First, some observations: The front-page photo of the Inquirer last Thursday showed workers replacing a historical marker about the Philippine-American War. The original was in English and mentioned the name of Private William Grayson of the First Nebraska Volunteers, as having fired the shot that started the war. The new marker in Pilipino mentions the US unit involved but not Grayson, and goes on to say that the war lasted up to June 15, 1913. The caption accompanying the picture mentions that the war “raged from Feb. 4, 1899 to July 4, 1902.” This is in line with the American version of history. The Filipino narrative according to the revised National Historical Commission of the Philippines marker, is that the war lasted until June 15, 1913. The change is part of a continuing effort to see our history through Filipino, rather than foreign eyes.
There are several versions of this encounter between Filipinos and Americans. O.D. Corpuz in “The Roots of the Filipino Nation,” Volume II, cites the personal account of Grayson:
“I challenged with another ‘Halt!’ Then, he immediately shouted ‘Halto!’ to me.
“Well, I thought the best thing to do was to shoot him. He dropped. Then, two Filipinos sprang out of the gateway about fifteen feet from us. I called ‘Halt!’, and Miller fired and dropped one. I saw that another was left. Well, I think I got my second Filipino that time … I said, ‘Line up, fellows; the niggers are in here all through these yards.’”
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In December 1898, the Treaty of Paris, signed by Spain and the United States, ended the “splendid little war” between the two nations. The treaty guaranteed Cuban independence from Spain, and ceded ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. To “encourage” Spain to accept the loss of the Philippines, its largest remaining overseas colony, the United States agreed to pay Spain $20 million, a most bizarre arrangement wherein the victor paid the vanquished for territory already won on the battlefield.
For the treaty to be binding, it needed ratification by the US Senate. The country was deeply divided between those favoring annexation and those opposed, between the imperialists and those against empire. Among the prominent dissenters on annexation were former presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, labor leader Samuel Gompers, Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryant, and renowned author Mark Twain.
In his book “Twelve Against Empire,” Robert L. Beisner, winner of the Alan Nevins History Prize, relates how George Frisbie Hoar, the senior senator from Massachusetts, laid out his case against annexation on the Senate floor. He argued “the paramount issue was the threat posed to the American Constitution and ideals. The US was founded on the ideals of the consent of the governed, and without the consent of the Filipinos, the United States could never justly or constitutionally purchase the Islands and rule its people.” Hoar praised the Filipinos as “a people of great ability and integrity.” He found “Emilio Aguinaldo and his cohorts worthy of comparison with America’s Founding Fathers.” He proceeded to enumerate their qualifications for nationhood, saying “they had a written constitution, a settled territory, an organized army, a congress, courts, schools, universities, churches, the Christian religion, newspapers, books, statesmen who can debate questions of international law like Mabini, and organize governments like Aguinaldo; poets like Jose Rizal; aye, and patriots who can die for liberty like Jose Rizal.”
When the debate ended and the votes counted, the Senate had approved the Treaty by just one vote more than the two-thirds margin required for ratification. In the end, Hoar concluded, “we changed the Monroe Doctrine from a doctrine of eternal righteousness and justice, resting on the consent of the governed, to a doctrine of brutal selfishness looking only to our own advantage. We crushed the only Republic in Asia. We made war on Christian people in the East. We converted a war of glory to a war of shame. We vulgarized the American flag. We inflicted torture on unarmed men to extort confession. We put children to death. We established reconcentrado camps. We devastated provinces. We baffled the aspirations of a people for liberty.”
In his autobiography, George F. Hoar described his defense of Philippine freedom as one of the major contributions of his life.