University of Nebraska – Lincoln   

U.S. Foreign Relations to 1909

The White Man’s Burden?

 The Debate over U.S. Imperialism and the  Philippine - American War, 1899 - 1902

Eingereicht von:

Romy Schinske

Contents

I. Introduction  ...  1

II. The Debate over Expansionism in the late 1890’s  ...  2

1.  The Arguments of the Imperialists  ...  2
2.  The Arguments of the Anti-Imperialists  ...  4

III.“Civilize ‘em with a Krag” -The Philippine-American War 1899-1902

1. The Transition to U.S. Colonial Rule  ...  6
2.  The Schurman Commission ... 10
3.  The Taft Commission: U.S. Colonial Rule Takes Form  ...  13

IV. “The Coronation of Civilization” - The World’s Fair in St. Louis of 1904 ...  20

V. Outlook ...  23

Bibliography ...  25

Appendix

 

I. Introduction

In February 1899, the very month that fighting broke out between Filipino and American forces in Manila, McClure’s Magazine published a poem by Rudyard Kipling entitled “The White Man’s Burden” in which Kipling urged the United States to “have done with childish days” and assume the responsibilities of imperial overlordship.[1]  In the course of the Spanish-American War of 1898 Commodore George Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron had scored a stunning victory over the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in the Philippine Islands on May 1, not only expanding the parameters of the Spanish-American War, but also setting the stage for the later Philippine-American War. As a result of the war, Spain ceded, among other islands, the Philippines to the United States making it the first American overseas possession.  This clearly represented a new departure in the diplomatic history of America: before, expansionism in American history had been essentially linked to the continent of North America. Efforts on behalf of insular acquisition were outside the accustomed boundaries and intentions of American expansionism. This not only led to the outbreak of the Philippine-American War, it also led to a heated debate in the homeland: imperialists and anti-imperialists argued about whether or not the expansion of American political sovereignty and territorial rule to noncontiguous, overseas territories, such as the Philippines, was right. 

It is the intention of this essay to examine the arguments of the agitators in the Great Debate on both sides in more detail. What role did race play in the dispute, and did America succeed in taking up the “White Man’s Burden?”  The emphasis of the paper, however, shall lie on the Philippine-American War itself, a war that for a long time did not receive the attention it deserved, instead being shrugged off by most as a mere appendage of the Spanish-American War. The military aspect, however, shall not be the sole focal point. Moreover, the American policy towards the Philippines during the war shall be examined, as well as the domestic reactions to the events there.  The last chapter will focus on the racial aspect of American attitudes toward Filipinos and how they were shaped by the world exposition in St. Louis in 1904.

 

II. The Debate over Expansionism in the late 1890s

The debate over the American purchase and retention of the Philippine Islands, following the Spanish-American War, capsulated and climaxed in a dispute over insular expansion that had been going on for a decade.  The upcoming debate in Congress over the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, that would not only end the Spanish-American War, but even more controversially, help the United States to their first colony, revived the long dispute between imperialists and anti-imperialists.

1. The Arguments of the Imperialists[2]

The imperialists had many popular and well-known members among their ranks: among them the incumbent president, William McKinley, Alfred T. Mahan, Albert J. Beveridge, and Theodore Roosevelt.  The imperialist argument embraced questions of constitutionality, national defense, diplomatic safety, international duty, and economic gain.

Orville H. Platt, senior senator from Connecticut, claimed that the Constitution imposed no legal limitations on the authority of Congress to acquire island territories and hold them in a state of colonial dependence. John R. Procter quotes from Section 3, Art. IV of the Constitution:

Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States, which in his opinion proves that there is no constitutional bar to the United States having colonies.  Other imperialists were more concerned about the economic gains an insular empire would bring. Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana argued that a colonial empire would assure the economic growth of America by providing rich resources of industrial raw materials and markets for American manufactures.  Pacific outposts, such as the Philippines, would provide for an expanded trade with the orient and Asia, especially China.

Some expansionists emphasized the religious obligation imposed on America to export Protestant Christianity, while others spoke of the special mission and duty of the Anglo-Saxon  race to “assume the unselfish obligations and responsibilities demanded by the enlightened civilization of the age.” (John R. Procter).

It was Alfred T. Mahan’s contention that control of essential trade lanes as well as contiguous waters was vital to American power and prosperity.  He therefore called for the acquisition of island colonies that could serve as naval bases and as vestibules for an expanding foreign trade.  The diplomat John Barrett took the same line when he defended the annexation of the Philippines. He claims that the islands are of “inestimable strategical and commercial value, matchless in wealth and location.”  Should the U.S. decide against retaining the islands, then the Filipinos, who themselves are unfit for independence, would sink into anarchy and be completely at a loss to fight off other powers like Germany and Japan who without a doubt would annex the archipelago.

Although there were varying shades of racism evident among the supporters of both sides of the debate, sentiments of racial superiority were more prevalent and more pronounced among the imperialists. Indicative of this fact are, for example, the letters of Mahan in which he displays his believes in the racial superiority the Caucasian race, while simultaneously denying the ability of the natives to be fit for self-government due to the fact that they are “in the childhood stage of race development.”

2. The Arguments of the Anti-Imperialists[3]

The anti-imperialists were led by a coalition of labor unions, African-Americans, and beet sugar farmers, as well as former abolitionists and intellectuals.  The latter group included former president Grover Cleveland, Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar, George Santayana, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, William James, and Charles Eliot, all of whom participated in the Anti-Imperialist League, which had formed at Boston’s Faneuil Hall on June 15, 1898, just days after Aguinaldo’s declaration of independence in Cavite. 

