They taught Filipinos the right way to work,
And they taught as if teaching were fun;
They taught them to spell and to build themselves roads,
And the best way to handle a gun.
Were their salaries so big that the task was worth while?
Did they save a centavo of pay?
Have the average men an account with the bank?
Never a cent—not they.
So we haven't a job and we haven't a cent,
And nobody cares a damn;
But we've done our work and we've done it well,
To the glory of Uncle Sam,
And we've seen a lot, and we've lived a lot
In these islands over the sea—
Would we change with our brothers grown rich at home?
Praise be to God—not we.
From "The Swan Song," in the Manila Bulletin.
t is, strangely enough, to the influence of that arch anti-imperialist, William Jennings Bryan, that we owe the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, which not only ended the war with Spain but expressly provided for the purchase of the Philippine Islands. The Democrats were opposed to the treaty and were powerful enough in the Senate to have held it up, had not Bryan used his authority to secure the two-thirds vote needed for its ratification. It is amusing to note that a year later, after enabling us to acquire the islands, he used all his power to prevent our keeping them. He was at this time in need of a popular plank in his third presidential platform, and the sorrows of the Filipinos suited his purpose admirably.
Soon after the Treaty of Paris, and long before the end of the insurrection, McKinley appointed a commission of experts to go out to the Islands and report to him on conditions there. They found a country whose civilization was, to put it hopefully, at a standstill. It was too big a problem to be straightened out by a few ambitious Filipinos. The Commission returned to America convinced of the necessity of our occupation.
Congress soon passed a special organic act for the organization of a civil government in the Islands, to succeed the military rule then in force. In 1900, President McKinley appointed the second Commission, headed by Mr. Taft, which was instructed to assume control of the Islands, gradually relieving the army wherever conditions allowed of their doing so.
This Commission had five members, three of them lawyers (two of whom had been on the bench), and two professors. Its functions were at first legislative and judicial, but in 1901, when the president of the Commission, Mr. Taft, became Governor General of the Islands, the other members were given the portfolios of the different departments and executive power in the pacified parts of the Islands. Dean C. Worcester, a member of the earlier Commission and already an authority on the Philippines, became the first Minister of the Interior; Luke E. Wright, the Vice Governor, had the Department of Commerce and Police; H. C. Ide, former Chief Justice of Samoa, had charge of Finance and Justice, while Professor Moses was put at the head of Public Instruction. Governor Taft became really the "Father of the Philippines," for when he left the Islands in 1904 to become Secretary of War he had even higher authority over them than he had had as governor, while still later, as President of the United States, he was able to see that the same high standard of appointments was maintained.[15]
McKinley charged this Commission that their work was "not to subjugate, but to emancipate." We made many mistakes, for we were new to the business and dealing with a strange people, but until very lately even the selfishness which is supposed to be inherent in party politics has been absent in our dealings with this people, whom we considered our sacred charge. No one ever asked an American official in the Islands what his politics were. Even the governorship itself was out of the reach of the spoilsman. Of the five governors who were appointed by the Republican administrations, only one besides the first governor belonged to the dominant party, and he was in office but a few months.
Since the Taft Commission first organized, several changes have taken place. Filipino members have been added, and it has acquired the character of an upper house, rather than a legislature. The work of a lower house is done by the Assembly, made up of eighty-one members chosen by the people of the Christian tribes. They have no authority over the Moro and other non-Christian tribes, which are legislated for by the Commission directly. To-day the Filipinos control their municipal and county governments, but their finances are kept under supervision.
The problems which the Commissioners had to solve were many and varied. Trade was at a standstill. During the last normal year under Spain the exports from the Islands had amounted to about sixteen million dollars. By 1912 they had more than trebled. There was also a currency problem. Coins from everywhere—Mexico, China, America, India—were in common circulation, with almost daily fluctuations in value. The Islands now have their own money on a gold basis. Then, close on the heels of the insurrection, came a famine. Locusts swept over the land and destroyed what little grain the war had left. The natives in some parts of the archipelago ate the locusts, however, and liked them, making the work of the officials more difficult. Grain shipped from America decayed in the storehouses before it could be distributed, and, as if that were not enough, carabaos died by the thousand from rinderpest.