The second problem was presented by Porto Rico, where military rule was put into force after the occupation in 1898. At length, on May 1, 1900, an "organic act," instituting civil government in that Island, was approved by the President. This law did not confer citizenship on the Porto Ricans, but assured them of the protection of the United States. It set up a government embracing a governor, appointed by the President and Senate of the United States, six executive secretaries appointed in the same manner as the governor, and a legislature of two houses—one composed of the six secretaries and five other persons selected by the President and Senate, acting as the upper house, and a lower house elected by popular vote. Under this act, the practice of appointing Americans to the chief executive offices took the final control of legislative matters out of the hands of the natives, leaving them only an initiatory power. This produced a friction between the appointive and elective branches of the government, which became so troublesome that the dispute had to be carried to Washington in 1909, and Congress enacted a measure providing that, in case the lower house of the Porto Rican legislature refused to pass the budget, the financial arrangements of the previous year should continue.
The problem of governing the Philippines was infinitely more complicated than that of governing Porto Rico, because the archipelago embraced more than three thousand islands and about thirty different tribes and dialects. The evolution of American control there falls into three stages. At first, they were governed by the President of the United States under his military authority. In 1901, a civil commission, with Mr. W. H. Taft at the head, took over the civil administration of all the pacified provinces. In 1902, Congress passed an "organic act" for the Islands, providing that, after their pacification, a legislative assembly should be erected. At length, in 1907, this assembly was duly instituted, and the government now consists of the governor, a commission appointed by the President and Senate, and a legislature composed of the commission and a lower house of representatives elected by popular vote.
Important as are the problems of governing dependencies, they are not the sole or even the most significant aspects of imperialism. The possession of territories gives a larger control over the development of their trade and resources; but capital and enterprise seeking an outlet flow to those countries where the advantages offered are the greatest, no matter whoever may exercise political dominion there. The acquisition of the Philippines was simply an episode in the development of American commercial interests in the Orient.
It was those interests which led the United States to send Caleb Cushing to China in 1844 to negotiate a treaty with that country securing for Americans rights of trade in the ports which had recently been blown open by British guns in the famous "Opium War." It was those interests which induced the United States government to send Commodore Perry to Japan in 1853 and led to the opening of that nation—long closed to the outside world—to American trade and enterprise. After 1844 in China, and 1854 in Japan, American trade steadily increased, and American capital seeking investments soon began to flow into Chinese business and railway undertakings. Although the United States did not attempt to follow the example of Great Britain, Russia, France, and Germany in seizing Chinese territory, it did obtain a sufficient economic interest in that Empire to warrant the employment of American soldiers in coöperation with Russian, English, French, Japanese, and other contingents at the time of the Boxer insurrection at Peking in the summer of 1900.
The policy of the United States at the time won no little praise from the Chinese government. Having no territorial ambitions in the Empire, the administration at Washington, through Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State, was able to announce that the United States favored an "open door" for trade and the maintenance of the territorial integrity of China. "The policy of the Government of the United States," said Mr. Hay to the Powers, in the summer of 1900, "is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese empire." This friendly word, which was much appreciated by China, was later supplemented by the generous action of the United States government in returning to that country a large sum of money which had been collected as an indemnity for the injury to American rights in the Boxer uprising, and was discovered to be an overcharge due to excessive American claims.
While thus developing American interests in the Orient, the United States government was much embarrassed by the legislation of some of the western states against Orientals. Chinese and Japanese laborers were excluded from the country by law or agreements, but in spite of this fact there were large numbers of Orientals on the coast. This was resented by many whites, particularly trade unionists with whom the cheap labor came into competition, and from time to time laws were enacted by state legislatures that were alleged to violate the rights which the United States had guaranteed to the Chinese or Japanese by treaties with their respective countries.
Such a dispute occurred a few years ago over an attempt to exclude Japanese children from the regular public schools in San Francisco, and again in 1912 in connection with a law of California relative to the acquisition of lands by aliens—the naturalization of Orientals being forbidden by Federal law. These legal disputes arose from the fact that the Federal government has the power to make treaties with foreign countries relative to matters which are entirely within the control of state legislatures. The discriminations against the Orientals, coupled with the pressure of American interests in the Far East and the presence of American dominion in the Philippines, caused no little friction between certain sections of the United States and of Japan; and there were some who began, shortly after the Spanish War, to speak of the "impending conflict" in the Orient.
The Campaign of 1900
It was inevitable that the new issues, raised by the Spanish War, the acquisition of the insular possessions, and the insurrection against American rule in the Philippines, should find their way almost immediately into national politics. By the logic of their situation, the Republicans were compelled to defend their imperialist policy, although it was distasteful to many of the old leaders; and at their national convention, at Philadelphia in June, 1900, they renominated President McKinley by acclamation, justified their methods in the dependencies, approved the new commercial advances in the Orient, advocated government aid to the merchant marine, and commended the acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands. The trust plank, couched in vague and uncertain terms, was, interestingly enough, drafted by Mr. Hanna, who appropriately levied the campaign collections for his party in Wall Street.[46] Mr. Roosevelt, then governor of New York, was nominated for Vice President, although he had refused to agree to accept the office. The desire of Senator Platt, the Republican "boss" in New York, to put him out of the state threw the "machine" in his favor, and this, combined with enthusiasm for him in the West, gave him every vote in the convention save his own. Under the circumstances he was forced to accept the nomination.