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"i"I", s;::F1 4: i;- — - t D.; s ~si;- r-" 8:.;~" ~;j *ga k s ~:ci, f::: ~1 F-S ~-a P -i;-Xd.i:~ I~ ~r I "d -- r -- ~-.1.;;";" 8:jil"::~-:L-,~::: :~:~-1~,~~. d: s.t; '.j,,,;;;; - 9a~-:i~ ~::n ~.~; 4 ii 5: ~:;-u M "-_fl:r ZI u ~:X: d si~ $" I" a.:"-: ~::~. i;;9 g;lihci:s~~:s ~--;;~;; ic ( a,:i B- r: ~-, a W;; B -?:i — 9 ~F:~:,::' _~- ~~:~~ -ir: u-:~;~:I~~ I a, -;i a.: i-~ ia:ii: ~: b, ~-:D -~- " 9~ 4 Ir: THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES rt 1 r '* I/. f' * I I> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ an~~~~~~ S~1 ~ ~ ~ ~ g~r h V: X tl~ (UsO Off 4a~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ V"F; ~ - 1zto sa% g: OI d l S jg e k X ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~l O) W} -v~ --- I --- - i THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES BY CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL 1llu0trateb wftb Pbotograpbs NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1922 3~~11 1- I Copyright, 1922, by THE CENTURY CO. PRINTED IN U. S. A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE IRELAND OF THE EAST....... 3 II THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE........ 20 III FILIPINO TRAITS....... 42 A IV THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION... 65 V THE PHILIPPINE HEROES..... 99 VI THE FILIPINO TAKES CHARGE...... 120 VII FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT... 129 VIII FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE...151 IX COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR..... 166 X THE FARM:ER AND THE VULTURE....... 185 XI THE COPRA-MAKERS....... 208 XII EDUCATION.......220 XIII A PHILIPPINE SCHOOL.......... 251 XIV THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS... 265 XV THE FILIPINO AT THE BALLOT-BOX.. 287 XVI THE FILIPINO AT PLAY........ 295 XVII THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT... 317 XVIII THE JAPANESE MENACE.....331 XIX BOTH SIDES OF THE INDEPENDENCE QUESTION... 347 APPENDIX.......359 INDEX........... 403 A LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Eminent Filipinos Frontispiece FACING PAGE The rice terraces in the Ifugao Country 33 Alphabets used by the Filipinos at the time of the Spanish Discovery 48 A Moro village by the waterside 80 The Philippine House of Representatives in session 124 A Moro fisherman and his canoe 177 The old and the new 192 Plowing a rice field with the patient carabao A tractor at work on a Philippine farm The old and the new 216 Old style Filipino house Model sanitary dwelling exhibited at Manila carnival Municipal school building at Dingras 225 Calisthenic drill by 3000 pupils 240 Mufioz school 257 Bukidnon Boys' Band at Malaybalay 272 The old and the new 296 The fighting rooster man Juan K. Taduran, all-around athlete Manila High School indoor baseball team 305 Filipino women marching in a Liberty Bond sale parade 320 A hemp plantation in Davao 336 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES I THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES CHAPTER THE IRELAND OF THE EAST F OR all the Islands of the Pacific, north and south, revealed and unrevealed, the emblem of light and of social progress is a canoe; in the huge Archipelago of the Philippines, a canoe slenderly carven, outrigged and needle-pointed, sculptured fore and aft with elaborate art and hoisting its small square-sail almost amidships. Out of all proportion to its humble purposes, some such contrivance has been the tool of fate to mighty results. By it, or in it, or because of it, the migrations were possible that gave these Islands to a modern race, and so to the modern world; by it, also, knowledge spread, religious cults contended, civilization planted first seeds, and piracy ascended by slow degrees into commerce. What the printingpress was to later man in Europe the vista and the banca were to his earlier brother in the green and fascinating island world that stretches eleven hundred miles from Borneo to Bashi, tropics to temperate zone, and at its widest looks across straits and coral seas for seven hundred miles of east longitude. Of the ten million brown-tinted black-haired people that dwell now in these 2441 isles and islets,1 the mass are of one 1 All told there are 7083 so-called islands in the Philippine group; but this number includes mere rocks, shoals, and reefs. Of islands im3 4 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES family and can be traced, you might say, to one habitat. In spite of whatsoever differences in their dialects, they are more nearly akin than the people of Great Britain or the people of Boston. Mostly they came from Java, Borneo and Sumatra, the ancient seat of what is called the Malay race, to which they are assigned. How long they had been there or where they were before, nobody knows, and to inquire is to be lost in ethnological fog; but why they left their old home in Malaya is reasonably clear. About 700 B.C. the Hindoos began to establish an empire in Java, Sumatra and Borneo; their hordes overflowed from the teeming Indian peninsula; and before them pushed the Malays, even as western Asia once overflowed into Europe. The Malays, being by choice and calling pirates, fishermen, sea-traders and rovers, traveled easily by water from the old shores, making the transit in the needle-pointed and one-sailed canoe. In it they had long been accustomed to navigate the Eastern waters and to fight, to pillage and to settle among strange peoples, laying some part of the foundations of the present Japanese Empire and mixing many old strains of the queer children of earth. Being now forced out of Malaya they came north in various migrations at various times, a fleet of canoes for each excursion, and landed upon one or another island of the Philippines. They found there some people with almond-shaped eyes, yellow skins and other marks of the Mongolian, who were, like themselves, immigrants, only bound eastward instead of northward; and another undersized people with darker skins, woolly hair, primitive ways and no culture; being the nomads and tree-dwellers that were afterward known as portant enough to bear names there are 2441, of which only 462 have a surface of a square mile or more. Yet the Island of Luzon has an area of 40,814 square miles and Mindanao of 36,906; so Luzon is a little larger than Kentucky and Mindanao is a little larger than Indiana. 1 But Professor Beyer has found indications that the highlands of Burma were the original home of the Bantoks, at least. THE IRELAND OF THE EAST 5 Negritos.l These and the earlier immigrants the new-come Malays pushed back from the sea-coasts and the fertile valleys, which they took for themselves. But the Hindoo pressure on Java, Borneo and Sumatra continued with its sequent migrations thence, each band of new arrivals in the Islands driving its predecessors, or trying to drive them, from the harbors and fertile valleys; these, in turn, pressing back upon their inland neighbors. Hence came apparent and so-called division into tribes: Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Ifugaos, Igorotes, Visayans, and the rest, each band of immigrants staying on the sea-coast about long enough to develop its own dialect before it was thrust into the woods by the next company of canoe-men; or in some cases, no doubt, bringing its dialectic roots with it from the mother country; but all being Malay of the Malays, and all being fond of fighting and addicted to liberty. The present inhabitants of the southernmost islands of the group seem to have come last. About six hundred years ago a wave of Mohammedanism swept over that part of the world, Mohammedan missionaries going forth with as much zeal, daring and devotion as were ever shown by any of the Christian persuasion, and with other regions they invaded the Philippines. The new-comers of the Sulu chain and the Island of Mindanao yielded to their eloquence or swords or whatever it was that won them converts, but they seem to have made but halting progress to the north. The people they converted in the south came afterward to be known as Moros (or Moors), but this referred to their religion and not, as we now generally assume, to their race. Racially, they were exactly like the Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Ifugaos, Igorotes and the rest of the Malay immigrants. The soil of the Islands was fertile, the climate good, the 1 Paterno held that Negritos were not aborigines. He thought they were the descendants of slaves brought to the Islands by the Moros or late-coming Malays about the eleventh century, and in this opinion he is said to have found some support from other writers. 6 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES products various; the sea yielded fish, life was easy. In their new home, the Malays multiplied and prospered. The Mohammedan branch and others, it is true, had an unpleasant habit of making piratical raids along the coasts, and the span of earthly existence was checkered by frequent wars among the divisions that are wrongly called tribes; but there must have been enough leisure for the slow development of the culture the first canoe sailors assuredly brought with them; for Malay culture is an ancient but certain thing. They had music, poetry, sometimes a written language and books; they had laws and a system of justice. They started with some nationalistic traits; isolation and the similarity of climate and conditions tended to magnify these; and they were already become, or becoming, something of a separate race when the Spaniards came. / This was in 1521, in three lumbering, yawing, topheav ships commanded by Captain Ferdinand Magellan, who, incidentally, was not a Spaniard, but a Portuguese. The human story is rich in passages of wild and desperate adventure, but none of them excels in hardihood the ways of sixteenthcentury explorers steered without chart, book or lighthouse into unknown seas like the South Pacific, abounding in reefs, rocks, subtle currents and treacherous rips, swept with terrifying storms and ending maybe at the great magnetic rock or at Inferno itself. Captain Magellan was one of the indomitable souls that dared the grisly chances of these desolate waters and put his name permanently on the world's map. In the historic and preposterous cant, he "discovered" the Philippines; landed and hoisted the Spanish flag and, after the cheerful practice of the best buccaneer nations, claimed everything for the sovereign that had hired him. I would have it observed that he was the first European victim of the European failure to understand the people of these Islands. One of the places where he attempted to enforce the rule of Spain was Maotan, opposite the im THE IRELAND OF THE EAST 7 portant city of Cebu. With easy contempt for these untutored natives he led against them little more than a handful of his men. In the first of what was destined to be a long series of such encounters, the natives overwhelmed his forces and cut him down, fighting, like Braddock, bravely to the last to redeem his error. For years thereafter foolish kings, Spanish and PQrtugese, quarreled as to which owned the Philippines, conveniently ignoring the fact that neither could have any ownership in them since they could belong only to their own r people. But it was then a royal diversion to sit with globe in lap and apportion thousands of leagues and millions of people as if one were dealing a hand of cards. The royal gamesters having settled this vital matter, the Islands, in an evil day for them, fell to the share of Spain, and the first Spanish colony was established in 1565. Manila was finally subdued in 1573, and for three hundred and twenty-eight years thereafter Spain was supposed to govern the Islands. But it is well to note attentively that she never governed with the consent or even the tolerance of the governed but only with a gun thrust ever in the face of the truculent native. Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Visayans, Pampangans, what not, one and all had the same feeling for freedom. Most peoples get this that start with some stamina and character and then live under the open sky or among the mountains. All the power of medieval Austria could not break a handful of Swiss mountaineers; Napoleon had no end of trouble with Hofer's Tyrolese. No law prescribes that this feeling shall be refined and lady-like; freedom is freedom, for people in breech-clouts as for picturesque gentlemen in doublet and hose. Among these Islanders it was doubtless vague as well as unrefined; they merely resented the imposition of an alien power. But it is to be remembered that on the same bare resentment have been founded most of the free nations, including our own. 8 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES With their better weapons, better war-making and better training, the Spaniards were able to hoist their flag and put together their governing apparatus, but they did both in the face of an inveterate hatred. Almost every generation had its revolt against their authority; they must go armed to the teeth to keep from being hurled from their dominion. On the.loyalty they tried to drill into each rising generation they could count no more than upon the wind. They could make a Filipino talk Spanish; they could not make him think or feel anything but Filipino, even when he bore Spanish arms under the Spanish flag. With marvelous zeal and energy the priests spread Christianity and the new tongue; they carried the cross farther than the soldiers carried the flag; regions were Christianized that never acknowledged the King of Spain. But even where the new educational system was most efficient and most developed it produced only the more ardent patriots; and when all was done, no matter how kind or how self-sacrificing the priestly instructors, remained the fatal fact that it was an ill-designed, ill-managed, uncouth and floundering machine that Spain set up, chilling men with its cruelty, scaring them with its bulk, but never offering the least attraction to their good-will. Nominally a Spanish colony, the natives were never really conquered, far less were they assimilated; in the mass they can hardly be said to have been tamed. All this will be apparent from the following list of the principal revolts the Spaniards were obliged to put down in their time of occupancy: 1574 The Spanish flag was hardly hoisted when the potent cause of trouble in the Islands began to have its due effect. Magellan's blunder that cost him his life seemed to be infectious or transmitted; from the beginning the Spaniards missed altogether the psychology of the people they were to govern. Always in their minds, even to the last day when they went forever from Manila, the Filipinos were THE IRELAND OF THE EAST 9 inferior creatures to be enslaved and despised. Of that way of thinking was conspicuously the first Governor. He ordered the natives of Manila to furnish food for his troops and took two of their leaders as hostages. When the natives refused to supply food on such terms and he shot the hostages, the Filipinos proclaimed a revolt so widespread that at one time they had a formidable army in the field. It was but a vain struggle against better guns and better discipline; the Spaniards went their usual way to triumph, and the savage executions with which they stained it had the invariable result, for they established a background, at once, and an inheritance of martyrdom, always a perilous condition for any colonizing power. On this, other revolutions following with other executions as savage, there grew up a tradition of sacrifice for freedom; and afterward, of course, with any people of character, history could indicate but two possible events, liberation or destruction. 1585 First revolt of the Pampangans. These were a warlike and indomitable people of the South with whom Spain was destined to have other troubles. 1588 The Legaspi conspiracy at Manila, which came to involve all the principal native chiefs in that part of Luzon. We should note that its object was not to correct passing grievances but to expel the Spaniards from the Archipelago. The government discovered and suppressed it, but not before Spanish prestige had received a shock. 1589 Popular uprising in Cagayan and Ilocos Norte. 1603 Revolt of the Chinese in and around Manila. There were in the Islands considerable and ancient settlements of these people, with their own grievances against the lords of misrule that were then conducting the Spanish government. In the final battle with the soldiery twenty thousand Chinese are said to have been slain. 1622 The strange revolt in the important Island of Bohol, a hot-bed of insurrection. In this instance the trouble had 10 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES a religious origin but soon shifted to the great national issue. It is worth a note because it developed a native leader of capacity, one Tamblot. The government regained temporarily the upper hand, but the memory of Tamblot became an inspiration to another revolt. 1622 Uprising in the province of Leyte. 1639 Second revolt of the Chinese residents, suppressed after months of hard fighting. 1643 Revolt in Bulacan, led by a singular adventurer named Ladia, who seems to have had great influence with the people and much native adroitness. He planned a general rising, but was discovered by the Spaniards and put to death. 1645 Second revolt in Pampanga. This grew out of the common resentment against the Spanish tax system, which was needlessly oppressive. 1649 Widespread revolt against the Spanish practice of conscripting labor wherever the white man needed it; or, in plainer terms, against chattel slavery. It was the most serious rebellion Spain had so far faced and would have enlightened any people not blinded by prejudice and greed. It began in Leyte, and what was most sinister was its rapid spreading from province to province; for here was at least a beginning of practical union among the dialectic groups that before had revolted separately. If this feeling should become general the end of Spanish rule was in sight. In many small battles the rebels always beat the Spanish troops; at last the Spanish Governor, perceiving the disaster that hung over him, put forth his resources, aroused natives against natives, and with a great army mostly of Filipinos overwhelmed the rebel leader and stamped out the new movement. 1660 The Maniago revolt in Pampanga. This, again, was a direct fruitage of the evil system of forced labor; but the remoter cause was the hatred of the Spaniards that burned or smoldered in every native heart. A villager, THE IRELAND OF THE EAST 11 an untutored Filipino rustic, Francisco Maniago, was its leader and inspiration. As eleven years before in Leyte, it spread alarmingly to the other provinces. Governor de Lara took a leaf from the experiences of his predecessor and divided the natives. Then with an army largely composed of loyal Filipinos he overawed the rebels. They asked for the bread of administrative reforms; he responded with the stone of pledges he had not the least intention to keep. It was the Spanish custom. For the moment it quieted rebellion; in the end it wrought the ruin of Spanish domination. 1660 Revolt in Pangasinan. This was an aftermath of the Maniago uprising. Because of the difficulties of communication, Maniago's appeal did not reach the people in Pangasinan until after the chief rebel in Pampanga had laid down his arms. If the outbreaks had occurred at the same time, there is no guessing how far they might have gone. Even as it was, a back-woods native of Pangasinan, one Malong, gave the Spaniards a plenitude of trouble for the next six months. He declared the independence of Pangasinan with his unpretending self as its king, set up a working government, organized armies, and without waiting for an attack invaded near-by provinces, looking for Spanish troops to fight. One of his armies met with government forces at Agoo and all but annihilated them. At first the rebels carried everything before them: when the Spaniards had time to play their usual trump card and put native soldiers in the field against natives, Malong was beaten and his kingdom fell in upon him. But the war, futile as it seemed, developed two facts the wise observer might well have taken to himself. The natives in their fighting now showed every aptitude to adopt the best European tactics and had developed at least one firstclass military mind. This was the famous General Pedro Gumapos. He was put to death with long lines of other 12 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES victims; for the Spanish, after every revolt, waded in blood to sow the sure seeds of the next uprising. A wise government would have saved such a genius and utilized it, but the Spaniards did more: they added a deathless name to the list of martyrs now growing to formidable length. 1661 Revolt in Ilocos. This was in turn an aftermath of Malong's rebellion and had a similar but briefer history. 1662 Third revolt of the Chinese residents, ending like the others. 1686 Conspiracy at Manila of Tingco, an ex-bandit or something of the kind. It came to a head in a futile revolt, quickly suppressed. 1719 The Bustamante outbreak. This was the last phase of a long quarrel between the civil government and the ecclesiastical. It was more a riot than a revolt and involved only the clerical orders, incensed at the arrest of the Archbishop of Manila; but in the riot Governor Bustamante and his son were killed. 1744 The Bohol rebellion. This was the most significant event that had happened since the beginning of the Spanish history in the Philippines. Bohol is the large island and province that revolted in 1622. The natives there, under an astute leader of their own, one Dagohoy, drove out the Spaniards, organized and set up a government and defeated every attempt of the Spaniards to subdue them. The dreams of Tamblot had come true after one hundred and twenty-two years. 1762 Another revolt in Pangasinan. It had the same cause, same course and same result as its predecessors. 1762 The Silan revolt in Ilocos. The Spaniards went far out of their way to bring this upon themselves. War was raging between Spain and Great Britain, and a British fleet suddenly appeared before and captured Manila. Silan, who was under great obligations to a Spanish priest, offered to raise a native army to help drive out the British. THE IRELAND OF THE EAST 13 In response the Spanish thrust him into prison, having some mad notion that he was a spy. His followers revolted against this; he broke his way out of jail and led them to victory over the government troops. Then the Spanish hired an assassin to relieve them of so powerful an enemy. His widow strove to continue his work. Her they captured and hanged. 1762 Revolts in Cagayan, Laguna and Batangas provinces, chiefly against the tax system. They were ineffectual. The same year saw disturbances in five other provinces, extending so far south as Zamboanga. 1785 Revolt in the province of Nueva Vizcaya. It was short-lived. 1807 Outbreak in Ilocos, apparently the first repercussion in the Philippines of the fall of the Bastille. The people rose, demanded constitutional rights, captured the town of Pigdig and overwhelmed the Spanish forces. At one place an Augustinian friar undertook to lead them back to loyalty by preaching obedience to the King; but a Filipino woman immediately made a speech in reply that seems to have been for the times of a startling radicalism, for she told the people to pay no attention to the priest, who was only trying to beguile them back into the condition where King and nobles despoiled them and ate their substance. 1811 Revolts of the Igorotes, who plotted to exterminate the Spaniards; but the friars learned of the conspiracy and notified the government in time to spoil it. 1812 Napoleon having with the butt end of his sword driven some modern ideas into the head of the Spanish government, a constitution, popular legislature and some liberalism resulted, including a modicum of these good things for the Philippines. For the first time some serious attempt was made to meet the incessant rebellions with reforms instead of rifles. Under the new constitution the Filipinos 14 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES were to have representatives in the Spanish Cortes or national parliament. As soon as the threat of Napoleon was withdrawn all these improvements went by the board and absolutism came back in its primal vigor. On hearing this news the Filipinos revolted again and were again suppressed. In 1820 the constitution and Filipino representation were restored, to be abolished again in 1823 and brought back in 1833. It was the shuttle-cock between the force of light and the force of darkness in Spain. In 1837 Filipino representation was once more, and finally, deleted; but the brief taste of a measure of self-government the Philippines had enjoyed remained in the mouth to sting the people to a movement for autonomy that never ceased and always grew and persisted. 1814 A tax rebellion. The people, asserting their equality with the Spaniards, refused to submit to a system that placed the heaviest tax burden on the natives. 1820 The cholera rebellion. The visitation of cholera this year was more than usually terrible. The natives succumbed by thousands; at all hours of the day and night the streets were crowded with the carts in which the dead were removed. Having gathered a vague but justified im-,,ession that the neglect of the government was responsible for the epidemic, the people rose against the Spaniards and a frightful massacre followed. 1823 The Novales mutiny. This was led by a brilliant half-caste or mestizo army officer, who captured a part of Manila and for a few hours looked almost like a Moses. After that he was defeated, taken and shot.' 1827 Temporary subjugation of the rebels of Bohol after 1 He had been unjustly suspected of entertaining seditious ideas and ordered in disgrace to the southern islands, an order equivalent to exile. He sailed at midnight, returned two hours later, assaulted the citadel with his followers and won it, was proclaimed Emperor of the Philippines; was captured and, at five o'clock the afternoon of the same day, shot as a traitor. All this happened within a space of seventeen hours. As invariably happened in these cases, the vengeance of the THE IRELAND.OF THE EAST 15 they had for eighty-three years maintained their independence and conducted their own government. 1840 The La Cruz rebellion in southern Luzon. This was largely the work of an ambitious and intelligent young Filipino, Apolinario la Cruz, once a student in holy orders. He organized a fraternity called the Brotherhood of San Juan, the purposes of which seem to have been innocent. The suspicious Spanish government, which always took each bush to be an enemy, got the notion that the brotherhood was seditious or something of the kind, and arrested the leaders. Thereupon, and naturally, la Cruz's followers started a revolt, in which, strange to say, they were joined by the Negritos, this being the only appearance on the historic stage of these forgotten relics of antiquity. The movement had the usual story. At first the rebels beat the government troops; then the government troops, reinforced, beat the rebels and shot the rebel leader. 1843 Mutiny in Manila. This was an outbreak caused by resentment against the treatment of la Cruz. It failed and the leader was shot. 1872 Revolt of the Filipino soldiers. This failed through a misunderstanding of the arrangements between the garrisons at Cavite and Manila, but it lasted long enough to reveal a new and alarming condition. Rebellion came now not as a spasm of protest against some specific wrong, but as a revolt on a philosophical basis. A distinct class of highly educated Filipinos had arisen, and these attacked the rule of Spain on the ground that it was logically indefensible and belonging to a bygone epoch of human experience. Men of this type appeared in increasing numbers with the spread of education and showed themselves ready to join any revolt against the Spanish tyranny, going government upon the followers or suspected followers of the unhappy leader was appalling. Gironitre, the French writer, saw some of it and gives a harrowing description in his Twenty Years in the Philippines, pp. 54-55. 16 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES cheerfully to the scaffold as martyrs to a cause they had wisdom enough to perceive belonged to the ages and was only to be won with sacrifice. Wholesale arrests after the soldiers' revolt revealed many priests, lawyers, students and business men as active sympathizers with the rebels. By an excess of stupidity the government included among its chosen victims three priests against whom it had little evidence or none, three good men and popular, and these it elected not merely to slay but to slay in public and with the shameful garrote. All this was after a secret trial, so that one might say the government had started out to see how excellently it could make itself hated. These upright and harmless men, Fathers Burgos, Gomez and Zamora, were thus added to the martyr list and the people provided with a new cause for just and unappeasable resentment. From that time the movement against Spain never halted and grew always in bitterness and in purpose. 1883, 1888 Revolts due to resentment against the excessive cruelty of the government. 1892 La Liga Filipina. This was the beginning of the last phase of the long struggle, though at the time no man so conceived it. There came upon the stage a most remarkable and sympathetic figure, a man calculated for preeminence in any age or country, a great soul and an astonishingly versatile and restless genius, Dr. Jose Rizal, the most famous and popular of all the Philippine martyrs. In his youth he had studied deeply and to some philosophical purpose; he traveled far and with good observation, and in his thirty-first year he returned to the Islands persuaded of the hopeless futility of the Spanish theory of government. On the voyage he had sketched the draft of an organization of men like-minded with himself, an association of patriots to provide defense against oppression, to further native industries, to advance popular education THE IRELAND OF THE EAST 17 and to bring about the union of the people. This, without concealment, he launched as the Liga Filipina. About the same time, but having a different authorship and objects, was founded in Manila the Katipunan, a secret brotherhood sworn to accomplish the absolute independence of the nation. Its principles were union, equality, fraternity, resistance to all oppression, respect for womanhood, personal integrity and all service for freedom. Katipunan 1 means Sons of the Country. The Katipunan society had no connection with Rizal's Liga, though some persons were members of both organizations, and eventually the government was pleased to pretend an affiliation. FreeMasonry, with a secret ritual, pass-words, grips and the like, was the model of the Katipunan. Many Filipinos had become Masons and thus added to the bitterness of the feud with the religious orders, all relentless enemies of Masonry. For months the Katipunan went its occult way, spreading its membership and preparing its plans for a general revolt, apparently unsuspected. But its success in eluding official notice may now be doubted; the Spanish spy system was not so conducted. Members of the religious orders are said to have known all about Katipunan before it had lived six months, but to have awaited a moment when with the best theatrics they could stage the discovery, a version that seems more natural. If this were indeed the case the managers of the drama were skilful judges of opportunity. A friar came suddenly upon a printing-press engaged in printing pamphlets; these on examination proved to be not only seditious but to threaten a general massacre. With such pieces 1 Its full name was Kataastaasan Kagalanggalang Katipunan Ng Mga Anak Ng Bayan —which being translated is Most High and Most Respected Society of the Sons of the Country. All this was handily and, one might think, reasonably compressed into "K. K. K.," by which it came to be generally known. 18 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES de conviction in hand it was easy to produce almost any fashion of hysteria, and official Manila was soon to be seen at its worst. Indiscriminate arrests ending in indiscriminate shootings, with or without the assistance of the drum-head, were the favorite remedy, liberally applied. As always happens in such moments of emotional and homicidal insanity, men with grudges thought the time good for effective personal revenge. Dr. Jose Rizal, in his reforming fervor, had aroused the fierce antagonism of the religious orders, whose members he had exposed in his scorching novel Noli Me Tcangere, and he was marked for early slaughter. He had been conspicuously and consistently a champion of peaceful agitation and an opponent of violence, but he was dragged to his death, nevertheless. We shall find much to say later about this remarkable man, one of the most impressive figures in history. For the present, we may paraphrase a little and observe that of a truth the firing squad that day cut off more intelligence and character than were left in the entire government of Spain. Some circumstances of his death were of a peculiarly black atrocity, even for a nation with three hundred and twenty years of oppressive misrule in the Philippines, and the word of it fired with a new ardor the revolution that had already broken out, destined, in strange ways that no one then dreamed of, not to end until Spain should be eliminated from the Orient. Even before the official disclosure about the Katipunanists and their machinations, the extremists in that order had concluded that the time was close at hand to strike for the complete independence that was their first object. When the storm broke the survivors slipped quickly from Manila, proclaimed the Philippine Republic, joined to themselves the more conservative elements that had been lashed into rebellion by the slaying of Rizal and by other enormities, and in a few days the revolt had reached twenty provinces. It speedily took on the aspect of order and method; the Philip THE IRELAND OF THE EAST 19 pine Republic put armies in the fields, developed Emilio Aguinaldo, a military genius of astonishing gifts, —and showed everywhere a formidable front. This was the great Revolution of 1896, the turning-point in Philippine history. What had been lacking in earlier revolts was supplied now. For the first time, the Philippines were united, inspired with a common hope and fortified with modern political philosophy; for the first time, also, they had something tangible to fight for. Before them was the hope of the Philippine Republic, and from that ideal, whether they fell upon good fortune or ill, they never thereafter departed. Evidently, then, here is an unusual people; at the end of the earth, at the last remove from the suggestive propinquity of emancipated Europe, they had evolved these things for themselves. For the sake of the revelation in human possibilities we should do well to take heed of such a people and first of all their backgrounds.' 1 The chief authorities for this chapter are Fernandez, A Brief History of the Philippines; Barrows, A History of the Philippines; Craig and Benitez, Philippine Progress Prior to 1808; Austin Craig, A Thousand Years of Philippine History; Bourne, Discovery, Conquest and Early History of the Philippine Islands. CHAPTER II THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE T is not to be denied that from some points of view the intrusion in the Orient of a nation of democratic traditions was an unhappy and perilous adventure. Such a nation, in spite of itself, in spite, too, of any temporary lapses from the ark of the covenant, would be sure, soon or late, to indulge in novelties upsetting the settled convictions of the European in the East. It was so when Spain withdrew from that cloudy and half-mysterious theater and the United States took up her discarded role; it would have been so with the arrival of any other nation having a similar history. From the beginning European influence in the Orient has rested upon the cornerstone of Asiatic inferiority. Physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, and of course socially, the Asiatic was inferior; and pious efforts were made to show that of inscrutable purpose God had so created him.' Being thus of a lower genus, he was and must ever be incapable of any but a menial place in the enginery of modern government. He might wash down the stairs well enough, or make entries in books, but from places of power and trust he was barred by divine decree. Hence in the nature of things democracy was a plant that would take no root in Asiatic soil; 1"Their view is compounded of that mysterious illogicality which makes of the Oriental a being utterly distinct from the Occidental, a fellow we do not know, we cannot know and we will be hanged if we try to know-and of unwavering confidence in the entire superiority of the white man and his mission to manage if not quite own the earth."-James A. Le Roy. Philippine Life in Town and Country. Introduction, p. 3. 20 THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 21 and considerable wit, sometimes of excellent quality, was expended upon men that suggested otherwise. On this comfortable theory and practice proceeded the empires of the British in India, the Dutch in Java, and the Spanish no less in the Philippines. I have heard experienced Britons in India rebuke the visitor for showing toward a Hindoo some degree of courtesy. "Once treat them as equals and everything is lost," was the burden of these wise ones. "Remember, we are but 140,000 strong here; there are 300, 000,000 natives. Unless we can continue to impress them with the idea of the white man's superiority, how can we maintain our rule?" In the Philippines the Spaniards added to these arts an official arrogance and brutality. Natives must salute and step from the foot-path when they met one of creation's paler lords; natives must wear only the native dress; they must submit to a minute regulation of their ways of life; and throughout the East this inflexible discipline was lauded as the true wisdom. It achieved what was deemed the first desideratum: it kept the native in his place. Before long this ancient object came to be threatened in the Philippines by innovations that could have been devised only by minds naively innocent of the gained knowledge of the European. "If there be one lesson which history clearly teaches,'' says Froude, "it is this, that free nations cannot govern subject provinces." The people of the United States knew next to nothing about the people of the Philippine Islands, but there or elsewhere the only implements of government Americans could use were implements of democracy. Here, then, came the international blunderer, intruding with the temerity of ignorance to arouse expectations of self-government where they were most incongruous and had never been before. If the news of these changes exalted native races elsewhere into strange dreams of new days and new 1Ccesar: A Sketch, p. 1. 22 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES liberties, it created among the settled dominants of the Orient at least as much disgust. Likewise it started those sure predictions of failure that still go on, and in some quarters a cheerful and active disposition to help prophecy to be fulfilled. What manner of people, then, were the Orientals upon whom these novel experiments were to be made? It is a strange and rather comic fact that, while we were determined to introduce democracy and education among them, most of us thought of them, if at all, as head-hunters, wild Moros, naked savages running in the woods, with a small tamed servant class on the outskirts of chaos. The Philippinesthat meant an equivocal fringe of civilization, or something like it, where the Spaniard had planted and the American had watered, but within all was still savagery and primeval night. Extraordinary is the power of a single suggestion, if it can be shaped to appeal to prejudice or an over-ready imagination. An exhibition of an Igorote village at the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904 probably spread in America more of the notion of the Philippines as an untamed wilderness than tons of statistics could correct. These, then, were the people we had undertaken to govern: wild, naked creatures to whom the North American Indian was a gentleman and almost a scholar! It was even said they ate dogs! Resolute if uninformed altruism had many a shock. Do, then, all Filipinos go naked and eat dogs? Ever-busy exploitation, of course, was not shocked but only supplied with fresh grist for its propaganda mill. Behold the people to whom you have promised independence! At best a long time must elapse before you can reduce these to suspenders and beefsteaks. A long time? Why, centuries and centuries-and meantime a good bustling trade to be built up. Possibly no good would have come of trying to face these fancies with the fact, so great is the charm of picturesque imagining; but in truth the Filipinos, as a race, have a cul THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 23 ture, cruder than our own but much older, and time for time, in its earlier stages, about as respectable. Even when the Spaniards came they did not with a pike-head thrust civilization into the benighted brains of savages; we think they did but they did not. Wild men were in the Philippines then; wild men are there now. But we do not judge the American colonists of 1776 by the culture of the wild men that then lurked in the American forests, and we should not care to have the civilization of New England measured now by the cpndition of its mill-town children as found and described by Professor Ross. In these days, at least, there is no excuse for ignorance as to the extent to which the Filipinos are still in the grasp of barbarism; the facts are all in the census of 1918. Total population of the Islands............ 10,350,730 Christians................................ 9,463,731 Non-Christians............................ 886,999 To many others of us, again, assiduous readers of press despatches, the typical Filipino has seemed the fierce Mohammedan Moro; but there are in the Islands fewer than 400,000 Mohammedans of all kinds, whether fierce or urbane. Still others have concluded that the wild-eyed nomad of the mountains, the head-hunting, marauding son of perdition that has no religion at all and would as soon kill you as look at you, must be the really important factor in the situation because there are so many of him; and the implacable census reveals the total number of persons in all the Islands that do not profess Christianity, Mohammedanism or Buddhism as 102, 000. The ignorance of the Filipinos is believed to be appalling and a bulwark of darkness not to be overcome in genera1The census of 1918 showed 8.27 per cent of the total population to be Non-Christians. Of these, 427,481 were listed as pagans and 373,474 as Mohammedans, while 54,413 were Christians living in the NonChristian areas. But some numbers of Non-Christians were enumerated with the Christians, so the result is about the same. 24 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES tions, if ever; and the census reveals the percentage of illiteracy in the entire Islands at 34. It is 20 in the State of Georgia, 22 in the State of Alabama, 22 in the State of Mississippi, 29 in the State of Louisiana, 20 in the State of New Mexico and was about 24 in the enlistment camps of the American Army at the time of the Great War. There are wild men in the Philippines, a liberal choice of them. The interior regions of Mindanao, Mindoro and some other islands have not yet been conquered by civilization and in some instances are still to be invaded by it. There are islands in the Sulu chain that are as primitive and savage as they were one hundred years ago. Even in parts of Luzon the traveler can easily imagine himself in or close to the jungle; there are trails for roads and in a traverse of a hundred miles he will see no trousers except those he wears. Indeed, if suspenders, trousers and shoe-blacking be the criteria of civilization, the case of the Filipino can easily be argued out of all hope. Probably nineteen in every twenty American tourist visitors to the favorite Island resort that is called Baguio behold there the Igorote in his airy native costume and his crude, barbaric dwelling and perceive at a glance the preposterous folly of conferring the franchise upon such as these. They have seen the Filipino as he really is, they conclude, and with difficulty, if at all, can thereafter be persuaded from the belief that he is a head-hunter and a cannibal. He looks as if he could hunt heads or do any other desperate deed of unreclaimed savagery, this strange brown person dressed in a neck-tie. It is not thus that men approach the polling-place in my precinct in the Twenty-second Congressional District, State of New York. Put a ballot in the hand of this wild person? The idea is insane. Hence, Philippine independence now is clearly impossible. Similarly, the first sight of a Moro village gives to many a wandering American a shock (not, in some instances, unwelcome) that dissipates the fond notion of trouser-and-dress THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 25 shirt civilization. It stands, let us say, on stilts over the water; it is ragged, unkempt and unhandsome. Some of the houses seem about to topple over into the tide. At its brink, the sea deposits strange things and uncomely. The people are alien and uncouth: the children go about in a state of nature; sometimes the adults in a single brief garment each. It might be an illustration from Wood's Uncivilized Races, the whole thing; and we think it eloquent only of barbarism and ignorance~j Not thus do we live in West Seventysecond Street. Men and women here have teeth horribly' blackened with the chewing of betel-nut. Say no more. The practice is sufficient evidence of degradation. Vainly we are told that pyorrhea, the white man's scourge, and other diseases of the teeth are unknown among these people. Nobody chews betel-nut in Broadway; nobody that chews betel-nut can possibly be fit for independence. Vainly, also, we are pointed to the statistics about the spread of schools and the advance of knowledge in this village. There is the public school-house, and, wonder of wonders, there go to it of a morning little Mohammedan girls as well as boys, American textbooks under their arms. All avails not against the incontrovertible fact of the houses on stilts, the lack of trousers, of suspenders, of shoe-blacking. In the remoter islands, tribal wars break out among the wild men and must be subdued by the Philippine Constabulary, as not so many years ago war broke out between the Sioux and Crows and must be subdued by the United States Infantry. The news is cabled to us, dated Manila. 1"The really primitive peoples, who live in the great forests and the remote mountain regions of the Archipelago, are scattered over a wide area but do not number more than 200,000."-Census of 1918. "If the general condition of the civilization of the Tagalos, Pampangos, Bicoles, Bisayans, Ilocanos, Cagayanes, and Sambales is compared to the European constitutional countries of Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria and Greece, the Spanish-Filipino civilization of the said Indian districts is greater and of larger extent than of those countries."-Professor Blumentritt. 26 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Clearly, then, it must have happened somewhere near that city if not in it. We never learn that it happened a thousand miles away and upon an island of which not ten persons in Manila itself ever heard. To us in America the incident is typical and conclusive: the head-hunters are fighting again; no doubt they fight thus all the time. We are not aware that in 1921 there were 910,000 children enrolled in the public schools of the Philippine Islands and 106,000 in the private; nor that there were more than 21,000 teachers, all giving instruction in the American language and none other; that more than 3500 students were in one university and nearly 12,000 Filipinos had won university degrees. The Igorote of Baguio, compendiously dressed in a cravat, obscures all this and all else. He obscures also the fact that his ancestors had a welldefined civilization when the Spaniard came, but that great, essential and basic fact need not be obscured here. In spite of their unfashionable eccentricities about dress, all Malays have some degree of culture and have had it for centuries; they are not a race of savages nor even of barbarians. For instance, the Spaniards found that the natives of these Islands built and lived in planned houses, had a system of government, maintained a system of jurisprudence, dwelt often in ordered cities and towns and knew and practised the arts familiar to the most advanced peoples of their times.1 1 So generally is this true that it was said of the far-away Bukidnons, for instance, one of the least advanced of these peoples, that even they lived in organized towns, were intelligent and industrious, and had a well-developed religious establishment. "In the interior of Luzon are found isolated villages the inhabitants of which are expert workers in iron and steel, while their neighbors seem to be ignorant of the process. The writer holds to the opinion that iron-working is an ancient art throughout the Philippine Archipelago and that its use for various reasons, such as lack of material, has died out in certain sections."-Fay-Cooper Cole, The Wild Tribes of Davao District, p. 202. Among the people of Davao, Mr. Cole found "a highly developed culture." Iron-work was an ancient art with the people there also and the beauty and temper of their knives and daggers were particularly to be noted. THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 27 Gunpowder they knew and used before 1300, when it had not yet been introduced in Europe; and they made such excellent firearms as to astonish the Spaniards.l At the siege of Manila, 1570, the natives defended their city with cannon, and the captors found within the walls the factory where these guns had been forged, as well equipped and ordered as any in Europe. The Islanders were expert in other metal-working,2 skilful ship-builders, carpenters. Copper they had worked; but bronze, of which their great guns were made, they imported from China. Some of their art in silver-work remains to excite even now, for exquisite design and faultless workmanship, the admiration of the judicious. They wove cloths of cotton, hemp, and other fibers. They were, in fact, inheritors of two great cultural infiltrations upon what culture the Malays had possessed two thousand years before; because on one side was the influence of the Hindoos and on the other the civilization of the Chinese, while to these had begun to be added, years before the Spanish came, stray gleams of information transmitted roundabout from Europe. All this is inconsistent with the theory of the head-hunter and the wild man of the woods, but is nevertheless the incontestable record. Heathen they were called, but they had a religion, not at all contemptible, and an excellent code of morals. They were natural musicians, possessed a variety of musical instruments, and even some attainments in ensemble playing, for they had native orchestras. They were fond of poetry -and honored their poets. Finally, what will seem most astonishing now in the ear of the stranger, they had a written alphabet and books. How many of these were in existence when the Spaniards 1 Fernandez, A Brief History of the Philippines, p. 48. 2 "There was hardly any Filipino who did not possess chains and other articles of gold,"-Craig and Benitez, Philippine Progress Prior to 1898, p. 28. Letter to King Philip the Second, written from Manila in 1574. 28 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES began to come nobody knows, but the number must have been large and the distribution rather wide. It is not to be supposed that there were libraries and school-men among the forests of Mindoro any more than among the forests of the Adirondacks, but every settled town had a temple and most temples had collections of books. They were written in the native characters1 on palm leaves and bamboo, and stored with the native priests. The subjects were historical and legendary, folk-lore tales, statutes, deeds of heroism and poems. With a blind zeal to emulate him of Alexandria, the Spanish enthusiasts burned these books as works of the devil and thereby destroyed knowledge priceless to succeeding ages; the few that escaped the flames testifying poignantly to the irreparable loss. A small collection of them was recently discovered in a cave in the Island of Negros and the ethnologists have hopes of others that may have escaped the sharp eyes of the devil-hunters. Professor Beyer, whose investigations of early Filipino life arid history have been so great and so tireless, has come upon other evidences of early Filipino letters, including an epic poem of prodigious length; but this exists now only in the memories of the reciters. The fourthousand-odd lines of it that Professor Bayer has transcribed and translated show a rather remarkable gift of versification and imagery.2 Of the written alphabets in use before the Spanish landing, fourteen were of Malay origin, one was Arabic and 1 Even in wild Mindoro there was an ancient form of syllabic writing of the same type as that in general use among the more cultivated Filipinos at the time of the Spanish conquest. In Mindoro and Negros this language was "written in horizontal lines and read from left to right like modern Roman characters." Other peoples in the Islands wrote in vertical columns and read from right to left like the Chinese. The writing was "usually scratched on joints of bamboo, though leaves or sheets of bark are sometimes used." (Professor Leyer.) 2 "Some of the myths are sung or chanted among the mountain peoples; some are repeated in the form of stories; some are highly developed, as the elaborate polytheisms of the Ifugaos, Igorotes, Kalingas and others."-Bureau of Science Note. THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 29 one Hebrew. Arabic probably came in through the Hindoo invasion of Java, but whence and how arrived the Hebrew is another problem still folded in the mists; possibly the Mohammedan missionaries brought it in their baggage. Of the Malayan alphabets many were structurally alike, so that a learned Visayan must have been able to make out Tagalog words and a Pampangan to spell Ilocano. We are not to imagine that every Filipino could read written speech; there were in the Islands at that time, as in India, Spain and England, the educated and the uneducated; but it seems likely that the percentage of literacy in the Philippines, year of grace 1500, let us say, was as large as in Spain and larger than in India. As these are not classed as savage or illiterate countries, the protest of the Filipino against such a classification may be thought to have substance. However much our complacent assurance of superiority may be disturbed by the thought, we have no reason to believe that literacy in England was at the moment much farther advanced, nor that the cultural state of the masses was essentially lower in the Philippines.1 Savage ancestors is an easy phrase but to be employed with discretion. We may profitably remember that in the sixteenth century the printing-press was late come and infrequently found in England. In proportion to the population there might easily have been as many books in the Philippines. As to the possible extent of literacy there, some light was recently had from the discovery that in the wildest parts of the Islands, least known and most believed to be hopelessly savage, the people still retain the use of two of these fourteen ancient alphabets; from which persons of a philosophical bent might care to revise somewhat the common im1 On this subject Douglas Campbell's masterly summary in Chapter V of The Puritan in Holland, England and America may well be reread. I do not find recorded of the ancient Filipinos anything worse than the bear-whipping that was a popular sport in the days of Queen Elizabeth. 30 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES pression about the slightly garmented Igorote. A man that can read and write is not a savage even if (in a tropical climate) he scorns trousers and dress shirts. From the first Spanish accounts of the Islands it appears that the inhabitants were keen traders as well as skilful artisans. Manila was one of the great commercial capitals of the East and long had been so; there is no warrant for the belief that it was a haphazard collection of fishermen's huts or that Spain made its greatness. The Chinese had traded there a thousand years before a Philippine wind had touched a Spanish flag. When the inhabitants of England were wearing skins, painting their bodies with woad and gashing their flesh in religious frenzies, the Filipinos were conducting great commercial marts in which were offered silks, brocades, cotton and other cloths, household furniture, precious stones, gold and gold dust, jewelry, wheat from Japan, weapons, works of art and of utility in many metals,' cultivated fruits, domesticated animals, earthenware and a variety of agricultural products from their rich volcanic soil. In cultivating their fields they used the long-horned buffalo or carabao, which they broke and trained for their purposes. 1 When Gironiere, the observant Frenchman, came to the Philippines at the beginning of the last century, he was struck with the small change the Spaniards seemed to have effected in the native customs. "The inhabitants," he said, "practise various kinds of industry; they weave matting of extraordinary fineness and of the brightest colors, straw hats, cigar-cases and baskets; they manufacture cloth and tissues of every sort from leaves of the eguana, make cambric of a texture much finer than that of France; and they also manufacture coarse strong cloth for sails, etc.; and ropes and cables of all dimensions; they tan and dress leather and skins to perfection; they manufacture coarse earthenware and forge and polish arms of various kinds; they build ships of heavy tonnage and also light and neat boats, and at Manila they frame and finish off beautiful carriages; they are also very clever workers in gold and silver and copper; and the Indian [Filipino] women are especially expert in needlework and in all kinds of embroidery." (T wenty Years in the Philippines, p. 307.) Gironitre mentions these as the principal Philippine crops: rice, indigo, tobacco, abaca, or "vegetable silk," coffee, cacao, cotton, pepper, wheat, sugar-cane, bamboo. THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 31 They raised rice (the staple of their food), sugar-cane, cocoanuts, indigo, sweet potatoes, taro, other root vegetables, ten or twelve varieties of bananas, tamarinds, betel-nut palm, beans, cotton and hemp.' Old Antonio de Morga, who was one of the earliest Spanish commentators, enumerates ten fruits that were successfully cultivated, calling the orange one, though there were many kinds of oranges. He observed that there were no olives, but the people used a green fruit like a walnut which they pickled and he found to have "a pleasant taste." He also found that they made pickles of many sorts of vegetables and greens, which he pronounced "very appetizing, " and they understood the art of preserving ginger. As to barn-yard fowl, the chicken came near to be the national bird; probably it was brought from China centuries before the Spanish era, the Spaniards' addition to poultry science being chiefly a knowledge of ways to cause roosters to fight. The people understood how to make agricultural implements which, if crude by our standards, were still serviceable.2 They made machines to hull and separate rice, to express oil from cocoanuts and to weave their cloths. They worked out their own problems of irrigation and in their own way. The huge rice terraces in some parts of Luzon were and still 1 Philippine Progress Prior to 1898, p. 6. 2 "The inhabitants of the Philippines possessed a culture of their own prior to the coming of the Spaniards to the Islands. Those along the coasts were the most advanced in civilization. Their material wealth was considerable. The chief occupations were agriculture, fishing, weaving, some manufacturing and trade both inter-island and with the mainland, generally in the form of barter. They were expert navigators. They used standard weights and measures. The year was divided into twelve lunar months. They had a peculiar phonetic alphabet, wrote upon leaves, and had a primitive literature. The majority of the people are said to have been able to read and write."-Justice George A. Malcolm, The Government of the Philippine Islands, pp. 27, 28. "The inhabitants of these Islands were by no means savages, entirely unreclaimed from barbarism, before the Spanish advent in the sixteenth century. They had a culture of their own."-John Foreman. "They had already reached a considerable degree of civilization at the time of the Spanish conquest."-Professor Ferdinand Blumentritt. 32 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES are the wonder of all beholders. "I know of no more impressive example of primitive engineering " says Dean C. Worcester, "than the terraced mountain-sides of Nueva Vizcaya, beside which the terraced hills of Japan sink into insignificance.'1 And speaking of the rice terraces of the Ifugaos he says: "Their agriculture is little short of wonderful and no one that has seen their dry stone dams, their irrigating-ditches running for miles along precipitous hill-sides and even crossing the faces of cliffs, and their irrigated terraces extending for thousands of feet up the mountain-sides, can fail to be impressed. When water must be carried across cliffs so hard and so broken that the Ifugaos cannot successfully work the stone with their simple tools, they construct and fasten in place great troughs made.*fto)l the hollowed trunks of trees, and the same procedure is 'rsbrted to when canions must be crossed, great ingenuity being displayed in building the necessary supporting trestle-work." The houses in which these people lived were small and to the modern eye exceedingly crude. Most of them were square structures of bamboo and the leaf of the nipa palm, raised on poles above the ground, or, as we have seen in the case of the Moros, above the water. Coolness and dryness were the results in a climate hot and moist, and some safety in a region of earthquakes. The vast majority of the inhabitants of the Philippines live in similar houses to-day, the rough shaggy sides, thatched roofs and exterior ladders always creating the worst possible impression upon the American visitor. Did not the geographies in our school-days have pictures of some such houses as inhabited by cannibals 1"These terraces often run for thousands of feet up the mountainsides like gigantic stairways and their stone-walled faces would, if placed end to end, reach nearly half-way around the earth, since they total some twelve thousand miles in length. The building of these walls and terraces must have been the work of many centuries, and even now it requires a prodigious amount of annual labor to keep them in repair."-Philippine Journal of Science, October, 1909. 'r N \^/ iiiliii_;ii_:i::ii(_:i:ii: i:::_ I::::::: ii:::_i:::::::::_i__ i:i:i::::: i::_:;I:::::::::;;:: I urrra i_::;::::::::::::::i:::;::I i:: HI IF16:FL: 1P*ElilE1S %5:r;FE: XF"BGbC1 6(3?13T"lt.If THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 33 and the untamable populations of the outlands? Certainly a house on props and to be entered by a ladder is no favorite style of architecture in Euclid Avenue and Riverside Drive. But the Filipino house, though small and primitive, was usually clean and not without comforts. If it might be blown away by a typhoon it also admitted the delicious breeze that every night swept in from the ocean; and if we must revert to our former comparison, I doubt if in 1500 the masses of the people in Spain or England were essentially better housed. Old Harrison, Hallam and Hubert Hall give descriptions of dwellings in the spacious times of Great Elizabeth, even of noblemen's dwellings, that would seem to justify that doubt.1 Almost the whole population dwelt in cities, towns, villages or hamlets2 (called barrios); few persons dwelt on their own farms. There was a system of land-ownership and a system of inheritance, and when the Spaniards came although their custom was to seize in the name of their King all the land in an annexed territory, they found it advisable to respect the titles and systems then existing. Religions were of a comfortable variety according to province or island, the extreme south being largely Mohammedan, after a modified transplantation, and in the north what is now called heathen. In Luzon and a few other regions prevailed a religion somewhat resembling Shinto, with an added code of morality rather surprisingly strict. Professor Beyer,suggests that itcame to the Islands from southern China and that Japanese Shinto had a similar origin. Nearly everywhere was an organized priesthood sometimes elaborately costumed, and in some places were priestesses as well. Some system of worship seems to have penetrated every part of the Archipelago. What most of all as1 Especially Hallam, Middle Ages, Vol. II, p. 542. 2To this day, of thq total population 82 per cent lives in barrios (hamlets), of which there are twelve thousand in the so-called Christian provinces. 34 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES tonishes the modern investigator is to find that in the Davao region of the Island of Mindanao the old native religion still persisting there bears a strong likeness to that of ancient Greece. The deities, under different names, have the same attributes and powers; there is a fairly complete reproduction of standard Grecian myths and fables, as the stories of Prometheus, of Mercury, of the Pleiades, of the dryads, of the creation and the like. Diuata is the supreme governing intelligence; the phenomena of nature are interpreted with less superstition than is found, I think, in most primitive peoples; and there is a.rather distinguished body of folk-lore. "The Igorotes," observes Dr. Worcester, "have a high code of morals which is closely associated with their religious belief. They also have a scientific calendar and a considerable knowledge of astronomy that effected many modifications in their religion. Their mythology is extensive, and they have a rich unwritten literature of epic poems, herostories and historical legends." A definite conception of a future life was often a feature of their religious beliefs. The Tagbannos believed that it consisted of seven stages in each of which the soul improved itself and its surroundings. All were happy in this heaven, but those that had been wealthy on earth were less comfortable than those that had been poor. On arriving at the gate of the first stage the being was interrogated as to the kind of life he had led on earth; if it had been bad he was at once burned to annihilation. They seem to have been a highly imaginative people, but both music and stories were tinged with the characteristic Malay quality, which is half melancholy. There is still left, says Professor Beyer, "a rich and varied mythology as yet but little explored, but which will one day command much attention. Among the Christianized people of the plains the myths are presented chiefly as folk-lore, but in the moun THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 35 tains their relation and preservation is a living part of the daily religious life of the people."' Their superstitions sometimes reveal a gentle and kindly instinct. In some parts of Luzon, for instance, it was tabu wantonly to injure or even to make fun of any animal. Gironiere relates this illustrative legend which may serve here as a brief speciman of their folk-lore: "Many years ago Ango lived with his wife and children on a lofty mountain-peak. One day he went to the forest in search of game. Fortune granted him a large boar, but in giving the mortal blow he broke his spear. Upon arriving at a stream he sat down upon a stone and began to repair his weapon. The croaking of near-by frogs attracted his attention, and with mocking imitations of their shrill gamut he scornfully told them to stop their noise and come to help him mend his spear. Then he continued his course up the rocky torrent. But presently he noticed that a multitude of little stones was follbwing him. Astonished at such a phenomenon he hastened his steps. But looking back he saw still larger stones joining in the pursuit. In terror he seized his dog and began to run. But the stones continued to roll along after him, always larger and larger stones adding themselves to the bouncing throng. "He reached at last his sweet-potato patch, but so exhausted was he that he must slacken his pace. Thereupon the stones overtook him and one jumped up and attached itself to one of his fingers. He found he could run no farther and called aloud to his wife. She with the children came running to his aid, bearing the magic lime which, like the lemon, usually had power to drive away evil spirits. But all was of no avail, for his feet now began to turn to stone. Then his wife and children, too, fell under the wrath of the offended deity. 1 Professor H. Otley Beyer, Origin Myths among the Mountain Peoples of the Philippines, 1912. 36 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES The following morning they were stone to their knees. For the next three days the petrifying process continued, going from the knees to the hips, then to the breasts, then to the heads of the unfortunate family. Thus, because of Ango's mocking of the frogs, all turned to stone and may be seen to this day on Bingoi.' The so-called tribal divisions2 had their individual myths, but many were a universal possession and show the racial origin and racial unity of the people. For instance, the story of the great flood and of the brother and sister that escaped it was everywhere and must have come in with the first vintas. One of the favorite myths of the Bantoks was about their hero, Luawig, who in a time of drought struck with his spear upon a rock, when out gushed a stream of living water. Professor Beyer believes this to be an original story in spite of its resemblance to the Biblical account of Moses and his staff. The Mohammedan missionaries brought in a certain flavor of the Near East in customs as well as legends, but these seemed 1 Bingoi is an oddly shaped peak in the Agusai valley, near the source of the river Angedanan. 2For reasons difficult now to understand the people in some parts of the Islands were much more progressive than others, and this difference has continued to be noted. Dean Worcester, making a careful survey of the state of the so-called wild tribes about 1905, observed that the Tinquians of Abra, a province of Luzon, had advanced farther than any other non-Christian people in the Philippines. "They are," he said, "a most attractive people, cleanly in their personal habits and of an excellent disposition. They are peaceable and law-abiding to an astonishing degree. Crime is almost unknown among them. Their towns are well built and well kept. Their fields are often better tilled than are those of their Ilocano neighbors. They save their money and some of them become quite wealthy. They are anxious to receive the benefits of civilization, now that they may have them without being obliged to change their religious belief, and there is hardly a ranchero in Abra that does not have one or more schoolmasters, paid by local revenues or by voluntary contributions. Considerable numbers of 'inguian children attend the public schools in the Christian municipalities in spite of the hostility between their people and the Ilocanos." (Dean C. Worcester, "The Non-Christian Tribes of Northern Luzon," The Philippine Journal of Science, October, 1906.) THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE not to affect the northern islands. Even in the Mohammedan regions, while there was a practice of polygamy, there was no sequestration of women. To a limited extent polygamy existed also outside of the Mohammedan regions. Among the Tinguians, for instance, the headmen were allowed to have two, and sometimes three, wives, but it was a privilege confined to headmen. Marriage ceremonies among the other tribal divisions were elaborate and the marriage vow was regarded as sacred. There seems to have been among these people from the earliest times a rather stern view of sexual morality. It may be noted as part of the peculiarly independent and powerful position women have always occupied in the Islands that the bride supplied no dowry; she brought nothing but her fair self, and in the household she was always the governing authority. It was the groom that must furnish the marriage portion. Gironiere describes minutely the betrothal in use among the Tagalogs in his day and observes that it was of antiquity and the Spaniards had tried in vain to change it. When the blind boy with his eternal arrow had smitten the heart of a Tagalog youth he went to his father and mother and confided the fact to them with the name of the young lady of his fancy. His father and mother then proceeded to make upon her father and mother a ceremonial call, always of an evening when everybody would be at home. They talked about all manner of inconsequential things, as far away as possible from the momentous matter in hand. Then the mother of the swain passed to the mother of the charmer a piece of money. This was the crux of the evening; everything depended upon it. If the gift was accepted, nothing more was said but the happy lover, who all this time had been waiting outside, was called in, while the mother of his fair one sent out for drinks and betel. For this was the fixed rule, that if the suit was 38 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES looked upon with favor the coin should be spent in coco wine and betel-nut for the company assembled. Thereafter, for that evening, not a word must be said about marriage. The next day the lover paid a visit to the parents of the young lady, who had summoned the other relatives to look him over by daylight. Thereupon he entered a period of probation lasting two or three years, and sometimes more, in which he spent all his time at the home of his fiancee and as a member of her family; also, he served for her as Jacob for Rachel. It is odd to notice how here as in other cases recur the traces of primitive Judaic customs or legends. In this period of service, if anything was discovered to the detriment of the lover, farewell to his hopes, for he was sent packing. Sometimes, if nothing was discovered, the father nevertheless invented something and turned the youth off anyway, in order to get from another fond wooer another period of free labor, having apparently profited by the tale of Laban the astute. But sometimes the young people upset these pious calculations by eloping. In such a case, the young woman was obliged to take the youth by the hair of his head and, thus held, lead him before the marrying authority. Him she must inform with solemn unction that she had just run away with the youth as her captive; otherwise, if it appeared that he had carried her off he would be subject to heavy punishment; abduction was a serious matter among these people. But if all went prosperously with the engagement, and if the future father-in-law was not avaricious or over-cunning, the formal bethrothal might arrive in two years, and was a prodigious affair. All the relatives of both sides came to the bride's house, where they divided themselves into two circles, according to their affiliation with one party or the other. But while they could talk in low voice among themselves about the young couple, only the hired advocates, brought there for the occasion, could address the assembly aloud. These made elaborate speeches, couched in allegorical THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 39 and highly figurative language to avoid the chance of hurting anybody's feelings on either side, the object of one being to get as large a marriage portion as he could from the parents of the groom and of the other to keep the portion down to the lowest limits. When this had been adjusted, there was music; and the bride and groom, who had been excluded from the oratory, came in, stood up before the assembly and exchanged their strings of neck beads, when they were looked upon as finally engaged and might be married within a week. Gironiere gives this speciman of an advocate's speech at the bethrothal ceremony: "A young man and a young girl were joined together in the holy bands of wedlock; they possessed nothing; nay, they had not even a shelter. For several years the young woman was very badly off. At last her misfortunes came to an end, and one day she found herself in a fine, large cottage that was her own. She became the mother of a pretty little babe, a girl, and on the day of her confinement there appeared unto her an angel, who said to her: 'Bear in mind thy marriage and the time of penury thou didst go through. The child that has just been born unto thee I take under my protection. When she will have grown up and become a fine lass, give her but to him who will build her a temple where there will be ten columns, each composed of ten stones. If thou dost not execute these my orders thy daughter will be as miserable as thou hast been thyself.' " To this the other advocate replied: "Once upon a time there lived a queen whose kingdom lay by the sea-side. Among the laws of the realm was one that she enforced with the greatest rigor. Every ship arriving in her state's harbor could, according to that law, cast anchor but at one hundred fathoms deep, and he who violated that law was put to death without pity or remorse. Now it came to pass, one day, that a brave captain of a ship was surprised by a dreadful tempest, and after many fruitless en 40 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES deavors to save his vessel, he was obliged to put into the queen's harbor and cast anchor there, although his cable was only eighty fathoms long, for he preferred death on the scaffold to the loss of his ship and crew. The enraged queen commanded him to her audience chamber. He obeyed, and, throwing himself at her feet, told her that necessity compelled him to infringe upon the laws, and that having but a cable eighty fathoms long he could not possibly cast out a hundred, so he besought her most graciously to pardon him." The first advocate then said: "The queen, moved to pity by the prayer of the suppliant captain, and his inability to cast his anchor one hundred fathoms deep, instantly pardoned him, and well did she devise." Gironitre, who heard this, could make nothing of it. The stories were interesting, but he could figure no significance pertaining to the marriage. But later the natives explained that the first advocate was for the bride's party and he was demanding one hundred piasters as the marriage portionten columns of ten stones each. The bride's mother had married without a portion and had gone through such adverse and trying conditions as the advocate pictured in his story. The allegory of the groom's advocate meant that the groom did not have one hundred piasters but only eighty and begged that these might be accepted. The rejoinder of the bride's advocate was the acceptance of these terms.1 Government was tribal or local; there was no federal or central government. Nevertheless, it seems to have been, for the times, fairly efficient. The interior of the country was wild, but the towns must have had rather good order. A highly significant fact for present consideration is the widespread practice of a form of democracy; the authorities that have been so certain democracy would wither away if planted in Asiatic soil should first have consulted the records 1 Twenty Yea/rs in the Philippines, Chapter X. THE FILIPINO INHERITANCE 41 of the Philippines. Gironiere, who is the greatest source of information about early conditions, because he had the true reporter's instinct for the things that count, gives an account of the system that prevailed in his time, under the Spaniards, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. "Every township," he says, "is erected, so to speak, into a little republic. Every year a chief is elected, dependent for affairs of importance on the Governor of the province, which latter, in his turn, depends upon the Governor of the Phillippine Islands." But this, so far as it relates to local and not insular affairs, was the old native system taken over bodily. Gironiere pays high tribute to it. "I confess," he says, "that I have always considered that the mode of government peculiar to the Phillipines is the most convenient and best adapted for civilization. The Spaniards, at the period of their conquest, found it in full operation in the Isle of Luzon." The functions of the local chief were those of mayor, justice of the peace and examining magistrate. He held office for a year. While there was a measure of democracy, it did not attain to universal suffrage. On election day the twelve cabessas de barangay, or chief property-owners of the community, assembled with the elder residents and balloted for chief. The Spanish, to whose theory of colonial empire democracy was a foul weed, changed this so that balloting was held for three men whose names were sent to the Governor of the province and from whom he selected the chief for the ensuing year. But it is evident enough from all this that organized government and a reasoned social system are among these people concepts of great antiquity, of an antiquity at least as great as similar concepts of European peoples. Probably it was this inheritance of capacity, tradition and experience that justified the high opinion of them expressed by Admiral Dewey and every other American that came in contact with them. CHAPTER III FILIPINO TRAITS OGICALLY, if we require all men in all regions to be exactly alike in their thinkings, alike in their notions, plans and ways of life, we should begin by going back ten thousand years and abolishing the equator. If the Malay is to be viewed as the American, and the Hindoo as the Briton, climates must belie themselves, and there is no more of the suns, seas and winds that Landor declared to have made us what we are. The bare essentials of man's nature remain, no doubt, the same under whatsoever skies; if you prick us do we not bleed, and if you tickle us do we not laugh? But his psychology is a matter of his environment, traditions, economics and institutions; the sun not more surely tanning his hide than these things influence and finally settle his mental processes; one of which, by the way, is about as good as another. By the traditions of the East, being chiefly transcriptions of the minds of early masters of European merchantmen, the Malay was held to be secretive, sinister, unfathomable, revengeful, untrustworthy and over-given to knife-play; this by the order of legend that makes a Hollander fat and phlegmatic, a Frenchman thin and irresponsible, an Englishman stout and impassive, and an American always madly grubbing dollars. Each of these fictions doubtless serves as a handy missile in the Donnybrooks of international jealousy or international competition, but generations ago truthful travelers relieved all reasoning persons of any need of thinking of them as facts. And ast the Malay, he has suffered in the same 42 FILIPINO TRAITS 43 way by the same easy process; for the truth is, he is no more conspicuously deceitful, secretive, sinister and the rest of it than the Hollander is conspicuously fat.' Gironiere, who lived many years in intimate association with the Filipinos, was much impressed with their character, which he found to be of sterling worth but peculiar: "Anger he [the Filipino] holds in horror; he compares it to madness, and even prefers drunkenness, which, however, he despises. He will not hesitate to use the dagger to avenge himself for injustice, but he can least submit to an insult, even when merited. He is brave, generous and a fatalist." He viewed with astonishment the patience with which the Filipinos endured the just punishment of a fault, but found that it was balanced with an instantaneous and implacable revolt against wanton aggression. Their most obvious traits, he thought, were courage, hospitality and reverence for old age. They were not only brave themselves, but they had a chivalrous respect for courage in others. Caught in one of their innumerable uprisings against the Spaniards, he rushed sword in hand upon a group of them that menaced his life. "Put up your weapons," said the leader of the natives. "You have a brave heart and deserve to be safe among us. Speak! What is it you require? We will follow you." "The Tagal," he wrote afterward, "like the Arab, is hespitably inclined, without any sentiment of egotism, certainly without any other idea than that of relieving suffering humanity; so that when a stranger appears before an Indian2 1 "Three million people inhabit these different islands, and that of Luzon contains nearly a third of them. These people seemed to me no way inferior to those of Europe; they cultivate the soil with intelligence, they are carpenters, cabinet-makers, smiths, jewelers, weavers, masons, etc. I have gone through their villages and I have found them kind, hospitable and affable."-Voyage de la Perouse autour du Monde, Paris, 1797, II, p. 347. 2 So the Filipinos were called by European writers, who included the Islands with the East Indies. 