The Independence of the Philippines
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Genesis iv. 9.
“If we lose sight of the welfare of the people in a creed or a phrase or a doctrine, we have taken leave of our intelligence, and we have proved ourselves unfit for leadership.”
—A Letter to Uncle Sam.
Shall we give their independence to the Philippines? To this question an answer is still to be made by the American people. Not only do we not know whether we shall give this independence or not, but we have not yet decided whether we ought to or not. Even if we could suppose that the country had made up its mind on the subject, it would still be true that no competent authority has considered the manner in which our country would translate its desires into action, whether in one direction or another.
The reason of this state of affairs is not far to seek: our people neither know anything about these islands, nor do they care anything about them. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that our ignorance is the logical result of our indifference. The Islands are far away, as it were, inhabited by a different race, busied, on the whole, about things that form no part of our life, whether national or private. We have, as a people, bestowed no serious thought upon them; we have not yet raised the disposition to be made of them to the dignity of a national question.
I
The Philippines became ours by the fortune of war. On the subsidence of the immediate questions raised by the war, we have continued in the ownership of the Islands without concerning ourselves thus far as to the ultimate place they are to occupy in our national ecomony. Of this state of affairs, but one opinion can be expressed: it is extraordinary. Even in a grossly material point of view, our attitude is indefensible; if we regard ourselves as landlords, we are indifferent to our tenants; if as mere owners, then are we careless of the future of our property. We have not assumed the responsibilities involved with any national sense of responsibility; we have neither declared nor formed any policy. But in this fact lies the extraordinariness of the situation. Of the soundness of our title to the Islands at international law there is not the shadow of a doubt; the Islands are ours. What do we intend to do with them? Why have we not, after fourteen years’ possession, found an answer to the question, or, in other words, declared a policy? Nations, no less than individuals, must take an interest in their property, and society demands as a right that any property of whatever nature shall be adjusted in respect of relations to all other property. We have followed this course as regards Cuba and Porto Rico; but, apart from taking the Philippines and continuing to own them, we have made no adjustment of their case. The property, as such, has been administered, and, on the whole, well administered; the amount of work done, indeed, is astonishing. But that is not the issue: however good has been the official administration of the Archipelago, whatever the progress under our tutelage of its peoples as a whole, no one knows to-day what relation will be permanently established between the Archipelago and the United States, what our policy is, or is to be, in respect of the Islands. And yet upon our declaration of a policy hangs their future. The matter in its interest and importance is national; equally national is the indifference we have displayed with respect to its settlement. Both the United States and the Philippines are entitled to a decision.
II
At the outset of any consideration of the question in hand, it is obvious that we are not shut up à priori to any one solution. Thus, we may decide, to keep the Islands, or we may grant them immediate independence, or independence at some future date; we may establish a protectorate, or give a qualified independence, or even turn them over to some other power—for example, England or Japan; or, finally, we may secure an international agreement to neutralize the Islands, thus ostensibly guarding them against the ambitions of powerful neighbors of colonizing disposition. All of these solutions have at one time or another been mentioned; not one of them has ever been officially announced by the Government, or ratified by the people. Although they are all possible, yet a moment’s thought shows that they are of very different weight: it is hard to conceive, for example, of our turning the Islands over to England. Excluding, then, cession to any foreign power, we may roughly arrange the various possibilities in a scale, as it were: (a) absolute retention; (b) qualified retention; (c) protectorate; (d) neutralization; (e) international independence at some future date; (f) immediate international independence. On examining this list thus arranged, certain deductions appear. The stated various possibilities are not all independent, nor are they all exclusive one of the others. Thus (a) excludes all the rest, or, better, implies (b), (c), and (d), and excludes (a) and (f); (b) and (c) between them are not independent, since a qualified retention may pass into a protectorate. Neutralization not impossibly may ultimately call for a protectorate. Future, independence, so long as unaccomplished, implies (a), (b), (c), and (d), while (f) is completely exclusive. It may, however, not prevent foreign absorption, if, once out, we stay out.
We shall not here take up all of these possibilities. Whatever other conclusion may be reached, the American people must first pass, either tacitly or explicitly, on retention or independence. If either of these extreme be selected, the other possibilities go by the board. If both are rejected, the remaining four will then have their day in court.
Our immediate purpose, then, is to discuss the question with which this investigation opens, with the definite purpose of suggesting, if not of reaching, conclusions that may help others in forming a decision. It is only when individual decisions have so increased in number as in some sort to form a body of public opinion that future action, whether for or against independence, is to be expected.
