The Good Fight, by Manuel L. Quezon

INTRODUCTION

(Note: The following Introduction was prepared by General Douglas MacArthur in 1941 and sent to President Quezon in Washington. President Quezon died August 1, 1944).

I AM honored to comply with the request of the author of this book to write the introductory note. My only regret is that, I must do so at a time when the pressure of military campaign is such that I cannot give it the leisure it deserves. For President Quezon’s book, about to be published at this time, is an invaluable contribution to the war effort of his country as well as to that of the United States. It carries with it the message of a liberty-loving people hurled against those who would trample under foot man’s most precious heritage, freedom.

Manuel L. Quezon is the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. He has been twice exalted to that eminent position by the peaceful suffrage of the Filipino people. When he speaks, however, he does not do so merely as the official representative of his country. He speaks as the acknowledged leader of a race that has raised him to dominance for the last two decades. When he writes, therefore, of the stirring days of American occupation of the Philippines, of the fruitful results of America’s unique colonial policy, and stresses the gratitude of his people for what America has done in the Philippines, he is in effect firing the deadliest of weapons against the enemy –he is telling the story of a nation that was given by the United States a new birth of freedom achieved in a manner unparalleled in the history of colonization.

From the shadows of Corregidor in a proclamation to the Filipino people he said: “The determination of the Filipino people to continue fighting side by side with the United States until victory is won has in no way been weakened by the temporary reverses suffered by our arms. We are convinced that our sacrifices will be crowned with victory in the end and in that conviction we shall continue to resist the enemy with all our might.” From the beginning he has pledged complete loyalty to America. As far as he is concerned, there shall be no half-way measures, no cowardly compromise with the national destiny.

He has been called by more than one American writer one of the greatest of living statesmen. With uncanny premonition, he created on the first day of his administration as President, the Philippine national defense program. The army that was the result of this foresight proved in battle the wisdom that created it, and has passed into immortality. His decision to continue the struggle is of a piece with that first premonition. It springs from the same well of tested wisdom, and the issue will be the same. His career spans the most glorious half century of Philippine history. His biography is the history not only of that epoch but of the Philippines as a modern nation. He has fought innumerable battles and won them all. And well may he now say, after the character in Browning’s poem:

“I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more,
The best and the last!”

To-day he is fighting, at the head of his people and side by side with America, the greatest battle of all –a battle that shall determine, perhaps for centuries to come, the fate of his people. God cannot fail to bless him in so sacred a cause.

Douglas MacArthur

June 18, 1942
Melbourne, Australia