Note 2 — Chapter XII · Otis and the War (Continued)

It is a common saying that Paris is France. In the same sense Manila is the Philippines. In fact, the latter expression is more accurate than the former, for Manila, besides being the capital city of the country, and its chief port, is a city of over 200,000 people, while no one of the two or three cities next to it in rank in population had more than 20,000.2 By parity of reasoning it may be said that Luzon was the Philippines, so far as the problem which confronted us when we went there was concerned, relatively both to the original conception in 1898 of the struggle for independence, its birth in 1899, its life, and its slow, lingering obstinate death in 1900–1902, in which last year the insurrection was finally correctly stated to be practically ended. To know just how and why this was true, is necessary to a clear understanding of that struggle, including not only its genesis and its exodus, but also its gospels, its acts, its revelations, and the multitudinous subsequent commentaries thereon.