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The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912

Note 1 — Chapter VI · The Wilcox-Sargent Trip

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He then goes on to describe the inauguration of civil government in Cagayan province. I hope all this will not weary the American reader. It was vividly interesting to me when I read it for the first time thirteen years afterward, in 1911, because it was such unexpected information, so surprising. It will be equally interesting to all other Americans who participated in putting down the subsequent insurrection and in setting up the Taft civil government in that same valley three years later. I was in that town, for a similar purpose, with Governor Taft in 1901, after a bloody war which almost certainly would not have occurred had the Paris Peace Commission known the conditions then existing, just like this, all over Luzon and the Visayan Islands. Of course the Southern Islands were a little slower. But as Luzon goes, so go the rest. The rest of the archipelago is but the tail to the Luzon kite. Luzon contains 4,000,000 of the 8,000,000 people out there, and Manila is to the Filipino people what Paris is to the French and to France. Luzon is about the size of Ohio, and the other six islands that really matter,1 are in size mere little Connecticuts and Rhode Islands, and in population mere Arizonas or New Mexicos. Describing the ceremonies of the inauguration of civil government in Cagayan, the Wilcox-Sargent report to Admiral Dewey says:

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