'THE NEWSMAN IS PRIVILEGED': JOHN BARRETT AND THE FRAMING OF THE PHILIPPINES

By Chris Vaughan

Rutgers University

ABSTRACT
For all the commercial and strategic interest in Asia at the end of the nineteenth century, U.S. news media by and large matched the underpreparedness of the government and the ignorance of the American public in its sketchy coverage of the Far Eastern frontier.  Minimal expertise was thus needed to be an agenda-setter. This article focuses on the Southeast Asian chapter in the career of an ambitious young journalist cum diplomat, John Barrett, who parlayed panache, fortuitous timing and political connections into a profitable if short-lived reputation as leading expert on Asia and the hitherto obscure Philippines, where U.S. global ambitions flowered in 1898-99 with the help of Barrett's expansionist rhetoric.
 

INTRODUCTION
For all of the growing commercial and strategic interest in Asia at the
end of the nineteenth century, the U.S. news media largely matched the lack
of preparedness of the federal government and the ignorance of the
American public in its sketchy coverage of the fast--changing Far Eastern
frontier.  Where expertise was lacking, however, agenda--setting behavior was not.
In the virtual vacuum of information about the Philippines that prevailed
before the Spanish--American War of 1898, an ambitious and well--connected
young reporter parlayed panache, fortuitous timing, and political
connections into a profitable, although short--lived, reputation as a leading expert
on the hitherto obscure archipelago.

The Southeast Asian chapter in the career of journalist and diplomat John
Barrett in many ways exemplifies the course followed by front--line agents
of fin--de--siecle American imperial ambition.  Ambitious, persuasive,
opportunistic, and far more responsive to tangible power than abstract notions
of truth and justice, he leveraged his dual roles as reporter and
government agent to maximum advantage, balancing his every move against the
fulcrum of political and commercial opportunities for nation and self. As the
first journalist to introduce the Philippines to an American audience and
perhaps the best--connected of the scribes on the scene, Barrett framed the
story from the outset as a commercial venture waiting to happen, just a
perfunctory military action away.  Having tugged on his back channel
connections so that he could brandish the latest in naval weaponry while serving
as consul in Bangkok, the young  globalist knew that real power rested in
the kind of access to war machinery exploited by his friend Theodore
Roosevelt. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he would issue a momentous order
to Commodore George Dewey--a mandate to make ready for war against Spain in an
obscure archipelago flanking strategic Southeast Asian sea lanes.
 
Barrett exulted in the thrill of imperial power, revealing a keen
appreciation for both the excitement of foreign conquest and the currency it
provided him as a journalist and a politician.  His appropriation of the
military perspective, which extended as far as defending looters and invoking
martyred heroes to fight domestic political battles, revealed a cynical
faith in the public's appetite for jingoism.  Joined to a commercial
sensibility honed in the highly competitive newspaper business, Barrett's martial
prose struck a winning note in the battle for public opinion, so recently
amplified as a factor in the conduct of foreign affairs.  That the young
Vermonter's abiding interest was the promotion of commerce, not war, should
not obscure the vital connection between the two: For all the obfuscatory
discourses of race and religion superimposed upon the template of late
nineteenth--century imperialism, the motivation of the primary power brokers
emulated by Barrett was first and foremost about economic opportunity.  The
steel--hulled fleet championed so effectively in the 1890s by Navy Captain
Alfred Thayer Mahan was but an instrument for protecting and projecting
American commercial interests.

Even before the exaltation of that instrument that followed the April 1898
sinking of the outmatched Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, the psychological
foundation for such acts of war was laid down by the commercial promotion
of Barrett, who called specific attention to the weakness of Manila's
defenses well in advance of any public talk of U.S. military action there.
Traveling throughout East Asia in 1896, via Saigon, Cambodia, Hong Kong,
Shanghai, Seoul, Japan and the Philippines, the opportunistic consul noted at
every turn the possibilities for American commerce. In only one instance,
however, did he assess any of the objects of his desire in military terms:
"It is plain that the city is not protected with reference to defense
against a foreign power," he wrote of Manila. "It could easily be razed to the
ground by a half dozen modern gunboats."2

In that 1897 article, the first to present the Philippines to Americans,
the globe--trotting diplomat introduced the islands and their nearly eight
million inhabitants to the relatively sophisticated readership of the North
American Review by linking them to Cuba, more than coincidentally the
scene of recent and well publicized imperial strife:

The Philippine Islands, now the scene of rebellion, bear a striking
resemblance to that home of revolution in the Atlantic. Both are Spanish
possessions. Cuba is the richest island in the West Indies; the Philippines are
the most resourceful of the East Indies. They lie respectively to the
southeast of the continents of North America and Asia, with which they maintain
close commercial relations. Both are located in the tropical zone and both
have like products. After the famous Manila hemp, the greatest wealth of
the Philippines is in sugar, as is that of Cuba. While Cuban tobacco in the
shape of fragrant Havanas rules the market of the new world, the Manila
cigars supply the demand of the old world. The United States buys the major
portion of Cuba's exports and a goodly portion of those of the
Philippines. Both possess inexhaustible and varied resources, which at present are
only partially developed." 3

In fact, commerce between the United States and the Philippines was
minimal, but Barrett's naked interest in the islands' potential business value
found a supportive metaphor in what he termed "the prodigality of nature."
So did his assessment of the societal unrest which the year before had
spurred reform--minded Filipinos to stage an abortive rebellion against their
Spanish colonial overlords of three centuries. Conjuring images of the
region's typhoons and earthquakes, he pronounced it "a fit land for rebellion
and insurrection," claiming that "the spirits of air and earth alike
nurture unrest." Yet in completing the standard laundry list of first
impressions, trade statistics and facile generalizations about the "lazy" but
"gentle, polite and hospitable" Filipinos, the United States Minister to Siam
disregarded the possibility that the recent insurrection against the
friar--dominated rule of the Spanish would amount to anything serious. "There is
no such organization, strength, leadership and equipment among the
insurgents as in Cuba," he wrote, adding dismissively, "It would appear to be
only a question of a few months before the flame of revolution is reduced to
a spark." 4
 
Barrett's off--hand political forecast, clearly appended to his breezy
traveler's narrative as an after--thought, was to prove bloodily askew. His
vision of the powerful movement afoot in his own nation, however, was acute:
The United States had a rendezvous with Asia.  The ambitious young
journalist--turned--plenipotentiary was well aware of the opportunities beyond the
continental frontier, whether they be found in rising Japan, vast China or
the suddenly appealing Spanish colony across the South China Sea from the
enfeebled Middle Kingdom. Frustrated by Americans' apparent disinterest in
gaining access to the markets and labor potential of Asia, Barrett
launched a campaign of public lament at the lackadaisical U.S. approach to
Pacific commerce. In the lead article of the North American Review, he
established his "plain speaking" credentials as a leading nationalist:  "Frankly
and truthfully stated -- though not pleasing to our national pride -- our
country is not regarded by the Oriental people in their practical knowledge
and relations as a Great Power in the common acceptance of the term; it is
not placed in the same category with Great Britain, France, Germany and
Russia." 5

Conflating national stature with commercial advance, Barrett asserted that
"`Old Glory' is more of a curio to the Oriental than a symbol of progress
and power . . . The shipping returns of Japan well nigh impel the
patriotic American to hide his face in shame." He laid blame primarily on "the
decadence and threatened extinction of our merchant marine," calling it "a
mill--stone around the neck of our foreign commerce." Prescribing a
Nicaraguan canal, subsidization of steamship operations after the European model, further
study and development of commercial ties with Asia, and naval
squadrons to "show the flag," Barrett concluded his wish list with an appeal
for greater support for legations and consulates such as his own in Siam. He
also warned against heeding more conservative advice from a breed of
commentator increasingly ubiquitous amid the ever growing news media: "Our
commercial interests must not be kept from the conquest by the reports of
retired manufacturers who have made their own fortunes at home and report
impressions gained by superficial observations of leisurely travel; by
correspondents who come in by one door, as it were, and go out by the next . . ." 6
 
