In connection with the words “the other six islands that really matter,” in the passage above cited on page 116 of his book, he has inserted a foot-note reading as follows:—
“The six main Visayan Islands. Mohammedan Mindanao is always dealt with in this book as a separate and distinct problem.”[32]
But it was hardly possible for him to dismiss this great island, which is a little continent by itself, quite so cavalierly and I will quote the more important of his further and later statements regarding it:—
“While the great Mohammedan island of Mindanao, near Borneo, with its 36,000 square miles of area, requires that the Philippine archipelago be described as stretching over more than one thousand miles from north to south, still, inasmuch as Mindanao only contains about 500,000 people all told, half of them semi-civilized, the governmental problem it presents has no more to do with the main problem of whether, if ever, we are to grant independence to the 7,000,000 Christians of the other islands, than the questions that have to be passed on by our Commissioner of Indian Affairs have to do with the tariff. Mindanao’s 36,000 square miles constitute nearly a third of the total area of the Philippine archipelago, and more than that fraction of the 97,500 square miles of territory to a consideration of which our attention is reduced by the process of elimination above indicated. Turning over Mindanao to those crudely Mohammedan semi-civilized Moros would indeed be ‘like granting self-government to an Apache reservation under some local chief,’ as Mr. Roosevelt, in the campaign of 1900, ignorantly declared it would be to grant self-government to Luzón under Aguinaldo. Furthermore, the Moros, so far as they can think, would prefer to owe allegiance to, and be entitled to recognition as subjects of, some great nation. Again, because the Filipinos have no moral right to control the Moros, and could not if they would, the latter being fierce fighters and bitterly opposed to the thought of possible ultimate domination by the Filipinos, the most uncompromising advocate of the consent of the governed principles has not a leg to stand on with regard to Mohammedan Mindanao. Hence I affirm that as to it, we have a distinct separate problem, which cannot be solved in the lifetime of anybody now living. But it is a problem which need not in the least delay the advent of independence for the other fourteen fifteenths of the inhabitants of the archipelago—all Christians living on islands north of Mindanao. It is true that there are some Christian Filipinos on Mindanao, but in policing the Moros, our government would of course protect them from the Moros. If they did not like our government, they could move to such parts of the islands as we might permit to be incorporated in an ultimate Philippine republic. Inasmuch as the 300,000 or so Moros of the Mohammedan island of Mindanao and the adjacent islets called Jolo (the ‘Sulu archipelago,’ so called, ‘reigned over’ by the sultan of comic opera fame) originally presented, as they will always present, a distinct and separate problem, and never did have anything more to do with the Philippine insurrection against us than their cousins and co-religionists over in near-by Borneo, the task which confronted Mr. Root in the fall of 1899, to wit, the suppression of the Philippine insurrection, meant practically the subjugation of one big island, Luzón, containing half the population and one third of the total area of the archipelago, and six neighbouring small ones, the Visayan Islands.”[33]
Now as a matter of fact Mindanao is by no means Mohammedan. The Mohammedan Malays, called Moros, are found here and there along the western coast of the Zamboanga peninsula and along the southern coast of the island as far as Davao. They also extend far up the Cotabato River and occupy the Lake Lanao region, but that is all. The interior of the island is for the most part occupied by the members of a number of non-Christian, non-Mohammedan tribes, while its northern and eastern coasts are inhabited by Visayan Filipinos, of whom there are many in Zamboanga itself.
While, as Blount says, the Moros took no part in the insurrection against the United States, the Visayans of Mindanao did, and we had some lively tussles with them in Misamis and in Surigao.
It is indeed unthinkable that we should turn Mindanao over to the Moros. Abandonment of it by us would in the end result in this, as they would take possession of the entire island in the course of time. Neither the other wild tribes nor the Filipinos could stand against them. I heartily agree with the conclusion that we must retain this island for many years before we can settle the problems which it presents. It is further true that we might retain it and still grant independence to the remainder of the Philippine Archipelago, but if we are to eliminate Mindanao from consideration because the Filipinos have no right to control the Moros, of whom there are in reality only about a hundred and fifty-four thousand[34] on the island, and could not if they would, what about Luzón, where there are in reality no less than four hundred and sixty thousand non-Christians,[35] many of whom, like the Ifugaos, Bontoc Igorots, Kalingas and wild Tingians, are fierce fighters and practically all of whom are bitterly opposed to the thought of possible ultimate domination by Filipinos, while most of them welcome American rule?
Have the Filipinos any more moral right to control them than they have to control the Moros? Could they control them if they would? And has the most uncompromising advocate of the consent of the governed principle “a leg to stand on” in the one case if he lacks it in the other?
The Filipino politicians are not ready to admit that Filipinos could not satisfactorily govern Moros and have even alleged that they did so govern them during the period now under discussion. Let us examine the facts.
Aguinaldo attempted to enter into negotiations with the Sultan of Joló, addressing him as his “great and powerful brother,”[36] but this brother does not seem to have received his advances with enthusiasm, and the other brothers proceeded to do things to the Filipinos at the first opportunity.