Chapter XXII: THE GOVERNMENT OF THE NON-CHRISTIAN TRIBES (continued) (2)

Having explained to the governor the terms of the law establishing the province of Agusan, and the reason for its adoption, I proceeded across the bay to a barrio which then was, and still is, the point of departure for the interior, planning to start at daylight the following morning. I had with me my private secretary Mr. Zinn, and Mr. Frederick Lewis, who had just accepted appointment as lieutenant-governor of the sub-province.

Lewis had taken a number of Zamboanga Moros to the St. Louis Exposition and had also assumed charge of the Lake Lanao Moros there when their manager misbehaved and it became necessary to dispense with his services. He had looked after his people so carefully and so well that some of the hardened old sinners from Lake Lanao actually wept when they parted company with him on the beach after their return from the United States! He was a tireless rider, and the country which he was to govern was a horseman's country par excellence.

Our transportation for the trip was in charge of a Filipino lieutenant of constabulary, named Manual Fortich, and I was not greatly pleased with this arrangement, as we had a hard journey ahead of us which might be rendered difficult or even dangerous by lack of efficiency on the part of the man who looked after our saddle animals and our carriers. I soon learned, however, that no better man could have been selected for this task.

We marched at daylight, as is my custom when travelling overland in the provinces. At midnight a mounted Filipino messenger, sent by the caciques of Cagayan, had started ahead of us to frighten the people of the towns which we proposed to visit so that they would take to the hills. In this he was partially successful. When we reached the small settlement of Tancuran late in the afternoon, after a hard day's work, the only inhabitants left were a few old cripples who had been too sick or too feeble to run away. However, many of those who had fled were hiding in the underbrush near by. Lieutenant Fortich, who had already made himself invaluable to us, soon rounded up quite a number of them, and they were in turn despatched for their friends.

This little village was in a deplorable state of abandonment. Only a few of its houses were habitable. It had been well laid out by some good Jesuit missionary priest, but its streets and plaza were choked with a jungle of tropical vegetation through which ran trails resembling deer paths! There was absolutely nothing growing in the vicinity which could furnish food for a human being.

Lieutenant Fortich ultimately got together quite an audience for me. We squatted around a cheerful camp-fire and discussed the past and the future until late at night. I was delighted to find that my auditors took a keen interest in my statements. They soon gained courage to tell me freely of the abuses which they had suffered, and while obviously not optimistic over my promises of better things, were evidently willing to be shown.

Just before we turned in Lieutenant Fortich asked me at what time I would like to start in the morning. I said "five o'clock." He replied, "Very well." While his remarks were gratifyingly in accord with the biblical injunction to "let your conversation be yea, yea; nay, nay," I feared that he did not fully comprehend the difficulties involved in an early start, so decided to take a hand myself when the time came. I accordingly arose at three-thirty A.M., and nearly fainted when I found that the horses were already munching their grain and, wonder of wonders, that the carriers were eating their breakfast. The usual thing is to be informed, when you are about an hour on your way, that the carriers have had no breakfast, and to be forced to sit down and wait while they cook and eat their morning meal. I went back to bed, convinced that I had discovered a new kind of Filipino constabulary officer. I got up again at four o'clock, dressed, and went to the table at four-thirty, finding a piping hot meal ready. When at five o'clock I descended the stairs of the house where I had spent the night, my horse was saddled and waiting at the gate. All I had to do was to climb aboard. Meanwhile I had not heard an order given, or a word spoken in a tone above that of ordinary conversation. Throughout the trip Lieutenant Fortich continued to display quiet efficiency. I jotted his name down in my mental notebook as that of a man to be used later. He is to-day the lieutenant-governor of Bukidnon, and a most faithful, competent and efficient public officer.