That Barrett, an expert miner of the geopolitical periphery himself,
would so soon come to epitomize the "instant authority" on the Philippines is
no great irony: All things being relative, his 1896 trip through the
islands alone qualified him in 1898 and 1899 as a sage among a group of
correspondents learning together about the diverse and consequently complex
constellation of cultures comprising the Philippines.  And while his knowledge
of the islands and their people was not deep, his background in the larger
enterprise -- of which the Philippines was merely a strategic piece --
proved more substantial. Barrett was a member of the commercial and
propagandistic vanguard that included his friend Theodore Roosevelt and a coterie of
expansionists including the naval theoretician and propagandist
extraordinaire Mahan, as well as imperialist Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and author
Brooks Adams -- men who traded on dynamic words and, in the cases of
Roosevelt and Barrett, "strenuous" actions, to entwine their own self--created
heroic identities with the emerging might of the United States. Barrett's
persistent efforts to stimulate the Pacific trade of the United States dated
to his days as an ambitious young West Coast newsman, fresh from the East
and eager to make his name and fortune in a wide open land of opportunity.
The winds that carried him to Asia and a prominent role as interpreter of
the Philippine polity were anything but consistent; Barrett's eagerness to
unfurl his professional sails before the prevailing gusts marked him as an
apt weather vane of elite and public opinion -- and a useful tool of those
seeking to render the latter consistent with the former. 7
 
Born in 1866 to long--established Vermont family, Barrett attended
Dartmouth College, then headed west to California, where through family
connections he landed a job teaching English at the Hopkins Academy in Oakland.
Seeking greater excitement, he soon migrated north to Astoria, Oregon, where
he was hired by the local Annual Statistician and Economist.  A quick
study, he became assistant editor of the Daily Astorian at 23.  It was the
beginning of a love affair with the news business. Writing to his parents at
the end of another late night, he effused, "A few nights ago I witnessed a
prize fight, and a week before saw one man shoot at another. I tell you it
is great fun. The newsman is privileged.  I go anywhere and everywhere.
The toughs and demimonde all know me." 8
 
Range of societal vision thus enlarged, Barrett moved on to progressively
larger markets, joining first the Tacoma Daily Ledger and later the
Portland Oregonian.  In Republican Oregon, Barrett enthusiastically whipped his
fellow Democrats into a frenzy of political activity, attaining
distinction through crusades against the local underworld.  He was also an energetic
booster of commerce, particularly with regard to the Asiatic trade that
was fueling the growth of the Pacific Northwest. His business promotion
helped him to become a protégé of Sen. John H. Mitchell, a Republican who knew
a promising potential convert when he saw one. Under Mitchell's tutelage,
Barrett lobbied for a government posting to Kanagawa, Japan, site of
powerful U.S. shipping interests, but instead he was offered the relative
backwater of Siam, a quiet kingdom in Southeast Asia that had evaded European
colonialism. Before his three--week primer course in matters Thai, he was
asked what he knew of Siam. His response, while probably jocular, reflected
the dominant images of obscure peoples across the vast Pacific as little
more than curiosities.  "Siamese twins come from there," Barrett had
exclaimed, using humor to deflect any concerns about his lack of familiarity
with the kingdom. Soon, the 27--year--old fledgling diplomat would set off for
his exotic posting, determined that in years to come, his own name might
be heard in response to any similar questions. 9
 
As he plunged into diplomatic life, Barrett's knowledge of Siam soon grew
beyond the realm of freakish sensation, but he retained an unmistakable
interest in public spectacle. The U.S. presence in Siam, previously
dominated by sedate Presbyterian missions, took on decidedly higher profile as the
flashy new minister wove a spell of style and salesmanship throughout
court and consular society. Mirroring the hyper--masculine enthusiasm of his
friend Theodore Roosevelt, Barrett applied his energy and dash to pursuits
symbolic of his philosophy. He took up hunting, shooting a
five--and--a--half--foot--long jaguar in swamp grass and killing a python with a jungle knife. 10
 
Barrett's audacity extended to attending a royal fancy dress ball dressed
in an elaborate Siamese costume, accompanied by his friend Lawrence
Bennett, who, not content to stir cultural resentment by simply wearing a yellow
Buddhist monk's robe, shaved his head and dyed his skin for good measure.
Barrett's flair for fashion extended to everyday life as well. He took to
wearing a small silk American flag folded about three inches wide to show
one red and two white stripes and a few stars diagonally across his shirt.
"It distinguishes me from the rabble," he noted. "[It] shows plainly that
I am the representative of the great republic." 11
 
In 1896, Barrett had been frustrated in that assertion by American
timidity in a dispute over encroachment on Siamese teak forests in the north,
where British Burma and French Indochina shared sometimes contested borders
with Siam, the lone independent nation in Southeast Asia. Provoked by the
experience to agitate for a more assertive American posture in Asia,
Barrett's frequent articles in the American press hammered at his central
theme:  "In the new adjustment of international relations and the rearrangement
of the world's commerce which must inevitably result, it remains for our
country to decide whether its hand will be strong or weak." 12
 
A bold statement to that effect served notice of Barrett's intentions for
increased American influence in the neighborhood.  Following an 1896
incident in which the clerk of E. H. Kellett, vice consul general in the
northern mountain village of Chiang Mai, was roughly arrested by 20 soldiers for
carrying a "dangerous stick" at night, Barrett used the contratemps to his
advantage with the political class in both Siam and the United States,
boosting his own public profile in the process. Using the Associated Press as
his megaphone, Barrett stirred American public indignation at the assault,
thus putting indirect pressure on the State Department to respond
forcefully.  Under Assistant Secretary Roosevelt, Barrett's Navy connections
proved useful: The gunboat Machias soon red off the coast of Bangkok, the first
such visit to the port by a U.S. man--of--war.  The threat behind the Naval
show was defused by skillful management of the symbolic vessel by Barrett,
who invited Siamese officials aboard the ship, honoring them with
artillery salutes ranging in magnitude to a full 21--gun--salute for the Prince.
All night, every night, the Machias kept a spotlight trained on the Stars
and Stripes above the United States legation grounds. 13
 
While making loud noises at home and in the air above Bangkok, Barrett
quietly arranged for joint adjudication of the Chiang Mai matter by a
Siamese judge and Sir Nicholas Hannen of the British Court of Justice in
Shanghai, thus avoiding a potential Siamese loss of face. Barrett's vigorous
prosecution of the case resulted in reprimands, demotions, transfers and
suspensions of soldiers, with all actions required to be published and also
posted in the Chiang Mai police station for three weeks. An article lauding
Barrett in the Evening Post of San Francisco near the end of his term as
minister credited the diplomat with saving American prestige in Asia; a
sub--heading termed his experiment in freelance gunboat diplomacy  "A Reprisal
Which Will Have Good Moral Effect on Other Asiatic Nations." 14
 
Secretary of State Richard Olney, on the other hand, deemed Barrett an
alarmist fomenter of discord; he recalled the Machias, but not before
Barrett had scored his multi--directional public relations coup.  When the
Republicans regained the presidency in 1896, Barrett managed to retain his
position while other Democratic patronage appointees were resigning theirs. New
Secretary of State John Sherman cabled Barrett with an apology for the
"misunderstanding" over the Machias.  By outflanking the powerful government
insiders with his access to the increasingly influential press and the
public opinion it mediated, Barrett had survived, and even flourished. His
tactics did not go without notice, however: In September 1896, the State
Department issued an edict warning ministers and consuls against sending
materials to the press.  Barrett was far from alone in the practice, but he
was perhaps the most prolific of the double--dipping diplomat scribes.
Undaunted, he continued to send articles promoting American interest in Asia in
magazines and newspapers. He also encouraged others to promote "the
Trans--Pacific Opportunity," sending the San Francisco Examiner fifty dollars as
a prize for the California reporter writing the best essay on
California--Orient trade development and offering the same deal through the
Portland Oregonian. 15

The enterprising free--lancer's unsolicited dispatches, complete with
headlines, reached the desks of newspaper editors across the United States,
expertly tailored to connect local concerns with his message of Pacific
commercial expansion.  To the Atlanta Constitution, his message on "The South
and the Far East" was "Asia's Millions Want Cotton" -- American cotton, not
Egyptian or Indian cotton -- and if a Nicaragua canal were to be dug, new
markets for the region's leading crop would open wide. Barrett's main
promotional energies, however, remained focused on the Pacific coast conduits
for the great Asiatic trade. "The year 1898 bids fair to be a decisive one
as far as America's commercial relations are concerned," he wrote
ominously to the Seattle Post Intelligencer. "Will the Pacific coast of the United
States . . .win its share of the spoils," he asked the editor of the San
Francisco Chronicle, "Or wait . . . until it is too late and the prizes are
captured by her more enterprising competitors?" 16
 