44 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES [Filipino] hut at meal-times, were the poor Indian only to have what was strictly necessary for his family, it is his greatest pleasure to invite and press the stranger to take a place at his humble board and partake of his family cheer." The Filipino held an aged man to be an object of great veneration, and wherever there existed a family, the younger members of it were always subservient to the elder. "When an old man, whose days are drawing to the shortest span, can work no longer he is sure to find a refuge, an asylum, a home, at a neighbor's, where he is looked upon as one of the family. There," adds Gironiere, "he may remain until he is called to that bourne from which no traveler returns." "Of a sober habit" were these people, emphatically, and of the simplest diet. All they required was water, a little rice and some fire. He thought the Tagal, the native inhabiting the Manila region, to be well built and rather tall. "His hair is long, his beard thin, his color brasslike, yet sometimes inclining to European whiteness: his eye expanded and vivacious, somewhat a la Chinoise; nose large, and, true to the Malay race, his cheek-bones are high and prominent. He is passionately fond of dancing and music; is, when in love, very loving; cruel towards his enemies; never forgives an act of injustice.... Whenever he has pledged his word in serious business, it is sacred. He gives himself passionately to games of hazard; he is a good husband, a good father, jealous of his wife's honor, but careless of his daughter's, who despite any little faux pas meets with no difficulty in getting a husband." It is but just to say that this last slur is bitterly resented by the present-day Filipinos and assuredly has now no application; in my observation no other people have a more rigid code of personal morality in the sex relation. Even their enemies admit this of them. As a class the Filipino women are singularly modest; one with any apparent fancy for flirtation is as rare as snowballs; invariably they go along FILIPINO TRAITS 45 the street with eyes straight before them and most of them with aspect so severe one can hardly imagine the man bold enough to attempt the least familiarity. Evidently the chastity of women is no merely nominal thing; according to the records, about two thirds of the courtezans in Manila are aliens. In a tropical people a high ethical standard of this order is the more astonishing. Under Spanish government, it is true, the moral reputation of Manila was not savory; a seaport in the tropics has not usually been the perfect ideal of social purity, and Manila was like the rest. The Americans bettered it, but tolerated what is known as a segregated district. After the Filipinos obtained control of their government, this was abolished and Manila became, in this respect, the cleanest city in the Orient. By comparison with Bombay, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokio, Yokohama, it shone with purest ray serene. Perhaps, from certain commercial points of view, the suppression was overdone. In the early part of 1921 an effort was made to restore the segregated district, when Filipinos appeared as the foremost opponents of such retrogression and the Filipino mayor announced that he would resign if it were sanctioned. In the main, Gironiere's analysis of Filipino character seems unerring; the people in essentials of character have changed little since his time. He speaks of their sobriety, and it remains one of their conspicuous traits. They make from the sap of the nipa palm an alcoholic drink like the toddy of India; well-to-do natives have always Spanish or other wines on their boards; but excess in drinking among them is so rare it is hardly known, and I have never seen an intoxicated Filipino. If prohibition is needed in the Islands it is not for native behoof, assuredly. I am not sure that one could speak with the same confidence about all the visitors. As to their ways of life, Gironiere believed them to be industrious when treated with due remembrance of their peculiar psychology, thereby sounding unwittingly the key 46 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES note of the present industrial situation. Among most white sojourners, the native is deemed to have a congenital distaste for work;l but this is not literally true, and the Frenchman seems to have been the better observer: such vast works as the rice terraces, to name but one instance, could never have been achieved nor maintained without prodigious labor. Few persons dwelling in the tropics, it may be said, have a truly passionate fondness for long-continued labor in the heat of the sun; even Americans find it convenient to lay aside their ferocious energy in the middle of the day, and I have yet to find one of my countrymen that could not easily be restrained then from rushing into the fields to cut a ton of sugar-cane. Yet it is daily demonstrated in the Islands that in his own fashion, which is deliberate and lacks nothing in the conservation of energy, the Filipino will work steadily and well. If this were not so, there would have been no economic development of the Islands, for there is practically no other labor. What Gironiere meant, and other wise employers since have found, is that the Filipino has in his veins the ancient pride of the Malay and the ancient spirit of the freeman and loves not to be commanded but to be coaxed. He will do almost anything that is asked with a smile. Application of the idea that because his color is likewise bronze he can be bullied like a low-caste Hindoo is a pregnant source of trouble in these relations. It was one of the causes that wrecked the Japanese hemp colony in the Davao region; Japanese planters that thought the native laborers were coolies quickly found themselves without an employee, whereas American neighbors that had come to understand the true nature of the labor problem went with full crews 1Rizal once made, in his thorough way, an investigation of this subject, and published his researches in a book called La Indolencia de 1os Filipinos, in which he held that before the coming of the Spaniards the people were of a markedly industrious habit which had been undermined by a government and institutions unfitted to their needs. FILIPINO TRAITS 47 to success. "You work here to-day," says a Japanese planter to a native hand. "Do I?" says the native, "wait and see," and goes to a ball-game or a cock-fight. From this it may be surmised that the sullenness of which some visitors accuse the average Filipino is but a Filipino fashion of protest. He has great personal dignity; he is reared to a grave decorum that is supposed to have been grafted upon him by the Spaniards, but is really a racial trait; and on both counts the American offends him. Very likely the fixed American habit of "josh" has been responsible for much of the ill-will existing between the races. The Filipino cannot understand "josh"; his mind can find no hold upon it. He has his own sense of humor, but it is atrophied on the side of the Great American Joke. He cannot understand, for instance, language that purports to be insulting and is only good-natured persiflage. When it is applied to him, he resents it. As the merry jester that applies it is usually the more powerful, and the Filipino is not naturally quarrelsome, he takes refuge in silent umbrage which the American translates into surliness. Before long the Filipino comes to distrust most things the American says: they may be jest or earnest, he cannot tell; but he feels in all probability they cover some sneer or baneful meaning against himself, and he resents that also. "Why, these people think they are as good as we are!" was the amazed comment of an American army officer that lately paid his first visit to the Islands. They certainly do, and no other fact about them is better worth our remembrance, if we are to keep peace and good terms. Against this somewhat menacing portraiture is to be set the' fact that many Americans that have Filipinos in their personal service become greatly attached to them and have in return only good-will and devotion. But these, it appears again, are of the employing class that consider the Malay as he is and not as they would like to have him. 48 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES As a race, they are serious-minded to the point of giving pain to those that still like their cakes and ale. It may be said ofthem that they take their pleasure, if not sadly, at least with a melancholy but conscientious belief that they are called to give to the world an example of correct deportment. The Americans, as I hope to show hereafter, have knocked some of this right and left with base-ball and the overteeming flood of base-ball slang, but the unconquerable instinct remains. I was in Manila throughout the Carnival of 1921, and if, as the dictionaries insist, carnival means a period of festival and gaiety, never was anything so ill-named. There was more gaiety than one would see at a funeral but not so much as at a church choir meeting. The grounds were directly opposite my hotel; Manila and the adjacent populations flocked there, and I formed a habit of strolling every evening around the show. An American's commonest observation was the quiet of the great crowds. Not that they were dull, or showed anything suggesting dullness; there was no lack of animation, and they took in everything with ready apprehension: but there was never the least sign of an unregulated behavior; everything was according to the precepts of good manners. Many thousands of young people went quickly about, but I saw never an instance of boisterous conduct, rowdyism, horse-play, sky-larking, or even the not very sparkling badinage that distinguishes meetings of our own juniors. One wished that these young people would yell, or run, or play horse, or do something to convince us they were not really old before their time. It was far different, I discovered, when they came to the ball-field; clear down to the bay one could hear them beshout a three-base hit or a double play. But here at the Carnival not even moon-calf lovemaking between the boys and girls lightened the gray aspect of earnest resolve.1 The Filipino people, even in prehistoric times, had already shown high intelligence and moral virtues, and intelligence clearly manifested I ~~~~~~~~~~V ID rnMGM ad 0xp> ay~ ~ ~ 44 all~~~~l~~~i~Eiil.i I R aj~J~LLI~Fi, (~j<:ar~cpz ~j~a IIS(SjIjX If Sj0 ajI"53 5w li ~J3J rr ~Mr. ~~[~~~OGGOGO~~~~~~~OO~~~ ~~~rtS C rZ FILIPINO TRAITS 49 The show itself was really a great and instructive exposition, a kind of fair of products and progress. In these the people seemed to be deeply interested; most of all in exhibits that pertained to education. Two of the many side-shows on the grounds were indecent. They were owned and acted by Americans, and achieved no popularity with the crowds. Afterward, an organization of Filipino women made a strong protest against these shows and undertook that at other carnivals they should not be repeated. In all the civilized regions-in which' dwell, by the way, about nine tenths of the population-the dress of the native men is conventional and more or less European; only in the wild mountain country does the cravat style of garmenture prevail. Manila, to cite one example, with its crowds of men in spotless white, is a well-dressed city; the men after the European mode% but not the women. Even in Manila, the women prefer their own native costume, which is exceedingly tasteful, cool and modest. There is a skirt and a vest, or something like that, and over it some kind of fine gauzy stuff in colors, revealing the arms and neck but no more. An average Filipino woman is shocked.the first time she beholds what is in America, by some misnomer, called "full dress." If this fact be weighed against the shock caused to visiting Americans by the famed cravat of the Igorotes, I am far from assurance that the account on all grounds will not be found even. The Filipino women do not vote, and at present have no considerable desire to vote. If the ancient master of storytelling was right and what women most desire is mastery, the Filipino woman satiates that desire in her own home. Within its precincts she is the sole ruler, sovereign, authority, government and power; whether legislative, executive or in their legislation, which, taking into consideration the circumstances and the epoch in which it was framed, was certainly as wise, as prudent and as humane as those of the nations then at the head of civilization." —Judge Romualdez, a Filipino scholar. 50 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES judicial. Outside his domicile, the Filipino man may be aggressive, confident, active, opinionated, obstinate or anything else as he pleases; the moment he lays hand upon the door (or foot upon the ladder) of his home all these attributes slip from him as a garment outworn and he becomes but a passive and obedient subject of the dominion that rules within. To the monarch, boss, pantata, female satrap, that manages his residence he gives all his wages, salary or income; she expends of it what she deems necessary for the household and allows to him what she thinks it is well for him to have. The conditions that result are a jest as perennial as the mother-in-law joke with us. As thus: "Light of my life, can I have ten centavos,1 to-night?" "What for?" "To buy some tobacco, soul of my being." "What did you do with the ten centavos I gave you last week?" Reverence for womanhood is a traditional Filipino trait. Oriental as these people are by origin, they have never shared the Oriental view of women. It must be admitted that the Filipino woman merits the tribute of respect habitually paid to her. All authorities agree that she is of extraordinary intelligence and skill in domestic management. Sometimes she directs her husband's business affairs as well, and I think there are few Filipinos that would insist upon any business operation against the objection of their wives. Often when a Filipino is about to close an important business transaction he asks time to consult his wife, and not infrequently brings her to take part in the final negotiations. The women are as avid for education as the men, and assimilate it even more readily. Conversation with an educated Filipino woman is one of the joys of life, comparable to a fine, cool, woods-perfumed day in June. She ordinarily knows everything that is going on, and can discuss the politics 1 Five cents, American money. FILIPINO TRAITS 51 of Japan or of America with equal ease. She has read the best current literature, she has taste and wit; but the puzzling thing is that, while she has polished and exquisite manners, she seldom goes outside of her own home after she is through with her schooling, and has not the least yearning for what is known as fashionable society. Attempts have been made to initiate wealthy Filipino women into the joys of tea-fights, calls and cliques. Such efforts have failed, usually because the novitiate could never see the utility of the excursion; she preferred her own household. In the estimation of the American colony, the Filipino is not a good business man, and I believe that in any comparison he will be found less efficient and diligent. The Filipino manner of doing business is different from the European: it is dilatory, conversational and inexact. In the American view, the Filipino business man, it is to be assumed, will always be an irritant and shiftless; his store or office, if he has one, will lack the trim neatness and air of sure and swift activity to which the American is habituated. Yet in their own way they manage to transact business, to secure and distribute their supplies, to meet their economic needs, to produce commodities and to sell them, and to live. Possibly after all the result is more important than the mode. Dr. David P. Barows, who was one of the remarkable men that laid the foundation for the great Philippine educational system, was Director of Education in 1904 and noted as one of the results of his observations among these people that "the Filipino has an instinctive and intense reluctance to admit ignorance." 1 A priest that had been much in the hospitals told me that he had been profoundly impressed with the Filipino's patience and self-command while ill or while suffering from an operation. In my own observation, and that of others, they have, where not spoiled by foreign influence, a rather fine natural courtesy. Even their enemies 1 Report of 1904, p. 30. 52 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES admit their possession of the primal requisites of character. At the same time, no one can deny that the first glimpse of them is often disconcerting, and there are some things they seem unable to do well. "Few there be that can keep an inn," says an old Italian proverb; I suspect that none of these is of the Filipino race. A friend of mine, traveling on the same steamer, cabled from Shanghai for accommodations at a certain hotel in the Islands. When he arrived some days later he drove blithely to the place, sweetening his thoughts with the reflection that he had just time for a fresh-water bath and a shave before dinner. Two young Filipinos stood behind the hotel desk and seemed to observe him without enthusiasnb No one else was in sight. To them he mentioned his name. A blank stare. "I am Mr. H —," he said again; "did you get my cable from Shanghai?" Another blank stare. "I telegraphed from Shanghai for a room. Did you get my telegram?" At this the young men seemed to come from a trance and began to look indifferently through some papers on a desk. Then they said they did not know. "Who does know?" "The clerk." "Where is he?" "'I do not know." "When will he be in?" "I think about seven o'clock." "Meantime, what do I do?" This question being repeated, one of the youths took a key, led the way up the street to an unkempt shed, with great difficulty unlocked the door and ushered the guest into a barren and gloomy den, unceiled and all but unfurnished. FILIPINO TRAITS 53 "What! Is this the place you expect me to sleep in?" "Yes." "Where is the clerk? Where is the proprietor?" "I do not know." "When will the clerk be here?" "I think about seven o'clock." The bed sank in the middle into a mere valley of unrest and the rats ran races around the floor. The next day the man went back to the ship, swearing mad at the whole Filipino nation. I note it as a fact of interest to the philosopher that he had experienced far worse things in certain hotels in small towns of the Middle West of his own country without being incensed against the people of America. But it is true enough that when we go abroad we shift our standards. Bitter criticisms are made upon these people, some of which from the point of view of efficiency are just and well founded, and some, so far as I have been able to learn, must be fanciful. One is that they have no executive ability and another that they can never handle machinery. So far as their public men are concerned the question of their executive ability can be settled by reference to the records they have made since they took charge of the government at the end of 1916. Some of these are to be considered in succeeding pages, and some may be consulted in the Appendix. Instances either way are easily cited, but as to whether the average Filipino can be deemed to be congenitally without executive ability or without the mechanical sense, possibly the daily dull facts of the shipping business may be a help to determine. It appears that hundreds of Filipinos hold masters' certificates and command' ships and other hundreds are efficient engineers, stationary and marine. I have sailed on two vessels commanded by Filipinos and could not by any test discover that they were captains less courageous or less competent than others; at least, I had as soon sail with them. 54 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES This reminds me of a story. Part of the wonderful educational system of the Islands, with which we are soon to deal, is an excellent nautical school at Manila, the graduates of which seem to rank deservedly high as seamen. One of them, four or five years ago, became the first officer of a cargo steamer sailing under the Spanish flag and having a Spanish captain. On the first trip they went to Saigon for rice. By right and custom the Filipino first officer was, of course, the navigating officer'; but the captain insisted upon taking his own observations, and as he worked these out by the old longhand operations, at which he was inexpert, he usually arrived at the ship's position an hour after the first officer, using the tables of logarithms as taught in the nautical school, had pricked the chart. One day, coming up from Saigon, the captain took his observation and then announced that the course would be N. E. % E. The first officer said: "I beg your pardon, captain, but may I respectfully suggest that if you hold that course you will be on the reef at twelve o'clock to-night?" "You 're crazy, as well as impertinent," said the captain. "At noon we were here," and he pointed to a place on the chart. "Pardon me," said the first officer, "but at noon we were here," and he indicated a place thirty miles to the west. "Nonsense," said the captain. "I command this ship. The course will be N. E. 1/2 E." The first officer said: "Yes, sir, you command this ship and my business is to obey you; but you will please enter on the log that I protest against this course and give you warning that it will land us on the reef." Subsequently he explained the situation to the first engineer, who in his turn demanded that his protest be put upon the log. They held the captain's course and exactly at twelve FILIPINO TRAITS 55 o'clock the ship piled up on the reef. The captain was now for abandoning her. "Abandon nothing!" said the first officer. "It is now low tide. She slid on easily. In six hours she should float off." "How do you know that it is low tide?" said the captain. "Look at these tables," and he shoved into his hands the tide tables of the hydrographic office. The captain was still skeptical about saving the ship. The first officer went into the forepeak and over the bow and announced that she would float. About 5 A. M. she came off, leaking badly,, and the first officer navigated her into Hong Kong. He got a ship for that performance, and some time after was caught in a typhoon. With five other steamers he ran into port and of the six his alone came through alive, Speaking of executive ability, I should fancy that a first-class typhoon afforded as good a test of a commander's knowledge and ability as anything going. All commentators agree that the Malay loves revenge; perhaps not more than other races of men, but he loves it; and the Christianity the Malay of the Islands professes has not eradicated his taste for it. But, by his own elaborate creed, what he wants revenge for is a wanton injury, malicious wrong, studied injustice, or something of similar import; what happens in a fairly fought battle leaves nothing to rankle in him. One day, after the collapse of the Aguinaldo revolt, there came to an American officer commanding a post in northern Luzon a Filipino that bore from General Funston a letter reading like this: "The bearer, General Analdez, formerly of the Filipino forces, has surrendered to me in good faith, taken the oath and satisfied me that he intends to be loyal. I believe he is a good man. Please protect him, as he will probably be in some danger from unreconciled Filipinos, and help him to get a start." 56 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES The commandant put the man under guard and ordered a place to be found for him in the barracks. The next day his sergeant, a loyal Filipino who had been with the United States throughout the trouble, came to him and said: "That man Analdez is bad man-very bad man." "How do you know?" asked the commandant. "He stabbed two men and two women in the back and threw them alive into a well." "How do you know he did?" "I have many witnesses." "Where is the well?" "Here, in this barrio." The story seemed on the face of it improbable, but the sergeant was of proved character and seemed in deadly earnest. The commandant gave orders to have the well cleaned out, and set Analdez himself at work upon it with a shovel. The excavators soon disclosed a human body, then another, until they had brought up four. The commandant sent for the sergeant and said: "We have four bodies from the well, as you said; but what evidence have you that this man committed the crimes? Here is nothing that implicates him." "There was a fifth victim, another woman," said the sergeant. "He stabbed her and threw her into the well, too; but she got out." "Where is she, for the love of heaven?" said the commandant. "Living in the next barrio." "Bring her up here on the jump," said the officer, and sent word to have Analdez brought in. The woman arrived, escorted by the sergeant. She did not know what she was wanted for, but at the sight of Analdez she fell to the floor, shaking with terror. The commandant ordered that her back be examined; there was found on it a broad fresh scar, such a scar as a sword would make. FILIPINO TRAITS 57 Questioned minutely, the woman told a plain enough story, amply corroborated by other witnesses. The case was clear, and the commandant saw that his only course was to send Analdez back to General Funston with the witnesses and depositions, that he might be tried for his life. An hour later another sergeant came in, saluted and said in the matter-of-fact way that he would use in reporting for duty: "Sir, the prisoner Analdez complains that he is soiled from his work in cleaning the well, and would like permission to go to the river and bathe." The commandant hesitated a moment, for the chances were great that, once in the river, a wily Filipino, who could swim like a fish, would slip away. He said at last he would grant the request, but the prisoner must go under guard and the sergeant must be responsible for him that he should not escape. In -a few minutes the commandant saw Analdez going by, heavily guarded and marching toward the river. Something in the prisoner's appearance caught the commandant's attention. He observed the man's face to be pallid and drawn and his eyes to stare straight before him like the eyes of a man going to his execution; with a visible effort he kept his lips tightly clenched and marched with his head erect and defiant. These things lingered in the commandant's mind, but he explained them as the effects of his order to remove Analdez for trial. The next moment a rifle-shot sounded from the direction of the stream. Then the file was heard marching up the road, and the sergeant entered again, saluted and said in the same matter-of-fact way: "Sir, I have to report that the prisoner, while bathing in the river, made an attempt to escape and was shot in accordance with orders." That was all, but the next day the commandant discovered that the sergeant was a brother of one of the men Analdez had stabbed and thrown into the well; and when Analdez 58 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES marched down the street to the river he knew perfectly well he was going to his death, and was too proud to complain or seek protection. According to time-honored philosophy, those that are most sensitive to injuries are likewise the most grateful for favors, but the Americans in the Philippines now generally deny this application to the Filipinos. The United States has wrought for them inestimable benefits: has taught them, established them, made their roads, given to them peace, prosperity and safety; and their only response is a demand for independence -surely the most ungrateful of all mankind! To argue this matter pro or con would be outside of our present business, which is merely of recording things and not of explaining them, but I may remark that there is also much testimony about unfailing gratitude on the part of individuals. At least, it appears that the Filipino is not inferior to other races in capacity for good impulses and kind deeds. Some years ago, when the Governor of the provinces of Mindanao and Sulu was an American whose memory is still revered by the people there because of his tact and sympathy, a certain Moro of the Sulu Islands had a feud and killed his man, after the coder to which he had been reared, A short time before there would have been'no consequences except that a relative or friend of the dead man would seek revenge; but things have changed, even in remote Sulu, and now a file of Philippine Constabulary took after the murderer. They trailed him for days through the woods, and finally got him. He was taken to Zamboanga and tried for murder in the first degree. On the trial some extenuating circumstances were uncovered; it seemed that the man was not the aggressor and had reason to expect an attack; and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life instead of the death penalty. He was taken to San Ramon Prison (incidentally, one of the best prisons in the world and well worth a chapter to FILIPINO TRAITS 59 itself), where he became one of the model inmates; obedient, industrious, willing and always polite. The warden learned that he was a fisherman and allowed him to go out upon the bay to fish, taking his word of honor not to escape. I may remark in passing that this is customary at San Ramon and no prisoner ever violates his parole. Every morning, alone and unwatched, this man took his little canoe and paddled out to sea, and every night at the stipulated hour he was back at the penitentiary with a string of fish. One day he was caught far out in a heavy blow, and while working his way back to shore discovered that a boat of the Constabulary had turned turtle in the squall and her crew of six privates and an officer was clinging to her in a position of great peril. The constables were this man's natural enemies; they had hunted and caught him. Nevertheless, at the risk of his life he made a desperate attempt to reach them in his cockleshell. When he found that his boat was too small, he got to shore, seized a larger boat, commandeered a couple of natives, paddled out to the constables, fished them out one by one and got safely to harbor. When the Governor heard of all this, he determined to pardon the Moro. He arranged to have the rescued constables present and summoned all the prisoners. Then he made them an address on the sacredness of human life. In the old days it had been held but cheap; the crowning glory of civilization was to preserve and defend it. There had recently come to his notice a gallant rescue of imperiled lives, and he had assembled them that they, too, might know of it. Then, without mentioning names, he told the story of the saving of the constables. When he had made an end of this he said: "Here are the men that were rescued through this brave deed, and here"-laying his hand upon the Moro-"is the man that rescued them. Because of his heroism and his spirit 60 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES of self-sacrifice, although his previous offense was so heavy, the government has decided to pardon him and set him free. Ali.Mahmud, you are a free mani' The Moro stared for a moment while his mind tried to grasp all this, then he swayed to and fro and fell in a heap on the floor. Before he could be assisted to arise he began to crawl toward the officer of Constabulary. Tears were running down his face. Reaching the officer he bent and kissed his feet. A general of the Uiited States Army, who was watching the scene, turned away, trying to hide his own tears. So he said with pretended brusqueness, "Come on, come on, let's get away from here!" All the spectators were deeply affected and somebody said afterward that the Governor had done two things always believed impossible. He had caused an old army officer and a Moro to weep. He had done more than that, for he had demonstrated that, with differentcolored skins and under the dour exterior that both assiduously cultivated, both were of the same old stock of the children of earth. As to Ali Mahmud, what would you expect? He settled down, of course, became the most quiet, peaceable, industrious citizen in the province and was ever after the loyal champion of the United States. It sounds like the ending of a story book, but in this case the fact has been unimpeachably verified. The full story of the Moros and their adventures with Western civilization is so remarkable that I prefer to deal with it separately; but I ought not to pass from this episode without noting the fact,,full of meaning for the present chapter, that when peace came to the Moro region it was not won with guns but with the spread of the conviction that the Americans were sincere and friendly. Men like the sympathetic Governor and like General Scott wrought, as we shall see, the real subjugation of the Moros. In two or three years they accomplished with kindness and good-will what armies FILIPINO TRAITS 61 could not have achieved in a century-if ever. We are dealing with Filipino traits. Here, it seems to me, is light on one of them that is of inestimable value. The Filipinos have maintained and improved upon the reputation for skill in music that Gironiere thought they deserved. They sing excellently. Professor Porter, who had the chair of music in the Manila Normal School when I was in the Islands, came from a long study of the native music much impressed with its essential worth, and the performances of some of the pupils under his care were of an astonishing merit. There was at least one voice of the first order, and the choral work equaled the best I have heard in Switzerland, where singing is best described as a form of national mania. Possibly, however, the listener's critical judgment on this point goes astray after he has heard a company of young Filipinos sing the beautiful Philippine National Hymn. Some observation of Professor Porter's daily mail suggests that the present generation has betaken itself to composition, for he is all but swamped with offerings of these conscientious effusions. Up to the year 1921, certainly, they seemed to be in the American popular manner, which caused sorrow to the thoughtful; but there was said to be at times a gleam of something better. As to instrumental music, that is an old and casual story among them. All day the piano tinkles along A. Mabini Street, where every house seems to possess one. Native facility with this device was one of the blessings conferred by the Spanish nuns, who taught it assiduously. Orchestras are common; the music on all the Pacific steamships is supplied by Filipinos and is sometimes of a character to cast gloom 1"Perhaps the most remarkable talent of the Tagal is his gift for instrumental music. Each parish has its brass band, supplied with European instruments and generally wearing a uniform. If the village is rich, there is usually a string band in addition. These bands perform operatic and dance music with the greatest precision." —Frederick H. Sawyer, formerly British consul at Manila, in document submitted to Paris Peace Conference. 62 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES over an otherwise delightful voyage. All of these performances are made upon modern European instruments, but Professor Beyer was once privileged to hear an orchestra of the ancient Malay order and was greatly impressed with its characteristics. The band of the Philippine Constabulary, all native and with a native conductor, is one of the foremost military bands of the world. ' Their sense of music is a natural Malay possession, and their sense of poetry, cognate and inevitable, is another. Malay poetry is ancient and honorable: the superior white man has even gone to it for one of his fixed forms, most musical, difficult -and peculiar,l and now regularly incorporated in English verse. Tagalog, in particular, abounds with excellent poetry, and has in romance a vast modern literature of which the world knows almost nothing. It might be noted that of their own motion the people have honored one of their Tagalog poets with a handsome monument. They have developed excellent architects and capable engineers, and they have a good instinct for form and color, these people. All Malays are likely to have it. A school of fine arts was established in Manila long before the American era. From exhibits to be seen at the Manila Carnival and elsewhere a belief is justifiable that the modern Filipino is likely to be more gifted in modeling than in painting, and yet the Islands have produced two painters of world-wide and deserved fames Luna and Hidalgo, both celebrated in Paris half a century ago. They are natural orators, speaking with fluency, grace and much imagination, To their taste, it is a disgrace for a public speaker to hesitate, to mumble his words, or to seem embarrassed in his utterance. Twice intercollegiate oratorical contests in this country have been won by students from the Philippine Islands pitted against the best 1The pantoum. See the essays in this, probably the most difficult of all fixed forms, by Clinton Scollard, Brander Matthews, John Payne and Austin Dobson. FILIPINO TRAITS 63 American talent in those institutions. I saw at the Democratic National Convention, San Francisco, 1920, a still more memorable triumph of Filipino skill in this art. The Committee on Resolutions had been lectured, instructed, appealed to or bawled at by a long list of gifted speakers, including at least two of the first reputation. Members and listeners were weary and dispirited, sitting with ears dinned and souls disgusted, when permission was asked for a Filipino to speak for ten minutes. It was granted in a tired, perfunctory way to the almost audible groanings of the suffering souls in the benches. There was then introduced a slender young man, who seemed not much more than a boy, and began to speak. In one minute weariness had vanished from that audience. A little later all his listeners were hanging with breathless attention upon every word, and at the end the audience rose and cheered with boundless enthusiasm what was declared on all sides to be the best speech heard at the Convention. He was speaking on Philippine independence. Most Filipino public men speak Spanish, English and the native dialect with equal fluency, but their pronunciation of English (or more correctly of American) sounds in the ears of visitors something over-precise and crisp, because they naturally make in speaking more use of the lips than is the American habit. In their homes they are excellent conversationists, but their favorite topics seem to a visitor somewhat overweighted with the world's affairs. In point of fact they love to talk. Mr. Le Roy noted astutely that in the markets the vendors always preferred to make a sale to one of their own countrymen, even though they got a lower price thereby, because they had delight in the chance to talk and to chaffer. They maintain to this day the respect for old age that early-coming aliens noted among their ancestors. At the sound of the angelus bell, it is customary for all heads, young and old, to be bowed for a moment for the evening prayer, 64 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES after which the children come to kiss the hands of their parents. In religion they seem to be faithful but not fanatical. Perhaps it is true, as often asserted, that in recent years the power of religion has waned upon them; an alien visitor could hardly determine that point for himself; but certainly the church attendance seemed somewhat perfunctory in Manila. Ecclesiastical authority in the Islands received a heavy blow with the Revolution of 1896, which was largely against the religious orders as bulwarks of the oppressive and intolerable civil autocracy. In the midst of the upheaval a native monk, one Aglipay, a kind of Filipino Luther, preached a crusade for the forming of a separate native church. The suggestion was well attuned to the always rising spirit of nationality, the movement spread, and the census of 1918 showed 1,361,740 communicants of a purely native and independent Christian church thus created. The fact is in ill accord with the belief that the Malay is without initiative and incapable of independent action. Independence in religious thought is rather rarer than independence in political convictions, and that it is thus conspicuous in the Islands ought not to be omitted from our estimates. CHAPTER IV THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION F the Philippine Revolution of 1896 had appeared upon any nearer or more visible stage the world of free and enlightened men would have looked upon it with a kind of loving wonder, for it had all the features of the most famous struggles for liberty that mankind has delighted to honor. The culmination of three centuries of restless protest against the worst form of the autocratic theory of human society, it had qualities the previous uprisings had lacked. Revolutions in the Philippines before 1896 had been made splendid with courage and self-sacrifice and dignified with worthy aims; but this revolution was different, because it marked the unification of the Filipino people and expressed the will of a nation. In other times, when Pampanga rebelled, Ilocos was loyal; and when Ilocos could stand no more, Batangas was inert or prostrate. In the revolt, for example, of Novales, that gifted young victim of the Spanish satrapy, I gather from the Gironiere account that with better-considered effort the rebels would have pushed the Spaniards into the sea. But as the contests went on the government might have noted that slowly this defect was being supplied; the revolts grew more formidable, they showed wider and wiser foundation. Earlier rebels had a latent instinct of resistance that had been stung into a period of activity by some immediate grievance: by intolerable tax levies, or some miscarriage of justice grosser than usual. But the class of intelligentsia produced by the spread of education had a philosophy of revolt as well as a goad thereto, had reasons and 65 66 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the voice of history on their side, and were therefore an always-increasing menace. Improved communication, also, was knitting the provinces more closely; they began to know the same things at approximately the same time, which is the physical requisite of union. These causes were producing a result sure from the beginning. The spirit of nationalism was coming to embrace and to fire the whole population, and nothing could have been more deadly perilous to Spanish rule. After the somewhat theatrical exposure of Katipunan and the flight of its leaders, beating the tocsin as they went, the familiar condition of civil war was resumed. The Philippine Republic was organized. It put armies in the field, sketched a system of government, levied revenues, and developed from among the younger element of Katipunan Emilio Aguinaldo, who soon rose by merit to the supreme command, and worried, outwitted and sometimes defeated the Spanish commanders. As increased Spanish armies arrived, the insurgents retired to the mountains, whence it was practically impossible to dislodge them. Meanwhile, upon the unfortunate patriots in Manila that fell into the government's clutches, it took its customary vengeance; the firing squad and the torturer were always active and always futile so far as suppressing the revolution went; and with the news of each fresh detail of victims the spirit of revolt in the country rose the higher. Perhaps, at last, the Spanish became sensible of this; perhaps their government began to feel the futility of the thumbscrew as a breeder of love and loyalty. Within a few months it seemed to sicken and weary of its hopeless task. A new Governor-General came to the Philippines. If he was not more humane, he was more intelligent, and his administration, apparently mindful of a record of three hundred and fifty years of Spanish failure to subdue or to understand these people, made an unsuccessful attempt to clear its hands of the whole unprofitable venture. According to an eminent Jap THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 67 anese authority 1 it now offered the Archipelago to Japan for $3,000,000 gold. When the Japanese statesman had looked narrowly at this bargain and deemed it not good enough, Governor-General Rivera proceeded to the manceuver that demonstrated his better wit. He had conceived the notion that to fight the insurgents was expensive and footless, and the best way to get the regime out of its difficulty was to buy a way out. He sent his agent, Don Paterno, to consult with Aguinaldo in the wild mountain passes to which the revolutionary army had retired, and between them was arranged the treaty of Biacnabato. All the terms of this treaty cannot now be given with accuracy, for the reason that some of them, at the request of the Spanish Governor and to save his face, were not put into writing, though he pledged his word as a gentleman and a soldier to carry them out.2 But there can be no doubt that in substance these points were agreed upon: The Spanish government undertook to introduce sweeping and radical reforms in the Philippines. There was to be full freedom of the press and of assembly. The rights of individuals were to be protected by recognition of the processes of law. The Islands were to have representation in the Spanish Cortes or parliament. The persons and property of those that had, taken part in the revolution were to be free from molestation. The religious orders were to be expelled, "or at least secularized"; the part of the treaty most open to doubt. All these things the Governor-General solemnly undertook to perform. So far, all was well. These were the main objects (short of complete independence) for which the revolutionists had been contending, and they now seemed about to be won without further bloodshed. But there was another feature of the 1 Viscount Kaneko in an interview with the present writer at Tokio, in March, 1921. 2 Aguinaldo's Official Record. 68 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES treaty that came afterward to be the target of bitter attack. It was provided that there should be paid to the insurgent leaders, through General Aguinaldo, $800,000, of which $400,000 was to be paid on the spot, $200,000 when the arms surrendered by the insurgents should number 800 and the remaining $200,000 when they should amount to 1000.1 The revolutionary leaders were to reside beyond the limits of the Islands "during his majesty's pleasure," or, in plain terms, were to be banished. According to the Marques de Estella,2 the money was paid not as a bribe but to indemnify the widows and orphans of the insurgent soldiers that had fallen in the war. Aguinaldo seems to have had a somewhat different view of it. The treaty was ratified on December 14, 1897, the $400,000 was paid to Aguinaldo, and he and his generals departed for Hong Kong. Two months later every intelligent Filipino knew that so far as the government was concerned the compact was a cynical farce. Rivera kept not one of the promises he had made. There were no reforms; the religious orders lost 'nothing of power or arrogance; the government was in no way humanized or modernized; no right of the populace was established. The government would not even observe points in the treaty that men of any claim to honor would have deemed imperative. There was no amnesty for persons lately connected with the revolution; they were seized, imprisoned, tortured and put to death. There was no freedom for the press; in no particular was changed the hideous system of Torquemada, against which the revolution had been launched. The government, indeed, seemed to have descended to the level of the swindler and the pickpocket.3 Of the $800,000 of promised indemnity to the revolutionists only $400,000 1 Aguinaldo's statement. 2 In the Spanish Cortes, August 12, 1899. S3The charge is not mine. In the Spanish Cortes, the Marques de Estella showed that there was a discrepancy of some hundreds of THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 69 was paid. Abundantly then was proved the wisdom of Aguinaldo. From the first he had insisted that the money was but a trust fund to be kept intact until men should see in what light the government was to view its promises, and if it failed to keep faith the money was to be used to start a new revolution. Subsequently it pleased some of us to pretend that this money was a bribe and that Aguinaldo was a bribe-taker, selling his cause for so much gold as can be grasped thus. The record disposes of this convenient fiction. Except as a trustee, Aguinaldo never touched any of this money, and its final expenditure was exactly in accordance with his prevision. For the new rebellion was quickly under way, starting of itself and at first without any direction from the exiled leaders. As so often had happened in the dark history of Spain in the Philippines, the people had found their own limit of endurance and had undertaken their own revolt. On February 22, 1898, just a week after the blowing up of the Maine in Havana harbor, United States Consul Williams wrote from Manila to the State Department that the revolution had progressed to the point that a republic was organized.' He said: "Conditions here and in Cuba are practically alike. War exists, battles are of almost daily occurrence, ambulances bring in many wounded and hospitals are full. Prisoners are brought here and shot without trial, and Manila is under martial law. The crown forces have not been able to dislodge a rebel army within ten miles of Manila, and last Saturthousands of dollars in the accounts of the Spanish Philippine government covering the payments due to the revolutionists. l"The Imperialist may safely be challenged to find a parallel to the Filipino revolutionary movement of 1898 among the similar peoples who have been under English and Dutch rule in the Orient. The fact that the Filipinos should have progressed under Spanish rule to the point where they should formulate demands so unique in the Orient is in itself the highest praise for Spain."-James A. Le Roy, Philippine Life in Toun and Country, Introduction, p. 8. 70 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES day, Febuary 19, a battle was there fought. A republic is organized here as in Cuba. Insurgents are being armed and drilled; are rapidly increasing in numbers and efficiency, and all agree that a general uprising will come as soon as the Governor-General embarks for Spain, which is fixed for March." He adds, "All authorities now agree that unless the crown largely reinforces its army here, it will lose possession"words of which the historic significance will be apparent later in this narrative. By the beginning of March the provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga, Zambales, Camarines, Ilocos Sur and others were in full revolt. In a few days Cebu followed, and the Spanish citadel in the capital of the province was beseiged by six thousand armed insurgents. Panic, or a wave of homicidal hysteria, seems to have seized the government, a development not without precedent. To arrest, to imprison and to shoot constituted the all of its resources in this emergency. On March 27 Consul Williams wrote to the State Department: "On Friday morning, March 25, a church holiday, a meeting of natives was being held near my consulate in Manila, the natives being unarmed. The building was surrounded by police and military, the meeting broken up, twelve natives wantonly shot to death, several wounded and sixty-two taken prisoners. Satuiday morning, March 26, the sixty-two prisoners were marched in a body to the cemetery and shot to death, although it was shown that several were chance passers-by or employees in ships adjoining, not being in attendance at the meeting. It was cold comfort to the widows and orphans of innocent men to have Spanish officers present them with the mangled corpses of husbands and fathers." Meantime, Spain and the United States were, to any skilled observation, plunging straight along the road to war. Commodore Dewey with his little squadron was at Hong Kong. THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 71 Theodore Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, had warned him by code cable of the threatening outlook, and to be ready in case of war to dispose of the Spanish fleet, then lying at Manila. Through one of his commanders, Dewey was in touch with the Filipino exiles in Hong Kong. On March 31 he cabled to the Navy Department: "There is every reason to believe that with Manila taken or even blockaded the rest of the Islands would fall to the insurgents or ourselves." This is information he could hardly have had at Hong Kong except from the exiled insurgent commanders, and only from them by means of cordial and intimate relations. At the moment Aguinaldo was on his way to Saigon, French Indo-China, to consult with some of his colleagues there. From the time of his banishment he had lived in Hong Kong, keeping watch upon the developments in the Philippines, and always expecting, it is to be supposed, some form of thimble-rigging from the government he had learned to estimate at its true worth. At Singapore was then living Aguinaldo's old-time friend, Howard W. Bray, an Englishman long resident in the Philippines, where he had acquired a profound disgust for the governing methods of the Spaniards. For the time being, Mr. Bray was greatly interested in the approaching clash between Spain and America in the Orient, and wired Aguinaldo to come to Singapore. Some Filipino refugees were living there and, partly to see them and partly to see Mr. Bray, Aguinaldo continued his excursion, arriving incognito on April 21. Mr. Bray arranged that he should meet E. Spencer Pratt, United States Consul-General at Singapore, on the evening of April 24 at a hotel outside the city. Mr. Bray was present; so were Aguinaldo's secretary and other Filipinos. That night, after the meeting, Mr. Pratt sent this cable to Commodore Dewey at Hong Kong: 72 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Aguinaldo, insurgent leader, here. Will come Hong Kong arrange with Commodore for general cooperation insurgents Manila if desired. Telegraph. To which Dewey responded: Tell Aguinaldo come soon as possible. On April 26, accordingly, Aguinaldo took passage under an assumed name on a mail steamer for Hong Kong. Meantime, the declaration of war had come; Dewey had been ordered out of Hong Kong by the British government, and had gone to Mirs Bay. Three days later, at Manila, he annihilated the Spanish sail power there and utterly changed the visage of the Orient. Then he ordered one of his ships, the McCulloch, to bring Aguinaldo from Hong Kong, and on May 11, under the United States flag and from a United States vessel, Aguinaldo landed at Cavite and proceeded, as the ally of the United States and with its assistance, to organize and lead the insurgents against the Spaniards. So far we have been reciting facts that are not subject to dispute. But what was said at that meeting of April 24, in a suburb of Singapore? On this question came before long to hang a momentous issue of national morals. Mr. Bray afterward declared that at the beginning of the conference "Aguinaldo's policy and intentions and demands were clearly defined," and that "first and foremost" was Filipino independence; "that was a sine qua non." As to this, the Singapore Free Press on May 4, 1898, published an account of the meeting that Consul-General Pratt sent to the State Department with the indorsement that it was "substantially correct." It supports Mr. Bray's statement. Aguinaldo, according to the Free Press, "further declared his ability to establish a proper and responsible government on liberal principles, and would be willing to accept the same terms for the country as the United States intend giving Cuba. The THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 73 Consul-General of the United States, coinciding with the general views expressed during the discussion, placed himself at once in telegraphic communication with Admiral Dewey.' Afterward there was vigorous denial that Consul-General Pratt, representing the United States, gave any pledge or promise relating to Philippine independence. Mr. Pratt compelled a noted English writer to retract the assertion, often repeated in those days, that there was such a pledge. The government must certainly have assumed that there was nothing in the nature of a compact, for it calmly ignored the entire incident, including Mr. Bray and his cable tolls. But as to one fact there never could be the slightest doubt or question anywhere. The Filipino leaders understood that the United States intended to do for the Philippines what it had undertaken to do for Cuba; that it had no intention to make flesh of one case and fish of the other, to play altruistic democracy in one and imperialistic land-grabbing in the other. The cause of the Filipino stood upon exactly the same basis as the cause of the Cuban, and had exactly the 1 Vide Appendix. "Whether Admiral Dewey, Consuls Pratt, Wildman and Williams did or did not givq Aguinaldo assurances that the Philippine government would be recognized, the Filipinos certainly thought so, probably inferring this from their acts, rather than their statements."-General Thomas M. Anderson, North American Review, February, 1900. "A few days thereafter he [Aguinaldo] made an official call on me and asked me if we, the North Americans, as he called us, intended to hold the Philippines as dependencies. I said I could not answer that, but that in one hundred years we had established no colonies. He then made this remarkable statement: 'I have studied attentively the Constitution of the United States, and I find in it no authority for colonies, and I have no fear.'-Ibid. On July 25, 1898, Consul-General Wildman of Hong Kong wrote to Aguinaldo: "Do not forget that the United States undertook this war for the sole purpose of relieving the Cubans from the cruelties under which they were suffering, and not for the love of conquest or the hope of gain. They are actuated by precisely the same feelings toward the Filipinos. Whatever the final disposition of the conquered territory may be, you can trust to the United States that justice and honor will control all their dealings with you." 74 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES same appeal to the American tradition; intelligent Filipinos could have been pardoned if they had expected the same treatment without any pledges or promises.1 According to Mr. Bray and the "substantially correct" account of the Singapore Free Press, Aguinaldo had laid down certain terms that were agreed to, and upon that basis he issued to the people of the Philippines a proclamation announcing that the United States was about to achieve their independence. On May 20 the American Consul-General sent to the State department a copy of the proclamation issued by the Filipino junta at Hong Kong, which began thus: "Compatriots: Divine Providence is about to place independence within our reach, and in a way the most free and independent nation could hardly wish for. "The Americans, not from mercenary motives, but for the sake of humanity and the lamentations of so many persecuted people, have considered it opportune to extend their protecting mantle to our beloved country.... There where you see the American flag flying, assemble in numbers; they are our redeemers." On June 23, 1898, the independence of the Philippines was formally proclaimed, and announcement made of the creating 1 Admiral Dewey said: "In my opinion these people [the Filipinos] are far superior in intelligence and more capable of self-government than the natives of Cuba. I am familiar with both races." About the time he started for the United States after completing his task in the Philippines, he reiterated this statement in even stronger terms. General Merritt, on his arrival in Paris in October, 1898, was reported as saying: "The Filipinos impressed me very favorably. I think great injustice has been done to the native population.... They are more capable of self-government than, I think, the Cubans are. They are considerd to be good Catholics. They have lawyers, doctors, the men of kindred professions, who stand well in the community and bear favorable comparison to those of other countries. They are dignified, courteous and reserved." In his report (War Department Report for 1898 Vol. I, Part 2) he says that Aguinaldo had "proclaimed an independent government, republican in form, with himself as President, and at the time of my THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 75 of a complete national government. None of these proclamations or announcements called forth any protest or dissent from any representatives of the United States, but all such representatives continued to treat the Filipinos as allies and to salute the Filipino flag as that of an established nation. Dewey supplied Aguinaldo with guns, Consul-General Wildman in Hong Kong drew out for him the $400,000 trust fund and with it bought munitions; Dewey and Aguinaldo were in daily conference and apparent accord. From any point of view the success of the insurgents under Aguinaldo's command seems so astonishing that nothing but unusual intelligence and determination in the people and unusual capacity in the leader can explain it. In the most wonderful way an efficient army was created, equipped and put to work. The rapidity of its successes took the breath of the American officers.' Report after report came of sweeping arrival in the Islands the entire edifice of executive and legislative departments had been accomplished, at least on paper." 1"Manila, June 24, 1898.-About June 1, only a week after Aguinaldo had begun the reorganization of his ragged, poorly armed troops, the sound of firing came floating out from the land near Bacoor to where the American warships were anchored off Cavite. Throughout the entire afternoon the long, steady roll of volley firing was sustained almost continuously, with frequent punctuations from heavy guns. The low fringe of trees lining the shore concealed the battle from the view of those on the ships, but we could see the white smoke of the cannons and rifles filtering up through the tree-tops and hanging over the bactle-field like a great curtain. From the terrific volley firing and the long duration of the engagement we judged that a battle on a grand scale was being fought, and I remember that we felt blue and gloomy because we were convinced that our friends, the insurgents, must be suffering fearfully before the superior arms and forces of Spain. In the evening, after the fighting had been raging for hours, there came a cessation, and when darkness fell the region of the conflict was silent and peaceful. "The following day we called on Aguinaldo at his headquarters in Cavite. There was nothing in his manner to indicate that his troops had suffered an overwhelming reverse. He greeted us with the emotionless courtesy so characteristic of him and calmly informed us through his aide-de-camp, Mr. Leyba, that his soldiers had defeated the Spaniards and captured the bridge over the Capote River. He had not yet received full reports, but he had heard unofficially that his army had suffered a very slight loss, while the Spaniards had suffered heavily. This news was almost incredible to those of us who had seen what an 76 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Filipino victories where the sage military observers had expected only defeat. The supposedly raw native levies were emulating the great deeds of the soldiers of France after the fall of the Bastille, when they too were animated by the hope undisciplined, motley crowd of natives composed) what he called his army and we were inclined to doubt his claim to victory. Nevertheless, we felt a relief and pleasure in hearing that our friends had beaten our enemies, the Spaniards. "All during the week following there was constant evidence of the strife that was being waged between Cavite and Malate. Aguinaldo never appeared to have full reports but he invariably proclaimed the victory of his own forces. Imus, Bacoor, Las Pinas, Paranaque, were captured in less than a week, notwithstanding the fact that the Spaniards had splendid guns and ammunition in unlimited quantities, supported by five mountain batteries and rapid-fire guns. Cavite Viejo was held by a Spanish garrison, but the insurgents quickly closed in on the town, and the Spaniards, two hundred and seventy eight in number, were compelled to take refuge in the Church of the Madeleine. This building was fortified with breast-works of stone, the windows and doors were blocked with immense masses of rocks and earth, and the Spaniards prepared for a siege. About two hundred insurgents under command of Aguinaldo's aide, Leyba, drew in close to the church, and whenever a Spaniard showed his head they fired a volley at him. Over on the walls of Cavite the insurgents were operating an ancient cannon that was mounted on the southwest bastion. Shells were thrown across Bacoor Bay, and while many of them fell short, at least two struck the old church. The siege was a memorable one, although it lasted only eight days. Three Spaniards were killed, and had to be buried just outside the church door and within the improvised stone barricade. Their drinking-water became exhausted and they had to dig a well in the interior of the building which afforded them a brackish, half-salty relief from thirst. From the beginning there was no hope for the Spaniards. If they attempted to escape by the sea, the Americans would snap them up. If they stayed in the church, they would starve; for even then they were eating the last carabao that had been taken into the building with them at the beginning of the siege. To fight their way to Manila along the beach would have meant their extermination, so on June 7 they surrendered, arms and all. "I went over to see the surrender, and it was an incongruous spectacle to see nearly three hundred well-uniformed but unkempt white men march out of the church between the bobtail and ragtag ranks of natives lined up in the street in front of the church. "Among the Spaniards were many handsome officers wearing handsome uniforms, and their humiliation must have been as bitter as a proud Castilian could possibly suffer. "Over in Cavite the calm, passionless statements of great victories that Aguinaldo gave us were being substantiated every day, for hundreds and hundreds of Spanish soldiers were being marched in and placed in prison. Big, splendid-looking Spanish generals and governors were tramped in over the San Roque causeway by the tattered, undis THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 77 of freedom. The well-trained and beautifully equipped Spaniards retreated everywhere before the fierce assaults of the Filipinos. It was one story no matter whence it might come, always the same. In an amazingly short time Aguinaldo had the Spanish forces cooped up in Manila. He surrounded the city with fourteen miles of trenches, constructed in the modern military fashion. Then he captured the Manila water-works, shut off access or escape by the river Pasig, and had Manila by the gullet. With Dewey block. ading in front and the indomitable insurgents holding every land approach, the game was over. And then a most extraordinary change came over the attitude and policy of the American government. Up to that time it had not varied, through its representatives, from the original idea that we had no purpose of aggrandizement in the Philippines but only of benevolence. That, assuredly, was the conception of the nation, as it had been, from the first, of Commodore Dewey. But now that the fall of Manila was become but a question of hours the administration seemed to undergo miraculous conversion. Aguinaldo and his ragged heroes were no longer looked upon as friends and allies. On ciplined un-uniformed bands of insurgents. The incongruity of the thing was as pathetic as it was incredible. "Closely following the remarkable insurgent successes in Cavite Province, where the whole district had been captured in eight days, came stories of other successful operations in Pampanga Province; Macabebe and San Fernando were captured and the great Spanish General Monet fled in terror to Manila. Over one thousand Spanish soldiers had been taken prisoners and their arms given out to natives as quickly as possible. The insurgents were busy everywhere. The Spanish gunboat Leyte, which had fled from Sublg Bay on April 29 and had taken refuge in the Pampanga River, tried to escape to Manila with one hundred and eighty-five Spaniards on board and with three cascoes of Spanish soldiers in tow. The oascoes went aground and the Leyte was captured by the Americans before reaching Manila. "Our respect for the insurgents' prpwess had grown a great deal, for by June 30 they had taken almost every province in Luzon, with the exception of isolated garrisons, and were hammering away at the doors of Manila. We felt considerable pride in their conquests, for naturally our sympathies at that time were with them as against the Spaniards." -Dispatch of John T. McCutcheon in the Chicago Record, June 24, 1899. 78 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES every occasion the eye of austere suspicion was turned in their direction. The 13th of August left no room for doubt as to the frigidity that had succeeded friendship in the American attitude. Through M. Andre, Belgian consul, Commodor Dewey and General Merritt, commanding the American army, arranged with the Spanish commandant the surrender of Manila. There was to be no resistance; the Americans were to fire enough shots to save that precious and delicate possession, the Spanish honor, and then the flag was to be hauled down and the Americans were to enter. But one thing the Spanish commander stipulated. No Filipino troops were to be admitted to the city. Spanish pride was not to be wounded by the triumph of the people Spain had so long despised and maltreated. To this also the Americans agreed, although it was to inflict a harsh and wanton affront upon the men whose courage and hard fighting had made that day possible; and the Filipinos must lie in their trenches and bite their fingers and watch all the glory fall upon rank after rank of another soldiery that had contributed to the vitory nothing but their amiable presence on a transport. If, on that day, the Filipino soldier thought, as he naturally would think, of the days and nights when he was a hunted animal hiding in the forest, when he marched and starved and slept in swamps, or dragged cannon up the jungled sides of mountains, and of those other days when he had driven the trained and equipped Spanish armies out of stronghold after stronghold, it would be strange indeed if bitterness did not assail his soul. But for Filipino valor and Aguinaldo's able planning, the Spaniards could have walked, any day, out of the back door of Manila, and continued in. definitely to fight. The day that Aguinaldo captured the water-works and completed his investment of the city was the day that ended the war. And for all this the reward of the Filipino Army was to be ordered in uncivil terms to keep in THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 79 their trenches; nay, there were files of American soldiers placed in commanding position to hold them back, with the evident purpose of firing bullets into these late friends, allies and co-mates in arms if they should venture into the city they had won. Thence onward trouble grows faster than a Hindoo juggler's mango and with less visible justification. Under what is plainly backhanded instruction from Washington, the American commanders, sometimes in violation of the protocol, order the Philippine Army to make successive and always humiliating withdrawals of its lines. Always, too, these orders are accompanied with an ultimatum and a gratuitous threat to use force. Aguinaldo's protests against these hostile manifestations are treated with contempt. On one occasion he begs the attention of General Otis, American commander-in-chief, to the fact that the latest of these orders not only violates the protocol but the agreement made by General Otis's predecessor in command. General Otis responds that this is true but that the Filipinos must get out, nevertheless. What has brought about this marvelous transformation? The government at Washington has reversed its first intention and determined, in violation of all American tradition and without warrant in the Constitution, to retain the Philippines. Why has it made this most astounding volte face? Mr. Andrew Carnegie says when he heard of it he hastened to Washington to remonstrate with President McKinley, and the explanation the President gave was that public opinion in the United States demanded that the Islands be kept. If Mr. Carnegie heard him aright, Mr. McKinley's native facility in reading the popular mind may be thought to have failed him. Strong feeling there was against returning the Islands into the grasp of Spain, for the nation had come to have a horror of the cruelty and tyranny that seemed always to blight the Spanish colonial management. But to rebound 80 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES in a moment from all American tradition and doctrine, to force, with arms, an unwilling populace to accept the American yoke, that was a wholly different consideration. A million Americans might cheer Spain's exit from the Orient and the next day not one of them be willing to see their own government become the heir to her methods and machinery.1 Surely, upon these people, the form of dementia that consists in shouting for the extension of national territory by whatsoever means it may be won has never gained any considerable hold; nor were its utterances in 1898, or other times, anything to which men beyond the psychopathic ward need give attention. Nevertheless, the case was not so simple as some anti-imperialists of that day deemed it to be. Truly enough, government in this country proceeds at the dictation of public opinion, but occasions arise when only statesmen of philosophical endowment can for the moment distinguish between the passing shout and the nation's sober and enduring purpose, and Mr. McKinley's skill was not of that order. He was confronted with a difficult, complicated problem; the reflexes of public thought about it seemed contradictory; the information he obtained of it was scanty and often false; he was pulled many ways by many conflicting interests. No doubt among all these he sought some middle ground of safety consistent with the average of public opinion. If any one cares to understand the Philippine problem of to-day, the manner in which we came by it is one of the first things to see clearly, and to that end we may well stop to recite here 1 The election of 1900, when the Democratic party declared against imperialism and was beaten at the polls,'is sometimes cited against this diagnosis. But it was not imperialism that was indorsed at that election but Mr. Bryan that was defeated. When he put forth all his influence to secure in the Senate the ratification of the imperialistic treaty of Paris at the close of the Spanish-American war he destroyed anti-imperialsm as any effective battle-cry for his party in the ensuing election. A MOO VILAGE BY TH WATERSIDE f, I "'H, THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 81 the difficulties through which the President and his counselors broke when they came to their decision. There was, first, the psychological reaction that followed the war. Doubtless, as McCarthy points out, the history of every free nation is a succession of elevations and corresponding depressions from the one average median line of thought and feeling along which we ordinarily plod to work or business. Apparently, every period of normal exaltation must be succeeded by a period of cynicism and worldliness, as if we had grown ashamed of our display of righteous emotions. The country had been much stirred by the thought of an unselfish "war for humanity" to free Cuba. It was due for a temporary moral slump. Sacrifice for humanity was well enough, but where do we come in for the solid pudding of practical advantage? We have, in later times, seen still more impressive manifestation of the same process. In 1898 it was hazy, intangible and inarticulate, but it existed as a factor, none the less. Meantime, propaganda, the first essay of organized and large-scale propaganda, came to paint to the Western imagination rosy pictures of the trade possibilities that lay for us in the Pacific, to be unlocked by the Philippine key. Tobacco interests had learned of the alluring chances of the Manila tobacco trade, then at a low ebb. On other horizons, hemp loomed large; also sugar. To other interests, almost as powerful, the news that there were ten million people that might be brought under American control to buy American goods came like a gracious sunburst to illuminate the commercial firmament. If these had neglected their opportunities or their resources of influence, they would have belied their training. But the odd thing to reflect upon now is that the real issue was never fairly presented to the public and seems never to have been considered by the President and his counselors. 82 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES The choice offered to the nation was between delivering the Islands back to the Spaniards and taking charge of them ourselves. The other course, of giving them over to their own people, was so obscured by misrepresentations and by calm assumption of its folly that the public at large never really heard of it. Then, for the first time, came upon the stage as mighty argument the Igorote and his cravat. Here was the type of man to whom the fate of the Islands would be surrendered if we withdrew, this naked wild man, tree-dweller, savage, cannibal. Who was to know that in the Philippine Islands was an organized and functioning government, popular in form, complete in all its branches, exercising authority over most of the Archipelago, ready and competent to administer all public affairs? Who was to know that the naked wild man was the exception and not the type? The situation was farther entangled by the plight of the church. Although they were ardent Catholics, the Filipinos were bitter against the four great orders of friars, which they regarded as the greatest enemies of the cause of freedom. These orders claimed ownership of great areas of fertile land, the title to which the Filipinos disputed. It was represented that if the Filipinos were not restrained they would drive out the orders and confiscate these lands. From this to represent that the wild Filipinos would massacre all the friars was an easy sequence, and to startle the church elsewhere to the belief that religion itself in the Islands was in peril of its life was another. For what appeared to be the utter repudiation of his announced convictions, President McKinley came to be the target for savage and unjust criticism in Congress and throughout the country. Even among his supporters many were nonplussed, and to the public at large the whole episode was befogged in a most puzzling mystery that had not been explained when a wretched assassin came to deprive the THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 83 country of the, President's services and so ended the controversy. But there should be no mystery about the subject now. Mr. McKinley was of a singularly pure and lofty character. An old Washington correspondent that knew him in the days of his career in Congress would be the last to admit any suggestion of a turning from the conscientious fidelity to duty as he saw it that was always his guide. Few men in American public life have been less plagued with personal vanity or the hardihood of self-conceit. He was never deceived as to his own limitations. In American politics he was shrewd, able, experienced. Of foreign affairs, and the vast and involuted science of European diplomatic maneuvers he knew almost nothing because he had never had a chance to know of them. Like the great majority of American public men then and now, he had never a suspicion of the, art, basic to European diplomacy, of the arriere pensee, of attaining the ultimate design by pretending earnestly to be in favor of something else. With the utmost sincerity he thought men honest that but seemed to be so-a lovely trait, but hardly an armor against the attacks of diplomatic subtlety. He was, moreover, something besides President of the United States. By virtue of our American system, he was the head of his party, which means, except in the rare case of a man of overwhelming personal aggression, to be guided with meticulous care by the advice of the party leaders. An election was approaching. Like Lincoln, like many other men similarly situated, he believed the welfare and safety of his country to hang upon the success of his party, and the success of his party to be assured by the wisdom of the councils that steered it. What happened, then, is clear enough. Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop Ireland moved to Washington, took houses there and put forth all of their influence to persuade the gov 84 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES ernment toward a certain policy in the Philippines.' The Pope sent over a special delegate, Mgr. Martinelli. Archbishop Ireland was of extraordinary gifts that, if he had not been a great churchman, would have made him a great political leader. He was a sincere Republican, and in the crucial election of 1896 had contributed much to the triumph of his party. I think there can be no doubt that he and the other church dignitaries had been made to believe that the establishment of the Philippine Republic would be followed not merely by the seizure of the rich church lands but by the destruction of the religious orders and the slaughter of their members. Stories of an intent to massacre were a standard product of Manila, "the city of rumors." The Spanish government had used them again and again, notably against Rizal and the Katipunan2 Men, even learned men, outside of the Philippines could not be expected to know the real texture of these fabrications-for, even to learned men in America, what were the Philippines but a far-away and misty region of savages and bolos? With ease, therefore, the advisers to the President became convinced that to repeat in the Philippines the policy we had followed about Cuba, and had purposed to follow about the 1"Washington, August 19 —Archbishop Ireland, the special representative of the Pope in all the antebellum peace negotiations, has been for several days talking with Cabinet officers and had a long interview with the President to-day. Like the diplomat that he f, Archbishop Ireland tells the newspaper men that his visit has no significance; but it is well understood that it has had at least two objects hare, and that he is probably acting under instructions from Rome of an unofficial character. One of his objects is to secure the appointment of at least one peace commissioner who will be considerate, in the negotiations at Paris, of the other object, which is to protect the interests of the church in Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines. "Archbishop Ireland is a friend of Senator Davis of his own state, who has accepted a place on the commission, but would like to see Justice White, or some other member of his own church, appointed."-Boston Herald, August 20, 1898. 2 Harper's Magazine for August, 1899. contained an article on the Philippines by Lieutenant Carlos Gilman Calkins that cited modern instances. But the trick was of historic antiquity and varied utility. THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 85 Philippines, would bring about a vast destruction of property and life, and probably inaugurate chaos. No man in Mr. McKinley's position could be blamed if he declined, on the eve of an election, to take any such risk. But in all this he did not really reverse his original position. In a speech of unusual power and earnestness he had denounced forcible annexation as "criminal aggression" and utterly alien to every American article of faith. From his letters and speeches at this time his state of mind may be deduced. His idea was that the United States, in the interest of civilization and order, should administer the affairs of the Islands until all danger of violence should have passed, until the question of the friars' lands could be equitably adjusted,' until, if you like, the people had been so well trained that they would no longer think of massacring anybody or seizing any property. But he could never have lost sight of the ultimate goal of independence nor of the perils of that "criminal aggression" he so feelingly opposed. This explains a part of the mystery. Neither governments nor men do anything for but one motive. Something else came to add its weight to the turning balance. I was at the time an editorial executive on a New York newspaper and obliged professionally to try to determine these phenomena. The first and abiding impression I had, in common, I think, with other newspaper men of the same function, was that the pressure was exterior as well as interior; that there was active in Washington an influence we had never encountered there before, strong and subtle and ably managed. The suggestion that it was of English origin circulated persistently in the press galleries and finally drifted into Congress, fre1 In 1907 Mr. William Howard Taft negotiated the arrangement by which these difficulties were removed. The Philippine government bought for $7,500,000 the friars' lands; the religious orders were retired from the Islands and the religious issue permanently disappeared. Bitter criticism was called forth by the fact that the lands for which $7,500,000 was paid by this arrangement had been valued seven years before at $1,500,000, but there is no question that their value now is much beyond the purchase price. 86 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES quently recurring in debate. At the moment the entire British press, domestic and colonial, was most strenuously urging the United States to retain the Islands and accept as a solemn duty its share of the White Man's Burden, celebrated in song and story. British statesmen and others that had audiences in this country preached and thundered at us to the same effect. From the beginning the course of affairs in the Philippines must have been to the governing class of Great Britain a matter of the liveliest concern. Nothing could be more disturbing to British prospects than the intrusion of a native republic upon the artificial fish-pond of Oriental statecraft. It was an alarming apparition for more reasons than the traditional British policy of opposition to all republics. It would be a bomb thrown straight into India, and the consequences upon a dependency where a handful of British soldiers held by the slenderest thread dominion over a vast alien and unfriendly population might be catastrophic. Not only India was involved, but other British interests second only to India were gravely menaced. A native republic in the Philippines would mean eventually a revolution in China. It would be as wild-fire let loose in all the Far East, and who could say where it would stop? For one hundred and fifty years the best British minds had with infinite pains and study erected the structure of British supremacy in the Orient, founded squarely on the principle that the Oriental mind is unfitted for democracy. That ten million restless Malays in the Philippines should come to menace all this fair temple was intolerable.1 It was a time when Great Britain had a superfluity of other troubles. War was looming in South Africa, Germany was 1 General Charles A. Whittier in a letter to Edward A. Atkinson, written in 1899, gives singularly interesting testimony as to the attitude of the British in the Orient. It may be worth a note that the elements that General Whittier describes as insisting in 1898 that the United States should take the Philippines were equally determined in 1921 that the United States should keep them, and for the same reasons. THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 87 steadily elbowing her out of her fairest Oriental trade, Russia was still believed to have hellish designs around Herat, so that The Bear That Walks Like a Man was a potent specter to disturb Parliament. The attitude of the British press, which is well known to express the attitude of the government about all delicate international crises where the interests of the country are involved, was justified. Assuredly, a native Philippine Republic would have been a deadly blow at the very cornerstone of those ordained and sanctified doctrines on which rested the cause of European supremacy in the East. If this view strongly impressed itself upon the administration at Washington, there was nothing wonderful about the fact. Except in the Civil War and in the Venezuela incident, American foreigri policy has usually taken its complexion from Downing Street. At the time that the fate of the Philippines was to be decided, the American Secretary of State was Mr. John Hay. He had served part of McKinley's first term as Ambassador to Great Britain and had never, then or at other times, concealed his strong admiration for the British policy and the British statesmen. It was he that negotiated (or, to be exact, conceived, wrote and alone sent through) the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, an adventure so singular and inexplicable that it caused many persons to believe Mr. Hay viewed the United States as still a British colony. It was he that threatened to resign unless a one'sided arbitration treaty he had negotiated with Great Britain should be approved, and it was said to be he that led the administration into strange regions in its support of the British cause throughout the Boer War. For the time being, then, the administration was determined to retain the Islands, and to do so made that most astounding Treaty of Paris which declared the end of the war with Spain and obligated us to pay to her $20,000,000 for something that she had not to sell and we most certainly had no right to buy. 88 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES In the beaten way of history, this was a more baffling mystery than the other. No human being could possibly believe that there was any public demand that we should thus cast $20,000,000 into the deep blue sea and certify to our own great incompetence. What was the $20,000,000 for? This question was on every thinking man's lips. America had won the war. It was the first time in history that a victorious nation had paid an indemnity to the nation it hAd defeated. What was it for? Two excuses were offered to the good-natured and easy-going American mind. First, that we were buying of Spain its title to that part of the Philippines still in Spain's possession; second, that it was better to pay the money than have Spain continue the war. The only difficulty these explanations now present to the impartial inquirer is to decide which was the more preposterous. There was no part of the Philippine Islands still in the possession of Spain. Manila had surrendered to the American commanders; the insurgents had captured practically all the rest. Spain, therefore, had nothing to sell. As to continuing the war, finite intelligence could not suggest a way by which she could continue the war for a day when she had no place upon which she could put a foot to fight, and nothing to fight with. I cite the competent testimony of General T. M. Anderson, the first American commander in the Philippine zone: "We held Manila and Cavite. The rest of the Island [Luzon] was held not by the Spaniards, but by the Filipinos. On the other islands the Spaniards were confined to two or three fortified towns." Even these were later captured by the Filipinos.l 1"Thus, in December, 1898, we find in northern and southeastern Luzon, in Mindoro, Samar, Leyte, Panay, and even on the coast of Mindanao and in some of the smaller islands, the aggressive Tagalo present in person, and, whether civilian or soldier, supreme in authority."-TReport of General Otis, August 21, 1899, quoted in Harper's "'History of the War in the Philippines,'" pp. 99, 100. "It is little short of marvelous how rapidly the insurrection has gained ground in this short time, and how extensive and successful the THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 89 No other chapter in American history at first looks so inexplicable. We seemed to have lost entirely that keen business sense for which we had been celebrated, perhaps unjustly, around the world. Even if the motive loosely but cheerfully supplied, that Spain still had sovereignty in the Archipelago had been true instead of false, we were paying for its inconsiderable fragment a price that in those times would have been excessive for the whole. Even if she had owned anything outside of the surrendered Manila, to buy it when its inhabitants had an organized, functioning and mandated government protesting the sale was a violent trampling upon the plain word of the Declaration of Independence that would have caused the nation to gasp and stare had it known the facts.1 And even if we had been deliberately ready for a deed so immoral and so glaringly inconsistent with our professions, we could never have foreseen that one result of this lewd marketing would be a proclamaoperations of the army have been. The insurgents managed in a very few weeks to besiege and capture numerous small Spanish positions in the provinces, and they completely overran the whole Island of Luzon, together with seven adjacent islands."-F. D. Millet, "The Filipino Republic," printed in Harper's "'History of the War in the Philippines,'" pp. 65, 66. "By December, 1898, the revolutionary government was in control of almost the entire archipelago."-McKinley, Island Possessions of the United States, p. 234. "The revolutionary government was universally recognized throughout the Islands, except in Manila and seaports still held by the Spanish."Edwin Wildman, Aguinaldo: A Narrative of Filipino Ambitions, p. 142. 