The right wing here, after assuming an exposed position, was unable to act, as Lawton, by whom it was expecting to be reinforced, was delayed at El Caney. The advance regiments were under the fire of the artillery, the infantry, and the skillful sharpshooters of an invisible enemy and were also exposed to the fierce heat of the sun, to which they were unaccustomed. The wounded were carried back on litters, turned over to the surgeons, who worked manfully with the scantiest of equipment, and were then laid, often naked except for their bandages, upon the damp ground. Regiment blocked regiment in the narrow road, and officers carrying orders were again and again struck, as they emerged from cover, by the sharpshooters' fire. The want of means of communication paralyzed the command, for all the equipment of a modern army was lacking: there were no aeroplanes, no wireless stations, no telephones.

Throughout the morning the situation grew worse, but the nerve of the men did not give way, and American individual initiative rose to the boiling point. Realizing that safety lay only in advance, the officers on the spot began to take control. General Hawkins, with the Sixth and Sixteenth Regulars, advanced against the main blockhouse, which crested a slope of two hundred feet, and the men of the Seventy-first New York Volunteers joined promiscuously in the charge.

To the right rose Kettle Hill, jutting out and Banking the approach to the main position. Facing it and dismounted were the First and Ninth Regular Cavalry, the latter a negro regiment, and the Rough Riders under Colonel Roosevelt. The Tenth Infantry was between the two wings, and divided in the support of both. A battery of Gatling guns was placed in position. The Americans steadily advanced in an irregular line, though kept in some sort of formation by their officers. Breaking down brush and barbed wire and sheltering themselves in the high grass, the men on the right wing worked their way up Kettle Hill, but before they reached the rifle pits of the enemy, they saw the Spaniards retreating on the run. The audacity of the Americans at the critical moment had insured the ultimate success of their attack and they found the final capture of the hill easy.

The longer charge against the center of the enemy was in the meantime being pressed home, under the gallant leadership of General Hawkins, who at times was far in advance of his line. The men of the right wing who looked down from their new position on Kettle Hill, a quarter of a mile distant, saw the Spaniards give way and the American center dash forward. In order to support this advance movement, the Gatlings were brought to Kettle Hill, and General S.S. Sumner and Colonel Roosevelt led their men down Kettle and up San Juan Hill, where they swept over the northern jut only a moment after Hawkins had carried the main blockhouse.

The San Juan position now in the hands of the Americans was the key of Santiago, but that entrenched city lay a mile and a quarter distant and had still to be unlocked—a task which presented no little difficulty. The Americans, it is true, had an advantageous position on a hilltop, but the enemy had retired only a quarter of a mile and were supported by the complete system of fortifications which protected Santiago. The American losses totaled fifteen hundred, a number just about made good at this moment by the arrival of General Duffield's brigade, which had followed the main expedition. The number of the Spanish force, which was unknown to the Americans, was increased on the 3d of July by the arrival of a relief expedition under Colonel Escario, with about four thousand men whom the insurgent forces had failed to meet and block, as had been planned.

On the 2d of July there was desultory fighting, and on the 3d, General Shafter telegraphed to the Secretary of War that he was considering the withdrawal of his troops to a strong position, about five miles in the rear. The Secretary immediately replied: "Of course you can judge the situation better than we can at this end of the line. If, however, you could hold your present position, especially San Juan Heights, the effect upon the country would be much better than falling back."

The Spanish commanders, however, did not share General Shafter's view as to the danger involving the Americans. Both Admiral Cervera and General Blanco considered that the joint operations of the American Army and Navy had rendered the reduction of Santiago only a question of time, but they differed as to the course to be pursued. In the end, General Blanco, who was in supreme command, decided, after an exchange of views with the Spanish Government and a consultation with the Captain of the German cruiser Geier, then at Havana, to order the Spanish squadron to attempt an escape from Santiago harbor. Cervera's sailors had hitherto been employed in the defense of the city, but with the arrival of the reinforcements under Escario he found it possible to reman his fleet. An attempt to escape in the dark seemed impossible because of the unremitting glare of the searchlights of the American vessels. Cervera determined upon the desperate expedient of steaming out in broad daylight and making for Cienfuegos.

The blockade systematically planned by Admiral Sampson was conducted with a high degree of efficiency. Each American ship had its definite place and its particular duty. When vessels were obliged to coal at Guantanamo, forty miles distant, the next in line covered the cruising interval. The American combined squadron was about double Cervera's in strength; his ships, however, were supposed to have the advantage in speed, and it was conceivable that, by turning sharply to the one side or the other, they might elude the blockading force. On the very day that Cervera made his desperate dash out of the harbor, as it happened, the New York, Admiral Sampson's flagship, was out of line, taking the Admiral to a conference with General Shafter at Siboney, a few miles to the eastward. The absence of the flagship, however, in no way weakened the blockade, for, if Cervera turned westward he would find the squadron of Schley and the other vessels designated to prevent his escape in that direction, while if he turned eastward he would almost at once be engaged with the New York, which would then be in an advantageous position ahead of the chase.

At half-past nine on the morning of the 3d of July, the first vessel of the Spanish fleet emerged from Santiago Harbor. By 10:10 A.M. all the Spanish ships were outside of the harbor mouth. Commodore Schley, on the Brooklyn, hoisted the signal to "close up," apparently on the understanding that Sampson's signal on leaving for Siboney to "Disregard motions of the commander-in-chief" had delegated the command to him. Though this question of command later involved a bitter dispute, it was at the time of little moment, for clouds of smoke obscured the signals so frequently that no complicated maneuver could have been guided by them, and, as far as concerted action was concerned, the whole squadron was under exactly similar contingent orders from Admiral Sampson. As a matter of fact, the thing to do was so obvious that the subsequent dispute really raged on the point of who actually gave an order, the sense of which every one of the commanders would have executed without order. If, therefore, the layman feels some annoyance at such a controversy over naval red tape, he may have the consolation of knowing that all concerned, admirals and captains, did the right and sensible thing at the time. If there be an exception, it was the curious maneuver of Schley, the commander of the Brooklyn, who turned a complete circle away from the enemy after the battle had begun. This action of his was certainly not due to a desire to escape, for the Brooklyn quickly turned again into the fight. A controversy, too, has raged over this maneuver. Was it undertaken because the Brooklyn was about to be rammed by the Vizcaya, or because Schley thought that his position blocked the fire of the other American vessels? It is not unlikely that the commander of the Spanish ship hoped to ram the Brooklyn, which was, because of her speed, a most redoubtable foe. But unless this maneuver saved the Brooklyn, it had little result except to scare the Texas, upon whom she suddenly bore down out of a dense cloud of smoke.

Steering westward, the Spanish ships attempted to pass the battle line, but the American vessels kept pace with them. For a short time the engagement was very severe, for practically all vessels of both fleets took part, and the Spanish harbor batteries added their fire. At 10:15 A.M. the Maria Teresa, Admiral Cervera's flagship, on fire and badly shattered by heavy shells, turned toward the beach. Five minutes later the Oquendo, after something of a duel with the Texas, also turned inshore. The Brooklyn was in the lead of the Americans, closely followed by the Oregon, which developed a wonderful burst of speed in excess of that called for in her contract. These two ships kept up the chase of the Vizcaya and the Cristobal Colon, while the slower vessels of the fleet attended to the two Spanish destroyers, Furor and Pluton. At 11:15 A.M. the Vizcaya, riddled by fire from the Brooklyn and Oregon, gave up the fight.

By this time, Sampson in the New York was rapidly approaching the fight, and now ordered the majority of the vessels back to their stations. The Colon, fleeing westward and far ahead of the American ships, was pursued by the Brooklyn, the Oregon, the Texas, the New York, and the armed yacht Vixen. It was a stern chase, although the American vessels had some advantage by cutting across a slight concave indentation of the coast, while the Colon steamed close inshore. At 1:15 P.M. a shot from the Oregon struck ahead of the Colon, and it was evident that she was covered by the American guns. At 1:30 P.M. she gave over her flight and made for shore some forty-five miles west of Santiago. The victory was won. It has often been the good fortune of Americans to secure their greatest victories on patriotic anniversaries and thereby to enhance the psychological effect. Admiral Sampson was able to announce to the American people, as a Fourth of July present, the destruction of the Spanish fleet with the loss of but one of his men and but slight damage to his ships.

On the hills above Santiago the American Army had now only the land forces of the Spaniards to contend with. Shafter's demand for unconditional surrender met with a refusal, and there ensued a week of military quiet. During this time General Shafter conducted a correspondence with the War Department, in judging which it is charitable to remember that the American commander weighed three hundred pounds, that he was sweltering under a hot sun, and that he was sixty-three years old, and sick. Too humane to bombard Santiago while Hobson and his men were still in Spanish hands, he could not forgive Sampson for not having forced the narrow and well-mined channel at the risk of his fleet. The War Department, sharing Shafter's indignation, prepared to attempt the entrance with one of its own transports protected by baled hay, as had been done on the Mississippi during the Civil War. Shafter continued to be alarmed at the situation. Without reenforcements he could not attack, and he proposed to allow the Spaniards to evacuate. The War Department forbade this alternative and, on the 10th of July, he began the bombardment of Santiago.

