The age-herald., 1900-11-05
PROF. .-SCHURMANN
 REPLIES TO LOPEZ Says Latter Proves Correctness ofCommiSsion'S Report DISCUSSES THE PHILIPPINES Argues That Filipinos Are Not Capable of Self Government, and 10 Pull
 Down the Flag Would
 Be Barbarous
DISCUSSES THE PHILIPPINES

Buffalo, N. Y, November 4.-Prof. Jacob Gould Schurmann, who passed through to- day, handed the Associated Press the fol- lowing reply to an open letter addressed to him by Sixto Lopez:
 MT. Sixto Lopez's open letter of the 3rd instant addressed to me, although I have not yet seen 1t except in the newspapers, is a gratifying proof of the correctness of the report of the Philippine commission. MT. Lopez by his declarations confirms all I have said of the promising educational possibilities of the Philippines and of the admirable character of the educated Fill pinos, few though they are, who may be taken as a type and promise of the future. Nor does MT. Lopez deny that the masses of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands of all tribes and races are uneducated and very ignorant.
 ''Furthermore by silent acquiescence in the report of our commission, MT. Lopez acknowledges that the majority of the Filipinos either desire American society, as is the case with the men of education and property, or acquiesce in it, or are indif- ferent to it, in that the demand for inde- pendence originated with the ambitious Tagalog insurgent leaders who have diff fused it with fire and sword, aided by atrocious misrepresentations of the aims and of the purposes of the United States.
 Tribal Differences.
 Lastly MT. Lopez does not question the finding of our commission that the inhabi- tants of the Philippine Islands are marked by great racial and tribal differences, by immense varieties of social conditions, which range all the way from the civiliza- ton of Manila down through all phases of barbarism to the naked savage of Min danao and Northern Luzon, by bewilder- ing multiplicity of languages which are mutually unntelligible by the ignorance or the masses of the people by the absence of union and concert and the utter lack and by the absolute inexperience of all classes in the affairs of government which Spain always kept in Spanish hands.
 And the inference to be drawn from all this is equally indisputable, nor does MT. Lopez seek to dispute it, namely, that the various and diversified peoples of the Phil ippine Islands are at the present time in- capable of being considered as a nation; they are utterly unfit to accept sovereign ty over the archipelago, even if the Ameri- can people wished to invest them with it; nor have they any hope of ever becoming free and self-governing nation, except in the continuance of American sovereign ty over them and in the peace prosperity and ever-increasing liberty of self-govern- ment which the American flag guarantees them.
 Don Pull Down the Flag.
 Pull down our flag and you leave the Philippines prey to internal feud and do- nestle insurrecton which would quickly beget anarchy. This would necessitate the intervention of foreign powers for the pro- lection of lives and property of their sub- jects. Of course, the islands would eventu- ally be divided up among them, and the Filipinos would exchange the free institu- tions and home rule which the American people desire as soon as possible and in the largest degreee practicable to bestow upon them, for the genuine imperialism of old world emperors, kings and czars. It is the mission of our Republic to save the Fili- pinos, who in general are most promising and estimable, and even lovable peoples, from such a cruel fate, and to train them up to the use of free institutions and the noble work of self-government just as quickly and generously as they or any part of them can be induced to exercise the civil functions so arduous and to which they are so unaccustomed."