PREFACE

In this volume I have sought to present the socalled Philippine question as it appears to a Filipino and from an angle rather different from that at which other books on the subject have regarded it. The ordinary course taken in the discussion of the Philippine problem is this: If the writer be an advocate of Philippine retention, after hastily disposing, in his first few pages, of Philippine acquisition as an inevitable God-sent incident of the Spanish-American War, he usually devotes the rest of his work to an exhaustive discussion of American achievements in the Islands, the improvements in education, roads, and public buildings, the extension of sanitary measures, and the fostering of commerce and industry; belittling, ignoring, or denying the coöperation given by the Filipinos in accomplishing these results; often depicting them in the darkest colors, if not, indeed, flagrantly misrepresenting them, ridiculing their characteristics, exploiting their supposed ignorance, and exaggerating, if not entirely creating new, native vices and shortcomings. He, too, often takes the greatest

pains to expose the mistakes of some locality or the crimes of some individual, and, by adroit innuendoes, indicates them as the prevailing tendencies of the Filipinos. Nothing in such volumes is spared to prejudice the American people against the Filipinos, so that he may close the volume with the conclusion that American domination must continue indefinitely and that Philippine independence, if any such thing ever be possible, is yet a long way off. On the other hand, if the writer be an advocate of independence, he takes the opposite view, and after making a much more appreciative study of the Philippine Government, established at Malolos, he enumerates in detail the unmistakable signs of capacity manifested by the Filipinos during American occupation, and then urges the granting of independence without any further delay. This discussion has been going on for well-nigh seventeen years, volumes enough to fill a library have already been written on the subject, and yet through this very confusion of authorities the American people are perhaps more hazy now as to Philippine conditions than ever before.

It is not, however, necessary for the American nation to know- and she can never thoroughly know the minute details of Philippine conditions, in order to be able to settle, once and for all, the Philippine question. She did not have to know

the characteristics and the skulls of the people of Santiago de Cuba, or whether the city of Havana could honestly use the Australian ballot, before she declared that Cuba should be free and independent. It was enough to realize that an entire people were desperately fighting for liberty and that for that cause thousands were starving in reconcentrado camps. Without stopping to learn the racial differences separating the inhabitants of the Island or the great ignorance of the masses-much greater than in the Philippines - and even before they had been rescued from tyranny, the principle to be adopted toward that people had been proclaimed to the world that they were and of right ought to

be free and independent.

One fact must be conceded in studying the Philippine question: the Filipinos are a people, like the Cubans or the Irish or the French a distinct political entity, with a consciousness of kind and with national feelings and aspirations, no matter how poorly developed they may be in some directions. Once this fact is conceded, the real issue to be dealt with then becomes not the success or failure of American experiments in the Islands or the fitness or unfitness of the Filipinos to establish American institutions, but the relations that should exist between the American people and the Filipino people. What is the present political status of the Philip

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pines? How did they come to be under American rule? What do they now ask of America? Can it be granted without impairing American interests in the Islands?

It is the purpose of the present volume to review American relations with the Filipino people — the acquisition of the Philippines by America, the motives underlying that acquisition, the frame of mind of the American people at the time, the vain protests of the Filipinos against their forcible subjection, the refusal of the American Congress to make a declaration of its purpose towards them, the publicity campaign carried on by the advocates of retention, the appeals of the Filipino people, and the factors that have brought about the recent legislative attempt to liberate the Islands. The passage in the Senate of the United States of a bill granting independence to the Philippines within four years closes a very interesting chapter in the history of Filipino-American relations.

This book, however, is not intended solely for Americans. It is hoped that through this volume the Filipino people may have a glimpse of the drama of their national future as it is staged in America — the attitude of the American people toward them, the continuous struggle for their rights as a people, the efforts of many Americans in behalf of their cause, the work done by the deadly foes of

their national freedom, and the concessions that are being made to the Filipinos themselves. Such knowledge is necessary not only because it is a part of their history as a nation, but also because it is indispensable to them in their present task of developing their country and preparing it for the everwidening opportunities of the future.

M. M. K.