During my first day's ride I had had a decidedly startling experience. On leaving the sea beach one climbs rather abruptly for some nine hundred feet and then comes out on a wonderful plain. After riding over this beautiful stretch of level country for some time I could not longer resist the temptation to attempt to take a panoramic series of views showing it, so dismounted, set up my camera and made three exposures, rotating the instrument so as to get a panoramic effect. I worked with my back toward my companions, and became so absorbed in my task that I failed to notice that they were moving on. When I finally turned around I discovered to my utter amazement that I was alone, save for the carrier who packed my camera and plates. In every direction an apparently unbroken plain stretched for miles, and there was not another human being in sight. My companions had disappeared from off the face of the earth. I actually began to fear that I had taken leave of my senses. Nothing which has ever befallen me has given me such a curious sensation. However, one tangible thing remained; to wit, a well-marked trail through the grass. I followed it, and before I had gone three hundred yards came to the brink of a precipitous cañon down the wall of which my companions were zigzagging. From the point where I had taken my photographs it was absolutely impossible to detect the existence of this narrow crack in the earth. We soon learned, to our sorrow, that this first cañon was only one of many.

At its bottom was a raging torrent which we forded with difficulty. My fool horse got frightened and turned down-stream where the current was swiftest, and I narrowly escaped taking an impromptu trip down rapids which would have hammered me into insensibility against the rocks.

Until we reached Malaybalay the conditions encountered in the several villages through which we passed were similar to those which we had found at Tanculan: houses abandoned for the most part, and always in a lamentable state of neglect; sanitary conditions very bad; streets and plazas overgrown; an abundance of coffee bushes in some of the villages, but no visible source of food supply anywhere, except for a few scraggly banana plants.

At the outset we had found all the villages deserted, but in each case had managed to get some of the people back and hold a friendly interview with them. The "grapevine telegraph" got to working, and soon they began to await our arrival. At Malaybalay they gave us quite an ovation. This town was comparatively clean; the grass on the plaza was neatly cut. All in all, conditions were so encouraging that I decided that it should be the capital of the subprovince.

The following day we continued our journey to Linabo, where I heard of a Filipino engaged, as usual, in terrorizing the inhabitants and taking their products from them. I twice sent him courteous requests to come to see me, and then had him unceremoniously brought into my presence. He was carrying an ugly looking, heavy-calibre six-shooter. I demanded the document which justified his possession of this weapon, and as he could produce nothing more satisfactory than a note from the governor of Misamis authorizing him to use it in that province, I took his gun away from him. He assumed a threatening attitude and warned me that he was a friend of the provincial governor, but I told him that he was not a friend of mine, and started him on his way to the coast.

This occurrence was known throughout Bukidnon within three days, and as the man in question was influential the fact that his claws had been at least temporarily trimmed greatly encouraged the people.

From Linabo we returned by a different route, visiting the old settlement of Sumilao, the site of the original Jesuit mission in Bukidnon, and spending a day in endeavouring to reach a constantly disappearing village named Nanca. We had gathered from the written report of a lieutenant of the United States army that Nanca was distant from Sumilao about two hours' ride. We reached it after dark, having travelled steadily throughout the day except for some thirty minutes taken for lunch, and having, I firmly believe, broken the world's record for the number of cañons encountered in the course of a fourteen-hour ride.

Nanca proved to be a very interesting Bukidnon village, as its people retained their picturesque tribal dress and most of their primitive customs. I became much interested in finding out about its organization, and the part that each family took in its affairs, and asked the persons present what each man did. I finally came to a particularly fine-looking white-haired individual, and when I inquired about him my informant replied: "Oh, he does not do anything. He is a philosopher!" Then the crowd shouted with laughter. We decided that the Bukidnons were not without a sense of humor.

A hard half day's ride brought us back to Cagayan de Misamis, and I sailed at once for Manila, leaving Lieutenant-Governor Lewis to face his difficult task alone. As I had anticipated, trouble promptly began. The wealthiest people of Cagayan had always lived off the unfortunate Bukidnons, and had no intention of relaxing their grip. I have deeply regretted that I did not myself visit the remaining villages in the valley of the Cagayan River and explain to their inhabitants the change in their fortunes. Agents of the Cagayan caciques had been busy there while I was occupied on the other side of the subprovince, and shortly after my arrival at Manila a telegram was received from the provincial governor, saying that the Bukidnons were asking for a brown governor, instead of a white one, and were reported to be preparing ropes and poison with which to commit suicide.

