The Philippines: Past and Present Volume I Part 1

The Philippines: Past and Present.

Volume 1.

by Dean Conant Worcester.

CHAPTER I

View Point and Subject-Matter

It is customary in Latin countries for a would-be author or orator to endeavour, at the beginning of his book or his speech, to establish his status. Possibly I have become partially Latinized as the result of some eighteen years of residence in the Philippines. At all events it is my purpose to state at the outset facts which will tend to make clear my view point and at the same time briefly to outline the subject-matter which I hereinafter discuss.

As a boy I went through several of the successive stages of collector's fever from which the young commonly suffer. First it was postage stamps; then birds' nests, obtained during the winter season when no longer of use to their builders. Later I was allowed to collect eggs, and finally the birds themselves. At one time my great ambition was to become a taxidermist. My family did not actively oppose this desire but suggested that a few preliminary years in school and college might prove useful.

I eventually lost my ambition to be a taxidermist but did not lose my interest in zoology and botany. While a student at the University of Michigan I specialized in these subjects. I was fortunate in having as one of my instructors Professor Joseph B. Steere, then at the head of the Department of Zoology. Professor Steere, who had been a great traveller, at times entertained his cla.s.ses with wonderfully interesting tales of adventure on the Amazon and in the Andes, Peru, Formosa, the Philippines and the Dutch Moluccas. My ambition was fired by his stories and when in the spring of 1886 he announced his intention of returning to the Philippines the following year to take up and prosecute anew zoological work which he had begun there in 1874, offering to take with him a limited number of his students who were to have the benefit of his knowledge of Spanish and of his wide experience as a traveller and collector, and were in turn to allow him to work up their collections after their return to the United States, I made up my mind to go.

I was then endeavouring to get through the University on an allowance of $375 per year and was in consequence not overburdened with surplus funds. I however managed to get my life insured for $1500 and to borrow $1200 on the policy, and with this rather limited sum upon which to draw purchased an outfit for a year's collecting and sailed with Doctor Steere for Manila. Two other young Americans accompanied him. One of these, Doctor Frank S. Bourns, was like myself afterwards destined to play a part in Philippine affairs which was not then dreamed of by either of us.

We spent approximately a year in the islands. Unfortunately we had neglected to provide ourselves with proper official credentials and as a result we had some embarra.s.sing experiences. We were arrested by suspicious Spanish officials shortly after our arrival and were tried on trumped-up charges. On several subsequent occasions we narrowly escaped arrest and imprisonment.

The unfriendly att.i.tude of certain of our Spanish acquaintances was hardly to be wondered at. They could not believe that sensible, civilized human beings would shoot tiny birds, pay for eggs the size of the tip of one's little finger more than hens' eggs were worth, undergo not a few hardships and run many risks while living in the simplest of native houses on very inadequate food, unless actuated by some hidden purpose. At different times they suspected us of looking for gold deposits, of designing to stir up trouble among the natives, or of being political spies.

When Doctor Bourns came back with the American troops in 1908 and I returned as a member of the first Philippine Commission in 1909, this last supposition became a fixed belief with many of our former Spanish acquaintances who still remained in the islands, and they frankly expressed their regret that they had not shot us while they had the chance.

Over against certain unpleasant experiences with those who could not understand us or our work I must set much kind and invaluable a.s.sistance rendered by others who could, and did.

All in all we spent a most interesting year, visiting eighteen of the more important islands. [1]

Throughout this trip we lived in very close contact with the Filipinos, either occupying the _tribunales_, the munic.i.p.al buildings of their towns, where they felt at liberty to call and observe us at all hours of the day and night, or actually living in their houses, which in some instances were not vacated by the owners during our occupancy.

Incidentally we saw something of several of the wild tribes, including the Tagbanuas of Palawan, the Moros of Jolo, Basilan and Mindanao, and the Mangyans of Mindoro.

We experienced many very real hardships, ran not a few serious risks and ended our sojourn with six weeks of fever and starvation in the interior of Mindoro. While we would not have cut short our appointed stay by a day, we were nevertheless delighted when we could turn our faces homeward, and Doctor Bourns and I agreed that we had had quite enough of life in the Philippines.

Upon my arrival at my home in Vermont a competent physician told my family that I might not live a week. I however recuperated so rapidly that I was able to return to the University of Michigan that fall and to complete the work of my senior year. I became a member of the teaching staff of the inst.i.tution before my graduation.

Little as I suspected it at the time, the tropics had fixed their strangely firm grip on me during that fateful first trip to the Far East which was destined to modify my whole subsequent life. I had firmly believed that if fortunate enough to get home I should have sense enough to stay there, but before six months had elapsed I was finding life at Ann Arbor, Michigan, decidedly prosaic, and longing to return to the Philippines and finish a piece of zoological work which I knew was as yet only begun.

Doctor Bourns, like myself, was eager to go back, and we set out to raise $10,000 to pay the expenses of a two-years collecting tour, in the course of which we hoped to visit regions not hitherto penetrated by any zoologist.

