Comparison of Percentages of Americans and Filipinos in the Service
| Year | Number ofEmployees | |
| Americans | Filipinos | |
| 1903 | 51% | 49% |
| 1904 | 49 | 51 |
| 1905 | 45 | 55 |
| 1906[3] | — | |
| 1907 | 40 | 60 |
| 1908 | 38 | 62 |
| 1909 | 38 | 62 |
| 1910 | 36 | 64 |
| 1911 | 35 | 65 |
| 1912 | 31 | 69 |
| 1913 | 29 | 71 |
For the first few years after the establishment of the government large numbers of Americans were appointed, as there were comparatively few Filipino candidates with the necessary educational qualifications. During the last two years, 89 per cent of the persons appointed in the islands have been Filipinos.
There has been a great increase in the number of Filipinos entering the civil service examinations in English. Ten years ago 97 per cent of those examined took their examinations in Spanish, while during last year 89 per cent of those examined took examinations in English, the total number so examined being 7755. Almost all appointees for ordinary clerical work are now Filipinos, but the supply of bookkeepers, stenographers, civil engineers, physicians, veterinarians, surveyors, chemists, bacteriologists, agriculturists, horticulturists, constabulary officers, nurses, electricians, mechanical engineers, and other scientific employees is still insufficient to meet the demands of the service. Only one Filipino has passed the stenographer examination in English since the organization of the government, and it is necessary each year to bring many American stenographers from the United States. A few Filipinos pass each year the junior stenographer examination[4] and are able to fill some of the positions which would formerly have required the appointment of Americans.
The salaries paid to executive officials, chiefs of bureaus and offices, chief clerks, and chiefs of divisions equal in many instances those paid to officials occupying similar positions in the service of the United States government.
In the legislative branch the speaker receives $8000 per annum. Members of the Philippine Commission without portfolios receive $7500 per annum. Members of the Philippine Assembly receive $15 a day for each day in which the assembly is in session.
In the executive branch secretaries of departments receive $15,500 per annum each, including $5000 received by them as members of the Philippine Commission. The executive secretary receives $9000 per annum. The salaries of other bureau chiefs range from $2500 per annum to $7500.
The justices of the Philippine Supreme Court receive $10,000 per annum. Judges of courts of first instance receive from $4500 to $5500.
The following extracts from an article by the chairman of the Philippine Civil Service Board give information with respect to salaries in the Philippine Islands, as compared with salaries paid in surrounding British and Dutch colonies:—
“The salaries paid officials in all branches of the service of the Straits Settlements are generally lower than those paid in the Philippine civil service. In this connection, however, it is only just to state that the population and extent of the territory under British control, and the expenses of living, are less than in the Philippines, while the difficulty of the problems to be solved is not so great. The salaries paid to natives who fill the lower grade positions in the civil service of the Philippine Islands are three and four times as great as the salaries paid to natives in similar classes of work in the civil service of the British Malay colonies.
“A study of the colonial civil service of the Dutch in the islands of Java and Madura gives us somewhat different results....
“The matter of salaries is peculiarly interesting. The comparison made above of the compensations received by the high officials in the civil service of the English colonies and by those in the Philippines does not hold good when applied to the Dutch in Java. In fact, the salary of the Governor-General of Java is somewhat remarkable in contrast with that of the Civil Governor of the Philippines. As is well known, the latter receives $20,000, while the salary of the Governor-General of Java amounts to 132,000 gulden or something over $53,000. The American official is given, in addition, free transportation on all official investigations and free use of the governor’s palace, but not the cost of maintenance. On the other hand, the Dutch governor is granted 51,000 gulden (about $21,500) as personal and household expenses and travel pay.
“The general secretary of the government receives 24,000 gulden ($9648), as compared with the executive secretary of the Philippine government, whose salary is $7500.[5] The seven heads of departments in the Javanese service each receive a like compensation of 24000 gulden. The Raad, or Council, of the Dutch colonial government is composed of a vice-president and four members—the former receiving about $14,500, the latter slightly over $11,500 each. In the Philippine government the executive functions of heads of departments are exercised by four members of the legislative body, each of whom receives $10,500 for his executive services and $5000 for his legislative duties. Without going further into detail, the conclusion is evident that all officials of high rank are much better paid in the Dutch service. When a comparison is made between the chief clerks and other office employees of middle grades—not natives—the salaries are seen to be about the same in the two countries.
“All natives in positions of lower grades, however, in the Philippine Islands fare better than their Malay brethren, either in the Straits Settlements or in the East Indies.”—(Second Annual Report of the Philippine Civil Service Board, pp. 60, 61.)
“Difference in salaries for subordinate positions in the British and Dutch colonial services and the Philippine service are distinctly in favour of subordinate employees in the Philippine service; only the higher officials, after long experience, in the British colonial service receive larger salaries than corresponding officials in the Philippine service; the leave of absence and other privileges for the Philippine service are not less liberal than for other colonial services.”—(Report of the Philippine Commission for 1905, p. 74.)
The entrance salaries of Americans brought to the islands are considerably in excess of the entrance salaries received on appointment to the civil service in the United States.
Philippine Embroidery
This work was done by a pupul in one of the Manila city schools.
The following table shows the minimum entrance salaries given to Americans appointed in the United States to the United States civil service, as shown by the manual of examinations of the United States Civil Service Commission for the fall of 1913, and to Americans appointed in the United States to the Philippine Civil Service:—
| Philippines | United States | |
| Aid (Surveyor) | $1400 | $900 |
| Civil Engineer | 1400 | 1200 |
| Forester, assistant | 1400 | 1200 |
| Scientific Assistant, (Agricultural Inspector) | 1400 | 600 |
| Physician | 1600 | 1320 |
| Printer | 2000 | .50 per hour |
| Stenographer | 1200 | 700 |
| Trained Nurse | 600 Board, quarters and laundry | 600 and laundry |
| Teacher | 1000 | 540 |
| Veterinarian | 1600 | 1200 |
The following cases taken from the official rosters show some promotions to the higher positions in the service of employees who entered the lower ranks of the classified service:—
A clerk who entered the service in 1899 at $1800 per annum was appointed in 1903 an assistant chief of bureau at $3000 per annum and in 1908 executive secretary at $9000 per annum. A teacher appointed in 1899 at $720 per annum was appointed a chief of an office at $4000 per annum and in 1912 a judge at $4500 per annum. A teacher who entered the service in 1901 at $1200 per annum was in 1909 appointed a chief of a bureau at $6000 per annum. A teacher who entered the service in 1904 at $1000 per annum was appointed in 1911 an assistant chief of a bureau at $6000 per annum. A clerk who entered the service in 1901 at $1200 per annum was appointed in 1909 an assistant chief of the executive bureau at $3750 per annum and in 1912 a chief of a bureau at $6000 per annum. A stenographer who entered the service in 1902 at $1400 per annum was in 1908 appointed an assistant chief of a bureau at $5000 per annum. A transitman who entered the service in 1905 at $1400 per annum was in 1913 appointed an assistant chief of a bureau at $4500 per annum. An accountant who entered the service in 1901 at $1800 per annum was in 1907 appointed an assistant chief of a bureau at $3750 per annum and in 1909 a chief of a bureau at $6000 per annum. A law clerk who entered the service in 1904 at $1800 per annum was in 1913 appointed judge at $4500 per annum. In no service anywhere has promotion depended more directly on demonstrated ability, and in many instances it has been rapid.
Young men living two in a room may obtain room and board in boarding houses in Manila at a rate as low as $35 per month each. In the Young Men’s Christian Association building, a large reënforced concrete structure with reading room, gymnasium, and a good restaurant, the charge for two in a room is $10.25 each. Board costs $27.50, a total of $37.75. The expenses for clothing in Manila are less than in the United States, as white clothing is worn the whole year and white duck suits may be obtained for about $3 each. The expenses for laundry amount to about $5 a month. The necessity of employing a muchacho[6] is nil, in the case of an unmarried employee who boards. Servants are far cheaper and better in the Philippines than in the United States.
In a discussion of the salaries paid in the Philippine civil service the question of the leave allowed should be considered. Classified employees who receive an annual salary of $1000 or more per annum may be granted twenty-eight days’ leave per annum to cover absences from duty due to illness or other causes. If not taken during the calendar year in which it is earned or in January or February of the succeeding year, it is forfeited. Employees taking vacation leave during the months of December, January, February and March may take fifty-six days, corresponding to two years of service, at one time, and may thus get time to visit Australia, Japan, China, and neighbouring countries.
In addition to vacation leave an employee whose salary is $1000 or more but less than $1800 per annum is entitled to thirty days’ accrued leave per annum, and an employee whose salary is $1800 per annum or more is entitled to thirty-five days’ accrued leave per annum. Accrued leave may accumulate for not more than five years of service.
All classified employees are entitled to visit the United States or foreign countries once in every three years, receiving in addition to their accrued leave, one year’s vacation leave, allowance of actual travel time at half pay not to exceed sixty days, and return travel expenses from place of residence in the United States, or from port of embarkation in a foreign country to Manila, on the completion of two years of service after date of return. An employee entitled to thirty-five days’ accrued leave per annum who visits the United States after having rendered three years of service receives a total of two hundred thirteen days’ accrued leave, vacation leave, and half-pay travel time. If he postpones his visit till he has completed five years of service, he receives a total of two hundred ninety-one days’ accrued leave, vacation leave and travel time. An employee entitled to thirty days’ accrued leave per annum who visits the United States after three years of service receives a total of one hundred ninety-four days’ leave and half-pay travel time, and if he postpones his visit until he has rendered five years of service, he receives a total of two hundred fifty-nine days’ leave and travel time.
It will be seen that these are very liberal allowances. An employee receiving $1200 at the end of two years of service may spend eight weeks of vacation leave visiting Japan or other surrounding countries, and at the end of an additional year’s service he may visit his home in the United States with six and a third months’ absence on full and half pay and with his expenses from his home to Manila payable two years after his return, and during every three years of his service he may have the same privileges.
The law also provides that if an employee is wounded or injured in the performance of duty, he may have a total of six months’ leave on full pay in addition to any accrued leave to his credit.
Employees who have rendered satisfactory service and resign after three or more years receive in a lump sum all accrued leave due and thirty days’ half salary. For example, an employee who has received $1800 per annum and has served five years without taking any leave in excess of the four weeks’ vacation leave allowable annually would draw $1025 were he to resign.
The school sessions amount to forty weeks per annum and the school vacations to twelve weeks per annum.[7] Teachers receive an annual salary and draw full pay during vacations as well as during school sessions. Every third year they are allowed to visit the United States or foreign countries with an allowance of sixty days’ half-pay travel time in addition to the ten weeks’ long vacation, and on completing two years of service after return to the islands they are entitled to their travelling expenses from place of residence in the United States to Manila or from port of embarkation in a foreign country to Manila.
It is interesting to compare these provisions with the regulations governing leave of absence in the British colonial service:—
(1) There is no distinction between sick leave and ordinary leave, the leave of absence on account of sickness being charged against the ordinary leave allowable.
(2) There are two classes of leave: vacation leave on full pay and half-pay leave.
(3) The vacation leave amounts to three months every two years, and must be taken during the two years, as it does not accumulate.
(4) The half-pay leave amounts to two months for each year of service, but cannot be taken until after a period of six years’ resident service in the Colony, except in cases of serious indisposition supported by medical certificate, or of “urgent private affairs,” the nature of which must be stated to the governor. In either case, the governor and council must be satisfied that the indulgence is indispensable.
Half pay in African and Asiatic colonies may accumulate for twelve years’ service—i.e. twenty-four months’ half-pay leave.
(5) After the exhaustion of all vacation leave and half-pay leave, an advance of six months’ half-pay leave may be made on special grounds (“urgent private affairs” or illness supported by a medical certificate), the advance being charged against leave accruing subsequently.
(6) For the purpose of visiting home, an officer may be granted the vacation leave due him (which is never more than three months) on full pay, and his accumulated half-pay leave, to commence at the expiration of his vacation leave.
(7) Judicial and education officers do not receive the vacation leave described in paragraph 3 above, the vacation of courts and schools being considered equal to this, but they do receive the half-pay leave described in paragraph 4, and may, when visiting home on half-pay leave, receive full pay during any ordinary vacation of the court or school.
It will be noted that although officers in the British colonial service are allowed much longer periods of absence, the greater part of their absence is on half pay and the total money value of the leave allowable in the British colonial service and in the Philippine civil service is about the same. As officers naturally prefer to be on full pay instead of half pay while on leave, the provision of the Philippine law is in their interest; it is also in the interest of the service, as the periods of the absence from duty are not so prolonged.
The Philippine Civil Service Law is now about to be put to its first really severe test as a result of the change in the national administration. Heretofore those whose duty and privilege it has been to enforce it have been in the most full and hearty sympathy with its purposes. President McKinley was from the outset definitely committed to the widest application of the merit system to appointments in the Philippines. Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft firmly supported that system, as has each succeeding governor-general up to, but not including, Mr. Harrison, who is as yet an unknown quantity.
It is interesting, however, to note that on the day following his arrival there was a demand for the instant resignation of Mr. Thomas Cary Welch, a faithful and efficient employee of the government, who had been for nearly ten years in the service, whose position was desired for, and immediately given to, Mr. Stephen Bonsal. That gentleman had been appointed at Washington a member of the Municipal Board of Manila immediately after Mr. Harrison’s confirmation as governor-general. It is not recorded that Mr. Bonsal rendered any valuable service to the city on the voyage, or during the twenty-four hours of his occupancy of his municipal post subsequent to his arrival! Nor does it appear that he passed any examination before his early promotion.
Following closely upon the removal of Mr. Welch came a demand for the resignation of Captain Charles H. Sleeper, Director of Lands, who was unquestionably one of the ablest and most efficient of the bureau chiefs.
He had earned the ill-will of the politicos by insisting that persons authorized to make public land surveys, or other surveys on which claims of title as against the government were to be based, should know enough about surveying to make one correct survey when given an opportunity practically to demonstrate their abilities under very favourable conditions. He had also incurred the dislike of influential caciques by defending the occupants of small holdings on friar estates from the rapacity of their rich neighbours, and by protecting free-patent applicants and homesteaders when large landowners opposed their applications in order to prevent their securing land, so that they might the more easily be held as peon labourers.
He had started in his bureau a practical school for Filipino surveyors which was training really well-qualified candidates for positions desired by the politicians for themselves or their incompetent friends.
Last, but not least, he had helped to upset the plans of the men primarily responsible for the so-called “friar lands investigation” conducted by the House Committee on Insular Affairs, which cost the United States government a very large sum, and resulted in demonstrating his uprightness and the efficiency of his administration.
Mr. John R. Wilson, the assistant director of lands, was absent at the moment, but his resignation was demanded on the day of his return. He too was an active, efficient, upright man.
Both of these removals were political acts, pure and simple. Sr. Manuel Tinio was appointed Director of Lands. He is a bright young Ilocano of good character, who had become a “general” in the Insurgent army at twenty-one years of age. He is unfit to hold the place, because, as he has himself frankly said, he knows nothing about the work. He is charged with the duty of administering $7,000,000 worth of friar lands, and the whole public domain of the Philippine Islands, and with such minor duties as the checkmating of the machinations of numerous wealthy Filipinos who seek fraudulently to acquire great tracts through fraudulent claims to unperfected titles and by other improper means.
While in Honolulu, en route to Manila, Mr. Harrison gave out an interview, which I am credibly informed he has since confirmed in substance. It contained the following statement:—
“For years I have been of the minority in Congress and have seen the Democrats kicked about, trampled upon, and otherwise manhandled by Republicans, so that I must confess it now gives me a saturnine pleasure to see the Democrats in a position to do the same thing to the Republicans.”
His early official acts after arrival at Manila confirmed the belief that this was indeed the spirit in which he was facing the grave responsibilities which there confronted him.
It is beyond doubt or cavil that high ideals heretofore have prevailed in the Philippine Civil Service. Are they now to be substituted by the methods of the ward politician?
In its report for 1901 the Philippine Commission said:—
“The civil service law has been in operation since our last report, and we see no reason to change our conclusion as to the absolute necessity for its existence, and strict enforcement. Without this law American government in these Islands is, in our opinion, foredoomed to humiliating failure.”
I signed that report. I have not since seen any reason to change my mind.
[1] “The merit system has received renewed support from President Roosevelt in his administration, and by the extension of civil service throughout the nation, as well as in our new possessions. The Philippine service is reported to be very satisfactory, and efforts are being made for the extension and larger development of regulations in Porto Rico.”
[2] “From the President down, every official charged with a duty touching the government of our dependencies is imbued with a profound sense of duty, and adequate realization of the situation and the imperative necessity of an unselfish, patriotic execution of the laws and regulations in the interest of the highest welfare of the inhabitants of the dependencies. With this state of affairs, the establishment of the merit system in them on an enduring basis should follow as a matter of course. It will be the aim of this Committee to aid in every possible way in extending and improving the system, and to that end to give to the whole subject careful and detailed study.”
[3] No data for 1906 available.
[4] Eight passed last year.
[5] He now receives $9000.
[6] Male servant.
[7] Two weeks at Christmas and ten weeks in April, May and June.
Chapter XIV
The Philippine Constabulary and Public Order
During the last thirty years of Spanish rule in the Philippines evil-doers were pursued and apprehended and public order was maintained chiefly by the guardia civil. At the time of its organization in 1868 this body had a single division. By 1880 the number had been increased to three, two for Luzón and one for the Visayan Islands.
The guardia civil was organized upon a military basis, its officers and soldiers being drawn from the regular army of Spain by selection or upon recommendation. Detachments were distributed throughout the provinces and were commanded according to their size by commissioned or non-commissioned officers. Central offices were located in district capitals; company headquarters were stationed in provincial capitals, and detachments were sent to places where they were deemed to be necessary.
Under ordinary conditions they rendered service as patrols of two men each, but for the purpose of attacking large bands of outlaws one or several companies were employed as occasion required.
The guardia civil had jurisdiction over all sorts of violations of laws and municipal ordinances. They made reports upon which were based the appointments of municipal officers, the granting of licenses to carry firearms, and the determination of the loyalty or the disloyalty of individuals.
They were vested with extraordinary powers. Offences against them were tried by courts-martial, and were construed as offences against sentinels on duty. Penalties were therefore extremely severe.
Officers of the guardia civil on leave could by their own initiative assume a status of duty with the full powers and responsibilities that go with command. This is contrary to American practice, under which only dire emergency justifies an officer in assuming an official status unless he is duly assigned thereto by competent authority.
The guardia civil could arrest on suspicion, and while the Spanish Government did not directly authorize or sanction the use of force to extort confessions, it was not scrupulous in the matter of accepting confessions so obtained as evidence of crime, nor was it quick to punish members of the guardia civil charged with mistreatment of prisoners.
Reports made by the guardia civil were not questioned, but were accepted without support even in cases of the killing of prisoners alleged to have attempted to escape, or of men evading arrest.
This method of eliminating without trial citizens deemed to be undesirable was applied with especial frequency in the suppression of active brigandage, and latterly during the revolution against Spain. Prisoners in charge of the guardia civil were always tied elbow to elbow. They knew full well that resistance or flight was an invitation to their guards to kill them, and that this invitation was likely to be promptly accepted.
In the investigation of crime the members of this organization arrested persons on suspicion and compelled them to make revelations, true or false. Eye-witnesses to the commission of crime were not needed in the Spanish courts of that day. The confession of an accused person secured his conviction, even though not made in the presence of a judge. Indirect and hearsay evidence were accepted, and such things as writs of habeas corpus and the plea of double jeopardy were unknown in Spanish procedure.
Filipino Trained Nurses
The guardia civil could rearrest individuals and again charge them with crimes of which they had already been acquitted. I have been assured by reliable Filipino witnesses that it was common during the latter days of Spanish sovereignty for persons who had made themselves obnoxious to the government to be invited by non-commissioned officers to take a walk, which was followed either by their complete disappearance or by the subsequent discovery of their dead bodies.
It naturally resulted that the members of the guardia civil were regarded with detestation and terror by the people, but their power was so absolute that protest rarely became public. The one notable exception was furnished by Dr. Rizal’s book entitled “Noli Me Tangere,” which voiced the complaints of the Filipinos against them. There is not a vestige of doubt that hatred of them was one of the principal causes of the insurrection against Spain.
In 1901 the American government organized a rural police force in the Philippines. It was called the Philippine constabulary. The insurrection was then drawing to a close, but there were left in the field many guerilla bands armed and uniformed. Their members sought to excuse their lawless acts under the plea of patriotism and opposition to the forces of the United States. In many provinces they combined with professional bandits or with religious fanatics. Various “popes” arose, like Papa Isio in Negros. The Filipinos had become accustomed to a state of war which had continued for nearly six years. Habits of peace had been abandoned. The once prosperous haciendas were in ruins. War and pestilence had destroyed many of the work animals, and those which remained continued to perish from disease. Asiatic cholera was sweeping through the archipelago, and consternation and disorder followed in its wake.
Under such circumstances the organization of a rural police force was imperatively necessary. Unfortunately the most critical situation which it was to be called upon to meet had to be faced at the very outset, when both officers and men were inexperienced and before adequate discipline could be established.
The law providing for its establishment was drawn by the Honourable Luke E. Wright, at that time secretary of commerce and police and later destined to become governor-general of the Philippines and secretary of war of the United States.
It was intended that the constabulary should accomplish its ends by force when necessary but by sympathetic supervision when possible, suppressing brigandage and turning the people towards habits of peace. The fact was clearly borne in mind that the abuses of the guardia civil had not been forgotten and the new force was designed to meet existing conditions, to allay as rapidly as possible the existing just rancour against the similar organization established under the Spanish régime, and to avoid the evils which had contributed so much toward causing the downfall of Spanish sovereignty. The law was admirably framed to achieve these ends.
The officers of the constabulary were selected chiefly from American volunteers recently mustered out and from honourably discharged soldiers of the United States army. Some few Filipinos, whose loyalty was above suspicion, were appointed to the lower grades. This number has since been materially augumented, and some of the original Filipino appointees have risen to the rank of captain.
It was inevitable that at the outset there should be abuses. The organization was necessarily born at work; there was no time to instruct, to formulate regulations, to wait until a satisfactory state of discipline had been brought about. There were not barracks for housing the soldiers; there were neither uniforms, nor arms, nor ammunition. There was no system for rationing the men. All of these things had to be provided, and they were provided through a natural evolution of practical processes, crystallizing into form, tested by the duties of the day. The organization which grew up was a true survival of the fittest, both in personnel and in methods. The wonder is not that some abuses occurred, but that they were so few; not that there were occasional evidences of lack of efficiency, but that efficiency was on the whole so high from the beginning.
The several provinces were made administrative units, the commanding officer in each being designated as “senior inspector.” The men who were to serve in a given province were by preference recruited there, and a departure was thus made from the usual foreign colonial practice.
In 1905 the total force was fixed at one hundred companies with a nominal strength of two officers and fifty men each. Under special conditions this rule may be departed from, and the size of the companies or the number of officers increased.
Each province is divided by the senior inspector into sections, and the responsibility for patrol work and general policing rests on the senior company officer in each station. The provinces are grouped into five districts, each commanded by an assistant chief who exercises therein the authority, and performs the duties appropriate to the chief for the entire Philippines. The higher administrative positions have always been filled by detailing regular officers of the United States army.
The constabulary soldiers are now neatly uniformed, armed with Krag carbines and well disciplined. They show the effect of good and regular food and of systematic exercise, their physical condition being vastly superior to that of the average Filipino. They are given regular instruction in their military duties. It is conducted in English.
The Philippine constabulary may be defined as a body of armed men with a military organization, recruited from among the people of the islands, officered in part by Americans and in part by Filipinos, and employed primarily for police duty in connection with the establishment and maintenance of public order.