The Secretary of War then hit upon the really happy though quite unmilitary device of offering, in return for unconditional surrender, to transport the Spanish troops, at once and without parole, back to their own country. Secretary Alger was no unskillful politician, and he was right in believing that this device, though unconventional, would make a strong appeal to an army three years away from home and with dwindling hopes of ever seeing Spain again. On the 15th of July a capitulation was agreed upon, and the terms of surrender included not only the troops in Santiago but all those in that military district—about twenty-four thousand men, with cannon, rifles, ammunition, rations, and other military supplies. Shafter's recommendation that the troops be allowed to carry their arms back to Spain with them was properly refused by the War Department. Arrangements were made for Spanish ships paid by the United States to take the men immediately to Spain. This extraordinary operation was begun on the 8th of August, while the war was still in progress, and was accomplished before peace was established.

The Santiago campaign, like the Mexican War, was fought chiefly by regulars. The Rough Riders and the Seventy-first New York Regiment were the only volunteer units to take a heavy share. Yet the absence of effective staff management was so marked that, as compared with the professional accuracy shown by the navy, the whole campaign on land appears as an amateur undertaking. But the individual character of both volunteers and regulars was high. The American victory was fundamentally due to the fighting spirit of the men and to the individual initiative of the line and field officers.

In the meantime the health of the American Army was causing grave concern to its more observant leaders. Six weeks of Cuban climate had taken out of the army all that exuberant energy which it had brought with it from the north. The army had accomplished its purpose only at the complete sacrifice of its fighting strength. Had the Spanish commander possessed more nerve and held out a little longer, he might well have seen his victorious enemies wither before his eyes, as the British had before Cartagena in 1741. On the 3d of August a large number of the officers of the Santiago army, including Generals Wheeler, Sumner, and Lawton, and Colonel Roosevelt, addressed a round robin to General Shafter on the alarming condition of the army. Its substance is indicated in the following sentences: "This army must be moved at once or it will perish. As an army it can be safely moved now. Persons responsible for preventing such a move will be responsible for the unnecessary loss of many thousands of lives." Already on the 1st of August, General Shafter had reported 4255 sick, of whom 3164 were cases of yellow fever, that deadly curse of Cuba, which the lack of proper quarantine had so often allowed to invade the shores of the United States. On the 3d of August, even before General Shafter had received the round robin, the Secretary of War authorized the withdrawal of at least a portion of the army, which was to be replaced by supposedly immune regiments. By the middle of August, the soldiers began to arrive at Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, on the eastern end of Long Island. Through this camp, which had been hastily put into condition to receive them, there passed about thirty-five thousand soldiers, of whom twenty thousand were sick. When the public saw those who a few weeks before had been healthy and rollicking American boys, now mere skeletons, borne helpless in stretchers and looking old and shriveled, a wave of righteous indignation against Secretary Alger swept over the country, and eventually accomplished enough to prevent such catastrophes in the future.

The distressing experience of the army was too real not to have its constructive effect. Men like William Crawford Gorgas were inspired to study the sanitation and the diseases of the tropics and have now made it possible for white men to live there safely. Men of affairs like Elihu Root were stimulated to give their talents to army administration. Fortunately the boys were brought north just in time to save their lives, and the majority, after a recuperation of two or three years, regained their normal health.

The primary responsibility for this gamble with death rested with those who sent an expedition from the United States to the tropics in midsummer when the measures necessary to safeguard its health were not yet known. This responsibility rested immediately upon the American people themselves, all too eager for a war for which they were not prepared and for a speedy victory at all costs. For this national impatience they had to pay dearly. The striking contrast, however, between the efficiency of the navy and the lack of preparation on the part of the army shows that the people as a whole would have supported a more thorough preparation of the army, had the responsible officials possessed sufficient courage and intelligence to have demanded it; nor would the people have been unwilling to defer victory until autumn, had they been honestly informed of the danger of tropical disease into which they were sending the flower of their youth. Such a postponement would not only have meant better weather but it would have given time to teach the new officers their duty in safeguarding the health of their men as far as possible, and this precaution alone would have saved many lives. Owing to the greater practical experience of the officers in the regular regiments, the death rate among the men in their ranks fell far below that among the volunteers, even though many of the men with the regulars had enlisted after the declaration of war. On the other hand, speed as well as sanitation was an element in the war, and the soldier who was sacrificed to lack of preparation may be said to have served his country no less than he who died in battle. Strategy and diplomacy in this instance were enormously facilitated by the immediate invasion of Cuba, and perhaps the outcome justified the cost. The question of relative values is a difficult one.

No such equation of values, however, can hold the judgment in suspense in the case of the host of secondary errors that grew out of the indolence of Secretary Alger and his worship of politics. Probably General Miles was mistaken in his charges concerning embalmed beef, and possibly the canned beef was not so bad as it tasted; but there can be no excuse for a Secretary of War who did not consider it his business to investigate the question of proper rations for an army in the tropics simply because Congress had, years before, fixed a ration for use within the United States. There was no excuse for sending many of the men clad in heavy army woolens. There was no excuse for not providing a sufficient number of surgeons and abundant hospital service. There was little excuse for the appointment of General Shafter, which was made in part for political reasons. There was no excuse for keeping at the head of the army administration General Nelson A. Miles, with whom, whatever his abilities, the Secretary of War was unable to work.

The navy did not escape controversy. In fact, a war fought under the eyes of hundreds of uncensored newspaper correspondents unskilled in military affairs could not fail to supply a daily grist of scandal to an appreciative public. The controversy between Sampson and Schley, however, grew out of incompatible personalities stirred to rivalry by indiscreet friends and a quarrelsome public. Captain Sampson was chosen to command, and properly so, because of his recognized abilities. Commodore Schley, a genial and open-hearted man, too much given to impulse, though he outranked Sampson, was put under his command. Sampson was not gracious in his treatment of the Commodore, and ill feeling resulted. When the time came to promote both officers for their good conduct, Secretary Long by recommending that Sampson be raised eight numbers and Schley six, reversed their relative positions as they had been before the war. This recommendation, in itself proper, was sustained by the Senate, and all the vitality the controversy ever had then disappeared, though it remains a bone of contention to be gnawed by biographers and historians.



CHAPTER XII. The Close Of The War

While the American people were concentrating their attention upon the blockade of Santiago near their own shores, the situation in the distant islands of the Pacific was rapidly becoming acute. All through June, Dewey had been maintaining himself, with superb nerve, in Manila Harbor, in the midst of uncertain neutrals. A couple of unwieldy United States monitors were moving slowly to his assistance from the one side, while a superior Spanish fleet was approaching from the other. On the 26th of June, the Spanish Admiral Camara had reached Port Said, but he was not entirely happy. Several of his vessels proved to be in that ineffective condition which was characteristic of the Spanish Navy. The Egyptian authorities refused him permission to refit his ships or to coal, and the American consul had with foresight bought up much of the coal which the Spanish Admiral had hoped to secure and take aboard later from colliers. Nevertheless the fleet passed through the Suez Canal and entered the Red Sea.

Fully alive to the danger of the situation, the Naval War Board gave orders on the 29th of June for a squadron under Commodore Watson to start for the Spanish coast in hope of drawing Camara back.

The alarm which had previously been created on the American coast by the shrouded approach of Cervera naturally suggested that the Americans themselves might win one of those psychological victories now recognized as such an important factor in modern warfare. The chief purpose of future operations was to convince the Spanish people that they were defeated, and nothing would more conduce to this result than to bring war to their doors. This was, moreover, an operation particularly suited to the conditions under which the United States was waging war, for publicity was here a helping factor. Admiral Sampson, more intent on immediate business than on psychological pressure, was not enthusiastically in favor of the plan. Nevertheless preparation proceeded with that deliberation which in this case was part of the game, and presently the shadow of an impending American attack hung heavy over the coasts of Spain. The Spanish Government at first perhaps considered the order a bluff which the United States would not dare to carry out while Cervera's fleet was so near its own shores; but with the destruction of Cervera's ships the plan became plainly possible, and on the 8th of July the Spanish Government ordered Camara back to parade his vessels before the Spanish cities to assure them of protection.