Times were then getting hard, and good Doctor Angell, the president of the university, thought it a great joke that two young fellows like ourselves should attempt to raise so considerable a sum to be spent largely for our own benefit. Whenever he met me on the street he used to ask whether we had obtained that $10,000 yet, and then shake with laughter. One of the great satisfactions of my life came when, on a beautiful May morning in 1890, I was able to answer his inquiry in the affirmative.

He fairly staggered with amazement, but promptly recovering himself warmly congratulated me, and with that kindly interest which he has always shown in the affairs of young men, asked how he could help us. Through his kindly offices and the intervention of the State Department we were able to obtain a royal order from the Spanish government which a.s.sured us a very different reception on our return to the Philippines in August from that which had been accorded us on the occasion of our first visit to the islands.

There was now revealed to us a pleasing side of Spanish character which we had largely missed during our first visit. Satisfied as to our ident.i.ty and as to the motives which actuated us, the Spanish officials, practically without exception, did everything in their power to a.s.sist us and to render our sojourn pleasant and profitable. Our mail was delivered to us at points fifty miles distant from provincial capitals. When our remittances failed to reach us on time, as they not infrequently did, money was loaned to us freely without security. Troops were urged upon us for our protection when we desired to penetrate regions considered to be dangerous. Our Spanish friends constantly offered us the hospitality of their homes and with many of them the offer was more than _pro forma_. Indeed, in several instances it was insisted upon so strongly that we accepted it, to our great pleasure and profit.

Officials were quite frank in discussing before us the affairs of their several provinces, and we gained a very clear insight into existing political methods and conditions.

During this trip we lived in even closer contact with the Filipino [2] population than on the occasion of our first visit. Our rapidly growing knowledge of Spanish, and of Visayan, one of the more important native dialects, rendered it increasingly easy for us to communicate with them, gain their confidence and learn to look at things from their view point. They talked with us most frankly and fully about their political troubles.

During this our second sojourn in the Philippines, which lengthened to two years and six months, we revisited the islands with which we had become more or less familiar on our first trip and added six others to the list. [3] We lived for a time among the wild Bukidnons and Negritos of the Negros mountains.

After my companion had gone to Borneo I had the misfortune to contract typhoid fever when alone in Busuanga, and being ignorant of the nature of the malady from which I was suffering, kept on my feet until I could no longer stand, with the natural result that I came uncommonly near paying for my foolishness with my life, and have ever since suffered from resulting physical disabilities. When able to travel, I left the islands upon the urgent recommendation of my physician, feeling that the task which had led me to return there was almost accomplished and sure that my wanderings in the Far East were over.

Shortly after my return to the United States I was offered a position as a member of the zoological staff of the University of Michigan, accepted it, received speedy promotion, and hoped and expected to end my days as a college professor.

In 1898 the prospect of war with Spain awakened old memories. I fancy that the knowledge then possessed by the average American citizen relative to the Philippines was fairly well typified by that of a good old lady at my Vermont birthplace who had spanked me when I was a small boy, and who, after my first return from the Philippine Islands, said to me, "Deanie, are them Philippians you have been a visitin'

the people that Paul wrote the Epistle to?"

I endeavoured to do my part toward dispelling this ignorance. My knowledge of Philippine affairs led me strongly to favour armed intervention in Cuba, where similar political conditions seemed to prevail to a considerable extent, and I fear that I was considered by many of my university colleagues something of a "jingo." Indeed, a member of the University Board of Regents said that I ought to be compelled to enlist. As a matter of fact, compulsion would have been quite unnecessary had it not been for physical disability.

My life-long friend and former travelling companion, Doctor Bourns, was not similarly hampered. He promptly joined the army as a medical officer with the rank of major, and sailed for the islands on the second steamer which carried United States troops there. As a natural result of his familiarity with Spanish and his wide acquaintanceship among the Filipinos, he was ordered from the outset to devote his time more largely to political matters than to the practice of his profession. He did all that he could to prevent misunderstandings between Filipinos and Americans. He a.s.sisted as an interpreter at the negotiations for the surrender of Manila on August 13, 1898, after taking part in the attack on the city. Later he was given the rather difficult task of suppressing a bad outbreak of smallpox among the Spanish prisoners of war, which he performed with great success. He was finally made chief health officer of Manila, although he continued to devote himself largely to political matters, got numberless deserving Filipinos out of trouble, and rapidly increased his already wide circle of Filipino friends. Through his letters I was kept quite closely in touch with the situation.

Meanwhile I decided that the Philippines were not for me, asked for and obtained leave for study in Europe, and in December 1898 set out for New York to engage pa.s.sage for myself and my family. I went by way of Washington in order to communicate to President McKinley certain facts relative to the Philippine situation which it seemed to me ought to be brought to his attention.