Now these simple people of the hills had no intention of committing suicide, nor did they want "a brown governor." Their petitions were prepared by Cagayan caciques and they were forced to sign them.

In the part of the subprovince which I had visited the conspirators against the new government made little headway. Nevertheless their vicious activities continued, and later, on several occasions, they succeeded in frightening the people of one or another of the then rapidly growing towns so badly that they took to the hills, and Mr. Lewis had to hunt them up and persuade them to come back again, which he always succeeded in doing.

When I returned to inspect Bukidnon a year later, I found that a marvellous change had already been brought about. Model villages had taken the place of the ramshackle affairs which I had found on my first visit. The houses were grouped around spacious plazas on which the grass had been so carefully cut that they had already begun to look like lawns. Streets were kept so clean that one could literally pick up a dropped pin without the slightest difficulty. Where the streets reached the open prairie, bars were provided to keep stray animals out of town. Every yard was neatly fenced. All domestic animals were properly confined if not out at pasture. Every village was perfectly drained, the slope of the land being such that all drainage promptly ran off onto the prairie. Yards were immaculately clean and were planted with useful food-producing crops. Little cultivated fields were already beginning to appear near the outskirts of the towns. This latter change greatly delighted me. These poor, ignorant people had always believed that the prairie soil was worthless for agricultural purposes, and that in order to grow crops it was necessary for them to go to the distant mountains, clear forest land and plant it. Furthermore, they had been quite unable to break the prairie sod and bring the underlying soil under cultivation with such simple agricultural implements as they possessed.

At the request of Lieutenant-Governor Lewis, I had furnished two disk plows with the necessary animals to pull them, in order that the land might be plowed the first time for those who were willing to cultivate it. Thereafter they were left to care for it themselves. This plan had aroused great enthusiasm. As I approached Sumilao I saw a crowd of men busily engaged in some task, and when I drew near was amazed and delighted to find that, although the disk plow intended for use at that place had arrived before the animals which were to pull it, fifteen men had harnessed themselves to it and were vigorously breaking the sod. I decided on the spot that the Bukidnon people had a future, and have never changed my mind. The progress which they have since made is almost unbelievable.

Efforts to destroy the government which we had established in Bukidnon, and to reëstablish the system of peonage under which its peaceful, industrious inhabitants had so long groaned, were persistently continued. During my third annual inspection trip, I found that there was a plan on foot to trump up criminal charges against Lieutenant-Governor Lewis and Señor Manuel Fortich, whose services I had meanwhile secured as an assistant to Mr. Lewis upon his severing his connection with the constabulary. The efforts of the mischief-makers had become so persistent and so vicious that I decided to declare war on them. Accordingly, I ran over to Cagayan and summoned the provincial officers and several other prominent citizens, with whom I went straight to the point, telling them that I had not anticipated that they would readily adapt themselves to the changed conditions which resulted from the separation of Bukidnon as a distinct subprovince, and had patiently waited three years for them to accept the inevitable, but that I had grown weary of their constant efforts to nullify the work which we were doing, and that I was aware of the plan to destroy the usefulness of Lewis and Fortich; adding that they must let the Bukidnon officials alone, and that in the event of future failure to do so I would temporarily transfer my office to Cagayan de Misamis and devote my time and attention to making things interesting for certain of them. I named no names, and it was not necessary to do so. The individuals referred to knew whom I meant.

Conditions now rapidly improved for a time, but in November I was called to Washington to be investigated by the Committee on Insular Affairs with reference to my administration of public and friar lands, and the enemies of the Bukidnon government promptly became active. Governor Lewis was arrested and tried on two criminal charges, while his assistant, Señor Fortich, was charged with murder, no less. If the charges of estafa and falsification of public documents brought against Lewis failed, it was proposed to prosecute him for adultery, the minimum penalty for which in the Philippine Islands is imprisonment for two years, four months and one day.

