THE PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 847 But if, letting Utopia take care of itself, and dealing with a present duty, which, of a surety, needs and deserves our full strength, we obey the voice of honor and conscience within us and do what we know ought to be done now and here, that which seemed impossible may well come to pass, indeed it will surely come to pass if we but try and try without ceasing to bring it about. As we strive to gain a better government, we shall come to deserve one, and as and when we deserve this we shall have this. Freedom is not the birthright of slumberers. Those serve truth best who to themselves are true, And what they dare to dream of, dare to d6. Such men and such only will remain truly freemen. THE PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY BY JAMES A. LEROY AUTHOR OF PHILIPPINE LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY," ETC. Mr. LeRoy is one of the best-known writers on our colonial affairs. He was Secretary to Mr. Taft while he was Governor-General of the Philippines and has written extensively on the subject. S^ iHE press of Spanish1 America, like that of * 1 |,Europe, scarcely ever -^v E > mentions the Philip| ~ a'pine Islands except to i r iremark in so many 4 4 words, or by its tone of criticism to imply, that the Filipinos are being oppressed by an American government resting purely upon force, and that a deadly warfare is being waged against them. The truth is, that, except in a few provinces, the insurrection against American rule ended in 1901, and that to-day there is less disorder and brigandage in these islands than at any time since 1870 at least. The Filipinos have full control of their local government, except for American inspection and intervention in finance, public works, public health and education, branches of government which are to a considerable degree centralized. Nearly one-half of the superior judges, and all the inferior judges, are Filipinos. In the central government, the Filipinos have had since 1901 three of the eight members of the Philippine Commission, which, by itself, constituted the legislature of the islands for seven years. Now there is a lower house, the Philippine Assembly, composed entirely of Filipinos. In 1902 the Congress at Washington ordered a census of the Philippines, which, should peace continue for two years after its results were compiled, should be the basis for apportioning representatives among the Christian provinces. Elections for this assembly were held July 31, 1907, in eighty districts. The assembly met in October last, and since then has constituted the lower chamber of the Philippine legislature, having powers coordinate with those of the upper chamber, the Philippine Commission. Before discussing the legislative performances of this new assembly - in some respects altogether unique in the Orient -it is interesting to note what sort of nmen the Filipinos chose to represent them. As to occupation, the eighty members are classified as follows, some being included under two callings: Lawyers, 49; journalists, 19; agriculturists, 17; teachers, 17; physicians, 4; commercial pursuits, 3; pharmacists, 2. Two have written much poetry, and one, various dramas, while others have essayed both poetry and drama in Spanish and the dialects of the Philippines. Two others compose music; one is a naturalist, as well as science teacher; two graduated from the nautical school, but are not now engaged in navigation; and one is an 848 THE WORLD TO-DAY ordained priest of the Roman Catholic Church, but turned guerrilla leader and has held no curacy of late. Under Spanish rule and education, diplomas were secured as "commercial experts" by seven of these men, as "agricultural experts" by three, and as "mechanical experts" by three; but these "experts" have nearly all pursued other callings, in spite of their diplomas. Almost one-half of the representatives, or thirty-six, to be exact, possess the A. B. degree; this degree, however, gained in the old friar schools of Manila, represents, in some respects, less than a highschool course in a city of the United States, and was obtained at 15 or 16 years of age by some of these men. In recent years, young Filipinos of the aristocracy have generally gone to Spain, and sometimes to Paris, to complete their education; hence, the fact that only twelve of the eighty representatives have been abroad, indicates that the so-called "intellectuals" of the Philippines do not dominate the assembly, as it was supposed they would. One reason for this is that they are mostly centered in Manila, and the law of elections requires six months' residence in the district to be eligible for representative. "Residence" has been interpreted very liberally in this connection, and a number of members of the assembly who really spend most of their time, and have most of their interests, in Manila, have been chosen to represent provinces of which they are natives, or where they acquired residence only just before the 1907 election. Perhaps there are fifteen such, besides the two elected by the voters of Manila itself. Moreover, of the twelve representatives who have been abroad for study or travel, one is a graduate in law of the University of Michigan, having been among the three hundred or four hundred Filipino youths who have been studying in the United States since 1900. The prominence in the assembly of several of its youngest members, and further, the fact that various of the Filipinos who have been most conspicuous in the past either were not elected to this first national congress or have been overshadowed