Progress in Politics and Improvement of the Currency
Our First Election of a Governor—More Feeling in Our Next Election—We Organize a Self-Governing Society in the School—Improvement in Parliamentary Procedure—The Boys Imitate the Oratory of a Real Politician—A Much-mixed Currency in the Philippines—Losses to the Teachers Through Fluctuations in Exchange—The Conant System Brings Stability—The New Copper Coins Astonish the Natives.
We had been in Capiz but a short time when talk of the coming election began to occupy both Americans and Filipinos. The Governor of the province at that time held his position by appointment from Mr. Taft, but provisions had been made by the Commission for an election at a specified time, which was then at hand. In view of the fact that it was the first election ever held in the province, we Americans expected to encounter much rejoicing over the newly acquired right, and a general outbreak of gratification. It made a barely perceptible ripple. The Filipinos had not gathered momentum enough under the new system to approach an election by the well-recognized channels. There were no speeches, no public gatherings, no processions, and, so far as the mass of the population were concerned, no interest whatsoever. There is not universal suffrage in the Philippines. The electors for the occasion were the concejales, or town councillors, of the towns in the province. On a given day they would assemble to cast their votes.
Our appointed Governor was a candidate to succeed himself, and the only opponent of any importance was a local lawyer, named D——. D—— was on very good terms with most of the Americans, who regarded him as something of an Americanista, but he was greatly hated by the prominent Filipino families in town, not only on the score of his suspected pro-American sentiment, but on account of certain meddlings of his in past time with cacique power.
A short time before the election the American community were thunderstruck on hearing that D—— had been arrested on a charge of murder. Our Supervisor—and, I believe, the Treasurer—offered to go on his bail. Then came a telegram from Judge Bates at Iloilo, denying bail. For a day or two telegrams flew back and forth, the Americans trying to secure the temporary release of the unfortunate lawyer but accomplishing nothing. D—— was kept practically incomunicado in the local calabozo. He insisted that there was a plot on foot to destroy him, and either he was much distressed or he pretended to be so. Then came an order to take him out to a small town in the interior whence the charge came. D—— declared that he should be killed on the way. The Americans finally prevailed upon an American inspector of constabulary to accompany the prisoner’s escort. The rainy season was in full force, and prisoner and escort had a bad time getting out to Maayon, the town aforementioned. Once there the charge broke down at once. It was based upon a statement made by an old woman that a spirit had appeared to her in a dream, and had accused D—— of being the cause of its immaterial existence. The prisoner was almost immediately set at liberty. For reasons best known to himself, he found it inconvenient to return to Capiz and to renew his campaign for the governorship.
By the fortuitous circumstance of the charge against D——, our Governor, who professed a smiling ignorance of all the circumstances of the case, had been relieved of his only formidable rival, and he prepared to do the honors of Capiz to the concejales. He lived in the old palace of the Spanish governors, which had since come to serve as provincial capitol and gubernatorial residence. There was plenty of room in the fine old place, and the concejales found everything to their satisfaction. They had but to step out of their bedrooms to find themselves at the polls. Our Governor was elected almost unanimously, to succeed himself for two years.
That was doing pretty well for a set of tyros at politics; but by the time the next election swung round, political feeling had awakened, there were wheels within wheels, and feeling was running explosively high. Political parties had crystallized into two bodies, known as Progresistas and Federalistas. The Progresistas were the anti-American party, pledged to every effort for immediate independence. The Federalistas were those who stood by the Taft administration, and talked of compromise in the present, and of independence at some distant day. Our Governor, who was again a candidate to succeed himself, was the Federalista head. The Federalistas accused the Progresistas of being “Aglipianos”—that is, schismatics from the Roman Church—and they hinted that Aglipianoism was more a political movement than it was a religious one.
Each party professed itself sceptical of the good intentions of the other. Each was certain that the other would come to the polls with firearms and bolos. I began to worry about my desks, having promised to loan twenty-five nice new oak ones of the latest American pattern for the use of the concejales in making out their votes.
