Talk:United States Senate Committee on the Philippines

message: Near as I can tell, this article references a specific investigation carried out by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Philippines rather than a separate official Senate committee. Would it make more sense to rename the article to the "Lodge Investigation" or incorporate it into the main U.S. Senate Committee on the Philippines article with an appropriate subheading? This particular investigation is not a committee in its own right, and the Lodge Committee and the U.S. Senate Committee on the Philippines are technically one and the same. The information in this article likely warrants its own article, but calling an investigation a "committee" may not be the most appropriate designation. The Lodge Committee is not referred to in the Congressional Directory or other official sources of the time as a separate committee.
I'm only approaching this from the standpoint of improving and cleaning up the articles in the List of defunct United States Senate Committees. Thoughts?Dcmacnut 04:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Separate Committee?

message: I originally posted a comment about a possible merge back in 2007. No movement has been made, so I'm proposing a formal merge with United States Senate Committee on the Philippines. All reliable sources I can find point to the Lodge Committee being a short hand reference to an investigation carried out by the Philippines Committee. Lodge was chairman of the Committee on the Philippines during this time, so it was common to refer to it and the investigation by the chairman's name. See s:Lodge_Committee_testimony_from_the_New_York_Times at WikiSource. It appears a proposal was made to create a separate committee, but that proposal was not adopted. Instead the investigation was referred to the Philippines Committee rather than creating a new select committee. Later sources reference the hearings being held by the Committee on the Philippines.
This merger will accomplish two goals. First, it will clean up the article space. We should avoid naming committee articles after their chairman, such as this, and should focus on the formal committee name. Lodge Committee should continue to be a redirect, though. Second, it will improve the existing Committee on the Philippines, which is currently a stub lacking adequate souring. We tend to reference major committee investigations on the committee articles instead of as separate articles, unless the article becomes so large as to warrant a spin out. Please comment here. If I don't get any major comments or objections, I will proceed with the merger in a few days.DCmacnut<> 17:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The bulk of this article has been merged, but this article will remain so other editors can assist. If no one has any other suggestions or other thoughts on the merge, I will redirect this article in a few days.DCmacnut<> 21:53, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have any strong opinions one way or the other, but if the Lodge Committee is more commonly known, I suggest that perhaps the merger should go the other way around. older ≠ wiser 22:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Lodge committee only applied to the 10 years that Senator Lodge chaired the committee, and was infrequent shorthand. The Committee on the Philippines is how it was commonly known in reliable sources. Our general standard has been for congressional committees to use the committee name, rather than singling out any one chairman.DCmacnut<> 14:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge proposal

message: I've retained the most recent version of this article at User:Dcmacnut/Lodge Committee so as to retain relevant sourcing and text to help improve the newly merged article.DCmacnut<> 16:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge Complete

message: This strikes me as an awfully POV article. E.g.: "Anti-imperialists justifiably feared a whitewash." And the terms "imperialist" and "anti-imperialist" are themselves very loaded. Perhaps someone who was involved in creating or editing this article can explain to me why I am wrong. But otherwise I fear I may have to start editing this article fairly ruthlessly. Hydriotaphia 02:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: In regards to "imperialist" and "anti-imperialist", you are not the first person to raise this issue, as I have explained twice before in other wikipedia articles : Anti-imperalist and imperialist is a historical term, which is used by many historians to describe this unique period, which I use, as many historians do, to differenentiate the hawks from the doves in the Spanish-American War.  I have yet to come up with a better term to differentiate the two groups in this unique historical period.  Maybe you have a better suggestion?  
::New specific examples of the use of "imperialists"/"imperialism" by historians: 
::Diamonds are forever: Kipling's imperialism; poems of Rudyard Kipling; 
::Cover Story History Today 
::June, 1997  
::No. 6, Vol. 47; Pg. 37
::Judd, Denis
::"Kipling, secure in his reputation as an imperialist and a patriot, had issued 'a call to humility and a warning that the proudest empire is ephemeral as a day's pageant."
I deleted the mention of anti-imperailist/imperialist from the Philippine-American War article to describe further reading because it was an akward term, which was not central to the article, and I wanted to avoid an edit war with a possible jinogist. The use of "imperialist" and "anti-imperialist" in this article is much more central, I wanted a reader, at a quick glance, to be able to see where each witness stood on the war.  Travb 08:44, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Imperialist and anti-imperialist may be historical terms. They also happen to be terms that unfortunately evoke quite visceral reactions from people. You may be right that they are the only useful terms here; but I'll have to give it some thought. Hydriotaphia 09:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *I would never use this term in any other conflict. Even by the American invasion of Haiti in 1915, a few years after the war, the term was already dated. To my knowledge, the term was only used during the Spanish American War.  If you are interested, I can write more about this later. I learn a lot myself by doing this, especially when someone calls me on everyone of my stated facts.Travb 18:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "imperialist" and "anti-imperialist"