One prize Barrett was intent on seeing secured was Hawaii, where previous
attempts by American business interests to formalize the political control
they had wrested from native Hawaiians had been rebuffed during the
administration of Grover Cleveland. The Democrat's Republican successor,
William McKinley, had submitted a new Hawaiian annexation treaty to the
Senate in June 1897, but it languished until the next year, when the expansionist
drumbeat pounded by pundits such as Barrett began to resonate throughout the
land.  Writing to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce on Feb. 4, 1898,
Barrett reported having been "converted from original opposition" to the
annexation of Hawaii by the argument that unless the United States took in the
tropical outpost, it would "not only never become the first power of the
Pacific but not even the second or third . . . trailing along behind Japan,
Great Britain, Russia and possibly after Germany and France." 17
 
The resolution of the Hawaiian question would be folded within another
issue that Barrett had identified long before in his projection of military
action against Manila. Indeed, the Philippines so grown in prospective
importance in Barrett's estimation that upon leaving his consular post and
looking for journalism work in early 1898, he turned down James Gordon
Bennett Jr.'s offer of two hundred dollars a month plus expenses to report on
Japan for the New York Herald early in 1898. Having managed to extend his
official tenure in Bangkok into1898, largely on the strength of the close
ties he had forged with Bangkok's ruling elite and the backing of his
Oregon political mentor, Republican Senator John H. Mitchell, the end of
Barrett's days as a Democratic functionary in the Republican McKinley
administration had been a foregone conclusion. While partial to the perquisites
and power of government office, Barrett never stopped preparing for a return to
full-time journalism -- and he was clear on exactly where the next big story would
take place. On April 12, 1898, two weeks before Commodore George Dewey received
his orders to sail for Manila (but eight days after Dewey moved to obtain the British
steamer Nanshan and its 3,000 ton supply of coal), Barrett told his mother, "Of course,
if war comes, we will take the Philippines, and, in them, possess the most valuable
group of islands, either to keep ourselves or sell to the
highest bidder.  Few people in America appreciate the splendid resources and
great wealth of the Philippine Islands.  They are the richest of the East
Indies." 18
 
With war fever brewing over with the sinking of the Maine off Cuba,
Barrett quickly offered his services to the State Department as well as
several newspapers.  "I beg earnestly State Department or the other departments
to give me a commission in the Asiatic field operations," he wrote to
Sherman. "I am thoroughly familiar with the peoples, politics, business,
shipping interests, including Philippine Islands of which made exhaustive study
formerly. Can do anything. Trust judgment . . . caution. Please command me
. . . " The government was slow to act on Barrett's offer, but news
organizations fomenting jingo war fever responded with alacrity. Bennett's
Tribune already had Joseph L. Stickney on the scene, but others evaluated
Barrett and the Philippines as Bennett's man T. Heywood Hays did:  "Barrett
best authority America  . . .  greatest  strategic commercial importance
Philippines if war.  Exceeds Cuba in the resources area." Barrett left himself
free to contribute to multiple periodicals, but signed an exclusive
newspaper contract with William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal for five
hundred dollars a month plus expenses, noting in a letter to his disapproving
mother that while he disagreed with the paper's "methods and policies," it
was "undoubtedly read by more people than any other paper in America." 19
 
For all his populist economic rhetoric and satisfaction at reaching the
upstart paper's proletarian readers, however, Barrett's discourse remained
elite--oriented.  His privileged background and the resulting access to
important sources virtually defined Barrett's niche for him: His view was
Olympian, routinely taking in the broad sweep of Asia in a single article,
always with U.S. strategic interests at the fore.  Indeed, Barrett's
self--image was as much policy--maker as chronicler, so it might be considered
natural that he would insinuate himself into the center of matters immediately
upon his arrival in Hong Kong in May of 1898.
 
Difficulty extricating himself from his affairs in Bangkok, however, had
kept Barrett from moving quickly enough to join the flotilla headed for
the grand confrontation on Manila Bay at the end of April. He had been
beaten to the scene by three rivals, John T. McCutcheon of the Chicago Record
and Edwin W. Harden of the New York World aboard the McCulloch, and
Stickney on the Olympia with Dewey. Because Dewey had ordered the cable from
Manila cut in order to forestall any possible Spanish calls for reinforcement,
the dramatic tale of the one--sided victory in Manila Bay had to await the
return of the fleet to Hong Kong a week later to be sent home. The Navy
secured the promise of the three correspondents that no dispatches would be
sent until the official reports could be cabled to Washington. Stickney
may have been aboard the vessel that was to shine across a thousand
headlines, but Harden -- not even a reporter by trade but a treasury agent on a
tour of East Asia retained by the New York World when word of the coming
Philippine battle leaked out -- scored the scoop on the story by filing his
cable dispatch on the Battle of Manila at the $9.90 a word "urgent" rate,
thus beating his competitors' dispatches and even Dewey's official report
back to the United States. It was a hollow victory, however, as the timing of
the dispatch allowed the World's Saturday late morning editions to present
only a few paragraphs of the story, while competing evening papers feasted
on the popular news of great victory at sea. 20
 
The value of the "scoop" was also diminished by the variegated channels
through information was flowing with ever greater rapidity to ever more
dispersed destinations.  Readers of the Atlanta Constitution, for example,
were able to read page one reports of the Philippine situation filed by the
Hong Kong correspondent of the London Daily Mail on April 27.  On April
21, readers of that paper were tipped in an editorial to "keep an eye on the
Philippines." Breaking news was still king, but it often arrived
half--broken, and as swarms of reporters competed to be first with the most, an
increasing premium came to be attached to exclusives, especially regarding
major news figures. 21
 
There were no two greater objects of public fascination in May 1898 than
Dewey and his military partner against the Spaniards, Filipino leader
Emilio Aguinaldo. The immediate veneration of Dewey as the nation's paramount
war hero was unprecedented in scale. Even as more correspondents, many
drawn from the British press in Hong Kong, began to crowd the lucrative
American market for images and anecdotes from the celebrated encounter, the
paramount prize remained Dewey himself. Again, connections proved the key
advantage for Barrett: Secretary of the Navy John D. Long responded to an
inquiry from influential Republican Senator Redfield Proctor on fellow
Vermonter Barrett's behalf by tossing the question of access for Barrett to
Dewey himself:   "The department . . . has stated to the representative of Mr.
Hearst, who called today in the interest of Mr. Barrett, that the matter
would be left to the discretion of the commanding officer of the Asiatic
squadron." Dewey, also from Vermont, approved Barrett's application to board
the Olympia. Eager to make a good impression on the aristocratic seaman,
Barrett drew on his diplomatic skills and contacts to present the hero with
a special token of thanks. Treading delicately around the issue of British
neutrality, he secured permission to fill the hold of the American
dispatch steamer Zafiro with a load of goods for the Commodore and his staff.  A
private interview with Dewey soon followed. 22
 
Barrett had established himself as an insider: He later wrote one of the
many Dewey biographies published after the battle of Manila Bay. While
that work did not find a ready market, Barrett's journalism was nonetheless
on the rise, in large measure due to his privileged access to newsmakers.
"Will send interviews with Admiral and Aguinaldo a little later,  . . . so
as to give the appearance of specials where the other papers will have
nothing," he wrote to Hong Kong counsel Rounsevelle Wildman, with
instructions to send his stories to the Journal, post haste. 23
 Barrett's diplomatic status proved useful in helping him to jump to the
head of the queue of reporters in Hong Kong seeking an audience with
Aguinaldo, the exiled leader of the Philippine insurgents whose cooperation on
the ground Dewey would need in order to keep order around Manila. Assisted
in making the connection by the Hong Kong Consul, Barrett gained an
exclusive interview with the Filipino leader, who impressed his interrogator
with his proud bearing and political acumen. Largely on the basis of that
conversation, Barrett adopted an initial position in favor of Philippine
independence under an American protectorate. Moreover, he became an
intermediary between Aguinaldo and Dewey, helping to convince the latter that
backing the former's efforts to establish a government would bear fruit for the
United States. 24
 
