think of permitting a country to get into any such condition when you have an abundance of American troops on hand available to prevent it—
and such outlying barrios thus furnish to the ladrones or outlaws their sources of food supply, and it is not possible with the available police forces constantly to provide protection to such barrios—
there being all the time “available police forces,” in the shape of regular troops, amply able to handle these unsettled conditions, which were the inevitable aftermath of lawlessness consequent on five or six years of guerrilla warfare—
it shall be within the power of the Governor-General, upon resolution of the Philippine Commission, to authorize the provincial governor to order that the residents of such outlying barrios be temporarily brought—
observe the length of time this may last is not limited—
within stated proximity to the poblacion, or larger barrios, of the municipality, there to remain until the necessity for such order ceases to exist.
To house and ration the reconcentrados, the following provision is made by the statute we are considering:
During such temporary residence, it shall be the duty of the provincial board, out of provincial funds, to furnish such sustenance and shelter as may be needed to prevent suffering among the residents of the barrios thus withdrawn.
The act also provides that during the course of the reconcentration, where the province does not happen to have the necessary ready cash, it may apply to the Commission, in distant Manila, for an appropriation to meet the emergency. What is to be done with those who starve during the temporary deficit, it does not say. If you must have reconcentration, to leave it to such agencies as the above, with the native police and constabulary as understudies, in lieu of availing yourself of the superb equipment of the American army, with all its facilities for handling great masses of people, as they did, for instance, after the San Francisco fire, is like preferring the Mulligan Guards to the Cold-stream Guards. Furthermore, there is no escape from the logic of the fact that reconcentration is essentially a war measure. The difference between what is lawful in war and what is lawful in peace is not a technical one. In war the innocent must often suffer with the guilty. In peace the theory at least is that only the guilty suffer. Hence it is that our Constitution is so jealous that in time of peace no man’s life, liberty, or property, shall be taken from him without “due process of law,” a provision which becomes inoperative in war times, being superseded by martial law. I know that the early question, “Does the Constitution follow the flag?” was answered by the Supreme Court of the United States in the negative as to the Philippines. But the Act of Congress of July 1, 1902, under which we were governing the Philippines in 1903, and still govern them, known as the Philippine Government Act, extended to the Islands all the provisions of the Bill of Rights of our Constitution except the right of jury trial and the individual right to go armed—“bear arms.” It specifically said in section 5:
No law shall be enacted in said Islands which shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.