Governor Frederick Johnson of Agusan.
He is holding up the butt of a huge hemp stalk. Governor Johnson continued at his post for a year while a cancer was destroying the bones of his leg, without letting any one know of his trouble. His heroism cost him his life.
Without hesitation I assert that, apart from false and foolish pride which makes the persons concerned unwilling to admit the fact of the existence of slavery, their chief reason for objecting to this law is that it would not only prohibit and penalize slavery, but would prohibit and penalize peonage, which is so common and widespread that it may properly be called general. Indeed, I have no hesitation in asserting that it prevails in every municipality in the Philippine Islands.
Slavery is a serious matter, but peonage is far more serious because of the very much larger number of persons involved. It lies at the root of the industrial system of the Philippines.
Much has been said relative to the probable attitude of large American landowners toward Filipino labourers. Thus far their attitude, and that of all other classes of Americans, has been infinitely better than has that of the wealthy Filipinos themselves. The truth is that peonage is repugnant to the average American. One of the complaints persistently made against us by the Filipinos is that we have raised the daily wage throughout the islands, and this is true. When I was there in the Spanish days, it was possible, in many regions, to obtain abundant labour at five cents per day with food, and ten cents with food was the general rule. Now the same class of labour costs at least twenty-five cents per day with food, and in some provinces it costs fifty cents or more. It must be frankly admitted that Americans are responsible for this sad condition of affairs! American landowners who desire to pay their employees regularly a living daily wage encounter difficulty in doing so, for the reason that the labourers have become accustomed to the old system, the evils of which they know, and are afraid of a new one, fearing that it may involve worse evils of which they know nothing.
Incidentally, Americans have learned that their labourers are worth more if well fed, and this is another grievance held against us in certain quarters.
With many of the Filipinos it is a different story.
The rich and powerful man, commonly known as a cacique, encourages the poor man to borrow money from him under such conditions that the debt can never be repaid, and holds the debtor, and frequently the members of his family as well, in debt servitude for life. One might fill a score of volumes with records of cases and I can here do no more than to select a few typical illustrations of the workings of this vicious system.
The Filipinos are born gamblers. Gambling is their besetting sin. The poor are usually glad to get the opportunity to borrow money, and will do this on almost any terms, if necessary, in order to continue to indulge in their pet vice. They are thoughtless about their ability to repay loans, and thus readily fall into the power of the cacique money-lenders, who thereafter use them as house servants or labourers, under conditions such as to render their escape from debt-servitude practically impossible.
Indeed, if they seek to escape, the caciques often threaten them with the law, or actually invoke it against them, while if they endeavour to homestead public land and thus better their condition, the caciques only too often cause opposition to be made to their claims and keep it up until they become discouraged.