Few figures in the history of imperialism afford as complex a case study as Emilio Aguinaldo. This is due in part to the convergence of three important epochs in Philippine history within Aguinaldo's lifetime. From 1565 to 1946, three different colonial powers occupied the Philippines: Spain for the first 303 years; the United States for the next 50 years; and, finally, Japan during its imperialistic campaigns in Asia during World War II. Aguinaldo experienced all three colonial eras and either collaborated with or opposed each of the imperial powers. In the case of the Spanish and the Americans, it could be argued that he alternated between the roles of adversary and collaborator. In the course of his career, Aguinaldo led the revolutionary forces in the Philippines to liberate his country from Spanish rule (1896-1898); he made peace with the Spanish only to renew the fight when the Americans arrived in 1898; he waged war against the occupational forces of the Americans (1899-1901); he pledged an oath of allegiance to the United States upon his capture in 1901; and, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II (1942-1945), he was more or less paraded before the Filipino public as a willing collaborator of the imperialist Japanese government. [1] Aguinaldo's life, then, is a complex array of demonstrated imperialist and anti-imperialist actions, opinions, and beliefs. Unlike other historical figures, we cannot conveniently summarize Aguinaldo as either imperialist collaborator or anti-imperialist patriot; he has been considered one or the other, both and neither at various periods in his life. This paper will focus primarily on Aguinaldo's role as an opponent of the openly imperialistic American incursion into the Philippine archipelago from 1898 to 1901. In particular, it will examine how Aguinaldo was depicted in the American popular press of his time and in historical accounts written after his death in 1964.

The United States government pursued at least three objectives in annexing the Philippines. The first was straightforwardly political. Many Americans were loathe to see the balance of power shift to Japan, Germany, or any of the other nations interested in taking over the Philippines from Spain. A logical, if slightly underhanded, choice was for the United States to retain the Philippines for itself. Second, United States imperialism in the Philippines was tinged with "crassly commercial" aims. [2] In accordance with Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan's plan of instituting "stepping stones to China," the McKinley administration acquired Guam and the Philippines as spoils of war from the defeated Spanish at the close of John Hay's "splendid little war." [3] Third, a strong racist component motivated American imperialism. With few exceptions, white Americans viewed the Filipino people as indolent, benighted savages unfit to govern themselves. As such, American politicians, newspaper editors, and Protestant religious organizations invoked the notion of "the white man's burden" and considered the United States' annexation of the Philippines not territorial expansion but "the expansion of civilization." [4]

The study of Aguinaldo's public image in the press and in later historical accounts touches upon all of these themes. It also affords a closer look into a pivotal period in American history. Many Americans today recoil at the suggestion of using United States military force to invade a nation and subjugate its people against their will. Americans at the turn of the century, however, argued passionately and openly both for and against creation of an American empire. The press on both sides of the debate appropriated Aguinaldo's image, and both sides evoked caricatures. Aguinaldo rarely received even-handed treatment from either the contemporary American press or historical accounts of his career. Anti-imperialists portrayed him as a Filipino George Washington, fighting against the tyranny and injustice of an oppressive overseas power that sought to colonize his people against their will. Imperialists, on the other hand, evoked the image of a savage, self-interested, insurgent dictator. In comparing these extremes, and in a historiographical review of works published after Aguinaldo's death in 1964, it becomes apparent that a fair treatment of the career of Emilio Aguinaldo with respect to American imperialism in the Philippines is yet to be written.

Although Aguinaldo had led Filipino revolutionary forces against Spain since 1896, the American press only began paying attention to him in June 1898, after the United States had officially declared war against Spain and Commodore George Dewey had destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Harbor. By this time, Aguinaldo had acceded to the Americans' request for aid in fighting the Spanish. With a Spanish surrender imminent, the press in the United States turned its attention to the Filipinos and their leader, Emilio Aguinaldo.

The American press was not initially hostile to Aguinaldo. In the first editorial to deal with Aguinaldo, the New York Times gave the Filipino revolutionary the benefit of the doubt.