1 The bargain was indefensible on the recognized principles of law, domestic and international. "It is a principle of public law that the national character of the place agreed to be surrendered by treaty continues as it was under the charter of the ceding country until it is actually transferred. Full sovereignty cannot be held to have passed by the mere words of the treaty without actual delivery. To complete the right of property, the right to the thing and the possession of the thing must be united. This is a necessary principle of the law of property in all systems of jurisprudence.... This general law of property applies to the right of territory no less than to other rights." — Kent's Commentaries, Vol. I, p. 177. Another authority on international law says that "such transfers of territory do not include the allegiance of its inhabitants without their consent, express or implied." 90 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES tion, issued weeks before the treaty was approved, by which we assumed, in the manner of a nation drunk with power and mad with land-lust, sovereignty over the whole of the Islands, and blithesomely took the chances of a war with their inhabitants.' The American negotiators of the treaty were of the highest character, the ablest public men of their day and country, learned lawyers, sincere patriots. Most of them knew no more about Europe than guide-books or text-books revealed to them; not one had the slightest acquaintance with the greasy game of diplomacy as it is actually played. With the best and purest of intentions, they were sadly deceived. From their letters and messages it appears that they, too, were led to consider only two courses as possible: to return the Islands to Spain, or to deliver them to the United States. They seemed to have accepted with innocent confidence the assurance that a native government was out of the question,and to have been able to ignore in their deliberations the existence and services of the Philippine Republic.2 They wanted peace, and they seem to have been hypnotized or deluded into the belief that the only possible ways to peace were to buy something that did not exist and to hold something to be living that was dead and putrescent. Unluckily, the progress of the $20,000,000 gift, as it came to be called, was attended at home with potential scandals. One concerned the winning of the narrow margin of one vote by which in the Senate the treaty was approved. This still survives, an unfragrant reminiscence of Capitol Hill. An1 Proclamation of December 5, 1898. The treaty was not confirmed by the Senate until two months later. 2Yet John Barrett, afterward director of the Pan-American Union, had seen the Philippine Republic in operation and had described it as follows: "It is a government which has practically been administering the affairs of that great island, Luzon, since the American possession of Manila, which is certainly better than the former administration. It had a properly formed Cabinet and Congress, the members of which, in appearance and manners, would compare favorably with Japanese statesmen." There was no lack of other testimony to the same effect. THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 91 other was the story, to this day repeated and believed in the Orient, that Spain never received the $20,000,000 (or no more than fingered it), since its course was straight to the English munition-makers to whom Spain was indebted for the material she fired at the ships and armies of the United States in the late war. This was circulated as explaining some of the powerful influences that at the Capitol worked for the approval of a treaty so absurd and unnecessary. If it were indeed the fact, there would be nothing for another generation reviewing this most astounding incident but a burst of titan and sardonic laughter. But meantime there were the Filipinos; if we care, now, to leave our usual careless habit of mind long enough to speculate about these things, we might well think of the Filipinos. They knew nothing of any occult reasonings or unrevealed influences at Washington. All they knew was that they had cleared the country of Spanish power; they had organized a republic with a working government; they had been led to believe the United States was in favor of their independence; from its history it could not consistently or decently take any other position. And now they beheld it apparently determined to pluck from their hands this great and inestimable prize for which they and their ancestors had made such sacrifices and of which they had entertained such dreams. It was even so. They sent a delegation to Washington to plead their cause; it was not heard. They sent a delegation to the Peace Conference at Paris; it found the doors shut in its face. In view of these circumstances, what would reasoning men expect next in a people passionately enlisted for independence? The tension between the two armies at Manila continued to grow, and it is difficult to avoid now the conclusion that the Americans were usually the aggressors. Unless there was deliberate intent to force a fight, some of General Otis's demarches seem beyond understanding. Filipino officers 92 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES visiting the city must surrender their side arms, a humiliation that was not imposed upon Spanish officers. Filipino privates must give up even their pocket-knives, which usually were not returned to them. Between September 1, 1898, and February 1, 1899, eight Filipino officers appear to have been shot by American sentries or other American soldiers. General Otis complains that it is difficult for him to restrain his troops, but the question suggested by the records is whether there was any serious purpose to restrain them. If there was, assuredly the commander's attitude constantly belied it and afforded to the rank and file the worst possible example of truculency. Nothing is more remarkable in this chapter of the story than General Otis's aggressions, except the patience with which the Filipinos seem to have endured them. As Aguinaldo pointed out, he and his forces were there for a perfectly legitimate and necessary purpose. Until the treaty of peace should be ratified, the Filipinos could not possibly know whether their country was to be taken over or turned back to Spain; if Spain was to repossess it, the war of independence must be resumed and they would have need of every inch of territory they had conquered. The climax of all this was nothing that an American can refer to with pride. On February 4, 1899, after the American lines outside the city had been advanced a mile into what was indisputably Filipino territory,1 an order came to push them still farther. The Filipino officer in command of that sector made the usual protest. It was reported to the American commander, Colonel Stotsenburg, of the Ne. braska contingent. In response, he advised another advance in the same direction.2 That night an American sentry saw a Filipino on the newly occupied ground and challenged him. 1 All the facts are reviewed in the Springfield Republican, January 31. 1900. 2Herbert Welch, The Other Man's Country (Philadelphia: 1900), pp. 123, 124. THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 93 The Filipino answered in Spanish but did not stop. The sentry shot him dead. Two other forms were seen in the distance. Other Americans shot at these, and killed two more Filipinos. Fifteen minutes later shots were fired from the Filipino lines, where presumably the loss of the three men had now been discovered, and what is called the battle of Manila began between the Americans and their late allies in the war against Spanish oppression. It raged that night and the next day.1 But that next day, February 5, General Aguinaldo sent a member of his staff to General Otis to say that the fighting on the part of his troops was without his orders, that he regretted it and desired to stop it. He proposed a cessation of firing on both sides and an arrangement by which a neutral zone should be established wide enough to keep the armies apart. 1"That night, about 8 o'clock, Miller and I-there were two of uswere cautiously pacing our district. We came to a fence and were trying to see what the Filipinos were up to. Suddenly, near at hand, on our left, there was a low but unmistakable Filipino outpost signalwhistle. It was immediately answered by a similar whistle about twenty-five yards to the right. Then a red lantern flashed the signal from blockhouse No. 7. We had never seen such a sign before. In a moment something rose slowly up not twenty feet in front of us. It was a Filipino. I yelled 'Halt!' and I made it pretty loud, for I was accustomed to challenging the officer of the guard in approved military style. The man moved. I challenged him with another loud 'Halt!' Then he immediately shouted 'Halto' at me. Well, I thought the best thing to do was to shoot him. He dropped. If I didn't kill him, I guess he died of fright. Then two Filipinos sprang out of the gateway about fifteen feet from us. I called 'Halt,' and Miller fired and dropped one. I saw that another was left. Well, I think I got my second Filipino that time. We retreated to where our six other fellows were, and I said, 'Line up, fellows, the niggers are in here all through these yards.' We then retreated to the pipe-line and got behind the watermain and stayed there all night. It was some minutes after our second shots before the Filipinos began firing."-Statement of W. W. Grayson, private Nebraska Volunteers. On his way back to Nebraska Grayson said, according to a Colorado soldier, A. L. Mumpher, that it was "the damn bull-headedness of the officers in invading insurgent territory" that was responsible for that shot.-Congressional Record. January 31, 1900, Proceedings of the Senate, and The Other Man's Country, p. 126. 94 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES To this request General Otis responded sternly that the war having been begun must go on to the grim end.1 The first result, therefore, of the ridiculous bargain the United States had made for the purchase of a nation at so much the head was to find itself reversing all its historic faith and traditions by fighting to force its sovereignty upon an unwilling people that had only too much reason to accuse it of bad faith and betrayal. No one can pretend that the two years of war that followed added anything to the glory of the American flag or the prestige of the American arms. The Filipinos made a brave and ably conducted struggle against hopeless odds2 Convincing testimony attests their skill, courage, and devotion; let the circumstances be exactly the same in the case of any other nation but our own and we should have covered their warriors with laurels and sung hymns to their praise. Aguinaldo established his capital at Malolos, within thirty miles of Manila. There an elected Philippine Congress sat regularly, passed laws, levied taxes, administered revenues, kept in motion the machinery of justice, directed a military organization, waged efficient war, appealed to the patriotism of the people. So far as the average observer could see, it was the Continental Congress and the American Revolution over again, with America playing the utterly humiliating role of Great Britain. 1 Statement of General C. McReeve, at that time provost marshal of Manila. Vide Congressional Record, January 11, 1900, Proceedings of the Senate. 2"Taking everything into consideration, the few facilities they have, the many drawbacks, they are an ingenious and artistic race. And taking into account the disadvantages they have to fight against in arms, equipment and military discipline-without artillery, short of ammunition, powder inferior, shells reloaded until they are defective, inferior in every particular of equipment and supplies-they are the bravest men I have ever seen..... What we want is to stop this accursed war... These men are indomitable. At Bacoor bridge they waited until the Americans brought their cannon to within thirty-five yards of their trenches. Such men have the right to be heard. All they want is a little justice."-General Lawton. THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 95 That it was a regularly organized government of the people we were combating 1 was one of the facts never understood in the United States, where the conflict was amiably believed to be a replica of an Indian fight-American troops as the advance guard of civilization carrying on unavoidable warfare against naked savages; an idea, with many others, the product of the incomparable censorship that came to be established at Manila. To indicate a little of the true nature of the American task I make one citation. According to El Liberal of Madrid, of June 28, 1898, these were the principles that the Philippine Republic professed as its object in making war upon Spain, and they had undergone no change when it came to make war against the United States: 1. Philippine independence. 2. A federal republic established by vote of the people, pending which the provisional President was to appoint members of the government. i"There is one point which I think is not generally known to the American people, but which is a very strong factor in the question of Filipino self-government, both now and in any future position. In the West Indies the greater number of offices and official positions were filled by Spaniards, either native born or from the Peninsula. In the Philippines, the percentage of available Spaniards for minor positions was vastly less than that shown in the West Indian colonies. The result was that, while the more prominent and more profitable offices in the Philippines were filled by Spaniards, many of the minor offices in the large cities and most of those in the country were held by Filipinos. Therefore, when the Filipino party assumed the government for those districts which the Spaniards evacuated, the Filipinos had a system of government in which Filipinos held most of the positions, already established for their purposes. It was but necessary to change its head and its name. Instead of being dominated by the agents of Alfonso XIII, por la gracia de Dios y de la Constitucion Rey catolico de Espann, the same machinery was set in motion and controlled, first by the dictatorial government and then by the Philippine revolutionary government, under the constitution proclaimed on June 23, 1898. This fact simplified matters for the Filipinos, and gave them the ground upon which they make their assertion of maintaining a successful administration in those provinces which they occupied."-Albert G. Robinson, correspondent in the Philippines for the New York Evening Post, author of The Philippines: The War and the People. 96 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES 3. The federal republic to recognize the temporary intervention of American or European commissions appointed to investigate conditions. 4. An American protectorate to be recognized on the same terms as those fixed for Cuba. 5. Philippine ports to be open to the world. 6. Precautionary measures against the influx of Chinese. 7. The existing judicial system to be reformed. 8. Liberty of the press; the full right of assembly. 9. Ample tolerance of all religions and sects, but abolition and expulsion of all monastic orders. 10. Measures to develop the natural resources of the Archipelago. 11. Improvement and development of highways and railroads. 12. Obstacles to the development of enterprises and to the employment of foreign capital to be removed. 13. The new government to preserve order and check all reprisals against the Spaniards. 14. Spanish officers to be transported to another and a safe and healthy island until there should be a chance to send them to Spain. It seems difficult to assert that a government capable of formulating a program so enlightened could be composed of other than highly civilized men. After the capture of Aguinaldo,' March 23, 1901, the revolt slowly subsided. Aguinaldo took the oath of allegiance to the United States and advised his countrymen to follow his example. It is to be noted again that he had never the united support of his people. Outside of Luzon he had small following. The entire Island of Negros refused to recognize the 1 The version of this incident accepted in America differs greatly from the account current in the Islands. The native version may be found in Efemerides Filipinas (Manila, 1914), Vol. I, pp. 307-313. THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION 97 Philippine Republic and set up a government of its own called the Republic of Negros. The Island of Bohol was likewise independent. Even in Luzon, not all the Filipinos sided with Aguinaldo. The town of Macabebe, for instance, cast in its lot with the Americans, furnished many soldiers and scouts for the American army and when Aguinaldo was captured it was a company from Macabebe that entrapped him. Yet with all these sore disadvantages the wonderful thing is that the Filipinos put into the field and maintained there an excellent fighting army, displayed a sure aptitude for military operations, astonished their opponents by their discipline and fortitude, and in the end seem to have yielded as much to American promises as to the force of numbers. Indeed, the statement has been made unequivocally, and never officially denied, that more by our promises than by our guns we wrought the final subjugation. Our fixed purpose was to grant to these people some day the same independence for which they had been fighting; this was our pledge, many times repeated. Why fight for that which is to be presented to you as it were on a platter? We were to take in hand the Filipinos as we should little children, teach them by precept and example the mysterious art of self-government and some day set them free with a grandfatherly blessing. Such was the conception that prevailed in America, as in the Islands. Indeed, if we stop to think of it, some such assurance was indispensable if we were to save the face of the nation in regard to the bargain with Spain and the war with the Filipinos. To buy ten million people, "at two dollars a head, unpicked,"' and then to hold them at the gun's point as so many chattels, would be a depth of national shame to which not even profit-hunting madness could quite drag this country. With joy the intelligent Filipinos laid hold upon 1 The bitter phrase of the late Thomas B. Reed, a strenuous opponent of these proceedings. 98 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the promise; and so late as 1921, certainly, having seen it many times and most solemnly repeated, they had never acquired the least doubt of it. After April, 1901, a guerrilla warfare dragged on for months, some of the guerrilla leaders being indistinguishable from bandits and committing hideous cruelties on defenseless communities. On July 4, 1902, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation of amnesty and officially the war was over. Nearly five years were required to discourage tribal conflicts in the southern islands and to persuade the Moros that America did not come to extirpate their religion; the American school-house meantime, harbinger of peace and good-will, pushing its way always farther into the wilderness. But with the surrender of Aguinaldo may be said to have begun that course of strangely commingled altruism, business and chauvinism that we pursued in the Philippines until August, 1916. CHAPTER V THE PHILIPPINE HEROES "Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. Of these obscure heroes, philosophers, and martyrs, the greater part will never be known till that hour when many that were great shall be small, and the small great; but of others the world's knowledge may be said to sleep, their lives and their characters lie hiaden from nations in the annals that record them."-Charles Reade. "Every people is entitled to be judged by its best."-Wendell P. Stafford. TRRAVELERS that know Italy well must have noticed there that every city, town, village or hamlet has at least one memorial of the great Italian struggle for independence and nationality, unforgettable in history. In the cities it will be elaborate, in the hamlets crude; but, however remote or obscure the place, the monument is inevitable. To the name and sure glory of Garibaldi or of Mazzini, or of both, there will be statue, tower, square, fountain, street or school. These manifestations the wanderer easily and (if democratic) gladly finds to be an expression of the indomitable spirit of the Italian people fighting half a century against every untoward condition up to the liberty that had led them like a torch. To-day in the Philippines the traveler will find exactly the same kind of manifestation and if wise can hardly make of it another diagnosis. Everywhere, in cities, towns, villages, rise monuments to Jose Rizal. North and South compete in honoring him, his cause and his companions; I was continually astonished in faraway regions by the persistence of his name. What Garibaldi and Mazzini are to the Italian, Rizal is to the Filipino. 99 100 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES He is the embodiment of the idea of the Revolution of 1896; and the Revolution of 1896 is the expression of the Filipino passion for independence and nationality. In true accord with the dramatic unities of history, the great occasion bred great men. It is a misfortune that we of the Western world should have elected to be so limited in our view of the struggles of mankind for the same liberty of which we have been the professed exponents, for thereby we deprived ourselves of the knowledge of many a good story well worth having on its own account. The Filipinos revolted against a tyranny worse than the American colonists could complain of; they were worse equipped with arms and means; they showed equal capacity, resolution and endurance; and they developed as magnificent a heroism as was ever known anywhere in the long-drawn battle for democracy. There is scarcely a hero or a brave deed in the story of the American Revolution that cannot be paralleled in the Philippine story: the people that honor Washington, Wayne and Nathan Hale would honor the daring actors in this other drama if its story could be equally well known. Andres Bonifacio. Rizal was the exponent of the intellectuals, the educated Filipinos of what the Spaniards called the better class, but there arose at the same time a man of mind at least as powerful, though untrained, a man that perfectly exemplified the spirit of revolt among the masses, and whose career cancels any assertion that the generality of people were not interested in independence. This was Andre Bonifacio, the real founder and inspiration of Katipunan and the man that in the end swayed the whole revolutionary movement to his will. He was born at Tondo, near Manila, November 30, 1863, the son of a poor workingman. Some smattering of education he got in a private school; at the age when most boys are beginning their tutelage he went to work. But he had learned to THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 101 read, and became so addicted to reading it is seriously recorded of him that he often went without sleep that he might spend the night in study.j His favorite books were the History of the French Revolution, Lives of the Presidents of the United States, the Bible, Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, the inspiring novels of Rizal, works on international law, the Civil and Penal Codes, and a book called Religion Within the Reach of All. The story of a French Revolution, which he read and reread until he had all but memorized it, filled him with a fiery yearning for the freedom of his own country, and the Lives of the Presidents of the United States inspired him with the idea that even the sons of poor men might have, in a free world, the chance of great achievement. He became an ardent democrat and was one of the first members of the Katipunan, he being at the time a porter in a Manila warehouse, but reading, studying and thinking night after night. The earlier conduct of the Katipunan did not suit Bonifacio, who was convinced that freedom for the Philippines could be won by united effort, readiness for self-sacrifice, and radical action. He succeeded in ousting the first president, and when he found the successor whom he himself had named was not ready for an immediate uprising ousted him also and took the presidency himself. From that time the idea of immediate revolt dominated the society and came soon to dominate the entire movement against Spain, in spite of Rizal's warnings. It is recorded that at one of the Katipunan meetings a letter was read from Rizal saying that in his judgment armed revolt was then unwise because there had not been enough time for preparation, because the intellectuals would probably hold aloof from it, and because the patriots had no ships, no army, no ammunition nor other equipment, the lack whereof would mean sure defeat. Bonifacio listened to this with extreme impatience, and when the reading of it came to an end burst out in a characteristic comment. 102 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES "Hell!" he said. "Where did Dr. Rizal read that to have a revolution it was first necessary to obtain ammunition and ships " For the guidance of the Katipunan he drew up this decalogue, which he called the "Duties of the Country's Sons": 1. Love God with all your heart. 2. Bear in mind that to love God is also to love your country, by which you express your love for mankind. 3. Engrave it upon your heart that the true meaning of honor and prosperity is to die to save your country. 4. Success in any good endeavor you may undertake is to be derived from the serenity, constancy, reason and good faith you bring to bear upon your work. 5. Maintain with jealous honor the rules and aims of the K. K. K. [Katipunan.] 6. It is incumbent upon each one to save and to help, with wealth or life, his comrade that may have fallen into danger because of the duties intrusted to him. 7. The deeds of the members of this society should serve as examples to mankind of good government and the strict performance of duty. 8. Do all you can to relieve the needy and unfortunate; share with them whatever you have. 9. Diligence in the performance of the daily toil by which one gains his daily bread is the foundation of self-respect, fosters and sustains the domestic affections and broadens one's heart to one's countrymen. 10. Believe in the punishment of traitors and of the wicked and in the reward of the righteous. Believe also that the aims of the K. K. K. are ordained of God and that in serving your country you serve also Him. When the Katipunan was unearthed and panic terror reigned (being adroitly nourished) among the Spaniards in 1 Dr. Osias's translation. THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 103 Manila, the story was widely spread and believed that the Katipunan was an organization of cut-throats whose purpose was to assassinate every white person in the Islands. Racial hatred being thus added to the hatred naturally pertaining to caste and privilege, every person suspected of relations with the proscribed order was in deadly peril. Bonifacio was warned in time and made his escape to Caloocan, where he gathered his forces, declared the civil war, and started the fighting. Aguinaldo organized, drilled and manceuvered the troops. Most of the fighting occurred in the region of Cavite, but before long other provinces had been at least theoretically involved in the uprising. As president of the Katipunan, Bonifacio continued to exercise the chief authority, but a formal and national organization was felt to be necessary. A general assembly of revolutionary leaders was called for March 12, 1897, to form a provisional government. It is likely that Bonifacio expected he would be chosen first President of the Philippine Republic. Instead, young General Aguinaldo was elected President, and Mariano Trias Vice-President. As so often happens, the rank and file had wearied of the persistent recurrence of one man; there had been too much of Bonifacio. In the full cabinet that was chosen he was offered the place of Secretary of the Interior. He refused it in a rage, declared it to be beneath the dignity of a man that had created the movement and its success, and denouncing all the proceedings and the new government retired into the mountains with his two brothers. President Aguinaldo ordered his arrest. In trying to effect it, Bonifacio was mortally wounded. In spite of his quick temper and personal vanities the Filipino people revere him as the father of the revolution of 1896 and a great spirit of the democratic cause. Apolinario Mabini. Here again was an instance of a man sprung from the masses of the people and yet as much - imbued with the philosophy and inspiration of liberty as any 104 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES intellectual. He was born in Talaga, in the province of Batangas, July 22, 1864, of parents as poor as Bonifacio's. His mother taught him to read and sent him to school in Tanauan. She hoped to see him a priest and made for his education such heart-rending sacrifices as are common among Filipino parents similarly poor. When he was seventeen he entered the college of San Juan de Latran in Manila, and from that time earned his way, chiefly by teaching. Meantime he had been reading widely, and, discovering that he could not conscientiously enter the priesthood, chose the law instead and was admitted to the bar in 1894. At once he began to attract notice as an attorney of unusual parts and likewise as one that undertook gratuitously the causes of the poor. He had long before been converted to the revolutionary movement that was touched to life by Rizal's writings, and had joined the Katipunan. Before the organization was betrayed to the authorities, Mabini had suffered a stroke of paralysis; when, with other leaders, he was sentenced to death, the sentence was not executed because of his physical condition, and in the end he was pardoned. He escaped to Bonifacio in the country, became President Aguinaldo's chief counselor, was Secretary of Foreign Relations in the Philippine Republic and later Chief Justice of its Supreme Court. In December, 1899, he was captured by the American army and deported to Guam, but released after two years. He died of cholera soon after his return. Manila and many other cities and towns have named streets in honor of this Mazzini of the Filipino story; the capital of Batangas province has erected a handsome monument to his memory. His physical misfortunes prevented his active services in the cause of the revolution, but his wisdom and counsels were invaluable. Perhaps, too, his character left as much of an impression; he seems to have had against all the ills of life and the chances of the times an inveterate philosophy of cheerfulness. His moral faith had a certain clas THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 105 sical loftiness; once he said to his fellow revolutionists: "(We need union and discipline to be able to lay the foundations for our social regeneration, but this is not all we need. We need also to walk along the narrow path of honor and virtue, because here alone do we find true liberty. Through the wide and easy road of violence and theft we shall find our own dishonor as well as the ruin of our country." On another occasion he said: "Many speak of liberty without understanding it. Many believe that, having liberty, one can act unrestrainedly for good or for evil. This is a great mistake. ' Liberty is freedom to do right, not wrong." " He, too, had his decalogue or ethical code, which may be profitably compared with Bonifacio's. It was: 1. Love thy God and thine honor above all things; thy God as the fountain of all truth, of all justice, of all activity; thine honor as the only power that will compel thee to be truthful, just, and industrious. 2. Adore thy God in the way thy conscience deems best and most righteous, because, through thy conscience, which reproves thy bad acts and approves thy good ones, speaks thy God. 3. Cultivate the special aptitudes which God hath given thee, laboring and studying according to thy powers, never deviating from the path of right and justice, to secure thine own perfection and through this means contribute to the progress of humanity; thus thou shalt realize the mission that God hath assigned thee in this life! and realizing it thou shalt have honor, and having honor thou shalt glorify thy God. 4. Love thy country next to thy God and thine honor and more than thyself, for it is the only paradise that God hath given thee in this life, the only patrimony of thy race, the only inheritance from thine ancestors and the only legacy for thy descendants; because of it thou hast life, love, ins terests, happiness, honor and God. 5. Strive for the happiness of thy country before thine 106 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES own, making of it a kingdom of reason, justice and labor; for if the country is happy, thou and thy family, too, must needs be happy. 6. Strive for the independence of thy country, because thou alone hast a real interest in its greatness and exaltation, since its independence means thine own freedom; its greatness, thy perfection; its exaltation, thine own glory and immortality. 7. Thou shalt not recognize in thy country the authority of any person that has not been elected by thee and thy countrymen, because all authority comes from God, and as God speaks through the conscience of each individual, the person that is designated and proclaimed by the individual conscience of the whole people is the only one that can show true authority. 8. Strive for a republic for thy people, never a monarchy; the latter ennobles one family, or only a few families, and founds a dynasty; the former makes a people noble and worthy by reason, great by liberty, and prosperous and brilliant by labor. 9. Love thy neighbor as thyself, because God hath imposed upon him as upon thee the obligation to help and not to do that which he would not have thee to do unto him. 10. Thou shalt always consider thy eouritrymaa; thou shalt see in him a friend, a brother, and a companion with whom thou art leagued by one destiny, by the same joys and sorrows, and by the same aspirations and interests. To him thou shouldst unite with perfect solidarity of aspirations and interests, with the object of having strength not only to fight the common enemy but also to realize the ends of human life. Antonio Luna. This was a native of Manila, a graduate of the Manila Ateneo Municipal and of the University of Madrid, where, with other things, he studied military history and science. When the Revolution of 1896 came on, he was in his twenty-eighth year and already well known as an active THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 107 and implacable reformer, a writer of pungent articles against the existing regime and, in the view of the government, a dangerous person. He took a prominent part in the Revolution as a corps commander, and when it was resumed after the collapse of the treaty of Biacnabato he was deemed the ablest general in the Filipino army. After Aguinaldo had been installed as President, Luna became his chief of staff. In the war against America he was commander-inchief of the Filipino forces and won praise from his opponents for the skilful disposition and handling of his troops. He seems to have been singularly gifted for a military career, but five months after taking the field against the Americans he was mysteriously assassinated, a crime that has never been explained. In accordance with his will his body was buried in the Philippine flag. Gregorio del Pilar. This was a son of a family much distinguished in Philippine history, a university graduate, singularly handsome and magnetic, who joined the revolutionary forces when he was hardly more than a boy, and showed such capacity and gallantry that at twenty-three he was a brigadier-general. At the close of 1899 he was in command of the rear guard of the Philippine Army, which was then operating in northern Luzon. The American forces were advancing. Aguinaldo was retreating. On December 1 del Pilar was ordered to hold Tila Pass until the main body of the army should have time to make its escape. He had but sixty men and knew the order was his death warrant. In the little diary he carried with him he wrote the fact that he was going to be killeA and composed his farewell to the young woman in DaganrtFo om ne was to have been married. November 16, only two weeks before, had been the date appointed for his wedding; it came, and found him leading a handful of hunted men in the mountains. The entries display that calmly reasoned courage that in other men has been lauded as the highest expression of sublimity the human mind 108 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES can know, but not many men so lauded have gone to their deaths under conditions so harrowing. The next day he was at the head of his little band, holding the pass. Sometimes the Americans were so near that they could hear him, incessantly addressing them, encouraging, urging, pleading, exhorting-sixty men. They fought there all day, a handful opposed by superior numbers and dying around their commander-it was like Custer and his troops at the Little Big Horn. "She dies in silence, biting hard amid the dying hounds." The sixty dwindled to forty, to thirty, to a score. The remnant held the trenches. In the afternoon it was certain that the main body of the army had made its escape. To the little troop that was left del Pilar gave the order to retreat. He was himself the last to go. As he rode slowly up the pass on his white horse an American sharpshooter crept through the brush, got fair aim upon him, and shot him dead. It is better to say little of what happened at first to his body. On his breast he carried a locket that contained a little knot of the hair of his fiancee. It passed to the possession of a souvenir-hunter. In the end the body was rescued from the persons that were despoiling it and buried with full military honors. Over his grave the victors erected a stone that bears this testimony, convincing and unusual: General Gregorio del Piler Killed at the Battle of Tila Pass December 2 1899 Commanding Aguinaldo's Rear Guard An Officer and a Gentleman It is more like a story of Sparta or of antique Rome. THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 109 Jose Rizal. I have left to the last the greatest of these men, the hero most beloved, the spirit that is still most powerful upon his people. It is not easy to write about him, because to those unfamiliar with this chapter of human history any account of him as he really was will seem extravagance. We of the West have not known that such men could be bred in that obscure region and of that alien race; hence with distrust must we look upon their records. Yet it is certain that from whatever point of view we come to examine this life, or by whatever tests we care to apply to it, here was one of the most extraordinary persons in human annals. Of other men that the world has reason to honor it is to be said that they excelled their compeers in one respect, or in two or in three. Of this man the versatility was so great and the genius so many-sided and real that they seemed almost incomprehensible, and one would be puzzled to cite from any other country, in any time, an equal prodigy. With the most astonishing facility he devoted himself to callings not only diverse but in the world's usage incompatible. He was, for instance, one of the greatest oculists of his day, so great that the scientists of Europe held him in honor and followed with attention his discoveries and work; so famous that patients came from far-distant countries to be treated by him, and when he was exiled still followed him into the wilderness. He was a sculptor of such power and skill that his works often fascinated the beholder with their almost mysterious suggestions of life and significance. He was an ethnologist whose invaluable collections are still preserved in the great museum of Dresden.' He was a zoologist that discovered, classified and recorded new specimens of animal life in remote regions. He was an accomplished linguist, the fluent and easy master of native dialects, of 1 Austin Craig, The Lineage, Life and Labors of Jos6 Rizal. At page 223 Dr. Craig gives a photographic reproduction of a part of this collection. 110 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, English and even Japanese, able to compose in these with facile and idiomatic power; beginning a letter in German, continuing it in French and ending it in English without a flaw in the expression; ornamenting his books with sentiments in Japanese or He-, brew as the fancy seized him.l He was an artist in portraiture and caricature with his pencil and on canvas; drawings and other works to which he contributed his skill are to be seen now in churches in the Philippines and in Saragossa, Spain; so that, if he had cared to pursue this branch of art, he might have rivaled Luna, his great countryman and friend., He was a novelist whose pictures of life, manners and character were etched in acid and so vividly that they startled Europe, stung his own people to revolt and nerved his enemies to destroy him. He was a poet that in his native tongue sang with pathos and charm. He was an educator and an / able civil engineer; when he was banished, his first work in the uncouth country to which he was sent was to establish a school on exactly those lines that have since been followed in remaking the educational system of the Philippines, and his second to provide the little town with water-works, still in use. AHe was a publicist and refgrmer that knew well the evils that afflicted his country, knew their source, knew their cure, and strove conscientiously for the Common Good. For he was a philosophical democrat with faith founded upon reasoning, upon knowledge of history and upon deliberate conviction. His character was as lofty as his mind; he gave himself, ga willing sacrifice, to the cause of his people and seems throughout his life to have been incapable of a selfish impulse. To his other unusual gifts was joined a singular charm of manner and conversation; so that even his jailers 'and rough men appointed to watch him became, in spite of a Ibid, pp. 141, 147. 9 THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 111 themselves, his friends and admirers.' And, finally, one may think that there never lived a braver man; all accounts agree that he faced peril without bravado as without a tremor, and looked with a sure and beautiful serenity upon the prospect of imminent death that for years confronted him. He was born June 19, 1861,iCal7 ba, a considerable town in the province of Luzon caled Laguna. His father had some education and a little property, his mother was college-bred, his ancestors had held responsible positions in rural governments. Like so many other Filipinos, they were partly of Chinese extraction. His mother seems to have been a typical Filipino woman of the educated class, gentle, refined, intelligent and capable; it was she that gave him his first instruction, teaching him to read when he was three years old. Almost as soon as he could hold a pencil he developed a notable facility first in drawing and then, of his own will, in modeling in clay and wax. His mother taught him first to love poetry and then to write it. When he was eight years old he wrote a drama that was sold for two pesos, then a workingman's wage for two weeks. At nine he was sent to an excellent school in Bifian, con-+ ducted by the Spanish fathers, and afterward to the famous Ateneo at Manila. It was while he was a student here that he fell in with a book that had a deciding influence on his life. It was Dr. Jagor's Travels in the Philippines. Thousands of other young men have read it, and gone calmpulsed to bed to forget it, but what excited Rizal was Jagor's prophecie>-bout the United States and its influence upon the world. It was not possible, in the German's opinion, that the American Republic, with its basic principles and its growing power and success, could fail, in the course of time, to work the overthrow of the surviving system of Spanish medievalism, not only in the New World but in the Philip1 Austin Craig, The Lineage, Life and Labors of Jos8 Rizal, p. 226. 112 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES pines no less. From the sufferings and wrongs of the peasants, with which he was familiar, the iron of revolt had already entered Rizal's soul. When he had studied Jagor, he was become an ardent democrat. Some things he wrote at the Ateneo, particularly a drama that was acted by his fellow students, and later his course at the University of Santo Tomas drew upon him the unfavorable notice of the authorities. In the state of blood-thirsty despotism in which the country existed, it was not a distinction to be coveted. For his own good, Rizal was counseled to complete his education abroad, and on reasonable grounds deemed the advice to be sound. The next seven years he spent at European universities, first at Madrid, then Paris, then Heidelberg, then Berlin. He had chosen medicine for his profession, and diseases of the eye for his specialty, and by the time he reached Berlin was known by name and reputation to the foremost scientists of Europe. In Paris he began to write his first novel, Noli Me Tangere, completing it and publishing it in Berlin. It is usually described as a story of Philippine life, but it is much more than that: it is a blistering furnace-blast of coin upon the whole monstrous system of rapine, murder, fraud and terrorism with which the Islands were cursed and blighted. In it Rizal poured out his full heart. With sarcasm and wrath like fire insuperable, he withered the insolent autocracy that enslaved and bemired his people. It was this book that wrought his ruin; the while, unseen, it was shaking down the towers of the Spanish structure in the Philippines. Prohibited, by the censor, it still circulated, and wherever it was read produced fateful effects, inspiring the natives with the idea of freedom and the members of the ruling class with a fixed purpose to kill the author. In 1892, having toured the United States and again visited Europe, he returned to Manila and founded his Liga Filipina, which had nothing to do with Bonifacio's Katipunan, al THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 113 though error or malice has usually confounded the two. Rizal, as we found in the sketch of Bonifacio, believed in freedom for the Philippines but not in violence as the means to achieve it. With calculating eye he looked upon the Spanish preponderance of strength and organization, and felt that in his time, at least, or until the Filipinos should be organized, united and disciplined, for them to cast themselves against the ordered cannon of Spain would be futile slaughter. Peaceful agitation, he thought, was the best means; to demand one reform after another, to keep on demanding until one was had; then, standing on that, to demand the next.' He practised his theory as well as he preached it. Iniquitous taxation was one of the handy weapons with which Spanish robbers were engaged in dispossessing the people of their lands. Rizal took up the subject of taxation, wrote a masterly treatise to show what it was and what it ought to be, and led a movement to better it. But the Liga was his greatest political creation. There was nothing secret about it; he avowed its objects and its operations. He wanted it to be an association of Filipinos of all kinds and classes that desired freedom and a modern form of government and were willing to gain these ends by appeals to reason. The men he had caricatured in Noli Me Tangere no doubt saw in this a chance to win to their revenge. A ridiculous charge of sedition was brought against him, supported, in the true fashion of the place and time, by planting in his sister's baggage some revolutionary pamphlets and then going through the farce of discovering them. His life was demanded on this fabrication, which, in the quaint jargon of the times, was called evidence. He was arrested and cast into the prison of Fort Santiago. The Governor-General of that day l"There are three ways in which one may accompany the course of progress: in front of, beside, or behind it. The first guide, the second suffer themselves to be carried along with it and the last are dragged after it."-Rizal, The Social Cancer, p. 409. 114 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES happened to be a man with some scruples about murder. He would yield no more to the pack that demanded Rizal's blood than a decree of banishment to Dapitan in the Island of Mindanao. Besides teaching school and building the water-works, the patriot occupied his time in his exile by praptising his profession, by modeling and carving, and by studying and collecting zoological and botanical specimens. After almost four years of his inhumation he learned that the hospitals of Cuba were in sore need of physicians, so that many soldier and other patients were suffering from neglect. It was characteristic of his nature, all generosity and kindness, that he at once asked of the government permission to go to Havana and serve as an interne in a yellow-fever hospital. The permission was granted, and he sailed for Cuba by way of Spain. While he was on his way, the Katipunan was discovered. In the wild panic that followed, Rizal's enemies, at least, did not lose their heads; they preferred a charge that he was a leading member of the dangerous secret society and secured an order for his arrest. His ship was passing the Suez Canal when the order reached it by cable, and from thence to Barcelona he was a prisoner. At Barcelona he was thrust into jail to wait until a vessel should sail for Manila. It was the regular mail-boat. To prevent the chance of legal interference in any foreign port on the way, a file of soldiers was put on board and the royal ensign hoisted, taking the vessel into the class of government ships that cannot be interfered with. 2 At Manila he was shut up incommunicado in Fort Santiago, where he remained seven weeks, while efforts continued to secure something like evidence against him. One, at least, of these was a startling reversion to the fifteenth century. 1 The information seems to have come from Professor Blumentrit, of Vienna, who was Rizal's intimate friend. 2Austin Craig, The Lineage, Life and Labors of Josd Rizal, p. 233. THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 115 The political police seized Rizal's brother, Paciano, and tortured him to extort some statement that would implicate the man they had determined to drag down. It was like a chapter from the history of the Inquisition; nothing else is needed to show that morally and intellectually Spain had not advanced in four hundred years. Into the right hand of the unfortunate youth was thrust a pen; to his left was applied a thumb-screw; before him was writing-paper; and the price of the surcease of his intolerable torture was a few words that should connectjhis brother with the Katipunan. They tortured him until he fainted. Three days this lasted. At the end he was in a condition too weak to write or sign anything and was carried home insensible.1 After seven weeks of imprisonment, Rizal was brought before a drum-head for what was called his trial. There was never a colder-blooded murder. The charge that he had any connection with the Katipunan was preposterous. At the time the order was rising he was an exile under watch and ward at Dapitan. He was not allowed to have a lawyer, but must choose from i list of young army officers one that should be called, by a lapse of diction, his counsel. In the barbarous procedure of the system, he was already one condemned and undergoing punishment; throughout the program he must sit with arms closely pinioned behind him. There was no evidence. The judge-advocate accused Rizal of causing the rebellion and of being a traitor. No more was necessary. The court found him guilty, and sentenced him to be shot the next day.2 That night, in his cell, Rizal wrote to his country and his compatriots his farewell poem, destined to become the Fili1 Ibid, p. 234. 2Strangely enough, it was not alone the governing class at Manila that felt relieved when this high-aspiring soul was taken in the toils, but a part at least of the European governing class elsewhere in the Orient. There is still extant a letter written to an English newspaper of Hong Kong openly exulting that the disturber of European supremacy in the Philippines had been brought to justice. 116 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES pino classic. I have here a translation from the Spanish by Charles Derbyshire, giving the thought, but of course no translation could reproduce the exquisite and melancholy music of the original: Farewell, dear fatherland, clime of the sun caressed, Pearl of the Orient seas, our Eden lost; Gladly now I go to give thee this faded life's best, And were it brighter, fresher or more blest, Still would I give it thee, nor count the cost. On the field of battle 'mid the frenzy of fight, Others have given their lives without doubt or heed; The place matters not-cypress or laurel or lily white, Scaffold or open plain, combat or martyrdom's plight, 'Tis ever the same, to serve our home and country's need. I die just when I see the dawn break Through the gloom of night, to herald the day; And if color is lacking, my blood thou shalt take, Poured out at need for thy dear sake, To dye with its crimson the waking ray. My dreams, when life first opened to me, My dreams, when the hopes of youth beat high, Were to see thy loved face, 0 gem of the Orient sea, From gloom and grief, from care and sorrow free; No blush on thy brow, no tear in thine eye. Dream of my life, my living and burning desire, All hail! cries the soul that is now to take flight; All hail! And sweet it is for thee to expire! To die for thy sake that thou may'st aspire! And sleep in thy bosom eternity's long night. If over my grave some day thou see'st grow In the grassy sod a humble flower, Draw it to thy lips and kiss my soul so, THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 117 While I may feel on my brow in the cold tomb below The touch of thy tenderness, thy breath's warm flower. Let the moon beam over me soft and serene; Let the dawn shed over me its radiant flashes; Let the wind with sad lament over me keen; And if on my cross a bird should be seen, Let it trill there its hymn of peace to my ashes. Let the sun draw its vapors up to the sky, And heavenward in purity bear my tardy protest; Let some kind soul o'er my untimely fate sigh, And in the still evening a prayer be lifted on high From thee, 0 my country, that in God I may rest. Pray for all those that hapless have died, For all who have suffered the unmeasured pain; For our mothers that bitterly their woes have cried, For widows and orphans, for captives by torture tried; And then for thyself that redemption thou may'st gain. And when the dark night wraps the graveyard around, With only the dead in their vigil to see; Break not my repose or the mystery profound, And perchance thou may'st hear a sad hymn resound; 'Tis I, 0 my country, raising a song unto thee. When even my grave is remembered no more, Unmarked by never a cross or a stone, Let the plow sweep through it, the spade turn it o'er, That my ashes may carpet thine earthly floor, Before into nothingness at last they are flown. Then will oblivion bring me no care, As over thy vales and plains I sweep; Throbbing and cleansed in thy space and air, With color and light, with song and lament I fare, Ever repeating the faith that I keep. 118 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES My fatherland adored, that sadness to my sorrow lends, Beloved Filipinas, hear now my last good-by! I give thee all: parents and kindred and friends; For I go where no slave before the oppressor bends, Where faith can never kill, and God reigns e'er on high. Farewell to you all, from my soul torn away, Friends of my childhood in the home dispossessed! Give thanks that I rest from the wearisome day! Farewell to thee, too, sweet friend that lightened my way; Beloved creatures all, farewell! In death there is rest! The next day, December 30, 1896, early in the morning, he was marched from the prison more than a mile, past the scenes familiar to him in his boyhood, within sight of the Ateneo where he went to school, down to the bare field facing the water, the field then called Bagumbayan and now become the Luneta. As he walked his bearing was so composed and peaceful that a Spanish physician among the spectators begged to be allowed to feel his pulse and testified that it was strong, calm and steady. He had asked to be allowed /to face the firing squad. The request was refused. Standing there, not blindfolded, he worked one hand sufficiently free from his bonds to indicate on his back the place at which the soldiers should aim. At the volley, with a last tremendous effort of will he turned so as to fall with his face upward. A great crowd of Spaniards, men and women, witnessed the execution, the women vying with the men in cheering and laughing, all waving their handkerchiefs with delight and uttering thanks that their enemy was gone.1 They were cheering more than they knew. The volley that struck down, in his thirty-sixth year, Jose Rizal, reformer and martyr, shook down also the whole citadel of Spanish might in the 1 Testimony of Sir Hugh Clifford, who saw the execution. THE PHILIPPINE HEROES 119 Orient. Nineteen months after that day a battalion of Filipino soldiers, marching past that spot on the Luneta, stopped to give a solemn salute to his memory and another to the flag of the United States then flying over Manila. CHAPTER VI THE FILIPINO TAKES CHARGE IT was on a primrose path of benevolence and profits that we found easy going for the next fifteen years. No one can doubt that the altruistic part of our comically mixed interpretation of the Philippine problem was real, of a high order and ably carried out. If the cynicism, merely superficial however ostentatious, that is so dear a part of the American pose suggests a question of this, we may cast away all testimony of our own citizens or of the Filipinos and rest our case on foreign witnesses and findings. To the whole Orient, Near East and Far East, the story of the United States in the Philippines has been an influence of extraordinary power. This is not understood or suspected by the American people, whose gaze is habitually fixed within, but is perfectly well known to every observant traveler in the East. It has had much to do with that awakening of the Orient that had been deemed impossible and is now achieved. To every opening Oriental mind this story has been more than an inspiration; it has been the overwhelming fact, the sure cosmic lever thrust under old institutions, old prejudices, old tyrannies, old wrongs. For those that happen not to be aware of these transformations I would fain seem to speak within moderate bounds; but this statement at least may be allowed me, that if the United States were to withdraw now from the Philippines and deem its work there to be done, the effects of its presence would persist in the entire Orient until the end of recorded time. But to be fair we ought to remember also the effects that 120 THE FILIPINO TAKES CHARGE this presence, this influence, this tuition along the lines of old traditional cherished hopes had necessarily upon the Filipino people. What had really come upon them was the great, potent, wonder-working spirit of nationality, into which all this fitted with faultless articulation. The Filipino was to be a Filipino no matter what tongue he spoke or what island he inhabited, and he was to have his country for himself. From one point of view they were wrong about this. The Americans had wrought for them the most substantial blessings; American rule had established schools, made peacnd order, pushediLvilization, abolished thbandit, unified the currency, settled business upon firm foundations, built roads, fostered roduction, improved the general health, cleaned the cities, brightened and bettered the general life. To accept then, in a spirit of reverent gratitude for these marvels, whatever dispensation America might care to provide, seemed to many persons elsewhere the proper attitude for the Filipinos. But the history of mankind has no instance where gratitude for favors shown or benefits conferred has been strong enough to chill the fervor for nationality once it laid hold upon any people. No doubt England had conferred great benefits upon Ireland; rishhad r eges and immunities the English never had. Not one of them nor the whole of them weighed a gossamer against Irish passion for Irish independence. Great things have been done by the ritfishfor Egypt, by the Japanese for Korea. Indeed, if we come to that, did not the British complain bitterly about the rank \ingratitude of the American colonies, and has not every revolting people borne some such reproach? I think so; and yet nationality has been above all else to us and to them, and in the end history has thought well of it. To be governed, however kindly, wisely and well, by an alien people whose government, though furbelowed and tinseled with something else, rests upon crossed bayonets-that is the thing insupportable 122 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES to any people that has so much as glimpsed freedom. It is not in the power of man to make it otherwise than insupportable; not with reasons, anyway, nor arguments, nor philanthropy, nor good gifts. Many a thoughtful Filipino would admit, if questioned about it, that the United States would probably provide his country with a better manner of government than his countrymen could furnish; the main thing in his mind would still be that his country and his flag should be free. "If you knew how precious a thing is freedom," said the Scythian, "you would defend it even with axes." To a people in this mood there came the act of Congress of August 29, 1916, and gave to the hopes of independence and the aspirations for nationality the definite form and solidity of a contract. This act, famous now as the Jones Act, began with this momentous declaration: 'Whereas, it was never the intention of the people of the United States in the incipiency of the War with Spain to make it a war of conquest or for territorial aggrandizement; and 'Whereas, it is, as it has always been, the purpose of the people of the United States to withdraw their sovereignty over the Philippine Islands and to recognize their independence as soon as a stable government can be established therein; and 'Whereas, for the speedy accomplishment of such purpose it is desirable to place in the hands of the people of the Philippines as large a control of their domestic affairs as can be given them without, in the meantime, impairing the exercise of the rights of sovereignty by the people of the United States, in order that, by the use and exercise of popular franchise and governmental powers, they may be the better prepared to fully assume the responsibilities and enjoy all the privileges of complete independence; 'Therefore be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America-' THE FILIPINO TAKES CHARGE 123 There follows a"complete organic law for the conduct of the affairs of the Philippine Islands, previous to and leading to final separation. Apparently, this law was the culmination of the declared purpose of the United States to fit the Islanders for self-government. It could hardly be otherwise regarded by a normal mind, for the changes it made in governmental methods were in every case directly in line with that purpose. In fact, each successive stage in governmental development had looked clearly to something like this as the final preparatory condition. It is no wonder, then, that the Islanders regarded the bill as the climax of their tutelage, so accepted it and went to work, to the best of their ability and in a spirit of joy, to carry out the only condition upon which, so far as they could discern, their independence was still to depend. They were to have independence "as soon as a stable government" could be established in their Islands. Thus was the great Republic vindicating its traditional faith and historic glory as the champion of democracy. The last trace of distrust disappeared before this prospect.1 Sinister suggestions formerly heard that the United States was really of no better morals than the land-grabbing and exploiting nations, but merely practised brigandage under a more skilful hypocrisy, vanished for the time being, and Filipinos became ardent, 1 When the bill was on passage through Congress, Manuel L. Quezon, who was then Resident Commissioner from the Philippines, said on the floor of the House: "Heretofore we have been the least and last factor in Philippine affairs. Hereafter we shall be the first and most important factor. Heretofore things were done by the Philippine government not only without the consent but on many occasions against the strong opposition of the Filipino people. Hereafter nothing will be done without our consent, much less in defiance of our opposition. So I say, Mr. Speaker, this bill is a long and very decisive step toward the complete emancipation of the Filipino people. It marks an epoch in our national history. We are convinced that the promise of independence contained in the bill will be faithfully fulfilled, for we know that we are dealing wth a nation in the true sense jealous of its honor and its good name." 124 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES loyal, ingenuous friends of the United States, with a lively expectation that the contract thus sealed would be speedilfulfilled. / The Jones Act made no stipulation about freedom other than the one condition of stabilit It was not set forth that th e government te nould set up should be as efficient as that of the best governed state in the Union, that it should be always perfectly wise, perfectly competent, perfectly ordered. No condition was made that every citizen in the Philippine Republic should be saturated with the richness of academic lore concerning the correct theory of government. Of forethought, apparently, the control of the affairs of the Islands was placed in the hands of the natives thereof with the solemn undertaking that when they should have made their government stable their complete independence should be their reward. Sweeping changes the law made in thgverning machine. The Philippine Commission was abolished. Each of its members, in additiont legislative functions, had been a cabinet officer; that is to say, the head of an executive department, as of Finance or Justice or Commerce. All these positions were now to be filled by the consent of the Philippine Senate, and as this would naturally be composed exclusively of Filipinos the change meant not only that the departments would pass under Filipino direction but that all the important offices in them would be filled by natives. In truth, there was almost nothing left for Americans to do in connection with the government, except in the offices of the Governor-General, the Insular Auditor and the ViceGovernor-General, who continued to be appointed by the President. The powers of the Governor-General were so much shorn that in fact the place became largely ornamental; all real power was concentrated in the hands of the Legislature. The Vice-Governor-General continued to be the head of the Department of Public Instruction, and was the only THE PHILIPPINE HOUSE of EESET VES IN SESSION V I, /^^ THE FILIPINO TAKES CHARGE 125 American cabinet officer. In all matters relating to foreign affairs and international relations, or affecting the sovereignty of the United States, Congress retained the sole authority. As to everything else, the Islands were cut adrift and in effect told to make their way as they might see fit.l There is no need to conceal the fact that the change aroused the bitterest resentment of the American colony in the Philippines. It could not be expected to do less. All the most important places in the government had long been filled by Americans, many of whom had made homes in the Islands and naturally had come to regard themselves as settled for life. These now found that they were displaced by brownskinned natives.\ A belief had grown up that natives were Iincompetent to fill such places and that this was the reason for the presence of the Americans. It is a belief not easily abandoned, particularly when accompanied with emoluments. Moreover, the commonest observation of travelers is that inferiority is easily found in the people of a dependency ruled by an alien power. What followed was the obvious thing. The Americans in the Philippines generally drew away from the natives. Before the Jones Act, many Americans had rather liked to regard themselves as agents of benevolence, doing for the lowly Filipinos what the lowlj,Filipinos were not sufficiently gifted to do for themselves. 'When, in plain terms, they found the lowly Filipinos crowding Americans out of these positions, some degree of resentment was inevitable, and in this respect it is not to be denied that the Jones Act was unfortunate, however necessary. There was also, for we may as well have now the whole truth of the matter, the eternal and infernal race feeling. 1 Secretary of War Baker, who had departmental supervision over the Philippines, said: "The functions of government have been taken over by the people of the Islands themselves, leaving only the tenuous connection of the Governor-General." 126 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES The Filipinos are called brown men, being in fact about the color of cafe au lait. Some Americans in whom the race prejudice was strong had a habit of referring to them as "niggers" and mentally classing them with the colored people of their own country, whom they happened to have been brought up to hate. When they saw these brown men not only admitted to the government but intrusted with the \ whole of it, and when they saw white men dispossessed of their offices in favor of natives, it is not strange that they vehemently objected. But there was the law, passed by Congress, approved by the President, and making all these changes; from it was no escape. The brunt of the anger fell upon the GovernorGeneral, who was accused of preferring natives to his fellow countrymen, when he, poor man, was powerless to do otherwise. The changes were none of his making; Congress had wrought them all, and he had no part to play except in good faith to carry out the will of the government he served. As soon as possible after the signing of the Jones Act elections were ordered, a Senate and House of Representatives were chosen and organized as the Philippine Legislature, the cabinet and other offices were filled by natives, and on January 1, 1917, the actual government of the Islands passed into the hands of its inhabitants to an extent that was never understood in the United States, and has continued in their hands to the present writing. In many instances the new Filipino officers were not, and could not have been expected to be, the equals of the white men whose places they took. The white men had experience and training; the new incumbents often had neither. In many instances, therefore, the service suffered deterioration for a while, and whereas the time required patience with these inevitable conditions, there' was, on the contrary, because of the ill-will that had sprung up, a disposition to exaggerate every fault. It reacted, as such things always react. The THE FILIPINO TAKES CHARGE 127 Filipinos felt that they were unjustly treated, and, while they continued to be loyal to the United States in general, ill feeling between the members of the two races that were dwelling in actual propinquity grew until it flamed out and found expression in the strangest strike in history. This was in July, 1920. There had come to the Islands an excursion troop of members of Congress and their wives, bound on what is usually called a junketing trip. It was of a voluntary and personal character and had no official significance; but in Manila are published several American newspapers and these thought the occasion good to convince the visiting statesmen of the inferiority of the Filipino. They published, accordingly, for the Congressional edification, much sarcasm and some abuse at the native expense. They had done this before with impunity; doubtless they assumed they could continue to do it. Except the editorial executives, all the employees on these journals were Filipinos, and of a sudden the excutives found themselves alone in the buildings. Compositors, pressmen, stereotypers, mailers, sweepers, clerks, reporters, stenographers-the entire staff except the executives-walked out and left behind them a situation new in the history of Manila. None of the journals could be published; not a printer, pressman or stereotyper could be had on any terms. After this had lasted a few days, an important commercial body of Manila was brought in as peacemaker. "What do you want?" said the president to the strikers. "We are tired of reading abuse of our country and our countrymen," they said, "and we are going to stop it." Prophecy has seldom had surer fulfilment. The newspaper proprietors were compelled to make solemn undertakings that the offense should not be repeated. The strikers demanded that the writers of the insulting articles should be dismissed. This was finally adjusted upon a promise that they should not be allowed to write for the journals, and the storm passed. It 128 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES left, in some ways, a more healthful condition. When I was in Manila it was not customary to refer, in print at least, to the Filipinos as "monkeys" or idiots. But in the United States discussion still continued of the old favorite question whether they were fitted for self-government. It was become the idlest and emptiest discussion in all the world. Whether they were fitted for it or unfitted was a matter relegated to the dead past and not to be resurrected thence. For, fit or unfit, they were doing it, and the only question worth considering was how they were doing it, which is the subject I purpose to examine in the succeeding pages. a CHAPTER VII FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT ~W ~r HEN the celebrated Jones Act arrived upon Philippine shores it was eagerly scrutinized by the Filipinos that since the beginning of the American period had been rising in political prominence and power. One thing conspicuous in three centuries of the history of these people is a capacity for, or a happy fortune in, developing leaders when leaders are necessary. These men looked over the new organic law as devised by the excellent Jones, and at once spied faults in it if it was to operate as the governing enginery of these Islands. One trouble was that, while it erected a popular Legislature, chosen by and directly responsible to the people, and while it made that Legislature the supreme power in the government, so that all other powers, whether of President of the United States, Congress or Governor-General, became by comparison nominal, there was a link missing between the people and the daily steering of the state ship. It was a situation not different from that always existing in the American government, from which the new organic act had been copied. In the American system the heads of the executive departments are chosen by the President and responsible only to him; neither the people nor the people's representatives have any rein upon them. This, in the American practice, is not of much importance because we have made the entire government subject to the force of public opinion without much provided machinery to that end. But in the Philippines the lack was felt to be a serious flaw in that 129 130 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES democracy so long the goal of men's hopes, and good minds set to work to supply what was missing. The manner of doing this deserves more attention than it has had, a remark that might be applied to every other phase of the peculiar national development in the Philippines since the last days of Aguinaldo in the field. But this particular instance ought to have heed for two unusual reasons. In the first place, the Philippines will shortly present to the United States a problem that will have to be met face to face and with serious ponderings, and we shall never understand that problem unless we come to understand what the Jones Act has meant and done for the Islands. And in the next place, if we prefer a more succulent interest, it is a strange and memorable thing to see Malay statesmen at the other end of the earth bettering an act of the Congress of the United States on the ground that it must bet made more democratic and responsive to the public will. First, then, as to the Jones Act, whoever now will read with mind as well as eyes this famous measure will see that the consternation it caused in the American colony must have been simulated; there is nothing in it to flutter conservatism with the red specter of revolution. It was no more than the next step in an obvious sequence, and inevitable unless we were, with shame, to reverse a policy we had proclaimed with vauntings of self-righteousness. With the purpose, many times reiterated, to fit the people for self-government and eventual freedom, the American control had nurtured democracy in the Philippines. The amount added by the Jones Act was no more than the least demanded by this progression and far from the end of it, as will be observed from noting its principal points. Suffrage. An elective Legislature was created, but not everybody could vote for its members. The franchise was established with these qualifications: All male persons (except convicts or the insane) twenty FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 131 one years old or more, not citizens or subjects of a foreign power, if resident in the Philippines one year and in the municipality six months, provided they came within one of the following classifications: A. Those that under the previous laws were legal voters and had exercised the right. This meant chiefly men that had held municipal or other public office. B. Those that owned at least 500 pesos' ($250) worth of real property or paid at least 30 pesos ($15) a year of taxes. C. Those able to read and write either Spanish, English or a native language. Within these restrictions, the number of possible voters in 1918 was 1,267,690 in a total population of 10,350,730. That meant that sixty-one per cent. of the men of the voting age constituted the potential electorate. Of these about 300, 000 would have based their right on the property or tax requirements and 800,000 on educational attainments. The Legislature. The act made of the Archipelago twelve senatorial and ninety representative districts, divisions being drawn according to population. Each senatorial district was to have two senators holding office for six years, and each representative district one representative holding office three years. In the Twelfth Senatorial District, and in nine Representative districts of the same region, the senators and representatives were not to be elected but appointed by the Governor-General. This was because these districts lay in the distant and then uncivilized territory where roamed the far-famed wild man with his cravat style of apparel, and it was deemed that in these quarters voting was impracticable. Elections were to take place on the first Tuesday in June, and the Legislature was to convene on October 16 next thereafter. Laws passed by the Legislature must be submitted to the Governor-General for his signature. He had the right of veto, which could be over-ruled by a two-thirds vote of 132 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the houses. If he still disapproved of the measure, he could send it to the President of the United States, who had the final decision. One power conferred upon the GovernorGeneral wise men in America had long sought in vain for the President: he could veto separate items in an appropriation bill. All laws passed by the Legislature must be reported to the Congress of the United States, which reserved the power to annul them, a power it has never exercised. Two Resident Commissioners to Washington were to be elected by the Legislature and to hold office for three years. About some phases of the government thus set up are wide differences of opinion, adjustable, of course, to the usual standards of prejudice and race feeling, but I do not see how there is much room for controversy about the Philippine Legislature. While it was in session I was a fairly faithful attendant upon its proceedings, attracted by the interest it developed; and it struck me as an organization of rare merit in its line. I mean that for good order, dignity, method, for serious attention to and rapid dispatch of business, for general intelligence and efficiency, it appeared to rank high among the legislative bodies of civilization. It had been my lot to see in session many legislatures in many parts of the world, famous and obscure, and I was unable to recall any that made a better showing. Assuredly not the Congress of the United States, for instance. The business of the members of the Philippine Legislature seemed to be not the development of conversational art but the considering and passing of laws, a difference that must make a powerful and immediate impression upon every American. The debates seemed to be of a high order; I heard some that would be so regarded in any national capitol in the world. The work of the Legislature speaks for itself. In the five years of its existence, 1916 to 1921, it seems to have passed many wise and no conspicuously foolish measures. I have here a list of thirty-five of its most important enact FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 133 ments which I have compared with thirty-five of the most important laws created under the old system, and I have not been able to detect any decline in efficiency or wisdom. I find a law appropriating 39,705,000 pesos to extend free education to all children of school age in the Islands, laws to increase agricultural production, to guard the public health, to create the Bureau of Dependent Children, to extend the railroads, to improve the ports and harbors, to improve and simplify the judicial procedure, and the like; wise, useful measures. They seem to be ably drawn; perhaps partly because a bureau has been created to draw bills for members that have legislation to propose. The House of Representatives was presided over by Sergio Osmefia, of whom I shall have occasion to speak again, and the Senate by Manuel L. Quezon. I was unable to see where there was any flaw in their methods as presiding officers; the immortal Roberts and his Rules seemed to be as sacred in their hands as anywhere else under the canopy of civilization. Mr. Quezon was for six years the Resident Commissioner or delegate of the Philippines to the United States, and sat in the American House of Representatives. He achieved there a remarkable reputation for parliamentary skill and brilliancy in debate, and all his subsequent career has confirmed his early promise of unusual public service. Governor-General. The act vested in this officer what it called the supreme executive power. He was to be appointed by the President, with the approval of the Senate of the United States, and to hold office at the President's pleasure. He was to have general supervision and control of all the departments and bureaus of the government "as far as not inconsistent with the provisions of this act," which as we shall see was not very far. He must make an annual report to some executive department of the United States, to be designated by the President, and this department was to transmit the report to Congress. The purpose of this circum 134 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES navigation was never disclosed, but may be ascribed to the quaint operations of the Congressional mind. Also the Governor-General was to have power to appoint important public officers (except Vice-Governor, Justices of the Supreme Court and Insular Auditor), but only with the consent of the Philippine Senate; the one exception being in the case of the senators and representatives appointed for the specially organized districts. He could order investigations into official conduct; reserve from settlement or public sale the public lands; determine when it was necessary to exercise the right of eminent domain; after investigation, deport or exclude from the Islands a citizen of a foreign power. He was made head of the Bureau of Civil Service and the Bureau of Audits, and could order the examination of the books and accounts of the Auditor and Treasurer. With the approval of the Senate, he could order the concentration of the people of outlying barrios for protection and order. He had charge of all extradition cases, and he was to supervise correspondence touching the foreign relations of the Philippines. Vice-Governor-General. Likewise to be appointed by the President. Insular Auditor and Deputy Auditor, appointed by the President, to "examine, audit and settle all accounts" pertaining to the receipts and expenditures of the Philippine government, and likewise of the provincial and municipal governments, reporting annually to the Governor-General and, strangely enough, to the Secretary of War; this being about the last surviving relic of the time when the Islands were under military control. Executive Departments. These were left to the Legislature to create and manage, except that the law established a new executive bureau. It was called the Bureau of NonOhristian Tribes, and its province was to look after the interests of the people in the regions represented in the Legis FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 135 lature by appointed instead of elected members. The old Philippine Commission was abolished, but its members were to continue to serve as the heads of the existing departments until the Legislature should relieve them. The Legislature lost no time about doing so. It passed, when it met, a reorganization bill, which established these as the executive departments: Finance, Justice, Public Instruction, Interior, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Commerce and Communications. Each was to be headed by a Secretary. The Secretary of Public Instruction was the Vice-Governor. The other Secretaries were to be appointed by the Governor-General subject to the approval of the Philippine Senate. It was provided that they should be chosen at the beginning of each Legislature, instead of holding office during good behavior, or at the pleasure of the President, as formerly they held it. By plain inference, therefore, they were to be chosen in accordance with the popular will as it had been expressed at the last election, chosen from members of the political party that had triumphed then, chosen indeed practically from men selected by the Legislature itself. This was a Filipino idea, for it is not in the Jones Act, nor anything like it; and those that believe in popular government can note with satisfaction that it marked an advance toward direct responsibility to the people. For the rest, the reorganization bill offered something of a novelty. It set forth that any Secretary might be called, at any time, before either house, on any matter within his jurisdiction; thereby giving to the Legislature the power to examine and to criticize the departments and likewise fixing 136 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the responsibility of the departments to the Legislature and not to the Governor-General; a fact often overlooked outside of the Islands. The Jones Act had prohibited members of the Legislature from occupying positions created -by the Legislature in which they had sat, but after three years all these cabinet posts became accessible to such members. The reorganization' act added this provision, that only "a citizen of the Philippine Islands," not less than thirty years old and who had resided in the Islands continuously for three years, could be a cabinet officer, which practically restricted these places to Filipinos, no matter who might be GovernorGeneral or what might be his wishes. The powers and the independence of departmental heads, within their responsibility to the Legislature, were much increased. They were now able to appoint and dismiss their subordinate officers (subject always to the Civil Service regulations); they were authorized to draft any bill they desired for the benefit of their departments, and to introduce it through members of either house; they were authorized to go, at any time and on their own motion, before either house to explain any matter pertaining to their departments. Courts. These were continued on the existing system, being the Supreme Court, the Courts of First Instance and the Police or Municipal Courts. The Chief Justice and the nine Associate Justices of the Supreme Court were to be appointed by the President, with the approval of the United States Senate. Judges of the Courts of First Instance were to be appointed by the Governor-General with the approval of the Philippine Senate, but could not be dismissed from office except upon the recommendation of the Supreme Court. Provision had been made in the Jones Act that in certain cases the Supreme Court of the United States should have power to "review, revise, reverse, modify or affirm" the decisions of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 137 The present Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines is a Filipino. Of the Associate Justices the Americans still constitute a majority. Salaries. The act fixed the salary of the Governor-Gen. eral at $18,000 a year, of the Vice-Governor at $10,000, of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at $8000, of the Associate Justices at $7500 each, of the Auditor at $6000, of the Deputy Auditor at $3000, and left all other salaries and all other matters, except relations with the United States and foreign powers, to the discretion of the Legislature. Council of State. This was the creation of the native statesmen and the Governor-General, for it had no place nor suggestion in the Jones Act. It was, in fact, in all ways at the beginning extra-legal, for there was no authorization for it in the reorganization or any other bill of the Legislature. The Council consists of the Governor-General, Vice-GovernorGeneral, all the secretaries of the executive departments, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Governor-General presides, but the Council elects its own vice-president, who is to be the president of the political party that, at the last election, has carried the country. This puts the party leader in a position where he is both responsible to and can be reached by the nation. He must deal in the open; he cannot sit in a closet, bomb-proof against public indignation or will, and wield the powers of an irresponsible autocrat.' The Filipino leaders believe that, with this device, they have eliminated the po1"The Council of State promises to solve the problem of responsible leadership in the government. Composed as it is of the highest executive officials and the recognized legislative leaders, all of whom have been chosen with the approval of the representatives of the people, the Council of State is bound to exercise considerable powers. It can properly direct the Filipino element in the government.... The system may perhaps be said to be a compromise between the English cabinet system and the American system. It probably approaches more nearly the Swiss Federal Government."