Note 6 — Chapter IX · The Iloilo Fiasco

The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation was received by cable in cipher, at Manila, December 29th, and as soon as it had been written out in long hand General Otis hurried a copy down to General Miller at Iloilo by a ship sailing that day, so that General Miller might “understand the position and policy of our government.” But he forgot to tell Miller to conceal the policy for the present.6 So the latter, on January 1st, not only sent a copy of it to the “President of the Federal Government of Visayas,” Mr. Lopez,7 but in the note of transmittal he “asked,” says his report, “that they permit the entry of my troops.”8 What a fatal mistake! Here was a proclamation representing all the “majesty, dominion, and power” of the American Government, signed by the President of the United States, in terms asserting immediate, absolute, and supreme authority, and the natives were “asked” if they would “permit” its enforcement. General Miller’s report says that he also had the proclamation “translated into Spanish and distributed to the people.”9 “The people laugh at it,” he says. “The insurgents call us cowards and are fortifying at the point of the peninsula, and are mounting old smooth-bore guns left by the Spaniards. They are intrenching everywhere, are bent on having one fight, and are confident of victory. The longer we wait before the attack the harder it will be to put down the insurrection.” This is especially interesting in the light of President McKinley’s justification of the wisdom of temporizing—on the idea that delay would weaken the insurgents and could not hurt us. “Let no one convince you,” writes Miller to Otis on January 5th, “that peaceful means can settle the difficulty here.”