It is his [Aguinaldo's] avowed ambition to set up a native Government for the Philippines under the protection of the United States. The advisability of that proposition would depend first of all on the character and ability of Aguinaldo. If he is a man capable of ruling his people and if his people are not altogether lawless we might not be accused of shirking our just responsibilities if in time we turned the islands over to be administered by their own people. [5]

Charles King, a general sent to the Philippines to fight the Spanish, did more than reserve judgment on Aguinaldo. He wrote in the Milwaukee Journal that "The capability of the Filipinos for self government can not be doubted. Such men as Rellano [sic], Aguinaldo, and many others whom I might name are highly educated. . . . given a fair start, [they] could look out for themselves infinitely better than our people imagine." [6]

However, as the months progressed--as more and more Americans clamored for the United States to keep the Philippines and establish itself as an imperial power--depictions of Aguinaldo in the American press grew increasingly hostile. Just two months after it entertained the possibility of America acknowledging an independent Philippine government, the New York Times reversed its position, asserting, "If we do not take these islands to ourselves we shall most likely give them back to Spain. . . . There is not the least probability that we shall set up Aguinaldo . . . as the ruler of the Filipinos." The same editorial labels Aguinaldo an obstreperous "prancing fool." [7] Later editorials call Aguinaldo vain, obstinate, reprehensible, tricky, shifty, feather-headed, tyrannical, a popinjay, a wicked liar, and an incapable, self-important, self-chosen leader. [8] One cartoon from May 1899 depicted Aguinaldo as a hornet. [9] The imagery here is significant. Hornets are a bothersome but manageable problem; Aguinaldo was a nuisance to the United States, but clearly the public was not meant to think that Aguinaldo was a serious threat to American might. Thus, the common themes of New York Times, San Francisco Call, and other newspaper editorials from late 1898 to Aguinaldo's capture in 1901 were ridicule and character assassination. Aguinaldo was often derided in the popular press for his futile attempts to defy the will of the powerful United States, and for his moral and intellectual qualities--or alleged lack thereof.

The American media also took care not to refer to Aguinaldo as "President" or "General." Almost without exception, papers sympathetic to the imperialist cause referred to Aguinaldo as the "rebel leader," "insurgent chief," or "insurgent dictator." [10] Citing elements of international law, Theodore S. Woolsey, professor of law at Yale University, argued in The Outlook, "The so-called Filipino republic is but a body of insurgents against the sovereignty of the United States." [11] In this respect, the press echoed in the public forum the same concerns that United States politicians harbored in the legislative arena. Both the press and the United States government wanted to delegitimize Aguinaldo as the chosen leader of the Filipino people, and neither wanted to indicate that they were recognizing the Malolos Republic as a lawful government. In testimony before Congress, Admiral George Dewey assured the Senate Committee on the Philippines that he had never saluted the Filipino flag, he had never treated Aguinaldo as a general of an allied army, and he had never called Aguinaldo anything but "Don Emilio." [12] Dewey's caution was undermined by the actions of his secretary, Colonel L. M. Johnson of the United States Artillery, the highest ranking American officer on land, who witnessed and signed the Philippine Declaration of Independence, issued 12 June 1898 by Aguinaldo. [13] Nevertheless, more savvy politicians and members of the press established a clear pattern of avoiding any intimations that the Malolos Republic of the Philippines and its elected president Emilio Aguinaldo were legitimate.

The notion that Aguinaldo's government was illegitimate stemmed largely from a widespread paternalistic and racist view, held by many United States imperialists, that Filipinos lived beyond the pale of civilization and remained therefore "utterly unfit" to rule themselves. [14] Cartoons such as the "The White Man's Burden" and "Saved From the Cruel Spaniard," portraying Filipinos as savages, were common in the American media. [15] American imperialists saw the savagery of the common Filipino as all the more reason to annex the islands. In their view, white Americans were just the ones to teach the Filipinos to be civilized. Sociology professor Franklin Henry Giddings, an imperialist, expounded that although the nonwhite races lacked "intelligence and inventive genius," they were "capable of imitation and improvement," and that by virtue of their experience in dealing with "racially inferior types," it was the responsibility of the Anglo-Saxon race to ensure "orderly development" for such "unfortunates." [16] Even "civilized" Filipinos such as Aguinaldo were thought to be ignorant in the ways of "proper" government. Dean C. Worcester, author of The Philippine Islands and a member of the Schurman Commission, represented many Americans with his assertion, "With all their amiable qualities it is not to be denied that at present the civilized natives are utterly unfit for self-government." [17]