Reporters in the late nineteenth century were frequently used as conduits
of information or otherwise pressed into the service of the government----indeed,
correspondents were regularly assigned diplomatic or clerical
duties----but Barrett's recent status as a United States Minister placed him in
a different league.  Combining the access to information and sources
facilitated by his government connections with the access to both mass and
elite readerships guaranteed by his associations with the New York Journal and
the North American Review, Barrett occupied a powerful dual role. His
status as a relatively experienced Asia hand lent credibility to his reports.
His steadfast adherence to the message of business expansion was embraced
by publications equally eager to gain a larger share of an expanding
market. Arriving in Hong Kong, Barrett was well placed to put his stamp on the
nascent discourse of American expansion in Asia. 25
 
Luck did not hurt his cause, either. Though his late arrival meant
missing the headline--heavy Battle of Manila Bay, Barrett found himself
advantageously situated in Hong Kong when Dewey ordered the cable from Manila
cut.  The British trading colony thus became the conduit for all reports about the
Philippines reaching the rest of the world. While his colleagues waited
on board the triumphant United States fleet for a resumption of
communications, Barrett set about using his contacts to establish himself as a man
in the know and a man worth knowing. Early articles praising the service of
his fellow members of the diplomatic corps, particularly Rounsevelle
Wildman, yielded certain benefits:  After receiving a "secret"  letter from
Wildman alerting him that "I will be thankful for any nice things you can
think up about me and put in your dispatches," Barrett filed more reports
praising the consul, who responded with thanks, a request for more, and an
offer of free use of the transport vessel Wing Foo. 26
 
Well positioned with the local authorities, trading heavily on his
Vermont connection with Dewey and optimistic about his journalistic
opportunities, Barrett also took pains to cultivate the Filipino perspective, in the
person of Aguinaldo. After the young Generalissimo's May 19 return to
Manila aboard the American cutter McCulloch, he turned to Barrett for help in
securing Dewey's permission to recover a trove of spent Mauser shells
dumped by American soldiers on the shore of his hometown, Cavite, just south of
Manila. American troops did not use Mausers, but the orientation of the
moment failed to account for the possibility that the shells might later be
used against Americans. It was an oversight that forced Barrett to do some
explaining two years later. 27
 
In 1898, however, Barrett was still reaping dividends from his
exploratory trip in 1896. James Howard Bridge, editor of Overland Monthly, wrote
from San Francisco to praise Barrett's "advanced position" on the American
colonization of the Philippines:

 
When I first wrote in this strain there was nothing of the kind being said
in other publications, but recent events have stimulated an interest which
promises to crystallize into a very material change of policy. I know from
your recent utterances that you are in sympathy with this liberal view of
American policy; if a combination of our forces can be made, we would be
able to do good missionary work in this direction. I believe the way to
succeed is to get astride a tendency; and unless I misread the trend of
public opinion in America, we shall soon witness a marked advance along the
lines indicated in my editorials. 28

 Barrett, long astride the expansionist "tendency" ----and liberally
applying the sharp spurs of journalism----might have felt justified in claiming
some responsibility for the "trend of public opinion in America" regarding
interest in Asia, but he was well aware of the opportunity presented by the
United States' inchoate policy in the Philippines. Years of tireless
promotion had barely nudged his countrymen in the direction of Pacific empire.
Suddenly an entire colony -- and a strategically placed one at that -- was
there for the taking, public opinion willing.
 
During the months of contemplation between Dewey's lightning strike
against the Spanish fleet and the arrival of sufficient numbers of troops to
occupy Manila in August, the myriad possibilities for American policy
regarding the Philippines were debated in newspapers and magazines while the
reporters on the ground sought to provide impressions of the "new" land and
its people. Limited by the tense situation onshore -- Spanish forces firing
occasionally from within the walled city of Intramuros, Filipino troops
ringing the city, but remaining outside its limits to honor an agreement
with the Americans -- Barrett complained to Wildman of a lack of suitable
quarters and  "difficulties of the situation here . . . adverse to doing the
best work . . . Can only land at Cavite where there is very little of
interest." 29
 
Relegated to the odd human interest story about arriving American
soldiers and what little intelligence could be gleaned from the tightly
circumscribed environs he was allowed to visit, Barrett turned to the
tried--and--true "big picture" argument that had served him so well, exhorting
readers of the North American Review to consider "the great strategical and
commercial importance" of the Philippines before rejecting out of hand an
American role in their future governance:

Whether we capture and hold the Philippines, or Spain shall successfully
resist our efforts . . . the truth remains, beyond question or quibble,
that now is the critical time when the United States should strain every
nerve and  bend all her energies to keep well to the front in the mighty
struggle that has begun for the supremacy of the Pacific seas.  If we seize the
opportunity we may become leaders forever, but if we are laggards now we
will remain laggards until the crack of doom. The rule of the survival of
the fittest applies to nations as well as to the animal kingdom. It is a
cruel, relentless principle being exercised in a cruel, relentless
competition of mighty forces; and these will trample over us without sympathy or
remorse unless we are trained to endure and strong enough to stand the
pace. 30

Reporting nonchalantly about his guide's being spattered with mud from
bullets landing nearby, the orchestrator of ad hoc gunboat diplomacy in
Bangkok evinced a taste for the more direct experience of pulling the trigger
himself in an actual battle, regaling his mother with tales of having
derived "great pleasure in firing five or six shots at the enemy." Despite his
former rank and present power and distinction, he sought parity with
simple soldiers whose institutional base more readily connoted glory. "May not
be an enlisted soldier but in my way as a correspondent of the greatest
daily newspapers of the world--i.e., the most extensively read--I bear a
responsibility quite equal to a lesser officer unto those who are on the
rank," he wrote to his mother, adding incongruously,  "I would not send any
'fake' account of the battle even if ordered to do so by the editor
himself and if I do not send a 'fake' story I must be at the front where I can
see what is actually done." 39
 
Barrett's concern with verite -- and his conviction that the front lines,
where lead and blood flew freely, were the essence of the "actual" war --
adhered seamlessly to a prevailing press perspective valorizing the dynamic
physicality of the martial spirit. As the nineteenth century drew to a
close, the notion of the superiority of "hard--won" knowledge, gained through
exposure to physical peril, achieved widespread acceptance. In part a
reflection of the rough--edged Social Darwinism holding up such survivors as
the "fittest" and in part a simple testament to the universal power of
warrior myths, battle--certified claims to a higher degree of patriotism, and
thus, American--ness, were an effective rhetorical trump card against the
reasoned, impassioned pleas for caution and humanity emerging from the mostly
older men of letters leading the anti--imperialist movement. Barrett was
self--consciously in the vanguard of the "strenuous" set, a disciple of the
militarily aggressive nationalism of Mahan and Roosevelt, a frontiersman
and explorer, a commercial missionary with strong sympathies for the
religious sort. Labeled by popular author Frank Carpenter in 1904 the "most
strenuous of the strenuous diplomats of this most strenuous administration,"
Barrett was betrayed by his ailing liver in 1898 and forced to plan a return
home at the end of his Journal contract in September. He thus departed
prior to the resolution of the Paris Peace Treaty, at a point of no certain
policy resolution for the question of Philippine retention. 40

At that point, it was possible to simultaneously uphold the American
martial spirit and the notion of Filipinos as a worthy people capable of
self--government. The delicate balance of those rhetorical positions was already
being undermined, however, by the contempt with which Filipinos were
viewed by an increasingly restive and racist soldiery. The attitudes darkening
relations between the prospective partners did not percolate entirely from
the ill--educated former "Injun--fighters" dominating the ranks of the
volunteer state regiments. On his way home, Barrett interviewed General Wesley
Merritt, who from the start had lacked enthusiasm for his Philippine
assignment and was headed to Paris, where negotiators would determine the
disposition of the spoils of war. Barrett betrayed no skepticism of the
General's confident claim that "Aguinaldo will present no difficulty if we stay."
The old warrior opined that the upstart Filipino "will be unable to keep
his forces together or retain his influence. Against the Spanish his troops
would be united, but in opposition to us, he would be unable to hold his
own at all, and his following would disappear." Merritt even argued that
"If they had not been in a blue funk," the better--armed Spanish "could have
swept out the insurgents lines any time they chose." Ignoring the question
of what the tiny Spanish force would then have done,  Merritt, who spent a
total of one month in the Philippines, left a clear impression of his
disdain for the Filipinos. 41
 
