It is hard to realize at this distance the lengths to which the anti-imperialists went, or were willing to go, in those days. Governor Pack told me of an experience he had with one of them—a New Englander of good family and American antecedents. Pack was on his way out to the Islands at the time, and on arriving at Hongkong received the tidings of McKinley's assassination. He was surprised to see this man, a fellow-passenger, rush up to a Filipino with the news and shake his hand, congratulating him on what had happened. The Governor, then a young civilian, could not forget the shocking incident and later, when they shared the same stateroom on the small boat for Manila, he discovered papers which proved that his companion intended to furnish aid and encouragement to any natives who wished to fight against American "tyranny." This discovery gave Pack his appointment as one of the seven lieutenant governors of the hill tribes. But the other man was punished only by being refused entrance to the Islands. It was the stupid and foolish fashion in America then—as indeed it still is—to call this particular form of treason Idealism, and be lenient with it.
Our soldiers found it difficult to take seriously the bands of half naked men, who, they knew, had been pillaging the villages of their own race. It was true that these bands were difficult to pursue and capture, but an army which fought only from ambush, whose detachments fell only upon stragglers and carefully avoided the main body of its enemy, and which showed no regard for the sacredness of a flag of truce, could not inspire much respect. Plunder appeared to be the sole excuse for its existence, and the pompous titles assumed by its commanders were amusing for the leaders of robbers. The Americans followed the retreating bandits without hatred and without fear. But they became weary of the eternal pursuit, and felt a growing irritation.
The Filipinos, however, felt very differently about their soldiers, and it is only fair to give their side too, especially as it may throw some light on the Mexican situation. Even the richest and most highly educated men found nothing to laugh at in these poor bands which were after all composed of their own people fighting and suffering for a cause which they could at least understand, whether or not they sympathized with it. They did not regard the pillaging, tortures, and murders to which the Filipinos subjected their own people as we did. They called the robbery "collecting contributions for the support of the war." As for the murders—in the Orient to kill is an immemorial right of the rulers of men. What if they did fight disguised as peaceful country folk? They were a weak people fighting against a strong. They were naked and they were hungry, and they were fighting for a cause. Their arms were often of little use, and they made powder out of match heads and cartridge shells out of the zinc roofs of parish buildings, and even then they had only ammunition enough to fire a few volleys and then run. But men so armed had forced the United States to send out nearly seventy thousand well equipped soldiers to subdue them. To the native Filipino, as perhaps to the Mexican to-day, the ragged and half savage figures of the guerillas stood for their vision of a united race.
But it was natural that our troops could not understand this, and that they should gradually become embittered against their antagonists. The officers, by the necessary division of our forces, found themselves confronted with conditions utterly alien to their experience. They had to live in native houses or churches, in the midst of four or five thousand people whose language they did not speak, and whose thoughts were not their thoughts. Most of them were young men. They came from all over the United States, and were neither monsters nor saints, but good examples of their time and country.
When these officers learned that the dignified Asiatics who called upon them daily, who drank with them, who talked with them, and who held offices under our government, were also spies of the guerilla leaders, secretly aiding those who were anxious to win the price set on their heads, they were hardly pleased. When they found that every movement of the guerillas was reported to them just too late to be of any use, while every movement of their own small forces was promptly made known to the enemy, and when they were present at the disinterment of the twisted bodies of the men who had been buried alive because they were loyal to us, they decided that stricter measures were necessary. This was a state of war. Within wide limits their will was law. Upon their judgment hung not merely their lives and those of their men, but the honour of their country and their regiment. Perhaps in some cases they met cruelty with cruelty, but they at least tried to be honest and just. And the people came to realize this, and also that they were not afraid, with the result that whole communities transferred their allegiance from their own guerilla leaders to a single young American, not because he understood them or sympathized with them, but because he was a man whom they could trust and respect.
It was July of 1902, four years after our taking of Manila, before the Islands could be officially declared pacified. Let us hope that the lessons which we learned then may not be forgotten in our dealings with Mexico.[14]