are “all Taft,” of course, set forth in the quaintest concoction of
cheap picture-writing, bad grammar, and awkward, slapdash slang. Much
about “Miss Alice,”—a whole column of an interesting description of that
lady’s every gesture at a race-meeting—in fact she looms so large in the
Philippine eye that it looks as if she were here for a very good reason;
perhaps to take the fierce, white light off Mr Taft a little. They allude
to the latter, by-the-bye, as “the _Secwar_,” which, when I first came
across it, I took to be the name of some Indian chief, but it at last
dawned upon me that the word was a contraction of Secretary of War, and
I have since been told that it is his telegraphic address used as an
affectionate nickname.
The American reporter seems to be as virulent in Manila as anywhere else,
for before the party had landed one of these human mosquitoes asked a
Senator what he thought of “these islands,” but the visitor cleverly
replied that he had come to gather impressions, not to furnish them.
The papers are still full of guesses about the true reasons for this
visitation, for so many of them persist in the theory that Mr Taft is not
entirely actuated by altruistic wishes for the welfare of his “little
brown brothers,” but has a wary eye upon the elector at home, and will
pose as the Saint of the Philippines just as far as his own interests
are safe. I think it is a great shame to say this, however, for it is
obvious that he has done the best he can for the Philippines according
to his views; and whether one agrees with his theories or not, his good
intentions are not to be denied. I had a long talk with a man who has
been here in a good business for thirty-three years, and is supposed to
know more about the Philippines than any other white man alive; and he
told me that, as far as enlightening the Senators went, he thought the
Taft visit was a costly farce, for they are to be allowed to see and hear
nothing that does not “suit the Taft book.” A week in Manila of meetings,
balls, parties, and banquets, followed by flying visits to the principal
towns in the provinces and more banquets, all feasting and flags and
anthems; but not a glimpse of the miserable, wasted agricultural
districts, the abandoned rice-fields, and the real truth of the labour
problem. Moreover, their opinion of the self-government problem is to be
formed by the conversation of a few well-educated and carefully selected
_Mestizos_ in the towns.
The natives, themselves, however, are tremendously jubilant about the
approaching visit of their Patron Saint, and expect all blessings to
spring up miraculously in his footsteps.
Talking of natives, I am glad to say that our three excellent servants
have found good billets, with a rise in importance and wages, and they
are all so pleased, poor souls, that we took the trouble to recommend
them to our friends. They did not want much touting, for the spotless
tidiness of their appearance is an advertisement that speaks for itself
and their honesty is patent, for we trust them in a way that no one else
dreams of doing with their Filipino servants. I don’t know how the two
house boys will get on with impatient Englishmen, for they are both
very shy, faithful, simple countrymen—real unspoilt Filipinos. But if
they were spoken to sharply, or muddled in their work, they would become
confused and stupid at once. Not that there is anything peculiar to the
Filipino race in these traits, because they are perfectly familiar to me
in many kindly, simple, limited souls in other latitudes. You have to
take them as you find them, only hoping, as with the same type at home,
that their secret cunning may be ranged on your own side, and that if you
can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, you may perhaps manage to
contrive a useful little leather bag if you are patient enough.
_Note._—I have before me _The Manila Times_ of 17th January
1906, from which I give the following extract:—“While the
municipal and ecclesiastical dignitaries, etc., were awaiting
the arrival of Secretary Taft, a Government vessel slowly made
her way up the Pasig river filled with the dead and wounded
from the island of Samar. During the stay of the party in
Manila, four native men were brought in from the adjoining
province of Cavite frightfully mutilated because of their
pro-American sympathies.”
LETTER XL.
PREPARATIONS
ILOILO, _August 14, 1905_.
We have now decided to go to Hong Kong by the _Kai-Fong_, which sails
next Saturday or Monday, the 20th or 22nd. The _Sung-Kiang_ loaded up as
much as she could and shoved off on Saturday, as she did not want to be
paying port dues here the whole of to-day (Sunday) and to-morrow, which
is a public holiday, being the anniversary of the taking of Manila by
Admiral Dewey.