Given the prestige of military leaders in a time of war, their
pronouncements, however innocent, were given heavy emphasis. Before the
outcome of Treaty of Paris had been reported, the London Journal called
Dewey an expansionist based on his saying, as he viewed the American flag over the
Luneta, Manila's main promenade, "I hope it will fly there forever." Others
seized upon the newly promoted Admiral's comments assessing the Filipinos as
better prepared for self--government than the Cubans -- a significant point,
given the growing tendency of American policy--makers to shift the basis
for American policy from U.S. self--interest to the self--governing capacities
of the Filipinos. Dewey declined to confirm his comment, retreating from
the political stage, but the broad public and press interest in his point
spoke for itself.  For all the strategic, commercial and missionary reasons
underlying the American presence in the Philippines, the issue of Filipino
capacity -- and all the related questions of civilization, savagery and
national and racial identity that issue would raise -- was to become the
fulcrum upon which American public opinion and policy would tip. 42
 
Press views of the Filipinos were multifarious from the start. Even
before journalists had a chance to obtain information or form opinions, wild
images ran rampant in cartoons and sensational articles. The genteel
Barrett, open to any solution that would preserve American business interests,
alerted the upper class readership of the North American Review to certain
doubts about the fitness of Filipinos for self--government:  "The masses of
population are totally unprepared for such a change, and the leaders who
are both able and honest are so few" that constant civil wars would compel
international oversight, he contended. Yet save for Manila, from which
they were excluded, the Filipino Republic proclaimed at Malolos had been
peacefully managing its own internal affairs for months throughout the
archipelago. Under the Spanish, most civil functions were accomplished primarily
by Filipinos. Barrett himself reported that "the native congress of fifty
members compared favorably with the Japanese Parliament and the Siamese
Council." Describing his parting from Aguinaldo, he noted "a hundred
prominent fine--appearing Filipinos in the corridors waiting to see Aguinaldo,
similar to scenes in the White House at Washington. He also reported on the
thousands more outside, waiting patiently to catch a glimpse of their
leader." 43
 
Beyond a single damning paragraph in the Review, which must be read in
the context of an argument for retention of the Philippines, Barrett had
written nothing to suggest Filipino aspirations were misguided or
unrealistic. He left Manila on good terms with Aguinaldo. Within months,
however, Barrett had become one of the fiercest critics extant of the Filipinos and
their anti--imperialist backers in the United States -- predominantly his
fellow Democrats. The outbreak of hostilities between Americans and Filipinos
on February 4, 1899 was doubtless a watershed for many, but Barrett, who
had seen firsthand the restraint of the Filipinos in the face of
provocations from ill--disciplined American soldiers, surely recognized the source of the
difficulty. His own comments on the rag--tag troops seeking a fight
placed the blame on the visitors. Yet upon receiving news of the slaughter of
the untrained, under--armed Filipino troops, his comment was simply:  "It
is most unfortunate this collision has taken place and it has seriously
injured the chances of Filipino independence if it has not given it a death
blow." 44
 
Barrett returned to the Philippines for a week--long visit within a month
of the beginning of the Philippine--American War and returned again briefly
in 1902, but for the most part his writings and speeches on the Philippine
situation drew on a mixture of his experiences there in 1896 and 1898 and
the opinions of American officials, particularly military men. Even as his
reports grew less connected to reportage and more oriented to political
ends, Barrett never abandoned the pretext of privileged knowledge based on
direct experience. Able to trade successfully upon an outmoded claim to
expertise even after his initial renown as an expert on the Philippines had
been eclipsed by other reporters (and men such as that equally vigorous
functionary trading on previous connections to the islands, zoologist and
Philippine Commission member Dean C. Worcester), Barrett maintained a
lucrative interest in the islands from afar, publishing frequently and delivering
speeches to all manner of groups about the new acquisitions. Still focused
on the "big picture" that had pulled the Philippines into the American
embrace, Barrett's grip on the facts may have loosened where it suited him.
Shorn of the reportorial proximity that allowed him to claim special
knowledge -- "hard--won" knowledge of the sort most esteemed in the temper
of the times -- Barrett may have allowed his increasing distance from the
Philippines to erode his commitment to reporting "what is actually done."  Echoes
of the "fake" stories Barrett had earlier disavowed on the basis of that
proximity began to emerge in his post--Philippines work on the islands.
Indeed, the steady rise in Barrett's political fortunes was marked by a
corresponding increase in attacks on his veracity. Citing Barrett's erroneous
claim in the Review of Reviews that Cebu had asked for American protection,
Episcopal minister Peter MacQueen, a journalist and former Rough Rider,
called the disputed claim part of a "vast output of misinformation regarding . . .
the Philippines." 45

 Two more incidents drawn from the American military sphere illustrate
Barrett's fealty to political power near and far. When Oscar King Davis, a
leading correspondent who came to the Philippines on a troop ship and stayed
to cover the war, wrote that the Oregon volunteers he had accompanied were
guilty of extreme misbehavior, to the point of looting homes and churches
in Manila. Davis' dispatch, first published in the New York Sun on August
17, 1898, ran in the Oregonian August 25, striking a particularly
sensitive set of local nerves in its derision at "probably the finest lot of
county politicians . . . which has ever been gathered together in that state,
or perhaps any other." The charges, while hardly unusual in the context of
a war fought by barely trained volunteer troops, was nevertheless a severe
blow to Oregonian pride. 46

In a remarkably revealing letter to the editor of the Oregonian on July 9,
1899, Barrett, whose political fortunes were still rooted in the state,
wrote a feeble, non-denial defense of the Second Oregon Volunteer Regiment
that made liberal use of veiled counter--charges, set up straw men for
invidious comparison and finally fell back on a "boys-will-be-boys" argument:

Charges against the second Oregon regiment by one New York newspaper
correspondent, were, not only in my opinion, but that of many others, entirely
unfounded and unjustified. There were, of course, instances of
insubordination in every regiment; there were misunderstandings among the
officers of the same; and in the confusion and difficulties of getting settled on
land, after the sea voyages there were naturally some disagreeable incidents,
but the Oregon regiment had no more of these experiences than did the
others  . . .  Some of the officers of the regiment may have been overzealous
in their efforts to do certain things, but they were not prompted by any
desire to break the rules of army discipline. 47

 Barrett's claimed insight into the motivations of the players in the
minor moral drama derived from his intimacy with both the Oregonians and their
accuser, a fellow reporter.  His apologia for the volunteers comes near to
revealing the full spectrum of rhetorical tactics utilized by the
motivated propagandists of the Pacific advance: In a single sentence, Barrett
managed to suggest in passing -- so as not to have to explain its genesis -- an
unspecified bias against the Oregonians on the part of Davis, at the same
time folding the charge neatly within the most consistently used (or at
least the most often published) justification for unruly American behavior
in the Philippines, the savage "circumstances" in which the soldiers found
themselves:

It was charged by certain men, who, from personal grounds, did not like
the Oregon regiment, that their officers and men were guilty of looting to a
most unreasonable degree. Now, it may be possible that some of the
officers and men took more things which came under the head of "loot" then would
be regular under this strict ethics of war, but considering all the
circumstances, I think that even General Otis, himself, believed their record in
this respect could be excused. 48

 The suggested existence of a "reasonable" degree of looting -- apparently
a standard to be determined by an on--the--spot authority such as General
Elwell Otis -- was buttressed by a rationale that used for context not the
behavior of soldiers historically, but that of the other American volunteers
in the same theater of war:

There is no doubt that the men of the other regiments, if they had the
same opportunity, would have taken as much or more of these spoils or prizes
of war! It would be very difficult to find a man on this question of
"loot" who did not live in a glass house. Probably the men who tried to make
out that the Oregons were looters, were angry because they themselves, did
not get this loot. In fact, I know that two or three of the men who talked
the most against the Oregon were the very worst looters in all Manila, and
if I were to mention their names, every man who was there would confirm
what I say . . . The boys were not influenced by any wanton feeling  . . .
and I believe that it is very difficult to blame them when we consider the
natural desire of every man to carry something home as evidence of warfare
from such a distant land. 49

 It was no accident that Barrett's assertion of a new moral space made
efficient use of that which most privileged his own position -- distance. Even
before the contrariness of Filipinos allowed American behavior abroad to
be shrouded in the familiar raiment of racial mythology, the very novelty
of the situation was promoted as sufficient grounds for casting aside
previously accepted norms of conduct.  The emphasis on distance in the
discourse of 1898 was in large measure the handiwork of men such as Barrett, who
had learned firsthand the advantages that could be gained from escaping the
boundaries of an increasingly ordered American domestic sphere. By
positioning oneself beyond civilized boundaries, it was possible to occupy a
territory of opportunity -- all the more so in terms of representational power.
By targeting an audience, as Barrett had learned to do in his moonlighting
freelance efforts from Bangkok, it was possible to make indefensible
arguments without much fear of contradiction from those affected. By limiting
his audience to readers of the Oregonian's letters to the editor, Barrett
minimized the likelihood that he would have to answer for his suggestive
placement of possibly controversial words in Otis' mouth, not to mention his
blanket slur on those non--Oregonian volunteers who refrained from looting.
 
