Among the witnesses who came before us were farmers, bankers, brokers, merchants, lawyers, physicians, railroad men, shipowners, educators and public officials.

Certainly all classes of opinion were represented, and when we were called upon by the President, a little later, for a statement of the situation we felt fully prepared to make it.
Blount has charged that the commission attempted to interfere with the conduct of the war, and cites a cablegram from General Otis stating that conferences with Insurgents cost soldiers' lives in support of this contention.

No conference with Insurgent leaders was ever held without the previous knowledge and approval of the general, who was himself a member of the commission.
Late in April General Luna sent Colonel Arguelles of his staff to ask for a fifteen days' suspension of hostilities under the pretext of enabling the Insurgent congress to meet at San Fernando, Pampanga, on May 1, to discuss the situation and decide what it wanted to do.

He called on the commission and urged us to ask Otis to grant this request, but we declined to intervene, and General Otis refused to grant it.
Mabini continued Luna's effort, sending Arguelles back with letters to Otis and to the commission.

In the latter he asked for "an armistice and a suspension of hostilities as an indispensable means of arriving at peace," stating explicitly that the Philippine government "does not solicit the armistice to gain a space of time in which to reenforce itself." The commission again referred Arguelles to General Otis on the matter of armistice and suspension of hostilities.