III
However unjustly the American people may treat its own self in respect of tariffs and other issues deeply affecting its welfare, it may be taken for granted, and is so taken here, that in foreign relations the desire of the people is to do what is right. The right determined, a duty is imposed. Clearly, then, we must first try to discover in this case what is right—what is right for us, what is right for the Islanders. It may be that what is theoretically right, or regarded as theoretically right, shall turn out to be practically wrong; or that what is right for the one shall be wrong for the other. Again, some common standing-ground may be found, where the right of each, converted into the rights of both, may so far overlap as substantially to coincide.
The idea is held by a vigorous few, and incessantly expressed, that the American people, through force of arms, is holding in subjection and depriving of liberty another people; that this state of affairs is wrong, bad for both sides, and should come to an end by an immediate grant of full independence to the Filipino people, because no one nation is good enough to hold any other in subjection. It is pertinent to remark, that these ideas so far have found no nation-wide expression: as already said, they are the expression of only a few, but they may be the private opinions of many. Taken together, they constitute what may be called the purely abstract view of the case. This view takes no account of attendant conditions; it asserts that the right is one and only one thing, and can not be anything else; that is to say, it defines the right and refuses to admit that any other definition will hold, or that any elements can enter into the definition other than those which it has seen fit to include. If no other aspect of the case be correct, our duty is indeed plain. But it is conceivable that this view may not be correct, or at least that so many other factors have to be considered that what might be true in the abstract is subject to very considerable modification when applied to things as they are.
Of this, no better illustration can be given here than the error committed when it is asserted that we, one people, are holding another people, the Filipino, in subjection. As a matter of fact, there is no Filipino people. A certain number of persons, about eight millions, inhabit, the Philippine Archipelago, but it is no more correct to call these one people than it is to call the Europeans one people, because they happen to inhabit the European continent. It is well to keep this point in mind, because, unless a grave error is here committed, the impression prevails that it is one single, homogeneous people whom we are unjustly depriving of independence. At any rate, if not categorically expressed, the connotation of the idea of homogeneity exists. How far this is from the truth is so evident to any person having the slightest real acquaintance with the Philippines, that it would hardly be worth while to dwell upon the matter here, were it not for the ignorance of our people at large. It is convenient to speak of the Filipino people, just as it is convenient to speak of the Danish people, or of the English; but whereas, when we say “Danish” or “English” we mean one definite thing that exists as such, when we say “Filipino” we should understand that the term stands for a relatively great number of very different things. For example, confining ourselves for the moment to the Christianized tribes, it may be asserted that the inhabitants of the great Cagayan Valley, the tobacco-growing country, are at least as different from those of the Visayas, the great middle group of Islands, as are the Italians from the Spanish. Precisely similar differences, increasing, roughly, with the difference of latitude, may be drawn almost at random between any other pairs of the elements constituting the Filipino population. The Ilokanos, to give only one more illustration, have almost nothing more, in common with the Bicols than the fact that they both probably come from the same original stock, just as the English and the Germans have the same ancestors. All these subdivisions speak different languages, and the vast majority do not speak Spanish at all.
But this is not all. The Filipino peoples are divided into two great classes, the Christian and the non-Christian. Now, these non-Christians number over a million, and are themselves broken up into many subdivisions, not only differing in language, customs, habits and traditions, but until very recently bitterly hostile to one another, and so low in the scale of political development that, unlike our own Indians, they have never risen to any conception of even tribal government or organization. Moreover, in Moroland, in the great island of Mindanao with its neighbors, the situation is further complicated by the fact that the dominant elements are Mohammedan. Over most of these non-Christians the Spaniards had not even the shadow of control. The appellation “Filipino people” is therefore wholly erroneous; more than that, it is even dangerously fallacious, in that its use blinds or tends to blind our own people to the real conditions existing in the Archipelago. It is correct to speak of the Filipino peoples, because this expression is, geographically, accurately descriptive; but it is absolutely misleading to speak of the Filipino people, because of the false political idea involved and conveyed by the use of the singular number. Similarly, there is no objection to the term “Filipino” or “Filipinos,” so long as we understand it to mean merely an inhabitant or the inhabitants of the Philippine Archipelago, more narrowly the Christianized inhabitant or inhabitants; but it is distinctly wrong to give to the term a political or national color. It may be remarked now that the divisions, both Christian and non-Christian, of which we have been speaking, determined as they are by natural conditions, are likely to survive for many generations to come. At any rate, the fact that many, and those the most important, constituent elements of the proposed independent government are widely separated by the seas, and that even those situated on the same islands are confined by mountain ranges hitherto extremely difficult to cross, makes it plain that the homogeneity necessary to the formation and permanency of a strong government will be hard to secure, or, if ever secured, to maintain.
When, therefore, it is proposed to grant independence to the Philippine Islands, let it be recollected that this grant is to be made not to a single homogeneous people, of one speech, of one religion, of one state of civilization, of one degree of social and political development, but to an aggregation of peoples, of different speech, of different religions, of widely varying states of social and political development, of little or no communication with one another—to an aggregation, in short, whose elements, before 1898, had had but one bond, the involuntary bond of inherited subjection to Spanish authority, and all of which to-day are distinguished by the characteristic trait of the Oriental, absence of the quality of sympathy.