Barrett's free--swiveling moral compass was an essential characteristic of
the successful propagandist in the milieu he was helping to develop.
Combining ex post facto omniscience with his doubly privileged status as
trusted newsman and Oregonian, Barrett undermined both the credibility of the
accuser--competitor and the already weak moral moorings of American idealism.
By arbitrarily denying the existence of a fixed morality within the new
U.S.--Philippine sphere, he cleared the way for the imposition of a new
standard that could be dictated by the strongest juridical and representational
power. The buffer of distance so recently lost with the closing of the
liberating frontier -- the "wild" West -- could be reproduced, even if only
temporarily, on the far frontiers of Asia.  Even if a combination of
obstacles, domestic and Filipino opposition prominent among them, would arise to restrict the opportunities available to the promoters of the new norms,
there was much advantage to be seized amid the chaos of change, and those at
the head of the column would gather the spoils. Barrett's pardoning of the
looters can in this sense be seen as a defense not only of political
allies, but of his own position. Trading extensively on his status as one of
the first reporters on the scene, with the best contacts and the most
readers, Barrett carried away his own share of the rhetorical loot of the
Spanish--American War.
 
Davis, who quickly emerged as Barrett's most formidable journalistic
competitor, enjoyed the advantages of continued access to the situation in the
crucial months following Barrett's return to the United States with liver
ailment. Following the capture of Manila from the Spanish, reporters'
mobility and access to important Filipino sources increased. Davis was also a
more lively writer than Barrett, at ease with blending metaphor, human
interest and the words of the powerful. The New York Sun correspondent was,
then, a poor choice of opponent, as his stinging rebuke to Barrett makes
clear:

You went out of your way to do me an injury  . . . but not much else was
expected of one, who, having being chased out of the Olympia by Dewey would
then write himself down as a "guest" of the Admiral. The catalogue of
self--laudations and triumphs in your letter is on a par with the rest of it.
You know as well as I do that not only was the main criticism I made of the
Oregon regiment true at the time, but it was more justified by subsequent
events.  There could be but one motive in explanation of the manner in
which you wrote to the Oregonian about the regiment. It was simply a bold bid
for favor to cheap politicians who for the great part officered the
regiment. The truckling adoption of their methods lowers you to their level. The
gratuitous attempt to discredit me in my own profession simply proclaims
you as one willing to write what he knows to be false, for a mean political
motive, or discredits amazingly your powers of observation. It is
surprising that you would accept voluntarily either alternative. 50
 

I would to God that the whole truth of this whole Philippine situation
could be known by everyone in America . . . if the hostile influences, local
and external, such as the Katipunan and Juntas that now encourage the
enemy . . . could be understood at home and in America, we would hear no more
political talk of unjust shooting of government into the Philippines or
unwise threats of hauling down our flag in the Philippines.
 If I am shot by a Filipino bullet, it might as well come from one of my
own men  . . .  because I know from my own observations confirmed by
captured Filipino prisoners that the continuance of fighting is chiefly due to
reports that are sent out of America and circulated among these ignorant
natives by the leaders who know better. 51

 The letter was a bombshell. Henry E. Howland, a Wall Street attorney,
wrote to commend Barrett for supplying "as complete an answer to the
Aguinaldians as any document could have been. More potent than any stunt from
the administration or party leader and it was a complete knock--out for the
Evening Post, Senator Hoar, Gamaliel Bradford, Edward Atkinson and whole
gang; it was most dramatic and convincing." Atkinson, the Boston businessman
whose publication of statistics and arguments critical of the Philippine
War enterprise had made him a special target of imperialist loathing -- as
well as a source of embarrassment to the anti--imperialists, who viewed him
as a loose cannon -- wrote to Barrett protesting his public presentation of
"a false charge and a base one which I resent in every manner possible;
perhaps the more base, the more cautious the phrase." 52

Indeed, Barrett's careful way with words usually kept him from serious
trouble, but in the Lawton case, he had to scramble to document his
statement. Roosevelt urged him to calm the storm, writing, "I hope you have that
letter from General Lawton. It may be necessary to produce it." Barrett was
unable to do so, and had to resort to obtaining a "verbatim copy" of the
apparently lost original from Lawton's wife, who added her praise for
Barrett as "the best informed and most impartial authority on all these Asiatic
questions" and bemoaned his absence from the Philippine Commission. 53
 
In the face of the widow Lawton's defense of Barrett, anti--imperialists
withdrew their charges that the quote was a fake, but Barrett, who kept
large files of far less significant correspondence, never produced the
letter, which he would have known to be  rhetorical dynamite. Nor is there any
other record of a statement Barrett attributed to yet another fallen
military hero in the Philippines in another politically charged speech -- this
one an overtly anti--William Jennings Bryan tract -- just two weeks before
Lawton's death.:

Let us contrast with the Nebraska colonel who is a candidate for president
and who was never upon the firing line and never within 7,000 miles of the
Philippines, but who said that our flag must come down and that we are
guilty of imperialism in the Philippines and responsible for the present
conflict, the words of brave Col. Stotsenberg of Nebraska, who, just before he
died in the Philippines, said to the American newspaper correspondents:
`The responsibility for the outbreak between and Filipinos and the
Americans does not rest upon the American army or the American government; and if our country would survive, our people must remember that when our flag is
fired upon deliberately by the enemies of the United States, as I know it
was fired upon by the Filipinos, there can be no cessation of the conflict
except that of unconditional surrender.'54

 Barrett's skillful linkage of domestic political opponents with enemy
riflemen -- complete, in the Stotsenberg case, with a flag--wrapped call to
unbridled vengeance -- showed the flair of a master propagandist: Using the
unverifiable words of soon--to--be--martyred soldiers to vilify
anti--imperialists, Barrett displaced the source of the unanswerable contumely
heaped upon political opponents. Too sensitive to the proprieties of reportorial
practice to claim "objectivity," per se, he clouded the issue of his own agency
by letting his departed heroes speak words they might plausibly have used
-- or in any case words that could not be contradicted, given the
unavailability of the speakers for confirmation. Yet faced with a living -- and
sharp--tongued -- opponent in the O.K. Davis imbroglio, Barrett was notably
silent in response. Defending malfeasance, while politically necessary in
Oregon, did not inspire the same enthusiasm and technique brought to bear in
the service of more dramatic issues.
 
