The hero of the Filipinos

THE HERO OF THE FILIPINOS
DR. JOSÉ RIZAL
BY CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL AND E. B. RODRIGUEZ
Illustrated with Photographs THE CENTURY CO. NEW YORK AND LONDON 1923
Copyright, 1923, by The Century Co.
Printed in U. S. A.
TO THE MEMORY OF APOLINARIO MABINI
Retana’s work is interesting and abounding in pertinent facts, but so overloaded with documents and so prone to febrile exhilaration that it could never be adapted to general circulation. Unluckily, too, it is not always free from prejudice and not always accurate. Professor Craig was the ideal investigator. With indefatigable patience he went over the entire drama, beginning with the arrival of Lam-co in the Philippines more than two hundred years before, and tracing the family to Rizal’s own day. He visited most of the places where Rizal had lived; he interviewed relatives, friends, acquaintances; he searched records, he compared documents, he weighed testimonies; he wrote with sympathy, he overstepped not the due bounds of reserve; and he produced a book that so far as it goes is a model of honest inquiry.
The citations from “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” in the ensuing pages are from the translations by Charles Derbyshire, both published by the Philippine Education Company, Manila, 1912.
To understand Rizal and his strange story it is necessary to understand the environment into which he was born and against which he protested. As any description written now of Spanish rule as it really was in the Philippines would seem to American readers of these days improbable or even fantastical, the needed background is supplied, so far as possible, in Rizal’s own words.
Aside from the human interest that would at any time attend a life so tragic, certain chief reasons have seemed to the authors sufficient to justify the appearance now of such a book:
1. The hope to make available to American readers the story of the great man and national hero of the people the United States has undertaken to lead to national independence.