But, before Camara was called home, the public were watching his advance against the little American fleet at Manila, with an anxiety perhaps greater than Dewey's own. Nothing in modern war equals in dramatic tension the deadly, slow, inevitable approach of a fleet from one side of the world against its enemy on the other. Both beyond the reach of friendly help, each all powerful until it meets its foe, their home countries have to watch the seemingly never coming, but nevertheless certain, clash, which under modern conditions means victory or destruction. It is the highest development of that situation which has been so exploited in a myriad forms by the producers of dramas for the moving pictures and which nightly holds audiences silent; but it plays itself out in war, not in minutes but in months. No one who lived through that period can ever forget the progress of Camara against Dewey, or that of Rozhestvensky with the Russian fleet, six years later, against Togo.

Meanwhile another move was made in the Caribbean. General Miles had from the first considered Porto Rico the best immediate objective: it was much nearer Spain than Cuba, was more nearly self-sufficing if left alone, and less defensible if attacked. The War Department, on the 7th of June, had authorized Miles to assemble thirty thousand troops for the invasion of Porto Rico, and preparations for this expedition were in progress throughout the course of the Santiago campaign. Miles at the time of the surrender of Santiago was actually off that city with reinforcements, which thereupon at once became available as a nucleus to be used against Porto Rico. On the 21st of July he left Guantanamo Bay and, taking the Spaniards as well as the War Department completely by surprise as to his point of attack, he effected a landing on the 26th at Guanica, near the southwestern corner of Porto Rico.

The expeditionary force to Porto Rico, however, consisted not of 30,000 men but of only about 15,000; and it was not fully assembled on the island until the 8th of August. The total Spanish forces amounted to only about 10,000, collected on the defensible ground to the north and in the interior, so that they did not disturb the disembarkation. The American Army which had been dispatched from large Atlantic ports, such as Charleston and Newport News, seems to have been better and more systematically equipped than the troops sent to Santiago. The Americans occupied Guanica, Ponce, and Arroyo with little or no opposition, and were soon in possession of the southern shores of the island.

Between the American forces and the main body of the enemy stretched a range of mountains running east and west through the length of the island. San Juan, the only fortress, which was the main objective of the American Army, lay on the opposite side of this mountain range, on the northern coast of the island. The approach to the fortress lay along a road which crossed the hills and which possessed natural advantages for defense. On the 7th of August a forward movement was begun. While General Wilson's army advanced from Ponce along the main road toward San Juan and General Brooke moved north from Arroyo, General Schwan was to clear the western end of the island and work his way around to Arecibo, toward which General Henry was to advance through the interior. The American armies systematically worked forward, with an occasional skirmish in which they were always victorious, and were received with a warm welcome by the teeming native population. On the 13th of August, General Wilson was on the point of clearing his first mountain range, General Schwan had occupied Mayaguez, and General Henry had passed through the mountains and was marching down the valley of the Arecibo, when orders arrived from Washington to suspend operations.

The center of interest, however, remained in the far-away Philippines. Dewey, who had suddenly burst upon the American people as their first hero, remained a fixed star in their admiration, a position in which his own good judgment and the fortunate scarcity of newspaper correspondents served to maintain him. From him action was expected, and it had been prepared for. Even before news arrived on the 7th of May of Dewey's victory on the 1st of May, the Government had anticipated such a result and had decided to send an army to support him. San Francisco was made a rendezvous for volunteers, and on the 12th of May, General Wesley Merritt was assigned to command the expedition. Dewey reported that he could at any time command the surrender of Manila, but that it would be useless unless he had troops to occupy the city.

On the 19th of May, General Merritt received the following orders: "The destruction of the Spanish fleet at Manila, followed by the taking of the naval station at Cavite, the paroling of the garrisons, and the acquisition of the control of the bay, have rendered it necessary, in the further prosecution of the measures adopted by this Government for the purpose of bringing about an honorable and durable peace with Spain, to send an army of occupation to the Philippines for the twofold purpose of completing the reduction of the Spanish power in that quarter and giving order and security to the islands while in the possession of the United States."

On the 30th of June the first military expedition, after a bloodless capture of the island of Guam, arrived in Manila Bay. A second contingent arrived on the 17th of July, and on the 25th, General Merritt himself with a third force, which brought the number of Americans up to somewhat more than 10,000. The Spaniards had about 13,000 men guarding the rather antiquated fortifications of old Manila and a semicircle of blockhouses and trenches thrown about the city, which contained about 350,000 inhabitants.

It would have been easy to compel surrender or evacuation by the guns of the fleet, had it not been for an additional element in the situation. Manila was already besieged, or rather blockaded, on the land side, by an army of nearly ten thousand Philippine insurgents under their shrewd leader, Emilio Aguinaldo. It does not necessarily follow that those who are fighting the same enemy are fighting together, and in this case the relations between the Americans and the insurgents were far from intimate, though Dewey had kept the situation admirably in hand until the arrival of the American troops.

General Merritt decided to hold no direct communication with Aguinaldo until the Americans were in possession of the city, but landed his army to the south of Manila beyond the trenches of the Filipinos. On the 30th of July, General F. V. Greene made an informal arrangement with the Filipino general for the removal of the insurgents from the trenches directly in front of the American forces, and immediately advanced beyond their original position. The situation of Manila was indeed desperate and clearly demanded a surrender to the American forces, who might be relied upon to preserve order and protect property. The Belgian Consul, M. Eduard Andre, urged this course upon the Spanish commander. The Governor-General, Fermin Jaudenes, exhibited the same spirit which the Spanish commanders revealed throughout the war: though constitutionally indisposed to take any bold action, he nevertheless considered it a point of honor not to recognize the inevitable. He allowed it to be understood that he could not surrender except to an assault, although well knowing that such a melee might cause the city to be ravaged by the Filipinos. M. Andre, however, succeeded by the 11th of August in arranging a verbal understanding that the fleet should fire upon the city and that the troops should attack, but that the Spaniards should make no real resistance and should surrender as soon as they considered that their honor was saved.

The chief contestants being thus amicably agreed to a spectacular but bloodless battle, the main interest lay in the future action of the interested and powerful spectators in the harbor. Admiral Dewey, though relieved by the arrival of the monitor Monterey on the 4th of August, was by no means certain that the German squadron would stand by without interference and see the city bombarded. On the 9th of August he gave notice of the impending action and ordered foreign vessels out of the range of fire. On the 13th of August Dewey steamed into position before the city. As the American vessels steamed past the British Immortalite, her guard paraded and her band played Admiral Dewey's favorite march. Immediately afterwards the British commander, Captain Chichester, moved his vessels toward the city and took a position between our fleet and the German squadron. The foreign vessels made no interference, but the Filipinos were more restless. Eagerly watching the American assault, they rushed forward when they saw it successful, and began firing on the Spaniards just as the latter hoisted the white flag. They were quieted, though with difficulty, and by nightfall the city was under the Stars and Stripes, with American troops occupying the outworks facing the forces of Aguinaldo, who were neither friends nor foes.

While the dispatch of Commodore Watson's fleet to Spain was still being threatened and delayed, while General Miles was rapidly approaching the capital of Porto Rico, and on the same day that Admiral Dewey and General Merritt captured Manila, Spain yielded. On the 18th of July Spain had taken the first step toward peace by asking for the good offices of the French Government. On the 26th of July, M. Cambon, the French Ambassador at Washington, opened negotiations with the United States. On the 12th of August, a protocol was signed, but, owing to the difference in time on the opposite side of the globe, to say nothing of the absence of cable communication, not in time to prevent Dewey's capture of Manila. This protocol provided for the meeting of peace commissioners at Paris not later than the 1st of October. Spain agreed immediately to evacuate and relinquish all claim to Cuba; to cede to the United States ultimately all other islands in the West Indies, and one in the Ladrones; and to permit the United States to "occupy and hold the city, bay, and harbor of Manila pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace which shall determine the control, disposition, and government of the Philippines."

President McKinley appointed the Secretary of State, William R. Day, as president of the peace commission, and summoned John Hay home from England to take his place. The other commissioners were Senators Cushman K. Davis and William P. Frye, Republicans, Senator George Gray, Democrat, and Whitelaw Reid, the editor of the New York "Tribune". The secretary of the commission was the distinguished student of international law, John Bassett Moore. On most points there was general agreement as to what they were to do. Cuba, of course, must be free. It was, moreover, too obvious to need much argument that Spanish rule on the American continent must come altogether to an end. As there was no organized local movement in Porto Rico to take over the government, its cession to the United States was universally recognized as inevitable. Nevertheless when the two commissions met in Paris, there proved to be two exciting subjects of controversy, and at moments it seemed possible that the attempt to arrange a peace would prove unsuccessful. However reassured the people were by the successful termination of the war, for those in authority the period of anxiety had not yet entirely passed.

