RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
them to oust the regularly constituted priests from the churches and to turn these edifices over to the Independent body. This the government would not allow, holding that any dispute over property rights must be settled by due process of law. A few riots ensued wherein the constabulary and police came in violent contact with the Aglipayanos, but the Filiplino is quick to recognise justice, and this decree of the government was very readily given general acceptance.
Mr. Taft was repeatedly warned by the allies of Rome that the movement was nothing but a cloak for the worst insurrection against the government that the Filipinos had yet attempted, and this suspicion was somewhat strengthened by the fact that many of the least tractable insurrecto leaders were among its directors, but in the main the schismatics evinced every desire to obey the injunction laid upon them not to resort to incendiary methods. And it was thought that the treatment they received in return would probably do more than all the preaching in the world to convince them that under American sovereignty they were actually to enjoy complete religious freedom.
Liberty to take possession of property by force was denied them, but liberty to think and worship as they pleased was not only given them, but in the peaceful exercise of this liberty they even enjoyed police protection, and this was a never-before-heard-of thing which gave them food for very serious thought. Under Spanish dominion Aglipay would have been taken to the Luneta and shot as José Rizal was shot, and his followers would have met and mourned in secret, but the American authorities held, according to American beliefs, that an Aglipayan, or independent Catholic organisation, had as much right to parade in the streets with candles and images as had the Roman Catholic or any other religious body.
Mr. Taft had vaguely suggested the possibility of some such development as this during his visit to the Vatican,
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