The Wisconsin weekly blade. [volume] (Madison, Wis.) 1916-1925, 1919-05-10
FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT
THE PHILIPPINES
BY MAxIMo M. kALAW
eeerstary Of the Philippine Mission

q ball room q brown complexioned man
clad IN faultless evening dress, and &C.
oosted him with the inquiry, II sup
pose you are Japanese, sirf"
The man addressed replied. mo,
madam"
"Then you must be Chinese" she
said.
mo, l am not am Filipino" he
replied.
"How's that?" asked the lady. "I
thought they were all savages living in
the woods"
"Well. I'll tell you how came here"
he said. "A month before | left the
Philippines was living in the woods,
but the American Governor decided to
catch az many wild men as possible,
train them, and send them over here.
So the American forces were immedi
ately set in motion, we were taken from
the woods and kept for q month at the
Governors palace, taught how to dress
and speak a little English, and then
sent over here. SO here | am, Just as
you see" And the St. Louis lady &c
tually believed him.
That is what you would call fancies
about the Philippines The fact is,
and their ancestors have been civilized
and Christians for three hundred
years; that the non Christian popula
ton, according to the census OF 1918,
is only 100000.
Another fancy is that not until the
coming of the Americans were school
buildings seen in the Islands, roads
built, or substantial houses erected. Do
you know that for hundreds Of years
the Filipinos have had colleges and
schools, and that the University of
Santo Tomas is only twenty-five years
older than Harvard? That as early as
1866, out of a population of 100000
people, there were SAL schools for boys
and S33 for girls? That in 1892, eight
years before the coming of the Ameri-
cans there were 2,137 schools?
ITO grant self government to Luzon
under Aguinaldo, would be like grant
ing self government to an Apache res
ervation under some local chief" Thus
spoke former President Of the United
States during the Filipino American
war. Exaggeration could be an accuse
at time when the dignity of the Amer
lean people demanded the extinction
of Filipino opposition; but do you know
that the Philippine Republic, before
the American occupation of the Is
lands, had the approval OF prominent
Americans who were on the spot, like
John Barrct, Director of the Pan Amer
lean Union. who compared 1t favor
ably with the Japanese Government?
That Admiral Dewey considered the
Filipinos better fitted for self govern
ment than the Cubans? That they had
drafted n Constitution at MalolOs which
elected the approval of distinguished
Republicans like the late Senator
George f. Hoar? That before the com
ing of the Americans they had pro-
duced national heroes like the mar
tyred Jose Rial, who has been pro
claimed by an Austrian writer, Ferdi-
nand Blumentritt, as the greatest man
the Malayan race has produced, and
pronounced by Republican Congress
man, Representative Cooper, as the
noblest victim that has ever fallen into
the clutches of tyranny?
Possibly the geographical situation
of the Philippines had something to do
with the fanciful estimate the st. Louis
lady had The Philippines are just
have hunted in vain for Darwin's miss
ing link between the monkey and the
supermOnkey They are close to Java,
where the small country of Holland has
ruled for hundreds of years through a
system Of native princes and royal fam
lilies stepped in medieval ideas of gov
eminent. Farther east is India with
her teeming millions, divided up into
scores of native states and by almost
impossible caste barriers. But do you
know that the FilipinOs have not had
for hundreds Of years any caste sys-
tenn, blood distinction, or royal famil-
los, and that. unlike their Oriental
sisters, they are the only Christian
people in the Orient?
People have pictured an ignorant
mass of Filipinos, illiterate. poor, liv-
ing life OF servitude for few wealthy
land owners and foreigners, with no
houses and farms or property of their
own. Do you know that seventy per-
cent of the people above ten years Of
age can read and write, and that this
percentage of literacy is almost as high
as some of the States of the Union
That IL is higher than in any country
of South America, higher than the lit
eracy Of the Spanish people. and I'M
Questionably above that of any OF the
new countries recognized in Europe?
Do you know that there are q million
and half farms In the Philippines,
aud that ninety six percent of these
farms are owned by Filipinos? In other
words. that ont of the ten million Chris
tiRn Filipinos. eight million of them
at least live on their own farms, with
houses OF their own. independent OF
any absentee landlord or foreign mas
ter? That nlnety-one percent OF the
urban property consisting Of houses
and lands is owned by the natives of
the Philippines, and only nine percent
ia in the hands of foreigners? Yet
these are facts which have Just been
cabled by Acting Governor General
Charles Emmett Yeater to the War
Department from the recent census es
Inmates.
The Philippine legislature recently
sent special Mission to the United
States TO request the fulfillment OF
Americas PROMISE t. grcat indeNend-
ence. Ii is their plea that the specified
condition precedent to the granting of