Barrett's conversion on the question of imperialism from
commercial--expansionist agnostic to ardent militarist might be attributed simply
to the outbreak of the Philippine--American War on February 4, 1899; his adherence
to U.S. policy, when sufficiently aggressive, was clear, and his
identification with American soldiers was equally plain. Antipathy for
anti--imperialists is consistent with his contempt for those who failed to appreciate
the promise of "the Trans--Pacific Opportunity."  Other factors, however,
point to Barrett's general inclination to serve as a political weathervane in
a shifting wind. A lifelong Democrat, Barrett changed political parties
and campaigned vigorously for McKinley in his second race against Bryan in
1900.  Writing for the debate column of the Chicago Record, he noted that
Bryan's election would likely put Aguinaldo at the head of an independent
Philippines. Aguinaldo -- whom he had helped to arm and promote, and from
whom he had eagerly accepted an autographed photo and assertions of
comradeship --  was excoriated in Barrett's rhetoric as the primary source of war
between Filipinos and Americans.  Though he would later reestablish an at
least cordial acquaintance with the young Filipino leader, in 1899 he
derided comparisons of Aguinaldo to an earlier rebel general, George
Washington, suggesting that Aguinaldo had sold out to the Spanish in 1896 -- a charge
against which he had previously defended the Filipino leader. He lumped
his former associate with "unscrupulous Filipino agitators . . . and
sensational Filipino newspapers indulged in the most cruel and lying descriptions
of the United States, her intentions, her government and her people."
Interestingly, Barrett singled out for particular criticism purveyors of
propaganda:

Circulars, printed in the Philippine government presses at Malolos, were
distributed broadcast throughout the interior, which said that it was the
intention of the Americans to make the young women of the Philippines their
mistresses and to take the young men back to America as slaves in the
place of the negros whom they were sorry to have freed! The ignorant masses in
the interior who could not read had these stories told and retold to them,
until, from one end of the Philippines to the other, they believed that
their only salvation was to follow the banner of Aguinaldo and drive the
Americans from the Islands. If any Filipino was found with pro--American
circulars or papers, he was punished or his property was confiscated if he
persisted in trying to make the truth known. 55

 If Barrett was trying to make the truth known in 1899, whose truth was
it? The dizzying assortment of perspectives contributing to the clouded
picture of the Philippine future in 1898 was simplified by the outbreak of
hostilities a few months later. Barrett was hardly alone in hewing closely to
the official line that the Filipinos would have to be controlled before
they could receive the benefits of "benevolent assimilation."  His 1899
articles in Harper's and Review of Reviews gave credit to the Filipino elite
who formed the Malolos Republic in 1898 and held out hope for a peaceful
partnership. To the extent that Barrett continued to espouse the government
line, he remained a reliable political weathervane of American foreign
policy in the Philippines. As a measure of popular attitudes toward the
Filipinos and the United States' mission among them, however, the aristocratic
Barrett was out of sync. His upbringing, training and political
aspirations produced a perspective restricted to the actions and pronouncements
of the elite. His early excitement at associating with the "toughs" of
Astoria, Oregon, was more reflective of gratification that such men knew him than
any desire to partake of their rough company. His pallid defense of the
Oregon regiment against the charges of O.K. Davis was revealed by his rival
as a bid for the favor of politicians among the regiment's officer class.
His defensive tone in acknowledging the unseemliness of his association
with Hearst and the New York Journal reveals the attitude of a man most at
home conversing with and about the rich and powerful. Barrett's inclination
was toward the grand scheme and the grandiose men assumed to have the
greatest impact on its development. 56
 
In bringing the Philippines before elite readers in 1896 and broadcasting
a privileged perspective on the American takeover of the archipelago in
1898, Barrett fulfilled his role. As reporters grew thicker on the ground
and the situation became ever more complicated by Filipino refusal to accept
the high--handed plans of the new colonizer, his elitist limitations pushed
him in other directions. Even as he continued to report on the
Philippines, relying on his correspondence with top military officers while preparing
an ultimately unsuccessful biography of Dewey, his base of operations had shifted
back to America, where the new "actual" battle was being waged --
for the hearts and minds of American voters. From a greater distance, too,
the actual people most affected by the grand commercial
opportunity--turned--military adventure receded still further from view. Barrett's skill
at appealing to human empathy extended to American soldiers, such as Lawton and
Stotsenberg, but found no application among the Filipinos. His oeuvre was strategy.
Like Mahan, who in 1900 could write a twelve page article on "The Problem of Asia"
without a single reference to people (only land--masses
and strategic maneuvers merited attention from his detached point of
view), Barrett measured worth in wealth and power, and was thus a fitting
spokesman for his age. 57
 
Though his enthusiasm for promotion well suited him for the role he
played as a young man in alerting Americans to their impending encounter with
the Philippines, Barrett's political instincts moved him in the direction
of loftier offices following his Far Eastern stint. Relying on his
Republican connections (he was, for example, with Theodore Roosevelt at his
vacation home in 1901 when news of McKinley's assassination was delivered), the
erstwhile Yankee consul was sent on a globe--girdling mission in 1902 to
arrange exhibits for the planned St. Louis World's Fair, at which the fruits
of the grand plan of Roosevelt, Lodge, Mahan, Barrett and company would be
displayed before the world on an unprecedented scale. 58

While continuing to trade on his status as a Philippine expert in speeches
and articles through the first years of American rule in the new colony,
Barrett went on before long to new pastures of promotion, embarking on a
long career as a diplomat in Latin America. In that realm, the increasingly
assertive U.S. posture throughout the early years of the 20th century --
yanking Panama from the ribcage of Colombia, supporting adventurism in
Central America and practicing "dollar diplomacy" in the Caribbean -- found a
willing operative in the man from the Green Mountains by way of the booming
Pacific Rim. Removed from the self--promotional circumstances of frontier
reportorial work, Barrett's unflagging enthusiasm for his role in advancing
American participation in world affairs continued to be matched by his
flair for the kind of public gestures of masculine mastery that had marked
his early days in Southeast Asia. Lauded in 1904 by the author and
journalist Frank Carpenter as the "most strenuous of the strenuous diplomats of
this most strenuous administration," Barrett won additional notice in 1906
for traveling 41 days on horseback over difficult Andean terrain from
Colombia, where he was serving as American minister, to Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Though he had by and large left behind the journalism that had propelled him
into and so profitably drawn upon his high--profile diplomatic persona, he
was still a newsmaker. His gravitation from the journalism business to
statecraft reflected the greater power and rewards associated with the latter
realm, but Barrett never lost sight of the value of publicity in expanding
Americans' concept of their place in the world. Just as in his days in
Asia, Barrett exerted his considerable energies to touting his new domain as
a cornucopia of potential wealth for American business. As if to buttress
that contention with his personal example, the aristocratic adventurer
demonstrated the continuing viability of the neocolonial sphere as a personal
proving ground for internationalist Americans, a land of opportunity that
could be exploited not only for riches, but for excitement, adventure, and
even, under the right circumstances, fame, glory and a measure of
influence over the course of history. 59

