In Our Image by Stanley Karnow

Author:Stanley Karnow [Karnow, Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77543-6
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-11-10T05:00:00+00:00

Harrison’s record, the inspired account read, was “not considered creditable either to himself or to the [Wilson] administration.” During his term, “American sovereignty in the islands had been undermined, Filipino demagogues and adventurers who urge independence for their own selfish purposes have come to the front, American authority has been sadly impaired, the fiscal affairs of the islands have been thrown into chaotic shape and things have gone backward instead of forward.” Harding, the newspaper added, would send Forbes or General Leonard Wood to the Philippines to counsel him on how to deal “justly” with the Filipinos and define a policy that Americans could “sanction and support.”

Before departing for Manila in May 1921, Forbes advised Harding to maintain the political concessions already made to the Filipinos but recommended tighter U.S. controls to avoid another catastrophe like the bank scandal. He and Wood then toured the islands for four months, producing a report that confirmed their preconceptions. Beginning in the tone of a travel guide, they praised the Filipinos for their “many fine and attractive qualities—dignity and self-respect, personal neatness and cleanliness, courtesy.…” Predictably, however, they concluded that “it would be a betrayal of the Philippine people, a misfortune to the American people, a distinct step backward in the path of progress and a discreditable neglect of our national duty were we to withdraw from the islands … without giving the Filipinos the best chance possible to have an orderly and permanently stable government.”

Just as predictably, the Filipino leaders flayed the report in public to preserve their nationalist image, while conceding in private that it was fair. But the Republican comeback augured renewed tensions with the Americans that, Quezon reckoned, could be turned to his political advantage.

Though Quezon had dominated the Philippine senate since 1916, he resented Osmeña’s preeminence as speaker of the lower chamber. By 1923 he had maneuvered to supplant Osmeña with Manuel Roxas y Acuña, a young protégé from the island of Panay, and soon his power was uncontested. Osmeña was to survive thirty-nine more years, half that span as Quezon’s subordinate, accepting his eclipse as humbly as a Buddhist monk for whom all life is transient.

Quezon was now prepared to risk a clash with Leonard Wood, whom Harding named U.S. governor in 1921. Win or lose, he calculated, a quarrel with the American viceroy could only enhance his reputation as a Filipino nationalist.

Wood, then sixty-one, had sterling credentials. The son of a Cape Cod physician, he joined the army as a doctor after graduating from Harvard Medical School but went into combat. He participated in the Indian wars and earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his role in Geronimo’s capture. Theodore Roosevelt, impressed by his performance, recommended him as commander of the Rough Riders, and afterward, as president, named him U.S. governor of Cuba. He later went to the Philippines to lead the American troops fighting the Moros, stayed there to head the U.S. military establishment and returned home to become Army Chief of Staff. Annoyed by his arrogant manner, Wilson denied him command of the American forces during World War I.

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