William Jennings Bryan: A Concise But Complete Story of His Life and Services

by Harvey Ellsworth Newbranch

“Some think the fight should be made against ratification of the treaty, but I would prefer another plan. If the treaty is rejected, negotiations must be renewed, and instead of settling the question according to our ideas we must settle it by diplomacy, with the possibility of international complications. It will be easier, I think, to end the war at once by ratifying the treaty and then deal with the subject in our own way. The issue can be presented directly by a resolution of Congress declaring the policy of the nation upon this subject. The President in his message says that our only purpose in taking possession of Cuba is to establish a stable government and then turn that government over to the people of Cuba. Congress could reaffirm this purpose in regard to Cuba, and assert the same purpose in regard to the Philippines and Porto Rico. Such a resolution would make a clear-cut issue between the doctrine of self-government and the doctrine of imperialism. We should reserve a harbor and coaling station in Porto Rico and the Philippines in return for services rendered, and I think we would be justified in asking the same concession from Cuba.

“In the case of Porto Rico, where the people have as yet expressed no desire for independent government, we might with propriety declare our willingness to annex the island, if the citizens desire annexation, but the Philippines are too far away and their people too different from ours to be annexed to the United States, even if they desired it.”

In making this statement, and in his subsequent active support of the treaty, Mr. Bryan’s course was again opposed to the wishes and advice of many of his close political friends. In fact, before Mr. Bryan took his firm stand probably the majority of Democratic leaders in and out of Congress were opposed to the ratification of the treaty because of its Philippine clause. But Mr. Bryan, while as strongly opposed to this clause as anyone, was anxious to see the war finally ended. He knew that for the Senate to reject the treaty would prolong the war perhaps a year or more, and, further, that it might lead to endless and unpleasant complications. Once the war was ended, he held, the American people themselves could dispose of the Philippine question.

Largely owing to the aid extended the administration by Mr. Bryan, the treaty was ratified by the Senate. Those senators who were opposed to the imperial policy of President McKinley supported the “Bacon resolution” as a declaration of this nation’s purpose toward the Philippines and Filipinos. This resolution declared:

“The United States hereby disclaim any disposition or intention to exercise permanent sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said islands, and assert their determination, when a stable and independent government shall have been erected therein, entitled in the judgment of the government of the United States to recognition as such, to transfer to said government, upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, all rights secured under the cession by Spain, and to thereupon leave the government and control of the islands to their people.”

The Democratic policy, as outlined by Mr. Bryan, was the support of the treaty and of the foregoing resolution. The treaty was ratified, but the resolution, though supported by practically the solid Democratic, Populist, and Silver Republican strength in the Senate, and by a number of Republican senators who were opposed to the imperial policy, was defeated by the deciding vote of Vice-President Hobart. Had the resolution been adopted, and the Philippines been given the same promise of independence and self-government as had already been given Cuba, it is believed that the long, bloody, and costly war in the Philippine Islands might have been averted, and the abandoned old-world heresy of the right of one man to rule another without that other’s consent would not now have regained a footing on the soil of the great American Republic.

In the meantime the President’s proclamation of December 21, 1898, to the Filipinos, asserting the sovereignty of the United States over them and theirs had provoked a veritable hurricane of indignation among that people.

The characteristic that distinguishes the Filipinos from all other Asiatic races is their fierce, inherent love for liberty. For three hundred years they had been intermittently battling with the Spaniard to regain what they had lost, and the palm of victory was within their eager reach on the day that Dewey’s guns first thundered across Manila bay. Knowing as they did that the United States had gone to war to secure liberty for the Cubans, why should they doubt the securing of their own liberty as well?

The President’s proclamation came like a thunder clap. General Otis, who was commander-in-chief of the American forces in the Philippines, reported its effect as follows:

“Aguinaldo met the proclamation by a counter one in which he indignantly protested against the claim of sovereignty by the United States in the islands, which really had been conquered from the Spaniards through the blood and treasure of his countrymen, and abused me for my assumption of the title of military governor. Even the women of Cavite province, in a document numerously signed by them, gave me to understand that after all the men are killed off they are prepared to shed their patriotic blood for the liberty and independence of their country.”