RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
more troops than any general had commanded since the Civil War and that he was, moreover, still enjoying the great power of Chief Executive of the Islands.
"Yes," said he, "that would be all right if I hadn't been exercising so much more power than that before you came."
Whereupon Mr. Taft gently reminded him that he had been exercising that power for about three weeks only and said he hoped he had not become, in that time, so habituated to the situation as to prevent his appreciating the rather exalted position in which he would still be left. They afterward exchanged some correspondence as to what powers each did have, but they seemed to have disagreed from the first.
General MacArthur succeeded General Otis in command of the United States Army in the Philippines and he had fallen heir to a policy with which he was entirely out of sympathy. General Otis had scattered the troops in small divisions and detachments all over the Islands, and General MacArthur found himself in command of about seventy thousand men, but with only a few regiments where he could lay his hands on them for action in his own immediate vicinity. He believed that the only way to get rid of the predatory bands and bring order out of a chaotic state, was to concentrate the army on the island of Luzon where most of the active insurrectos operated. And he thought it would be many years before the Filipinos would be ready for anything but the strictest military government. But the trouble was that thousands of Filipinos all over the Islands had already sworn fealty to the United States, or had gone quietly back to work, and it was known that the lives of many of these would not be worth a moment's purchase if the protection of the American troops was withdrawn from them. That was the situation.
The last engagement between real insurgents and American troops had taken place in February before the Commis-
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