Notes

1 Debate over the importance of the press in leading the United States to
war in 1898 has generally hinged on questions of degree. Marcus W.
Wilkerson, Public Opinion and the Spanish--American War (New York: Russell &
Russell, 1967, c1932) makes a strong case for significant jingo agency on the
part of the press. A pattern of editorial interest in strategic and
economic prospects in the Asia--Pacific region was sustained throughout the 1890s,
with increasing intensity as the decade drew closer to its climax at
Manila Bay in 1898. The March 1896 issue of the North American Review alone
featured numerous articles focused on seapower and the opportunities
presented by the Asia--Pacific region, all written by acting or former government
officials:  "Commercial Trend of China" by United States Consul General to
China Thomas R. Jernigan; "Our Interest in Samoa" by  Henry C. Ide, former
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Samoa and later a member of the
Philippine Commission; and "The Progress of British Warships Design" by
Admiral P.H. Colomb of the British Royal Navy. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future. (Boston:  Little, Brown and
Company, 1897) played a key role in establishing sea power as a foundation
for U.S. global aspirations. On primary motivations for U.S. expansion
into the region, see Thomas J. McCormick, China Market:  America's Quest for
Informal Empire, 1893--1901 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967).
 2 John Barrett, "The Cuba of the Far East," North American Review,
February 1897, p. 178.
 3 Barrett, "The Cuba of the Far East," North American Review, p.173.
 4 Barrett, "The Cuba of the Far East," North American Review,  p.174--180.
 5 Barrett, "America's Interest in East Asia," North American Review,
March 1896, p. 258.
 6 Barrett, "America's Interest in East Asia," North American Review, pp.
258-- 265.
7 For examples of the works generated by these men, see particularly
Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future;
Brooks Adams, America's Economic Supremacy (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1900); The Law of Civilization and Decay:  An Essay on History (New
York, Vintage Books, 1959);  The New Empire, (New York:  The Macmillan
Company, 1902);  Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life (New York:  Review of
Reviews Co., 1910, c1901); Henry Cabot Lodge and  Theodore Roosevelt,  Hero
Tales from American History (New York:  Century Co., 1909, c1895).
Others, such as the upstart senator from Indiana, Albert Beveridge, made
political capital of the expansionist spirit as well. On Beveridge, see John
Braeman, Albert J. Beveridge; American Nationalist (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1971).
 8 Mary X. Ferguson, Biography of John Barrett (unpublished manuscript),
p. 34, John Barrett Papers, Box 118, Library of Congress Manuscript
Division.
 9  Ferguson, p. 36.
 10 Ferguson, p. 11.
 11 Ferguson, p.37; p.15; An illustration accompanying a flattering article
about Barrett in the San Francisco Evening Post depicts him presenting a
severe but youthful countenance adorned with a pointed beard, full curled
mustache and tiny spectacles balanced on his aristocratic nose. San
Francisco Evening Post, February 12, 1898, in JB, Box 134.
 12 Barrett, "America's Interest in East Asia," North American Review, p.
265.
 13 Barrett to Seattle Post Intelligencer, February 4, 1898, JB Box 4
(Letter Book for August 11, 1897 to June 14, 1898), pp. 200--204; Ferguson
pp. 27--29.
 14 San Francisco Evening Post, February 12, 1898, JB Box 134.
15 Ferguson, pp. 30, 26; Barrett to Atlanta Constitution, February 4, 1898,
JB Box 4, (Letter Book for August 11, 1897 to June 14, 1898), pp. 271--277.
  16 Barrett to Atlanta Constitution, February 4, 1898, JB Box 4, (Letter
Book for August 11, 1897 to June 14, 1898), pp. 271--277. Letter to Editor of
Seattle Post Intelligencer, February 4, 1898, JB Box 4, pp. 200--204;
Barrett to San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 4, 1898, JB Box 4, p. 205.
 17 Barrett to Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce , Feb. 4, 1898, JB Box 4,
pp. 215--218.
 18 Ferguson p. 38; Murat Halstead, Full Official History of the War with
Spain (Chicago:  C.F. Beezley, 1899), p. 279; John Barrett to Caroline
Barrett, April 12, 1898. JB Box 7 (Family Correspondence, January 10-- December
15, 1898),  No. 202.
 19 Barrett to Sherman, April 15, 1898, JB Box 17; T. Heywood Hays to James
Gordon Bennett, April 25, 1898, JB Box 7; John Barrett to Caroline
Barrett, April 12, 1898, JB Box 7.
20 Ray Stannard Baker, "How the news of the war is reported," McClure's
Vol. 11, No. 3, July 1898, pp. 494--5; Walter Millis, The Martial Spirit:  A
Study of Our War with Spain. Boston:  Houghton-- Mifflin, 1931), pp.
194--198; Foreign correspondents at the scene of a major world news event
controlled a share of very valuable information and thus enjoyed a strong
negotiating position. Some frequently sold their reports to multiple news
outlets, though more often in a newspaper--magazine combination such as that
adopted by Barrett.  Some peddled their work to all buyers, however. For
example, the Chicago Tribune also listed Harden as its correspondent on May 6,
1898.
 21 Millis, The Martial Spirit:  A Study of Our War with Spain, p. 198;
Atlanta Constitution, April 21, 1898, p.1; April 21, 1898,  p. 6.
 22 Long to Proctor, May 14, 1898; JB Box 120.
 23 Ferguson, p. 50; Barrett to Wildman, April 14, 1898, JB Box 4.
 24 Ferguson, p. 40.
 25 Ferguson, p. 42.
 26 Wildman to Barrett, July 1, 1898. Although Wildman also wrote to
Barrett that "I am anxious that the consular service should not be overlooked
amidst all the glories that the army and navy are getting," he betrayed his
jealousy of the attention E. Spencer Pratt, the United States Consul in
Singapore, received for his pivotal meeting with Aguinaldo:  "Pratt is
welcome to his little glory. I was offered the same thing here, but politely
declined." Pratt later denied the claims of Aguinaldo and other witnesses
that promises of independence under an American protectorate were made by
him on Dewey's behalf to Aguinaldo. See Emilio Aguinaldo with Vicente Albano
Pacis,  A Second Look at America (New York,  1957), p. 34; and Teodoro M.
Kalaw, The Philippine Revolution  (Quezon City, 1969) pp. 91--92.
 27 John T. McCutcheon to Mrs. [Caroline] Barrett,  July 21, 1942, JB Box
119. In response to a query from Senator John C. Spooner,  Barrett wrote in
1900 that the Filipinos "rushed in and looted" the armory, only later
asking Dewey's permission to return for what was left behind ---- permission
which, "as we had no armed forces there at the time, and did not use that
kind of rifle," was granted. He did not mention his own role, but provided
details suggesting intimate awareness of the transaction, and supplemented
the information by taking note of the numerous other sources of Filipino
arms and ammunition, such as confiscation from Spanish soldiers and
smuggling by junks from China's eastern coast. Spooner to Barrett, January 24,
1900; Barrett to Spooner, January 25, 1900; John Barrett Papers, JB Box 18.
 28 Bridge to Barrett, May 5, 1898; JB Box 17.
 29 Barrett to Rounseville Wildman. June 3, 1898, p. 367, JB Box 4.
 30 Draft of article by Barrett, "The Problem of the Philippines," North
American Review, Vol. 167, September  1898, p. 267, JB Box 107.
 31 Barrett, "The Problem of the Philippines," North American Review, (JB
Draft)
 32 Barrett, "The Problem of the Philippines," North American Review, (JB
Draft); June 12, 1898, Letterbook, p. 373,  JB Box 4.
 33 Seattle Post--Intelligencer, August 1, 1898; 2; JB Box 134.
 34 Seattle Post Intelligencer, July 31, 1898, 2, JB Box 134.
 35 Kalaw, The Philippine Revolution, pp. 161--167.
 36 Ferguson, pp. 43--44.
 37 Ferguson, pp. 40, 43; Draft of untitled article, John Barrett Papers,
JB Box 120.
 38 Barrett to Caroline Barrett, July 30, 1898, JB Box 7.
 39 Barrett to Caroline Barrett, June 26, 1898, JB Box 7.
 40 Ferguson, pp. 44--49; The Record Herald, July 31, 1904;  JB Box 120.
 41 China Mail, September 16, 1898. JB Box 134.
 42 Seattle Post--Intelligencer, September 6, 1898, JB Box 134.
 43 Ferguson, p. 44.
 44 Ferguson, p. 49.
 45 MacQueen to Michael John, September 20, 1899, NARA RG 350 File 792/5.
 46 Portland Oregonian, August 25. 1898, JB Box 18, pp. 5--11.
 47 Barrett to Oregonian,  July 9, 1899, JB Box 18, pp. 5--11.
 48 Barrett to Oregonian,  July 9, 1899, JB Box 18, pp. 5--11.
 49 Barrett to Oregonian,  July 9, 1899, JB Box 18, pp. 5--11.
 50 Oscar K. Davis to Barrett, December 6, 1900;  JB Box 18.
 51 Barrett speech to New England Society of New York, December 22, 1899;
JB Box 18.
 52 Henry E. Howland to Barrett, December 26, 1899; JB Box 18; Atkinson to
Barrett January 4, 1900, JB Box 18.
 53 Roosevelt to Barrett, July 12, 1900; JB Box 18; Mary C. Lawton to
Barrett, October 27, 1900; JB Box 18.
 54 Barrett speech to National Geographic Society, Dec. 8, 1899, JB Box
107.
 55 Barrett, "Philippine Possibilities Under Bryan," (JB draft), JB Box 10;
Barrett, "Plain Facts about the American Occupation of the Philippines,"
Text of Speech, JB Box 107.
 56 Barrett, "Some Phases of the Philippine Situation," Review of Reviews,
July 1899, pp 65--69; Barrett, "America in the Pacific and Far East"
Harper's Magazine, November 1899, pp. 917--926.
57 Alfred Thayer Mahan, "The Problem of Asia," Harper's Magazine, Vol. 100,  pp. 536--547.
58 Ferguson, p. 58.
59 Frank Carpenter, article in The Record Herald (headline missing), July
31, 1904; clipping headlined "Travels 1,600 miles on Horseback," author and
source unknown, dated Sept 6, 1906; JB Box 120.