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American Colonial Policy Towards the Philippines*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Thomas R. McHale
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Extract

American entry into the ranks of colonial powers as an aftermath of the Spanish American War was sudden, unexpected, and, chronologically speaking, late in the game of colonial empire building. Prior to the last decade of the 19th century, United States had shown no lack of territorial acquisitiveness, but national expansion was exclusively in terms of organic growth of the whole nation. There was no interest in, nor attempts at building a “colonial empire” along conventional lines in which territories and their inhabitants were placed “permanently” under control but not under a shared set of political institutions. Up to 1898, all “civilized” inhabitants of new territories were immediately given the status of United States citizens with all rights and privileges thereof.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1962 , pp. 24 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1962

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References

1. American territorial expansion had taken many forms: purchase, conquest, negotiation and voluntary cession. The major landmarks in American territorial expansion were the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the annexation of Florida through a treaty with Spain in 1819, the annexation of Texas in 1845 as a result of the request of the Americans who held power in the independent area at the time, and the purchase of Alaska in 1887 from Russia.

For a discussion of this expansionistic tendency in the United States, see Latourette, Kenneth Scott, The United States Moves Across the Pacific. New York: Harpers & Bro., 1946, p. 3–5.Google Scholar

2. Weinberg, Albert K., Manifest Destiny, a Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1935.Google Scholar

3. The “anti-Imperialist movement” in the United States frequently used arguments based on such constitutipnal interpretations. See, for example, the numerous references in Republic or Empire. Chicago: Independence Co., 1899Google Scholar, passim.

4. Ibid. p. 132.

5. Congressional Record, 55th Congress, 3rd Session, as quoted in Grander, Carel and Livesay, William. The Philippines and the United States. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951, p. 40.Google Scholar

6. The specific cases did not apply to the Philippines but to Puerto Rico, yet the effect on the Philippines was the same. In essence, the key decision, which concerned the application of duties to be collected under the then existing Dingley tariff law, ruled that the new areas annexed by the United States as a result of the Spanish American War were “not foreign territories” nor at the same time were they “domestic territories within the meaning of the revenue clauses of the Constitution”. With a fine splitting of semantic hairs, the Supreme Court ruled that these areas were territories “appurtenant to and belonging to the United States”.

Elliot points out that the Supreme Court's conclusion was reached by various processes of reasoning and was much criticized by students of Constitutional law and the general public. He writes: “It was claimed that as four Justices believed that the Constitution was extended by its own forces to the new territory and four other Justices believed that an Act of Congress was necessary so ta extend it, and the reasoning of the Justice who wrote the prevailing opinion was not concurred in by any of his associates, no Constitutional doctrine was declared by a majority of the Court”. He adds, however, that “…so far as the binding effect of the decision was concerned, it is from a legal point of view entirely immaterial that a majority of the members of the Court were unable to agree on a single reason for the decision…” Elliott, , op. cit., p. 495.Google Scholar

7. An interesting sidelight relative to the high interest rate, capital importing nature of the American economy can be found in the fact that Hou Qua, the famous Chinese Canton merchant, invested a sizeable amount of his wealth–through the Boston firm of George Perkins—in United States railroads in the 1890's. The suggestion implied in such a transaction was that interest rates in developing United States were more attractive than in under-developed areas like China. See Liu, K. C., “Hou Qua: The Sources and Disposition of his Wealth”. Association of Asian Studies Paper, 04 2, 1958, New York.Google Scholar

8. William Graham Sumner thought this to be a crucial factor. In an essay entitled “Earth Hunger” written in 1896, he stated”…those states only are prepared for colonization and foreign responsibilities whose internal cohesion is intense; for every extension of territory brings with it a strain upon the internal organism. If we had never taken Texas and Northern Mexico, we never should have had secession”. Essays of William Graham Sumner, Vol. 1, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934.Google Scholar

9. See Hartz, Louis, The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt Bruce & Co., 1955Google Scholar, Chaptei XI, for a discussion of this “value” in American Liberalism.

10. Millis, Walter, The Martial Spirit. Cambridge: The Literary Guild of America and the Riverside Press, 1931, p. 4.Google Scholar

11. Interesting studies on the background of the Spanish American War are: Pratt, Julius, Expansionists of 1898. New York: Peter Smith, 1951Google Scholar; Millis, Walter, op. citGoogle Scholar. For the important role of the Press during the period, see Witherson, Marcus W., Public Opinion and the Spanish American War. Baton Rouge: 1932.Google Scholar

12. See, for example, Bowers, Claude G., Beveridge and the Progressive Era. Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1932, especially pp. 97–114, 131–157.Google Scholar

13. A development of this thesis as it applies to Hawaii and the Philippines can be found in Latourette, Kenneth Scott, op. cit.Google Scholar

14. A book length treatment of Social Darwinism in the United States can be found in: Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.Google Scholar