Like the imperialists, the anti-imperialists offered a wide range of objections to the acquisition of new territories.  Their first objection was a constitutional one: a large number of anti-imperialists argued that imperialism violated the Constitution saying that a government based upon principles of representative rule and the protection of individual liberties could not rule over a colonial populace against its will.

Andrew Carnegie emphasized the economic factor that had to be considered: free trade between the United States and the Philippines would bankrupt American farmers and certain raw material producers, he warned. He also argued that in order to prevent this, a tariff had be placed on the colony’s goods, which in turn would not only violate the Constitution, but also destroy the island’s economy.

Another objection raised touched upon the subject of diplomacy. Anti-imperialists objected to a policy of colonialism because it threatened to involve America more deeply in international politics, especially in Asia for several reasons. First, this would be counter to the Monroe Doctrine; second, the United States would give up its geographic security and expose itself to possible attacks by other powers; and third, new colonies had to be secured permanently by a large navy, which would require vast sums of money, which would in turn be passed on to the tax payer.

The moral critique was rather simple: anti-imperialists believed that it was immoral of the government to forcibly impose its will on other peoples, and that no other possible advantages, be they of economic or diplomatic nature, could justify this.

Another important contemporary argument was that of race. Most imperialists shared their opponents’ belief in the inferiority and incapacity of non-white peoples. Unlike imperialists, however, anti-imperialists wanted to exclude colored races from the American body politic and denied the duty of the Americans to pick up the “white man’s burden.” Many argued that this would only worsen the country’s racial problems that already existed.

Political objections included the argument that a republican government could not be an imperial government at the same time. The United States, they argued, could not preserve its own democracy if it denied the right of self-rule to others. Two of the most important founding principles would therefore be lost: liberty and republican government. 

Finally, historical motives were brought up to oppose imperialism. Since most anti-imperialists were traditionalists they were concerned for America’s traditional values and their own ideological heritage: the acquisition of overseas colonies would be inconsistent with not only diplomatic traditions, but also with America’s historic identification with the ideal of liberty.

The nature of these arguments shows the anti-imperialists’ primary concern with their own country – its security, prosperity, constitutional integrity, etc.  The fate of potential colonial peoples, such as the Filipinos, was less important than the defense of American interests.  Ultimately, the anti-imperialist arguments failed to convince the American people. This was partly due to the fact that their best know members did not act in concert, but often contradicted each other.  In addition, they had to defend their interests against a powerful imperialist president who was often impossible to check.

 

III. “Civilize ‘em with a Krag” – The Philippine-American War 1899-1902

1. The Transition of U.S. Colonial Rule

Prior to the U.S. Congressional vote on ratification of the Paris Peace Treaty, which accorded the United States the right to purchase the Philippines from Spain for $20 million, tensions between Filipino and U.S. forces reached a pitch in January 1899, when Major General Elwell Otis, head of the U.S. operations, moved the Nebraska regiment to an area inside territory claimed by the Filipinos.  Though McKinley had directed the troops to preserve the peace, Otis authorized his troops to use force if necessary for self-defense.[4]  On the evening of February 4, 1899 the situation escalated into an armed conflict.  Two days later, the U.S. Congress narrowly voted to ratify the Paris Treaty, as a war to subdue Filipino nationalists raged - the Philippine-American War had begun.

Although President McKinley had not clearly stated whether the aim of U.S. forces was to control Manila or the entire archipelago, Otis expanded he conquest, ordering troops to seize the port in Iloilo and the nearby Visayan Islands of Cebu and Negro.  An alliance was also formed between U.S. forces and Macabebe soldiers, the long-time military aides to Spain, who acted as scouts and helped carry out the military policies of the war.  Still, American military strength totaled just 24,000 men, about a third of the number mobilized by Aguinaldo.[5] To manage military strategy, administration of U.S. policy towards the Philippines now shifted from the State Department to the Department of War, as McKinley issued a proclamation, in which he assured the Filipinos that “the mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation, substituting the mild sway of justice for arbitrary rule.”[6] But such benevolence did not extend to the battlefield, where Aguinaldo’s choice of conventional rather than guerilla tactics proved increasingly untenable.  Despite heavy losses, however, Aguinaldo continued to control the main island of Luzon and maintained a favorable ratio of two about Filipino soldiers to every one American, as the U.S. forces soon learned that they could win battles but could not hold territory.  The first major offensive of the war, launched by Brigadier General Lloyd Wheaton in March, was carried out with efficiency and exacted a heavy toll on the revolutionaries; but it also revealed the breadth and effectiveness of the opposition.  Afterwards, Otis was forced to concede that he did not have enough troops to wage war in the interior, nor to occupy territories captured there, and still defend Manila.[7]

By the end of March, U.S. troops under the command of Brigadier General Arthur MacArthur captured Malolos, seat of Aguinaldo’s government, only to have Aguinaldo relocate the capital to San Fernando in Pampanga province.  In spite of early U.S. military forecasts of a quick and easy victory, Otis now struggled to proclaim success while simultaneously, and somewhat paradoxically, requesting additional troops. Increasingly concerned that he would be replaced should officials back home learn the truth, Otis increasingly exercised the right of press censorship that the War Department had conferred upon him. Though the coverage of the U.S. campaign in the Philippines was initially favorable to since the early reporters relied almost exclusively on U.S. military sources, it became more and more negative after the rainy season descended in spring, bringing with it a host of tropical diseases.  The correspondents now began to hear of illness as well as atrocities of the war from the men at the front; yet the military continued to announce victories known to be fictitious.  With the censors allowing less and less to pass through, the correspondents drafted a statement in July protesting that Otis was feeding the American public “an ultra-optimistic view that is not shared by the general officers in the field.” Though Otis threatened court-marital for “conspiracy against the government,” the statement was transmitted to American journals via Hong Kong, and even pro-imperialist papers printed it.[8] 