Fortunately, it took but a short time to show that the cases against those two young men were spite cases pure and simple, and they collapsed miserably. Other charges were promptly brought.

There had been a sad mix up, resulting from an ill-defined boundary line between Bukidnon and the Moro Province, for which I myself was directly responsible, as the papers concerning it were on my desk awaiting action when I was called home, and in the rush of a hurried departure I had overlooked them. Lewis and Fortich had been unjustly blamed for the result. I now took a hand in the game myself, and the whole matter was satisfactorily cleared up. Lewis was promoted to the governorship of the province of Agusan, and Fortich was made lieutenant-governor of Bukidnon, a position which he has filled ever since with great credit to himself and advantage to the Bukidnon people.

The progress which has been made in Bukidnon is really wonderful. At the outset there was not a decent trail in the subprovince. Now one can go nineteen miles inland to the Mañgima River cañon in an automobile, and it will be soon possible so to continue the journey ten miles further to Maluco. Excellent low-grade horse trails, many miles of which are already wide enough to serve as automobile roads as soon as the line to the coast is completed, connect the principal settlements of Bukidnon proper, which also have telephonic communication, the people having gladly undertaken to cut and erect the necessary poles and build and maintain the lines, if furnished instruments, wire, insulators and tools. They have kept their bargain, and there are constant demands for an extension of the system, under similar conditions, to the more remote mountain villages.

There was not a bridge or a culvert in the subprovince. Pack animals were constantly being swept away by the rushing currents of the larger rivers, or perishing miserably in mud when attempting to cross soft-bottomed creeks. Now one may ride from the sea-coast to Malaybalay without wetting the feet of one's horse, and in so doing one will cross more than a hundred substantial bridges and culverts built by the Bukidnons themselves. As a rule, even the largest bridges have cost the government no more than the price of their iron bolts and braces. The people have voluntarily and cheerfully done the work, in order to get the benefits which would result. In some cases heavy hardwood timbers have been dragged for fifteen miles or more by teams of hundreds of men. All bridges are roofed, and they afford fine camping places for travellers and their pack animals. Incidentally the load which pack animals can comfortably carry has been more than doubled.

Old villages have increased greatly in size, and numerous new ones have been established. All have spacious plazas and streets which are beautifully kept. The mountains are almost depopulated. The hardy old fighters who used to frequent them have become peaceful agriculturists. Houses are neat and clean. Yards are fenced, planted with useful crops, and well cultivated. Each house has its own sanitary arrangements. No domestic animals are allowed to run at large in towns.

Rich, cultivated fields surround the villages and each year stretch farther and farther out over the neighbouring prairies. Coffee production is increasing by leaps and bounds, and blight is disappearing from the plantations as the result of intensive cultivation. The people are well fed and prosperous. Their condition steadily improves. They have been taught the value of their products, and encouraged to insist on receiving it.

Practically every village has its schoolhouse and its schoolmaster's house, voluntarily built free of charge by the inhabitants. Children are sent to school by their parents and learn rapidly. On my second visit I found the boys trying to play baseball, using joints of bamboo for bats, and big, thick-skinned oranges for balls. I sent to each of the more important towns a complete baseball outfit, and now the boys certainly know, and can play, the game.

These results have been accomplished practically without bloodshed or rough treatment of any sort. Only in the rarest instances, and in dealing with the very worst of the hill men, who were professional murderers, has a shot been fired.

When the subprovince was invaded by bands of savages from the mountains of Butuan and from the neighbouring Moro Province, the people requested firearms so that they might protect themselves. Some twenty-five old carbines were furnished them, and they organized an effective force which pursued the evil-doers and policed them up very effectively.

Marámag, one of the most recently established villages, is in the very heart of Mindanao. Two years ago a good many of its leading citizens were living in tree-houses. During August, 1912, I found them cutting the grass on their plaza with a lawn-mower!

