Policy of Attraction, part 1

Here's something I didn't realize:  in 1932, Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmeña privately asked a rather surprised President Hoover to veto an independence bill that they had publicly supported. 

As best as I can reconstruct it, it was a combination of the nativist reaction to the Watsonville Riots of 1930 and pressure from the sugar and dairy lobbies what led to the approval of the Philippine Independence Act of 1934.  Quezon got Hoover to veto the first independence bill, but Congress overrode him.  Quezon then managed to get the Philippine legislature to reject the bill, but Congress (and FDR) made it clear that independence was barrelling down the pike no matter what.  Quezon succeeded in convincing Congress to rewrite the provisions involving the retention of military bases, which gave him enough political cover to cut his losses and declare victory.  The Commonwealth of the Philippines came into existence the next year, with the Republic of the Philippines followed along in 1946.

Congress immediately cut the number of Filipinos allowed to come to the United States from unlimited to 50 per year.  (That's right, fifty.)  It also started offering Filipinos free passage home in 1935, but that wasn't very successful.  You've got to love the reason given in the linked article. 

Ironically, the U.S. reconsidered the Act's trade provisions (allowing Philippine products tariff-free entry until 1954 instead of 1939, albeit subject to a quota, and giving them preferential access until 1974) and the Philippines changed its mind on U.S. bases. (which infamously remained a huge presence on Luzon until 1991). 

I can shake the suspiscion that it's too bad that the U.S. couldn't decide on a permanent form of what both sides called "dominion status" back in the 1920s.  A permanent relationship along the lines of the Compacts of Free Association would, I think, have served both countries well, much better than the temporary and unequal arrangements that actually emerged, and then faded away.

Counterarguments and commentary are, of course, welcome.