If imperialist politicians and members of the press went out of their way to denigrate and delegitimize Aguinaldo and his government, anti-imperialists went to the other extreme in representations of Aguinaldo to the American public. The staunchest defenders of Aguinaldo in the public forum were usually members of the Anti-Imperialist League, founded in Boston in June 1898. [18] Within months of its founding, membership in the League grew to twenty-five thousand, and, within a year, they claimed more than seventy thousand members. [19] Boasting such leaders as Stanford President David Starr Jordan, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and American Federation of Labor President Samuel Gompers, the roster of League officers, according to Miller, "reads like a combination of the Social Register and Who's Who in America." [20] Although their rhetoric usually revolved around freedom and the right to self-determination in the abstract, [21] League members and sympathizers often propped up Aguinaldo as the icon of their cause. For example, John Altgelt, an ex-governor of Illinois, led cheers for Aguinaldo in the midst of a speech at a League-sponsored rally. [22] In a tour across the nation promoting the anti-imperialist cause, two ex-soldiers from the Volunteer Signal Corps elicited applause from an audience in Chicago when they flashed a projection of Aguinaldo during a lecture on the injustice of the war in the Philippines. In reference to Aguinaldo's voluntary exile in Hong Kong in exchange for financial compensation, one of the lecturers stated, "Aguinaldo is ambitious, but he would not sell his country, as has been charged. He offered to leave if Spain would pay a sum to the widows and orphans who had felt the sorrows of war -- offered to leave his beloved country that they might benefit, that was all." [23] This idealized image of Aguinaldo as the front man for the anti-imperialist cause was effective enough that the New York Times was prompted to decry the actions of reckless "Aguinaldinos" who tried to physically restrain a group of young men about to enter a recruiting station to sign up for what the anti-imperialists believed to be a thoroughly unjust war. [24] Thus, the Anti-Imperialist League idolized Aguinaldo's image in the public forum until it became more associated with an American crusade to save American ideals of republicanism, rather than a Philippine crusade to establish the first republic in Asia and win independence for a country that had remained colonized for more than three hundred years.

Of all the anti-imperialists to fashion Aguinaldo into a saint for their cause, perhaps the most egregious of hagiographers was Mark Twain. Twain, a vice president in the Anti-Imperialist League, articulated and developed many of the League's arguments against the war and imperialism. Twain's arguments were rooted in lofty notions of American traditions of republicanism, freedom, and justice; the Philippine-American War was the historical focal point onto which he projected these arguments. One such argument, common currency among anti-imperialists, asserted that imperialism constituted a departure from America's political traditions and would thus lead to the fall of the republican form of government and the ascendancy of an American monarchy or military dictatorship. [25] Reactionary anti-imperialist arguments such as this were often taken more seriously than defenses of Aguinaldo as a leader fit to rule and the Malolos Republic as a legitimately formed government. When Twain did deal with Aguinaldo, the image he devised represented as much of a caricature as those presented by the imperialist camp. In his review of Edwin Wildman's 1901 biography, Aguinaldo: A Narrative of Filipino Ambitions, Twain characterized Aguinaldo's "ambitions" as identical with those of George Washington and Joan of Arc. [26] In discussing the Pact of Biyaknabato (December 1897), wherein Aguinaldo had agreed to leave the Philippines in exchange for an armistice, a general amnesty for Filipinos, reforms, and financial compensation for civilian casualties, Twain wrote of Aguinaldo:

From Spain he got everything for his people, nothing for himself. Except banishment. He consented to that. He had broken that heartless tyranny of three hundred years, and set his people free. That was enough. Washington, Joan of Arc, or any of that great breed, would have gone happy into banishment on the same terms. [27]

Notwithstanding this romanticized account of actions that represented a pre-emptive sellout of the Philippine Revolution's goals, Twain also failed to mention that Aguinaldo received personal remuneration for his exile. It seems unlikely that Twain was unaware of this condition of the pact-the imperialist media made much of the P800,000 payoff, as they saw it. Twain conveniently glossed over this blemish on his icon of anti-imperialism.

