“That is true; but what else could I have done? Had I done nothing I would have been fighting for the Spaniards, and, as it were, against myself. I had the Americans against me, anyhow.”
“But now the case is hopeless. So long as the Spaniards were your enemies, without outside help, there was some hope that some day you might have beaten them. But, now that the Americans are allies of the Spaniards the case is hopeless. It is too great a nation for you to combat. Recall how the Spanish fleet melted away before the American fleet in the bay of Manila and tell me what chance you will have before the giant foe from across the seas.”
“I don’t see why the Americans turned against us, when they came here to fight the Spaniards,” said Aglipay gloomily.
“The reason is very plain,” returned the woman.
“Was it that they were offended at me because I had been made president of the Filipino republic?” asked Saguanaldo.
“No.”
“Are the American people, then, not lovers of liberty, and are they merely waging a war of conquest in the name of liberty?” Aglipay asked.
“The answer is found in the fact that there is not a member of the Filipino Catholic church in all America, while there are ten million Roman Catholics there.”
“Ah, political reasons, then,” suggested the bishop. He as an olden friar understood something of how politics modified policies.
“Yes. Though your schism might have a greater power here than the friars have, it commands no influence in America. The American who favors the other side will have friends at home, while one who would favor you would find enemies there that might destroy his influence and his future. You are not only fighting the American army here, and the friars here, but also, as it were, all the people of America.”