Another thing which has made me rub my eyes and wonder if I were awake was the discovery that the people of this subprovince were clothing themselves and their children in garments purchased from Montgomery, Ward & Co., of Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A.! The explanation is simple. The Cagayan shopkeepers persist in cheating them at every opportunity, and the house of Montgomery, Ward & Co. does not. Although Chicago is far away, the mail service is nevertheless good!

Death has just summoned Leoncio, one of the most remarkable men who has yet arisen among the Bukidnon people. We found him an absolutely illiterate heathen. With no other instruction than that given him by lieutenant-governors Lewis and Fortich, he learned to lay out and build roads and trails on any desired grade, to construct bridges which will be standing twenty years hence, and to erect public buildings which would be a credit to any man compelled to use such materials as those available in Bukidnon.

At the time of his death he was just finishing a bridge three hundred feet long across the rushing Culaman River. This structure has a galvanized iron roof, contributed by the enthusiastic residents of Sumilao.

The healthful rivalry between towns is one of the delightful things about Bukidnon. Each desires to have better buildings, better streets, better bridges, better roads and better schools than its neighbours.

I experience no keener pleasure than that which I enjoy on my annual trips through Bukidnon. There is always something new to see. The people are most grateful for the help which has been given them. Their friendliness and their loyalty cannot fail to touch the hearts of all who know them. They are now well housed, and well fed. Their children are being given in liberal measure the education which had previously been denied to them. The Bukidnons are to-day a prosperous, progressive people, happy and contented. I have an abiding faith in their future if they are given a chance.

When they meet their old Filipino oppressors on trips to the coast, the latter grit their teeth and remark under their breath: "Oh, very well. This is your inning now, but ours will come! The Americans are going soon, and then we will square our little account with you. You will pay dearly for your 'insubordination'!" Having set the feet of these people on the road which leads onward and upward, shall we leave them to their fate?

Conditions in Butuan have improved far more slowly than in Bukidnon. The climate is less favourable. Bukidnon is a highland country with a white man's climate. The Agusan River valley is usually hot, and always damp. The town of Butuan was considered the worst misgoverned municipality in the Philippines on the date of its separation from Surigao, and it was certainly one of the filthiest. I have sunk to my knees in the mud of its streets. It is to-day a beautifully kept and sanitary place, and is certainly not misgoverned.

As I have already said, the Manobo inhabitants of the wretched villages along the banks of the main Agusan River were a sickly, filthy, broken-spirited lot, besotted with vino and in danger of becoming victims of the opium habit. It is almost a physical impossibility completely to suppress the opium traffic because of the ease with which the drug is smuggled, but the vino traffic has been suppressed. The chief business on the Agusan River was formerly the transportation of vino up-stream. It is now the transportation down-stream of Manila hemp raised by the people of the valley.

The villages have been greatly improved and rendered reasonably sanitary. The best of them compare not unfavourably with some of the Bukidnon towns. The people improve, but radical improvement will not be in evidence until the next generation comes on.

Transportation facilities have been greatly increased by freeing several of the more important branches of the Agusan River from snags, and so opening them for launch navigation. Two good canals have been cut through the swamps, and communication by launch has thus been opened with the upper Agusan valley.

There is an industrial school for Manobo boys, and a number of the villages have primary schools.

Doubtless the most important single factor in improving the condition of the Manobos has been the establishment of a series of government shops at which they can sell their products for a fair price, and buy what they need so cheaply that it almost seems to them as if they were receiving presents.

Governor Frederick Johnston, who is largely responsible for these improved conditions, laboured ceaselessly to bring them about. At the outset he had no launch transportation and lived for weeks at a time in native canoes or bancas. He was fearless and tireless. When the time came for him to take long overdue leave I had no competent person to put in his place, and in deference to my wishes he continued at his post for nearly two years. At the end of that time it was found that one of his legs, which had been injured on an early exploring expedition, had become cancerous, and that immediate amputation was necessary. This made it impossible for him to continue his work, and crippled him for life. He had borne his trouble uncomplainingly, and I had not even known of its existence. Although a man of mature years, he bravely entered upon the study of medicine, hoping to prepare himself for a useful life, but the operation had come too late. Cancer reappeared, and for a year he was dying by inches. In a way I am responsible for it. Do you think he laid it up against me? You shall judge for yourselves.

