New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-12-27
Our Apologize Policy in the Philip
pines Is Spur to Native
Sedition.


frmed The Tribunes special cable dispatch Oh
Thursday last announcing the suppression OF
revolutionary rising in Manila and in other
Philippine towns, the public is more than ever
al A loss to understand the official assurances
sent by Governor General Harrison, or IN his
name. that all reports of trouble were mythical.
II is explained now at Washington that Governor
General Harrison has been away from Manila for
several DAVIS and that Mr.. Denison, the Secretary
of the Interior has been in charge in the interval
But that does not help much to relieve the insular
administration from the charge of trying to keep
from Congress and the country the real facts of
a very serious situation in the Philippines.
Sedition must be active and widespread If
general revolt involving about fifty thousand Fill
pinos can be planned II is admitted that the mill
tary authorities expected to have to deal with ten
thousand insurrectos in Manila alone. Although
the head of the conspiracy, Antonio Ricarte is an
exile in Hong Kong. it is evident that the soil IN
many parts of the Philippines is ripe for any kind
of revolutionary agitation. Ricarte's plot missed
fire not because he could not collect followers
enough, but because his secret leaked out and the
constabulary and the regular forces quelled the
rising before it got fairly started.
From the end of the Aguinaldo insurrection to
the beginning of the Wilson Harrison regime the
Flipinos remained tranquil. The only serious dis
turbances which the United States had to contend
with were in the uncivilized Moro islands. But
in that period the government pursued rational
constructive policy, based on the full maintenance
of American sovereignty and the steady improve
rnent of educational and economic conditions. 1t
tried to show the natives that agitation for indie
pendence was futile in itself as well stumbling
block to local progress. The new regime has
played fast and loose with the fact of American
sovereignty, has encouraged native politicians to
exploit natonalistic sentiment for their own bene-
IT. and has prompted the ignorant to look forward
to a general disruption of the bonds of order.
The first big fruit of this policy is the Ricarte
revolt. which, though it fortunately failed is full
of evil omen for the future.
The Washington apologists for the administra-
tons Philippine policy, including Commissioner
Manuel Quezon, are making haste to saddle all
the responsibility for the would-be revolt on Senior
Ricarte But the American public knows that
there are people here. at home who are just as
much responsible as Ricarte is, since they created
the political conditions which made his work of
apitation easy. The Democratic national platform
of 1872 the Jones bill and the policy of excusing
ourselves to the Filipinos at every turn for exer
cising any sovereignty at all in their archipelago
have created new spirit of sedition In the
islands The President of the United States, the
new Governor General Mr.. Jones and the other
scuttlers in Congress must all share with Ricarte
the blame for the contempt and hostility now
exhibited toward American authority in the
Philippines.
The Jones bill, now pending in the Senate, is
an unwise and cowardly attack on the legal and
moral right of the United States to govern the
Filipinos. 1t asserts in preamble, which can
never have the effect of law, declaration of our
intention to withdraw from the Philippines. But
in the law itself there is 10 provision whatever
for making that declaration good-a procedure
which must be viewed by the Filipino people as
a vicious compound of hypocrisy and trucking.
If we acknowledge that we are only staying on
on sufferance it is no wonder that the native
politicians and trouble makers feel encouraged to
try to hasten our departure. If we have no
business in or with the Philippines except to help
their inhabitants to establish a government
for themselves they are more or less excusable
for thinking that they are as good judges Of the
S>cpsr time for our withdrawal as we are.
There are Ricartes in Washington as well as
in Hong Kong. To pass the Jones bill will only be
TO pour oil on the fires Of native sediton and
TO foment other revolutionary conspiraces one
of which may eventually make good, causing us
grave loss and irreparable humiliation.
Ooera and National Economy