Manuel was sent to school in Manila at the age of nine and remained there through college, where he studied law. Although he had supported the Spanish against Filipino nationalists, in he joined Aguinaldo's guerrilla war against the Americans, and was eventually jailed for six months for allegedly murdering an American prisoner.
After being released for lack of evidence, Quezon's sharp mind and considerable charisma caught the eye of American colonial officials, and his stratospheric political ascent began.
By , Quezon had become President of the Philippine Senate and de facto leader of the Philippine independence movement. In they lobbied Washington hard for MacArthur to be named the successor to Henry Stimson as governor general of the Philippines.
It is certain that he stands high in the esteem of Manuel Quezon and other political leaders, who are not averse to seeing him in Malacanan Palace Close observers here point to the remarkable intimacy of Gen. MacArthur and Senor Quezon, who often are seen together on terms of close friendship. Army Chief of Staff the following year. During MacArthur's long and difficult tenure as Chief, Quezon lobbied for legislation in Washington which would give his country its independence. He succeeded with the passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act in March of , which granted the Philippines commonwealth status, to be followed by complete autonomy in Often he abandoned consistency for the sake of pursuing what to his enemies was nothing but plain demagoguery.
In Quezon ran successfully as candidate for the Philippine Assembly on the Nacionalista party platform. Quezon served as resident commissioner in Washington, D. He was instrumental in having a law revised so that Filipinos would form a majority in the Philippine Commission, the highest governing body in the Philippines.
In February he cosponsored the Jones Act, which gave the Filipinos the power to legislate for themselves subject to veto by the American governor general. With this act, Quezon returned home a hero.
In Quezon was elected to the Senate, and soon became its president. Quezon's "collectivist" idea of leadership won in the election. Soon, however, the two warring factions of the Nacionalista party united in the Partido Nacionalista Consolidado, headed by Quezon, who then became president of the party.
In a bill providing for the future independence of the Philippines, the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Bill, was passed by the U. Quezon opposed the new law because "America would still hold military and naval bases in the Philippines even after the latter's independence, and, moreover, export duties regulated in the law would destroy both industry and trade. This law provided for Philippine independence in and tax-free importation of Philippine products such as sugar, coconut oil, and cordage into the United States and the diplomatic negotiation of the military bases issue.
Roosevelt, ever solicitous of our freedom and welfare, has sent to us, as his personal representative, the Secretary representative, the Secretary of War, Honorable George H.
Dern, whose friendship for our people has proven most valuable in the past. Vice President Garner, Speaker Byrns, distinguished members of the Senate with their floor leader, Senator Robinson, and no less distinguished members of the House of Representatives have traveled ten thousand miles to witness this historic event.
It is my hope that the ties of friendship and affection which bind the Philippines to America will remain unbroken and grow stronger after the severance of our political relations with her. In behalf of the Filipino people, I express deep appreciation to Honorable Frank Murphy, our last Governor-General, for his just and efficient administration and for the wholehearted assistance he has rendered us in the difficult task of laying the constitutional foundation of our new Government.
As we enter the threshold of independent nationhood, let us pause for a moment to pay tribute to the memory of Rizal and Bonifacio and all the heroes of our sacred cause in grateful acknowledgment of their patriotic devotion and supreme sacrifice. Fellow countrymen: The government which we are inaugurating today is only a means to an end.
It is an instrumentality placed in our hands to prepare ourselves fully for the responsibilities of complete independence. It is essential that this last step be taken with full consciousness of its significance and the great opportunities that it affords to us. Under the Commonwealth, our life may not be one of ease and comfort, but rather of hardship and sacrifice. We shall face the problems which lie in our path, sparing neither time nor effort in solving them. We shall build a government that will be just, honest, efficient, and strong so that the foundations of the coming Republic may be firm and enduring—a government, indeed, that must satisfy not only the passing needs of the hour but also the exacting demands of the future.