Blount’s chapters on the administrations of Taft, Wright and Smith embody one prolonged plaint to the effect that the organization of the constabulary was premature, and that after the war proper ended, the last smouldering embers of armed and organized insurrection should have been stamped out, and the brigandage which had existed in the Philippines for centuries should have been dealt with, by the United States army rather than by the constabulary.
Even if it were true that the army could have rendered more effective service to this end than could have been expected at the outset from a newly organized body of Filipino soldiers, the argument against the organization and use of the constabulary would in my opinion have been by no means conclusive. It is our declared policy to prepare the Filipinos to establish and maintain a stable government of their own. The proper exercise of police powers is obviously necessary to such an end.
From the outset we have sacrificed efficiency in order that our wards might gain practical experience, and might demonstrate their ability, or lack of ability, to perform necessary governmental functions. Does any one cognizant of the situation doubt for a moment that provincial and municipal affairs in the Philippine Islands would to-day be more efficiently administered if provincial and municipal officers were appointed instead of being elected? Is any one so foolish as to imagine that the sanitary regeneration of the islands would not have progressed much more rapidly had highly trained American health officers been used in place of many of the badly educated and comparatively inexperienced Filipino physicians whose services have been utilized?
Nevertheless, in the concrete case under discussion I dissent from the claim that more satisfactory results could have been obtained by the use of American troops.
The army had long been supreme in the Philippines. Every function of government had been performed by its officers and men, if performed at all. Our troops had been combating an elusive and cruel enemy. If they were human it is to be presumed that they still harbored animosities, born of these conditions, toward the people with whom they had so recently been fighting. Had the work of pacification been then turned over to them it would have meant that often in the localities in which they had been fighting, and in dealing with the men to whom they had very recently been actively opposed in armed conflict, they would have been called upon to perform tasks and to entertain feelings radically different from those of the preceding two or three years.
A detachment, marching through Leyte, found an American who had disappeared a short time before crucified, head down. His abdominal wall had been carefully opened so that his intestines might hang down in his face.
Another American prisoner, found on the same trip, had been buried in the ground with only his head projecting. His mouth had been propped open with a stick, a trail of sugar laid to it through the forest, and a handful thrown into it.
Millions of ants had done the rest.
Officers and men who saw such things were thereby fitted for war, rather than for ordinary police duty.
The truth is that they had seen so many of them that they continued to see them in imagination when they no longer existed. I well remember when a general officer, directed by his superior to attend a banquet at Manila in which Americans and Filipinos joined, came to it wearing a big revolver!
Long after Manila was quiet I was obliged to get out of my carriage in the rain and darkness half a dozen times while driving the length of Calle Real, and “approach to be recognized” by raw “rookies,” each of whom pointed a loaded rifle at me while I did it. I know that this did not tend to make me feel peaceable or happy. In my opinion it was wholly unnecessary, and yet I did not blame the army for thinking otherwise.
After the war was over, when my private secretary, Mr. James H. LeRoy, was one day approaching Malolos, he was sternly commanded by a sentry to halt, the command being emphasized as usual by presenting to his attention a most unattractive view down the muzzle of a Krag. He was next ordered to “salute the flag,” which he finally discovered with difficulty in the distance, after being told where to look. The army way is right and necessary in war, but it makes a lot of bother in time of peace!
This was not the only reason for failing to make more extensive use of American soldiers in police duty. A veteran colonel of United States cavalry who had just read Judge Blount’s book was asked what he thought of the claim therein made that the army should have done the police and pacification work of the Philippines. His reply was:—
“How long would it take a regiment of Filipinos to catch an American outlaw in the United States? Impossible!”
Another army officer said:—
“Catching Filipino outlaws with the Army is like catching a flea in a twenty-acre field with a traction engine.”
There is perhaps nothing so demoralizing to regular troops as employment on police duty which requires them to work singly or in small squads. Discipline speedily goes to the dogs and instruction becomes impossible.
A School Athletic Team
Calisthenic exercises taught in the public schools are converting puny youths into vigorous athletes.
Successful prosecution of the work of chasing ladrones in the Philippines requires a thorough knowledge of local topography and of local native dialects. Spanish is of use, but only in dealing with educated Filipinos. A knowledge of the Filipino himself; of his habits of thought; of his attitude toward the white man; and toward the illustrado, or educated man, of his own race; ability to enter a town and speedily to determine the relative importance of its leading citizens, finally centring on the one man, always to be found, who runs it, whether he holds political office or not, and also to enlist the sympathy and coöperation of its people; all of these things are essential to the successful handling of brigandage in the Philippines, whether such brigandage has, or lacks, political significance.
The following parallel will make clear some of the reasons why it was determined to use constabulary instead of American soldiers in policing the Philippines from the time the insurrection officially ended:—
Before preparing the foregoing statement relative to the reasons for using Philippine constabulary soldiers instead of soldiers of the United States army for police work during the period in question, I asked Colonel J. G. Harbord, assistant director of the constabulary, who has served with that body nine years, has been its acting director and is an officer of the United States army, to give me a memorandum on the subject. It is only fair to him to say that I have not only followed very closely the line of argument embodied in the memorandum which he was good enough to prepare for me, but have in many instances used his very words. The parallel columns are his.
The constabulary soldier, thoroughly familiar with the topography of the country in which he operates; speaking the local dialect and acquainted with the persons most likely to be able and willing to furnish accurate information; familiar with the characteristics of his own people; able to live off the country and keep well, is under all ordinary circumstances a more efficient and vastly less expensive police officer than the American soldier, no matter how brave and energetic the latter may be. Furthermore, his activities are much less likely to arouse animosity.
Incidentally, the army is pretty consistently unwilling to take the field unless the constitutional guarantees are temporarily suspended, and it particularly objects to writs of habeas corpus. The suspension of such guarantees is obviously undesirable unless really very necessary.
Let us now consider some of the specific instances of alleged inefficiency of the constabulary in suppressing public disorder, cited by Blount.
On page 403 of his book he says, speaking of Governor Taft and disorder in the province of Albay which arose in 1902–1903:—
“He did not want to order out the military again if he could help it, and this relegated him to his native municipal police and constabulary, experimental outfits of doubtful loyalty, and, at best, wholly inadequate, as it afterwards turned out, for the maintenance of public order and for affording to the peaceably inclined people that sort of security for life and property, and that protection against semi-political as well as unmitigated brigandage, which would comport with the dignity of this nation.”
The facts as to these disorders are briefly as follows:—
In 1902 an outlaw in Tayabas Province who made his living by organizing political conspiracies and collecting contributions in the name of patriotism, who was known as José Roldan when operating in adjoining provinces, but had an alias in Tayabas, found his life made so uncomfortable by the constabulary of that province that he transferred his operations to Albay. There he affiliated himself with a few ex-Insurgent officers who had turned outlaws instead of surrendering, and with oath violators, and began the same kind of political operations which he had carried out in Tayabas, the principal feature of his work being the collection of “contributions.”
The troubles in Albay were encouraged by wealthy Filipinos who saw in them a probable opportunity to acquire valuable hemp lands at bottom prices, for people dependent on their hemp fields, if prevented from working them, might in the end be forced to sell them. Roldan soon lost standing with his new organization because it was found that he was using for his personal benefit the money which he collected.
About this time one Simeon Ola joined his organization. Ola was a native of Albay, where he had been an Insurgent major under the command of the Tagálog general, Belarmino. His temporary rank had gone to his head, and he is reported to have shown considerable severity and hauteur in his treatment of his former neighbours in Guinobatan, to which place he had returned at the close of the insurrection. Meanwhile, a wealthy Chinese mestizo named Don Circilio Jaucian, on whom Ola, during his brief career as an Insurgent officer, had laid a heavy hand, had become presidente of the town.
Smarting under the indignities which he had suffered, Jaucian made it very uncomfortable for the former major, and in ways well understood in Malay countries brought it home to the latter that their positions had been reversed. Ola’s house was mysteriously burned, and his life in Guinobatan was made so unbearable that he took to the hills.
Ola had held higher military rank than had any of his outlaw associates, and he became their dominating spirit. He had no grievance against the Americans, but took every opportunity to avenge himself on the caciques of Guinobatan, his native town.
Three assistant chiefs of constabulary, Garwood, Baker and Bandholtz, were successively sent to Albay to deal with this situation. Baker and Bandholtz were regular army officers. The latter ended the disturbances, employing first and last some twelve companies of Philippine scouts, armed, officered, paid, equipped and disciplined as are the regular soldiers of the United States army, and a similar number of constabulary soldiers. Eleven stations in the restricted field of operations of this outlaw were occupied by scouts. There were few armed conflicts in force between Ola’s men and these troops. In fact, it was only with the greatest difficulty that this band, which from time to time dissolved into the population only to reappear again, could be located even by the native soldiers. It would have been impracticable successfully to use American troops for such work.
Referring to the statement made by Blount[1] that Vice-Governor Wright made a visit to Albay in 1903 in the interest “of the peace-at-any-price policy that the Manila Government was bent on,” and the implication that he went there to conduct peace negotiations, General Bandholtz, who suppressed outlawry in Albay, has said that Vice-Governor Wright and Commissioner Pardo de Tavera came there at his request to look into conditions with reference to certain allegations which had been made.
Colonel Bandholtz and the then chief of constabulary, General Allen, were supported by the civil governor and the commission in their recommendations that no terms should be made with the outlaws. The following statement occurs in a letter from General Bandholtz dated September 21, 1903:—
“No one is more anxious to terminate this business than I am, nevertheless I think it would be a mistake to offer any such inducements, and that more lasting benefits would result by hammering away as we have been doing.”
And General Allen said in an indorsement to the Philippine Commission:—
“... in my opinion the judgment of Colonel Bandholtz in matters connected with the pacification of Albay should receive favourable consideration. Halfway measures are always misinterpreted and used to the detriment of the Government among the ignorant followers of the outlaws.”
These views prevailed.
Blount has claimed that the death rate in the Albay jail at this time was very excessive, and cites it as an instance of the result of American maladministration.
Assuming that his tabulation[2] of the dead who died in the Albay jail between May 30 and September, 1903, amounting to 120, is correct, the following statements should be made:—
Only recently has it been demonstrated that beri-beri is due to the use of polished rice, which was up to the time of this discovery regarded as far superior to unpolished rice as an article of food, and is still much better liked by the Filipinos than is the unpolished article. Many of these deaths were from beri-beri, and were due to a misguided effort to give the prisoners the best possible food.
Cholera was raging in the province of Albay throughout the period in question, and the people outside of the jail suffered no less than did those within it. The same is true of malarial infection. In other words, conditions inside the jail were quite similar to those then prevailing outside, except that the prisoners got polished rice which was given them with the best intentions in the world, and was by them considered a superior article of food.
With the present knowledge of the methods of dissemination of Asiatic cholera gained as a result of the American occupation of the Philippines, we should probably be able to exclude it from a jail under such circumstances, as the part played by “germ carriers” who show no outward manifestations of infection is now understood, but it was not then dreamed of. One of the greatest reforms effected by Americans in the Philippines is the sanitation of the jails and penitentiaries, and we cannot be fairly blamed for not knowing in 1903 what nobody then knew.
The troubles in Albay ended with the surrender of Ola on September 25, 1903. Blount gives the impression that he had a knowledge of them which was gained by personal observation. He arrived in the province in the middle of November, seven weeks after normal conditions had been reëstablished.
On October 5, 1903, General Bandholtz telegraphed with reference to the final surrender of Ola’s band:—
“The towns are splitting themselves wide open celebrating pacification and Ramon Santos (later elected governor) is going to give a record-breaking fiesta at Ligao. Everybody invited. Scouts and Constabulary have done superb work.”
Blount makes much of disorders in Samar and Leyte. Let us consider the facts.
In all countries feuds between highlanders and lowlanders have been common. Although the inhabitants of the hills and those of the lowlands in the two islands under discussion are probably of identical blood and origin, they long since became separated in thought and feeling, and grew to be mutually antagonistic. The ignorant people of the interior have always been oppressed by their supposedly more highly civilized brethren living on or near the coast.
The killing of Otoy by the constabulary in 1911 marked the passing of the last of a series of mountain chiefs who had exercised a very powerful influence over the hill people and had claimed for themselves supernatural powers.
Manila hemp is the principal product upon which these mountaineers depend in bartering for cloth and other supplies. The cleaning of hemp involves very severe exertion, and when it is cleaned it must usually, in Samar, be carried to the seashore on the backs of the men who raise it. Under the most favourable circumstances, it may be transported thither in small bancas[3] down the streams.
The lowland people of Samar and Leyte had long been holding up the hill people when they brought in their hemp for sale in precisely the way that Filipinos in other islands are accustomed to hold up members of the non-Christian tribes. They played the part of middlemen, purchasing the hemp of the ignorant hill people at low prices and often reselling it, without giving it even a day’s storage, at a very much higher figure. This system was carried so far that conditions became unbearable and finally resulted in so-called pulájanism which began in the year 1904.
The term pulájan is derived from a native word meaning “red” and was given to the mountain people because in their attacks upon the lowlanders they wore, as a distinguishing mark, red trousers or a dash of red colour elsewhere about their sparse clothing. They raided coast towns and did immense damage before they were finally brought under control. It should be remembered that these conditions were allowed to arise by a Filipino provincial governor, and by Filipino municipal officials. It is altogether probable that a good American governor would have prevented them, but as it was, neither their cause nor their importance were understood at the outset. The pulájan movement was directed primarily against Filipinos.
The first outbreak occurred on July 10, 1904, in the Gandara River valley where a settlement of the lowlanders was burned and some of its inhabitants were killed. Eventually disorder spread to many places on the coast, and one scout garrison of a single company was surprised and overwhelmed by superior numbers. Officers and men were massacred and their rifles taken.
Filipina Girls playing Basket-ball
In point of area Samar is the third island in the Philippines. In its interior are many rugged peaks and heavily forested mountains. It was here that a detachment of United States marines under the command of Major Waller, while attempting to cross the island, were lost for nearly two weeks, going without food for days and enduring terrible hardships.
At the time in question there were not five miles of road on the island passable for a vehicle, nor were there trails through the mountains over which horses could be ridden. The only interior lines of communication were a few footpaths over which the natives were accustomed to make their way from the mountains to the coast.
Troops have perhaps never attempted a campaign in a country more difficult than the interior of Samar. The traditional needle in the haystack would be easy to find compared with an outlaw, or band of outlaws, in such a rugged wilderness.
Upon the outbreak of trouble troops were hurried to Samar, and by December, 1904, according to Blount himself, there were some 1800 native soldiers on the island who were left free for active operations in the field by the garrisoning of various coast towns with sixteen companies of United States infantry.
If the nature of the feuds between the Samar lowlanders and highlanders had then been better understood, the ensuing troubles, which were more or less continuous for nearly two years, might perhaps have been avoided. As soon as it became evident that the situation was such as to demand the use of the army it was employed to supplement the operations of the constabulary.
About the time that trouble ended in Samar it began in Leyte. There was no real connection between the disorders in the two islands. No leader on either island is known to have communicated with any leader on the other; no fanatical follower ever left Samar for Leyte or Leyte for Samar so far as we are informed.
For convenience of administration the two islands were grouped in a single command after the army was requested to take over the handling of the disturbances there, in coöperation with the constabulary. The trouble ended in 1907 and both islands have remained quiet ever since. The same causes would again produce the same results now or at any time in the future, and they would be then, as in the past, the outcome of the oppression of the weak by the strong and without other political significance. Under a good government they should never recur.
Many circumstances which did not exist in 1902 and 1904 made it feasible to use the army in Samar and Leyte during 1905 and 1906. The high officers who had exercised such sweeping powers during the insurrection had meanwhile given way to other commanders. Indeed, a practically new Philippine army had come into existence. The policy of the insular government as to the treatment of individual Filipinos had been recognized and indorsed by Americans generally, but many of the objections to the use of the troops, including the heavy expense involved, still existed and I affirm without fear of successful contradiction that had it been possible to place in Samar and Leyte a number of constabulary soldiers equal to that of the scouts and American troops actually employed, disorder would have been terminated much more quickly and at very greatly less cost.
With the final breaking up of organized brigandage in 1905 law and order may be said to have been established throughout the islands. It has since been the business of the constabulary to maintain it. The value of the coöperation of the law-abiding portion of the population has been fully recognized. The newly appointed constabulary officer has impressed upon him the necessity of manifesting an interest in the people with whom he comes in contact; of cultivating the acquaintance of Filipinos of all social grades, and of assisting to settle their disagreements and harmonize their differences whenever possible. He is taught a native dialect.
The constabulary have to a high degree merited and secured the confidence and good-will of the people, whose rights they respect. There is a complete absence of the old arbitrary procedure followed by the guardia civil and as a result there are frequent requests from Filipino officials for additional detachments, while the removal of a company from a given community is almost invariably followed by vigorous protests. The power of human sympathy is very great, and as the attitude of constabulary officers and men is usually one of sympathy, conciliation and affection, that body has earned and deserved popularity.
The success of the constabulary in apprehending criminals has been both praiseworthy and noteworthy. The courage and efficiency which have often been displayed by its officers and men in hard-fought engagements with Moro outlaws or with organized bands of thieves and brigands have been beyond praise. Many of its officers have rendered invaluable service in bringing the people of the more unruly non-Christian tribes under governmental control, not only bravely and efficiently performing their duty as police officers, but assisting in trail construction or discharging, in effect, the duties of lieutenant-governors in very remote places which could be visited by the actual lieutenant-governors only infrequently. I later take occasion to mention the valuable work done by Lieutenant Case in the early days of Ifugao, and to dwell at length on the splendid service rendered there by Lieutenant Jeff D. Gallman, who was for many years lieutenant-governor of the subprovince while continuing to serve as a constabulary officer. Lieutenant Maimban at Quiangan, and Lieutenant Dosser at Mayoyao, have been and are most useful, though they do not hold official positions under the Mountain Province or receive any additional compensation for the special services which they render. Captain Guy O. Fort served most acceptably as governor of the province of Agusan during the interim between the resignation of Governor Lewis and the appointment of Governor Bryant and Lieutenants Atkins and Zapanta have also rendered valuable service as assistants to the provincial governor. Lieutenant Turnbull is now assistant to the governor of Nueva Vizcaya for work among the Ilongots on the Pacific coast of northern Luzón. Other constabulary officers, who have not been called upon for special service of this kind, have performed their ordinary duties in such a way as to demonstrate that they were actuated by the spirit of coöperation and have been of great help.
But the work of the constabulary has not been confined to police duty. They have been of the greatest assistance to the Director of Health in effectively maintaining quarantine, and making possible the isolation of victims of dangerous communicable diseases like cholera and smallpox, when inefficient municipal policemen have utterly failed to do their duty. They have given similar assistance to the Director of Agriculture in the maintenance of quarantine in connection with efforts to combat diseases of domestic animals. In great emergencies such as those presented by the recent eruption of Taal volcano, and the devastation caused by great typhoons, they have been quick to respond to the call of duty and have rendered efficient and heroic service. They assist internal revenue officers. Except in a few of the largest cities they are the firemen of the islands and by their effective work have repeatedly checked conflagrations, which are of frequent occurrence and tend to be very destructive in this country, where most of the houses are built of bamboo and nipa palm, and where roofs become dry as tinder during the long period when there is little or no rain. They have aided in combating pests of locusts, and, in short, have been ready to meet almost any kind of an emergency which has arisen.
The importance of having such a body of alert, industrious, disciplined, efficient men inspired by a high sense of duty, and physically so well developed that they can continue to perform that duty in the face of long-continued privations and hardships, is beyond dispute. The results which have been obtained by the Philippine constabulary have abundantly justified the policy which led to its organization.
Its task has been no sinecure. Eleven officers and one hundred ninety-seven enlisted men have been killed in action. Forty-eight officers and nine hundred ninety-one men have died of disease. Forty-six officers have been wounded in action. Seven hundred sixty-eight men have been discharged for disability. Seven thousand four hundred twenty-four firearms and 45,018 rounds of ammunition have been captured by, or surrendered to, the constabulary. Four thousand eight hundred sixty-two outlaws have been killed and 11,977 taken prisoners. Twelve thousand two hundred sixty-two stolen animals have been recovered.
There are many things which are not brought home to the reader by such statistics. The weary days and nights on tropical trails; the weakness and pain of dysentery; the freezing and the burning of pernicious malaria; the heavy weight of responsibility when one must act, in matters of life and death, with no superior to consult; the disappointment when carefully laid plans go wrong; the discouragement caused by indifference; the danger of infection with loathsome diseases; ingratitude; deadly peril; aching wounds; sudden death, and, worse yet, death after suffering long drawn out, when one meets one’s end knowing that it is coming and that one’s family will be left without means or resources,—these are some of the things that the officers and men of this gallant corps have faced unflinchingly.
The work of the constabulary and of the Philippine scouts has conclusively demonstrated the courage and efficiency of the Filipino as a soldier when well disciplined and well led.
The establishment and maintenance of order in the Philippines have afforded opportunity for some of the bravest deeds in the annals of any race, and the opportunity has been nobly met. The head-hunters of the Mountain Province, the Mohammedan Moros of Mindanao, Joló and Palawan, the bloody pulájanes of Samar and Leyte, the wily tulisanes of Luzón, all unrestrained by any regard for the rules of civilized warfare, have for twelve years matched their fanatical bravery against the gallantry of the khaki-clad Filipino soldiers. Time and again a single officer and a handful of men have taken chances that in almost any other land would have won them the Victoria cross, the legion of honor, or some similar decoration. Here their only reward has been the sense of duty well done.
The force known as the Philippine constabulary was organized for the purpose of establishing and maintaining order. It has established and is maintaining a condition of order never before equalled or approached in the history of the islands. The policy which led to its organization has been a thousand times justified.
[1] Blount, p. 425.
[2] Blount, p.430.
[3] Native dugouts.
Chapter XV
The Administration of Justice
In no branch of the public administration have there been more numerous or more beneficial reforms than in the administration of justice. They have resulted in simplifying organization, in decreasing the possibility of corruption and partiality, and in diminishing the cost of litigation and the time which it requires.
For the benefit of those especially interested I give in the appendix the past and present organization of the courts.[1] The subject is too technical to interest the average layman.
The slender salaries paid to judges, the fact that in the majority of cases their appointment and promotion were due to influence and suggestion, their liability to be transferred from one court to another or from the Philippines to the Antilles, as frequently happened, and the further fact that the subordinate personnel of the courts was not a salaried one, caused the administration of justice in the Philippine Islands to be looked upon askance. There was a general belief, well founded in many instances, that lawsuits were won through influence or bribery. Clerks and the subordinate personnel of the courts were readily bribed. Indeed, they frequently demanded bribes from litigants, or from defendants in criminal cases, under promise to expedite the trials if paid to do so, or under threat to commit some injustice if payment was not forthcoming. For many years after the American occupation justices of the peace received no salaries and had to look to fees for their compensation. This system worked wretchedly. The positions were only too often filled by very incompetent and unworthy men, who stimulated litigation in order to make more money. Now all justices of the peace receive reasonable salaries.
The paying of regular salaries and the furnishing of necessary offices and supplies have done much to improve the work of justice of the peace courts, which are now presided over by men who average far better than even their immediate predecessors.
Until they were put on a salary basis the work of the Filipino justices of the peace left much more to be desired than is lacking at present. In many instances they allowed gross brutalities, perpetrated by the rich on the poor, or by the strong on the weak, to go unpunished. The following case furnished me by an American teacher is typical of what has occurred only too often:—
“On another occasion, I met the brother of my house muchacha,[2] a boy about eight. He had a sort of protuberance on one side caused by broken ribs which had not been set. I questioned my muchacha. She said her step-father had kicked the child across the room some weeks before and broken his ribs. The next day, I took the child together with Señora Bayot, the wife of the Governor’s secretary, before the local Justice of the Peace. Señora Bayot translated and the child told the same story as had his sister. The Justice of the Peace issued an order for the step-father to report to him on the next day. That night my muchacha told me that her step-father had threatened to kill the child if he did not tell the Justice that he got the hurt by falling out of an orange tree. The child did as ordered, and the step-father was dismissed. When I questioned the Justice of the Peace as to why he credited the second tale, he said the child was under oath then, and was not under oath in the first statements.”