15. To these three one might also add William Graham Sumner, the famous Yale sociologist, who embraced social Darwinism almost without reservation. However Sumner appears to have consistently opposed American colonialism from the beginning. In 1896 he wrote: “The notion is that colonies are glory, but the truth is that they are burdens unless plundered—and then they are enemies.” He suggested that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Britain would colonize the rest of the colonizable world—for then Britain would have the headaches and the United States the benefits of British created Anglo-Saxon law and order. See Sumner, , op. cit., p. 194–5.Google Scholar

16. New York: American Tract Publishing Co., 1885.

17. Boston, 1890.

18. These articles have been collected and published in The Interest of America in Seapower. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1897.Google Scholar

19. Pratt quotes a British observer writing in Blackwoods Magazine to the effect that Mahan's teachings were: “as oil to the flames of ‘colonial expansion’ everywhere leaping to life. Everywhere a new-sprung ambition to go forth and possess and enjoy reads its sanction in the philosophy of history ennobled by the glory of conquest…I doubt whether this effect of Mahan's teaching has gone deeper anywhere than in the United States.” Pratt, , op. cit. p. 22Google Scholar.

Mahan, however, was not enthusiastic about acquiring the Philippines when the prospects first arose, and had serious misgivings about their real value See: Mahan's Correspondence to H. C. Lodge, July 27, 1898, cited in Livesey, William, Mahan on Sea Power, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947, p. 181.Google Scholar

20. Kidd, Benjamin, The Control of the Tropics. London: Macmillan & Co., 1898Google Scholar. See also his articles: “The United States and the Contdol of the Tropics”, Atlantic Monthly, 12 1898, p. 721–727.Google Scholar

21. In addition to the impact of their writings and lecturing on the public in general, Kidd, as well as Mahan, Burgess and Fiske, appear to have had considerable impact on policy formation through intimate contact with national leaders of the day, and particularly contacts with Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge.

See, for example, the comments of Theodore Roosevelt regarding Kidd in the North American Review, CLXI (1895) pp. 94–109.Google Scholar

22. See Kuznets, S., “Qualitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations” in Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. V, No. 1, 1957.Google Scholar

23. See Pratt, Julius, History of American Foreign Policy. Edgewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1955, p. 371.Google Scholar

24. Faulkner, Harold Underwood, American Economic History. New York: Harper and Bro., 1924, pp. 624–25.Google Scholar

25. See Pratt, , Expansionists of 1898, op. cit., p. 22, and Chapter VII, pp. 230–278Google Scholar.

Andrew Carnegie, the most prominent American industrialist of the day, was deeply opposing “imperial expansion” in the Philippines for commercial reasons. See “Should the United States Expand” in Republic or Empire, op. cit., pp. 89–99.Google Scholar

26. According to an American businessman in Manila, the firm of Henry Peabody & Co. of Boston and four Americans made up the entire American business community in the Philippines between 1893 and the end of 1895. See Stevens, Earl, Yesterday in the Philippines. New York: Scribner & Sons, 1898, p. xix.Google Scholar

27. C.f. the arguments of Moon which emphasized the fact that men, never nations, build colonial empires. Moon feels that colonial expansion into an area is invariably associated with the activities of particular men with particular economic interests. He lists these as exporters to an area, importers from an area, shippers calling at an area, arms and uniform manufacturers and banks that finance any or all of these activities. In the specific case of the Philippines, it is difficult to find “empire builders” in any of these categories. See Moon, Parker Thomas, Imperialism and World Politics. New York: Macmillan Co., 1926, pp. 58–67.Google Scholar

28. Canvassing the public and private papers of Theodore Roosevelt provides ample evidence that Roosevelt, a key figure in America's extension of sovereignty over the Philippines, was heavily influenced by the activities and attitudes toward Imperial expansion of Russia, England, France and Germany during the latter part of the 19th century. See, for example, Hartland, Albert B. and Ferleger, Herbert, Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia. New York: Roosevelt Memorial Association, 1941, pp. 245–6.Google Scholar

29. Bemis, Samuel Flagg (ed.), The American Secretaries of State and their Diplomacy. New York: R. A. Kmopf, 1927, p. 98.Google Scholar

30. The influential New York Times, immediately after the news of Dewey's victories over the Spanish fleet, seriously proposed that the best way of discharging the responsibilities America incurred in destroying Spanish power in the Philippines was to turn them over to Great Britain. See: New York Times, 05 3, 1898.Google Scholar

31. Elliott, Charles, The Philippines to the End of Commission Government. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1916, pp. 368–9.Google Scholar

32. Discussion of these influences can be found in Ibid., pp. 348–352; Moon, , op. cit., p. 393Google Scholar; and Bemis, , op. cit., pp. 99–101, 126Google Scholar. See also: Halstead, Murat, The Life and Achievement of Admiralty Dewey. Chicago: Our Possessions Publishing Co., 1899, p. 216.Google Scholar

33. Prophetically, this company went out of business in 1903.

34. See Harrington, Fred H., “The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898–1900.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. XXII (09 1935).Google Scholar

35. As quoted in Grunder, and Livesey, , op. cit.Google Scholar

36. See Foster, John W., American Diplomacy in the Orient, Boston: Houghton, 1903, p. 404Google Scholar, and Grunder, and Livesey, , op. cit., p. 36.Google Scholar