Meanwhile the Anti-Imperialist League had been narrowly defeated in its attempts to prevent ratification of the Paris Treaty. They now launched an active anti-war campaign.  Given that no military draft was in effect, the army relied on good relations with the American public for its new recruits.  Focusing on the Northwest and the South ,where most of the 12,000 new volunteer soldiers had been recruited the League published anti-war advertisements in local newspapers, held meetings and helped stir up  discussion about the war.  Meanwhile, letters home from soldiers at the front spoke of the brutality of the U.S. troops as well as the much higher levels of U.S. casualties than the government had been reporting, all undermining the credibility of and support for the U.S. operations in the Philippines. When U.S. officials tried to intercept mail, further outcries about freedom of speech were heard, as attention to the subject mounted in the press. By the spring of 1899, when many of the volunteers were becoming eligible for discharge, the cry to bring home the troops had mushroomed in the Northwest and the South, while disaffection spread as well among the troops. Only about seven percent were expected to reenlist.[9]

As U.S. troops became more and more mired in the war abroad, opposition at home continued to grow. The Anti-Imperalist League now had about 40,000 members nationwide, and opposition spread even among former imperialists. Senator Frye of Maine, for example, publicly said he felt “deceived” by the military’s initial claims of easy victory, whole General Frederick Funston began to sense from the battlefield not benefit of the war save for “big syndicates and capitalists.”  Meanwhile, many African-Americans and their supporters linked war atrocities with the growing problem of lynching and other racial violence in the United States, as former abolitionists linked suppression of Filipino nationalism to the issues fro which the Civil War been fought just a few decades earlier.  By October 1899, the League was a national organization with the eye toward the upcoming 1900 elections. Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan made opposition to the war in the Philippines a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, rallying labor, African-Americans, and other anti-imperialist cause.[10]  October 1899 also brought the fiercest battles of the war, as Otis launched an all-out effort to destroy Aguinaldo’s army.  On the main island of Luzon, Otis ordered one division to head south from Manila while another, led by General MacArthur, headed north. American soldiers then took Aguinaldo’s newest capital on October 12, forcing the rebels to move once more.[11]  Thus American conduct fueled opposition both at home and in the Philippines, a problem that grew when the war took a new turn.

In November 1899, forced to concede that a conventional approach could only fail, Aguinaldo ordered his troops to scatter and adopt guerilla tactics. In part, Aguinaldo was playing for time, hoping, like his U.S. anti-imperialist counterparts, that the 1900 U.S. presidential election might usher in a new, Democratic administration open to peace and, perhaps, to an independent Philippines.  Otherwise, he hoped to simply wear down the Americans through a war of attrition. Leading one of the larger groups, a contingent of 1,200, Aguinaldo fled into the mountains.  Waging a guerilla war had the advantages of keeping the Americans on the run, as Filipino forces easily blended in with the populace, making it difficult for the U.S. forces to distinguish friend from foe, but it had disadvantages as well.  The military reversals of the past months had reduced the numbers of as well the appeal of Aguinaldo’s campaign; yet now more than ever Aguinaldo’s troops were dependent on the masses of Filipinos for protection and support. Meanwhile, U.S. forces used increasingly gruesome methods such as the “water cure” to force information from potential informants, who eventually included almost everyone in the countryside. Now Filipinos risked punishment from the Americans for keeping quiet and assassination by revolutionaries for talking.  Given that choice, most apparently found greater safety as well as prospective gains in the revolutionary cause, which remained b, as ever more U.S. troops were needed to combat it.[12]

At top levels, however, dissent among the revolution’s leaders threatened the movement, as it had in the final phases of the uprising against Spain. Now, as then, the ilustrados and other Filipino elites grew concerned that their own social, political and economic interests might be threatened by the spreading rebellion in the countryside. Though Aguinaldo consistently favored the elites in the countryside, allowing them to keep states confiscated from the Spanish while granting them exclusive rights, top ilustrados began defecting from the revolutionary movement, particularly after Aguinaldo switched from conventional to guerilla warfare.[13]

2) The Schurman Commission

American soft-liners did their best to widen the rift by working on the political as well as the military, front. As early as January 1899, following advice from Dewey, McKinley had established an official civilian Philippine Commission to study the situation and possibly avert warfare.  McKinley had appointed avowed anti-imperialist Jacob Gould Schurman, President of Cornell University, to head the commission, with conservative Democrat Charles Denby, and ornithologist Dean Worcester as members.  The commission soon after traveled to Manila under McKinley’s directive to “facilitate the most humane, pacific, and effective extension of authority throughout these islands, and to secure, with the least possible delay, the benefits of a wise and generous protection of life and property to the inhabitants.”[14] Arriving in March, one month after the outbreak of the hostilities, the Philippine Commission was too late for diplomacy, and Otis argued that the onset of fighting annulled the commission’s authority. Though nominally a member, Otis first tried to attain the commission’s recall.  When this failed, he boycotted the meetings, in protest of the commission’s plans to eliminate the military government he had helped to establish in the Philippines. And so began the split between hard-line and soft-line U.S. officials.[15]

