the records, to consider the acceptance of a
protectorate or of annexation in the event that it did not prove
possible to negotiate absolute independence, or probable that the
American troops could be driven from the islands.

The growing confidence of the Insurgents in their ability to whip
the cowardly Americans, rather than any fixed determination on their
part to push a struggle for independence to the bitter end, led to
their attack.

CHAPTER V

Insurgent Rule and the Wilcox-Sargent Report

The Good Book says, "By their fruits ye shall know them, whether
they be good or evil," and it seems proper to apply this test to the
Insurgents and their government.

The extraordinary claim has been advanced that the United States
destroyed a republic in the Philippines and erected an oligarchy on
its ruins. Various writers and speakers who have not gone so far as
this have yet maintained that Aguinaldo and his associates established
a real, effective government throughout the archipelago during the
interim between his return and the outbreak of hostilities with the
United States.

In summarizing conditions on September 15, 1898, Judge Blount says:
[236]--

"Absolute master of all Luzon outside Manila at this time, with
complete machinery of government in each province for all matters of
justice, taxes, and police, an army of some 30,000 men at his beck, and
his whole people a unit at his back, Aguinaldo formally inaugurated his
permanent government--permanent as opposed to the previous provisional
government--with a Constitution, Congress, and Cabinet, patterned after
our own, [237] just as the South American republics had done before
him when they were freed from Spain, at Malolos, the new capital."

He refers to our utter failure to understand "what a wonderfully
complete 'going concern' Aguinaldo's government had become
throughout the Philippine Archipelago before the Treaty of Paris was
signed." [238]

He bases his claim as to the excellent state of public order in the
Insurgent territory at this time on a report of Paymaster W. E. Wilcox
and Naval Cadet L. R. Sargent of the United States Navy, who between
October 8 and November 20, 1898, made a long, rapid trip through
northern Luzon, traversing the provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga,
Tarlac, Pangasinan, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Isabela, Cagayan,
South Ilocos and Union, in the order named, thence proceeding to
Dagupan and down the railroad through Pangasi