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W. Cameron Forbes in the Philippines: A Study in Proconsular Power1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

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On his mother's side, W. Cameron Forbes was the grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and on his father's, the grandson of John Murray Forbes, who made his fortune in the China clipper trade. He carried in his heredity the shrewd business ability of the one and the liberalism of the other. In Hofstadter's turn of phrase, he was the patrician as liberal. His wealth, his education — the best available (Milton Academy, Hopkinson School, Harvard) — would have entitled him to admittance to the innermost recesses of post-Civil War Republicanism. Yet he remained at best only affiliated with that party, and at heart an outspoken Independent. In 1892, on graduation from Harvard, he joined Stone and Webster, later gained experience in business as officer and director of several Boston banks, and then, just before the turn of the century, joined the family firm of J. M. Forbes and Co., Merchants.

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Research Article
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Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1966

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References

2. Forbes, W. Cameron, In RetrospectGoogle Scholar. In possession of the Forbes family. Toward the end of his long life, Forbes dictated to his secretary Robert C. Redmayne a resume of the salient features of his career. Other sources of his early life have been interviews with Forbes' younger brother Edward and his nephew David.

3. Ibid., p. 6. “Wanting a change of scene and desirous of measuring myselt against a major job, in 1902 I asked President Theodore Roosevelt if he could use me in connection with the building of the Panama Canal. President Eliot of Harvard, in recommending Forbes to Roosevelt, wrote: “Neither money nor pressure would swerve him one hair from the line of public duty…He would take any unavoidable risks for an adequate object, but his judgment is good about risk…and men. He comes of first rate stock and remembers it.”

5. See Worcester, Dean C., The Philippines Past and Present (N.Y., 1930)Google Scholar, Ralston Hayden, ed., pp. 289–90. Among those peoples he visited were the Moros in the South; the Negritos, Benquet Igorots, Lepanto Igorots, Bontoc Igorots, Ilongots, Ifugaos, Kalingas, and Tingians in the North.

6. Edwardes, Michael, Asia in the European Age, 1498–1955 (N.Y., 1962), p. 162.Google Scholar

7. Bowers, Claude G., Beveridge and the Progressive Era (N.Y., 1932), p. 121Google Scholar. See Conq. Rec. (01 9, 1900)Google Scholar.

8. Forbes, W. C., “A Decade of American Rule in the Philippines,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 103 (1909), pp. 200209Google Scholar. With enthusiasm, Forbes wrote: “He [the Filipino] has responded well to the trust thus reposed in him, and for many positions make an excellent official. As a race, the Filipinos take readily and naturally to politics.” (p. 201).

9. Inaugural Address, Manila, November 24, 1909. Forbes Papers.

10. Ibid., p. 11. “There is no agency more potent in creating good citizenship than in the ownership of land.”

11. Ibid., p. 16.

12. Address delivered at the Annual Banquet of the Manila Merchants Association, Manila, July 25, 1911. Forbes Papers.

13. Marquardt, Frederic S., Before Bataan and After (NX, 1943), pp. 9293Google Scholar. See also Manila Merchants Association address (1911) and Appendix Forbes, B. W. C., Reply to Jones (Manila, 1913)Google Scholar, privately printed and in the Forbes Papers.

14. Forbes' address at Sherry's, May 14, 1912. Forbes Papers.

15. Manila Merchants Association Address (1911). Since American occupation started, railroad construction mounted to 715 kilometers (400 miles), a 366% increase.

16. Ibid. The big trouble was that warehouses were constructed where no ships were available. Forbes wanted the Government to build, or supervise the building of, bodegas.

17. Ibid. The first year of free trade with the United States (after passage of the Payne-Aldrich tariff), trade increased 6,000,000 — (from 46,000,000 to 52,000,000), and the 2nd year, 8,000,000 — (from 52,000,000 to 60,000,000). — pesos.

18. Ibid. His plans called for this in two decades. Also see the address by William S. MacLeod, a Scottish exporter, July 27, 1911, before the Manila Merchants Association. Forbes Papers.

19. Forbes' address at Sherry's, May 14, 1912.

20. Forbes, , “A Decade of American Rule in the Philippines,” Atlantic Monthly (1909), p. 205Google Scholar, and Appendix B, Reply to Jones, both of which give statistics relating to trade with the United States, total trade, importation of coal, public works, internal revenue, bank resources, railroads, public health, street lighting in Manila, postal savings banks, public order.

