The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1919-05-28
FACTS AND FANCIEs
ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES
(By Maxine M. Kalaw),

saw at ball room Drown conf
plexioned man clad in faultless
evening dress, and accosted him
with the inquiry, II suppose you are
Japanese, sir?"
The man addressed replied, mo,
madam"
"Then you must be Chinese"
she said.
"No, am not; / am a Filipino"
he replied.
"How's that?" asked the lady.
81 thought they we're all savages
living in the woods"
"Well, I'll tell you how / came
here" he said. "a month before
1 left the Philippines was living
in the woods, but the American
Governor decided to catch as many
wild men as possible, train them,
and send them overe here. SO the
American forces were Immediately
set in motion, we we're taken from
the woods and kept for month at
the Governors palace, taught how
to dress and speak a little English,
and then sent liver here. So here
/ am, just as you see." And the
St. Louis lady actually believed
him.
That is what you would call fan
ain 40 DhiIinnfnnC Tho
fact is, however, that the 10000
900 Filipions and their ancestors
have been civilized and Christians
for three hundred years; that the
none Christian population, according
to the census of 1918, is only 50O,-
600.
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
hundrgds 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 COM
ing of the Americans, there were g.
1877 schools?
ITO grant self-government to
Luzon under Aguinaldo, would be
like granting self-government to an
Apache reservation under some To-
cal chief" Thus spoke a former
President of the United States dur
ing the Filipno-American war. Ex-
aggeration could be an excuse at a
time when the dignity of the Amer
can people demanded the extinc-
ton of Filipino opposition; but do
you know that the Philippine Re-
public, before the American occupa-
ton of the Islands, had the approx
al of prominent Americans who
were on the spot, like John Barrett,
Director of the Pan-American I'm
ion, who compared it favorably
with the Japanese Government?
That Admiral Dewey considered
the Filipinos better fitted for self
government than the Cubans? That
they had drafted a Constitution at
Malolos which elicted the approval
of distinguished Republicans like
the late Senator George F. Hoar?
That before the coming of the Amer
leans they had produced national
heroes like the martyred Jose Rial
who has been proclaimed by an Aus
trian writer, Ferdinand Blument-
rift, as the greatest man the Malay
an race has produced, and pronounc
ed by a Republican Congressman,
Representative Cooper, as the no
blest victim that has ever fallen in
to the clutches of tyranny?
Possibly the geographical situa-
ton of the Philippines had some
thing to do with the fanciful esti-
mate the st. Louis lady had. The
Philippines are just next door to
Borneo, where scientists have hunt
ed in vain for Darwin's missing
link between the monkey and the
They are close to
Java, where the small country of
has ruled for hundreds of
years through system of natives
princes and royal families stepped
in medieval ideas of government.
Farther east is India with her TEEN
ing millions, divided up into scores
Of natives states and by almost i'm
passable caste system, blood dis
tinction, or royal families, and that,
unlike their Oriental sisters, they
are the only Christian people in the
Orient?
People have pictured an ignor-