It was not deemed wise at the outset to appoint a Filipino judge for the city of Manila, as it was feared that there would be a lack of confidence in a Filipino who had occasion to decide cases involving large sums of money in which Americans or foreigners on the one hand and Filipinos on the other were interested; but a few years after the establishment of the new judicial system Filipino judges had won such a reputation for justice and fairness as to gain the confidence of Americans and foreigners and the appointment of a Filipino judge for the court of the city of Manila did not arouse any opposition.
University Hall, Manila
Filipino judges of courts of first instance seem usually to have been actuated by a desire to do full justice. The instances in which complaints have been made against them because of partiality to party or to race are few. Some of them have been justly criticised for tardiness in cleaning up their dockets, and it is undoubtedly true that their capacity for turning out work is on the average below that of their Americans associates.
The fact must not be forgotten that Americans are in the majority in the Supreme Court, which reviews the decisions of courts of first instance, and this undoubtedly exercises a restraining influence. It is not possible accurately to judge what would be the actions of a body of men now subject to such control if it did not exist. It is furthermore true that the Filipinos are more inclined to be suspicious of their own countrymen than of Americans, and there have been from time to time specific requests from them that judges in certain provinces be Americans.
Under the Spanish régime the fees paid by litigants were excessive and the use of stamped paper was compulsory. Its value ranged from twenty-five centavos to two pesos for a folio of two sheets according to the amount involved in the suit. Now there are fixed fees of $8 in civil suits, except in probate matters, where the fee is $12.
It was in the power of an unscrupulous litigant to make a lawsuit almost eternal. In matters involving an amount exceeding $250 it was lawful to institute proceedings in the action whereby the decision of the main issue was suspended pending decision of the proceedings, and as a decision was appealable to the audiencia, this was often done by attorneys who had an interest in delaying the suit. By instituting one proceeding after another a suit could be indefinitely prolonged.
Another method of securing delay was to object to the judge. In case the judge denied the ground of the objection, a proceeding was instituted against him and the trial of the main issue was turned over to another judge; although the proceeding arising out of the objection did not suspend the trial of the main issue, when the time came to decide the latter the decision was withheld until the proceeding arising out of the objection was settled, and as this latter was one in connection with which other proceedings could be instituted which might delay the decision and consequently the decision of the main issue, there was no end to the matter.
To-day all this has been stopped by the procedure in court. The challenging of judges is not allowed, although they must refrain from the trial of any matter when they are disqualified in any way as regards it. Proceedings which suspend the trial of the main issue cannot be instituted. The procedure itself is more expeditious, the time allowances and formalities have been reduced, and all the long Spanish civil procedure regarding the presentation of evidence has been shortened. Suits are settled with a speediness previously unknown. In order to avoid delay on the part of judges in rendering decisions, an act has been passed prohibiting the payment of their salaries without a certificate that they have no matter which has been awaiting decision for more than three months.
Owing to the inquisitorial procedure which obtained under Spanish rule, the disposition of criminal cases was even slower than that of civil cases. The cause would be commenced, either de officio, by the judge who had a knowledge of the crime, or by the prosecuting attorney, or by virtue of private accusation on the part of the person aggrieved. The case once started, the investigations made during the period known as the sumario were conducted in the absence of the accused. The latter had no hand in the case, as it was thought that the reserve and secrecy of the procedure ought not to be violated to the end that the accused might not frustrate the evidence of the prosecution by preparing his defence. Owing many times to the inactivity of the judge or of the prosecuting attorney, to the great amount of work which weighed down the courts—for actions were begun when there was knowledge of the commission of the crime, although the perpetrators were not known—and by the manipulations at other times of the private accuser to whose interest it was to harm the accused by delaying the sumario, this period was often made to extend over years and years. Meanwhile the defendant was confined in prison, as no bail was allowed in any case in which the penalty was that of presidio correccional (from six months and one day to six years’ imprisonment) or greater. In addition to this the circumstance that all criminal causes in the islands had to be sent for review to the proper audiencia, caused a large accumulation of old cases in these higher courts, and this alone made their disposition a matter of some years.
To-day the procedure is rapid. Information having been brought against the defendant, the trial is had in the same term or at most during the next term of court. Sometimes the trial is suspended owing to the non-appearance of witnesses, but it can be said that cases are rare where causes are pending in the docket of the court for a longer period than two terms. Causes appealed to the Supreme Court are disposed of promptly, and as a general rule it does not take over six months to get a decision.
Defendants in criminal cases have now been granted by the Philippine Bill certain fundamentally important rights which they did not formerly enjoy; namely, to appear and defend in person or by counsel at every stage of the proceedings; to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to testify as witnesses in their own behalf; to be exempt from testifying against themselves; to be confronted at the trial by, and to cross-examine, the witnesses against them; to have compulsory process issue for obtaining witnesses in their own favour; to have speedy and public trials; to be admitted to bail with sufficient sureties in all cases, except for capital offences. None of these rights were enjoyed under the procedure in effect during the Spanish régime. A man was prosecuted without being notified of the charges against him, and he was only made aware of the case against him after the sumario. When all of the evidence of the prosecution had been taken the accused was heard in his own defence. He was compelled to testify, and was subjected to a very inquisitorial examination, including questions which incriminated him. Although he had the right to compel witnesses for the prosecution to ratify over their signatures the evidence against him given during the sumario, as the defence of the majority of the accused was in the hands of attorneys de officio they nearly always renounced this privilege of the defendant, and, as has already been said, bail was not admitted in any grave offence during the trial.
No sentence of acquittal in a criminal case can now be appealed from by the government. Under the Spanish system sentences of acquittal of courts of first instance had to be referred for review to the proper audiencia and the fiscal of the latter could appeal from a sentence of acquittal by it.
The Philippine Bill grants to the inhabitants of the islands other important individual rights which they did not formerly possess.
The Spanish constitution was not in force here, and although the Penal Code contained provisions for punishing, in a way, officials who violated certain rights granted by the Spanish constitution, citizens had no expeditious method of securing their punishment. Now the Code of Civil Procedure grants them certain special remedies by which their rights can be made good. To illustrate: Under the Spanish régime the only remedy for a man illegally detained was to bring a criminal action against the person illegally detaining him. He did not have the remedy of the writ of habeas corpus nor the writ of prohibition against an official who attempted to make him the victim of some unlawful act. His only remedy was to bring a criminal action against such official, or to sue him for damages. He could not compel public officials to perform their ministerial duties by mandamus proceedings.
The individual rights conferred by the Philippine Bill, and the special remedies granted by the Code of Civil Procedure, assure to the inhabitants of the islands liberties and privileges entirely unknown to them during the days of Spanish sovereignty, and these liberties and privileges are adequately safeguarded.
Two things still greatly complicate the administration of justice in the Philippines.
The first is the dense ignorance of the people of the working class who for the most part have failed to learn of their new rights, and even if they know them are afraid to attempt to assert them in opposition to the will of the caciques, whose power for evil they know only too well.
The other is the unreliability of many witnesses and their shocking readiness to perjure themselves. It is always possible to manufacture testimony at small expense. While the criminal libel suit brought against certain members of the staff of the newspaper El Renacimiento, which libelled me, was in progress the judge showed me the opinion of the two Filipino assessors[3] in one of the cases and told me that it was written by an attorney for the defence. I could not believe this, but a few days later an assessor in another of the cases called at my house, bringing a draft of the opinion of himself and his associate which he sought to submit to me for criticism or modification, saying that I knew much more about the case than they did! He was nonplussed at my refusal to read the document, and left saying “acqui tiene V. nuevo servidor.”[4] Had I redrafted the opinion, as I might have done, my “new servant” would have called later for a quid pro quo.
Some of the Filipino judges of first instance have proved weak in matters affecting the integrity of public domain and the protection of the public forests, but on the whole these officers have done rather surprisingly well. It must be remembered that the best men in the islands have now been appointed, and that another generation must come on before there will be available any considerable number of new candidates who are up to the standard of the present appointees.
[1] See p. 998.
[2] Female servant.
[3] Men appointed to assist the judge in deciding questions of fact. Their decision is not binding on him.
[4] Here [i.e. in me] you have a new servant.
Chapter XVI
Health Conditions
I had abundant opportunity to observe health conditions in the Philippines during the Spanish régime and they were shocking in the extreme. There were no provisions for the sanitary disposal of human waste even in Manila. If one had occasion to be out on foot at night, it was wise to keep in the middle of the street and still wiser to carry a raised umbrella.
Immediately after the American occupation some five hundred barrels of caked excrement were taken from a single tower in one of the old Manila monasteries. The moat around the city wall, and the esteros, or tidal creeks, reeked with filth, and the smells which assailed one’s nostrils, especially, at night, were disgusting.
Distilled water was not to be had for drinking purposes. The city water supply came from the Mariquina River, and some fifteen thousand Filipinos lived on or near the banks of that stream above the intake. The water was often so thick with sediment that one could not see through a glass of it, and it was out of the question to attempt to get it boiled unless one had facilities of one’s own.
Conditions in the provinces were proportionately worse. As a rule, there was no evidence of any effort to put provincial towns into decent sanitary conditions. I must, however, note one striking exception. Brigadier General Juan Arolas, long the governor of Joló, had a thorough knowledge of modern sanitary methods and a keen appreciation of the benefits derivable from their application. When he was sent to Joló, practically in banishment, the town was a plague spot to which were assigned Spaniards whose early demise would have been looked upon with favour by those in power. He converted it into a healthy place the death rate of which compared favourably with that of European cities, thereby demonstrating conclusively what could be done even under very unfavourable conditions. No troops in the islands were kept in anything like such physical condition as were the regiments assigned to him, and he bore a lasting grudge against any one inconsiderate enough to die in Joló.
Everywhere I saw people dying of curable ailments. Malaria was prevalent in many regions in which it was impossible to secure good quinine. The stuff on sale usually consisted largely of cornstarch, or plaster of Paris. Fortunately we had brought with us from the United States a great quantity of quinine and we made friends with the Filipinos in many a town by giving this drug gratis to their sick.
Smallpox was generally regarded as a necessary ailment of childhood. It was a common thing to see children covered with the eruption of this disease watching, or joining in, the play of groups of healthy little ones.
The clothing of people who had died of smallpox was handed on to other members of the family, sometimes without even being washed. The victims of the disease often immersed themselves in cold water when their fever was high, and paid the penalty for their ignorance with their lives.
The average Spaniard was a firm believer in the noxiousness of night air, which he said produced paludismo.[1] Most Filipinos were afraid of an imaginary spirit, devil or mythical creature known as asuáng, and closed their windows and doors after dark as a protection against it. Thus it came about that in a country where fresh air is especially necessary at night no one got it.
Tuberculosis was dreadfully common, and its victims were conveying it to others without let or hindrance.
Bakídan
This Kalinga chief saved the lives of Colonel Blas Villamor, Mr. Samuel E. Kane, and the author during the first trip ever made through the Kalinga country by outsiders.
A distressingly large percentage of native-born infants died before reaching one year of age on account of infection at birth, insufficient clothing, or improper food. I have many times seen a native mother thrust boiled rice into the mouth of a child only a few days old, and I have seen babies taught to smoke tobacco before they could walk.
Before our party left the islands in 1888, cholera had broken out at a remote and isolated place. A little later it spread over a considerable part of the archipelago. On my return in 1890 I heard the most shocking stories of what had occurred. Victims of this disease were regarded with such fear and horror by their friends that they were not infrequently carried out while in a state of coma, and buried alive. It became necessary to issue orders to have shelters prepared in cemeteries under which bodies were required to be deposited and left for a certain number of hours before burial, in order to prevent this result.
In Siquijor an unfortunate, carried to the cemetery after he had lost consciousness, came to himself, crawled out from under a mass of corpses which had been piled on top of him, got up and walked home. When he entered his house, his assembled friends and relatives vacated it through the windows, believing him to be his own ghost. They did not return until morning, when they found him dead on the floor.
I heard a well-authenticated story of a case in which all the members of a family died except a creeping infant who subsisted for some time by sucking a breeding sow which was being kept in the kitchen.
During the great cholera epidemic in 1882 it is said that the approaches to the Manila cemeteries were blocked with vehicles of every description loaded with corpses, and that the stench from unburied bodies in the San Lazaro district was so dreadful that one could hardly go through it.
Beri-beri was common among the occupants of jails, lighthouses and other government institutions, as well as in certain garrisoned towns like Balabac.
In 1892 I found the wife of a very dear Spanish friend dying from an ailment which in the United States could have been promptly and certainly remedied by a surgical operation. I begged him to take her to Manila, telling him of the ease with which any fairly good surgeon would relieve her, and promising to interest myself in her case on my arrival there. To my utter amazement I found that there was not a surgeon in the Philippine Islands who would venture to open the human abdomen. The one man who had sometimes done this in Spain stated that it would be impossible for him to undertake it in Manila, on account of the lack of a suitable operating room, of instruments and of the necessary anaesthetist and other professional assistants. In fact, at the time of the American occupation there was not a modern operating room, much less a modern hospital, in the Philippines. Thousands upon thousands of people were perishing needlessly every year for the lack of surgical intervention. A common procedure in dealing with wounds was to cover them with poultices of chewed tobacco, ashes, and leaves.
In many provinces the people were without medical assistance of any sort, and fell into the hands of native quacks who were little, if at all, better than witch doctors.
The most fantastic views were entertained relative to the causation of disease. In some towns it was vigorously asserted that after a peculiar looking black dog ran down the street cholera appeared. In other places cholera was generally ascribed to the poisoning of wells by Spaniards or foreigners.
Cemeteries were not infrequently situated in the very midst of towns, or near the local supplies of drinking water. Conditions within their walls were often shocking from an aesthetic view point. As the area available for burials was limited, and the graves were usually unmarked, parts of decomposed bodies were constantly being dug up. It was the custom to throw such remains about the foot of the cross at the centre of the cemetery.
Military sanitation was also very bad. I was at Zamboanga when the wreck of General Weyler’s expedition to Lake Lanoa began to return. There had been no adequate provision for the medical care of the force in the field, and the condition of many of the soldiers was pitiable in the extreme. Disabled men were brought in by the shipload, and the hospitals at Zamboanga, Isabela de Basilan and Joló were soon filled to overflowing.
The lack of adequate sanitary measures was equally in evidence in dealing with cattle disease. Rinderpest, a highly contagious and very destructive disease of horned cattle, was introduced in 1888 and spread like fire in prairie grass. No real effort was made to check it prior to the American occupation, and it caused enormous losses, both directly by killing large numbers of beef cattle and indirectly by depriving farmers of draft animals.
When I first visited the islands every member of our party fell ill within a few weeks. All of us suffered intensely from tropical ulcers. Two had malaria; one had dysentery; one, acute inflammation of the liver, possibly of amoebic origin; and so on to the end of the chapter. I myself got so loaded up with malaria in Mindoro that it took me fifteen years to get rid of it.
Fortunately the American army of occupation brought with it numerous competent physicians and surgeons, and abundant hospital equipment and supplies, for the soldiers promptly contracted about all the different ailments to be acquired in the islands.
When I arrived in Manila on the 5th of March, 1899, I found that a great army hospital, called the “First Reserve,” had been established in the old rice market. There was another sizable one on the Bagumbayan drive. A third occupied a large building belonging to French sisters of charity which was ordinarily used for school purposes.
In immediate connection with the First Reserve Hospital was a tent hospital where sick and wounded Insurgents were being given the best of care.
Field hospitals were promptly established as the troops moved out from Manila, and in connection with many of these Filipinos were given much needed medical and surgical help. The recipients of such kindly treatment were, however, prohibited by Insurgent officers from telling others of their experiences lest the hatred of Americans diminish as a result.
Smallpox had broken out among the Spanish soldiers in the walled city and was spreading badly when my friend, Major Frank S. Bourns of the army medical corps, was given the task of eradicating it, which he promptly accomplished. A little later the use of the Santa Ana church as a smallpox hospital was authorized, and sick Filipinos were carefully tended there.
The army promptly set about cleaning up Manila and waging war upon the more serious ailments which threatened the health of the soldiers and that of the public. The work was at the outset put under the direction of Major Edie, a very capable and efficient medical officer. Subsequently it was turned over to Major Bourns, who, on account of his intimate knowledge of Spanish, and his wide acquaintance with the Filipinos, was able to carry out many much-needed reforms, and in doing so aroused a minimum of public antagonism.
Upon the establishment of civil government Governor Taft was very desirous of retaining Major Bourns’s services, but this did not prove practicable, as he desired to give up government work and engage in private business.
There was promptly created an efficient board of health made up of men of recognized ability and large practical experience. Its chairman was Major Louis M. Maus, commissioner of public health. The other members were Mr. H. D. Osgood, sanitary engineer; Dr. Franklin H. Meacham, chief sanitary inspector; Dr. Paul C. Freer, superintendent of government laboratories; and Dr. Manuel Gomez, secretary.
This board was promptly put upon its mettle. It had inherited from the army an incipient epidemic of bubonic plague in Manila, and the disease soon spread to Cavite and also to Cebú, then the second port of the Philippines in commercial importance. It also appeared in several provincial towns near Cavite. An effective campaign against it, inaugurated at this time, was never abandoned until it was completely eradicated in 1906,—a noteworthy result to achieve in a country like the Philippines.
On March 21, 1902, I was advised that two patients at San Juan de Dios hospital were developing symptoms of Asiatic cholera, and on the following day a positive laboratory diagnosis was made. Other cases followed in quick succession, and we soon found ourselves facing a virulent epidemic of this highly dangerous disease. At the outset the mortality was practically 100 per cent. Unfortunately, there was no one connected with the medical service of the islands who had had practical experience in dealing with cholera, and we had to get this as we went along.
At the time of the outbreak, Governor Taft was in the United States, Acting Governor Wright was in Leyte, the secretary of finance and justice was in Japan, and there were present in Manila only the secretary of public instruction and the secretary of the interior. As the executive head of the government was absent, and there was no quorum of the legislative body, I of necessity arrogated to myself powers which I did not lawfully possess, appointing employees and incurring expenses without the usual formalities.
On the morning of March 22 I informed General Chaffee that four cases of cholera had occurred in Manila, and requested that an adequate military force be despatched to the valley of the Mariquina River to protect the city water supply from possible contamination.
This request was promptly acceded to, and the guard thereafter maintained proved adequate to prevent infection of the city water, although there are three towns on the river above the intake, and it was the custom of their people to bathe and wash their clothing in this stream. Many of the filthy surface wells of the city were filled as rapidly as possible, and those that could not be filled were closed.
The people, entirely unaccustomed as they were to any sanitary restrictions, believing that the disease was not cholera, and firm in their conviction that they had a right to do whatever they liked so long as they kept on their own premises, bitterly resented the burning or disinfection of their houses and effects, and the restriction of their liberty to go and come as they pleased, and in spite of the fact that the number of cases was kept down in a manner never before dreamed of at Manila, there arose an increasingly bitter feeling of hostility toward the work of the board of health. In fact, the very success of the campaign proved an obstacle, and we were assured that the disease could not be cholera, as, if it were, there would be a thousand deaths a day!
An educational campaign was immediately begun, and simple directions for avoiding infection were published and scattered broadcast. Distilled water was furnished gratis to all who would drink it, stations for its distribution being established through the city and supplemented by large water wagons driven through the streets. The sale of foods likely to convey the disease was prohibited. Large numbers of emergency sanitary inspectors were immediately appointed, and every effort was made to detect all cases as soon as possible. A land quarantine was established around the city, to protect the provinces.
In anticipation of a possible extensive outbreak of contagious disease a detention camp capable of accommodating some twenty-five hundred people had been established previously on the San Lazaro grounds, and to this place were taken the cholera “contacts.” A cholera hospital was opened near this camp, and the stricken were removed to it from their homes as speedily as possible, the buildings which they had occupied being thoroughly disinfected, or burned if disinfection was impracticable.
The bodies of the dead were at the outset either buried in hermetically sealed coffins or cremated. When the detention camp and hospital at San Lazaro threatened to become crowded, a second camp and hospital were established at Santa Mesa. At this latter place both “contacts” and the sick were obliged to live in tents.
The Spanish residents were allowed to establish a private cholera hospital in a large and well-ventilated convento on Calle Herran. As the number of sick Spaniards was nothing like sufficient to fill this building, they were asked to turn over the unoccupied space in it to the board of health, which they most generously did.
In response to popular clamour a hospital under strictly Filipino management was opened in a nipa building in Tondo. Interest in it soon flagged, and the government found itself with this institution on its hands.
The epidemic came soon after the close of a long-continued war, and there were at that time in Manila not a few evil-intentioned persons, both foreign and native, who welcomed every opportunity to make trouble. The difficulties arising from the claim advanced by a number of reputable but ignorant medical men that the disease was not cholera at all were sufficiently great. They were enormously increased by false and malicious stories to the effect that “contacts” were killed at the detention camp; that patients on arrival at the cholera hospital were given a drink of poisoned vino[2] and instantly dropped dead; that the distilled water distributed free of charge was poisoned, and that the Americans were poisoning the wells.
The necessary use of strychnine as a heart stimulant at the cholera hospital was made the basis for a story that the sick were being poisoned with this drug.
These silly tales were widely circulated and quite generally believed, and as a result of the fear thus engendered, and of the desire on the part of relatives and neighbours of stricken persons to escape disinfection and quarantine, strong efforts were often made to conceal the sick and the dead, and when this was not possible the “contacts” usually ran away. There were not wanting instances of the driving of cholera victims into the streets.
In spite of the generally hostile attitude of the public and some grave mistakes in policy, the measures adopted sufficed at the outset to hold the disease in check to an extent which surprised even the health officers themselves.
On May 15 there began a rapid and quite steady decline in the number of cases.
In June, however, it increased. During July it grew steadily larger, and on the 25th of that month there were ninety-one cases, the largest number which has ever occurred in Manila on any day since the American occupation.
Throughout the early months of the epidemic Major Maus had laboured unceasingly to check it, displaying an energy and an indifference to fatigue and personal discomfort which were highly commendable. The long-continued strain ultimately began to tell on him severely. On May 17 orders were received from the Adjutant-General’s Office providing for his relief on or about July 30, and stating that Major E. C. Carter, of the United States Army Medical Corps, would be available for detail as commissioner of public health on that date, if his services were desired. Arrangements were accordingly made to have Major Carter proceed to the Philippines. Major Maus’s resignation was accepted, effective July 31. Dr. Frank S. Bourns was urged to take temporary charge of the situation, and consented to do so.
In Hostile Country
Colonel Villamor and the author at Bakídan’s place in the Kalinga country. The four chiefs were not as yet ready to lay down their shields or head-axes.
On the 8th of August Major Carter arrived and announced his readiness to assume his duties, but it was suggested to him that he ought first to have some time to familiarize himself with them, and Dr. Bourns was left free to carry out the special work for which he had been appointed.
This he did with promptness and despatch, the number of cases for August being but seven hundred twenty as against thirteen hundred sixty-eight for the previous month. On the 8th of September, having brought the disease under control at Manila, he insisted on resigning in order to attend to his private affairs, which were suffering from neglect, and his resignation was reluctantly accepted.
Dr. Bourns’s remarkable success in dealing with a very difficult situation was largely due to his ability to devise measures which, while thoroughly effective, were less irritating to the public than were those which had been previously employed.
