RACE QUESTIONS IN PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 473 



in America the Creoles and their numerously represented crosses 

 were the real upholders of separatist ideas, so that when the idea 

 ripened into an act they held the leading of the movement in their 

 hands. Indians and negroes have there never been more than the 

 'plebs contribuens, or the tributary class, and " food for cannon." 

 Only in single exceptional cases have leading spirits ever risen from 

 out of these lower castes; and where the separatist movement ha3 

 been confined to these colored primitive races, as in Haiti, it has 

 led not only to cutting loose from the mother country, but also to 

 a more or less complete renunciation of European civilization. In 

 saying this I cast no condemnation upon the negroes, for, whenever 

 in our civilized states the proletariat and the populace have struck 

 down or cast out all the cultivated and half-cultivated classes, the 

 same sort of " nigger management," with only differences corre- 

 sponding with the environments, has gained place among us as in 

 the great islands of the Antilles. 



Very different are the conditions in the Philippine Islands; and, 

 in view of the importance which the " skin question " plays in the 

 conflict raged by the Americans, I think it proper to deal further 

 with this fundamental question of Philii^pine politics, especially 

 since the journals and the politicians, at least those of America, have 

 given very little attention to the matter. 



The small number of Creoles, of whom, besides, the principal 

 part live in the city of Manila, which the Americans have in their 

 power, would not alone explain why the war of independence and 

 the formation of the Philippine republic must be spoken of as pre- 

 eminently the work of Christian, civilized Malays and mestizos. 

 For there are in America countries, like Paraguay, where the num- 

 ber of whites is even smaller than in the Philippine Islands, and yet 

 the separatist movement and the foundation of the state were the 

 exclusive work of the Creoles. 



Why has it been thus? Because the Indians and the negroes 

 do not possess that inclination toward civilization and that capacity 

 for assimilation that are evident in the colored populations of the 

 Philippine Islands. It is supposed that the Philippine Malays have 

 Japanese blood in their veins; but, all the same, whether the sup- 

 position is founded or unfounded, it is certain that not only do they 

 resemble the Japanese more or less in features, but that also many 

 mental traits are common to them with these wide-awake Orientals, 

 and they even excel them in a moral respect. The school statistics 

 show them superior to their Spanish lords. The Filipinos have no 

 larger percentage of illiterates than Spain of those who can not read 

 and write. And, as a bishop exclaimed with astonishment, there 

 are in those islands villages where it would be hard to find a person 



