All day at sea. Worked in the morning on Landlord & Tenant bill. Bridge with Quezon, Roxas and Sabido. At Dumaguete from 4-5 p.m. to allow four Visayan Assemblymen to disembark. Quezon again put Osmeña forward to receive the honors. The President took Speth, Assemblyman Villanueva and me by motor out to see the hot springs. Many attractions in this neighbourhood. They have a “Baguio” at 3000 feet on the extinct volcano–very rich soil, and 70,000 people in or near the town; Quezon agreed that there is sufficient population here to make a chartered city with a decent hotel, this could be developed into a tourist resort. There is a crater lake, also limestone caves which are a great site for archaeology–evidences of iron, gold and sulphur exist hereabouts. They have a successful Methodist university, the Silliman. Quezon asked me many questions about Dr. Otley Beyer–evidently wants to be informed of the ancient history of the Philippines. Said he himself had Ilongot blood through his mother. There are many mestizas in Dumaguete–it appears that when the Spanish liberals were exiled to Mexico, some of them drifted out here and to Zamboanga. Quezon remarked that they did a good job!
Quezon talked of the Public Service Commission which as he recalled was one of the progressive acts of my Administration, intended to protect the public, but had turned out exactly the opposite; said the Supreme Court under Johnson had entirely rewritten our law; remarked that he ought to have been on the Supreme Court himself. Has now put Vera as Public Service Commissioner to try to get things more decently run. I told him there was general dissatisfaction with this commission.
At dinner, the President talked with me confidentially about Osmeña & Roxas. He had been very reluctant to oust Osmeña as the leader in the days when I was here (as I was then urging him to do) for it would have been said that he had gained the leadership thru the support of the American Governor General. He added that he had lost Roxas to Osmeña when those two were on the “Osrox” mission to Washington–that they then believed he, Quezon, was dying. That he was reluctant even then to go to issue with Osmeña, but his Senators were “sick of O” and forced him into it. He said Osmeña is now less powerful mentally, and was not at all the man I used to know–no brilliant ideas–always coming to him for appointments, in which he (Quezon) skillfully outmaneuvers him, taking a leaf from Osmeña’s own book. I asked him why Osmeña looked so triste; whether it was his troubled family affairs (his sons)? “No” he replied–indicating that it was Osmeña’s loss of power. Said he had been ready to break with the whole lot of them over Teacher’s Camp in Baguio, even to the point of accepting the resignation of Osmeña as a Cabinet member! He thinks Roxas is the one with brains, but that he would have to break him if he went on organizing “his fellows.” Quezon said he could not let down his own supporters, who had “made him President.”
I suggested a method of his writing as he wished his account of the administrations from Wood to Murphy in collaboration with me by having a stenographer present and letting me ask him questions. I told him this would be the way to get his vivid personality into print. He seemed pleased to agree. I made some mention of when I “left here” and he enquired anxiously whether I was going–told him that was only to spare him any embarrassment that I really wanted to stay here. Quezon said that is what I should do–get a home; invest here; that I had more friends here than anywhere else; that my life’s work had been done out here, and that Filipino historians would agree that they would still be Struggling for their independence if it had not been for me.
We discussed the missionaries out here, with whom I never had any trouble. He stated they caused him embarrassment only recently by complaining about the Philippine Army and by saying to President Roosevelt that its spirit was anti-Christian. The High Commissioner had brought him an enquiry on this matter and he remarked: “The answer was easy,–President Roosevelt signed our constitution, and we are only carrying out what is permitted in that.”
Talked of present population of the Philippines. He now agrees that there are probably 16,000,000 (I think 18) and may be 25 in ten years. Makes him jubilant over the possible size of the army.
Memo: In Zamboanga I commented to Colonel Stevens on the fact that there had been three killings in Jolo that week. His reply was “they are at least 3 behind schedule–they average one a day.” When asked why? he said: “Because they like it.”