Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-02-24


X y
According to most Americans, the re-
suit is lowering Of efficiency. This is
real dilem-
Civil Service ma, because
Problem Threefold. s p,S,n D0, ,hs na %.
tives any job they can hold must in
evitably be continued. Thus. the civil
service problem is a threefold one.
There must be some provision made for
the men who have done difficult work
faithfully. and who are now. forced
out by the principles of our political
theory. The Americans still necessary
there Is the question of whether there
are not certain functions Of govern
ment which natives will be incapable of
running for many years to come.
Pre-eminent among these is the ad-
ministration of the affairs Of the So
called non-Christian tribes The nom
Christian tribes include the pagans, or
hill people. who have only been won
the last decade from their head-hunt-
ing ana con II savage warfare. as
Sulu. warlike Mohammedans who ter
rorlzed the archipelago for centuries
AT present the Philippine commission
mas iuil charge of the affairs Of these
OF the total population, and whose ter
ritorles embrace a third of the land
area OF the archipelago. The purely
fhhnpino assembly has nothing to say
The question is basically political. for
any cnange in the existing arrange
ment VIII have to be made by an act
OF congress. such as is now pending
pefore the House OF Representatives..
IN Its details. however, it is a question
of the civil service. for the men I'M
actual charge of the wild tribes-the
provincial governors-are Americans.
hney nave won the savages to law and
oroer ana to something approaching
tact and reckless courage that is an
eternal credit to the American nation.
Ihe question arises as to when. IL ever
their places can be filled by Filipinos.
In this connection it is we'll to mote
that the term Filipino" does not an.
ply to all in
Term Filipino" Does habitants of
Not Apply to All. n; n = pnl h,l ,
only to the Christian peoples, who to
the number of some 100000 form
about seven-eighths of the population.
This class is the only one capable of
and 1t is from them that
the men to govern the wild tribes will
be drawn.
The Filipinos through their three no.
lft1cal parties have declared them
selves in favor of the Jones bill, which
PROVIDES a more autonomous govern
10 yc1o do
Americans are also in favor OF the adj
ministratfve features of the bill. but
in respect to the actual government of
the wild tribes some of them express
DOUBT They point out that between
the Filipinos and the hillmen is an en-
NIFTY centuries old. and that the Moros
hold the fighting abilities of the Fill
pinos In contempt. They say, too, that
unless checked certain Filipinos are
liable to take advantage of the ig-
norance and superstition of the saw
age to exploit him, and that the con-
ndence and friendship so carefully
quilt up by Americans will be de-
stroyed.
There seems little doubt that the
Moros and the hill peoples would be
thorn in the side of a purely Fill
pino administration. When the prov
inces of Mindanao and Sulu recently
were turned over from the military to
the civil government the last activity
-
troops in the Philippines are on ex-
actly the same sort of peace footing
that they occupy in the continental
United States. The Philippine constab-
ulary is maintaining almost perfect
order, but the commissioned officers
for the most part are Americans.
No critic of American or Filipino
in the islands has attacked the con-
They are a remarkably able
and efficient body of men, recruited
both from the Filipinos and the hill
peoples. They may be taken as con-
elusive proof that the Filipino and his
wilder neighbors have the making of
i1rst-rate soldiers when properly led.
The order they are preserving, the
5000 outlaws killed and the $4,000
captured, show what they can do. The
dozen officers and 200 men killed in
action, the fifty officers and thousand
men who died of disease show what
difficulties they had to contend with.
The question they pose is what they
could do with American officers with
drawn.
Another problem of the civil service