Part Four
After a decade of, in his words, “feeding at the government trough,” Great-Grandfather Fred was feeling its limitations. Even though he and Jennie were socially at the top of the heap in the Philippines, financially, they couldn’t begin to compete. He started looking around at what his options might be.
Zamboanga, December 16, 1911
(John S.) Hard looking for manager bank suggest you write him next mail regarding arrangements – (JOHN J.) PERSHING
Manila, December 16, 1911
John S. Hard. General Pershing states that you desire manager for Zamboanga branch. I would like place if compensation satisfactory. WILSON
I’m guessing that since nothing else about this potential job is ever mentioned again, the compensation wasn’t. So, he kept looking.
Manila, December 21, 1911
My dear Wilson: I am getting somewhat at sea in regard to your wishes as to your own future…
For six months or more there will be an opportunity for your detail with the Executive Bureau… We have a tremendous amount of work here in connection with provincial and municipal finance and need you very, very much… Let me hear from you at your early convenience regarding your conformity or otherwise with the plan I have outlined, and how soon you can come. Please consult with General Pershing showing him this letter if you wish. With best wishes, sincerely yours, FRANK CARPENTER – Executive Secretary, Philippine Islands
Manila, February 15, 1912
Vacancy about to occur special agent. Will you accept - wire answer - show this telegram General Pershing – CARPENTER
Baguio, April 16, 1912
Personally suggest you consider further before determining resignation. Assume you received advice of your appointment special agent this office. Your continuation duty Moro Province was authorized to meet what seemed best interest public service and without prejudice your resuming duties here upon completion assignment Moro Province. I sincerely regret your inclination resign and in this know that Governor-Generals Forbes Gilbert and bureau personnel feel likewise, however, you must decide matter accord your own best interest. I hold matter abeyance pending further advice from you. – CARPENTER
Zamboanga, April 21, 1912
Respectfully forwarded to the Executive Secretary, Baguio, approved. Mr. Wilson has kept me informed of his plans to engage in business in the Moro Province. The subject has been fully discussed and he is firmly convinced that his best interests lie in that direction. Mr. Wilson’s services have been of a high order. His executive ability coupled with his experience in dealing with the natives, makes him almost invaluable as a public official in the Philippine Islands. Should he again consider entering the government service, every inducement should be given him to do so – JOHN. J. PERSHING - Brigadier General U.S.A. Governor for the Moro Province.
In April of 1912, Fred Wilson resigned from his government position and went into the lumber business.
Before that, in a letter to Senator William O. Bradley of Kentucky recommending General Pershing for something, Fred casually wrote, “After seeing you in Washington in April, 1910, I returned to the Philippine Islands to again take a hand in what is sometimes called the “white man’s burden”…”
In 1899, Rudyard Kipling had written a pro-imperialist poem called ‘The White Man’s Burden”. While he wrote it for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, it was meant to specifically support the United States’ annexation of the Philippines after the Spanish American War. Kipling argued that the United States, like Britain, had a moral obligation to civilize and lift out of sin and degradation, the non-white ‘other’ peoples of the planet. He was a staunch believer in the Empire’s ability to do just that.
He sent the poem to Teddy Roosevelt, then the Governor of New York exhorting him, “Now, go in and put all the weight of your influence into hanging on, permanently, to the whole Philippines. America has gone and stuck a pickaxe into the foundations of a rotten house, and she is morally bound to build the house over, again, from the foundations, or have it fall about her ears.” Roosevelt forwarded the poem to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, and they used it to help sway opinion in favor of expansion and acquisition.
There were vocal critics of both the poem and the decision to occupy the islands, notable among them was Mark Twain. He published an essay titled, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” It was about the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion that was being fought at the same time in China against their foreign, colonial Christian invaders. The protests didn’t matter. The United States began building an empire, the vestiges of which, we still have. Both in territory and in the imperialistic, paternalistic feelings of superiority we feel toward our neighbors.
Kipling’s poem also endures as an integral part of the substructure of American white supremacy.
Lumber was one of the resources that the United States hoped to control by occupying the Islands. The old-growth hardwood forests were a potential goldmine. While he was the Treasurer of the Moro Province, Fred met a man named Guy Holland who owned a lumber mill. His business was struggling, and he needed a partner to keep afloat. Fred believed that there was a lot of money to be made there, so he got his friend General Mark Hersey to lend him some money. Fred and Guy then became partners in The Kolambugan Lumber and Development Company.
Fred also persuaded General Pershing to invest in the company. Pershing sent him 8,500 Pesos in May of 1912 to buy stock. The bonds would be in Fred’s name and Fred would manage the proceeds by proxy for the General. 8,500 Pesos in 1912 had the buying power of about $130,000.00 in today’s currency.
