TERRITORIES: Using Statesmen

The two outstanding native statesmen of the Philippines—President Manuel Quezon of the Philippine Senate and Senator Sergio Osmena, his sphinxlike senior partner in the Nationalist Party—arrived in Washington to see President Coolidge. They had bundled themselves up in unwonted overcoats crossing the Pacific to a chilly continent. But they had smiled confidently on the trip because when they left Manila (TIME, Oct. 17). They had heard that President Coolidge favored transferring the Philippines from military rule under the War Department to civilian administration under a special bureau of the Interior Department. This transfer was second only to Island Independence in the hearts of Statesmen Quezon and Osmena.

They tarried in Manhattan on their way to Washington. Manhattanites remarked that President Quezon was a cafe-au-lait replica of their small, garrulous Irish Mayor, James J. Walker. The likeness is more than skin-deep. Just as Mayor Walker is “Jimmie” to the Manhattan millions, President Quezon is “Manny” to the Filipinos and Filipinas. He has an extraordinary flair for popularity. Perhaps it is the Spanish blood in his veins that makes him an impassioned demagogue. He fought with Aguinaldo in the Insurrection, governed a province, served 10 years in Washington as Resident Commissioner and burns to be the George Washington of an Insular Pacific Republic.

Senator Osmena, also a mestico (half caste), exhibits his Chinese extraction in his importunable demeanor, impeccable manners and enduring patience. He has not always agreed with his headlong young friend, being content to guide Filipino destinies slowly as Speaker of the Assembly for almost 20 years. He would be more content than Manuel Quezon to see Philippine Independence come in three steps instead of at a bound. The three steps might be: 1) Civilian administration by the U. S.; 2) “Philippine Free State” with a U. S. High Commissioner; 3) Independence.

When Statesmen Quezon and Osmena saw and talked with President Coolidge they were disappointed. President Coolidge had changed his mind, he said, about transfer from military to civilian administration, just yet. True, the Philippines need much of a civilian nature—in agriculture, education, road building— but President Coolidge thought advisors from the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Interior and Commerce could furnish such help at once without necessitating a transfer.

Since Statesmen Quezon and Osmena had not come to plead outright for independence, nor try to influence the appointment of a successor to the late Governor General Leonard Wood* There was little else for him to discuss with President Coolidge, except to assure him that Major General Douglas MacArthur,* the President’s recent appointee as Commanding General of the Philippines, would be welcome, and that the Philippine Legislature would soon pass on appropriations and appointments sent to it for confirmation by Acting Governor General Eugene A. Gilmore. The conversation which they had traveled 10,000 miles to seek lasted about 50 minutes.

*President Coolidge’s reason for delaying this appointment so long is the distance of the U. S. from the Philippines. A recess appointment might be vetoed by the Senate causing the appointee a 10,000 mile round-trip for nothing.

*Aged 47, he is at present the youngest, most dashing U. S. Major General. He commanded the famed Rainbow (42d) Division in the War. From 1919 to 1922 he was Superintendent of West Point, whence he was graduated in 1903 at the head of his class. To the second-most-important post in the Philippines he takes a knowledge of the Islands gained there as a young officer of engineers on construction work (1903-04) and as commander of the 23d Infantry Brigade at Manila (1922-25). Since 1925 he has commanded the Third Corps Area, at Baltimore.