21. Forbes' address at Sherry's, May 14, 1912.

22. Hayden, J. R., The Philippines (N.Y., 1942). pp, 166167Google Scholar. After 1913, the majority of the members of the Commission were Filipinos. The Commission retained sole control over non-Christian provinces.

23. Krieger, Herbert W., People of the Philippines (Washington, 1942)Google Scholar. Negritos were found on Luzon, Panay, Negros, Mindanao; Moros, on Mindanao and Palawan; pagan peoples in Northern Luzon. See also Barton, R. F., The Religion of the Ifugaos (Menasha, Wise, 1946)Google Scholar and Harvest Feast of the Klangan Ifugao, published in the Philippine Journal of Science, Vol VI, No. 2. 04 1911Google Scholar; Beyer, H. Otley, An Ifugao Burial CeremonyGoogle Scholar, published in the Philippine Journal of Science, Vol. VI, No. 5, 11, 1911.Google Scholar

24. Forbes, W. Cameron, The Philippine Islands (2 vols., Boston, 1928), passim.Google Scholar

25. Forbes, , “A Decade of American Rule in the Philippines,” Atlantic Monthly (1909), pp. 203204.Google Scholar

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid. As of July, 1907, total voter registration amounted to 104,966; total vote, 68,713. The Nacionalistas polled 29,119 votes (32 seats in the Assembly); Progressistas, 18.142 (16); Independents, 13,822 (20); Immediatista 4, 417 (7); Independista, 908 (4); Catholic. 504 (1); Philippine islands Independent Church, 91; scattered groups, 1,459; rejected votes, 251.

29. Hayden, , The Philippines, p. 171.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 172.

31. Quoted in Edwardes, , Asia in the European Age, 1498–55, p. 163.Google Scholar

32. Forbes, , The Philippine Islands, p. 99Google Scholar. Also see Chs. 13–14 of Vol. I for a general discussion of the Philippine Assembly and Forbes' attitude toward it.

33. Forbes to H. F. Ford (May 12, 1913). Bernard Moses, in “American Control of the Phillipines,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. III (1913), p. 590Google Scholar, remarks: “… The kind of independence that the Filipino agitator demands is the freedom of the caciques to re-establish their domination over groups of the common people.” In a speech made at Lake Mohonk Conference, Oct. 14, 1914, privately printed, and now in the Forbes Papers, Harvard, Forbes said: ‘The real significance of our work in the Philippines has been to protect the masses against the classes…’.

34. Forbes to H. F. Ford (May 12, 1913). Forbes Papers.

35. Heiser, Victor G., An American Doctor's Odyssey (N.Y., 1936), p. 51.Google Scholar

36. Forbes, , A Decade of American Rule in the Philippines,” Atlantic Monthly (1909), p. 205.Google Scholar

37. Heiser, , p. 38.Google Scholar

38. Ibid., p. 151.

39. Ibid., p. 38.

40. Much of this information is derived from personal interviews with Dr. Heiser, December, 1961, in New York. Dr. Heiser discusses the health problems of the Philippines during this period extensively in Chs. 3, 7–12, 14–15, of An American Doctor's Odyssey.

41. Ibid., p. 199.

42. Plaque slipped by the defenses of Manila in 1905 and in 1912. Ibid., pp. 91–92.

43. Ibid., Ch. 10.

44. Carpenter, Frank G., Through the Philippines (N.Y., 1925), pp. 186187Google Scholar; Heiser, , pp. 5253.Google Scholar

45. John Roberts White, Lt. Col., Philippines Constabulary, Boston Evening Transcript (06 4, 1913).Google Scholar

46. Heiser, , p. 53.Google Scholar

47. Rev. Philip M. Finegan, S. J., Chaplain, Manila Penitentiary, “Bilibid Prison,” N. Y. Herald (Aug. 25, 1921).

48. Forbes, Journal, entry for May 22, 1913, Vol. V, pp. 242–43. Forbes Papers.

49. Forbes, Appendix B, Reply to Jones, for statistics on numbers of school children and schools in the Philippines:

50. Forbes, Journal, entry for May 16, 1913, Vol. V, pp. 238–39.

51. Ibid., footnote, p. 239. See White, Frank R., “The Philippine Islands, 1912–13’Google Scholar from the 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Education, Vol. 1, Report of the Commissioner of Education (Washington, D.C,. 1914), pp. 647–66Google Scholar. White declared that during the previous three years, the Bureau received more than six times as many letters asking for extension of intermediate instruction than primary, and that the representatives of the Insular Government in the provinces heard the same request.

