Perhaps the most extraordinary demonstration any of us ever saw in Manila took place on Washington’s birthday in 1901. The Commission had already begun its long task of instituting provincial and municipal governments and its members had just returned from a trip into the country north of Manila where they had been received with great enthusiasm, and where the people had shown every indication of a glad determination to stop all hostilities and settle down to peaceful pursuits under the representative and democratic system which the Commission was inaugurating.
On the evening of February 20, General MacArthur gave a splendid reception at Malacañan, where Americans and Filipinos mingled together in perfect amity, the Filipinos being in the majority. They seemed greatly pleased with the spirit of the occasion which served to demonstrate in a particular manner the fact that America was in the Philippines as a friend rather than as an arbitrary ruler; that there was to be none of the familiar colour or race prejudice, so far as we were concerned, in the association of the two peoples; that the best thing to do was to acknowledge a mutual aspiration and strive for its fulfilment in friendly cooperation; and there was a heart-lift for us all, Americans and Filipinos alike, in the whole tone of the evening. On the night of the 21st, the Partido Federal gave a famous dinner at a new hotel where a French chef prepared the menu. Before this my husband had jokingly written to Secretary Root that he thought some sort of pension should be provided for the widows and orphans of the men who fell in action before the fearful onslaughts of native hospitality, but at the banquet of the Federal party there were none of those mysterious viands to which the Commissioners had been trying to accustom themselves in the provinces, and in consequence the quality of mutual enjoyment was not strained, the Filipino, unlike the Japanese, being as fond of foreign cookery as he is of his own. The speeches were all of the friendliest character and the “dove of peace,” verily, seemed to be hovering near.
The next morning, the 22nd of February, the Federal party, many thousands strong, marched through a flag-decked city to the Luneta where a speakers’ stand had been erected for the celebration of the day. There were scores of bands, each, as usual, playing its own tune in its own way regardless of what the others were doing; the populace, in its gayest attire, crowded in the wake of the procession; the spirit of festivity was rampant; and altogether it was a most interesting scene.
As close as ten thousand people could get to a speakers’ stand ten thousand people massed themselves, and they listened in respectful silence to the words of both the American and Filipino speakers, each one of whom made a spirited appeal for peaceful cooperation in the solution of the problem which America had acquired through no fault or desire of her own and which she could not, in honour, abandon. General Wright was the American speaker of the day and the frank friendliness of his speech was translated, paragraph by paragraph as he delivered it, by Mr. Arthur Fergusson, the Secretary-interpreter for the Commission, whose extraordinary command of Spanish made it possible for him not only to translate the words themselves, but to infuse into them the poetic fervour of the Spanish tongue. Never was Washington’s birthday so celebrated, and it marked a new era of mutual toleration which was to grow into sympathetic understanding disturbed only by the agitation of the few whose aspirations were in no way in those days shared or condoned by the many.
The method adopted by the Commission for organising provincial governments was extremely simple. The people were instructed to send delegates from all the towns in a province to meet the Commission on a given date at the provincial capital. Having gathered this popular assembly in the largest available hall Mr. Taft, or some other member of the Commission, would proceed to read and explain the new Provincial Code which covered every governmental function and which provided for the appointment by the Commission of a provincial governor, a treasurer and a secretary. It was the intention of the Commission to name a Filipino for governor in each province, thereby giving them an immediate opportunity for the exercise of self-government, but in several instances they were almost unanimously petitioned by the people to appoint to this office the American Army officer who had been in command in the district. Considering the attitude of the Filipinos toward military rule and their eagerness to substitute a purely civil form of government, it was really astonishing that they should have wished to retain any representative of the hated regime, but personality counts for a great deal with the Filipinos, and the Army officer who displayed tact and kindly justice in his dealings with them was sure to win for himself a peculiar popularity.
For treasurer an American was almost invariably chosen. During Spanish times the Filipinos had not learned much about the proper use of public funds and they have had to be very painstakingly taught that government money is for government purposes only. To our poignant and everlasting shame object lessons had to be given them by the drastic punishment meted out to certain American treasurers who were unable to resist temptation. The penalty prescribed in Philippine law for the misuse of public funds or the falsification of a public document
