it was said, ruin stared planters in the face. The
Administration and a majority of the Republicans favored the cause. Not
so senators and representatives from beet-sugar sections. The
"insurgents," as the opponents of reciprocity were called, urged that
raising sugar beets was a distinctively American industry, and that to
sacrifice it was to relinquish the principle of protection altogether.
The so-called "Sugar Trust" favored reciprocity, being accused of
expending large sums in that interest. Against it was pitted the "Sugar
Beet Trust," a new figure among combinations.

During the long session of the Fifty-seventh Congress, a Cuban
reciprocity bill being before the House, the sugar-beet interest
demonstrated its power. The House "insurgents," joining the Democratic
members, overrode the Speaker and the Ways and Means chairman, and
attached to the bill an amendment cutting off the existing differential
duty in favor of refined sugar. A locking of horns thus arose, which
outlasted the session, neither side being able to convince or outvote
the other. Sanguine Democrats thought that they espied here a hopeful
Republican schism like that of 1872.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE UNITED STATES IN THE ORIENT

PHILIPPINES AND FILIPINOS

[1899]

The Philippine Archipelago lies between 4 degrees 45 minutes and 21
degrees north latitude and 118 and 127 degrees east longitude. It
consists of nineteen considerable and perhaps fifteen hundred lesser
islands, an area nearly equal that of New Jersey, New York, and New
England combined. The island of Luzon comprises a third of this, that of
Mindanao a fifth or a sixth. The archipelago is rich in natural
resources, but mining and manufactures had not at the American
occupation been developed. Agriculture was the main occupation, though
only a ninth of the land surface was under cultivation. The islands were
believed capable of sustaining a population like Japan's 42,000,000.
Luzon boasted a glorious and varied landscape and a climate salubrious
and inviting, considering the low latitude. Manila hemp, sugar, tobaco,
coffee, and indigo were raised and exported in large amounts.

[Illustration: Sixteen men seated in a small room.]
General Bates. The Sultan.
The Jolo Treaty Commission.

The islands lay in three groups, the Luzon, the Visaya (Negros, Panay,
Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, Samar, and islets), and the Mindanao, including
Palawan and the Sulu Islands. Some of these islands were