Note 6 — Chapter XIII · MacArthur and the War

The same article even assumed an air of injured innocence and urged that as soon as the insurgent army laid down its arms6 “the intentions of our government will be made known by Congress.” That was just thirteen years ago, and “the intentions of our government” have never yet been “made known by Congress,” despite the fact that the omission has all these years been like a buzzing insect, lighting intermittently on the sores of race prejudice and political difference in the Philippines, to say nothing of the circumstance that such omission leaves everybody guessing, including ourselves. The omission has been due to the fact that both the McKinley Administration which committed the original blunder of taking the islands, and the succeeding Administrations which have been the legatees of that blunder, have always needed in their Philippine business the support both of those whose votes are caught by the Denby honesty of 1899 and those whose votes are caught by the Denby hypocrisy of 1900.