as members by new and hitherto less known men, have produced an impression that it is a more youthful body than it really is. Of tLe eighty men, classified by ages, nine are under thirty years; forty-seven between thirty and forty; fourteen between forty and fifty; and ten are over fifty. P2at the Filipino who was chosen "speaker" without opposition, and his spokesman on the floor, chairman of the committee on rules, are but just thirty years old; so is the floorleader of the minority (Progressists). Various others of the younger members are especially active in the assembly. It is significant also, that more of the members had gained their experience in public affairs during the six years of American civil rule following 1901, than during all the years of Spanish rule preceding 1898, or under the ephemeral "Filipino government" of 1898-1899. Thus, thirty-one have held provincial offices, and of these ten have been governors of their provinces, while thirtytwo have also held municipal offices under American rule. Under Spanish rule, about one-fourth of these eighty representatives held municipal office, and there are only three or four who held more important posts under the former regime, these having filled, temporarily, vacancies as district attorneys (fiscales) and judges of first instance. Comparatively few Filipinos had a chance to administer offices higher than the municipal during Spanish rule; hence, this showing of the assembly statistics is not surprising. But, since "nationalism" and "independence" were cries so commonly raised during the electoral campaign of last year, one would expect to find among these victorious candidates a large proportion of Filipinos who organized or conducted resistance, first to Spain, and then to the United States. The propaganda for reform under Spain was active only from about 1886 to 1896, and its leaders were nearly all young men, some of them still students. The warfare of 1896-1898 against Spain and of 1899-1902 against the United States, is a thing of yesterday, one might say. Yet there were chosen to seats in the assembly of 1907-1908 only six former members of the Malolos congress of 1898, three members of the numerous and changing cabinets of Aguinaldo, two members of the juntas which sat abroad and preached resistance to the United States (Agoncillo at Paris THE PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 849 and Ar6jola at Madrid), and nineteen who were in the revolutionary army. Only one of these nineteen achieved rank or prominence as a guerrilla leader. Civil office under the revolutionary government was held by thirty-two of these men, but most of them were merely local offices, and some were merely nominal offices whose duties were never filled. Only one of the many men whom Spain exiled to her political prisons in other regions, and two of the thousands who were temporarily deported from their homes to other islands for political reasons prior to 1898, are now members of this assembly. Just one of the men who organized the Katipunan society, which led to the outbreak of rebellion in 1896, is in this body; he was sentenced to be shot by a Spanish military tribunal, but eventually obtained a pardon. These circumstances, taken in connection with those brought out in the preceding paragraphs, indicate that a new generation of Filipino political leaders is already on the scene. In spite of all the talk and excitement over elections, at least in Manila and in some of the most populous provinces, not more than one-half of those entitled to vote, under qualifications requiring education or property, registered for the assembly elections. Outside of Manila, the successful candidates received total votes ranging from only 165 to a little over 1,000, the average size of the majority vote in a district not reaching 500. The political evolution of the Filipino has not yet advanced far, but the schools are now turning out pupils by the thousand, who will be qualified voters in the future. Where the constituencies of voters are still so small, and in addition there is practically no political experience on the part of the public, no active "public opinion," the sense of responsibility on the part of the representatives toward their constituents is naturally relaxed. This is one explanation of the fact that it has been impossible to draw any hard and fast party lines in the assembly. Various statements as to the party allegiance of the members have been made; absolute accuracy can not be secured in this respect, as some members have shifted party more than once. The returns of the elections showed on their face that there had been elected eighteen Progressists (or supporters of the American government in the Philippines), fifty-seven Nationalists (candidates favoring a demand for early or "immediate" independence) of one sort and another, and five unattached representatives, one of whom declared himself a representative of the so-called "Catholic party," which had been, in effect, disowned by the ruling heads of the Roman Church in the islands. This looked like a great "Nationalist" victory. Yet there had been various brands of "Nationalism," and though they patched up a nominal "union" shortly before election, it was broken up even before election in some districts. Long before the assembly met, in October, the fictitious harmony in "Nationalist" circles had been shattered by personal jealousies, as well as by differences of opinion as to the program to be adopted. It was apparent all the time, too, that some candidates simply raised the "Nationalist" flag because of the popularity to