The policy which he had inaugurated was followed by his successor with the result that the cases fell to two hundred seventy-five in September and eighty-eight in October. In November there was a slight recrudescence, but the disease did not again threaten to escape control and in February practically disappeared, there being but two cases during the entire month.
The return of hot, damp weather again produced a slight recrudescence, and scattering cases continued to occur until March, when the epidemic of 1902–1904 ended in Manila.
In view of the conditions which then prevailed and of the extreme risk of a general infection of the city water supply, which, had it occurred, would doubtless have resulted in the death of a third of the population, this is a record of which the Bureau of Health may well be proud.
The effort to prevent the spread of infection by maintaining a land quarantine around Manila proved entirely ineffective. The disease promptly appeared in the provinces where the campaign against it was from the outset in charge of newly appointed Filipino presidents of provincial boards of health, aided, when practicable, by medical inspectors from Manila.
Before it was finally checked in Manila there were 5581 cases with 4386 deaths; while in the provinces, in many of which it necessarily long ran its course practically unhindered, there were 160,671 cases, with 105,075 deaths.
On the 27th of April, 1904, the Board of Health passed the following resolutions:—
“Whereas cases of Asiatic cholera have occurred in but three provincial towns of the Philippine Islands since February 8, 1904; and
“Whereas only one case of Asiatic cholera has been reported as occurring any place in the Philippine Islands since March 8, 1904; and
“Whereas the city of Manila was declared on March 23 to be free from the infection of Asiatic cholera; On motion
“Resolved, That the islands composing the Philippine Archipelago are, and are hereby declared to be, free from the infection of Asiatic cholera; and
“Be it further resolved, That the Commissioner of Public Health be directed to send a copy of these resolutions to the honourable the Secretary of the Interior, the Municipal Board, the United States Marine-Hospital Service, and the Collector of Customs.”
As a matter of fact, however, it later proved that cholera was endemic in certain swampy regions near Manila, and in 1905 we found ourselves with a new epidemic on our hands.
At the end of the second week, beginning August 23, there had been one hundred thirty-seven cases, as compared with one hundred twenty-five for the same period during the epidemic of 1902–1904.
However, the conditions for combating cholera were now far more favourable than in 1902. Major E. C. Carter had at his own request been relieved from duty as commissioner of public health, and Dr. Victor G. Heiser, passed assistant surgeon of the United States public health and marine hospital service, had been appointed to succeed him on April 5, 1905. Dr. Heiser was a highly trained officer of one of the most efficient services which has ever been organized for the combating of contagious and infectious diseases.
He had under him in the city of Manila a small but thoroughly trained body of twenty-four medical inspectors, of whom nineteen were Americans and five Filipinos. Profiting by his previous experience and that of his predecessors in the Philippine service, he inaugurated a campaign which practically terminated the epidemic in Manila on February 21, 1906,[3] with a total of two hundred eighty-three cases and two hundred forty-three deaths.
This brief and decisive campaign reflects the greatest credit on all concerned with it.
The board of health had one great advantage in the fact that the San Lazaro contagious disease hospital had been completed. This building, with its cool wards and attractive surroundings, made it possible to give cholera victims the best of care.
There was at the outset little or no fear of this hospital, but apparently this condition of things was not satisfactory to that small but dangerous element of the Manila public which from the time of the American occupation has never let pass any opportunity to make trouble. As usual, the medium of attack was the local press. Soberanía Nacional published a most extraordinary article painting in vivid colours the alleged horrors of the San Lazaro Hospital, and stating among other things that the naked bodies of the dead, tagged and with their feet tied together, lay about the entrance of that institution. A more false statement was never published.
Within twenty-four hours after its appearance terror reigned among the lower classes, and living and dead cholera victims were being smuggled out of the city to neighbouring towns.
Feeling that the vicious attitude of a certain section of the press had cost lives enough, I sent the editor of this paper a courteous invitation to call at my office. He made no response. I then wrote him, demanding a retraction, and sending him a correct statement to publish.[4]
He was at first disposed to argue the matter, but finding that I meant business published the article which I sent to him and made the following retraction:—
“We are exceedingly glad to affirm in the honour of truth and justice, that the news given by us on the seventh instant under the title ‘Painful Scenes,’ and ‘Naked Dead,’ is absolutely absurd, false and unreasonable.
“We have investigated the truth of the said notice, and can affirm to our readers that it is entirely inaccurate, as in the courtyard of the said hospital the naked dead that we have spoken of are not now exposed, nor have they ever been so exposed.
“The truth is above all things, and to rectify a baseless piece of news should not be a doubtful action on the part of the person who gave the news, but rather something in his favour that the public should appreciate it at its full value.
“To conclude, we must record our gratitude to the Secretary of the Interior, the Hon. Dean C. Worcester, for the investigations made in the premises with the purpose of ascertaining the truth of the alleged facts, and for the courteous way in which he received us this morning when interviewed by one of our reporters.”
In the provinces the results of the campaign against cholera were far less satisfactory than in Manila as was to be anticipated, owing to lack of adequate personnel, but the cases, which numbered 34,238 and deaths which numbered 22,938, were far fewer than during the previous epidemic.
I shall not attempt here to trace the course of the subsequent epidemics which have occurred from time to time, but shall content myself with giving the deaths by years. In 1908, they numbered 18,811; in 1909, 7306; in 1910, 6940; in 1911, 203. In 1912, there were none, and thus far in 1913 there have been none.[5]
The superstitious practices which were formerly employed by the Filipinos to combat this scourge have given way to simple and inexpensive hygienic measures, and we can safely count on sufficient coöperation from the people to make an effective campaign possible when it next appears.
Never shall I forget the strain of the early days of the first epidemic. Two of my best men, Dr. Meacham and Mr. Mudge, literally worked themselves to death, remaining on duty when they knew that they were in imminent danger, and in the end laying down their lives willingly for an alien and hostile people. Such things make one proud of being an American.
At times the situation was not devoid of amusing features. I had occasion to visit one of the northern provinces, where the epidemic was especially severe, in an effort to calm the panic-stricken populace. I stayed with the governor, a very intelligent Filipino. For obvious reasons I investigated his domestic arrangements, finding that he was boiling drinking water, thoroughly cooking all food, and taking all usual and necessary precautions to prevent infection.
On returning to his house the first evening, after a short absence, I found the grounds decorated with lighted Japanese lanterns. Supposing that the proverbial Filipino hospitality had risen above even such untoward circumstances as those which then existed, I asked the governor what the entertainment was to be. In evident perplexity he replied that he had not planned to have any entertainment, and on my inquiring what the lanterns were for, said he had heard that they were good to keep away cholera germs!
I have referred to the fact that the civil government inherited a fairly well developed epidemic of bubonic plague. In 1901 this disease caused four hundred twenty-seven deaths, in 1902 it caused ten only, but the demands made on the sanitary force by the cholera epidemic which began in that year rendered it impossible to give to plague the attention which it otherwise would have had, with the result that in 1903 we had one hundred seventy-four deaths. In 1904 there were seventy-eight; in 1905, forty-three; in 1906, seven; in 1907, none; and from 1907 until 1912, none. In the latter year the disease was reintroduced.
Rats become infected with it, and fleas transmit it from them to human beings. It was probably brought in by pestiferous rodents hidden inside packages of vegetables, as it appeared in a district where crates of vegetables are opened in large numbers, and did not appear in the vicinity of the piers, although shore rats are abundant there, and if diseased rodents had landed from shipping, would promptly have become infected,—a thing which did not occur.
At about the same time plague also appeared at Iloilo, where it was eradicated with a total of nine deaths. At Manila there have been up to the present time[6] fifty-nine deaths, and scattering cases continue to occur at considerable intervals.
Had plague not been promptly and effectively combated, it would unquestionably have spread rapidly, causing untold misery and heavy property losses.
As I have previously stated, at the time of the American occupation smallpox was by many people regarded as an almost inevitable ailment of childhood. It proved necessary to secure the passage of legislation forbidding the inoculation of human beings with it to prevent misguided Filipinos from deliberately communicating it to their children, not because they did not dearly love them, but because they regarded infection with it as a calamity sure to come sooner or later, and desired to have it over with once for all.
We have performed more than ten million vaccinations, with the result that the annual deaths from this disease have decreased from forty thousand at the outset to seven hundred for the year just ended. There is now less smallpox in Manila than in Washington.
In the six provinces nearest Manila it was killing, on the average, six thousand persons annually. For a year after we finished vaccinating the inhabitants of these provinces it did not cause a death among them; nor has it since caused such a death except among new-born children or newly arrived unvaccinated persons.
These extraordinary results have been achieved without the loss of a life or a limb so far as we know. The vaccine used was prepared by our own Bureau of Science with extraordinary care, and has proved to be remarkably pure and active.
We at first endeavoured to have vaccinations performed by local Filipino health officers, but, after spending large sums without obtaining satisfactory results, gave up this plan and substituted therefor a method of procedure by which the work was carried on under the very immediate supervision of the director of health. We then made substantial progress. However, under the law as it at present stands, succeeding annual vaccination, intended to insure the immunization of children soon after they are born and of unvaccinated persons who may come into a given territory, are intrusted to the local Filipino authorities, with the result that in very many cases they are not attended to. We get elaborate returns showing the number of persons vaccinated. Then comes an outbreak of smallpox, and on investigation we learn that the vaccinations so fully reported were made on paper only! In other words, the continuance of this work, of such vital importance to the Filipino people, is still directly dependent upon continued control by American health officers.
Another great problem now in a fair way to final solution is the eradication of leprosy. At the outset we were told by the church authorities that there were thirty thousand lepers in the islands. In 1905 we began to isolate and care for all supposed victims of this disease, only to find that many outcasts believed to be suffering from it were really afflicted with curable ailments. We were able to restore a very large number of them to society, to their great joy and that of their friends.
A few hundreds of true lepers were being humanely cared for in Manila and elsewhere. Many others had been driven out of the towns into forests or waste places on the larger islands, where they were perishing miserably from fever and other diseases. Still others had been isolated on sand quays, where they were in danger of dying from thirst during the dry season. Not a few wandered through the towns at will, spreading the disease broadcast.
Travel under Difficulties
One of our bamboo rafts, loaded with baggage, on the Mabáca River.
All known lepers are now cared for at Culion, a healthful, sanitary town with good streets, excellent water and sewer systems, many modern concrete buildings and a first-class hospital.
They are not confined to the limits of the town, but wander at will, except that they are excluded from the immediate vicinity of the houses of the officers and employees of the colony.
They may have their little farms, and raise pigs, chickens, vegetables, etc., if they wish. They may, and do, float about over the waters of the neighbouring bay in boats or on rafts, and fish to their hearts’ content. They are well fed and well cared for, and their physical condition improves to a marked degree promptly after their arrival at the colony. The only hardship which they suffer is that necessarily involved in separation from their relatives and friends, and this is mitigated by occasional visits which the latter may make them.
Since we began to isolate lepers, their number has decreased to approximately three thousand, and with a continuance of the present policy the disease should soon disappear from the Philippines.
During the period immediately subsequent to the American occupation, amoebic dysentery wrought sad havoc both among our soldiers and among civil government officers and employees. Four of my own family of five had it, and one had it twice, in spite of the fact that we took all known precautions; and the experience of my family was by no means exceptional. This disease then annually cost the lives of a large number of American men and women, and a considerable additional number went home invalids for life as a result of infection with it. We seemed to hear almost daily of some new case.
Careful scientific investigation carried on at the bureau of science taught us the best methods of combating this type of dysentery, and the proper disposal of human feces, the regulation of methods used in fertilizing vegetables, improvement in supplies of drinking water, and other simple, hygienic measures have reduced the deaths from it among Americans to an almost negligible minimum. Such cases as occur are almost without exception detected early, and readily yield to treatment.
The belief that Filipinos do not suffer from this disease has proved to be without foundation. It kills thousands of them every year. Those who are willing to adopt the simple precautions which experience has shown to be necessary may enjoy the large degree of immunity from it which Americans now have.
The chief cause of amoebic dysentery in the Philippines has undoubtedly been infected drinking water. From time immemorial the people have been obtaining their water for drinking purposes from flowing streams, open springs or shallow surface wells.
The wells were especially dangerous, as it was the common custom to wash clothing around them so that water containing disease germs frequently seeped into wells used by whole villages. The results of such conditions during a cholera epidemic can readily be imagined.
The drinking supplies of many provincial towns have now been radically improved by the sinking of 853 successful artesian wells.
In many places there has been a resulting reduction of more than fifty per cent in the annual death rate. Large sums are spent yearly by the government in drilling additional wells,—a policy which is warmly approved by the common people. The recent appropriations for this purpose have been $255,000 for the fiscal year 1912, $60,000 for 1913 and $200,000 for 1914.
When we came to the islands, malaria was killing as many persons as was smallpox. The mortality caused by it is now being greatly reduced by giving away annually millions of doses of quinine, and by draining or spraying with petroleum places where mosquitoes breed, as well as by teaching the people the importance of sleeping under mosquito nets and the necessity of keeping patients suffering from active attacks of malaria where mosquitoes cannot get at them. Only quinine of established quality is allowed in the market.
The results obtained in combating malaria are often very striking. Calapan, the capital of Mindoro, was in Spanish days known as “the white man’s grave” on account of the prevalence of “pernicious fever” there. To-day it is an exceptionally healthy provincial town.
At Iwahig, in Palawan, the Spaniards attempted to conduct a penal colony. They were compelled to abandon it on account of pernicious malaria, which caused continued serious mortality when the American government attempted to establish a similar institution there. Application of the usual sanitary measures has made it a healthful place.
Old jails throughout the islands have been rendered sanitary, or replaced by new ones. The loathsome skin diseases from which prisoners formerly suffered have in consequence disappeared. The practical results obtained in Bilibid, the insular penitentiary, are worthy of special note. The annual death rate at this institution was 78.25 per thousand for the calendar year 1904. It increased steadily each month from January, 1904, to September, 1905, when it reached its maximum, deaths occurring at the rate of 241.15 per thousand per year. At this time the director of health was given charge of the sanitation of this prison.
By remedying overcrowding, improving drainage, installing sewers and regulating diet along scientific lines, the rate was reduced in six months to 70 per 1000, and there it stuck.
A systematic examination of the stools of prisoners was then made. Eighty-four per cent were found to be afflicted with at least one intestinal parasite. Fifty per cent had two or more, and twenty per cent had three or more. Fifty-two per cent of the total had hookworm. Active treatment for the elimination of these parasites was begun in one barrack, and after the work was completed it was noted that there was much less disease there than in the remainder. All of the thirty-five hundred prisoners were ultimately examined, and intestinal parasites eradicated if present. The death rate then dropped to thirteen to the thousand, and has remained at or near this figure up to the present time.
I have already referred to the discovery of the cause of beri-beri, and to the effect of the governor-general’s order forbidding the use of polished rice in government institutions or by government organizations.
I subsequently made a strong effort to secure legislation imposing a heavy internal revenue tax on polished rice, thus penalizing its use. I failed, but such effort will be renewed by some one, let us hope with ultimate success.
In Spanish days cholera, leprosy, smallpox and other dangerous communicable diseases were constantly reintroduced from without. This is no longer the case. The United States public health and marine hospital service has stretched an effective defensive line around the archipelago and has sent its outposts to Hongkong, Shanghai and Amoy, to prevent, so far as possible, the embarkation for Manila of persons suffering from such ailments. We now have the most effective quarantine system in the tropics, and one of the best in the world. At Mariveles there is a very large and complete disinfecting plant, and vessels may also be satisfactorily disinfected at Cebú and Iloilo.
This quarantine service kept the Philippines free from bubonic plague for seven years, and has repeatedly prevented the entry of pneumonic plague, that most deadly of all known diseases.
A peculiar and shockingly disfiguring disease known as yaws occurs somewhat infrequently in the Philippine lowlands and is very prevalent in a number of places in the highlands. In many ways it resembles syphilis, and indeed at one time was considered to be syphilitic in its origin. Doctor Richard P. Strong, of the Bureau of Science, made the very important discovery that salvarsan is an absolute specific for it. The effect of an injection of this remedy closely approaches a miracle in medicine. In five or six days the condition of the patient begins to improve rapidly. By the end of the second week his horrible sores have healed.
It was with this remedy that we began our health work among some of the wilder head-hunters of northern Luzón. Think of the advantage of being absolutely certain of curing such an ailment in every case, and think of the gratitude of poor wretches, undergoing untold suffering, when they were almost immediately relieved!
Soon after this use for salvarsan was discovered, I caused a liberal supply of it to be sent to the Bontoc Hospital. For some time we were unable to persuade any victims of yaws to undergo treatment, but finally we found one at Barlig who was guilty of a minor criminal offence, arrested him, and took him to Bontoc. Instead of putting him in jail there, we sent him to the hospital for treatment.
At first he complained bitterly that we were putting no medicine on his sores. Then the remedy began to work and he decided it was “strong medicine.” By the tenth day he was running around town joyfully exhibiting his rapidly healing body to every one who would look at it. On the fourteenth day he suddenly disappeared, to the deep regret of the medical men, who had hoped that they might keep him as an example of what could be done, and thus persuade others to undergo treatment. A few days later, however, he reappeared with thirteen victims of yaws from his home town, having meanwhile twice covered on foot the great distance which separates Barlig from Bontoc, and assembled and brought in his fellow-sufferers.
As we have seen, the people of Manila were formerly supplied with impure drinking water from the Mariquina River, and were therefore in constant danger of infection with cholera and other deadly diseases. At a cost of some $1,500,000 we have given the city a modern water system, the intake of which is far up in the hills above the last village. The annual deaths from ordinary water-borne diseases exclusive of cholera have fallen from 3558—the average number at the time the new system was introduced—to 1195. Recently a leak in the dam, which necessitated temporary resumption of the use of the Mariquina River water, was immediately followed by a marked increase in the number of deaths from such diseases, thus conclusively demonstrating the fact that we were right in ascribing the previous reduction in deaths to a better water supply.
This annual saving of lives is an important result, but more important yet is the fact that when Asiatic cholera reappears in the Mariquina valley, as it inevitably will sooner or later, we shall not live in constant fear of a general infection of the Manila water supply, which, judging from the experience of other cities where modern sanitary methods have been introduced, might result in the death of a third of the population. In every country a very considerable part of the population always fails to boil its drinking water, no matter how great the resulting danger may be.
Manila lacked any facilities for the proper disposal of human waste, and the conditions which resulted were unspeakable, especially in the little barrios, or groups of houses, placed close together, helter-skelter, on wet, swampy ground and reached by means of runways not worthy even of the name of alleys, as one often had to crouch to pass along them.
A modern sewer system costing $2,000,000, supplemented by a pail system, has very effectively solved this problem, while thousands of homes closely crowded on disease-infected, mosquito-breeding ground have been removed to high, dry, sanitary sites. The regions thus vacated have in many instances been drained, filled, provided with city water and good streets, and made fit for human occupancy.
The old moat around the city walls was a veritable incubator of disease. It has been converted into an athletic field where crowds of people take healthful exercise. The esteros, or tidal creeks, reeked with filth. More than twenty miles of such creeks have been cleaned out, although much still remains to be done to put them in really satisfactory condition.
There were no regulations covering the construction of buildings, and it was not unusual to find six or eight persons sleeping in a closed and unventilated room 10 × 8 × 8 feet. Manila now has an excellent sanitary code, and such conditions have been made unlawful.
The previous woeful lack of hospital facilities has been effectively remedied. At a cost of approximately a million and quarter pesos we have built and equipped the great Philippine General Hospital, one of the most modern institutions of its kind in the world, and by far the best in the Far East. In it we have very satisfactorily solved the question of getting sufficient light and air in the tropics without getting excessive heat. Its buildings are certainly among the very coolest in the city of Manila, and “the hospital smell” is everywhere conspicuously absent.
It is called a three-hundred-bed institution, but as a matter of fact the ventilation is so admirable that nearly two hundred additional beds can safely be put in as an emergency measure.
Two hundred and twenty of its beds are free. In them a very large number of persons are annually given the best of medical and surgical care. At its free clinic some eighty thousand patients find relief in the course of a year.
The increase in private hospital facilities has also been noteworthy. Among the new institutions doing admirable work should be mentioned the University Hospital, an Episcopal institution; the Mary J. Johnston Hospital, a Methodist institution; and St. Paul’s Hospital, a Catholic institution. Patients are admitted to all of them without regard to their religious belief, a policy the liberality of which must commend itself to all broadminded persons.
In enumerating the hospitals of Manila, the old Spanish institution, San Juan de Dios, should not be forgotten, for it has been improved and modernized until it offers good facilities for the treatment of the sick and the injured.
All of the above mentioned institutions are in effect acute-case hospitals designed for the treatment of curable ailments. Cases of dangerous communicable disease are excluded from them, but are adequately provided for at San Lazaro where the insular government has established modern and adequate hospitals for plague, smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, etc., as well as a detention hospital for lepers, pending their departure for Culion.
An insane hospital capable of comfortably accommodating 300 inmates has also been provided. A few years since the insane were commonly chained to floors, or tied to stakes under houses or in yards, and were not infrequently burned alive during conflagrations. Such conditions no longer exist, but the government is not yet able to provide for nearly all of the insane who need institutional care.
The several institutions above mentioned have a very important function apart from the relief of human suffering, in that they afford unexcelled opportunities for giving practical instruction in nursing and in the practice of medicine and surgery.
Dangerous Navigation
This photograph shows one of our rafts passing a point on the Abulug River which we named the “Needle’s Eye.” The current was very swift, and the water forty feet deep. Many persons have been drowned, or killed by being thrown against the rocks, while trying to make this passage.
A few years ago there was not such a thing as a Filipina trained nurse in the islands. I was firmly convinced that the Filipinas of this country could learn to be good nurses, and made earnest efforts to have included among the first students sent at government expense to the United States several young women of good family who should attend nurses’ training schools and then return to assist in our hospital work.
I failed to secure the adoption of this plan, but later the training of nurses was inaugurated in connection with hospital work at the old Civil Hospital, St. Paul’s, the University Hospital, the Mary J. Johnston Hospital and the Philippine General Hospital. At the latter institution there is now conducted an admirable school where more than two hundred young men and women are being trained. Three classes have already graduated from it, and Filipina nurses have long since proved themselves to be exceptionally efficient, capable and faithful. It will be some time before we can educate as many as are needed in the government hospitals, and after that has been accomplished a vast field opens before others in the provincial towns, where the need of trained assistants in caring for the sick is very great.
We found exceedingly few competent Filipino physicians or surgeons in the islands. This condition was due not to natural incompetence on the part of the Filipinos but to the previous lack of adequate educational facilities. The government has established a thoroughly modern college of medicine and surgery, well housed, and provided with all necessary laboratory facilities. It furnishes the best of theoretical instruction, while its students have every opportunity for practical work at the bedsides of patients in the government hospitals, all patients in free beds being admitted subject to the condition that they will allow their cases to be studied.
While there is still an evident tendency on the part of graduates of this school to feel that they know enough, and to desire to get to making money without delay, we are nevertheless managing to attract an increasingly large number of the more competent to the intern service of the Philippine General Hospital, where as the result of additional years of practical experience they become exceptionally proficient.
This institution, with its great free clinic, offers very exceptional facilities for practical instruction, and we have already trained some extremely competent Filipino physicians and surgeons.
As funds permit, hospital work is being extended to the provinces. At Cebú a thoroughly up-to-date sixty-bed institution is now open. A smaller one was established years ago at Baguio, where surgical work may be performed with great advantage on account of the rapidity with which convalescence occurs in the cool, pure mountain air, which also expedites the recovery of persons recuperating from wasting diseases.
A little more than a year ago a hospital was opened at Bontoc, the demand for accommodations being so great from the start that we did not even await the arrival of beds. Sick Igorots were only too glad to lie on the floor if their needs could be ministered to.
