Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/473

 360

THE GREEN BAG

THE FOUNDING OF THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINES BY JAMES THE backbone of the Philippine insur rection against American authority •was broken in May, 1901, by the capture of Aguinaldo. Governor Taft was inaugu rated as civil governor of the islands on July 4 thereafter. The Taft Philippine Commission had come out to the islands in the summer of the year previous, arriving at Manila June 3, 1900. As fast as provinces were pacified, military government would be superseded by local provincial self-govern ment, shared between natives and Ameri cans. What was known as the General Provincial Government Act was passed early in February, 1901. When a province was deemed restored to a sufficient degree of law and order, the commission — the lawmaking body —• consisting of five Ameri cans, would visit that province, pass, at a session held at its capital, a special act placing said province under the operation of the general Provincial Government Act, appoint the governor, treasurer, and other provincial officials called for by the Pro vincial Government Act, and then depart forthwith. Sometimes they would do all this in three or four hours. The first province so organized was set going about the middle of February, 1901. By June following some 25 provinces had been thus visited and "admitted into the Union" as it were, and, as above stated, the central government, which is to be the nucleus of the future federal government, was inau gurated July 4, 1901. Of the forty and odd provinces composing the Philippines, there were on July 4, 1901, a half dozen or more others, besides the 25 already organized which were deemed ready for self-govern ment, but they had not been so organized simply because the commission had not been able, to get round to them, hold the

H. BLOUNT. necessary session, pass the necessary act, and appoint the officials. As the routine in each case was pretty much the same, a description of the organization of pro vincial government in one of these provinces will, it is believed, convey a fair idea of the details of the founding of the civil govern ment of the Philippines. While the first 25 provinces aforesaid were being organized, i.e. between February and June, 1901, the writer was not connected with the Philip pine Civil Commission in any way, being still an officer of the Philippine volunteer army, detailed in the office of the military governor as one of his legal advisers, where he remained until the end of the fiscal year June 30, 1901, the date of the muster out of the volunteer army, going into the service of the civil government on the fol lowing day, July i, as Judge of First Instance of the First Judicial District. This district consisted of the four most northerly provinces of the archipelago, all of which were among the "half dozen or more" that were on July 4, 1901, deemed ready for organization under the Pro vincial Government Act, but had not been reached simply for lack of time. The writer had the good fortune to see civil government founded in one of these four provinces in August, after the inaugura tion of Judge Taft as our chief magistrate, and will endeavor to describe it here for the entertainment of the readers of the GREEN BAG. Of the 17 United States district judges (called out there Judges of First Instance) originally appointed by Governor Taft in 1901, four were taken from the volunteer army, viz., Capt. Adam C. Carson, of Virginia, zSth Infantry, U. S. V., now one of the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands; Capt. W. H.