The real imminence of war with Japan last week struck Manuel Quezon. In his mind's eye he saw Japanese bombers over Manila and perhaps his own people pointing at him accusingly. In one tense, crisis-ridden night, he made an astonishing speech and tried to put the blame away from himself.
Nobody controls President Quezon, not even Quezon, say the Filipinos. They know. Sometimes they say it with exasperated affection, like Brooklyn people talking about the Dodgers. Sometimes they say it with gleeful malice, as they recount President Quezon's latest prankish maneuver against austere, high-minded Francis Sayre, U.S. High Commissioner. Sometimes they say it with pride—their shrewd, peppery, uncontrollable Quezon, their cleverest politician, their smartest poker player, their smoothest ballroom dancer, their best-dressed man, their orator, their constant winner by overwhelming votes, their patriot, their President.
Last week, all dressed up in a white suit, Manuel Quezon stood up to address the students of the Philippines and nobody, not even himself, controlled him. He put aside his prepared manuscript, waved his arms and launched into a speech as impassioned as it was unwise. Its general purport was clear enough.
He told Filipinos that if war came now it would find the civilian population unprotected, that thousands might be killed for lack of air-raid shelters. He damned his critics, alibied himself, said that his grief and helplessness, bringing on another attack of tuberculosis, had brought him to the edge of the grave. He cried:
"If there had been war two months ago, there would have been starvation. If there should be war now, we might find ourselves without fuel. . . If war breaks out here our people will die unprotected from bombs. Those men who have stopped me from doing what I should have done ought to be hanged from lampposts."
Who were those men?
¶ Quezon named the Civil Liberties Unions of the U.S. and the Philippines. They had charged him with "dictatorial" ambitions when he got from the Legislature more emergency power for defense.
¶ U.S. "imperialists" wanted to show the defenselessness of the Philippines when war came, as an argument against independence.
¶ Since the U.S. public was being led to believe that he wanted to be a dictator, President Roosevelt asked him not to use his emergency powers. "The Commanding General of the Philippine Department of the United States Army [General MacArthur] wrote me asking what this Government was doing for the protection of the civilian population. My answer was, 'I don't know. You ask the High Commissioner [Sayre].' Finally I was asked by the High Commissioner himself to constitute a Civilian Emergency Administration, to which body I gave all the powers the Emergency Act gave me. This is the reason why, for seven months, the powers were not exercised. . . ."
To this attack on the U.S., Manuel Quezon's audience responded with loud applause.