The Carlisle independent., 1920-03-25

GlWB0<e3y Uc ShtaCSCr bn6 Maxine M. kaIaw. said;
 'No. l am not I am . Filipino" he replied.
 Flows thatf" asked the lady. "I thought they were all savages living is tho woods"
 "Well, I'll tell you how came here." hs said. "A month before I left the Philippines was living h the woods bat the American Governor decided ts catch as many wild men as possible, train them and send them over here So here I am, just as you see" And the St. Louis lady actually believed him.
 That is what you would call fancies about the Philippines. The fact is. however. that the 100000 Filipfnos and their ancestors have been civilized and Christians for 300 years; that the non-Ghristian population, according to the census of 1918, is only 500,0O0, and even these are not all uncivilized.
 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 tho University of Sants Tomas Is only twenty-five years older than Harvardf That as early as 1866, out of a population of 4,000, 900 people, there were S41 schools for Boys To 1tr hn IN atrk years before the coming of the Ameri- cans. there were 2.137 schoolsf
 ITO grant self f-sovernment to Luzon under Aguinaido 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 FiIipino-American war Exaggeration could be an excuse at a time when the dignity of the Am erican people demanded the extinction of Filipino opposition. but do you know that the Philippine Republic, before the had the approval of prominent Ameri- cans who were on the spot-like John Barrett, Director of the Pan-American Union, who compared it favorably with the Japanese government? That Ad- miral Dewey considered the FilipinOs better fitted for self-government than the Cubans? That they had drafted a constitution at Maialos which elicited the approval of distinguished Repub- licans like the late Senator George F. Hoar? That before the coming of the Americans they had produced national heroes like the maFtyred Jose Rizal, pronounced by a Republican congress- man, Representative Cooper, as the nobleSt victim that has ever fallen into the clutches of tyranny?
 And do you know that the Filipinos have not had for hundreds of years any caste system, blood distinction or royal families, and that, unlike their oriental sisters, they are the only Christian peo- pie in the orient7
 People have pictured an ignorant mass of Filipinos. illiterats, poor. liv- ing a life of servitude for a few wealthy land owners and foreigners. with no houses or farms or property of their own. Do you know that TO 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 it Is higher than in any country of South Anne erica, higher than the lit eracy of the Spanish people, and un- occasionally above that of any of the new countries recognized In Europe Do you know that there are a million and a half farms in the Philippines and that 96 per cent of these farms are owned by Filipinos In other words that out of the 100000 Christian Filipinos, S,000,000 of them at least live on their own farms, with houses oi their own, independent of any absentee landlord or foreign master? That 9i per cent. of the urban property con, sisting of houses and lands is owned by the natives of the Philippines and only 9 per cent. is in the hands of for eigners? Yet these are facts cabled by Acting Governor Charles Emmett Yea fer to the War Department from the recent census estimates.
 Having soemnly promised the Fiji pi1os their independence and hayin. zone before the world as the champion of self-determination, the Filipino peo pie cannot understand how America can consistently refuse to make goot fhese promises.