The officer commanding the constabulary at that time was a huge, black-browed, black-whiskered Irish-man, who, among the American men, went by the name of “Paddy” L——. Both parties ran to Captain L——, clamoring for a military guard at the election. Captain L—— pooh-poohed the notion that any serious trouble could grow out of the election, declined to consider a guard, except the two soldiers to guard the ballot box, who were more for function than for protection, and smilingly added that his trust in the Filipino sense of law and order was so great that he intended to go to the election and see it all himself.
By this time the Governor’s family had removed from the government building, and a suite of apartments at the rear which had served for kitchen, dining-room, store-rooms and servants’ quarters, had been cleaned up, painted, and handed over to the Provincial Intermediate School, of which I was principal. One of our school-rooms was connected by an uncurtained glass door with the great central hall of the building, which was usually given over to the Court of the First Instance, but which was, that day, a sort of anteroom to the voting precinct located in the former sala of the palace. My school-room would, therefore, command a full view of the polls. For several days I lived in dread of hearing that election day would be declared a school holiday, but no order came to that effect, and on election day I went to school with my mind bent on taking notes of all that went on, also wondering a little if in case the non-expected riot came off, I should not have to vacate a little hurriedly.
Pasig Church
Five miles from Manila, opposite Ft. McKinley.
By nine o’clock the court-room was packed with electors and lobbyists, or whatever the interested outsiders may be called. Through the glass doors we could see them in groups, some laughing and chatting in ordinary social converse, others dark and gloomy, others gathered in whispering knots with fingers on lips, much mysterious nodding and shrugging of shoulders, and all the innocent evidences of conspiracy. Beyond, through double doors, the voting precinct was in full view, my twenty-five desks occupied by meditative concejales, sucking the ends of their pencils. There were the judges and the ballot boxes, symbols of progress and modernity, and there, too, as a concession to dignity which fills the Filipino with joy, were two dear little constabulary soldiers with guns about as long as themselves. Their khaki suits were spick and span from the laundry, their red shoulder straps blazed, their gilt braid glittered, and their white gloves were as snowy as pipe clay could make them. Their little brown faces were stolid enough to delight the most ambitious commander. The whole was a sight to cheer the heart of rampant democracy.
In the midst of the throng in the court-room, jovial, lusty, bright of eye, loitered our easy-going chief of constabulary. His was no common girth at any time, but belted with a particularly large-sized and vicious-looking revolver, he seemed to be at least sixty inches around the waist. There was something casual about that revolver, and at the same time something very significant. But nothing could have been more blandly unconscious than the Captain’s manner. He had what is commonly described as “a kind word and a sweet smile for everybody.” There were constabulary reserves a block away, but the Captain’s appearance was an assurance that there would be no need for the reserves. He loafed about, chatting first with one group and then with another. The conspirator looks gave way to laughter and clappings on the back, but when he turned away, more than one eye followed the time-worn holster and its bulky contents.
That election went off as calmly as a county fair—much more calmly, indeed, though there was a reclama afterwards, and a long struggle about it which had to be decided by the Court of First Instance. The quarrel over the election was not related, however, to the Captain’s presence there.
Apparently the Church was interested in the election, for every shovel-hatted padre in the district seemed to have come in for it. They and the provincial dignitaries from towns which had not then risen to the dignity of an American public school, wandered into the school in groups of three and sometimes of twenty. It was their first contact with coeducation, and they were highly amused at the sight of a class of boys and girls working together in the reduction of compound fractions. They were also delighted with the choral music, especially with “The Watch on the Rhine” which the pupils sang with great enthusiasm.
Not very long after that election we began our first work with self-governing societies. The school had been long enough established to have an advanced class capable of speaking English, and our Division Superintendent suggested that I give them a little practical experience in the “machinery of politics.” I assented with outward respect, and then retired to smile, for the “machinery of politics” is the last thing in which the Filipino has need of instruction from us. He is a born politician, and we compare to him in that respect as babes to a philosopher. But I recognized that my pupils did need the experience of a self-governing society, and practice in parliamentary usages, and so we organized our society from the three most advanced classes in the school.
