Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1904-03-31
THEORY OF 4 FILIPINO
He Tells Why Americans Can
not Understand His People.
WILL NEVER KNOW THEM, HE SAYS

Between the Nations There Is Line
Which Cannot he Defined he As
serts-MOre Than "a Difference of
Color or Even Civilization Is Found
Between the Races-CIaims They
Can Never AssimiIate.
An old Filipino's views on the differ
ences between his countrymen and
Americans are thus described by Oscar
King Davis in The Last Appeal of
Don Felipe" published in the Century
Magazine for April:
''Senor," answered the old man, lis
ten. l am an old man l know my
people. but l know something OF other
peoples also. l have not lived here all
my time. l have travelled and have d
seen the world. | have been in your
own land. l have seen your cities and
your country. l have been much more z
in America than you Americans have
been here. yet 1 do not know the
Americans. But they who have been
here only so few weeks or months talk
assuredly of the Filipinos. As il they
know Il people in such Il time. Truly
the Americans are "A wonderful people.
but they cannot do that. l tell YOU,
senior. that they can never know us.
Just as we can never know them. For
they are west and we are east and we
cannot meet.
Between us there is Il line which
neither you nor l can denne. Nor can
we tell when we have crossed it. We
make mathematical calculation and
say: Here we are over That was
west; this is east That calculation
serves as u mark of longitude, fixed
and absolute, but can you go out there
on the ocean and show me the line that
divides the east from the west? Can.
you see it can you touch it, can you
feel it? The difference between the
peoples is just as great as that, yet
just as subtle and as intangible. Till
you can mark that line and fix it upon.
the face of the unstable sea you cannot
determine the line of difference be-
tween your people and mine. How
then will you understand us or we you?
Ii cannot be.
Il tell you that between us there is
more than what you know as race diff
ference in your country. There race
difference is still difference between
western races Here it is world diff
ference Between you and me there Is
more than a difference of color. OF stat
ure or even of civilization. There is
radical intellectual difference differ
ence of thought, of understanding. Of
Interpretation of the same acts and
events; u difference of mental process
which neither you nor l will ever be
able to comprehend fully of the other
We see that it exists. Why or how we
can never know. We cannot fathom
the ways or the wisdom of God, who
made us both
Yet there are some things we can
know. The civilization Of the west is
not for the east. The two can never
assimilate or amalgamate. Your race
and mine will never join. Why, look
you, in my country. in this island, there
are peoples who have lived side by
side for thousand years, and yet the
line of demarcatiOn is as distinct today
rs it was in the beginning. Do you
think these people will assimilate with
from the west whom they
have known less than thousand
lays?
"Who can trace the course Of a mans
thoughts? There are certain facts.
You and know them. You draw your
and 1 draw mine. They
For that reason shall we
say that you and L think alike? Per
maps it is so for that time; but. senior,
he ways Of the east are not those OF
he west This time and next time we
each the same conclusion, then we
iiffer, and you do not know why, nor
10 l. We have worked through sep
irate channels even when we arrived
It the same end"