Chapter XVII: What the United States Is Doing in the Philippines

There are so many islands in the Philippine group, which I have just left behind me (I write in a steamer off Manila), that if a man were to visit one a day, without stopping for Sundays, it would take him eight years to get around. Most of these islands though, of course, are little more than splotches on the water's surface and do not appear on the map. The two big ones, Mindanao and Luzon, contain three fourths of the total land surface of 127,000 square miles, leaving the other one fourth to be divided among the other 3138 islets.

The land area statistics just given indicate that the Philippines are about the size of three average American states and the population (7,000,000) is about three times that of an average American commonwealth. There are only about 30,000 white people in the islands, and 50,000 Chinese. Chinese immigration is now prohibited.

The 7,000,000 native Filipinos who make up practically the entire population represent all stages of human progress. The lowest of them are head-hunters and hang the skulls of their human enemies outside their huts, as an American hunter would mount the head of an elk or bear. The great majority, however, have long been Christians and have attained a fair degree of civilization. Even among the savage tribes a high moral code is often enforced. The Igorrotes, for example, though some of their number make it a condition of marriage {164} that the young brave shall have taken a head, shall have killed his man, have remarkable standards of honor and virtue in some respects, and formally visit the death penalty as the punishment for adultery. Because roads or means of communication have been poor the people have mingled but little, and there are three dozen different dialects. In the course of a half day's journey by rail I found three different languages spoken by the people along the route. The original inhabitants were Negritos, a race of pigmy blacks, of whom only a remnant remains, but the Filipino proper is a Malayan.

Filipinos are unique in that they alone among all the native peoples of Asia have accepted Christianity. Fortunate in being without the gold of Mexico or Peru, the Philippines did not attract the more brutal Spanish adventurers who, about the time of Magellan's discovery, were harrying wealthier peoples with fire and sword. Instead of the soldier or the adventurer, it was the priest, his soul aflame with love for his church, who came to the Philippines, and the impression made by his virtues was not negatived by the bloody crimes of fellow Spaniards mad with lust of treasure. The result is that to this day probably 90 per cent, of the Filipinos are Catholics. Before the priests came, the people worshipped their ancestors, as do other peoples in the Far East.

The only Asiatics who have accepted Christianity, the Filipinos are also the only Asiatics among whom women are not regarded as degraded and inferior beings. "If the Spaniards had done nothing else here," as a high American official in Manila said to me, "though, as a matter of fact, we are beginning to recognize that they did a great deal, they would deserve well of history for what they have accomplished for the elevation of woman through the introduction of Christianity. No other religion regards woman as man's equal."

The testimony I heard in the Philippines indicated that the female partner in the household is, if anything, superior in authority to the man. She is active in all the little business {165} affairs of the family, and white people sometimes arrange with Filipino wives for the employment of husbands!

The resources of the islands, as I have already said, are magnificent and alluring. In the provinces through which I travelled, less than 10 per cent. of the land seemed to be under cultivation, and statistics show that this is the general condition. A small area has sufficed to produce a living for the tao, or peasant, and he has not cultivated more--a fact due in part to laziness and in part to poor means of transportation. What need to produce what cannot be taken to market? This fact, in my opinion, goes far to account for Filipino unaggressiveness.

According to the latest figures, the average size of the farms in the Philippines, including the large plantations, is less than eight acres, and the principal products are hemp, sugarcane, tobacco, cocoanuts, and rice. The Manila hemp plant looks for all the world like the banana plant (both belong to the same family), and the newcomer cannot tell them apart. The fibre is in the trunk or bark. Sisal hemp, which I found much like our yucca or "bear grass," is but little grown. Sugarcane is usually cultivated in large plantations, as in Louisiana, these plantations themselves called _haciendas_, and their owners _hacienderos_. The tobacco industry is an important one, and would be even if the export averaging half a million cigars for every day in the year were stopped, for the Filipinos themselves are inveterate smokers. The men smoke, the women smoke, the children smoke--usually cigarettes, but sometimes cigars of enormous proportions. "When I first came here," Prof. C. M. Conner said to me, "it amused me to ask a Filipino how far it was to a certain place, and have him answer, 'Oh, two or three cigarettes,' meaning the distance a man should walk in smoking two or three cigarettes!" Cocoanut-raising is a very profitable industry--all along the Pasig River in Manila you can see the native boats high-packed with the green, unhusked product, and two towns in Batanzas shipped 1500 carloads last year. It is also believed that {166} the rubber industry would pay handsomely. The rubber-producing trees I saw about Manila were very promising.

Coffee plantations brought their owners handsome incomes until about twenty years ago, when the blight, more devastating than the cotton boll weevil, came with destruction as swift as that which befell Sennacherib. I heard the story of an old plantation near Lipa, whose high-bred Castilian owner once lived in splendor, his imported horses gay in harness made of the finest silver, but the blight which ruined his coffee plants was equally a blight to his fortunes and his home and it is now given over to weeds and melancholy ruins. In some sections, however, coffee is still grown successfully, and I was much interested in seeing the shrubs in bearing.

