“My chief concern is for the Filipinos. You can scarcely be ignorant of the injustice we have borne for centuries. We want freedom and opportunity. I ask these things for the Filipinos.”
“The request does you honor, and it will do America honor to grant them. Between us all we shall be invincible. With the prestige of the American republic behind us we can command the good will of the nations. Rainey’s fleet will be able to keep Cavite in subjection. The American general is an old campaigner who has with him a seasoned army and the best of equipment, so that he will be able to stand before any army that Spain can muster against him. Lastly, and most important of all, you, General, are familiar with the islands of the Philippines, and can render service as a guide and leader such as no other man on the earth can give; and in serving us you will be serving yourself and the cause of Filipino liberty. I have heard much of the Fox of Luzon, and have felt that if I could formulate a plan that would enable us all to work together harmoniously, it would be a victory second only to the great victory that Admiral Rainey won in this beautiful bay of yours.”
“I will do all I can, Judge Daft. As you have said, together we shall be invincible.”
“In that case I shall feel no hesitancy about landing. I did think that perhaps it was not a courteous thing to do, to come from across the great ocean to your shores and then ask you to take me in as something more than guest. But in war we can not stand on ceremony. Your disinterestedness and your courtesy have been so great that you have made it much easier for me to do my duty.”
The two men wandered over the ship, Judge Daft showing Saguanaldo all the wonders of the modern man of war. They discussed various matters apart from the questions most in their minds, and always Judge Daft was courteous and apparently keenly appreciative of Saguanaldo. Following the visit of Saguanaldo to the battleship, Judge Daft visited him in the public building of Manila, and, with his permission, the American flag was run up over the town in place of the flag of the new republic. Within two days Saguanaldo went into the interior as the guide rather than the commander of an expedition which the American general sent against some Spanish troops that had, under the direction of Bishop Lonzello, been preparing to attack Saguanaldo in Manila, but that, after the Americans landed, had retired into the interior.
It was only after they had gotten into the interior that Saguanaldo began to realize his position. It came to him that, though he had been hailed as president of the Filipino republic, another occupied his capital, and the Filipino republic was at an end; though he had been the leader of an insurrection, the insurrection was inoperative; and he was fighting under another power; though he had celebrated the independence of the Filipinos, Filipino independence was gone, and he was seeking to subject the people to another foreign nation. While he was under the spell of Judge Daft’s influence, he had not noticed it, but now it came to him with all its meaning and bearing all its bitterness. He felt that he had lost. He felt that he was not only unable to cope against the arms and warships of this strange republic from across the seas, but he was also unable to meet their wiles—diplomacy, they called it. He had heard the word used and now he was beginning to understand what it really meant.
“I am a fool,” he said to himself. “Ambrosia knows it, and so she despises me. But if I must be beaten I will show her that at least I am no coward.” It was heroism surviving folly.
So ever it is the one who influences human actions, whether they be good or bad, public or private, in nature.