The Philippines: Past and Present Volume II Part 11

"Not having the gift of prophecy, I cannot say how far or how fast they might advance, under more favourable circ.u.mstances than those which have thus far surrounded them. They are naturally law-abiding and peace-loving, and would, I believe, appreciate and profit by just treatment.

"In the four months which separate May 1, 1898, from the day when the ma.n.u.script for this volume leaves my hands, important events have crowded on each other's heels as never before in the history of the Archipelago. Whatever may be the immediate outcome, it is safe to say that, having learned something of his power, the civilized native will now be likely to take a hand in shaping his own future. I trust that opportunities which he has never enjoyed may be given to him. If not, may he win them for himself." [33]

This opinion, which I trust will not be considered unkindly, has not been modified in its essentials as a result of many additional years of life in the Philippines. I have unexpectedly had a hand in giving to the Filipinos opportunities which they had never before enjoyed. I drafted the act under which the munic.i.p.alities of these islands to-day govern themselves; the act creating the College of Medicine and Surgery where young Filipino men and women may receive the best of theoretical and practical instruction; the act creating in the Bureau of Lands a school of surveying as a result of which the present dearth of Filipino surveyors will soon end; the provision of law creating and providing for the Philippine Training School for Nurses, which is preparing hundreds of young Filipino men and women to practise a useful and n.o.ble profession. I drafted the legislation which created a forest school, where many bright Filipino lads are now being trained for the government service. I drafted the provision of law which gives to all Filipinos the right to make personal use of timber from the government forests without paying a cent therefor, and the act which makes it possible for munic.i.p.alities to have communal forests, reserved for the special and exclusive benefit of their citizens.

I fought for eight years to get the money for the Philippine General Hospital, where nearly ninety thousand patients, the vast majority of whom are Filipinos, are treated annually either in beds or at the several clinics; I have approved, and indeed compelled, the appointment of a staff for that inst.i.tution largely made up of Filipinos, and I have steadily supported the Filipino members of that staff when insulted or unjustly accused, as I regret to say they sometimes have been, as a result of race prejudice with which I have no sympathy.

I am the official ultimately responsible for the establishment and maintenance of a health system which indisputably saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos every year, and has practically rid their country of smallpox, plague and cholera.

All of the employees of the Weather Bureau, which comes under my executive control, are Filipinos.

I could name a score of other important measures, having for their sole object the betterment of the condition of the Filipinos, and extension to them of increased opportunity to demonstrate their capacity, which I have originated. I have never knowingly opposed a measure which would produce this result.

I frankly admit that I have declined to approve the appointment of a Filipino to any position under my control simply because he was a Filipino. I have insisted that appointees have higher and better reasons to claim consideration, among which may be mentioned decent character and ability to do the work of the positions to be filled. No living man entertains more genuinely kindly feelings toward the peoples of these islands, Christian and non-Christian, than do I. An allegation that I hate the Filipinos comes with especially bad taste from a man who himself never ceased to criticize them, and to denounce them as utterly incompetent and worthless throughout his Philippine career, but who finally experienced an eleventh-hour conversion on the eve of a presidential election which was likely to bring into power another political party.

Blount has worked out a theory, peculiarly his own, to the effect that the non-Christian peoples have been set aside as a field for purely Protestant missionary activities, and that I am a party to this scheme. In this connection he says:--

"It seems that the Catholic and Protestant ecclesiastical authorities in the Islands get along harmoniously, a kind of modus vivendi having been arranged between them, by which the Protestants are not to do any proselyting among the seven millions of Catholic Christians. So this field of endeavour is the one Professor Worcester has been industriously preparing during the last twelve years. [34]

"Obviously, every time Professor Worcester digs up a new non-Christian tribe he increases the prospective harvest of the Protestants, thus corralling more missionary votes at home for permanent retention of the Philippines. [35]

"But neither Bishop Brent nor any one else can persuade him [36]

that it is wise to abandon the principle that Church and State should be separate, in order that our government may go into the missionary business. Since it has become apparent that the Philippines will not pay, the Administration has relied solely on missionary sentiments....

"The foregoing reflections are not intended to raise an issue as to the wisdom of foreign missions. They are simply intended to ill.u.s.trate how it is possible and natural for President Taft to consider Professor Worcester 'the most valuable man we have on the Philippine Commission.' The Professor's menagerie is a vote-getter." [37]

The first pa.s.sage quoted has the merit of being ingenious, and embodies a half truth. Bishop Brent deems it inadvisable to try to proselytize Catholic Christians, and outside of Manila his co-workers confine their efforts to the conversion of persons other than Filipinos. They conduct missions for non-Christians at Sagada and Bontoc in Bontoc, at Baguio in Benguet, and at Zamboanga in the Moro Province.

In Manila they conduct a mission for Filipinos in connection with a hospital which does most valuable work, but they mean to leave Catholic Filipinos alone.

The Catholics recognize no corresponding limitations. They conduct missions for the Benguet-Lepanto Igorots at Baguio, Itogon, Kabayan, Cervantes and elsewhere; for the Bontoc Igorots at Bauco and Bontoc and for the Ifugaos at Quiangan.

The other Protestant denominations having missions in the Philippines work chiefly among the Catholics.

I have absolutely no connection with any such enterprises except that I have helped to make them possible in the wild man's territory by the establishment of law and order there, and have sometimes made both Catholic and Protestant missionaries my agents for administering simple remedies to sick persons who might otherwise have perished miserably.

To this extent, and to this extent only, has our government gone into the missionary business.

I am proud to count Bishop Brent and Archbishop Harty among my personal friends. I am in complete sympathy with the purposes which actuate both of them in prosecuting Christian missions. I have sometimes disapproved, personally, of methods employed by their subordinates in this work, and have felt free to tell them so!

