“I thank you for your slavery book just received. If strength is left me to read it, I shall read it though I do nothing else in this life.
“I have had letter in preparation to you since last June but I haven’t strength to sit at the machine. I expect now to die before New Year.
“I have offered surgeons to take all chances, but they decline to operate, stating that they would consider operation deliberate murder.
“This is first letter I write since last September. If I do not get strength to finish typewritten letter I have given instructions it be sent when I am dead. I cannot write with pen; I have tried it.
“If you hear no more, please remember I never forgot you. Sorry you leave the Secretariat—so sorry I can’t tell you.
“I am ready to die. I know that I have lived unselfishly for what I thought was right and good, and death is nothing. If this should be the last, then accept from the man that was always your man and will be your man until he dies, a last Good-by.”
A few days later he went to his reward.
The loyalty of such a man is a precious possession.
The lot of the non-Christian tribes inhabiting the regularly organized provinces is not a happy one. The township government act is applicable to their settlements, and the provincial officers have the same powers and duties with reference to them as have the corresponding officers in the special government provinces. In both cases these powers are exercised subject to the approval of the secretary of the interior, but in providing for the government of non-Christians in Christian provinces, we overlooked one very essential detail. Neither the secretary of the interior nor any one else has authority to compel the governors or provincial boards of these provinces to act. They have discovered that efforts to improve the condition of the ignorant and primitive peoples intrusted to their charge can be very effectively nullified if they merely sit still and do nothing, and almost with one accord they have adopted this policy. Exception should be made in favour of North Ilocos, South Ilocos, Pangasinán, Ambos Camarines, Iloilo and Zambales. No other provinces have made any real effort to help their non-Christian population, and the funds set aside by law to be expended for this end simply go on accumulating in their respective treasuries, as I have managed to convince them that efforts to divert such funds to purposes not authorized by law will not prosper. The law should be so amended as to provide that if provincial boards fail to act, the secretary of the interior may do so.
The organization of the Moro Province was provided for by an act passed on June 1, 1903. It is the largest single province in the Philippine Islands, including within its limits more than half of the great island of Mindanao with various small islands adjacent thereto, and Basilan, Joló, Siassi, Tawi Tawi, Sibutu, Cagayan de Joló and the very numerous other small islands stretching between Mindanao and North Borneo. It is divided into five districts, each with a district governor. The province has a governor, a secretary, a treasurer, an attorney, an engineer and a superintendent of schools.