“Do nothing. You have accomplished all that was expected of you.”
Later on, Lawton and his devoted officers and men had to duplicate the fierce campaign which had resulted in the taking of San Isidro. This made possible the movement that Lawton had had in mind in the first instance, which was made with the result that organized armed resistance to the authority of the United States promptly ceased in northern Luzón.
While on this subject I wish to record the fact that shortly after his return from the San Isidro campaign General Lawton asked me to accompany him on a visit to General Otis and act as a witness. I did so. In my presence Lawton said to Otis that if the latter would give him two regiments, would allow him to arm, equip and provision them to suit himself, and would turn him loose, he would stake his reputation as a soldier, and his position in the United States Army, on the claim that within sixty days he would end the insurrection and would deliver to General Otis one Emilio Aguinaldo, dead or alive. The general laughed at his offer. General Lawton asked me some day to make these facts public. As life is an uncertain thing, I deem it proper to do so now. Personally I am convinced that if his offer had been accepted he would have kept his promise.
On September 15, 1899, Colonel Denby and I sailed for the United States, having been recalled to Washington. Shortly after our arrival there the commission issued a brief preliminary report. The winter was spent in the preparation of our final report, which constituted a full and authoritative treatise on the islands, the people and their resources. Father José Algué, the distinguished head of the Philippine Weather Bureau, was called to Washington to help us, and gave us invaluable assistance.
Our preliminary report, dated November 2, 1899, and the first volume of our final report, published on January 31, 1900, contained our observations and recommendations relative to political matters.
Mr. Schurman has been credited with saying in an address made on January 11, 1902: “Any decent kind of government of Filipinos by Filipinos is better than the best possible government of Filipinos by Americans.”[17]
On November 2, 1900, he signed the following statement:[18]—
“Should our power by any fatality be withdrawn, the commission believe that the government of the Philippines would speedily lapse into anarchy, which would excuse, if it did not necessitate, the intervention of other powers and the eventual division of the islands among them. Only through American occupation, therefore, is the idea of a free, self-governing, and united Philippine commonwealth at all conceivable. And the indispensable need from the Filipino point of view of maintaining American sovereignty over the archipelago is recognized by all intelligent Filipinos and even by those insurgents who desire an American protectorate. The latter, it is true, would take the revenues and leave us the responsibilities. Nevertheless, they recognize the indubitable fact that the Filipinos cannot stand alone. Thus the welfare of the Filipinos coincides with the dictates of national honour in forbidding our abandonment of the archipelago. We cannot from any point of view escape the responsibilities of government which our sovereignty entails; and the commission is strongly persuaded that the performance of our national duty will prove the greatest blessing to the peoples of the Philippine Islands.”
More than fourteen years’ experience in governmental work in the Philippines has profoundly impressed me with the fundamental soundness of these conclusions of the first Philippine Commission. Every statement then made still holds true.