Mr. Storer to Mr. Hay.
Madrid, May 28, 1901.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your unnumbered dispatch, bearing date May 13, confirming your cablegrama of May 11.
I beg to confirm my cablegrama to you of May 17.
It is exceedingly difficult to obtain accurate information.
The Madrid junta was at all times only a subsidiary one to the central junta in Paris, of which Agoncillo has always been, and is still, I presume, considered the head. The junta in Madrid, and, as far as I can ascertain, the subsidiary ones in Spain to it, received funds from Paris; but remittances have long ago ceased from that quarter.
From all that I can learn I am strongly of the opinion that nothing of any importance in the way of organization exists in Madrid. The offices of this so-called junta, or political club, composed of Filipinos, has, during the last two years, descended steadily in character of locality and surroundings. From the business part of the city it has descended to quite the poor quarters. I have been able to obtain a list of their different removals, and it is evident they have not a cent [Page 472] to spend. Many of these Filipinos, of which there have been quite a number in Madrid, are men of high education, and had come here to complete their university courses; and much of the money that enabled them to keep up their position before the world probably came from their own pockets. I can not find that they were ever of any political importance, and they confined themselves, apparently, trying to keep alive a spirit of hostility toward the United States among the Spaniards. In all political circles they have utterly failed, and I know that no Spaniard of any prominence or position has any wish that they should succeed in prolonging the disturbances in those islands. All the interests of every commercial class in Spain, and in fact of all Spain, are that those islands should be immediately pacified, and continue to be, as in the past two years they have been, an increasing market for Spanish products, instead of a failing one.
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The opinions that I have been able to gather from the best sources of information attainable, fully carry out my first impression, that while the ashes of hostility to the United States still exist here in Madrid among natives of the Philippine Islands, they will never kindle into warmth until they have both money and encouragement from outside.
The talk in the newspapers here, which has been more or less telegraphed to journals in the United States, if sifted down, I think is found to be nothing more than the natural attempt of individuals who. at one time had a certain cheap newspaper notoriety to keep that notoriety alive for their own vanity, or possibly to give themselves some personal and financial credit.
Should anything definite of any importance come to my ears, or can be found at Barcelona, which, after all, is the center of all oriental trade and travel with Spain, I will, of course, cable you. It is to be remarked, however, that the simplest method for any person desiring to go to the Philippine Islands from Spain without his voyage being noticed would be to pass the frontier into France and take steamer from any other port of Europe, all of which are open to him, and most of them having lines to the Orient.
For all the consul-general can be assured, there may have been scores of Filipinos under assumed names, or under Filipino names, gone back through Barcelona, as the travel is large, and no identification further than the formal papers are required for passage.
I have, etc.,