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.