It had previously been the custom of the wild men to kill chickens, pigs or carabaos in case of illness, in order to propitiate evil spirits, the kind and number of animals killed being of course determined by the wealth of the patients. They have now satisfied themselves that quinine for malaria, salvarsan for yaws, and other effective remedies for common ailments are more useful and more readily obtained than was the helpful intervention of the anítos, or spirits of the dead, while the methods and results of modern surgery are a source of unending amazement and satisfaction to them.
The first surgeon to anesthetize a Kalinga became promptly and widely known as “the man who kills people and brings them to life again,” and the individual on whom he operated successfully, who chanced to be the most influential chief of the tribe, became his friend for life. Indeed, the results of medical and surgical work for the wild men have been an important factor in bringing about and maintaining friendly relations with them.
Their gratitude is at times very touching. At Atok, in Benguet, there lives an Igorot chief named Palasi. When he was already old a son was born to him. This boy, who was the delight of his declining years, became deathly ill with confluent smallpox, and the Igorots considered him as good as dead. At this time Sanitary Inspector Baron appeared on the scene. He promptly turned every one else out of the house and himself nursed the boy, saving his life. Palasi wished to pay him for his services, but was informed by Mr. Baron that the government paid him, and he could not accept additional compensation. Palasi promptly made the long journey to Baguio to ascertain whether Baron had told him the truth, and was informed by Governor Pack that this was the case. The old man retired to Atok, quite disgusted with the strange ways of Americans.
Six months later he again appeared at Baguio to ask the governor about a fiesta which he had just heard it was customary to celebrate on the 25th of December. He had been told that Americans were in the habit of giving presents to each other at this time, and asked if this was the ease. Governor Pack said yes. Palasi then inquired if the feast was a good feast, and the custom a good custom, and was assured that both of these things were true. He next asked if it would be a good feast for Igorots as well as for Americans, and receiving an affirmative reply from the unsuspecting governor, triumphantly declared that he was going to give Baron his best horse. Under the circumstances the governor allowed him to do so.
In connection with the Bontoc Hospital we use two men, one of whom travels from settlement to settlement, relieving minor ailments on the spot and sending to the hospital only those patients who need to go there, while the other stays at home and receives them. From time to time these two doctors “change works.” Pages from their daily journals, written in the field, often read like romance.
Were I a young man, and possessed of adequate knowledge of medicine and surgery, I would ask nothing better than to minister to the wants of these people. One might not, and indeed would not, acquire great wealth, but he would be rich in friends. Here lies a great field for practical missionary work.
In connection with the health work there have been many occurrences which were both amusing and sad. At one time there was great excitement over a sacred spring which had appeared in Manila Bay off the district of Tondo. It was duly blessed by Aglipay, the head of the so-called Aglipayano church. Coincidently with its discovery there was a sharp little outbreak of Asiatic cholera. Investigation revealed the fact that the “spring” had its origin in a broken sewer pipe. We were obliged to prevent the faithful from further partaking of its waters, and thus insuring themselves a speedy trip to the better world.
At one time cases of cholera appeared scattered generally throughout the Mariquina valley and without apparent connection. For some days we were unable to make a guess as to their origin. Then we heard that a “Queen” had arisen at the town of Taytay near the Laguna de Bay. An investigation of the Queen and her activities resulted in rather astonishing revelations. She was a very ordinary looking Tagálog girl who had secured the body of an old bull-cart, stopped the cracks with clay, partially filled it with water and decaying vegetable matter, and at rather frequent intervals had bathed in the fermenting mass thus concocted. In due time she announced herself a healer of all the ills to which flesh is heir, and the sick flocked to her. Cholera was then prevalent in some of the towns near Taytay, and there were persons suffering from it among those seeking relief. Some of them were directed to wash their hands in the extemporized tank, while others bathed their bodies in it. As a result it soon contained a cholera culture of unprecedented richness. This was given to patients applying for treatment, and was bottled and sent to those who were too ill to come in person. Hence numerous scattering cases of cholera which did not bear any relationship to other known cases.
It proved quite an undertaking to put the Queen of Taytay out of business. We first asked the local authorities to have her sent to Manila, but the presidente and the police declined to act. We then applied for a warrant to the Filipino judge of the court of first instance having jurisdiction over Taytay, but that worthy official found it convenient to be suddenly called out of the province. At last we prevailed upon soldiers of the Philippine constabulary to arrest the queen and bring her to Manila.
We had anticipated that she might prove insane, but she showed herself to be a very keen-witted young woman. We employed her at the San Lazaro Hospital to look after cholera patients. The people of Taytay were not satisfied, and a few days later a large delegation of them came to Manila and demanded the Queen. I was at my wits’ end to know what to do, but old Spanish law can usually be relied upon in emergencies, and the attorney-general discovered a provision couched in very general terms, which provided against disobedience to the authorities. It was only necessary for an “authority” to have read to an ordinary person a statement setting forth what that person must not do; then if the order was violated, such person could be made to suffer pains and penalties.
I accordingly prepared a most impressive order prohibiting the Queen of Taytay from further engaging in the practice of medicine, had her followers drawn up in battalion formation, placed myself at the front and centre, caused the Queen to be brought before me, and read her my communication, at the same time charging the good people of Taytay not to tempt her again to try her hand at healing, for the reason that if they did she would surely get into serious trouble. They marched away with the Queen and I have not heard of her since.
Hardly a year goes by that some similar miraculous healer does not set up in business, and the supply of dupes seems to be unending.
While it is comparatively easy to combat disease in a place like Manila, what of the provinces, where in many cases there is not one physician to two hundred thousand inhabitants?
To meet this difficulty we have an organization of district and municipal health officers. A district may include a single province or several provinces. A district health officer is invariably a physician who has had reasonably thorough practical training in the work of public sanitation, usually at Manila.
He is supposed to spend his time in sanitary work rather than in treating sick individuals, but it is, of course, impossible for him always to refuse to treat such persons, and we encourage gratuitous work for the poor when it can be carried on without interfering too seriously with more important duties.
Presidents of municipal boards of health may exercise jurisdiction over a single municipality or over several. They are supposed to maintain good sanitary conditions in their respective towns, under the general supervision of district health officers, and to instruct their people in sanitary methods and their results, as well as to devote a certain amount of their time to the relief of the suffering poor.
On the whole it must be admitted that while this system has accomplished much, it has fallen far short of accomplishing what it should.
Men like Dr. Arlington Pond of Cebú have wrought marvels, and have conclusively demonstrated the fact that it is not the system that is at fault. Of our thirteen district health officers, ten are Filipinos. They are, with few exceptions, letter-perfect. They know what they ought to do, but as a rule lack the initiative and the courage to do it.
Recently after discovering exceptionally bad sanitary conditions in several towns of the province of Misamis, I demanded an explanation of the district health officer, an exceptionally well-educated and intelligent Filipino physician. I found, as I had anticipated, that the sanitary regulations of his towns left little to be desired, but that they were absolutely ignored.
I asked him what sense there was in paying his salary if he failed to remedy such conditions as I had discovered. He replied that if he were really going to compel people to clean up, it would be necessary to begin with the provincial governor, whose premises were in a bad state. When I suggested that in my opinion the provincial governor would be the best possible man to begin with, the doctor evidently thought me crazy!
It is as yet impossible for the average intelligent Filipino to understand that the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, should be treated alike.
It often happens that a province asks for an American health officer, or a Filipino demands the services of an American physician. My invariable procedure in such cases has been to request that the application be made in writing. For some mysterious reason the petitioners are seldom willing to go on record.
A short time since we had a strong demand from Iloilo for an American district health officer. I made the usual suggestion and got a written request that there be sent to Iloilo a district health officer “after the style of the district health officer of Cebú.” If Dr. Pond’s nationality may be considered a part of his style, then this was a request for an American, otherwise not!
With rather shocking frequency, Filipinos who must be examined for leprosy or some other dangerous communicable disease strongly insist that the examination be made by an American bacteriologist rather than by one of their own countrymen.
In connection with recent election troubles two men were wrongfully denounced as lepers. In several instances perfectly sound people have been thrust among lepers who were being taken on board steamer for transfer to Culion. This grievous wrong was committed by their enemies under cover of darkness, and in the confusion which attends the embarking of a number of people in a heavy sea. The reason why the services of Americans are often specially requested for diagnostic work is not far to seek!
It is a significant fact that our greatest success in establishing satisfactory provincial sanitary conditions has been achieved in certain of the “special government provinces,” where the people are under the very direct control of American officials.
There is not a regularly organized province in the Philippines in which the towns are as clean as are those of Mindoro, where, until recently, we have never had a resident district health officer.
I believe that nowhere in the tropics can there be found native towns which are cleaner or more healthful than are those of Bukidnon, inhabited in some instances by people who have literally been brought down out of the tree-tops within the last two or three years. We have never had a resident health officer in this subprovince.
I mention these facts not as an argument against health officers, but as a proof of what can be done without them by intelligent Americans vested with proper authority.
A Negrito Family and their “House”
It has given me especial pleasure to see the fundamental change which has come about in public sentiment relative to medical, surgical and sanitary work. At the outset sanitary inspectors and vaccinators carried on their work at serious risk of personal violence. Indeed, several of them were killed. Incredible tales were believed by the populace, with the result that cholera victims sometimes had to be taken to the hospital by force. In later years it has been by no means unusual for them to come in voluntarily and request treatment.
General hospitals were in the old days regarded as places where people so unfortunate as to have no homes to die in might go to end their days. It was almost impossible to get any other class of persons into them.
Now we constantly turn away deserving patients from the Philippine General Hospital because of lack of room. The common people are flocking to it in rapidly increasing numbers. We even have “repeaters,” and persons who drop in just to get a comfortable bed and a bath while waiting for an examination which will inevitably show that there is nothing wrong with them.
Our difficulties were increased at the outset by the fact that many foreign medical men working in the Far East good-naturedly ridiculed our efforts to better conditions, claiming that in tropical colonies it was customary to take only such steps as would safeguard the health of European residents, and that it was really best to let the masses live as they would, since orientals were incapable of sanitary reform, and the attempt to bring it about involved a waste of effort that might be more profitably directed elsewhere. Furthermore these men were, in their several countries, practising what they preached.
It has been very interesting to note the reaction of American methods upon those previously in vogue in neighbouring colonies. At first our efforts to make Asiatics clean up, and to eliminate diseases like leprosy, cholera and plague, were viewed with mild amusement, not unmixed with contempt; but the results which we obtained soon aroused lively interest.
Foreign governments began to send representatives to the annual meetings of the “Philippine Island Medical Association,”[7] in order to learn more of our methods. From these small beginnings sprang “The Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine,” the biennial meetings of which bring together the most experienced, skilful and widely known physicians and sanitarians in the East for an interchange of views and experiences which is invaluable, and greatly facilitates concerted action between the various governments concerned in dealing with what may be termed “international health problems.”
The first meeting of this Association was held at Manila, the second at Hongkong. The third will take place at Saigon.
The results of a rigid enforcement of the “Pure Food and Drugs Act” are worthy of more than passing notice. Such enforcement has been comparatively easy as the officials concerned are not hampered by politics. The Philippines were at one time a dumping-ground for products that could not be sold elsewhere, but it is now possible for Filipinos to obtain wholesome preserved foods and unadulterated drugs, except in very remote places where none of any sort are available.
The cost of our medical and sanitary work has been comparatively small. The per capita rate of taxation here is lower than in any other civilized country. What we have done has been accomplished without spending vast sums of money or resorting to military measures.
The results obtained are very largely due to the faithfulness and efficiency of Dr. Victor G. Heiser, who was chief quarantine officer of the Philippines when he succeeded Major E. C. Carter as commissioner of public health on April 5, 1905, and was later made director of health when the original board of health was abolished as an administrative entity. He has continued to hold the office of chief quarantine officer, and thus has been in complete executive control of the health situation for eight years.
Through good report and ill, mostly ill, he has given unsparingly of his time, his skill and his wisdom, always treating the government money as if it were his own.
His tenure of office has been long enough to enable him to inaugurate and carry out policies, and thus get results.
Seldom, if ever, have health officials been more viciously and persistently attacked than have Dr. Heiser and myself. The assaults on us have been the direct result of a firm stand for a new sanitary order of things, established in the interest of the whole body of inhabitants of these islands, civilized and uncivilized. We both welcome the profound change in public sentiment, which has slowly but surely come about as a result of practical accomplishment.
Many very grave health problems still confront the insular administration. Of these the most serious are the eradication of tuberculosis and the reduction of the very high infant mortality rate.
It is believed that about one Filipino in five suffers from tuberculosis in some form during his life and the work we have thus far accomplished in many fields must be considered as in a way a clearing of the decks for action against this, the greatest enemy of all. However, the Philippines do not differ essentially from other civilized countries, in all of which tuberculosis is a very serious factor in the death rate.
As regards infant mortality the situation is different. More than fifty per cent of the babes die before completing their first year of life. The causes which lead to this appalling result have been made the subject of careful investigation which still continues. Popular interest has been aroused, but it is undoubtedly true that many years of patient work will be necessary before anything approaching satisfactory results can be brought about.
The physical condition of the average Filipino is undoubtedly bad. Of one hundred seventy-eight university students recently examined sixty-nine were found to be suffering from serious organic troubles. Unquestionably the great mass of the people are underfed. This is largely due to the poor quality of the rice which they consume, and to the fact that rice forms too large a part of their diet. I am firmly convinced that much of the so-called laziness of the Filipinos is the direct result of physical weakness due to improper and insufficient food.
Since the American occupation a large amount of time has been successfully devoted to the working out of a good all-around diet made up of local products the cost of which comes within the means of the poor. The next thing will be to get them to adopt it, and there comes the rub. Incalculable good would result, if we could only persuade the people of these islands to sleep with their windows open. Thousands upon thousands of infant lives would be saved annually, if mothers could be persuaded not to give solid food to their little ones during the early months of their existence.
In the educational campaign which we have thus far conducted with some considerable degree of success, two agencies have proved invaluable, namely the Catholic Church and the public schools. Again and again I have begged Apostolic Delegate Monsignor Agius and Archbishop Harty to bring to bear the influence of the Church in favour of simple sanitary regulations, the general adoption of which was imperatively necessary in combating some epidemic of disease. They have invariably given me invaluable assistance.
Through the public schools we reach more than half a million children, and they take the information which we convey to them home to their parents. Simple rules for the prevention of cholera have been universally taught in the schools. When the use of English has become generalized the difficulty now encountered in reaching the common people will largely disappear. The truth is that they are singularly tractable and docile when their reason can be effectively appealed to. The readiness with which they have submitted to the rigorous measures necessary for the elimination of leprosy is a lasting honour to them.
A Typical Negrito
The people of this tribe of woolly-headed blacks are believed to be the aborignes of the Philippines. Only about twenty-five thousand of them remain.
Would the sanitary campaign so vitally important to the people of the Philippines be effectively continued if American authority were withdrawn at this time? With regret I must answer this question emphatically in the negative. We have succeeded in training a few good physicians and surgeons. We have thus far failed to train really efficient sanitary officers. What is lacking is not so much knowledge as to what should be done as initiative and courage to do it. Until this condition changes radically for the better, Filipinos cannot safely be intrusted with the sanitary regeneration of their country. Under American control the population of the islands is steadily and rapidly increasing. It is my firm conviction that if Filipinos were at this time placed in control of the health work, the population would steadily and rapidly decrease.
The present attitude of the Filipino press toward sanitary work is both interesting and important. I quote the following editorial from the March 27, 1913, issue of El Ideal, a paper generally believed to be controlled by Speaker Osmeña:—
“Some persons, who, because of being ignorant of many things, do not sympathize with the Filipino people, who are in the habit of frequently throwing up to them the violent opposition of our masses to strict sanitary measures in cases of epidemics, and the lively protests which are provoked here on some occasions by other provisions tending to end some public calamity, thinking they see in this disposition of mind an indication of our incapacity to govern ourselves....
“To be more expressive, we shall say that the sanitary agents and veterinarians of the government, swollen with power and overly zealous of their prestige, quickly become, when an occasion like those cited by us presents itself, cunning czars, whose sphere of influence is in direct ratio to the peaceful character and ignorance of the people intrusted to their care, and whose excesses and abuses recognize no limits but the natural ones established by the greater or lesser honour of those public servants, their greater or lesser cynicism, and their greater or lesser degree of temerity.
“This, and nothing else, is the logical and natural explanation of the hostility of our people toward those measures of good government which are sincerely esteemed for what they are worth, but for which they have veritable terror because of the nameless abuses to which they give rise.
“These comments are of palpitating current interest at this moment, when reports are made almost daily to the press and the proper authorities of misbehaviour and excesses befitting soulless people who live without the law committed by persons who should be examples of prudence, honesty and good manners, for it is in this concept that the people are compelled to furnish them their daily bread.”
It is deeply to be regretted that the public press of the islands has not yet become sufficiently enlightened to join in the great sanitary campaign which has already relieved an enormous amount of human suffering and has greatly increased the expectancy of life of the people of the Philippines.
The Philippine Assembly has repeatedly passed acts providing for the creation of a sort of sanitary council of numerous members authorized to pass on public health measures proposed by the director of health and instructed to disapprove them if not in accordance with the beliefs and customs of the Filipinos.
In protecting the public health in the Philippine Islands emergencies constantly arise which must be instantly and effectively met. It would be as logical to place a commanding general directing a battle under the control of an advisory board as it would thus to tie the hands of the director of health, and it is difficult to see how any competent and self-respecting sanitarian could be willing to continue to hold this position if so hampered.
The Philippine Commission has heretofore invariably tabled the acts designed to accomplish this end, but that body has now been “Filipinized” and its future attitude on this very important question is therefore in doubt. Hardly had the legislative session opened in October, 1913, when the assembly again passed the same old bill. Should it become a law, there will be occasion to watch, with especial interest, the death rate of Manila and that of the archipelago as a whole.
[1] Malaria.
[2] A strong alcoholic drink commonly made by diluting low-grade alcohol with water and flavouring it.
[3] There was one stray case in March.
“To the Editor of El Soberanía Nacional, Manila, P.I.
“Sir: In your issue of the 7th of July there appeared a paragraph embodying a shameful libel of the administration of the San Lazaro Hospital, which reads as follows:
“‘Un cuadro verdaderamente aterrador es el que prezenta el patio del Hospital de San Lazaro. Los fallecidos por la enfermedad del colera, son expuestos desnudos en el atrio de dicho Hospital con un cartel atado en los pies con la inscripción de sus respectivos nombres.’
“This statement was so grossly and ridiculously false and at the same time so extremely harmful in its effect as to bring you fairly and squarely within the reach of the law.
“Yesterday morning I sent you a courteous letter requesting you to come to my office, purposing to discuss the affair with you in a friendly manner, and hoping to find that the statement referred to had been prepared by some irresponsible subordinate and published through oversight.
“As, however, you have neither acceded to my request for a conference nor had the courtesy to reply to my letter, I now have the honour to forward you herewith a communication which embodies a reply to the false statement above referred to and at the same time conveys information as to what is actually being done at the San Lazaro Hospital. I request that you give this letter immediate publicity through your paper, and in the editorial columns or elsewhere in some conspicuous place retract immediately and fully the libellous statement relative to the exposure of the dead, above referred to.
“Kindly advise me of your intention in the matter. The bearer of this communication has instructions to wait for your reply. I shall interpret failure to hear from you by return messenger as refusal to retract this slander and to publish the enclosed communication, and shall act accordingly.
“Very respectfully,
“Dean C. Worcester,
“Secretary of the Interior.”
[5] Just before I left Manila in October, 1913, cholera reappeared there.
[6] Sept. 15, 1913.
[7] The first organization of American physicians in the Philippines was the Manila Medical Association, from which the Philippine Island Medical Association ultimately developed.
Chapter XVII
Baguio and the Benguet Road
In June, 1892, when sitting in a native house on a hill overlooking Naujan Lake in Mindoro, and anxiously awaiting the boats which were to make it possible for my party to return to the coast, I saw a small flotilla approaching.
To my surprise and regret I found that it was not coming for us, but brought a number of Spanish officers who had heard that we had some mysterious procedure for killing the tamarau, an extraordinarily wild and vicious little buffalo peculiar to this island. They had come to get us to tell them how we did it, if possible, and if not to watch us and find out for themselves.
We described to them our method, which was easily understood. It consisted in picking up a likely trail along some water course, following it until the tamarau was overtaken, and then shooting him. This looked suspiciously simple to our Spanish friends before they had tried it, and they shook their heads. After trying it they became convinced that more than a few days of experience would be necessary before satisfactory results could be obtained. They profited little by the best information we could give them, and by the services of the expert tracker whom we loaned to them. Meanwhile I obtained from one of them, Señor Domingo Sanchez, information destined to become of great importance in the development of the Philippines.
Señor Sanchez, who was an employee of the Spanish forestry bureau, told me that in the highlands of Northern Luzón at an elevation of about five thousand feet, there was a region of pines and oaks blessed with a perpetually temperate climate and even with occasional frosts. I confess that I did not believe all of his statements. I was then experienced in climbing Philippine mountains, and at five thousand feet had invariably found a hopeless tangle of the rankest tropical vegetation, with humidity so high that trees were draped with ferns, orchids, and thick moss, and dripping with moisture. However, I knew that the mere presence of pine and oak trees would mean the occurrence of special bird species feeding upon their seeds, and so determined to investigate.
A severe attack of typhoid fever necessitated my leaving the islands before I could carry out this plan, but upon my return with the first Philippine Commission in 1899 I remembered Señor Sanchez’s story. In view of the probability that American occupation would continue for a long period, the existence or non-existence near Manila of an extensive highland region with a temperate climate became a question of great practical importance. I therefore caused search to be made in the Spanish archives to see what, if any, reliable information was available, and to my great satisfaction unearthed a detailed report made by a committee of three distinguished and competent Spanish officers who had spent some weeks at Baguio in the comandancia of Benguet, during which period they had made six temperature observations daily, had tramped over the neighbouring country very thoroughly, had located a number of springs of potable water and determined their approximate flow, and in short had gathered a large series of very valuable data which more than bore out the statements of Señor Sanchez.
I found, furthermore, that Spanish engineers had made a survey for a carriage road into this country, and had prepared a profile of it with estimates of the amount and cost of the necessary excavation and other work.
While in Washington during the winter of 1899–1900, I brought this matter to the attention of Secretary Root. Just as the second Philippine Commission was filing out of his office, after receiving its instructions, he called out to us directing that we look into that Benguet matter, and if the facts proved to be as stated open up the country.
Mindful of these instructions the commission delegated General Luke E. Wright and myself to visit Benguet and familiarize ourselves with conditions by investigation on the ground. General MacArthur was dubious when we expressed a desire to carry out the instructions of the secretary of war. He told us that the country was very dangerous, doubtless confusing it with Bangued, the capital of Abra, near which there was at that time a strong and active Insurgent force.
We insisted on going, so he said that he would send a troop of cavalry with us, and he kept his word. During the last week of July we finally sailed from Manila on a naval vessel for San Fernando in the province of Union. From this place we expected to go by road as far as Naguilian, in the same province, and thence on horseback to Trinidad and Baguio, in Benguet.
In order to expedite investigations as much as possible we took with us Mr. Horace L. Higgins, president of the Manila and Dagupan Railway Company, who was an engineer of experience, to report on the practicability of constructing a railway to Baguio. We also took Major L. M. Maus, of the army medical corps, and Dr. Frank S. Bourns, who then held the volunteer rank of major in the same corps, to report on the possibilities of the place as a health resort. Two young naval officers went along just for the trip.
Major Maus accompanied us only because requested to do so. Taking the latitude and altitude as a basis for his calculations, he had already determined with a lead pencil and piece of paper just what the climate of Baguio must be, and had demonstrated to his own complete satisfaction that the statements of the members of the Spanish committee above referred to were necessarily false.