IV
Since, at international law, our title to the Islands is unclouded, it follows that our responsibility in the premises is complete. If, therefore, in the administration of our responsibility, our wards should make a request for independence, it is our duty to examine this request, to inquire into its origin, and then to investigate its reasonableness with the purpose of determining whether, in the circumstances, our wards are able, prepared, or ready to undertake the responsibilities which they pray us to discharge upon them.
That the request for independence is made, and frequently made, there can be no doubt. It has been made in the past and it will continue to be made in the future. One hears it in speeches, and the native press echoes it. Regularly the Assembly closes, or used to close, its sessions by a resolution calling upon the United States to grant immediate independence to the Philippine Islands. Apparently the request has some volume; in any case, it is more or less loudly made. Now, if the demand is widespread, if it conies from all ranks of society, from the humblest peasant in the rice-paddies to the richest merchant of Manila, from the tobacco-planter of the Cagayán Valley to the hemp-stripper of Dávao, if it is made in full recognition of the responsibilities involved, then, whether we are disposed to grant it or not. it is a serious matter. It becomes serious, objectively, because so many people arc asking for it. Even if the demand come but from a few, the matter is nevertheless, subjectively, one of concern, because we are responsible, and no factor or element should be overlooked in making up our minds.
Now, it is a fact that the chief demand for independence comes from the Tagálogs, the subdivision or tribe of the Filipinos (we are using the word here and elsewhere as a convenience merely) inhabiting Manila and the adjacent provinces. We speak in all kindliness when we say that they are distinguished by a certain restlessness of disposition, by a considerable degree of vanity. They are not so given to labor as some others—for example, the Ilokanos, to whom they are measurably inferior in point of trustworthiness. More numerous than any other tribe except the Visayans, they are also wealthier and better educated. Some of them have therefore earned and achieved distinction, but these are exceptions, for in general they are characterized by volatility and superficiality. They are more mixed in blood than other tribes. It is not without significance that it was these same Tagálogs who organized in the past the chief insurrections against the domination of Spain, principally, as is well known, because of the misrule of the friars. It is also a fact that the farther one removes from Manila the feebler becomes the cry for independence. If we consider the condition of the loudest supporters of the movement, we find them all, or nearly all, to be politicians, políticos. Some of these politicians are not Tagálogs—for example, Señor Osmeña, the Speaker of the Assembly, is a Visayan; so that it would perhaps be more accurate to say of the entire propaganda that it is an affair of the politicians, supported chiefly by Tagálogs. In other words, it is worth while to ask ourselves if the demand for independence be real, arising out of the necessities of the people, or artificial, exploited by the politicians for ends not unfamiliar to us here in the States. It is useless to appeal for a decision to public opinion in the Archipelago, that shall include the whole population, for no such public opinion exists or can exist. And if it be argued that lack of public opinion is no disproof of the existence of a real desire for independence, the rejoinder springs at once to the tongue, that independence would be a sham where public opinion is impossible. There is cause to believe that the true aspect of the case is to be found in a remark made by a young Tagalog (to Mr. Taft himself, if we recollect aright), that there was no reason why independence should not be established at once, seeing that the two things needed already existed in the Philippines, to-wit, the governed in the shape of the peasantry of the fields, and the governors among the gente fina, the gente ilustrada (the superior classes) of Manila. However this may be, a native newspaper of Manila, distinguished by its hostility to all things American, by its insistent demand for independence, did not hesitate to accuse the wealthy Filipino class of being “refractory to the spirit of association,” of being “egotistical and disdainful toward the middle and lower classes,” and of refusing “to join their interests with those of the lower classes.”1
We do not go so far as do some, and believe that the whole agitation is but a conspiracy to place the destinies of the Islands in the hands of an oligarchy. But, in all probability, a Tagálog oligarchy would be formed; for the capital, Manila, is Tagálog, the adjacent provinces are Tagálog, the wealthy class of the Islands on the whole is Tagálog, and there is no middle class anywhere. The mere fact that the capital is situated in the Tagálog provinces would perhaps alone determine the issue, apart from the fact that the Tagálogs are the dominant element, of the native population. Before granting independence, therefore, we should be reasonably sure that we are not in reality placing supreme control in the hands of a few.