We do not have to tear down the existing institutions in order to give way to a statelier structure. There will be no violent changes from the established order of things, except such as may be absolutely necessary to carry into effect the innovations contemplated by the Constitution.
A new edifice shall rise, not out of the ashes of the past, but out of the standing materials of the living present. Reverence for law as the expression of the popular will is the starting point in a democracy. The maintenance of peace and public order is the joint obligation of the government and the citizens. I have an abiding faith in the good sense of the people and in their respect for law and the constituted authority. The , items in the collection survived two floods and continue to be crucial for an understanding of that period.
They give the reader a good representation of the daily activities of a politician whose ambition was to one day become head of state.
This primary source material is still under-exploited. Its location, in the National Library in Manila, far from the universities of the capital, offers a possible explanation. In addition, the archives themselves pose a problem. If the young politician sought their support at the beginning of his career, he rapidly learned how to use it for personal, and later political, purposes.
Consequently, it absorbed—which is not to say that it welcomed—manpower from its colonies even before the First World War. In the Philippines, the establishment of the American administration coincided with the election of a Congress in Both were born in and both were elected to Congress. His rival was elected Majority Floor Leader. But Quezon could not stand to take a back seat. Aware of his situation, the challenger risked leaving the Philippines to go to the source of power and to reverse the battle of wills, by accepting the position of Resident Commissioner, representative of the Philippine people before the United States Congress, for nearly seven years.
In the s, H. Brett Melendy stated that 2, Filipinos had settled in the United States. The discrepancy can be explained by the mobility of this population. Few Filipinos intended to stay on the mainland permanently, and many of them had not been recorded on official registers of the Census of Population and Housing. The Philippine community increased to , in the s and remained stable until the s ,; 98, in the s; and , in the s.
The United States had been the most important industrial power since and was in need of manpower in factories as well as in the agricultural sector.
This was particularly pronounced in Hawaii because of the sugar plantations. As the Japanese government had restricted out-migration among its own workers, landowners in Hawaii hired Filipinos instead.
In fact, in , there were more Filipinos in Hawaii alone about 70, than on the mainland 60, For Philippine migrants, economic reasons were nearly always the motivating factor. A network of familial and regional solidarity quickly took root during the first decades of the twentieth century. The Philippine community was located in two regions: nearly half settled in California Stockton, Los Angeles, etc.
The year-old did not lack courage: speaking only Spanish and Tagalog when he first arrived, Quezon delivered his first speech before the House of Representatives in English five months later.
The relationship between the colonizer and the Islands was still unclear at the time. The United States refused to admit that the Philippines were a colony. But while the United States had considered leaving the Philippines, the archipelago was too strategic in the geopolitical chessboard in the Pacific to justify a quick withdrawal.
In addition, businessmen had begun to invest there. The position of Resident Commissioner turned political with Quezon. Officially his role was to defend Philippine interests before the United States Congress. Apart from the efficient network that he built within the Democratic Party, the Bureau of Insular Affairs, and in several associations, 5 the Resident Commissioner maintained close relations with the American Filipino community.
It is clear from his archives that he seldom refused to attend banquets in his honor or to arbitrate balagtasan , traditional oratorical competitions. Even more than the official correspondence, personal letters reveal the difficult conditions faced by Filipinos in the United States Congress. Quezon behaved like any deputy, involved in all colonial matters. But behind the scenes, he also worked with the American administration to facilitate matters for his countrymen. So far, there are no similar sources from the French or the British empires.
While they were not representative of all American Filipinos—those who wrote to Quezon did so under exceptional conditions—their letters nevertheless give some insights into the Filipino experience of colonization. This source allows the historian to focus on the personal situations of people who were victims of racism, and felt themselves to be second-class citizens. Three sailors employed as coal-passers and firemen aboard an American ship were insulted and finally chained, hands together, for three hours.
The Resident Commissioner was powerless to sue the offenders.
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