The first of these points was raised by the Spanish commissioners. They maintained that the separation of Cuba from Spain involved the rending of the Empire, and that Cuba should therefore take responsibilities as well as freedom. The specific question was that of debts contracted by Spain, for the security of which Cuban revenues had been pledged. There was a manifest lack of equity in this claim, for Cuba had not been party to the contracting of the obligations, and the money had been spent in stifling her own desire to be free rather than on the development of her resources. Nevertheless the Spanish commissioners could feel the support of a sustaining public opinion about them, for the bulk of these obligations were held in France and investors were doubtful of the ability of Spain, if bereft of her colonies, to carry her enormous financial burdens. The point, then, was stoutly urged, but the American commissioners as stoutly defended the interests of their clients, the Cubans, and held their ground. Thanks to their efforts, the Cuban republic was born free of debt.

The other point was raised by the American commissioners, and was both more important and more complicated, for when the negotiation began the United States had not fully decided what it wanted. It was necessary first to decide and then to obtain the consent of Spain with regard to the great unsettled question of the disposition of the Philippines. Dewey's victory came as an overwhelming surprise to the great majority of Americans snugly encased, as they supposed themselves to be, in a separate hemisphere. Nearly all looked upon it as a military operation only, not likely to lead to later complications. Many discerning individuals, however, both in this country and abroad, at once saw or feared that occupation would lead to annexation. Carl Schurz, as early as the 9th of May, wrote McKinley expressing the hope that "we remain true to our promise that this is a war of deliverance and not one of greedy ambition, conquest, self-aggrandizement." In August, Andrew Carnegie wrote in "The North American Review" an article on "Distant Possessions—The Parting of the Ways."

Sentiment in favor of retaining the islands, however, grew rapidly in volume and in strength. John Hay wrote to Andrew Carnegie on the 22d of August: "I am not allowed to say in my present fix (ministerial responsibility) how much I agree with you. The only question in my mind is how far it is now POSSIBLE for us to withdraw from the Philippines. I am rather thankful it is not given to me to solve that momentous question." On the 5th of September, he wrote to John Bigelow: "I fear you are right about the Philippines, and I hope the Lord will be good to us poor devils who have to take care of them. I marvel at your suggesting that we pay for them. I should have expected no less of your probity; but how many except those educated by you in the school of morals and diplomacy would agree with you? Where did I pass you on the road of life? You used to be a little my senior [twenty-one years]; now you are ages younger and stronger than I am. And yet I am going to be Secretary of State for a little while."

Not all those who advocated the retention of the Philippines did so reluctantly or under the pressure of a feeling of necessity. In the very first settlers of our country, the missionary impulse beat strong. John Winthrop was not less intent than Cromwell on the conquest of all humanity by his own ideals; only he believed the most efficacious means to be the power of example instead of force. Just now there was a renewed sense throughout the Anglo-Saxon public that it was the duty of the civilized to promote the civilization of the backward, and the Cromwellian method waxed in popularity. Kipling, at the summit of his influence, appealed to a wide and powerful public in his "White Man's Burden," which appeared in 1899.

Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild— Your new caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden— And reap his old reward The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard— The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) towards the light:— Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?

McKinley asked those having opinions on the subject of this burden to write to him, and a strong call for the United States to take up her share in the regeneration of mankind came from important representatives of the religious public. Nor was the attitude of those different who saw the possibilities of increased traffic with the East. The expansion of the area of home distribution seemed a halfway house between the purely nationalistic policy, which was becoming a little irksome, and the competition of the open world.

It was not, however, the urging of these forces alone which made the undecided feel that the annexation of the Philippines was bound to come. The situation itself seemed to offer no other solution. Gradually evidence as to the local conditions reached America. The Administration was anxious for the commissioners to have the latest information, and, as Admiral Dewey remained indispensable at Manila, General Merritt was ordered to report at Paris, where he arrived on the 6th of October. He was of the opinion that the Americans must remain in the Philippines, and his reports were sustained by a cablegram from Dewey on the 14th of October reading: "Spanish authority has been completely destroyed in Luzon, and general anarchy prevails without the limits of the city and Bay of Manila. Strongly probable that islands to the south will fall into the same state soon." The history of the previous few years and existing conditions made it highly improbable that Spanish domination could ever be restored. The withdrawal of the United States would therefore not mean the reestablishment of Spanish rule but no government at all.

As to the regime which would result from our withdrawal, Admiral Dewey judged from the condition of those areas where Spanish authority had already ceased and that of the Americans had not yet been established. "Distressing reports," he cabled, "have been received of inhuman cruelty practised on religious and civil authorities in other parts of these islands. The natives appear unable to govern." It was highly probable, in fact, that if the United States did not take the islands, Spain would sell her vanishing equity in the property to some other power which possessed the equipment necessary to conquer the Philippines. To many this eventuality did not seem objectionable, as is indicated by the remark, already quoted, of an American official to certain Germans: "We don't want the Philippines; why don't you take them?" That this attitude was foolishly Quixotic is obvious, but more effective in the molding of public opinion was the feeling that it was cowardly.

In such a changing condition of public sentiment, McKinley was a better index of what the majority wanted than a referendum could have been. In August he stated: "I do not want any ambiguity to be allowed to remain on this point. The negotiators of both countries are the ones who shall resolve upon the permanent advantages which we shall ask in the archipelago, and decide upon the intervention, disposition, and government of the Philippines." His instructions to the commissioners actually went farther:

"Avowing unreservedly the purpose which has animated all our effort, and still solicitous to adhere to it, we cannot be unmindful that, without any desire or design on our part, the war has brought us new duties and responsibilities which we must meet and discharge as becomes a great nation on whose growth and career from the beginning the Ruler of Nations has plainly written the high command and pledge of civilization.

"Incidental to our tenure in the Philippines is the commercial opportunity to which American statesmanship cannot be indifferent.... Asking only the open door for ourselves, we are ready to accord the open door to others.

"In view of what has been stated, the United States cannot accept less than the cession in full rights and sovereignty of the island of Luzon."

The American commissioners were divided. Day favored the limited terms of the instructions; Davis, Frye, and Reid wished the whole group of the Philippines; Gray emphatically protested against taking any part of the islands. On the 26th of October, Hay telegraphed that the President had decided that "the cession must be of the whole Archipelago or none." The Spanish commissioners objected strongly to this new development, and threatened to break off the negotiations which otherwise were practically concluded. This outcome would have put the United States in the unfortunate position of continuing a war which it had begun in the interests of Cuba for the quite different purpose of securing possession of the Philippines. The Spanish were probably not without hopes that under these changed conditions they might be able to bring to their active assistance that latent sympathy for them which existed so strongly in Europe. Nor was the basis of the claim of the United States entirely clear. On the 3d of November the American commissioners cabled to the President that they were convinced that the occupation of Manila did not constitute a conquest of the islands as a whole.

By this time, however, the President had decided that the United States must have the islands. On the 13th of November, Hay telegraphed that the United States was entitled to an indemnity for the cost of the war. This argument was not put forward because the United States wished indemnity but to give a technical basis for the American claim to the Philippines. In the same cablegram, Hay instructed the commissioners to offer Spain ten or twenty millions for all the islands. Upon this financial basis the treaty was finally concluded; it was signed on December 10, 1898; and ratifications were exchanged on April 11, 1899.

The terms of the treaty provided, first, for the relinquishment of sovereignty over Cuba by Spain. The island was to be occupied by the United States, in whose hands its subsequent disposition was left. All other Spanish islands in the West Indies, together with Guam in the Ladrones, were ceded to the United States. The whole archipelago of the Philippines, with water boundaries carefully but not quite accurately drawn, was ceded to the United States, which by the same article agreed to pay Spain $20,000,000. All claims for indemnity or damages between the two nations, or either nation and the citizens of the other, were mutually relinquished, the United States assuming the adjudication and settlement of all claims of her own citizens against Spain.

This treaty, even more than the act of war, marked a turning point in the relation of the United States to the outside world. So violent was the opposition of those who disapproved, and so great the reluctance of even the majority of those who approved, to acknowledge that the United States had emerged from the isolated path which it had been treading since 1823, that every effort was made to minimize the significance of the beginning of a new era in American history. It was argued by those delving into the past that the Philippines actually belonged to the Western Hemisphere because the famous demarcation line drawn by Pope Alexander VI, in 1493, ran to the west of them; it was, indeed, partly in consequence of that line that Spain had possessed the islands. Before Spain lost Mexico her Philippine trade had actually passed across the Pacific, through the Mexican port of Acapulco, and across the Atlantic. Yet these interesting historical facts were scarcely related in the mind of the public to the more immediate and tangible fact that the annexation of the Philippines gave the United States a far-flung territory situated just where all the powerful nations of the world were then centering their interest.

