William Cameron Forbes | |
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United States Ambassador to Japan | |
In office September 15, 1930 – March 22, 1932 |
|
President | Herbert Hoover |
Preceded by | William Castle, Jr. |
Succeeded by | Joseph Grew |
Governor General of the Philippines | |
In office November 11, 1909 – September 1, 1913 |
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Preceded by | James Francis Smith |
Succeeded by | Newton W. Gilbert (acting) |
1st President of the Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation | |
In office 1911–1916 |
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Succeeded by | Manuel L. Quezon |
Personal details | |
Born |
William Cameron Forbes May 21, 1870 |
Died | December 24, 1959 | (aged 89)
William Cameron Forbes (May 21, 1870 – December 24, 1959) was an American investment banker and diplomat. He served as Governor-General of the Philippines from 1909 to 1913 and Ambassador of the United States to Japan from 1930 to 1932.
He was the son of William Hathaway Forbes, president of the Bell Telephone Company, and wife Edith Emerson, a daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, nephew of James Grant Forbes and grandson of Francis Blackwell Forbes. After graduating from Harvard in 1892, he embarked on a business career, eventually becoming a partner in J. M. Forbes and Company.
During the administration of President William Howard Taft, Forbes was governor-general of the Philippine from 1909 to 1913. Previously, during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, he had been Commissioner of Commerce and Police in the American colonial Insular Government of the Philippines from 1904 through 1908; and he was Vice Governor from 1908 through 1909. As modest legacy from those years of service in Manila, the gated community of Forbes Park in Makati, was named after him; and this community is the residence of some of the wealthiest people in the country. Also, Lacson Ave. (Formerly Forbes Ave.) in Manila is still called "Forbes" by some up to the present day.
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding sent Forbes and Leonard Wood as heads of the Wood-Forbes Commission to investigate conditions in the Philippines. The Commission concluded that Filipinos were not yet ready for independence from the United States, a finding that was widely criticized in the Philippines.