Despite such resistance form the U.S. military authorities, the commissioners met daily with prominent Filipinos and foreigners at the Real Audiencia in Manila. There they discussed Filipino aspirations in order to carve out an appropriate form of government for the islands. By institutionalizing such consultations, the commission hoped to demonstrate for their Philippine and American audiences U.S. good will toward the Filipinos while allowing them a voice in their prospective governance. In fact, though, the commission never once ventured beyond Manila, and most of the sixty witnesses they heard from were American, British and other Western residents of Manila.[16] The few Filipinos they did interview were ilustrados and defectors who had abandoned the independence movement as too radical. On April 4, after just one month of research, the commission published its initial findings, offering the revolutionaries a modicum of political autonomy under U.S. colonial rule, as well as public works projects, a revitalized judicial system, universal education, economic development programs, and other reforms. At the same time, the commission threatened that American “supremacy” would be “enforced” throughout the Philippines, and that those who resisted would “accomplish no end other than their own ruin.”[17]  The revolutionary leadership publicly rejected the commission’s offer, but quietly approached the Schurman commission to offer a ceasefire. Though Schurman urged U.S. officials to explore the peace bid, Otis, as he had at the war’s outbreak, rebuffed the Filipino offer. Denby and Worcester, and subsequently McKinley, concurred. Hard-line not soft-line strategies now prevailed.[18]

Otis did realize that force alone could not subdue the revolutionaries, however, and he continued the kinds of sanitation, education, and public works projects as well as food distribution program and judicial reforms first launched a year earlier during the occupation of Manila. He also began organizing town councils comprised of the Filipino elites Aguinaldo had helped promote in the 1898 elections. This was done through limited suffrage, with U.S. officers in charge.[19] At the same time, the Philippine Commission continued its work through the long rainy season, the worsening conditions of war, and the increasingly negative dispatches from the correspondents, which fed, in turn, debate back home. Though Schurman continued to press for diplomacy, Denby and Worcester argued for an intensification of the military campaign.  Concurring with the hard-liners, McKinley ordered additional troops. By the summer of 1899, the U.S. troops numbered 60,000, straining levels set by Congress. Before leaving in September 1899, the commission issued a comprehensive report, recommending a degree of self-government under U.S. supervision. Under the plan, provinces and municipalities would be run by elected local officials with American guidance, and a national legislature would govern the islands, with a civilian U.S. governor exercising veto power over its decisions.[20] Upon returning to the United States, the commissioners continued to advise U.S. legislative and executive officials on policy toward the Philippines, urging soft-line not hard-line solutions. On January 31, 1900, the commission reported to McKinley:

The general substitution throughout the archipelago of civil for military government   (though, of course, the retention of a b military arm) would do more than any other single occurrence to reconcile the Filipinos to American sovereignty, which would then stand revealed, not merely as an irresistible power, but as an instrument for the preservation and development of the rights and liberties of the Filipinos and promotion of their happiness and prosperity.[21]

3) The Taft Commission: U.S. Colonial Policy Takes Form

Until now, McKinley had ruled the Philippines by executive fiat, acting in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces to pass laws and regulations for the islands. With the end of hostilities nearing, however, the U.S. Congress pressured McKinley to establish a permanent government in the Philippines while providing for a congressional role in overseeing it. McKinley consulted the Schurman study for guidance, and he enlisted Republican Senator John Spooner of Wisconsin to help him expand the presidential war powers in order to allow for the implementation of colonial policies and institutions. Although Spooner had not ranked among the party’s ardent imperialists, he defended America’s right to annex overseas territories based on such precedents as U.S. control of the Louisiana territories. After studying the statutes that had enabled Jefferson to annex and then govern the Louisiana territories, Spooner approached Congress with a bill that would have given a second Philippine commission, appointed by the president, a virtually free hand to govern the colony. While Congress debated the bill,[22] a second Philippine commission to develop a Filipino government was established, with William Howard Taft, a federal circuit judge from Ohio and, like Schurman, an avowed anti-imperialist, designated as its leader.  The Taft Commission arrived in Manila in June 1900, just a month after the increasingly Otis resigned, giving over his post to MacArthur. As with the earlier conflict between Otis and the Schurman Commission, MacArthur argued that the civilians had no place in a war. He had seen too many Filipinos die for their cause to believe they would easily lay down their arms for vague promises of autonomy form the like of Taft. He also knew that his powers would be diminished with the presence of civilian authority. The ripening of the conflict among U.S. hard-liners and soft-liners were therefore as much a result of ideological reasons as of individual and institutional interests. Given the continuing uncertainty regarding U.S. leadership in the Philippines, MacArthur treated the Taft Commission with a measure of disdain. In fact, the U.S. reception upon the Taft commission’s arrival in Manila was so cold that Taft later remarked that it “banished his perspiration,” sparking an enmity Taft would later use as president to block MacArthur’s advancement. To further rile Taft, MacArthur maintained his residence in the well-appointed Malacanang palace, relegating Taft to Manila’s suburbs.[23]

Despite the hostility from MacArthur, Taft’s team spent the summer collecting information. Luke Wright, an attorney, focused on the militia, the police and criminal codes; Dean Worcester, a hold-over from the Schurman Commission, studied agriculture, mining, and health; Henry Ide, a former Samoa judge, reviewed the courts, banking and currency; Bernard Moses, an historian, examined education; leaving Taft the toughest questions centering on the civil service, the disposition of public lands, and the status of the remaining Spanish friars. Like the Schurman Commission, however, they conferred with the same affluent Filipinos who continued to press for limited suffrage and the retention of social, economic and political structures that protected their interests, while the gross inequities inherited from centuries of Spanish rule, and the source of on-going rebellion in the countryside, were overlooked.[24] By late August, the Taft Commission cabled its findings to Secretary of War Elihu Root. Contrary to the aims of MacArthur and his military colleagues, the commission recommended the establishment under civilian direction of a local constabulary, a new tax system, public works, judicial reforms, and universal education in English. The Taft report also urged passage of the Spooner Bill in order to institutionalize a colonial government empowered to pass laws, distribute public lands, grant mining claims, and pass other measures for luring U.S. investment.[25]

