the throne" in our colonial empire, as Governor, and legatee of the McKinley-Taft Benevolent a.s.similation policies, his att.i.tude in all he did was thoroughly honest, and also thoroughly British. He honestly believed in the "b.l.o.o.d.y welter of anarchy and chaos" proposition, and was prepared, in any emergency that might arise, to follow his convictions in that regard whithersoever they might lead, without variableness or shadow of turning. Take him all in all, Governor Wright was about the best man occupying exalted station I ever knew personally, President Taft himself not excepted; although I still adhere to Colonel Roosevelt's opinion of 1901 concerning Mr. Taft, quoted in the chapter preceding this, from the Outlook of September 21, 1901, notwithstanding that in the contest for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1912, the Colonel "recalled" that opinion. Seriously, a man may "combine the qualities which would make a first cla.s.s President of the United States with the qualities which would make a first cla.s.s Chief Justice of the United States" and still cut a sorry figure trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, or a scheme of government, the breath of whose life is public opinion, into the running of a remote colonial government, the breath of whose life is exemption from being interfered with by public opinion.

After the Albay insurrection of 1903 had been cleaned up, I took charge of the Twelfth Judicial District, having been appointed thereto by Governor Taft just before he left the islands to become Secretary of War. In those trying pioneer days they always seemed to give me the insurrections to sift out, but it was purely fortuitous. Whenever you ceased to be busy, prompt arrangements were made for you to get busy again. Judge Ide, the Minister of Justice, wasted no government money.

The Twelfth District consisted of the two island provinces of Samar and Leyte, two of the six Visayan Islands heretofore noticed as the only ones worth considering in a general view of the archipelago such as the student of world politics wants or needs. Leyte had a population of 388,922, [429] and an area of 3008 square miles. [430] Samar's population was 266,237, and its area, 5276 square miles, makes it the third largest island of the Philippine Archipelago. So that as Judge of the Twelfth District, consisting of two provinces, the Governor of each of which was ex-officio sheriff of the court for his province, I was, in a sense, a sort of shepherd of a political flock of some 650,000 people, whom I always thought of as a whole as "my" people.

Samar and Leyte are separated, where nearest together, by a most picturesque winding strait bordered with densely wooded hills. San Juanico Strait is much narrower than the inland sea of j.a.pan at its narrowest point, and almost as beautiful. In fact, at its narrowest point it seems little more than a stone's throw in width. It is as pretty as the prettiest part of the Golden Horn. Leyte had been put under the Civil Government in 1901, and this premature interference with the military authorities in the midst of their efforts to pacify the island had had the usual result of postponing pacification, by filling local politicians, wholly unable to comprehend a government which entreated or reasoned with people to do things, with the notion that we were resorting to diplomacy in lieu of force because of fear of them. Leyte and Samar were strategically one for the insurgents, just as the provinces of the Lake district of Luzon, described in an earlier chapter, were, because they could flee by night from one province to another in small boats without detection, when hard pressed by the Americano. The main insurgent general in Samar, Lucban, had surrendered to General Grant in 1902, but the cheaper fellows stayed out much longer, preying upon those who preferred daily toil to cattle-stealing and throat-cutting as a means of livelihood, and continuing the political unrest intermittently in gradually diminis.h.i.+ng degree, through 1903. By the spring of 1904, however, there still remained in Samar riffraff enough, the jetsam and flotsam of the insurrection--professional outlaws--to get up some trouble, so that, as brigand chiefs, they might resume the roles of Robin Hood, Jesse James, et al. During the first half of that year the opportunity these worthies had been waiting for, while resting on their oars, developed. The crop of munic.i.p.al officials resulting from the original McKinley plan of beginning the work of reconstruction during, instead of after, the war, and among the potential village Hampdens, instead of among the Cromwells, had resulted in some very rascally munic.i.p.al officials who oppressed the poor, getting the hemp of the small farmer, when they would bring it to town, at their own prices--hemp being to Samar what cotton is to the South. From the lowland and upland farmers the ever-widening discontent spread to the hills, where dwelt a type of people const.i.tuting only a small fraction of the total population of the Islands--"half savage and half child"--but loving their hills, and wholly indisposed, of their own initiative, to start trouble, unless manipulated. Obviously, then, "the public mind" of Samar--those who know Samar will smile with me at the phrase, but it will do, for lack of a better--was likely soon to be in a generally inflammable condition. By July, 1904, the Robin Hoods, Jesse Jameses, et al., touched the match to the material and a political conflagration started, apparently as unguided--save by the winds of impulse--and certainly as persistent, as a forest fire. Every native of the Philippine Islands, whether he be of the 7,000,000 Christians or of the 500,000 non-Christian tribes, is born with a highly developed social instinct either to command or to obey. The latter tendency is quite as common in the Philippines as the former is in the United States. Hence the Samar disturbances of 1904-5-6, though made up at the outset of raids and depredations by various roving bands of outlaws yielding allegiance only to their immediate chief, soon took on a very formidable military and political aspect. [431] The roving bands would ask the peaceably inclined people our flag was supposed to be protecting, "Are you for us or for the Americans?" promptly chopping their heads off if they showed any lack of zeal in denouncing American munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions and things American in general. Pursuant to Mr. McKinley's original scheme--concocted for a people he had never seen, under pressure of political necessity--to rig up in short order a government "essentially popular in form," a lot of most pitiable munic.i.p.al governments had been let loose on the people, a part of our series of kindergarten lessons. The plan was as wise as it will be for the j.a.panese--some one please hold Captain Hobson while I finish the a.n.a.logy--when they conquer the United States, to go to the Bowery and the Ghetto for mayors of all our cities. Thus by our pluperfect benevolence, we had contrived in Samar by 1904 to rouse the highland folk, or hill people, whom the Spaniards had always let alone, against the pacific agricultural lowland people and the dwellers in the coast villages. The latter, or such of them as did not join the hill folk for protection, we permitted to be mercilessly butchered by wholesale, from August to November, 1904, as hereinafter more fully set forth, because ordering out the army to protect them might have been construed at home to mean disturbances more serious and widespread than actually existed, and might therefore affect the presidential election in the United States by renewing the notion that the Administration had never been frank with the American people concerning conditions in the Philippines.