be gained by talking about "demanding immediate independence" from the United States. So, when the assembly met, a full score of members who had run as one or other kind of "Nationalists" were calling themselves "Independents." The alignment by parties, as the members expressed their allegiance individually to the official biographer, was as follows: Nationalist, 38; Independent, 24; Progressist, 17 (one Progressist returned as elected being unseated later in favor of a Nationalist); Catholic, 1. There have been various realignments since that time, and the result is that as yet there are no clearly defined majority and minority parties in the assembly. The Progressists, theoretically the minority, have joined now with one, now with another faction of Nationalists on the various divisions upon matters of importance. The Nationalists have as yet no cohesiveness or definite program to mark them as a real party. The speaker has been in command of a practical majority for all measures on which he and his closest associates take sides, but his support fluctuates according to personal interests and prejudices, and several times his majority has been the very slenderest, by one or two votes only. 850 THE WORLD TO-DAY This merely indicates that there is as yet no real, logical party division in the Philippines. And there can be no such division, of course, till it arises over some definite, practical issue of the moment. The so-called issue of "independence" in the 1907 election was a fictitious one. All that the Filipino representatives in the assembly could do was to pass a resolution asking the Congress of the United States to grant independence at once or in the early future; but the question, in any case, would rest with the Congress in Washington. Hence, the talk of Filipino candidates who asked their people's votes on the ground that they were going to "secure independence" was what is called in the United States "electioneering buncombe." In the absence of a real party division over practical issues within the jurisdiction of the Philippine legislature, however, it was natural that "independence" should be the cry, and the so-called "Nationalist" victory has significance as expressing the general aspiration of the Filipinos. It was, on the other hand, quite incorrect to assume, because the party (Progressist) which declared openly for support of the American government in the islands elected only seventeen out of eighty representatives, that the majority of the assembly would prove to be obstructionists, merely seeking in every way possible to embarrass the American government. Just as the Progressists had declared themselves in favor of independence sometime in the future when the Filipinos are better prepared to go alone, so' a majority of the "Nationalists" are ready to compromise with the existing government, i. e., to recognize it as a fact, to support it as a necessity of the moment, to acquiesce in its features that they do not approve, and to cooperate with it in all its features which they do approve. There is a small faction of very radical "Nationalists," real obstructionists, who would embarrass and discredit the existing government if possible; but it has mustered only a small vote at any time in the recent sessions of the assembly. There was considerable exaltation of the "independent" sentiment immediately after the elections last year. The acts of some of the more radical and irre sponsible Filipinos were magnified by some of the likewise excitable Americans of Manila, who play the role of "professional patriots," as did the Spaniards in 1896-with disastrous results to Spain, by the way. When Mr. Taft arrived, in advance of the opening of the assembly, he poured oil on the troubled waters, as he always succeeds in doing. In no small degree the "workableness" of the assembly, the evident willingness of a large majority of its members to adopt a spirit of accommodation toward the Commission and the American government generally, has been due to the magic influence which this great man exerted, not only in his public speeches but much more in his private interviews and negotiations. Resolutions urging or "demanding" independence from Congress at Washington have been introduced by the more radical "Nationalists" who did not respond to the appeal for accommodation. In executive sessions this matter is reported to have been discussed, but in only one case has it come out on the floor in public session, and the vote was then negative, according to the cabled dispatch.* The first and most decisive test of the assembly's willingness to "get along with" the Commission was afforded by the question regarding the choice of two commissioners to represent the Philippines in Washington. The act of Congress of 1902 providing for such commissioners did not specify the procedure by which the two houses of the Philippine legislature should elect them. If by a joint vote, of course the assembly, with its eighty members and big "Nationalist" majority, would easily prevail over the Commission and its eight members, and would thus dictate the choice of both the commissioners to Washington. By conference, it was agreed that each chamber should elect separately one commissioner and then each chamber would in turn ratify the choice of the other. Some recalcitrant representatives were opposed to this arrangement, but it was carried by a vote of 54 to 21. The preliminary, or constituent, session * Since this article was written, the Philippine Assembly is reported to have declared, by a vote of 57 to 15, that independence is desired by the Filipinos and that