Lieutenant Gilmore’s[3] Filipino captors took him and his companions across a corner of Apayao, and instead of murdering them in the forest, as they had been ordered to do, turned them loose. They made their way across a portion of the territory traversed by us, and had reached the Abulúg River and were attempting to build rafts when overtaken by a rescue party of American soldiers. All hands then descended the river to the town of Abulúg, and proceeded overland to Aparri.
Colonel Hood, who was commanding the United States forces there, declined to let them enter the town until they had been provided with decent clothing, thinking that the sight of American soldiers clad in clouts might be too much of a shock to the inhabitants!
In 1907 I was able to land at various points along the then absolutely unknown Pacific coast of northeastern Luzón, but failed to get into touch with the Negritos, who constitute its sole inhabitants, until near Palanan, the northernmost settlement of Filipinos on the east coast.
With this trip my exploration work in northern Luzón ended, although I have ever since made extended annual trips through the non-Christian territory of the island.
During the years covered by this hasty narrative, I also made trips to the territory of the wild men in Mindoro, Palawan, and Mindanao, as opportunity offered. In Spanish days I had lived among the Moros and had visited the mountains of Negros and Panay and seen something of the wild men living there, so that I finally gained a fairly comprehensive knowledge of the non-Christian tribes of the Philippines, having seen representatives of nearly all of them,[4] and lived for longer or shorter periods among all except some of the more unimportant peoples in the interior of Mindanao.
As a result of these personal investigations I was able to reduce to twenty-seven the eighty-two non-Christian tribes said by Blumentritt to inhabit the Philippines; to determine with reasonable accuracy the territory occupied by each, and not only to become familiar with the manners and customs of the people of each important tribe, but to establish relations of personal friendship with many chiefs and headmen which have proved invaluable to me in my subsequent work for the betterment of the non-Christian peoples which has so irritated certain Filipino politicians who have wished to continue to oppress and exploit them, or, like Judge Blount, have sought to minimize their importance.
The latter individual seems to regard my past efforts to portray actual conditions among the wild men as a personal grievance, and has devoted an entire chapter to the shortcomings of “Non-Christian Worcester.” In it he says of me that I impressed him as “an overbearing bully of the beggar-on-horseback type”; that I am “the P. T. Barnum of the ‘non-Christian tribe’ industry”; that “in the early nineties he [Non-Christian Worcester] had made a trip to the Philippines, confining himself then mostly to creeping things and quadrupeds—lizards, alligators, pythons, unusual wild beasts, and other forms of animal life of the kind much coveted as specimens by museums and universities,” and goes on to tell how it was that “the reptile-finder ultimately became a statesman.” The Honourable Judge summarizes his views concerning me by stating that he “considers Professor Worcester the direst calamity that has befallen the Filipinos since the American occupation, neither war, pestilence, famine, reconcentration nor tariff-wrought poverty excepted.” He describes the experience on which he bases these statements as follows: “During all my stay in the Philippines I never did have any official relations of any sort with the Professor, and only met him, casually, once, in 1901.”
This latter statement is correct to the best of my recollection. “A man is known by the company he keeps.” I feel that I have been fortunate in my friends and singularly blessed in my enemies! If I do not in turn attack the Philippine career of Judge Blount, it is not for lack of abundant ammunition, but for the reason that I believe that the American public will be more interested in the truth or falsity of the allegations concerning more important matters which we respectively make than in our opinions of each other.
The Judge seems to have overlooked the fact that invective is not argument. I leave to him the use of needlessly abusive and insulting language. He has also apparently overlooked the further fact that disregard of the truth is apt, sooner or later, to bring its own peculiar reward. Later I call attention to certain of his misstatements concerning the wild peoples of the Philippines, and correct them.