Mr. Taft’s Civil Government was adopted on July 4, 1901. What have been its most beneficent results since then, as proclaimed by the American officials themselves? The first results were quite evident—more schools, better roads, and an improved system of sanitation. What did these mean?

“We have given them education and public improvement,” said the administration. Let us state this more accurately. “We,” the benevolent American people have selected American teachers to teach Filipinos what “we” choose, making the Filipino treasury pay for such expenses. “We” have decided what improvements were needed, have effected such improvements under the supervision of American office-holders, and have later presented the bill to the native taxpayer. These American officers, technical as well as administrative, have been paid large salaries and the system has naturally been most expensive to the impoverished islanders.

From the way these material benefits have been related to the Americans at home, however, one is led to assume that the improvements effected have cost the American taxpayer a considerable amount. That the contrary is true was baldly stated by Secretary of War Stimson who in his report of 1912 said, “And the cost of all this and of the much more that has been similarly done has been borne by the Filipino people themselves.”

Is not this method of improving a nation like the rich man who tells his poor neighbor that he ought to have a larger house, better furniture, newer clothes, horses and carriages and forthwith orders them, but has them charged to his neighbor without consulting him as to how these bills are to be met? It is a form of charity easy to the soi-distant benefactor but ruinous to the unhappy neighbor. Surely if “we” insisted upon teaching the Filipinos the American language, instead of propagating the already implanted Castilian tongue, “we” should at least have defrayed that portion of the bill. Evidently this was a benevolence tinctured with New England thrift. Was not this policy aptly expressed at that time by Mr. Dooley when he said:

In ivry city in this unfair land we will erect school houses an’ packin’ houses an’ houses iv correction; an’ we’ll larn ye our language because ’tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn oursilves yours. An’ we’ll give ye clothes, if ye pay f’r thim; an’ if ye don’t, ye can go without. And whin ye’re hungry ye can to th’ morgue—we mane th’ resth’rant—an’ ate a good square meal if ar-rmy beef. An’ we’ll sind th’ gr-reat Gin’ral Eagan over f’r to larn ye etiquette, an’ Andhrew Carnegie to larn ye pathriteism with blowholes into it, an’ Gin’ral Alger to larn ye to hould onto a job; an’ whin ye’ve become edycated an’ have all th’ blessings if civilization that we don’t want, that’ll count ye one. We can’t give ye anny votes, because we haven’t more thin enough to go round now; but we’ll treat ye th’ way a father shud treat his childher if we have to break ivry bone in ye’er bodies.

The teaching of the English language, however, did accomplish something at the expense of the Taft policy. It opened to the Filipinos the history of the American revolution, the Declaration of Independence. It opened to them the words of Lincoln that “no man is good enough to govern another without that other’s consent.” And yet the Taft policy expected to have these pupils as contented subjects for generations, enjoying the contempt that was daily being heaped upon them, loving to be treated as an inferior people. How strange an expectation!

Nor was this prophecy far fetched. Six years after the establishment of the Taft Government, one of his successors, Governor Smith, was forced to point out with regret “the growing gulf between the two peoples” and to say that an era of ill feeling had started between Americans and Filipinos and, I hesitate to say it, “race hatred”⁠[1]. And no wonder. Let Mr. Leupp, a staunch supporter of the late President Roosevelt give an idea of the conditions then existing in the Islands. Speaking of the American residents in the Philippines who, say what one will, are the only Americans known to the majority of Filipinos, he said:

These men are the loudest and most bitter in their criticisms of the conduct of affairs. They disapprove most vigorously the friendly attitude of our government towards the natives, and denounce the policy of benevolent assimilation as preposterous and visionary.... They object to the appointment of so many Filipinos to office and instead of cultivating the good will of the native people and creating a demand for American goods, they spend their time and energy finding fault and making gloomy predictions.

The people here described have sent emissaries to Washington to convince the authorities that things are all wrong in the Philippines, that the iron hand of white supremacy should replace the Taft policy of “The Philippines for the Filipinos.” What they call a Chamber of Commerce in Manila is really an organization for bringing about conditions more favorable to the exploitation of the islands, without reference to the welfare of the natives. The admission of Chinese labor is the first thing the chamber of commerce wants in this program.

The relations between the “American element” there and the Filipinos are most seriously strained; the newspapers which cater to it never say a word for the Filipinos, nor, for that matter, the civil government. The despicable “little brown brother” poem has been widely circulated. It is about as true a picture of the Filipinos as “the Leopard’s Spots” is of the negro in America. No one can read its fierce arraignment of the natives and learn that it is almost a national hymn with our soldiers here, and then imagine that relations between the two races are very cordial⁠[2].

