General Arthur MacArthur (1845–1912), the father of General Douglas MacArthur, was a Civil War hero and a veteran of the Indian Wars. When the Spanish-American War broke out, he was sent to the Philippines, where he played a central role in the U.S. effort to suppress the Philippine insurrection that followed Spain’s capitulation. In 1902 he was called on to testify before a Senate committee on affairs in the Philippines. It was in that context that he offered his views on the future of the Philippines, a future he saw as inextricably linked to the expansion of American influence throughout Asia. As you read this excerpt from his testimony, think about the way in which ideas of race and American exceptionalism shaped MacArthur’s ideas. Why, in MacArthur’s view, did Americans have the right, even a duty, to occupy the Philippines?

During my three years’ contact with the people of that archipelago I became very much attached to them. I appreciated them, I think, perhaps, as much as any other American that has been there. My belief in the possibilities of their development is almost unqualified. I therefore submit this idea without any reservation at all.

When the Filipino people realize the grandeur of their future destiny by reason of association with the great Republic, and come to understand that they are a chosen people to carry not only American commerce but also republican institutions and the principles of personal liberty throughout Asia, they may be relied upon to rally to the inspiring thoughts thus suggested and follow and support the American flag in whatever contests the future may have in store for it as the symbol of human liberty throughout the world.

Although the idea of developing our material interests in the East is indescribably attractive to the speculative investigator, the considerations which arise from the psychological inquiry are vastly more interesting and instructive, as far as I am personally concerned. And in opening this branch of my remarks I will say this is what I call my ethnological premises. It goes back; it is perhaps more academical than anything I have yet said.

Many thousand years ago our Aryan ancestors raised cattle, made a language, multiplied in numbers, and overflowed. By due process of expansion to the west they occupied Europe, developed arts and sciences, and created a great civilization, which, separating into innumerable currents, inundated and fertilized the globe with blood and ideas, the primary bases of all human progress, incidentally crossing the Atlantic and thereby reclaiming, populating, and civilizing a hemisphere. The broad actuating laws which underlie all these wonderful phenomena are still operating with relentless vigor and have recently forced one of the currents of this magnificent Aryan people across the Pacific — that is to say, back almost to the cradle of its race — thus initiating a stage of progressive social evolution which may reasonably be expected to result in substantial contributions in behalf of the unity of the race and the brotherhood of man.

From the beginning of civilization man has tried to mitigate and escape as far as possible from the consequences of his own barbarous environment. In pursuance of these laudable efforts, the human race, from time immemorial, has been propagating its higher ideals by a succession of intellectual waves, one of which is now passing, through our mediumship, beyond the Pacific, and carrying therewith everything that is implied by the beautiful flag which is a symbol of our nationality.

We are now living in a heroic age of human history, from the opening aspect of which many of our own people recoil with misgiving, as though we were of choice and de novo entering upon a questionable enterprise, the remote consequences of which must inevitably prove disastrous to all concerned.

At the time I returned to Manila to assume the supreme command it seemed to me that we had been committed to a position by process of spontaneous evolution. In other words, that our permanent occupation of the islands was simply one of the necessary consequences in logical sequence of our great prosperity, and to doubt the wisdom of which was simply to doubt the stability of our own institutions and in effect to declare that a self-governing nation was incapable of successfully resisting strains arising naturally from its own productive energy. It seemed to me that our conception of right, justice, freedom, and personal liberty was the precious fruit of centuries of strife; that we had inherited much in these respects from our ancestors, and in our own behalf have added much to the happiness of the world, and as beneficiaries of the past and as the instruments of future progressive social development 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.

There is one very noticeable feature in the American occupation of that archipelago. It arises from contrast with the inspiring motives that have actuated and controlled the action of other branches of the Aryan race, which have worked their way back, coming in the opposite direction. We are planting in those islands imperishable ideas. All other governments that have gone to the East have simply planted trading establishments; they have not materially affected the conditions of the people. They have perfected organizations which have systematized living conditions, but have not planted an idea that would be self-sustaining. There is not a single establishment, in my judgment, in Asia today that would survive five years if the original power which planted it was withdrawn therefrom.

The contrasting idea with our occupation is this: In planting our ideas we plant something that cannot be destroyed. To my mind the archipelago is a fertile soil upon which to plant republicanism. Once planted it can never be eradicated. What the evolution may be through political necessities and expansions is not involved in that branch of the inquiry. Beneficent republican American institutions once planted in the Philippines will last forever, and therefrom will radiate an influence the appreciation of which it is hard to estimate. But that fact in itself is beyond any possibility of dispute. We are planting the best traditions, the best characteristics of Americanism in such a way that they never can be removed from that soil. That in itself seems to me a most inspiring thought. It encouraged me during all my efforts in those islands, even when conditions seemed most disappointing, when the people themselves, not appreciating precisely what the remote consequences of our efforts were going to be, mistrusted us; but that fact was always before me — that going down deep into that fertile soil were the imperishable ideas of Americanism.

Source: Hearings before the Committee on the Philippines of the United States Senate (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1902), pp. 867–869.

Questions to Consider