The annual report of the Philippine Commission for 1904 is dated November 1st, which was just a week before the presidential election day of that year. Their annual report for 1905 is dated November 1, 1905. In their report for 1904, the Commission deal with the general state of public order in the same roseate manner which, as we have seen, had made its first appearance during the political exigencies of 1900 in the language about "the great majority of the people"

being "entirely willing" to benevolent alien domination in lieu of independence. When Rip Van Winkle was trying to quit drinking, he used to say after each drink: "Oh, we'll just let that pa.s.s." In their report for 1904, the Commission swallow the conditions in Samar with equal nonchalance. After stating that some (impliedly negligible) disturbances had occurred in Samar "two months since," they add that "the constabulary of the province took the field" against the bands of Pulajans, or outlaws, and that "as a result, they were soon broken up, and are being pursued and killed or captured" (p. 3). In their report dated November 1, 1905, by way of preface to an account of the extensive military operations inaugurated in Samar shortly after the presidential election of 1904, which operations had not only been in progress for nearly a year on the date of the 1905 report, but continued for more than a year thereafter, the Commission explain their 1904 nonchalance about Samar thus: "It was then believed that the constabulary forces had succeeded in checking the further progress of the outbreak" (p. 47).

Let us examine the facts on which they based this statement, since it meant that they believed that a duly reported epidemic of ma.s.sacres of peaceably inclined people, over whom the American flag was floating as a symbol of protection to life and property, had stood effectually checked by November 1, 1904, the date of their report. And first, of the ma.s.sacres themselves, their nature and extent.