Wildman himself was less glowing in his opinion of Aguinaldo, though he still had words of praise for the Filipino leader. In an article in Harper's Weekly (25 February 1899), Wildman wrote:

Despite his under-size and mock-heroic surroundings, he impressed me as a man capable of all he had undertaken, and the possessor of a will and determination equal to the task set before him, and I made up my mind then and there that he was genuine; that his dignity was natural; that his aim was lofty; and his character trustful and worthy of being trusted. . . . I do not think that I am overestimating Aguinaldo when I say that he possesses the attributes that go to make up greatness as it is understood among men. [28]

These are high marks, especially compared to the derision and ridicule to which Aguinaldo was subjected in other periodicals. But as Twain notes in his review of Wildman's book, Wildman was not entirely sympathetic to Aguinaldo. [29] "Aguinaldo," wrote Wildman in his Harper's Weekly piece, "is wise among his people, ignorant among Europeans." [30] Still, unlike the overwhelming majority of journalists of his time, Wildman attempted a degree of objectivity--at least, by late-nineteenth-century American standards. Like many Americans of that era, Wildman believed in racial hierarchies and allegedly immutable characteristics carried therein: "A man must be judged by his environments, his compatriots, his race." [31] Were it not for this inherently racist bias in Wildman's point of view, Aguinaldo would have received from him the fairest treatment of any biography written about the general, then or since.

Aguinaldo's 23 March 1901 capture by Frederick Funston, a general in the volunteer army, by means of a ruse, elicited a flurry of media coverage and commentary across the globe. [32] In the United States, Aguinaldo's capture made front-page news. [33] Certain anti-imperialist newspapers continued their unwavering support of Aguinaldo in the face of what many, such as Admiral Dewey, believed to be the end of Filipino resistance to American imperialism. The Democratic Philadelphia Times, for example, maintained that "as Americans, while we may think Aguinaldo mistaken and wrong-headed, we have no right to denounce him for his effort to assert what he believed to be the American principle of self-government." [34] The New York Evening Post wrote, "History can show few brighter examples of patient endurance, intellectual resource, and high principle. We feel sure that such virtues will stir the admiration of every lover of liberty in the world, and that the name of Aguinaldo will find a place eventually in all American hearts." [35] Imperialist newspapers, on the other hand, continued their smears of Aguinaldo. As Literary Digest noted, "The papers which have seen nothing good in Aguinaldo before do not revise their opinion now. The New York Tribune (Rep.), for example, calls him 'a vain, deceitful, cruel, tyrannical adventurer, who has betrayed all who have trusted him and who has sought to aggrandize himself by means of systematic murder and arson.'" [36] One political cartoon persisted in implying that Aguinaldo's involvement in the Philippine Revolution exemplified nothing more than self-interest. [37] Others were infuriated by the trickery Funston employed to capture Aguinaldo. Twain, for instance, who already considered this the most ignoble of wars, held Funston in utter contempt after Aguinaldo's capture. In 1906, Twain described Funston as "the man who captured Aguinaldo by methods which would disgrace the lowest blatherskite that is doing time in any penitentiary." [38]

Imperialist papers interpreted Aguinaldo's oath of allegiance to the United States on 1 April 1901 as vindication of what they had been arguing all along: that Aguinaldo lacked character. The Boston Transcript remarked that "there is nothing about him [Aguinaldo] that suggests [anti-imperialist] Senator [George] Hoar's ideal hero, the determined man who will resist the temptations of ease to preserve a principle, who prefers imprisonment to freedom purchased at the price of concession." [39] The imperialist periodical the New York Tribune lampooned the leaders of the Anti-Imperialist League in a political cartoon published shortly after Aguinaldo's oath of allegiance. In the cartoon, two leaders of the Anti-Imperialist League, Edward Atkinson and Erving Winslow, cry over the "betrayal" by the hero of their cause, "George Washington Aguinaldo." [40] Another cartoon, from Harper's Weekly, shows a suspiciously Western-looking Aguinaldo holding out a copy of the oath of allegiance to the Boston Brahmins of the Anti-Imperialist League, who wear ridiculous "Oriental" attire. [41] The race-reversal, as it were, of the capitulating Filipino and the recalcitrant Bostonians highlights the alleged wrongheadedness of holding out for Philippine independence against American interests. Another excoriating cartoon urged the "Boston insurgents" to "follow Aggie's example and take the oath of allegiance." [42]