they are ready for it immediately. THE PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 851 of the assembly lasted from October 16, 1907, to February 2, 1908, on which day the regular annual session of ninety days commenced. In the preliminary session, most of the time was occupied in organizing the house and its committees, the rules and committee organization of the House- of Representatives at Washington being adopted, in the main. Fourteen seats were contested, twelve of the representatives who were returned as elected being confirmed in their seats; one of these was a Progressist, whose seat was contested by a Nationalist, while one Progressist was turned out in favor of a Nationalist. One contest, the most notable of all, remained undecided when the regular session began. The number of bills introduced during the preliminary session was 126, of which eight were passed. Six of these eight were also promptly accepted by the Commission, which, however, revised the text and somewhat amended five of these six measures before they became laws. The most important, also the first, measure thus enacted by the new Philippine legislature appropriated 1,000,000 pesos for the central treasury to build schoolhouses in the barrios, or little rural groups segregated from the town-centers, each barrio so aided to have at least sixty pupils and to pay half the cost of the building. Thus the first act of the assembly was in the nature of an endorsement of the American government's program of education. A measure providing for instruction in the Philippine dialects supplementary to the present instruction in English was, at last advices, pending between the assembly and the upper house, the details alone being in question. The contest over a seat that aroused most trouble was that waged against Dominador Gomez, the noisiest of the orators of "independence." He is not technically a citizen of the Philippines, having been a volunteer surgeon in the Spanish army and resident in Spain during the period when he should have proclaimed his citizenship as a Filipino. The committee on elections reported to this effect, but Gomez had many partisans, secured various delays, organized a considerable opposition to the speaker and his faction, and was finally unseated only by forty to thirty-five votes after several heated sessions. Public meetings of the Gomez and the anti-Gomez factions were held, and, as one Filipino outside observer puts it, "had not the American government been here to keep order, I much fear we should have seen blood shed over this incident." Gomez finally acquiesced, adopting a martyr's air, and became a candidate in the new election ordered to fill the seat. He won, moreover, and thus put the question before the assembly again; at last accounts, it was still undecided. This excitement being partially quelled, the assembly settled down to routine matters during the latter part of February and March. In April it took a recess in order that the Committee on Appropriations, which had been wrestling with the budget of revenues and expenditures, might devote itself to the task without interruption. "Economy," next to "independence," was the principal campaign cry of the various kinds of "Nationalists." Most of their talk on the subject was of the loose and exaggerated ind, and betrayed very gross ignorance of the workings of government in general and of the needs and accomplishments of the particular departments of the present Philippine government. Now that these representatives are confronted with the responsibility of providing for this government, they are beginning to learn a great many things they had formerly ignored. The assembly, in other words, is proving to be the best academy of political science that the Filipinos could attend; and that is just the reason why Mr. Taft urged Congress to provide for it in 1902, and why he has always believed that it would not prove to be a hindrance to government in the Philippines, at least not in the long run. It seems now almost safe to say that, from its initial session, it will have proved to be a help in governing the islands and not a hindrance. Despite the noisiness and demagogism of certain conspicuous men, and the tendency of the educated class of the present to become over-excited very suddenly upon misinformation or a misunderstanding, the Filipinos, as a people, are conservative, not radical, in their tendencies. It would not have been strange, under all the circumstances, if certain men, mostly half-castes, of radical and excitable na 852 THE WORLD TO-DAY tures, who really do not fairly represent the Filipino people, had gained the upper hand in this first assembly and made it a scene of mere oratory and an obstruction ist body. Yet the conservative tendency of the people has asserted itself decisively. This is the overshadowing feature of the assembly. A COMMONPLACE BUSINESS CAREER BY FORREST CRISSEY you shoot at a rabbit and miss it, just wait,. ' where you are and it \ will swing around and give you another shot. So with folks. The ordinary man is fairly -_ - certain to bring up again at the place from which he made his start, especially if he gets a cold deal out in the world which he goes out to conquer. The country towns of the United States are well sprinkled with this kind of men -solid men, in middle life, who have "come back to stay." I guess there are at least a million men who belong to the Back Home Club. Most of them have failed to set the world on fire, while a lot of them have made good in a quiet sort of a way and there is something solid and settled about them as a whole. But