Philippine E-Journals

Chapter III: As Commissioner In the Philippines and His Plan of Government for the Filipino

Discipline: History

 

Abstract:

Inasmuch as Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines hadbeen transferred to the United States, Schurman logically concluded that it was necessary to ascertain how that sovereigntycould be applied to the benefit of the Islands. This was theconclusion which led him to accept membership in the PhilippineCommission which in turn caused him to be accused bynewspapers, his own friends and the American public of abandoning his anti-imperialistic stand in the interest of partisan politics. The New York World said of him:That President Schurman had changed his mind is butanother melancholy proof of the demoralizing effect of presidentialfavor and public honor upon men even of high character and matured conviction.