-Kalaw, Self-Government i the Philippines, p. 38. 138 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES litical "boss" and the source of the "invisible government" that afflicts American affairs. They point out that in America the boss does not hold office, and is therefore always beyond the reach of the public; whereas by their arrangement he is made responsible for all his political acts. It is likely they have overlooked the fact that the ultimate "invisible government" is not the leader of Tammany Hall, nor men like Mark Hanna and Boss Cox, but the power of accumulated wealth, and that this exists everywhere. Yet it is truly an advantage that the political leader should be made a responsible officer in the administration. Another of still more solid character lies in the fact that the cabinet or Council of State, having by this innovation two members of the Legislature, can introduce any legislation it may see fit to introduce. In other words, it can initiate, which the cabinet of the United States cannot possibly do. The Filipino leaders also assert that the Council of State makes the heads of the executive departments responsible to the people, because as soon as the political complexion of the Legislature is changed, in accordance with the people's will at the polls, the entire government is changed likewise.' I hope they are right about this. Although the Council, at the start, was an extra-legal creation, and had no statute to give it countenance, it has since been ratified into a legal status by repeated acts of the Legislature assigning to it specific functions. It has, therefore, become a permanent institution and part of the government. One may fear that this plain fact is overlooked by many that complain of the "Filipinization" of the Island government. So soon as the Jones Act went into effect, all the cabinet positions were filled by Filipinos. They will continue to be so filled, because none other can be approved by a Filipino Legislature. The only recourse would be to repeal iKalaw, Self-Government in the Philippines, p. 37. FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 139 the Jones Act and abolish the Legislature, and, for reasons to be considered hereafter, it seems most unlikely that any Congress would attempt any such huge reversion unless the desire should become general to have a war. Bureaus. The division of the working sub-departments and bureaus among the executive departments was effected thus: Governor-General: Bureau of Audits; Bureau of Civil Service; Bureaus and work not assigned to other departments. Finance: Bureau of the Treasury; Bureau of Customs; Bureau of Internal Revenue; Bureau of Printing; Banks, banking, currency, coinage. Justice: Bureau of Justice; Courts of First Instance and others; Philippine Library and Museum; Bureau of Prisons; Public Utility Commission. Public Instruction: treau of Education; ureau of Quarantine; Health Service. Interior: Executive Bureau; Philippine Constabulary; Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes; Bureau of Dependent Children; Philippine Hospital; Board of Dental Hygiene; Board of Examiners-Dental, Medical, Optical, for Nurses and the like. 140 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Agriculture and Natural Resources: Bureau of Agriculture; Bureau of Forestry; Bureau of Lands; Bureau of Science; Weather Bureau; Fisheries, Hunting and the like. Commerce and Communications: Bureau of Posts; Bureau of Labor; Bureau of Commerce and Industry; Bureau of Public Works; Bureau of Supply; Bureau of Coast and Geodetic Survey. The Executive Bureau is a board of local government for the Islands. It has general supervision of the provincial and municipal governments in the regions represented by elected delegates, as the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes cares for those that have not yet the franchise. Provincial Government. Each of the forty-five provinces has a Governor, and except in the backward regions he is elected by the people. Of the twelve provinces that come under a different dispensation, four are Christian and eight Non-Christian. The Provincial Governor is assisted by two other officers, the Secretary-Treasurer of the province and an officer known as the Third Member of the Provincial Board. In all the regular provinces the Third Member, like the Governor, is elected; the Secretary-Treasurer is appointed, but the people have always a majority of the Board. The condition is a temporary stage, from which provision is already made for the next step. In three of the special provinces, Mindoro, Palawan and Batanes, where the Governor is still appointed, the Third Member of the Board is now elected by the people, and election will be substituted for appointment as fast as the development of the people seems to justify it; or such is the program. In two of the special provinces, FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 141 the Mountain Province and Nueva Vizcaya, the Governors are appointed by the Director of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes, with the approval of the Governor-General; in two others, Mindanao and Sulu (the Mohammedan provinces) the Governors are appointed by the Governor-General with the approval of the Senate. But the Third Members of the Provincial Boards in these four provinces are now elected by the vice-presidents and councilors of the provinces at a provincial convention. The purpose is deliberate and fixed to transform as rapidly as possible the manner of government in these remote and backward provinces from dependency to paternalism, with an increasing measure of self-government, and at last into the full lea'f of democracy. As soon as the Director of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes certifies to the GovernorGeneral that the conditions in any of the special provinces justify the holding of elections, the Governor-General, by executive order, will fix a date for a general election for Provincial Governor and Third Member of the Provincial Board. Thus Zamboanga, Davao and Agusan began in 1917 to vote for Third Member; Nueva Vizcaya in 1918 and the Mountain Province in 1920. In December, 1920, the Governor-General, having received the usual certification, issued a proclamation calling for an election in June, 1922, in Zamboanga, Davao, Agusan and Nueva Vizcaya to choose Provincial Governors in those provinces, whose inhabitants will thereby be endowed with the full and democratic control of their own affairs. Doubtless this will be followed by elections for other offices, and the provinces will take their places in all respects as sister states in the Philippine union. So, in the American union, the political divisions have developed from the chrysalis of territories into states. The classification of the backward provinces into Christian and Non-Christian is not quite accurate. Here are eight provinces that have been called Non-Christian, with the census 142 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES findings of the actual religious adherences of their people: TOTAL PROVINCES POPULATION CHRISTIAN NON-CHRISTIAN Agusan 44,358 38,323 6,035 Bukidnon 47,811 25,299 22,512 Cotabato 169,191 21,391 147,800 Davao 119,304 66,293 53,011 Lanao 94,946 12,230 82,716 Nueva Vizeaya 35,819 28,432 7,387 Sulu 167,975 6,582 161,393 Zamboanga 147,991 77,001 70,990 Municipal Government. There are in the Islands 881 organized municipalities, 229 organized municipal districts, 88 townships and 16,300 barrios or hamlets. The general plan of government for municipalities includes a mayor, (called the municipal president), vice-president, treasurer and a council, all these being as a rule elective offices, except that of municipal president (who is commonly appointed by the Provincial Board) and the treasurer (who is appointed by the treasurer of the province). But the practice spreads of making this appointment in accordance with the results of an election it the municipality, so that in many cases it is now possible to say that the president, too, is the people's choice. The cities are in four classes with the number of councilors fixed in proportion to the population, thus: First Class have not fewer than 25,000 inhabitants and a council of 18. Second Class have from 18,000 to 25,000 inhabitants and a council of 14. Third Class have from 10,000 to 18,000 inhabitants and a council of 10. Fourth Class have fewer than 10,000 inhabitants and a council of 8. FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 143 The metropolitan city of Manila has a slightly different organization. Its mayor is appointed by the Governor-General with the approval of the Senate, and its Municipal Board of ten members is elected by the people. Only Manila and Baguio have this plan. In the rural regions the local boards of municipal districts are usually constituted of one councilor for each barrio. The law provides that where there is still incomplete democracy in local affairs the Governor-General may, by proclamation, make the presidency of any municipal district also an elective office, and this by 1921 had been done by such proclamation for Zanboanga, Davao and some other districts. This reminds me of an incident that I may as well recite here, to illustrate the complexities of municipal government; although it is at least as apt an illustration of six other things, such as the character of the Filipino woman, the advance of modern ideas, the startling progress of the Filipino Mohammedan, the almost incredible potency of the public school in subduing savagery, the primitive state of the backward provinces fifteen years ago and the magical change that has been wrought in them since. It is the story of Mrs. Bangungan (or Bae) Inuk, a Mohammedan woman for some years the mayor, or municipal president, of Buluan, a town on the island of Mindanao. She was born in 1877, the youngest daughter of a Moro planter of cocoanuts and rice in the interior of the Island. Her mother was the sister of a native chief, the Datu Piang; her father died two months before she was born. She was reared a Mohammedan of the Mohammedans and a Moro among the wildest Moros. Her mother, as is often the case with Moro women, revealed the possession of great capacity, managed the plantation, reared her children in some comfort and the beginnings of culture, and was accounted wellto-do. But there were many brothers and sisters, and when the mother died little was left for the youngest daughter. 144 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Two years before, she had been married to one Lumunda, the adopted son of her uncle, the Datu Piang. The most powerful chieftain of that region was the Datu Oto, with whom Datu Piang had long been on good terms. Piang now asked Oto that he might be allowed to hunt wild cattle in Oto's territory. Oto was willing, but when he thought that Piang had stretched the permission to cover many days of slaughter, and was in a way to kill all the game in the neighborhood, he protested. Piang resented the protest, a quarrel followed and, as was always the ending of Datus' quarrels, tribal war broke out, the Spaniards fostering it and helping Piang. Lumunda sided with Oto. It may be taken as evidence of the natural independence of the Filipino woman, or of the slight hold orthodox Mohammedanism has in the Islands, or of both, but Mrs. Lumunda refused to follow her lord into Oto's camp. She remained loyal to her uncle Piang and, when Lumunda departed, divorced him. She went to live in Piang's household. One of his lieutenants was the Datu Inuk. He fell in love with her, and Piang arranged the marriage. They went to live in another village, where Piang made Inuk a kind of justice of the peace; but he was so soft-hearted and so lenient to the wrongdoers brought before him that when it was necessary to pass sentence upon one of these his wife was called in to take the worthy justice's place. There seems to have been no charge of undue lenity to malefactors brought against his lady. Just then the Americans came, and the Moros revolted against the new dispensation. Once more this woman found herself and her husband on opposing sides. He joined the Americans; she preferred to fight them. Battle was raging between the Americans and the Moros. The village was attacked; Mrs. Inuk with others took refuge in a house that came to be in the line of fire. It was soon riddled with rifleshots and when morning broke she was covered with the FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 145 blood of her companions. Of all the persons in the house she alone was unhurt. The Americans restored order and set up a government. In recognition of his services, Inuk was made Deputy Governor of the province. He and his wife were reconciled. General Wood came, chose a site for a new town and started it, naming it Buluan. It prospered and grew. There Deputy Governor Inuk, with his wife, made his home until his death. With other Moros, Mrs. Inuk had become interested in the American experiments, as soon as she recovered from her belief that aliens could have only malignant intentions. A public school was established at Buluan. She, a Mohammedan, became one of its strongest champions. The town had been organized as a municipality, with a former Datu and wild man of the woods as its president. His term was about to expire; it was necessary to choose a successor, and the people turned to Mrs. Inuk. There was, nevertheless, something of a campaign; but when the votes were counted it was seen that Mrs. Inuk was the popular idol, for these were the results: Mrs. Bangungan Inuk.............. 147 President Katug................... 18 Councilor Anani Tumbabay.......... 5 Councilor Datang.................. 3 She took office on September 15 and proved a most active and energetic commander. She enforced the laws, purged her district of criminals, improved the health conditions of the town and was so zealous in securing attendance at the schools that she may be said to have introduced, on her own responsibility, compulsory education. The first year she was in office she nearly doubled the school enrolment. The next year she built a dormitory for girls coming from a distance to attend school; and the next year she added to the number of pupils one hundred and ten girls and thirty boys. In the 146 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES midst of which employments she conducted her own household with what seems to have been a truly distinguished success, since she was accounted the best cook in the province, and whenever a great festival was held she was asked to take charge of the commissary.1 Divers Activities. To protect the people against exploitation and safeguard against profiteering, the Filipino government has taken some rather unusual steps. It organized the National Development Company with a charter so broad it could cover anything from sugar to surgery, the plan being that whenever or wherever there was profiteering the government should enter into competition with the profiteer and bring him to reason by selling goods at cost. Up to 1921, certainly, this operation continued to be chiefly psychological; the business of the Islands had not yet seen any formidable invasion by government store or factory. Perhaps it had really no other purpose than to hold up a minatory finger as against bad boys; whereupon the odd fact is to be recorded that there was on the whole much less profiteering in the Philippines than in the United States. But the organization of the company, and its potential threat of interference, brought forth in alien business circles a storm of fierce criticism, and probably did more than any other one act to solidify opposition to the government. It is hard to understand the bitterness of this feeling unless one has some notion of the extent to which foreign business has been accustomed to dominate government in the Far East. When we learn that the foreign banking institutions of the Philippines united to fight the American unification of the Philippine currency because they made money out of the old and rotten exchange conditions, and learn next that up to 1921 similar institutions, for similar reasons, had been able to defeat a similar unifica1Most of this narrative is taken from Mrs. Inuk's own account of her life, but the election figures were supplied to me by the Department of Interior. FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 147 tion in China, we begin to glimpse something of the power the Island government had offended. It went farther, and organized the National Coal Company to operate some of the rich coal-mines in the Islands and reduce the profits of the coal monopoly; and next the National. Exchange Company, the National Iron Company, the National Cement Company. In all these, as in the Philippine National Bank, the government was the owner of 51 per cent. of the capital stock and conducted the enterprise; and when, in the course of its innovations and for the sake of the farmers, it projected itself into a conflict with the powerful International Harvester Company, the foreign business interests felt that here was a government to be condemned; and they condemned it with feeling, not to say abandon. It appears, however, that they had no good ground to be alarmed. Except in the case of the Philippine National Bank and of the railroads of Luzon, the government's operations in business were chiefly on paper and figured most potently in reports. The railroad was a different matter. It had been an English enterprise, old, staid and unprofitable. It owned six hundred and twenty miles of line in the Island of Luzon and had a good traffic but seemed unable to extract from its business any surplus returns. In all its history it had paid but one dividend, an insignificant percentage in 1912. Thereafter it resumed its monotonous history of loss, its balance sheet showing such gloomy finalities as these: 1914 net deficit...... 116,887 pesos 1915 net deficit...... 823,564 pesos 1916 net deficit...... 432,490 pesos The government took possession of the property in 1916, and the next three years under government management showed the following results: 1 Statements of the General Manager. 148 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES 1917 net profits...... 816,639 pesos 1918 net profits..... 248,742 pesos 1919 net profits...... 385,458 pesos For this apparent necromancy, the turning of a great loss into a great profit, the explanation is increased economies, efficient management and increased traffic. The report of 1920 was not ready when this was written, but the year had seen a marked decrease in traffic, owing to the prevailing business depression, and a corresponding decrease in the profits was indicated. Nevertheless, the road is an assured success. In all the period above-mentioned there had been no increase in passenger rates and an increase of only 25 per cent. in freight rates, both being lower than in the United States. Ninety per cent. of the passenger traffic is carried at less than two cents a mile. Each of these years saw a marked improvement in the railroad's equipment and an extension of its lines, as well as an increase in tonnage carried.' One factor in its enlarged traffic was the policy the government adopted of making small extensions to develop new and rich regions or to touch sugar centrals not touched before. One such extension of four and a half meters resulted in the building of a large new sugar central and a corresponding increase in tonnage. On one line this plan increased the traffic 37 per cent. in a year. Everywhere this wisdom seems to have been justified by its results; here are the total receipts from operation: 1913....... 5,203,959 pesos 1914........ 4,992,734 pesos 1915........ 4,480,344 pesos 1916........ 5,010,733 pesos 1917........ 7,156,150 pesos 1918........ 9,,379,511 pesos 1919....... 10,800,327 pesos After the proved success of the government railroad in Luzon, the government tried unsuccessfully to buy the privately owned railroad in Panay. FIRST FRUITS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT 149 On the entire system, for 1919, the claims paid for lost or damaged freight were less than fourteen hundred dollars, a fact that would cause American railroad managers an inexpressible astonishment. The operation of the Philippine railroads, however, is not carried on without incidents. One is the floods, which will occasionally come in the most irrational and unexpected manner to overflow roadbed and stations and stop for a few days the running of all trains, and another is the practices of local law officers in relation to accidents. Following the old Spanish custom, it is their habit to arrest the entire train crew and hold them pending the investigation, the train resting meanwhile on a side track until another crew can arrive, and the passengers left to their own devices. With 1916 and its abnormal war demands and war prices, a period of febrile business prosperity began; and, in the intoxication of magic profits and unprecedented commerce, part of the government seemed to lose all caution. Sugar was one of the wands of wizardry then making rich every person it touched. The Islands are excellently adapted to the raising of sugar. The government bent itself to encourage sugar production. To build railroad side tracks to this end was well enough, but to lend the funds of the Philippine National Bank, and to deplete the gold reserve for the benefit of illconsidered enterprises, was foolish business. From the time when, in the teeth of the foreign bankers, the currency of the Islands had been stabilized and unified, a reserve of $50,000,000 had been maintained in New York to support the peso at par. The result was that, year after year, Philippine exchange was immovable; a peso was worth fifty cents, as it should be, no more, no less. But when the passion for extending the business of the Islands by encouraging new sugar centrals took hold upon the government, hungry eyes began to be turned upon the $50,000,000 gold reserve. Why should it lie there all these days idle when capital invested in the 150 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Philippine sugar business was bringing 100 per cent. profit and developing the resources of the country? In an evil hour, the management laid hands upon this indispensable ballast and heaved it overboard. In a short time exchange began to go against the Philippines, and by February 1, 1921, the peso was at a discount of 121/2 per cent. Meantime the sugar market had fallen with a resounding crash, and with it fell a marvelous glittering dome of hopes. The bank was caught with far more doubtful paper out than it should have had. Its management, which, to be quite fair, we should note was not Filipino but American, had not been wise in other respects and (to abandon circumlocutions) it stood for a time in a position of doubt and some peril. From this it was rescued by a change in management and the active support of the government; but the fact that it was a government institution, and that government was Filipino, was used by the hostile element in business and finance as a strong (or the strongest) argument against native capacity.1 The fall of exchange had come at the same time that the demand for the standard Philippine exports had for the moment all but ceased; the harbor was full of ships that could find no cargoes; in the warehouses was a two-years' storage of hemp, some of which had deteriorated and must be regraded before it could be shipped. Storms brooded on the face of the financial deep. All of these conditions were naturally conjoined by the critics. If the government had not destroyed the gold reserve, exchange would not have fallen; if exchange had not fallen, business would have remained good. Cursed be the name of the government! 1 It ought to be noted here that the bank, with all its imperfections on its head, was examined and passed by the Federal Reserve Board. CHAPTER VIII FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE O pass in minute review all the departmental activities before and after the entrance into Island affairs of what the Spanish newspapers called the Bill Jones would be to intrude upon the peculiar provinces of the blue book. For all the requirements of the present purpose that flowerless waste shall be unviolated, but there are certain vital aspects of government in which the tests of stability and efficiency are simple and definite. These relate fundamentally to the safety of the nation and the welfare of the individual. The state of the rest may be gauged from the state of these. National Finances. While the management of the government's bank has been faulty, the management of the government's finances seems to have been distinguished by a rather unusual success. From 1910 to 1913 the expenditures of the Philippine government were every year much in excess of iMTrevenues, the smallest deficit being 2,500,000 pesos and the largest 7,000,000 pesos. No such charge seems to lie against the native government; at least none is discernible in the following rather remarkable figures (in pesos): YEAB SURPLUS AT BEGIN- TOTAL EXPENDITURES SURPLUS AT NING OF YEAR RECEIPTS END OF YEAR 1914 10,169,200 35,334,626 86,944 597 8,559,228 1915 8,559,228 41,428,010 39,753,121 10,234,117 1916 1 10,234,117 45,704,856 40,906,813 15,032,160 1917 15,032,160 54,781,241 45,408,716 24,404,683 1918 24,404,683 68,690,105 57,496,044 35,598,744 1919 35,598,744 79,686,923 86,742,589 25,543,078 1 With this year American government in the Philippines practically came to an end. In this and other tables, therefore, the years 151 152 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES The extra expenses caused by the war and the doubling of the prices of materials had doubled the budget, but it appears that these demands were met without a deficit. Strange as it may seem, this government of a race of brown men on the rude frontiers of civilization added to its financial system two great improvements long demanded elsewhere by advanced thinkers but not then attained by the United States. These were the budget and a workable machinery for rural credits. The budget, indeed, after years of wearisome agitation was still beyond the reach of the American government five years after its adoption by the lowly Filipinos. Rural credits belong properly to Philippine agriculture and will be taken up when we come to that ever-burning issue; but the budget enginery, working smoothly and ably all this time, seems to belong to this phase of self-government in the Philippines and to demand description here. When the Americans succeeded the Spaniards as the titular guardians of the Islands, they brought with them the financial method, or lack of method, that had always confounded the.fiscal operations of their government at home. That is to say, they set up an appropriating power that held the keys to the treasury, and certain departments that tried blindly to get money from an obdurate and uninformed appropriating power struggling as blindly to keep the money in its fist; the result being always waste and inefficiency. When, in 1916, the government of the Islands was delivered to its people, and a native Legislature faced the actual problems of actual control, one of its first works was to try to make of the system of finance something answerable to modern conditions. In its practical workings the plan finally adopted was this: The fiscal year in the Philippines is now the same as the that follow 1916 are separated for the reader's greater ease from the years previous to the advent of the native control. FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE153 calendar year. On June 30 the chief of each bureau in each department sends to all the chief subordinates in his bureau a circular asking for a statement of the sums that will be' needed in that division for the next fiscal year. These are to be returned by August 30, two months being required because some of the departments have long-distance operations in remote regions. When these estimates are returned each bureau chief prepares his forecast for his bureau and sends it to the cabinet officer that is his department chief. The cabinet officer then makes out his full statement showing what money will be needed in his department, and what it will be needed for. The Secretary of Finance now prepares a statement of all the revenue that may be expected in the coming year, and from what sources. Next the Council of State compares the total of the department estimates with the total of expected revenues, notes the excess of the proposed expenditures, and begins to pare the estimates. In this process each department chief is asked in turn about his office and what new activities it has planned for the coming year. If these seem important they may be provided for in special allowances. He is also questioned about former projects that may have been finished or dropped, and if there are remainders of old funds they can be used for new works. When all this is over, the estimates are reduced to come within the revenues. The Governor-General sends this final adjustment to the Legislature, sitting in joint session, with an explanatory message that is read by the Secretary of Finance. The House, sitting as a Committee of the Whole, then takes up the budget, has before it the Secretary of Finance and questions him; even, if it please, item for item throughout the whole document. It can make any changes it may desire to 154 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES make except that the practice is against increasing any item. When the debate is over the House votes to approve the budget in principle and sends it to the Committee on Appropriations, which considers it and makes of it an appropriation bill. This is reported back to the House, where it is again subject to debate and amendment. It then goes to the Senate, which likewise can have the 'Secretary of Finance to assist in its deliberations. Should disagreement arise between the houses, a joint conference committee finds a compromise. To provide for crises when the Legislature is not in session, and for things unforeseen by the budget-makers, there is an emergency fund of 1,500,000 pesos controlled by an Emergency Committee composed of the Secretary of Finance, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the chairman of the House. Appropriations Committee, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House. It can furnish funds to any department wherein a fortuitous and urgent condition may arrive. This is to avoid, so far as may be possible, the calling of a special session of the Legislature. An officer of the Finance Department made this description of the Philippinebudget system: "The object is to establish the principle of the accounting and reporting of public funds in place of the old non-system under which each department sought to seize all the money it could get and to spend in its own way all it could seize. The non-system had sixteen years of trial in the Philippines and was found to produce only confusion and loss. Under the new method, each department must show what it wants money for and report what it has done with that money. "One result has been to cause the departments to recognize the fact that they are not independent and selfcontained units but parts of a great machine that revolves for the good of all. If this were the only advantage it would be enough to justify the innovations. But they have also FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE 155 saved public money, furthered public efficiency and brought about a close scrutiny of the conditions and costs of public work. We could no more return to the old method of hitor-miss than we could return to flint-locks." The government's income is obtained from customs duties, internal revenue taxes, earnings from government enterprises and interest from special funds. The Underwood tariff of 1913 established free trade between the United States and the Philippines, but imports from all other countries are subject to duties averaging 25 per cent. and levied for revenue. They produce about 15,000,000 pesos a year. Internal taxation includes the interesting cedula, or headtax, levied upon all male inhabitants that are more than eighteen and less than sixty years old, except officers, soldiers, federal government employees, and the Non-Christians. The tax is one peso a year. Cedulas are certificates of identification, and are required of all voters, witnesses and litigants in court. There are also other internal taxes: Documentary stamp duties; Taxes on followers of certain businesses and professions, as liquor dealers, lawyers, doctors, pharmacists; Taxes on manufactured or imported spirits, wines, and the like; Taxes on the resources of banks and the receipts of insurance companies; Fees for the testing and sealing of weights and measures; Insular and United States income taxes; An ad valorem tax on the output of mines; Taxes on inheritances and legacies. Taxation is low in the Philippines; one fifth that of Canada and one eighth that of Australia. Civil Service. This struck me as one of the best features of the Island government, and an achievement that anywhere else in the world would win liberal fame and 156 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES much approval. The Bureau of the Civil Service is attached to the Governor-General's office and is an idea now approaching antiquity in the Philippine government. President McKinley, in his letter of April 7, 1900, defining the duties of the first Philippine Commission, said they would include the making of rules and orders to effect "the establishment of a system to secure an efficient civil service," and he laid down as a base the principle that, wherever practicable, natives were to be preferred in filling the public offices. For a time it might be necessary, he said, to give to Americans posts that later might well be filled by natives. This, if it had been remembered, ought to have saved the Jones Act, its author, and the Governor-General from the torrent of reproach that fell upon them, since the plan was not Jones's nor the Governor-General's, but McKinley's, and not recent but in the very foundation of American control. So consistently has it been followed that whereas in 1903 the classified civil service list showed 51 per cent. Americans and 49 per cent. Filipinos, in 1920 it showed 4 per cent. Americans and 96 per cent. Filipinos; obviously a fruitful source of disparaging remark. In 1902 there were 723 Americans appointed to the service and in 1920 only 19. Some of the important positions formerly filled by Americans and now filled by Filipinos are the cabinet offices (except, as before explained, that of Secretary of Public Instruction); Deputy Insular Auditor; Director and Assistant Director of Civil Service; Director of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes; Director of the Philippine General Hospital: Chief and Assistant Chief of the Executive Bureau; Chief of the Constabulary; Assistant Manager Metropolitan Water District; Assistant Director of Education; Director and Assistant Director of Health; Insular Collector of Customs and Deputy Collector; Collector of Internal Revenue and Deputy Collector; Insular Treasurer and Assistant Insular Treasurer; Attorney-General and as FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE 157 sistant attorneys; Director of the Philippine Library and Museum; Assistant Director of Prisons; Director of Agriculture and one of his assistants; Director and Assistant Director of Posts; Director of the Island Bureau of Commerce and Industry; City Engineer and Assistant City Engineer of Manila. Many other positions of importance have been held by Filipinos since the organization of the bureau or office to which they belong, such as the Public Utility Commissioner, the chairman and secretary-treasurer of the Board of Pharmaceutical Examiners and Inspectors, the chairman of the Public Welfare Board, the presidents of the Boards of Medical Examiners, General Examiners, Examiners for Nurses and one member of the Board of Optical Examiners. Since the American occupation the mayor of the city of Manila has always been a Filipino. Appointments of Americans to clerical and ordinary scientific and professional positions practically ceased long ago, as enough Filipinos were found to be qualified for these posts. After all, it is something for which McKinley, or whoever else was responsible, ought to be held in grateful remembrance; for by it the Islands were saved the complicated evils that have befallen India through the system of saddling alien job-holders upon the payrolls of a defenseless country. In the Philippines, admission to the public service is through the one door of competitive examinations, which opens to all applicants upon the same terms; for the refined notion of using the public service as a reward for party vociferations and ward heelership makes no hit in this benighted land. No other country has more rigid rules for its Civil Service examinations, or more sensible arrangements. Applicants are warned in explicit terms that it is useless to seek influence or favor, as all will be treated alike and no appointment will be made to any office or post except from the eligible list of persons that have passed the necessary 158 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES examinations as that list is furnished by the Bureau. Promotions are made from grade to grade on record of performance. Nearly every high place in the Philippine civil service to-day is filled by a man that has worked up to it from the bottom. I do not know how I could say more for it. Dr. Jose Gil, Director of the Bureau, furnished me with certain tables of these examinations in which I found matter of many-sided interest. One wvas a table of Filipinos that had received appointments on their examinations in Spanish and in English, thus: YEAR PERCENTAGE ENDED ENGLISH SPANISH TOTAL ENGLISH SPANISH Sept. 30, 1902 3 668 671.4 99.6 1903 4 885 889.4 99.6 June 30, 1904a 33 579 612 5 95 1905 140 565 705 20 80 1906 174 300 475 37 63 1907 204 226 430 47 53 1908 419 355 774 54 46 1909 354 226 580 61 39 1910 476 135 611 78 22 1911 594 191 785 76 24 1912 606 110 716 85 15 1913 817 87 904 90 10 1914 660 68 728 91 9 1915 717 86 803 89 11 1916 1390 189 1579 88 12 1917 1177 106 1283 92 8 1918 1722 93 1815 95 5 1919 1930 30 1960 98 2 1920 1793 22 1815 99 1 Nine months. The Bureau of Education is a powerful assistant to the Civil Service. It so arranges the course of study in the schools as especially to fit for public employment students whose ambition points that way. Contrary to the general belief or the common assertion in the American colony, salaries have not been increased, but reduced, in these offices since, in the current phrase, they have been Filipinized. American incumbents holding clerical positions received salaries ranging from 1800 pesos to 2400 pesos a year; their Filipino successors are paid from 360 pesos to 840 pesos a year. When the chiefs of bureaus FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE 159 and similar officers were Americans, they were paid from 7500 to 24,000 pesos a year; since the posts have been filled by Filipinos, the salaries have been reduced to 7200 pesos for bureaus of the first class, 6000 pesos for those of the second class and 5000 pesos for those of the third class. American bureau chiefs are now paid more than the salaries authorized for the positions they hold because their appointments are made under contract to retain their services, an arrangement for which there is a provision in the law. In former days American heads of departments that were also members of the Philippine Commission received salaries of 31,000 pesos each, except the Secretary of Public Instruction, who received 20,000. The salaries of all the positions were reduced to 12,000 pesos a year when the Filipinos took charge of the government. "It costs Americans more than Filipinos to live in the Islands," said the philosophical Chief of the Civil Service Bureau. "Even in instances where they require the same necessities of life, it costs more because they reside here temporarily. " It is true, of course, as we have seen in a foregoing table, that the expenses of the government have increased in recent years. This is explained by the Filipinos as the result of the expansion of government activities, the increased expenditures occasioned*by the war and the decline in the purchasing power of money. They assert that the increase in the Philippine budget has been relatively less than that to be observed in other organized countries, even those that were not involved in the war. Public Health. Looking impartially over the records of the good old times, in the Philippine Islands at least, the best thing one can say about them is that they are dead and the world will not see their like again. Men, women and children may give thanks; the children with particular fervor. In the days when medieval darkness brooded over these regions, 160 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the survival of a child was by reason of luck, the interposition of Providence or the possession of a superhuman constitution. To the frightful record of infant mortality around them the Spanish authorities seem to have had little to say. No doubt they did the best they could, according to their lights; they established hospitals, some of which still exist; priests and nuns labored with self-sacrificing and often pathetic devotion to lessen the burdens of the suffering. But for the greater term of the Spanish occupation, Europe generally was little more advanced about these things than were the Apaches, and the Spanish government was always a reflex of the worst European conditions. At last, when progress began elsewhere, the ruts in which the old system here circled upon itself were worn too deep for change; in sanitary as in political science. In Manila, in ordinary years, the infantile death-rate reached sometimes to 440, or above it,l provided there was no epidemic to sweep off the children wholesale. When cholera came, for instance (and it was an almost regularly recurring visitor), one might have wondered if there were any children left. The first thirteen years of American control inaugurated the modern idea about such things and produced a story in its way not unlike the story of education in the Philippines, for the difficulties were enormous. How could they be otherwise in a region of 2441 tropical islands scattered over seventeen degrees of latitude, in the greater part of which no attempt had ever been made to teach the laws of health? For the period from 1908 to 1913, inclusive, the death-rate for children in Manila had been reduced to 425.95 and was still something to appal the health expert of temperate climates. But conditions in the tropics are of their own 1 In the thousand, among children of less than one year of age. In the State of Maryland for 1920, the rate similarly reported among colored children was 164. In the State of Connecticut it was 92 for all children, FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE 161 kind; a thousand foes that do not exist elsewhere lie in ambush to prey upon child life. The greatest achievements in furthering the public health have been in more recent years. In 1915 the service was revised and reorganized; apparently with wisdom, for in the next period of six years the average yearly rate of infant mortality was brought down from 425.95 to 329.48. In 1919 it reached 224.95, and the fact that this was the lowest rate ever known in the city gave much joy. The next year saw the introduction of still other improvements and continual increase in the cooperation of the women's organizations, and the rate was reduced to 164. What is called the Public Health Service, a subordinate department, had conducted an extensive campaign against infantile beriberi; it was distributing medicines and antiseptics freely; it was pressing vigorously the work of its Division of Public Health Nursing, which instructs mothers; it was spreading information and encouraging maternity homes. Voluntary cooperation by the women 's organizations was developed and proved most useful; it adds another title to the long list of claims the Filipino woman, that remarkable person, has upon the world's respect. Filipino women's clubs are supplying milk for children, maintaining day nurseries, visiting the homes of nursing mothers, supervising legislation for women and children, and, with a magnificent devotion that has never been celebrated, caring for lepers and lunatics. Other great factors for good have been the Public Welfare Board and the Bureau of Dependent Children, both attached to the Department of the Interior. The Director of the Bureau of Dependent Children is Dr. Jose Fabella, a learned Filipino who has specialized in child life and welfare, and in 1920 made to the Philippine government, at its request, a compendious report on his observations in Europe and America. It was a rather remarkable document, for it 162 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES discussed frankly and sanely the terms of the problem in the Islands, and then offered a complete, well-considered program, covering the next ten years, for the progressive cure of the evils that make the death-rate among children so abnormally high. As to the health of the general population, much seems to have been done; certainly, much in Manila. From 1908 to 1913 the death-rate was 32.28 in the thousand and from 1914 to 1919 inclusive it was 28.62. In the United States it is 14.70, in Porto Rico 28.50, in Egypt 40.50, and in India is said to be 35, although the warrant for this statement seems insufficient. For the Philippine provinces outside of Manila, the rate in the 1908-1913 period was 26.19 and in the 1914 -1919 period it was 27. But these figures are somewhat misleading. In 1918 the Islands shared in the pandemic wave of influenza; indeed, it struck twice and in that year doubled the death-rate. Also, it left in its path the seeds of other troubles, here as elsewhere, the tuberculosis, pneumonia and the rest that are supposed always to attend upon its grisly passage; and these must necessarily have put their evil marks upon the records. In fairness, moreover, it may be remarked that previous to 1915 the vital records in the provinces had been but lamely kept, and often not at all, so that thousands of deaths occurring in the earlier period were never reported. The Service seems to fight disease with all the most approved weapons of what is known as medical science. As valiantly as even the American Medical Association could desire, it goes forth to vaccinate. In 1920 it performed 3,523,749 vaccinations against smallpox, 200,619 against cholera, 18,938 against typhoid fever. It insists that all food-handlers, food-vendors and other persons likely to come into contact with the public shall have all the vaccines going, and it points with pride to the results. It believes that it put the barrage on cholera in 1919, and certainly the visitation was FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE 163 trivial compared to the horrors of former times; the cases few, the deaths rare and the public alarms negligible. In the American colony the charge is rife that since the days of Filipinization the efficiency of the health service has declined. I was not able to learn in what particulars it had become defective. So far as the records reveal and observation could discover, it was going on without change and doubtless with laudable enthusiasm. The Service lectures the public on improved water-supply, sewage-disposal, correct sanitary precautions. Prime is the instruction, willing are the pupils; but the tropics are not to be reformed in a day. Perhaps the critics overlook the fact that a village in the Calamian is not a town in New England. I could find no reason to conclude the extremely difficult work of the Service was incompetently or unwisely directed. Results point the other way. Dysentery (another tropical plague) and diphtheria are decreasing; the Director believes that to a reformatory campaign of the last five years are to be ascribed these glories, and nobody gainsays him. His bureau has been intelligently active against leprosy. In May, 1920, he appointed a committee of seven eminent physicians and bacteriologists to study and report on the latest methods of treatment. The Philippine Legislature appropriated 100,000 pesos for the work, which was less than the Director asked for; but the committee made an encouraging report and the newest method of cure is being pushed with vigor and hope. The committee speaks with all approved caution; it ought to win the laudation of the schools. "In view of the results obtained," it says, "it is certain that there are at hand new methods of treatment which, in the short time we have used them, have caused remarkable alleviation of the symptoms of this disease, and which if used systematically over longer periods will probably produce permanent cures in a greater percentage of cases treated than any of the methods heretofore available." But it is well known in Manila that the 164 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES real hope of physicians and the Service goes farther than this. Tuberculosis, because of the influenza epidemic, has increased here as in other countries. The government maintains a separate division of its health army to war upon this plague. The results seem to be like those reported elsewhere, except that in the Philippines there is a smaller chance of recovery than (in the United States, for instance) is brought about by segregation in bracing mountain atmospheres. The chief of the Health Service is Dr. V. Jesus, a Filipino physician of renown. His staff consists of an assistant director, 3 chiefs of divisions, 5 district inspectors, 15 senior medical inspectors, 19 medical inspectors, 31 senior surgeons, 27 surgeons, 30 assistant surgeons, 16 resident surgeons, 2 internes, 2 special medical inspectors and 267 presidents of sanitary divisions. Of these, two of the senior medical inspectors, one of the senior surgeons and one of the assistant surgeons are Americans; all the others are Filipinos..So far, thirty-nine of the forty-five provinces of the Philippines have been brought under regular and organized health inspection. Each province constitutes a health district and five or more health districts constitute an inspection district. Eighteen hospitals, besides the leper colonies, are directed by the Service, and it has under its command the boards of examiners for masseurs, embalmers, sanitary inspectors and officers of the public health. All hospitals are subject to its supervision. It is charged with the work of isolating cases of dangerous communicable disease, of controlling the sanitation of school-houses, prisons and places of public use, and with the maintenance of quarantine. As a historical fact of interest, it may be not amiss here to note that this organization of the health service closely resembles that planned and programmed by and for the first Philippine Republic of 1898. Little has been added to the scope and design then provided; to speak truth, not a great deal, FINANCES, PUBLIC SERVICE, PUBLIC WELFARE 165 either, to the projects of education entertained by the men that launched that early democracy. If these facts cause astonishment they are easily explained. Most of the men that surrounded Aguinaldo in those days and were chief sponsors for the Republic were highly educated, graduates of great universities at home or abroad, and the peers of reformers and thinkers in any country; and they had this additional advantage, not sentimental or esoteric, as might be imagined, but most surely practical, that they were inspired by the potent memory of Jose Rizal. CHAPTER IX COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR A QUAINT nautical contrivance, having the appearance of a bemasted and gigantic wash-tub, and able, with a fair wind, to advance at the rate of five knots an hour was, so late as 1811, the Spanish idea of trade with the Philippines. Once a year a craft of this order of naval architecture lurched out of Manila for Mexico, wafted by fervent prayers of the entire population; once a year it lurched back, if so be, by the interposition of Providence, it had escaped typhoons, currents, shoals, the perils of incompetent navigation and the designs of the enemy, usually English buccaneers. By government decree, and not with any consent of the people, one old-fashioned galleon represented in her ungainly self the entire European commerce of the Islands, transhipped in Mexico, coming and going; for in no other way was trade allowed. It was a thing to afford material for one seeking to establish the essential lunacy of the human race. The natives were born sea-rovers; most Malays have an inbred love of blue water and of the savor of salt winds. At that very time Filipinos were sailing on American clipper ships as expert quartermasters, renowned for skill and courage. The Islands were producing more and more of the things that Europe wanted, and wanting more and more of the things Europe produced. And between these people and their natural development, as between natural want and natural supply, stood a hebetudinous government with lifted finger and "Thou shalt not" always on its lips. 166 COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 167 In 1815 the awakening of the human mind that began with the fall of the Bastille reached even unto the government of 'Spain and the restrictions on foreign trade were removed. From that time Manila began slowly to resume its ancient glory as one of the greatest ports and markets of the Orient, being defeated of its normal growth still by the lack of a good harbor. The bay was ample, and ordinarily safe, but a harbor was needed against the chance of typhoons and for convenience; and having nothing of the kind, large modern ships must swing outside at anchor and lighter their cargoes, while the small coast-wise vessels ran into the Pasig River and made its banks look like Venice. The city had a bad name for certain epidemics and it lacked warehouses; blue-water captains were not happy when they were ordered thither. It was walled about antiquely, the walls surrounded with a moat, the moat filled with stagnant, rotten water. Within the walls, the streets were, by all accounts, something to make even the healthiest man think of his latter end. Accumulated filth and ancient garbage lay and moldered in the sun, and the saying was common that only a suicide drank Manila water. Medievalism represented by Spain passed into the limbo of to create a new harbor; to fill the moat and make of it a public forgotten things: the modern spirit, as represented by the American invasion, came to build a huge new breakwater; park; to build a new city beyond the walls; to subdue epidemics; to clean the streets; and, so far as might be humanly possible, to provide water safe for human consumption. The Luneta was filled out with the material dredged from the bottom of the harbor; an imposing concourse appeared where before was mere marsh, piers able to accommodate the largest Pacific steamers rose, with ample warehouses; and Manila was pushed into modern commerce. At first there was a duty on Philippine products sent to the United States, being the surviving ghost of the Spanish 168 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES galleon idea. For a time this, also, hindered trade. In 1909 most of it was removed; in 1913 the last traces of it vanished; and thereafter, under the stimulus of free trade and with the help of American capital, the commerce of the Philippines shot up to astonishing prosperity, most of it being with the United States. In 1908 there were 123 vessels in the foreign trade that had a Philippine registry. In 1919, 117 foreign trading-vessels with a Philippine registry entered the port of Manila alone. The galumphing galleon of Spain (or its successor, not much more agile) disappeared in 1815, but the Philippines were not opened to the trade of the world until 1834, so strong are the superstitions of commerce. Still the galleon idea had persisted; for, all those years, only ships of Spain had been allowed to enter Philippine ports. The foreign commerce of the Islands was $1,217,029 in 1831, $4,118,297 in 1834, and $21,959,537 in 1884, thus proving the potentialities of the trade that had only waited on opportunity. Of the trade, and one might say also of the ability to handle, develop and direct the trade. But it was after the beginning of the American occupation, when faith in America had generated at once good-will and hope, that the wholesome magic seemed to be applied to these things. In 1909 the foreign trade was $66,608,756 and ten years later it had risen to the imposing figures of $231,756,878, an increase of nearly 250 per cent. in this decade. In 1900 the net tonnage of vessels entering Philippine ports from the United States and foreign countries was 670,337; in 1919 it had risen to 1,711,881. In 1906 the money in circulation in the Islands was $15,015,250, or $1.86 for each head of population; in 1919 it was $73,288,878, or $6.29 for each head of population, an increase of 390 per cent. In 1902 the assets of the banks were $27,059,529; in 1919 they were $183,967,549, an increase of 550 per cent. In 1902 the bank deposits totaled $17,000,000; in 1918 they were $100, COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 169 000,000, an increase of 500 per cent. In 1909 the receipts from licenses and business taxes were $982,688; in 1918 they were $7,887,303. In 1909 the receipts from excise taxes were $2,717,049; in 1918 they were $6,600,421. In 1909 the receipts from import duties were $6,624,093; in 1918, free trade having meantime come about with the United States, they were $46,739,869. In 1912 the receipts from the tax on sales were approximately $1,000,000; in 1918 they were $7,000,000. In 1906 the corporations licensed to do business in the Philippines numbered 32, with a total capital stock of $3,008,250; at the close of 1919 they numbered 1796, with a total capital stock of $141,969,136. In 1900 there were 71 registered partnerships with a total capital of $411,398,280; in 1919 there were 2,051 with a total capital of $128,726,983.1 Such are a few of the statistics that might be quoted of the awakened Philippines. Yet it is true that until 1909, or some such period, the Filipinos were supposed to have no avidity to go into trade. Large Filipino fortunes there were in Spanish times and before; but these were drawn from land, not from trading. The old conception of a truly ideal life in the Philippines was that of a landed gentleman, Spain and England furnishing the delectable examples. When the great commercial revival came, the genius of it was at first all foreign; Americans, British, Germans, Chinese reaped its goodly profits. After 1909 a great change came in the native attitude toward business as a career and great business as a worthy occupation. Young Filipinos were trained to it; Filipino capital came out of its agrarian haunts and went forth with the rest. In ten years (1910-1920) Filipino capital invested in business increased 2000 per cent.2 Oil companies, shipping houses, importing and exporting firms, 1 Philippine Year Books, 1919, 1920; Reports of the Bureau of Commerce. In the comparisons above, to visualize them more readily for those unaccustomed to the Philippine currency, the amounts are given in dollars. To translate into pesos the sums should be doubled. 2 Bureau of Commerce. 170 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES were launched with Filipino capital and managed by Filipino directors. About this there can be no doubt, however unwelcome the fact may be to those of us that have held resolutely to the belief in Filipino incapacity; the records are unassailable. Secretary Jokosalem of the Department of Commerce and Communications obligingly furnished me with a list of the 242 corporations (joint-stock companies) registered to do business in 1921, all, or a majority, of whose stock-holders were Filipinos. These companies had a total capitalization of 121,544,000 pesos, a total that must be conceded to have the appearance of an active and veritable business vitality. In the list were to be noticed companies to make and furnish electric light, to operate sugar centrals, oil-mills, laundries, iron-works, docks, plantations; companies to manufacture lumber, machinery, hats, umbrellas, shoes, hemp, starch, rattan, cotton; companies to deal in dry goods, drugs, sporting goods; companies to publish newspapers, raise cattle, transport goods, and passengers, to make ice and to supply cold-storage. But the secretary informed me that the chief lines of business in which the Filipinos most engaged were, in the order of their importance, these: Hat and umbrella manufacturing, Sugar centrals, Lumber mills, Inter-island shipping, Land transportation, Oil mills, Distilleries, Embroidery making, Marble and stone work, Pottery and terra-cotta products, Sinamay and jusi cloth manufacturing, Slipper manufacturing. Revolutions beginning to attack even retail trade, the last COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 171 citadelof ersm in the Philippines, as anyone that knows the country will agree;;a7~Ehinge-so astonishing that merely for its human interest it is well worth the telling. The ubiquitous and inevitable tradesman of the tropical Pacific is the Chinaman. Wherever advancing civilization inserts what, in the sporting phrase, is called a toe-hold, there is the Chinese trader in the midst of it. Almost unobserved, he slides into every village or settlement or new seaport, opens a shop, apparently in the night, and stands the next morning at the doorway, bland and imperturbable, the master of his calling. Even the Occidental that for all reasons ought to know, would be puzzled to say, if asked off-hand, whence comes this visitor, whence he derives his stock (always astutely adapted to the wants of the community he serves) or how on earth he knows so infallibly where he is most needed. If you drive through the business side-streets of Manila he is there, and if you take the wings of the morning to Yap or Matupi behold he is there also. If, some day, in a remote Philippine region, you bethink you that some kind of canned goods would be an addition to your lean and monotonous diet, you hie you to the neighboring village, where, in a crudely equipped tienda, brown with age and faintly redolent of opium and a heathenish herbarium, a silent yellow specter will fish from some unexpected cavity the thing you want. To him you resort for needles and thread, for half-hose, chewing gum, nails, shoe-strings, or tooth-paste. To the alien eye, and particularly to an alien from the West, he seems a creature of mystery, no less in the apparently elastic nature of his premises than in the indubitable fact that he makes a living. I have in mind, now, a certain street in Manila lined with a long succession of Chinese stores, the fronts wide open to the world, as is the Chinese fashion; in each store three or four clerks, who seem to have nothing to do. In my observation there were always 172 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES three clerks to each customer; I can recall no time when, there or elsewhere in the Chinese quarter, business had to the Occidental eye any appearance but that of extreme lassitude. Yet all the stores seemed to be prosperous; most of their proprietors rank high as men of means; failures among the Chinese merchants are rare. They seem to have some secret of business the rest of the world has not suspected. In the rural regions they are often the buyers and forwarders of the farmer's produce; sometimes with methods not to be adjusted to the formulas of Confucius. An American told me that he was, for a time, the possessor of a hemp plantation on which he had a machine-shop. One day a Chinaman appeared with a piece of cast iron in which he desired to have a hole bored. The American paid no great attention, bored the hole and took the fee. Three days later the Chinaman reappeared with the same piece of iron in which he wanted another hole bored. Later the American, being in the Chinaman's place, saw him buying hemp with scales on which the weight in use seemed to him familiar. He picked it up, turned it over, and learned the purpose of the two holes he had bored. They had been filled with lead, by the which device the Chinaman cheated the rustic of about twenty per cent. on every sale. The indignant American confiscated the false balance and by resource to threats of personal violence raised, temporarily at least, the standard of commercial morality in that village. He had, after the manner of his kind, catalogued the incident with many others as evidence of hopeless conditions prevailing in the Philippines. When I told him I had known the same thing in North Dakota, where it had been practised for years on a scale to make the Chinaman's poor little adventure in crime look like a peccadillo, he seemed both incredulous and hurt; but such was the fact, nevertheless. It appears now that the day of the Chinese tienda in the COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 173 Philippines is due before long to decline. Slowly, and it may be reluctantly, the Filipino is going into trade. In a few years one may no longer be able to say of the country, as Americans say now, that if the Chinese were to withdraw from the retail business the population would starve. In my travels I found some quite respectable country stores owned and operated by natives, and heard of still others. It is an era of change. There was a time when Philippine trade was at the mercy of the foreign banks, who did with it as they might list. In those days the remark was universal that the foreigner must do the banking for the Islands, because the natives had not the capacity to do it for themselves. There are signs that these halcyon days are passing, or passed. The foreign banker sings but small so far as influence with the government goes, and it seems but yesterday that he was all in all. Similar transformations await the retail trade and the rural tienda. But I may confess here that, about this and many other things, observers that found easy and narrow limits to the capacity of these people puzzled and often disconcerted me. A nation that could, in so few years and without experience, organize, capitalize and manage 242 joint-stock companies with an investment of 121,000,000 pesos, to engage in all modern varieties of commerce, and could steer such enterprises off the rocks, seemed to me to have proved an unusual capacity. Domestic commerce by water is naturally of vital and growing importance; so many islands depend upon it for their connection with one another and with the outside world. As will be seen by the table hereunder, it is almost entirely in native hands. The current assertion that Filipinos must necessarily be without executive capacity seems to be disposed of by these figures. 174 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES A STATEMENT 1 SHOWING THE NUMBER AND NATIONALITY OF MASTERS, MATES, ENGINEERS AND SUPERCARGOES OF THE INTER-ISLAND STEAMERS CATEGORY AMEBICANS FILIPINOS FOREIGNERS TOTAL Masters 39 205 3 247 Chief Mates 16 86 1 103 Second Mates 5 105.110 Third Mates 4 161.165 Chief Engineers 17 133 2 152 Second Engineers 5 78.. 83 Third Engineers 3 106.. 109 Fourth Engineers 2 374.. 376 Supercargoes 11 762.. 773 Of the 440 steam vessels of all kinds engaged in the interisland trade, about fifty are liners on scheduled routes; the rest, with the 2200 sailing-craft in this business, make occasional fittings as cargoes and conditions may warrant. Some of the steamers on the important routes, as between Manila and Zamboanga and between Manila and Iloilo are of a considerable size and speed; yet I may say that a voyage upon one of them is not a holiday occasion. The supply of steamers is below the requirements of the trade and the vessels are overcrowded. Inter-island steamers berthing in the Pasig River cause both shores to bustle with a picturesque activity so far up as the Bridge of Spain. But it is beyond the bridge that the river and the canals that join it are most typical and, to the visitor, most fascinating. Thousands of the long native barges, somewhat like enormous lighters, lie side by side, each with its house of nipa leaves and its promiscuous and brightly clad population. They bring to Manila the bulk of the country produce it exports and much that it consumes. Inter-island commerce is under the direct jurisdiction of the government. A Public Utility Commission fixes all 1 Furnished by the Department of Commerce and Communications. COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 175 rates, freight and passenger. The Bureau of Commerce supervises the navigation, maintains the lighthouses and looks after what there is of a coast guard. It is overtaxed, for the coast lines of the Archipelago are of staggering extent. A German ship-captain told me before the war that he thought the way into Manila was one of the best lighted water-ways in the world and regarded all the lighthouse system of the Islands as remarkable; but there are many stretches of coast that still have no lights. It is not alone in inter-island commerce that the Filipino commands vessels, as may be surmised from this list: A STATEMENT 1 SHOWING THE NUMBER OF FILIPINOS TO WHOM MASTERS' LICENSES HAVE BEEN ISSUED IN THE LAST NINETEEN YEARS YEAR NUMBER OF MASTERS' YEAR NUMBER OF MASTERS'. LICENSES ISSUED. LICENSES ISSUED 1903 51 1912 19 1904 89 1913 20 1905 14 1914 24 1906 14 1915 22 1907 7 1916 12 1908 3 1917 13 1909 11 1918 17 1910 16 1919 18 1911 26 1920 13 Total 389 They are, by inheritance, of the sea, and good shipbuilders. In 1921 there were afloat 1953 ships built in ' Philippine shipyards. These had a gross tonnage of 60,132, and 650 of them were steamers. But the Filipinos are of ancient and honorable fame in this regard. The Spaniards were astonished at their proficiency, and some years after 1 Furnished by the Department of Commerce and Communications. 176 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the taking of Manila launched from a Filipino shipyard ships built by Filipino labor and planned by Filipino designers that were among the largest in the world.1 An interesting phase of the government's activities in this department is the Bureau of Commerce, the business of which is to discover new openings for trade and bring them to the attention of persons likely to use them. As the act launching this beneficent venture was not passed until March, 1918, it seems to be indisputably of Filipino origin. From time to time the bureau issues pamphlets entitled Trade Opportunities, which contain, numbered and catalogued, information concerning the demand that exists anywhere for any articles, where it exists and how it can be met. These pamphlets are distributed in the United States and other countries, chiefly through the medium of Chambers of Commerce, but also through mailing lists and the bureau's own agencies. Likewise, with the same facility, it reverses this process, and furnishes information to firms or persons abroad that seek a market in the Philippines. Take a sample or two of these -manifestations. In the list now before me I find these: "No. 106. New York firm heretofore importing Havana cigars desires connections with a first-class Manila factory. This firm states that it has a large number of customers in the large cities of the United States, from Boston to San Francisco; that it requires no credit and is in a position to discount all invoices shipped to its address or the address of its customers. Address........ Street, New York City." "No. 109. An American firm offers to purchase for early delivery 100,000 balangot mat squares, determined specifications and prices, and to assist and cooperate in the development of the industry. Address........ Manila." "No. 111. Kapoc fiber [tree cotton] to be purchased in 1 Craig and Benitez, p. 19. lv - - US -~~i~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~i~~~~~~~is"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ v i l i l~~~~~~ n~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A~~~~~ In sFRxl~ vAMital1s1?AXr aft Add Hay-s-v ' arm ' Gus tosses so X~~~~~~888 COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 177 orders of 100,000 pounds or over is desired by a New York firm. Address........ Broadway, New York City." "No. 114. A local concern is desired to take over the agency for sabutan hats of a very good grade manufactured by the Non-Christian tribes on the east coast of Luzon. Samples may be inspected at the Bureau of Commerce." "No. 212. A flour manufacturing concern in the United States desires to communicate with local merchants and importers. Address........ U.S.A." Manufactures-Tobacco. I suppose that the oldest articulated industry in the Islands, next to shipbuilding, is the making of cigars, which dates back to the sixteenth century. With sugar and vegetable oils, conspicuously, it is among the few manufacturing enterprises that have developed factory conditions; characteristic Philippine industry being domiciliary. These great Manila cigar and cigarette factories are not altogether exhilarating places, because of their employment of young children; but in this respect they are no worse than tobacco factories I have visited in the Southern States of America; and in respect to cleanliness are better. It is not necessary to entertain the workers with readings, as in the cigar factories of Havana; and the workers do not sing, as in cigar factories in some other regions; they seem to find their diversion in conversational feats and in watching with very bright and curious eyes whatever stranger may appear, working steadily all the time. I had heard of the young girls in these factories that could grasp a handful of cigarettes and tell instantly, without counting and always correctly, the number in hand, but I had never seen the strange trick parformed nor until my visit believed in it. For generations the Spaniards conducted the tobacco business of the Philippines on the basis of a monopoly. It came to an end in 1882 for a singular, but illuminating, reason. One of the customs of the officers charged with the direction 178 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES of the monopoly was to flog every native found in possession of so much as one tobacco leaf; an employment easily explained by the fact that each officer was paid a percentage on the amount of tobacco produced in his district, where, in accordance with the fashion of the period and country, he possessed absolute and irresponsible power. In earlier times, and under a sufficiency of Spanish rifles, the floggings proceeded prosperously. By 1882 the natives had come to the conclusion that they had been flogged enough, and broke into riots that the rifles could not subdue. It appears that when this fact dawned upon the Government House in Manila something like panic ensued, for the revenues of the monopoly were exceedingly fair to look upon and to spend; but the rioting continued, and the monopoly was abandoned. Thereafter, for many years, the tobacco business in the Islands suffered extreme depression. It had fallen into the hands of reckless adventurers that put forth promiscuous rubbish under the name of Manila cigars, and extinguished whatever reputation the product had won. From this wreckage the business was salvaged by a few far-sighted men of Manila. They introduced cooperative effort, drove the commercial bandits from the trade, restored the name and fame of the Manila cigar and began to reap the merited reward in the revival of business. But its real restoration came when the Philippine government assumed control of it, established invariable standards of excellence, enforced strict regulations as to methods of production and manufacture and guaranteed the product under its own official stamp. This and the conversion of the great American tobacco interests to free trade in Philippine tobacco have been responsible for the magical growth in the export of Manila cigars to the United States to be noted in the table of cigar exports printed in the Appendix. In 1904 the exports amounted to 95,739,000 cigars, worth 1,785,122 pesos; in COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 179 1919 they had risen to 392,339,000, worth 18,157,707 pesos. Embroideries. In the main the Islands owe this standard and always growing industry to the Spanish nuns, who in the early days of the 'Spanish occupation began in the convents to teach it (after European models) to the Filipino women. 'The pupils must have been apt, for they knew something of these mysteries before they had ever seen a flag of Spain; the elaborately decorated garments of old Moro Datus still preserved in distant islands indicate an art of long descent. But the main point is the innate artistic sense of the Filipino woman that found in these creations the expression needed by all souls of any response to art and beauty. After a time the pupils began to excel their instructors, and in the end Philippine embroideries, having attained to a just and world-wide fame, surpassed in the market the European originals. In recent years factories have been introduced, for the market is ever expanding; but still the bulk of the product comes from the farm-houses and villages, where women work upon patterns of their own or upon designs supplied by the merchants. Whereas it was long a business in chaos, it is now rather well organized. Certain localities have developed particular skill along particular lines. Factories assort their work accordingly, sending straight embroideries to this village and scallop work to that; sometimes the same garment goes to three villages before it is finished.2 In Manila alone were, in 1921, forty of these factories. But the demand for embroideries was even then far beyond the supply. The almost startling growth of the business may be gauged from the fact that in 1913 the exports of embroideries amounted to only 176,169 pesos; three years Philippine Year Book, 1920, pp. 160-166. 2 Philippine Year Book, 1920, pp. 177-178. 180 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES later they were 2,328,024 pesos, and in 1919 rose to 6,913,004 pesos. In this development, also, the government has had a hand. Much of the present success of Philippine embroideries is due to the astutely directed work of the public schools, which teach the art from the earliest grades up, teach it with painstaking care and competence. I suppose that, as a result, the Philippine Islands contain a larger proportion of artistic needlewomen than any other country. Hats. This is another domiciliary industry, taught in the trade schools and so surely developing that the commercial prophets see in it, and not far off, a prominence equal to that of the embroideries. The Islands have all the materials; hats are made here equal to the best products of Panama. In 1919 Philippine hat exports, chiefly to the United States, amounted to 1,470,026 pesos. Sugar. Originally, and until 1900, the sugar produced in the Philippines was what is called muscovado or unrefined sugar. Development of beet sugar in Europe forced the introduction of improved machinery and new methods in cane-growing regions, including the Philippines; but more slowly there than elsewhere. Even so late as 1920 there was twice as much muscovado as centrifugal sugar produced in the Philippines.1 From various causes, the total has much fluctuated. In the years when the country was undergoing revolution, production always fell off markedly, and it has been reduced by bad weather and once by an epidemic of rinderpest that killed 80 per cent. of the carabaos. In 1916 the exports reached 375,000 tons, the largest so far recorded. Two years later the industry drifted into an impasse because of the lack of shipping that was one result of the war. Ships were few, rates were high, the Island warehouses overflowed with product and the business was threatened with disaster, when the Philippine government stepped in, took charge of 1 Fairchild, Philippine Year Book, 1920, pp. 150-157. COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 181 the situation, shipped sugar to the United States and relieved the strain. Mr. George H. Fairchild, the foremost sugar expert in the Islands, points out the odd fact that the exports of sugar for the last seven years of Spanish rule showed a yearly average greater than that of the first eleven years of the American occupation; the one instance, apparently, where any branch of human endeavor made such a showing. But for this were adequate reasons. For 1920 the exports were 302,000 tons. Lumber. The Bureau of Forestry (Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources) has on government-owned land extensive reforestation projects and likewise through private enterprises forwards the planting of trees. One of its benevolent adventures is the development of the lumbang tree, valuable for the oil it produces. That the world learned of this Philippine product and its possibilities is due entirely to the Bureau. The consequences of the information it spread abroad went embarrassingly beyond its own forecasts, for whereas 100,000 tons of the oil could be exported annually, the total product is far under those figures, and up to 1918 the exports had not reached 100,000 pounds. Fifty per cent. of the surface of the Islands is covered with timber, much of it commercially valuable. As more than 99 per cent. of these resources is in the hands of the government, the Bureau of Forestry has become one of the most important of the governmental activities. The figures seem to indicate that the Bureau has worked hard and intelligently. In 1900 there were in all the Islands not more than three steam saw-mills and these were of insignificant capacity. In 1920 there were ten great steam mills equipped with the latest modern machinery, and of the thirty smaller mills, each was more important than the three that existed before 1900. When the Americans came no Philippine lumber was exported; in 1920 it was being shipped to many 182 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES lands, including the United States, where the nara, or Philippine mahogany, was being made into much-admired furniture. More than 15,000,000 pesos are invested in the lumber business in the Islands and the annual production has grown to about 100,000,000 board feet. Labor. Since industrial development has no more than begun in the Philippines, the industrial problems familiar elsewhere cast here hardly more than a shadow of things to come. The Labor Bureau, therefore, is in the primitive stages of its work. Labor organization so far has only made a start. The country is agricultural, not industrial; and at that it is a country of farm-owners and not of farmlaborers. Yet in all this the inevitable change is beginning. The report of the Labor Bureau for 1919, covering forty of the forty-five provinces, showed more than 4000 manufacturing establishments to be employing 184,581 laborers. The average of hours of daily work was 8.2, which is less than I should have expected and less than in any other country of the Orient. But the arrangement is casual and irregular, and because there is so little labor organization there is no fixed limit to the work-day. In the same industry there will be days in different establishments of 8 hours and days of 10, 12 and in one instance I noted, happily rare, of 16. At the 1921 session of the Legislature a bill to establish an 8-hour day for all classes of employment was introduced, but strangled somewhere, doubtless because of influences of the kind familiar in all legislatures. In general, the work-day is shorter in Manila than in the provinces, due to the fact that Manila is partly organized and the provinces are not; I noticed in the provinces that even the employees of the National Coal Company, the government enterprise by which profiteering in coal is checked, have a 10-hour day. As to industrial relations, the metropolis has had some rather poignant experiences with strikes. One by the employees of the street railroad lasted three COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES AND LABOR 183 months and was not always as peaceful as, from the Tagalog character, one might have been led to expect; for novices in this kind of thing, the people showed a remarkable readiness to recognize strike conditions and take part in them. In some other employments in the city, being skilled trades, organization has begun or is advancing. Through the Labor Bureau, the government maintains a factory inspection and does all the official mediatory work that is done in case of strikes; so far, not much; for it does but call both sides before it for a conference. An attempt was made in the Legislature of 1921 to pass an act making a Court of In.dustrial Relations like that of Kansas. It passed the Senate but was sidetracked in the House, largely through the efforts of the president of the Philippine Labor Congress, who stoutly and intelligently opposed it. We can see, then, the usual forces beginning to align themselves for the struggle that always goes with industrial development. The Bureau keeps at its own charge a lawyer of repute to protect the legal rights of workers. If one of these thinks he is wronged in his employment relations, the Bureau's attorney first directs the attention of the employer to the grievance. If the cause cannot be adjusted then and there, the Bureau takes it to the courts without expense to the worker. Something of the kind would seem necessary in a country where labor is so large unorganized. Before the American occupation, the Islands, having no union of workers, had no law for workers' protection. There is now an employers' liability law, modeled after that of one of the American states. The Bureau functions as an employment agency. There are twelve labor districts with one chief and several subordinate labor agencies in each. Employers pay a small registration fee but workers register without charge. Especial effort is made to supply farm labor. In the opinion of the Director, labor shortage in the Islands may be more apparent 184 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES than real. He observed to me that if in the sugar industry, for instance (that being the business from which most complaint is heard), conditions of work were as they are in Hawaii there would be labor enough for the Philippine fields. He said this was obvious from the fact that there were 20,000 Filipinos working in the Hawaiian industry. They received free transportation, free quarters, free medicines and medical treatment and earned thirty dollars a month for a six-day working week; whereas, in the Philippines the worker usually received about one peso (fifty cents) a day and must in all ways provide for himself. A favorite prescription urged for the labor situation in the Philippines is the Chinese coolie in large numbers. It is fallacious. At present he is strictly excluded by immigration laws similar to those of the United States, and there is no chance that these will be relaxed so long as the Filipinos control their own government. CHAPTER X THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE I WAS sitting, one morning in February, 1921, in the Bureau of Agriculture, Manila, when there came in a man that the officers declared and I believed to be a typical Philippine farmer. He was about thirty-two years old, cleanly built, about five feet five inches in height, well set up, and having very good eyes, a good head and a face without guile; so that one looking him over felt rather prepossessed in his favor. His tint was darker than that of the city Filipinos; but such is the privilege of the outdoor man wherever the sun shines clear. All the indices of this man were of the soil, but he wore clothes of the European cut, rather well made and suggesting a Sunday suit. He went erect, with a certain dignity and intelligent self-respect that constituted another point in his favor, and when it appeared that he had a story to tell I thought myself fortunate to hear it. He spoke no English, but his son, about eight years old, was able to put into practice something of the lessons in language he had received at the public school. The boy had exceedingly bright eyes that went all about the strange place, and he was shy and self-conscious as anywhere a boy from the fields might be, thrust suddenly into a crowded and busy public office; but he seemed to be quick of wit and to have good manners. Adriano Baetiong was the name of the farmer, and he dwelt near the town of Balintawak in the province of Rizal, Island of Luzon, within twenty miles of Manila. There he 185 186 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES owned and tilled one piece of land that was fat and productive and another not so good. The fat land was worth 2000 pesos and the lean was worth 900; these being regarded as conservative estimates. Like most of his fellow cultivators, Baetiong was obliged to borrow money to tide him over the barren season between the crops of rice.' The practice is not thrifty, but is so deeply rooted that it will not be eliminated until the whole agricultural system is changed. Except in rare instances, the small farmer has no choice; and yet this need, in itself natural enough, is the doorway of an astonishing oppression, as you shall see, and the reason why in one of the most fertile and the happiest of countries agriculture is lagging. On January 1, 1920, Baetiong went to the neighboring town of Caloocan and sought two women that he had heard had money to lend on reasonable terms, if there be any such in the Philippine Islands. His experiences with men in this ime of modern business had not been such as to cause him any delight, and he had a notion that women might be willing to stop somewhere short of wringing the last drop of blood from the body of the debtor. I do not know that it is necessary to give here the names of these women; we will call one Rosa and the other Lucinda. From the two he borrowed 500 pesos for one year at 20 per cent., and signed a document that he took to be a receipt and obligation. Later in the same month he borrowed from the same women sixty pesos more, to run with the original note. In due season he planted his rice, cultivated it, had an excellent increase and a good harvest, and sold the product at a fair price. On January 1, 1921, mindful of his contract, he presented himself before Rosa, cash in hand, and desired to pay principal and interest of his debt. 1"From time to time immemorial the small cultivators have been dependent on the large proprietors for advances of money or food and seed, if not of both, during the cropless season."