In the beginning I organized the society, acting as temporary chairman. I called for an election by informal ballot of short-term officers to serve until a time of regular elections could be set. Our first ballot polled seventy-three votes, although there were only fifty-five persons in the room. I threw that out and called for a roll call vote. In due time a regular election took place, and officers for three months were elected. As the vote was open, the aristocratic element came off best, as was to be expected. The children of one prominent family, together with some of their friends, held every office. Practically the result was not bad. The officers, four out of five of whom were girls, represented considerable ability. The girls were elected chiefly out of the galanteria of certain of the boy aristocrats, who had very little conception of what a self-governing society means, but who wished to pay their fair innamoratas a compliment.
Our society was a pronounced success. The pupils took to parliamentary practice very much as they would to a new game. Visitors thronged our Friday afternoon meetings. We teachers had to put in six or eight hours every week, drilling the pupils on duty, helping to get up music, and meeting with committees. A teacher was parliamentary “coach,” and sat at the side of Madame President, giving her directions in an undertone. All the teachers were elected honorary members, and one was critic. Peace reigned and Joy flapped her wings.
About this time, however, the gentlemen who were running that province engaged in the real game which we were imitating, and became involved in a quarrel which threatened to strain the relations between Americans and Filipinos to the breaking point. Governor Taft came down in person to look into the affair. There was a banquet and there were speeches. The Filipino Governor prefaced his oratorical flight by the statement that three times only in his life had he trembled. Time has clouded my memory, but I think he said the first of these was when he took his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Spain; the second was when he led his fair partner to the matrimonial altar; and the third was that present occasion when he stood up before that illustrious assembly, seeking words in which to welcome the distinguished guest.
He did not look as if he were suffering from nervousness, and his words flowed with sufficient ease to indicate that he was not having much trouble in the search. Sitting at the far end of the festal board, contemplating my glass of tinto (I am unable to say whether I drank tinto because the champagne ran short or because, being feminine and educational, I was deemed unworthy of the best), I reflected somewhat cynically that if he was telling the strict truth, his childhood must have been singularly barren of the penalties which follow real childish joy, or else his was a remarkable personality.
But that is neither here nor there. The utterance wafted me a gentle amusement at the time. But from that time on, the boys of my literary society began to tremble—always twice anteriorly, and for the third time when they stood up before that intellectual and critical assemblage. Every boy for weeks to come used that worn-out preface for his remarks. The pupils gave no signs either of amusement or scorn. Apparently they received it seriously as an eminently becoming preface of oratory, just as they do the “Dominus vobiscum” of the mass. But one day I spoke of it in one of the classes—intentionally not in the society. When they saw our viewpoint, they shrieked with delight, and from that time on, the budding orators ceased to tremble.
At last we arrived at the point of an open session, and the event was what is described in society papers as one of the social events of the season. We had really a good programme, we transacted quite a little business in accordance with parliamentary usage: we elected the Governor, the Presidente, and several prominent citizens honorary members, and they acknowledged the compliment with appropriate remarks.
About a week after our open session I was about to retire one night, when I heard the sound of music and saw lights approaching. Transparencies were waving about in the warm air. As there was no cholera, and therefore no occasion for a San Roque procession, I hung out of the window, local fashion, to find out what it was all about. It was a newly organized parliamentary society parading. In less than a month three new societies had blossomed among the youths and old men of the town. American teachers were engaged as parliamentarians, although the societies were conducted in Spanish, not English. The societies all died a natural death in a little while; but of course, the school society being compulsory could not die, and so far as I know is still going on. Every public school of the secondary class has its school societies, and they must form the ideals of the new generation.
One of the most irritating features of life in those early days, and one which offered a problem rather difficult for the Government to solve, was the matter of currency. The money in use was silver, with a small paper circulation of Banco Espagnol-Filipino notes. The notes were printed on a kind of pink blotting paper which looked as if it would be easy to counterfeit. The silver was what we called at first “Mex” and later “Dobie.” There were some pieces coined especially for the Philippines, but in general “Mex” was made up of coins of Spain, Mexico, Islas Filipinas, Hong-Kong, Singapore, Canton, and Amoy—only the experts of the Government could tell where it all came from. With the public at large, any coin that looked as if it contained the fair average of silver was accepted. Every month the paymasters of the United States Army and Navy issued thousands of dollars in American silver and paper, but this disappeared in a twinkling, swallowed up by the local agents who were buying gold with which China paid her indemnity. Each incoming steamer brought loads of “Dobie” from the Asiatic coast, but our good dollars and quarters went out of sight like falling stars.