there is generally a real story behind these back-home folks. For years this didn't occur to me; perhaps I never would have thought of it if a writer — who once worked on the local newspaper and finally came back and bought a country home in Strawberry Point- hadn't once remarked to me that the place had more good stories in it than you could find in a year's file of the best magazine published. That opened my eyes, and I made up my mind to put in my leisure evenings this winter setting down on paper my own experiences. Some day that boy of mine may like to look them over. Now a good starting point will be to ask the question: About where do I find myself to-day? In years I think of myself as a young man —but my oldest fiughter is sixteen and I am a little past forty. My house is pointed at as one of the big old places of the town; it occupies nearly half a block and I have fixed it up with the idea that it is to be my home for time to come. I told the carpenter that I wanted the front door to be a good one and a wide one, because I expected that some day a few of my friends would carry me out of that door, when I was all through. My little red leather private account book shows that I am worth about $40,000; but the real estate which I own will be worth more than that by the time it passes into the hands of my children - if they don't get it before it's good for them to have it. I am one of the directors of the local bank and some of the townsfolk accuse me of running the politics of the place. Well, I've had to, for business reasons, to a certain extent. I guess I employ about as much labor as any man in the community. What has it taken to get to this point? How has the journey been made? Well, I started by working my way through the town school by taking care of horses and cows. My folks were too poor to do anything for me after I was thirteen, except in the matter of board. It was harder for a boy to earn a quarter then than to pick up a dollar now. I never received above fifty cents a week for any one job of choring, and most of the stables which I tended brought me twenty-five, thirty and thirty-five cents. But, by getting up early and working late, I managed to make my chores bring me about $3 a week on the average. The whole point of it is that when I finished high school and got my diploma I had saved up about $300. Then I was ready to go into business tt It seemed to me that a high-schobl A COMMONPLACE BUSINESS CAREER 853 graduate ought to be able to go into something that wasn't dirty and common, so I got the agency for an insurance company. That was genteel and the right sort of thing for an educated man! It took about eight months of soliciting insurance to separate me from all but $150 of my savings. Then I began to look for something common and dirty enough to pay. I was then eighteen. The best chance I could see was in the livery business with a bus line as a "feeder." With my $150, and credit with the men who had known me from childhood, I scraped together a few old rigs and rented a big stone barn. Then I hustled. There wasn't a train which I failed to make, early or late. And traveling men who wanted to be driven to the smaller towns of the country never found me afraid of any weather which they were willing to go out in. Livery stable help is not generally of an ambitious kind; but I simply had to get the work out of men and boys I hired - and I got it! The lessons I learned in that old stone stable in the art of handling men have been worth thousands of dollars to me. Well, at the end of ten years I sold out that business for $7,500 and saw my way clear to making a comfortable fortune in short order. The World's Fair was just opening in Chicago and I rented a stable in the most fashionable quarter of the South Side. When I had started into the livery business at Strawberry Point I said to myself, "If I can ever own this old stone building, a half a dozen good rigs - buggies which show their varnish, and horses a young man likes to drive when taking his girl out for a ride - I'll be perfectly satisfied; I'll never ask for anything more." But when that had been realized I only laughed at my boyish dream and said: "I'll be satisfied when I own, clear from debt, the best livery establishment on Chicago's South Side!" My Chicago location was all right and so was my outfit, but there was no money! The panic of the nineties was at hand and it took me only a year or two to lose every cent I had saved in the previous ten years. I wag broke, but Strawberry Point folks didn't know it. I had made good there ax so I figured that there was the place ~6r me to start over in. I was sure of finding some friends and some credit there, so I determined to join the Back Home Club. There was no opening in the livery business there, so I started a little lumber and coal yard. Once more I said/to myself: "If I can do a one-team business and clear the stock from debt I'll be satisfied."' My ambitions had dropped a peg or two by my World's Fair experience. I hired a boy to run the little ten-by-twelve office while I hustled the business and did the work. In six months, however, I had things going and had to put on another team and another man. About that time my competitor sold out to a company of city men. Suddenly I woke up to the fact that the carpenters who had been buying of me right along were going to the other place for their lumber. Old friends who had always done business with me would get my figures on a bill for a new barn or house and would not return. Contractors who had been my steady customers dropped me like a hot cake and bought