he Filipinos looking to the administration of localities. I had
asked questions and stated propositions as if it were the universal
consent that General Aguinaldo was the dictator for his people and
had the executive word to say; but when it came to drawing the fine
lines of his relations with the United States as the embodiment of a
revolutionary movement, he became shy and referred to those who had
to be consulted.

His words were equivalent to saying his counselors must, in all matters
of moment, be introduced. It came to the same thing at last as to his
commissioner or commissioners to Washington or Paris, one or both, and
he also asserted the purpose of having the congress elected assemble at
a railroad town--Moroles, about fifty miles north of Manila--a movement
it is understood that is under the guidance of others than the General,
the bottom fact being that if there should be a Philippine Republic
Aguinaldo's place, in the judgment of many who are for it, would be
not that of chief magistrate, but the head of the army. There are
others and many of them of the opinion that he is not a qualified
soldier. The congress assembled at Moroles, and has made slow progress.

It may as well be remembered, however, that the distinctions of civil
and military power have been always hard to observe, in Central and
South American states, whose early Spanish education has been outgrown
gradually, and with halting and bloody steps. General Aguinaldo, then
engaged in evolving a letter to General Merritt, has since issued
proclamations that yield no share to the United States in the native
government of the islands. But there are two things definitely known,
as if decreed in official papers, and probably more so; that the
Filipinos of influential intelligence would be satisfied with the
direction of local affairs and gladly accept the protectorate of the
United States on the terms which the people of the United States may
desire and dictate.

The greater matter is that whenever it is the fixed policy of
the United States to accept the full responsibility of ruling the
Philippines, neither Aguinaldo nor any other man of the islands
would have the ability to molest the steady, peaceable, beneficent
development of the potentiality of our system of justice to the people,
and the preservation by and through the popular will of the union
of liberty under the law, and order maintained peaceably or forcibly
according to needs.

In co