Mr. LeRoy was an exceedingly well-informed and studious man. He was a natural linguist, spoke Spanish with ease, and soon was able to acquire enough Tagalog to enable him to go among the people and get their point of view at firsthand. He immediately became interested in writing a history of the Islands and wanted much to go to Spain to examine Spanish-Philippine documents at Seville and other places, but he was never able to do so.
In the days when death faced him in New Mexico, whither he had gone after leaving Durango, he wrote, as Grant wrote, on a book which he hoped might furnish some means to his wife after his death. He died before he was able to complete what Mr. Taft says is a very accurate, comprehensive and interesting history of the Archipelago from the beginning down to, and including, Dewey’s victory, the taking of Manila and the work of the first Commission. He had planned to give a full account of the work of the second Commission, with which he was so intimately connected, but his pen dropped before his purpose was fulfilled. His history has been only recently published.
Mrs. LeRoy later went to Washington, and Mr. Taft appointed her to one of the few clerical positions not covered by the Civil Service law. This is in the Land Office where she signs the President’s name to land patents. She is the only person in the government who has the right and power, given by special act of Congress, to sign the President’s name to a document.
Throughout the autumn of 1900 the insurrection dragged itself along; behind any bush the American soldiers were likely to find a lurking “patriot”; and the uncensored reports of the “brave stand” of the Filipinos were being sent out daily by Democratic reporters, to help along the anti-expansionist cause, represented by Mr. Bryan, in the United States.
The insurrectos were being assured by their incitants to violence that the eyes of the world were upon them. They were being told that they were winning undying renown throughout the civilised universe; and they believed it. They read with avidity all the anti-imperialistic newspapers which came out to the Islands and accepted as a true estimate of themselves the laudations therein contained. Besides, the promoters of the insurrection pretended to translate from other languages still more extravagant praises, and they certainly were enjoying a most exalted opinion of themselves.
We understood that Aguinaldo was trying to concentrate for one spectacular move shortly before election, in order to add to the chances of a Democratic victory; and there was some cause for alarm. The Filipinos are born politicians and many of them knew much more about the campaign between Bryan and McKinley than the Americans in the Islands knew.
Apropos of this: Archbishop Chapelle told Mr. Taft that Aguinaldo had, through Archbishop Nozaleda, requested an interview with him. Monsignor Chapelle went to General MacArthur and asked that Aguinaldo be allowed to enter Manila. The General readily gave his consent, and even offered the revolutionary Dictator the hospitality of his own roof. Aguinaldo, in due military form, acknowledged this courtesy and fixed the time for his arrival in Manila. He clearly indicated that he was discouraged and had decided to solicit permission, through Archbishop Chapelle, to leave the Islands. But just then the news of Bryan’s plan for calling an extra session of Congress to settle Philippine independence came out, so the insurgent general sent word that he had decided not to come. No American knew just where he was, but he probably got the papers and telegrams just as soon as any of us.
I remember the sixth of November as a very nervous day. We had received all manner of reports from home; we were so far away that mail and newspapers were a month old when they reached us; and the cable reports had been contradictory in the extreme. We really were on our tiptoes with excitement. And the worst of it was that because of the thirteen hours’ difference in time between Washington and Manila, we lived through the day knowing that the United States was asleep, and went to bed just about the time voters began to go to the polls. We kept getting all manner of doubtful telegrams throughout the next morning—when it was night in the United States and the votes were being counted—but just at one o’clock, as we went to lunch, Mr. Taft received a despatch from General Corbin in accordance with his previous agreement. It read: “Taft Manila McKinley Corbin.” It had been sent from the War Department in Washington at eleven o’clock the night of the election and had taken just forty-five minutes in transmission. This was record time for a cablegram then between Washington and Manila, despatches having to be sent by numerous relays.
VII
“Days of the Empire”
There was a trying period of unrest and uncertainty in our early experience in the Philippines, during which we lived in a