I believed that there was serious danger of an outbreak of hostilities between Filipinos and Americans, and that such a catastrophe, resulting from mutual misunderstanding, might be avoided if seasonable action were taken. I have since learned how wrong was this latter belief. My previous experience had been almost exclusively with the Visayans and the wild tribes, and the revolution against the United States was at the outset a strictly Tagalog affair, and hence beyond my ken.

President McKinley very kindly gave me all the time I wanted, displayed a most earnest desire to learn the truth, and showed the deepest and most friendly interest in the Filipinos. Let no man believe that then or later he had the slightest idea of bringing about the exploitation of their country. On the contrary, he evinced a most earnest desire to learn what was best for them and then to do it if it lay within his power.

To my amazement, at the end of our interview he asked me whether I would be willing to go to the islands as his personal representative.

I could not immediately decide to make such a radical change in my plans as this would involve, and asked for a week's time to think the matter over, which was granted. I decided to go.

Meanwhile, the President had evolved the idea of sending out a commission and asked me if I would serve on it. I told him that I would and left for my home to make preparations for an early departure. A few days later he announced the names of the commissioners. They were Jacob Gould Schurman, President of Cornell University; Major-General Elwell S. Otis, then the ranking army officer in the Philippines; Rear-Admiral George Dewey, then in command of the United States fleet in Philippine waters; Colonel Charles Denby, who had for fourteen years served as United States Minister to China, and myself.

Colonel Denby was delayed in Washington by public business. Mr. Schurman and I reached Yokohama on the morning of February 13, and on arrival there learned, to our deep regret, that hostilities had broken out on the fourth instant. We reached Manila on the evening of March 4, but Colonel Denby was unable to join us until April 2. Meanwhile, as we could not begin our work in his absence, I had an exceptional opportunity to observe conditions in the field, of which I availed myself.

I served with the first Philippine Commission until it had completed its work, and was then appointed to the second Philippine Commission without a day's break in my period of service.

The members of this latter body were William H. Taft of Ohio; Luke E. Wright of Tennessee; Henry C. Ide of Vermont; Bernard Moses of California, and myself. Briefly stated, the task before us was to establish civil government in the Philippine Islands. After a period of ninety days, to be spent in observation, the commission was to become the legislative body, while executive power continued to be vested for a time in the military.

This condition endured until the 4th of July, 1901, on which day Mr. Taft was appointed civil governor. On September 1, 1901, each of the remaining original members of the commission became an executive officer as well. Mr. Wright was appointed secretary of commerce and police; Mr. Ide, secretary of finance and justice; Mr. Moses, secretary of public instruction, and I myself, Secretary of the Interior. On the same day three Filipino members were added to the commission: Dr. T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Sr. Benito Legarda and Sr. Jose R. de Luzuriaga.

Until the 16th of October, 1907, the Commission continued to serve as the sole legislative body. It is at the present time the upper house of the Philippine Legislature, the Philippine a.s.sembly, composed of eighty-one elective members, const.i.tuting the lower house.

I have therefore had a hand in the enactment of all legislation put in force in the Philippine Islands since the American occupation, with the exception of certain laws pa.s.sed during my few and brief absences.

As secretary of the interior it fell to my lot to organize and direct the operations of a Bureau of Health, a Bureau of Govermnent Laboratories, a Bureau of Forestry, a Bureau of Public Lands, a Bureau of Agriculture, a Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes, a Mining Bureau and a Weather Bureau. Ultimately, the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes and the Mining Bureau were incorporated with the Bureau of Government Laboratories to form the Bureau of Science, which continued under my executive control. The Bureau of Agriculture was transferred to the Department of Public Instruction in 1909.

I was at the outset given administrative control of all matters pertaining to the non-Christian tribes, which const.i.tute, roughly speaking, an eighth of the population of the Philippines, and until my resignation retained such control throughout the islands, except in the Moro Province, which at an early day was put directly under the governor-general.

I partic.i.p.ated in the organization of civil government in the several provinces of the archipelago, and myself drafted the Munic.i.p.al Code for the government of the towns inhabited by Filipinos, as well as the Special Provincial Government Act and the Township Government Act for that of the provinces and settlements inhabited chiefly by the non-Christian tribes.

At the outset we did not so much as know with certainty the names of the several wild and savage tribes inhabiting the more remote and inaccessible portions of the archipelago. As I was unable to obtain reliable information concerning them on which to base legislation for their control and uplifting, I proceeded to get such information for myself by visiting their territory, much of which was then quite unexplored.

After this territory was organized into five so-called "Special Government Provinces," some of my Filipino friends, I fear not moved solely by anxiety for the public good, favoured and secured a legislative enactment which made it my official duty to visit and inspect these provinces at least once during each fiscal year. I shall always feel indebted to them for giving me this opportunity to become intimately acquainted with some of the most interesting, most progressive, and potentially most important peoples of the Philippines.

When in 1901 I received the news that a central government was soon to be established, I was in the Sub-province of Lepanto on my first trip through the wilder and less-known portions of northern Luzon. During each succeeding year I have spent from two to four months in travel through the archipelago, familiarizing myself at first hand with local conditions.