The Friars and Philippine Authority
One of the conditions upon which the Filipinos propose to submit to the authority of the United States is the expulsion of the friars. To this it is stated that General MacArthur made reply that this rested not with him, but with the Taft commission. “But not even the Taft commission,” says the Springfield Republican, “can decide that issue. Congress is a higher power than any number of gentlemen the President may send to study life in Luzon. And when friars are involved, even Congress will find itself bound by the Paris treaty, if not by the Constitution of the United States. Into that treaty the Spanish negotiators succeeded in writing some clauses which will give the policy of expelling the friars, or confiscating their property, an immense amount of trouble. The Filipinos may cry ‘Expel!’ Expel!’ and even Senator Lodge may say that expulsion should take place, yet expulsion is not likely to take place while William McKinley remains President of the United States and ruler of the Philippine Islands. The Filipinos by themselves would have cut the knot, as the Mexicans did under Juarez, but the United States can do nothing radical, without raising a religious issue at home.”410And we very much doubt if either of the great parties has the courage to raise such an issue. Rome has an influence in the United States to-day that is not generally realized.