But for even better testimony, let these American residents speak their own mind. At a mass meeting held by them in Manila one speaker expressing his belief that the American government had been weak and vacillating, added:

Now I believe in “benevolent assimilation” (which quotation was greeted with laughter). I believe it so strongly that I would, if necessary, pin it to these islands with the bayonet.

Then, referring to a celebration that the Filipinos had had in which American and Filipino flags had been displayed, came this ambitious claim:

They (the Filipinos) did not realize that we, who are here tonight, are the Government, and that that government could not have been here without us, and cannot stay here without us.... I believe in peace and harmony. I always did, and when I had a battalion of volunteers behind me I felt awful peaceful.... I believe that if we could put about one hundred thousand American troops here it would be very peaceful (laughter), exceedingly so, and you would not see any more Katipunan (Filipino) banners eight or ten feet long, with their designs emblazoned in silk, going along the streets with a little six cent American flag carried underneath it. It would be too peaceful for that.

So much for the bonds of friendship between the two peoples. No wonder they have led to further bickerings on the part of the American residents whenever concessions have been granted to the Filipinos. No wonder too that when, in 1907, the Filipinos were finally granted a Philippine assembly, they made that the occasion to renew their demand for independence. Before the establishment of this Philippine Assembly it was virtually an act of disloyalty to talk of independence. Mr. Taft himself had refused to permit the Filipinos to organize an independence party. But with the veil of suppression removed in 1907, the agitation for a complete separation was formally launched, and has been kept up since with increasing vigor.

What about the economic blessings given to the country? As the fires of insurrection were finally suppressed, the Filipinos turned to their chosen occupation—agriculture. The fields were then in a ravaged condition as a result of the prolonged period of war. The struggle had reduced most of the provinces to a state of misery. In his report of 1902, the Secretary of War, Mr. Root, had acknowledged these catastrophes. He said,

The ills which have recently befallen the people of the islands call for active and immediate measures of relief. The people of a country just emerging from nearly six years of devastating warfare, during which productive industry was interrupted, vast amounts of property were destroyed, the bonds of social order were broken, habits of peaceful industry were lost ... had a sufficiently difficult task before them to restore order and prosperity. In addition to this, however, the people of the Philippine islands have within the past year been visited by great misfortunes. The rinderpest has destroyed about ninety per cent of all their carabaos, leaving them without draft animals to till their land and aid in the ordinary work.... The rice crop has been reduced to twenty-five per cent of the ordinary crop ... cholera has raged and is still raging throughout the islands....

And yet on November 19 of that same year, the President was telling the people of the United States that “the islands have never been as orderly, as peaceful or as prosperous as now” ⁠[3], which statement properly induced Mr. Burrit Smith to say, “The President’s prosperity seems to be composed in nearly equal parts of pestilence and famine.” For indeed, the bare comparison of the statement with the facts made arguments superfluous.

As late as August 2, 1905, the Representatives of Batangas province addressed a letter to Governor Taft to show the miserable condition of the municipality of Balayan. The statistics they offered showed that, whereas in 1896 the number of inhabitants in that district was 41,308, in 1905 the number had been reduced to 13,924. There had been 19,500 hectares of cultivated land in 1896—there were only 1,700 in 1905. Other items had suffered even more, rice having fallen from 39,020 to 12,500 cavanes, sugar from 520,000 to 12,300; maize from 110,000 to 10,000, cows 3,680 in 1896, only 80 left seven years later; oxen from 4,110 to 433; hens from 96,000 before the war to only 5,000 four years after the establishment of civil government. Consider what a story those figures tell.

In addition to these calamities there had been placed upon the shoulders of the entire population an internal revenue tax, of which Professor Paul S. Reinsch said:

Outside of Italy it would be hard to find a system of taxation that so efficiently scours the whole field of business. The merchants and professional men of a country like the United States would look upon it as a most unbearable burden.

In the light of these hardships, it would be reasonable to expect that the economic policy of the United States towards the Islands would be guided by the desire to make them as prosperous as possible. And yet the first few years of American legislation in this matter showed a series of blunders which resulted in heaping further hardships upon the already prostrated people.

When the Islands were under the dominion of Spain the native planters had had the benefit of a limited Spanish market, but when the United States sovereignty was extended to the archipelago this market was taken away, and in its place nothing was given. The first tariff act passed by the American Congress to regulate the trade of the Philippines was that of March 8, 1902. It allowed Philippine products coming into the United States a reduction of 25%, from the regular Dingley rates. Governor Taft realized how ineffective this reduction was, and he pleaded very earnestly with Congress to give his “Filipinos” something in lieu of the privileges they had under Spain. But the sugar and tobacco interests in the United States checked his efforts because they were afraid that Philippine products would endanger their domestic crops.

