Mr. Bryan was running for President at this time and he was making a good deal of political capital out of the Philippine situation. He had promised to call a special session of Congress, if he were elected, to consider means for settling the Filipinos in immediate self-government, and he had a large following of mistakenly altruistic anti-imperialists supporting him. Mr. Taft was inclined to think that the whole anti-American demonstration, which was to culminate in the Amnesty Fiesta banquet, was planned by a Mr. Pratt, an American politician then visiting Manila, who wanted the “grandly patriotic” speeches to publish in American newspapers. They probably would have been perfect material for the anti-imperialists to grow sentimental over.