The silver coins consisted of pesos, medio-pesos, pesetas (twenty-cent pieces), media-pesetas (ten-cent pieces), and it seems to me that I have a hazy recollection of a silver five-cent piece, though I cannot be certain. The copper coins were as mongrel as the silver.
There were English, Dutch, Spanish, and Chinese coins from the neighboring coasts, but the greater part of the copper coins consisted of roughly pounded discs with ragged edges, which were made, they said, by the Igorrotes. The coins had no inscriptions, but went with the natives by the name of “dacolds”—the native word for “big,” The Americans renamed the dacolds “claquers,” and used either name at pleasure. It required eighty dacolds to equal one peso, forty to a half-peso, sixteen to a peseta, eight to a media-peseta. Theoretically a peso was a hundred cents, as a peseta was twenty cents, but there was no cent with which to make change. You accepted the dacold at its value of eighty to a peso, or you transacted no business. The Filipinos also had a way of figuring a medio-peso as cuatro reales, thus giving the real a value of twelve and a half cents, though there was no coin called a real. Nevertheless, the real figured in all business transactions.
At the time we landed in Manila “Mex” stood with gold at an even ratio of two pesos “Mex” for one dollar gold. I innocently allowed a bank to transfer a gold balance on a letter of credit to an account in local currency at that ratio. A few weeks later, when I wanted to change back and carry my account in gold, they wrote me courteously but firmly that I would have to buy back that account at the ratio of 2.27, and by the time that the transfer was finally effected, gold had jumped to 2.66. We had been told by a circular from the War Department, at the time our appointments were made, that we should be paid in gold. I drew just one cheque in U.S. currency after reaching the Islands. My second cheque was drawn in local currency at a ratio of 2.27, but, by the time it had reached me at Capiz, gold had gone to 2.46. We had to endure the evils of a fluctuating currency for over two years. On all money sent to the States we lost heavily. So far as our daily expenses were concerned we in the provinces had very little inconvenience to suffer on account of “Mex”; but in Manila all merchants fixed their prices in gold and took occasion to put them up mercilessly. I remember trying to buy some Japanese matting which could have been bought for twenty-five cents a yard in the States, but which was priced at seventy-five cents in Manila. The merchant wanted me to pay him in “Mex” at a ratio of 2.66, or at the rate of two pesos a yard for matting which he bought in Japan at probably less than twenty sen a yard.
The Isabella Gate, Manila
There was a tremendous protest against the fluctuating currency and the extortion which grew out of it, and we were all relieved when we learned that Congress had adopted the so-called “Conant” system of currency for the Islands. Mr. Conant was the expert who investigated conditions for the Government and devised the system.
The Conant system followed the old Spanish values for coins, the new coins being pesos, medio-pesos, pesetas, media-pesetas, nickels, and copper cents. There was also a copped half-cent, but neither Congress nor Mr. Conant read the Filipino aright. In two years we had taught him to sniff at any value less than a cent. The new system is held at a ratio of two to one by the Government’s redeeming it in the Philippine treasury at a ratio of two pesos Conant to one dollar U.S. The importation of “Mex” is no longer permitted, and we rejoice in a stable currency once more.
We provincials followed the newspaper talk about the new system with no small interest. When our treasurer informed us that he had received a consignment of the new currency, and that our next salary cheques would be paid in “Conant,” we were delighted. My cheque, by some accident, got in ahead of those of the other employees, and was the first presented for payment.
The beautifully made, bright new silver coins had an engaging appearance after the tarnished mongrel coins to which we were accustomed. When the Treasurer had counted out all my hard-earned money except ten pesos, he produced two bags of pennies, and announced that I should have to take that sum in small coin in order to get the pennies into circulation. They were of beautiful workmanship, yellow as gold and heavy as lead. I called in the aid of a small boy to help me lug home my three bags of coin.
