ase seems to me, was an entire
change of purpose. Many military and naval officers, from
whose reports he had to get his facts almost wholly, insisted
that the Philippine people were unfit for self-government.
After the unhappy conflict of arms the solution of the problem
seemed to be to compel the Philippine people to unconditional
submission. 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. I suppose that was,
however, intended as a bit of jocose extravagance, which that
most excellent gentleman did not mean to have taken too seriously.

Mr. Day, the Secretary of State, and Senator Gray of Delaware,
were understood to be utterly opposed to the policy of expansion
or Imperialism.

I do not know about Mr. Day. But it appeared, when three
years afterward the correspondence between the Commissioners
and the Department of State became public, that Mr. Day expressed
no objection to the acquisition of Luzon, but objected to
a peremptory demand for the whole Philippine Island group,
thereby--to use his language--"leaving us open to the imputation
of following agreement to negotiate with demand for whole
subject matter of discussion ourselves."

The public impression as to Senator Gray is confirmed by the
following remonstrance, which appears in the same correspondence:

PEACE COMMISSIONERS TO MR. HAY
[Telegra