But let us suppose that in fact the populations of the Archipelago were quite generally to ask for independence. We must again ask ourselves, How genuine or real would this demand be? It is not very difficult to answer this question. The Filipino is most easily led and influenced; indeed, it is to be doubted if anywhere else in the world a being can be found more easily led and influenced.2 For example, it is relatively not an uncommon thing, certainly in the Tagálog provinces, for a man having a grudge against a neighbor to invite three or four friends to join him in boloing his enemy. The invitation is frequently accepted, although the guests may themselves have nothing whatever against the victim-to-be. Early in 1909, a miscreant who had been parading himself in women’s clothes as a female Jesus Christ, upon exposure by a native doctor, out of revenge got together a band of nineteen men, and with their help proceeded to cut the doctor to pieces. This occurred within a day’s march of Manila. The example just given suggests another Filipino trait, the readiness with which the more ignorant will swallow any and all religious nostrums, and form absurd sects, usually for the financial or other material benefit of their leaders. In yet another case, a murderous bandit3 of Tayabas Province, a Tagálog province, whom we caught and very properly hanged, used to promise as a reward for any deed of special villainy in which he might be interested, a bit of independencia (independence), and then would show a box with the word painted on it, declaring that it contained a supply sent down to him from Manila. He never failed to find men to do his will. Our purpose in citing these examples, whose number might be indefinitely multiplied, is not to show that the poor, ignorant Filipino is especially criminal of disposition, but to point out the ease with which he can be led by other men. If, under evil influence, he will altruistically, as it were, consent to almost any crime, obviously he can be induced to consent to almost anything else. His consent or acquiescence can not be taken to indicate appreciation of the issue.
If told, then, by his political leaders that he must ask for independence, the Filipino most certainly will ask for it; and the fact that in the majority of cases he has no idea of what he is asking for will make no difference to him, just as this makes no difference to his cacique, or boss. But it ought to make a great deal of difference to us. We may be giving him edged tools to play with, only to find when too late that the edge has been turned against him, a result for which we should then be directly responsible. If a general or universal request could be taken to show that lack of independence is operating to deprive the Filipino of his liberty and to estop him in the pursuit of happiness, the situation of affairs would be confessedly acute. But it is a fact patent to all who know the country, that the Filipino enjoys a freedom at least as great as that of the average American citizen, and is at complete liberty to pursue happiness in any way consistent with the law of the land and with the rights of others. We must conclude that a request, even if universal, would not necessarily be for us a safe guide of action. The universality shown might prove merely that all had agreed to what had been proposed by the leaders, and would leave untouched the merits of the case.
V
Intimately allied with this question of reasonableness are those of readiness, preparedness, capacity to assume the burdens as well as the rights and privileges of independence.
On readiness, we need not dwell; it is the readiness of acquiescence, not of preparation: the Filipinos are ready, just as children are ready to play with matches. But preparedness and capacity call for more consideration, however brief.
No one will pretend that the Filipinos have had any political training. Before the arrival of the Spaniards, only 350 years ago, they were all uncivilized. Many of them are still semi-savages; others are savages pure and simple. These facts are indisputable. If, then, we turn to history for assistance, we can not find a single instance of any real political evolution in any of the various divisions of the inhabitants of the Archipelago. The exception furnished by the debased Mohammedan sultanates of the great Island of Mindanao is only apparent. The germ of fruitful growth is everywhere missing. Now, the Spaniards assuredly took no steps to teach their new subjects the art and science of government; there was every reason, from their point of view, why they should not teach this art and science. On the other hand, our own course has been totally different. We have lost no time in putting political power into the hands of the natives, so that to-day, after fourteen years’ possession, municipal and provincial government are almost wholly native. To crown all, we have given the Filipinos an elective legislature, an Assembly, all the members of which are native. Students of the subject at first hand, impartial observers on the spot, declare freely that we have gone much too fast, and that we have granted a measure of political administration and government beyond the native power of assimilation and digestion. With this opinion, sound though it be, we are not immediately concerned: the point we wish to bring out is that the experiment we have made is not free; that the case is one of constrained motion, since everyone knows that the mighty power of the United States dominates the entire situation, and that under these conditions the Filipinos have been exercising themselves in the form of government, rather than in responsible government itself. The Filipino government as such has faced no crisis: behind its treasury stands that of the metropolis. Order is assured by the garrison maintained by us, internal police by the Constabulary, another agency of American origin. But, even if all this were not true, it is questionable if an experience of only eight or nine years affords sufficient ground for the belief that a nascent government could exist and advance under its own power alone.
Our training, ample and generous though it may have been, as it has not, for lack of time if for no other reason, prepared the native to govern himself, so it furnishes no real test of his capacity to govern himself. Self-government is not a function of the mere ability to fill certain offices, to discharge certain routine duties of administration: it depends for its existence and maintenance on the possession of certain qualities, and still more, perhaps, on the possession of those qualities by a majority of the people who practice or are to practice self-government, on an educated and inherited interest of the citizen in the questions affecting his welfare in so far as this is conditioned by government. Tested in this wise, the Filipino breaks down locally; to believe that anything else will happen internationally is to blind one’s self to the teaching of experience.
