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CHAPTER II

THE ACQUISITION OF THE PHILIPPINES

HE acquisition of the Philippines by the United States was the most unforeseen event in the history of American expansion. It is often suggested that God himself put the Islands in the care of the American people and therefore they should be regarded as a sacred trust. Yet, before Dewey's victory at Cavite, the majority of the American people did not even know that there was such a thing as the Philippine Archipelago. Senator Williams of Mississippi once remarked that as a member of the House Committee on Foreign Relations during the Spanish-American War it was one of his arduous tasks to climb upon a stool and point out the Islands on the map for the benefit of his colleagues. It would be interesting to know when American statesmen first conceived the probability and desirability of acquiring the Philippines. We should be unreasonable were we to believe that, with war with Spain imminent, no American public men ever thought of the Philippines, garrisoned, as they were, by Spanish soldiers. To military and naval

experts, at least, must have occurred the idea of attacking the Spanish fleet and garrisons in the Islands.

Admiral Dewey was then in the Gulf of California in command of the Narragansett, when he received the news of the possibility of the war, and the idea of taking the Philippines at once struck him. His officers felt gloomy at the prospect of being caught by the war while in the Gulf, but he at once said, "If war with Spain was declared, the Narragansett will take Manila." This was not said purely in a jocose spirit, for Dewey had really made up his mind to attack the Spaniards in Manila. "In command of an efficient force in the Far East," he said, "with a free hand to act, in consequence of being so far away from Washington, I could strike promptly and successfully at the Spanish force in the Philippines.' With this end in view, he sought the commandership of the Asiatic squadron, which he subsequently obtained with the help of Mr. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

While the American people were all excitement over the Cuban question, their indignation increasing every day because of the atrocities committed by the Spaniards in their neighboring island of Cuba, Dewey was busy fitting out his squadron, de1 Dewey, Autobiography, p. 168.

termined to destroy the Spanish forces in Manila. He supplied himself with all available information about the Philippines, took on board all the books relating to the Islands he could secure, and began to study the people and the country. He little dreamed that what he proposed to accomplish would divert the thought of the American people into an entirely new channel, change their national ideals, and break down their traditional isolation. He sailed on December 7, 1897. While the public mind was absorbed by the troubles in Cuba, naval authorities in Washington were watching Dewey's movements with interest. On February 25, 1898, Dewey received the following significant order from Assistant Secretary Roosevelt:

Dewey,

Hongkong.

Order the squadron except the Monocacy to Hongkong. Keep full of coal. In the event of declaration of war with Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and offensive operations in Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further orders.

ROOSEVELT.

Six weeks elapsed after this order was given, before the final break came and he received the order to proceed to Manila and destroy the Spanish fleet.

What happened on that morning of May first is

now a familiar story in America. It was flashed that same day to every American home. It electrified the whole American people into a realization of the significance of that victory. The privations of the Cuban people were temporarily forgotten, and attention was drawn to the other side of the ocean where an American success was in full progress. It was the first battle waged by Americans outside of their own hemisphere. (To many of them it was the sign of their entry into the arena of world politics. America, in their conception, was now in reality a world power. Almost in a moment she had crushed the navy of what had once been the greatest of world empires. The way was, therefore, now clear for the fulfilment of America's new rôle. A limitless horizon was open. America's "manifest destiny" was on the way to fulfilment. Who would shirk such a future? Who would pull down the flag raised in Manila Bay? "Who dares halt it now," challenged Senator Beveridge-" now when history's largest events are carrying it forward - now when we are at last one people, strong enough for any task, great enough for any glory destiny can bestow? Blind is he who sees not the hand of God in events so vast, so harmonious, so benign!" The movement for the retention of the Philippines was thus set on foot. It was "the natural impulse of a people full of exultation and

pride over the completeness, without precedent in naval wars, of the victory that Dewey had achieved with a skill and intrepidity that conferred splendor upon American arms. It was the spontaneous outburst of simplest patriotism to ask that that flag, so valiantly planted, might float there forever in memory of the heroes who raised it." 2

But glory and power were not the only incentives leading to the retention of the Philippines. People thought they saw also visions of vast commercial possibilities. The land of eight million people would be a market for American goods not to be despised. As a distributing center, the Philippines would be even more alluring. They were at the very portals of Asia, whose teeming millions are so much sought after by all European trade. Who would give up such an advantageous position acquired "without the slighest premeditation ”? Glowing pictures of the rich fields for American enterprise were painted in imagination. There was a glamour of romance in the grand project. China was supposedly on the verge of partition and America's possession of the Philippines would certainly strengthen her sphere of influence in that country.3

2 Henry Watterson, History of the Spanish-American War, p. 277.

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3" The movement for the partition of China was well under way when the United States went to war with Spain and the