"You have influence with him. None of us have been able to move him since he returned from the West."
I went to Washington and had an interview with him. But he was obdurate. Withdrawal would create a revolution at home, he said. Finally, by persuading his secretaries that he had to bend to the blast, and always holding that it would be only a temporary occupation and that a way out would be found, the Cabinet yielded.
He sent for President Schurman, of Cornell University, who had opposed annexation and made him chairman of the committee to visit the Filipinos; and later for Judge Taft, who had been prominent against such a violation of American policy, to go as Governor. When the Judge stated that it seemed strange to send for one, who had publicly denounced annexation, the President said that was the very reason why he wished him for the place. This was all very well, but to refrain from annexing and to relinquish territory once purchased are different propositions. This was soon seen.
Mr. Bryan had it in his power at one time to defeat in the Senate this feature of the Treaty of Peace with Spain. I went to Washington to try to effect this, and remained there until the vote was taken. I was told that when Mr. Bryan was in Washington he had advised his friends that it would be good party policy to allow the treaty to pass. This would discredit the Republican Party before the people; that "paying twenty millions for a revolution" would defeat any party. There were seven staunch Bryan men anxious to vote against Philippine annexation.
Mr. Bryan had called to see me in New York upon the subject, because my opposition to the purchase had been so pronounced, and I now wired him at Omaha explaining the situation and begging him to wire me that his friends could use their own judgment. His reply was what I have stated—better have the Republicans pass it and let it then go before the people. I thought it unworthy of him to subordinate such an issue, fraught with deplorable consequences, to mere party politics. It required the casting vote of the Speaker to carry the measure. One word from Mr. Bryan would have saved the country from the disaster. I could not be cordial to him for years afterwards. He had seemed to me a man who was willing to sacrifice his country and his personal convictions for party advantage.
When I called upon President McKinley immediately after the vote, I condoled with him upon being dependent for support upon his leading opponent. I explained just how his victory had been won and suggested that he should send his grateful acknowledgments to Mr. Bryan. A Colonial possession thousands of miles away was a novel problem to President McKinley, and indeed to all American statesmen. Nothing did they know of the troubles and dangers it would involve. Here the Republic made its first grievous international mistake—a mistake which dragged it into the vortex of international militarism and a great navy. What a change has come over statesmen since!
At supper with President Roosevelt at the White House a few weeks ago (1907), he said:
"If you wish to see the two men in the United States who are the most anxious to get out of the Philippines, here they are," pointing to Secretary Taft and himself.
"Then why don't you?" I responded. "The American people would be glad indeed."
But both the President and Judge Taft believed our duty required us to prepare the Islands for self-government first. This is the policy of "Don't go into the water until you learn to swim." But the plunge has to be and will be taken some day.