TWO ADMINISTRATIONS
Reading edition
A PROVISIONAL SETTLEMENT
McKinley, a President. Sagasta, a Prime Minister. Aguinaldo, a Patriot.
Sagasta—Señor Presidente, you are very good, and you will find that Spain is not unreasonable. I have instructed my peace commissioners to concede quite a number of the demands that yours will probably make.
McKinley—And the others?
Sag.—Why, of course, Señor, a demand that is not conceded is refused.
McK.—But if my commissioners have the sorrow to insist?
Sag.—In that case Spain knows how to defend her honor.
McK.—How, for example?
Sag.—If need be, with the naked breasts of her sons!
McK.—My good friend, you err widely. The thing which there may be a dispute about is not Spanish honor, but Spanish soil.
Sag.—In every square foot of which, Senõr Porco—I mean Presidente—Spanish honor is rooted.
McK.—Sir, I shall consult my Secretary of Agriculture as to the desirability of annexing land which produces a crop like that. But this is your day to be dull: can you really suppose that in permitting you to have peace commissioners I expected them to claim the right of dissent? However these matters may be debated, there is but one deciding power—the will of the American Executive.
Sag.—Señor, you forget. Supreme over all, there is God!
McK.—O, I don’t know. He’s not the only——
Sag.—Holy cats!
[Enter Aguinaldo.]
McK.—First of all, Señor Prime Minister, you must renounce the island of Luzon, and——
Aguinaldo—Yes, Señor, that being the most important island of the group, and the one in which you have not now even a foothold, its renunciation will naturally precede that of the others, as my great and good ally is pleased to suggest. With regard to Luzon you have only to say, “We renounce”; I, “We accept.”
McK.—Please have the goodness to hold your tongue.
Ag.—With both hands, your Excellency.
McK.—Second, Señor, you must assure a liberal government to the other islands.
Sag.—With great pleasure, your Excellency; quite cheerfully.
McK.—Please do not wink. Third, there must be——
Ag.—Excuse me; I was brought up a Spanish subject. What is a liberal government?
McK.—That is for Spain to decide.
Ag.—I don’t see what Spain will have to do with it.
McK.—My friend, you slumber—peaceful be thy dreams. Third, there must be complete separation of church and state.
Sag.—What! a Diabolocracy? You shock me!
McK.—Fourth, none of the islands, nor any part of them, is to be ceded to any foreign nation without the consent of the United States.
Ag.—You understand, Señor—you hear that! Spain can never again acquire a square foot of these islands, not even by reconquest or a corrupt bargain with a recreant Filipino dictator, for she will again have to reckon with our powerful protectors, whom may the good God reward!
McK.—The trouble with you is, you talk too much. Fifth, the United States must have in the Philippines equal commercial privileges with Spain.
Ag.—Equal? May I never again run amuck if they shall not have superior! Why, I have it in mind to issue a proclamation closing every port to the ships of Spain. As to the United States, commercial primacy is a small reward for their assistance in the closing scene of our successful rebellion.
Sag.—Of course, as you say, I shall have to accept whatever terms you have the great kindness to offer. As I understand your proposal, Spain retains all the islands but Luzon; that is to belong to the United States, and——
Ag.—What!
Sag.—This worthy Oriental appears to be laboring under a misapprehension.
McK.—I know of nothing else that could make an Oriental labor.
Ag.—Señores, the language of diplomacy is to me an unfamiliar tongue: I have imperfectly understood—pardon me. Is it indeed intended that the United States shall take Luzon and Spain take all else?
McK.—“Retain” is the word.
Ag.—“Retain?” Why, that means to keep, to hold what is already possessed. What you gentlemen have in possession in this archipelago is the ground covered by the feet of your soldiers. Now, what right have you, Señor Presidente, to the island of Luzon? The right of conquest? You have not conquered it.
McK.—My dear fellow, you distress me. I conquered this gentleman, and he is going to be good enough to give me the island as a testimonial of his esteem.
Ag.—But he doesn’t own it. I had taken it away from him before you defeated him—all but the capital, and by arrangement with your man Dewey——
Sag.—Caram——!
Ag.—I assisted to take that. Why, he supplied me with arms for the purpose!
Sag.—Arms with which I had had the unhappiness to supply him.
Ag.—What is my reward? I am driven from the city which I assisted to conquer, and you take not only that but the entire island, which you had no hand in conquering.
Sag. (aside)—Faith! he’ll conquer it before he gets it.
