The facts revealed
by the Insurgent records show how right they were in refusing to do so.
Major Bourns eventually returned to the United States. His work was
taken over by an army officer, with the result that two of our best
men died very suddenly in that gentleman's back yard. As I spoke
Spanish, and as all sorts of people came to see the commission,
I was the logical candidate for this job, which I thereupon inherited.
Each morning, if there was news, I myself laboriously thumped out
my notes on the typewriter, making an original and one copy. The
copy I took at once to General Lawton. The original I took, later,
to General Otis.
General Lawton was firmly convinced that most army officers were
unfitted by their training to perform civil functions. He organized
municipal governments with all possible promptness in the towns
occupied by his troops, and in this work he requested my assistance,
which I was of course glad to give. Sr. Felipe Calderon drafted a
simple provisional scheme of municipal government which I submitted
for criticism to that most distinguished and able of Filipinos,
Sr. Cayetano Arellano. [453] When the final changes in it had been
made, I accompanied General Lawton on a trip to try putting it into
effect.
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