AUGUSTUS OCTAVIUS BACON

CHARACTER AND CAPACITY OF THE FILIPINOS

[Augustus Octavius Bacon, United States Senator from Georgia, was born in Bryan County, Ga., October 20, 1839. He graduated in arts at the University of Georgia in 1859, and in law at the same institution a year later. During the war of secession he joined the Confederate forces, and served as regimental adjutant and staff-captain. Senator Bacon has practised law at Macon since 1866. He was presidential elector in 1868, entered the Georgia House of Representatives in 1870, served for ten years, and was reelected 1892 and 1893. He was twice chosen Speaker of this House. He entered the National Senate in 1895. Mr. Bacon is a Democrat of the old style, and as an orator is clear and convincing. The following speech regarding the characteristics of the inhabitants of our new Western possessions was made in the United States Senate in 1901.]

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R. PRESIDENT: There has been a good deal said in this debate about the character of the Filipino people, and a good many things have been said which I think are contrary to the facts and unauthorized. I desire to put into the "Record," in order that they may appear in this debate, some estimates which have been made of this people by those who have had the best opportunity to judge of their capacity.

My purpose now is not to make anything like a speech, but simply to call attention to and to have put in the "Record" the testimonials which have been given by others as to the capacity of this people. The first person whose testimony I will give is that of Admiral Dewey.

On the twenty-seventh of June, 1898, in response to a telegram sent to him by the secretary of the navy, Admiral Dewey sent this reply, which will be found in the report of the secretary of the navy for 1898, volume 2, page 103:—

In my opinion these people are far superior in their intelligence and more capable of self-government than the natives of Cuba, and I am familiar with both races. DEWEY.

The Schurman Commission made a very elaborate examination into the question of the capacity of the Filipino people and their character, and the testimony takes up almost the entire second volume of the report of the Schurman Commission, where it set out the testimony of a great many witnesses, men of standing and capacity, and who have had opportunity to judge. The testimony is abundant in that volume as to the belief that these people are of sufficient intelligence and character to participate through representative bodies in the control of their own government.

Mr. President, in connection with what I read from Admiral Dewey, making comparison between the capacity and the intelligence of the Filipinos and the Cubans and awarding superiority to the Filipinos, I desire to say that I have asked a great many army officers, who have served both in Cuba and in the Philippines, what their estimate was, and without a single exception every army officer has given me the same opinion that Admiral Dewey expressed, that the Filipinos are superior in point of capacity and intelligence to the Cubans. Of course he is speaking of the average of the two peoples.

I want to say, Mr. President, if I may be pardoned for speaking of anything included in my personal experience in the Philippines, that my observation of that people satisfied me that they were a very far superior people to what I supposed they were before I went there. They are in some respects far superior to any other Asiatic people I have ever seen. They certainly have a very much higher regard for the outward observance of the decencies and modesties of life, as we understand them and as we observe them, immeasurably more so, than any other Asiatic race which it has ever been my fortune to see. What is the cause of that I do not know, unless it is the ameliorating influences of Christianity upon them; for it is a fact, Mr. President, that they are, speaking of them generally, a Christian people and a people of great devotion to their religion.

Something has been said here about the Filipinos having organized the only republic ever organized in Asia, and there has been controversy as to whether or not they did in fact organize a true republic. I do not propose to go into that question, but there is one thing that I think is absolutely true, and that is that they are the only Christian people in the whole of Asia, either on the mainland or on the islands of that continent. If there is any other Christian people in the whole of Asia, except the Filipinos, I do not know them. In that vast continent, embracing nearly one half of the entire human race, among them all there is no Christian people except the Filipinos. Of course I do not include in that statement the Russians who have gone to Siberia, because they are not an Asiatic people, but a European people.

Mr. Beveridge-Among those Christian people of whom the senator speaks, does he include the Moros?

Mr. Bacon-No.

Mr. Beveridge-Does the senator include the Igor

rotes?

