Where Half The World Is Waking Up Part 13

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FILIPINO'S HOME.]

Nearly all the native houses I saw in the rural Philippines were of this type--about this size, set on stilts, and constructed of similar material. The scene is not quite natural-looking, however, without a banana grove and a fighting c.o.c.k or two.

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[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CARABAO, THE WORK-STOCK OF THE FILIPINOS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD SPANISH CATHEDRAL.]

Of all the native Oriental peoples, the Filipinos alone have become thoroughly Christianized. The great majority are Catholics.

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The beast of burden in the Philippines, the ungainly, slow-moving animal that pulls the one-handled plows and the two-wheeled carts, is the _carabao_. The _carabao_, or water buffalo, is about the size of an ordinary American ox, and much like the ox, but his hide is black, thick, and looks almost as tough as an alligator's; his horns are enormous, and he has very little hair. Perhaps his having lived in the water so much accounts for the absence of the hair. Even now he must every day submerge himself contentedly in deep water, must cover his body like a pig in a wallow: this is what makes life worth living for him. Furthermore, when he gives word that he is thirsty Mr. Tao (the peasant) must not delay watering him; in this hot climate thirst may drive him furiously, savagely mad, and the plowman may not be able to climb a cocoanut tree quick enough to escape hurt.

I saw quite a few goats, some cattle, a few hogs, and, of course, some dogs. Much as the Filipino may care for his dog, however, he always reserves the warmest place in his heart for nothing else but his gamec.o.c.k, his fighting rooster. c.o.c.k-fighting, and the gambling inseparably connected with it, are his delight, and no Southern planter ever regarded a favorite fox-hound with more pride and affection than the Filipino bestows on his favorite chicken. In gra.s.sy yards you will see the rooster tied by one leg and turned out to exercise, as we would stake a cow to graze, while his owner watches and fondles him. I shall never forget a gray-headed, bright-eyed, barefooted old codger I saw near Tarlac stroking the feathers of his bird, while in his eyes was the pride as of a woman over {160} her first-born. A man often carries his gamec.o.c.k with him as a negro would carry a dog, and he is as ready to back his judgment with his last _centavo_ as was the owner of Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog" before that ill-fated creature dined too heartily on buckshot. Sundays and saints'

days are the days for c.o.c.k-fighting--and both come pretty often.

I wish I could give my readers a glimpse of the pa.s.sengers who got on and off my train between Manila and Daguban: Filipino women carrying baskets on their heads, smoking cigarettes, and looking after babies--in some cases doing all three at once; Filipino men, likewise smoking, and with various kinds of luggage, including occasional gamec.o.c.ks; Filipino children in most cases "undressed exceedingly," as Mr. Kipling would say; and American soldiers in khaki uniforms and helmets. At one place a pretty little twelve-year-old girl gets aboard, delighted that she is soon to see America for the first time in six years. For a while I travel with an American surveyor whose work is away out where he must swim unbridged streams, guard against poisonous snakes, and sleep where he can. An army surgeon tells me as we pa.s.s the site of a battle between the Americans and the Filipino insurgents eleven years ago: the Filipinos would not respect the Red Cross, and the doctors and hospital corps had to work all night with their guns beside them, alternately bandaging wounds and firing on savages. In telling me good-bye a young Westerner sends regards to all America. "Even a piece of Arizona desert would look good to me," he declares; "anything that's U.S.A." A young veterinarian describes the government's efforts to exterminate rinderpest, a disease which in some sections has killed nine tenths of the _carabao_. A campaign as thorough and far-reaching as that which the Agricultural Department at home is waging against cattle ticks is in progress, but the ignorant farmers cannot understand the regulations, and are greatly hindering a work which means so much of good to them.

Such are a few snapshots of Philippine life.

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Of the vast natural resources of the Philippines there can be no question. With a fertile soil, varied products, immense forest wealth, and possibly extensive mineral wealth; with developing railway and steamship lines; with the markets of the Orient right at her doors and special trade advantages with the United States--with all these advantages, the islands might soon become rich, if there were only an industrious population.

Unfortunately, the Filipino, however, doesn't like work. Whether or not this dislike is incurable remains to be seen. Perhaps as he comes into contact with civilization he may conceive a liking for other things than rice, fish, a loin-cloth, and shade--plenty of shade--and proceed to put forth the effort necessary to get these other things.

Already there seems to have been a definite rise in the standards of living since the American occupation. "When I came here in '98," Mr.

William Crozier said to me, "not one native in a hundred wore shoes, and hats were also the exception; you can see for yourself how great is the change since then."

Moreover, in not a few cases Americans who have complained of difficulty in getting labor have been themselves to blame: they tried to hire and manage labor the American way instead of in the Filipino way. The _cus...o...b..e_, as the Spanish call it--that is to say, the custom of the country--is a factor which no man can ignore without paying the penalty.

I am having to prepare this article very hurriedly, and I must postpone my comment on the work of the American Government until later. In closing, however, I am reminded that just as the old proverb says, "It takes all sorts of people to make a world," so I am seeing all sorts. A week ago yesterday the Hong Kong papers announced that Mr. Clarence Poe would be the guest at luncheon of his Excellency the Governor-General, Sir Frederick Lugard, K. C. M. G., C. B., D. S. O., etc., and Lady Lugard, in the executive mansion; yesterday {162} I had "chow" (food) in a Filipino's place, "The Oriental Hotel, Bar, and Grocery," away up in the Province of Pangasinan, and climbed to my room and cot on a sort of ladder or open work stairs such as one might expect to find in an ordinary barn! It was the best place I could find in town.

Nor do the incongruities end here. After getting my evening meal I walked out in the warm December moonlight, past the shadows of the strange buildings and tropical trees--and all at once there burst out the full chorus of one of the world's great operas, the magnificent voice of a Campanini or Caruso dominating all!

Great is the graphophone, advance agent of civilization!

Manila, P. I.

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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 b.l.o.o.d.y crimes of fellow Spaniards mad with l.u.s.t 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 princ.i.p.al 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 gra.s.s," 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 j.a.pan, 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 a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.sed by the a.s.sembly. 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 a.s.sembly either through ignorance or stubbornness. Most of the a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.serby to tell whether it is the a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trated, 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 pa.s.sed 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 t.i.tles, 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 t.i.tle 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.