The Spooner Bill was rejected on September 1, 1900; but McKinley nevertheless granted the Taft Commission the responsibilities of a legislative body with the authority to raise taxes, appropriate funds, fix tariffs and set up law courts.[26] Taft and his colleagues could now enact laws and, by December, fifty-five acts had been passed, allotting over $3 million for public works, establishing a civil service system, courts, and a civil government. Moreover, Taft now controlled $2.5 million in funds collected by the U.S. Army from customs duties and other sources. This gave Taft considerable power vis-à-vis MacArthur, who continued to chafe at the civilian challenge to his authority, particularly since no formal delineation of colonial powers beyond executive fiat had as yet been established by Congress. At the same time, elections in the United States brought McKinley to power again, despite the hard campaigning of Bryan, the Anti-Imperialist League and others who sought a change in administration and in U.S. foreign policy. Bryan had argued that the rise of militarism threatened those at home who challenged industry, as evidenced by the recent rise in police actions against strikers. Bryan had also argued that the funds diverted to fight the war abroad were needed to fight poverty at home. In an early transnational strategy, representatives of Aguinaldo had approached the Democrats in October of 1900, offering to announce that they would lay down their arms should Bryan be elected president. Fearing charges of treason, the Democrats rejected the offer; but already Filipinos were learning to work through U.S. political channels in order to influence policy towards their country. McKinley won by a narrow margin, with much of the opposition centering of his Philippine policy. Nevertheless, McKinley accepted victory as a sign of approval for his foreign policy and, one day after the elections, vowed to continue the war.[27]

While MacArthur waged war on the military front, Taft reasoned that a credible moderate opposition would eviscerate Aguinaldo’s movement. As part of his “policy of attraction”, designed to entice Filipinos into accepting U.S. rule, Taft cultivated a core group of elite Filipinos who were open to some form of power-sharing under U.S. colonial rule. Reluctant to ally with any U.S. administration until after the elections, however, the Filipinos working with Taft waited until December to formally organize. On December 23, 1900, with Taft’s guidance, a group of ilustrados formed the Federalista Party, which they formally launched on February 22, 1901, in commemoration of George Washington’s birthday. Comparing themselves with America’s founding fathers, the Federalistas sought to become a state of the United States. The Federalista platform envisioned a preliminary period for the establishment of peace and recognition of U.S. sovereignty. Throughout this period, municipal, provincial and national governments would be initiated, while local self-government, separation of church and state, freedom of worship, public education for all children, and guarantees of individual rights and liberties would be institutionalized. A constitutional period was to follow, during which institutions for Philippine representation in the United States as well as U.S. rule in the Philippines would be established. Taft distributed money to one ilustrado, Pardo de Tavera, to help revive this failing newspaper La Democracia, which had been launched in May 1899 to encourage Filipinos to lay down their arms.[28] Taft also granted the Federalistas a virtual monopoly on all government jobs reserved for Filipinos. With such tangible rewards to offer, the party rapidly recruited more than 200,000 supporters.[29]

While Aguinaldo had tried to balance moderate and revolutionary, elite and peasant factions of his movement, Taft and his allies understood, or at least, capitalized on, what Spain had not.  That is, the economic and social differences among the Filipinos created schisms, which, if exploited, could seriously weaken the revolutionary movement. By working with the ilustrados, Taft had driven a wedge in Aguinaldo’s organization, isolating moderates from the revolutionaries. And Aguinaldo now faced a growing political challenge, as many from his ranks defected.[30]

Meanwhile, the United States continued to fight hard on the military front, as well. At the end of 1900, U.S. troop levels reached 70,000, about three quarters of the entire U.S. Army. By late 1900, several of Aguinaldo’s best officers had either surrendered or had been captured and now swore allegiance to the United States.[31] A key goal for U.S. forces was now the capture of Aguinaldo. In February 1901, the opportunity came. That month, a Filipino courier, with a coded letter from Aguinaldo requesting additional troops and describing his location, was captured. Using the information, General Funston, with MacArthur’s approval, devised a plan involving eighty Macabebe soldiers. On March 24, the Macabebes posed as partisans and, together with a group of Americans posing as their prisoners, entered Aguinaldo’s secret encampment. Once inside, the Macabebes and Americans easily defeated Aguinaldo’s inner network of supporters. They then captured Aguinaldo and brought him to MacArthur’s headquarters at Malacanang palace, where he had to swear allegiance to the United States and urged his followers to do the same, though he would wear a black bow tie forever after until his death in 1964 as an expression of mourning for his lost republic. The resistance, though seriously weakened, nevertheless continued.[32]

In March 1901, a revised version of the Spooner Bill, now an amendment to a military appropriations bill, passed, empowering the President of the United States to continue to administer the Philippines until such time as Congress enacted legislation establishing a permanent colonial government there.[33] A few months later, on July 4, 1901, Taft who had actively lobbied from the Philippines and in the United States fro such an amendment, became governor of the Philippines, while MacArthur was replaced by Major General Adna R. Chaffee. The new division of authority granted Taft control of civil government in areas that had been pacified and Chaffee control of military government where the war still raged. Two weeks later, on July 18, the United States established the Insular Police Force to create a native organization capable of suppressing revolutionary opposition, as the existing transnational authoritarian alliance with the Macabebes became institutionalized.[34] Under the command of Captain Henry Allen, the force numbered 180 Americans reinforced by carefully recruited Filipinos, notably Macabebes. The Spooner Amendment was not to apply long to McKinley, however. In September, he was shot by presumed anarchist Leon F. Czolgosz. McKinley died eight days later on September 14, and Theodore Roosevelt ascended to presidency.

