The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-09-24

/ which is bossism in it's most fragrant
sense. A head man in a community
Will intimidate and rob hundreds OF
people. He may be an official, a
dealer in hemp, man of means, or a
politician. The system even de-
scends to the overseer of fifteen or
twenty laborers, who collects twenty
per cent of the wages of his poor UNI
| behring's. Any who have the courage
to rebel against this imposition are
promptly discharged and others put in
their places who will pay toll to the
boss.
BOSSES DIVIDE WITH LADRONES.
In many instances the connection
between officials and the ladrones has
been established. In one town it was
discovered that over half of the taxes
| had been diverted from the treasury.
OF the amount purloined two-thirds
had been retained by the officials and
one-third turned over to the outlaws.
When all parties were apprehended
and arraigned the bandits said the
donation was for the furtherance of
their cause (revolution) while the Of
ficials begged off on the plea that they
had been intimidated by the ruff1ans.
A number of prominent persons were
caught red-handed in this transaction
and the native papers went into more
spasms about citizens being bounded by
the Constabulary. A consoling feature
of the incident was that all those in
volved in the theft were sentenced to
the penitentiary by a Filipino judge.
The system of bossism is the curse
of the islands, and is so deep rooted
that much time will be required to
eradicate it. The domination of the
head men is so complete, and the peo-
pie are so little acquainted with the
idea of taking their troubles to the
courts, that the work of fixing re-
sponsibi1ity and melting out punish
ment to offenders is necessarily slow.
AS developments show the bosses and
guerillas to be in league, no effort
should be spared in Furnishing them
all. The scurrilous native press, which
practically defends ladronism by cry
ing down the effort to suppress it,
should be silenced at all hazards Free
speech is one thing and spreading sedi-
ton is another. The editors of one
paper are now on trial for libel, and
even if they escape conviction will have
to cease their TRADES or eventually land
in the penitentiary.
The Judiciary. designed to follow
on the neelS OF the 1OHStdUu-
larry in the work of reconstruction, has
also had innumerable obstacles to
overcome The whole Spanish system
had to be torn up by the roots and a
substitute provided. Two unique phases
Of the application of American law to
the Philippines is the absence of jury |
trial. and the use of Spanish as the
court language 1t would be impossible |
o have trials by jury for the reason |
hat ninety per cent. of the people are |
20 ignorant that they have no concep- |
ion of the common principles of law. |
f English had been made the official I,
language of the courts most of the peo-
lie, being without a knowledge of eth |
r English or Spanish, would have
needed two or more interpreters in con- {
ultine their lawyers. BY adopting
spanish as the court language matters
we're somewhat simplified, for the rea-
on that the majority of the native
awyers understand Spanish and the
ative dialects.
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