The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-11-07

the slightest assurance that the Philip
pines would offer him any permanent
field of activity; and he was certainly
unaware of the probability that he
would emerge from tour OF duty IN
the islands as one of the marked men
OF America.
Called to an unfamiliar duty, asked
to resign a pleasant position from
which he could not be elected, he
chose an unpromising line of duty be-
cause he believed he was not Justlnsd
in refusing his services wnen the
president and secretary of state de-
manded in so many words that ne give
his time to the country without regard
to his own personal fortune.
situation a >PerilOus One.
The situation in the Philippines was
a perilous one when Judge TART was
APPOINTED president of the commission
which had been constituted to estab-
fish a semblance of civil government
in the islands.
when Dewey sailed into Manila
bay, no one had the slightest idea that
the war would in any way entail upon
this country the burden of the man
aeement of a vast colony across the
Pacific The war was undertaken for
the regeneration of Cuba, and for that
alone The great majority of our peo-
p1e had to take down their aliases to
find out where the Philippines were
when the cables first announced brief
" that Dewey had smashed up the
Spanish fleet In Manila bay.
Even after that splendid victory Few
people took time to realize that we
had inadvertently saddled ourselves
with a responsibility quite similar to
that of Great Britain and India.
Up to the time of the signing OF the
treaty Of peace, people were uncer-
tain what was TO be done with the
Philippines.
revolution on His Hands.
After they came thoroughly into our
possession there was no time to for
mulate theories of government for the
Islands, because Aguinaldo and MS
fanatical followers were putting up a
fair sized revolution which could be
met only by overwhelming military
force.
The first year or two of our
occupancy was necessarily period OF
military operations. Cuba. which had
been the bone of contention between
Spain and the United States, was at
peace from the day of the cessation
of hostilities, but the Philippines.
which no one had thought of when
the war began, still continued to fur
nish the field for bloody hostilities
and an almost savage warfare.
Aguinaldo was harassed through
and over and around the lakes, the
rivers, the swampS and the mountains
of Luzon, while expeditionary FORCES
were dispatched to less known islands
of the group where savages with UNI
familiar names were carrying on in
termittent hostilities.
1t was at this trying period that
Judge Taft was asked to leave Ohio
and go to the Philippines to establish
there the beginning of civil govern
ment. 1t was a task from which any
man might shrink and the successful
Accomplishment of it is the principal
argument of the former governor
general that he is competent to as
ha Greatest civic rPSnOnSibilltX.
Hews the Way of a Pioneer.
our government was not organized
with a view to territorial expansion
beyond either of the oceans. The
theory of our national life was that we
would avoid entangIing alliances with
foreign nations. We do business un-
der a written constitution and all
powers not specifically granted to the
federal government are reserved to
the states. When Taft went to the
Philippines no man knew whether
they were worth keeping or not, and
certainly no one understood either the
power or the limitations of the federal
government as applied to island
possessions on the other side of an
ocean from the home government.
For about three years they were
governed by the president as COM
mander in chief of the army and
navy, and even when congress passed
the organic act of 1902 1t merely con-
firmed the half military and half civil
government created by President Nc
Kinley, and it even made his instruc-
lions to the secretary of war part of
the statutory bill of rights of the
islands.
When Judge Taft became president
of the Philippine commission, and for
year after his appointment as civil
governor OF. the islands in July, 1901,
there was an intermittent state of war
between the federal troops and what
was left of the insurrectionary forces.
1t was far from being an auspicfous
time for the establishment of a sue
cessful insular government Army
men insisted that the insurrectionary
party would misun derstand any at
tempt to set up a civil government.
Harassed by an Opposition.
There was strong minority party
IN the United States which expressed
sympathy with the insurrection, and
which demanded in party platforms
and on the stump that the Filipinos
should be given immediate in
dependence.
The previous government of the
Islands had been strange mixture of
religious and temporal power, and the
whole fabric was tinged with official
despotism and dishonor
There was in this country at that
time no colonial machinery what
soever, and no trained body of adj
illustrators and civil officers. The
very language of the islands was for
eign to us, and intensely foreign at
that. Everything conspired to make
the task of setting up civil govern
ment there novel and hazardous with
the chances all in favor of repeated
failures before ultimate success could
be reached.
It was necessary to keep a large
army in condition for immediate SER
vice and there was no assurance that
a change of administration in the
United States might not upset every
plan and every assurance and every
hope of Gov. Gen. Taft and those who
were working with him to elevate the
Filipinos to a position where they
might at some time in the future be-
come self-governing.
His History But Repeats Itself.
The Philippine chapter in the career
Of William Howard Taft is merely a