In opposition to those who disapproved of this extension of territory, it was argued more cogently that, in spite of the prevailing belief of the thirty preceding years, the United States had always been an expanding power, stretching its authority over new areas with a persistency and rapidity hardly equaled by any other nation, and that this latest step was but a new stride in the natural expansion of the United States. But here again the similarity between the former and the most recent steps was more apparent than real. Louisiana, Florida, Texas, California, and Oregon, had all been parts of an obvious geographical whole. Alaska, indeed, was detached, but its acquisition had been partly accidental, and it was at least a part of the American continent and would, in the opinion of many, eventually become contiguous by the probable annexation of Canada. Moreover, none of the areas so far occupied by the United States had been really populated. It had been a logical expectation that American people would soon overflow these acquired lands and assimilate the inhabitants. In the case of the Philippines, on the other hand, it was fully recognized that Americans could at most be only a small governing class, and that even Porto Rico, accessible as it was, would prove too thickly settled to give hopes of Americanization.

The terms of the treaty with Spain, indeed, recognized these differences. In all previous instances, except Alaska, the added territory had been incorporated into the body of the United States with the expectation, now realized except in Hawaii, of reaching the position of self-governing and participating States of the Union. Even in the case of Alaska it had been provided that all inhabitants remaining in residence, except uncivilized Indians, should become citizens of the United States. In the case of these new annexations resulting from the war with Spain, provision was made only for the religious freedom of the inhabitants. "The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress." There could therefore be no doubt that for the first time the United States had acquired colonies and that the question whether they should develop into integral parts of the country or into dependencies of an imperialistic republic was left to the future to decide.

It was but natural that such striking events and important decisions should loom large as factors in the following presidential campaign. The Republicans endorsed the Administration, emphatically stated that the independence and self-government of Cuba must be secured, and, with reference to the other islands, declared that "the largest measure of self-government consistent with their welfare and our duties shall be secured to them by law." The Democrats asserted that "no nation can long endure half republic and half empire," and favored "an immediate declaration of the Nation's purpose to give the Filipinos, first, a stable form of government; second, independence; and third, protection from outside interference such as has been given for nearly a century to the republics of Central and South America." The Democrats were at a disadvantage owing to the fact that, since so much had been irrevocably accomplished, they could not raise the whole issue of colonial expansion but only advocate a different policy for the handling of what seemed to most people to be details. The distrust which their financial program of 1896 had excited, moreover, still hung over them and repelled many voters who might have supported them on questions of foreign and colonial policies. Nevertheless the reflection of President McKinley by a greatly increased majority must be taken as indicating that the American people generally approved of his policies and accepted the momentous changes which had been brought about by the successful conclusion of the war with Spain.



CHAPTER XIII. A Peace Which Meant War

In a large way, ever since the Spanish War, the United States has been adjusting its policy to the world conditions of which that struggle first made the people aware. The period between 1898 and 1917 will doubtless be regarded by the historian a hundred years from now as a time of transition similar to that between 1815 and 1829. In that earlier period John Marshall and John Quincy Adams did much by their wisdom and judgment to preserve what was of value in the old regime for use in the new. In the later period John Hay performed, though far less completely, a somewhat similar function.

John Hay had an acquaintance with the best traditions of American statesmanship which falls to the lot of few men. He was private secretary to Lincoln during the Civil War, he had as his most intimate friend in later life Henry Adams, the historian, who lived immersed in the memories and traditions of a family which has taken a distinguished part in the Government of the United States from its beginning. Possessed of an ample fortune, Hay had lived much abroad and in the society of the men who governed Europe. He was experienced in newspaper work and in diplomacy, and he came to be Secretary of State fresh from a residence in England where as Ambassador he had enjoyed wide popularity. With a lively wit and an engaging charm of manner, he combined a knowledge of international law and of history which few of our Secretaries have possessed. Moreover he knew men and how to handle them. Until the death of McKinley in 1901 he was left almost free in the administration of his office. He once said that the President spoke to him of his office scarcely once a month. In the years from 1901 to 1905 he worked under very different conditions, for President Roosevelt discussed affairs of state with him daily and took some matters entirely into his own hands.

Hay found somewhat better instruments to work with than most Americans were inclined to believe probable. It is true that the American diplomatic service abroad has not always reflected credit upon the country. It has contained extremely able and distinguished men but also many who have been stupid, ignorant, and ill-mannered. The State Department in Washington, however, has almost escaped the vicissitudes of politics and has been graced by the long and disinterested service of competent officials. From 1897 to 1913, moreover, the service abroad was built up on the basis of continuity and promotion.

One sign of a new epoch was the changed attitude of the American public toward annexation. While the war was in progress the United States yielded to the desires of Hawaii, and annexed the islands as a part of the United States, with the hope of their eventual statehood. In 1899 the United States consented to change the cumbrous and unsuccessful arrangement by which, in partnership with Great Britain and Germany, it had supervised the native government of Samoa. No longer unwilling to acquire distant territories, the United States took in full possession the island of Tutuila, with its harbor of Pago Pago, and consented to Germany's taking the remainder of the islands, while Great Britain received compensation elsewhere. In 1900 the Government paid over to Spain $100,000 for Sibutu and Cagayan Sulu, two islands really belonging to the Philippines but overlooked in the treaty. Proud of the navy and with a new recognition of its necessities, the United States sought naval stations in those areas where the fleet might have to operate. In the Pacific the Government obtained Midway and Wake islands in 1900. In the West Indies, the harbor of Guantanamo was secured from Cuba, and in 1903 a treaty was made with Denmark for the purchase of her islands—which, however, finally became American possessions only in 1917.

By her policy toward Cuba, the United States gave the world a striking example of observing the plighted word even when contrary to the national interest. For a century the United States had expected to acquire the "Pearl of the Antilles." Spain in the treaty of peace refused to recognize the Cuban Government and relinquished the island into the hands of the United States. The withdrawal of the Spanish troops left the Cuban Government utterly unable to govern, and the United States was forced to occupy the island. Nevertheless the Government had begun the war with a recognition of Cuban independence and to that declaration it adhered. The country gave the best of its talent to make the islands self-governing as quickly as possible. Harvard University invited Cuban teachers to be its guests at a summer session. American medical men labored with a martyr's devotion to stamp out disease. General Wood, as military governor, established order and justice and presided over the evolution of a convention assembled to draft a constitution for the people of Cuba and to determine the relations of the United States and Cuba. These relations, indeed, were already under consideration at Washington and were subsequently embodied in the Platt Amendment. * This measure directed the President to leave the control of Cuba to the people of the island as soon as they should agree to its terms. It also required that the Government of Cuba should never allow a foreign power to impair its independence; that it would contract no debt for which it could not provide a sinking fund from the ordinary revenue; that it would grant to the United States "lands necessary for coaling or naval stations"; that it would provide for the sanitation of its cities; and that the United States should have the right to intervene, "for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging" certain obligations with respect to Spanish subjects which the United States had assumed in the treaty signed at Paris. After some hesitation the convention added these provisions to the new constitution of Cuba. On May 20, 1902, the American troops withdrew, leaving Cuba in better condition than she had ever been before. Subsequently the United States was forced to intervene to preserve order, but, though the temptation was strong to remain, the American troops again withdrew after they had done their constructive work. The voluntary entrance of Cuba into the Great War in cooperation with the United States was a tribute to the generosity and honesty of the American people.

* An amendment to the Army Appropriation Bill of March 2, 1901.

Porto Rico presented a problem different from that which the United States had to solve in Cuba. There existed no native organization which could supply even the basis for the formation of a government. The people seemed, indeed, to have no desire for independence, and public sentiment in the United States generally favored the permanent possession of the island. After a period of rule entirely at the discretion of the President, Congress established in 1900 a form of government based on that of the American territories. Porto Rico remained, however, unincorporated into the Union, and it was long doubtful whether it would remain a dependency or would ultimately attain statehood. In 1917, however, the degree of self-government was increased, and the inhabitants were made American citizens. It now seems probable that the island will ultimately become a State of the Union.

Meanwhile on the other side of the world the United States had a more unpleasant task. The revolted Filipinos, unlike the Cubans, had not declared themselves for independence but for redress of grievances. The United States had assisted Aguinaldo, at the moment in exile, to return to the islands after the Battle of Manila Bay but had not officially recognized him as having authority. When he saw Spanish power disappearing under American blows, he declared himself in favor of the abolition of all foreign rule. This declaration, of course, in no way bound the United States, to whom the treaty with Spain, the only recognized sovereign, ceded the island absolutely. There was no flaw in the title of the United States, and there were no obligations, save those of humanity, to bind the Americans in their treatment of the natives. Nevertheless, the great majority of Americans would doubtless have gladly favored a policy similar to that pursued in the case of Cuba, had it seemed in any way practicable. Unfortunately, however, the Filipinos did not constitute a nation but only a congeries of peoples and tribes of differing race and origin, whom nearly four centuries of Spanish rule had not been able to make live at peace with one another. Some were Christians, some Mohammedans, some heathen savages; some wore European clothes, some none at all. The particular tribe which formed the chief support of Aguinaldo, the Tagalogs, comprised less than one half of the population of the island of Luzon. The United States had taken the islands largely because it did not see any one else to whom it could properly shift the burden. The shoulders of the Tagalogs did not seem broad enough for the responsibility.