However, many anti-imperialist newspapers felt nonplussed by Aguinaldo's capitulation. The Indianapolis News, for example, argued that the end of armed Filipino resistance simply meant that the case for a United States withdrawal from the Philippines could be made in a more reasonable manner. The stalwart, anti-imperialist New York Evening Post argued "The fact is that the sound and convincing arguments for Philippine independence never had so good a chance of being listened to as precisely this juncture." [43]

By contrast, Aguinaldo's manifesto, urging his fellow Filipinos to lay down their arms and follow him in swearing allegiance to the United States, brought bitter remarks from many newspapers formerly sympathetic to Aguinaldo. The New York World wrote, "the grandiloquent but abject address of the captive Filipino leader goes far to confirm the low opinion of his character hitherto expressed by his enemies." The Springfield Republican reveals the racism prevalent in almost all anti-imperialist rhetoric when it reported that Aguinaldo's manifesto "gives us a character certainly not of the stuff of which the heroes of the Western world have usually been made, or of which we find evidence in the Mabinis of the Malay people." [44] Conversely, newspapers that had formerly been detractors now praised Aguinaldo. The Hartford Post now argued for Aguinaldo's character, claiming that Aguinaldo's appeal in his manifesto "must be taken as made in good faith." [45]

With this reversal of positions, the image of Aguinaldo lost its currency in the public forum. No longer a foe of American annexation of the Philippines, Aguinaldo was soon dropped as the poster boy for the anti-imperialist cause. Similarly, having finally acceded to the wishes of an expansionist American administration, he was no longer attacked in the popular media. This loss of interest in Aguinaldo is evidenced by a survey of the New York Times editorial and news indices from 1898 through 1902. Aguinaldo was the subject of an editorial or article a total of twenty times in all of 1898. The number of instances jumped to fifty-six in 1899. Throughout 1900, while Aguinaldo was in hiding, the number of occurrences of his name in the index dropped to fifteen. From January through June 1901, Aguinaldo was the subject of thirty-three articles or editorials. From July 1901-after Aguinaldo had taken the oath of allegiance and issued his manifesto-through December 1902, Aguinaldo was the subject of only three, one of which simply announced his release from house arrest. [46] Clearly, by this time Aguinaldo had lost the interest of the American public.

Aguinaldo did not emerge again as a public figure until the first presidential election of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935, which he lost to Manuel Quezon. [47] After a brief stint as a collaborator with the imperial Japanese government in the Philippines, he once again retired to his home in Cavite. During his retreat from public life, Aguinaldo instituted a veterans' administration for soldiers of the Philippine revolution. For the most part, though, he remained almost as forgotten in the Philippines as in the post-manifesto American press.

But the Philippine public took notice once again upon Aguinaldo's death in 1964. After the passing of the old soldier, a slew of biographies and documentary histories by Philippine authors emerged on Emilio Aguinaldo's life and times, all of which praised Aguinaldo in language remarkably similar to the George Washington analogy used by the American anti-imperialists in 1898: father of the country, liberator of the people, the illustrious general. In 1969, the Philippine Historical Association published an anthology commemorating the one hundredth birthday of Emilio Aguinaldo. In that volume, the Historical Association reprinted the speeches and eulogies of then-president Ferdinand Marcos and a host of Filipino academics. To a person, they acknowledged Aguinaldo as "unsung hero," "public servant," and "father of the country." [49] Also published in 1969, a biography of Aguinaldo by Filipino historian Eufronio Alip offers unreserved praise for the general. [50] During this time, Aguinaldo joined the pantheon of the great Philippine heroes of the revolution who had been martyred or passed away long before the end of Aguinaldo's ninety-five years. More recently, Alfredo B. Saulo wrote a revisionist biography on Aguinaldo's life which virtually exculpated him from any wrongdoing during his lifetime. [51] Saulo goes so far as to call Aguinaldo the saint of national liberation. [52]