The Samar ma.s.sacres of 1904 began with what we all called down there "the outbreak of July 10th." In August, 1904, I went to Samar to handle the cases arising out of the disturbances there, a.s.sisted by the (native) Governor of the province, who, under the law already alluded to, was ex-officio sheriff of the court, and an army of deputy sheriffs, as it were, the constabulary, numbering several hundred. The outbreak of July 10th was always known afterwards as "the Tauiran affair." This Tauiran affair was a raid by an outlaw band on the barrio of Tauiran, one of the hamlets of the munic.i.p.al jurisdiction of the towns.h.i.+p called Gandara, in the valley of the Gandara River, in north central Samar, wherein one hundred houses, the whole settlement, were burned, and twenty-one people killed. The term of court lasted from early in August until early in November. The day after the Tauiran affair, over on the other fork of the Gandara River, occurred what was called "the Cantaguic affair." Cantaguic was a hamlet or barrio about the size of Tauiran. The brigands killed the lieutenant of police of Cantaguic and some others, but they did not kill everybody in the place. Instead, after killing a few people, they went to the tribunal (town hall), seized the local teniente, or munic.i.p.al representative of American authority, tied the American flag they found at the tribunal about the head of the teniente, turban fas.h.i.+on, poured kerosene oil on it, and took the teniente down stairs and out into the public square, where they lighted and burned the flag on his head, the chief of the band, one Juliano Caducoy by name, remarking to the onlookers that the act was intended as a lesson to those serving that flag. They then cut off the lips of the teniente so he could not eat (he of course died a little later), burned the barrio and carried off fifty of the inhabitants. Caducoy was captured some time afterward, and I sentenced him to be hanged. There was practically no dispute about the facts. After the Cantaguic affair, during the term of court mentioned, the provincial doctor, Dr. Cullen, an American who had been a captain doctor of volunteers, had occasion to run up to Manila. The doctor was a most accomplished gentleman, but he had a fondness for the grewsome in description equal to Edgar Allan Poe himself. After he came back he told me about having told the Governor-General of the Cantaguic affair, and repeated with an evident pleased consciousness of his ability to make his hearer's blood curdle, how the Governor had said to him slowly, "Doctor, that--is--awful!"

Blood seemed to whet the appet.i.te for slaughter. The records of the August-November, 1904 term of the court of first instance of Samar show all the various barrios of the Gandara Valley in flames on successive days, after the affairs of July 10th and 11th. I do not speak from memory, but from doc.u.ments contained in a large bundle of papers kept ever since, in memory of that incarnadined epoch. You find one barrio burned one day and another another day, until all the people of the Gandara Valley were made homeless. One of the constabulary officers, Lieutenant Bowers, a very gallant fellow, testified before me that from July 10th to the date of his testimony, which was on or about September 28th, some 50,000 people had been made homeless in Samar by the operations of the outlaws. I deem Lieutenant Bowers's estimate quite reasonable. His figures include only one-fifth of the population of an island which was in the throes of an all-pervading brigand uprising. The conservative nature of Lieutenant Bowers's estimate concerning the mischief that had already been wrought by the end of September, 1904, and was then gathering destructive potentiality like a forest or prairie fire, may be inferred from the contents of a memorandum appearing below, furnished me by a Spanish officer of the constabulary, a Lieutenant Calderon, who had been an officer of the Rural Guard in the Spanish days. It contains a list of fifty-three towns, villages, and hamlets (a barrio may be quite a village, sometimes even quite a town, though usually it is a hamlet) burned up to the date the memorandum was furnished me.

In order to a clear understanding of these Samar ma.s.sacres and town-burnings of 1904, as well as for general geographical purposes, a few preliminary words of explanation will be appropriate just here.

A province in the Philippines has heretofore been likened to a county with us. But in the largest provinces, the subdivisions of provinces called munic.i.p.alities are more like counties; and each munic.i.p.ality is in turn subdivided into sections called barrios. A munic.i.p.ality (Spanish, pueblo) in the Philippines is not primarily a city or town, as we understand it, i.e., a more or less continuous settlement of houses and lots more or less adjacent, but a specific area of territory, a towns.h.i.+p, as it were. This area or territory may be 5 10 square miles, or 10 20, or more, or less. For example, Samar's area is 5276 square miles. Yet it contained in 1904, and probably still contains, only twenty-five towns.h.i.+ps or munic.i.p.alities all told, each munic.i.p.ality being subdivided in turn into barrios. Munic.i.p.alities in the Philippines vary in size as much as counties do with us, and their total area accounts for and represents the total area of the province, just as the total area of the counties of a State represents with us the total area of the State. The seat of government of the munic.i.p.ality always bears the same name as the munic.i.p.ality itself, just as the county seat of a county usually, or frequently, bears the same name as the county, with us. Take for instance, the name of the first munic.i.p.ality or towns.h.i.+p in the list which appears below, Gandara. The munic.i.p.ality of Gandara might be described by a.n.a.logy as the "county" of Gandara, the list of barrios burned as a list of towns and villages of the "county" of Gandara.

The munic.i.p.ality of Gandara included a watershed in north central Samar from which the Gandara River flowed in a southwesterly direction to the sea. Within this watershed, parallel 12 1/2 north of the equator intersects the 125th meridian of longitude east of Greenwich. Northern Samar is a very rich hemp country, Catarman hemp being usually quoted higher than any hemp listed on the London market. If you stand at the highest point of the Gandara watershed you can see four streams flowing off north, northwest, northeast, and southwest to the sea. There are some half dozen streams having their source there. Brigands making their headquarters there could always, when hard pressed, get away in canoes toward the sea in almost any direction they wished. The following is Lieutenant Calderon's list:

RELACION POR MUNICIPIOS DE LOS BARRIOS QUEMADOS.