37. See Eyre, James K. Jr., “The Philippines, the Powers and the Spanish American War: A Study in Foreign Policy.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1942Google Scholar. Also Grunder, and Livesey, , op. cit., p. 32Google Scholar; Foster, , op. cit., p. 403–4.Google Scholar

38. It is interesting to note that the United States Peace Commission charged with the responsibility of working out a treaty with Spain was initially divided on the question of retaining the Philippines. William Day, former Secretary of State, who had been in charge of Foreign Affairs immediately prior to, and during the War, was strongly opposed to any annexation scheme at first; Senator Grey of Delaware, a strong anti-imperialist and a Democrat, was likewise opposed to any territorial acquisition, “unless possibly a coaling station”. Senator David of Minnesota and Senator Frye of Maine thought the United States should keep Luzon and turn the rest of the islands over to Holland. Whitelaw Reid, the fifth member of the Peace Commission, was the only one interested in the retention of all the islands. None of the other four Commissioners could be considered deeply favourable to such an attitude. That the ultimately treaty that they worked out with Spain included the cession of all the Philippines to the United States was due to the specific instructions of President McKinley.

Elliott, , op. cit., pp. 319–358Google Scholar, treats the Peace negotiation in considerable detail. See also Pratt, , op. cit., pp. 331–345.Google Scholar

39. The 20,000,000 dollar payment was not a purchase price in the strict sense; but, in the minds of many people, payment of a sum of money to Spain for the Philippines added legitimacy to the American acquisition. In the years following the acquisition, one finds frequent mention of the fact that the Philippines was “ours by right of purchase”. C.f. Root, Elihu, The Military and Colonial Policy of the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1916, p. 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

See also a letter of Commissioner Day of the Peace Negotiating Committee to D. K. Watson of Columbus, Ohio, in October 1899, as noted in LeRoy, Vol. I, op. cit., p. 370Google Scholar. This letter, much commented on in the press at the time, has often been cited as the authority for the statement that the Philippines were purchased from Spain.

40. The resolutions and amendment included the Vest-Gorman amendment that declared that under the Constitution, the United States Government had no right to acquire and to hold permanently territories; the McEnry resolution which included a somewhat vague promise of future disposition “as would best promote the interests of citizens of the United States and inhabitants of said islands”; and Senator Bacon's amendment to the McEnry resolution which stated that the United States did not desire permanent control of the Philippines nor did it intend to deny the right of self-government to the Philippines. See Kalaw, , op. cit., pp. 42–81.Google Scholar

41. The Vest-Gorman amendments and the Bacon amendments which would have committed the United States to a policy of granting the Philippines independence both failed to pass in the Senate; the vague McEnry resolution passed in the Senate but was never passed by the House. The Treaty itself, however, passed by a margin of one vote over the necessary two-thirds vote. See Kalaw, ibid.

42. See Bowers, Claude, Beveridge and the Progressive Era. Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1932, p. 119.Google Scholar

43. Quoted in Kalaw, , op. cit., p. 105.Google Scholar

44. Williams, Daniel R., The Odyssey of the Philippine Commission. Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1913, p. 65.Google Scholar

45. See Root, , op. cit., p. 48–49.Google Scholar

46. See Kalaw, , op. cit., Appendix D, pp. 322–329.Google Scholar

47. However, Elliott claims that the American policy was in line with the British theory (not practice) laid down in the “Queen's Proclamation of 1858”. The only difference to Elliott was in the strong faith Americans had in education. See Elliott, Charles Burke, The Philippines to the End of the Military Regime. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1916, p. 59.Google Scholar

48. Corpuz, O. D., The Bureaucracy in the Philippines. Manila: Institute of Public Administration, 1957, p. 6.Google Scholar

49. As quoted in Grander, and Livesey, , op. cit., p. 85.Google Scholar

50. The Democratic Party platform from the turn of the century until the 1920's invariably carried a plank in favour of Philippine independence. This plank, however, like the more recent policy planks of the Democratic Party calling for the reunification of Ireland, was included in the Democratic Party platform largely by force of habit. No serious discussion on the question preceded its inclusion.

51. See Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia, Hart, A. B. and Ferleger, H. R., eds. New York: Roosevelt Memorial Association, 1941, pp. 244–5Google Scholar and 426, for a number of relevant quotes along these lines.

52. New York Times, 11 22, 1914.Google Scholar

53. Schilling, Warner R., “The Admirals and American Foreign Policy”, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Yale University, 1953.Google Scholar

54. Corpuz, , op. cit., p. 180.Google Scholar

55. Beard feels that this alilance was of major importance in shifting American policy toward the Philippines. Beard, Charles A., The Idea of National Interest. New York: Macmillan Company, 1934, pp. 522–523Google Scholar. See also Schilling, , op. cit.Google Scholar Schilling points out that Great Britain was considered the most likely enemy in the “next” war to be fought by the United States in the eyes of United States Naval policy planners up to 1912.