These works leave much to be desired in terms of historical objectivity. The assassination of rival general Juan Luna, for example, is euphemized by Alip as "the tragic death" of General Luna, and Aguinaldo's complicity is limited to "creating a situation which he knew might likely cause the death of his opponent." [53] With respect to the execution of the revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio, revisionist historian Saulo concludes that Bonifacio deserved his fate for his treasonous action. He also intimates that, in dying, Bonifacio was instantly catapulted to posthumous fame-so perhaps, he implies, everything worked out for the best. [54] Filipino historians, it seems, in addressing a perceived injustice to the memory of Aguinaldo, have overcompensated for his foibles in their attempts to grant Aguinaldo his just historical deserts.

Aguinaldo's canonization in Philippine history has resulted from the confluence of two events, his death and the rise of Filipino nationalism. Like many public figures, Aguinaldo was eulogized upon his death, and his shortcomings were forgiven at the time of his passing. However, this eulogizing of Aguinaldo also took place during a time of burgeoning Filipino nationalism. President Diosdado Macapagal railed against the persistent hegemony of the United States, as exemplified in treaties which many believed favored the United States' interests over those of the Philippines. Filipinos in the 1960s were seeking their own national identity, one that did not involve the label "former colony of the United States." Thus national heroes had to be created. It only made sense to resurrect the image of Emilio Aguinaldo as the father of the Philippine revolution-Aguinaldo, who had fought the United States, the very nation from which Filipino nationalists sought to liberate themselves.

Aguinaldo remains a complex historical figure. During his campaigns against the Spanish and the Americans, Aguinaldo proved both enemy and collaborator to imperialist forces. But Aguinaldo's actions mattered little in how the American press and public formed opinions of him. The propaganda machines of both imperialists and anti-imperialists in the United States at the turn of the century seized upon Aguinaldo's image. Both sides bandied it about, distorting it for their respective purposes. Imperialists saw in Aguinaldo an uneducated, mixed-breed savage, fighting not for the liberation of his country but for personal material gain. Anti-imperialists saw a saintly Filipino George Washington -- and, like Washington, Aguinaldo was mythologized for public consumption. These images had little to do with Aguinaldo as he really was. The image of a barefoot savage blithely ignored Aguinaldo's customary Western style of clothing. The depiction of an unmitigated hero conveniently glossed over Aguinaldo's role in the murders of fellow Filipino revolutionary leaders Bonifacio and Luna. And for both sides, Aguinaldo's image lost its usefulness as a propaganda tool after he issued his manifesto urging his fellow Filipinos to lay down their arms and swear fealty to the United States. This final act of capitulation irreparably damaged Aguinaldo's image as the Filipino George Washington of the anti-imperialist camp. At the same time, Aguinaldo's detractors could no longer use him as a locus for the derision and criticism that had characterized their treatment of him for the past four years. The imperialists, after all, had won the debate. Thus, Aguinaldo's image faded quickly from the American consciousness.

Aguinaldo's fate bears witness to the importance of winning the public's opinion in order to wage a successful imperialistic campaign. The vast majority of a colonized population may be expected to object to the presence of imperialists in their territory; the opinions of the conquered matter little. But what of the opinions of the conquering nation's population? Aguinaldo's case gives rise to important questions: How much of the population must an imperialistic administration win over to the pro-imperialist side? Imperialism begins as a unilateral act on the part of a nation, but can it succeed as a unilateral act on the part of that nation's leaders? How much does public opinion matter in a nation's imperialist campaign? Judging from the level of vitriol surrounding the image of Emilio Aguinaldo, it would seem that, in America's case, public opinion mattered a great deal. [55]

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Randolf Arguelles, a master's candidate at SFSU, studies United States intellectual history and Filipino American history. He received a bachelor of arts in philosophy from University of California, Berkeley, in 1994. Arguelles will present a paper in October 1997 at a Social Science History Association meeting in Washington, D.C. He hopes to pursue Ph.D. studies in the ideological antecedents of multiculturalism in the United States.

