CHAPTER X

DEWEY AND AGUINALDO

HEN1 the present session of Congress convened six

W months ago, the Senate expected and had a right to

expect, and the American people expected, that the Administration in charge of the Government, in charge of events which were occurring in the Philippine Islands, would report to Congress the results of our operations in that distant country. A complete résumé of everything that had been done by our Army and our officers should have been laid before both Houses of Congress, but it was not done. The public was well aware that some information in regard to what had been occurring in the Philippines had reached us through the censored press and the correspondence of our soldiers. That such information was meager, that it was uncertain, and that the facts were hard to secure, was known to all. When Congress assembled, those statements regarding the situation which we had a right to expect were not forthcoming. December passed, and in January resolutions were introduced in this body calling for important facts in connection with the war on the Filipinos.

The resolutions introduced were promptly laid upon the table by the Administration majority in the Senate. Finally a resolution prepared by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. HOAR] passed the Senate, asking the Administration for a detailed account of all its doings in connection with the Philippine Islands. We waited many weeks, and finally a partial statement was sent in. It did not cover the scope of the inquiry, and at the close of the session we are without the information. The report of the President in answer to our resolution of inquiry concerning transactions in the Philip1. Speech in the Senate June 4 & 5, 1900.

pines did not convey all the truth. It contained only fragmentary selections from the record. All that has come to us in a direct way has been printed. I believe it is insufficient; that it does not cover the ground; that such information was withheld as the Administration desired to suppress; that the American people are no longer trusted by the party in power; they are no longer taken into the confidence of their administrative servants and intrusted with the facts. Proof conclusive that facts were withheld was furnished by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. SPOONER] in his speech a few days ago. He read from the printed reports which came from the Administration in reply to our resolutions; but, Mr. President, he also read from manuscript, more than from anything else, that which was withheld from Congress, that which had not been furnished to the whole people. He read what was accessible to Administration Senators and not accessible to other members of the Senate.

Congress is about to adjourn, the facts are withheld, and the American people are to go on another summer with such information as they are able to gather without the confidence of an Administration that again asks for their votes.

The friends of the Administration, the imperialists in this body, have complained that we were unwilling to believe the officers of the Government and their statements regarding the situation in the Philippines. Mr. President, up to the time the treaty with Spain was sent to this body there is no doubt that the Administration sent us all the facts in its possession. Document 62 contains the story of our operations in the Philippines up to November, 1898. Since that time, owing to a change in the policy of the Government, information upon this important subject has been withheld. We base our case on the arguments that have been made upon information drawn from Document No. 62, transmitted to us, accompanied by a message from the President. Aside from the matter contained in Document 62, we have been unable to secure facts, and we are accused of not believing what is said by the officers of the Government.

We have reason, Mr. President, to question the veracity of

the officers of the Government in their later utterances. There is no doubt that when our representatives first went to Manila they promised the people of those islands liberty and independence if they would help us destroy the Spanish power in the East. There is no doubt but that every American who talked with Aguinaldo and his followers gave them to understand that they would be assisted in setting up a government. There is no doubt that our consuls and our generals and Admiral Dewey gave Aguinaldo such promises in abundance; but since we decided to conquer the Philippines, to destroy republics in Asia-since we decided to deprive those people of the right to govern themselves, the reports we have received from our own officers are subject to question and to doubt—in the first place, because all the facts in possession of the Government have not been placed before us; and, in the second place, because we find our officers willing to pursue the course which Otis pursued, that of distorting the facts, or of changing the reports and placing a wrong construction upon words. It has been the general policy, from the President down, to deceive the public.

The commission we sent to the Philippines came back and made a partial report just before the election. This report is signed by Mr. J. G. Schurman, Admiral Dewey, Charles Denby, and Dean C. Worcester, and in it they say:

On the arrival of the troops commanded by General Anderson at Cavite, Aguinaldo was requested by Admiral Dewey to evacuate that place, and he moved his headquarters to the neighboring town of Bacoor. Now for the first time arose the idea of national independence.

This appears to have been on the 4th day of July, 1898, and Admiral Dewey had been in the islands and had had dealings with Aguinaldo since the previous May. Mr. Schurman. had undoubtedly thoroughly investigated the question, but in order to make out a case which would justify the position they took in this report, they must insert a statement that Aguinaldo never had a notion that he desired independence until July 4, 1898.

What are the facts? They were known to Admiral Dewey. He must have known them, and Mr. Schurman must have known them; and yet they were willing to put forth a misleading statement, because it better suited the purpose for which they made their report. It is statements of this sort, not founded upon the exact truth, but enunciated for the purpose of deceiving the American people, that causes us to question what this commission, headed by Mr. Schurman, may say, and makes us doubt the information which we receive from the Administration.

Let us look back in the authentic record to the time when the Filipinos first declared that they desired independence. Consul Wildman tells us that a delegation of Filipinos came to him in November, 1897, and said that in case of war with Spain and this was months before war was declared the Filipinos then in revolt would be glad to join us and be our allies; that they aspired to independence; and Mr. Wildman so notified the State Department; and the document is official: I read from Senate Document No. 62, part 1, third session Fifty-fifth Congress, on pages 360 and 361. This is a letter from Aguinaldo to President McKinley, dated June 10, 1898:

I come to greet you with the most tender effusion of my soul, and to express to you my deep and sincere gratitude in the name of the unfortunate Filipino people for the efficient and disinterested protection which you have decided to give it to shake off the yoke of the cruel and corrupt Spanish domination, as you are doing to the equally unfortunate Cuba, which Spain wishes to see annihilated rather than free and independent. *

I close by protesting once and a thousand times in the name of this people,*** a people which trusts blindly in you, not to abandon it to the tyranny of Spain, but to leave it free and independent, even if you make peace with Spain.

Again, on June 18, 1898, on page 432 of Document 62, I find the following:

I have proclaimed in the face of the whole world that the aspiration. of my whole life, the final object of all my efforts and strength, is nothing else but your independence, for I am firmly convinced that that constitutes your constant desire and that independence signifies for us

redemption from slavery and tyranny, regaining our liberty and entrance into the concert of civilized nations.

Here, then, was an aspiration, an aspiration clearly expressed in the proclamation by Aguianldo on June 18, and yet our commissioners say and Dewey, in whose hands this proclamation was, says to the American people, in November, 1898, that the first thought Aguinaldo and his people had of independence was on the 4th of July, 1898.

On page 434 of the same report appears the first article of the provisional constitution promulgated June 23, 1898, in which I find the following:

The dictatorial government will be entitled hereafter the revolutionary government, whose object is to struggle for the independence of the Philippines until all nations, including the Spanish, shall expressly recognize it, and to prepare the country so that a true republic may be established.

What can be more plain, more distinct? And yet because it suited the purpose of the Administration previous to the election of 1898, our commissioners, Dewey joining, stated to the people of this country the falsehood that the Filipinos first thought of independence on July 4, 1898.

On page 437 of Document 62, from the message of the Filipino president to his Congress, on June 23, 1898, on the desires of the Filipino government, I find the following:

It struggles for its independence in the firm belief that the time has arrived in which it can and ought to govern itself.

But back further than this we find the same record on page 351 of Document No. 62, which was sent to us by the President of the United States. Here is an address to our consul, Mr. Pratt, by the Filipinos resident in Singapore, dated June 8, 1898:

Our countrymen at home and those of us residing here, refugees from Spanish misrule and tyranny in our beloved native land, hope that the United States, your nation, persevering in its humane policy, will efficaciously second the program 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.