message: Much of the testimony of individual witnesses of the article is from historical non-copyrighted (pre-1923) NYT articles, which were direct quotes from the committee itself, and as such, probably is the best source of information.  Unfortunatly the article is not complete, and much of the witnesses testimony is not complete, such as Deweys. 
If you have access to NYT articles, and would like to add this information, that would be great.  I haven't added many of the testimonies of the imperialists.  Right now I am focused on the http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack-Dickstein_Committee which investigated the Business Plot. Travb 08:44, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: testimony of individual witnesses

message: For more information on this period, please see the wiki entries: Philippine-American War, Jacob H. Smith, Littleton Waller, and the wikiquote entry I created: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War.
::Hope this helps.Travb 08:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: more information

message: anon (66.245.213.130) attempted to delete these paragraphs:
"pro-imperialist witnesses, who often made embarrassing remarks and self-damaging confessions.	Taft was immediatly followed by three witnesses."
"Senator Dietrich immediately attemped to lessen the significance of this concession by asking" Hughes to estimate the value of these houses. Hughes said they only tooks a few days to build, and cost between $1.50 and $4.00.
I dont have time to explain the history to you anon until after Wednesday.  I am interested anon, do you know anything about the Lodge committee, anything at all?  Do you know why those sentences are in the article anon?  Do you even know what they are refering too?  
I will change back the second reversion of yours, but let the first revision stand.  I still wonder how much you even know about this event.  Travb 05:40, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: deletion by anon

message: Reading the lead section, I came up with a few ideas to improve it. I post them here to be debated.
The Lodge Committee (commenced on 31 January, 1902 and adjourned on 28 June, 1902) was a United States Senate investigation into the alleged war crimes committed by the American armed forces during the Philippine-American War. A remark on 4 November, 1901 to a Manila News reporter by newly promoted brigadier general General Jacob H. Smith triggered the committee that led to Smith's own court martial and conviction. Smith, whom General Adna Chaffee assigned to lead the Samar campaign, ordered his officers to set the entire island of Samar ablaze and wipe out any prisoner over the age of ten.
The anti-Imperialist Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar had been demanding an investigation in response to mounting suspicion of war crimes committed during the Philippine-American War. Hoar introduced the resolution for the committee on January 13, 1902. Teddy Roosevelt's apologists also responded after Smith's comments. The apologists insisted that the committee be part of the standing U.S. Senate Committee on the Philippines headed by imperialist Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.
It Lodge Committee was closed to the public except for three press associations.  The final report came to three thousand pages.
I still think it stands for improving, but I am afraid I do not know enough history to accurately improve; I may have confused the facts as it stands.  For example, I took a more direct approach to Smith's comments in the last sentence of the first paragraph from the article Jacob H. Smith, but the comments noted there were to his officers, not to a Manila News reporter as prompted the investigation according to this article. I am afraid that and other edits may be incorrect. Please comment.
--Iamunknown 19:14, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Be bold, you are welcome to change anything you want.  I am one of the few people who watch this page, and I may be the only one, since this is a footnote in American history.  Welcome to the page, and please make any changes you deem fit. For more background on the War, see Philippine-American War which I contirbuted heavily too. Travb (talk) 20:59, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section 

message: The numbers in the text go up to 75, but there are only 59 footnotes.  What happened to the rest?  One of the missing footnotes may hold the answer to the following apparent error:
:'Wagner concede (sic) that in one camp "about two miles long and one mile wide" live 8,000 Filipinos. By simple calculation, the critics pointed out that there was only a twelve-by-six foot area for each inhabitant.'
My "simple calculations" show that a camp of two square miles (two miles long by one mile wide) with 8,000 residents gives almost 7,000 square feet per resident.  That's a 120 by 60 foot area, not a twelve by six foot area.  Either the size of the camp, the number of residents, or the area per resident must be wrong, or "the critics" dropped a couple of zeros in their calculations. PubliusFL 08:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: With the old system of footnotes, when you cite something more than once, it is added in the text as a number, but it is only listed once in the footnote section.  So there are only 59 sources, but those sources are citied 75 times. The math I will look into later, I may have the numbers wrong. Travb (talk) 10:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know if there's something wrong with my web browser or because of the code. Often when we click on the number, it'll lead to the footnote below, but as I click I see no result. Maybe we should change all the ref code? Apple••w••o••r••m•• 07:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Footnotes