Private William Walter Greyson, 23,
from Beatrice, Nebraska, gained an unlikely place in history on
Saturday, 4 February 1899, when he shot the first Filipino in what
Americans later called the “Philippine insurrection” (a phrase
now considered an American-contrived term of condescension for a war
of liberation). Greyson was proud of his achievement and later
(unsuccessfully) petitioned the War Department for a cash bonus (l.
3761).
Up until this moment, Philippine
commander Emilio Aguinaldo “repeatedly pulled his troops out of contested
territory rather than the provoke the Americans” (l. 3780). Over
the following month, the US forces rolled first over the Manila area,
then elsewhere in Luzon (the island on which Manila is located), and
finally other islands, with a ferocity that promoted the title
comment from a British resident.
The commanders on the ground
experienced problem which are sadly more familiar to us through more
recent conflicts. Commanding General Elwell Otis found he could win
battles, but not hold territory, causing him to issue rosy report of
progress followed by requests for more troops (l. 3837). In 1899,
sixty thousand Americans were serving in the Philippines. The next
year, it was 75,000 – three-quarters of the entire US Army (l.
3879).
Otis managed to be both unpopular with
his high-level staff for mismanagement and his rank-and-file soldiers
for perceived timidity in battle (l. 3908). The press disliked him
for using his control of the single telegraph cable out of Manila as
a method of censorship, inflating enemy casualty figures, and
threatening authors of unfavorable journalism (l. 3915). However,
Otis realized that the war had a “hearts and minds” aspect, and
introduced public health, education, rule-of-law, and local
government programs in an effort to win public favor (l. 4057).
At the same time, Otis felt himself
plagued by a Presidential commission of civilians, who held hearings
in Manila. The commission never left the capital. Its witnesses were
largely Western residents of Manila. The few Filipinos who testified
were members of the elite, who favored US rule and said that
resistance was the work of a handful of malcontents (l. 4010).
Commodore Dewey, although a member of the commission, attended none
of its meetings and did not read its reports. Otis also shunned the
commission and tried to have them recalled (l. 4031). The commission
raised the hopes of moderates but had no lasting effect.
These well-intentioned acts, however,
were no match for the steady drip of cruelty, massacres, illegal
killings, torture, and reasonless destruction of property, often
caused by the inability from telling friendly foreign national from
unfriendly (l. 4093). Filipino forces melted away in the face of
organized political might and then attacked days later when US
soldiers were relaxed and off-guard.
Aggressive newspaper coverage brought
the horror home to the US and turned public opinion against the war. One newspaper survey of returning veterans found that 62% of officers
and 93% of enlisted men were against the war (l. 4109).
In spite of fierce combat, US forces
controlled no farther than 30 miles from Manila (l. 4117), and
military hospitals overflowed with soldiers ill from tropical
diseases. But the Filipino side was plagued with disunity, as when Aguinaldo had one of his most successful generals
killed (l. 4150), so victories could not be consolidated and
capitalized upon.
As the war ground on, McKinley and
allies decided that the administration of the Philippines had to be
placed under civilian control. In January 1900, McKinley summoned a
Cincinnati federal circuit judge, William Howard Taft, to Washington
to ask him to take on the job.
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