Blount complains bitterly over the exhibition of members of non-Christian tribes at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. For a wonder he admits that Tagalog and Visayan Filipinos were also exhibited. He fails to record the fact that a commission of highly educated and cultured Filipino men and women were sent to the exposition and travelled quite widely in the United States, so that they were seen, and heard of, by great numbers of people who never visited St. Louis at all. Of the exhibition of wild men, he says:--

"I think no deeper wound was ever inflicted upon the pride of the real Filipino people than that caused by this exhibition, the knowledge of which seems to have spread throughout the islands." [38]

And he rather ingeniously gives it to be understood that I was responsible for this exhibition, although he carefully avoids stating that this was the case.

I am quite as strongly opposed to the exhibition of members of the Philippine non-Christian tribes as is Blount himself, but for very different reasons hereinafter set forth. As such peoples const.i.tute an eighth of the population of the Islands, I also object to the attempt of certain Filipino politicians to conceal the fact of their existence, and to the efforts of certain misguided Americans to minimize the importance of the problems which their existence presents. Let us look the facts in the face. The Moros are as "real" as the Tagalogs.

The average Filipino does not object in the least to the exhibition of wild people. On the contrary, he is just as much interested in them as is the average American, and goes to see them whenever the opportunity offers. It is only the Filipino politician who pretends to see any actual immodesty in scanty costumes worn with the innocence with which Adam and Eve were endowed before the fall. The truth is that the politician himself does not really object to this semi-nudity, to which he is already sufficiently accustomed among his own people in his own native town, but he plays it up for political effect.

The pedigree of the average Filipino politician very frequently runs back to white or Chinese ancestors on the father's side. In his heart of hearts he resents his Malay blood, and he particularly objects to anything which reminds him of the truth as to the stage of civilization which had been attained by his Malay ancestors a few centuries ago.

If he be a member of the Philippine a.s.sembly, he further and bitterly resents his lack of authority to legislate for the Moros and other non-Christian tribes, and is ever ready to support his frequently reiterated demand for such authority by arguing the unimportance of these peoples, and that of the problems which their existence presents. Up to the time when the a.s.sembly was established and was denied the power to legislate for the non-Christians, my occasional ill.u.s.trated lectures on the wild peoples, given at Manila, were very liberally attended by Filipinos, not a few of whom I am glad to say still continue to patronize them when occasion offers.

My own att.i.tude toward the exhibition of non-Christians, and my reasons therefor, are set forth in the following official correspondence, with which I will this phase of the subject:--

(Telegram.)

"Pack [39] Bontoc, Manila, Dec. 4, 1909.

"Schneiderwind is back with his Igorots some of whom have as much as two thousand pesos due them. Am trying to arrange to have this money put in postal savings bank to protect them from themselves. Schneiderwind is after another party of wild people to take to Europe. Has asked about Ifugaos and Apayaos. Have told him strongly opposed to taking these people to other countries for exhibition purposes and will place all possible obstacles in his way if he attempts to do so. If after this warning he enters Mountain province to secure people for exhibition purposes give him no a.s.sistance but use every legitimate means to prevent his getting them. Give proper and seasonable instructions to your subordinates.

"Worcester."

On April 22, 1910, in returning to the Governor-General a pet.i.tion dealing with the exhibition of wild people I placed upon it this indors.e.m.e.nt:--

"Respectfully returned to the Honourable, the Governor-General.

"The undersigned is strongly opposed to the sending of members of wild tribes to the United States or to other civilized countries for exhibition purposes. Apart from all other considerations experience shows that the men and women thus taken away from their natural surroundings are apt to be pretty thoroughly spoiled and to be trouble makers after their return.

"The undersigned has recently informed Mr. R. Schneiderwind that he would, if necessary, do everything in his power to prevent the latter gentleman from taking another set of Igorots away from the Philippines for exhibition purposes. This, too, in spite of the fact that Mr. Schneiderwind has apparently been very considerate in his treatment of the Igorots whom he has taken to the United States for exhibition purposes.

"The undersigned would a.s.sume the same att.i.tude toward any other person endeavouring to obtain Igorots for exhibition purposes."

The advocates of the "united people" theory for these islands are forced to insist on the unimportance of the non-Christian tribes and it is needless to say that Blount does this. His contentions on the subject are rather concisely stated in the following pa.s.sage:--

"You see our Census of 1903 gave the population of the Philippines at about 7,600,000 of which 7,000,000 are put down as civilized Christians; and of the remaining 600,000 about half are the savage, or semi-civilized, crudely Mohammedan Moros, in Mindanao, and the adjacent islets down near Borneo. The other 300,000 or so uncivilized people scattered throughout the rest of the archipelago, the 'non-Christian tribes,' which dwell in the mountain fastnesses, remote from 'the madding crowd,' cut little more figure, if any, in the general political equation, than the American Indian does with us to-day." [40]

If there were ten million American Indians who were in undisputed occupation of half the territory of the United States, this statement might in a way approximate the truth. Blount's ten-year-old population figures are a trifle out of date, but before demonstrating this I wish to show certain peculiarities in his method of manipulating them. He says:--

"That the existence of these wild tribes--the dog-eating Igorrotes and other savages you saw exhibited at the St. Louis Exposition of 1903-4--const.i.tutes infinitely less reason for withholding independence from the Filipinos than the American Indian const.i.tuted in 1776 for withholding independence from us, will be sufficiently apparent from a glance at the following table, taken from the American Census of the Islands of 1903 (vol. ii., p. 123):--

Island Civilized Wild Total