More severe hard-line policies were now introduced. On November 4, for example, Taft passed the Sedition Law, which imposed either the death sentence or a long prison term on anyone advocating independence, even by peaceful means, while allowing for severe fines and punishment for anyone uttering “seditious words or speech” against the U.S. government. All parties except the Federalistas were also banned.[35] Even worse, on December 25, General Franklin Bell directed his commanders to set up reconstruction zone to closely monitor the comings and goings of the roughly 300,000 inhabitants of the Batangas region. All property outside the zones was confiscated, and the people were concentrated in camps in order to isolate the insurgents from the general populace, but, with the hostile and unsanitary conditions that quickly resulted in the zones, the policy instead further fueled revolutionary opposition to the United States. It also fueled opposition back home since the main impetus behind the war with Spain had allegedly been to undo Spain’s harsh reconcentration policy in Cuba.[36]

The war was to drag on through the early months of 1902, with U.S. tactics becoming increasingly brutal. These tactics were effective in the Philippines, seriously weakening the revolutionary opposition there; but, as word spread to the U.S. public, via newspaper correspondents and letters home from soldiers at the front, domestic U.S. opposition exploded into a political and social crisis. One massacre on the island of Samar in late 1901 had gained particular notoriety. While the U.S. press ranked it with the Alamo and Custer’s last stand as one of the worst tragedies in American military history, congressional hearings were initiated in January 1902 under the direction of Senator Hoar. Confirming the worst fears of the anti-imperialists, Major Littleton Tazewell Waller revealed orders he had been given by Brigadier General Jacob Smith to kill everyone over the age of then to make the island of Samar a “howling wilderness.”[37] Smith was the only U.S. soldier to be disciplined for conduct in the Philippine war and, at that, was merely admonished, yet the outrage expressed in the United States chastened U.S. imperialists. Resistance in the Philippines continued sporadically over the next months, and indeed would continue for the next decade before dying out and then reemerging in various forms by the 1920s. Nevertheless, the war brought to a formal conclusion on July 4, 1902, though 50,000 U.S. soldiers remained to suppress the ongoing, albeit diffused resistance.[38]

In all, 126,000 Americans took part in the war, with a toll of 4,234 dead, 2,818 wounded,[39] thousands succumbing to disease once home and some $600 million spent on the war effort.[40] For Filipinos, the toll was much greater, with the number of deaths estimated at between 200,000 and 600,000, 90 percent of all carabaos – a critical farm animal – dead, the rice harvest down to one-fourth normal levels, and vast areas of the countryside in ruin.[41] Despite the desperately fought bid for independence, the Filipinos were forced to cede control of their country to a new colonial power. Still, America’s first experience with international warfare in the service of overseas colonization was sobering. Not only had U.S. expansionists had to contend wit a far more potent Filipino opposition than that they had anticipated; they also had been constrained by a domestic U.S. opposition that threatened political careers as well as the ability to mobilize a sizable army without the benefit of conscription. In the end, hard-line strategies, including the transnational alliance with ilustrados and eventually the Federalista Party, prevailed once territory had been won and needed to be controlled. At the formal conclusion of the war, U.S. moderates took control of the Philippine politics, though the on-going challenge from persistent revolutionary opposition in the countryside required as well a b military designed more for domestic than for international conflict.

 

IV. “The Coronation of Civilization” – The World’s Fair in St. Louis, 1904

In 1904, two years after President Roosevelt proclaimed the end of the Philippine-American War, the world’s fair in St. Louis opened to commemorate the centenary of the Louisiana Purchase.  The exposition drew more than nineteen million visitors and became the largest international exposition the world had ever seen stretching over more than 1,000 acres.[42]  Although the exposition was to feature exhibits in the fields of Education, Liberal Arts, Applied Sciences, Agriculture, Economy, Physical Culture and many more, the management decided to make anthropology the heart of the fair.  What the directors of the fair had in mind was the establishment of “a comprehensive anthropological exhibition, constituting a Congress of Races, and exhibiting particularly the barbarous and semi-barbarous peoples of the world, as nearly as possible in their ordinary and native environments.”[43] The man appointed to head the Anthropology Department was W J McGee. McGee had thought up a theory of racial progress, in which he grouped races not according to outer appearance, but rather according to their “manual dexterity.” He distinguished between four grades of culture: savagery, barbarism, civilization, and enlightenment, but emphasized that this division was not static, and that therefore as a consequence racial progress, and necessarily the advance of culture, was possible.[44]  McGee decided to fashion the exhibits in his charge into an exemplum of this theory of racial progress and formed groups of pygmies from Africa, Ainu aborigines from Japan, groups of Native Americans and others into living ethnological exhibits.

The largest exhibit of ‘living ethnological material’, however, was the Philippine Reservation with nearly twelve hundred Filipinos living in villages on the forty-seven-acre site set aside for the display.  But the reservation was even more unique in that it was an exhibition of the United States federal government. 

