the first important concession ever given by the American people to the Filipinos. It was in a large way a signal triumph of anti-imperialist ideas. Confronted with the weight of the "consent-of-thegoverned" argument, Mr. Taft endeavored to secure provision for a Philippine legislature so that he could say that the Filipinos would not be entirely unheard in governmental affairs since they would now have an organ in the Philippine Assembly. The somewhat notable record which the Philippine Assembly afterwards made became the weightiest argument which the Filipinos now wield in behalf of their claim of capacity for self-govern

ment.

CHAPTER VIII

PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN OF THE RETENTIONISTS

WITH

ITH the passage of the Philippine Organic Act the interest of the American people in the future of the Philippines grew less and less. Whatever fear they might have had as to the establishment of a truly imperialistic policy in the Islands was smoothed away by loud protestations of benevolent intentions repeatedly made by Republican leaders. These Republican leaders even went further: they not only repeated the principle of the "Philippines for the Filipinos," but they also plainly intimated that the Philippines were ultimately to be given their independence. Now such an idea had not been even hinted at by President McKinley, the man most responsible for Philippine acquisition. The word "independence" or its equivalent never found place in any of his utterances, speeches, or manifestos. He did promise the Filipinos "individual rights" and, vaguely, ultimate self-government in some hazy, distant future, though never the complete withdrawal of

American sovereignty from the Islands. With this apparent change of attitude and intent, imperialism became no longer an important issue in American politics.

The Republican convention of 1904 was not animated by the same imperialistic tendency that had inspired the Philadelphia convention four years before, as is seen from the following words of Senator Root, spoken as chairman of that convention, which undoubtedly could not have been delivered at Philadelphia:

No one can foretell the future; but there seems no reasonable cause to doubt that under the policy already effectively inaugurated, the institutions already implanted, and the processes already begun in the Philippine Islands, if these be not repressed and interrupted, the Philippine people will follow in the footsteps of the people of Cuba; that more slowly, indeed, because they are not as advanced, yet as surely, they will grow in capacity for self-government and, receiving power as they grow in capacity, will come to bear substantially such relations to the people of the United States as do now the people of Cuba, differing in details as conditions and needs differ, but the same in principle and the same in beneficent results.

When we compare the foregoing words with Chairman Lodge's bald statement at the convention of 1900 that commercial expansion was the pri mary motive of Philippine acquisition, we cannot

help being convinced that something had really been yielded to America's sober second thought.

The first authoritative intimation from the American Government that the Philippines might be ultimately independent was found in the message of President Roosevelt in 1908, in which he said:

I trust that within a generation the time will arrive when the Filipinos can decide for themselves whether it is well for them to become independent or to continue under the protection of a strong and disinterested power, able to guarantee to the Islands order at home and protection from foreign invasion.

In opening the Philippine Assembly on October 16, 1907, Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War, likewise stated:

The policy looks to the improvement of the people both industrially and in self-governing capacity. As this policy of extending control continues, it must logically reduce and finally end the sovereignty of the United States in the Islands, unless it shall seem wise to the American and the Filipino peoples, on account of mutually beneficial trade relations and possible advantage to the Islands in their foreign relations, that the bond shall not be completely severed.

In his special report to the President after the inauguration of the Assembly, Mr. Taft definitely interpreted President McKinley's Philippine pol

icy as meaning ultimate independence. He said, in part:

It necessarily involves in its ultimate conclusion, as the steps toward self-government become greater and greater, the ultimate independence of the Islands; although, of course, if both the United States and the Islands were to conclude after complete self-government were possible that it would be mutually beneficial to continue a governmental relation between them like that between England and Australia, there would be nothing inconsistent with the present policy in such a result.

All these, indeed, were fine promises; but they have never been authoritatively stated by Congress, which is the only agency that could pledge the American people to that legislative program. For a people like the Filipinos, who have had to experience so many bitter disappointments and disillusionments, declarations from executive officers alone would not be sufficient to allay their fears as to their future. Those who were loudest in preaching the doctrine of ultimate independence were also most careful not to allow Congress to declare such an intention. Mr. Taft was the first to oppose the suggestion that Congress itself express the very feelings and purpose which time and again he had himself seen fit to utter. He then said that for Congress to promise independence in the future would mean endless and harmful political agita