The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-07-13
PHILIPPINE PROGRESS,

provinces with Judge Taft as Civil
Governor. There are twenty-seven
provinces organized, with proper civil
officers appointed. OF these five are in
a state of lnsurrection, and General
Chaffee, as Military Governor remains
in charge of them. Should any of the
remaining twenty-five provinces burst
out in instruction, they will of course
be at once put under General Chaffees
jurisdiction.
Besides the organized provinces there
are sixteen unorganized provinces
which are stated by the newspapers to
be without instructions" If there
is no organized authority there can be
no insurrection, what is really meant
is that there are sixteen provinces
which are in a quiescent state but into
which the American power has not yet
penetrated. These may be organized
shortly, or it may be a long time before
they are organized Lastly there are
four provinces not ready for civil gov
eminent. These must be among the
Southern Islands of the group, places
upon which a Spaniard never put his
foot during the four hundred years of
Iberian occupation, and which remain
in the same primitive state they were
five or six hundred or more years ago.
Presumably the Sulu Archipelago is
also included among the provinces
not ready for civil government accord
ing to our form. The Edmunds law
might be an awkward one to put into
practice in that cluster of Islands and
Isets.
The ceremony of swearing in followed
by an address was according to the
usual American precedent in such uses
only there must have been more uni
forms, owing to the presence of the re-
firing Military Governor and his staff
together with other Generals now serv-
ing in the Philippines.
Up to the present it has been impos-
sible to judge of what effect Ameri-
can institutions would have on the
Filipinos. From now on the subject of
civil government in that group will be-
come a matter of intense interest to
tions. The problem is peculiar one,
for it is absolutely experimental. 1t is
a very different one from that present
ed by Porto Rico. Spain possessed COM
plete authority in Porto Rico. In the
Philippines Spain did not possess com
plete authority. Not only were there
whole Islands where no Spaniard dared
to show himself, but of the Islands
that they did have possession of, there
were immense tracts which We're mere
ly nOminally under Spanish rule while
there were others which repudiated all
connection with Spain.
What ruling Spain did, outside of the
cities, was through the friars and the
parish priests, Though some of these
We're undoubtedly good and honest men,
even self sacrificing men, the bulk of
them, according to statements from
many different sources, We're venal, dis
solute, rapacious. The Filipinos hate
the friars.
The United States proposes to rule
through the school teacher and the
civil magistrate. When the school
teacher has done his work, the people
will not need to be ruled, they will
govern themelves. This is the essen
tial difference between the Spanish and
the American method. The one would
always keep in letters and failed. The
other would emanoipate through up
raising. The question is how soon will
the Filipino be able to intelligently APP
preciate his emancipation, and how
soon he will be appraised?
When the Filipino revolted from
Spain he devoted his energies to gor-
geous uniforms for his officers and Off
Gals, and a travesty of stately cere-
mOnials. In fact he acted as all in
ferior races always do They catch the
outward show. and think they under
stand the mental attitude But uni
forms don't make generals any more
than frock coat makes a lawyer or
legislator. How long will it take to
get the mass of the Filiplnos to under
stand this Even Aguinaldo was bitten
by this form of ostentation, and
Aguinaldo was and probably remains
a man VI lOICelul CHARACTER, superior
to most of his countrymen. When the
Filipino ENJOYS went to Manila many
months ago, they were gorgeous in red
trousers and gold lace. You find the
same ostentation among the leaders of
Hayti and San Domingo The path of
the American in the Philippines is likely
to be long and thorny, but it is the
right path and will succeed in time.
Spain practically made no impression
in four hundred years. The United
States will have changed the mental
attitude of the place in less than fifty
years because the United States starts
out on correct principles even though
in the Philippines they are experiment
tai.
IN SADNESS.