-J. A. Le Roy, Philippine Life in Town and Country, p., 72. THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 187 "Go to Lucinda," observed this lady when he had explained his errand. "She receives all the funds." At Lucinda's house he told his story and held out the ready cash. "Why do you come here?" says Lucinda, acidly. "Go to Rosa; she keeps all the books and looks out for the business. I don't know anything about it." He tramped back to Rosa's house, but with a show of indignation she refused to parley with him. "I have told you to settle with Lucinda," she said. "Don't bother me. Lucinda does all the business." When in this manner he had been passed from one to another that day and the next he perceived that he was the victim of a plot to deprive him of his property and ran posthaste to a lawyer. Being now well counseled, he deposited the money, principal and interest, with the man of law, who wrote to the money-lenders to notify them that he was prepared to make full payment of the account. To this they made no reply. He then looked up the document Baetiong had signed and found, as he had surmised, that it was of the variety pleasantly known in the Islands as "cut-throat" but more delicately designated in the law as pacto de retro, the essence of it being a bill of sale of all Baetiong's property to these two perfect business ladies if principal and interest should not be paid on January 1, 1921; and it was now past the middle of the month. By the terms of the contract, therefore, Baetiong stood to lose 2900 pesos for an advance of 160. There being no potent remedy in the law, the attorney was wise enough to take the case to the Agricultural Bureau, which undertook to rescue Baetiong from his lady friends and, I hope, succeeded. If so, he was indeed a fortunate farmer; for thousands of others have by this strange and apparently indefensible operation lost their all. Yet there is nothing illegal about it; on the contrary, the women were wholly within the law 188 'THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES and justified in all they did. Pacto de retro is a surviving relic of the Spanish occupation the Americans have failed to eliminate. It was recognized in the Spanish civil code and is said to have assisted handily in the building of many a fair Spanish fortune; but to the native farmer it has been part of a huge system of wrong that has so far made agriculture in the Philippines mere galling slavery. Nothing else has so effectively kept these "Your Oriental Eden-Isles" from realizing their destiny. For the soil is little short of marvelous; except for mountain and swamp, most of it, being volcanic, is fertile above the average of earth's crust; so fertile that so much of it as can be reached by one man's hoe may be enough to yield him support. The average size of a cultivated farm in the Philippines is only 114 hectares or 3.10 acres. The total cultivated area in 1917 was 6,039,445 acres. The population was 10,350,730, and with such a soil and such a climate could as easily have been 100,000,000. Compared with its possibilities, little of this fertile surface is cultivated; and where tillage is to be seen it is often of a nature to cause pain to the Western agriculturist. Here, then, is one of the world's great potential commissariats, and so far the world has but little benefit from it. But the truth is that for none of this is the native justly to be blamed, whatever efforts may be made to cast the fault upon him. It is but an evil inheritance laid on the Islands of which the brunt seems to be borne chiefly by the farmers and upon them to come with a wide range of afflictions. The Spaniards, who planted the seeds of modern culture and fought so valiantly against heathen religions, did next to nothing for economic betterment.2 In 1898 there was 1 Tennyson's phrase about the Philippines: To Ulysses, Stanza 10. 2"It has been truly said that the Filipino has been affected by the centuries of Spanish sovereignty far less on his material side than he has on his spiritual."-Craig and Benitez, p. 12. "The material surroundings of the Filipino before the arrival of THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 189 scarcely a farmer in the Archipelago that had seen any kind of a plow but a crooked stick. With this and with the patient carabao, the husbandman was able to produce some quantity of rice, of sugar, of hemp, or of tobacco, and thereby to live. What would you more? To the production on a great scale of certain standard world necessities, sugar, rice, hemp, copra, and for the production of tobacco, the world's prime luxury, soil and climate here are perfectly adapted; and yet the realization of these advantages is so far off that, as to rice, for example, the Islands must make imports to meet their own consumption of the people's staple food. Why this is, a glance at any average Philippine rice-field will show well enough. Say that it is lowland rice, as most of it is, there will be one crop a year where with ease there might be two. Primitive machinery and archaic methods waste labor and time in a manner saddening to view. Rice grows in, and by reason of, water; here will be seen no irrigation except the summer rainfalls. To conserve these, the fields are made half the size of a city lot, each walled about with a low rampart of mud. With the coming of winter the rains cease; as there is no water then, the land is cropped but half the year. I have found no other industry that seems to involve so much painful and drudging toil as rice-growing in the Philippine Islands. The rain as it falls is held by the mud walls until each field is a swamp. In the seed-plot near by the farmer has sprouted his rice plants. Now, with his carabao and the crude implements of his ancestors, he wades into the morass of his fields, always sunk to his knees or beyond, and churns mud and water into a black paste. When this is sufficiently slab, he and his family, if so be that he has one, proceed to plant these rice sprouts, one stalk at a time. It the Spaniards were in nearly every way quite as they are to-day."Barrows, p. 106. 190 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES is even so; with cruel bending of the back and with fingers groping in the slime, must each separate stalk be rooted. Similarly, when suns and winds have given the increase and the head of rice is full, the harvesting must be done, you might say, a stalk at a time. The rains have ceased, now; the water is gone, the soils are dry, and with stout knife or sickle in hand the farmer enters the field, grasps a handful of stalks and cuts them; work a sailor would call no better than man-killing. Then, being garnered, behold it threshed with flails as wheat was by Abraham, B. C. 2000, and in the last stage hulled with a wooden mortar and wooden pestle, in itself a sour and heart-breaking task. Thus is the staple of food obtained. Yet all these processes can be performed by machinery; can be and are. With machinery on some farms the soil is plowed, the rice planted, the grain harvested, threshed and hulled; with machinery as good and as recently designed as any in the world. I have seen the best type of American tractors hauling American gang-plows through the fields, American harvesting-machines reaping the abounding crop, American threshers pouring out the rivers of grain. There are farms that have introduced artificial and controlled irrigation, and thereby produce two crops a year as surely as once they produced one. Why, then, is agriculture in general so backward in these Islands, and why, instead of exporting a surplus of rice, is it necessary each year to import about twenty per cent. of the nation's consumption? Why do not these Islands function in feeding the world as climate and soil indicate they should? In particular, why does not every farm have tractors, harvesters, threshers and controlled irrigation? There are, to be sure, certain indigenous evils to. offset the prolific good; we must not think that here alone nature has made her gifts all on one pattern. Typhoons sometimes cause losses to copra and hemp farmers. There used to be a THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 191 left-over variation of one of the plagues of Egypt, being inconceivable swarms of locusts that seemed to come of a sudden from nowhere to darken for a period the sun in heaven, to advance as an army of destruction upon all green things and to leave behind it the blackness of desolation; but the able Agricultural Bureau has combated and routed this evil. There used also to be periodical afflictions of rinderpest, the mysterious disease of animals; and when it was at its height carabaos would die daily by hundreds and many a poor farmer would find himself all but naked to the world; for to the small-way farmer the carabao is the sum of all his possessions. Even the very richness of the soil produces an entry of its own for the debit side, for it makes life easy and replies with mute but convincing eloquence to pleas for the thrift and prudence that in northern climates are automatic results, even when we regard them piously as our own great and marvelous virtues. I mean that when a farmer can move upon a strip of land, put it to hemp, and in two or three years raise enough to support himself for a year in idleness; when he can repeat the process, or believes he can repeat it, world without end; to lecture him assiduously about the beauties of ceaseless toil seems, in a hot climate, rather a needless affliction. This was once the case in some of the provinces, certainly. We can to this day observe it. As, for instance, many of the Islands are heavily and wealthily wooded. One can, to-day, steam along their coasts and see place after place some wandering planter has cleared, from which he has raised a crop or two and from which he has departed, resigning the patch to be reclaimed by the jungle, always advancing upon it with astonishing rapidity.1 But all these conditions, when we have given them the utmost weight demanded by prejudice or interest, fall a fathom short of solving the riddle of agricultural slackness in the 1 The process is so well recognized that it has its own name. It is called in the native dialect " 'aingin."' 192 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Philippines. Two great reasons, much beyond all these, have no relation, as outsiders always assume, to any hopeless incompetence or conservatism among the people, who have shown that they will use a gang-plow or anything else new and effective if they have but the fair chance to use it. But, first, the Islands, everywhere and in all their economic relations and aspects, suffer a lack of man-power. There is not enough labor to clear the forests, open the soil, build the sluices, dam the streams, plant and rear the harvests. Throughout the great island world of the South Seas, of which the Philippines may be deemed a part, throughout this marvelous El Dorado of another generation, it is the same story; all Oceanica suffers the same want. With enough labor, the prospects of wealth in all these happy regions are boundless, as the Germans showed in their brief and bloody incursion; and without labor there is to be seen chiefly silent forests and unpeopled plains. So long as there are small fields in Philippine rice-growing, the use of machinery will be impossible; so long as there is no controlled irrigation, there will be small fields; so long as there is insufficient labor, there will be little controlled irrigation. But, next, even if there were enough of man-power the Philippines could never be in a state of normal productivity so long as the farmer should be the victim of the strange and cruel system of credits that bows him to the earth today, and of which the experiences of Adriano Baetiong were but one example in a million. With intelligence and, I think, some success, the government has applied itself to. the problem of increasing production. It will never solve its production problem until it makes agriculture safe and profitable; and agriculture will be neither until the loan vulture is driven from its heart. Observe that this is a country of peasant proprietors; it should be, therefore, like France, a country of peasant pros THE OLD AND) THE NEW T > \ THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 193 perity. A larger percentage of farmers own their farms than in the United States. Four in five of the Philippine farms are cultivated by their owners. Where there is tenancy, the rent is in produce four times as often as in money. The small size of the farms, averaging about one seventeenth of the average farm in America, is not important; products and conditions are different. A small farm in the Philippines, if properly worked, may easily be more profitable than a half-section in America. At least, it has been proved many times and incontestably that, given any reasonably fair chance, the proprietors of these small farms can achieve excellent profits, and that they have not such a chance and will not have so long as the vulture is tolerated. I may not deny that both the origin and strange dominion of this foul bird have relation to the Filipino's lack of thrift. Thriftless he had been born, thriftless he continued; he had never been taught nor counseled to be anything else. To borrow money to carry him over the cropless months was a system he had inherited; the colossal frauds involved in that system were protected and even encouraged by the law. What could he do? All his days he dwelt in a state of practical bondage to his creditors, sometimes actually delivering to them his body when he could no longer meet their demands and becoming for the rest of his life their indentured serf. No reform of these abominations was likely under Spanish rule; but the strange fact is that in the long period of American occupation and government that closed in 1916 almost nothing was done to end a condition so ruinous and degrading. It is a blot on the American regime I know not how to excuse, and might seem to indicate some caution in our habit of free criticism of other governments; for if we could not abolish wholesale and indiscriminate robbery, one might well inquire what of benefit could we perform? We were to teach to these lowly and unlettered children of nature the mysteries of wise and efficient government. Surely, little tuition in 194 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES such abstruse secrets could pertain to the long, cold neglect of this most hideous wrong. True enough, in the last days of American control, May 1, 1916, was passed what was called a usury law (Act No. 2658), the first in the history of the Islands; but it was of the order of merely farcical law-making that aggravates an original offense. It could check in no way the practices of the usurers. By oversight or design, it contained the spineless provision that usurious interest must be paid before proceedings gould be taken, and on conviction the punishment was no more than a fine of twice the amount of the interest. If the law-giver that produced this device had sought to protect and encourage the vultures, I know not how he could have been more effective in their behalf. Interest in the Islands had been whatever the lender could extort and the borrower could not evade. The law now fixed it at 12 per cent. for loans on real estate and 14 per cent. for others. In view of what (as you shall see in a moment) was actually charged, this provision seems to be the acme of legislative humor. To nullify this act was the simplest of child's play. For instance, the money-lenders have a lawyer that is also a notary. When an unfortunate farmer comes to them for money, they prepare a document setting forth that an amount in cash and certain cavans of palay 1 have been borrowed, to be repaid without interest at harvest-time; usually some six months away, as it is at the season half-way between harvests that the farmer's need grows great. In point of fact, interest has already been charged and collected; for under the guise of notary fees the lawyer has garnered from 10 to 15 pesos for each 100 pesos in the loan. But this is not all, for the palay said to have been advanced is wholly imaginary. There has been no transaction in palay. The palay alleged to have been borrowed is really additional interest on the money lent, and 1 A cavan is 57~3 kilograms, or about 116 pounds, of rice. Palay is unhulled rice. THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 195 it will be seen at once that, with this liberal opening, the possibilities' of usury are almost illimitable. In practice, it is usual to extort in this way 30 cavans of palay for each 100 pesos in the loan. If this is valued at the top of the market, say at 7.50 pesos a cavan, the real interest on a loan of 100 pesos is 225 per cent. I have become somewhat inured to impositions and extortions practised upon the farmer, for these are the rule around the world; but I have not found elsewhere anything so appalling as this. In many other countries the farmer may be compared to a man whom brigands have bound while they take his purse and watch; but here they take all that he has on his person, then all he has at home and then chain him as a slave. With much cunning the varying price of palay (according to the time that elapsed since the harvest) is used to increase these illegitimate revenues. Let us say, for example, that a farmer has borrowed 100 pesos in money and agrees to pay therefor 50 cavans of palay, these to represent principal and interest. When the term of the loan expires he is able to pay only 25 cavans of palay instead of 50 and asks for the rest an extension of time. The lender agrees to this but avoids the mention of a definite date. At the time of the harvest the palay may be worth 2 pesos a cavan. Six months later it has risen to 7.50 pesos. It is then that the creditor demands payment on threat of closing the mortgage, which has been drawn to cover everything the debtor owns, land, house, tools, carabao, cart, kettles, pans and all else. He is wholly unable to pay now, this debtor, the 25 cavans he owes because this is the hardest part of the year for him. Therefore a compromise and a new agreement are effected whereby the unpaid balance of 25 cavans is valued at 7.50 pesos; the prevailing market price; so that the debtor now owes 187.50 pesos. At the price of palay when the original loan was contracted, this would be equivalent to 94 cavans. 196 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES When, at the next harvest, he has palay and endeavors to pay some of it on account it is worth but 2 pesos a cavan and on this basis he pays 30 cavans. This reduces his indebtedness to 127.50 pesos. When the between-harvest season has returned and palay is again worth 7.50 pesos the creditor presses for payment, figuring the debt at 64 cavans. This at the market rate would be worth 480 pesos. The creditor can pay nothing at this season of the year and when again he has palay and pays of it, let us say, 40 cavans on account, he may find that these are reckoned to be worth only 80 pesos and on an original loan of 100 pesos he is now deemed to owe 400, having in the meantime paid 130. Incredible as it may seem, this is the process in use in thousands of instances, and it is obvious that the system of European serfdom in the darkest of the Dark Ages was on all accounts preferable. Other varieties of these processes exist. Thus takalavan is a contract whereby the tenant agrees to repay each 2 pesos received as a loan from the landlord in one cavan of palay after the harvest. If the payment is demanded when palay is at its highest price the interest is equal to 250 per cent. a year. Talindua is a contract whereby the tenant borrows two cavans of palay at the beginning of the agricultural year (planting-time) and returns 3 cavans after the harvest. This is at the rate of 50 per cent. a year. Pasanod is like takalanan, except that the tenant is compelled to borrow whether he wishes to or does not. Poor farmers must often rent their carabaos from a landlord or broker or lender; the purchase price of these animals being beyond the reach of a man with a small farm. In that case the common trick is to select a beast so old it is likely to die on the borrower's hands, when he is charged with the full price of a young carabao and finds that he has given a lien on his possessions that leaves him without re THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 197 course. In many regions the power of the landlord or professional money-lender is so great that the outraged and defrauded farmer or tenant dares not complain. So far as he knows, the man that has wronged him this year is the only possible source of the money he must have next year. Tradition and experience are against any suggestion that the weak have any rights. In the days of the Spanish administration the rich and the powerful were the intangible lords of the earth. The idea of a law that protects the feeble and obscure is on its way, doubtless, to these distant lands; but it has not arrived yet, and I was not always sure that the American administration had accelerated it. In Luzon, some years ago, a landowner sold to a tenant a carabao at 180 pesos for which the tenant agreed to pay 180 cavans of palay. Three years passed, and the tenant had been able to pay only 129 cavans. The landlord, seeing that the next rice harvest promised to be good, demanded the balance of the account. As the tenant could not meet the demand at once, the landlord took the case to court where judgment was entered and the tenant was ordered to pay the debt, plus court fees. When the writ was put into execution, the carabao was seized and offered for sale at public auction. Because of his great influence the landlord was able to prevent any higher bid than his own and bought in the carabao at 100 pesos. The palay the tenant still owed the landlord, figured at 3.15 pesos a cavan (an average price), was worth 159.02 pesos and, as the carabao at the sale brought only 100 pesos, the tenant owed 59.02 pesos, which the court held him obliged to pay. At 3.15 a cavan, he had already paid 406.35 pesos for a carabao valued at 180. Renters must borrow from their landlords; not from any other source. When payment is made in palay, the usual medium (since it is a currency beautifully elastic to the lender's profits), the landlord applies his own measuring implements to the mass and announces the result to his own 198 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES satisfaction, which must perforce satisfy likewise the poor debtor. If, after all these extractions, there seems still to be any blood left in his corpse an agent of the landlord may produce a gambling device and secure the rest through an appeal to the national weakness.' When to these evil conditions are added the deeds of what are called title-jumpers, the modern banditti that go about the country laying claim to land they do not own, it will be seen that agriculture in the Philippine Islands proceeds under difficulties. Instead of wondering that the total product from their soil is so small, we should wonder that it is so great; and surely a people that will persist in the face of all these hardships cannot be accused justly of lack of stamina. I do not know that in this respect even the crofters of Scotland have done better. It is but just to say that against these manifold iniquities the Bureau of Agriculture carries on a brave and ceaseless struggle, but the system is too old and too profitable; nothing in this world that yields 250 per cent. profit will be easily suppressed. The Bureau has recommended, pleaded for and demanded a law that would, enlarge the operations of its excellent Rural Credits Division, and thus give the farmer everywhere for the financing he needs some other source than the greedy money-lender; but at session after session the reform fails in one house or the other. Yet the situation is not different from that existing in every other country; it is like eliminating the great financial interests from American politics, or the brewery interests from English, or the iron and steel from German. Yet we should understand that until this is done in the Philippines, and the farmer is released from the claw and beak of the vulture, agricultural production will be far below normal; and rice, the staMr. Le Roy and other observers have deemed this vice in the Philippines to be one of the by-products of the usury system. If the Spaniards did not introduce it, they certainly did nothing to check it. THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 199 pie food of the people, will continue to be imported. All this time the strange fact remains that ample machinery has been provided to end most of these evils; for, as I pointed out in a former chapter, the Philippines have a system of rural credits antedating that of the United States, and much better. They have, in fact, two systems, either of which, if applied, would end agricultural usury. Rural credits as a government institution date from 1916, the previous session of the Legislature having passed the necessary authorization in Act No. 2508. The machinery it set up is well enough; nothing is lacking except that it shall be made to revolve. Farmers are authorized to form rural credit associations or groups of not fewer than fifteen members, choosing by ballot their directors and other officers. A member that wishes a loan must fill in a blank application describing his land, and the uses to which he purposes to put the money. With this he offers either a mortgage on his land or more often his note indorsed by two responsible. guarantors. This the directors consider. If they find it approvable, they indorse it in the name of the association and on it lend the association's money to the farmer, or endeavor to borrow it for him from outside sources. Interest on such loans is fixed at 10 per cent., which is 2 per cent. lower than the rate allowed in the comical usury law and about one tenth of the average rate obtained by the money lender. Organization was made as simple as might be and still provide safety. All the associations must be subject to the approval of the Bureau of Rural Credits, Agricultural Department, one of the best managed of all the bureaus of the government. Incorporation was allowed whenever there was a nominal capital of so much as 500 pesos, with one half of it paid in. Sometimes, where the members were manifestly honest and of substance, they were allowed upon even slenderer beginnings to launch their little boat. A rural credit 200 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES association started at San Remigio, province of Antique with a capital of 94 pesos ($47). Two years later it had 10,000 pesos capital and 17,000 pesos of deposits. On December 31, 1920, there were in the Islands 528 of these associations, an increase of 109 in the year, having out nearly 2,000,000 pesos of loans. They had 82,000 members, 670,000 pesos of total capital, 16,000 borrowers and 1500 depositors. Twenty of these associations had each more than 20,000 pesos lent, and fifty had each as much as 10,000.1 There was no room left to doubt the excellence of the system. In one year these associations had saved its members in interest a sum approximating 2,000,000 pesos, equal to the total amount of all the loans they had out; for at the average rates of interest gleaned by the money-lenders from all sources these members would have paid 2,200,000 pesos in interest, whereas by this system they paid only 200,000. The largest of the associations was made up of the farmers in the vicinity of Mufioz, the site of the Central Luzon Agricultural School, being encouraged and partly officered by the students. This in a few months had driven out of the district a horde of money-lenders that had previously financed the rice crop at 200 to 300 per cent.; whereas the association now performed this function at 10 per cent. But everywhere the beneficial operation of a well-meant system was maimed and halt because of the lack of means. Nothing else stood between agriculture and its emancipation. The rural 1"It is gratifying to be able to state that no serious irregularities have been committed, only occasionally it has been necessary to correct or prevent such errors as loans to friends or relatives, as fear to offend borrowers by insisting on prompt repayment of loans, as directors quarreling over politics or personal differences, and similar ills that the whole human race is heir to. It is no small task to harmonize the different elements in a community that has never cooperated in anything. The fact that it is being done, and that the older associations really understand the benefits of cooperation and discipline, is very creditable to the members, officers and the advising agents."-Report of A. W. Prautsch, Chief of Rural Credits Division, Bureau of Agriculture, 1920. THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 201 credit law provided no capital; the associations were dependent upon their own meager funds or upon what they could borrow from outsiders; and in many regions the power of the organized money-lenders overawed persons that otherwise would have been willing to accept the farmers' notes. Two million pesos in loans was a negligible amount, considered as any remedy for the existing evil. It was no more than a finger-post to the road by which the crops of the Islands might be brought to something like the soil's fecundity. All that was needed was more money to lend. In 1918 the government appropriated 1,000,000 pesos for general agricultural relief and the Bureau was able to divert some of this to rural credit purposes, but the amount was too trivial to work any real results. To further thrift and add to the working capital, the Rural Credit Division has devised thrift certificates similar to those that became familiar in the United States while the Great War was in progress. They are purchasable at 3.75 pesos, to be worth 5 pesos in five years. In 1921 they were beginning to attract attention from the masses of a people to whom any form of thrift was a novelty; but it was evident years would pass before such an expedient would yield any considerable income. What was needed was an appropriation from the Legislature to furnish a working capital; with this, in a short time the system would so develop itself that it would become self-sustaining. Up to 1921 the power of the usurers had been sufficient to prevent the Legislature from appropriating a sufficient sum for this, but it might be said that a beginning had been made. Meanwhile, if examples were required, they were available and of a nature, one might think, to supply all needed argument. The town of Victoria, Province of Tarlac, had in December, 1920, a rural credit association with 580 members, of whom 520 were small farmers owning less than 25 acres each. It started in 1917 with 40 members and 250 pesos of 202 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES capital and in three years had reached a point where it had 21,000 pesos out in loans, all in small sums. A collateral, and probably unexpected, blessing called down by these evolutions is to be noted in the next fact about Victoria. The association there had introduced cooperation, the great principle of capitalized fraternity that goes around the world with healing on its wings. The members of the rural credit association, having a good (and novel) view of the possibilities of cooperating enterprises, proceeded next to form an organization to build for them rice-mills and warehouses and to obtain improved implements. For the year 1920 this organization averaged an expenditure of 500 pesos a month for steel plows and other modern machinery. It is now part of the program of the Rural Credits Division to foster cooperation, which its agents, always traveling through the provinces, suggest and advise. For the future, the Division sees also central cooperative banks in each province, by which local cooperative associations can be financed. With such an adjunct, hope of another great reform is reasonably cherished, for then the farmer will no longer be compelled to sell his crop when the market is at its lowest. Also, in the Postal Savings Bank operations there would be a potent relief for Philippine agriculture if these could be somewhat enlarged; years have demonstrated that they are ably and efficiently designed so far as, at present, they can be made to work. Postal savings in the Philippines date from 1906. Deposits of from 1 to 1000 pesos are received at certain post-offices and bear interest at the rate of 21/2 per cent., which, in view of the prevailing interest rates in the Islands, seems sufficiently absurd. Deposits may accumulate to any sum, but no interest is paid on more than 2000 pesos. The depositor receives a pass-book with a column on each page for deposits and another for withdrawals. At the end of December, 1920, there were about 108,000 depositors with THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 203 about 7,000,000 pesos of deposits. At the end of the first year of the law's existence there were 2331 depositors and 507,463 pesos of deposits. It was the first savings bank in the history of the Islands and the first official suggestion that money in hand had any other significance than to be spent as quickly as possible. To live to-day and let everything drift for to-morrow was the Spanish philosophy, and the natives accepted it with ecstasy. But now thrift is taught in every school; and every school, on the mere request of principal or teacher, can become a branch of the postal savings system. Schools issue thrift stamps and cards; pupils may deposit a centavo (one half cent) at a time and receive a stamp until a peso is represented on the cards they carry; then they receive a depositor's regular book in the postal savings bank. Educators see great hope in this arrangement; their reports about it are encouraging; and certainly, if the schools I visited are an indication, the plan has much popularity. Defects in the Philippine postal savings system are painfully conspicuous. The rate of interest is so low that nothing avails to attract deposits but the naked fact of security; so low, in fact, as to suggest some malicious influence in depressing it. Not every post-office is a savings bank. Loans of the bank's funds are limited to one half of the bank's deposits. As the deposits under these conditions are not large, the effect of the system in checking usury has been almost indiscernible. As with the Rural Credit System, so here; repeated efforts to amend these faults have so far been defeated by the money-lending interests. Loans from the deposits are made on first mortgage on improved land. No more than 50,000 pesos can be lent to the holder of any one title. No guarantors are required; the borrower offers only a mortgage and his promissory note. In each province is an official loan committee composed of the Provincial Treasurer, Provincial Fiscal (an officer com 204 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES bining the duties of District Attorney and Recorder of Deeds) and the District Engineer. This committee receives the application for a loan, investigates the security offered and reports about it to the Insular Savings Bank Board at Manila, composed of the Secretary of Finance, AttorneyGeneral, Insular Auditor, Director of Posts and the Su-, perintendent of Postal Savings Banks as Secretary. When the Board approves the loan, the postal savings division prepares the mortgage, the borrower signs it, registers it at the office of the Provincial Fiscal and receives the money. It will be seen that the process is simple, reasonably swift, and protection for the government is ample. At first the interest on these loans was fixed at 7 per cent.; later it was increased to 9. The borrower pays all taxes and maintains the insurance on the buildings. If he fails in such payments, the department assumes them and adds them to the principal of the debt. The terms of the mortgage provide for immediate foreclosure if there shall be default, the Attorney-General to begin the action. In practice the borrower is allowed time to make good his payment, and wisdom is approved in this policy since in fifteen years of the system only once has foreclosure been required. In that instance the land was seized and sold at auction and the department suffered no loss. But, while it has not yet been able to rescue the farming population from the grasp of the usurer, the Bureau of Agriculture has been in other ways the source of incalculable good to the farmer and to the Islands. It is busily engaged with its large organization in preaching and teaching improved methods, the use of machinery, seed selection, plant improvement. It carries on what is called a Food Campaign to increase the acreage, yield and value of agricultural products. In its endeavor to spread cooperation and the practice thereof, one of its latest achievements was to introduce THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 205 among farmers the cooperative insurance of their work-animals. Its Veterinary Division has combated rinderpest up to the discovery of a vaccine that immunizes animals against this dreaded plague, with the result that thousands of carabaos have been saved for the farmers. It took up the matter of hemp and fiber grading, long in a state of chaos, reduced thirty-eight uncertain commercial grades to eighteen that were definite and standard, and put grading under the inspection of the experts of the department. It took up the plague of locusts, which, as I have noted, was once so serious in some of the Islands as to menace agriculture with destruction, and by 1918 had practically exterminated this devastating plague.1 Bud-rot, a disease that attacks cocoanut, was the next thing to have its attention, and it developed a system of tree inspection and treatment that greatly lessened this evil. In 1920 the inspectors of the Bureau inspected 13,371,143 cocoanut trees, of which 8734 were found to be infected and were destroyed. It conducts experimental stations, model farms, laboratories for soil analysis, farm colonies, farm schools. In 1920 it kept busy a field force of 184 trained demonstrators that were conducting 38 provincial projects in the way of modjel farms and the like, and had 20 demonstration stations and 75 cooperative or municipal nurseries, which distributed 251,180 seedlings. It held, in the year, 4630 agricultural conferences, attended by more than 530,000 farmers. It has a separate division for seed improvement and selection, and this in 1920 distributed 11,236 cavans of selected rice seed, 1038 cavans of seed-corn, 349,707 sugar-cane cuttings, 4000 ornamental plants and 15,000 pounds of vegetable seeds to farmers. It pours forth a flood of instructive literature wherewith the farmer may bless himself and mankind if he will. Incessantly it sends forth bulletins and circulars. It According to Gironiere, this affliction used to come every seven years. 206 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES imports improved live stock from the United States. I heard criticisms about the work of other departments, but nothing but praise for the Agricultural Bureau. Its director and chief when I was there was a native Filipino, Mr. Adriano Hernandez. Ie seemed to be perfectly at home in a position he had filled for many years with honor to himself and his people. Rather oddly, one of the four agricultural colonies conducted by the department is for discharged American soldiers that have settled in the Islands and married Filipino women. The place is in one of the southern groups. A certain complication obtruded itself about some of these settlements, growing (to speak delicately) out of the habits of a few of the soldiers. Wise men do not drink much of alcoholic beverages in tropical climates. Not all soldiers are wise. When these entertained the purpose of making the Philippine Islands their permanent home, it was advisable to provide them with wholesome outdoor life and an occupation that would keep them as far as possible from temptation. I understand that these objects have been attained in the department's farm colony. At all events, the project is deemed a success. I am not aware of similar projects by other governments in this world, though disposed to learn of them with joy. With all the difficulties that beset and bedevil agriculture in the Philippines, they are the greatest of all producers of abaca (hemp); next to the greatest producers of copra; abundantly productive of sugar, tobacco and hard-wood lumber; and, in spite of the variableness of profits due to changing market conditions, it seemed to me clear that the general agricultural condition was surely improving. In 1918 the Islands raised 41,805,511 cavans of palay, 10,524,942 cavans of corn, 3,400,540 tons of sugar-cane, 210,152,692 kilos of copra, 301,671,442 kilos of hemp, 19,015,976 kilos of maguey, 1,053,605 kilos of sisal, 61,003,189 kilos of tobacco, 205,264,987 bunches of bananas. In eleven years, 1910 to 1921, the value THE FARMER AND THE VULTURE 207 of the six leading crops, rice, abaca, cocoanuts, sugar, corn and tobacco, increased four-fold. At the end of this period all these products were passing through a period of great depression, the sure reaction from the febrile temperatures of war-times; but all were still staples, all were still of the world's insatiable demand, and it was evident that the depression was no more than temporary. Considering the prodigious industry and sure faith of the gentlemen that were conducting the Agricultural Bureau, I was left no doubt that some day the deadly blight of agrarian usury would be removed, and then they would be rewarded and gratified by the ability to report that the Philippine Islands were giving to mankind a reasonable tilth in proportion to the fertility of the Island soil and the advantages of the climate. But I was persuaded that such a day would not startle anyone by its sudden dawning. CHAPTER XI THE COPRA-MAKERS A S hard and smooth as travertine, the road from San Pablo in Laguna Province, Luzon, runs miles and miles like a corridor, or vault, between the grab stems of smooth cocoanut trees, roofed more than sixty feet high with long leaves curled like green ostrich plumes. It is stately going, down that road; the shade is sweet, the greens are good to see, the air is coolly perfumed and the soul of the traveler has time to note and marvel at the bounty of nature that made the most useful of trees likewise one of the most beautiful, for the whole region is filled with cocoanut palms. Two or three miles out we found a little roadside mill built of logs and slabs and within it the thing we had come to see, a machine the first Malay immigrant from Java might have brought in his vinta. It was a mechanism to press oil from cocoanuts. Two stout wooden beams, supported horizontally, were connected with a hand-made wooden screw that brought one against the other. Copra, which is to say the dried meat of the cocoanut, being placed between the beams, a man turned the screw and an earthenware jar received the drippings of oil. Twenty minutes before we had left a modern oil-mill where great complicated steel expellers gloomed in rows, a steamengine whirred and clanked, copra stood at one end in pyramids like those of Egypt, and from the other end issued a rivulet of oil. If these things had been staged by design to illustrate 208 THE COPRA-MAKERS 209 and symbolize changes and conditions, I do not know how they could have been more apt. The contrast between the old mill with its hand-screw and the great new mill with its power expellers is the contrast between the oil business as it was in the Philippines before the war and as it came to be later; it is likewise the contrast between the Spanish system and the present, the Old Philippines and the New. We spent that day in the center of a region where 25,000,000 cocoanut trees had been planted,l and might have reflected also on a marvelous revolution in the habits of mankind well illustrated by that fact; a change great and, so far as mortals can see, destined to become greater. For nearly fifty years before 1920 the world's supply of food-bearing and fat-bearing animals had not kept pace with the world's population. Roughly expressed, earth's peoples were crowding in upon earth's cattle-yards. On the great central plains of the United States, for instance, the cattle once ranged from southern Texas to middle Kansas, a meadow about 700 miles long and sometimes half as wide, rich in free grass. When settlers entered this region and fenced it into farms they cut off a great source of animal fats and started upward the prices of all animal foods. The like processes were repeated elsewhere on different scales. While the world's population increased more rapidly than 8 per cent. a year, the world's food-bearing animals grew relatively fewer. When this became certain, wise men turned to search for another source of fats, and as it was and is manifestly impossible to bring the supply of food-bearing animals back to its former proportions, the natural recourse was to oils of vegetable origin. Of these the best and handiest are furnished by the palm. African palm oil, made from what are called palm kernels, 1 In 1918 a count revealed 20,416,000 cocoanut trees in this district, and the estimate of 25,000,000 to-day is probably too small. 210 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES had long been an article of commerce; but the vegetable fat that was susceptible of the widest range of uses, including a place on man's table, was found to be that expressed from the nut of the cocoa palm, millions of which grow on the islands of the tropical and the semi-tropical Pacific, and prolifically on the shores of the Philippines. This was "the beginning of copra," of which Stevenson speaks. In the next few years it transformed trade in the Pacific world-the patient, persistent cocoanut palm that will grow wherever it can get a foot or two of soil and once established thereafter devotes itself with conscientious endeavor to the business of producing nuts. "Vegetable oil" (cocoanut oil) sprang from nothing in our Oriental commerce to almost first place. One year a half million dollars' worth of it passed through San Francisco. Four years later the imports of vegetable oil there were valued at $14,000,000. In the beginning, Germany far outstripped every other nation in this business; she had foreseen it and arranged for it while the rest of us slept. Her vast island world in the South Seas was ideal country for cocoanut-growing and swiftly she developed its possibilities. Because of the distances, the lack of handy fuel and the difficulties of getting labor in her islands, she imported the copra and manufactured the oil at home. For this purpose she invented, and then improved, the best oil machinery that had so far been devised; the German mills became models, and from them she supplied, one might say, the whole of Europe with vegetable oil. It was a marvelously profitable trade, and the golden magic of profits being waved above the German islands, peopled them overnight; so that in five years it had covered them with leagues and leagues of cocoanut plantations. When Germany was expelled from the Pacific, this perennial fountain of wealth passed to other hands, and, the war stimulating the demand, Americans began in the Philippines to set up oil-mills where the cocoanuts grew, this being the obvious THE COPRA-MAKERS 211 economy, and possible to them where it had not been possible to the Germans, because in the Philippines were fuel and at least some part of a supply of labor. ISo long as the war lasted the business grew like the hoard of the genii. War-time prices for meat and for butter swelled the demand for the new fat, which was cheap, wholesome, adequate. Most of the butter substitutes came to be made of it or based upon it: so were lard substitutes, soaps, a variety of oils. Cocoanut plantations seemed the most alluring of all investments. Cocoanut trees began to bear in seven years from the planting and were believed to bear thereafter for the next century without ceasing, without cultivation and without risk. Marvelous farming! The process of manufacuring the copra was of the simplest. A native with a great and heavy knife halved or quartered the nut; with a single movement, a native gouged out the meat. A few hours in the hot, clear sun dried the product, and it was ready to be transported. A crop that required but one planting in a hundred years, that, in the Philippines, at least, grew a commodity to be treated and milled where it grew, and for which the world's demand went always ahead of the supply, seemed to constitute the agriculture of which men had dreamed but never expected to see, and new plantations sprang up all about the Islands, where soil and climate were, in the main, well adapted to the culture. Mills arose, at first financed by American capital and equipped with machinery that repeated or surpassed the best devices of the German inventors. By improvements in the process the percentage of oil extracted was increased. The business came to be organized and standarized; often the labor problem, the overshadowing issue in the Philippines, was solved by making the work attractive and bettering the lot of the worker, a ready-to-hand art that seems, on reflection, to have been too often overlooked. Men became experts in the oil business and brought science to bear upon it, 212 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES making the product better and enlarging its uses. Export was facilitated by building oil-tanks in all the passenger steamers that were operated across the Pacific and then by bringing in the Standard Oil Company, so that its ships that brought kerosene to the Philippines carried back in the same tanks cocoanut oil. The price of oil went higher; the consumption of oil always increased. There was never a legitimate business with richer returns or a better prospect. Then, of a sudden, the foundations seemed to slip from so fair a structure of gains, and the whole business to collapse together like a thing of dreams. The price of oil fell so swiftly that men said with grim humor they could hear the swish of its descent. As with the turning of an unseen hand, the demand seemed to stop and at that moment came the discovery that the Dutch East Indies colonies, the greatest of all producers of vegetable oil, were overstocked with millions of tons. These calamities fell upon the Philippines at about the same time that the markets for sugar and hemp, two other great staples of their produce, entered upon a similar area of low pressure. It seems a fair conclusion that the general economic and business situation must have been sound and strong or there would have followed a series of resounding disasters. The worst that happened was two or three notable failures. Then the storm began slowly to subside and business, including that in vegetable oil, to come by imperceptible degrees to its natural course. In the case of vegetable oil the return seemed inevitable because, however exchange might veer and markets fall, the fact still persisted that the world's supply of food-bearing and fat-bearing animals could never regain its former relation to the world's peoples. Unless some other source of fats, now unknown, shall be discovered, the future triumph of the copra trade in the Pacific and therefore of the patient, THE COPRA-MAKERS 213 persevering cocoanut tree seems as sure as the human race itself. In the process of reducing haphazard to scientific certainty in this business, some things were developed in the Islands that may be deemed to have more than technical interest because they again reflect light on the distance between the Old Philippines and the New, and show entertainingly the naive innocence of Spanish arboriculture, for instance. Cocoanuts had been grown in the Archipelago and well esteemed for food and drink so far back as there are any records of any trade there, but grown on the one easy principle of planting something and trusting the rest to chance and the kindly elements. The trees were always placed too close together; usually sixteen to eighteen feet apart. Now, the cocoanut lives, thrives and has its being in floods of tropical sunlight. Sunlight it will have if it must climb heaven's blue dome to get it. Cocoanut trees that shoot up clear seventy feet or so, to thrust at the top a circle of graceful fronds against the sun are common sights. Where they are spaced too closely they do more of this climbing than is good for them; the strength that should go to fruitage is expended upon mere longitude. When system and knowledge came to the business, they spaced trees thirty-two feet apart, with the result that the trees seem to be content with a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, for nothing interrupts the full tide of sunlight. In the old days it was held that the planter's care of his trees ceased when they began to bear; after that he need give himself no more concern, except to gather the harvest and to sell it. Study and experience put an end to this pleasant thought. In the best cocoanut plantations, now, the plow is in continual use, that the soil among the trees may be kept open. On a great plantation that I visited on the Island of Negros, cultivation had settled into one well-con 214 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES sidered method. Plowing kept the soil open and clear, but in addition there was dug in the center of each quadrangle marked by four trees a pit about five feet deep. Into this were cast the dead fronds that fell or were stripped from the trees, with the husks and shells that are the offal of copramaking. The heap was then covered with earth and not opened for two or three years. The fertilizing of the soil from the decaying fronds and shells was one result, and the aerifying of it, not less valuable, was another. They must have been well justified, for whereas the average product of uncultivated trees may be eighty nuts a year, on this plantation the average yield was two hundred nuts a year. The trees, too, began to bear in their sixth year, and seemed to be in unusual health and vigor. At the cocoanut plantation of San Ramon Prison, near Zamboanga, Island of Mindanao, I found the practice was to keep the soil clear and open between the trees; but instead of pits for the dead fronds, these were burned and the ashes used for fertilizer. This plantation, one of the most famous in the Islands, is cultivated by. the convicts. Throughout everything that is written in a fair spirit about the industrial aspects of the Philippines you will find running some thread of discourse about the labor problem. Its text is the familiar fact that there are not enough hands to do the required work, and those we have must be treated in accordance with certain psychological laws, (to the new-comer hard to understand), or, in the Chaucerian phrase, farewell, it is gone! perhaps to contemplative idleness, belike to a ball-game. But gone it is and you are left thumb-twiddling. Mr. Le Roy found in his investigation that the native will work hard and steadily if he is interested in his work. The most successful oil enterprises in the Philippines have taken a leaf from that book. One of the largest is on the Island of Mactan across the straits from the handsome and busy city of Cebu, and near the spot where Magellan lost his life THE COPRA-MAKERS 215 -so strangely do things come about. It is a factory spacious, clean, well planned, well lighted, the type of the best in modern factory-building. I had almost called it handsome, thereby committing the arch artistic heresy, and yet in some of its aspects handsome it certainly seems. Around it the wise directors have built for their workers a little town of modern sanitary attractive houses, cool and clean, perfectly adapted to the climate, yet not too costly for a wage-earner's purse, with bath-tubs and running water, ranges and electric light, tasteful designing and ample gardens. From nipa and bamboo to concrete and window-sash -here was a change! The problem of building cheaply and airily in the tropics and so that one shall conform to accepted types elsewhere is not easy; but it seemed to have been met courageously and ably in this small town. The houses were rented on a cost valuation to the employees of the factory. See, then, how psychologies differ. We know well enough that if this factory were in Illinois or Pennsylvania its employees would turn in disgusted revolt against pretty houses built for them by any employers, however philanthropic, and demand a chance to build houses for themselves. In the Philippines the benevolence is accepted with exultation and goes to the solving of the vexed labor problem. At least it is so regarded now. How it will seem when the Philippines shall have been industrialized-that is another matter. I think it is a fact that a certain degree of paternalism, which the American mind resents, sits jocundly to the heart of the Filipino of these days. It would be strange if otherwise; he has a longer background of tribal relations than some Europeans I might name, and will you note how even some of these cling still to the instinct? At Mactan the proprietors have built for their workers a comely little theater wherein entertainments are provided, often free; a club-room, recreation-rooms, a doctor and the like benefac 216 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES tions. Strange to say, there appeared not to be, as one would expect, a purpose to recoup these expenditures, cent. per cent., from the employees. I found an eight-hour day for all and the wages to be at least 20 per cent. higher than workers were paid elsewhere. The controlling policy seemed to be to take a personal interest in the welfare of every employee, a feudal condition possible here but long passed away in every industrial country or region. For this climate and people it seemed to achieve some success. The mill was operated day and night, with three shifts of eight hours each. Not long before my visit the management had introduced the plan of breaking the night watch with a ten-minute intermission and a light luncheon furnished without charge. Investigation showed that the increased efficiency that followed among the men amply repaid the cost of the luncheon. I do not think this had any part in the calculations, for the management seemed to like to do things of the kind without weighing out its centavo-pieces, but I record the fact as a side-light on the complex mentality with which the Occident has to deal if it essays profitable business in these Islands. It was to the material advantage of the company that efficiency be increased in the night watch, but the company could have no material benefit from the careful and even laborious teaching of thrift to its workers. Yet this was a part of the management's activities. I asked with what success; for it is writ in the American colony's indictment of the Filipino that he is incapable of thrift. Not this order of Filipino, certainly, for although the idea of saving and not spending was novel to him, and his mind at first seemed to rebound from it, after a time he began to like it and now generally views with pride his mounting balance in the savings fund. But something, surely, is to be allowed for the personal traits of the commander that steers these experiments, and at this place the natives are blessed with a manager that has E:~~i ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i sty1 FI "~ }:~~~~4~~~~~X s~~ } 3: a, a~ 1 i >Sa i' ',, 2,,a, y: B ';,aa 3i..- y su > * '' ' ' I~U " "' '" M'' '<'i,aa S '0 '2 s E 3 0,,Y, 0.t. I; i _ ai i~ i_ lr: _ aa ~ 0 si rf. k Mede1 ~ ~ santlr iletlg3~hbldWCMaal a rg_, I; No e E THE COPRA-MAKERS 217 patience, sympathy and sincerity, for these are the universal solvent for all difficulties Oriental. This mill was producing one hundred tons of vegetable oil every twenty-four hours. After passing once through the expellers, the copra was re-treated and again put through machines that extracted from it almost the last trace of oil. What was left was a flat gray cake two inches thick, apparently mere compressed fiber and dry as tinder, but having still valuable food properties for cattle. At the model cocoanut plantation on the Island of Negros, of which I have spoken before, it has been found well to adopt the same policy of pleasing and interesting the workers. Model dwellings, a play-house, reasonable hours, better wages, the considerate manner, the easy word, keep the place well supplied with workers. There may be places in the Philippines where these methods fail to produce similar results, but I did not learn of them. I went into many of the houses of the plantation workers. They were generally of the familiar Philippine type, nipa and bamboo, but better. We went up a ladder six feet above the ground, and found, ordinarily, a house of three rooms: a living-room, bedroom, and kitchen. The floors were of halved bamboo, clean and cool; the walls adapted for perfect ventilation, at least. I was told that typhoons blow through such a house and leave it standing when they take off the roof of a building of concrete or stone. In the bedroom the couches were blankets, and the like, on the bamboo floor; there were no bedsteads, although I have sometimes found them in native houses elsewhere in the Islands. The kitchen had a stove, which was unusual, Filipino cooking being generally accomplished out of doors. There were the common utensils hung in good order upon the walls. In the living-room were a table and chairs and some ornaments. One house had a variety of pictures cut from American magazines and illustrated journals and some had framed 218 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES lithographs. In two or three were phonographs, and in two I saw sewing-machines. But the sewing-machine is no marvel. In the richer and older agricultural districts I have seen the housewife seated at one window causing the sewingmachine to hum, a child at the other winding up a phonoograph and the good man below putting into a nipa shack garage an automobile worth more than his entire house. But to return to our copra, by the beginning of 1920 the power oil-mills in the Islands numbered forty-three and some had twenty to twenty-four oil-expellers and almost incredible storage space for oil and copra. It had become a truly great business. Its growth here may be gathered from the fact that in 1912 the total exports of vegetable oil from the Philippines were only 660 kilos, valued at 32 pesos, and in 1919 they were 139,942,612 kilos, valued at 73,719,504 pesos. This sounds so like the Scheherazade of commercial tales I should hesitate to write it but for the warrant of the official figures. It is also a chanceful business, or used to be. In 1908 it had attained to 2,852,100 kilos, valued at 684,560 pesos, and declined shortly afterward to merely nominal proportions. But we may now almost assume the days of chance to be over. Chance can hardly be involved in supplying a great world necessity for which the demand grows and must grow with each year. No estimate of the present condition or future prospects of the Philippines would be complete without some study of copra, in the world supply of which it is so great a factor, and will be greater. In most respects it is admirably adapted to the business. The one drawback is a superfluity of moisture. This, while it causes the tree to grow luxuriantly and to bear abundantly, prevents the meat from thoroughly drying in the sun, and if copra is not perfectly dried it is subject to mold. To meet this difficulty, the old practice was to cure the copra by kiln-drying it over a fire made of nut-shells. To this some authorities object because THE COPRA-MAKERS 219 they say it gives to the oil a smoky taste. Mechanical dryers were being introduced when I visited the mills, and promised to overcome all difficulties caused by moisture. They eliminated, for instance, all but twenty-five one hundredths of one per cent. of the fatty acids in the copra, whereas ordinarily it has of these about three and a half per cent. Fatty acids are the result of mold-spores. Effectively to rid the copra of these by air-drying requires about three months of storage, but the mechanical dryer nullifies them in six to eight hours. Food chemists have material for alluring experiment in the milk of the cocoanut. Wherever copra is made, this fluid is the curse of the maker. At present it is largely useless. If allowed to run away in the sun it decomposes rapidly and (to persons with olfactories) becomes an intolerable affliction. To carry it off in sewers is difficult because out in the fields where the copra is made there is no place to which a sewer can be led. So far, the only commercial use to which the liquid has been put is in the making of a little vinegar; but no promise exists in this. I should add that when the cocoanut is allowed to become on the tree a trifle overripe it solves on its own account the difficulty of the cocoanut milk. For up there on the tree it begins to sprout inside its queer rough shell, and the first sign of its new life is the development within of a cabbagelike growth that absorbs all the milk and for which purpose the milk exists. When, seated on the ground with his ready knife, the native copra-maker splits a shell and sees this growth, he grins with delight. For the find is his by all custom and precedent, and of it that night Mrs. Filipino will make a salad-delicious beyond all the salads of Europe! CHAPTER XII EDUCATION F OR thirteen weeks the city of Manila looked on one side into the muzzles of Commodore Dewey's guns, he lying just beyond the breakwater there, and on the other side into the trenches of the Filipinos, always creeping nearer; then, on August 13, 1898, it surrendered. The next day the redoubtable W. D. McKinnon, Chaplain, First California Volunteeers, United States Army, seems to have gone striding up the Escolta asking for the nearest school-house and, having found it, to have started to teach in it. The statement is not an extravagance and scarcely an exaggeration, for the first army report on the American occupation goes out of its way to give unusual tribute to this unusual man. With breath-taking energy he plunged head first into the task of reorganizing the local system of education, literally shot to pieces in the civil war. General Merritt, American military commander, wisely made him Superintendent of Schools, and within two weeks he had schools in successful operation all about the city. Most of his teachers were college graduates from among the enlisted men in the ranks; until 1901 he had none other outside of Manila. It is to be dotibted if there is in the records of man's wars another such incident-a conquering army taking first of all to school-teaching. But it was the fact here; a fact assumed with a certain nonchalance now delightful to read of. By September 1 all the school-houses in Manila that were not in ruins were operating to their capacity under the indefatigable McKinnon, and he had launched his nation upon 220 EDUCATION 221 a task in benevolence and civilization that has grown since to one of the most remarkable of all achievements in education. We are not to titillate fancy with the pleasing notion that the Philippines, when we descended upon them with light and leading, were sitting fast bound in the darkness of ignorance. The restless McKinnon and other Americans in the army of occupation noted with astonishment that "ability to read and write a little of the local native language was comparatively common" among the people. 1 For three hundred and twenty-eight years the Spaniards had, in their own way, but often with conscience and zeal, sought to further education as they pushed Christianity among their Island subjects. But it was education flawed and halting, as all education must be under the monarchical system, because it could never by any possibility nor in any relation ignore the caste facts that monarchy, however benevolent, drags always at its wheels. There was higher education for the children of the high castes; the masses must shift for themselves. For a child of the common people to wrest an education from the schools wherewith Spain endowed them was no blithesome undertaking, and we may justly underscore as an indication of character that with all its obstacles it was triumphantly essayed by so considerable a number of Filipinos. Nominally, education was compulsory in so much of the Islands as was subject to Spanish rule. Nominally-so many good things were nominal in those slack-water days, including sometimes the reasonable security of one's neck! Children between the ages of ten and twelve years must be sent to school, unless parents or guardians should prove that the children in their care received a sufficiency of instruction in their homes or in private institutions. Failure to comply with a law so draconian was punished with the like relentlessness; sometimes delinquent parents might be called upon to pay fines of three cents or in extreme cases as much as twelve. 1 First Report of the Philippine Commission, 1899-1900, p. 32. 222 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Provided always that there was in the town, village or barrio where they dwelt a school at a convenient distance, please note. Otherwise the law was inoperative. One may surmise that the king's exchequer was never burdened with its receipts from this source. For commoners the only educational provision was the primary school. The well-meant Spanish program had a paper requirement of one male and one female teacher for every 5000 inhabitants; in practice, the number of teachers ranged from a half-fulfilment of the regulations to none at all. The Spanish in 1894 estimated the total population at 6,709,810. There should have been 2684 teachers for these; there were but 1914, or one teacher (disregarding sex) to every 3500 inhabitants instead of one to every 2500. Supposing that, by the beginning of 1898 the population had reached 7,200,000, since the number of teachers remained the same there was but one teacher to 3725 people instead of one to 2500, a fact of much eloquence. These schools were to teach, first of all, said the law, "Christian doctrine," and then the principles of morality and sacred history suitable for children. The curriculum looked like this: 1. Christian doctrine; 2. Reading; 3. Writing; 4. Spanish; 5. Principles of Arithmetic; 6. General Geography and Spanish History; 7. Practical Agriculture; 8. Rules of Deportment; 9. Vocal Music. In many of the schools, to speak quite plainly about them, instruction began and ended with No. 1 on this list, and even then was imparted in the native dialect. Also, it is to be noted, these cultural refinements were for boys, and boys only. Girls were supposed to have instruction "in employments EDUCATION 223 suitable to their sex" but including none of the foregoing departments of human knowledge. In 1888, when the Philippine Islands must have had a population of more than 6,000,000, the expenditures for popular education were $124,963, of which the gorgeous sum of $35,513.70 represented the educational efforts of the Spanish government for everything outside of Manila. Even adding the expenditures for the Schools of Agriculture, the Nautical School and all other technical and vocational training, the total was only $238,650. By 1894 it had risen to $404,731, which closely represented the total educational effort when the dauntless McKinnon arrived on the scene. In Massachusetts at that time was one public school teacher for every 189 inhabitants; in the Philippines one for every 3725. In Massachusetts the average monthly pay of men teachers was $137.50, of women teachers $51.44; and for a population of 2,400,000 the public-school expenditures were $8,000,000. In the Philippines, with a population of 7,000,000, the public-school expenditures were about $400,000. If, in spite of these discouraging conditions, learning advanced in the Philippines' we may believe that nothing but the unusual character of the people kept it animate. Indeed, the excellent chaplain and his successors noted everywhere a kind of passion for education. No difficulty was had in filling the school-houses, but only in providing them. Eleven months after the surrender of Manila, the number of schools in Manila had been increased to 39 and the enrolment in them was 3721. Six weeks later it had reached 4504, which was the largest number the city had known. "It is true," said the first American authority that looked into this subject, "very many of the civilized natives have never attended any school of any sort whatsoever; that a considerable additional number have attended school, but have learned only a few prayers and a little catechism in their native dialect; and that they may or may not be able 224 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES to read or write their own language." The proportion of those having this ability seemed incredible. Among the native dialects there were the sixteen written alphabets inherited from the forefathers. Instruction in these was not usually given in any school, yet they were widely known and used. The conclusion is obvious. The natives taught themselves. Lack of school-houses greatly hampered the Spanish program, what there was of it. Likewise, we may suppose, the lack of teachers; which is not wonderful when we consider their pay. Men received for teaching from $7.50 to $20 a month; women from $5 to $12.50. Under the Spanish system the only official institutions for secondary instruction were the College of San Juan de Latran (which was under the control of the ancient University of Santo Tomas), and the Ateneo Municipal of Manila. A few "private colleges" and "Latin schools" were sustained by individual contributions.' For higher education, the only institutions were the University of Santo Tomas and the Royal College of 'San Jose, which,,ke San Juan, was under the university authorities. Sant. Tomas is of venerable foundation, dating back to 1603, befor'e Harvard was dreamed of, before Plymouth Rock, before Jamestown. San Jose comprised only schools of medicine and pharmacy. A School of Arts and Trades came into being in 1891, but led a perfunctory and languishing existence. It was followed the next year by a 'School of Painting and Sculpture. "In spite of the inferior character of the instruction given," says an early and able commentator, "the fact has been demonstrated that some of the Filipinos have artistic ability of no mean order,"2 a remark since repeated, and amply justified of the Filipino sculptors, certainly. A Theological I First Report of the Philippine Comnmission, 1899-1900, p. 35. 2 bid, p. 40. @,r "Id I MUNICIPAL SCHOOL BUILDIN AT DINGL1AS I l X g * S _ | ~ ii:::: l~~~~~~~~~~~ir l l | * | - A p EDUCATION 225 Seminary and the Military Academy, of course, completed the Islands' slender educational equipment in 1898. Two orders of the priesthood were chiefly engaged in making what use they could of these poor tools, the Dominicans and the Jesuits, and they seemed to differ as to Filipino capacity. "The Dominicans assured us," says one of the first American educators to reach the Islands, "that the native was dull in learning languages, while the Jesuits considered him quick, especially in early youth."l The conclusions of the American are worth some attention. "In view of the facts set forth," he wrote, "it must be admitted that the average native has never as yet had a fair opportunity to show what he can do," but the attainments of those of the natives that had had exceptional advantages were such as to dispose the Commission to credit them with unusual ability. The first Philippine government bill that Congress passed, Act of 1901, established a system of education for the Islands and appropriated $1,560,000 therefor. It made in the city of Manila school attendance compulsory between the ages of six and twelve, adopted English as the ultimate language of instruction and provided for the sending of one thousand teachers from America. These were now more than ever needed. The people in the interior of the Islands had begun to hear of the promise of education held out by the new-comers, and were eager, in a pathetic, groping way, to welcome the new learning; but the insular government was helpless for lack of instructors. A singular chapter in human history ensued. I will tell it for the light it throws upon the two peoples whose ideals were to shape the destinies of the Islands. Within a space of time that seems now hardly believable, agents went to America, aroused there the sympathies of the educational 1 First Report of the Philippine Commission, 1899-1900, p. 35. 2 Ibid, p. 41. 226 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES world, and secured the voluntary enlistment of about one thousand teachers. No steamship accommodations could be had for so great a number. The Philippine Bureau appealed to the Secretary of War. He gave over the transport Thomas, and it sailed in July, 1901, with more than six hundred of the volunteer instructors. Most of them were from the Middle West; scarcely any had voyaged on salt water or been outside of the United States; the Thomas was an ancient tub, discarded years before from the transatlantic passenger service, small and now horribly overcrowded; the voyage was through the Red Sea at the season when that long hot gridiron is at its worst; but the six hundred novices went through without a murmur. They arrived at Manila August 23. All the hotels and boarding-houses in the city would not shelter such a throng. The school authorities took possession of the old exposition grounds, repaired, cleaned and furnished the abandoned administration building and installed the women therein. For the single men they obtained two large nipa barracks that had been built for American soldiers, and for the families commandeered some nipa buildings that had been used by the American officers. They set up a temporary kitchen, arranged for the cooking, and when the six hundred crusaders of civilization on the Thomas were ready to land, marched them all triumphantly into comfortable quarters and sat them down at tables furnished to make them happy. It was the most extraordinary invasion in history. This was the beginning. 'So soon as they were rested and a little accustomed to the tropical summer into which they had been plunged, these fresh arrivals from Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and other happy climes were sent forth into the wilds to open the schools for the fall term. When we remember that not one of them had ever before stepped beyond the pale of Western convention, their sudden thrust EDUCATION 227 ing into the far loneliness of these solitudes and menacing wastes seems a hazard so wild I doubt if education has known anything equally Homeric. It was like a modern Odyssey. Often they went into regions where not a soul spoke any word of any language they knew, and often they made their way thither by savage trails over or around wild mountains, consuming two or three weeks to reach their destination. Often, too, they were in imminent peril from more than one source. Some have left modest and unregarded accounts of travels that, if dedicated to a more spectacular errand (slaughter, let us say, or brigandage), would have challenged the attention of the world. I will cite, for one example, the experience of those that went to the northern part of the Island of Luzon in the district traversed by the mad mountain stream that is called the Agno River. Even in the dry season the crossing of this torrent is difficult, and in the wet season becomes a desperate venture. The river-bed is filled with boulders. In the wet season the greatly swollen stream shoots these along like a giant playing with huge bowls. Four of the teachers, at the height of the wet season, had to make the Agno journey where, in a space of fifty miles, the torrent must be crossed eight times. Each time they made the crossing by means of a device of the Igorotes that might make a spectacle at a circus. Raw hides of the carabao, the strange, hairless draught-animal of the Philippines, had been cut into strips two or three inches wide and tied together so as to make a rope long enough to be stretched across the chasm and leave a fathom or so at each end. On each side the end was then tied to a tree or passed around a rock. They next took a carabao neck-yoke, which is a piece of wood or bamboo three feet long and shaped into a half-circle, and hung that across the rope, tying to each end of the yoke another piece of hide. These being brought together made 228 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES a kind of breeches-buoy or bos'n's-chair in which a man could sit. They then fastened to this sling or chair another and smaller rope and threw the other end of it across the river, where the natives cared for it. The passenger next seated himself in the sling and the natives on the other side hauled him along the main rope. Every time the contrivance reached a knot, the traveler must reach up, grasp the rope, lift himself with one hand and with the other slip the yoke over the knot. There might be fifteen or twenty of these knots in one rope and of course there was always a dismal chance that the rope would break or a knot come untied. On this nerve-racking invention the four teachers made the eight crossings in safety, arrived at their destinations and started to teach American to the Igorotes. Sometimes the trail had other perils; it led over the shoulders and ridges of mountains where a mis-step would send one down a thousand feet or such a matter; or there were steep ascents, hard climbs and ugly corners. One of the ascents was four miles long and at the top of it men and horses usually fell to the earth exhausted. When a teacher reached the end of such a journey it was his common lot to find the house in which he was expected to teach to be almost uninhabitable. Many of the schoolhouses were bamboo shacks with mud floors. They were always without school equipment and to bring that from Manila meant the long, toilsome, perilous trail through the mountains, the crossings by Igorote trolley or other hardships equally rigorous. These difficulties being overcome, remained next the task of teaching rudimentary American to the pupils, that there might be some medium of instruction; a task to test all the resources of patience, tact and devotion the teacher possessed. In this emergency recourse was had to the primitives of EDUCATION 229 learning. "Eat, eat, eat, eat," the teacher would say, biting and swallowing a biscuit; "walk, walk, walk, walk," striding meanwhile up and down the room; "book, book, book, book," and hold up the article. By dint of causing the children to repeat the word until they had it perfectly the slow foundation was laid. Roaring torrents and mountain precipices were not the only dangers the teachers underwent in those days. A second detachment of them came on 'the transport McClellan, arriving at Manila April 20, 1902. Four young men of this party, Louis A. Thomas, John E. Wells, Ernest Heger and Clyde O. France, after three weeks of rest and acclimation at Manila, were sent to the city of Cebu on the Island of the same name. There they were to attend the teachers' institute and then be assigned to schools. At eight o'clock on the morning of June 8 they started from Cebu for a day's outing in the foothills and to take photographs of mountain scenery. When they had not returned at nine o'clock that night, their friends were alarmed and an hour later notified the Constabulary. The next morning two constables and four teachers went to Guadaloupe, a place in the foothills that had been the first objective of the wanderers. Nothing about them could be learned there and Chief Inspector Ross of the Constabulary ordered out four parties, sixty men in all, to search the mountains. Six days passed without news. Inspector Luga then picked four men of the Constabulary force, put them in civilian dress and led them upon a venture of his own. He and his men were to pretend to be deserters from the Constabulary and seek to join any bandits that might have captured the teachers. Many more days passed without news. At four o'clock of the morning of June 27 Inspector Luga returned with his detachment and reported that the evening 230 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES before he had met Damaso Tabalada, leader of a band of ladrones (robbers) operating near Guadaloupe, and Tabalada exclaimed: "You are looking for me for the taking of the four American teachers!" And drawing his revolver he fired two shots at the Inspector. Both missed him. Luga fired and with one shot killed Tabalada. On his body were found a gold watch, a chain, a charm, a pair of opera-glasses, a revolver and a pocketbook containing personal papers. Most of these articles were identified as having belonged to the missing teachers. At midnight Inspectors Hunt and Luga went to Guadaloupe, arrested one Labra and brought him to Cebu, where he confessed he was a member of the band. He said Damaso had told him on June 10 that he was holding the four American teachers as prisoners after he had robbed them. The next day the constables dug out a terrified native in a far corner of the mountains who said the teachers had passed through his place under guard. He was utilized as a guide and led the constables to a wild mountain on the summit of which he said was the house of Teniente Minoy, near which the Americans were confined in a cave. "The house was about eight hundred feet up the side of the mountain, which was very steep," says the report of the Chief Inspector, "and was built in a natural fort so as to command a View for miles around. We found Teniente Minoy and two other men in the house, and also what appeared to be a natural crevice in the rock. ITpon investigation we found that it led to a cell about forty feet square, with perpendicular walls. In the center of this was a house and one of the men arrested here admitted that the Americans had been confined there. While further questioning him, he darted through the crevice and made his escape. This caused considerable commotion, and our guide of the evening before, together with the man we found on the river-bottom, jumped EDUCATION 231 over a cliff thirty feet high and disappeared in the bush." However, they arrested three of the band, took them before the civil governor and asked him to have them locked up. The governor, Juan Climaco, promised to do this and remanded the prisoners. So soon as the Constabulary had gone he turned the prisoners loose. It was not until July 22 that the band was captured and the graves of the Americans were found. From the appearance of the bodies, men surmised that two had lived longer than the others, indicating a fight against the bandits. Doggedly the constables kept at the case until it was finished. "Like the Bad Lands of Northwestern America," was the best description of the country through which they hunted; all wild mountains and barren buttes.' I tell these things because so far as I can discover nobody has ever celebrated the heroism of the men and women that volunteered to plant the present school system of the Philippines; and because no view of that marvelous system can be adequate without a knowledge of its unsung pioneers. And I know of nothing better calculated to silence pessimism and exalt the just mind with a new and finer sense of the capacity of the human race than to compare remote and mountainous Philippines of that time, as revealed in this record, with remote and mountainous Philippines of to-day. The same year, 1902, saw the last and, I think, one of the worst of the great cholera visitations that formerly scourged these Islands. I quote from the Report of the Philippine Commission for that year: "The work of the American teachers in the cholera epidemic, which in many of the most populous provinces reached its culmination in the school vacation, cannot be too highly commended. In many cases the teacher was the only American in the town. In some cases there was not even a native or Spanish doctor. Some teachers with a little knowledge of 1 Report of the Philippine Comnmission for 1902, pp. 955 et seq. 232 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES medicine, and all through their knowledge of hygiene and sanitation, accomplished wonderful work in preventing and suppressing the dread disease. Almost invariably the American teacher was a member of the Board of Health, and in Manila the teachers arriving on the McClellan, fresh from the States, unacquainted with and unused to tropical conditions, being unable to take up school work, became health inspectors in the city of Manila and surrounding towns. "In the remote towns, isolated from the prompt aid that alone can save life when the most dreaded of all scourges makes its attack, with no command to remain, with the allurements of foreign travel put sternly into the background, with no relative or intimate friend to protect or encourage, and among alien races, these noble men and women fought by night and day, week after week, for the lives of an alien people, with no thought or chance of reward, with a noble heroism that is far above the bravery of the soldier fighting a foe that can be seen and known. "The United States may justly be proud of the bravery of its soldiers, but it must also remember that the peaceful army of teachers has shown a nobleness of spirit, a selfdevotion to the services of humanity, a steadfastness and bravery of soul, that is rarely excelled." I think official report-making has seldom been so moved out of its dry and mechanical self; and has seldom had similar occasion! Four of these obscure heroes and heroines died of cholera at the posts to which they had assigned themselves. We should look farther at this, it is so illuminative. To the spirit the teachers showed of self-sacrifice and the steadfast performance of duty the Filipinos responded in a way to shame detraction. "Were it not for the warm personal attachments that spring up between the American teacher and the people among whom he lives, his sincere interest in 1 They had arranged to spend the summer in Japan. EDUCATION 233 his work, and the cordiality, hospitality and affection of the native people,' the lives of many of these American supervising teachers would be intolerably lonely," says the Report of the Educational Bureau for 1904. "There are many cases where they are separated by at least a day's arduous travel by land or boat from any other teacher, and weeks frequently go by without the sight of another white face." It adds this significant comment: "There have been no instances of despondency or melancholy in the last year." I suppose that when the world comes to adjust its values to a basis of sanity it will exhume some of these astonishing records and build a belated monument, maybe, to the Unknown Teacher. They found for their sowing a soil in all ways fertile. A natural instinct for culture seemed to spring up at the least encouragement. "The demand for instruction is unprecedented," says the First Philippine Commission Report.2 "The young and the old are studying; and many persons are naturally taking advantage of the demand and are establishing private schools." The Report for 1905, reviewing these developments, says: "Almost from the organization of school work here, the Filipinos have shown themselves ready to make sacrifices for the education of themselves or of members of their families. Even rather remote relatives sometimes assist to pay the expenses of a young man or young woman while at school. The humblest and most ignorant peasant has in thousands of cases made sacrifices for the advantage of his child." 