52. Carpenter, , Through the Philippines, pp. 132–33.Google Scholar

53. See Coleman, A., “Friar's Estates in the Philippines,’ American Catholic Q., Vol. XXX, pp. 5779Google Scholar (Jan. 1905) and ‘Sale of the Friars’ Land,” Outlook, Vol. LXXXXV, pp. 501502 (July 9, 1910).Google Scholar

54. The Friar Land Inquiry (Manila, 1910)Google Scholar. Reports by W. C. Forbes, Governor-General; Dean C. Worcester, Secretary of the Interior; Frank W. Carpenter, Executive Secretary, (p. 15).

55. Ibid., pp. 7–30.

56. Forbes, Notes on the Early History of Baguio. Forbes Papers. 78 pp. Also see Worcester, , The Philippines Past and Present, pp. 371–74, 376–78.Google Scholar

57. Reade, Charles G., Town Planning in the Philippines (Kuala Lumpur, 1928)Google Scholar. In a footnote, p. 387, of Hayden's edition of Worcester's The Philippines Past and Present, Hayden remarks: “It is probable that no development which has occurred in the Philippines during the past thirty years rests upon a sounder foundation than Baguio.”

58. Forbes, Journal, entry for May 16, 1913, Vol. V, p. 237.

59. Heiser, , p. 73.Google Scholar

60. Philippine Commission, Act No. 2, Sept. 12, 1900.

61. Marquardt, , pp. 5253Google Scholar, describes the heavy rains in the Philippines, July 4–November 1. Joseph Conrad describes the full fury of a typhoon in the Philippines in his novel Typhoon. See Page, A. W., “Building the Benquet Road,” World's Work, Vol. XVII, pp. 11135–47 (01 1909).Google Scholar

62. Report of the Philippine Commission (1905), Part III, p. 25.Google Scholar

63. Carpenter, , Through the Philippines, p. 81.Google Scholar

64. Heiser, , p. 74Google Scholar. Heiser felt that the forces of nature were kinder to Harrison because “no tornado, no landslide, no flood ever again struck the Benquet Road.”

65. Forbes, to Stimson, (04 25, 1913). Forbes Papers.Google Scholar

66. Taft, to Root, Elihu (Cable), (04 15, 1909)Google Scholar. Frank G. Carpenter, wrote in Through the Philippines (p. 78): “In Manila I sweltered at night under a mosquito net cover; here [Baguio] I am chilled with anything less than a blanket. In Baguio every breath is filled with champagne, and so invigorating that new blood seems to flow through my veins.”

67. Heiser, , p. 74.Google Scholar

68. “Misgovernment in the Philippines and Cost to United States of American Occupation” (Jan. 28, 1913); “The Truth as to Conditions in the Philippines” (Feb. 13, 1913).

69. See Boston Transcript, 01 29, 1913.Google Scholar

70. See Lorance, John, Boston Record, 01 29, 1913.Google Scholar

71. Feb. 1, 1913.

72. Worcester, , The Philippines Past and Present, p. 370.Google Scholar

73. Ibid., p. 290.

74. Forbes, Journal, entry for Mar. 7, 1913, Vol. V, p. 201. Forbes believed William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State, the most antagonistic force in the new Wilson cabinet, and W. C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce, his most enthusiastic champion.

75. The Reply was printed and distributed, apparently, at his own cost. It was written in parallel columns — one side for Jones' charges, and the other for Forbes' answers.

76. Forbes names among his enemies Charles B. Elliott, ex-Secretary of Commerce and Police; William S. Lyon, once an official of the Bureau of Agriculture; L. M. Southworth, Prosecuting Attorney for Manila; and Dr. John R. McDill, Chief Surgeon of the Philippines General Hospital and Professor in the Medical College, all of whom, he felt, had personal grievances against him.

