Cleveland County herald., 1920-06-10
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 I am q Filipino" he replied.
 "Eow's that?" asked the lady. "l thought they were all Sayages living fn the woods
 Well, HI tell you how came herc." he said "A month before 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 l 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 11,00G000 Filipin0s and their ancestors have been civilized and Christians for 300 years; that the nonShristian 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 elder than Harvard? That as early as l 1868, out of q population of 100000 ! people, there were S41 schools for boys and S33 for girls? That in 1892, eight l years before the coming of the Ameri- 1 cans, there were 2,137 schools?
 ITO grant government to Luzon 1 under Aguinaldo would be like grant | ing self-government to an Apache res ervhtion under some local chief" Thus | spoke former Pre- esident of the United States during the Filiplno-American war Exaggeration could be an excuse at time when the dignity of the Am crican people demanded the extinction If 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--like John Barrett, Director of the Pan-American Union, who compared 1t favora!>ly with the Japanese government? That Ad- miral Dewey considered tie Filipnos better fitted for government than the Cubans? That they had drafted s constitution at Malalos which elcited 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 cniy Christian peo. pie in the orient?
 People have pictured an ignorant mass of Filipinos, illiteratc. poor Nv ing life of servitude for d 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 Unfonl That it is higher than in any country of South America. higher than the lit eracy of the Spanish people, and un- queStionably above that of any of the new countries recognized in Europe? Do you know that there are a million and half farms in the Philippines and tat 96 per cent. of these farms are owned by Filipinos In other words. that out of the 100000 Christian Fi,ipinos, 5000, 900 of them at least live on their own farms, with houses Of their own, independent -af any absentee landlord or foreign master? That 91 per cent of the urban property con 'isting of houses and lands is owned the natives of the Philippines. and nly 9 per cent. Is in the hands of for igners? Yet these are facts cabled by Acting Governor Charles Emmett Yea er to the War Department from the cent census estimates.
 Having solemniy promised the Fill ,iaos their independence and having zone before the world as the champion # Self-determination, the Filipino peo- ple cannot understand how America can consistently refuse to make good these promises.