3 Apostolic fervor inspired the teachers, American and native, the men in charge, all that came within the influence of the great work. One is irresistibly reminded of the early days of the church. ip. 148. 2 Report of the Philippine Commission for 1902, p. 953. Report of the Bureau of Education, 1905, p. 9. 234 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Intermediate and secondary schools began to be provided; an act to establish and support them had been passed by the Commission in 1902. The Pasig Secondary School was opened October 1 of that year on the payment of fifteen dollars in local currency for the rent of one room, thirty by thirty feet, in a private house. Pupils came from five other towns besides Pasig. The first day there were 28, all told. By November, the attendance had reached 145; by December, 166, by January, 188. The Cavite High School was opened a few weeks later. By 1905 there were seventeen provincial high schools; the report of the next year showed thirty-six high schools and ninety-two schools giving intermediate instruction. In 1904 the Bureau of Education had 1503 school-houses of its own in operation, besides all the schools that rented quarters. With satisfaction it contemplated these figures. Of the owned school-houses, 534 had been inherited from the Spanish establishment, 369 had been built by the Americans from the surrender of Manila to December 31, 1903, and 600 had been built in the year 1904. Most of these were permanent structures of concrete. It was a year of note in the educational record, for it saw the first incursion of the public school into the Mohammedan region. This was a step straight in the face of the advice of all old-time observers; the tradition deeply rooted among them was that nothing could be effected against the fixed Moslem prejudice. The fifty-two schools established that year in Mohammedan territory seemed to dispose of all such judgments and to disprove once more the wisdom of the wise. Seven of these fifty-two schools were among the terrible Moros and two among the wild Bagobos of the Gulf of Davao, whom it was always said nothing but rifle-shots could tame. Of the native teachers in these schools, nine, by this year 1904, were Mohammedans. It was enough to make all former commentators doubt their reason. EDUCATION 235 Attendance at the primary schools increased more rapidly than school-house accommodations. In July, 1904, the attendance was reported at 251,475; in November, 345,018; in March, 1905, 501,000. "This constant rise in attendance was accomplished without compulsion and was to a great degree due to a greatly awakened desire on the part of the Filipino parents for education for their children. The result, while it serves as an encouragement and quickening to every part of the Bureau of Education, yet embarrasses division superintendents and teachers in their efforts to secure anything like proper facilities for instructing this number," says the Report for that year. "A year ago the purpose of the Bureau was to secure the attendance in the primary schools of 400,000 children. It was hardly believed that the figures could be attained even as school enrolments. It was, however, as stated above, surpassd by 101,000." By 1905 there were 417 school districts in the Islands, 1697 new school buildings had been erected, and not one of the 613 organized municipalities was without school facilities. Yet the educational campaign, moving on with this merited eclat, developed two weaknesses. The attendance was chiefly in the primary grades, and even here the graduates were comparatively few. So soon as a child learned to read and write in the American language and to do simple sums in arithmetic, he was withdrawn to work in the fields, for the business and life of the Islands were always agriculture. The Philippine Census of 1905 reported 1,958,479 men engaged in occupations and of these 1,145,230 were farmers or farmlaborers. Criticism began to be heard among the American element that the scheme of education added nothing to the labor reserves of the Islands, and nothing but the labor reserves was of any real importance. There was no greater number of workers in the hemp- and sugar-fields because of the schools. This year, therefore, was marked with a great 236 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES extension of the agricultural schools, and afterward always greater attention was paid to farm training and to trade and technical education. Lack of teachers continued to be a great hindrance. From the beginning, the directors saw that the first task would be to secure and train enough native instructors to carry on the work. Of that problem the bare terms would seem to have been hard enough. The Filipino teacher, to begin with, usually knew not a word of the language he must teach in, and the policy of the Department was fixed that instruction should be in American and none other. He usually knew but little of the fundamental subjects, as Americans teach them, of arithmetic, geography and history. The result was, he could be kept but little in advance of his pupils. Often a teacher taught one week what he himself had acquired but the week before. I emphasize this because it leads to the next important illumination of character. The Report for 1904 says: "'Surprising to say, the Filipino teacher, under this method, has made progress far in advance of anything that could have been expected. Many of those now employed are very fair instructors in the subjects falling within the primary course. They have developed well as disciplinarians. School-rooms in charge of Filipino teachers are now almost invariably quiet and well ordered. The daily program is carried through on time and successfully."' "Primary instruction," the Report continues, "with the exception of a very few schools, is now conducted entirely in the English language. More than this, the conversation of the class-room is in English. Under these conditions the Filipino child, who is an exceedingly apt learner and possesses natural ability in the acquisition of languages, is making progress that is almost marvelous." Ip. 18. 2P. 18. EDUCATION 237 One peculiar feature of the Philippine system of education I have yet to describe. It is called the voluntary contribution, by which the parents in a community sought to obtain a school or to keep one when it had been obtained. Voluntary contributions began to attract a somewhat wondering attention in 1905, when, the Report says, they attained the high figure of 232,988 pesos. "Nearly all of this contribution has either been made by the poor people of the barrios for the erection of barrio schools and has taken the form of gifts of land, material, labor and small sums of money, or has been given in the form of gifts for provincial school construction. A large part of this voluntary aid was called forth by the appropriation of 350,000 pesos by Act No. 1275 for provincial and intermediate school buildings. In apportioning this money the condition was frequently imposed that an additional sum should be raised by the locality either out of public funds or by private subscription. "The private response given to school needs is, as stated above, a striking evidence of the readiness of the Filipino people to make sacrifices to secure schools. In Surigao more than 6000 pesos in cash has already been paid in, much of it coming from peso subscriptions. In Sorsogon more than 20,000 pesos has been realized in this manner; in Tayabas nine towns alone have donated more than 14,000 pesos in labor and materials; in Romblon, a small division, the people have donated land, labor and materials to the amount of 15,000 pesos and fifteen school-houses have been built as a result; the municipality of Romblon has given a site of nine acres for the provincial high school, and the people of this province have contributed 7500 pesos toward its erection; in Bohol,2 where great scarcity has existed for some time, the people contributed money, materials and labor to the value of over 1 $175,000. 2This is the province that revolted in 1744 and for nearly a century maintained a government independent of Spain. 238 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES 15,000 pesos, out of which forty-seven barrio and two municipal school-houses were built. In Samar, where the conditions were at their worst in the last six years, the people have contributed, principally in labor, more than 7000 pesos toward the erection of schools.' In Pangasinan the towns of Mangatarem and Binalonan each offered 10,000 pesos of voluntary subscriptions, provided the Bureau of Education would furnish an equal sum for the erection of an intermediate school. In Binalonan every municipal officer from the president down to the lowest municipal policeman offered a month's salary to the fund. The town of Silay, in Occidental Negros, in order to secure the permanent location of the provincial school, made a definite offer of a subscription of money, labor and material amounting to 10,000 pesos."' In 1907 the voluntary contributions amounted to 137,104 pesos, nine tenths of this being for the building of schoolhouses. At this period the rooted conviction of the people of the United States was that the people making these phenomenal contributions to the cause of education lived in trees and hunted heads. The work continued to be pressed with unflagging ardor upon a population singularly responsive to all such effort. For the month of March, 1906, five provinces reported that in the intermediate schools there had not been a single absence of any pupil. Ninety-two schools were now giving intermediate instruction, and at these and at the high schools the daily attendance averaged 96 per cent. for all the Islands. The tuition was always broadening; each year there was more attention to technical training, to farm schools, trade schools and the like: This stilled in no way the hostile criticism from the American colony in Manila, which has not ceased since, and probably never will cease, to find fault with the system. The schools were an evil, not a benefit. What should it profit a sugar-cane cutter or a copra-maker to know 1 Report of 1905, pp. 6, 7, EDUCATION 239 about the battle of Lexington? A young Filipino, graduated from one of the new high schools, felt himself above manual labor. The money spent upon the schools, said one judicious observer, had much better be spent in extending the commercial and industrial development of the Islands. What was needed was not a wide-spread knowledge of algebra and literature, but factories that would increase the country's wealth. In the face of this always-growing bombardment, the Educational Bureau steadily pursued its way, which is rather remarkable, considering the source of the complaints. Appropriations for general education annually increased, and the number of teachers and of pupils grew. Some of this progression may be noted in the following table: NUMBER OF SCHOOLS IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS YEAR PRIMARY INTER- SECOND- TOTAL MEDIATE ARY 1903 2,000... 2,000 1904 2,233 17 35 2,285 1905 2,727 102 35 2,864 1906 3,108 119 36 3,263 1907 3,435 216 36 3,687 1908 3,701 193 38 3,932 1909 4,194 193 37 4,424 1910 4,295 198 38 4,531 1911 4,121 245 38 4,404 1912 3,364 283 38 3,685 1913 2,595 1296 43 2,934 1914 3,913 278 41 4,232 1915 4,187 350 42 4,579 1910 4,143 351 44 4,538 1917 4,288 368 46 4,702 1918 4,276 423 48 4,747 1919 4,412 501 50 4,963 1920 5,280 614 50 5,944 The decline noticeable in the figures for 1913 was due to a shortage of funds; the days were almost the last of the old-style, unworkable Legislature, half representing the people 240 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES and half representing naught; the activities of the Bureau of Education had become many and various, and the Legislature failed to make enough appropriations. Shortage of funds meant the closing of many school-houses, which meant in turn a falling off in attendance. By the next year the strange hybrid Legislature had perceived its error, and, with an adequate appropriation, one thousand new schools were opened and the attendance went beyond all records.' Director Frank White, who succeeded to the command of the Bureau in 1909, thoroughly organized and standardized the industrial instruction, always being extended and absorbing more attention. It had an old and honorable history. The Spaniards, for instance, as we have seen, sowed in the convents the seeds of the present great embroidery industry by teaching to a few (and those select) the delicate secrets of the art, from whom it drifted in the customary manner down to the lower strata of the social structure. The Americans began, with their earliest effort, to popularize industrial training, basket-making being their first definite essay. By 1908 they had gone far enough with it to have an exhibit of school-made industrial products, and after that was nothing but persistent progress, however slow, until 1918, the year of wonders in Philippine school history, the date from which its greatest advance is celebrated. A Philippine Legislature, elected in both branches by the vote of the people, was now sitting in Manila. Since the beginning of 1917 the people of the Islands had been in supreme control of their own affairs. The old so-called Philippine Legislature, which was no legislature at all, the goat-andtiger team arrangement of an elected Lower House and a Senate appointed, had gone tardily to the discard. For some 1 The Philippine Educational Exhibit at the Panama Exposition at San Francisco, 1915, was the largest there. *So the Philippine Commission was called when it functioned in a legislative capacity. Its members were appointed by the President of the United States. PI y B 1. I py Sly30y0 rny: EDUCATION 241 time the chief business of the Senate had seemed to be to negative the proposals of the House, and it was manifest the device was tottering. In all its days and all the days before it, the first difficulty of the educators had been the lack of funds. They felt that, with a nation eager to learn and so many zealous teachers ardently enlisted, they could in a few years transform Island life if they could but get the needed appropriations. Almost the first concern of the native Legislature of 1918 was to pass Act No. 2782, appropriating 30,000,000 pesos, in addition to the regular allotment, to be spent in the next five years for school development. This meant, with other things, that free elementary instruction would be placed within the reach of every child of school age in all the Islands; that no more tuition would be charged in the intermediate grades; that there would be more teachers and more school-houses where they were most needed; that at last the sadly underpaid teachers would receive what, without a blush, might be called compensation; that consequently the teaching profession would be more attractive, more dignified and more efficient. The first result was that vocational training leaped up into first-place prominence, and the Philippine schools took on that system of directly interesting boys in farming and gardening and girls in household work in which tlhey ire now said to lead the world. A year later, when Assistant Director of Education Osias went to the United States to be instructed in the most advanced methods in school work, he was astonished to find that he had much to teach in these particulars but nothing to learn. This idea, again, was not new in the Philippines. So far back as 1911 many schools had introduced gardens as part of their outfit and were training pupils in garden and household work. The first general Garden Day celebration was held in 1913. Next year there were 3226 gardens maintained 242 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES at the schools and 41,642 gardens made and kept by the pupils at their own homes under the supervision of the teachers. Parents and others were allured by the interest of the thing. In 1914, at the Garden Day celebration, 8772 pupils and 816 farmers exhibited their products; at the Garden Day celebration of 1918 the exhibitors numbered 143,018 pupils and 39,080 farmers, a growth in four years so astonishing and so eloquent that on this alone the educators might rest a just claim of efficiency. For all the work done in these lines at home, always under the observation of the teachers, the pupils received credits in their school work and definite records were kept by pupils and instructors of each enterprise, small or great. Gardening clubs, fruit-growing clubs, corn-growing, hog-raising, poultry-raising and cooking clubs became common among the pupils by 1918. More'than 4000 schools had gardens, 4300 pupils were members of the poultry clubs; one pupil earned in a year 538 pesos and another 328 by raising hogs; one earned 225 pesos and another 211 by gardening; another 150 pesos from his poultry. So great was the impetus given to all this by self-government and a Filipino Legislature that in 1918 the value of the school-garden produce was 221,545 pesos, an increase of 202 per cent. over the previous year. The value of the products of the different agricultural clubs was 88,742 pesos, an increase of 142 per cent. Technical and manual training marched in equal pace with this. A Philippines School of Arts and Trades at Manila had been provided for in the old organic act that established civil government in the Islands. It opened in July, 1901, with three courses, wood-work, iron-work and telegraphy, and few pupils. In 1915 it was giving expert instruction in carpentry, building, machine-shop practice, blacksmithing, wheel-making, stationary engineering, automobile operating EDUCATION 243 and repairing, ceramics, drafting, preparatory engineering and normal industrial work. Telegraphy had been transferred to the School of Commerce that meantime had been established. In 1901 the total enrolment was 90; by 1914 it had grown to 762 and more than 100 applicants were refused for lack of room. Also, the products of the school had begun to attract attention. As before noted, among the resources of these Fortunate Isles are native woods of unusual beauty; in these the enthusiastic young cabinet-makers of the trade schools were turning out tables, book-cases, and the like that went far abroad, and for color and craftsmanship made talk among the connoisseurs of many lands. The Philippines School of Commerce was growing with a like rapidity. In 1914 it had 411 pupils and to high-school graduates was giving courses in commerce, telegraphy, bookkeeping and stenography. The Philippines Nautical School, of which we have already seen some samples, was complementing with practical experience at sea its excellent courses in scientific navigation. The School of Household Industries opened June 10, 1912. It was designed to train women in the arts of making lace, embroidery, cross-stitch, and all the other interminable styles of needlework, so that when they should go back to their homes they might organize or help to start working centers and so systematize production as to put it on a commercial basis fit to compete with the rest of the world or to excel it. There must have been substantial merit back of the success that went with these efforts. In 1918 the Malay Training College at Malacca sent for and employed a Filipino teacher in basket-weaving and was producing baskets in nine Philippine designs, and within the next two years educational ex. perts and commissions came from still other countries to see how the Islanders did these things. The University of the Philippines was added to this equip 244 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES ment by an act passed in 1908. It was in name a much older enterprise. So far back as 1868 the Spaniards were frightened by a revolution into organizing it on paper, but conveniently forgot it when the revolution had passed. The Aguinaldo movement, again, had the university for one of its objects; the thought had been strong in the minds of all the reformers for many years. When it came in 1908 it started with the powerful backing of the government and a corps of able instructors. It is co-educational. The enrolment for 1920 was 3427, when there were in the institution seven colleges: Liberal Arts, Agriculture, Medicine and Surgery, Veterinary Science, Engineering, Law and Education; and six schools, these being of Dentistry, Pharmacy, Fine Arts, Forestry, Music. For the reasons that bring down harsh comment upon the public schools the university is unpopular in the American colony, where the appropriations for support of the institution are regarded as lost motion. But the Filipinos are so proud of it and of its graduates that, short of depriving them of the government they have been exercising so long, the universtity, instead of being curtailed, is sure of a reasonable development. In 1921 it was occupying thirtyone permanent buildings in Manila and some of them were of such architectural merit that they would be counted as assets among the public buildings of any city. The University of Santo Tomas, denominational, continues its successful operation and has about seven hundred students. There are other institutions in the Islands that give higher education but do not rank as universities. The Philippine Library and Museum is conducted by the government as part of the machinery of education. Branches in Ilocos Norte, Iloilo, Cebu and Zamboanga spread its influence. The central library at Manila has 500,000 volumes. It is likely that the school libraries, of which there are now about 2000 with about 350,000 volumes, come nearer the EDUCATION 245 distant populations. I ought not to overlook the small but excellent Philippine Museum, nor the National Bureau of Science, which is a government institution of wide repute and proved efficiency. There remains to be but mentioned here a subject that will be dealt with later in accordance with its merits. It is the phenomenal development of physical training in the Philippine schools, in which, I think, they excel all other schools except those of Switzerland; while in the beauty, variety and unison of their calisthenic drills they have been said to stand alone. This whole chapter sounds like a paean of praise, but is simply a recital of facts. While the trade schools were making sure progress, preliminary and elementary training in the common schools was equally developed. In 1920, 57,000 pupils in the public schools were taking the embroidery course and in that year produced 118,000 pesos' worth of goods; 20,000 were being instructed in lace-making, and their product was worth 40,000 pesos; 75,000 were taking basketmaking, and their product was worth 120,000 pesos. There were about thirty individual courses in the schools and forty traveling teachers were inaugurating and supervising industrial work in outlying regions. The value of all the industrial articles produced by the children of the public schools (aside from farm, garden and agricultural club products) was more than 1,135,000 pesos, which represents an increase of more than 75 per cent. over the previous year. There were 3583 pupils in the trade schools and their product was worth 380,000 pesos. In January, 1921, it was estimated that 910,000 children were enrolled in the public schools and about 100,000 in the private, so that more than one million Filipino children were receiving instruction, or within 200,000 of the total population of school age. In view of the easy persistence of the criti 246 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES cisms, it may be well to see what these children were being taught, and compare the American with the Spanish curriculum we observed on a foregoing page. COURSE OF INSTRUCTION ADOPTED IN 1907 AND SINCE SUBSTANTIALLY FOLLOWED. GRADE I. -4 hours a day. 1. Language-120 minutes a day Conversation Reading Spelling Writing 2. Numbers-40 minutes 3. Handwork (rudimentary)-40 minutes 4. Opening Exercises and Music-20 minutes GRADE II. -4 hours a day. 1. Language-100 minutes Reading Language Lessons Spelling 2. Arithmetic-40 minutes 3. Opening Exercises and Music-20 minutes 4. Drawing and Writing (alternately)-20 minutes 5. Physical Exercises and Music-20 minutes GRADE III. -5 hours a day. 1. Industrial-60 minutes Gardening, woodwork, needlework, elementary pottery, simple dyeing and bleaching, weaving, the care and decoration of school-house and grounds, rope-making, practical construction work with paper. 2. English-75 minutes Reading, Language Work, Spelling 3. Arithmetic-50 minutes 4. Geography-40 minutes 5. Music and Opening Exercises-25 minutes 6. Drawing and Writing (alternately)-20 minutes 7. Physical Exercises and Recess-30 minutes EDUCATION 247 GRADE IV. -5 hours a day. 1. Industrial work,-100 minutes Extension of Grade III 2. English-60 minutes 3. Nature Study and Civics-25 minutes 4. Arithmetic-40 minutes 5. Geography-30 minutes 6. Opening Exercises and Music-25 minutes 7. Physical Exercises and Recess-20 minutes In 1911 the Report of the Bureau of Education had foreseen some of the results (valuable from its own point of view) to be secured by the system it was laboring to introduce. It said: "The public schools have contributed greatly to the intellectual awakening that has taken place and is taking place throughout the Philippines. This intellectual awakening is of a magnitude that scarcely finds a parallel in history." But even this diagnosis would have fallen far below 1920. The Report of 1911 spoke with pride of the fact that there were more than 9000 teachers, of whom most were Filipinos trained in the Islands. It could hardly have foreseen that by 1920 the number of teachers would have risen to 17,500! On the other hand, the charge is common in the American colony that after what is called the Filipinization of 1916, or the beginning of the native administration, the efficiency of the schools suffered a decline because of the substitution of Filipino for American teachers. It is no business of mine to defend the Filipino administration, which doubtless has faults enough, but so far as the records of the Bureau of Education go I was unable to find any evidence of a decline in efficiency in the schools. I did, however, find in those records repeated declarations made from the beginning of the American occupation that the American teachers must be withdrawn and the work of teaching must devolve upon Fili 248 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES pinos. Whether there has been any change in the Bureau's policy about this since Filipinos took charge of the Island government may be judged from the following table: TEACHERS IN THE PHILIPPINE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AMERICAN FILIPINO AMERICAN FILIPINO YEAR I YEAR TEACRS TEACHERS TEACHERS TEACHERS 1903 691 3,000 1912 664 7,696 1904 787 3,854 1913 658 7,013 1905 792 4,936 1914 612 9,463 1906 763 4,719 1915 538 9,845 1907 746 6,141 1916 506 10,963 1908 795 6,804 191711 458 12,303 1909 825 7,949 1918 406 13,227 1910 710 8,275 1919 374 14,433 1911 687 8,403 1920 341 17,234 I ought not to omit here another criticism that many an American visitor has heard and found occasion, before his departure, to voice on his own account. It is two-fold. In spite of schools and statistics the language of the masses is still the original native tongue; and second, some of the performances in the language of instruction are passing strange in the ear of the attentive listener. Even in Manila this is so. The newspaper with the largest circulation is printed in Tagalog, Tagalog is the language of the streets and the market; Tagalog-which is taught in no school except that assembled at the mother's knee. It is more difficult to change the language of the household than some of the early educators imagined,2 here and elsewhere. Fifty years of most stringent regulations could not induce the Alsatians to adopt a tongue they did not like. After 170 years of English occupation what is the language of the Province of Quebec? 1 Filipino control of the government was complete after 1916. 2"The attendance of 400.000 children in the primary schools is the standard toward which the Bureau of Education is aiming; and if it can reach this standard and maintain it for a period of ten years, there EDUCATION 249 But I observed that with equanimity the educators of the Philippines took note of the babel around them and had some reason for their indifference. While with eager care the critics thresh out straws, huge evolution sweeps over the Orient. Year after year commerce there is making but one language its very own and in one division of that language the million school children of the Philippines are being taught. The result of the combination is clear enough. Meanwhile the new speech is shortly to be made the official language of the Philippine courts; in another generation it will be common throughout the Islands, partly from teaching, partly because of sheer commercial evolution, the force irresistible. As to the total efficiency of the school system, if we may believe the testimony of distinguished educators of other countries heedfully visiting the Philippines to make inquiry of it, that does not seem open to any serious debate. And if we had no such testimony, or if the signs of efficiency were not to be seen in every city, town and village, and if the schools had not visibly remade life in the Islands, I think two facts would be enough to win for this system palms of praise. First, it is the school-house that, being pushed always into the distant Islands and outlying areas, has brought about peace, ended tribal wars, spread civilization, and is giving to the peoples of the regions once barricaded by differences of dialect a common'language for their common destiny. Second, the census of 1918 showed that 891,317 of the people of the Islands spoke what is called English and 687,661 spoke Spanish. With all possible allowances for deaths and changes, criticisms and shortcomings, it was apparent that the American system had done more in eighteen years to will be, broadly speaking, no illiterate youth among the Filipino people, but the entire coming generation will be able to speak, read and write the English language with a fair degree of accuracy and fluency,"-Educational Revort for 1903, p. 12. 250 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES plant the American language in the Islands than the Spanish educators had done to plant Spanish in 328 years. Remembering this tremendous fact,.the equal of which does not appear in the educational records of any other nation, fairminded persons will probably think that charges of inefficiency, to have much weight, ought to be unusually explicit. CHAPTER XIII A PHILIPPINE SCHOOL A S we were entering the grounds of the Central Luzon Agricultural School at Munoz some fourteen students were at work close by with spades, trowels, and a cement-mixer. The duty was obviously incumbent upon the visitor to ask what they were doing. "Oh, building a monument," said the superintendent. "To Rizal, I suppose." "No, not to Rizal. In honor of the pioneer settler that came here and opened this region when it was a howling wilderness." "Where did they get that idea?" I gasped. "It was their own. They are of the graduating class of 1921. Every graduating class leaves some memorial. This class will leave a monument." It had every appearance of a work of elaborate and handsome purpose, with a good base, a graceful pedestal and a place for a statue. I asked where the students obtained the plans. "All the plans are their own," said the superintendent. "Conception, design, execution; all their own. No one outside has shared with so much as a suggestion. The statue is by one of the boys that has a taste for sculpture-that boy with the spade. He modeled the figure from his own drawings." This was my novel introduction to a place of novelties. Munoz is about ninety-five miles north of Manila and fifteen miles beyond Cabanatuan, the end of the railroad branch. 251 252 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES In 1908 the region was forest and jungle, and made a kind of border-land or marches over which went bands of reivers and plunderers like those of the ancient Scottish border, for the mountains beyond were the haunt of banditti. Perhaps it is now as good as any other outward and visible sign of progress in the Islands; for leagues upon leagues it is cleared, prosperous and as peaceable as Connecticut. When it was still primeval and most uninviting greenwood, the insular government set apart a tract for an agricultural school and sent a hardy pioneer teacher with a handful of student recruits to break a way into the thickets. At the end of the first two weeks the students threw down their axes and fled from a task so appalling. To judge from current descriptions of the country at that time, it was a flight to win applause and not blame. The trees to be felled were huge, grew densely and shaded a frightful abatis of shrubbery. Undismayed, the school authorities gathered another body of student recruits and directed another assault upon the jungle. This endured longer than the first but had similar ending; the students, overwhelmed by the difficulties of the work and the gloom of the forest, took to their heels. At last the enterprise came into the hands of the right man, Dr. Kelmer O. Moe, and by the grace of his gifts of tact, magnetism and what might be called a superhuman persistence, the project got upon its feet and moved toward a success so truly remarkable that the fame of it spreads around the world. At the time of my visit more than 800 students were enrolled in the Central Luzon Agricultural School and but for lack of room there might have been 1600, for every year as many must be turned away as are accepted. Thirty-eight of the forty-five provinces in the Islands were represented in the Student body. Here, then, was the proof of a thing that defied all tradition and traversed accepted wisdom. Mem A PHILIPPINE SCHOOL 253 bers of these so-called tribes, differing in dialects, habits, religion, were cast together in one close community, domiciled side by side, pursuing common objects-Moros, Tagalogs, Igorotes, Ifugaos, Ilocanos, Visayans, mountain-dwellers and deep-sea fishermen, plainsmen and hillmen-all here in relations as intimate as those of a family. Mohammedans sat by the side of Christians, heathen hobnobbed with the baptized and the devout. Instead of rows, frictions and head-splitting, two facts were plain to every observation: that the student body worked together with almost singular harmony and that, whether students sat, marched, labored or idled in company, no one could distinguish among them one tribe from another. Dr. Moe said that jfter years of experience he was still unable to establish this difference from appearance, color, feature, physical traits or any other indices except only speech. In this academe the course of instruction is four years. Pupils are admitted on examination and on certificate from certain public schools. I believe that, next to the brilliant success of the project, the basic plan upon which it operates is its most remarkable feature; but no doubt the success comes partly from this unusual foundation. Practically speaking, the government and control are in the hands of the students. I do not know what impression the fact may make upon educators elsewhere and in especial upon those that would not venture such an arrangement for the youthful heirs to a more famous and more revered civilization, but among these tawny children of the sun it seemed to cause no remark. The students govern themselves. I know hardly a school for young men of my own race and country wherein discipline and order are not a problem for the powers that be. No such problem checkers life at Mufioz, strange citadel of civilization imposed upon the stumps of the jungle; for here the students discipline themselves. 254 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES A thing so rare and so significant is not to be passed with a glance, as we view census reports. But if we are to understand it we should begin by clearing our minds of the notion likely to cling there that a government school means a collection of imposing buildings in the Corinthian or the Italian Renaissance, with portals, courts and peristyles. Nothing of that kind is here; the buildings are simple, plain, unadorned except with planted vines and the magnificent Bougainvillia flowers. The students themselves were the builders and sometimes the architects; they built for the sheer rugged purpose of the institution and naught else. Whenever there are so many as ten boys from one province they are assigned to a dormitory that bears the name of that province and constitute a unit in the political structure of the little Republic; all the boys from Cebu in Cebu House, all the boys from Leyte in Leyte House. Where there are fewer than ten from a province they are amalgamated with a unit that has ten or more. Each house organizes itself and elects a Representative in the General Assembly, which is the Congress or legislature of the school government. The Representative is a kind of chairman-governor in the house that elects him. By ballot the General Assembly chooses the Council, the Student President and the Vice-President, and these constitute the executive branch of the government, holding office for six months. Once a week the General Assembly meets for a program of debates, speeches and music, but business meetings are held at any time out of school hours, subject to the call of the Student President. The judicial branch consists of a judge and an assistant judge appointed from the student body by the superintendent of the school. Order is maintained by a student police force of which the Student President appoints the Chief, who chooses his patrolmen. All members of the force receive pay for the time they are on duty, the Chief being the proud recipient of a stipend of ten centavos or five A PHILIPPINE SCHOOL 255 cents an hour. The police force patrols the grounds day and night. The criminal code of the little Republic is simple, short and strictly enforced. When a malfeasance is discovered or charged a policeman arrests the transgressor, or alleged transgressor, and summons him to the school court, where the student judge or assistant judge presides over his trial. He can conduct his own case or obtain an attorney from the student body, as he may prefer. In serious cases there is a jury; trivial charges are determined by the judge and his assistant. Condemned students have the right of appeal to the superintendent, but rarely exercise it. The penalties are fines for slight misdemeanors, confinement in the guardhouse for something serious, and suspension or even expulsion if the offense is still worse. In practice, punishments rarely go beyond a fine, for it is agreed on all sides that the order maintained is excellent, and all I saw when I was there gave me strongly that impression; I have never seen a student body of a better bearing or more careful deportment. Cases of dispute are treated as civil proceedings and the judge or his assistant sits as a court of equity. But the judge endeavors to settle the quarrel without a hearing and, I was told, usually succeeds. According to popular belief these dissensions should show some sign of tribal feeling, Mohammedan against Christian, Moro against Tagalog; but the records revealed no such things. Two Tagalogs were as likely to fall out as two members of different tribes. To every visitor the atmosphere of the place seemed serious almost to solemnity, and charged with interest. The work in hand absorbed all attention. I happened to be an observer of boys off duty when they did not know they were being observed and there never seemed to be among them, even then, any suggestion of rowdyism or boisterous or undignified behavior. ISays the motto of the school magazine: 256 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Be strong! We are not here to play, To dream, to drift. We have work to do And loads to lift. It seems to state evidential facts. Exception, of course, is made in favor of base-ball, the national game, and for track athletics; but these are viewed as part of the business of life. Some marvelous base-ball players have emerged from the confines of Mufioz and a privileged visitor may be allowed to view the sacred relics of the institution, which are the trophies won by its athletes; but these exploits are regarded not so much with the joy that pertains elsewhere to sports as with grave satisfaction, being proofs of the school's efficiency in the necessary work of physical development. It is characteristic, this view, but hard at first for the Westerner to manage. You must take your Filipino as he is; by nature and inheritance serious-minded, interested in one thing at a time and likely to be absorbed in that. To these boys the fines that are inflicted for misconduct have a sharp significant. "It is not as if they could write home to father and get ain addition to the monthly appropriation. In nearly every instance there is no manner of hope from that quarter; most of the boys are the sons of farmers as poor as poverty, and pathetic are the stories of the sacrifices the fathers have made to secure education for their sons. But the point with the boy is that whereas he came to the school penniless he has been hoping and planning to go from it with money in his pocket with which to begin his career as an independent farmer, and the fine, if there is one, is so much deleted from that little store. For, with other valuable matters, he has been learning thrift here at Mufioz; a practical and reasoned thrift. All the students are engaged in some form of profitable or use I t,oS;,yC MTNOZ SCHOOL A PHILIPPINE SCHOOL 257 ful enterprise. With their own skill and labor they conduct a blacksmith and machine shop, a furniture repair and woodworking shop, a saw-mill, a general store, a bank, a printingoffice, a photograph-gallery, a post-office, a telegraph-office. These furnish the student body with many things, but they also do a great traffic with the farmers of the surrounding region and the students share in the profits. Students till many fields, raise rice, sweet potatoes, garden vegetables, poultry, hogs, carabaos, and from these obtain for themselves solid returns. They sell at a fixed price their products to the school management; the school management markets the products and gives to the young farmer a part of the proceeds. Every student has an account at the bank. On this is credited his share of the sales of the crops, his part of the returns from the blacksmith shop or saw-mill, his salary as postmaster, telegraph operator, cashier, policeman. Against this is charged his withdrawals for sustenance and expenses and what has been sold to him at the general store. At the end of his school course the balance is his; and it sometimes amounts to 700 or 800 pesos, which in the Philippines is a tidy sum for any young man's wallet at the outset of his career.' Industrially there are three classes of students, the general workers, the outsiders and the independent farmers. Gen1 There is another similar school at Trinidad, Mountain Province, also a wonder-making success. Every boy there has a vegetable-plot and a rice-field. After I had left the Islands I learned of the authentic record of one of these boys. At the opening of the school year of 1920, Santiago Carino, a seventh-grade, boy from the public school at Bantoc, received a vegetable-plot of 1500 square meters and a rice-field of 2000. Each boy must study his land, decide upon his crops, prepare the soil, sow the seed, attend to the cultivating of the growth, harvest and market the results. In his vegetable-plot Carino planted cabbages, beans, sweet corn, celery and lettuce. His vegetables he sold for 324.52 pesos and his rice harvest for 67.50 pesos, making 392.02 pesos as the fruit of his farming for the year. After paying his board and all his expenses, he had 200 pesos which he deposited in the school bank at 4 per cent. interest, and was ready to repeat his achievement the next year. 258 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES eral workers and independent farmers live in dormitories; what are called outsiders are the students that live in shacks of their own construction near the school on land they have taken to cultivate. General workers are changed from craft to craft until they become expert in many branches of knowledge useful for a farmer to have; road-building, house-planning, carpentry, blacksmithing, thatching, ditching, simple machine construction being among them. But these acquirements increase also his money-earning capacity for the institution and for himself as a student. Four hours a day of manual work are required of each student except those assigned to clerical or official work. A general worker gets six centavos an hour. With this he easily pays his board. What he earns by overtime or through his crops adds to his income. Meantime the school has likewise had its due share of these earnings. All the businesses are managed by the students under a general direction. How well or ill is it all done? For here seems to be as fair a test as can be devised of native capacity; so many unsophisticated and unspoiled minds taken fresh and set at these determinative tasks. How well they are done may be judged from the crowning and most impressive fact of the whole remarkable story, which is that the Central Luzon Agricultural School, a government institution, is practically self-sustaining. For some years before 1921 (the year of my investigation) the total annual contribution from the government had been from 10,000 to 12,000 pesos. All the rest of the expense had been provided by the school's business enterprises. To conduct for 800 boys a school that has only nominal tuition charges and to keep its expense to the state within $6000 a year is hardly less than phenomenal. The place is run with military precision on bugle notes; all up with the dawn at one bugle call, all to breakfast, to luncheon, to dinner, to bed by the same music. To secure A PHILIPPINE SCHOOL 259 an equal distribution of time between field work and classroom work, the student body is divided. While in the morning one half is reciting, the other is at work in shop or field; in the afternoon those that were afield in the morning come to the class-room, those that were in the class-room go afield. Class-room work begins at eight o'clock and lasts until eleven. Then the students go to their dormitories and the student cooks prepare the noon meal, served at 11:45. In accordance with immemorial practice in the tropics, there follows in the middle of the day a siesta of two hours. Then the bugle sounds and three hours of class-room work begin. Each division has a daily houir of military drill, in the morning from seven to eight or in the evening from five to six. This is the course of study at Mufioz: FIRST YEAR 1. Agriculture: Gardening and nursery work, plant propagation, theoretical and practical, with work in the school nursery, where plant propagation is a business. 2. Mathematics: Farm accounting, agricultural arithmetic, with practical illustrations of industrial problems. For these special textbooks prepared by the Philippine Educational Bureau are used in all the Philippine trade and agricultural schools. 3. English: A graded course including grammar and selected passages. SECOND YEAR 1. Science-Biology: A study of simple biology as applied to farm life, for which also a special textbook is provided. 2. Farm Crops: For instance, a complete illumination of the rice industry from the preparation of the soil to the consumer's table. 3. English: Continuation of the graded course of the previous year. 260 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES THRD YEA 1. Science-Entomology: Insects and bugs that war against the farmer; the control or treatment of pests. 2. Agriculture: An advanced course in plant propagation, study of plant life in the Philippines, intensive study of the life of leading plants like sugar, hemp, tobacco. Even when the soil at Muioz does not allow of demonstration on a large scale the study proceeds on all available information. 3. English: Extension of the graded course. FOURTH YEAR 1. Science-Farm Physics: The study of natural phenomena in their reference to agricultural production. 2. Agriculture: Agricultural extension; training for community leadership, the carrying out of programs for the benefit of farming regions, such as campaigns for seed selection, plant and animal distribution, and the manner in which such campaigns can best be organized and directed. 3. English: Extension of the graded course, with exercises. The military drill is conducted by an American army officer; subordinate officers of the students' corps are chosen by him on grounds of class-room record as well as military aptitude. In the Great War, when so many Filipinos testified their gratitude toward their foster-mother country by volunteering, excellent trained officers came from the Muiioz school. The potency of fellowship and of the communal spirit to eliminate the crudities of the province and bring out the best in man's nature have so many daily illustrations at this place that I marveled the teachers had time to teach, or to do anything but to watch the unfolding of the realities of character in the fascinating human microcosm before them. Out of thirty-eight provinces came to the school thirty-eight tribesmen and emerged thence thirty-eight Fili A PHILIPPINE SCHOOL 261 pinos. Of this was not the least doubt; let one but notice the intensity of the feeling displayed by northerner or southener over any nationalistic suggestion, it would be enough to convince one. Rizal, advanced product of northern education, the most brilliant exponent of northern culture, was as much of a hero to the boy from Sulu as to him from Luzon. A short time before I was there the school celebrated Rizal Day.l From all accounts, it must have been with a kind of passionate devotion, felt with equal sincerity by students that forgot in it every tribal, lingual and religious difference. The careful observer may wish to note that the celebration was marked with as much of good taste and sense of beauty as of enthusiasm. There was a procession with allegorical and illustrative floats, and some of these must have been most unusually designed and achieved. The president of the bank, when I was there, was a Moro boy, the son of one of those Datus that, fifteen years before, had been supposed (by current fiction) to be irreclaimable to any civilization. The son of this imagined head-hunter and wielder of the bolo is a grave, sober-faced youth with a polished address and a mastery of English. It is he that listens to the applications for loans and determines the bank's course. A year or so before, another Datus in the Moro region had been so overjoyed at his son's progress at Mufioz that he desired to make some present to the institution, and having no money he donated the official dress he used to wear as chief of his tribe, a magnificent confection in the highest style of Moro art, made ornate by the fingers of the cunning needlewomen of the south. Also he sent in his battle bolo whereof the silver hilt was chased and engraved after the elaborate fashion of his people, beyond which is not much in silver-work. It lies now in the school archives to visualize and accent the passing of all it once signified. 1 December 30, anniversary of Rizal's death. 262 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Some of the student tradesmen at -Munoz are more than temporary conveniences for the school needs. The student photographer makes pictures of the farmers and their wives and children, of school scenes and pageants that have permanent interest. In the printing-office is issued the school magazine of which I have spoken, The Student Farmer, to which the pupils contribute articles and illustrations and for which they do all the type-setting and press-work. When I contemplated the fact that the press was of the ancient job variety on which for about a century the American job printer has been accustomed (with the assistance of one foot and much vituperation) to print only cards and hand-bills, the achievement of the magazine seemed to me, as a printer, one of the greatest I had known in the trade. The American language is taught here both exclusively and, I must believe, adequately. Elsewhere in the Islands the objection is common that teachers have a pronunciation all their own, not after the school of Commonwealth Avenue nor even Sheridan Road, but something weird and peculiar; book stuff, in fact, and not the living speech. I doubt if such criticism can be passed on Mufoz. While I was there an American speaker, skeptical about all these things, was invited to address the General Assembly. He said afterward that he played some verbal tricks upon his hearers, that he might put to the test their knowledge of colloquial American, and each time they responded infallibly and on the instant. Never a point they missed, even when he fell to the weaving of subtleties. He said he had addressed thousands of audiences in all parts of the world but not one more eager for points nor one better behaved. I think he might have added that he had found none of a more wholesome aspect, for the physical condition of the Munoz student is above proof. In glancing down the course of study at this school, the fact may have been noted that in the last year of it much heed is paid to the work the students will do as leaders when A PHILIPPINE SCHOOL 263 they return to their homes. It is in this respect that the school is a surpassing asset to the nation. Every graduate becomes a radiating dynamo of new ideas and scientific methods, a citizen of power and influence in his community, a kind of unofficial deemster, a man of mark and usually of character, and a well-spring of progress toward better farming and larger production. Upon him his neighbors look with respect, not to say awe. When he advises a steel plow instead of the ancient crooked stick, and careful seed selection instead of sowing hit-or-miss, they nod heads sagely and say the counsel must be good; it comes from a Mufioz boy. In this way the school reaches with its new gospel of science every part of the Islands as surely as it provides to the world evidence so strange and memorable of a people's capacity for self-government: since it is not to be believed that these boys, drawn from so many distant regions and straight from the soil, could rise to management and the intelligent control of this little Republic unless they came from a race to whom the rudiments and instincts of democracy were native. Superintendent Moe once made a journey to Mindanao, the great southern island of the Archipelago, and found there four hundred Mufioz graduates at work. Many of them had been seized by the Bureau of Education to open schools in the Non-Christian provinces, work to which they were admirably adapted. Others were disseminating among their farming neighbors the gospel they had gathered from their studies. He noted some failures among them, the common percentage that seems to belong to the human race; but looking upon them all with critical eye he felt that he had abundant reason to give thanks and go on. His report may suggest something else to those that view these efforts impartially. Dr. Moe has profound faith in the Filipino people and an understanding sympathy with them; it is but fair to say that other agricultural schools in the 264 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Islands have not always attained to the success of Munfoz. The ultimate reason for his success is his psychological attitude. He believes in the Filipino; the Filipino believes in him. Both by their works abundantly justify their faith. CHAPTER XIV THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS N America we have but a low estimation of the Mohammedan religion, and at the word "Moro" are likely to bristle before mental imagery of a wild-eyed and fanatical savage running naked through the woods, as, knife in hand, he seeks for Christian heads to dissever. To disturb a vision at once so picturesque and so satisfying to the love of safe-distance adventure would be cruel, even if it were possible; doubtless we shall cling to our fable. Yet for the sake of truth and the record I may be allowed to say here that in point of fact the Moro is a quite respectable and attractive person and, so far as the Philippines, at least, are concerned, his religion need cause no terrors to those of us that are beyond adolescence. Such is the voluntary testimony of all that have observed him without prejudice, and I could find nothing to refute them. He is by nature hospitable, sociable, kindly, witty, and when he is not crossed on one of his few sensitive spots he is far more amiable than Sir Anthony Absolute. While it is true that ordinarily he views work without an unreasonable rapture, he can show, when so minded, an astonishing industry. He looks like the rest of the Filipinos; speaks somewhat differently, it is true, dresses somewhat differently, but is so plainly of the same stock and kin that one marvels at the impudence of the assumption of some great gulf between them. Yet he has a much better sense of humor than his northern brother; you do not see in him that spirit of incorrigible earnestness and moral angularity that in 265 266 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Manila becomes at times, shall we say, wearisome? He can laugh, this reputed wielder of the blood-stained bolo, and greatly esteems the employment; does not take his religion too seriously unless he thinks somebody means to interfere with it; and is your faithful, devoted, whole-hearted friend or your implacable enemy, as you use him or he thinks you use him. In any event, his enmity is nothing that the initiated desire in the way of sport. In a state of nature he is capable of strange fits and starts; one would think the spirits of his ancestors were reminding him of a duty to run amuck. Just as the carabao, after years of plodding patience, may be seized of a sudden with tem — porary madness, so the Moro, if he can be convinced that he is betrayed and wronged, may turn berserker and throw himself on a row of bayonets, slashing at heads. And yet the strangest fact about him is that, with all his background of fighting and violence, when educated and intrusted with civic responsibilities he develops extraordinary capacity, performs his duties with conscientious exactitude and becomes a model administrator. Most of his evil reputation in the world was manufactured for him; for the rest, blame his ancestors that some centuries ago were wont, for business and pleasure neatly combined, to ravage the coasts of all northerly islands reachable in sea-going canoes. In some shore-line places watches were kept incessantly and when these gave warning of a Moro fleet the entire population would scurry to the woods. But this was long ago, and if such ancestral pursuits are to be a modern reproach, methinks Danes, Norwegians and AngloSaxons would go with heads abased. It was the 'Spaniards that did most to injure the modern Moro in repute; the Spaniards, who never really subdued but always liberally hated him. After three hundred years of effort, Spanish occupation of the Moro region (that is to say, of the southern THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 267 part of the great Island of Mindanao and some islands of the Sulu Sea) consisted of a string of forts and military posts, some spheres of influence surrounding these, and perpetual warfare with the natives beyond. It seems never to have dawned upon the Spaniards that there was another way to deal with this indomitable race. As to their attitude, I will cite Governor La Torre, the most liberal Governor Spain ever sent to the Philippines, justly celebrated for his humane ideas, democratic manners and honest yearnings for reforms. Yet even La Torre's only notion about the Moros was to kill them all off, like any other pest. The good Moro was the dead Moro. In an official letter of January 11, 1893, five years before Dewey came to Manila Bay, Governor La Torre set forth the policy that should be pursued in Mindanao and Sulu, and minced no words about it: "I have pointed out the need there is for employing different methods for the subjection of the different races, and in fact, in regard to the races inhabiting Mindanao I believe that it is obvious and unquestionable that favorable results will never be secured without employing methods other than those of attraction. "The Moro race is completely antithetic to the Spanish, whether the latter be peninsular or indigenous, and will ever he our eternal enemy." Hence, of course, eternal fighting; or until there should be no more Moros to shoot. It is to be believed that the first American military administration, which immediately succeeded the Spanish, inherited the same notion, an heirloom most natural and to be expected, for the first four years of American rule were a tale of battle, murder and sudden death. It was the wise and humane General Scott and his fellows that first demonstrated how much easier and cheaper it was to subdue the Moro with kindness than with Krag-Jorgensens. The lesson 268 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES has never been forgotten; and wherever it has been applied peace has reigned in proportion to its employment. This is the momentous fact, whatever else may have been pretended about it. When, in direct reversal of the Spanish course of destruction, the later American administration adopted what was called the policy of attraction (la politica de atraccion), the Moro was conciliated and reassured; his fears about alien designs upon the religion of his fathers were set at rest, and the school-house, often with his aid, began to make its way into his fastnesses, spreading light and peace. Whereupon it was found that, in the main, this untamable wild man took with eagerness to civilization and promised some day to ornament it. The discovery marked another collapse of honored tradition. All Europeans that knew him and his religion had predicted with calm confidence the failure of the whole experiment. Never could a Mohammedan Moro tolerate a public school, said all these experts; and behold him not only tolerating it but supporting it and giving his scanty pesos for it and sending at last even his daughters to be trained in it. Had he and his tribe taken suddenly to walking on their hands instead of their feet they would have less astonished experienced observers. By the operation of the Jones Act, Moro-land and all the rest of the territory inhabited by those deemed uncivilized passed under the control of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes. The word "tribes" is unhappily used, but there is none other available. In reality, no "tribes" exist in the Philippine Islands; there are political divisions into provinces, analogous to our states, but there are no tribes. One might as well say the tribe of New York or the tribe of Maryland as the tribe of Moros. The Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes assumed supervision over this territory: THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 269 AREA IN POPULATION PROVINCE SQUARE MOHAMMILES OCHRISTIAN MEDAN PAGAN TOTAL Aguan 4,294 30,000.... 35,000 65,00e3 Bukidnon 3,871 21,500 3,00' 41,800 66,800 Cotabato 9,620 6,837 107,205 35,402 149,444 Davao 7,486 33,194 7,803 61,803 102.800 Lanao 2,439 6,201 75,960 1,550 83,711 Mountain Province 6,428 8,503...... 305,873 314,376 Nueva Vizcaya 3,530 16,000...... 6,685 22,685 Sulu 1,083 2,750 120,000...... 122750 Zamboanga 6,383 58,65'3 45,000 30,000 133,650 45,133 183.635 358,968 518,023 1,060,716 In area, 40 per cent. of the Philippine Islands; in population, only 13 per cent. In this territory the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes and the Bureau of Education, working sympathetically under the native government, undertook to plant the public school and with it the sure beginnings of civilization and the modern idea. Without vain-glorying or pride, but merely to reveal a milestone on the human way, we may stop to compare here a new document with an old. We have viewed the letter of the humane Governor La Torre urging the rifle as the only effective means to deal with the Moro. The act of the Philippine Legislature that, in obedience to the Jones Law, set up the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes, said this about the work the Bureau was to do: "It shall be the duty of the Bureau of Non-Christians to continue the work for advancement and liberty in favor of the regions inhabited by Non-Christian Filipinos, and to foster by all adequate means, and in a systematic, rapid and complete manner, the moral, material, economic, social and political development of those regions, always having in view the aim of rendering permanent the mutual intelligence between and complete fusion of all the Christian and NonChristian elements populating the provinces of the Archipelago." Philosophers may care to reflect upon the fact that under 270 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the rifle prescription there was nothing but revolt and unrest, while the wild men continued to be wild and to defy the authority of Spain; whereas the school-house and the hand of amity have not only soothed the savage breast but reduced savage regions to system and order. However much it may sound like an exaggeration, the fact will appear on any investigation that in a month the peaceful methods of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes accomplished more to establish tranquillity than force accomplished in three hundred years. As usual, the great work was done without the world's applause or even its knowledge. Whoever heard an obscure school-teacher in the wilderness blazoned as a conquering hero winning greater battles than Napoleon? In America, where the ignorance was least excusable, one might say the entire nation persisted in the belief that the Moro was an incorrigible wilding. "Civilize em with a Krag,"' was the refrain of one song about them. Even when the Moro sat in the Philippine Legislature and was its wittiest and sagest member, even when the sons of forest Datus were grave business men conducting important enterprises, nay, even when before our eyes the Moro region was undergoing redemption, we insisted that it was irredeemable, if indeed we gave to it a thought. How, then, comes it that in the nation that ought for all reasons to know best the truth there was accepted a delusion exactly the reverse of the truth? Not through any deliberate tergiversation but largely because first, we are a nation too hurried and too introspective at home to see anything eight thousand miles away, and, second, because of the easy but in this case pernicious influence of the "good story." This, I know, requires an explanation, to which I go the more gratefully that it will at the same time serve to show what are the conditions in the outskirts of the Philippine 1Krag." i. e. Krag Jorgensen rifle, the arm of the United States army. THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 271 jurisdiction and to throw light on many a marvel. Wonderful as the progress of the Educational Bureau has been, not being superhuman, and working by wit and not by witchcraft, it has not yet succeeded in covering all of the 2441 islands in the Archipelago. To reach them all with the politica de atraccion, or even to visit them and make a start in them, is a work of time. In the regions and on the Islands whose peoples are as yet unattracted the heathen may rage and the barong may fly to the perfect delight of any gentleman desiring to provide the United States with a sensation. In those domains the wild men are still wild and will be until the school-house reaches them. Early in December, 1920, American newspaper readers were privileged to find in their journals a short cable dispatch announcing that an insurrection had broken out among the natives in Pata, that the constabulary had been sent to the spot, that a battle had been fought and fourteen men and some women and children had been killed and many others injured. The dispatch was dated Manila. Pata? Where in perdition was Pata? Nobody knew and few took the trouble to find out; but as the news came from Manila the place must be somewhere in that neighborhood, no doubt, and was startling evidence that the natives of the Islands were still savage and unreclaimed. After twenty years they were still revolting and fighting the Americans. Savage country! Plainly, here is still chaos and the necessity of America's restraining hand. But whoever may have taken the trouble to investigate found that Pata was a remote island of the Sulu Sea, one of the hundreds of isles and islets that border that tumultuous body of water; that it was nine degrees of latitude and by steamer nearly one thousand miles from Manila and that it was so far away and so unimportant that almost nothing could be found in print about it. What, then, had happened in Pata? 272 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES This had happened. The school-house, steadily on its way from Island to Island, had come at last to this one. Its inhabitants were Moros; perfect types of the people supposed to be forever addicted to the forests, the bolo and nakedness. Most of them had welcomed the dawn of education on their shores; a few had looked upon it with suspicion and distaste. To them it seemed likely to be only another trick of the European, whom experience had taught them to hate; or a device of the enemy to overthrow the most holy and authenticated religion of the Prophet. The first school in Pata was opened in a village about three miles from the sea-coast and began at once to do well; about seventy Mohammedan boys were enrolled in it, which was as many of school age as the place could yield. The next school was opened at Sapa-Malaom, a typical Moro seaside village, and there, whereas the attendance should have been larger, it was found to be much smaller than at the first school, for not more than twenty boys were enrolled. Education is not exactly compulsory in the Philippines; but when a school is available and the children do not attend it, a policeman is sent to inquire of parents the reason, which, as will readily be seen, amounts to the same thing. The policeman at Sapa-Malaom was one Ajalani, a good man, a Moro, a property-owner and much respected. He was a relative of Panglima Dugassan, the chief of that district, who was a great friend of the public schools. Officer Ajalani took up with zeal the matter of deficient school attendance and reported that all the trouble at SapaMalaom was caused by Hatib Sihaban. Now, strange to say, this was a brother of Chief Panglima Dugassan, the friend and supporter of the schools. Perhaps fraternal jealousy, not unknown outside of Moro-land, was a sinister influence in this tragedy; perhaps it was all fanaticism or mad hatred of the European or the sudden frenzy of the carabao; but Hatib Sihaban would have none of these schools. He had gathered e hese bs sed o be ssed as ALA Th tat i de to b d "Wild p - * I _.,,. THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 273 about him fourteen Moro men, whom he had inspired with the same spirit; they would not send their own children to the school nor allow the children of others to go. They had taken Hatib Sihaban's house and two others that adjoined it on the slope of the mountain, and had turned them into a fort. Around, they built a stockade ten feet high, made of stout posts well set into the ground and between these the tops of great bamboo trees lashed, so that no man could get through them. The walls they commanded with trenches. To this place Ajalani came on peaceful intent and talked with the garrison. He had been instructed to handle with tact and forbearance any opposition that might arise to the schools, and seems to have justified the faith that was felt in him; but on this occasion his persuasive powers were naught; the fifteen remained hostile. When he reported this, the Datus Rajah Muda and Habib Mura, influential Moros that were wholly for the schools, visited the stockade and after a long conference announced that they had converted the backsliders therein and the trouble was over, for Hatib Sihaban and his followers had agreed to accept the school at Sapa-Malaom, and to support it. This was early in October. Tilp act, if there was one, was not kept, for about Novembner' the troubled Panglima Dugassan reported to Governor Rogers of the provinces of Mindanao and Sulu that Hatib Sihaban and his company were still in the stockade and still recalcitrant. The Governor went to Pata and with Panglima Dugassan and Officer Ajalani visited Hatib's fort. A long conference ensued. Governor Rogers assured the garrison that the government would use no force in behalf of the school, but hoped that, for the sake of the children and their future, it would be accepted in the spirit of good-will in which it had been brought. At first Hatib Sihaban and his people were sullenly hostile, but as the Governor went on they warmed under his 274 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES persuasion and when he left seemed most cordial and friendly. They promised to tear down the stockade and to send their boys to the school. Another month passed, but the situation was unchanged; the fort still stood on the slope of the mountain. Hatib Sihaban and his company still sulked in it and the school attendance was still twenty. On the afternoon of Friday, December 3, the garrison sent word to Officer Ajalani that they wished to have further conference with him about the issue. He went unsuspectingly to the place; as soon as he was inside, five men sprang upon him, bore him to earth, roped his feet and pinioned his hands. Then they dragged him to a corner and cut him to pieces with their bolos. The news reached Panglima Dugassan before nightfall. He foresaw his brother's next move and hurried Aranan, another brother, to warn the school-master. Without waiting to discuss the matter, the worthy pedagogue ran for the beach, got into a banca that had been drawn up there and paddled away for Maimbung, the nearest government station. That night Hatib Sihaban and his band came softly to the teacher's home to kill him. When they found that he had escaped and that Aranan had helped him, they turned in pursuit of Aranan, but that prudent young Moro had likewise taken time by the accustomed forelock and put some leagues of safety between himself and Hatib. At Maimbung the school-master gave the alarm and a lieutenant of the Philippine Constabulary and twenty-eight men were sent to Pata to bring in the murderers. It is the first time since the adventure of the lost teachers at Cebu we have had a chance to see in action this rather remarkable body of men. They are all natives now, and with a few exceptions have native officers. At three o'clock of fhe afternoon of December 4 the detachment reached Sapa-Malaom, and deploying his men so as to show the insurgents that the stockade was surrounded, Lieutenant Soriano called upon the men THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 275 within it to surrender. With jeers and shouts of defiance they refused. He told them plainly that unless they gave themselves up his duty would be to fire upon them; that all he wanted was the murderers of Ajalani, and with them he would be content. They responded with more jeers and pointed to the women and children, about forty of whom they now proceeded to arrange around the stockade so as to make a protection. Soriano begged them to send away the women and children, and when he could make of himself no impression upon them, sent to talk with them some influential Moros of the Island, including the Vice-President of that District. To these, also, the members of the garrison were deaf, even as to the safety of the women and children. Men of sanity on the outside then turned to the women and urged them to seek safety, warning them that if the firing began they could not hope to escape injury. The women said they would remain with the men. The stockade was built with as much cunning as boldness, being entered through a long, walled and narrow passageway, the walls of which were pierced with two small windows, one on each side, so that when the soldiers might be coming in along the passageway the rebels could fall upon them suddenly from the rear and with bolos cut them down. In this way they expected to make up for the disparity in numbers. While Lieutenant Soriano was making a last earnest appeal to the rebels, a man jumped suddenly from one of these windows, brandished a bolo and yelled that all in the stockade would die but would never surrender. A shot rang out from the constabulary forces and the man fell. "Countrymen!" shouted 'Soriano, running forward and waving his sword. "See what has happened! Unless you give up I must fire upon you all in this way. Save yourselves and surrender to the government!" The answer was a shout of derision. He begged that at least the women might be sent away. The women refused to 276 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES go. Darkness was now falling, and he sent a soldier to the stockade with purpose to set it on fire. Wild women discovered the soldier and drove at him, spear in hand. He whipped out a revolver and fired. One of the women fell dead; the others ran for the stockade. The soldier lighted a torch and flung it over the wall. It fell upon the roof of a house within. The roof took fire; the house, mere tropical tinder-stuff, burst into flames, and the flames leaped to the other houses. Soriano and his men waited. As the rebels saw the fire sweeping upon them they leaped one by one out of the holes they had made beside the entrance, and as each leaped he fell riddled with bullets. The women and children fled and were not fired upon, but some were hit by stray shot. Soriano continually called upon the survivors to surrender and he would save them. Not one would heed him. One by one they leaped from the holes, and one by one they fell, until of the fifteen only the leader, Hatib Sihaban, was left alive and he was taken, fatally wounded. The next day Governor Rogers arrived and began an investigation. He found that the fanatical fifteen were the only persons on Pata that opposed the public school. Panglima Dugassan met him with sorrow. Voluntarily he said that his brother had brought his fate upon himself and left nothing for the government forces to do but to fire upon him. In vain, he said, he had tried to bring Hatib to reason; when he failed he knew that the fight was inevitable, for all the fifteen were dressed in white, which in Pata meant that they had entered upon the war-path to slay and be slain; berserker, as you perceive. Elsewhere among the population appeared no resentment and only regret that the fifteen had thrown away their lives. The majority of the people were openly on the side of the government and had been so from the first. The school was reopened; the attendance there became of the normal proportions. It has continued ever since with THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 277 out opposition. Pata is peaceful. From it the school-house moves to other islands; nothing can stop it. Answering, maybe, some wild call in the blood, or gratifying some old cherished hatred, the fifteen of Pata had run amuck and that was the end of the story. Posssibly on some other remote island, as the transforming school holds its way, some other group may have a similar stirring to cast themselves upon the spears of their traditional enemies and so to perish, true to form. Something of the kind is possible, however unlikely, and if it happens without a doubt it also will be pictured to the people of the United States as a furious uprising of vast numbers of the fierce untamed savages of the Philippines, threatening with fire and sword the gates of Manila. There will be law-breaking in the Sulu country as in others; civilization is more efficient in taming devils than in making angels. When the law is broken, men so disposed can always translate the fracture into some argument of Moro depravity; can do so and probably will. As for instance some months before the "Battle of Pata" a gang of opium smugglers in the Sulu Sea was causing the authorities many anxious days and nights. The belief was that these adventurers had seized some obscure island in the Sulu chain and were using it as a basis for their operations, after the manner of the buccaneers of the 'Spanish Main. An expedition of the Constabulary was sent in search. It discovered the smugglers intrenched on such an island. A battle ensued in which some of the smugglers were badly hurt. In the end, the survivors surrendered. This was an event as much related to Moro loyalty as a police battle with an East Side gang in New York would be related to the tariff question; but before an excited imagination surged visions of a Moro uprising and of peaceable citizens slashed in their beds with glittering knives. But if we think of only disturbances that by some possi 278 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES bility can be traced to racial or religious antagonisms, such things, if they come at all, must come before the wheels of the magic car of the Bureau of Education have brought the light; for thereafter no trouble will develop in the Moro country, at least, nor among the Bagabos, the Manobos and other peoples of fearsome-sounding names. It is the great error of those that try to transcribe the Philippine problem in terms of the balance-sheet to assume that it can be estimated without the public school. I mean that the practice is to relate Moro conditions as they were fifteen years ago, or even ten, or to exhibit photographs of cravat-clad wild men and to conclude that these represent Moro-land as it is. This process is inviting but footless. A Moro region a year before the coming of the public school and three years afterward are different considerations. I would not seem to the uninitiated to press unduly on this necromancy, and yet it is truly a wonderful thing and the greatest factor in the whole Philippine question. Only a few more years of the progress the school was making in 1920-21 in these regions and there will be no "Moro peril" and nobody with the hardihood to assert it. I shall not pretend to put this forward as any prediction of my own. I transcribe it from the views expressed by the one former Governor of Mindanao and Sulu that by reason of long experience and observation best understands the Moros. The mighty secret of success in dealing with these people was demonstrated by General (then Colonel) Hugh L. Scott when he was military commander of Sulu. Patience, sympathy, good-will, firmness were Scott's talismans and they worked in a way to fill old Governor La Torre with wonder. On one occasion a band of Moros in Tando, Eastern Sulu, broke into revolt, took to brigandage, defied the authorities, and seized and fortified an extinct crater, a position so strong that, except by bombardment from the sea, it was almost invulnerable. Destroyers were brought around and THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 279 anchored where they could drop shells into the crater, but before a shot was fired Scott went forth alone, and after two unsuccessful attempts, induced the Moro leader to meet him in a conference. They sat down together and Scott asked what was the matter. The chief responded with a list of grievances. Scott discussed them in a spirit of sure, square-dealing justice, explained what could be done and what could not, and at the end of a two-hour man-to-man conversation the chief disbanded his company and the war was over without firing a shot. It was Scott's belief, which was never successfully controverted, that he could avert any outbreak if there had been no firing and no blood shed.1 After blood had been spilled the case became different. Patience, sympathy, good-will-with these he restored order and set up government. His sympathy with the people he managed to keep intact even after, in a jungle fight (with the origin of which he had nothing to do), they had shot him in both hands and caused him an infinitude of pain and much peril. To this day, his name is green among them and they speak with deep feeling of his kindly wisdom. In point of fact he did more with these methods to bring about peace in fSulu than any ordinary army could have achieved with any ordinary number of guns. His experiences were of a wide, illuminating variety, for his duties sometimes included those of a judicial Solomon. Soon after he had been made Military Governor, the wife 1 He put the principle to practical test in more places than the Philippines. Twice he quelled dangerous Indian outbreaks in the southwestern part of the United States by the simple process of frank and friendly conversation with the warlike Indians. On both occasions, to the consternation of the onlookers, he insisted upon going into the hostile country without a single soldier and walked alone and unarmed into the camp of the chief, sat down with him and talked him into submission. On one occasion he returned not only with peace but with four Indians that the sheriff with a posse had vainly tried to arrest on a charge of murder. These General Scott marched single-handed up to the county jail. The country owes much to this modest, efficient, wise and thoughtful soldier. It was he, incidentally, that cleaned up Havana and left a safe and peaceful Cuba. 280 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES of the Sultan's Minister of War fled from her lord and master to the United States army headquarters, begging for protection. Immediately after her appeared the husband, loudly demanding her return. She thus raised an international problem of the utmost delicacy and difficulty. In those days the Sultan, who amounts to nothing at all now, was a figure of momentous importance; peace and policy demanded that the Americans should keep on good terms with him. What was of even graver import, his people lived always in a hair-trigger state of mind, expecting the Americans to make some assault upon their religion and ready to go on the war-path at the slightest movement in that direction. If Scott refused to surrender the lady, they would take this as the long-expected signal and the whole country would blaze into war. On the other hand an American could not surrender a woman to a man that had maltreated her and would assuredly maltreat her again if he got her into his power. To gain time, Scott ordered a hearing on the issue and meanwhile racked his brains as to the way out. He had the husband before him as a witness and was for the third or fourth time listening to the recital of the lady's detestable flight, when there popped into his mind the image of a kind of hand-mirror of which the women of Sulu were very fond. 