Of course the ignorant electorate we perpetrated on Samar as an “expression of our theoretical views” proved that we had “gone too fast” in conferring self-government, or, to quote Mr. Roosevelt, had been “reposing too much confidence in the self-governing power of a people,” if to begin with the rankest material for constructing a government that there was at hand was to offer a fair test of capacity for self-government. But President Roosevelt’s message, above quoted, shows you that the “ignorant electorate” was merely an ignorant electorate, and not a non-Christian tribe, as the Philippine Commission later had the temerity to certify they were. Now the plain, unvarnished, benevolent truth is just this: The Commission knew that nobody in the United States, whether they were for retaining the Islands or against retaining them, had any desire to postpone granting a legislature to the Philippine people. So in their certificate they simply included everybody who had given trouble in Samar and Leyte as “non-Christian tribes.” The only justification for this was that they had in fact acted in a most un-Christianlike manner,—i.e., for people who devotedly murmur prayers to patron saints in good standing in the church calendar. In making their certificate, the Commission simply ignored the various uprisings of the preceding two years. They simply said, generously, “Oh, forget it.” They knew nobody in the United States begrudged the Filipinos their conditionally promised legislature, or cared to postpone it. The leading Filipinos begged the authorities to “forget” the various disturbances that had occurred since the publication of the census, and there was a very general desire in the Islands to let bygones be bygones, wipe the slate, and begin again. Any other attitude would have meant that the legislature would have to be postponed. Then the opposition in the United States would want to know why, and by 1908 Philippine independence might become an issue again. In the eyes of the Commission, the end, being benevolent, justified stretching the language of the Act of 1902 as if it had been the blessed veil of charity itself—i.e., the end justified the means. In fact it did—almost—justify the means. But not quite. The moral quality of the Great Certificate of 1907 was not as reprehensible as General Anderson’s dealings with Aguinaldo, already described, which, like the certificate, were a necessary part of the benevolent hypocrisy of Benevolent Assimilation of an unconsenting people. Yet General Anderson is an honorable man. It was not as bad as General Greene’s juggling Aguinaldo out of his trenches before Manila in a friendly way, and failing to give him a receipt for said trenches, as he had promised to do, because such a receipt would show co-operation and “might look too much like an alliance.” This also was done on the idea that the end justified the means. Yet General Greene is an honorable man. The signers of the great peace certificate of 1907 are all honorable men. But they signed that certificate, just the same. “Judge not that ye be not judged.” All I have to say is, I would not have signed that certificate. I would have said: “No, gentlemen, the end does not justify the means. The Philippine Assembly must be postponed, if we are going to deal frankly with Congress and the folks at home. The conditions Congress made precedent to the grant of an assembly have not been met, and we each and all of us know it. We owe more to our own country and to truth than we do to the Filipinos. The Act of Congress of 1902 did not vest in the Philippine Commission authority to pardon disturbances of public order. It imposed upon the Commission an implied duty to report such disturbances, fully and frankly. It is not true that there has been a continuing state of general and complete peace in these Islands for the last two years, and I for one will not certify that there has been.”
The truth is, the attitude of the signers of the certificate was like that of Uncle Remus, when interrupted by the little boy in one of his stories. When Uncle Remus gets to the point in the rabbit story where the rabbit thrillingly escapes from the jaws of death, i.e., from the jaws of the dogs, by climbing a tree, the rapt listener interrupts: “Why, Uncle Remus, a rabbit can’t climb a tree.” To which Uncle Remus replies, with a reassuring wave of the hand, “Oh, but Honey, dis rabbit dess ’bleeged ter climb dis tree.”
Should any of my good friends still in the Philippines feel disposed to censure such levity as the above, I can only say, as Kipling writes from England to his Anglo-Indian friends in a foreword to one of his books:
I have told these tales of our life
For a sheltered people’s mirth,
In jesting guise,—but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.
Moreover, my authority to speak frankly about these matters is also aptly stated by the same great poet thus:
I have eaten your bread and salt,
I have drunk your water and wine,