The transport conveying the Taft party is _scheduled_ to arrive here
to-day, and this evening they are to be present at a performance of the
Filipino Amateur Dramatic Club, to which we have been invited by means of
a huge printed invitation, couched in elaborate Spanish, and adorned by
many ornaments and flourishes.
We heard the sound of a band going past very early this morning, and
when we went out on to the balcony, we saw it was the Infantry band from
Guimaras, with the regiment behind them marching down the street. They
marched splendidly, and the band was playing a most sad and beautiful
tune, which made one think of war, and troops marching away, and women
crying in the morning. The soldiers had just arrived, I expect, for
everyone from Camp Josman is pouring into Iloilo for the _fêtes_ for the
Taft party.
Arches are being put up in the streets, and, as everybody has been
requested to decorate their houses, we have hoisted a Union Jack on a
long pole, and all this morning the servants were very happy, in the
pouring rain, sticking up palm-branches which they had stolen from some
plantation. They are much excited about the arrival of this hero of
theirs, and one of them—who gets confused when we accuse him of being an
_Independiente_, because he has his watch hung on a nail in the kitchen,
with a portrait of Rizal over it, a sort of little shrine—is simply
beaming with delight, and can’t haul up enough palms.
In the office opposite, the native clerks are surpassing themselves with
archway and window decorations of greenery and flowers; while the old
Tagalo dressmaker next door has been busy for a week past making paper
flowers of all the hues under the sun. In that house, by-the-bye, the
stock of domestic pets has lately been increased by the addition of a
sheep, which is quite tame, for we can hear its little hoofs tap-tapping
over the bare boards, and see it sitting amongst the work-girls in the
big front room. They have a nice little black pig, too, also running
about the house and equally tame, and in the evenings the old man goes
out for a walk to the beach with the fat old brown dog, the pig, and the
sheep all running after him and playing about. I have often seen them go
along the street—such a curious company! And people who live near the
beach tell me he takes them all down to the sea, washes them, and then
walks about to give them an airing. They are all sharing in the popular
rejoicings, too, for the brown dog and the pig have got on necklaces of
paper flowers, while the sheep is crowned in the most arcadian fashion.
Mr Taft has made a lot of speeches in Manila, but, so far, they have
only contained very nebulous references to the Independence question;
though he has cast a sop to the malcontents by promises of abolition or
reduction of certain export duties, by which the excited Filipinos argue
and predict a millennium of agricultural improvement and general plenty.
But none of the business men are very clear as to how this miracle
is to be wrought, for the Government will not lower the standard of
wages; Chinese labour will not be allowed in; and the Filipino will not
suddenly, if ever, become a thrifty, hard-working tiller of the soil,
even if he passes all the standards of the American schools.
One paragraph stowed away in a corner of _The Manila Times_ made us laugh
very much, for it was an account of how Poblete de los Reyes (a Filipino
_Independiente_ agitator) and Father Aglipay were “haunting the corridors
of the Ayuntamento” (the _Gobierno_ of Manila), “but up to noon to-day
they had failed to get the ear of Secretary Taft.”
This gave me a delightful vision of those two anxious flat brown faces
peering out of all sorts of shadowy places, and Mr Taft for ever making a
break for another room, and rushing through suites and up and down little
staircases to escape the gen-u-_ine_ patriots. This is only a fancy
picture, of course, but still it may contain a grain of truth, and at any
rate it afforded us much amusement.
Many people think Mr Taft is reserving some great pronouncement for
Iloilo, as he favoured this town above all Philippine communities in
that he made here his great pro-Filipino speech, two years ago, when he
was Governor-General of the Philippines. In this famous oration he used
these words: “These Philippine Islands are going to be governed _for_ the
Filipinos, and no one _but_ the Filipinos, and any stranger or American
who does not like it can get out.”
This did much to ensure his popularity with the natives everywhere in
the Islands, and in Iloilo in particular. However, even the easy-going
Americans seem to have grasped that these words went a little too far,
for they tried to hush up that part of the speech, but the Filipinos,
already fully alive to the blessings of a free press, seized on this
utterance, and it was published in _The Nuevo Heraldo_, which is the
Iloilo _Independiente_ organ. The phrase got about everywhere, and did
much to shake public confidence in justice towards the white man, with
incidental harm to trade and enterprise, but it pleased the “little brown
brother,” and added another step to the pedestal on which he has placed
the Patron Saint.