McK.—My friend, you are a Malay, with a slight infusion of Chinese, Hindu and Kanaka. Naturally, you cannot understand these high matters.
Ag.—I understand this: We Filipinos rebelled against Spain to liberate our country from oppression. We wrested island after island, city after city, from her until Manila was virtually all that she had left. As we were about to deprive her of that and regain the independence which, through four hundred years of misrule, she had denied us we experienced a dire mischance. You quarreled with her because she denied independence to Cuba. Spanish dominion, which we had stabbed, was already dead, but you arrived just in time to kick the corpse while it was yet warm, and for this service you propose to administer upon the estate, keeping the most valuable part for your honesty. You will then revive the dead, buried and damned and reinstate him in possession of the remainder!
McK. (aside)—O, will I?
Sag.—Apparently, Señor Presidente, this worthy person is afflicted with a flow of language. (Aside) The Porco Americano has the habit of blushing.
McK. (to Sagasta)—Yes, the Filipino always has his tongue in his ear. (To Aguinaldo) Proceed with the address.
Ag.—It is as if the French, having assisted your forefathers to independence, had kept Boston and all New England for themselves and restored the other colonies to Great Britain. If the Good Samaritan, arriving while the man fallen among thieves was still struggling with them, had assisted him to beat them off, had then taken his purse and delivered him to the thieves again you would have had a Scriptural precedent.
Sag. (writing in a notebook)—“At a certain temperature the Porco Americano can sweat.”
McK.—My great and good friend, you seem to have your climate with you, as well as your chin. I must beg you to abridge your oration against manifest destiny.
Ag.—Destiny was a long time manifesting herself, but she has not been idle since. In the last four months you have torn up the three American political Holy Scriptures: Washington’s Farewell Address, the Monroe Doctrine and the Declaration of Independence. You now stand upon the fragments of the last and declare it an error that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. In Hawaii you are founding a government on the consent of less than three per centum of the governed. In my country you propose to found one government and restore another against the unanimous dissent of eight millions of people whom you cheated into an alliance to that end. You cajoled them into assisting at the cutting of their own throats. Your only justification in making this war at all was Spain’s denial in Havana of the political principle which you now repudiate in Honolulu and Manila. Señores, we shall resist both the American and the Spanish occupation. You will be allies—embrace!
[Exit Sagasta.]
McK.—My dear boy, you are unduly alarmed: the notion of letting Spain keep those other islands is merely a Proposal Retractable—in undiplomatic language, an offer with a string to it.
Ag.—And your plan of holding Luzon—after taking it?
McK.—Rest in peace: that is only what we call an Intention Augmentable.
Ag.—Ah, Señor, you make me so happy!
ASPIRANTS THREE
The Incumbent. The Born Candidate. The Ambitious Mariner.
INCUMBENT:
Sir Admiral, ’twas but two years ago I turned you loose against a feeble foe, Gave you a chance to write your unknown name In shouting letters on the scroll of fame, Stood by you with a firmness almost sinful, Fed you with honors till you had a skinful, Plied you with praise till drunk as any lord— And this, George Dewey, this is my reward! So drunken with success you seem to be That you have visions of succeeding—Me!
AMBITIOUS MARINER:
Why, blast my tarry toplights! what’s this row? And which of you is speaking, anyhow?
INCUMBENT (aside):
He thinks I am beside myself. Alas, He sees, as through the bottom of a glass, Darkly. Strange how this pirate of the main With an eye single to his private gain Beholds things double! Would that I, poor worm, Could see in duplicate my four years’ term. The fellow’s looked too long upon the cup— I’ll get behind his back and trip him up, Break his damned neck, and then the tale repeat Of how, poor man, he fell o’er his own feet. That’s politics. [Enter Born Candidate.] Good Heavens, I am caught!
BORN CANDIDATE:
Hello, McPresident!
INCUMBENT:
Did you see aught Suspicious in my actions?
BORN CANDIDATE:
Well, I guess There might have been an aspirant the less If I had longer stayed where I was “at.”
INCUMBENT:
And may I venture to ask where was that?
BORN CANDIDATE:
Along the roadside, hidden in the rye To see the famous Admiral go by. A look had done me good if I had got one It happened, by the by, I had a shotgun.
AMBITIOUS MARINER (to Born Candidate):
Shiver my timbers! you’re a dandy crimp— That figure-head of yours would scare a shrimp.
