r uncertainty,--the very danger
every European with knowledge of the situation had dinned in our ears.
Everybody declared that difficulties were sure to grow on our hands in
geometrical proportion to our delays; and it was perfectly known to the
respective branches of our Government primarily concerned that while
the delay went on it was in neglect of a duty we had voluntarily
assumed.

For the American Commissioners, with due authority, distinctly offered
to assume responsibility, pending the ratification of the treaty, for
the protection of life and property and the preservation of order
throughout the whole archipelago. The Spanish Commissioners, after
consultation with their Government, refused this, but agreed that each
Power should be charged, pending the ratification, with the maintenance
of order in the places where it was established. The American assent to
that left absolutely no question as to the diminished but still grave
responsibility thus devolved.[8] That responsibility was avoided from
the hour the treaty was signed till the hour when the Tagal chieftain,
at the head of an army he had been deliberately gathering and
organizing, took things in his own hand and made the attack he had so
long threatened. Disorder, forced loans, impressment, confiscation,
seizure of waterworks, contemptuous violations of our guard-lines, and
even the practical siege of the city of Manila, had meantime been going
on within gunshot of troops held there inactive by the Nation which had
volunteered responsibility for order throughout the archipelago, and
had been distinctly left with responsibility for order in the island on
which it was established. If the bitterest enemy of the United States
had sought to bring upon it in that quarter the greatest trouble in the
shortest time, he could have devised for that end no policy more
successful than the one we actually pursued. There may have been
controlling reasons for it. An opposite course might perhaps have cost
more elsewhere than it saved in Luzon. On that point the public cannot
now form even an opinion. But as to the effect in Luzon there is no
doubt; and because of it we have the right to ask a delay in judgment
about results there until the present evil can be undone.

[8] Protocol No. 19 of the Paris Commission, Conference of
December 5, 1898: "The President of the Spanish Commission having
agreed, at the last session, to consult his Government regardi