To the mere observer, however, this cry of Altruism is not very
convincing in face of the fact that the Philippines lie so conveniently
on the west of the future Panama Canal. It was not brotherly love which
prompted astute American politicians to wash off the Spaniards with
rivers of blood and treasure, and I think the Filipino will find that he
gets just as much of “Philippines for the Filipinos” as is contained in
the other famous phrase of “little brown brother”—and no more. Gradually,
too, he will find that to be a “little brown brother” out here will be
the same sort of distinction as being a big black brother in the U.S.A.
In one of the last magazines we received from home is a description by
some woman of a cruise in a tramp steamer in the Pacific. Lotus Islands,
and all that sort of thing, and who-wants-to-return-to-fretful-Europe
rhapsodies, which it struck me I should better have appreciated this time
last year. But now all I think of is the utter, mental sterility of such
a life, which appears to me, in the light of experience, still more like
the impression made by a beautiful and stupid woman. She winds up with a
fine peroration about the “spell of the Ancient World,” which “binds one
to the Island home and the Island life for ever.”
I can’t think what there is of the “Ancient World” about a Pacific
island; but the spell, if there is one, must be that of indolence; or
the attraction, as in the case of Stevenson, simply a matter of health;
for it seems to me that no other inducements could make one willingly
lose touch of all that civilisation has to offer to distinguish one from
a south sea islander. Of course, in the temperate climes there are the
inconveniences of dress, frost, and drainage, but those are small when
compared with art, books, good music, and intelligent fellow-creatures.
Oh, you can’t imagine the deadliness of the lives the white people lead
here—the indifference, the stagnation, the animal round of food and
sleep! I think if it had been my fate to stay on in the “Island home and
the Island life” for ever, if I had not become physically ill, I must
have become mentally an invalid for the rest of my life.
LETTER XLI.
THE FESTIVITIES
ILOILO, _August 17, 1905_.
I must tell you all about this _Comitiva Taft_ dissipation, of which we
had the first taste on Monday, the 15th, when a printed notice was left
at our house, saying that the “Congressional party” had arrived that
evening instead of next morning, and another large, flowery, and handsome
invitation, bidding us to a reception to be held at the house of the De
la Ramos, very rich Filipinos, who have a fine house in a broad, shady
street, where the Bank and some other big houses stand within gardens.
The reception was to be followed by the performance at the Filipino
theatre, to which as I told you we had also been invited, but we thought
that the reception, which was “scheduled” to come off at eight, would be
quite enough for us for one evening.
We dined early, and sent Domingo out for a _quilez_ “with a good horse.”
He came back after a long while and said all the carriages in the town
were already hired, but he had got what he could, and the _caballo_ was
_poco bueno_ (little good). He was right. It was a horse to make one’s
heart ache to look at; and when we stepped into the dirty old broken-down
_quilez_, to which he was attached with odds and ends of old rope, the
poor beast started going backwards all down the street. The driver roared
profanities, and clicked his lips, and chucked the reins, but all to no
effect; till at last he called one of our servants out of the house, and
they each seized a wheel by the spokes and forced it round, so that the
pony was shoved along, when it started off at a great pace; the driver
sprang on the box, and we tore like the wind to the house of De la Ramos.
There had been a great deal of rain, and the roads were very deep in mud,
but the sky had cleared, and a bright moon was shining.
In spite of this natural illumination, there was a reckless profusion of
arc-lights in the streets, which, as I told you, had been in black gloom
for months. We had seen the lamps being repaired for some days when we
went out in the evenings, and the general furbishing-up and improvement
extended to a sudden serving out of ice from the Government factory, so
that everyone was wishing there could be one of these Visitations to
Iloilo every week. Well, when we got to the De la Ramos house, we found
all the front really extremely pretty, with _huge_ stars-and-stripes
flags—stripes the size of palm-trunks and stars like soup-plates—draped
right across the front, with green palm-branches stuck about, all in
the light of brilliant illuminations. Great doors stood open to a vast
lighted and decorated hall, with a very big cut-glass chandelier in the
middle.
