RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
cle broadened rapidly. But General MacArthur, who was the Military Governor and lived at Malacañan Palace, did not entertain anybody except a select military circle. He sent an aide with cards, of course, and he accepted our invitations to dinner, but that was all. Not that we minded, except that it made it rather awkward and added something to the "feeling" that all was not well between the Army and the new civil government.
The Commission had been for three months busily engaged in investigating conditions, as directed by the President, before they assumed any authority, and then they acted with no haste. We were impatiently awaiting news from America with regard to the Presidential election. It was thought to be futile to take any definite steps toward the establishment of local governments and the inauguration of far-reaching reforms until the status of American control should be settled. Mr. Bryan had promised political independence, and if Mr. Bryan were elected all the Commission's plans would go for naught.
The provincial and municipal codes were completed; certain important questions between the Church and the people were being considered, and many open sessions were held for discussion, with the purpose of advising the people that they would be listened to by a civil government. In the meantime the insurrectos were keeping things lively in a guerilla warfare with small squads of greatly harassed and very much disgusted American soldiers. There were occasional rumours about uprisings in Manila—when the guard at our gate would be doubled—but Mr. Taft assured us that Manila was as safe as New York or Chicago and we really had few fears.
General MacArthur continued to resent the coming of the Commission and to consider himself personally humiliated by their being appointed to divide his power. He was still in command of about seventy thousand men and had
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