There were one or two “jokers” in this tariff legislation of 1902 also that are already well-known. One was the clause which abolished the export tax on Philippine produce coming to the United States. Among these native products was the world-famous Philippine hemp. This native product was at the time sorely needed in the home markets, and the object of the law was clearly to favor the exportation of this article to the United States exclusively and thus defeat the British and other foreign exporters in Manila from getting their share of the article in question.

The method by which this was accomplished was even more vicious, and really constituted the big “joker” of the tariff act. It will be remembered that export taxes were collected on Philippine produce as they left the custom house in Manila. Now the levying of taxes on exports is strictly prohibited by the Constitution of the United States, but the Supreme Court at Washington had said that the Constitution did not extend to the Philippines. Among the articles thus taxed was hemp, but the tariff law of 1902 now said that if the hemp shipped from Manila was proved to have been consumed in the United States, then the export duties already paid would be refunded to the shipper in order to give him the true benefit of a reduction. This odd method of administering the law was thus double-edged. It not only gave the American exporter a tremendous advantage over his British rival, but it also favored the American shipper over the Filipino planter.

This was so because when the native planter sold his crop he was forced to sell it at the current price which assumed that an export tax would be levied upon it. To an American shipper the recovery of this export duty later was a matter of routine, as he could easily prove through his American offices that the hemp was in fact received and consumed in the United States. But the Filipino planter or broker dealing on a much smaller scale could not, without difficulty and expense, follow his few bales into the markets of the United States and then prove to the custom officials that the hemp was in fact consumed there. The result of this American legislation was apparent—only the big fish, like the American Hemp trust, got the benefit of this so-called favored reduction.

Governor Taft and his commission saw the injustice thus placed on the native planters, and they earnestly besought Congress to remove such legislation from the statute books of the United States.

“These refundable duties,” they said in their report of 1904, “are in effect a gift of that amount to the manufacturers of the United States who use hemp in their operations”⁠[4].

Their report of the following year was just as earnest in its complaint.

“It is a direct burden upon the people of the Philippine Islands,” they said, “because it takes from the Insular treasury export duties collected from the people and gives them to manufacturers of hemp products in the United States.”

Surely this was a poor way to make the Filipinos learn to value their association with the United States, and Mr. Taft’s commission tried to impress the American Congress with this consideration.

“It seems hardly consistent,” they said, that “with our expressions of purpose to build and develop the Philippine Islands ... we are thus enriching a few of our own people at their (Filipino) expense”⁠[5].

By 1906 the situation had not abated. When the American Governor General Ide returned to the United States he frankly said, “By annexation we killed the Spanish market for Philippine sugar and tobacco, and our tariff shuts these products from the United States, and today both these industries are prostrated”⁠[6].

It would be fruitless to examine in detail all the steps taken by the powerful American elements at home and abroad to aid their own interests at the expense of others. Dr. Parker Willis, Professor of Economics in the Washington and Lee University, after making an exacting study of the tariff laws, finally added this convincing summary:

Wines were taxed in such a way as to discriminate against the light Spanish beverages and in favour of the Californian. Canned goods were taxed according to weights of the cans, a plan which favoured Chicago and St. Louis producers as against English. Beer was so rated that the American product shipped in barrels was favoured against the beer of other countries. Every effort was made to help the American and hamper the foreign shipper⁠[7].

An even more scholarly discussion of these discriminations was published in the Journal of Political Economy for March, 1903.

And yet in the midst of these calamities and discriminations, President Roosevelt was telling the American Congress, that,

No great civilized power has ever managed with such wisdom and disinterestedness the affairs of people committed by the accident of war to its hands⁠[8].

Mr. Taft realized the burdens which American interests, afraid of the so-called Asiatic competition, were thus placing on the industries of the Philippines. He, therefore, labored hard, quietly and with infinite patience, and finally after a campaign of nine years succeeded in convincing the sugar and tobacco industries in the United States that a little Philippine produce would do them little harm and would put the Islanders in good humor. The Payne tariff law was therefore enacted in 1909, permitting the free entrance of Philippine produce up to certain limits prescribed by the Act.

This relief was by no means satisfactory, however, for the new tariff proposed to continue the tax on exports shipped to foreign countries from Manila. Well did the Hon. Oscar W. Underwood tell Congress:

When you put a tax on your people for engaging in export trade, to that extent you lessen their ability to successfully meet their foreign competitor, and reduce the territory in which they can successfully dispose of their surplus products abroad. Our forefathers in writing the Constitution of the United States, recognizing the false principle on which the export tax was based, put it in the fundamental law of the land that the United States Government should not lay export taxes. If we enact this law, we write into the statute book for the Philippine Islands, legislation which is little short of barbarous, legislation that no government in the civilized world except Turkey and Persia, and other second class nations countenance today⁠[9].

