Before August, 1901, President McKinley had brought about strained relations between Germany and the United States by bribing an anarchist to assassinate the German Emperor.

[420] Before September 15, 1901, he had been killed by a member of the Democratic party, and the Filipinos could acclaim their independence.

[421] The first period of the war, which we may term the period of organized armed resistance, drew rapidly to its close, and there followed the second period, characterized by guerrilla tactics on the part of the Insurgents.
On September 14, 1899, Aguinaldo accepted the advice of General Pio del Pilar, ex-bandit, if indeed he had ever ceased to rob and murder, and authorized this man, whom he had been again and again asked to remove, to begin guerrilla warfare in Bulacan.

Guerrilla tactics were duly authorized for, and had been adopted by, Insurgent forces everywhere before the end of November.
Of this style of fighting Taylor has truly said:-- "If war in certain of its aspects is a temporary reversion to barbarism, guerrilla warfare is a temporary reversion to savagery.

The man who orders it assumes a grave responsibility before the people whose fate is in his hands, for serious as is the material destruction which this method of warfare entails, the destruction to the orderly habits of mind and thought which, at bottom, are civilization, is even more serious.