In the meantime early in 1903 he started upon his duties in the Philippines. Instead of proceeding by the usual route through California and {173} over the Pacific to Manila, Wood decided to make the voyage the other way round with a definite plan for acquiring data upon his new subject and relative to his new duties as he went along.
In Egypt he spent some time with Lord Cromer, then just preparing to give up his work there as Viceroy. Cromer, like all other persons in executive capacities throughout the world, knew well all that General Wood had done in Cuba. He had a very high appreciation of what had been accomplished in the time, because from his own experience he knew better than most men what the difficulties had been. He took a great liking for the quiet, stalwart American and told him that his administration in Cuba was one of the finest in Colonial history and the best in our generation. Later when Lord Cromer was asked to suggest some one to succeed himself in Egypt he said that unfortunately the best man was unavailable since he was an American citizen named Leonard Wood.
He gave him all the facilities for studying the government and administration of the British protectorate and helped him wherever and {174} whenever he could. Wood's great interest was the study of the way in which men of different and conflicting religious beliefs were handled, and he collected large quantities of books and documents to be studied later as he proceeded eastward. No man could have asked for higher appreciation than was accorded him voluntarily by the able and experienced administrator of Egyptian affairs.
From Cairo he proceeded to India and spent sufficient time to accumulate information there. He was to govern a Mohammedan population mixed up with Confucians, cannibals, headhunters and religions of twenty different varieties, and he studied as he went along all the methods employed in similar situations to preserve order without creating religious wars.
He even made a special journey to Java at the invitation of the Dutch government, where the Dutch governor gave him all the assistance in his power. Here he found the problem more closely allied to his own than elsewhere.
So that on his arrival in Manila he had gathered information upon most of the problems which would shortly confront him from sources {175} of unquestioned authenticity and from men of unquestioned ability. Some friend one night in Manila spoke of the large number of books that filled the walls of his house and wondered when he expected to get time to read them. Wood's answer was that he had read them all and only used them now as reference books to refresh his memory.
New as the problems were, therefore, he had by the time he began active work as Governor whatever preparation any one could secure for the work in hand.
The Spaniards had failed in their government in the Philippines as they had elsewhere. In Mindanao and Sulu--the country, or islands, inhabited by the Moros--they had failed signally because of their intolerance of the religious beliefs of the people and their careless impatience generally towards a colony which from its very nature could not produce much money. Furthermore they did not send sufficient military forces or sufficiently able officers to maintain their supremacy. And finally they did not deal with the people through the native clergy and priests. Consequently when the Americans came in the Moros were united only {176} in their hatred of the white race, placed no confidence in anything their rulers told them and only obeyed white-man-made laws as long as the white man was in sight.
After all a sultan or datu had his position and authority which had come down to him through generations and his religion which had been taught him from birth. He saw no reason why he should give up these without a struggle just because some other man arrived with a different religion and a different form of sultan government. The country was such that it was easy to avoid the new rulers. Transportation over large parts of the southern islands was through jungle and pathless forests where even riding a horse was impossible. Streams without bridges, settlements without approaches except a trail, tropical climates to which only the Moros themselves were accustomed spread over a land of almost impenetrable jungle. The Moros themselves understood such a situation and could easily move from one spot to another, one island to another, one settlement to another; while the army had to fight its way in and then fight its way out again.
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