sovereignty in the Philippines. A careful examination of the diplomatic history of the period shows that the attitude of the government which resulted in the acquisition of those islands passed through three stages before the final consummation. In the first stage the President, who from the beginning to the conclusion guided the negotiations, was not in favor of demanding the sovereignty and possession of the islands. The language of the protocol sustains this view, and it is confirmed by the President's unofficial declarations.[1]
A month after the protocol was signed, Messrs. W. R. Day, C. K. Davis, W. P. Frye, George Gray, and Whitelaw Reid were appointed commissioners to negotiate a treaty of peace; and three days afterwards they received their instructions. In this interval the President had changed his attitude. The instructions given the commissioners say: "Without any original thought of complete or even partial acquisition, the presence and success of our arms at Manila [which had been surrendered the day after the protocol was signed] impose upon us obligations which we cannot disregard. The march of events rules and overrules human action." The commissioners were directed to ask for the cession of the island of Luzon, and for reciprocal commercial privileges in the other islands of the Spanish group.
The American representatives arrived in Paris September 28, and held their first meeting with the Spanish
- ↑ On January, 1899, President McKinley stated to Dr. Schurman that he did not want the Philippine Islands. He said: "In the protocol to the treaty I left myself free not to take them; but in the end there was no alternative." Philippine Affairs, An Address by J. G. Schurman, New York, 1902, p. 2.
