The Story of the Philippines. Murat Halstead

The scene one evening in the vicinity of the sun departing in Asia to light up the morning of the everlasting to-morrow touching America with magical riches, was that of Niagara Falls ten thousand times magnified and turned to molten gold, that burned with inconceivable luster, while the south and north and east were illuminated with strange fires and soft lights, fading and merged at last in the daffodil sky. Then the west became as a forest of amazing growth, and the ship entered its dusky recesses like a hunter for game such as the world never saw—and we looked upon the slow-fading purple islands that are the northern fringes of the greater one of the Philippines, and studied the rather faint and obscure Southern Cross and the stately sheen of the superb constellation of the Scorpion. It is a pity to have to say that the Cross of the South is a disappointment—has to be explained and made impressive by a diagram. It is more like a kite than a cross; has a superfluous star at one corner, and no support at all of the idea of being like a cross unless it is worked up and picked into the fancy. The North Star shines on the other side of the ship, and the Great Dipper dips its pointers after midnight, into the mass of darkness that is the sea when the sun and moon are gone.

      The voyage from Honolulu to the farther Pacific was not so long that we forgot the American send-off we got in that Yankee city. The national airs sounded forth gloriously and grand. Flags and hankerchiefs fluttered from dense masses of spectators, and our colors were radiant above the roofs. There was, as usual, a mist on the mountains, and over Pearl Harbor glowed the arch of the most vivid rainbow ever seen, and Honolulu is almost every day dipped in rainbows. This was a wonder of splendor. The water changed from a sparkling green to a darkly luminous blue. From the moment the lofty lines of the coast—our mountains now—faded, till the birds came out of the west, the Pacific Ocean justified its name. The magnificent monotony of its stupendous placidity was not broken except by a few hours of ruffled rollers that tell of agitations that, if gigantic, are remote.

      The two thousand and one hundred miles from California to Honolulu seemed at first to cover a vast space of the journey from our Pacific coast to the Philippines, but appeared to diminish in importance as we proceeded and were taught by the persistent trade winds that blew our way, as if forever to waft us over the awful ocean whose perpetual beauty and placidity were to allure us to an amazing abyss, from which it was but imaginative to presume that we, in the hands of infinite forces, should ever be of the travelers that return. Similar fancies beset, as all the boys remember—the crews of the caravels that carried Columbus and his fortunes. There were the splendors of tropical skies to beguile us; the sea as serene as the sky to enchant us! What mighty magic was this that put a spell upon an American army, seeking beyond the old outlines of our history and dreams, to guide us on unfamiliar paths? What was this awakening in the soft mornings, to the thrilling notes of the bugle? The clouds were not as those we knew in other climes and years. We saw no penciling of smoke on the edges of the crystal fields touched up with dainty ripples too exquisite to be waves—that which is a delight for a moment and passes but to come again, in forms too delicate to stay for a second, save in those pictures that in the universe fill the mind with memories that arc like starlight. The glancing tribes of flying fish became events. We followed the twentieth parallel of longitude north of the equator, right on, straight as an arrow's flight is the long run of the ship—her vapor and the bubbles that break from the waters vanishing, so that we were as trackless when we had passed one breadth after another of the globe, as the lonesome canoes of the Indians on the Great Lakes.

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      Interview with General Aguinaldo.

      The Insurgent Leader's Surroundings and Personal Appearance—His

       Reserves and Ways of Talking—The Fierce Animosity of the Filipinos

       Toward Spanish Priests—A Probability of Many Martyrs in the Isle

       of Luzon.

      Practically all persons in the more civilized—and that is to say the easily accessible—portions of the Philippine Islands, with perhaps the exception of those leading insurgents who would like to enjoy the opportunities the Spaniards have had for the gratification of greed and the indulgence of a policy of revenge, would be glad to see the Americans remain in Manila, and also in as large a territory as they could command.

      Spaniards of intelligence are aware that they have little that is desirable to anticipate in case the country is restored to them along with their Mausers and other firearms, great and small, according to the terms of capitulation. They get their guns whether we go and leave them or we stay and they go. It is obvious that the insurgents have become to the Spaniards a source of anxiety attended with terrors. The fact that they allowed themselves to be besieged in Manila by an equal number of Filipinos is conclusive that their reign is over, and they are not passionately in favor of their own restoration. Their era of cruel and corrupt government is at an end, even if we shall permit them to make the experiment. Their assumed anxiety to stay, is false pretense. They will be hurt if they do not go home.

      The exasperation of the Filipinos toward the church is a phenomenon, and they usually state it with uncandid qualifications of the inadequate definition of the opinions and policy made by General Aguinaldo. Representations of my representative character as an American journalist, that gave me an importance I do not claim or assume to have, caused the appearance at my rooms, in Manila, of insurgents of high standing and comprehensive information, and of large fortunes in some cases. I was deeply impressed by their violent radicalism regarding the priests. At first they made no distinction, but said flatly the priests were the mischiefmakers, the true tyrants, and next to the half-breed Filipinos crossed with Chinese—who are phenomenal accumulators of pecuniary resources—the money-makers, who profited wrongfully by the earnings of others.

      And so "the priests must go," they said, and have no choice except that of deportation or execution. In few words, if they did not go away they would be killed. When close and urgent inquiry was made, the native priests were not included in the application of this rule. The Spanish priests were particularly singled out for vengeance, and with them such others as had been "false to the people" and treacherous in their relations to political affairs.

      The number to be exiled or executed was stated at 3,000. The priests are panicky about this feeling of the natives, as is in evidence in their solicitude to get away. They at least have no hope of security if the Spaniards should regain the mastery of the islands. Two hundred and fifty of them in vain sought to get passage to Hongkong in one boat. I was informed on authority that was unquestionable that the eviction or extermination of the Spanish priests was one of the inevitable results of Filipine independence—the first thing to be done.

      It was with three objects in view that I had an interview with General Aguinaldo: (1) To ascertain exactly as possible his feeling and policy toward the United States and its assertion of military authority; (2) to inquire about his position touching the priests, (3) and to urge him to be at pains to be represented not only at Washington, but at Paris. As regards the latter point, it was clear that the people of the Philippines, whatever they might be, ought to be represented before the Paris conference. No matter what their case was, it should be personally presented, even if the representatives were witnesses against rather than for themselves. In the interest of fair play and the general truth the Philippine population should put in an appearance at the seat of the government of the United States for the information of the President, and at the scene of the conference to testify; and I was sure it would appear in all cases that they were at least better capable of governing themselves than the Spaniards to govern them. There could be no form of government quite so bad as that of the fatal colonial system of Spain, as illustrated in the Philippines and in the Americas.

      General Aguinaldo was neither remote nor inaccessible. His headquarters were in an Indian village, just across the bay, named Bacoor, and in less than an hour a swift steam launch carried Major Bell, of the bureau of information, a gallant and most industrious and energetic officer, and myself, to water so shallow that we had to call canoes to land in front of a church that before the days of Dewey was riddled by the fire of Spanish warships because occupied by insurgents. The walls and roof