77. Forbes, Journal, p. 291. See Manuel Luis Quezon, The Good Fight (N.Y, 1946)Google Scholar, passim. Quezon was apparently opposed to Forbes. In 1908, as Floor Leader of the Filipino Assembly, he was involved in struggle with Osmena, who was friendly with Forbes. Supported by the sugar lobby and anti-imperialist sentiment in the United States, he became Resident Commissioner in Washington.

78. Gunther, John, Inside Asia (N.Y., 1939), p. 293Google Scholar. Joseph E. Davies, Secretary of the Democratic National Committee, was mentioned as a strong possibility for the governorship-general, but he became Commissioner of Corporations to succeed Luther Conant, Jr. See the San Francisco Chronicle (04 27, 1913)Google Scholar. Oscar Terry Crosby, affiliated with several public utility corporations at Wilmington, Del., Chester, Pa., and Trenton, N.J., was also mentioned for the post. See the Boston Journal (07 16, 1913).Google Scholar

79. Heiser, , pp. 5354Google Scholar. The cable read: “Washington, August 23, 1913. Harrison confirmed August 21. The President desires him to sail September 10. Will it be convenient to have your resignation accepted September 1. Harrison to accept and take office September 2. The President desires to meet your convenience. Should Harrison take linen, silver, glass, china, and automobiles? What also would you suggest? Wife and children will accompany him. Please engage for him servants you leave.” Two days later Wilson wrote a nicer note, but the damage had been done to Forbes' sensitive nature.

80. Robert M. Spector, W. Cameron Forbes and the Hoover Commissions to Haiti. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Chenery Library, Boston University, 1961, 345 pp., passim.

81. Forbes, to Gardner, Augustus P., 08 30, 1913. Forbes Papers.Google Scholar

82. Forbes, Journal, entry for August 23, 1913, Vol. V, p. 314.

83. Ibid., p. 315.

84. Forbes, to Ford, H. F., 05 12, 1913.Google Scholar

85. Confidential Letter Book, No. 2, pp. 360–414, 55. pp. letter addressed to Executive Secretary Carpenter, August 25, 1913. Forbes Papers. Forbes resigned September 1, 1913.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. Ibid.

89. Ibid. Also see Forbes, Journal, entry for July 22, 1913, Vol. V, p. 291.

90. Confidential Letter to Carpenter.

91. Ibid., p. 21.

92. Ibid., p. 24. One half the judges were American; one half, Filipino. Thousands of Filipinos wanted judgeships, but not very many Americans, wrote Forbes.

93. Ibid. Forbes was dissatisfied with many judges. For years he had tried to get a bill passed making it possible to remove poor judges, but without success.

94. See Merchants Association Review (08, 1911).Google Scholar

95. Confidential Letter to Carpenter.

96. Forbes blamed himself for not following “my own excellent advice.”

97. For Taff's assessment of Forbes, see the Brooklyn Eagle (11 20, 1913).Google Scholar

98. Forbes to Gen. Clinton L. Riggs (Dec. 29, 1913), with regard to Harrison's announcement of a deficit of 4,500,000 in the treasury of the Insular Government: “This means either that the situation must have turned to the worse by 5,500,000…” or that Harrison was misinformed by the auditing department.

99. Charles B. Elliott published a letter in a Manila newspaper claiming that Forbes brought the Philippines to the point of bankruptcy, and that Newton W. Gilbert, Vice-Governor, saved the situation while Forbes was in the United States recovering from sickness. The War Department seemed to consider the charges ridiculous. Boston News Bureau, (07 1, 1913)Google Scholar, No. 31. Elliott seemed to have been friendly enough to the Forbes administration only a short time before, as evidenced by his remarks, July 27, 1911, to the Manila Merchants Association: “In all things in which this Government can aid the business community, I think its record shows its willingness.”

Blount, Judge James H., The American Occupation of the Philippines (N.Y., 1911)Google Scholar. Bryan liked the book. The Sun (06 26, 1913)Google Scholar stated that officers of the Army and Navy and War Departments claimed that while facts were stated in the work, their presentation was such that the truth was not accurately brought out.