I had been at home only a few minutes when in came the regular vender of eggs and chickens, who called at my house three times a week. He squatted on the floor and I sat in front of him in a rocking-chair, watching my little maid drop the eggs into water to test their freshness. After we had chaffered the usual time and had come to an agreement, I went into my room and brought out the bags of new coin. I had bought about seventy-five cents worth from him, and I first gave him three of the new silver pesetas, which he admired greatly. There were still fifteen cents due him; and when I reached my hand into the penny bag and hauled out a handful of gleaming copper, the maid said, “Jesus!” under her breath, and the man, “Dios mio!” He received his fifteen centavos with an attempt to conceal his satisfaction. The maid requested permission to look inside the bag, and when she had done so merely grinned up at me with a look that said, “My! You’re rich, aren’t you?”
It was Saturday morning, and I went on busying myself about things at home. Pretty soon there came a deprecatory cough from the stairway—the local method of announcing a visitor. Outside of Manila knocking or ringing does not seem to appeal to the Filipinos. In the provinces the educated classes come to the foot of the stairway and call “Permiso!” and the lower-class people come to the head of the stairway and cough to attact attention. My chicken man had returned. Was it possible that he had heard aright when he had understood the Señora to say that twenty of the new gold pieces went to one peseta? The Señora explained that he had made no mistake. Then, said the old rascal, with bows and smirks, since the lady had so many of them—bags full of them—had he not seen with his own eyes?—would she have the kindness to take back those gleaming new pesetas, which were indeed beautiful, and give him gold in their stead? The lady assured him that the new money was the same metal used in the old “dacold” and that in time it would become as dark and ugly, but his Filipino habit of relying on his own eyes was in full command of him. The man thought that I had got hold of gold without knowing it, and supposed that he was getting the best of me. I changed one peseta into coppers for him, and had difficulty in getting him to leave the house. Ten minutes after he had left, a woman came in to sell me some more chickens. I told her that I had just bought, but she put such a price on chickens as had never before come under my ken. Ten cents was acceptable for a full-grown laying hen, the ordinary value of which was forty or fifty cents. I suspected her of having had some information from the old man, and, in order to find out, I gave her the price of the five chickens, which I agreed to take, in the old “Mex” media-pesetas. Then there was an explosion. She reached for her precious chickens and broke that bargain then and there. Her chickens would sell for ten cents gold, but for no media-peseta. I asked her how she knew I had gold, and she said that did not matter—I had some “diutang-a-dacolds” (little dacolds), and she was willing to sell hens for ten “diutang-a-dacolds” gold, but not for media-pesetas. So I counted her out fifty new coppers and we both rejoiced in our bargain. I told her that the media-peseta was worth ten dacolds, but she wanted the bright new money.
For the next two hours I was persecuted with truck-sellers. Ordinarily the fishermen were unwilling to stop and sell in the streets or in private houses, preferring to do all their business in the market, but that morning, I could have had the pick of half the catch. Finally came a woman who had had a straight tale from the first woman. Woman number two had nothing to sell, but, after a minute, she pulled out a jagged old media-peseta and said that she had heard that I said that a media-peseta was worth ten of the new gold pieces. If I was as good as my word, why not change her media-peseta for gold? I said that I would do it if she would give me the new media-peseta, but that I could not do it for the old. When she wanted to know where she could get a new media-peseta, and I told her the Treasurer would redeem old silver at the government ratio, she went off to get a new media-peseta, but it was plain that she distrusted me. The people flocked to my house all day trying to get me to buy something and to pay them in the new coins.
It was remarkable how easily and quickly one circulating medium disappeared and another took its place. At first there was some trouble about getting the poor people to recognize the copper on a basis of a hundred to a peso. They were willing enough to receive change on that basis, but, in giving it, tried to treat the new centavo as a dacold, eighty to the peso. I had to have one Chinese baker arrested for persistently giving short change to my muchacha, and the Treasurer had a long line of delinquents before him each morning admonishing them that they could not play tricks with Uncle Sam’s legal tender. But on the whole the change went off quickly and without much friction.
This morning I asked my maid, an elderly woman, if she remembered the old money we had four years ago. She struck her forehead with her hand, and thought a long time. Finally her face lit up. She remembered those Iggorote dacolds and a silver five-cent piece—“muy, muy chiquitin” (very, very small). She said that the Tagalogs called the dacolds “Christinas” after the mother of the Queen-mother. But the difference between a stable and a fluctuating medium meant nothing to her, and probably many of her countrymen have almost forgotten that there was ever any other than Conant in the land.