The United States prepared, therefore, to carry on the task which it had assumed, while Aguinaldo, with his army circling Manila, prepared to dispute its title. On February 4, 1899, actual hostilities broke out. By this time Aguinaldo had a capital at Malolos, thirty miles north of Manila, a government, thirty or forty thousand troops, and an influence which he was extending throughout the islands by means of secret organizations and superstitious appeals. This seemed a puny strength to put forth against the United States but various circumstances combined to make the contest less unequal than it seemed, and the outcome was probably more in doubt than that in the war with Spain.

The United States had at the moment but fourteen thousand men in the islands, under the command of General Otis. Some of these were volunteers who had been organized to fight Spain and who could not be held after the ratification of peace. Congress had, indeed, provided for an increase in the regular army, but not sufficient to provide the "40,000 effectives for the field," whom Otis had requested in August, 1899. There were, of course, plenty of men available in America for service in the Philippines, and finally twelve regiments of volunteers were raised, two of which were composed of negroes. Aguinaldo's strength lay in the configuration of the country, in its climate, which for four centuries had prevented a complete conquest by the Spaniards, and in the uncertainty which he knew existed as to how far the American people would support a war waged apparently for conquest, against the wishes of the Filipinos. On the other hand, the chief advantages of the American forces lay in Aguinaldo's lack of arms and in the power of the American Navy, which confined the fighting for the most part to Luzon.

In March, General MacArthur began to move to the north, and on the last day of that month he entered Malolos. On the 23d of April he pushed farther northward toward Calumpit, where the Filipino generalissimo, Luna, had prepared a position which he declared to be impregnable. This brief campaign added a new favorite to the American roll of honor, for it was here that Colonel Funston, at the head of his gallant Kansans, crossed the rivers Bag-bag and Rio Grande, under circumstances that gave the individual American soldier a prestige in the eyes of the Filipinos and a reputation which often ran far ahead of the army.

General Luna had torn up the ties and rails of the steel railroad bridge over the Bag-bag, and had let down the span next the far bank. Thus cut off from attack by a deep river two hundred feet wide, the Filipino commander had entrenched his forces on the farther side. Shielded by fields of young corn and bamboo thickets, the Americans approached the bank of the river. A naval gun on an armored train bombarded the Filipinos but could not silence their trenches. It was therefore necessary to cross an the bridge, and under fire. General Wheaton ordered Colonel Funston to seize the bridge. With about ten men Funston rushed the nearer end which stood in the open. Working themselves along the girders, the men finally reached the broken span. Beyond that, swimming was the only method of reaching the goal. Leaving their guns behind them, Colonel Funston and three others swung themselves off the bridge and into the stream. Quite unarmed, the four landed and rushed the nearest trenches. Fortunately these had been abandoned under American fire, and rifles and cartridges had been left behind. Thus this aquatic charge by unarmed men secured the bridge and enabled the American troops to cross.

Not far beyond was the Rio Grande, four hundred feet broad and crossed by another railroad bridge that must be taken. Here again the task was entrusted to Colonel Funston and the Twentieth Kansas. This time they found an old raft. Two privates stripped and swam across with a rope. Landing unarmed on the enemy's side of the river, they fastened their rope to a part of the very trench works of the Filipinos. With this connection established, Colonel Funston improvised a ferry and was soon on the enemy's side with supports. A stiff, unequal fight remained, as the ferry carried but six men on each trip. The bank was soon won, however, and the safe crossing of the army was assured. Such acts gave the natives a respect for Americans as fighting men, which caused it to be more and more difficult for the Filipino commanders to bring their forces to battle in the open.

General Lawton in the meantime was conducting a brilliant movement to the eastward. After breaking the enemy forces, he returned to Manila and then marched southward into the Tagalog country, where on the 13th of June, at Zapoti Bridge, he won the most stoutly contested battle of the insurrection. The successful conclusion of these operations brought the most civilized part of the island under American control.

The fighting now became scattered and assumed gradually a guerrilla character. The abler commanders of the American forces found their way to the top, and the troops, with their natural adaptability, constantly devised new methods of meeting new situations. A war of strangely combined mountain and sea fighting, involving cavalry and infantry and artillery, spread over the islands in widening circles and met with lessening resistance. An indication of the new character of the war was given by the change of the military organization, in April, 1900, from one of divisions and brigades, to a geographical basis. Each commander was now given charge of a certain area and used his men to reduce this district to order.

The insurgents fought in small groups and generally under local chieftains. Their advantage lay in their thorough knowledge of the country and in the sympathy of a part of the population and the fear of another part, for outlaws living in concealment and moving in the dark can often inspire a terror which regular troops under discipline fail to engender. The Americans could not trust the natives, as it was impossible to tell the truthful from the treacherous. Nevertheless it was a kind of fighting which gave unusual scope for that American individualism, so strongly represented in the army, to which the romance of precisely this sort of thing had drawn just the class of men best fitted for the work. Scouting, counter scouting, surprise attacks, and ambuscades formed the daily news transmitted from the front—affairs not of regiments and companies but of squads and individuals. When face to face, however, the Filipinos seldom stood their ground, and the American ingenuity and eager willingness to attempt any new thing gradually got the better of the local knowledge and unscrupulousness as to the laws of war which had at first, given the natives an advantage. Funston, now Brigadier General, and his "suicide squad" continued to play an active part, but a similar spirit of daring and ingenuity pervaded the whole army.

Broken as were the Filipino field forces and widening as was the area of peace, the result of the island campaign was still uncertain. It rested upon two unknown quantities. The first was the nature of the Filipinos. Would they remain irreconcilable, ever ready to take advantage of a moment of weakness? If such were to be the case, we could look for no real conquest, but only a forcible occupation, which the people of the United States would never consent to maintain. The second unknown quantity was the American people themselves. Would they sustain the occupation sufficiently long to give a reasonable test of the possibilities of success?

Two events brought these uncertainties to an end. In the first place, William Jennings Bryan was defeated for the presidency in November, 1900, and President McKinley was given four more years in which to complete the experiment. In the second place, on March 23, 1901, Aguinaldo, who had been long in concealment, was captured. Though there had long been no possibility of really commanding the insurgent forces as a whole, Aguinaldo had remained the center of revolt and occasionally showed his hand, as in the attempt to negotiate a peace on the basis of independence. In February an intercepted letter had given a clue to his hiding place. Funston, in spite of his new rank, determined personally to undertake the capture. The signature of Lacuna, one of the insurgent leaders, was forged and letters were sent to Aguinaldo informing him of the capture of five Americans, who were being sent to headquarters. Among the five was Funston himself. The "insurgent" guard, clad in captured uniforms, consisted for the most part of Macabebes, hereditary enemies of the Tagalogs—for the Americans had now learned the Roman trick of using one people against another. The ruse succeeded perfectly. The guard and its supposed prisoners were joyfully received by Aguinaldo, but the tables were quickly turned and Aguinaldo's capture was promptly effected.

On the 19th of April, Aguinaldo wrote: "After mature deliberation, I resolutely proclaim to the world that I cannot refuse to heed the voice of a people longing for peace, nor the lamentations of thousands of families yearning to see their dear ones enjoying the liberty and promised generosity of the great American nation. By acknowledging and accepting the sovereignty of the United States throughout the Philippine Archipelago, as I now do, and without any reservation whatsoever, I believe that I am serving thee, my beloved country."

On the 19th of May, General Wheaton, Chief of Staff in the Philippines, sent the following dispatch to Washington: "Lacuna having surrendered with all his officers and men today, I report that all insurrectionary leaders in this department have been captured or have surrendered. This is the termination of the state of war in this department so far as armed resistance to the authority of the United States is concerned."

There was subsequent fighting with other tribes and in other islands, particularly with the Moros of the Sulu group, but by the time Aguinaldo had accepted American rule, the uncertainty of the American people had been resolved, and the execution of the treaty with Spain had been actually accomplished. As seventy thousand troops were no longer needed in the islands, the volunteers and many of the regulars were sent home, and there began an era of peace such as the Philippines had never before known.

During the suppression of the insurrection the American Army had resorted to severe measures, though they by no means went to the extremes that were reported in the press. It was realized, however, that the establishment of a permanent peace must rest upon an appeal to the good will and self-interest of the natives. The treatment of the conquered territories, therefore, was a matter of the highest concern not only with reference to the public opinion at home but to the lasting success of the military operations which had just been concluded.

