Mt. Rushmore | Photo by John Manard via Wikimedia Commons
Part VI of “Socioeconomics Reforms” Series
Google replied to this columnist’s query about “presidential depression” that it could refer to presidents who suffered from mental depression. Or presidents who led during the Great (Economic) Depression. Abraham Lincoln and Calvin Coolidge are presidents known to have struggled with depression. Herbert Hoover was the president at the start of the Great Depression, and Franklin D. Roosevelt led the country through it with his New Deal programs.
What if Donald J. Trump is hypothetically the second coming of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), all rolled into one POTUS? Thus, the need for the phrase that became famous, as said by President FDR, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. It was the battle cry against the Great Economic Depression. It was part of his first inaugural address in 1933.
Perhaps we can use FDR’s words to reassure the American people during this alleged GPD or “Great Presidential Depression” (sic). For want of a better term, GPD is used for this current period in American history, when an overwhelming majority of the people and presidential historians are in a state of near-panic and primal fear that their POTUS is on the verge of creating a moral and socioeconomic depression (sic). This GPD can exceed the economic depression that President FDR was elected to overcome. And, similar to FDR’s call to economic arms, perhaps “We, the People” must have the courage to overcome the crisis, which could affect global socioeconomics and end peaceful solutions to disputes among nations.
Winning the Hearts and Minds of Colonized People
Perhaps in the current calls to arms by President Trump to invade Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria and other nations like Iran, or to annex Greenland and Canada, we may respectfully suggest to him to follow in the footsteps of President William McKinley, and William Howard Taft, whom he (Mr. McKinley) chose as the first civil governor general of the then U.S. colony, the Philippine Islands (P.I.). At that time, the so-called “Filipino-American War” was raging. While it was called an “insurrection” by some Caucasian American historians, the United States was running out of soldiers and militia volunteers to reinforce the U.S. military in the P.I. In fact, the U.S. Army also sent 6,000 Buffalo soldiers to strengthen the U.S. military in the Philippine archipelago.
President McKinley and Governor General Taft decided that the better alternative was “to win the hearts and minds of the Filipino people”, instead of killing them. So, the duo decided to build in the City of Manila the first overseas U.S. medical center, which had three components: 1.) schools of medicine, nursing, and other medical courses; 2.) a general hospital; and 3.) a research-and-development (R&D) center to study pathogens and manufacture medicines and vaccines.
Thus, the U.S. colonial government established the University of the Philippines (U.P.), the Philippine General Hospital, and a National Science (R&D) Center, all located in one big block in the Ermita District of Manila in the early 1900s. Later, the U.S. also sent thousands of American teachers to join the faculty of the U.P. and the national public-school system. The American colonizers also began sending high school valedictorians and salutatorians, as well as honor students in the U.P., to complete their collegiate, master’s, and doctoral studies at leading U.S. universities.
“… [W]inning the hearts and minds of foreign adversaries is much better, more humane, and can lead to nation-building than dropping bombs or firing bullets and artillery shells at them.”
Molding Filipinos After Americans
The Filipino students were required, after graduation and an internship (if needed), to return to the P.I. to join the colonial government. Simultaneously, the U.S. established the Philippine Military Academy and a civil service, and introduced suffrage, allowing Filipino voters to choose their congresspeople and senators in a two-chamber Philippine Commonwealth Congress. And it finalized a Commonwealth Constitution patterned after the U.S. version. Then they held the election for the first Commonwealth president and vice president.
More civil institutions were created for Filipino U.S. nationals, such as a Central Bank, a Philippine Army, Navy, and Air Force, a national police (called the Philippine Constabulary), and other offices and infrastructure needed for nation-building.
Dividends for the American People
The foresight of William McKinley and William Howard Taft (who later became a POTUS, too) paid off in so many ways for the American people. Filipino soldiers volunteered to join the U.S. military and fight side by side with their American soldier-buddies during World War I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. When American farms in Hawaii and California needed agricultural workers and technicians, Filipino workers were recruited as early as 1906.
When churches in New York, New Jersey, California, and other states needed teachers and priests, Filipinos were recruited beginning in the 1960s. In August 1988, then Filipino Secretary of Foreign Affairs Raul Manglapus said in his keynote speech to the Foreign Relations Council of Los Angeles, California, that “more than 600,000 Filipino nurses and 22,000 Filipino physicians were already working in the United States”. And many of those hired to fill vacancies in American healthcare facilities became permanent residents and then naturalized U.S. citizens.
Yes, winning the hearts and minds of foreign adversaries is much better, more humane, and can lead to nation-building than dropping bombs or firing bullets and artillery shells at them.