INCUMBENT (to Born Candidate):
Let’s try less candid measures to remove him: Moral dissuasion would perhaps improve him. We can (when he’s not full of “old October”) Appeal from Dewey drunk to Dewey sober.
BORN CANDIDATE (to Incumbent):
Said like a lawyer (’tis a grand profession!) But that appellate court is ne’er in session.
AMBITIOUS MARINER (aside):
They think me half seas over. That’s all right— I’m full, but what I’m full of is just fight. (Aloud, scowling): Some sailor men—rough fellows from the fleet— Followed me here. They’re waiting in the street. They’re loyal, but in temper they’re unsteady And [goes to the window and speaks out] Gridley, you may fire when you are ready. [Cannon within. Exeunt, hurriedly, Incumbent and Born Candidate.] That’s all—I never had the least intention Of facing a political convention.
AT SANTIAGO
Toral. Shafter.
Toral—Ah, Señor, it was an anxious night—that of July 2. The angel of sleep did not visit me, and my pillow—I shame not to say it—was wet with tears.
Shafter—Me too. I never swore so much in my life. I tried every way to sleep, but couldn’t make it go.
Tor.—How sad! Señor, we are no longer enemies, and we are alone. May I hope that Heaven will put it into your heart to tell me why you slept not that unhappy night?
Sh.—That’s an easy one: I had made up my mind to demand your surrender.
Tor.—Ah, what a tender heart; what sensibility! It pained you, the thought of humiliating me.
Sh.—Not a bit of it; what worried me was the fear that you would refuse.
Tor.—And then there would be such—what you call effusion of blood. You are all compassion.
Sh.—Effusion of nothing. If you did not surrender to me I was going to surrender to you. My army was rotten with fever. Now what kept you awake, old man?
Tor.—The fear that you would surrender first. God o’ my soul!—we could not eat you!
A CABINET CONFERENCE
Hay, Secretary of State. Root, Secretary of War. Long, Secretary of the Navy.
Hay—Ah, glad to see you, gentlemen; punctuality is the politeness of princes. I feared we should have to postpone this Conference.
Long—Perhaps it would have been better. The newspapers have learned about it. As I entered there were seven hundred and fifty correspondents outside the door!
Root—The Navy Department is ever liberal in its estimates.
Long—I’ll swear there are not fewer than a dozen; you saw them yourself.
Root—Not I. I entered by way of the chimney.
Hay—It is useless to try to conceal our movements; they learn everything.
Long—It is to be hoped they will not learn the purpose of this Conference.
Hay—That will depend on your discretion; mine is unquestionable.
Root—Is the door locked?
Hay—Sure, and the keyhole stuffed. We are absolutely inaccessible to the curiosity of the vulgar.
Long—Blast their tarry——
Hay—Mr. Secretary, I beg that you will not swear. Remember that the President is a pillar of the church.
Root—What church?
Hay (scratching the head of the State Department)—I’m damned if I know. I belong myself to the Church of England.
Long—Let us proceed to business; the crisis waits.
Hay—Gentlemen (opening secret drawer in table), I have the honor to put before you a—[tumult within and beating of sticks on the door.] What’s that?
Root—The Filipinos!—the Filipinos! Where is Corbin?
Long—Sounds like the Democratic party.
Hay—Ah, I forgot; it is the correspondents. I have the honor to put before you, with appropriate glasses, a bottle of pure Kentucky Bourbon fifty-five years old—a gift from Governor Taylor to the President. As the President drinks nothing——
Long—What!
Root—What!
Hay—He drinks nothing from this bottle. I intercepted it.
[They drink and repeat. The Conference adjourns. Exeunt omnes. Enter the Public Press.]
The Public Press—There was a consultation at the State Department this afternoon among Secretaries Hay, Root and Long, the latter two of whom had been sent for in great haste. Extraordinary precautions to secure secrecy were taken, but it is understood that German aggression in Brazil was discussed, and nothing is more certain than that the next few days will witness grave and startling movements of our war ships in both the North and the South Atlantic. Senator Lodge’s recent alarming speech on the Navy Appropriation Bill is recalled, in connection with this subject, as is also Senator Pettigrew’s significant silence. Nor is it forgotten that last week there was a persistent rumor that the Government was about to consider the advisability of taking a step of which the importance could be determined only by its character and result.
AN INDEMNITY
McKinley, the President. Hay, Secretary of State. The Czar of Russia. The Sultan of Turkey. Ali Feroush Bey, the Turkish Minister.