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1. For a detailed chronology of Emilio Aguinaldo's career, see the author's Web site at http://userwww.sfsu.edu/ ~randolf/.

2. Stuart Creighton Miller, Benevolent Assimilation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 26-27.

3. Additionally, American firms had been long engaged in the Manila hemp trade, one of the most valued fibers for cordage. Cf. Miller, 13.

4. Ibid., 18. Protestant missionaries viewed the Philippines as a stepping stone to China, too. They hoped that in annexing the Philippines, they would gain a home base in Asia for missionary efforts to convert all of mainland China.

5. New York Times, 10 June 1898.

6. Quoted in Miller, 41.

7. New York Times, 7 August 1898. The editorial calls Aguinaldo a fool three times.

8. New York Times, 13 September 1898; 14 September 1898; 23 January 1899; 15 February 1899. Unlike the New York Times, some papers championed the imperialist cause from the very beginning. Newspapers such as the Republican New York Tribune lambasted Aguinaldo from the start. The New York Times is the most prominent example of the press reflecting -- and in turn amplifying-a shift in the larger public consensus.

9. The Telegram (Toronto). Reprinted in Literary Digest 18 (27 May 1899): 617.

10. For one of many examples, see New York Times article of 8 June 1898, "Chief Aguinaldo Means to Rule." The use of the title "Chief" implies a parallel between American Indians and Filipinos. For an excellent analysis of the treatment of American Indians by the United States government as a precedent for the American government's dealings with the Filipinos, see Walter Williams, "United States Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine Annexation: Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism," Journal of American History 66 (March 1980): 810-31.

11. Quoted in Literary Digest 22 (20 April 1901): 468.

12. Henry Graff, ed., American Imperialism and the Philippine Insurrection (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1969), 4. Aguinaldo, to the contrary, always maintained that Dewey had received Aguinaldo on his flagship Olympia with all the pomp and circumstance due a military general.

13. Eufronio Alip, In the Days of General Emilio Aguinaldo (Manila: Alip & Sons, 1969), 52; Miller, 38. Aguinaldo, somewhat politically naive, probably assumed that the signature of Johnson would bind the United States into recognizing the new Philippine government. Johnson, however, was a military officer, not a plenipotentiary diplomat, and his signature did not bind the United States.

14. This is not to imply that anti-imperialists were not racist as well. In fact, in contrast to the paternalistic, social Darwinist racism of the imperialists, the anti-imperialist form of racism was more akin to "traditional" racism. "Indeed," writes Stuart Creighton Miller, "the most effective anti-imperialist tactic was to exploit such racial fears by threatening to insist that full citizenship be extended to Filipinos unless this foolish venture in imperialism was abandoned." Cf. Miller, 125.

15. Miller, illustrations between 128 and 129.

16. Franklin Henry Giddings, Democracy and Empire (New York, 1900), 4-11, 226, 262-64, 316-29. Quoted in Miller, 123.

17. Literary Digest 18 (11 March 1899): 274.

18. The first and perhaps still the best account of the Anti-Imperialist League in its early years is Maria Lanzar, "The Anti-Imperialist League," Philippine Social Science Review 3 (August-November 1930): 7-41, 118-32; 4 (July-October 1932): 182-98, 239-54; 5 (July-October 1933): 222-30, 248-79. Also see Fred Harrington, "The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898-1900," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 22 (September 1935): 211-230. The reader should keep in mind that the AIL is not necessarily the same as or even representative of the whole of the anti-imperialist movement in the United States. As Robert Cherny notes, the AIL largely comprised patrician, New England Republicans. Scholarship on the anti-imperialist movement has unfortunately focused on the AIL, to the exclusion of the liberal and Democratic wings of the anti-imperialist movement. See Robert Cherny, "Anti-Imperialism on the Middle Border, 1898-1900," Midwest Review, Second Series, 1 (Spring 1979): 19-34.