The lumber mill was located on Panguil Bay on the Norwest Coast of the island of Mindanao. It was a long way from Manila. The nearest city at the time was Cebu which was about 125 miles away. There were no roads in or out to the mill. The only way to get there was by steamer. The Wilsons climbed on board and moved into the jungle.
In an area that had been cleared of trees, the workmen at the mill built them a beautiful airy house overlooking the sea. It had wide-plank hardwood floors and a spacious verandah. My grandmother Eunice went back to live with her grandmother in Versailles, Kentucky so that she could go to high school. Great-Uncle Scott was sent off to an Episcopalian school in the summer capital, Baguio. He hated it so much that he, too, was sent back to Kentucky leaving their parents behind on their own. In time, Eunice graduated high school and went off to Lynchburg, VA to go to college. Fred then went home to Kentucky to collect Scott and brought him back to the mill.
Jennie said that their house was beautiful but that it was extremely lonely being the only white woman for hundreds of miles. She and Fred lived well, but they had only each other to rely on. The cost of building their financial capital turned out to be their social capital. There were no clubs to socialize in and no neighbors to drop in on. A visit to Cebu was a week or two undertaking at best. They were isolated.
My grandmother told me that Jennie used to long to have fashionable furniture from the States. She’d read the Sears Roebuck catalog voraciously, but it was far too expensive to ship anything over. There was a small desk that she particularly liked, so she got a carpenter from the mill to replicate it. It’s a perfect 1913 Sears Roebuck desk, but it is made from solid planks of deep red lustrous mahogany. It’s not very big, but the thick heavy wood makes it almost impossible to lift. That desk has traveled all over the world. I had it for a while in New York and now it’s with my sister in North Carolina.
The local tribespeople who lived in the surrounding jungle were constantly fighting both against the government and with each other. Fred had worked out a deal with their leader, that while they were going at each other, they would not interfere with the woodcutters. According to Jennie, there was still some occasional violence. Fred met with the leader to discuss the problem. The leader agreed that the attacks would stop. A few days later he and some of his men showed up with a sack. They upended it and three heads rolled out. According to Jennie, the leader looked up at Fred and said, “We get ‘um.”
Fred reportedly never had a drink before they moved out to the mill. The constant financial pressure and the isolation must have worn on him, though, because he started drinking and also started putting on weight. A global lumber depression had started at about the time Fred signed on and it continued. Guy Holland eventually had to sell his shares. In 1915, running out of funds, Fred went to London where he sold the controlling share of stock to a British Company. He returned to the Philippines as an employee.
Fred, Jennie, and Scott stayed in the Philippines managing the mill throughout World War I. When it was over in 1918, Fred cashed out his remaining shares, and they left the islands for good.
At the time he went into business, only Americans were allowed to get concessions to cut lumber. It wasn’t ours. We were in a place where we had no business being. My grandmother said that if we hadn’t occupied the Philippines then the Japanese would have. It seems to me that’s not an argument that carries much moral weight. We’re stealing this because if we don’t someone else will? As we’ve done countless times before, we built up our belief in our own innate superiority to justify the theft. The Japanese did invade and take over in World War II. I am sure they rationalized their own Empire-building the same way.
A century later, nothing has changed. Right or wrong, we buy into our collective social beliefs to keep ourselves moving forward. The divisiveness in our country only makes that easier to see. From a safe distance, whichever side you’re on, the other side looks clearly wrong. I follow my great-grandfather’s progress through the Philippines, and from this distance in time, their moral failings seem obvious. Looking around today, it’s not always as easy to see our own. White supremacy in 2022 is viewed by almost everyone in my social orbit as a radical belief that we don’t knowingly hold. The great center of this country, however, is proudly fighting to uphold this radical belief. Before World War I, it was not a belief that had this much discussion around it. It just was.
In the hundred or so years since we became an Empire, the best we’ve been able to do is consciously identify white supremacy. Even so, we don’t always see it as clearly as we should. We’ve given it a name and we’ve started to categorize it, but we are still not close to eradicating it.
Calling white supremacy, the White Man’s Burden is like my father saying to my sister and I that we must be full, so he will make the ultimate sacrifice and eat the last cookie himself. All the paternalism and false concern over the fates of non-white people on the planet is all just a cover for what might be the most dangerous pronoun and verb combination in the English language – I want.
I want the Philippines. I want their hardwood forests. I want their strategic position. Then move forward in time. I want the Presidency. I want Ukraine. I want whatever they have, and I don’t.
That mahogany Sears Roebuck desk was made of lumber stolen from the Philippine jungle and constructed by workers who likely had little choice in the matter and probably weren’t paid very well for their work. Most of the objects around us likely have similar stories. Perhaps we should start listening to them.
I want is fine when you can get it fairly – an equitable transaction with the consent of both parties. That, however, takes patience and a willingness to accept no as an answer. When we aren’t always willing to agree to that or even risk trying, I want has the potential to destroy us.
Agreed! Fascinating read!