Typical Kalingas
The people of this tribe, until recently fierce head-hunters, have been brought under effective control largely through the individual efforts of Lieutenant-Governor Walter F. Hale.
His first rude shock came when we were met at San Fernando by a young aide to Colonel[1] Duval, who was in command of the local garrison at that place. This lieutenant told us that some negro soldiers were stationed at Trinidad and were being kept supplied by an army pack train. I asked him how they were getting on. He said very well, except that they could not keep warm. They had called for all the spare blankets available, but still complained of the cold!
The trail proved to be in execrable condition. No repair work had been done on it since 1896, and its constant use during the then-existing rainy season by a pack train had completed its destruction. Much of the way it was a mere V in the earth, with deep mud at the bottom.
We left Naguilian early in the morning and stopped for lunch at a little place properly called Sablán, but unofficially known as “The Bells.” Aguinaldo had thought at one time of establishing his headquarters in Benguet and had planned to have a gun foundry at Sablán. His troops accordingly stole most of the church bells in the neighbouring lowland towns, meaning to use them for gun metal, and compelled the unfortunate Benguet Igorots to carry them up the steep trail. Boiler pipes, which had been used in lieu of carrying poles, had in several instances been badly bent out of shape. There was even an old vertical boiler which had been lugged up entire for some unknown reason.
The labour involved must have been enormous, and we were assured that when the Igorot bearers, prostrated with fatigue, had refused to continue their titanic task without rest, they had been driven to it at the muzzles of Insurgent rifles, and that some of them had been shot as a lesson to the others. At all events, the boiler and the bells were there, and there the boiler and the larger bells have remained ever since!
It was still steaming hot at Sablán, and the whole countryside was buried in the densest tropical vegetation. Major Maus was triumphant. Things were working out just as he had predicted. However, as we were already halfway up, we thought that we might as well continue the journey. I had expected to find pines and oaks, but had anticipated that they would grow amidst a dense tangle of damp tropical vegetation.
We were all literally dumfounded when within the space of a hundred yards we suddenly left the tropics behind us and came out into a wonderful region of pine parks. Trees stood on the rounded knolls at comparatively wide intervals, and there were scores of places where, in order to have a beautiful house lot, one needed only to construct driveways and go to work with a lawn-mower. At the same moment, a delightful cold breeze swept down from the heights above us.
Just at sunset we experienced a second surprise, coming out on the knife-sharp crest of a ridge, and seeing spread before us the Trinidad Valley, which is shaped like a huge wash-basin. Its floor was vividly green with growing rice, Igorot houses were dotted here and there over its surface, and the whole peaceful, beautiful scene was illuminated by the rays of the setting sun. The air had been washed clean by the heavy rain which had poured down on us throughout the afternoon, and the sight was one never to be forgotten.
Just at dusk we reached the little settlement of Trinidad, which had been the capital of the Spanish comandancia of Benguet, finding that its inhabitants were in part Ilocanos and in part Igorots.
Here we were hospitably entertained by the officers of the military post. It was so cold that one’s breath showed. Major Maus improved the opportunity to indulge in a severe chill. Finding him buried under blankets, we asked his views as to the Benguet climate. They were radical! It is only fair to the Major to say that the report which he ultimately made set forth the facts fully and fairly. It did not suit General MacArthur. Years afterward, when discussing the climate of Benguet with Surgeon-General Sternberg, I referred to this report and found to my amazement that he had never seen it. He caused an investigation to be made, and it was at last resurrected from a dusty pigeonhole.
On our arrival at Trinidad we received a letter from Mr. Otto Scheerer, the one white resident of Benguet, inviting us to make our headquarters at his house when we visited Baguio. Bright and early the next morning Mr. Scheerer himself appeared on the scene and guided us to his home, where he entertained us most hospitably during our entire stay. The trip from Trinidad, a distance of four miles, was made over a wretched pony trail.
We found conditions exactly as described in the Spanish report. The country was gently rolling, its elevation ranging from forty-five hundred to fifty-two hundred feet. The hills were covered with short, thick grass, and with magnificent pine trees, which for the most part grew at considerable distance from each other, while along the streams there were wonderful tree ferns and luxuriant tangles of beautiful tropical vegetation. It took us but a short time to decide that here was an ideal site for a future city, if water could be found in sufficient quantity.
We revisited each of the several springs discovered and described by the Spanish committee, but decided that they would be inadequate to supply a town of any great size. Mr. Scheerer now came to the front and guided us to the very thing that we were looking for, but had hardly dared hope to find; namely, a magnificent spring of crystal-clear water. At that time it was flowing nearly a million gallons per day. It burst forth from a hillside in such a manner as to make its protection from surface drainage easy, and we decided that there was nothing lacking to make Baguio an admirable site for the future summer capital and health resort of the Philippines.
It was obvious that the construction of a highway from San Fernando, in Union, to Baguio would involve considerable expense, and we asked Mr. Scheerer about other possible lines of communication. A study of the Spanish maps had led us to consider two: one up the valley of the Agno River, and the other up that of the Bued River. The latter route had the great advantage of affording direct communication with the end of the railway line at Dagupan.
Mr. Scheerer took us to a point which commanded a view for some distance down the Bued River valley, and conditions looked rather favourable. Mr. Higgins undertook to make a trip down this valley to the plains of Pangasinán, reporting to us on his arrival at Manila, so we returned to that place and awaited advices from him. He was furnished with a guard of soldiers from Trinidad, and attempted to go down the river bed, but encountered unexpected difficulties, and his progress was finally checked by a box cañon from which he escaped with difficulty, spending a night without food or water on a chilly mountain top known as “Thumb Peak.” The following morning he managed to cross to a high mountain called Santo Tomás, whence he returned to Baguio. He was, however, of the opinion that the trip down the cañon could be made without special difficulty by a party suitably provided with food and tentage.
Convinced by our report that active measures should be taken to establish communication with this wonderful region, the commission, on September 12, 1900, appropriated $5000 Mexican, “for the purpose of making a survey to ascertain the most advantageous route for a railway into the mountains of Benguet, Island of Luzon, and the probable cost thereof.”
Captain Charles W. Meade, then serving as city engineer of Manila, was selected to make the survey. There was every theoretical reason to believe him competent, and we did not question either his integrity or his ability. After being absent from Manila for some time, he reported in favour of the Bued River valley route, saying that it was entirely feasible to build a railway along it.
He suggested that, as the construction of a wagon road would be necessary in building the railroad, we might as well undertake that first, and so be able to go to Baguio in wheeled vehicles before the railroad was completed. He asked for $75,000 United States currency, with which to build this road, stating that he expected to be able to do it for $65,000, but would like $10,000 as a margin of safety.
On December 21, 1901, the commission passed an act authorizing the construction of a highway from Pozorubio, in Pangasinán, to Baguio, “the same to be built under the general supervision of the military governor and the immediate direction of Captain Charles W. Meade, Thirty-sixth Infantry, United States Volunteers, who has been detailed by the military governor for that purpose, along the general line of survey recently made by Captain Meade for a railway between said towns.” The $75,000 asked for were appropriated by this act.
Work began promptly at both ends of the line. In June, 1901, I set out on my first trip through the wild man’s territory in northern Luzón. Incidentally, and for my personal satisfaction only, I inspected the work on the road. We had been rather disappointed by Captain Meade’s failure to make more rapid progress. At the lower end I found that delay was being caused by a huge cliff necessitating a very heavy rock cut. I was assured by Captain Meade that from this point on the line ran through dirt most of the way, so that the road could be completed very rapidly. This statement proved to be grossly in error. It took years of hard work to open up the road.
Its cost when finally ready for traffic was $1,961,847.05. Its length was forty-five kilometers eight hundred ninety-one meters,[2] of which thirty-four kilometers were in non-Christian territory. Some ten kilometers of the remainder have since been incorporated in the first-class road system of the province of Pangasinán, as this part is chiefly used by the people of that province in shipping their agricultural products to Benguet, and in maintaining communication between their towns.
The additional cost of the road to date[3] since it was first opened is $792,434, making its total cost to date $2,754,281.05. This includes not only the actual cost of maintenance, but very extensive improvements, such as the metalling of the road from the so-called zigzag to Baguio, the construction of five steel bridges, and the replacing of all the original bridges on the road and of all the original culverts except those made of concrete or masonry.
On my arrival in Benguet in 1901, I found that good progress had been made on the upper end of the road, which had penetrated for a short distance into the cañon proper without encountering any considerable obstacles.
On October 15, 1901, the commission stated in its annual report to the secretary of war, “He[4] has been much delayed by the difficulty of procuring the labour necessary for its early completion, and several months will yet elapse before it is finished!” They did!
On August 20, 1901, Captain Meade was relieved, and Mr. N. M. Holmes was made engineer of the road.
On February 3, 1902, a little sanitarium was opened in a small native house at Baguio. During the following July I was sent to it as a patient, and while in Benguet again inspected the road which had been continued high up on the cañon wall to a point where, on a very steep mountain side, a peculiar rock formation had been encountered at the very grass roots. This rock disintegrated rapidly under the action of the sun when exposed to it. Comparatively solid in the morning, it would crack to pieces and slide down the mountain side before night. A sixty-foot cut had already been made into the precipitous mountain side, and the result was an unstable road-bed, hardly four feet in width, which threatened to go out at any moment.
Settling a Head-hunting Feud
This picture shows Lieutenant-Governor Walter F. Hale, of Kalinga, persuading Kalinga head men of Mañgali and Lúbao to settle amicably a head-hunting feud of long standing.
My trip to Baguio promptly relieved a severe attack of acute intestinal trouble from which I had been suffering, and when Governor Taft fell ill the following year with a similar ailment, and his physicians recommended his return to the United States, I did my best to persuade him to try Baguio instead. He decided to do so.
Five rough cottages had meanwhile been constructed for the use of the commissioners, the lumber for them being sawed by hand on the ground. Boards had been nailed to frames as rapidly as they fell from the logs, and had shrunk to such an extent that a reasonably expert marksman might almost have thrown a cat by the tail through any one of the houses. At night they looked like the old-fashioned perforated tin lanterns, leaking light in a thousand places. These were the luxurious homes provided for the high officials of the government of which so much has been said!
We paid for them an annual rental amounting to ten per cent of their cost, which had of course been excessively high on account of the necessity of packing everything used in them, except the lumber, up the Naguilian trail.
However, we were in no frame of mind to be critical. We had put in three years of killing hard work, labouring seven days in the week, and keeping hours such as to arouse a feeling little short of horror among old British and other foreign residents. We were all completely exhausted, and Mr. Taft was ill. For my part, I would gladly have paid almost any sum for a tent under the pine trees and the privilege of occupying it for a few weeks.
On the trip up Mr. Taft had ridden a magnificent saddle horse which had been given to him by General Chaffee. At the time he left, Manila had been burning hot. When he was at last seated on the porch of the little house which was to be his home for weeks, with a cool breeze sighing through the needles of a spreading pine tree close at hand, his satisfaction knew no bounds. Already his magnificent constitution had begun to respond to the stimulation of the wonderful mountain air, and filled with enthusiasm he summoned a stenographer and dictated the following cablegram to the secretary of war:—
“April 15, 1903.
“Secwar,
“Washington.
“Stood trip well, rode horseback 25 miles to 5000 feet altitude. Hope amoebic dysentery cured. Great province this, only 150 miles from Manila with air as bracing as Adirondacks or Murray Bay. Only pines and grass lands. Temperature this hottest month in the Philippines in my cottage porch at three in the afternoon 68. Fires are necessary night and morning.
“Taft.”
As quick as the wires could bring it, he received the following reply:
“Washington, D.C., April 16, 1903.
“Taft,
“Manila.
“Referring to telegram from your office of 15th inst., how is horse?
“Root.”
When he read it his shouts of laughter, rolling over the hills of Baguio, must have been audible half a mile away!
Mr. Taft’s sojourn in the hills put him again in fine condition and made it possible for him to return to Manila and resume the heavy burden of work which there awaited him. The other members of the commission also greatly benefited by their stay in the hills.
While there we heard disquieting rumours as to the practicability of completing the road. There was a difference of opinion between the engineer in charge and one of his immediate subordinates as to the route which should be followed. The consulting engineer of the commission was accordingly requested to make a survey to determine a practicable route for the unfinished portion of the road and estimate the cost of completing it. In due time he advised us that it was practicable to complete it, but that the cost would be at least $1,000,000. Warned by our experience with Meade, we wished additional expert advice, so summoned to Baguio Colonel L. W. V. Kennon, a man of great energy and executive ability, who had had large experience in engineering work in mountainous country, and requested him to go down the Bued River valley and report on the progress of the work, and the practicability of completing the road on the route which had been determined upon.
Being the youngest and most active member of the commission, I was detailed to accompany him. On this trip I became convinced that all of the engineers interested, except the consulting engineer, had grossly understated the difficulties which must be overcome before the road could be completed. Colonel Kennon decided that it was entirely feasible to build the road, but that the comparatively short stretch already completed from Baguio into the upper end of the cañon must be abandoned and a new line adopted. Furthermore, he gave us some very definite and extremely unpleasant information as to the probable cost of completing the work, his statements on this subject confirming those of the consulting engineer.
The commission was thus put face to face with the hard facts but did not flinch. On the contrary, it passed the following resolution on June 1, 1903:—
“On Motion, Resolved, That it be declared the policy of the Commission to make the town of Baguio, in the Province of Benguet, the summer capital of the Archipelago and to construct suitable buildings, to secure suitable transportation, to secure proper water supply, and to make residence in Baguio possible for all of the officers and employees of the Insular Government for four months during the year, that in pursuance of this purpose the Secretary of the Interior, the Consulting Engineer to the Commission, the Chief of the Bureau of Architecture, and Major[5] L. W. V. Kennon, United States Army, whom it is the intention of the Commission to put in actual charge of the improvements in Benguet Province, including the construction of the Benguet Road, the erection of the buildings and the construction of a wagon road from Naguilian, be appointed a Committee to report plans and estimates to the Commission for the proposed improvements in the Province of Benguet and to submit same to the Commission for action and necessary appropriation, and
“Be it further resolved, That steps should be immediately taken looking to the increase of the capacity of the Sanitarium by at least twenty rooms, to the construction of seven more cottages on the grounds of the Sanitarium, to the construction of a Governor’s residence on the site overlooking the big spring which is the source of the Bued River immediately south of the Sanitarium proper, to the construction of an Administration building sufficient for the Commission, the Commission’s staff and the Executive Bureau, of at least twenty-five rooms, and to the making of a plan for a town site for the municipality of Baguio; but that the details of construction and improvements, with such variations from the indicated plan as may seem wise, shall be left to the committee appointed under the previous resolution.”
In his annual report dated November 15, 1903, Governor Taft said:—
“In connection with the subject of health, reference should be made to the province of Benguet and to Baguio, the capital of that province. The secretary of commerce and police will refer to the work now being done in the construction of the Benguet road from Pozorrubio, through Twin Peaks, to Baguio. There have been serious engineering mistakes made in the road, and it is proving to be much more costly than was expected; but when completed its importance in the development of these islands can hardly be overestimated. One of the things essential to progress in the islands is the coming of more Americans and Europeans who shall make this their business home. If there can be brought within twelve hours’ travel of Manila a place with a climate not unlike that of the Adirondacks, or of Wyoming in summer, it will add greatly to the possibility of living in Manila for ten months of the year without risk. It will take away the necessity for long vacations spent in America; will reduce the number who go invalided home, and will be a saving to the insular government of many thousands of dollars a year. It will lengthen the period during which the American soldiers who are stationed here may remain without injury to their health and will thus reduce largely the expense of transportation of troops between the islands and the United States. More than this, Filipinos of the wealthier class frequently visit Japan or China for the purpose of recuperating. People of this class are much interested in the establishment of Baguio as a summer capital, and when the road is completed a town will spring up, made up of comfortable residences, of a fine, extensive army post, and sanitariums for the relief of persons suffering from diseases prevalent in the lowlands. It is the hope of the government that the Roman Catholic Church will send American priests as it has sent American bishops to the islands, to assist in the moral elevation of the people. The fear of the effect of the climate has kept many from coming. The Roman Catholic Church authorities have announced their intention of erecting rest houses at Baguio for the purpose of the recuperation of their ministers and agents. The Methodists and Episcopalians have already secured building lots in Baguio for this purpose. It is the settled purpose of the Commission to see this improvement through, no matter what the cost, because eventually the expenditures must redound to the benefit of the government and people of the islands. We have already stated, in the report on the public land act, that it is proposed, under that act, which allows the organizing of town sites, to sell the public land in suitable lots at auction so that every one interested shall have the opportunity to obtain a good lot upon which to build a suitable house.”[6]
Mr. Taft would be delighted could he see to-day how completely his anticipations have been fulfilled.
Colonel Kennon was put in charge of construction work, and things began to move. They kept moving until the road was finished. From this time on we knew that the expense involved would be out of all proportion to the original estimate, but we were determined to push the work through, having reached the decision that it was worth while to open up communication with Baguio at any cost within reason, because of its future certain value to the people of the islands as a health resort.
On April 1, 1904, I rode over the road in a vehicle nearly to Camp Four, and came the rest of the way to Baguio on horseback over a new trail which zigzagged up a mountain side near Camp Four and followed the crest of the range from there in. A little later the Commission came by the same route, and spent the hot season in the cool Benguet hills.
On January 29, 1905, Colonel Kennon drove into Baguio in the first wagon to arrive there over the Benguet Road, which was opened for regular service on March 27th of the same year. The cost of the road on November 1, 1905, had, as previously stated, been $1,966,847.05, and the cost of the heavy work in the cañon had been approximately $75,000 per mile, which is not excessive when compared with the cost of similar work in the United States, especially as this sum included maintenance of the portions constructed during previous years.
The fact that a certain amount of congressional relief funds was expended on the construction of this road has been made the subject of very unjust criticism. A large number of poor Filipinos, who were in dire straits, were thus given an opportunity for remunerative employment, and the distribution of a portion of the congressional relief fund in this way was in entire harmony with the fixed policy of the commission to avoid pauperizing the people by giving money or food outright to able-bodied persons, and to afford them relief by furnishing them opportunity to work for a good wage. A further reason why the expenditure of money from this fund on the Benguet Road was appropriate is found in the fact that the region opened up is destined to play a very important part in the cure of tuberculosis, which is the principal cause of death among the people of the lowlands, but is practically unknown among the Igorots of the hills.
Entertaining the Kalingas
They are listening with great interest to the reproduction of a speech which one of their chiefs has just made into the receiving horn of a dictaphone.
During the earlier years after the road was open owners of bull carts in Pangasinán made large sums transporting freight over it. This is not the case at the present time, as the growing volume of freight requiring to be moved led to the blocking of the road with bull carts and necessitated the installation of an automobile truck line so that it might be more expeditiously handled.
In December, 1904, the great landscape architect, Mr. D. H. Burnham, visited Baguio, and made a plan for its future development. He was enthusiastic over its possibilities, and gave his services free of charge. His plan is being closely adhered to, and although funds are not now available for going far toward carrying it out, we have at least avoided anything which would interfere with it.
The next important event in the history of Baguio was the first sale of residence and building lots, which took place on May 28, 1906, and was conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Public Land Act relative to town sites.
Although a howling typhoon was sweeping Benguet at the time, 91 residence lots and 15 business lots were disposed of at this first sale, and at a subsequent one held in Manila a few weeks later all the remaining lots then surveyed were sold.
The town site includes two hundred sixteen square miles, and new lots are surveyed as required. All sums derived from the sale of lots are used for the improvement of the town site, and thus Baguio is made to help build itself.
In the spring of 1900 the Baguio Country Club was organized. Because of the extraordinary false statements made concerning it by certain unscrupulous politicians, I give its history somewhat fully. Its purpose was to afford a meeting place for the people of the town and to give them an opportunity for outdoor sports. It purchased a hundred acres of land on which a low assessment had been placed in view of the semipublic purpose which it was to serve.
At the outset the “club house” was a rude, grass-roofed shed made of pine slabs. Its doors and windows were mere openings which could not be closed. It was erected in about a week. Three holes of a golf course and a croquet ground had been prepared. These decidedly primitive club facilities nevertheless served to bring the people of Baguio together and give them an opportunity for a good time out of doors.
In February, 1907, a Country Club Corporation was organized with a capital stock of $5000, of which $3000 have thus far been subscribed. The shares cost $50. No single subscriber owns more than three, with the sole exception of Mr. Forbes, who took ten to help the club get started. Ownership of stock brings no emoluments, but, on the contrary, indirectly involves expense which the present owners have been willing to bear for the public good.
From these small beginnings the Baguio country club has grown into an important institution. As funds became available from the sale of stock, the payment of dues and tile generous donations of a few members, an excellent nine-hole golf course was completed, and tennis courts and facilities for trap-shooting were installed. In March and April, 1908, a modest club house was built at a cost of some $5000. It has two small locker rooms, a large living room, a tiny office, a little bath, a kitchen, and nine single sleeping rooms. Three very small cottages, costing $375 each, were erected on the club grounds for the use of the members. Five larger cottages have since been constructed.
Any person of good character is eligible to membership. The entrance fee is $25, but officers of the army, navy and marine corps stationed at Baguio are admitted without the payment of this fee, and persons temporarily there may secure the privileges of the club by paying at the rate of $5 per month. The annual dues are $20. The families of members are entitled to the privileges of the club. Among its members are the highest officials of the insular government and teachers, clerks, stenographers and other employees drawing small salaries, as well as numerous permanent residents of Baguio.
It knows no race or creed, and Filipinos take advantage of its privileges quite as freely as do Americans. Representatives of every nationality in the islands may be found on its golf course on a pleasant afternoon. It is the common meeting place of Baguio, and hardly a day passes without the giving of some pleasant luncheon or dinner in its little living room or in the outdoor space covered by an overhanging roof at its eastern end. No more democratic institution ever existed.
Congressman Jones, in his attacks on the Philippine administration, is fond of stating that “there is a club for officials at Baguio.” The statement is true, but reminds one of that other statement of a ship’s first mate who came on board intoxicated just before the vessel sailed. The following morning, happening to look at the ship’s log for the previous day, he saw the entry “The mate drunk to-day.” It was his first offence, and he begged the captain to erase this record, but the captain said “It is true, is it not?” and insisted that it must stand.
A little later the captain was taken ill. Upon resumption of duty he found an entry in the log reading: “The captain sober to-day.” When he furiously insisted that it be erased, the mate said “It is true, is it not?” Now, it is true that there is a club for government officers at Baguio, but in making this statement Mr. Jones and his ilk have neglected to say that there is also at Baguio a club for employees; a club for private citizens; a club for Americans; a club for Filipinos; a club for foreign consuls and other foreign residents of the islands; a club for business men; a club for clerks; and that all of these institutions are one and the same, namely, the Baguio Country Club, which is now strictly self-supporting and meets its obligations from the funds derived from the dues of its members. These dues are absurdly low in view of the privileges which it affords.
Although Mr. Forbes does not like to have it known, I cannot refrain from stating that the club has not always been self-supporting, and that he has repeatedly made up deficits from his private funds. The cost involved in getting the golf course into shape was out of all proportion to the resources of the organization. Sufficient funds were not available to pay for the club house and cottages when they were constructed, and had it not been for the generosity of Mr. Forbes the club would not exist to-day in anything like its present form.
The polo field at Baguio has been referred to as another evidence of extravagant governmental expenditure. It is true enough that it was in the first instance an expensive luxury, as an immense amount of earthwork had to be done in order to make a level piece of ground of sufficient size. The field is administered by the Country Club, and is open to the use of the public for any form of amusement which will not interfere with its use for polo. The detractors of the government have neglected to mention that the cost of its construction and maintenance have been met from the private funds of Mr. Forbes.