The Philippines are about the only place I have found since leaving home where the people are not trying to grow cotton. In California, in the Hawaiian Islands, in Japan, in Korea, and even in Manchuria as far north as Philadelphia, I have found the plants, and of course in China proper. But I should add just here, that in Southern China, about Canton, I did not find cotton. As for the industry in the Philippines, a Southern man, now connected with the Agricultural Department in Manila, said to me: "Cotton acts funny here. It runs to weed. I planted some and it opened five or six bolls a stalk and then quit: died down." He showed me some "tree cotton," about twenty feet high, and also some of the Caravonica cotton from Australia, which is itself much like a small tree.

When it comes to the lumber industry, not even Col. Mulberry Sellers would be likely to overestimate the possibilities the Philippines offer. There are literally millions in it. The government is leasing immense areas on a stumpage royalty of about 1 per cent., and as railways are built the industry will expand. Fortunately, there are strict regulations to prevent the destruction of the forests. They must be used, not wasted. The authorities realize that while timber is a crop like other crops, it differs from the other crops in that the harvesting must {167} never be complete. The cutting of trees below a certain minimum size is forbidden.

And now a word as to the activities of the American Government in the islands and the agencies through which these activities are conducted. The supreme governing body is known as the Philippine Commission, consisting of the Governor-General, who is ex-officio president, and seven other members (four Americans, three Filipinos) appointed by the President of the United States. Four of these commissioners (three of these are Americans) are heads of departments, having duties somewhat like those of Cabinet officers in America. This commission is not only charged with the executive duties, but it acts as the Upper House or Senate of the Philippine Congress. That is to say, the voters elect an Assembly corresponding to our House of Representatives, but no legislation can become effective unless approved by the Philippine Commission acting as the Upper House. In the first two elections, those of 1907 and 1909, the advocates of early independence, opponents of continued American supremacy, have predominated. The result has been that the American members of the commission have had to kill numberless bills passed by the Assembly. On the other hand, some very necessary and important measures advocated by the commission, measures which would be very helpful to the Filipinos, are opposed by the Assembly either through ignorance or stubbornness. Most of the Assembly members are of the politician type, mestizos or half-breeds (partly Spanish or Chinese), and very young. "In fact," a Manila man said to me, "when adjournment is taken, it is hard for a passerby to tell whether it is the Assembly that has let out or the High School!" The people in the provinces elect their own governors and city officials.

In some respects the legislation for the Philippines adopted by the American officials at Washington and Manila has been quite progressive. To begin with, our Republican National {168} Administration frankly recognized the blunders made in the South during Reconstruction days, and has practically endorsed the general policy of suffrage restriction which the South has since adopted. When the question came up as to who should be allowed to vote, even for the limited number of elective offices, no American Congressman was heard to propose that there should be unrestricted manhood suffrage. Instead, the law as passed provides that in order to vote in the Philippines one must be 23 years of age, a subject of no foreign power, and must either (1) have held some responsible office before August 13, 1898, or (2) own $250 worth of property or pay $15 annually in established taxes, or (3) be able to speak, read, and write English or Spanish. Of course, the Filipinos, with a few exceptions, do not "speak, read, or write" English or Spanish; they have been taught only their own dialect. I understand that only 2 per cent, of the people can vote under these provisions.

It should be said just here, however, that the government is now making a magnificent effort to educate all the Filipinos, and the schools are taught in English. The fact that half a million boys and girls had been put into public schools was the first boasted achievement of the American administration of the islands. It was, indeed, a great change from Spanish methods, but in the last three or four years the officials have been rapidly waking up to the fact that while they have been getting the Filipinos into the schools, they have not been getting them into the right sort of schools.

With the realization of this fact, a change has been made in the kind of instruction given. More and more the schools have been given an industrial turn. When I visited the Department of Education in Manila I found that old textbooks had been discarded and new text-books prepared--books especially suited to Philippine conditions and directed to practical ends. Instead of a general physiology describing bones, arteries, and nerve centres, I found a little book on {169} "Sanitation and Hygiene in the Tropics," written in simple language, profusely illustrated, and with information which the pupil can use in bettering the health of himself, his family, and his neighborhood. Instead of a general book on agriculture, I found a book written so as to fit the special needs, crops, and conditions in the Philippines. Moreover, I found the officials exhibiting as their chief treasures the specimens of work turned out by the pupils as a result of the practical instruction given them.

"I really think," said one of the officers, "that we have carried the idea of industrial education, of making the schools train for practical life, much farther in the Philippines than it has been carried in the United States. The trouble at home is that our teachers don't introduce industrial education early enough. They wait until the boy enters the upper grades--if he doesn't leave school before entering them at all, as he probably does. In any case, they reach only a few pupils. Our success, on the other hand, is due to the fact that we begin with industrial education in the earlier grades and get everybody."

And right here is a valuable lesson for those of us who are interested in getting practical training for white boys and girls in America as well as for brown boys and girls in the Philippines.