There was as yet no law in the United States relating to the government of dependencies. The entire control of the islands therefore rested, in the first instance, with the President and was vested by him, subject to instructions, in the Military Governor. The army fortunately reflected fully the democratic tendencies of the United States as a whole. In June, 1899, General Lawton encouraged and assisted the natives in setting up in their villages governing bodies of their own selection. In August, he issued a general order, based upon a law of the islands, providing for a general system of local government into which there was introduced for the first time the element of really popular election. In 1900, a new code of criminal procedure, largely the work of Enoch Herbert Crowder, at that time Military Secretary, was promulgated, which surrounded the accused with practically all the safeguards to which the Anglo-Saxon is accustomed except jury trial, for which the people were unprepared.

To advise with regard to a permanent system of government for the Philippines President McKinley appointed in January, 1899, a commission consisting of Jacob G. Schurman, President of Cornell University, Dean C. Worcester, who had long been engaged in scientific research in the Philippines, Colonel Charles Denby, for many years previously minister to China, Admiral Dewey, and General E. S. Otis. Largely upon their recommendation, the President appointed a second commission, headed by Judge William Howard Taft to carry on the work of organizing civil government which had already begun under military direction and gradually to take over the legislative power. The Military Governor was to continue to exercise executive power. In 1901, Congress at length took action, vesting all military, civil, and judicial powers in such persons as the President might appoint to govern the islands. McKinley immediately appointed Judge Taft to the new governorship thus authorized. In 1901 in the "Insular Cases" the Supreme Court also gave its sanction to what had been done. In legislation for the territories, it held that Congress was not bound by all the restrictions of the Constitution, as, for instance, that requiring jury trial; that Porto Rico and the Philippines were neither foreign countries nor completely parts of the United States, though Congress was at liberty to incorporate them into the Union.

There was, however, no disposition to incorporate the Philippines into the United States, but there has always been a widespread sentiment that the islands should ultimately be given their independence, and this sentiment has largely governed the American attitude toward them. A native Legislature was established in 1907 under Governor Taft, * and under the Wilson Administration the process toward independence has been accelerated, and dates begin to be considered. The process of preparation for independence has been threefold: the development of the physical well-being of the islands, the education of the islanders, and the gradual introduction of the latter into responsible positions of government. With little of the encouragement which might have come from appreciative interest at home, thousands of Americans have now labored in the Philippines for almost twenty years, but with little disposition to settle there permanently. Their efforts to develop the Filipinos have achieved remarkable success. It has of late been found possible to turn over such a large proportion of the governmental work to the natives that the number of Americans in the islands is steadily diminishing. The outbreak of the war with Germany found the natives loyal to American interests and even saw a son of Aguinaldo taking service under the Stars and Stripes. Such a tribute, like the services of Generals Smuts and Botha to Great Britain, compensates for the friction and noise with which democracy works and is the kind of triumph which carries reassurance of its ultimate efficiency and justice.

* By the Act of July 1, 1902, the Legislature was to consist of two houses, the Commission acting as an upper house and an elective assembly constituting a lower house. The Legislature at its first session was to elect two delegates who were to sit, without the right to vote, in the House of Representatives at Washington. An Act of August 29, 1916, substituted an elective Senate for the Philippine Commission as the upper house of the Legislature.



CHAPTER XIV. The Open Door

The United States arrived in the Orient at a moment of high excitement. Russia was consolidating the advance of two centuries by the building of the trans-Siberian railroad, and was looking eagerly for a port in the sun, to supplement winter-bound Vladivostok. Great Britain still regarded Russia as the great enemy and, pursuing her policy of placing buffer states between her territories and her enemies, was keenly interested in preventing any encroachment southward which might bring the Russian bear nearer India. France, Russia's ally, possessed IndoChina, which was growing at the expense of Siam and which might grow northwards into China. Germany saw in eastern Asia the richest prize remaining in the world not yet possessed by her rivals, and it was for this that she was seeking power in the Pacific. Having missed the Philippines, she quickly secured Samoa and purchased from Spain the Caroline Islands, east of the Philippines, and all that the United States had not taken of Spain's empire in the Pacific.

These latent rivalries had been brought into the open by the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which showed the powerlessness of China. The western world was, indeed, divided in opinion as to whether this colossus of the East was essentially rotten, old, decrepit, and ready to disintegrate, or was merely weak because of arrested development, which education and training could correct. At any rate, China was regarded as sick and therefore became for the moment even more interesting than Turkey, the traditional sick man of Europe. If China were to die, her estate would be divided. If she were really to revitalize her vast bulk by adapting her millions to modern ways, she had but to stretch herself and the toilfully acquired Asiatic possessions of the European powers would shiver to pieces; and if she awoke angry, Europe herself might well tremble. The really wise saw that the important thing was to determine the kind of education which China should receive, and in solving this problem the palm of wisdom must be given to the missionaries who represented the great Christian societies of Europe and America. To small-minded statesmen it seemed that the situation called for conquest. No nation was willing to be late at the division, if division it was to be; while if China was to awake, the European powers felt that she should awake shackled. By no one was this latter view so clearly held as by the Kaiser. With his accustomed versatility, he designed a cartoon showing the European powers, armed and with Germania in the forefront, confronting the yellow peril. On sending his troops to China in 1900, he told them to imitate the methods of the Huns, in order to strike lasting terror to the hearts of the yellow race. By such means he sought to direct attention to the menace of the Barbarian, when he was himself first stating that doctrine of Teutonic frightfulness which has proved, in our day at least, to be the real world peril.

It was Japan who had exposed the weakness of the giant, but her victory had been so easy that her own strength was as yet untested. Japan had come of age in 1894 when, following the example of Great Britain, the various powers had released her from the obligation of exterritoriality imposed upon her by treaties when their subjects were unwilling to trust themselves to her courts. It was still uncertain, however, whether the assumption of European methods by Japan was real, and her position as a great power was not yet established. In the very moment of her triumph over China she was forced to submit to the humiliation of having the terms of peace supervised by a concert of powers and of having many of the spoils of her victory torn from her.

The chief fruits that remained to Japan from her brilliant military victory were Formosa and the recognition of the separation of Korea from China: These acquisitions gave her an opportunity to show her capacity for real expansion, but whether she would be able to hold her prize was yet to be proven. The European states, however, claimed that by the Japanese victories the balance of power in the Orient had been upset and that it must be adjusted. The obvious method was for each power to demand something for itself. In 1898 Germany secured a lease of Kiao-chau Bay across the Yellow Sea from Korea, which she at once fortified and where she proceeded to develop a port with the hope of commanding the trade of all that part of China. Russia in the same way secured, somewhat farther to the north, Port Arthur and Talien-wan, and proceeded to build Dalny as the commercial outlet of her growing railroad. Great Britain immediately occupied Wei-hai-wei, which was midway between the German and Russian bases and commanded from the south the entrance to Pekin, and also, much farther to the south, Mirs Bay, which gave security to her commercial center at Hong-kong. France took Kwang-chau, still farther to the south, and Italy received Sanmen, somewhat to the south of the Yangtszekiang. From these ports each power hoped to extend a sphere of influence. It was axiomatic that such a sphere would be most rapidly developed and most solidly held if special tariff regulations were devised to throw the trade into the hands of the merchants of the nation holding the port. The next step, therefore, in establishing the solidity of an Asiatic base, would be the formulation of special tariffs. The result would be the practical division of China into districts having different and opposed commercial interests.

The United States did not arrive in this energetic company as an entire stranger. With both China and Japan her relations had long been intimate and friendly. American merchants had traded ginseng and furs for China silks and teas ever since the United States had been a nation. In 1786 the Government had appointed a commercial agent at Canton and in 1844 had made one of the first commercial treaties with China. In 1854 the United States had been the point of the foreign wedge that opened Japan to western civilization and inaugurated that amazing period of national reorganization and assimilation which has given the Japanese Empire her place in they world today. American missionaries had labored long and disinterestedly for the moral regeneration of both China and Japan with results which are now universally recognized as beneficial, though in 1900 there was still among the Chinese much of that friction which is the inevitable reaction from an attempt to change the fundamentals of an ancient faith and long-standing habits. American merchants, it is true, had been of all classes, but at any rate there had always been a sufficient leaven of those of the highest type to insure a reasonable reputation.

The conduct of the American Government in the Far East had been most honorable and friendly. The treaty with Japan in 1858 contained the clause: "The President of the United States, at the request of the Japanese Government, will act as a friendly mediator in such matters of difference as may arise between the Government of Japan and any European power." Under Seward the United States did, indeed, work in concert with European powers to force the opening of the Shimonoseki Straits in 1864, and a revision of the tariff in 1866. Subsequently, however, the United States cooperated with Japan in her effort to free herself from certain disadvantageous features of early treaties. In 1883 the United States returned the indemnity received at the time of the Shimonoseki affair—an example of international equity almost unique at the time but subsequently paralleled in American relations with China. The one serious difficulty existing in the relationships of the United States with both China and Japan resulted from an unwillingness to receive their natives as immigrants when people of nearly every other country were admitted. The American attitude had already been expressed in the Chinese Exclusion Act. As yet the chief difficulty was with that nation, but it was inevitable that such distinctions would prove particularly galling to the rising spirit of the Japanese.

