The Little River news., 1920-03-17

sE~se.nv be Chinese" she
 ' "'' ' "No, l am not. am q Filipino" he replied.
 Flows that?" asked the lady. Fl thought they were all savages living in the woods"
 "Well I'll tell you how came here.' he said "A month before l left the Philippines was living in the woods. 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 Filipinos and their ancestors have been civilized and Christians for 900 years; that the non-Christian population, according to the census of 1918, is only 500,000, 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 the University of SantO Tomas is only twenty-five years older than Harvard? That as early as 1866, out of population of 100000 people, there were S41 schools for boys and S33 for girls? That in 1892, eight years before the coming of the Ameri- cans, there were 2,137 schools?
 "To grant self-government to Luzon under Aguinaldo would be like grant ervation under some local chief" Thus spoke former Pre- sident of the United States during the Filipino-American war. Exaggeratio could be an excuse at 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 American occupation of the Islands, had the approval of prominent Ameri- cans who were on the spot-li1e 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 f-government than the Cubans? That they had drafted constitution at Malalos 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 martyred Jose Rizal, pronounced by 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 orienti
 People have pictured an ignorant mass of Filipinos, illiterate, poor, liv- ing life of servitude fer q few wealthy land owners and foreigners. with no houses or farms or property of their own. Do you know that 70 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 Unionl That 1t is higher than in any country of South Anne rica, higher than the lit. eracy of tho Spanish people. and un- occasionally above that of any of tho AtvjAn a.. D. you know that there are a million and . half farms in the Philippines and that 96 per cent. of these farms arc owned by Filipinos. In other words that cut of the 100000 Christian FSlipinos, 6, COG, 900 of them at least live on their own farms, with houses of their own, independent of any absentee landlord or foreign master? sThat 91 per cent of the urban property con sisting of houses and lands is owned by the natives of the Philippines, and only g per cent. Is in the hands of for eigners? Yet these are facts cabled by Acting Governor Charles Emmett Yea ter to the War Department from the recent census estimates.
 Having solemnly promised the Fili- pnos their independence and having gone before the world as the champion of self-determination, the Filipino peoA pie cannot understand how America can consistently refuse to make good these promises.
 Mrs Mary Lipsicomb of Hope was in Ashdown Friday enroute to Browns town to visit relatives.
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