'So he said to the husband: "How long have you been married to this woman?" '"Eleven years." "She's been a good wife to you?" "Yes." "Faithful, industrious, attentive to her duties?" "Yes." "Ever buy her any head-dress or ornament?" "No." "H'm. Lived with her eleven years and never bought her anything. Well, I will adjourn this hearing one hour. You THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 281 take this woman down the street to the shops and buy her a hand-mirror and anything else that you think would become her, and then come back here and tell me how you feel about it." The War Minister and his lady went out. In an hour they came back with their arms around each other, perfectly happy. She had a hand-mirror and a pink sash. When Scott first arrived at Jolo with General Wood the Sultan was away on one of his periodical jaunts, leaving his brother and heir-apparent in charge of affairs. This person refused to make the customary call upon General Wood, alleging illness. General Wood instructed Colonel Scott to bring in the reluctant one. Scott saddled a horse and had it led to the heir-apparent's door, and then went into the house. There in a bed lay the acting Sultan of all the Sulus. Scott had taken counsel with himself as to the best way to proceed and had selected boils as the best ailment for the prince to have, knowing that he was perfectly well. "It is too bad," said Scott, "that you have such a terrible boil. We are all filled with grief about it and sympathize with your sufferings. A boil like yours is a terrible thing." "Yes," said the prince, "I have a terrible boil. I suffer greatly from it." "Where is it?" "In my right foot." "Let me see it," said Scott, "perhaps I can cure it," and he pulled up the bed-clothes, revealing the prince's right foot as entirely well. "It isn't in my foot, it is in my leg," said the prince. Scott pulled off more of the bed-clothes "It isn't in my leg, it is on my hip," said the prince. Scott pulled off more of the bed-clothes. "I have n't a boil," cried the prince, "I am suffering from the effects of fever and smallpox." 282 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES "That so?" said Scott. "Well, a saddled horse is the best thing in the world for fever and smallpox. A saddled horse is waiting for you outside, so just you toddle from here and get on that horse, and do it now." The prince, ashamed of his lying, got up, mounted the horse and rode down to General Wood's quarters. Years afterward the Sultan and his brother made a tour of the world and came to Washington, where General Scott saw them. "That was a terrible boil you had that time in Jolo," said Scott to the brother. The faint suspicion of a smile seemed to flicker an instant over the grave Oriental lips. "Say no more, General," said the prince. "I don't know much now, but I know a million times more than I knew that day in Jolo." Education among the Non-Christian peoples, or what others call the wild peoples, had its greatest impetus when the Jones Act had put the control of the government into the hands of the Filipino voters. The next session of the Legislature, 1917, appropriated 1,000,000 pesos specifically for this purpose, and released 744,700 pesos more in addition to the regular funds available to the Bureau.' Five hundred teachers from the northern and more developed islands were sent to the south to carry on the work. These represented every province in the Archipelago except six,2 and the fact might have revealed well enough the extent to which the people of the Islands were amalgamating. A great normal school was begun at Zamboanga, heart of a Mohammedan region, Garden Days were introduced, parents began to take a more vivid interest in education, and the public school came to be an actual institution in the life of the Mohammedan "'Every peso spent for education in these provinces means a corresponding reduction in the expense of maintaining law and order."Report of the Director of Education, 1919, p. 46. 2 Report of the Director of Education, 1917, p. 58. THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 283 communities, where by all tradition and experience it had no right to exist. There was even an attempt to subdue to educational processes the nomad Negrito. By 1918 the annual school enrolment among the Mohammedan and pagan peoples was 34,490, an increase of more than 100 per cent. over the enrolment for 1917; and 1121 teachers were employed in the schools. In 1912 the number had been only 256. Schools were teaching the people other things besides the contents of books. Special attention was had to the spread of simple economic knowledge and the rudiments of health. The boys were taught farming and the girls were taught sewing and household arts. The Bureau of Education and the Board of Health, working together, were conducting in Mindanao and Sulu seventeen school dispensaries and the Bureau of Education had nine more of its own. At these more than 30,000 persons were treated every year. In the nine provinces of the specially organized Non-Christian dispensation the enrolment had risen to 60,241 by December, 1919. There were 13,596 Mohammedan girls at school in Mindanao and Sulu alone.' The Mohammedans had taken to education with characteristic earnestness. "'Six of the highest ranking Mohammedan princesses of the sultanate of Sulu were teaching in the public schools, one of them a niece of the Sultan."'2 The total number of teachers was 1442, an increase of 321. One hundred and thirtyeight new schools had been opened in the year; 162 settlement farm schools were maintained in the Non-Christian provinces. Boys graduated from these schools were encouraged to take up public land in the neighborhood and become at once actual farmers on their own account. Often the teachers were repeating in their experiences 1 Report of the Director of Eduoation, 1919, p. 45. 2 Ibid. 284 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the traditions of the early day of education in the Philip. pines. When a school was to be opened in the midst of the jungle it was customary to send two teachers to the one place, where for a year they kept the school open with probably no pupils. In that year they learned the local dialect, made the acquaintance of the inhabitants and explicated to them the importance of the project. The next year they had a liberal enrolment of pupils and one of the teachers departed for a new field. Once started there was never any lack of students. The swift subjugation of the region to order and peace was seen in many ways. 'At the beginning, the provinces of Lanao and Sulu were regarded as the worst in the Archipelago, and the poorest soil in which to sow modern ideas and culture. In Lanao there were 82,000 Mohammedans to 12,000 Christians and the Mohammedans were supposed to be the fiercest of the wild men. In Sulu there were 161,000 Mohammedans to 6500 Christians, and by tradition a Christian was supposed not to venture outside of the walled town of Jolo. Up to the Great War the governors of these provinces were Americans, believed to be kept alive only because of the presence of American troops. When the troops were withdrawn for the war and the American governors remained, their security was explained on the ground of their surpassing popularity and discretion. Not long after, the policy of the government was disclosed to be to nominate in future for governors of these provinces northern and Christian Filipinos, and all wise men shook their heads in despair, knowing well that this was to precipitate disaster. So strong was the hatred of the Moro for the northerner that civil war would follow any such attempt. In October, 1920, a northern Filipino was appointed Governor of Lanao to succeed the popular Major Stevens, and the worst was looked for. In four months the new Filipino Governor had surpassed in popularity even the beloved Major Stevens, THE HEATHEN IN HIS BLINDNESS 285 and the affairs of the province, by all accounts, were moving with exceeding smoothness. So wrote to the Department of the Interior the Third Member of the Provincial Board, himself a Moslem and at first skeptical of the change. As to Sulu, with its wild and dreaded Mohammedans, Governor Rogers, the American, after a long and successful term, resigned in February, 1921, and urgently recommended that a Filipino from the north be appointed in his place. By this time it was the opinion of the hopeful men in the Department of the Interior that if there had ever been any feeling among the southerners against the northern Filipinos it had passed and any northerner of tact and skill could govern any of the southern provinces. If this is so, there seems to vanish into thin air the supposition of racial hatreds among these people and Governor-General Harrison must have been justified when he described the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands as one of the most homogeneous peoples on earth.' At Pagsanjan in the Province of Laguna, on January 23, 1921, the public-school students gave an entertainment. The place was the local opera house, a modern structure with cement floor, electric lights, the accouterments of any theater in an American city. The play was a modern English comedy, smartly given to an understanding audience. An orchestra of students played American airs, one of them a composition that had been the popular favorite in Chicago a few months before. Pagsanjan-in the days of Gironiere the region was wilderness and its people wild nomads. Just twenty years before it had been in revolt. That night a 1"Contrary to the prediction of the calamity howlers," says the Constabulary commander of Mindanao and Sulu (Colonel Ole Waloe) in his memorandum addressed to the Department Secretary on November 23, 1918, "the Christian Filipino officers of the Constabulary have succeeded completely in winning the respect and confidence of the Moro people." The participation of the Non-Christian peoples in government and law-making seemed to have bound them closer and closer still to the Christian Filipinos. "We are one in spirit and one in blood," said the foremost citizen of the Moro people, Senator Hadji Butu. 286 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES modern theater filled with an audience manifestly as mannerly and intelligent as one would expect to find in an average European city enjoyed a modern play and applauded modern music. In the light of these contrasts, pessimism about the Philippines seemed as wicked as foolish and the Philippine educators were justified when they brushed doubt aside and pressed forward upon their work. CHAPTER XV THE FILIPINO AT THE BALLOT-BOX T EHEY were having an election at Ibajay, Province of Capiz; an election to make an American think himself at home. The town and all the countryside buzzed with it. On almost every corner was a meeting undergoing, as if it were at Janesville or Coshocton, much instructive oratory from the soap-box. They had parades, also, of the regulation pattern, as good as the best, with banners calling upon all patriots to unite and save the country; banners likewise rich in pithy information concerning the virtues of parties and of candidates. The People's Friend was at large in Ibajay, by all accounts, speaking of himself with no more hampering restraint from excessive modesty than you might notice in him around the classic precincts of Paradise Park or the First Ward of Chicago. On the last night before the balloting, the oratory went full tilt until 3 A. M., and afterward reverberated in the side streets, like diminishing thunder, until the polls were opened and the long white-clad lines began to form at the polling-places. The most conspicuous figure in the lists set that day at Ibajay was a native about thirty-four years old but looking younger; slim, alert, elastic, ready-witted, tireless, a rapid and eloquent speaker and a neat hand at repartee. He seemed to be made of wires; all day he had bounded from one speaking platform to another, in and out of the city, and at night he was still at work like some kind of irrepressible demon. His name was Manuel Roxas, and he was the candidate on the ticket of the Nationalist party for the office 287 288 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES of Provincial Governor. I was told he was fluent in four languages and could make himself understood in some others. I have heard him perform in but two, American and Spanish, and can testify that in these he has a gifted tongue and rapid. But about this is nothing strange. Most Filipinos in public life have been touched with the spellbinder's wand. For a certain valid reason, the contest was hot that time in Ibajay. It is the capital and most important city in Capiz; 24,000 inhabitants, 3,500,000 pesos of taxable wealth. In the province are 300,000 people, all but 8500 of them Christians. It is a province that ranks high for progress and intelligence. Yet Ibajay was one of the few places in the Islands that had never warmed to the lure of the Nationalists. At every election it had gone against them. Some effort being made to construe this as meaning that the people were against independence, the Nationalist control had sent down a battery of talent to help the eloquent Roxas to pluck the Ibajay brand from the burning. This they accomplished, and in a thoroughly workmanlike manner, calculated to give joy to any old campaigner. I was told that it was a clean fight, which was probably true; politics in the Philippines are in that respect as good as the average. The issue, certainly, lacked nothing in the way of expounding. In previous elections, Nationalists told me, it had never hinged upon independence but always on something purely local. This time the slender Roxas and his cohorts caught it before it could escape into any such by-paths and made it independence and nothing else. When the votes were counted the Nationalists had won in a landslide. Eighty per cent. of the votes cast were for their ticket. They do these things in the Philippines at least as well as we do them, and, according to eminent Filipino authority, much better. Thus the president and leader of the Nationalist party is Sergio Osmefa and the president and leader of THE FILIPINO AT THE BALLOT-BOX 289 the Democratic party is Emiliano T. Tirona, and these men were chosen in the daylight, before the public eye, by the will of the party members and owe nothing to railroads, corporations, packing-houses or other interests. They are the party bosses in fact and in name and everybody knows all about them. They can be retired if the majority of his party wearies of either, and there are no secret consultations about it with gentlemen from Wall Street whom nobody ever voted into any place of power. This is what the Filipinos say; no doubt many of them believe it. Whether it is true or not, the whole state of political development in the Philippines seems extremely respectable, in view of the brief period that the ballot-box has been known there. Twenty years is a marvelously short time for a people to develop these dexterities. Before the coming of American sovereignty there was no such thing as a political party in all the Philippine Islands. You cannot well have parties in an absolute autocracy. Leagues and secret societies to further independence there had been, years upon years, but nothing that resembled a political party organization. When the Americans came with a promise of eventual freedom and a nearer view of political activity, the people in general divided into Irreconcilables and Pacificos. The Irreconcilables were for independence at once and at any cost; the Pacificos for peace and the best they could get while they steered for the ultima thule. When Aguinaldo revolted many conscientious Pacificos refused to join or countenance him and gave, indeed, active support to the Americans. The failure of the Aguinaldo movement did not discourage, the leaders of the radical element, who saw, or thought they saw, in the American program their hopes soon to be made good by the will of the conquerors. But in a short time the radicals were in a condition familiar to all men of their order of mind all about the world. They were divided. One 290 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES group among them held to the theory of a strong, centralized power in party management as well as in the government; the other objected to any executive encroachment. On December 23, 1900, the Conservatives, or Pacificos, launched their party and named it the Federalist. They soon had 150,000 members enrolled. The Philippine Commission, by decree, had defined and prohibited a new crime, which consisted of advocating independence. What every Philippine party must have, therefore, as its real objective, it must for the time being evade or disown. The Federalist party advocated the accepting of the American sovereignty in good faith as the only course possible for the moment and cooperated heartily with the Second Philippine Commission in putting together a governing machine that would work. Two or three years later it was advocating a territorial form of government with eventual statehood in the Union. The Philippine Commission's Treason and Sedition Act was repealed in 1906 and to mention independence was no longer felony. Then the radicals forged to the front with a new party, which they called the Independista Immediata, nailing their colors thus to the mast-head. Of this group Sergio Osmena was a member. Another group with much the same views got into an Adullam's Cave of their own and called it the Union Nationalista. In a few months these were merged into the Nationalist party, of which the first and cardinal doctrine was and is independence as quickly as it can be had and upon almost any terms. As we have seen, the first election ever held in the Philippines took place in 1907 for the House of Representatives, newly created as the lower chamber of the new Philippine Assembly. The Federalists met the Nationalists, and went down to crushing defeat and the Nationalists have been dominant ever since. Having thus found annexation with a territorial form of government to be barren of hope as a campaign issue, the Federalists dropped it in haste and declared their faith in THE FILIPINO AT THE BALLOT-BOX 291 ultimate independence to be not less than that of their opponents. So that the difference between the two parties about this seemed to be nothing but an estimate of the advisable hour at which independence was to be proclaimed. Reorganization of the Federalists fructified naturally in a new name; they were now the Progressive party, but even with this auspicious banner fared no better at the polls. According to sage philosophers that I consulted as to this phenomenon their trouble was that as they had not always been for independence the people looked with suspicion upon recent conversion and deemed wisdom to lie in holding fast to the party on whose devotion to the popular cause there had never been shadow of turning. For all these manceuvers and ballotings independence seemed no nearer. 'Some of the old-time radicals became disgusted and began to murmur at men and means apparently unable to achieve the thing that seemed superficially so simple. There was but the repeated pledge of the United States and the fulfilment of it, and independence was won. These malcontents flocked by themselves and formed what they called the Third Party, whose life was a grievance against the Nationalists for what were deemed timid and halting measures. On this basis it made some showing at the polls, but never enough to dent the surface political. To indicate the spirit that animated its leaders, I note that they grumbled about the acceptance of the Jones Act on the ground that it stipulated there should be a stable government in the Islands before independence should be granted, when as a matter of fact a stable government already existed there; the one condition made in the law was already complied with, and the country should insist upon immediate fulfilment of the contract. In 1917 the Third Party, having achieved nothing but the marking of time, united with the Progressives to form the Democratic party, which in 1921 constituted the Opposition. 292 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Its general aim and reason for being was to criticize the Nationalists for not moving with sufficient celerity to the longed-for goal. So far its efficiency as an Opposition is a matter of hopeful speculation. These parties have what seems to be a well-considered plan of organization. In the Nationalist, the unit is what is called the Municipal College, which consists of all the party voters in the municipality. This meets to nominate the party's municipal candidates and to elect three delegates to the Provincial College; and this in turn nominates the provincial candidates and elects delegates to the National Convention, the party's final controlling power. The Democratic party is organized in much the same way, except that the colleges are called Assemblies and the National Convention is called the Grand General Assembly. In the main, party lines have little to do with local elections, but the contests between individual candidates here are often sharp and sometimes bitter. It is in provincial and still more in the legislative elections that the parties appear. To a visitor in 1921 the Nationalists seemed to have a long lease of power, and yet there were native authorities that warned me not to accept this for granted, for they thought they discerned in the political sky the signs of change. If so the portents could be read only by one born on the soil. Elections in the Philippines, as may be surmised from the Ibajay incident, are not nominal affairs. I offer, as an indication, the condensed statistics of the last general election, that of 1919: Persons that presented themselves for registration...... 626,843 Rejected by Board of Election inspectors............... 8,299 Challenged........................................... 11,051 Appealed to Provincial Board or court.................. 1,824 Reinstated by Provincial Board or court................ 1,025 Registered on the office qualification.................... 48,660 Registered on the property qualification................ 82,661 THE FILIPINO AT THE BALLOT-BOX 293 Registered on the educational qualification.............. 407,346 Registered having both office and property qualifications.. 19,143 Registered having both office and educational qualifications. 34,254 Registered having both property and educational qualifications........................................... 50,151 Registered having office, property and educational qualifications............................................. 34,490 Persons that had their ballots prepared for them: For the reason of illiteracy........................ 59,402 For the reason of physical defects.................. 18,366 Total number of qualified electors that voted............ 635,486 RESULTS: TOTAL NUMBER OF ALL VOTES CAST FOR ALL THE CANDIDATES OF EACH PARTY: Nationalist................................ 1,059,863 Democratic.................................. 421,507 Liga Popular Nationalista.................... 145,370 Independent................................. 169,810 Unmk own................................... 133,457 From this election 467 contests reached the courts. It may be noted that the number of persons voting at this election was slightly greater than the total registration. This is explained by the fact that not all the electors are obliged to register at every election. As I have tried to make clear in the foregoing pages, the policy of the government is to introduce as fast as possible in the specially organized Non-Christian provinces the principle and practice of self-government. It may be interesting to notice how far, at this election, the all-healing ballot-box had penetrated heathendom and attained to use by the terrible Moro and his compeers of the bolo. In some of these provinces elections were held for some local offices, as previously explained. In the seven constituting the Department of Mindanao and Sulu, where live the Moro, the Bagabo, the Manobo and the rest, the following was the score: 294 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Provinces Registration Ofice Property Educational Qualicat Qualific ation Qualification Agusan........ 1,964 10 240 1,155 Bukidnon....... 155 21 82 21 Cotabato..... 57 25 8 10 Davao........ 1646 Lanao............ 849 79 240 Sulu.... 248 147 25 134 Zamboanga...... 3,679 585 645 1,604 The school-house on one side and the polling-booth on the other. Between these two, the physical aspects of the Moro village on stilts may not be greatly changed, but if life therein should not undergo a huge transformation all the faith that we profess would seem to be but foolishness. CHAPTER XVI THE FILIPINO AT PLAY A N old man was standing by the side of the road as we drove into San Fernando; an old man with bad teeth and a face like a Manila tobacco leaf, in which his little eyes glistered with amiable craftiness. Under his left arm he held a red rooster, glossy red and streaked on the neck and breast with yellow and black, which he caressed with his right hand and talked to, stroking even its fierce red wattles. The day was Saturday; he was looking for someone else with a rooster to make a match in the cock-pit for the morrow. In an open lot by the church the boys were playing base-ball. No one gave heed to the old man and his rooster, but from the crowd around the ball-grounds went up a babel of shouted native dialect, Spanish cries and American slang. The next day we visited the cock-pit; for now, under the slow compression of the laws, what was once a daily sport is limited in each place to but one day in the week. About three hundred eager faces looked down in four tiers from the four sides, arranged in low galleries. In the center on the ground was a space ten feet square; in this the roosters fought by twos, each urged on by its owner. All faces were turned thither, watching first a fight and then the posted odds on the next contest; but among them all was scarcely one suggestion of youth; most of the spectators were as old as the wrinkled man by the roadside. It was clear that to these the real attraction was the gambling; les petit chevaux would have done as well. For each bout the pesos 295 296 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES rained in showers upon the ring-master or manager, or whatever was his title. With a piece of chalk he marked upon the floor the odds on each fight, and I have never seen a more astonishing feat of human memory; for he kept no book and made no entry but remembered each bettor and returned to each winner his share of the gains. The sport, if so it can be called, was brutal enough; I think it ever justifies the worst of its reputation. Something about the deliberate affixing of the long razor-sharp steel spurs, the manceuvers to enrage the fowls, and the apparent delight in animal suffering, seemed disgustingly cruel and no less cowardly. One's distaste was not alleviated by the two obvious cynicisms that many revolted by it were but late come from a luncheon of fried chicken, and that most of the shouting, applauding, betting spectators were but late come from church and belike a sermon on the humanities. But I do not know that even the indifference to cruelty and pain that cock-fighting must breed is worse than the gambling, which in the old days had almost even place with the loanshark and the title-jumper in the way of keeping the countryman poor. Astonishing tales are told of farmers that risked (and lost) the proceeds of an entire crop on one main;1 of others that mortgaged even the patient carabao to get money to back a favorite rooster in a fight that lasted perhaps three seconds. We are to remember, nevertheless, that it is an amusement not indigenous to this soil and alien to the natural instincts of the people, for they are not cruel. The Spaniards imported it, taught it and encouraged it. In their day one might say it was the people's only diversion, and therein was its strength. "The poor devils must have something to amuse themselves," said a philosophical Spanish commentator. Gambling is the easy refuge of those without mental resources. 1 Gironire remarks that he saw $7500 (gold) bet on a cock that had cost $750 and was a moment later struck dead with one blow by its antagonist. ~~~~~~~~~~nlrf - - -, | - - g S~~~I~i _ S _ l | l _ - - ~~i, _ I I! I l | _ Xw~~ffJ~ - _ ~~~I | ll _ I l I l l __ m d~~~~ -; l l g R ~;, | | | |:ilXS nt -: X: l dH SS I l | | E XS ~ __ l ml I _W _ I ll -__ X ~~~x1-1_ I *il_ ~~~~~D ~W11 I |I || _ "a~~~~ ~ ~ ~ _~i i.. _as. _,. _ _ y Hm~~~~i~F:Er ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ r f^*,1,I i 'Ila THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 297 But the doom of it was sounded long ago; the fixed purpose of the government is to eliminate it; the work is in the hands of the capable Interior Department and proceeds as rapidly as can be expected. Some regard, it was held, must be had to the passing generation that was brought up on this entertainment and knows none other; fixed habits cannot be changed with a waving of a hand. But come a few years now, and the savage amusement will be as illegal here as in Vermont. In point of fact the interference of the law may not be necessary. Cock-fighting is a dying sport in the Philippines, being steadily displaced by ball and bat. The gift of the Spaniards was a cock-pit; the gift of America was base-ball, before which cock-fighting is edging away. Let us rejoice; we may believe that this alone would have justified occupation. Typical, once more, was the old man by the roadside whom nobody would heed. Had but the pitcher of the Calamba base-ball team passed that way, how would the town have turned out to make him honor! Base-ball is the national game of the Philippine Islands, played by boys and girls. After but twenty years-for it is to be believed that the first base-ball ever seen on Philippine soil was brought ashore in his pocket by one of Commodore Dewey's men. Yet a few years passed, and Igorote boys were playing the game in the/,irtains and Visayan boys on the water-front. Today it: i' in every corner of the Islands where the school has gone. How it may be possible to reconcile this fact with the formulas about Oriental conservatism and the gulf between East and West, history does not tell us, but fact it is for attentive heeding. Compared with the intoxicating delights of base-ball, the Filipino youth can see nothing in a cock-fight. To him the practical wisdom of base-ball appeals; to have pleasurable excitement and tests of skill at the time that he is fostering health and developing every muscle in his body strikes him as sound 298 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES procedure. What preachments, tracts and arguments against cock-fighting might not have effected in centuries, base-ball has achieved in twenty years. He is for base-ball, Young Philippines, and for all else that is clean and of good report in athletics.' In almost every government building in Manila, placed conspicuously near the entrance or in a main corridor, observe the great glass case filled with silver cups, goblets, trays, trophies, emblems, each inscribed with some athletic event of famous date and each representing a victory won on the field by the athletes of that department. From ceiling or frieze probably look down in ancient frescoes the forgotten kings of Spain, solemnly stiff in armor or high collars. Very likely on the stairs or in the lobby are statues or busts of Spanish heroes, generals or statesmen of whose virtues the West is, and will remain, in complacent ignorance. The building itself and everything about it may belong to another century and another culture; here by the entrance of the great hall is the plain fact of the New Philippines, being a case full of trophies won at the sports of the Western World. It is the central dynamic of which the unheeded old cock-fighter and the crowded baseball grounds are the reflexes. For there is not a considerable town in the Islands that has not its similar trophies, looked upon with reverence and pride, the ikons of the new faith athletic. Judged by North-of-Europe standards the Filipinos are an i"The early attitude of the Filipinos toward athletics is one natural to people of the Orient and of the tropics generally. They had certain games that were pastimes rather than sports, and the true play spirit was largely lacking. This condition led many to draw conclusions about the Filipinos that were not very flattering to them as a people. The enthusiasm they have acquired for games and sports indicate that these conclusions were erroneous in that they denied to the Filipinos that energy and enthusiasm that, it has been proved, they are able to develop. As a result, there has been a noticeable improvement in the physical development of the younger generation, and the moral influence of clean, healthy sport has been felt."-Report of the Director of Education, 1914, p. 74. THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 299 undersized people; all Malays, by the same token, are undersized. I should suppose five feet three inches to be the average height of the adult male, and if we are to appraise men by bulk and thews only we shall give off-hand no great place to the Islanders. Nothing is easier than these bravura valuations by avoirdupois; and yet shall we forget that the Filipinos are as tall as the ancient Romans, and Imperious Casar himself must have been of about this stature? But in the case of the Filipino to estimate physical prowess by cubits is particularly unsafe, for despite his comparatively small size he has turned out to be one of the most remarkable athletes in the world. In scarcely another country is physical training so diligently sought, in the schools and out of them. Every year an exhibition of school calisthenics is an admired feature at the carnivals, and with reason. Sometimes three thousand children, or more, take part in a long program of intricate movements as beautiful as a Greek dance, and I think that, in all the criticism that has been poured out upon the educational system, no one has found a flaw in this ponderable national asset. Among the places where I was privileged to gaze upon such wonders was a large intermediate school in a suburb of Manila. All the classes were in their rooms at work when the principal, stepping into the main lower hall, struck a certain signal on a great bell. It was still vibrating from the stroke when the student orchestra appeared, took up a position and began to play. From all about the building, up stairs and down, came the sound of lightly shuffling feet; then a door opened and out marched a class, keeping step to the music. The instant this class was free of its room another class followed until all the school had passed in perfect order out of the building; but without a word of instruction or command. On the campus each class marched straightway to a certain spot, evidently familiar to it, where it halted and rested at 300 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES attention until the campus was filled and the eighteen hundred white-clad and keen-eyed boys and girls stood in long even rows, facing the school. The orchestra came outside and the instructor of calisthenics appeared, casting a critical eye over the alignment. He then mounted a little platform and took a drum on which he struck signals. By virtue of these and without a spoken word the company went through a manual of exercises like those of the setting-up drill of the American Army, the orchestra playing marches to the cadences of which the movements were adjusted. I did not count them, but.I thought these were of more than twenty varieties. Between each, signaled by the drum, was a rest. At the next drum-beat the eighteen hundred would bend forward with arms straight before them, step to the right, step to the left, forward, backward, with raised, lowered and extended arms, or whatever figure was called for next in the manual.1 All seemed to know perfectly the succession of the movements, for the drum gave no indication of what was next to come. The'unison was extraordinary; I do not know how it was attained. But what would most strike an American observer, I think, was the seriousness with which all was taken. In the entire company I could not detect a smile, the exchange of a word, or the least disposition to make light of the occasion. I had reason to doubt if in America eighteen hundred school children of the same age, boys and girls, would show the same discipline. When all was over a signal sounded to break ranks, and luncheon was served at the school kitchen in a corner of the grounds; a luncheon cooked and served by students and supplied at cost. There was much merry and free conversation around the luncheon counter and tables, but I was reminded 1They have a Manual of Physical Eduoation, written by Frederick 0. England, the playground director at Manila, illustrated with diagrams of movements and exercises. About one hundred pages consist of information about dances, and of many dances the music is printed with the text. THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 301 at once of the observation about these people I had made at the Carnival and elsewhere. Their instinct for reserve and orderliness of conduct is their indefeasible heritage. Ever the Filipino is a Filipino, and not even in the presence of bright eyes, pretty faces or good pie will he wholly forget the fact. After luncheon, at a signal, the company fell into position and at another marched back to the class-rooms, a class at a time. Something similar to this can be seen at every school-house in the Islands and it is from this source that the prize-winning athletes descend upon the Far Eastern Olympic and the base-ball teams develop their most skilful players. Base-ball in these Islands is something more than a pastime; it is at once a passion, a game and a means to that health and strength the ambitious young Filipino is taught to view as the foundation of the success he dreams for himself. Often the quality of the playing is above par; indeed, if the Filipinos could bat as well as they field and run bases, they would be the amateur premiers of the world. The oldest and most seasoned observer may be astonished at their base-running. There are no professional players; I think professionalism would strike awry with the Filipino conception of the game, which is clean. American official rules are the standard everywhere and the course of the American season is watched with absorbed attention. Every famous American player has his admiring followers in the Islands and a home run on the Polo Grounds in New York City may echo around the world to far-away Iloilo or Batangas. When I was in Manila the base-ball season there was at its height, January, February, March; and a team of tawny youths from a sugar plantation forty miles in the interior headed the percentage table. Such was my good fortune that I saw them play several times and was invariably rewarded with a performance of great merit. One of their games was against the team of the United States Cruiser Huron then on 302 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the Manila station, and the playing was so swift and accurate the most ardent follower of the national pastime would have been consoled for his absence from professional America. The sailors were, as usual, alert and able, but the young men from the sugar-fields outpointed them all the way. On another halcyon day I fell, through some undeserved felicity, upon a game between these same sugar-planters and the best American team in the Orient, and no one that saw that jousting will be likely to forget the fact. The score was 2 to 2 at the end of the fourteenth inning when darkness intervened. It was in the fourth inning that the Americans made their runs; under conditions that might have unsettled any opponents, even the most experienced veterans. The first man up hit the first ball for a clean home run. A base on balls, a steal of second, a sacrifice and a catcher's error filled the bases, when a hit brought in the other score with the bases full. We all expected to see the natives go to pieces. On the contrary, they settled down hard and from that time no pale-face reached second base. Nothing better from a baseball point of view was ever seen. In the last eight innings not an opponent made a hit. It was evident that the little brown brother had just begun to fight. In the sixth inning he rallied at the bat and evened the score and thenceforward played a faultless game. Two men among the native players drew my particular attention; one was the catcher, a stocky, powerful, deliberate youth, who threw as he stood to second base; and the other was the pitcher, who seemed to me to show unusual wit about his work. I learned afterward that the catcher was the champion all-around athlete of the Islands, a decathlon man, and could go, if he pleased, covered with medals; and the pitcher had a record of a no-hit game and was viewed as what is called major-league material. He batted and fielded as well as he pitched; in one of the games I attended he was four times at the bat with a total of four clean hits and in batting THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 303 average he stood next to the highest among all the players in the league. A young American sitting beside me whispered that every native team in the tournament had an American manager, a fact with which he seemed to salve hurt national pride or vindicate the colony's theory of native incapacity, I could not quite discern which. In either case I think it was not likely to impress the visitor from abroad, for a manager could not run the bases nor field the ball after this remarkable fashion then exhibited before us. But I will set down the observation for what it may be worth. Next after the sugar-planters and the crack Americans, the team that seemed most to show promise was composed of conductors and motormen on the Manila street railroad, all natives. I am not aware of any other city where street-railroad conductors and motormen provide the public with baseball entertainment approximating the best professional effort, but in Manila nothing unusual is found in such a condition. An American professional writer on base-ball topics, and one not to be accused of any partiality toward the Islanders, amply confirmed my impression of the excellence of these performances. Ite wrote: "The mastery of the Filipinos over base-ball is one of the marvels of every American who gets on this side of the Pacific. They seem to have picked up more than the mere mechanical side of the game. Their alertness and quick thought would stump some of the professionals of the United States." It has always seemed to me that base-ball afforded as fair a test of individual capacity and of national character as anything known to man. The crowd at a Philippine base-ball game is almost as interesting as the playing. As in America, there are the bleaching-boards as well as the grand-stand, with about the same difference in traits between the occupants of each. Every play is followed with intense eagerness and fine appreciation, while 304 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES a weird chorus goes up of American, Spanish, Tagalog, Visayan, patois and mixed. A Filipino, no matter what language he may be speaking, has a method of pronunciation physically different from ours. He forms his vocal sounds as on a differently played instrument. Like the French he enunciates with the tips of his lips and all outside his teeth. This gives a peculiar tang to his English when he speaks and sometimes creates an unfavorable impression on those that think our cramped and mutilated utterances must be standard. At the game between the sugar-planters and the men from the American cruiser, a Filipino gentleman sitting behind me became much excited by the contest and being a patriot as well as a good judge of base-ball, neglected not to "root" diligently for his countrymen. And this he accomplished by arising at intervals and crying with a loud voice: "Ai-i peetee zose H-u-u-rons! Ai-i pee-tee zose H-u-urons! " The obligation to "root.' was discharged faithfully on all sides, but good plays r&e always applauded impartially by a crowd evidently of disriminating taste in such things. The only occasion on which a Filipino gentleman consents to lay aside his dignity is at a base-ball game; I have seen him in a typhoon manifest less concern. In the midst of the clamor that arose from bleachers and grand-stand it was always possible to distinguish sounds familiar to all old followers of base-ball. There was even a person that shouted "Well! Well! Well!" The terminology of the game hashed in with the native speech made a piquant verbal melange. At one time when there was a close decision at second, I heard great shouts of "Safe siya! Safe siya!" which being interpreted meant "He's safe! He's safe!" After a long drive to center had been captured on the gallop by the agile fielder from among the sugar-cane, the crowd sank back with a satisfied sigh and cries of "Nasalo niya! Nasalo niya!" which meant "He got it!" A Filipino steal O/p ( ) Vo^.- e i:_ i::::_:::::; iil:i::i::_:i:i:::::_: I: i::;::_:i::;:::i:i: il;:::::i:i:lii:_:::i_:::- -- I -;i:i::;i;ii:~~;- ''' ~: ':'-i:~~~~~~ ~~~~ ii-i;~ii:1~~::-iii:;:~:;~~;~-;_.i_._i_.;i_ ':-i -:' —'i_,i;._::~-i;ii;:: — —;::~.;;:;;-. i::_:::::: -::::'I: I::;: _::I:::;: ~r ~ii;~~~j&L,B.~: .; e!;..i~ ii-; r,a. B. 1.1" -."~~;:..."".~r:" "-11111::: -':::: -- - - - i:::::"-':.-:::;;'ll;;-::i -::iii ---:: ---:I::i: I:: I..iipnsii. naa Gou rri~a~r~ra aSIiBAL Z THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 305 ing second was encouraged with loud shouts of "Umi slide siya! Umi slide siya!" When a new pitcher stepped into the box from which his predecessor had been knocked by the stalwart representatives of the sugar industry several spectators around me observed, "Kalaweti siya," which meant "He is a southpaw." A Filipino having struck out, gentlemen on the bleaching-boards travailed in spirit and groaned aloud, "Mahina siyang pumalo," which meant "He is a weak hitter," and "Hindi niya nasalo," which was to the effect that he could not hit a foot-ball with a barn door. The names of the positions in the game and of many of the plays have been taken over bodily. "Siya ang catcher," and "Siya ang pitcher," mean "He is the catcher," "He is the pitcher." A blocked ball becomes a "blackball," and the like. A foul is a "foul ball iyan," and a foul tip has been twisted into " pal tip," which better suits the Malay lips. When a batsman struck out the fact was reported in "Na struck out." But in my observation the original nomenclature was not always retained. A fly hit was designated by "Pumalo siya rang lobo," a phrase almost as long as the hit itself. The one error made by the sugar-planting catcher, the decathlon man of many medals, was that he allowed the ball to slip from his fingers as he started to throw it to third. Then I heard arising around me disgusted hootings and cries of "Nabitawan niya ang bola," which was not, as I supposed, a malediction with bell, book and candle, but proved to mean only "He fumbled it." The crowd was good-natured, ate peanuts, chewed gum, cheered its favorites, denounced the umpire and had a right good time. Decisions that did not please were greeted with "Mees-tare Um-pyer, air you bl-i-i-nd, zink?" and "Aw! zat um-pyer, he ees crazy in ze head!" but up to the time of my visit the practice of hurling soda-water bottles as a mark of dissent had not reached the Islands. 306 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES The girls play base-ball as extensively as the boys, but use the paraphernalia of small bat and large ball that are designated as pertaining to "indoor base-ball." Of course nobody plays base-ball indoors in the Philippines. My own introduction to the excellent quality of Island pastimes was made by this route. Passing the grounds of the Manila Carnival and hearing a crowd shouting as crowds shout only at ball-games, I strolled in idly and sat down by the side of a sailor from the Huron. Two teams of girls were playing, one team uniformed in blue with a red sash and the other in white with a blue sash. Both wore their black hair in straight braids down their backs. The whites were at the bat, the bases were full and a stalwart lady in white drove a hot one that short-stop barely reached, but she snapped it to home and saved the run and was so swift about it that the catcher all but got it to first in time to nip the batslady. The sailor at my side viewed all with judicial gravity and manifest approval. "Snappy work!" he observed with great earnestness. Miss Pitcher for the blues now struck out the next batslady and caught by leaping into the air the line drive of the next. "Snappy work!" said the sailor. The blues now came to the bat. Two singles and a fumbled ball filled the bases. The next batslady looked like one accustomed to home runs. She twirled her bat, clenched her lips and squared away for a drive over left field. The pitcher for the whites sent in three balls two feet from the plate. With bases filled it looked as if one could now foresee a run. The next three balls split the plate and the champion sat down with a disgusted air. The next batslady smashed the first ball for a liner just over the second base. Centerfield went like a white streak, caught the ball an inch from the ground and with the same motion hurled it to second for a double play. The sailor had watched every motion, all his soul manifestly absorbed as critically he analyzed the THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 307 performance. He now rose to his feet and solemnly surveyed the scene. "Snappy work!" he yelled as one hailing the fore-royal and sat down. I was much of his opinion. I found out afterward that these teams represented two schools of Manila and that to play as well as this was common among the girl pupils. No doubt this is so; but for my part I was never done wondering at the accurate knowledge the young ladies had of the fine points of the game. Errors among them were astonishingly few in the exhibition games I saw, and errors of judgment the fewest. An annual tournament among girls' base-ball teams is a feature of the Manila Carnival and teams come from remote provinces to take part in it. Sometimes the entries are so many that a week will be required for all the games to be played. The final winner of each year is entered in the cherished annals of the Island athletes as was the winner of the Marathon race in Greece and almost any Philippine matron can tell you now what team won the Carnival contest in 1913 or 1911. A team of expert girl base-ball players in the public schools at Tipas, Province of Rizal, came to be known as the "Tipas Tots." In 1912 they won the Southern Tagalog championship and held it against all. comers for five years, in which they more than once captured the annual championship contest at the Manila Carnival. In 1915 they went to the Far Eastern Olympic, held that year at Shanghai, and won easily, returning with the highest honors achievable in the Orient and their particular line of endeavor. After 1917 the team scattered; the members, having completed their school course, married, went into business, entered the Normal School, became teachers or stenographers. But they did not cease to take delight in base-ball nor to play it when occasion offered; for that is one of the strange things about this game in the Philippines; age cannot wither nor custom stale the charm it has for all sorts and conditions. In November, 1920, the physical training world 308 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES in the Islands (kindly notice that it is not a sporting world) was rejoiced to hear that the "Tipas Tots" had been reassembled. Being now wives, mothers, teachers, and business women, they met on November 28, at Balanga, the swift team of young ladies from the Balanga school and beat them 15 to 8, and one week later annihilated the girls of the Pateros school, champions of the Pasig district, by the catastrophic score of 27 to 5. The first game they played after their reassembling, when they had not an hour of practice, they held their opponents to a tie, 7 to 7, and next lost by a single score a game with the Normal School team, one of the best in the Islands. After that they issued a challenge to any girls' team anywhere and proposed to go to the next Far Eastern Olympic and bring back another championship. It sounds like a wild exaggeration, but base-ball with many women in the Philippines takes the place of tatting and social tea-fights in other climes; I am told it even supplants gossip, but that seems to go too far. More than once when I have been dining with a refined and highly educated Filipino family, the subject of base-ball has come up after international politics had been exhausted, and the hostess, a graduate of the Philippines University or some other institution of higher learning, has discussed with sage aplomb and the wisdom of an expert, famous games, players, plays and rulings. Then I have discovered that before her marriage she was a celebrated pitcher or fielder and participated in some championship game deathless in the bright lexicon of Philippine athletics. One of them discountenanced me once by asking across the table my interpretation of a rule I did not know to exist. But no base-ball can coarsen these admirable women and I am bound to say that with the men also it seems to be free from the features that occasionally mar its splendors with us. No Filipino player has ever been accused of selling a game nor of any other unsportsmanlike conduct. I have never THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 309 heard any dissent from the statement that these people are good sportsmen. The laurels they have won they have earned. In tennis the Philippines had produced by 1921 ten players of note and one that had defeated a famous international champion. In boxing the Islanders pointed with the customary pride to a group of distinguished performers, one of whom had defeated the champion of Europe in his class and another that had fought fifty-seven battles and in each had scored a victory. As to track athletics, Sports, a Manila magazine ably devoted to outdoor amusements, compiled this comparison of the records of Philippine athletics and those of the American Athletic Association: Javelin 880 220 880 Mile Throw Yar Yad Yard Yad Relay ___________________ ______.Race Hurdle Relay ____ Philippine Interscholastic 163 feet 2 8 26Y- r1 32 3 38 American Senior 176 1 56 24%6 1 a11. 3 271 American Junior 178 4 4 2 265 Central Association 171 5 1 38% 26 3 30 New England Association 148 3 2 Allegheny Mountain Association 157 5 % 2 2 Southern Association 162 9 2 4 1 26 __ 3 4551f To show that appreciation of base-ball does not interfere with liberal recognition of other games and exercises, I may revert for a moment to the catcher of the sugar-planters to whom I somewhat airily referred as a decathlon man covered with medals. It is to be supposed that without the happy frontiers of the world of physical exercise dwell benighted souls that know not the interpretation of this mystic symbol. There was a time, I own it with humiliation, when I was of this unregenerate number, but I know now and naturally desire to make a parade of my knowledge. It means a contest in which the performer does a series of feats, a run of 100 yards, the running broad jump, the shot-put, the running high jump, a run of 440 yards, a low-hurdle run of 220 yards, the discus throw, the pole vault, the running hop, step and jump, and a mile run, and scores points in each. 310 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES The contestant that makes the greatest total of points is the winner, and it will be conceded that he is entitled to whatsoever reward goes therewith. The name of this catcher whose work I so much admired is Juan K. Taduran. In the midst of the base-ball season he found time to enter one of these decathlon contests for a championship record, and won it. He did all the things I have catalogued, the 100-yard dash, the shot-put, the hurdles, the discus throw, the pole vault and all the rest, one after another and with his total of points beat the record. On that occasion he secured 759 points. The best record previously made in the Islands was by a United States Army athlete with 6241/2 points and the previous record for the Orient was 753 points with which in 1920 Chu En Te, a great Chinese athlete, took the championship. The chief interest in the annual Manila Carnival centers in its athletic contests. Besides base-baLl and indoor base-ball these include every standard variety of athletic competition. If a Carnival passes without a good sheaf of broken records, sadness falls upon the metropolis and the newspapers mournfully recall the glories of the past as a reincarnated Greek might weep over the Parthenon. In 1918 at the Carnival tournament the Bureau of Education team won the championship in the track and field events, scoring 74 points against 39 scored by the United States Army team, the nearest competitor. At the Carnival of 1921 of which I was a spectator the records broken numbered seven, which was regarded as tolerable. "We hope to do better," observed the gentleman in the Bureau of Education that has these things in hand. He was modest; he might have boasted of a Filipino school-boy that threw the javelin within thirty feet of the world's record and within seventeen feet of the best American attainment; a one-mile relay race in which the record for the Orient was broken; and a fifteen-year-old school-boy that ran second in the five-mile THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 311 run and but for an accident would have finished first. The Far Eastern Championship Games, known as the Olympics of the East, held every two years, are the great sporting event of this part of the world. Athletes from the Philippines, China and Japan meet in all the standard contests. At the Olympic of 1919 the Philippines won six out of nine championship events. These were base-ball, track and field, swimming, volley-ball, basket-ball and tennis (doubles). The Philippines Director of Education remarked on this with pardonable pride: "Nearly all the Far Eastern track and field records were broken and most of the star performers among the Philippine representatives were representatives of the Bureau of Education." The meeting that year was held in Manila. The Director adds this pleasant comment: "Perhaps the most satisfying feature of these games was the interest of the spectators, who crowded the grand-stand and the bleachers to overflowing. This would indicate that the people are becoming more interested in clean athletic sports to the consequent exclusion of pastimes less helpful and less uplifting."' The confidence he felt seemed abundantly justified. At the Far Eastern Olympic of 1921, held at Shanghai, the Philippine athletes won first place in track and field athletics, base-ball, swimming, tennis singles, tennis doubles, and the decathlon, and made new records in the decathlon, discus throw, pole vault and broad jump. Once more the decathlon record-breaker was our friend Taduran, the catcher of the sugar-planters and man of many medals. In base-ball at Shanghai, with his help and others, the Filipinos beat even redoubtable Japan. Every year interest in these wholesome amusements widens and deepens, the sure result of the wise policy of the men that planted American education on this soil. To see, for 1 Report of the Director of Education, 1919, p. 35. 312 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES instance, a game of base-ball in the Igorote country is to gain much food for cheerful surmise and forecasting. Those teams of uniformed youths contending in an exercise that demands the best of physical and mental alertness while a great crowd of their elders, clad in a style of ancestral simplicity, squat in rows on the side-lines and watch with breathless and intelligent interest the quickly shifting contest, are something of a landmark in civilization; the more when one reflects upon what would have been the amusements of a similar gathering, let us say twenty years before. Blessed be base-ball! As early as 1916, 95 per cent. of the pupils in the public schools was taking part in some form of athletics, and "Athletics for every pupil," chosen years before as a motto of the department, was practically realized. In that same year, 1916, there were in the public schools of the Philippine Islands "1555 uniformed and completely equipped base-ball teams, all of which were engaged in keen competition,"' an achievement the like of which probably has not been known in any other country in any sport. Games of base-ball between the school teams of neighboring towns had become the great feature of the annual local festivals.2 At the opening baseball game of the Manila Interscholastic Athletic Association that year there were more than six thousand paid admissions. That year the popularity of indoor base-ball for girls became so great that the local dealers in athletic goods could hardly meet the demands for equipment. The Director of Education notes with satisfaction that base-ball was then being played in the remotest communities, not only in the Christian provinces but throughout the Mountain Province and the Moro country. One of the strongest teams of girl indoor base-ball players was composed of Moro girls from Misamis, and the Mountain Province base-ball team won the Report of the Director of Education, 1916, p. 33. I2bid. THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 313 Northern Luzon Athletic Association championship in 1918. "The physical-culture program of the Board of Education has been justified by results," says the Director.' "The young people in the public schools enjoy better health than those who do not attend. The latest report, submitted by the Senior Inspector of Schools, Philippine Health Service, indicates that athletics have been an important factor in decreasing the number of cases of tuberculosis among pupils. Also, largely on account of the improvement wrought by the schools, the physical and mental requirements for entrance into the Philippine Constabulary have been considerably raised. " It has done even more than that, and promises still greater marvels. "Our little brown brothers," said former President Taft, referring to the Filipinos, and a million Americans have since repeated the phrase with amusement, looking on the comparatively lower stature of the Islander. Possibly in another generation or two it will not be lower; perhaps by taking thought and much athletics he can add, if not a cubit, then some other appreciable measurement to his average. By no means need this seem miraculous or fantastic. The Superintendent of the Medical Division of the Philippine Constabulary on May 9, 1916, wrote a memorandum to the Director of his Bureau in which he said: "After examining and keeping a record of more than 1000 enlisted men, I firmly believe that the Filipino is a much larger man physically than he was eight or nine years ago, due no doubt to the athletic training the younger generation has been and is receiving in the primary, intermediate and high schools of the Islands."2 This is the thought of the Educational Bureau, this and no less, bold as it may seem. The Bureau publishes a monthly magazine called Physical and Vocational Training, 1Report of the Director of Education, 1916. 2 In 1918 the Manila schools had sixteen trained playground instructors working under the city playground direction. 314 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES and from the issue for January, 1921, I take this editorial extract: "FILIPINO PHYSICAL IMPROVEMENT "It is our belief that the Filipino can be made to grow taller and bigger; that the stock of the race can be improved considerably, despite the many handicaps. We realize that he has never been physically efficient. And who expects him to be when his principal diet consists merely of rice and fish; when his body is full of intestinal parasites; when his daily work is perhaps nothing but the mechanical use of the hands, involving merely the finger muscles, from one month's end to another; and, furthermore, when he is the offspring of generations of physically lacking parents? "But despite all these we are very optimistic regarding his chances for progress. "It is the purpose of the physical education section of this review to point out the manner in which proper growth and development can best be accomplished; to inculcate the idea that right living, proper feeding and good systematic exercise are three essential factors in the production and maintenance of health." This was written by one of the most distinguished of Filipinos, a graduate with high honors of an American university, but at the same time an ardent champion of his countrymen and their independence. What he says here seems to be as worth noting for its exceeding frankness as for its confident hope. The Bureau tries with well-considered and persistent effort to carry out its theories. In the instructions on this point issued to all schools in May, 1920, it is ordered that there shall be in each school a daily health and sanitary inspection of pupils, class-rooms and school premises.' In every elementary school a relief exercise of from two to five minutes 1 The plan includes a pupil health officer in each class-room. THE FILIPINO AT PLAY 315 twice each school-day is programmed. In every primary class there must be a physical education period of not less than thirty minutes each day and in every intermediate class a similar period of not less than forty minutes each day. Activities for primary and for intermediate classes include marching, calisthenics, dancing, impromptu games and group athletics. In every secondary class of boys a physical education period of not less than sixty minutes each school-day is the requirement; in every secondary class of girls a similar period three times a week. For both the performances include, as for the younger classes, marching, calisthenics, impromptu games and group athletics, to which the boys add military drill. Of this program Dr. Camilo Osias says it is second to none in existence in any country. He might have gone farther. Dr. Paul Monroe, a distinguished educator, when he visited the Islands and studied its educational system said: "I am conscious of what wonderful results you have achieved along this line here in the Islands, results that have had not merely an athletic but a social and physical value as well. You have done what we have not done in the United States, made athletics of educational worth." President William H. Burdick, in his address to the twenty-third convention of the American Physical Education Association in 1919, said: "The reports from the Philippine Islands schools show a progress and a conception of physical training that do not seem to exist here in America. I find in that report the statement that 4500 out of 4702 schools have physical training, and that they are now considering the proposition to refuse to promote any pupil if he has not the physical ability to carry on the work of the next grade. I know of nothing having been done in this country along that line except the suggestion of Mr. Stecher in Philadelphia last year. I believe they were very much aroused over this suggestion from 316 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the Philippine Islands, but it is a step in the direction in which we all ought to be very much interested." By 1921 physical education on advanced lines was carried on in each of the 50 high schools, 614 intermediate schools and 5280 primary schools in the Islands, and the rule of the department was that, except in cases of physical disability, a rating of 75 per cent. in physical education is required for promotion. At the convention of Philippine superintendents in 1916 the recommendation was made that a credit of 1 per cent. on the general average should be granted to pupils that have been faithful and regular in their participation in athletic events throughout the year and have made the provincial team and taken part in an inter-provincial contest. As an alternative, it was proposed that 5 per cent. be added to the average in any single subject in which the student is deficient. Two per cent., it was recommended, might be added to the general average of any student selected to represent the Bureau of Education in the contests at the Philippine Carnival or his province in an interscholastic meet. The latter changes were adopted and are now part of the educational system of the Islands, and no doubt they are one reason for the extraordinary success of the Philippine athletes; the more remarkable when it is remembered that the teachers that have introduced this system of physical training were sent to the Philippines to teach things from books, and not to teach athletics. The greatest expansion of athletic activities in the schools has come since Filipinization in 1916 and much of its progress is due to the enthusiasm of Dr. Osias, a Filipino from Central Luzon, into whose department, as Assistant Director of Education, falls the whole subject of physical training. CHAPTER XVII THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT T was upon a soil of hope fertilized by generations of effort and the blood of many revolutionists that the Americans came to sow the seed of a definite promise of Philippine nationality and freedom. There should be no evasion and no neglect of this fact, however unpleasant it may be, for it is of the plainest record. At the beginning the American nation did not want the Philippines; it took them under a tacit protest with the understanding that we were to fit them for freedom and then make them free; and representatives of this government again and again with the utmost solemnity assured the people of the Islands that this and this alone was our unalterable purpose. The point is so important it may be well to make citations from some of these expressions. 1899. On January 30 of this year, only eight months after the battle of Manila Bay, President McKinley, dispatching the First Philippine Commission that was to take over the government of the Islands in the name of the United States, described the work to be done there as the bringing of "the richest blessings of a liberating rather than a conquering nation." The phrase was warmly applauded as expressing the true American purpose and attitude, as undoubtedly it did. "The Philippines are ours," he said in his annual message that year, "not to exploit but to develop, to civilize, to educate, to train in the science of self-government." Speeches in Congress emphasized this view. A great point 317 318 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES was made everywhere of the necessity to train the Filipinos in self-government, always in self-government. Some unctuous mystery pertained to the stress laid upon this term, and still envelops it. Out of hand, self-government had been given to the Cubans although they were almost wholly inexperienced in its arcana; with the same breath self-government had been denied to the Filipinos although they had set up a completely functioning and well-ordered Republic under which they were in a way to exercise with discretion the rights and duties of democratic citizenship. However this might be, the idea that the people of the Islands were savages in the raw and it was our duty to lead them up to our own exalted standards laid sharp hold upon the country's imagination, being a blending of altruism and adventure grateful to its taste. "This is the path of duty which we must follow," said President McKinley, missing his relative pronoun but seizing the main idea, "or be recreant to a mighty trust committed to us," and indeed such was the common thought. We gave the people of the Islands every reason to believe that we were sincere in this promise. With it we induced Aguinaldo to take the oath of allegiance and to advise his countrymen to lay down their arms. With it we pacified the Islands and caused the people to have trust in us. Even then there was the clear beginning of a contract; on one side allegiance, on the other the pledge of independence. 1903. William Howard Taft, Civil Governor of the Philippine Islands, said: "From the beginning to the end the state papers which were circulated in these Islands as authoritative expressions of the Executive had for their motto that 'the Philippines are for the Filipinos,' and that the government of the United States is here for the purpose of preserving the 'Philippines for the Filipinos,' for their benefit, for their elevation, for -their civilization, again and again appears," THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT 319 1904. Mr. Taft had now been made Secretary of War, the department that had most to do with the Philippines. In that capacity he said of the people of the Islands: "When they have learned the principles of successful popular self-government from a gradually enlarged experience therein, we can discuss the question whether independence is what they desire and grant it, or whether they prefer the retention of a closer association with the country which by its guidance has unselfishly led them on to better conditions. " 1907. This year, Mr. Taft, still Secretary of War, addressed the opening of the Philippines Assembly and was even more emphatic concerning these points. He said: "The policy [of the United States] looks to the improvement of the people, both industrially and in self-governing capacity. As the policy of extending control continues, it must logically reduce and finally end the sovereignty of the United States in the Islands, unless it shall seem wise to the American and Filipino peoples, on account of mutually beneficial trade relations and possible advantages to the Islands in their foreign relations, that the bond shall not be completely severed." The Philippine Assembly itself was a potent example of this "extending control." It had been ordained by the Congress of the United States as the next step in an evolution the goal of which, as Secretary Taft so plainly saw and said, was the end of the sovereignty of the United States in the Islands. Nothing was said or done to suggest to the Islanders that the United States had any other intention. 1908. President Roosevelt said in his message of this year: "I trust that within a generation the time will arrive when the Filipinos can decide for themselves whether it is well for them to become independent or to continue under the protection of a strong and disinterested power, able to guarantee to the Islands order at home and protection from foreign invasion." 320 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES But the decision was to be left to the people of the Islands, not to Congress or another power. 1913. President Wilson said, in a message to the Filipino people, October 6: "We regard ourselves as trustees acting not for the advantage of the United States but for the benefit of the people of the Philippine Islands. Every step we take will be taken with a view to the ultimate independence of the Islands and as a preparation for that independence. " On December 2 of the same year he sent in a message to Congress, referring to the people of the Philippines: "By their counsel and experience rather than by our own we shall learn how best to serve them and how soon it will be possible and wise to withdraw our supervision." 1914. Before the Philippines Committee of the Senate, Mr. Taft said this year: "In the Philippines the ultimate prospect for self-government is better than in Cuba for the reason that the economic conditions are better adapted for building up an intelligent middle class, because there is a much greater division of land among the people." 1915. Former President Roosevelt wrote in the early part of this year: "Personally I think it is a fine and high thing for a nation to have done such a deed [our work in the Philippines] with such a purpose. But we cannot taint it with bad faith. If we act so that the natives understand us to have made a definite promise, then we should live up to that promise. The Philippines, from a military standpoint, are a source of weakness to us. The present administration has promised explicitly to let them go, and by its actions has rendered it difficult to hold them against any serious foreign foe. These being the circumstances, the Islands should at an early moment be given their independence without any guarantee FILIPINO WOMEN MARCHING IN A LIBRTY BON ALE P l-v;.4., I; "l~ THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT 321 whatever by us and without our retaining any foothold in them." In his autobiography he says: "As regards the Philippines my belief was that we should train them for self-government as rapidly as possible and then leave them free to decide their own fate." 1916. The Jones Act came with its most explicit declaration that the purpose of the people of the United States "is, as it has always been, to withdraw their sovereignty over the Philippine Islands and to recognize their independence as soon as a stable government can be established therein." Of this measure its author, Representative Jones, said in Congress that it was "the everlasting covenant of a great and generous people speaking through their accredited representatives that they [the people of the Philippines] shall in due time enjoy the incomparable blessings of liberty and freedom." Meantime, of course, the Democratic party in the United States had not ceased to demand in its successive platforms the independence of the Ilands and before a Republican National Convention an,n;iiient Republican and authoritative party leader 1 had enhticaeted a doctrine about them so advanced it left in point'of faith no difference between Republicans and Democrats. In 1914 the Committee on Insular Affairs of the House of Representatives had brought in a bill fixing 1920 as the date for complete Philippine emancipation. It failed to pass only because in the rush of appropriation bills at the close of the session it was overlooked. When the Jones Act was before the Senate an amendment was adopted again making 1920 the date of the American withdrawal. This was dropped in conference on a question of the wisdom of setting a definite date in view of the uncertainties of the European War. Being thus assured and reassured from all sides with so 1Mr. Elihu Root before the Republican Convention of 1904. 