One of its first supporters was William Howard Taft who, in his position as civil governor of the Philippines, was of the opinion that an exhibit would have a “moral effect” on the natives and that “Filipino participation would be a very great influence in completing pacification and in bringing Filipinos to improve their condition.”[45]  In 1902, the Philippine Exposition Board, was established and commissioned to work out a plan.  The government’s motive behind the involvement in the exhibit at St. Louis was to institutionalize American colonial rule, to bring to the Philippines “the impelling power of modern civilization,” as one official termed it, and to show the Filipinos how America would aid the development of the islands through the consumption of the raw material of the archipelago in America’s well developed and increasing industries.[46]

Among fairgoers the Philippine Reservation was extremely popular - ninety-nine out of a hundred visitors went to see it.  It featured a series of ethnological villages that portrayed a variety of Filipino native groups, amongst which the Visayans were considered the high and more intellectual class and the Negritos said to be the monkey-like ones.  Behind the village of the Negritos the Exposition Board placed the encampments of Philippine Scouts and Constabulary, who were collaborating police forces enlisted by the American military to aid in suppressing the ongoing insurrection in the islands against the United States.  The function of these units at the fair, however, extended beyond policing the reservation. They were juxtaposed to the Negritos in order to illustrate the result of American rule and to suggest the possibility for cultural advance under America’s colonial administration of the islands.[47] Notwithstanding the fact that they constituted only a minority in the Reservation and in the Philippines, the “wild tribes,” such as the Negritos, became the favorites of the crowds because of their primitive ways of living and dressing.

But in June the Roosevelt administration became concerned that the primitive ways of the Filipinos could have negative effects on the upcoming presidential election.  The anti-imperialist claims of the Democratic Party that the Filipinos were “inherently unfit to be members of the American body politic” thwarted the administration’s efforts at the fair to show the possibilities for progress on the islands. [48]  So in order to keep fairgoers from perceiving the villagers as utterly backward and incapable of progress, which would buttress the racist arguments used by anti-imperialists to oppose annexation of the islands, it was therefore attempted to introduce a new dress code for the Filipinos on the reservation:  they should exchange their G strings for long pants and allow no child to go naked.  These attempts at civilization enjoyed great press coverage and made the Philippine Reservation even more popular.  After vehement objections were raised by anthropologists and the Board of Lady Managers, who assured the administration that the appearance of the natives was not objectionable, the measures were dropped.[49]

Although the government promoted and anticipated Philippine cultural advance, they did not suggest that Filipinos were capable of achieving equality with Caucasians.  Nor did fairgoers think that way.  The entire exposition hinged on the contrast between savagery and civilization.  Scientific experiments and measurements conducted and taken in the anthropological laboratory on the fair ground were supposed to show the racial superiority of whites, whereas some indigenous tribes were found to be “dense and stupid.”[50] Most fairgoers left the laboratories convinced that racial differences existed.

On the occasion of Philippine Day at the fair, held to commemorate the surrender of Manila, a local newspaper concluded that “there are intelligent Filipinos. But the majority are comparatively helpless. They are children. Burdened with a problem of government, they would be hopelessly lost.”  After visiting the fair, two home missionaries were convinced that the reservation “has strengthened our confidence in the wisdom of our government’s general policy respecting the Philippines and their people, and in the hopeful outlook for the Filipinos under American jurisdiction.”[51]  It can be assumed that most fairgoers felt that way.  In this respect, the reservation in particular and the fair as a whole were a total success for the Roosevelt administration.

 

V. Outlook

Throughout the period American imperialism was hotly contested along partisan lines in the United States, with Republicans generally supporting it and Democrats generally opposing it.  For most of the period from 1899 to 1916, Republicans controlled the presidency and used the authority conferred on the office by Congress to appoint Republican governors to manage the Philippines and to establish political, economic, military and social institutions in the service of U.S. interests there.  When Democrats won the White House under Woodrow Wilson in 1912, however, Filipino nationalists and their allies in the U.S Congress capitalized on the opportunity for change, pushing through the Jones Act in 1916, in which the United States pledged eventual independence for the Philippines.  They also helped appoint a Democratic governor who would loosen U.S. control of the colonial government in the Philippines and pave the way for eventual self-rule.[52]

The acquisition of the Philippines was the first and only adventure in colonialism for the United States. It officially ended when the Commonwealth of the Philippines was established in 1934, although full independence for the archipelago was not proclaimed until 1946.

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Bibliography

• 
  Brands, H. W. Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
  

• 
  Constantino, Renato. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Quezon City: Tala Pub. Services, 1975.
  

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  Feuer, A. B. America at War: The Philippines, 1898 – 1913. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2002.
  

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  Gates, John Morgan. Schoolbooks and Krags: The United States Army in the Philippines, 1898-1902. London: Greenwood Press, 1973.
  

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  Imperial Surge: The United States Abroad: The 1890s – Early 1900s, ed. by Thomas G. Paterson and Stephen G. Rabe. Toronto: D.C. Heath and Company, 1992.
  

 

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  Grunder, Garel A. and William E. Livezey. The Philippines and the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951.
  

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  Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. Yale: Yale University Press, 1998.
  

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  Karnow, Stanley. In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. : New York City: Random House, 1990.
  

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  Keenan, Jerry. Encyclopedia of the Spanish-American & Philippine-American Wars. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2001.
  

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  Lininger, Clarence. The Best War at the Time. Robert Speller & Sons, 1964.
  

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  Linn, Brian McAllister. The Philippine War: 1899 – 1902. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.
  