But there is yet another test. If political independence is to be of value to those who have it, if it is to endure in any useful way, it must rest on economic independence. The state must be able to meet its obligations, and by this we do not mean merely its current bills, its housekeeping bills, as it were, but its obligations of all and whatever nature, interior police, finance, administration, dispensation of justice, communications, sanitation, education, defense. We do not find these things too easy in our own land, and all of us can without effort bring to mind examples of independent societies in tropical regions, where, these things being neglected, the resultant government is a mockery. Have we any reason to believe that the Filipino, untrained, inexperienced, occupying an undeveloped area of special configuration in a region where continuous effort is disagreeable and initiative distressing, will achieve success where others of greater original fitness have made a failure?
Evidently the possibility of obtaining an answer to this question depends on the possibility of determining, within allowable limits of precision, the qualities and defects of the Filipino peoples. Now, this is a difficult thing to do, but it is not an impossible thing; at any rate, a first approximation may be derived from the authorities quoted in the “Census of the Philippine Islands,” 1903, pp 492 et seq. In time, these authorities range from Legaspi, 1565, to our own day, and include governors, prelates, travellers, engineers, priests, etc., among whom are found Spaniards, Englishmen, Americans, and Filipinos, As might be expected, all sorts of qualities and defects are reported. Classifying these, and rejecting from consideration all, whether quality or defect, not supported by at least five authorities, it may be concluded, so far as this induction goes, that the Filipino is, on the one hand, hospitable, courageous, fond of music, show, and display; and, on the other, indolent, superstitious, dishonest, and addicted to gambling. One quality, imitativeness, is possibly neutral. It would appear that his virtues do not especially look toward thrift—i.e., economic independence—and that his defects positively look the other way. If the witnesses testifying be challenged on the score of incompetency, let us turn to the reports of the supervisors of the census, contained in the volume already cited; for these cover the entire Archipelago, and set forth actual conditions at one and the same epoch, 1903, the date of the census. Moreover, these supervisors, as welt as the special agents and enumerators, were nearly all natives. When, therefore, these supervisors report the mass of the Christianized Filipinos as simple and superstitious, we may be sure that we have the truth; but we are also inevitably led to the conclusion of economic unfitness. As this matter of economic independence is one of the first importance in determining the future of the Islands, we must look for all the light possible on the question. A flood is thrown on it by an article entitled “Nulla est Redemptio,” published in the (native) La Democracia, of Manila, October 10, 1910, and believed to be the production of perhaps the ablest Filipino alive to-day. Premising that agriculture is the chief source of Philippine wealth, and that this source failing, all others must fail, the author points out that, although taxes are lighter in the Archipelago than in any other country, production is much less, and that this is the chief cause of the prevailing economic distress. He points out further that the Assembly is wholly native, as are all municipal and nearly all provincial officers, and that therefore they, and the constituencies that elected them, must assume responsibility. Now, what has been achieved? The provinces have spent money on buildings and parks, but, with one brilliant exception, none on roads. Nothing has been done for agriculture. Of the municipalities, the least said the better; they are a wreck in the full extension of the word. And, as the hope of a people must rest in its youth, what does he find to be the case? Thousands of candidates in pharmacy, law, medicine; as regards the Civil Service, enough candidates to fill all the posts in the Islands for generations to come. But of farmers, young men willing to return to the fields, their own fields, and by the sweat of their brow to work out the salvation of the country? None: the development of this principal element of national existence is left to the ignorant and indolent peasantry. He draws no less gloomy a picture in respect of capital and property. Nine-tenths of Manila, and all important provincial real estate, is mortgaged. Capital is furnished at exorbitant rates of interest, and usury prevails. In the country, no security is accepted save real property, and then only when the lender is satisfied that his debtor will be unable to pay, and that the security will pass.
Bad as the outlook is, no remedy suggests itself. For, returning to the theme that agriculture is recognized as vital, much energy is spent in discussion, discourses, lectures, in writing articles, in discovering reasons why agriculture does not flourish, but nothing else and nothing more.4
The picture may be overdrawn; but it is a Filipino picture, drawn by a Filipino hand. Let us now permit, the native press to speak again on the subject engaging our attention. Thus Vanguardia5 a bitter anti-American sheet, arraigns its wealthy fellow-countrymen for lack of initiative and fondness of routine. It accuses them of a willingness to invest in city property, to deposit money in banks, “to make loans at usurious rates, in which they take advantage of the urgent and pressing necessities of their countrymen,” but of unwillingness “to engage in agriculture, marine or industrial enterprise”; and says they are “generally lacking in the spirit of progression.” According to another native newspaper, the vice of gambling has infected all classes of society, men and women alike, rich and poor, young and old. Mere it is almost impossible to overdraw the picture, so widespread is the vice. Let us now couple these statements, drawn from native sources, with the fact that the Christianized tribes, all told, number some 7,000,000; that of these but one-tenth speak Spanish; and that of this tenth only a very few are educated in any accepted sense of the word. Repeating here a form of summation already employed in this discussion, let us bear in mind that, if we decide to make a grant of independence, we shall be deciding to grant it to a population, composed, first, of a very few educated persons; next, of a small fraction able, through the possession of Spanish, to communicate, with one another; and, lastly, of a remainder—the vast, the immense majority—not only unable so to communicate, but characterized by qualities that, however commendable in themselves, do not constitute a foundation on which popular self-government may safely rest. Further, we mean to grant it to a population which contains no middle class, to one in which the poor are peculiarly at the mercy of the rich, and in which nearly all the elements that make for economic independence are conspicuously lacking.
