Connecticut western news., 1922-03-23
INTERESTING QUESTIONS
 OF THE PHILIPPINES
Pres. Ogilby Speaks to Men
 On Our Island > Possessions


 several churches of the town. Aside from the supper the attraction was an address by President Ogilby, of Trinity College, on the Philippines, where he spent nine years teaching the natives.
 The supper was served in the par lors of the church by the ladies and was one of those delightful repasts which the ladies of the church know so we'll how to prepare. Afterward MT. Skinner in his inimicable> style started "a round of stories of a hu- morous nature, followed by the sing ing of old songs known to all. It marked the opening of one of the most interesting evenings the men have had in some time and should pave the way for more get-togethers of this nature.
 X President Ogilby, in the short time I allotted him, covered considerable of his experiences in the Philippines and told in an interesting manner of | the political questions arising from I the determination of many to give the islands their independence. He said that the Phillipine problem was about twenty years old to us, that we didn't really want them in the first place and that great many people didn't even know where they were. One reason why there has Ebeen no solution is that as nation live fail to understand because we iknow so little about these people,.
 They are a people of great con- trasts and it is impossible to group them in any classes. There are attractive, clean men and beautiful women and then there are others far down on the social scale, whose chief delight seems to be to hunt and eat the wild pig. There are prominent citizens who dress in gaudy, tight fitting clothing, ornamented with sil- yer, while there are others who wan der around with nothing more or less than strip of cloth about their waist and feel perfectly satisfied.
 Very few of our colleges are with out few members from the Phil lipines, yet on the islands, far back, in the hills, they are equally lacking in knowledge and very. superstitious. As an example, when an eclipse of the moon occurs, these people scream 1 in despair that a dragon is eating | the moon and continue to do so until the shadow has passed. After it is over they say the dragon is splitting up the moon and feel satisfied that they have saved it for future gener- ations.
 The greatest single gift to man. kind in the Philippines is bamboo, which grows profusely. With his bolo knife a native will build him home from bamboo in day or two. Rice and bananas grow easily and form a considerable part of food eaten. In Manila live many well-to-do business men who ride around in their hmousines with gasoline at $1.2Oya gallon. There are many wealthy people. The Marrows are 'anatic Mohamedan race while others are devout Roman Catholics and of other religious faith. The one general race of people seems to be If the Malay type. The islands were first dominated by Borneo and have always been more or less of battle ground, changing through conquest, until taken over by the United | States.
 The Chinese exclusion act in effect ] inF this country is also operative in the Philippines, but the mixture of male Chinese blood with the native women has produced a cross that results in many excellent business men. There is also an infusion of American blood, due to soldiers being discharged and staying there, marry | ing native women. The Morros, he said, are a band of thieves and cut | throats.
 In the schools the system used is to press forward the English lan- guage, which is very difficult for the natives to learn. There are now over a million children in the schools, yet due to the fact that there are about forty-three different tribes, it is a great handicap to amalgamation. ! There are about 83 different dialects spoken and in the course of days travel the people one meets at even 1 ing converse with those met Tn the morning.
 A very noisy minority in this coun- try and the Philippines have been making plea for the independence of the islands and it would be very easy for these same people to ex- tract enough from the interesting report of Gen. Wood to gain this independence. In the last election only 6G6 of the people voted. Gen. eral Wood found that the National Bank at Manila was in a very seri- ous condition due to the fact that the silver reserve held to back up the currency, had been lost in speculation.
 The volume of trade from the islands to this country last year amounted to about $2,O00,000 and