Another progressive step was the introduction of postal savings banks for the Filipinos before any law was passed giving similar advantage to the white people of the United States. The law has worked well. In fact, the increase in number of depositors last year, from 8782 to 13,102--nearly 50 per cent, in a single twelve-month--would indicate that the people are getting enthusiastic about it and that it is achieving magnificent results in stimulating thrift and the saving habit.

The government has also introduced the Torrens System of Registering Land Titles, as it has done in Hawaii. Formerly {170} the farmer or the peasant paid 20 per cent, or more for advances or loans. With his land registered under the Torrens system the bank will lend him money at a normal rate of interest, with nothing wasted in lawyers' fees for expensive investigations of all previous changes in title since the beginning of time. Judge Charles B. Elliott, now Secretary of Commerce and Police for the islands, was on the Minnesota Supreme Bench when the Torrens plan was put into force there, and he is enthusiastic about its workings both in his home state in America and in the Philippines.

For the public health an especially fruitful work has been done by the Americans, albeit the Filipino has often had much to say in criticism of the methods of saving life, and but little in praise of the work itself. "The hate of those ye better, the curse of those ye bless" may usually be confidently counted on by those who bear the White Man's Burden, and this seems to have been especially true with regard to health work in the East. In the Philippines the farmers object to the quarantine restrictions that would save their carabao from rinderpest; they object to the regulations that look to stamping out cholera, and I suppose the isolation and colonization of lepers, who formerly ran at large, has also been unpopular. In spite of opposition, vaccination is now general; pock-marked Filipinos will not be so common in future.

Nor is it likely that there will be many reports of cholera outbreaks such as an ex-army nurse described to me a few days ago: "When I was in Iloilo in 1902," she said, "it was impossible to dig graves for the poor natives as fast as they died. The men were kept digging, at the point of the bayonet, all night long--pits 100 feet long, 7 feet wide and 7 feet deep, in which the bodies of the dead were thrown and quick-limed--and yet I remember that on one occasion 235 corpses lay for forty-eight hours before we could find graves for them."

In Manila statistics show that 44 per cent. of the deaths are {171} of babies under one year old, and the ignorance of the mothers as to proper methods of feeding and nursing has resulted in a shockingly high death rate of little ones all over the Philippines. I noticed that the new school text-book on sanitation and hygiene gives especial attention to the care of infants, and it is said that already the school boys and girls are often able to give their mothers helpful counsel. In this fact we have another good suggestion for the school authorities at home, where it is said that proper knowledge and care would save the lives of a million infants a year.

Hardly less important than the school work has been the road-building undertaken by the American officials. And in Philippine road work a most excellent example has been set for the states at home, in that the authorities have given attention not only to building roads but to maintaining them after they are built. Too many American communities vote a heavy bond issue for roads and think that ends the matter. In the Philippines no such mistake has been made. "With the heavy rains here," the Governor-General said to me, "our entire investment in a piece of good road would be lost in four years' time if repair work were not carefully looked after."

The system adopted for keeping up the roads is very interesting. Everywhere along the fine highways I travelled over there were at intervals piles or pens of crushed stone and other material for filling up any hole or break. For each mile or so a Filipino is employed--he is called a _caminero_--and his whole duty is to take a wheelbarrow and a few tools and keep that piece of road in shape.

Prizes of $5000 each are also offered to the province that maintains the best system of first-class roads, to the province that spends the largest proportion of its funds on roads and bridges, and to the province that shows the best and most complete system of second-class roads.

That the Filipinos are unfit to face the world alone there can be little doubt. As to whether it is our business in that {172} case to manage for them is another question. The Filipinos are, like our negroes, a child-race in habits of thought, whatever they may be from the standpoint of the evolutionist. "I never get angry with them, however much they may obstruct my plans," an American of rank said to me, "for I look on them as children. We are running a George Junior Republic; that's what it amounts to." Another American, who has had some experience with the Assembly, said to me: "When you have explained and reiterated some apparently simple proposition, they will come to you a day or so later with some elementary question amazing for its childishness." A large number of excellent measures for which the Assembly has received the credit were really instigated by the commission--"personally conducted legislation," it is called.

The Filipinos come of a race which has achieved more than the negro race, but on the whole they are probably hardly better fitted for self-government than the negroes of the South would be to-day if all the whites should move away. As a Republican of some prominence at home said to me in Manila: "A crowd of ten-year-old schoolboys in Chicago would know better how to run a government."

The mere fact that the Filipinos are not capable of managing wisely for themselves, of course, is not enough to justify a colonial or imperialistic policy on the part of the United States. It is not our business to go up and down the earth taking charge of everybody who is not managing his affairs as well as we think we could manage for him. But, in any case, there is no use to delude ourselves as to what are the real qualifications of Mr. Filipino.

I believe that the United States should eventually withdraw from the islands, but when it does so there should be an understanding with the Powers that will prevent the natives from being exploited by some other nation.

China Sea, off Manila Harbor.

{173}