It would not be just or fair that I should undertake
to state the reasons which controlled the President in adopting
the conclusions to which I did not myself agree. I am merely
telling my own part in the transaction.
When I got back to Washington, at the beginning of the session
in December, 1898, I had occasion to see the President almost
immediately. His purpose was to make a Treaty by which, without
the assent of their inhabitants, we should acquire the Philippine
Islands. We were to hold and govern in subjection the people
of the Philippine Islands. That was pretty well understood.
The national power of Spain was destroyed. It was clear
that she must submit to whatever terms we should impose.
The President had chosen, as Commissioners to negotiate the
Treaty, five gentlemen, three of whom, Senators Cushman K.
Davis, and William P. Frye and Whitelaw Reid, the accomplished
editor of the New York _Tribune,_ former Minister to France,
were well known to be zealous for acquiring territory in the
East. Mr. Frye was said to have declared in a speech not
long before he went abroad that he was in favor of keeping
everything we could lay our hands on.
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