VI
What would happen if we were to grant immediate independence to the Islands? Without having the gift of prophecy, one runs no risk in declaring that civil war would be almost unavoidable. At least this is the belief of some well-informed Filipinos, a belief that appears to have some ground when we take into account, the great probability of a Tagálog oligarchy. But, without going so far as to predict armed strife, it would seem that any government, not held together by some strong external power, would soon begin to break up. Its various elements, not only differentiated from one another by speech, but physically separated, in many cases, by the seas, would tend to fall apart. The Visayas, for example, would refuse sooner or later to acknowledge the Tagalog supremacy of Luzon. If we proceed farther south still, what practicable bond can be found to exist between Mindanao, peopled by Mohammedans and savages, and Luzon or Panay or Negros? The consequences of such a disruption as is here predicted must occur to everyone. The gravest of these, gravest in that it would defeat our purpose in granting independence, would be foreign intervention. Japan would most certainly insist on being heard. Now, the Filipinos, as a whole, prefer our sovereignty to that of the Japanese. England, too, would have a right to interfere for the protection of her commercial interests in the Archipelago. It exercised this sort of right, in 1882, by seizing Egypt in behalf of civilization in general. In the meantime, the Moros of Mindanao and Jolo would have resumed their piratical excursions to the northward, burning, killing, and carrying off slaves. If this be questioned, then let us recollect that as recently as 1897 they carried off slaves from the Visayas, a sporadic case, probably, but giving evidence that the disease of piracy is to-day merely latent. Given an opportunity, it will break out again. Under independence, the large, beautiful, and fertile island of Mindanao would be left to its own devices, would be lost to civilization. Upon this point we need have no doubt whatever. The issue of Filipino control of Mindanao was very clearly raised, when Mr. Dickinson, the late Secretary of War, visited Mindanao in August of 1910. Upon this occasion Mr. Dickinson, in response to a Filipino plea for immediate independence, with consequent control of the Moros, made a speech in which he declared the unwillingness of the Government to entrust to the 66,000 Filipinos living in Mindanao the government of the 350,000 Moros of this province. At the close of this speech, four datus (chiefs), present with 2,000 of their people, and controlling the destinies of 40,000 souls, swore allegiance to the United States; and, requesting that, if the Americans ever withdrew from Mindanao, the Moros should be placed in control, firmly announced, at the same time, their intention to fight if the Americans should ever take their departure. One of the datus, Mandi by name, was outspoken in praise of the present Government, and both he and the other chiefs declared that they were contented with things as they are. Such testimony as is afforded by the foregoing incident is not lightly to be brushed aside to make way for an abstraction. If disregarded, then the efforts that we have made to better the condition of Mindanao, to introduce some idea of law and order, some notion of the value of peace and of industry, will come to a sudden end; for the Christianized Filipinos can never hope to cope with the active, warlike pirates of Moroland. So far as this part of the Archipelago is concerned, a grant of independence means the re-establishment of slavery, the recrudescence of piracy,6 the reincarnation of barbarism. How great a pity this would be may be inferred from the fact that Mindanao forms nearly one-third of the Archipelago in area, and exceeds Java in arable land. Now, Java supports a population of over 25,000,000.
If we turn our attention to the other non-Christian elements of the Islands, the case is no better. The Christianized Filipino fears and dreads the pagan mountaineers, the head-hunters who occupy so large a part of Luzon, the largest and most important island of the Archipelago. He grudges every centavo spent under our direction for the betterment of these truly admirable wild men The governor, the Christian governor, of a province bordering on the wild men’s territory, had, indeed, no other idea of the way to treat his pagan neighbors, about 50,000 in number, than to kill them all. His argument was that they were worse than useless, why spend any money on them, when, by exterminating them, all questions affecting them would be forever answered? But, under our administration, some excellent work has been done, and is growing, to turn these as yet unspoiled peoples to account in the destinies of the Archipelago. Independence would mean the end of this work, the restoration of the old order of rapine, murder, and all injustice as between Christians and pagans, and of internecine strife and warfare as between the communities of the pagans themselves. That this result would follow is not even questioned by those who have acquired their knowledge at first hand. Are we willing to shoulder the responsibility of such a result?