(List by Munic.i.p.alities of the Barrios Burned.)

MUNIc.i.p.aLITY OF GANDARA

Tauiran July 10 Cantaguic July 12 Cauilan July 13 Erenas July 16 Blanca Aurora July 19 Bulao [432] July 21 Pizarro August 8 Cagibabago August 8 Nueva August 10 Hernandez August 10 San Miguel August 10 Buao August 15 El Cano August 17 San Enrique August 20 San Luis August 25

MUNIc.i.p.aLITY OF CATBALOGAN

(Calderon's List of Barrios Burned, continued)

Malino July 31 Silanga August 9 Ginga August 13 San Fernando August 15 Maragadin August 20 Talinga August 21 Santa Cruz August 22 Dap-dap August 29 Palencia August 31 Albalate (date not given) Villa Hermosa (date not given)

The above list of villages burned in the towns.h.i.+p of Catbalogan shows how bold the Pulajans had then grown. By that time they were committing depredations, robbery, murder, and town-burning, in all the various villages within the munic.i.p.al jurisdiction of the towns.h.i.+p of Catbalogan, coming often within a few miles of the town proper of Catbalogan itself, the seat of the provincial government. In the attack on Silanga, which occurred August 9th, a number of people were killed. Silanga was but little more than an hour's walk from the court-house at Catbalogan. The Governor at once wired Manila as follows:

Catbalogan, Samar, Aug. 9, 1904.

Executive Secretary, Manila:

The peaceably inclined people of the barrios near here are collecting here in large numbers, terrorized by Pulajans who are boldly roaming the country, burning barrios within seven or eight miles from Catbalogan. They kill men, women, and children without distinction. These Pulajans have fled from Gandara where they are being actively pursued by constabulary. All forces that could be spared have gone out. We have about thirty available fighting men here. Pulajans liable at any time to enter Catbalogan. We are in danger of some occurrence quite as serious as the Surigao affair. [433] There are buildings here which I must protect at all hazards--Treasury, Provincial Jail with ninety-five prisoners, and commissary and ordnance stores of constabulary. We need at once at least three hundred men, scouts if possible, to handle situation, between here and Gandara. Pulajans undoubtedly have friends in Catbalogan. I suspect certain of the munic.i.p.al authorities here. I estimate number of Pulajans now operating at about five hundred.

(Signed) Feito, Governor.

On September 2d, the Provincial Governor of Samar sent to Manila the following telegram:

Catbalogan, Sept. 2, 1904.

Carpenter, Actg. Ex. Secy., Palace, Manila:

Seven-thirty this evening simultaneous reports from north and south sides of town Pulajans approaching. They have not entered yet and may not, but have gathered Americans with wives and children in my house. Arms supplied. Treasury twenty-five thousand Conant. [434] One hundred forty prisoners in jail. Only forty-seven constabulary here. If Pulajans enter much needless sacrifice life pacific citizens here. Feel sure Pulajans have friends in Catbalogan. Request company either scouts or soldiers from Calbayog stationed here, preferably former. Their presence guarantee stability.

(Signed) Feito, Governor.

Of course Governor Feito did not call for the regular army of the United States. His job, poor devil, was to demonstrate as best he could that the military were not needed. He would at once have been suspected of trying to scuttle the s.h.i.+p of "benign civil government"

if he had admitted that the regular army was needed. But to return to Calderon's list:

MUNIc.i.p.aLITY OF CALBAYOG [435]

(Calderon's List of Barrios Burned, continued)

Ylo August 17 Napuro August 17 Balud August 17

MUNIc.i.p.aLITY OF WRIGHT

(Calderon's List of Barrios Burned, continued)

Guinica-an July 25 Calapi July 28 Bonga August 4 Tutubigan August 19 Motiong September 1 Lau-an October 10 Sao Jose (date not given)

A sample of the distressing communications I was getting as these ma.s.sacres progressed is the notification of the Motiong affair of September 1st set forth below, which I give as a type of the methodical stoicism of those b.l.o.o.d.y times. Motiong was seven miles down the coast road from Catbalogan:

In the district of Motiong, munic.i.p.ality of Wright, province of Samar, Philippine Islands, September 1, 1904.