Mr. Bacon-With the permission of the senator, I will state exactly what I do include. I include the Visayans, who constitute some 2,600,000 people; I include the Tagalogs and others of the islands of Luzon and the neighboring islands, making in all, according to the report of the Schurman Commission, some 6,500,000 people. Those are the number whom I include.

Out of an estimated population of between 8,000,000 and 10,000,000 people, 6,500,000 of them are devoted Christians. There are more than twice as many Christians in the Philippines than there were people of every class in the thirteen colonies when they wrested their independence from England and founded this mighty nation. They do not belong to the denominations which are most popular -when I say "popular" I mean most numerous-in the United States, but they are none the less most devoted Christians, and the number of them is stated by the Schurman Commission to be 6,500,000. In everything except language they are one people-in religion, in blood, in dress; in habits, in domestic and social customs and observances, and in a strong feeling of common nationality.

Whatever was formerly lacking in this last regard, they have now been welded together in the white heat of four years' war.

But, Mr. President, in speaking thus of the Filipinos, I do not say this with any disposition of criticism or controversy, but simply in connection with the contention which I am endeavoring to make as to the propriety of our conferring upon those people liberal free institutions. The fact that they are a Christian people, a people devoted in their observances of the requirements of the Christian religion, a people whose Christianity has developed into the observances of the outward decencies and modesties of life, a people whose Christianity has developed into the virtues. of home and society which characterize Europeans and Americans who are also Christians-all these things, I say, Mr. President, should appeal to us most strongly in dealing with this people, and influence us to confer upon them the freest institutions which it is possible for us to conceive them capable of appreciating and enjoying.

It does seem to me the very irony of fate-one that cannot fail to sadden any man who goes there and looks upon that people—the very irony of fate that the people who alone in all Asia share with us our religion, and worship with us at the same altar; the people who alone in all Asia have, through the influence of our religion, grown into the love of the social and domestic virtues, which are our richest inheritance; the people who have come nearest to us in our civilization, so far as personal characteristics and observances go; the people among whom this is seen even in the matter of their dress, which closely approaches that of Europeans and Americans, the only people who in all Asia even approximate the outward dress of civilized nationsI say it seems to me to be the very irony of fate that we, the great Christian republic of all the world, should have been brought into a situation-not criticising it now, but speaking of it simply as an unfortunate fact-that we should have been brought into a situation where there should have been between us this bloodshed, this terrible war, with its death and desolation and devastation. Mr. President, they are too far away, they belong to a different race, they can never be with us and a part of us, but every good senti

ment appeals for their right to be a people, a nation free from yoke or thraldom.

Mr. President, I have felt that it was proper I should say this much for this people. I am not speaking now, as I say, in a controversial spirit or in a spirit of criticism for the purpose of attacking anything that has been done or anybody by whom it has been done. It is a very difficult thing in the heat of war and in the presence of the narration of outrages committed by some of that people upon our own soldiers, of barbarities and atrocities that nobody can possibly defend and everybody must condemn, and which I know the good people of that country condemn, it is extremely difficult for us to recognize the humanities of the situation; and it is with the hope that some one word I say may reach the American people in the presentation to them of the fact that-in spite of the horrors of war, in spite of all the prejudices which grow out of this conflict of life and death between man and man, and between people and people, in spite of all that-they are a people who should peculiarly commend themselves to us; that they are the only people in the whole of Asia that have the same religion that we have; that they are the only people in Asia that have the same outward regard for the decencies of life and modesties that we have and as we understand, and that they are the only people who have and prize the same social and domestic virtues that we have.

Not only so, but they should appeal to us most strongly to recognize the fact that a people of such religion, a people of such social and domestic virtues, a people with a love of country, which I believe is as strong in them as in any people in all the world, if they desire their liberty, if they desire an independent nationality, these are facts that should appeal to us most strongly, and we should not turn to them a deaf ear either through greed for wealth, the pride of conquest, or the lust of dominion.

There is one thing which appealed to me most pathetically in my intercourse with a great many people there. I take occasion to say that I had no intercourse with any except those who had recognized the sovereignty of the United States and were professedly loyal to it, who were not insurrectos-certainly not actively engaged in insurrec