He used to write a copy-book hand. Just before leaving Manila I received from him an almost illegible letter in which he economized words as if composing a cablegram. It brought the tears to my eyes. He said:--

"I thank you for your slavery book just received. If strength is
left me to read it, I shall read it though I do nothing else in
this life.

"I have had letter in preparation to you since last June but
I haven't strength to sit at the machine. I expect now to die
before New Year.

"I have offered surgeons to take all chances, but they decline
to operate, stating that they would consider operation deliberate
murder.

"This is first letter I write since last September. If I do not get
strength to finish typewritten letter I have given instructions it
be sent when I am dead. I cannot write with pen; I have tried it.

"If you hear no more, please remember I never forgot you. Sorry
you leave the Secretariat--so sorry I can't tell you.

"I am ready to die. I know that I have lived unselfishly for
what I thought was right and good, and death is nothing. If this
should be the last, then accept from the man that was always your
man and will be your man until he dies, a last Good-by."

A few days later he went to his reward.

The loyalty of such a man is a precious possession.

The lot of the non-Christian tribes inhabiting the regularly organized provinces is not a happy one. The township government act is applicable to their settlements, and the provincial officers have the same powers and duties with reference to them as have the corresponding officers in the special government provinces. In both cases these powers are exercised subject to the approval of the secretary of the interior, but in providing for the government of non-Christians in Christian provinces, we overlooked one very essential detail. Neither the secretary of the interior nor any one else has authority to compel the governors or provincial boards of these provinces to act. They have discovered that efforts to improve the condition of the ignorant and primitive peoples intrusted to their charge can be very effectively nullified if they merely sit still and do nothing, and almost with one accord they have adopted this policy. Exception should be made in favour of North Ilocos, South Ilocos, Pangasinán, Ambos Camarines, Iloilo and Zambales. No other provinces have made any real effort to help their non-Christian population, and the funds set aside by law to be expended for this end simply go on accumulating in their respective treasuries, as I have managed to convince them that efforts to divert such funds to purposes not authorized by law will not prosper. The law should be so amended as to provide that if provincial boards fail to act, the secretary of the interior may do so.

The organization of the Moro Province was provided for by an act passed on June 1, 1903. It is the largest single province in the Philippine Islands, including within its limits more than half of the great island of Mindanao with various small islands adjacent thereto, and Basilan, Joló, Siassi, Tawi Tawi, Sibutu, Cagayan de Joló and the very numerous other small islands stretching between Mindanao and North Borneo. It is divided into five districts, each with a district governor. The province has a governor, a secretary, a treasurer, an attorney, an engineer and a superintendent of schools.

The four officials first named constitute a legislative council the acts of which are subject to the approval of the Philippine Commission.

The province is allowed to expend the moneys accruing from the customs dues paid at Joló and Zamboanga, which are ports of entry, but is not fully self-supporting. The insular government pays for the Philippine constabulary serving there. Until within a very short time the provincial officials have been almost exclusively officers of the army of the United States. In my opinion this arrangement has been a bad one, not because of the character of the men who have done the work, many of whom were of exceptional ability and were admirably fitted for the performance of the duties which fell to their lot, but because no one of them has retained a given office long enough to carry a policy through to its logical conclusion and get the results which might thus have been obtained. Indeed, the lack of a fixed policy, combined with some unnecessary and unjustifiable killing, explain, in my opinion, the fact that the results accomplished have come far short of what might have been expected when one considers the splendid body of men from which the provincial officials have been drawn.

