On April 2, 1899, Colonel Denby arrived, and our serious work began. The fighting continued and there was little that we could do save earnestly to strive to promote friendly relations with the conservative element among the Filipinos, and to gather the information we had been instructed to obtain.
On April 4, 1899, we issued a proclamation setting forth in clear and simple language the purposes of the American government.[6] It was translated into Tagálog and other dialects and widely circulated. The Insurgent leaders were alert to keep the common people and the soldiers from learning of the kindly purposes of the United States. They were forbidden to read the document and we were reliably informed that the imposition of the death penalty was threatened if this order was violated. In Manila crowds of Filipinos gathered about copies of the proclamation which were posted in public places. Many of them were soon effaced by Insurgent agents or sympathizers.
This document unquestionably served a very useful purpose.[7] For one thing, it promptly brought us into much closer touch with the more conservative Filipinos.
We soon established relations of friendliness and confidence with men like Arellano, Torres, Legarda and Tavera, who had left the Malolos government when it demonstrated its futility, and were ready to turn to the United States for help. Insurgent sympathizers also conferred freely with us. We were invited to a beautiful function given in our honour at the home of a wealthy family, and were impressed, as no one can fail to be, with the dignified bearing of our Filipino hosts, a thing which is always in evidence on such occasions. We gave a return function which was largely attended and greatly aided in the establishment of relations of confidence and friendship with leading Filipino residents of Manila.
The Filipinos were much impressed with Colonel Denby. He was a handsome man, of imposing presence, with one of the kindest hearts that ever beat. They felt instinctively that they could have confidence in him, and showed it on all occasions.
Meanwhile we lost no opportunity to inform ourselves as to conditions and events, conferring with Filipinos from various parts of the archipelago and with Chinese, Germans, Frenchmen, Belgians, Austrians, Englishmen, Spaniards and Americans. Among the witnesses who came before us were farmers, bankers, brokers, merchants, lawyers, physicians, railroad men, shipowners, educators and public officials. Certainly all classes of opinion were represented, and when we were called upon by the President, a little later, for a statement of the situation we felt fully prepared to make it.
Blount has charged that the commission attempted to interfere with the conduct of the war, and cites a cablegram from General Otis stating that conferences with Insurgents cost soldiers’ lives in support of this contention. No conference with Insurgent leaders was ever held without the previous knowledge and approval of the general, who was himself a member of the commission.
Late in April General Luna sent Colonel Arguelles of his staff to ask for a fifteen days’ suspension of hostilities under the pretext of enabling the Insurgent congress to meet at San Fernando, Pampanga, on May 1, to discuss the situation and decide what it wanted to do. He called on the commission and urged us to ask Otis to grant this request, but we declined to intervene, and General Otis refused to grant it.
Mabini continued Luna’s effort, sending Arguelles back with letters to Otis and to the commission. In the latter he asked for “an armistice and a suspension of hostilities as an indispensable means of arriving at peace,” stating explicitly that the Philippine government “does not solicit the armistice to gain a space of time in which to reënforce itself.”
The commission again referred Arguelles to General Otis on the matter of armistice and suspension of hostilities. We suspected that the statement that these things were not asked for in order to gain time was false, and this has since been definitely established.