“Allow me to call your attention to the fact that the people of the Philippine Islands have succeeded in maintaining a stable government since the last action of the Congress in their behalf, and have thus fulfilled the condition set by the Congress as precedent to a consideration of granting independence to the Islands.
“I respectfully submit that this condition having been fulfilled, it is our liberty and our duty to keep our promise to the people of those islands by granting them the independence which they so honorably covet.”
Governor-General Harrison also testified before the Joint Committee of Congress in 1919 that a stable government had already been established in the Philippine Islands, to wit, “a government elected by the suffrages of the people, which is supported by the people, which is capable of maintaining order and of fulfilling its international obligations.”
MISSIONS TO UNITED STATES.—Soon after the termination of the world war, it was decided to push the campaign for freedom with greater vigor than ever before.
There was need, besides, of centralizing the campaign if it was to be more effective. Accordingly, the Philippine Legislature, on November 1, 1918, created a “Commission of Independence,” composed of the presiding officers and members of both houses of the Legislature. The Commission was for the purpose of considering and reporting to the Legislature:
(a) Ways and means of negotiating immediately for the granting and recognition of the Independence of the Philippines.
(b) External guarantees of the stability and permanence of said independence as well as of territorial integrity.
(c) Ways and means of organizing in a speedy, effectual and orderly manner a constitutional and democratic internal government.
The First Mission.—One of the first actions of the Commission was to recommend the sending of a special mission to the United States to present the plea for freedom in a formal manner. The Legislature approved this recommendation, and in May, 1919, a delegation arrived at Washington, composed of forty prominent Filipinos representing the two houses of the Legislature as well as the commercial, industrial, agricultural, and labor interests of the Islands.
About the time it sailed, the Legislature adopted a “Declaration of Purposes” for the guidance of the Commission of Independence and the Philippine Mission. This declaration recited, among other things:
Declaration of Purposes.—* * * “In applying the principles enunciated in documents and utterances on the Philippines to the conditions now existing in the Islands, the Commission of Independence will find the following facts: