It appears now that the name of Rizal was used as an honorary president of this society,[7] but wholly without his authority or even knowledge. For this unwarranted use Bonifacio was much to blame. It is likely that he found at first some difficulty in securing recruits and took advantage of Rizal’s great popularity. Either so, or what seems more probable to us, he expected to have Rizal’s support for the Katipunan when it should have grown to formidable size. In either case, the course was inexcusable. But we are to remember that Bonifacio, warring against the most unprincipled and ruthless of powers, believed he was justified in using any weapons that came to his hand.
Month after month the Katipunan spread among the disgusted and restless Filipinos—secretly, always; and we are to surmise that the care with which the movement was to be concealed until the instant of the blow recommended it to people smarting under a Government so obese and still so viciously protected. How long this Government was ignorant of what was going on nobody knows. If the vast network of spies and agents provocateurs, with which Spanish, like Russian, rule was maintained, brought in no hint of the mine that was being driven beneath the feet of the governing class, the spies must have made their first recorded failure, and that concerning the one thing most important to their employers. Filipinos, one may say, had not so known these ever busy birds of ill omen. [[275]]
The deportation of Rizal gave to the Katipunan a great impetus; the masses of people bitterly resented the cowardice and perfidy that had contrived at last to drag down the popular champion. At first they knew no way to voice their protest. The Katipunan relieved them of their uncertainty; it was the weapon thrust into their hands. A year went by under this slowly darkening sky; then two years. Rizal was at Dapitan; it seemed likely he would remain there until his last day, for nothing would soften the hatred with which the friars and patricians regarded him, and their word was the country’s law. Yet if he could be brought back in the character of a revolutionary leader the whole country would rise behind him. Ingenious minds brooded upon the ease with which he could be rescued. Only a small force of troops guarded Dapitan; it could be overpowered by a handful of resolute men. Rizal’s habit was to take long canoe journeys alone around the coast, pursuing his scientific inquiries; of his own will he would never violate his parole, but suppose he should be seized and carried off by force? He could then be picked up by a British mail-steamer, be landed at Singapore, and be free. Intimations of these plans were conveyed to him: he vetoed all of them. It was his word of honor that he had given never to attempt to escape; not even with the least connivance at a rescue would he taint his word; not even by allowing other men to entertain a thought that his faith could be tainted; and not even in dealing with a Government that had dealt perfidiously with him.
Bonifacio, looking into the faces of his people, believed [[276]]more strongly every day that the time to strike was near at hand, and every day he longed the more for the active assistance of Rizal.[8] He knew well enough the danger his movement stood in and how that danger increased hour by hour as knowledge of what was afoot spread and could be therefore the less easily controlled. At last he went to the length of sending an emissary to see Rizal, to lay before him the plans for the revolution and to ask his help. The messenger chosen was Pio Valenzuela, a name afterwards famous and honored among his countrymen. To disguise the real object of his visit he took with him a blind man upon whom, it was pretended, Rizal was to perform an operation. Helped by this ruse, the messenger had a fair chance to talk freely with the exile.
What took place at their meeting was long in dispute. Enemies of Philippine independence have asserted that in wrathfully rejecting Bonifacio’s appeal Rizal declared himself against any effort for national freedom. This is in accordance with a common process of over-emphasizing (for propaganda effect) Rizal’s dislike of force and doubt of the present readiness of his people for self-government. It is certain that he declined Valenzuela’s proposal and with some heat;[9] we may also believe that with all his might he strove to dissuade his countrymen from violence. Yet there is testimony extant that when he found all his pleadings were useless and the violence he feared was but too likely he admitted that he could not in any event [[277]]separate his sympathies from his struggling countrymen.
The disputed versions of his reply are not worth the attention they have had, because, as has been pointed out here and more than once, Rizal’s convictions on these matters are clear. One obvious reflection is enough to illustrate them. If he had lived through such strenuous days as followed 1896 he would have been found in the front ranks of those that fought for freedom and yet would never have ceased to mourn that freedom could not be won in another way. As to this, “El Filibusterismo,” if there were nothing else, would be testimony enough; and if Philippine independence involved only sentimental and not commercial interests there would be no attempt to distort or to obscure it.
When Bonifacio received Valenzuela’s report of Rizal’s decision, he swore, after his fashion, and determined to press on with his own plans and forget the exile. Against the notion that the Philippines were unready for revolution or unfitted for self-government he set himself like a man in a battle that has thrown away fear with his scabbard. He recalled that, weighing duly the relative strengths of the antagonists, the American colonists were not worse prepared for the struggle that set them free. Most revolutions, history had taught him, had been begun by people that fought with broken weapons or bare hands; witness Camille Desmoulins and the ragged crowd he led from the café in the courtyard of the Palais Royal that fateful night in July. Hardly a weapon among them all more [[278]]deadly than a hammer, and yet to the echo of their feet fell absolute government in every corner of Europe. All the world now honors those empty hands; on the very spot where Desmoulins addressed the crowd, behold now his statue! Are revolutions ever wrought by well ordered ranks of daintily uniformed guards? Are they ever launched when every condition is fitted, like joiner-work, to their success? And, in fact, are they ever made to any man’s volition or by anything but blind destiny that sits behind the whirlwind?
Bonifacio, at least, had no idea of waiting until the Philippines should be populated with university graduates able to demonstrate in scholarly phrases the philosophical sweetness of liberty. Desiring freedom, he desired it then and there. Month by month, the Katipunan spread and carried with it, as a flood carries a straw, the catastrophe of this story.
At Dapitan life went on unchangingly. It is likely that Rizal had there a happiness and a serenity he had not known since childhood. He says as much in one of his letters:
My life now is quiet, peaceful, retired, and without glory; but I think it is useful, too. I teach here the poor but intelligent boys reading, Spanish, English, mathematics, and geometry. Moreover, I teach them to behave like men. I taught the men here how to get a better way of earning their living, and they think I am right. We have begun, and already success has crowned our trials.