[18] Report Philippine Commission, Vol. I, p. 183.
Chapter XII
The Establishment of Civil Government
The first Philippine Commission did not complete its work until March, 1900. By this time conditions had so far improved in the archipelago that President McKinley was prepared to initiate a movement looking toward the establishment of civil government there. With this end in view he appointed the following commission of five civilians; William H. Taft of Ohio, Dean C. Worcester of Michigan, Luke E. Wright of Tennessee, Henry C. Ide of Vermont and Bernard Moses of California. Our appointments were dated March 16, 1900. Our instructions which were full, are given in the appendix.[1] I was the only member of the first commission to be reappointed. Neither General Otis nor Admiral Dewey cared to serve, and indeed the professional duties of each of them rendered his appointment to the new commission difficult, if not impossible. Mr. Schurman had at one time expressed himself as vigorously opposed to the idea of a new commission, maintaining that the best results could be obtained by the appointment of a civil governor with wide powers. It was therefore taken for granted that he would not desire reappointment. Colonel Denby was keenly interested in the work and would have been glad to continue it, but he was past seventy and with his good wife had then spent some fifteen years in the Far East. He doubted whether his strength would be adequate to bear the strain of the arduous task which obviously lay before the new commission, and Mrs. Denby desired to remain in the United States where she could be near her children from whom she had been long separated, so her husband felt constrained to say that he did not wish to return to the Philippines.
I separated from him with the keenest regret. He was an amiable, tactful man of commanding ability and unimpeachable integrity, actuated by the best of motives and loyal to the highest ideals. He constantly sought to avoid not only evil but the appearance of evil. I count it one of the great privileges of my life to have been associated with him. The one thing in the book written by James H. Blount which aroused my ire was his characterization of Colonel Denby as a hypocrite. No falser, meaner, more utterly contemptible statement was ever made, and when I read it the temptation rose hot within me to make public Blount’s personal Philippine record, but after the first heat of anger had passed I remembered what the good old Colonel would have wished me to do in such a case, and forbore.
The second Philippine commission, hereinafter referred to as “the commission,” received its instructions on April 7, 1900.
They covered a most delicate and complicated subject, namely, the gradual transfer of control from military to civil authority in a country extensive regions of which were still in open rebellion.
In the opinion of President McKinley there was no reason why steps should not be taken, from time to time, to inaugurate governments essentially popular in their form as fast as territory came under the permanent control of our troops, and indeed, as we have seen, this had already been done by the army. It was provided that we should continue and perfect the work of organizing and establishing civil governments already commenced by the military authorities. In doing this we were to act as a board of which Mr. Taft was designated president. It was contemplated that the transfer of authority from military commanders to civil officers would be gradual, and full and complete coöperation between these authorities was enjoined. Having familiarized ourselves with the conditions then prevailing in the islands, we were to devote our attention first to the establishment of municipal governments, in which the natives should be given the opportunity to manage their local affairs to the fullest extent and with the least supervision and control found to be practicable. We were then to consider the organization of larger administrative divisions, and when of the opinion that the condition of affairs in the islands was such that the central administration could safely be transferred from military to civil control were to report this conclusion to the secretary of war with our recommendations as to the form of central government which should be established.
Beginning with September 1, 1900, we were authorized to exercise, subject to the approval of the President and the secretary of war, the legislative power, which was then to be transferred from the military governor to us until the establishment of civil central government, or until Congress should otherwise provide. We were authorized during a like period to appoint to office such officers under the judicial, educational, and civil service systems, and in the municipal and departmental governments, as were duly provided for. Until the complete transfer of control the military governor was to remain the chief executive head of the government and to exercise the executive authority previously possessed by him and not expressly assigned to the commission by the president in his instructions. In establishing municipal governments we were to take as the basis of our work those established by the military governor, under the order of August 8, 1899, which I had helped to set up, as well as those established under the report of a board constituted by the military governor by his order of January 29, 1900, of which Señor Cayetano Arellano was the president.