The problem of governing the Philippines was infinitely more complicated than that of governing Porto Rico, because the archipelago embraced more than three thousand islands and about thirty different tribes and dialects. The evolution of American control there falls into three stages. At first, they were governed by the President of the United States under his military authority. In 1901, a civil commission, with Mr. W. H. Taft at the head, took over the civil administration of all the pacified provinces. In 1902, Congress passed an "organic act" for the Islands, providing that, after their pacification, a legislative assembly should be erected. At length, in 1907, this assembly was duly instituted, and the government now consists of the governor, a commission appointed by the President and Senate, and a legislature composed of the commission and a lower house of representatives elected by popular vote.
Important as are the problems of governing dependencies, they are not the sole or even the most significant aspects of imperialism. The possession of territories gives a larger control over the development of their trade and resources; but capital and enterprise seeking an outlet flow to those countries where the advantages offered are the greatest, no matter whoever may exercise political dominion there. The acquisition of the Philippines was simply an episode in the development of American commercial interests in the Orient.
It was those interests which led the United States to send Caleb Cushing to China in 1844 to negotiate a treaty with that country securing for Americans rights of trade in the ports which had recently been blown open by British guns in the famous "Opium War." It was those interests which induced the United States government to send Commodore Perry to Japan in 1853 and led to the opening of that nation--long closed to the outside world--to American trade and enterprise. After 1844 in China, and 1854 in Japan, American trade steadily increased, and American capital seeking investments soon began to flow into Chinese business and railway undertakings. Although the United States did not attempt to follow the example of Great Britain, Russia, France, and Germany in seizing Chinese territory, it did obtain a sufficient economic interest in that Empire to warrant the employment of American soldiers in coöperation with Russian, English, French, Japanese, and other contingents at the time of the Boxer insurrection at Peking in the summer of 1900.