100. Lichauco, Marcial P., “The Philippine Islands,”Google Scholar address given at the Harvard Club of Boston, Mar. 11, 1925, Harvard Alumni Bulletin (04 2, 1925)Google Scholar. Lichauco praised Forbes and the courtesy of his officials. “But it has ceased there. There is virtually no social intercourse between the two races either at home or in America.” (p 793).

101. Storey, Moorfield and Lichauco, Marcial P., The Philippines and the United States (N.Y., 1926), p. 48.Google Scholar

102. The Evening Post, N.Y. (06 11, 1913).Google Scholar

103. Moses, Bernard, “American Control of the Philippines,’ Atlantic Monthly, Vol. III (1913), p. 591.Google Scholar

104. In his Lake Mohonk speech, Oct. 14, 1914, Forbes referred to the two prevailing theories of preparation for nationhood: (1) slow training in the tradition of Lord Cromer | (2) the “jump in” technique, currently being tried in Mexico. Needles to say, Forbes preferred the first. In Forbes' administration, there was a 64–71% increase in Filipino participation.

105. As Forbes viewed independence, it was the duty of the United States to control the Philippines until a stable government were established; it was not the purpose of the United States to retain an alien people indefinitely. However, even after stability were assured, independence would only come if the Filipinos as a mass desired it, not as something automaitc.

F. B. Harrison, stated in his The Corner-Stone of Philippine Independence (N.Y., 1922), p. 58Google Scholar, that the rapid spread of self-government in the Philippines might impair efficiency of administration, but “that disadvantage is more than by the gain in the contentment of the people…and the valuable lessons in self-government…’

For some valuable discussion of the cost of occupation to the American people, see Wicker, Cyrus F., “The Question of Philippine Neutrality,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 110 (1912), pp. 649–52Google Scholar. Forbes tended to minimize the expense of the Philippines to the American taxpayer and emphasize the part played by Filipino taxpayers in paying the costs of their government.

106. Heiser, , p. 50Google Scholar. The Boston Transcript (06 23, 1913)Google Scholar said: “The right man is the kind of man Mr. Forbes has been.” It praised Forbes for his top-level roads, his opening up previously inaccessible regions, and his establishment of post-offices, telegraph stations, postal saving banks, artesian wells, irrigation projects, and harbor improvement. Worcester, pp. 289–90, speaks well of iorbes both as Secretary of Commerce and Police and as Governor-General. “He was a true friend of the Filipinos whom he genuinely liked and was always ready to assist,” he wrote. Worcester was particularly impressed by Forbes work with the non-Christian peoples, whom he got to know probably better than any other Governor-General before or since. Marquardt, pp. 92–93, says of Forbes: “Of them all [the governors-general] Forbes had the most colorful career and was probably the most successful.” Marquardt speaks of Forbes' enormous energy, relating how he watched Forbes play baseball (1st base in a 9-inning game in the morning), then go through every chukker of a polo game in the afternoon during a holiday sports program at Baguio. Also set Moses' 1913 article in the Atlantic Monthly, p. 596.Google Scholar

Marquardt, , p. 94Google Scholar, wrote: Harrison's policy of ‘Filipinization’ was of course the logical outcome of Taft's policy of ‘the Philippines for the Filipinos’.” He felt that Wood's policies created little but ill-will. In the long view, Marquardt thought that Harrison and Wood, each in his own way, interrupted steady progress toward self-government. Harrison (the Democrat) was too liberal; Wood (the Republican) was too reactionary, (p. 96).

107. Ibid.

108. Jenkins, Shirley, The Development of Self-Rule and Independence in Burma, Malaya, and the Philippines (N.Y., 1948), Part III, pp. 8586Google Scholar’ “The Republican victory in the 1920 election and Pres. Harding's assumption of office reversed the Harrison policies.” In Jenkins' view, the Wood-Forbes Commission of Inquiry Report (1921)Google Scholar condemned the Harrison policies and “established the basis for limiting the authority that the Philippine Legislature had won in the Harrison regime.” Hayden, in his The Philippine Policy of the United States (N.Y., 1939)Google Scholar, mimeographed, p. 17, seems to difigree with the Wood administration of the 1920's.

See also Kirk, Grayson, Philippine Independence (N.Y., 1936)Google Scholar and Taylor, George E., The Philippines and the United States: Probelm of Partnership (N.Y., 1964).Google Scholar