322 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES many asseverations that the American purpose was to withdraw, it is not strange that the Filipinos have concluded that exactly this was indeed the American purpose. What other conclusion they could have reached has not yet been suggested. Year after year from the highest sources and with solemn port the Islanders had been told that the United States was pledged to their eventual independence, for which our benevolent efforts in their behalf were only tuition and training. President McKinley said so, President Roosevelt said so, President Taft said so, President Wilson said so. Diligent search has failed to show that any of these locutions were delivered with cocked eye or tongue in cheek. There was not the slightest indication anywhere that the nation had entered upon any of these undertakings in a spirit of jocundity nor as some form of amusing deception. No people could possibly be supposed to accept them in any such spirit nor as signifying anything except deliberate purpose. The Filipinos became possessed of the belief that freedom as the gift of the United States was close at hand, and supposing them to have enough intelligence to perform the ordinary offices of life, could have had no other notion of it. What their ancestors had dreamed of and they themselves had fought for was about to come true. The more education was spread in the Islands, the more it likewise fostered this belief. Independence as the free gift of the United States: nothing else was consistent with the history of the great Republic that was being studied assiduously in these schools. Certainly, if independence were not the ultimate American aim the American management of education was all wrong. It should not have allowed the story of the American Revolution to become the familiar classic of the Philippine schools. With eagerness the young Filipino mind seized upon the American struggle as the prototype of the cause of the Islands. By so much as he was taught to admire Washington, Nathan Hale, James Otis, Nathaniel THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT 323 Greene, he deified Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini, del Pilar. So far as he could see, the two causes were identical; Hale and Rizal were martyrs to the same great principle. That America could, for long, seem to reverse its historic role was a concept that his mind, when he began to know history, refused to hold; instead of trying to coerce the people of the Islands it would be America's great part to set them free. Americanization had thus some unexpected results. Washington's Birthday and the Fourth of July came to be celebrated in the Philippines with great fervor, but chiefly because of what was supposed to be the significance of these commemorations toward insular freedom. Washington and the American patriots had set this fashion in the world; freedom after them was to be gained because it was right and not because someone could wrest it from between the hands of somebody else. Moreover, if there had been no such educational fruition and if there had been no explicit promise, the course of the United States in the Philippines would have justified the certain belief in ultimate independence. To what other climax could all these advances in one line portend? From an absolutism over a conquered dependency, based upon military occupation like unto that maintained by Great Britain in India, we advanced to rule by a Governor-General and Commission appointed by the President and charged with full legislative powers under the supervision and approval of Congress. Thence, as already related, we evolved a measure of self-government in the form of the Philippine Assembly, of which the lower house was elected by the people while the Philippine Commission constituted the upper chamber. The fate of this thumb-handed and unsatisfactory system we have described and how it led to the next obvious step, which was to abolish the Philippine Commission and to establish the Philippine Legislature, with both houses elected by the people and clothed with full authority. To the native hopes, we 324 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES may again remark, this evolution could have but one meaning. Always the people were being endowed with more power and a larger share in the government, preparatory to the change that would set the Islands free. To the same conclusion the modifications in other laws seemed to point as strongly. We had lately occasion in these pages to note that at first it was a crime to speak of independence. Then this statute was abolished and to speak of independence became perfectly lawful. Could it with any honesty be made lawful to speak of unless some day it was to be attained? It was for a time a criminal offense to exhibit the Philippine flag. Then this statute also was abolished and the flag of the Filipino Republic came to fly side by side with the flag of the United States on every public building. What Filipino looking at these two emblems thus displayed could think that the change they marked was other than a step in one sure, inevitable series to the one sure end? Exactly so the people interpreted it. The purpose that inspired Bonifacio and the patriots of 1896 and 1898, that flamed in so many eloquent outbursts in the old church at Malolos and inspired del Pilar to die at Tila Pass, never failed among them but grew stronger. The Aguinaldo movement had hardly collapsed before the leaders began again with changed tactics. They seemed to have had no hard task; the Malayan jaw was clenched upon this chance of freedom. No day passed while the subject was under the ban wherein a discerning man might not have perceived where all this was drifting. When the law that imposed silence was repealed, the frankest agitation broke out. At the first election, the next year, the political party that had declared for independence swept the country, winning sixty-five of the eighty seats in the House of Representatives, for which alone there was a contest. The House chose as its first Speaker Sergio Osmefia, whose gifts and abilities are so extraordinary THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT 325 they would make him conspicuous in any country or time. First instrument in history to make vocal the thought of the people of these Islands, the new House left no room to doubt how it stood on independence. At the close of the session, Speaker Osmefia, in his final address, made this impressive declaration: "Permit me, gentlemen of the Chamber, to declare solemnly, before God and the world, upon my conscience as a deputy and representative of my compatriots, and under my responsibility as president of the Chamber, that we believe ourselves capable of leading an orderly existence, efficient both in internal and external affairs, a member of the free and civilized nations." This declaration the House by vote unanimously adopted. Every succeeding Legislature has repeated this utterance. If at that time there was or since then there has been any dissent among the Filipino people to the doctrine thus proclaimed, it has never been heard nor has it attained to the least record. Election followed election; one elected body after another continued to declare for independence; and the representatives that spoke and did most for it seemed to gather popularity in proportion to their services for this cause. The World War came and for the time being silenced the popular demand. While the United States was engaged in what might be a struggle for its existence and was assuredly waged for the vital and fundamental principles of democracy, the Filipino leaders felt that everything else must stand aside until the great issue should be determined. So soon as that was out of the way the agitation was resumed. On November 1, 1918, the Philippine Legislature created a Commission of Independence selected from among its members to consider and report to the Legislature the ways and means by which immediate independence might be negotiated, the 326 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES best guarantees of the stability and permanence of independence, and the ways of organizing "in a speedy, effectual and orderly manner a constitutional and democratic internal government. " The Commission after a time advised that a special mission be sent to the United States to plead for immediate separation. Forty Filipinos, prominent in public life or in business, agriculture or labor, made up the Mission. Manuel Queson, who had been Commissioner for the Philippines to Washington, was chairman; one of the leading members was the president of the Democratic or Opposition party. About the time it sailed for the United States the Legislature adopted a "Declaration of Purposes," to express the reasons for sending it and be a message to the government of the United States. This declaration said: "The Philippine question has reached such a stage that a full and final exchange of views between the United States of America and the Philippine Islands has become necessary. We need not repeat the declarations respecting the national aspirations of the Filipino people. Such declarations have been made from time to time in the most frank and solemn manner by the constitutional representatives of the Philippine nation and are a matter of permanent record in public documents covering more than a decade of persistent efforts, particularly during the last three years. America, on her part, has been sufficiently explicit in her purposes from the beginning of her occupation of the Philippines. "In submitting the Philippine question to the government and people of the United States, the Commission of Independence will find it unnecessary to refer to the natural acerbity of the situation, or to the anxiety of our people which two decades of occupation have served only to accentuate. The steadfastness of our position is not due to mere sentiment, but to the justice of our cause, sanctified by the laws of God and nature not only, but admitted in the promises solemnly THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT 327 made by the United States and accepted by the Philippines." Attention then is drawn to the following facts: "That there exist at present in the Philippine Islands the conditions of order and government which America has for nearly a century and a half required in all cases in which she has recognized the independence of a country or the establishment of a new government. "That there exist likewise in the Philippines all the conditions of stability and guarantees for law and order that Cuba had to establish to the satisfaction of America in order to obtain her independence or to preserve it, during the military occupation of 1898-1902 and during the intervention of 1906 -1909, respectively. "That the 'preparation for independence' and the 'stable government' required by President Wilson and the Congress of the United States respectively contain no new requisite not included in any of the cases above cited. "That these prerequisites for Philippine independence are the same as those virtually established by the Republican administrations that preceded President Wilson's administration. "That during the time that the Filipino people have been with America they have been living in the confidence that the American occupation was only temporary and that its final aim was not aggrandizement or conquest, but the peace, welfare and liberty of the Filipino people. "That this faith in the promises of America was a cardinal factor not only in the cooperation between Americans and Filipinos during the years of peace, but also in the cooperation between Americans and Filipinos during the late war. "That the condition of thorough development of the internal affairs of the country and the present international atmosphere of justice, liberty and security for all peoples are the most propitious for the fulfilment by America of her 328 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES promises and for her redemption of the pledges she has made before the world." In another paragraph the Declaration says: "Therefore, so far as it is humanly possible to judge and say, we can see only one aim for the Commission of Independence-independence; and we can give but one instructionto get it." The Mission proceeded to Washington to call upon President Wilson, but he was in Paris at the Peace Conference. He delegated Secretary of War Baker to represent him and to read for him to the Mission a letter in which he expressed sentiments of sympathy and good-will and asked the Secretary to speak for him. Secretary Baker said: "I know that I express the feelings of the President-I certainly express my own feelings, I. think I express the prevailing feeling in the United States-when I say that we believe the time has substantially come, if not quite come, when the Philippine Islands can be allowed to sever the merely formal tie remaining and become an independent people." The Mission delivered its message. It visited many cities of the United States and its members delivered eloquent pleas for their cause. No farther attention was paid to it. The time might have "substantially come," but the United States seemed not to heed the clock and the Mission returned to the Islands with independence apparently no nearer than when it had sailed thence. It may be true, as urged in defense of the situation thus created, that the American people, in whose hands the decision rested, never heard of the Mission nor of its message and had not the slightest suspicion of the feeling that had prompted both. But the Filipino people knew nothing of this omission. They knew only that they had addressed to the United States a grave remonstrance on a matter that seemed to them of the first importance, that THE INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT 329 they had called the attention of the United States to its pledges and promises, and that they had been ignored. With this knowledge, acerbity between the two peoples began to increase. In another year it was evident to the discerning that the existing conditions could not go on indefinitely without leading to bitter conflict. Still, some Americans in Manila and elsewhere ceased not to say that the masses of the Filipinos were not in favor of independence, which was demanded by only the politician class and for its own benefit. For a visitor or the casual interpreter the situation was hard to know. The only accredited and certain voice of the Filipino people was the Legislature, where sat the representatives chosen at free elections. Each Legislature went on record with increasing vehemence demanding independence; the latest had voted one million pesos as an annual appropriation to carry on the agitation for freedom. There came from the people no sign of disapproval for this expenditure of their funds; on the contrary, the legislators that did the most for independence were returned with the largest majorities. Without bias or leaning one way or the other, it seemed clear, therefore, either that the Legislature correctly represented the will of the people on this issue or that the whole scheme and plan of representative government everywhere was a failure. Yet, that I might make sure of this and be led into no error by surface indications, I addressed an identical letter to many conspicuous men in all parts of the Islands, mostly editors or members of the Legislature, asking them for a candid and close estimate of the state of public feeling in their neighborhoods on the subject of independence, seeking particularly for information about the remote provinces, where, it was said, opposition was strongest or indifference most marked. Indeed, I had little reason to make such inquiries about Manila and Cebu, Zamboanga and Iloilo, for there the 330 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES facts were plain enough and as I have stated them. Typical examples of the responses I received will be found in the Appendix. So far as these letters from representative men were an index of the feeling of their peoples, the voice of the Philippine Islands seemed overwhelmingly for independence. CHAPTER XVIII THE JAPANESE MENACE A SUPERNATURAL monster, going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it, a demon, a son of Belial or of Demogorgon, a creature of boundless rapacity and infinite cunning, seeking whom it may devour or whom it may betray, is the conception of Japan most of us in America seem fondly to cherish. To this fevered vision, Japan exists for but one purpose and with but one ideal. At whatsoever cost she is to extend her border-line, and we have a strange but almost universal belief that against any scheme to win territory great or small no treaty will bind her and no conscience restrain. Therefore, at the mention of an independent Philippines, as promised by the Jones Act, nine Americans in ten at once picture horrible Japan in descent upon the new Republic to annex it out of hand; Japan, that does but lie in wait for the moment when we shall withdraw to hurl herself upon the victim helpless there before her. Andromeda chained to the rocks and the dragon ruthlessly advancing; except that in this case, to be sure, there will be no Perseus to the rescue, for will not the United States have abandoned the maiden to her awful fate? Some of this phantasmagoria is a distant reflex of the rise of Japan in the last seventy years, an advance unequaled, of course, for rapidity and spectacle. Behold her in 1852, nothing; and in 1919 one of the Five Great Powers sitting at table to decide the fate of the world. It is a thing almost weird. Unconsciously we have a feeling of awe as much as 331 332 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES of wonder as we contemplate it. If in seventy years Japan has wrought these marvels, what, with such a start, will she be in seventy years more? Or twentyl Or ten? Uneasily we project the shadow of a new world domination. Surely this must be the true nation of supermen; the measure we apply to others will never fit here; and, conformably, we discover that, for one thing, Japan will not keep faith. The origin of this national myth is wrapped in mystery. So far as I have been able to learn, none of those that believe in it have been able to adduce an instance wherein Japan has failed to keep with scrupulous exactitude whatsoever engagement she has made with any European power. In diplomacy she is believed to have no more faith in her than there is in a stewed prune; yet no case has been cited wherein her diplomats have proved superior liars to those of other nations; in fact it appears that in these recondite and useful arts they have still something to learn from Christian civilization. Japan is believed to have acquired with insatiable greed and by scandalous methods vast areas of land and demesnes not rightfully belonging to her; but assuredly the pious denunciations of her on this account come with ill grace from citizens of countries that annexed Burma, pilfered the Transvaal and carved up Africa. Her statesmen are believed to be sphinxes that sit dumb while they meditate deviltry, but no one has pointed out the fruitage of these vile plots. In any contest of maneuvering with the frank, outspoken statesmen of the Occident these exponents of Oriental guile are supposed to win facile triumphs, but no one has mentioned such an instance nor a case where the wily Oriental did not appear in a state of mere pupilage compared with the diplomats of the West. Still we are convinced that Japan has dark designs on the Philippines and that any denials from her government officers and leading men are but characteristic duplicity, put THE JAPANESE MENACE 333 forth to conceal eventual wickedness. I should be going far out of my way even to seem to be offering here any defense of Japan. Doubtless in the system of reciprocal rapine that we call modern society she has sins to answer for with the rest of us, including jingos as frenetic as our own. Also if there is any employment that time has shown to be particularly unsafe it is that of the prophet. In so wild a world anything may happen. For aught anyone knows Siam may arise in her might to crush the freed Filipino; or Mesopotamia, or San Marino. After the exhibition to mankind that Germany gave of national paresis, one may think of lunacy as infectious, migratory and epidemic. But unless it should seize upon Japan with the most extraordinary manifestations ever known, and all the Japanese go mad at once, an independent Philippines should have nothing to fear from this source. However far this may be from consistency with the devilish Japan we have pictured, it is perfectly consonant with the facts, as can easily be shown. In the first place, without excusing Japan's course toward Korea, Manchuria and China proper, the basic truth is that she is not driven forward by mere land-lust along the path of aggression but by something so different it gives to her policy an entirely altered aspect. According to the popular belief elsewhere, her overshadowing problem is an increasing population that she cannot feed. Every year sees an addition of about 700,000 to her numbers. Long ago all the tillable land in the country was brought under cultivation, some of it in ways to make all other agriculturists wonder. Those rice terraces on the barren hillsides, for instance, this intensive farming by which a hand's-breadth of land is made to yield a livelihood-who but the Japanese could work such magic! Yet, we say, all this counts for little because year after year come 700,000 new mouths to be filled, long ago all the land was strained to the limit of production, space must 334 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES be found on which to plant the multiplying Japanese feet. Hence the stern necessity to seize other people's countries, there being no more room at home. So runs the argument, founded on a fallacy. The truth is that there is in Japan plenty of room for the Japanese and under the present trend of development there will be for generations to come no lack of such room. It is not the need of land that drives Japan forward but the need of raw materials. Since 1900 Japan has been changing from an agricultural to an industrial nation, and in that great fact lies a world of difference. So long as she was distinctly an agricultural nation she was facing constriction and strangulation for lack of land. As an industrial nation she will hava land enough and to spare. Japan is, in fact, repeating the transformation that came upon Great Britain after 1846. If Great Britain had remained an agricultural country her people long ago would have crowded one another into the sea. She became a manufacturing country and by manufacturing sustains a population three times as great as her tilled area justifies. Japan has for the development of her manufacturing industries natural advantages so great that her rapid industrial growth is inevitable. She has atlarge population with a low standard of living, with sober, industrious habits, with great manual dexterity, with a custom of working long hours. Her workers are often fast as well as steady; Japanese shipyards, for example, have surpassed those of any other nation in rapidity of ship construction, having launched a 9000-ton steamer twenty-three days after the keel was laid.' In business the Japanese have good organizing ability, much imitative skill, abundant and adventurous capital, and a superb position for the distributing of products. In iron and steel, in cotton and woolen fabrics, in ship-building, in machinery, 1 The Japan Year Book, 1921, p. 387. THE JAPANESE MENACE 335 the progress of Japan since 1914 has been phenomenal. Judge from the figures if this is not so: JAPANESE COMPANIES ENGAGED IN MANUFACTURING YEAR NUMBER PAID-UP RESERVES CAPITAL 1914 5,266 $416,789,500 $55,488,000 1915 5,489 439,770,000 56,696,000 1916 6,942 528,554,000 98,958,000 1917 6,677 535,707,757 115,613,000 1918 8,221 848,855,000 165,898,000 JAPANESE FACTORIES YEAR NUMBER OPERATIVES 1914 17,062 853,964 1915 16,809 910,799 1916 19,299 1,095,301 1917 20,966 1,280,964 1918 23,391 1,409,196 From 1915 to the end of 1918 Japan added to her mercantile marine fleet 1,180,360 tons of shipping of which 1,042,463 tons were built in Japanese yards. At the end of 1913 Japan had six shipyards with a paid-up capital of $11,575,000 and 26,139 workers. By March, 1919, there were 57 shipyards with a paid-up capital of $53,276,000 and employing 97,355 workers.' The chief development has been in textiles, iron and steel, machinery, porcelain and pottery, pulp, glass, cement, soap, lacquer work, and ship-building. By March, 1920, there were 3,488,262 spindles in operation in the cotton-spinning industry. In eight months the number had increased by 153,178 and the rapid growth of the business had justified an extension program by the union of manufacturers comprising vast additions to spinning facilities. In glass-making the product was worth $3,500,000 in 1913, $13,680,000 in 1917, and $20,960,000 in 1918. The production of Japanese refined 1Ibid, pp. 370 et seq. 336 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES sugar more than doubled from 1915 to 1917; so did the production of canned goods from 1915 to 1918; so did the production of flour from 1914 to 1918. The exports of hosiery worth $750,000 in 1903 were worth $20,000,000 in 1918. From these statistics the conclusion is plain. Here before the world's eyes and day by day Japan is becoming an industrial country.' But to sustain these enterprises so rapidly and so prosperously growing, there must be abundant fuel and cheap raw materials. Japan has some coal and a small deposit of iron, but confronted with the size of her manufacturing projects her domestic coal supply is insufficient, her iron negligible. For all beyond these, and for all she needs of other materials and adjuncts, she must look abroad. Close at hand, adjoining her own borders, are regions that contain all these things or can easily produce them. Manchuria, for instance, abounds and overruns with such a wealth of natural resources as seems at first report hardly credible. In Northern and Central China are apparently inexhaustible supplies of iron that have not yet begun to be worked. Great undeveloped resources lie in Mongolia. Practically everything Japan needs in her manufacturing program, except possibly longstaple cotton, is to be had cheaply and easily in these countries close by her door. The inhabitants have generally failed to make use of their endowment, ready to their hand. Japan not merely demands these things but must have them; and it is this imperative and compelling necessity that drives her into China and not lust for territory or power, not the machinations of her statesmen, not even her own depraved and cherished ambitions. She has no choice. It is to go forward economically or die. For all the time, being now an industrial nation, competition treads upon her heels. If she cannot fulfil the demand for these Japan Year Book, 1921, Chaps. XX, XXVI, XXXII. i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i vha~~~gi.,iih hk phflibi~~~~~~~~ifi6 Hiiii~~~~q t & i -f i:e -:i-il la A HEM ' T IN DA VAO- i i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1 | ||1 1 d.| | R E i ji8!tFi io THE JAPANESE MENACE 337 things, other nations wrest the business from her grasp and she falls back upon imminent disaster. Some parts of China, Manchuria, Mongolia, therefore, she will penetrate to get what she needs. Very likely her methods will be open to much criticism and will liberally receive it. But she will probably not seek to annex politically any of these territories because she will have no need to annex them but only to have access to their resources. Men say that she plans to absorb China. These must be men unaccustomed to think. There are fifty-six million Japanese 1 and four hundred million Chinese, most of the Chinese imbued with a fierce hatred of everything Japanese. If, under such conditions, such a feat of swallowing could be achieved, the Japanese would be supermen indeed, for it would be the awe-inspired prodigy of all natural history. But that aside, it is clear on any examination of Japan's position that the impulse driving her is economic, always eco-. nomic. There is nothing in the Philippines that petrtains to her economic needs. The Philippines have some coal, but not enough to spare; some iron, some copper, some gold, but all in unattractive quantities. They raise no wool, they produce next to no cotton and none except the variety that grows on trees. They have nothing to say to Japan's imperative and compelling needs. We are to suppose then that she will pass by regions at her door, able to yield her easily what she wants, and traverse a thousand miles to seize upon regions able to supply her with nothing. To believe this we should have to be a nation of children or Japan a nation of lunatics. Furthermore, we have, in our frenzied moments, visions of Japan as a marvelous colonizer, sending out huge hordes of her population for whom she can find at home no foot-room, 1 In Japan proper. It is customary to speak of the population of the Japanese as 74,000,000; but these include 18,000,000 Koreans, who are not an element of strength but of weakness. 338 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES and with these overrunning the fairest parts of the earth, establishing her influence; smug, pretended colonists ready at a word to rise that they may betray and destroy their adopted country; now in South America, now in Mexico, now in California, British Columbia, the Philippines, the islands of the South Seas, Australia, New Zealand, conquering all before her. International affairs usually lack the comic element in human interest. It is richly supplied by this phantasm. The truth is that essentially the Japanese are some of the worst material on earth of which to make a colony. No other civilized people of my acquaintance have naturally so little of the instinct of the pioneer. He never cares to wander from his own fireside, the typical Japanese, although it be nothing but some charcoal in a brass pot. If one would but consider them, how many examples abound of this truth! Japan took over Formosa in 1894; thereafter consistently the government made every possible effort to induce Japanese to settle there. It was a country fertile, attractive, mild in climate; under Japanese rule, prosperous, orderly, safe. After twenty-six years of colonization schemes the total Japanese population of Formosa was a little more than 300,000. In Korea, which lies next door, the efforts to colonize have been, for certain potent reasons, most extraordinary. Free transportation, land almost free, easy advances of money, every advantage of fertile soil, familiar and agreeable climatic conditions, assured and easy profits, and from all this only the most meager results. Year by year a few hundred Japanese families have been induced to move to Korea, but the colonization scheme is a failure. The typical Japanese prefers the place where he was born; he would rather wring from a thin and bitter soil a thin subsistence and be in familiar scenes the while than get rich in Formosa or Korea, Japanese and fertile though these may be. True enough, as you say now, many Japanese have come to California, but their numbers have been much exaggerated THE JAPANESE MENACE 339 by our fears. In the entire state, having a population of 3,500,000, there were in January, 1921, about 75,000 Japanese. In all of North America, from the Isthmus of Panama to the North Pole, including Mexico, British Columbia, the far-famed Magdalena Bay and all the other regions they have been said to overrun, there were, with merchants, students and all, about 350,000 in a total population of 140,000,000. If, then, the Japanese are waiting in ambush to descend in waves upon the Philippines and make them Japanese, they must reverse the Japanese habit and attitude toward all other parts of the earth. Those that have refused to go to Korea and Formosa, near-by Japanese territories, will be mysteriously but irresistibly drawn to a country farther away, alien and much more tropical. This, too, in spite of the fact that the Japanese have never shown the least aptitude nor even tolerance for tropical climes. In a thousand places under or near the equator one may find the Chinese established, but I have never yet seen a Japanese immigrant in any such neighborhood. Let any tourist of the South Seas observe if this is not true and if it is not significant. Everywhere the merchant, dealer, tailor, comprador is a Chinaman; nowhere) is he a Japanese. Attempts have been made to lure the Japanese into tropical countries. Such attempts have always failed. He is a man for temperate zones. So he was born and so will he remain. What! Is not Japan at times one of the chilliest countries on earth and is not the Japanese of all men the most tenacious of his birthplace? What shall he do in the Philippines? From time to time the nation has been frightened with much false fire on this subject. Excited senators have been in the way of startling the galleries and the country with discoveries that the Japanese were' already "rushing" to the Philippines. Then calm investigation showed the " 4qo o IO aotooo 0 I o0000 i4 l00 '-0<. a la t-aaoio 14 _1 CO 0 i *" T(~0< < rl ri 4rl APPENDIX I. GROWTH OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 377 I I AbVEAGE I AVERGE AGE PERBCNTAGS tAll 1 No. r ANNUAL MONTHLY DAILY O SCHOOLS ENROLLMENT ENROLLMENT ATTENDANCE ATTENDANCE 1907' 8,623 479,978 846,246...... 86 1908 8,982 486,676 839,243 270,732 80 1909 4,424 570,602 405,478 321,415 79 1910 4,531 587,317 427,105 337,307 86 1911 4,404 610,493 446,889 355,722 80 1912 3,685 529,665 395,075 329,073 83 1913 2,934 440,050 329,756 287,995 87 1914 4,235 621,030 489,070 428,552 88 1915 4,187 610,519 493,763 441,742 89 1916~ 4,538 638,543 523,272 471,195 90 1917 4,702 675,998 567,625 514,263 91 1918 4,747 671,398 569,744 521,377 92 1919 4,962 681,588 569,744 501,989 88 1920 5,944 791,626 678,956 618,392 91 'The keeping of school statistics on the present plan was not begun until the next year, 1908, and for previous years is sometimes incomplete. bThe decline in school activities for this year is explained in the text, Chapter VIII. The chief cause was the failure of adequate appropriations. e The line after 1916 is drawn to mark the advent of Filipino control of the government II. SCHOOL EXPENDITURES YEAR AMOUNT IN PESOS 1912 6,742,886 1913 7,312,952 1913 (6 months) 2,792,873 1914 7,365,576 1915 7,513,275 1916 7,566,347 1917 9,222,321 1918 10,851,691 III. PERCENTAGE OF PROMOTIONS PERCENTAGE PEROENTAGE PERCEN NTAG YEAR PROMOTED DROPPED OUT TAILED 1914 34 27 9 1915 89 27 34 1916 43 24 33 1917 49 23 28 1918 52 24 24 1919 52 24 24 IV. VALUE OF COMMERCIAL WORK DONE IN TRADE SCHOOLS AND PROVINCIAL SCHOOL SHOPS, IN PESOS YEAR _VALUE. 1913 1914 I 143,878 158,654 378 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES YEAR VALUE 1915 122,838 1916 158,264 1917 212,970 1918 197,613 1919 805,380 V. FARMING SCHOOL STATISTICS NUMBER OF AREA CULTIVATED BY YEAR SCHOOLS STUDENTS (IN HECTARES)a 1915 59 391 1916 77 502 1917 124 671 1918 138 838 1919 189 1,136 1920 251 1,556 a A hectare is 2.471 acres. VI. AGRICULTURAL CLUBS IN THE SCHOOLS 1917 1918 Gardening 5,061 8,928 Hog Raising 1,633 1,260 Poultry Raising 4,271 4,286 Fruit Raising 2,383 1,667 Corn Growing 1,525 1,669 Cooking 120 365 VII. STATISTICS CONCERNING SCHOOL GARDENING YEAR NUMBER OF NUMBER OF HOME GARDENS SCHOOL GARDENS CONDUCTED BY PUPILS 1915...................... 3,280........................ 45,689 1916...................... 3,545........................ 48,932 1917...................... 3,960........................ 54,655 1918...................... 4,023........................ 103,668 1919..................... 4,385........................ 120,975 1920...................... 5,130...................... 160,032 YEAR 1915 1916 VIII. SCHOOL LIBRARIES NUMBER OF LIBRARIES NUMBER OF BOOKS........................ 329........................ 65,772........................ 751........................ 87,124 1917.................. 1,084........................ 129,130 1918........................ 1,730........................ 225,705. * 1919........................ 1,780........................ 295,798 NUMBER OF GRADUATES BY YEARS YEAR INTERMEDIATE GRADES SECONDARY GRADES 1915............. 19,629............. 5,709.............. 409 1916............. 23,071.............. 7,377............. 667 APPENDIX 379 YEAR INTERMEDIATE GRADES SECONDARY GRADES 1917............. 28,578.............. 8,893.............. 880 1918............. 33,217.............. 10,380.............. 1,077 1919............. 56,859.............. 11,304.............. 1,205 " ANNUAL PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE IN AVERAGE DAILY ATTENDANCE YEAR INTERMEDIATE GRADES SECONDARY GRADES 1912................ 19............... 22 1913................ 11............... 23 1914................ 22............... 30 1915................ 13............... 15 1916................ 19............... 23 1917................ 13............... 22 1918................ 18............... 28 1919................ 7............... 9 AGRICULTURE: CROP VALUES THE FOLLOWING TABLE SHOWS (IN PESOS) THE ESTIMATED VALUE OF THE SIX LEADING CROPS OF THE PHILIPPINES FOR ELEVEN YEARS BEGINNING WITH 1910, NO FIGURES BEING AVAILABLE FOR PREVIOUS YEARS YEAR VALUE, 6 LEADING CROPS 1910.................................... 137,005,956 1911.................................... 152,501,515 1912.................................... 148,347,499 1913.................................. 168,633,730 1914.................................... 163,496,249 1915.................................... 159,055,329 1916.................................... 179,241,378 1917.................................... 244,179,473 1918.................................... 361,940,449 1919................................. 458,698,576 1920.................................. 687,131,502 POSTAL SAVINGS BANK STATISTICS YEAR DEPOSITORS TOTAL DEPOSITS (PESOS) 1907............... 2,331............... 507,463 1908............... 5,389............... 1,931,994 1909............... 8,782............... 1.444,958 1910............... 13,102............... 1,679,246 1911............... 28,804............... 2,099,474 1912.............. 35,802............... 2,388,986 1913............... 39,909............... 2,480,482 1913 (six months)...... 42,221............... 2,822,132 1914.............48,876............... 3,168,015 1915............... 54,434............... 3,203,589 1916............... 60,755............... 3,712,401 1917............... 68,860............... 4,242,179 1918............... 78,124............... 4,928,152 1919............... 90,555................ 6,984,860 1920............... 107,229............. 6,654,434 380 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES OOMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF EXPORTS OF SUGAR FROM PHILIPPINE PORTS (F701 MANILA CHAMBER Or COXMa mRo REPORT FO0 YlEA ENDINGw D xEEMBE 81, 1918, AND REPORT OF THE INSULAR COLLEOTOR OF CUSTOMS NO0 YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 81, 1918 YEAR PIOULSa TONS 1898...................................... 1899............................... 9. 94,986,990 1900..................................... 1,030,687...... 72,148,090 1901..................................... 899,171...... 62,941.9.70 1902..................................... 1,558,838...... 109,118,660 1903.................. 1,348,742...... 94.411,940 1904..................................... 1,376,388...... 96,343,310 1905..................................... 1,715.395...... 120,077,650 1906..................................... 2,946,999...... 143,268,930 1907..................................... 2.022,406...... 141,568,420 1908..................................... 2,288,300...... 160,181.000 1909..................................... 2,044,710...... 143,129,700 1910..................................... 1,920,499..... 134,434,930 1911.................................... 3,305,010...... 231,350,700 1912..................................... 3,115,826...... 218,107,820 1913..................................... 2,487,489...... 174,124,230 1914................................... 3,739099..... 261,736,980 1915................... 3,336,171...... 233,531 970 1916..................................... 5335,810..... 373,506,700 1917..................................... 8,255,470...... 227,882,900 1918..................................... 4,320,291...... 02,420,370 A picul is equal to approximately 140 pounds, actually 139.47 pounds. CIGARS EXPORTED TO ALL COUNTRIES DURING THE YEARS 1899 TO 1919 Source: Philippine Year Book. YEAR QUANTITY VALUE THOUSANDS PESOS 1899...................................... 196,090...... 1,891,398 1900....................................... 172,659...... 2,316,834 1901....................................... 288,475...... 8,664,898 1902....................................... 117,852...... 1,977,036 1903....................................... 118,947...... 1,922,710 1904....................................... 104,753...... 2,011,790 1905....................................... 95,739...... 1,785,122 1906....................................... 108,635...... 2,008,014 1907....................................... 114.665...... 2,126,764 1908....................................... 115,881...... 2,118,656 1909................................. 15,457...... 8509,058 1910....................................... 184,407...... 6.519,322 1911....................................... 134830...... 8,803,726 1912...................................... 190,842...... 6,184,128 1918....................................... 191,762...... 6,024,468 1914..................................... 154753...... 4630,318 1915....................................... 134,648...... 4,114,605 1916............................ 193026.........1 5,688,751 1917...................... 284.525...... 9,588,192 1918..............3......... 860.144...... 14,252,637 1919....................................... 892.889...... 18,157,707 EXPORTS OF COCONUT OIL, 1900-1919 (Source: Bureau of Oustoms) TEARS BNDED QUANTITY VALUE DEOBMBS 31 — KILOS PESOS 1900o................................... 140..... 210 1901................................... 246...... 40 1902.,4.............................. 8,040 692 APPENDIX 381 YEABS UNDID QVANTITY VALUE DECEMBEB 31- KILOS PESOS 1903................................ 961...... 162 1904.................................... 34...... 10 1905................................. 10,323 1,798 1906................................... 653,683...... 132,572 1907.................................... 819,625...... 203,530 1908.2,852,110...... 684,560 1909.......................................................... 1910.................................... 63 32 1911.......................................................... 1912.660...... 80 1913.................................... 5,010,429.. 2,292,678 1914.................................... 11,943,329...... 5,238,366 1915.....................13.464,169...... 5,641,003 1916..................................... 16091169...... 7,851.469 1917............................ 45,198,415...... 22,818,294 1918.115,280,847...... 63,328.317 1919................................... 139,942,612...... 73,719,504 * July to December, 1900 only. TIMBER CUT AND INVOICED IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS (Source: Philippine Year Book) YEAR 1911....................................... 182,945 1912....................................... 225,548 1913....................................... 277,171 1914........................................ 294,758 1915....................................... 276,268 1916....................................... 841.442 1917....................... 366,891 1918....................................... 382,060 GROWTH OF THE EMBROIDERY INDUSTRY OF THE PHILIPPINES YEAR VALUE OF EXPORTS PESOS 1913.................................... 176,169 1914............................... 324,912 1915..................................... 735,303 1916.................................... 2,328,024 1917..................................... 3,929,8318 1918............................ 4,319501 1919................... 6,9138,004 ACT (C) COST OF THE PHILIPPINES TO THE UNITED STATES (SOURCE: BUREAU OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY) An investigation into the expenses incurred by the United States for the Philippine Islands, exclusive of the maintenance of her army and navy, elicited the following facts: 1. That the Philippines has always been a self-supporting 382 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES country; all expenditures have been drawn from ordinary revenues. 2. That the sum of $267,663.26 pertaining to the former government of Spain and seized by the United States, and therefore legally pertaining to the latter country, was subsequently turned over into the general fund of the insular government. 3. That the Congress of the United States appropriated the sum of $3,000,000, known as the "Congressional Relief Fund;" for the purchase, distribution and sale of farm implements, farm or draft animals, supplies and necessaries of life, extermination of pests, relief for sufferers due to fire and other calamities, etc. This amount has been, at different times, appropriated by the Philippine Commission for the purposes above mentioned. There is, however, no itemized report covering the expenditures from this fund. Aside, therefore, from the Spanish seized funds, the only amount expended by the United States directly for the benefit of the Philippine Islands was the Congressional Relief Fund. The Philippine government having always had, at the end of every year, an excess of ordinary revenue over ordinary expenditure, the United States could not have any other occasion to give direct pecuniary aid for the maintenance of the Islands. (D) ATTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE ON INDEPENDENCE. (Translation) Philippine Legislature House of Representatives Manila, Feb. 15, 1921. My dear Mr. Russell: I should be very glad if you could make a visit to the Mountain Province and see for yourself the degree of prog APPENDIX 383 ress made by that region due to the combined efforts of the government and other educational agencies, the latter including the beneficent work of the religious missions. I wish you could go to the remotest settlements and see the schools, assiduously attended by the Igorote children, where instruction is given in English, that you may appreciate the force that is working to bring about the unity of our brethren in the Mountain Province. With reference to the progress made by the inhabitants of that province during the administration of Governor-General Harrison, I will frankly state to you my opinion. Prior to the initiation of the liberal policy of Filipinization by Governor Harrison, there existed some ill-feeling between the Non-Christians of the Mountain Province and the Christians. This feeling was, in my opinion, partly the result of a successful policy intended to bring about a division between the people of the lowlands and those of the highlands. The Igorotes, Ifugaos and other Non-Christian elements were made to believe that they were an entirely distinct people from the Filipino Christians in general. Certainly, as regards religious beliefs, superstitions, and other primitive customs, the inhabitants of the Mountain Province constitute, in fact, a people distinct and separate from the Filipinos of the lowlands. This difference in customs, superstitions, and beliefs has been strengthened by the difficulty of communication formerly existing not only between the inhabitants of the highlands, but also between those inhabiting the same region, thus increasing the prejudices between the Christians and the Non-Christians and between the inhabitants of a settlement and those of another settlement. If to these natural difficulties are added the efforts made until a recent date by some administrators of the old colonial type to separate and divide the inhabitants of the mountains from those of the lowlands, you will easily appreciate the degree of relative advancement achieved by my brethren in the Moun 384 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES tain Province, as compared with that by the inhabitants of the Christian provinces. This is the real fact as I understand it, and in my opinion the most positive result of the policy of Filipinization, carried out unsparingly by the present administration, consists in this indisputable, actual fact: that the altruistic and civilizing purposes which brought America to these Islands are being carried out at present in the Non-Christian regions by our own brethren, mostly Filipino Christians, without impairing the national unity and community of interests. I do not mean by this that the policy of Filipinization in the Mountain Province has not had its shortcomings and difficulties, but that in general its results have been entirely satisfactory and have moreover disproved the old belief that thq Non-Christians hate their Christian brethren. When you tour the Mountain Province, you will see the educational progress made and the work of the religious missions and how a provincial government intrusted to Filipinos, with the cooperation of a few Americans, is continuing the civilizing and evangelical work, an eminently Christian one, in these distant places. You will see that means of communication are being maintained in order that the tide of civilization from the lowlands, as well as the intercourse between one settlement and another, may not be checked, and that the identity of interests may be strengthened every day; and you will further see the hospitals and free dispensaries which are considered as other civilizing factors; and will appreciate how the Christian elements have increased in number in the Mountain Province, having been attracted by the growing trade, thus making the contact between the people of the lowlands and the mountains more frequent; and you will also see how the general physical appearance of the NonChristians of the Mountain Province reveals the identity of their origin with that of the inhabitants of the lowlands. In APPENDIX 385 Quiangan, Banaue, Sapao, and other places, you will see the advancement made along industrial lines and the magnificent terraces, the remains of an old civilization which are but awaiting the beneficent influence of modern progress to develop them to meet new needs and conditions. You ask me, lastly, whether the inhabitants of my province are desirous of independence. If you consider me as one of the representative men of my province, I will answer on behalf of my people, stating emphatically that we want independence, not for purely sentimental motives, but because it is our belief that whatever may be the fate of our country, we people of the Mountain Province will always constitute a unit with those of the other parts of the Philippines. In my capacity as representative to the Legislature I have come into frequent contact with representatives from other NonChristian provinces and have formed the idea of a great, united, and strong country with common ideals, because the small country where I spent my boyhood, isolated from other regions, can do but little for the progress and advancement of my people without the support and cooperation of all the other provinces of the Philippine Islands. This is a practical lesson I have learned from my contact for a number of years with the other representatives in the Philippine Legislature and which I am endeavoring to inculcate into the minds of my people. A small ship cannot withstand a tempest as a big ship does. For this reason, we of the Mountain Province want to unite our fate with that of the inhabitants of the lowlands. Thanking you sincerely for the opportunity you have given me to express my sentiments and ideas, I beg to remain, Sincerely yours, RAFAEL BULAYUNGAN. [Representative from the Mountain Province] 386 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Senado De Filipinas Manila, March 2, 1921. Sir: Replying to your letter of February 16, I beg to state that almost all the Non-Christian inhabitants of Mindanao-Sulu, whom I represent, favor the independence of the Philippines. This statement answers the third and fourth paragraph of your letter. Hoping for an opportunity to be of some service to you, 1 remain, Very respectfully, TEOPISTO GUINGONA. [Senator, Twelfth Senatorial District] (Translation) Manila, P. I., March 10, 1921. Dear Sir: I received your favor of February 16 ultimo, requesting my opinion, as representative of the Mountain Province, with regard to the attitude and sentiments of the inhabitants of my district on the subject of independence. You put two questions, namely: First-Whether the inhabitants of the province represented by me favor independence? Second-If the question of independence or the continuance of the present state of affairs were to be submitted to the people of that province, what percentage would, in my opinion, vote in favor of independence? To be frank and sincere, I wish to state that I cannot reply to these two questions in a precise manner, for the following reasons, which your sense of justice will surely understand: The Mountain Province is at present under a special regime, and for this reason the question of independence or the continuance of the present status has not yet been submitted to its inhabitants. This places me in a state of in APPENDIX 387 certitude with regard to the matter at issue. I feel I should not say the truth if I were to dare to state an opinion which would be but a mere conjecture, concerning the percentage of inhabitants of the Mountain Province who would vote in favor of independence if this question were submitted to them for a vote. Another reason is that I am not a representative elected by the people, which is the only democratic means of ascertaining in a direct manner the will of the inhabitants of a province, but have been appointed to office, and my opinion on these subjects is therefore based simply on the resolutions of the Provincial Board and other partly representative bodies of my district. On this basis-the sense publicly expressed on repeated occasions by the provincial board of the Mountain Province and other local organizations of said province-I can affirm, without bias or scruples of conscience: That the Mountain Province desires to cast its lot with the inhabitants of the overwhelming majority of the provinces of the Philippine Archipelago, and that it greatly desires independence. This is all that I can honestly and plainly tell you in reply to your two questions. Yours very respectfully, PEDRO AUNARIO. [Representative for the Mountain Province] Philippine Legislature House of Representatives Manila, March 14, 1921. My dear Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 16th inst., and the following is my reply: I am glad of the opportunity to express with sincerity the opinion of the inhabitants of this province as it regards our national independence. As for me, the case at issue is of 388 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES general interest, and it constitutes in itself one of the most vital questions for the Filipino people. As a native of this region and as its genuine representative in the hall of our Legislature, I can say with all assurance that this part of the Archipelago unconditionally favors the independence of the Philippines. Not only now but it has always been the constant opinion of all the inhabitants of this province, Christians as well as Non-Christians; so for the first question you made in your letter I have to answer that all, absolutely all, are desirous ever since that we should be independent. Referring to your second inquiry if the question of independence or of the continuation of the present situation were submitted to the vote of the people of the Province of Davao, how large a percentage will vote for independence, I answer emphatically and positively that 100 per cent. of the voters will cast their votes for immediate independence. In speaking of all this, I am not only speaking for myself, but I base my statements mainly from. my personal knowledge of all the inhabitants of this province with whom I have been treating in many and repeated occasions this question of immediate independence of the Philippine Islands. Very sincerely, TEODORA PALMA GIL. [Representative for Mindanao and Sulu] Zamboanga, P. I., March 9, 1921. Respectfully returned to Mr. Charles Edward Russell through the Honorable the President of the Philippine Senate. 1. If the mental attitude of the Non-Christian peoples inhabiting the Province of Zamboanga regarding the Philippine question is to be analyzed in the light of the elections held in this province in year 1919 for the office of municipal president, the irresistible conclusion is, and should be, that they APPENDIX 389 favor and desire independence from the United States. As above stated, in the year 1919 general elections were held in the municipalities of Zamboanga, Isabela, Dapitan, Dipolog and Lubungan (which compose the entire province of Zamboanga) to elect president and councilors. The men elected were all in favor of independence as evidenced by their speeches during the campaign. A considerable number of Mohammedans and Non-Christian people, who are qualified electors, took part in said elections and it is to be assumed that they voted for such candidates. 2. There is no doubt that fully 100 per cent. of the qualified votors would vote for independence. PABLO LORENZO. [Representative, Department of Mindanao Sulu] Manila, February 21, 1921. Dear Sir: In reply to your kind letter of the 17th inst. I take pleasure in answering your three questions in behalf of the Newspaper El Ideal and on behalf of myself:1. The whole Filipino people is desirous of its independence; 2. That this be immediately given; and 3. That in my belief everybody will favor and vote for it. Truly yours, JUSTo LUKBAN, [Editor of "El Ideal" and "Ag Mithi"] (Translation) Philippine Legislature House of Representatives Manila, June 18, 1921. Dear Mr. Russell: As regards the first question you asked me, to wit: "Do the inhabitants of your region favor the independence of the 390 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES Philippine Islands from the United States?" my belief and conviction are: that in this region the general feeling is in favor of the independence of the country, whether with or without United States protectorate. The inhabitants of this section, the same as those of the lowlands, have always desired independence for their country, as shown by the fact that they also took an active part in the struggle for independence during the Spanish regime and in the first years of the American rule. The people of this region believe that they will live more happily if the Philippines are independent than now that they are dependent. This does not mean to say that we are dissatisfied with the present relations of the Philippine Islands with the magnanimous United States. We must, and I hereby do, confess that thanks to the aid of the United States we are now in a position to appreciate the benefits of a democratic government. But while we are happy under the American administration, we should be still happier if we had our independence and liberty. As to the second question, I am of the opinion that if the matter were put to a popular vote, the proportion of inhabitants who would vote for independence would be at least 60 per cent. It might be more, but I do not venture to affirm it, as I know that many, perhaps the majority, of the inhabitants of voting age are illiterate.: With the greatest consideration I am, Your obedient servant, JUAN CARINO. [Representative Mountain Province] Dansalan, Lanao, P. I., May 7, 1921. Dear Sir: Your letter of February 16, 1921, has been received and I certainly regret not having been able to make a reply at once due to illness. APPENDIX 391 The question as to whether the people of my province favor independence from the United States may be answered thus: The Province of Lanao according to the census of 1918, had a population of 91,442 and of this population there are more than six thousand Christian Filipinos all of whom are in favor of independence from the United States. On the other hand there are approximately 85,000 Non-Christian Filipinos (Mohammedans) who, but with very isolated exceptions, do not know what is meant by the word independence; therefore, on their part the answer is neither negative nor affirmative. Independence has never been discussed among them nor reference to it been made by either the former American Governors or the present Filipino Governor in their dealings with the people. Although it may be out of the subject, yet you may find it of some interest to know that since the inauguration of civil government in Mindanao the people of my province have become very prosperous and progressive, and have learned that they are of the same race as the Christian Filipinos and are all governed by the same laws, differing only in religion, customs and dialects; they realize the aid their Christian brothers are extending to them in providing funds for the construction of roads and trails; the construction of school-houses and the educational work that they are doing among them and the splendid work that the present Filipino government is doing along hygiene and sanitation works. Hoping that what I have stated hereto will partially answer the question propounded by you, I am, Very respectfully, DATU TAMPUGAW. [Representative of Lanao] 392 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES (Translation) Davao, P. I., April 20, 1921. Dear Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your favor of February 17, 1921, and to give the following answers to the questions contained therein: 1. Are the people of your community interested in the question of Philippine independence, and generally speaking what is their attitude toward it? Answer. All the people of Davao are interested in Philippine independence and anxiously desire it. 2. If they favor it, are they generally in favor of immediate independence? Answer. Yes. 3. If the question of independence were submitted to a vote of the people in your neighborhood, what percentage, in your judgment, would vote in favor of it? Answer. One hundred per cent. These replies I make sincerely and in accordance with my knowledge of the real feeling of the people of this province. God grant that your efforts in favor of the most sacred ideals of the country be productive of the best results for the benefit of both the United States and the Philippines. With my personal gratitude, and wishing you the best success, I remain as ever, Very sincerely yours, CELESTINO CHAVES. [Editor "El Eco de Davao"] Jolo, Sulu, P. I. February 26, 1921. Dear Sir: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of February 16, 1921, and desire to express my appreciation of the interest you have taken in the people of this part of the Philippines. APPENJDIX 393 In reply to the questions in your letter I have to say that it is father difficult to give you a direct answer. The Moros are intelligent, hospitable, susceptible and amenable to good government, but they are illiterate and unversed in the matters of modern government, consequently they have no conception or very little idea of what the term independence means. Undoubtedly the Moros would go on in much the same way under an independent Philippine government as they have under the present form of government; provided that the reins of government are in the hands of officials who would treat them well and administer local affairs in a beneficent manner. In short, the Moros or Mohammedans are an intelligent people, tractable, susceptible, and their sentiments and opinions depend upon whether the government is beneficent and well administered. Hoping that you may have the opportunity to visit this part of the world and have first-hand information that will bear out my opinions in these matters, I remain, Yours very truly, JULIUS SCHUCK. Lingayen, Pangasinan, March 10, 1921. Lingayen, Pangasinan, March 10, 1921. My dear Sir: I feel greatly honored by your letter of Feb. 17 asking me to state the attitude of the people of Pangasinan with regard to the complete withdrawal of the sovereignty of the United 'States from the Philippines, and in reply to same I take great pleasure in stating the following: 1. The people of Pangasinan are very much interested in the question of the Philippine independence and they desire, first of all, an independence with some sort of protection on the part of the United States against foreign aggression. 394 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES 2. All thinking Filipinos are in favor of Philippine independence, provided the United States should extend over these islands some sort of protection against foreign aggression once independence is granted. The current history of China, Korea, and Formosa dampens to a great degree the enthusiasm of those who favor immediate independence without any assurance on the part of the United States of an effective 'protection against the unlimited ambition and greed of. a land-grabbing neighbor. The recent slaughter of thousands of peaceful Koreans for no other motive than the desire of the conquerors to suppress the legitimate aspirations of a liberty-loving people serves as an alarming indication of what might come to the people of these Islands should they ever be so unfortunate as to come under the tender mercy of a nation whose whole history is absolutely barren of any act of national altruism and makes them doubt the sincerity of repeated manifestations of friendship uttered by Japanese politicians. In the light of what the United States has been doing for the prosperity and progress of the Filipinos, we cannot be led to believe that it is the intention and purpose of the United States to cut adrift these islands without providing adequate measures for the preservation of our independence, once granted. The conduct of the United States in the war with Spain and in the World War inspired the Filipinos to have faith in what the United States will do in case the Philippines is attacked by a foreign enemy. However, if the United States, in spite of the desire of the Filipino people for adequate protection for the preservation of their independence, sees fit, for reasons of her own, to grant Filipino independence without any sort of guarantee, the Filipino people will accept it gladly. 3. If Philippine independence with a proper guarantee is put to a vote, the result will be unanimous, but without such 5 APPENDIX 395 a guarantee, although a majority will favor it, a great portion of the educated Filipinos will vote against it. Very respectfully, SERVILLANO DE LA CRUZ. [Director "Heraldo Pangasinan"] EXTRACTS FROM THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE LABOR FEDERATION OF MINDANAO, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, IN GRAND SESSION ASSEMBLED, ADOPTING A MEMORIAL TO THE WOODFORBES COMMISSION, ASKING THAT IMMEDIATE INDEPENDENCE BE GRANTED THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. Whereas, the Wood-Forbes Commission has been sent by the United States to investigate the Islands and to ask directly the common people of the Philippines as to whether or not they want independence: Now, therefore, Be it.resolved by the Labor Federation of Mindanao, in a grand session assembled in Davao; That the following Memorial be and the same hereby is, adopted, and a copy forwarded to said Wood-Forbes Commission, to wit: GREETING: We, in the name of the Labor Federation of Mindanao and of the common people as a whole, approach the Honorable Mission to respectfully request a most favorable recommendation with regard to the granting of the Philippine independence in whatever form at the earliest possible time; and we, of those laboring masses that constitute the majority of the population of the Filipino people, the 99 per cent. of the inhabitants, not only in the Islands but also in all and every one of the nations of the world, hope with the most sincere faith that the Wood-Forbes Commission will be our true advocate to defend the Philippine national cause and to touch every American heart with the eloquence of solid facts which 396 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES show that the Filipinos have a stable government and are strong enough to defend and govern themselves. The common people of the Philippines, who from time immemorial conceived the idea of patriotism with hearts resolved for liberty or death, implore the benevolent Americans to concede our national right to be free which will be an infinite blessing to our motherland Filipinas. That the common people, the workers, the Taos l approaching you now with respect and confidence, are the people that in times of peace as well as of war supply the national needs of production and defense, proves that we have a right to petition for that liberty that is so perfectly in accordance with the American doctrine of democracy, with which it is changing the world.... The world knows and we know that the Special Mission headed by General Leonard Wood and William Cameron Forbes, able and distinguished public servants, was sent by President Harding to ascertain directly from the people, of whom the laboring masses are the great majority, whether they do or do not desire the independence of these Islands. Therefore, we, through our representatives of the Federation Obrera [Labor Federation] of Mindanao, and in the name of all the laborers residing in this capital, offer with the utmost sincerity and solemnity, with faith in God and in the justice of our cause, the following petition: The laboring masses of the Philippines, who in former years fought on the battle-fields and suffered in many perilous fights for the cause of liberty, who swore to defend conscientiously and resolutely the individuality of this nation and its historic right to nationality, who preferred to live in hardship that they might offer all their possessions on the shrine of patriotic devotion, who struggled on led by the ideal of liberty, who sprinkled with their blood the fields and T 1aosilaborers, producers. APPENDIX 397 valleys of this land that we adore, now remind this Special Mission of the unceasing desire of the Philippine people to obtain their independence. If in other years we, the laborers, were willing to fight to the end for such objects, with how much stronger faith and loftier reasons may we now request the boon we sought and which by natural right is ours, the independence of our Motherland. In its intervention on behalf of the struggling people of these Philippine Islands against the power of Spain the aims of the United States were benevolent, for it is an incontrovertible fact that elsewhere the Americans made a disinterested liberation of people that had been subjugated by Spain. For the highest reasons of humanity and justice the United States has extended its protection over another country that sought its freedom. The American flag could not stand for emancipation in Cuba and at the same time for forcible subjugation in the Philippines. And we beg leave to remind Americans, also, that our position is based not on considerations of a sentimental character but on the justice of our cause as derived from "the law of God and nature" and sustained by the moral force of the promises solemnly made by the United States and accepted by the people of the Philippine Islands. In the recent war these people gave their adhesion and aid to the cause of America, recognizing that cause to be based on the principles of justice and self-government, of the liberty and security of small nations, as proclaimed by the government of the United States. These fundamental features of the policy of America have appealed to the hearts and brightened the hope of the Filipino people. America will add another glory to her banner by establishing the first really democratic republic in the East and will apply a second time, generously and freely, the measure of humanity and justice that she applied in the case of Cuba. And in so do 398 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES ing she will logically vindicate and uphold the immortal principles of the Declaration of Independence of 1776. Since the common people have been led to believe, as they had good reason to believe, that the purposes of America were not of domination or self-aggrandizement, but altruism, humanity and liberty, and since we have full and abiding faith in the terms of the promises made by the United States, the fulfilment of which is now due, we, in the name of justice, ask now our independence, in whatsoever form. In view of the foregoing, Honorable Commissioners, we respectfully beg you to be faithful interpreters of the sentiments of the Filipino people, and especially of the laboring classes, and we ask you to forward copies of this Memorial to President Harding, to both Houses of Congress, and particularly to make it known to the American People, so that they will do justice to the cause in which we are enlisted. Adopted August 6, 1921. The Executive Committee, Labor Federation of Mindano. S. F. GENEROSO. President. ATTESTED: GREGORIO TORRES, Secretary. (E) GENERAL SCOTT AND THE MOROS. A former soldier in the United States army, who was in General Wood's command when he was operating in Sulu, has furnished me with this account of the incident at the crater: One of the principal Moro chiefs in the eastern part of Sulu had rounded up all his people, who gathered their movable property, abandoned their homes, and took possession of an old crater at the top of a high mountain. They fortified the crater and all the ascents leading to it APPENDIX 399 and made it a robbers' roost, descending upon the people of the plains and robbing them indiscriminately, Moros or others. Of course this could not go on, so neutral Moros were sent to talk with them and try to argue them into returning to their homes and leaving the peaceful people alone. These efforts accomplished nothing and General Wood started with 1200 troops to force a surrender. Just then Commander Irwin, United States Navy, came to Jolo looking for Russian or Japanese fleets. It was in the summer of 1904 and his errand was to warn belligerents that they must not fight in the Sulu Sea. He heard about the bandits in the crater and sent three destroyers to see if they could be of any help. He was asked to bring his destroyers around on the Celebees side to a position from which they could drop shells straight through a cleft into the Moro stronghold. So he put the destroyers into the required position and everything was ready for an attack. Scott was with Wood, riding at the head of the army, when he saw an old Moro who was evidently too decrepit to have been taken along with the rest. Scott told General Wood that he wished to have that old Moro accompany the expedition. "What the devil do you want with that poor old wreck?" said Wood. "I need him in my business, " said Scott. "All right," said General Wood, "put him on a horse, then, and bring him along." When we reached the, foot of the mountain we were deployed and made ready for the attack. Scott asked General Wood to let him try an experiment with the old man before an assault should be ordered. We were halted and the old man was sent up the mountain to talk with the Moro chief and try to get him to come down for a conference. All the way up his path was among stone breastworks and entanglements, for the Moros had fortified the entire mountain side and it would be a tough job for troops to get through to the top. We watched 400 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES the bow legged old man weaving his way in and out of these clear to the top, where he seemed no larger than a fly. Then he disappeared. After what seemed a long wait he came out of the trees at the top and worked his way down to where we waited. He brought the reply that the chief refused to parley. Scott told him to go back and make a second attempt and tell him that if he was afraid to come down, Scott would go up there unarmed and with only an interpreter and talk with him on his own ground. To this, after another long wait, the chief returned word that he would neither come down nor allow Scott to go up. The tropical sun was very hot, there was no water and we were growing very impatient with all this diplomacy. So far as we could see there was nothing to do but get those Moros and the sooner we were started at the job the better. Scott took the interpreter and went away out of sight, so we knew there was something else in the wind, and soon we saw old Billy Bow Legs going up the mountain again. It was here that Scott displayed and used his perfect knowledge of the Moro character. He had sent a message full of ridicule and insult, jeering at the chief for a coward because he was afraid to come out of his breastworks. This time the old man came back in a hurry and the chief was right along with him. Scott and he sat down in the shadow of a rock and talked, I should think two hours, and Scott brought him around so that he agreed to surrender his fort, dismiss all his people and turn over all their arms. He kept his word. A signal officer was sent up to the top with a company of infantry that took over, the fort, and the officer signalled to the destroyers waiting down below in the bay, "The War is over." (F) PHILIPPINE NATIONAL HYMN Land of the morning, Child of the sun returning, THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PHILIPPINES 401 With fervor burning Thee do our souls adore. Land dear and holy, Cradle of noble heroes, Ne'er shall invaders Trample thy sacred shore. Ever within thy skies and through the clouds And o'er thy hills and sea Do we behold the radiance, feel the throb Of glorious liberty. Thy banner floats above us here, Its sun and stars alight, Oh, never shall its shining field Be dimmed by tyrant's might. Beautiful land of love, 0 land of light, In thine embrace 'tis rapture to lie; But it is glory ever when thou art wronged For us, thy sons, to suffer and die. Translated by Lane and Osias. INDEX Agno river the, perilous crossing of by Thomas "Crusaders," 227 -228. Agriculture: deplorable condition of Philippine farming, 185-198; case of Adriano Baetiong, 185 -187; pacto de retro, 188; average size of Philippine farm, 188; troubles of the rice planter, 189 -190; Bureau of Agriculture, its activities, 191, 198, 204, 295; lack of man power everywhere, 192; the farmer at the mercy of the money lender, 193; farcical usury law unable to check extortion, 194; exactions of the lenders, 195-198; rural credit system of the Philippines, 199 -202; postal savings bank system in relation to farm credits, 202-204; departmental farm colonies, 206; statistics of Philippine farm production, 206, and Appendix B; coconut plantations, 209, 213, 214; crop values, statistics of, Appendix B. Agricultural School, Central Luzon, Mufioz: account of, 251-264; difficulties of establishing, 252; plan of operations, 252; course of instruction, 253, 259-260; a students' republic, 253-2565; conduct of students, 255; school motto, 256; student industries and their results, 258; self-sustaining institution, 258; student bank and banking, 261; the Student Farmer, 262; influence of the school, 263; reasons for its success, 264. Aguinaldo, Emilio, Filipino revolutionary leader and first president of the Philippine Republic: developed by Revolution of 1896, and made commander in chief of armies of Republic, 19; signs treaty of Biacnabato, 68; his interpretation thereof, 69; leaves Hong Kong for Saigon, invited to go to Singapore to meet United States ConsulGeneral Pratt, April, 1898, 71; Dewey's message referring to him, 72; Dewey brings him to Manila, 72; report of his meeting with Pratt, 73 and Appendix A; in daily conference with Dewey, 75; astonishing success as commander of Philippine revolutionary forces, 75 -77; wins key to Manila, 77; his able planning, 78; protests against order of General Otis to withdraw his troops, 92; tries to stop fighting between his troops and Americans, 93; establishes his headquarters at Malolos, 94; captured by Americans, 96. Ajalani, officer, murder of on Island of Pata, 271-275. Ali Mahmud and the governor, story of, 58-60. Alphabets, early Filipino, before Spanish era, 28-29. American pioneers in Philippines, 347-348; why opposed to Philippine independence, 348. Ancient civilization, how spread in the Pacific, 3. Anderson, Major General T. M., testimony as to extinction of Spain's power in Philippines by Filipino army, 88. Anglipayans, religious sect, foun[03 404 INDEX dation and present strength of, Bohol: Revolt, in, 1622, 9; second 64. revolt and independence of, Ango., early Filipino folk lore 1,744, 12; temporary subjugastory of, 35-38. $tion of, 1827, 14. "Asiatic Inferiority,' basis of Boaifacio, Andrds, Filipino revoluEuropean ruleI in East, 340- tionary leader: birth and edu350. cation, 100; founds the KatiAssessed valuation of real estate punan and opposes Rizal's in Philippines, Appendix B, pacificisn,. 101; his moral code Athletics in Phili ppines:. fondness or decalogue, 102; escap to Of natives fr 298; success C~loocan and death, 103. with, 298, 299; PhilippIne ath- Bra~y, Howard W., relations with letes in the Far Eastern Olyrn- Agutialdo* and Consul.{lsneral pies 307; comparative records, Pratt, 71, 73, and Appendix A. Fiipino, and other athletes, 309;- Tid-rdt, combatted by Bureau of the Filipinto decathlon mian, 302, Agriculture., 205. $094310; -value and results of, Burgot., Father, put to death with upon geneiral health', 313-315; Fathers Gmenie and Zamora, 16. systems of, In use in the BDUstamante, Governor, killed in schools, 314-315. revolt at Manila, 1719,, 12. Baker, Newton D., formerly Scretary of War, quoted on Jo-Aes Act, footnote, 125; reply to Philippine Mission of Independence, 328. Beaking, statisticsI of, Appendix B. Barrett, John, testimony as to complete organization of the Philippie Republic, (footnote) 90. Barrown, Dr. Dhxvld P., estimate of Filipin hreter, 5 1. Base ball: national game of ]Philippines, 297; qualIty of the playihg 301, 303; games dosear ibed, 301-303; attitude of the spectators, 3034305; "indtor bam ball," played by girls, 308-309, 3123; the "iat Tots, 307-308; interest of women, In 1mss ball, 302; base ball in the schools,, 312., Beyer,- Professor H1. Otley: views; on Malay origin, (footnote) 4; discovery of antient Filipinor epie poem, 28; views, on early 1bilipino mythology, 34;~ on ancient Malay' musie, 2'.1 Biexxabsdcx Tra of0, 68s. Carnival, Manila: desoription of, 48-49; crowds at, 49; athle'tic' records at, 310. Civil Service under native selfgovernment, 156-150. Cock-fighting: described, 29&296; eftorts, of government to "uPpress, 29T, Commerce, Bureau of, activities, 176; Statistics of, Appendix B. Copra, importance of to th., word, 209-211; an ancint, oil mtill, 208; a modern oil. mill, 215 -218; labor conditions ta this industr~y, 215-219; development and present state of Wprm trade, Corporatons,# organised by Eulpixas" 170. Coot Of Philippinesf to the Llnlted Sttes A Ppedix C. Coftncl of -state, origin and functions, 1,37. Couarts, Philippine, a.s rvie under Jones act, 136-I3t, Cruz, Juan do la, Filipino revolutionary leader in southern LUson, 1840, 15. Currency, statistic of,, Appftdix X. INDEX "Islaration of Purposes," by Philippine Legislature, 326 -328. Dewey, Admiral George: warned at Hong Kong of impending war with Spain, 71; ordered out of Hong Kong, 72; message to Ag.inaldo, 72; estimate of Filipinos, (footnote) 74. Education: Philippine school enrollment and number of teachers in 1921, 26; Chaplain McKinnon starts first American schools, 220-221; his success, 223; Philippine education under the Spanish regime, 221-223; Spanish curriculum, 222-223; 'school expenditures under Spanish regime, 223; natives largely self:taught, 224; pay of teachers in the Spanish system, 224; 1 secondary instruction under Spaniards, 224-225; University ] of Santo Tomas, 224; first American appropriation for educa- - tion, 226; lack of teachers, 225; famous expedition on the Thomas, 226; hardships, courage and devotion of first American teachers, 227; crossing the Agno, 227-228; fatal adventure of four teachers on island of Cebu, 229-231; services of teachers in cholera epidemic, 231!232; attitude of people toward education, 233, 237 -238; rapid development of the schools, 234; invasion of Mohammedan territory, 234; growth of attendance, 235; criticisms by American colony, 236;' ability and success of native teachers, 230; "voluntary contributions," 237; statistics of school growth, 239 and Appendix B; industrial education, 240, 241, 242, 254; liberal appropriation for, by arst Philippine Legislature, 241; chool gardens, 241-242; school of Arts and Trades, 242; school of H wusehold Industrfi, 243; 405 University of the Philippines, 243-244; Philippine Library and Museum, 244; National Bureau of Science, 245; estimated school enrollment, 245; course of instruction, 246-247; efficiency of the schools, 247, 249; statistics concerning teachers, 248; relative strength of Spanish and American languages in islands, 249-250; Mohammedan enrollment in schools in 1918, and 1919, 283; general success of educational movement among Mohammedans, 283-285; typical performance of Filipino school students, 285-286; school calisthenics described, 299-301; athletics in the public schools, 312; detailed statistics of education, Appendix B. Elections in the Philippines, described, 287-289. Electoral system, described, 292 -293. Embroideries: present state of trade in, 179; statistics concerning, Appendix B. Fairchild, George H., comments on Philippine sugar production, 181. Far Eastern Olympic, records of 1919, and 1921, 311. Filipinos (native inhabitants of the Philippine Islands): their origin, 3-6; Magellan, first victim of European failure to understand them, 6; never really conquered by Spain, 8; spirit of revolt among, 9-19; Spanish attitude toward, 21; early religions, 33-34; early culture, 37 -49; early governmental system among, 40-41; democratic antecedents, 40; Gironibre's estimate of their character, 43-44; their high moral code, 45; sobriety and industry, 45-46; modesty and chastity of their women, 46; their habits of work, 46; psytholqgial peliarities, 406 TNDEX 46-48; alleged sullenness. 47; behavior in public places. 48; state of women in Filipino society, their culture and intelligence, 50; business habits of the men, 51; avidity for education, 51; Filipino seamanship, 53-54; fondness for revenge, 55-58; sense of gratitude, 58-60; skill in music, 61-62; in oratory, 62 -63; respect for old age, 63; religious toleration and independent religious thought among, 64; estimates of them by Admiral Dewey and General Merritt, (footnote), 74; Filipinos in commerce, 174-175; a's ship builders, 175-176; fondness for athletics, 298; stature of, 298 -299; a homogeneous people, 353. Filipino army: led to believe itself ally of United States, 73-74; testimony to its prowess by. John T. McCutcheon, (footnote) 75-78; change of attitude of American commanders toward, 77; kept out of Manila, 78; ordered to withdraw and encroached upon by American forces, 79; General Anderson's testimony as to success, 88; situation and difficulties before Manila after surrender of the city to Dewey and Merritt, 91; strained relations with American army, 91-92; crowded back by General Otis's orders in violation of protocol, 79, 92; events of night of February 4, 1899, leading to "Battle of Manila," 94; military capacity of, 97; subsidence of revolt after Aguinaldo's capture, 97-98. Filipino revolutionary junta, proclamation of May 20, 1898, announcing American cooperation, 74. Forestry, bureau of, reforestation and other activities, 181. "Friars' lands," the: dispute as to their title, 82; influence of this dispute on President Mc Kinley, 85; settled by William Howard Taft, (footnote), 85. Goto, Baron Shimpei, on America's economic power over Japan, 345. Governmental enterprises in the Philippines, 146-147; the government-owned railroad and its success, 147-149; troubles of the Philippine National bank, 150; depletion of gold reserve and fall of exchange, 150. Governor-General, powers of, reduced under Jones Act, 133-134. Grayson, W. W'., testimony of as to cause of outbreak of hostilities between American and Filipino troops, (footnote), 93. Great Britain: influence of, upon Washington government's policy concerning Philippines, 85-86; why British interests were involved, 86-87; British policy toward India and the Far East, 86, 352. Hats, present state of manufacture of, 180. Hay, John, Secretary of State of the United States, 1898 -1902, attitude toward Great Britain, 87. Hernandez, Adriano, director of Agricultural Bureau, 206. Igorotes: revolt of, 13; at the St. Louis World's Fair, 22; at Baguio, 24; their early code of morals, 34. Independence: ethnological argument against Philippine, 349 -350;' Filipino response to this, 350-352; other arguments pro and con, 353-359; native letters on, Appendix D; resolutions of the Labor Federation of Mindanao on, Appendix D. Independence, Commission of, the report to the legislature, 326. Independence, Mission, to the United States, visit and tour, 328-329. INDEX 407 Independence movement, the: origin and history of, 317-326; American statesmen quoted concerning, 318-321; effect of education upon, 322-323; revival of after repeal of early sedition laws, 324. Inuk, Mrs. Bangungan, municipal president of Buluan, 143; her remarkable life story and public services, 143-146. Ireland, Rt. Rev. John, Archbishop of St. Paul: his remarkable character and abilities, 84; his interest in the settlement of the Philippine question, (footnote), 84. Italy, comparison of its struggles for freedom with revolutionary record of Philippines, 99. Jagor, Dr., influence of his book, Travels in the Philippines, 111. Japan: failure of the Japanese hemp colony in Davao, 46-47, 339-340; distorted views of Japan in America, 331-333; Japanese policy toward the Philippines, 333; rapid growth of Japan in industrial development, 334-336; lack of raw materials to sustain this, 336; reason for her advances in China, 336; economic absurdity of a Japanese descent upon the Philippines, 337; not a colonizing nation, 337-339; number of Japanese in North America, 339; Japanese a people thriving only in temperate zones, 339; Japanese "scare" stories in the United States Senate, 340; Japanese designs upon the Philippines improbable, 340-341; disastrous results of such a move, 341-342; effect upon the United States, 342-343; designs on Philippines expressly disavowed by Japanese statesmen, 344; sensitiveness of the Japanese people to the world's opinion, 344; Japanese readtion to hostile American legislation, 345; economic power of America upon, 345. Jones Act, the (1916): preamble quoted, 122; purpose, 123; interpretation by natives, 123; essentially a contract, 124; outline of changes it effected in the government, 124; views of resident Americans on, 125 -126; faults in it found by Filipinos, 129; provisions of in regard to electoral franchise, 130-131; as to legislature, 131; as to GovernorGeneral, 133; as to other executive offices, 134; organization of departments under, 135; reorganization act resulting from and its novelties, 135; resulting provisions as to courts, 136; salaries under native rule, 137; organization of bureaus under, 139-149; provisions in regard to provincial government, 140; as to municipal government, 142; as interpreted by its author. Katipunan, the ("K. K. K."), its origin, 17; discovery and suppression, 66. Labor, conditions in Islands, 182 -183; problems in the Philippines, 185, 214; length of working day, 182; conditions of in copra industry, 215-218. Labor, Bureau of, activities, 182 -185. La Liga Filipina, founded by Rizal, 1892, 16. Lawton, Major General Henry Ware, estimate of the Filipinos and their cause, (footnote) 94. Legislature, (see Philippine Legislature). LeRoy, James A., quoted as to revolution of 1898, (footnote) 69. Licenses, masters', issued to Filipinos, 175. Locusts, plague of, combatted by Agricultural Bureau, 191, 205. Lumber, ddvelopment and present 406 INDEX state of the industry, 181-182;-' statistics of, Appendix B. Luna, Antonio: Filipino revolutionary leader, early education, 106; becomes Aguinaldo's chief of staff, 107; mysterious death, 107. Mabini, Apolinario, Filipino revolutionary leader: birth and education, 104; joins the Katipunan, 104; his moral code or decalogue, 105. McCutcheon, John T., testimony of concerning prowess and success of Filipino army under Aguinaldo, 75-76. McKinley, William, twenty-fourth president of the United States: early policy toward the Philippines, 79; remonstrated with by Andrew Carnegie, 79; his difficult problems, 80; severely criticized by his contemporaries, 82; his character, strength and limitations, 83; final Philippine policy explained, 85; expressions concerning Philippine independence, 318. McKinnon, Chaplain W. D., services to education in early days of American occupation, 220 -221. Magellan, Ferdinand: "discovers" Philippines, 1521, 6; slain at Mactan, 7. Malay race, the: ancient seat of, 3; migrations of, 4; immigrants reach the Philippines 4; ancient culture among, 6, 26 -27; European estimates of, 42-43. Malong, Filipino revolutionary leader in Pangasinan, 11. Maniag, Francisco, Filipino revolutionary leader in Pampanga, 1660, 10. Manila, taken by Spaniards in 1573, 27; its ancient commercial greatness, 30; former moral reputation of, 45; introduction of segregated district in, and present reputation for social cleanliness, 45; surrender of arranged, 78; "newspaper strike" in, July 8, 1920, 127; peculiar government of, 143. Manufactures, state of under native self-government, 177-182. Merritt, Major General Wesley, estimate of Filipinos, (footnote) 74-75. Mileage of roads constructed, Appendix B. Moe, Dr. Kelmer 0., work at Central Luzon Agricultural School, Muffoz, 252, 263-264. Morga, de, Antonio, comments of on early Filipino culture and products, 31. Moros, the: origin of the name, 5; conversion to Mohammedanism, 5; numbers in Philippines, 23; typical village of, 25; an attractive people, 265; traits and reputation, 265; Spanish unable to conquer, 266-267; Governor LaTorre's savage letter in regard to, 267; General Scott's policy toward, 267; la politics de atraccion, 268; operations of Bureau of NonChristian Tribes, in relation to, 268-269; distribution of Moro population in the Philippines, 269; spread of education among, 282. National finances under native self-government, 151-156; Appendix B. Negritos: aboriginal inhabitants of Philippine Islands, 4; join in La Cruz rebellion, 1840, 15; attempt to educate, 283. "Newspaper Strike" in Manila, July, 1920, 127. Nolli Me Tangere, Rizal's novel, effects of, 112. Non-Christian provinces, growth of democracy in, 293. Non-Christian Tribes, Bureau of, created under Jones Act, 134 -135; work among the Moros, 268-270. INDEX Novales, leader of mutiny of 1823, 14. Okuma, Marquis Shigenobu, views on Japan's intentions as to Philippines, 346. Osias, Camilo, assistant director of education, visits the United States, 241. Osmefia, Sergio: speaker of the House of Representatives, 133; President of the Nationalist party, 288; declaration of concerning independence, in House of Representatives, 325. Otis, Major General Elwell Stephen: aggressive attitude toward Filipino forces before Manila, 91-92; repulses Aguinaldo's offer of peace, 93. Paris, Treaty of, 1898: terms, 87; errors contained therein, 88; reasons for them, 89-90; scandals concerning, 90. Parties, Politica, in Philippines, 289-292. Pata, "Battle" of, 271-277. Philippine Islands, the: geography and extent, 3; early Malay settlements in, 456; "discovery" of by Magellan, in 1521, 6; early dispute concerning ownership of, 7; spread of Christianity in, 8; revolts in, against Spanish authority, 1574-1892, 8-19; conscript labor in, under Spanish rule, 10; Spanish attitude toward people of, 21; civilized and uncivilized populations of, 23-24; literacy in, 1918, 24; cultural state of, before Spanish arrival, 26-40; ancient written languages of, 27; early literacy in, 29; early products of, 30-31; early agriculture in, 32; early laws and land systems, 33; early religions of, 33. Philippine Legislature: constituted by Jones Act, holds first session in 1917, 126; described in session, 132; its work, character and enactments, 132-133. Philippine National Hymn, Appendix F. Philippine Republic, objects and principles of, 95-96. Pilar, Gregorio del, Filipino revolutionary leader: education and ideas, 107; brave defense of Tila Pass, 108; death and inscription on his monument, 108. Postal savings bank system, 202 -204; statistics of, Appendix B. Pratt, E. Spencer, United States Consul-General at Singapore, consultations with Aguinaldo, 70, 72, and Appendix A. Prautsch, A. W., quoted on operations of the rural credit system, (footnote) 200. Provincial government, system of, 140. Public Health under native self government, 159-165. Quezon, Manuel L.: quoted on essentials of Jones Act, (footnote) 123; president of Philippine Senate, 133; services in United States Congress, etc., 133. Religious orders in the Philippines: opposed to Masonry and to Katipunan, 17; incensed against Rizal, 18; influence weakened by Revolution of 1896, 64; reference to in treaty of Biacnabato, 67; strength and power, 82. Reorganization Bill, passed by first Philippine Legislature, 1917, 135. Revenue and Expenditures of the Philippine Government, Appendix B. Revolution of 1896: importance of in Philippine history, 65-66; suspended by treaty of Biacnabato, 67; terms thereof, 68; treaty violated and revolution 410 INDEX resumed, 69; extent and success of revived movement, 70; savagery of Spanish government in suppressing, 70. Revolutions in Philippine Islands, list of from 1585 to 1892, 9-19. Rice terraces in the Philippines, 31. Rinderpest: 180; vaccines against discovered by Agricultural Bureau, 205. Rivera, Governor-General: negotiates treaty of Biacnabato, 67; violates it, 69. Rizal, Dr. Jose: founds La Liga Filipina, 1892, 16; marked for slaughter by governing class, 18; his extraordinary gifts and varied attainments, 109; character, 110; birth, education and early career, 111; influence exerted upon him by Jagor's Travels in the Philippines, 111; writes Noli Me Tangere, 112; fate of La Liga Filipinas, 112; arrested on fictitious charge of sedition, 113; banishment to Dapitan, and labors there, 114; volunteers for Cuba, arrested on way thither, 114; farcical trial, 115; his last poem, 116 -118; put to death in his thirtysixth year, 118. Robinson, Albert G., testimony of concerning the Filipinos and their capacity for and experience in self-government, (footnote) 95. Roosevelt, Theodore, twenty-sixth president of the United States, views on Philippine independence, 319, 320, 321. Roxas, Manuel, elected governor of Capiz, 287-288. Rural credit system, 199-202. Scott, Major General Hugh L.: services in pacifying the Moro country, 60; his administration of Sulu, 278; quells Moro outbreak without armed conflict, 279; narrative of the incident of the wife of the Sultan's Secretary of War, 280-281; narrative of the incident of the Sultan's brother, 281-282; adventure with bandits, Appendix F. Self-government in the Philippines, results of: national finances, 151; budget system, 152 -153; national revenues, 155; civil service, 156-159; salaries and economies, 158; public health, 159-165; bureau of dependent children, 161; commerce, 166-169; joint stock companies, 170; retail trade, 173; navigation, 173-174; inter-island commerce, 174; statistical tables showing results achieved by native rule, Appendix B. Sihaban, Hati, Moro leader at "Battle of Pata," 272. Silan, Filipino revolutionary leader in Ilocos, 1762, 12; his wife hanged, 13. Suffrage, as established under Jones Act, 130. Sugar: development and present state of the industry, 180-181; Statistics of, Appendix B. Taduran, Juan K., athletic records of, 310-311. Taft, William Howard, settles dispute as to friars' lands (footnote), 85; views on Philippine independence, 318, 319, 320. Tamblot, Filipino revolutionary leader in Bohol, 10. Taxation in the Philippines, Appendix B. Teachers, American; hardships and dangers of, 227-231; four murdered by Cebu bandits, 229 -231; services in cholera epidemic, 231-232. Teachers, Filipino, success of, 236, 248. Thomas "Crusaders," the, 226 -227. INDEX 411 Tienda, the, importance of in rural life, 171-172. Tila Pass, battle of, 107, 108. Tobacco trade: influence upon American policy and history, 81; rapid development of in recent years, 177-179; present state of trade in, 177-189; statistics of, Appendix B. Torre, Governor la, his attitude toward the Moros, 267. Trade Opportunities, 176-177. Trade: restrictions on, under Spanish administration, 160 -168; rapid increase of after American occupation, 168-169. Vegetable oil, statistics of, Appendix B. "White Man's Burden, the": urged upon the United States by British press, 86; reasons for this interest, 87. Williams, United States Consul at Manila, report on forming of Philippine Republic and success of its troops, 69-70. Wilson, Woodrow, twenty-eighth president of the United States, views on Philippine independence, 320. Worcester, Dean C.: quoted as to the rice terraces of the Ifugaos, 32; as to moral code of the Igorotes, 34. c ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I ~::: i I ckt, I1 I I., ~: ~ - ' i, jUNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. O U: N::D;,:~X:: 3901504763 1158 ~ l,' ' ' i................. 4 U25w32 R UIp. OF uL niCH: LIBRARY: ' ',. i:, 0: *,, f." a ' SL /S I,,' / k". 'A # * 1' * 1 ' ' di.,' '\d, ' '.11 *. 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