The _poco bueno_ horse was pulled up on his haunches abruptly in front
of all this magnificence, and some white men leaning against the doorway
picking their teeth, looked at us, but offered no remark. So C——, in
evening dress, got out and asked one of them if this was the house where
the reception was to take place. One man, keeping his toothpick in his
mouth, said:
“Waal I guess there is _naht_ going to be any great shakes of a reception
_to_-night.”
“Oh,” said C——, “we got an invitation from the Reception Committee, and
heard the _Manchuria_ had come in.”
“That’s so, sirree,” said the man, “but Secretary Taft and Miss Alice is
not coming ashore; leastways, they’re on board now eating their dinners.”
“Will they go to the theatre, then?” we asked.
“No,” said the man vaguely, “I guess naht. Leastways, I don’t rightly
know. But Secretary Taft says he don’t want to come ashore before his
skeddled time to-morrow morning. I reckon he’s gettin’ a bit sick of
goin’ around.”
The man was quite civil, but he and his fellow-loungers were so vague and
depressing that we drove away again, feeling rather sorry we had taken
the trouble to put on evening dress.
We made our driver go down the end of the street to the quay by the
Customs landing, where there was a very pretty arch, all lighted up, with
portraits painted on it of Mr Roosevelt, and “Miss Alice,” and Mr Taft.
This had been erected by the Filipinos, and the decorations, which were
the work of a native artist, were really not at all discreditable. Across
Calle Real was another arch, put up by the Chinese, at the entrance
to where their shops begin, with more electric lights and pictures of
angels, and more medallions of Mr Roosevelt, with an entirely different
face from the Customs one, and “Miss Alice” looking about thirty, with
fat, red cheeks and masses of black hair.
After admiring these marvels, and noticing what could be seen of the
decorations on the houses, we drove home and consoled our hearts
very successfully with cold mutton—a treat from the Cold Storage in
Manila—which would have made up to us for anything. You see, you can’t
have cold meat in this climate without ice to cool it on, and we have
been without ice for so many wretched months. Faddy people should be
sent to Iloilo to learn to say a fervid and completely heart-whole grace
before cold mutton, and I often think out here of the delicious cold meat
which our servants at home may be, at that very moment, refusing to eat!
Next day we were awakened by a brass band walking up and down the
streets, and blowing Sousa and “Hiawatha” for all it was worth. It was
not yet dawn when this festivity began, so after we had sworn at them,
we went to sleep again, for the music did not mean that anything was
happening, beyond that its playing was a sort of general rouse-out and
reminder. We had been informed that the reception was to be held at the
_Gobierno_ soon after the party landed, so, as we determined to bring
this function to bay somehow, we sallied forth after breakfast to see
what was to be seen.
A _quilez_ was not to be had for love or money, nor, indeed, a “rig” of
any sort, so we walked to the Plaza, and in the Calle Real picked up a
_carromata_—one of the fearful little vehicles into which you climb over
a muddy wheel and sit jammed up behind the driver.
After sending back Sotero, who had followed to look for a _quilez_ for
us, and making him carry away Tuyay, who insisted on not leaving us,
we got into the _carromata_ and drove down the crowded streets to the
_Gobierno_.
All the houses were very gay with stars and stripes and greenery—the
decorations very little spoilt by the rain—and the streets full of people
in clean clothes; all the principal thoroughfares crowded, but the others
very empty.
The day, which had begun with rain, had cleared up, and was very
fresh and jolly, as it had not yet had time to get steamy, and a cool
breeze was blowing, the flags fluttered in the sun, bands were playing
everywhere, and it was all very gay and sparkling. In one of the streets
we began to pass a long procession, waiting behind the scenes, as it
were, with flags unfurled and bands ready to strike up.
There were crowds and crowds of people making for the palace, and we
were told that the _Comitiva Taft_ had already landed and driven there,
so we followed as best we could. There was a great deal of shouting of
_Tabé_—and we were as near as anything over some of the revellers who
were mooning about as if the streets were deserted.
By-the-bye, I don’t know whether this expression _Comitiva Taft_ is bad
Spanish or good Filipino, but it is the one employed by the Philippine
newspapers, and I prefer it to the American “Taft Circus.”