The protest was vain, for the American hemp interests won and the provision for an export tax was adopted. The Hon. Manuel Quezon arguing for the repeal of this export tax two years later, ably put forth this unanswerable argument:

Although it has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that the provisions of the Constitution are not in force in the Philippines, I have serious doubts as to whether said decision also meant that this government has the power to enact laws for the islands which are expressly prohibited by the Constitution of the United States⁠[10].

In 1909, a distinguished son of Boston, the Hon. W. Cameron Forbes, assumed the position of Governor General in the Philippines. He was able, conscientious, and unselfish, and thoroughly convinced that the Taft program was justified, and, as an untiring worker, was determined to make this policy a true blessing to the Filipinos. During the four years that he occupied that exalted position, he sacrificed his health and his comfort in exchange for the consciousness that comes from a job well done. His extreme courtesy, his marked sympathy for the aspirations of the Filipinos and his deep-rooted interest in all affairs appurtenant to the Islands made him a most gracious person to deal with, and during his administration he made friends readily and kept them for all time. Certainly, then, if the policy founded by Judge Taft was the right one, no more admirable person could have been found to administer it. If we must oppose him and criticize him, therefore, we do so not on personal grounds but because he pursued a policy which we believe was wrong—because the undertaking in which he engaged was hopeless.

Governor Forbes’s inaugural address aptly characterized his policy. Improvement in the material conditions of the Islands and the people was the keynote of his speech, and he declared that capital was the greatest need of the country.

Capital [he said] demands a stable government. Capital is not particularly interested in the color or design of the flag, it wants just and equitable laws, sound and uniform currency on the part of the government, just and fair treatment in the courts. The faith of the United States is pledged that all of these benefits shall be permanently assured to the Filipinos ... There is not on the horizon discernible any cloud which indicates the possibility of any kind of disturbance in the present status of these Islands, either from within or without, by war or insurrection. The United States is strong, determined, fixed in her policy and not to be dissuaded or coerced. The development of the Philippines will proceed along the lines originally set forth, strictly adhered to by each successive administration and by the gradual process in line of declared policy.... The government should offer every reasonable inducement to capital and should make more liberal the land and mining laws and lessen the restrictions which are at present discouraging investors.

In a word, then, Governor Forbes’s policy was to introduce more capital from sources foreign to the Philippines, and thus create material prosperity. To induce American and other foreign investors to settle in the Islands it was also his aim to assure these men that their investments would be protected by American control. His ideal was not, however, novel for it was the deal also of many in his generation and of those who had preceded him in office. This policy is opposed, therefore, simply because it creates an interest hostile to Philippine independence, because it makes separation more difficult and more costly. It was capital which brought on the Boer War, it was capital which led to the conquest of India, it is capital which promotes the aggression of the strong upon the weak, and so to the policy of introducing material improvements by foreign capital while the Philippines are yet in a state of dependence, their people are absolutely opposed.

If the Filipinos must be taught something about Yankee ingenuity, let them be taught to help themselves with their own resources, and not with the money of others. Set before them, as was set before the founders of the American republic, “the glorious prospect of entire independence,” that it may “breathe into them anew the breath of life,” as it did into the breasts of those who have gone before them. And if foreign capital must come into the Philippines, as it will inevitably come, let it come when the Islands are independent, so that it may settle as it has settled in Mexico and Cuba with the full understanding that it is the native government upon which it must depend for security. This policy, though investments may be slow at first, will encourage foreign capital more and more as the peoples of the world learn to look upon the Filipinos as human beings anxious to contribute their modest share to the welfare of mankind. Is this not infinitely better than the policy which to this day tells the sensitive Filipinos,—

no matter what you think, we shall act without regard to your wishes as we alone are fit to judge of your ability; we alone will decide when independence is good for you; meanwhile you shall have no voice in your government save that which we choose to give you.

How absolute the American control of the Philippine treasury has been to this day was stated in the leading editorial of the Boston Transcript for September 24, 1925, from which the following is a quotation:

The American people are brought to a crisis in their and the government’s relations with the Philippine Islands by the decision of the Philippine Supreme Court that rulings of the insular auditor are not definitive, but may be appealed to the local courts. The power of the Philippine auditor (an American official) subject to that of the Governor-General and the United States Secretary of War, is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of American authority in the islands.... The present decision has been promptly appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and no doubt a prompt ruling will be handed down from that tribunal. If it should sustain the Philippine decision, the decisive authority of the American government in the islands would be at an end, and the islands themselves might as well be turned over to the Filipinos.

In other words one subordinate official with a salary of six thousand dollars must have absolute control over the use which is made of taxes raised from eleven millions of people. What nation would submit to such tyranny? How would such an officer appointed by the Governor of New York be received in Massachusetts?