[1] The speech referred to in the text was made at Manila in December, 1903, but the same “Philippines for the Filipinos” policy had already been proclaimed much earlier. The Manila American of February 28, 1903, reprints from the Iloilo Times of February 21, 1903, an account of Governor Taft’s celebrated Iloilo speech of February 19, 1903, which was received with such profound chagrin by the American business community in the Islands. There had been much bad blood between the American colony at and about Iloilo and the native Americano-phobes. The following is from the Iloilo paper’s account of Governor Taft’s speech: “The Governor then gave some advice to foreigners and Americans, remarking that if they found fault with the way the government was being run here, they could leave the islands; that the government was being run for the Filipinos.”
[2] James LeRoy in The World’s Work for December, 1903.
[3] A familiar instance of this will occur to any one acquainted with the situation in the Islands for any considerable part of the last ten years.
[4] Act No. 136, U. S. Philippine Commission, passed June 11, 1901.
[5] Act 1024, Philippine Commission, passed Oct. 10, 1903.
[6] There were five members of the original Taft Commission, including President Taft.
[7] I neither forget nor gainsay the generally benevolent character of his despotism; and having been a beneficiary of it myself I am therefore disposed to see much of wisdom in the way it was exercised.