Arizona republican., 1912-05-06
Millions of Them Are Liv- ing Under Protection of the Stars and
 Stripes
CONDITION IS
 MUCH IMPROVED
And Only Danger to Pros perity Is Threatened Legislation By
 Democrats

WASHINGTON. D. C.. May D. Probably the average American citizen is ignorant of the fact that Uncle Sans insular possessions number some 4,00O tropical ana semi-tropical islands. These great colonial possessions are not, as the occidental mind is inclined to believe, mere stretches of sand and
 palms and jungle sparscly inhabited by savage tribes, Some of the islands. it is true, are simply coral reefs. too small to be inhabtable, set in the midst of the South Pacific. But some on the other hand. are giant tracts of land. LuZon in the Philippines, the largest, has an area euaql to the state of Ohio. The total area of the islands
 is about 130.000 square miles, equal to New England New York. New Jer- sey. Pennsylvania and Delaware The population is about ten millions In deed the islands are anything but sparsely settled In Porto Rico, for instance, the population per square mile is thirteen times that in conti-
 mental United States, in the Philip pines nearly triple.
 Most of the islands, including or course, the dominant Philippine group. we're acquired in 1899 after the Span
 ish- American war, but some floated the American flag since the fifties. Bakers Island, a little patch of land in longitude 176, just north of the equator. was the first of these to be acknowledged by the United States in 1856. The Hawaiian Islands came voluntarily under the sovereignty of Uncle sam in 1898.
 The Philippines are large enough to be a country in themselves, or rather several countries, for nowhere in the
 world is there such a tumble of lan- guages and races. The natives who
 live in Manila. a city of half a million inhabitants. surrounded by all the com
 forts and luxuries of civilza ton, bear litIe resemblance to the savage tribes of the Sulu seas, naked as the cave
 men and scarcely less primitive, many of whom still indulge in human sac
 rificeS and some of whom are head
 hunting cannibals. Indeed these start
 ling differences among the Filipinos have caused Uncle sam to establish two different forms of government.
 The more civilized portions of the ar chipelago nave a large measure of self
 government with a native assembly
 But strong arm is still needed t0 curb the tribes of part of Mindanao and the southern islands.
 Most of these southern people are
 certainly strange colonial citizens. The
 tribes are apparently innumerable and
 their customs diverse. Indeed the
 whole archipelago is a battle of strange dialects Two tribes living fifteen miles apart have been observed to
 speak languages uninteligible to eacn other. But in one thing all the more
 primitive tribes appear to be practice; ly agreed This is in the style of dress. For the fashions in those trO pie lands are not eXacting. A loln- cloth for the men and a girdle or knee skirt for the women are the proper wear. For children the sartorial prob lem is even more simple. They wear nothing at all Of course there are variations from these simple styles. For instance, among the MangyanS, cannibal tribe, the ladies wear coils of rope made from braided rattan about their bodies. Girl babies are provided with two or three coils IS soon as they can toddle and the quan- tity is added to year by year. So an elderly Mangyan woman often resem bles. in the distance, large coll of rope
 The Negritos, a race of drawfish blacks living in the mountain ranges of I,uzon and Negros, are said to be the aborigines of the islands. There are supposed to be 23,000 of these, but 1 thev are a dying race weak and puny, 1 poor hunters who live for the most part on what they can pick from the trees or dig out of the ground. Like | the Mangyans, they esteem as great | Ielicacy the huge white bugs which bore in the trunks of the sago palms. | These they pick -out and eat alive. l PeIaWan the westernmoSt of the l islands. is an old maids paradise, be T cause among the Tagabanos who in l hahit if there are no old maids. Men greatly Outnumber the women and the young lady who has not caught hus- band by the time she is twelve years | old must be very unattractive indeed. ! On the isand of Enyo, on the other hand. ninety per cent of the inhabi- tants are women, for here it is the | custom for a man to start forth into | the world to seek his fortune as soon | as he gets old enough. The Sindan | gans are incorrigible~ polygamists, and
 the individual braves have penchant for marrying sisters. A United States | (Continued on Page 2.