Connecticut western news., 1920-02-12

"' "No, I am not I am a Filipino" he replied
 Flows thatT 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 I left the Philippines I was living in the woods, but the American Governor decided to 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 300 years; that the non-C Christian population, according to the census of 1918, is only 500.O00, 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 Fflipinos have had colleges and schools and that the University of Santo Tomas is only twenty-five years older than Harvard? That as early as 1868, out of population of 4,000, 900 people, there were 841 schools for boys and 888 for girlsf That in 1892, eight years before the coming of the Ameri- cans, there were 2,I37 schools?
 "To grant self-government to Luxon 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 Fflipino-American war. Exaggeration 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, i had the approval of prominent Ameri- cans who were on the spot-like John Barrett, Director of the Pan-American Union, who compared 1t favorably with the Japanese government That Ad- miral Dewey considered the Filipinos better fitted for self-government than the Cubansf That they had drafted a 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 orient2
 People have pictured an ignorant mass of Filipinos, illiterate, 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 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 Union? That it is higher than in any country of South Anne rica, higher than the lit eracy of the Spanish people, and un- occasionally above that cf any of the new countries recognized in Europei Do you know that thefe are 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,O00,000 of them at least live on their own farms, with houses of their own, independent of any absentee landlord or foreign master? That 91 per cent of the urban property con- sisting of houses and lands is owned by the natives of the Philippines, and only 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- pi1os their independence and having gone before the world as the champion of seIf-determination, the Filipino peo- pie cannot understand how America can consistently refuse to make good these promises.
 CLIMATE NE THE PHI IppINES