Note 7 — Chapter XII · The Establishment of Civil Government

“In his report for 1901 Governor Taft says that the four principal provinces, including Batangas, which gave trouble shortly after the civil government was set up in that year, and had to be returned to military control, were organized under civil rule ‘on the recommendation’ of the then commanding general (MacArthur). It certainly seems unlikely that the haste to change from military rule to civil rule came on the motion of the military. If the Commission ever got, in writing, from General MacArthur, a ‘recommendation’ that any provinces be placed under civil rule while still in insurrection, the text of the writing will show a mere soldierly acquiescence in the will of Mr. McKinley, the commander-in-chief. Parol7 contemporaneous evidence will show that General MacArthur told them, substantially, that they were ‘riding for a fall.’ In fact, whenever an insurrection would break out in a province after Governor Taft’s inauguration as governor, the whole attitude of the army in the Philippines, from the commanding general down was ‘I told you so.’ They did not say this where Governor Taft could hear it, but it was common knowledge that they were much addicted to damning ‘politics’ as the cause of all the trouble.”8