Noteworthy public improvements have been made in places like Zamboanga and Joló, but the country of the hill people, which ought to have been crisscrossed with trails long ere this, is still not opened up. Tribes like the Mandayas would, if given the opportunity, advance as rapidly as have the Bukidnons, but such opportunity has not been given to them to any considerable extent.

Having heard much of the Mandaya villages near Mati, I improved the opportunity to visit them in August, 1912, only to find to my amazement that the local constabulary officer, who ought to have been in the closest possible touch with these people, did not even know the way to their settlements. At another place where some 1400 hill people had been compelled to come down from their native mountains and settle in a village which could have been made a model of cleanliness, and should have been surrounded by rich cultivated fields, not half enough ground had been cleared to furnish food for the inhabitants, even under the most favourable circumstances. The houses were falling down; the streets were deep in mud; the garden patches were overgrown with weeds; more than half of the people had taken to the hills again in a search for food, and small blame to them! I found here as fine appearing a young constabulary officer as one could hope to meet, eating his heart out because he had nothing to do! Neither he nor any of his soldiers spoke the local dialect. He was supposed to be running a store, among other things, for the benefit of the hill people. I asked to see it, and it took him half an hour to find the key! In sixty minutes I could have set him work enough to keep him busy for three months. All that he needed was some one to direct him, but there was no one to do it. With the best intentions in the world he was using his soldiers to chase a lot of poor hill people back into a village where they ought never to have been asked to live. In other words, the Moro Province, having brought these people down and ordered them to settle on a site selected for them, had signally failed to back its own game. I myself would not think of trying to compel members of a wild tribe to live in any given place, unless it were necessary to do so in the interest of public order. Life in villages can, and should, be made so attractive to them that they will be glad to adopt it.

The Moros, with their fanatical religious beliefs and prejudices, present a very grave problem. Conditions have undoubtedly greatly improved in Davao, Cotabato and Zamboanga. I am not sufficiently familiar with affairs in the Lanao district to express an intelligent opinion concerning them. So far as concerns Joló, it is my opinion that things have come to a bad pass there; that life and property are not as safe to-day as they were during the early days of the American occupation, and that we have progressed backward for some time. However, Joló pirates have at least been pretty effectively kept off the sea, and that in itself is a very important result.

It is idle to suppose that the Moros can be subdued and made into decent citizens by throwing kisses at them. It was certain from the start that they would transgress. In my opinion, if we are to cure them of their evil tendencies, we must first warn them that they will be punished if they misbehave, and then make the warning come true. This has been done, but to another very important part of the programme which I deem essential to success, comparatively little attention seems to have been given. When people who have been punished for misbehavior have had enough they should be afforded a chance to quit, and indeed should be encouraged and helped to do so. No grudge should be borne for past misdeeds after the account has once been settled. Occasions have not been lacking in the Moro Province on which men have been treated with severity when they should have been treated with kindness.

In the Moro, native racial characteristics have been profoundly modified by religious beliefs. Men endowed with such magnificent courage as the Moro warriors often display certainly have their redeeming qualities. The same old policy that has won with the Ifugaos, Bontoc Igorots and Kalingas, and is winning with the wild Tingians and Ilongots, has been tried in dealing with the renegade Moros of Palawan with a considerable degree of success. It is my firm belief that it will work with the Moros of Mindanao, Basilan, Joló and Tawi Tawi, but substantial and permanent progress cannot now be anticipated for many years. The Moros must be given more than a square deal, or results will not differ essentially from those which have attended the efforts of Japan to subdue the hill people of Northern Formosa, or those of the Dutch to subdue the Achinese.

Recently nearly all of the army officers holding positions in the Moro Province have been replaced by civilians. This is a move in the right direction; not, I repeat, because the men thus displaced are incapable of achieving success if given the opportunity, but because continuity of policy is absolutely essential to success and is impracticable if the men charged with carrying out that policy are to be constantly changed. The next governor of the Moro Province should be a civilian and should be selected with the greatest care. He should be able, energetic, fearless, tireless and young. He should be kept in office for twenty years if he will stay so long. The task which awaits him is real man's work.