We have at our very doors an example of the danger of independence to a people unfilled for the burdens and responsibilities of self-government. We have already since 1900 been compelled once to intervene in the affairs of Cuba: the possibility of a fresh intervention continually stares our statesmen in the face. But Cuba, let it be observed, in contrast with the Philippines, has but one language, one religion; it has no wild tribes, no Mohammedans; its provinces are not separated from one another by seas of difficult navigation, are bound together by suitable communications. The curse of Cuba is personal politics: have we any assurance that this same curse in a worse form would not come to blast the Philippines?
VII
Some of the conclusions reached or hinted at in the course of this argument must have formed themselves in the minds of at least a few Filipinos of independent character. Otherwise how shall we account for the fact that some declare their disbelief in the possibility of independence? How else shall we explain what is far more significant, the silence under this head of the really first-rate men of the Archipelago? Is it not worthy of note that Rizal himself, the posthumous apostle of the Philippines, never advocated or contemplated independence? In yet other cases, the belief held finds expression in the assertion that the Islands must be declared independent, but only under the protection of the United States. What that would ultimately mean is so plain to those who know the country as to require no consideration here. It may even be asserted on the best of authority, so far as any authority is possible in such a case, that not even those who shout the loudest for independence arc sincere in their clamor the Assembly itself would be seriously disturbed if its resolution to this end should suddenly be honored by the United States.
We make bold to quote here, in full, a short editorial that appeared in the Weekly Times of Manila, December 30, 1910:
“Mr. Perry Robinson, whose articles on the Philippines are now being published by the London Times, makes one point that offers a valuable, suggestion to our ardent friends of the Nationalist party.7 While here, Mr. Robinson interviewed a number of the leaders of the party and discovered that they were all afraid of immediate independence. They admitted that the country and people would not be ready for it for years, and, when pressed for an explanation, said they feared, if they did not press the question now, it would not avail them to do so later on. The inconsistency of the present position must strike every sensible person who examines it. Let us assume that the United States Government decides at this time to give ear to the plea of those who are politically active in the Philippines—what will happen? It will dispatch a commission or committee to the Islands to examine the representations of those who make the plea. It is admitted by even the Nationalist leaders, when speaking privately on this question, that the people are not ready to shift for themselves and can not be made ready for some years. Surely it is not believed that the investigators are going to be deceived about the real truth as to conditions in the Islands, and we are unable to see what good is to be accomplished by having this inquiry made.
“Would it not be infinitely better for the Nationalist and other leaders in this country to squarely face the facts and base all their future operations on the facing of those facts? One difficulty is that they have made a lot of promises and professions to the people that they are incapable of fulfilling, and another is that they have largely aided in deceiving the people themselves as to where they really stand and as to what they are really capable of under present conditions. But to go on means discredit and failure in the end, and a greater work could be done for the country at large by squarely facing the facts. It must be admitted that neither position is especially pleasant. There has been created among the people a vanity of ability and power that will make the blow a hard one; but unless there are Filipino leaders capable of making the people realize the truth about their position, there is really not much hope for them in the future.
“The truth is, that the race must be built up physically and its numbers be enormously increased before it may seriously assume the obligations of statehood; and, for our part, we await the statesman who is prepared to drive this and other important lessons home to the minds and hearts of the people.
“Assurance and pretense serve their purposes on many occasions, but they must be set aside when it comes to the test that will be applied to the plea that Filipino leaders now make with such persistency.”
It is maintained that the matter of this short editorial deserves to be as deeply pondered by the people of the United States as by the Filipinos to whom it is specially addressed.
That all this talk of independence, the motions to that end occasionally made in Congress, the circulation of so-called anti-imperialistic literature, have so far endangered the real interests of the Philippines, there can be no reasonable doubt. The independence propaganda prevents, or tends to prevent, recognition of the fact that the Philippines will be greater with the United States than they can ever hope to be standing alone, if so be that they can stand alone at all. It has retarded the development of the Islands and has checked progress. It forces into the background the fact that with an infinitude of work lying before Americans and Filipinos alike, if the Islands are to have their full value in the world’s economy, the best way to do this work is for Americans and Filipinos to labor together, each contributing his share to the common result. Upon this safe ground both may stand. “The law of life is labor; the joy of life is accomplishment.” But we can not labor if the fruits of our toil may be torn from us; accomplishment is impossible in the face of uncertainty and dissension. If our people have the welfare of the Philippines genuinely at heart, it must thoroughly consider the question of permanent retention; for this course, on the one hand, would not only clear away all misunderstanding, but, on the other, it would meet the real responsibilities of the case. There is no disposition here to burke the fact that these responsibilities are serious, if not onerous; that they call for administrative statesmanship of a very high order. But we should also recognize the fact that these responsibilities are ours, created by us, and that our rejection of them is sure to be followed by consequences disastrous, not to us, but to the Filipinos themselves. If, on the other hand, we accept these responsibilities, then sooner or later Americans and Filipinos together could bend their energies to the development of a country in which they would now have the same interest. And if, under the prevailing uncertainty, so much has already been accomplished in preventing disease, abating epidemics, building roads and bridges, erecting telegraphs and telephones, lighting the coasts, establishing courts of law, equalizing taxation, conserving forests, founding schools and colleges, encouraging commerce and agriculture, what may not unreasonably be expected if all shall feel that the foundations of order, system, and justice are permanent, that life is secure, liberty assured, and the pursuit of happiness possible?