Returning now to the story of the growth of Baguio, the next step forward was the construction of an official residence for the governor-general, for which $15,000 were appropriated. Mr. Forbes had not the slightest personal interest in this appropriation. When it was made he had no knowledge of the fact that he was later to become governor-general, and his private Baguio residence was decidedly more comfortable and commodious than this official one. His subsequent occupancy of the latter building involved a real personal sacrifice.
In 1908 a modern hospital and the governor-general’s residence were completed. No other government official is furnished a free house. All have to rent government cottages or stay at hotels, unless they choose to build for themselves. The policy of giving the governor-general an official residence in Baguio is in accord with that which gives him one at Manila.
In April, 1908, there was opened a “Teachers’ Camp,” to which came American school teachers from all over the islands. They were housed in a hundred and fifty tents, which were set up under the shade of the pine trees. Larger tents served as kitchen, dining room, storehouse and recitation rooms, while a structure of bamboo and nipa palm, erected at a total cost of $150, was utilized for general assembly purposes. Four talented lecturers were employed to instruct and entertain the teachers. At one time there were a hundred and ninety persons in the camp.
The credit for initiating this very important move is due chiefly to William F. Pack, at that time governor of the province of Benguet, who strongly advocated bringing the teachers to Baguio, and did everything in his power to make the first assembly the great success which it was.
It has now become a fixed institution, and has accomplished untold good. Americans who spend too many years in out-of-the-way municipalities of the Philippines without coming in contact with their kind are apt to lose their sense of perspective, and there is danger that they will grow careless, or even slovenly, in their habits. It is of the utmost benefit for school teachers to get together once a year, learn of each other’s failures and successes, and profit by each other’s experiences, forget their troubles while engaging in healthful athletic sports, listen to inspiring and instructive discourses, and above all else benefit by open-air life in a temperate region.
The Teachers’ Camp is now a beautiful and attractive place. A fine system of walks and drives make every part of it readily accessible. It has an excellent athletic field. The teachers live in tents, but good permanent buildings have been provided in which are located the mess, a social hall, recitation rooms, etc., and several comfortable cottages have been constructed for the use of visiting lecturers and others. An outdoor amphitheatre which seats a thousand persons has been built at small expense by taking advantage of peculiarly favorable natural conditions. Filipino teachers share the pleasures and benefits of the camp with their American associates, and the “assembly” certainly does great good.
During the hot season of 1908 the Bureau of Lands transferred a number of its employees to Baguio, quartering them in tents. This was done in order to ascertain the practical effect of sending American and Filipino employees to this mountain resort. The conclusion was reached that the small additional expense involved was more than justified by the larger quantity and higher quality of the work performed as a result of the greatly improved physical condition of the workers. Every Filipino sent to Baguio gained in weight, with the single exception of a messenger who had to run his legs off! Other bureaus subsequently followed the example of the Bureau of Lands, with similar results.
During the 1909 season, the railroad having reached Camp One, five large Stanley steam automobiles were operated by the government in transporting passengers from this place to Baguio, and more than two thousand persons were thus moved over the road.
Meanwhile, the unexpectedly heavy expense involved in completing the road had been made the subject of severe criticism by the public press of Manila. Most of the critics were entirely honest, having no idea of the character of the country opened up, or of the importance of making it readily accessible.
Just at the time when the commission should have crowded its programme through to conclusion, it faltered. The only government construction work performed at the summer capital that year, in addition to what has been mentioned, was the erection of a small office building and of a barrack building for labourers, the enlarging of five government cottages, the addition of out-buildings, and the enlarging of a building which served as a combination sanatorium and hotel.
An Ifugao Family
The man is Guíned, the most influential of the Ifugao chiefs.
This policy of inaction was a mistaken one. It made the Benguet Road seem like the city avenue which ran into a street, the street into a lane, the lane into a cow path, the cow path into a squirrel track and the squirrel track up a tree, for while one could get to Baguio, there was very little there after one arrived. The accommodations at the sanatorium were strictly limited, and there was some apparent justification for the charge freely made that the Philippine Commission had voted to spend very large sums of money to open up a health resort from which only its members and its staff derived benefit.
The government had at the outset been obliged to construct its buildings on a piece of private land purchased from Mr. Otto Scheerer, as prior to the passage of the Public Land Act and its approval by the President and Congress, building on public land was impossible. Now, however, a town site had been surveyed, and plans for the future development of Baguio had been made by one of the world’s most competent experts. The time had arrived for action. Mr. Forbes, then secretary of commerce and police, argued vigorously for the carrying out of the original plan of the commission by the construction of adequate public buildings. To help the development of the place, he purchased two adjacent building lots and on the tract of land so secured built a handsome and expensive home, where he subsequently entertained not only his personal friends, but guests of the government, as well as various persons who had no other claim on him than the fact that they were officers or employees of the government who were in need of a change of climate and could ill afford to seek it at their own expense. Among his house guests were General Aguinaldo, Speaker Osmeña and many other Filipinos. It was Mr. Forbes’s idea, and mine as well, that members of the commission ought to set the example by building at Baguio. I followed his example to the extent of buying a lot and constructing on it a simple and inexpensive house, thus obtaining the first and only home that I have ever owned.
Ultimately Mr. Forbes formulated a plan for the construction of a group of government buildings, a mess hall and a large number of small and inexpensive cottages for rental to government officers and employees so that the executive offices of the government might be transferred to Baguio during the heated term and it might become the true summer capital of the Philippines. This plan was adopted in substance, and it was decided to transfer the bureaus of the government to Baguio for the coming hot season, so far as practicable.
Funds were appropriated for the carrying out of Mr. Forbes’s plan, but before the construction work had fairly begun there occurred, on October 17, 1909, a destructive typhoon. Eighteen inches of rain fell in nine hours, and twenty-six inches in twenty-four hours. The Bued River quickly rose fifty feet, carrying away trees and rocks which obstructed its course, and seriously injuring the road for miles. Four of the largest bridges were swept away and the work of constructing government buildings, which was just about to begin, was greatly retarded. It was not thought possible to transfer the bureaus of the government to Baguio for the coming hot season as planned. Indeed, there were not lacking those who insisted that no one would be able to get there. Mr. Haubé, the energetic and capable young engineer in charge, had the road open on the twentieth day of December, and the projected buildings ready for occupancy in February, a noteworthy and highly creditable achievement.
It was then thought that the storm which had done such serious damage to the road was of unprecedented violence, but there was worse to come. On July 14 and 15, 1911, a terrific typhoon swept across northern Luzón, bringing down one of the world’s record rainfalls. Between noon of the 14th and noon of the 15th, forty-five and ninety-nine hundredths inches of rain fell at Baguio. A mountain forming a part of the wall of the Bued cañon split from the top and the detached portion toppled over into the river, damming it to a depth of about a hundred and fifty feet at a time when it was carrying an enormous volume of water. When this dam burst, an avalanche of earth and rock, swept onward by a huge wave, rushed down the cañon, leaving complete destruction in its wake. Every bridge in its course was carried away, and the road was left in such condition that it would have cost $300,000 to open it for traffic. Then Providence, having apparently done its worst, relented and sent another typhoon which washed away most of the débris left by the first one, uncovering the road-bed and making it possible to reopen communication for $50,000.
The cost of maintaining the Benguet Road has proved excessive. Mountains tower above it on both sides to a height of four to seven thousand feet and the drainage basin which finds its outlet down the narrow gorge through which the road runs is enormous. Even so, under ordinary climatic conditions its maintenance does not offer very exceptional difficulties, as much of it is blasted out of rock; but during extraordinarily heavy storms the danger of destruction by overwhelming floods is great.
While a century may pass before there is another storm like the one which brought down the terrific slide above described, there may be one at any time, and when the railroad has once reached Baguio, it is hardly probable that such extensive repairs as were necessary after the last destructive typhoon will ever again be made, especially as the horse trail built on a carriage road grade from Baguio to Naguilian in the lowlands has been widened little by little, until it is now safe for small automobiles. The maintenance of the bridges alone, on the Benguet Road, is a very formidable item, while there is only one short bridge on the Naguilian Road before the province of Union is reached. As it runs on or near the crests of ridges all the way, there are no extensive watersheds above it, and it is not liable to serious injury during the most violent storms. The total cost of the Benguet portion of this road to date[7] has been only $33,405. This stretch is seventeen and a half miles in length and does not include that portion of the road which lies within the city of Baguio. The total distance from the centre of Baguio to Bauang, the nearest railroad station on the coast, is thirty-four miles.
With the completion of the new government buildings and the transfer of the several bureaus to Baguio for the season of 1910 a real boom began. The old sanatorium building had long been leased to a private individual who used it for hotel purposes, adding to it from time to time. A second hotel had been built. The railroad had been extended to Camp One and a regular automobile service established for the convenience of the public between Camp One and Baguio. The Jesuits had constructed a great rest house and meteorological observatory on a commanding hill. The Dominicans had purchased a neighbouring hill top and prepared to erect thereon a very large reënforced concrete building to serve for college purposes and as a rest house for members of the order who required a change of climate.
Development began early at Camp John Hay, an extensive and beautiful military reservation set aside within the Baguio town site. Some progress had been made in this direction prior to the coming of Major-General Leonard Wood. That highly efficient and far-seeing officer gave a tremendous impetus to the work. He had been something of a sceptic on the subject of Baguio before visiting the place, but, like all other responsible persons who take the trouble to see it, promptly became an enthusiast when he had an opportunity to observe conditions for himself. Many army officers and their families who could not obtain accommodations in the limited number of buildings on the reservation were glad to take tents for the season, and the Camp promptly began to serve useful ends. It has steadily grown and developed ever since, and is now a well-organized army post. Its remarkable progress has been due in large measure to the initiative and ingenuity of Captain M. R. Hilgard, who has been its commander since October, 1905. Great progress has been made in erecting buildings, but they are still far short of the needs of the service. At the present writing[8] there are many tents in use by officers and their families. These serve very well during the dry months, but with the oncoming of the heavy showers, which usher in the rainy season, become damp and uncomfortable and make it necessary for the occupants to return to the lowlands just at the time when Baguio is growing most attractive and the heat of Manila is becoming most oppressive.
The ground set aside in the military reservation is adequate for a brigade post, and such a post should be established as soon as the railroad reaches Baguio. The different commands in the islands could then be ordered there in succession, and officers and men given the benefits of one of the best climates in the world.
Baguio has continued steadily to develop, and the Benguet Road no longer ends by running up a tree. The government has not only erected a residence for the governor-general, but has established offices for the chief executive, the secretaries of departments, the Philippine Commission, the Executive Bureau, and the Bureaus of Agriculture, Civil Service, Education, Forestry, Health, Public Works and Constabulary. There are also a hospital, a series of tuberculosis cottages for the treatment of patients from the lowlands, cottages and dormitories for government officers and employees, a great mess hall where meals may be had at moderate cost, an automobile station, a garage, storehouses, a pumping plant, and labourers’ quarters. At the Teachers’ Camp there are a separate mess hall, an assembly hall and a fine athletic field.
The city of Baguio has a city hall, a storehouse, a corral and market buildings. Lot owners who have built summer homes for themselves have brought up friends to show them what Baguio was like. Curiously it has never seemed possible to convey any adequate idea of its attractions and advantages by word of mouth. Again and again I have urged sceptics to come and see for themselves. When after the lapse of years they finally did so, they have invariably asked me why I had not told them about it before, forgetting that I had exhausted my vocabulary without being able to make them understand. Practically without exception, the persons who actually visit Baguio become “boosters.”
It is fortunate in a way that the boom did not come quicker, for the hard truth is that up to date the rapidity of the growth of the summer capital has been determined absolutely by the local lumber supply. The original Filipino hand-sawyers were ultimately replaced by small portable mills, and these in turn by large modern mills to which logs are brought by skidding engines or overhead cables, yet it is true to-day, as it has always been true, that no sawmill has ever been able to furnish dry lumber, for the simple reason that the green output is purchased as fast as it can be sawed.
For a time the lumbermen took advantage of the necessities of the public, but when timber on the government concessions first granted them had been exhausted and they applied for new cutting areas, my turn came. I fixed maximum prices on lumber which they might not exceed without forfeiting their concessions. I also fixed a minimum annual cut which they were compelled to make, and imposed a regulation providing that at least half of the total cut should be offered for sale to the public.
There is no justification for the claim that Baguio is a rich man’s city. The town site is very large and can be indefinitely extended. Good lots may be had at extremely moderate prices, and the cost of houses is strictly a matter of individual means and taste. A large section is given up to small dwellings for Filipinos. The man who earns his living with a bull cart has no more difficulty in establishing a home there than does the Filipino millionnaire, and rich and poor are building in constantly increasing numbers.
While experience has taught me that I cannot convey by words alone any adequate conception of what Baguio is like, I must nevertheless here make the attempt.
Twenty-one miles of well surfaced roads wind among its pine-covered hills and afford beautiful glimpses of the luxuriant vegetation along its numerous small streams. There are building sites to suit all tastes, and each house owner is convinced that his particular location is better than that of any one else. One spring supplies exceptionally pure water sufficient for the needs of at least ten thousand people, and an abundant additional supply can be obtained when needed. The scenery is everywhere beautiful, and in many sections truly magnificent.
Gently rolling hills enclose valleys with sides sometimes steep and precipitous and sometimes gently sloping. The country is watered by numerous streams bordered by magnificent tree-ferns, and by trees, shrubs, and plants requiring a large amount of water, while the dry hillsides bear noble pines standing at wide intervals and often arranged as if grouped by a skilled landscape artist. During the rainy season they are covered with ferns and orchids, while exquisite white lilies, larger than Easter lilies, dot the hillsides. The dense cógon of the Philippine lowlands is absent. Bamboo grass or runo occurs sparingly in the immediate vicinity of streams and springs, but the hills are covered with a short grass seldom more than knee high, so that one may ride or walk over them in almost any direction with comfort. A system of excellent horse trails affords communication with neighbouring provinces where one may see wonderful tropical vegetation, magnificent scenery, strange wild peoples, and the most remarkable terraced mountainsides in the world. These regions may be visited with safety and comfort, as public order is well-nigh perfect and rest houses have been provided at reasonable intervals on all important main trails.
The delightfully cool climate of Baguio makes active outdoor exercise enjoyable, and insures the speedy restoration to health and vigor of persons suffering ill effects from tropical heat, or recuperation from wasting diseases. Open fires are comfortable morning and evening throughout the year, and the pitch pine wood burns beautifully. Except during typhoons the rainy season weather is delightful. When one wakens in the morning the atmosphere and the landscape have been washed clean. The air is clear as crystal, and mountain peaks fifty or seventy-five miles away stand out with cameo-like sharpness. The needles of the pines fairly glisten and their delightful odor is constantly in one’s nostrils. The whole country is green as a lawn. Roses, violets, azaleas, “jacks-in-the-pulpit,” and several kinds of raspberries and huckleberries, all growing wild, make one feel as if back in America. One may visit the neighbouring Trinidad valley and see cabbages and coffee, bananas and Irish potatoes, flourishing on one piece of land. Strawberry plants imported from America bear continuously from December to May. Fresh vegetables of all sorts tickle palates which have grown weary of the canned goods of the lowlands.
Anywhere from twelve to three o’clock, the clouds begin to roll in and heavy showers fall, usually lasting until nine or ten at night. Then the stars come out. The next day is like its predecessor.
Ifugao Dancers
After the first rains, which usually come about the middle of April, there is as a rule a month of beautiful weather with very little precipitation. Then the rains begin to come steadily again, and keep it up until the end of the wet season, falling in the manner already described so that one can get one’s outdoor exercise in the morning, while the afternoon showers are conducive to industry.
The following table shows the average maximum, minimum and mean temperatures for each month of the year, the figures covering the period January, 1902, to January, 1908:—
| Month | Average Maximum | Average Minimum | Mean |
| °F. | °F. | °F. | |
| January | 75.1 | 50.2 | 63.3 |
| February | 75.4 | 45.8 | 61.6 |
| March | 77.5 | 49.4 | 64.1 |
| April | 78.2 | 51.9 | 65.7 |
| May | 77.7 | 54 | 66.2 |
| June | 77 | 56.8 | 66.2 |
| July | 75.9 | 55.9 | 65.4 |
| August | 76 | 54.9 | 65.1 |
| September | 75.2 | 56 | 65.2 |
| October | 76.4 | 53.8 | 65.1 |
| November | 76.4 | 49.8 | 64.1 |
| December | 76.1 | 50.3 | 64.1 |
All of the above figures are for temperatures at a height of six feet above the ground. Temperatures nearer the ground are decidedly lower. It has been found that in the Baguio plateau the lowest temperatures correspond to the deepest valleys. In such places white frost is not rare during the months of January, February, and March, while on the tops of hills the temperature is milder, frost being almost unknown. During typhoons conditions do not differ essentially from those experienced elsewhere in the islands, except that the rainfall is exceptionally heavy.
Major-General J. Franklin Bell, who has given special attention to mountain resorts the world over, vigorously asserts that Baguio has no equal on the globe. Certainly the climate is more nearly perfect than any other of which I have personal knowledge, and the delightful coolness and the bracing air afford heavenly relief to jangling nerves and exhausted bodies, worn out by overwork and by a too prolonged sojourn in tropical lowlands.
One of the very important things about the Baguio climate is its marvellous effect upon victims of tuberculosis.
Persons suffering from this disease in its earlier stages may confidently look forward to restored health if willing to live out of doors under the pine trees, and there have been a number of extraordinary recoveries among those in advanced stages.
A series of little cottages which can be thrown wide open have been operated for some time in connection with the government hospital, in order practically to demonstrate the effect of the climate on tuberculosis victims.
The results are conclusive, and whenever funds are available there should be established a settlement of such cottages on some one of the numerous good sites sufficiently removed from the town to avoid any possible danger of infecting healthy persons. There should also be a large mess hall from which good nourishing food can be served, and plenty of level ground on which tents can be erected during the dry season. Baguio’s potential importance as a resort for victims of the great white plague justifies every cent of expenditure necessary to make it readily accessible.
The Sisters of the Assumption have erected a handsome building which serves as a rest house and a girls’ school. The sisters known as the “Belgian Canonist Missionaries” are erecting a building which will afford them a place to come for recuperation when wearied by strenuous work in the lowlands, and will make it possible for them to open a school for Igorot girls, which they are planning to do.
Bishop Brent has established an excellent school for American boys, situated on a sunny hilltop. The instruction is very good, the food excellent, and a healthier, heartier-looking lot of youngsters than those who enjoy the privileges of this institution cannot be found anywhere. There is abundant opportunity for them to play basket-ball, tennis and golf. Some of them indulge in polo, playing on Filipino ponies.
Bishop Brent also has a mission school for Igorot girls, and plans to open a boarding school for American girls in the near future.
The Belgian missionary priests, locally known as the “Missionary Priests of the Church of San Patricio,” have their headquarters at Baguio, where the chief of their order resides and where they come occasionally for rest and recuperation. Archbishop Harry has a modest home on one of the numerous hilltops.
The building of a school for constabulary officers, to which young men arriving from the United States are sent before entering upon active service, crowns another hill and commands a magnificent view of the surrounding country.
Several business concerns, such as the Compañia General de Tabacos de Filipinas, have erected rest houses for their officers and employees, while the number of attractive private homes increases as rapidly as the supply of building materials will permit. Filipino residents of Manila have recently invested more than a hundred thousand dollars in Baguio homes.
But this is not all. No description would be anything like complete without mention of a unique structure which is certain to become famous the world over. It has been built under the immediate supervision of Major-General Bell, who has given freely of his time and thought to make it the extraordinary success which it is. I refer to the wonderful amphitheatre which stands at the side of the official residence of the major-general commanding the Division of the Philippines. Advantage has been taken of the existence of a natural amphitheatre with remarkable acoustic properties. Man has added what Nature left undone, and the result is an imposing and beautiful auditorium capable of seating four thousand people, throughout which a whisper can be heard. It is utilized for religious services, concerts, lectures, theatrical performances and other public entertainments. No charge is exacted for its use, but if an admission fee is collected, a liberal percentage of the proceeds must go to some worthy charity. It has been terraced in stone by Igorot labourers; the trees originally standing in it have been protected, and tree ferns, shrubs and flowering plants have been added. The result beggars description, and photographs do it scant justice.
Igorots from Bontoc, and even Ifugaos, now visit Baguio with increasing frequency, attracted by a large market established especially for the benefit of the hill people, where they may sell their manufactured articles or agricultural products, and may purchase at moderate cost the commodities which they need. The Benguet Igorots do not raise rice enough for their own use. Formerly they had to make up the shortage by eating camotes, but they have now become so prosperous that they can afford to buy rice, which is carted in over the Benguet Road.
There are promising gold mines close at hand. Their development would have been impossible had not the construction of the Benguet Road made it feasible to bring in the necessary heavy machinery.
Some of the fruits, many of the flowers and practically all of the vegetables of the temperate zone can be advantageously produced in Benguet. They are being shipped to Manila in steadily increasing quantities.
One would gather from the criticisms of the enemies of the Philippine government that the Benguet Road was a pleasure boulevard. The government motor trucks transported over it during the last fiscal year 22,390 passengers and 7696.24 metric tons of freight.
Railroad corporations are inclined to be a bit soulless. The Manila Railway Company is extending its line to Baguio by means of a branch leaving the main line at Aringay. The building of this extension is now[9] fifty-five per cent completed, and the company is bound under the terms of its agreement to finish the road by August, 1914. In the event of its failure to do so, it must pay a monthly penalty amply sufficient in amount to cover the cost of maintaining the Benguet Road. Baguio will continue to develop steadily until the railroad is opened and then will go ahead by leaps and bounds. It is sure to prosper because it meets a very real and very imperative need.
In this connection the following extracts from a letter of August 7, 1913, from the director of medical services in India to the department surgeon of the Philippines are of interest:—
“In reply to your letter of June 31st I attach a statement showing the number and location of the hill stations in India with the approximate capacity of each, and their height above sea-level.
“With regard to your inquiry regarding the number of cases treated in these sanitaria we use these hill stations not only for the treatment of convalescents, but also for giving healthy men an opportunity of spending the Indian hot weather under the best climatic conditions procurable. To this end, so far as is practicable, all units are sent to the hills for the first hot weather after their arrival in India, and they are thus able to settle down to their new conditions of life without being immediately exposed to the trying and enervating environment of a plains station in the summer months. We also send as many soldiers as we can of the older residents from hot stations to summer in the hills.
“Practically all soldiers’ wives and families are given an opportunity of a change from the more unhealthy stations to the hills during the hot weather.
“Our experience shows that the following cases are most benefited by a change to the hills:—
“1. All cases of malarial fever and malarial cachexia.
“2. Patients recovering from acute diseases.
“3. Convalescents after surgical operations.
“4. Cases of anaemia and debility.
“5. Cases of chronic venereal diseases.
“6. Neurasthenics.”
Not only are all such cases greatly benefited at Baguio, but patients suffering from dysentery and chronic diarrhoea are also greatly benefited and often cured by a sufficiently long sojourn there. This is the experience of the civil government at its hospital and of the military authorities at the Camp John Hay hospital, according to General Bell.
Continuing the quotations from the letter of the director of medical services in India:—
“We have found that by the judicious use of hill stations for convalescents both the invaliding and death rate of the British troops in Indian have been enormously reduced and the efficiency of the Army has been increased with a considerable financial saving to the Government.
“It is advisable that all troops and families should be accommodated in huts, especially during the rainy season in the hills, but there is no doubt that they are benefited by the change even if they have to live in tents and are thereby exposed to considerable discomfort.”
The importance attached by the British to hill stations is shown by the fact that there are no less than 29 in India, their height above sea-level varying from 2000 to 7936 feet. Of these eleven have no permanent accommodations and are used for men only.
