"Cavalry Cabinet" Out?

Filipinos, protesting, have termed the administration of Governor-General Leonard Wood the "Cavalry Cabinet." Smooth, alliterative, the phrase vividly suggests booted, spurred cavalrymen administering Island affairs to the accompaniment of clanking sabres. Such a picture, of course, overlooks the facts that the Filipinos have their own legislature and that a majority of Island administrative offices are held by natives. Still, the 1926 report of Carmi Thompson on the Islands did criticize the "military atmosphere" surrounding the administration, and the many U. S. Army uniforms around Malacanan Palace (seat of the Philippine government) have been no healing sight for sore Filipino eyes.

So, last week, Filipinos had an opportunity to cheer, to triumph. For word came that President Coolidge himself had suggested that the Islands be taken from the jurisdiction of the War Department, that military control be replaced by civilian control. Along with this news, however, came the saddening information that the President thought that the Department of the Interior would be the logical guardian of the Islanders. This plan did not at all please the Filipinos, who saw; in it a step toward making the Islands perpetually a U. S. territory. Filipinos want to be put under the State Department and be sent an Ambassador instead of a Governor General. However, they at least had grounds for hoping that the "Cavalry Cabinet" would soon be dismounted.

It was believed that the President would make his transfer suggestion officially to Congress at the next session (December).

During Charles Evans Hughes' term as Secretary of State there was a movement to take the Islands out of War Department jurisdiction and turn them over to the State Department. Secretary Hughes expressed no eagerness for the additional responsibility, and the idea was finally dropped. Last fortnight when General Wood called on the President at Custer Park (TIME, July 4) the transfer scheme was presumably revived, and shortly following the conference the President made his transfer suggestion.

It was hoped that the proposed 'change in Philippine control would not be taken as a criticism of General Wood, to whose administration the President paid high compliment. The General arrived in Manhattan last week, stopped at the Waldorf-Astoria, continued to announce that he would be back in Manila by September. He said that President Coolidge was "a great President," that the Filipinos were the "happiest people on earth" and that though most of them undoubtedly wanted independence, they really did not understand what independence would mean.