The Province of Manila
Conditions in Manila Province, as distinguished from Manila City, left much to be desired.
Admiral Dewey made a statement applicable to the territory adjacent to the city and bay of Manila in a cablegram to Washington dated October 14, 1898, which reads as follows:—
“It is important that the disposition of the Philippine Islands should be decided as soon as possible. . . . General anarchy prevails without the limits of the city and bay of Manila. Natives appear unable to govern.”[5]
Of it Blount says:—
“In this cablegram the Admiral most unfortunately repeated as true some wild rumours then currently accepted by the Europeans and Americans at Manila which, of course, were impossible of verification. I say ‘unfortunately’ with some earnestness, because it does not appear on the face of his message that they were mere rumours. And, that they were wholly erroneous, in point of fact, has already been cleared up in previous chapters, wherein the real state of peace, order, and tranquillity which prevailed throughout Luzón at that time has been, it is believed, put beyond all doubt.”[6]
Blount seems here to have overlooked the fact that the admiral himself was in Manila Bay and in Manila City at the time he sent this cablegram. The statements in question were not rumours, they were deliberate expressions of opinion on the part of a man who had first-hand information and knew what he was saying.
They were not the Admiral’s only allegations on this subject. When testifying before the Senate committee he said:—
“Admiral Dewey. I knew that there was no government in the whole of the Philippines. Our fleet had destroyed the only government there was, and there was no other government; there was a reign of terror throughout the Philippines, looting, robbing, murdering; a reign of terror throughout the islands.”