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  Linn, Brian McAllister. The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899-1902. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
  

• 
  Love, Eric T. L. Race over Empire: Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865-1900. University of North Carolina, 2004.
  

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  Rydell, Robert W. All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
  

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  Welch, Richard E., Jr. Imperialists vs. Anti-Imperialists: The Debate over Expansionism in the 1890’s. Itasca: F. E. Peacock Publishers, 1972.
  

• 
  Weston, Rubin Francis.  Racism in U.S. Imperialism: The Influence of Racial Assumptions on American Foreign Policy, 1893-1946. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972.
  

Appendix: Pictures of the Philippine Reservation in St. Louis, 1904

World’s Fair in St. Louis: pass to all native villages.

Philippine village with Agricultural Building in distance.

View of catamarans at Philippine Village

Dog feast

Filipino Scouts

Source of pictures: http://exhibits.slpl.org/lpe/data/lpe240023313.asp?Image=240037668

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[1] Linn, Brian McAllister. The Philippine War: 1899 – 1902. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000, p. 322.

[2] All arguments taken from: Welch, Richard E., Jr. Imperialists vs. Anti-Imperialists: The Debate over Expansionism in the 1890’s. Itasca: F. E. Peacock Publishers, 1972.

[3] Beisner, Robert L. Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968, pp. 5, 7-10, 17, 216-20, 226-28, 230-239.

[4] Keenan, Jerry. Encyclopedia of the Spanish-American & Philippine-American Wars. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2001, p. 292f.

[5] Karnow, Stanley. In our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines.  1989, p. 139.

[6] A longer extract from McKinley’s proclamation is found in Blitz, Amy. The Contested State: American Foreign Policy and Regime Change in the Philippines. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000, p. 33.

[7] For a detailed description of this and other early offenses and their effects on Otis’ policy, see Linn, Bryan McAllister. The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899-1902. 1989, 1-13.

[8] Lee, Henry. The War Correspondent and the Insurrection: A Study of American Newspaper Correspondents in the Philippines, 1898-1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968, p. 17.

[9] The information for this paragraph is from Schirmer, Daniel B. Republic or Empire: American Resistence to the Philippine War. Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1972., a detailed account of the U.S. debates on Philippine policy and the role of Anti-Imperialist League in these.

[10] Ibid, p. 55-57.

[11] Brands, H. W. Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p.52.

[12] Information for this paragraph is from Brands, Bound to Empire, 39-60; Karnow, In our Image, p. 139-167; and Linn, U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency, p. 1-29.

[13] For more information on the internal debates within the revolutionary movement see Constantino, A Past Revisited, p. 204-237.

[14] First Report of the Philippine Commission, Vol.1, p. 185.

[15] The description of the Commission’s efforts in the Philippines, and its conflicts with the U.S. military command, is from Brands, Bound to Empire, p. 51.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Karnow, In our Image, p. 151.

[18] Information on the U.S. policy-making process surrounding the commission’s findings is from Karnow, In our Image, pp. 139-167, and from Brands, Bound to Empire, pp. 39-60.

[19] Information on the U.S. military’s role in the Philippines is from Gates, Schoolbooks and Krags, pp. 54-156, and from Karnow, In our Image, p. 171.

[20] Information on the number of troops sent to the Philippines and the general debates surrounding U.S. policy towards the Philippines at this time is from Karnow, In our Image, p. 152.

[21] Quote is taken from Brands, Bound to Empire, p. 54.

[22] For descriptions of the politics surrounding the Spooner Bill, see Brands, Bound to Empire, p. 60, and Constantino, A Past Revisited, pp. 269-99.

[23] Information on the formation, reception, and role of the Taft Commission is from Karnow, In our Image, pp. 168-177, and from Brands, Bound to Empire, pp. 60-85.

[24] Constantino, A Past Revisited, pp. 256-287.

[25] Constantino, p. 297.

[26] Karnow, p. 173.

[27] The description of the role of the Philippines is described in more detail in Karnow, p. 181.

[28] Gates, Schoolbooks and Krags, p. 94.

[29] Farkas, Policy of Attraction, pp. 34f.

[30] Constantino, pp. 244-46, and Linn, pp. 163-170.

[31] Constantino, p. 247.

[32] The description of Aguinaldo’s capture, also fictionally recreated on film by Thomas Edison, is from Karnow, pp. 182-188.

[33] For information on the Spooner Amendment, see Brands, p.60, and Constantino, pp. 296f.

[34] Constantino, p. 247.

[35] Ibid, p. 251.

[36] For information on the reconcentrado policy and its impact in the Philippines, see Constantino, p. 250. For its impact on U.S. debates, see Karnow, pp. 188-95.

[37] Karnow, pp. 191-93.

[38] Constantino, p. 247.

[39] Linn, Brian McAllister. The Philippine War: 1899 – 1902. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000, p. 325.

[40] Karnow, p. 194.

[41] Constantino, 242.

[42] Rydell, Robert W. All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, p. 157.

[43] Ibid, p. 160.

[44] Ibid, p. 161. The most able race, according to McGee’s theory, was the Caucasian race, in which he assigned the special role of the “burden bearer” of human culture and human intelligence to the Anglo-Saxons.

[45] Ibid,  p. 168.

[46] Ibid, p. 179.

[47] Ibid, p. 171.

[48] Ibid, p. 172.

[49] Ibid, p. 174.

[50] Ibid, p. 164.

[51] Ibid, p. 178.

[52]Grunder, Garel A. and William E. Livezey. The Philippines and the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951, pp. 160f.