When we arrived at the _Gobierno_, we found large crowds of little,
brown-faced Filipinos in white American suits, all looking up at the
broad balcony—the one where the band had played on the night of the
4th-of-July ball. The whole expanse of balcony was full of people, with
many ladies standing in front in light frocks and big flat hats.
We struggled through the crowd of sight-seers and into the big basement,
which was decorated very profusely, and where a lot of people were
standing about. A man told us he guessed the reception was going on
upstairs; and we thought perhaps he had guessed correctly, so we mounted
the broad stairs, between sheaves of palms and American flags, and found
ourselves in a huge crowd in the outer room of the suite I described to
you the night of the ball. The court room had been arranged with rows
of chairs and benches facing the daïs, and the balcony beyond, with the
bright blue sky and white glare of sunlight for a background, was a
seething mass of white-clad humanity. I noticed the Americans were all
at one end and the Filipinos at the other—an arrangement of choice, I
imagine, rather than accident.
Amongst the visitors I met again Mrs Luke E. Wright, and several other
people whose acquaintance I had made in Manila, as the party had been
nearly doubled by the numbers absorbed into it after arriving in the
Philippines. My friends said they had heard I was ill, and that I was
going home, and envied me, calling heaven to witness that they wished
they were going “back home” too. The Governor’s secretary told me that
the party now amounted to 170 people, and they had a very jolly time on
board, and were expecting to have a very pleasant trip round the Islands.
There was no regular presenting being done, and no one offered to
introduce us to Mr Taft or “Miss Alice,” and we did not like to ask them
to do so, which I am sorry about now, as I should have liked to have met
them. However, Miss Alice was standing next to the Governor’s wife while
I was talking to the latter, so I was able to get an impression of her
appearance, which I thought quite pleasing; a young girl with a fluff
of fair hair tied behind with a big bow of black ribbon, a very pale
complexion, and heavily-lidded blue eyes. She had on a coat and skirt of
stiff white pique, which did not do justice to her pretty figure, and a
plain straw hat with blue ribbons on it tilted over her forehead.
All the American ladies amongst the visitors were very plainly dressed
in shirts and skirts, as for the country in the morning, with large,
flat hats and floating gauze veils—just like the American tourists you
see in London out of the season. The residents, however, had on pretty
muslins and hats, and the Filipino ladies sported their most beautiful
_camisas_ and finest jewels. I heard afterwards that the very plain
costumes of the visitors were considered as rather a poor compliment,
not to say a mistake in tact, for of course the Manila papers had given
glowing accounts of the lovely dresses they wore at the entertainments in
Manila, and Orientals think such a lot of that sort of thing—and so do
Occidentals, too, for the matter of that!
Mr Taft and the Senators were all in white linen suits; the officers in
white linen, too, plus the badges of their rank. Mr Taft, who is a very
tall, fair man of enormous build, towered over the heads of everyone
about him. I don’t think I ever saw anyone so vast, and could quite
believe that he weighed 250 pounds—though I must say that to hear a
weight expressed in pounds does not convey much impression to my mind.
He has a large, clever face, which creases up into an amiable smile for
which he is famous, and which has helped him enormously in life. In
curious contrast are his eyes, which are small, and placed rather close
together, and very shrewd in expression. When he is serious, it is a
stern, rather hard face, and not very pre-possessing, but when he smiles
the “Taft smile,” it is altered in the most extraordinary manner, and he
really looks charming.
After we had been on the balcony a little time, the procession began
to come into sight, headed by a brass band. At this the people on the
balcony sorted themselves out, Mr Taft and “Miss Alice” standing in the
front of the balcony with the chief personages behind them, and less
important Americans in the doorways and on the outskirts, all in the
most approved “democratic” style, while the brown faces all clustered
at the other end of the balcony. I thought it a great pity that it did
not occur to Mr Taft, or Miss Roosevelt, or the Governor, or anyone like
that to go and stand amongst the Filipinos and give a real and tangible
demonstration of the theories they were there to express. I did not see
anyone talking to the visitors but Americans, either, and I thought that
a pity too.
You see, a little thing like that would convey more truth about Equality
than miles of bombastic print or hours of windy rhetoric.