all their materials at the other place. Of course it didn't take me long to discover what was the trouble: I was up against the trust. Of course it was in a small way, but the methods and the result were the same. The company against which I was competing was simply a retail outlet of a big wholesale lumber business in the city. The idea was to put me out of business and then control the field. They had pulled the carpenters and masons away from me by giving them commissions on all materials used by them and bought at that yard; the contractors were cinched by a heavy cut of prices, and so were the farmers and other independent buyers. This company had all the capital it needed, and more, while I had practically none and was doing business on my credit. Night after night I studied over the situation and could see nothing but ruin ahead, unless I could think of some way out of the ordinary course of business by which to dispose of my stock at a profit. Just as I was about in despair, the idea came to me: Why not meet the situation from the other end? Why not make your own trade by going into the contracting business yourself? Times had become fairly prosperous again and there was consid 854 THE WOR Arable building going on in the town and the surrounding country. There was also a good demand for inexpensive cottages for working people. Here I asked myself whether I had any training which would serve me as a basis for beginning this new venture. At the time I started in the lumber and coal business a little thing had happened which opened my eyes to the necessity of being able to size things up at a glance. One summer evening a threshing-machine man drove into my yard and said he wanted a little jag of soft coal - about five hundred pounds- with which to finish up a job. He had a combination water-tank and coal wagon which is commonly used in connection with the threshing engine. I weighed his wagon and told him to go to the shed and throw on his coal. He was gone so long that I stepped out to the shed to see what was the trouble. On the way I noticed a little pool of water, but thought nothing of it at the moment. "I'll be there in a minute," he called out as he saw me coming. When he drove on the scales I was astonished to see the scale-beam indicate a lighter load than when he weighed the wagon alone. Peering out of the window, I could see the top of the load of coal. Then the truth of the situation flashed upon me in a moment. "Have I got about five hundred?" " You've got a ton, " I answered. " The only trouble with you is that you let a lot more water run out of that tank after weighing in than you intended. You overdid the matter by about a ton. Now go and unload that coal and never come into this yard again." That taught me that I must learn to size up things in the rough and right on the jump or I would be cheated continually. So, from that time, I made a practice of guessing every load that came to the scales or passed the office window. By keeping continually at this practice I acquired the ability to estimate the weight of a load of coal or grain and the number of feet of lumber in a load and do it very closely. Many farmers came to the scales to weigh their loads and I soon learned that the tricky ones had a knack of adding about three hundred pounds to the weight of a load of grain even when the man at L iD TO-DAY A the scales was trying to get the coirrect figures. After driving upon the scale platform with the load they would settle their horses back as hard as possible, thus depressing the load. Then, when they later weighed the empty wagon, they would reverse the process and have their horses pulling ahead until the tugs were tight. This, of course, had a tendency to lift and make the wagon weigh lighter. By repeatedly guessing wagonloads of brick and lath I finally became expert in arriving at the number in the load. Well; as I looked back at all this practical training, I concluded that it would certainly help me in going into the contracting work, and that I could learn the contracting business in the same way I had learned the lumber and coal trade. The first contract I secured was for the building of a five-room schoolhouse. I kept tab on how many brick each mason laid in a day, and on how many feet of flooring each man put down. The building of that schoolhouse was a school to me, and no mistake! Of course I might have left these details to a foreman, but when the job was through, what would I have known about what was a fair day's work for a carpenter, a lather, a plasterer, and a brickmason? Nothing! Then, on credit, I bought some vacant residence property in a new part of town, and began building some inexpensive houses. This was a different problem, and I studied every detail of labor and material cost. At night, when not engaged on the specifications of some cottage under actual construction, I put in my time on books of plans, until I became a sort of architect-in-the-rough. I was in the fight to win, and I spared myself nothing that promised to help out in the long run. Soon I was able to estimate the cost of a house with very satisfactory accuracy, and could plan a house of good appearance and of convenient arrangement, on which the actual cost of construction was low. Generally. I was able to sell these houses outright at a fair profit, sometimes before they were completed. When a home was finished and I could not find a customer for it, I rented it to a hardworking and progressive tenant. Later, I would say to the tenant: "Why not buy this house, put a small mortgage on it for funds to make a limited cash payment and