The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1904-04-21
\ FILIP.No'S PHILOSOPHY
Between tie East and the West There
Is Line Which Cannot
Be Defined.

Senior" answered the old man
writes Oscar King Davis in "The Las.
Appeal of Don Felipe" in Century
Listen! 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. have travelled and have seen
the world. l have been in your own
land. have seen your cities and your
country. l have been much more in
American than you Americans have
been here, yet l do not know the
Americans. But they who have been
here only so few weeks or months talk
assuredly of the Filipinos. AS if they
could know new people in such a
time! Truly the Americans are q won.
derful 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 a line which
neither you nor l can define. Nor can
we tell when we have crossed it. We
make a mathematical calculation and
say: Here we are over. That was
west, this is east That calculation
serves as a 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 can,
not determine the line of difference
between your people and mine. How,
then, will you understand us or we
you? 1t cannot be.
81 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 a world-dif-
ference. Between you and me there is
more than difference of color, of stat
ure, or even of civilization. There is a
radical intellectual difference-a differ
ence of thought, of understanding, of
Interpretation of the same acts and
events; a 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 amalgamatc. 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
to-day as it was in the beginning. Do
you think these people will assimilate
with newcomers from the west whom
they have known less than thousand
days?
"Who can trace the course of a mans
thoughts? There are certain facts. You
and 1 know them. You draw con
illusions, and I draw mine. They coin
eide For that reason shall we say
that you and think alike? Perhaps it
is so for that time, but, senior, the
ways Of the cast are not those OF the
west This time and next time W.
reach the same conclusion; then we
differ, and you do not know why, nor
do I. We have worked through sep
arate channels even when we arrived
at the same end