Part 14

The Filipinos, at the earliest possible moment, organized a government. On June 18 a republic was proclaimed; on the 23rd the cabinet was announced; on the 27th a decree was published providing for elections, and on August 6th an address was issued to foreign governments, announcing that the revolutionary government was in operation, and was in control of fifteen provinces.

The real intent of the Americans was foreshadowed in the instructions handed by President McKinley to General Wesley Merritt on May 19, 1898. General Merritt was directed to inform the Filipinos that "we come not to make war upon the people of the Philippines, nor upon any party or faction among them, but to protect them in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights. Any persons who, either by active aid or by honest submission, coöperate with the United States in its effort to give effect to this beneficent purpose, will receive the reward of its support and protection."

The Filipinos sent a delegation to Paris to lay their claims for independence before the Peace Commission. Meeting with no success, they visited Washington, with no different result. They were not to be free!

On September 8, 1898, General Otis, commander of the American forces in the Philippines, notified Aguinaldo that unless he withdrew his forces from Manila and its suburbs by the 15th "I shall be obliged to resort to forcible action." On January 5, 1899, by Presidential Proclamation, McKinley ordered that "The Military Government heretofore maintained by the United States in the city, harbor, and bay of Manila is to be extended with all possible dispatch to the whole of the ceded territory." On February 4, 1899, General Otis reported "Firing upon the Filipinos and the killing of one of them by the Americans, leading to return fire." (Report up to April 6, 1899.) Then followed the Philippine War during which 1,037 Americans were killed in action or died of wounds; 2,818 were wounded, and 2,748 died of disease. ("Historical Register," Vol. II, p. 293.)

The Philippines were conquered twice--once in a contest with Spain (in coöperation with the Filipinos, who regarded themselves as our allies), and once in a contest with the Filipinos, the native inhabitants, who were made subjects of the American Empire by this conquest.

5. Imperialism Accepted

The Philippine War was the last political episode in the life of the American Republic. From February 4, 1899, the United States accepted the political status of an Empire. Hawaii had been annexed at the behest of the Hawaiian Government; Porto Rico had been occupied as a part of the war strategy and without any protest from the Porto Ricans. The Philippines were taken against the determined opposition of the natives, who continued the struggle for independence during three bitter years.

The Filipinos were fighting for independence--fighting to drive invaders from their soil. The United States authorities had no status in the Philippines other than that of military conquerors.

Continental North America was occupied by the whites after a long struggle with the Indian tribes. This territory was "conquered"--but it was contiguous--it formed a part of a geographic unity. The Philippines were separated from San Francisco by 8,000 miles of water; geographically they were a part of Asia. They were tropical in character, and were inhabited by tribes having nothing in common with the American people except their common humanity. Nevertheless, despite non-contiguity; despite distance; despite dissimilarity in languages and customs, the soldiers of the United States conquered the Filipinos and the United States Government took control of the islands, acting in the same way that any other empire, under like circumstances, unquestionably would have acted.

There was no strategic reason that demanded the Philippines unless the United States desired to have an operating base near to the vast resources and the developing markets of China. As a vantage point from which to wage commercial and military aggression in the Far East, the Philippines may possess certain advantages. There is no other excuse for their conquest and retention by the United States save the economic excuse of advantages to be gained from the possession of the islands themselves.

The end of the nineteenth century saw the end of the Republic about which men like Jefferson and Lincoln wrote and dreamed. The New Century marked the opening of a new epoch--the beginning of world dominion for the United States.

FOOTNOTES:

"A History of the American People," Woodrow Wilson. New York, Harpers, 1902, Vol. V, pp. 273-4.

For further details on the Philippine problem see Senate Document 62, Part I, 55th Congress, Third Session.

VII. THE STRUGGLE FOR WEALTH AND POWER

1. Economic Foundations

The people of the United States, through their contests with the American Indians, the Mexicans and the Filipinos, have established that "supreme and extensive political domination" which is one of the chief characteristics of empire.

But the American Empire does not rest upon a political basis. Only the most superficial portions of its superstructure are political in character. Imperialism in the United States, as in every other modern country, is built not upon politics, but upon industry.

The struggle between empires has shifted, in recent years, from the political and the military to the economic field. The old imperialism was based on military conquest and political domination. The new "financial" imperialism is based on economic opportunities and advantages. Under this new régime, territorial domination is subordinated to business profit.

While American public officials were engaged in the routine task of extending the political boundaries of the United States, the foundations of imperial strength were being laid by the masters of industrial life--the traders, manufacturers, bankers, the organizers of trusts and of industrial combinations. These owners and directors of the nation's wealth have been the real builders of the American Empire.

As the United States has developed, the economic motives have come more and more to the surface, until no modern nation--not England herself--has such a record in the search for material possessions. The pursuit of wealth, in the United States, has been carried forward ruthlessly; brutally. "Anything to win" has been the motto. Man against man, and group against group, they have struggled for gain,--first, in order to "get ahead;" then to accumulate the comforts and luxuries, and last of all, to possess the immense power that goes with the control of modern wealth.

The early history of the country presaged anything but this. The colonists were seeking to escape tyranny, to establish justice and to inaugurate liberty. Their promises were prophetic. Their early deeds put the world in their debt. Forward looking people everywhere thrilled at the mention of the name "America." Then came the discovery of the fabulous wealth of the new country; the pressure of the growing stream of immigrants; the heaping up of riches; the rapacious search after more! more! the desertion of the dearest principles of America's early promise, and the transcribing of another story of "economic determinism."

Until very recent times the American people continued to talk of political affairs as though they were the matters of chief public concern. The recent growth and concentration of economic power have showed plainly, however, that America was destined to play her greatest rôle on the economic field. Capable men therefore ceased to go into politics and instead turned their energies into the whirl of business, where they received a training that made them capable of handling affairs of the greatest intricacy and magnitude.

2. Every Man for Himself

The development of American industry, during the hundred years that began with the War of 1812, led inevitably to the unification of business control in the hands of a small group of wealth owners.

"Every man for himself" was the principle that the theorists of the eighteenth century bequeathed to the industrial pioneers of the nineteenth. The philosophy of individualism fitted well with the temperament and experience of the English speaking peoples; the practice of individualism under the formula "Every man for himself" seemed a divine ordination for the benefit of the new industry.

The eager American population adopted the slogan with enthusiasm. "Every man for himself" was the essence of their frontier lives; it was the breath of the wilderness.

But the idea failed in practice. Despite the assurances of its champions that individualism was necessary to preserve initiative and that progress was impossible without it, like many another principle--fine sounding in theory, it broke down in the application.