19. Miller, 104-05.

20. Ibid., 113.

21. For example, Edward Atkinson, one of the most active and visible leaders of the Anti-Imperialist League, published essays titled "The Cost of the National Crime" and "The Hell of War and Its Penalties"-titles quite devoid of reference to Aguinaldo or the plight of the Filipinos.

22. Ibid., 106.

23. Chicago Daily Tribune, 10 July 1899, reprinted in Philip S. Foner and Richard C. Winchester, eds., The Anti-Imperialist Reader, vol. 1 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1984), 343-45. The ex-soldier fails to mention that Aguinaldo received personal remuneration as well.

24. Miller, 109.

25. Jim Zwick, ed., Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1992), xxx-xxxi.

26. Mark Twain, "Review of Edwin Wildman's Aguinaldo: a Narrative of Filipino Ambitions," reprinted in Zwick, 88-108. Edwin Wildman was a United States vice consul in Hong Kong and the brother of United States Consul General to Hong Kong Rounseville Wildman.

27. Ibid., 95. Note the repetition of the imagery of Washington and Joan of Arc.

28. Quoted in Literary Digest 18 (11 March 1899): 273.

29. Twain, 88.

30. Ibid., 272.

31. Ibid.

32. Cf. "Canadian Comment on the Capture of Aguinaldo," Literary Digest 22 (20 April 1901): 487, and "European Opinion of the Capture of Aguinaldo," Literary Digest 22 (27 April 1901): 520. For details on Funston's tactics in capturing Aguinaldo, see this chapter's chronology. Also, cf. Frederick Funston, "The Capture of Emilio Aguinaldo," in Frederick Funston Memories of Two Wars (New York, 1911), and Emilio Aguinaldo, "The Story of My Capture," both reprinted in Mauro Garcia, ed., Aguinaldo in Retrospect, (Manila: Pholippine Historical Association, 1969), 240-78.

33. Cf. New York Times, 28 March 1901, 30 March 1901, 31 March 1901.

34. Literary Digest 22 (6 April 1901): 402.

35. Ibid. Emiliano Laus attributes this same quote to the Nation, (4 April 1901). Cf. Emiliano Laus, "Filipino War Against the Americans," in Garcia, 85-86.

36. Ibid., 401.

37. The Minneapolis Tribune, reprinted in American Monthly Review of Reviews 23 (May 1901). Obtained from Historical Text Archive at Mississippi State University, http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/History/USA/filipino/filipino. html.

38. From Albert Bigelow Paine, ed., Mark Twain's Autobiography (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1924), 1:285, quoted in Zwick, xxxiii.

39. Literary Digest 22 (13 April 1901): 434.

40. New York Tribune, reprinted in Literary Digest 22 (13 April 1901).

41. Harper's Weekly 45 (13 April 1901); reprinted in Literary Digest 22 (20 April 1901).

42. Philadelphia Inquirer, reprinted in American Monthly Review of Reviews 23 (May 1901). Obtained from Jim Zwick, "Graphics Browser," http://web.syr.edu/~fjzwick/grbrowse/grbrowse.html.

43. Literary Digest 22 (13 April 1901): 433-34.

44. Literary Digest 22 (27 April 1901): 503. Note that with Aguinaldo's fall from grace, the anti-imperialists still persist in idolizing the leaders of the Filipino resistance-in this case, Apolinario Mabini.

45. Ibid.

46. New York Times, 5 July 1902

47. Alip, 113.

48. Cf. Garcia.

49. Alip.

50. Alfredo B. Saulo, Emilio Aguinaldo: Generalissimo and President of the First Philippine Republic -- First Republic in Asia (Quezon City: Phoenix Publishing House, 1983).

51. Ibid., 35.

52. Alip, 86.

53. Saulo, 116-57.

54. I would like to thank Alexandra Puerto for helpful comments from which this paper has benefited greatly. I would also like to thank Chris Vaughan for leads to useful, contemporary periodicals, and Marijoy Ganzon for her invaluable support.