John Hay was keenly aware of the possibilities involved in these Far Eastern events. Of profound moment under any circumstances, they were doubly so now that the United States was territorially involved. To take a slice of this Eastern area was a course quite open to the United States and one which some of the powers at least would have welcomed. Hay, however, wrote to Paul Dana on March 16, 1899, as follows: "We are, of course, opposed to the dismemberment of that empire [China], and we do not think that the public opinion of the United States would justify this Government in taking part in the great game of spoliation now going on." He felt also that the United States should not tie its hands by "formal alliances with other Powers interested," nor was he prepared "to assure China that we would join her in repelling that demand by armed force."

It remained, then, for the Secretary of State to find a lever for peaceful interference on the part of his country and a plan for future operations. The first he found in the commercial interest of the United States. Since the Government refrained from pressing for special favors in any single part of the Chinese Empire, it could demand that American interests be not infringed anywhere. The Secretary of State realized that in a democracy statesmen cannot overlook the necessity of condensing their policies into popular catchwords or slogans. Today such phrases represent in large measure the power referred to in the old saying: "Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." The single phrase, "scrap of paper," probably cost Germany more than any one of her atrocious deeds in the Great War. Hay's policy with regard to China had the advantage of two such phrases. The "golden rule," however, proved less lasting than the "open door," which was coined apparently in the instructions to the Paris Peace Commission. This phrase expressed just what the United States meant. The precise plan of the American Government was outlined and its execution undertaken in a circular note of September 6, 1899, which the Secretary of State addressed to London, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. In this he asked the powers to agree to respect all existing open ports and established interests within their respective spheres, to enforce the Chinese tariff and no other, and to refrain from all discrimination in port and railroad charges. To make such a proposal to the European powers required courage. In its essential elements the situation in the Far East was not unlike the internal economic condition prevailing at the same time in the United States. In this country great transportation monopolies had been built up, having an enormous capitalization, and many of them were dependent for their profits on the advantage of price fixing that monopoly may be expected to bring. Then state and nation stepped in and asserted their right to fix prices in the interest of the consumer. The consequent political struggles illustrate the difficulties besetting the Secretary of State in his somewhat similar attempt to take the chief fruits from the powers which had just acquired Chinese territory—an undertaking in which he had none of the support of legal powers effective in the United States.

That Hay so promptly succeeded in putting at least a toe in the door which he wished to open was due to a number of circumstances. Great Britain, devoted to the principle of free trade, heartily approved of his proposal and at once accepted its terms. The other powers expressed their sympathy with the ideas of the note, but, in the case of Russia at least, without the faintest intention of paying any heed to it. Hay promptly notified each power of the others' approval and stated that, with this unanimous consent, he would regard its acceptance of the proposals as "final and definitive."

The force which Hay had used was the moral influence of world opinion. None of the powers dared, with its hands fresh filled with Chinese plunder, openly to assert that it had taken the spoils for selfish reasons alone—at least, after another power had denied such purpose. Hay saw and capitalized the force of conventional morality which, however superficial in many cases, had influenced the European powers, particularly since the time of the Holy Alliance. Accustomed to clothe their actions in the garb of humanitarianism, they were not, when caught thus red-handed, prepared to be a mark of scorn for the rest of the world. The cult of unabashed might was still a closet philosophy which even Germany, its chief devotee, was not yet ready to avow to the world. Of course Hay knew that the battle was not won, for the bandits still held the booty. He was too wise to attempt to wrench it from them, for that indeed would have meant battle for which the United States was not prepared in military strength or popular intention. He had merely pledged these countries to use their acquisitions for the general good. Though the promises meant little in themselves, to have exacted them was an initial step toward victory.

In the meantime the penetration of foreign influences into China was producing a reaction. A wave of protest against the "foreign devils" swept through the population and acquired intensity from the acts of fanatic religious leaders. That strange character, the Dowager Empress, yielded to the "Boxers," who obtained possession of Pekin, cut off the foreigners from the outside world, and besieged them in the legations. That some such movement was inevitable must have been apparent to many European statesmen, and that it would give them occasion, by interference and punishment, to solidify their "spheres of influence" must have occurred to them. The "open door" was in as immediate peril as were the diplomats in Pekin.

Secretary Hay did not, however, yield to these altered circumstances. Instead, he built upon the leadership which he had assumed. He promptly accepted the international responsibility which the emergency called for. The United States at once agreed to take its share, in cooperation with the Great Powers, in whatever measures should be judged necessary. The first obvious measure was to relieve the foreign ministers who were besieged in Pekin. American assistance was active and immediate. By the efforts of the American Government, communication with the legations was opened; the American naval forces were soon at Tientsin, the port of Pekin; and five or six thousand troops were hastily sent from the Philippines. The United States therefore bore its full proportion of the task. The largest contingent of the land forces was, indeed, from Germany, and the command of the whole undertaking was by agreement given to the German commander, Graf von Waldersee. Owing, however, to his remoteness from the scene of action, he did not arrive until after Pekin had been reached and the relief of the legations, which was the first if not the main object of the expedition, had been accomplished. After this, the resistance of the Chinese greatly decreased and the country was practically at the mercy of the concert of powers.

By thus bearing its share in the responsibilities of the situation, the United States had won a vote in determining the result. Secretary Hay, however, had not waited for the military outcome, and he aimed not at a vote in the concert of powers but at its leadership. While the international expedition was gathering its forces, he announced in a circular note that "the policy of the Government of the United States is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire." To this position he requested the powers to assent.

Again Hay had hit upon a formula which no self-respecting power could deny. Receiving from practically all a statement of their purpose to preserve the "integrity" of China and the "Open Door" just when they were launching the greatest military movement ever undertaken in the Far East by the western world, he made it impossible to turn punishment into destruction and partition. The legations were saved and so was China. After complicated negotiations an agreement was reached which exacted heavy pecuniary penalties, and in the case of Germany, whose minister had been assassinated, a conspicuous and what was intended to be an enduring record of the crime and its punishment. China, however, remained a nation—with its door open.

Once more in 1904 the fate of China, and in fact that of the whole Far East, was thrown into the ring. Japan and Russia entered into a war which had practically no cause except the collision of their advancing interests in Chinese territory. Every land battle of the war, except those of the Saghalien campaign, was fought in China, Chinese ports were blockaded, Chinese waters were filled with enemy mines and torpedoes, and the prize was Chinese territory or territory recently taken from her. To deny these facts was impossible; to admit them seemed to involve the disintegration of the empire. Here again Secretary Hay, devising a middle course, gained by his promptness of action the prestige of having been the first to speak. On February 8, 1904, he asked Germany, Great Britain, and France to join with the United States in requesting Japan and Russia to recognize the neutrality of China, and to localize hostilities within fixed limits. On January 10, 1905, remembering how the victory of Japan in 1894 had brought compensatory grants to all the powers, he sent out a circular note expressing the hope on the part of the American Government that the war would not result in any "concession of Chinese territory to neutral powers." Accustomed now to these invitations which decency forbade them to refuse, all the powers assented to this suggestion. The results of the war, therefore, were confined to Manchuria, and Japan promised that her occupation of that province should be temporary and that commercial opportunity therein should be the same for all. The culmination of American prestige came with President Roosevelt's offer of the good offices of the United States, on June 8, 1905. As a result, peace negotiations were concluded in the Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) in 1905. For this conspicuous service to the cause of peace President Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel prize.

Secretary Hay had therefore, in the seven years following the real arrival of the United States in the Far East, evolved a policy which was clear and definite, and one which appealed to the American people. While it constituted a variation from the precise methods laid down by President Monroe in 1823, in that it involved concerted and equal cooperation with the great powers of the world, Hay's policy rested upon the same fundamental bases: a belief in the fundamental right of nations to determine their own government, and the reduction to a minimum of intervention by foreign powers. To have refused to recognize intervention at all would have been, under the circumstances, to abandon China to her fate. In protecting its own right to trade with her, the United States protected the integrity of China. Hay had, moreover, so ably conducted the actual negotiations that the United States enjoyed for the moment the leadership in the concert of powers and exercised an authority more in accord with her potential than with her actual strength. Secretary Hay's death in 1905 brought American leadership to an end, for, though his policies continued to be avowed by all concerned, their application was thereafter restricted. The integrity of Chinese territory was threatened, though not actually violated, by the action of Great Britain in Tibet and of Japan in Manchuria. Japan, recognized as a major power since her war with Russia, seemed in the opinion of many to leave but a crack of the door open in Manchuria, and her relationship with the United States grew difficult as she resented more and more certain discriminations against her citizens which she professed to find in the laws of some of the American States, particularly in those of California.