Surely there is significance in the effect at once produced in the sugar-raising islands by the passage of the Payne Bill: idle fields were planted to cane, and the elections took an unmistakable americanista trend. There is no better peacemaker than the pay-master. The Assembly, it is true, fulminated against the bill: success, prosperity, contentment under its operation might mean the dissolution of a dream. So they might; but the bill also categorically established the possibility, and more than the possibility, of permanently profitable relations under the ægis of the United States. It might even ultimately greatly reduce, if not entirely destroy, the racial issue. Here is already common ground, limited though it be, on which Americans and Filipinos may and do stand together. If any doubt should exist on this score, we have but to look at Porto Rico, whose total external commerce has grown, in round numbers, from 17½ million dollars in 1901 to 79 millions in 1911. During this same interval that of the Philippines has risen from 53 million to 90 million dollars, nearly 20 millions of the increase being due to the Payne Bill. The population of Porto Rico (census of 1910) is 1,120,000; that of the Philippines, 8,200,000: the area of Porto Rico is 3,606 square miles; that of the Philippines, 128,000 square miles. This comparison is frankly commercial; but thriving commerce means prosperity, and prosperity spells content. After eliminating certain natural and social advantages enjoyed by Porto Rico, and not by the Philippines, the vast economic difference between the two can be accounted for only by the different relation they respectively bear to the United States, a conclusion confirmed by the effect of the Payne Bill. In the case of one, this relation is defined; in that of the other, undefined. We intend to remain in Porto Rico; we do not know what we shall do with the Philippines.
VIII
To conclude, and in part to repeat: when we took over the Philippines, we unquestionally at the same time acquired a burden. Of this burden we can rid ourselves by setting the Islands adrift; or we can declare that we intend to keep the Islands, as we have kept Porto Rico. In the light of the argument hereinbefore submitted, which of these courses appeals to the people of the United States? May we, or may we not, without incurring an accusation of injustice to a dependent population, honestly ask ourselves if actual conditions should not sometimes limit or control the application of an abstract principle? Does our duty in the premises consist or not in merely satisfying such a principle? Is it or is it not possible that practical considerations—and what is practical is not always sordid—may outweigh an abstraction? Is it or is it not conceivably our duty to use our superior knowledge, power and experience to the best advantage of those chiefly concerned, even if these should apparently for a time not agree with us in the application we purpose to make of our knowledge, power, and experience?
Notes
1 See the weekly Manila Times, October 21, 1910.
2 According to a story current some years ago, a distinguished officer of our Army serving in the Philippines once remarked to a justly celebrated native judge of the highest character, that he had no opinion of the native justice, and added, that for a thousand pesos he could procure witnesses to prove that the judge had committed a murder in such a place, although the judge had never been in the place in his life. “Absurd,” remarked the judge. “How absurd?” “You misunderstand me,” answered the judge; “it would be absurd to spend a thousand pesos on such a purpose when two hundred would suffice.”
3 This worthy, Ruperto Rios by name, in succession promoted himself to brigadier and major general, and then announced himself as generalissimo. As though this were not enough, he next proclaimed himself pope, “Papa Ríos,” and then crowned his earthly glories by calling himself Jesus Christ, and as such was hanged. Our pity for such sell-delusion is tempered by the fact that the purpose in view was crime.
4 It is only fair to remark that the Government is doing every thing in its power to develop native interest in agriculture. Of course it is too early as yet to say whether its efforts will be rewarded.
5 Quoted in the weekly Manila Times of October 21, 1910.
6 That piracy, even under our strong control is not dead is shown by the following:
“Manila, April 15. A pirate raid is reported from Jolo, where a Japanese pearl-fishing bout was found adrift and looted. The crew of the pearler are missing, and are believed to be murdered. The Mataja Lighthouse has also been attacked and robbed, presumably by the same band. Gunboats have been sent to investigate.” New York Times, April 15, 1912.
7 The party of immediate independence.