GENERAL ARTHUR MACARTHUR

General Arthur MacArthur was in on the action in the Philippines almost from the start. He led one of the first units to arrive there in 1898 and in 1900 was reassigned back as commander of the troops. After the insurrection had been put down, he appeared before a Senate Committee to defend America’s mission in the Philippines.

At the time I returned to Manila [May 1900] to assume the supreme command it seemed to me that … to doubt the wisdom of our [occupation] of the island was simply to doubt the stability of our own institutions. … It seemed to me that our conception of right, justice, freedom, and personal liberty was the precious fruit of centuries of strife [and that] we must regard ourselves simply as the custodians of imperishable ideas held in trust for the general benefit of mankind. In other words, I felt that we had attained a moral and intellectual height from which we were bound to proclaim to all as the occasion arose the true message of humanity as embodied in the principles of our own institutions. …

To my mind the archipelago is a fertile soil upon which to plant republicanism. … We are planting the best traditions, the best characteristics of Americanism in such a way that they can never be removed from that soil. That in itself seems to me a most inspiring thought. …

Sen. Thomas Patterson: Do you mean that imperishable idea of which you speak is the right of self-government?

Gen. MacArthur: Precisely so; selfgovernment regulated by law as I understand it in this Republic.

Sen. Patterson: Of course you do not mean self-government regulated by some foreign and superior power?

Gen. MacArthur: Well, that is a matter of evolution, Senator. We are putting these institutions there so they will evolve themselves just as here and everywhere else where freedom has flourished. …

Sen. Patterson: Do I understand your claim of right and duty to retain the Philippine Islands is based upon the proposition that they have come to us upon the basis of our morals, honorable dealing, and unassailable international integrity?

Gen. MacArthur: That proposition is not questioned by anybody in the world, excepting a few people in the United States. … We will be benefited, and the Filipino people will be benefited, and that is what I meant by the original proposition —

Sen. Patterson: Do you mean the Filipino people that are left alive?

Gen. MacArthur: I do not admit that there has been any unusual destruction of life in the Philippine Islands. … I doubt if any war — either international or civil, any war on earth — has been conducted with as much humanity, with as much careful consideration, with as much self-restraint, as have been the American operations in the Philippine Archipelago. …

SOURCE : Henry F. Graff, ed., American Imperialism and the Philippine Insurrection (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 137–139, 144–145.