An Ifugao Dancer
I add the following extracts from a letter of Major P. M. Ashburn, Medical Corps, U.S.A., president of the army board for the study of tropical diseases:—
“A man can remain in the tropics indefinitely without being actually sick, if infectious diseases are avoided. This is fast leading to the fallacy that we can advantageously remain many years in these latitudes. The fact that while a man may never be sick, he yet may have his physical and mental vigour greatly impaired by prolonged exposure to heat is thus lost sight of. No man can do his best work, either physical or mental, if he is hot and uncomfortable. The same feeling of lassitude and indisposition to exertion is experienced at home during the hot summer, which after a few years here becomes chronic.”
“It is a matter of official recognition that government employees need to get away from the heat of Manila each year, hence the removal to Baguio.
“It is likewise commonly recognized that many women and children become so run down and debilitated as to need to go to Japan, Baguio or the United States.
“It is often true that monotony and discomfort are the cause of nervous and mental breakdown, witness the often-mentioned insanity among farmers’ wives and the nervous breakdowns attributable to pain and strain, even though it be, as in many cases of eyestrain, so slight as not to be recognized by the patient.”
In short, it is the monotony of a tropical lowland climate which makes an occasional change so imperatively necessary. Shall residents of the Philippines be forced to seek that change, at great expense of time and money, in Japan, the United States or Europe, or shall we make and keep available for them a region which admirably answers the purpose, distant only half a day’s travel from Manila?
I give extracts from a memorandum of Col. William H. Arthur, Department Surgeon of the Philippines, which are important in this connection:—
“3. Experience has shown that long residence in the Philippines has a marked effect on the mental and physical vigour of people not born and raised in the tropics. This is manifested in many ways, and men, women and children who are not actually ill, seem to lose their energy, become listless, irritable, and forgetful, and find the least exertion burdensome. This is much aggravated in the hot season, and very few individuals manage, without permanent mental and physical deterioration, to live through many hot seasons in the plains.
“4. There are in the Philippine Islands two places where relief from these conditions can be found:—(1) Camp John Hay, near Baguio, in the mountain province of Benguet, Island of Luzón; and (2) Camp Keithley, in the Lake Lanao District of the Island of Mindanao. Camp John Hay, in the province of Benguet, is in the mountains at an elevation of approximately 5000 feet and is 175 miles from Manila, most of which distance is covered by railroad. Within 18 months it is expected that the railroad all the way to Baguio will be completed.
“5. Experience has shown that a large number of cases of disease or injury, or patients convalescing from surgical operations, recover much more rapidly in the cool mountain climate of Baguio than in the depressing heat and humidity of the plains. Before the establishment of this mountain refuge from the heat of the plains, many cases of this class were transferred to the United States that are now brought back to health at Camp John Hay and Camp Keithley. The beneficial effect of the change in climate is particularly noticeable in people who have become run down after one or more hot seasons spent at the lower levels.
“6. The great value of a refuge in the mountains from the effect of prolonged heat is shown in enclosed reports, which indicate the classes of cases especially benefited, but there are a great many others not reported and not actually sick but whose vitality and resistance are more or less diminished and who find great benefit from an occasional sojourn in the mountains of Benguet or the highlands of Mindanao, especially during the hottest part of the year.”
I have quoted thus at length from communications of a distinguished British medical officer, of a well-known and able special student of tropical diseases, and of the ranking United States army surgeon in the islands to show the consensus of opinion among experienced experts as to the necessity of hill stations in the tropics. I might give numerous additional similar opinions of equally competent men but will only add two more statements of Major Ashburn, the latter of which seems to me admirably to sum up the situation:—
So firm is my belief in the efficacy of the place that I have at considerable expense kept my two sons in school there, instead of keeping them at home in Manila at no expense for schooling, and so satisfactory has been the result in normal, vigorous growth and robust health for both boys, that I consider the money so spent about the best investment I have ever made.
I state all this to show the faith that is in me. To experience Baguio and to see the rapid improvement of visitors there is to be convinced that it is a delightful and beneficial climate. To appreciate the full degree of its delights it is only necessary to compare in one’s own experience (not in weather reports) a hot season in Manila and one there. To appreciate its benefits it is necessary to compare in one’s own experience (not in statistics) the appearance of health of the people seen at the two times and places. As recent work on beri-beri has clearly shown the vast importance in diet of substances formerly not known to have any importance, so, I think, are the factors in climate not to be recorded by wind gauges, thermometers or other meteorological instruments, and factors in health and efficiency not recorded in books on physiology, bacteriology, pathology or health statistics.”
Let no one think that the summer capital of the Philippines has been built solely for the benefit of Americans. The Filipinos need it almost as much as we do, and many of them profit by the change with extraordinary promptness.
It is really almost incredible that such a place should exist within eight hours’ travel of Manila, and every possible victim of tuberculosis in the islands, which means every inhabitant of the lowlands, has a right to demand that it should be made, and kept, readily accessible. Existing accommodations are nothing like adequate for the crowds which desire to take advantage of them during the season. Hotels are filled to overflowing. There are always several different applicants for each government cottage. Many persons who would be glad to spend the hot months in the Benguet mountains find it impossible to do so, because they cannot obtain accommodation, and at present many more are obliged to shorten their stay in order to give others a chance.
In the early days, when we were facing unforeseen difficulties and discouragements, I was for a time the one member of the Philippine Commission who was really enthusiastically in favour of carrying out the original plans for the summer capital. It was then the fashion to charge me with responsibility for the policy of opening up communication with the place and for the mistakes made in the construction of the Benguet Road, although I had never had any control over the road work and had been one of five at first, and later one of nine, to vote for every appropriation found necessary in order to complete it.
It was the enthusiasm of Mr. Forbes which at a critical time finally saved the situation, and now that Baguio has arrived, and the wisdom of the policy so long pursued in the face of manifold discouragements has been demonstrated, my one fear is that he will get all the glory and that I shall be denied credit for the part which I actually did play in bringing about the determination to establish quick communication with one of the most wonderful mountain health resorts to be found in any tropical country, and in giving that determination effect. But I have had a more than abundant reward of another sort. My wife, my son and I myself, when seriously ill, have been restored to vigorous health by brief sojourns at this one of the world’s great health resorts.
It has been very much the fashion for Filipino politicians to rail at Baguio, and now that the dangerous experiment of giving them control of both houses of the legislature is being made, they may refuse to appropriate the sums necessary to make possible the annual transfer of the insular government to that place. The result of such a bit of politics would be a marked increase in the present extraordinarily low death rate among government officers and employees, American and Filipino,[10] beginning in about two years, when the cumulative effect of long residence in the lowlands makes itself felt.
Meanwhile, Baguio can stand on its own feet, and if, as the politicians suggest, the government buildings there be sold at auction, purchasers for all dwelling houses should readily be found. Too many Filipinos have learned by happy experience the delights of this wonderful region, to let such an opportunity pass. Baguio has come to stay.
[1] Now a major-general.
[2] About 28.7 miles.
[3] May 1, 1913.
[4] Captain Meade.
[5] He had the volunteer rank of colonel, but was a major in the regular army.
[6] Report of the Philippine Commission, Part 1, 1903, p. 58.
[7] May 1, 1913.
[8] April 15, 1913.
[9] May 1, 1913.
[10] This rate, for the fiscal year 1913, was 3.33 per thousand for Filipinos and 2.49 per thousand for Americans.
Chapter XVIII
The Coördination of Scientific Work
When Americans landed at Manila, they found no government institutions for the training of physicians and surgeons and no hospital in any sense modern or indeed worthy of the name.
There did exist the equipment of what had been called a municipal laboratory, outfitted for a limited amount of chemical work only.
When the Philippine Commission arrived on the scene, it fell to my lot to draft the necessary legislation for placing scientific work on a firm foundation, and, later, as secretary of the interior, to exercise ultimate executive control over practically all such work carried on under the insular government.
The complete initial lack of adequate hospital facilities and of means for making chemical and bacteriological investigations had been promptly remedied by the establishment of army hospitals and an army laboratory. Although these could not be placed fully at the service of the public, they nevertheless bridged the gap for the time being, and in formulating laws and making plans for the future I was inclined to say, “Blessed be nothing,” as we were not hampered by useless employees or archaic equipment, but were left free to make a clean start.
I had thoroughly learned one lesson at the University of Michigan while a member of its zoölogical staff. We had a zoölogical laboratory in which were conducted the zoölogical half of a course in general biology and numerous other courses in animal morphology, mammalian anatomy, comparative anatomy and embryology. There was also a botanical laboratory in which all of the botanical work of the institution was carried on. This did not involve any overlapping, but there was overlapping of the work of the zoölogical laboratory and that of the medical department, which had an anatomical laboratory, a histological laboratory, a pathological laboratory and a so-called hygienic laboratory. The professor of anatomy thought that his students would understand human anatomy better if they knew something of comparative anatomy, and instead of sending them to us wished to start his own courses. The histologist dabbled in embryology and was soon duplicating our course in the embryology of the chick. He was constantly at war with the pathologist over the question of where histology left off and pathology began, and both of them were inclined to differ with the man in charge of the hygienic laboratory over similar questions of jurisdiction. Furthermore, we had a chemical laboratory split up into various more or less independent subdivisions, and a psychological laboratory. In these several institutions for scientific research there was much duplication of instruction and of books, apparatus and laboratory equipment. Great economies might have been effected by the establishment of a central purchasing agency, which could have obtained wholesale rates on supplies ordered in large quantity. Nothing of the sort existed. One laboratory chief would order from the corner drug store, while another bought in Germany.
There was danger that a similar condition of things might arise in the Philippines. The Bureau of Health would want its chemical and its biological laboratories; the Bureau of Agriculture would need to do chemical work covering a wide range of subjects, and botanical and entomological work as well. The Bureau of Forestry would of course require a large amount of botanical work, and would also need to have chemical work done on gums, resins and other forest products, to say nothing of investigating insects injurious to trees and more especially to timber after cutting. The latter class of destroyers do enormous damage in the Philippines. Much chemical work would be required by the Bureau of Customs, which as a matter of fact later insisted upon the necessity of a “microscopical laboratory” to provide facilities for the examination of fibres, etc. Obviously there would be a large amount of work for the general government in connection with investigation of the mineral resources of the country, and the testing of coals, cements and road materials.
Smallpox was decimating the population. There was need of the manufacture of great quantities of virus with which to combat it, and of other common and necessary serums and prophylactics as well.
Here then was a golden opportunity to start right. In imagination I saw a Bureau of Science for scientific research and for routine scientific work, a great General Hospital, and a modern and up-to-date College of Medicine and Surgery, standing side by side and working in full and harmonious relationship. The medical school would give to the youth of the land the best possible facilities for theoretical training in medicine and surgery, while access to the wards of the hospital would make possible for them a large amount of practical bedside work. Its operating amphitheatres would increase the opportunity for clinical instruction, as would a great free outpatient clinic, conducted primarily for the benefit of the poor. Professors in the college would hold positions on the hospital staff, not only in order to give to them and to their students every facility for clinical demonstration work, but to enable them constantly to “keep their hands in.” Promising Filipino graduates would be given internships and other positions on the house staff of the hospital. Patients would be admitted to its free beds subject to the condition that they allow their cases to be studied by the faculty and students of the college. The necessary biological and chemical examinations for the hospital would be made in the laboratories of the Bureau of Science, which would at the same time afford every facility for the carrying on of scientific investigation by advanced students, by members of the faculty of the college and by members of the hospital staff. Members of the staff of the biological laboratory would have the use of the great volume of pathological material from the hospital, and with free access to its rooms and wards, would have an almost unparalleled opportunity for the study of tropical diseases, while some of the officers and employees of the Bureau of Science and of the Bureau of Health might be made members of the faculty of the college and their services utilized as instructors.
As we had neither laboratories, hospital nor college at the time, the realization of this somewhat comprehensive scheme seemed rather remote. It was commonly referred to as “Worcester’s dream,” and one of my friends in the army medical corps probably quite correctly voiced public sentiment when he said, “Poor Worcester has bats in his belfry.” However, he laughs best who laughs last! After the lapse of a good many years my dream came true. The three great institutions which I hoped might sometime be established are to-day in existence, and are doing the work which I hoped that they might perform. Now let us consider how they came to be.
In the early days I drafted an act providing for the establishment of a Bureau of Government Laboratories which should perform all of the biological and chemical work of the government under the direction of one chief, and on July 1, 1901 the commission passed it.
I was more than fortunate in securing as the director of this bureau Dr. Paul C. Freer, then professor of general chemistry at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Freer obtained leave of absence for a year, in order to help us get started. This leave was twice extended for additional periods of one year each, and in the end he decided to sever his connection with the university and throw in his lot with the Philippine government.
He remained in charge of the Bureau of Government Laboratories and of its successor, the Bureau of Science, until his death on April 17, 1912.
Ifugao Rice Terraces
The wonderful irrigated rice terraces of the Ifugaos sometimes extend up steep mountain sides for thousands of feet. They afford an extraordinary example of successful primitive hydraulic engineering.
Himself a chemist and investigator of note, he had a wide and catholic knowledge of science in general, and no better man could have been found for this important piece of constructive work. For nearly a year the two of us laboured over plans for the laboratory building and lists of the necessary books, instruments, apparatus, glassware, chemicals and other supplies. At the end of this time we submitted to the commission what I do not hesitate to say was the most complete estimate for a large project which ever came before it. Much forethought was necessary in order to time the orders for books, instruments and apparatus so that it would be possible to house them properly when they arrived, and the estimated expense was distributed over a period of two and one-half years.
Meanwhile work had begun in cramped temporary quarters in a hot little “shack,” for it deserved no better name, back of the Civil Hospital. Here under almost impossible conditions there were performed a large volume of routine biological and chemical work, and a considerable amount of research, the results of which proved to be of far-reaching importance.
With the employment of the first chemists and bacteriologists there arose a class of questions which I determined to settle once for all. There is a regrettable tendency among some scientific men to try to build barbed-wire fences around particular fields of research in which they happen to be interested, and to shoo every one else away.
At the outset I gave all employees clearly to understand that such an unscientific and ungenerous spirit would not be tolerated in the Bureau of Government Laboratories. The field which opened before us was enormous. There was work enough and more than enough for all, and we should at the outset adopt a spirit of friendliness and helpfulness toward every scientific man who desired to lend a hand.
This rule of conduct has been steadfastly adhered to. Numerous well-known scientists have visited the Philippines and to each we have extended all possible assistance, furnishing laboratory quarters, instruments, apparatus and reagents, and, whenever practicable, material as well. Indeed, many of our scientific guests have been made employees of the bureau without pay, so that there might be no questioning of their right to use government equipment.
Two important results have followed this policy. One is that we have established the friendliest and most helpful relations with numerous research institutions. The other is that we have been able to assist in the performance of much valuable work which has borne important results, and which would perhaps have remained undone had it not been possible for us to aid those who undertook it.
In due course of time came our fine new building, with good facilities for performing all kinds of laboratory work. When it was equipped and occupied, we were able to say that the opportunities offered at Manila for investigating tropical diseases were probably unequalled elsewhere, and there was a deal of such investigation urgently needing to be made. Our equipment for chemical research was also very complete and the vast undeveloped natural resources of the islands presented a practically virgin field for such investigation.
At the outset absurd rumours spread as to the cost of buildings and equipment, and there was much popular outcry against the supposed wastefulness of the government. A simple statement of the facts served to kill these foolish tales, and people soon began to see that the creation of the Bureau of Government Laboratories was merely the application of common-sense to existing conditions and had resulted in greatly increased economy and efficiency. Indeed, at the suggestion of a committee appointed to make a study of the government service and suggest measures for its betterment, the principle which I had adopted was carried still further. Not only was all zoölogical and botanical work transferred to this bureau, but the Bureau of Ethnology and the Bureau of Mines were abolished as separate entities and were made divisions of it, and its title was changed to “The Bureau of Science.” Little by little the scope of the work has steadily widened.
The scientific books and periodicals of the government were scattered among half a dozen different bureaus and were not being well cared for. I arranged to have them all temporarily transferred to the library of the Bureau of Science and catalogued there. Those said to be really needed for frequent reference were then returned to the several bureaus but were kept under observation by the bureau of science librarian, who took particular pains to look after the binding of serial publications as rapidly as the volumes were completed.
The list of books requested by the several bureau chiefs for reference was suspiciously long. I gave orders that each set of bureau bookshelves be provided with cards and a box into which to drop them, and each time a book was used a card was made out for it and placed in the box. After six months I quietly gathered up the cards and had them checked against the lists of books for which the several bureau chiefs had asked, and was then able to order a large proportion of them back to the library for the reason that they had not been used at all.
The result of this policy is that we have to-day a central scientific library in which are catalogued all the scientific books of the government. Books needed by the several bureaus for frequent reference are placed where they can be used conveniently, and the card catalogue indicates where they are, so that they can readily be found. In this way it has been possible to avoid much needless and expensive duplication. The library now contains 26,652 bound volumes.
We were extremely fortunate in the men whose services we secured in the early days, and the volume of research work turned out was unexpectedly large. The question of how best to arrange for the prompt publication of our results became urgent, and in the end we answered it by publishing the Philippine Journal of Science, now in its eighth year and with an assured and enviable position among the scientific journals of the world.
In the early days before we knew what we now know about the preservation of health in tropical countries there was a deal of sickness among government officers and employees. While the army was more than liberal in helping us meet the conditions which arose, it was of course very necessary that we should establish our own hospital as soon as possible.
On October 12, 1901, the so-called “Civil Hospital” was opened in a large private dwelling, obtained, as we then fondly imagined, merely as a temporary expedient. Together with two adjoining and even smaller buildings it continued to be our only place for the treatment of ordinary medical and surgical cases until September 1, 1910! I can here only very briefly outline the causes of this long delay.
At the outset the building was large enough to meet immediate needs. At the time when it began to grow inadequate there was a plan on foot for a large private institution, in which the government was to secure accommodations for its patients, and a hospital building was actually erected, but interest in this project waned, the private backing which was believed to have been assured for it failed, and the whole scheme went by the board. Then plans for a great general hospital were called for. A very large amount of time was consumed in their preparation and when they were finished the expense involved in carrying them out was found to be far beyond the means of the government. Ultimately I was charged with the duty of securing other plans involving a more moderate expenditure. Again long delay necessarily ensued. When semi-final plans were submitted, the consulting architect insisted on a series of arches along the sides of the several ward pavilions which were doubtless most satisfying from an artistic point of view, but would have shut off light and fresh air to an extent which I could not tolerate. A three months’ deadlock was finally broken by his acceding to my wishes, but in October, 1906, just as the completed plans were finally ready to submit to the commission, I was compelled by severe illness to return to the United States. There remained three American and three Filipino members of the commission. One of the former was Mr. W. Morgan Shuster, then secretary of public instruction. Prior to the time when he became a candidate for a secretaryship he had been bitter in his criticism of the Filipinos. Coincidently with the development of this ambition he became almost more pro-Filipino than some of the Filipino politicians themselves. For a time he seemed to control the Filipino vote on the commission and largely as a result of his activities every important matter which I left pending, including that of the establishment of the great general hospital so vitally needed by the people of the islands, was laid on the table. I was informed that Mr. Shuster had announced that we could have $125,000 for the hospital and no more! We needed $400,000.
Beginning on the day after my return the following April these several projects, including that for the Baguio Hospital and that for the Philippine General Hospital. were taken from the table and passed.
Construction work goes slowly in the tropics. One ward pavilion of the Philippine General Hospital was occupied on September 1, 1910. Soon afterward the four others came into use.
On June 10, 1907, a medical college was opened. It was called “The Philippine Medical School.” Its creation at this time was made possible by the existence of the Bureaus of Science and Health. Its staff was at the outset recruited very largely from these two bureaus. The director of the Bureau of Science was made its dean and continued to hold this position until his death. To his unselfish efforts and to those of the director of health is due the well-organized modern college which we have to-day. In lieu of better quarters the first classes were held in an old Spanish government building which was altered and added to until it answered the purpose reasonably well.
The preparation of the act which provided for the establishment of this college was intrusted to me. I called for the assistance of a committee of technical experts and asked that they submit a draft for my consideration, which they did. It contained a provision to the effect that the college should be under the administrative control of the secretary of the interior. I struck out the words “secretary of the interior” and inserted in lieu thereof the words “secretary of public instruction” for two reasons. First, the school theoretically belongs under that official, in spite of its necessarily close relationship with the Bureau of Science and the Bureau of Health. Second, I wanted the support of the secretary of public instruction for the measure, as it involved considerable expenditure and I was not sure how the bill might fare in the commission. It happened that the incumbent of that position was very much inclined to take a liberal view of bills which extended his jurisdiction. Mr. Taft, when he visited the Philippines in 1909, reached the conclusion that I was guilty of an error of judgment in doing this, and a little later expressed the view that the Medical College ought to be under the control of the secretary of the interior, because of its intimate relationship with the bureaus above mentioned. I might perhaps even then have had this change made, but refrained from attempting to do so, believing that all would go well under the existing arrangement. So long as Dr. Freer lived this was the case.
He was a man of absolute honesty and sincerity of purpose, and was far-seeing enough fully to realize that the interests of the government, and of individuals as well, would best be served by carrying out the broad and liberal policy which was then in effect.
The next event of importance was the establishment of the University of the Philippines, which was provided for by an Act passed on June 18, 1908.
The Philippine Medical School was in due time incorporated with the university as its College of Medicine and Surgery, passing under the executive control of the university board of regents.
At this time the plan of which I had dreamed so many years before was in full force and effect and was working admirably. Members of the Bureau of Science staff served on the college faculty and held appointments in the Philippine General Hospital as well, one of them being the chief of a division there. Members of the college faculty carried on research work at the Bureau of Science. The great working library installed in the building of the latter bureau served as the medical library. Members of the college faculty also rendered important service in the Philippine General Hospital, where two of them were chiefs of divisions, two held important positions on the house staff and numerous others served as interns. Officers of the Bureau of Health were appointed to the faculty of the college and carried on research work at the Bureau of Science. The staff of the latter bureau made the chemical and biological examinations needed in connection with the work of the hospital as well as those required by the Bureau of Health. The Bureau of Science manufactured the sera and prophylactics required by the Bureau of Health in its work. The two large operating amphitheatres in the Philippine General Hospital were planned with especial reference to the accommodation of students, who could pass along a gallery from one to the other. The work of the free clinic, attended daily by hundreds of Filipinos seeking relief, was largely turned over to the college faculty, and increased opportunities were thus given for medical students to study actual cases.
The arrangement was an ideal one. It excited the admiration of numerous visiting European and American experts, who were competent to judge of its merits, and its continued success was dependent only upon the honesty of purpose, loyalty and good faith of the several parties to it.
Then came the untimely death of Dr. Freer. A few months later an attempt was made by certain university officers to secure control of the professional work of the hospital for that institution, leaving the director of health and the secretary of the interior in charge of the nurses, servants, accounts and property, and burdened with the responsibility for the results of work involving life and death, but without voice in the choice of the men who were to perform it.
Those who were responsible for this effort evidently had not taken the trouble to read the law, and I had only to call attention to its provisions in order to end for the time this first effort to disturb the existing logical distribution of work between the two institutions.
Before I left Manila in October, 1913, a second attempt was being made to secure control of the professional work of the hospital for the university, but this time the plan was more far-reaching, in that it contemplated the transfer to the university of control of the Bureau of Science as well; and more logical, in that a bill accomplishing these ends had been drafted for consideration by the Filipinized legislature.
The original plan for the coördination of the scientific work of the Philippine government was sound in principle and will, I trust, eventually be carried out, whatever may be done temporarily to upset it during a period of disturbed political conditions. There is much consolation to be derived from contemplating the fact that pendulums swing.
