Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1899-04-27
THE POLICY OF IGNORANCE AND DRIFT.


There are happily signs that the
administration contemplates change
in its Philippine policy. 1t has re-
Taxed the censorship at Manila. De-
tails of tho formidable nature of a
campaign Of conquest in the islands
have at last been allowed to reach tine
American people. Aggressive move
ments against the Filipinos seem to
have been suspended. Tho authorities
are eagerly waiting for news of a
peaceful adjustment. All this is graft
flying, il it really indicates, as it seems
to, that the President has walked up at
the eleventh hour to the utter failure
of his policy of blood and iron. Con.
fession is good for the soul, even If
tardy; and the changed attitude of the
administration is practically a con-
fession that it has been going on the
wrong tack in the Philippines so far.
The great trouble has been all along
that Mr.. McKinley's Philippine policy
has been an unhappy compound Of
ignorance and drift. 1t has been the
steady complaint of our officers at
Manila that the situation there was
not grasped at Washington. Gen.
Greene wrote as long ago us last
August: "The situation is not under
stood in America, and unless properly
dealt with at Paris will inevitably lead
to future complications and possibly
war. 1t is said that Admiral Dewey
plainly warned the government last
summer that it would take 100, 600 men
to subdue the Philippines, and that
the Washington wise men thought him
half crazy, Just as their predecessors
thought Gen. Sherman a lunatic when
l. AL no.,
take to put down the rebellion. Be
telegraphed the chief need at Manila
to be "a first. class statesman. OF
course, the administration is full of
such, but none could be spared.
Dewey also showed by his call for the
Oregon. two months ago, that his
grasp of the military problem was far
better than that of the War Depart
ment. And his early statement that
the Filipinos are far superior in their
| intelligence and more capable of self
| government than the natives of Cuba,
he distinctly reasserted in the only
| letter of his printed in the Peace
Treaty documents, in which he said:
Further intercourse with them has
confirmed me in this opinion"
Other evidence of knowledge and
advice coolly set aside by the President
has just come to hand in Major Young
husbands new book, 1.-THE Philippines
and Round About tMacmillan). The
Major is British officer, glad of the
alliance, and oil that, but his sketch
of the situation in the Philippines, as
he saw it at the end of last year, re-
veals the fact that he knew more, and
our officers there knew more, of what
was likely to happen than was ever
dreamed of in the Washington
philosophy. Major Younghusband
writes, ITO an observer on the spot,
it was apparent that the authorities in
the distance were hardly alive to the
complications which existed" What
he meant was that the Americans had
treated Aguinaldo as valued friend
and ally until Manila was captured,
but then set about ignoring and
abusing and exasperating him in every
possible way. Aguinaldo, in the mean
while, had gathered an army, set up a
government and taken control of practi-
cally the whole island Of Luzon. What
was to come out of this but war? Very
we'll, let there be war, said the Ameri-
cans; our 90, 900 troops can in pitched
battle defeat Aguinaldo's $4,000, and
that will be the end of him--not
knowing, says Major Younghusband,
wise before the event as we are wise
after it, "that the ordeal of set
battle was the last form of suicidal
mania which Aeuinaldo would be
likely to indulge in."
Younghusband records the interest
ing fact that the american, army
officers at the seat of war" were
"almost unanimous in deprecating the
annexation of the Philippines. They
pointed out that 'to garrison the
Philippines the American standing
army must at once be raised to twice
its present strength" and that ''once
the novelty had worn off, the American
people would resent the increased
taxation involved" Why was Wash
ington left in ingoranoe of all this?
Why did it go on trusting blindly that
our good luck would not fail us? Major
Younghusband supplies, we believe, the
correct answer when he writes that
"the true parting of the ways was not
in the actual act of annexation, for
that had become inevitable, but in
having allowed Admiral Dewey to do
more than defeat the Spanish fleet and
exact heavy indemnity from the city
of Manila before sailing away, thus
| leaVluB tuo l. llIlppiho pEObiuh 1ol 0ho
Spaniards and their friends to solve. "
That is, we had President who did
not know his own mind, who was
moving about in world not realized,
and who concluded to lot things drift.
But to put off deciding is to decide
and the plight we are in now is OF
McKinley's making on that fatal day
in May when he resisted Senator
Sewell's opportunities that Dewey be
ordered home.
If ignorance and indecision have
brought the government into its
present impasse in the Philippines,
the only wisdom now possible is to
retrace our steps. We must do now
| what we should have done in the be-
, ginning-treat the Filipinos as we treat
the Cubans, protect them, watch over
them, help them, but urge them to do
their own governing. No pride Of
opinion, or unwIllingness to admit
J huge laundering, should detain Mr..
, Mckinley for one hour from making
haste to try kindness and fairness and
, confidence on the natives, instead Of
bluster and bullets. 1t must be evident
to him now, rs it is to all the world,
that he has dashed himself against a
, strong national sentiment in the
Philippines. Let him recall Pitts
: famous prophecy Of what would hap
pen to Napoleon when he came into
collision with such a national senti-
ment in Spain. Let him reflect on
Napoleon'S own confessions on the
: subject. They are given in Lady