Builders of a nation; a series of biographical sketches

BUILDERS OF A NATION

LA OBRA NACIONAL FILIPINA
Y SUS HOMBRES

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Cornell University Library
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Builders of a nation:a series of„biqgrap

3 1924 023 221 835

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Manila, P.I.

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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023221835

Builders of a Nation

A Scries of Biographical Sketches

By
M. M, NORTON

HISTORICAL SKETCH

OF PHILIPPINES

Mariano Ponce

LITERARY RESUME OF

TAGALOG PROSE AND POETRY
De ios Santos y Cristobal

LECTURE ON THE

PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY
Gregorio Nieva

SHORT PAPER ON

PHILIPPINE UNIVERSITY
Austin Craig

SHORT PAPER ON

TABACALERA COLLECTION
Dr. Robinson

MANILA
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

E.V.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Gloria Victis, (a drama) America

Verses from the Orient, (poems) ----- Manila

Kingdom of the Sea, (poems) ----- Manila

Songs of the Pacific, (poems) ----- Manila

Songs of Heroes and Days, (poems) - - - Tokyo

Outposts of Asia, (prose) ------- Manila

Charity in the Philippines, (prose) - - - - Manila

Quills and Seals, (prose) ------- Manila

Studies in Philippine Architecture, (prose) - - Manila

QTo tl|i? limttg Htttrit at Mm ^tzal.

Wifaae Ufr anil it»atl;, t^aatagra to
tgnarancr and tgranng, brougiiit into
txiststut ttft 3Filtput0 Jfatiatt, t^ia bonk
ta uStctiarmleig iuhUaisii bg

©Iff A«tlf0r

AUTHOR'S NOTE

These articles were prepared, most of them, for the
daily press and appeared in the Cdblenews- American
throughout the year 1913. The stirring events of this
year, when the Filipinos have realized more deeply their
National destiny and have risen to assume new responsi-
bilities, seem to give a reason for the publication in book
form of these biographies of some of the leading figures in
the Philippines who have been and are shaping its history.

Manila, February, 1914.

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

Written for the Merchants' Association Banquet given for Visiting
Congressmen, Hotel Metropole.

Castle and lion! Castile! Strength of an ancient domain I

Bars of red; Field of blue! Young blood, far purpose,,

Eagles flight, presaging a grander refrain!

Past years, freedom and manhood mingled in strife

For the good and the new,

Proud isles, cities of seas, horizons vast as the bluet

Our escutcheon is strength and our faith is true!

-QL

Rizal

Mabini

Aguinaldo

Apacible

Llorente

Ponce

Del Pilar

Dsmeiia

Palma

Arellano

Mapa

Del Pan

Tavera

Kalaw

Villamor

Torres

Singson

Earnshaw

ARTS AND LETTERS

De los Santos Cristobal

De Veyra Luna

Guerrero Hidalgo

Apostol De la Rosa Enriquez

Zaragoza Francisco

INDEX

PAGE

Introduction ----....-.. 13-15

Historical sketch 17-52

Mariano Ponce.

Literary notes 53-72

Epifanio de los Santos Cristobal.

Notes on the Philippine Assembly 73-88

^ Gregorio Nieva.

Sketch of Philippine University - 89-92

Austin Craig.

Pardo de Tavera 93-102

Mariano Ponce 103-108

Doctor Apacible -- - 109-113

Judge Llorente ---- _ 114-117

Rafael del Pan 118-123

Rafael Palma - 124-130

Supreme Court 131-137

Sergio Osmena - .-----___ 138-152

J. De Veyra 153-158

Teodoro Kalaw 159-167

V. Singson Encarnaci6n - - 168-176

Ignacio Villamor --- - 177-185

Macario Adriatico 186-190

Monico Mercado 191-196

Epifanio de los Santos y Cristobal - - - - 197-204

F. Guerrero 205-211

The Earnshaw Brothers 212-219

GilMontilla 220-222

Philippine Library - - 223-234

Fine Arts School of Philippine University - 235-240

11

INTRODUCTION

The prenatal life of the Filipino Nation has its
roots in the earliest history, when the proud and
independent sea people roamed free afar the Pacific
and over their lofty mountains, then after hundreds
of years of foreign occupation, the Malay soul awoke
anew from dreams never quenched to a desire for life,
the life of an Independent Nation.

Rizal came, "in the fulness of time," as the liber-
ator. A witness of the highhanded methods of un-
scrupulous men, his poet soul was wrung even in early
youth and was already dedicated to the liberation of his
land.

All he was, was patriotism, all he thought was
patriotic.

Like Toussaint L'Ouverture, Uke Kossuth, like
Patrick Henry he burned with a quenchless fire of
devotion to country which has inspired many and con-
sumed the chosen few, those great enough to crush
down all personal desire, in service for their country's
freedom, great enough to die as they have lived for
the same end.

Rizal's death is one of the sublimest of all the
overmastering dramas of history; none in profane
history for its simpUcity, sublimity and depth can
excel it.

This death is one of the triumphs of history.
It meant the lifting of a race to the rank of those who
command the respect, sympathy and love of their
fellow men.

Many Filipinos, before that memorable hour,
but dimly understood the word "country," one, a mere
youth — ^and he was but one of many coming home from
the execution — ^wrote verses passionate with the first
birth of this dominating love.

13

14 BUILDERS OP A NATION

"But when the hour pleaded and died for has struck in
eternal spaces,

And at the cry of "Liberty" an arm of vengeance chal-
lengeth,

Up from thy burning soil "Liberty" the people are
calling,

Crying with muffled uproar, like the sound of the sea
in torment.

Before it rises in tempest.

The echo resounding, speaketh of redress and of battle,

From the limits of earth with terrible clamor,

Rusheth to the contest an armed host, athirst for blood-
shed,

Anxious for thy glory and fame and tightening about
the foe,

We see a routed Spain. *******

Who listens hears the cries of terrible unyielding combat,

Not a son who trembles, or turns in his fierce indig-
nation,

And at each onslaught his valor grows with the day.

For thy love is his inspiration, in the midst of the strug-
gle.

He presses on and his fury o'erleaps as a volcanic torrent!

And the voice of triumph sounds from thy land's far
limit.

She, Aurora, awakens at the sound of the musical
trumpet,

And the far vibrations of cannon in the distance tell

Thy coming redemption!

O, Manila, embedded in flowers, jewel adorning our
ocean.

Lift high thy glistening forehead, by sorrow bent and
darkened,

Dress thee in garments of splendor.

Come sit thee here, fair Sultana,

Here on thy shores free from sorrow, thy pain and
submission are over.

The heavens are rosy with Dawn,

The Dawn of to-morrow.

14

INTRODUCTION

Dream in peace, blest and bowed one, in our breast

confide
Thy affiction, from afar thy desire is coming.
Thy sacred hope awakens, thy to-day will be soon to-
morrow,
For we see a star, a star ascending, the star of freedom,
And its light forever white and burning shall shine upon

us.
Living or dying."

Fortunately the light, not the darkness of that
epoch, for Rizal was a soul of light, filled the land,
and forgiveness for the Past overflowed and they arose
and stretched out their arms in hope, the hope bom
even on that splendid dawn of the 30th of December.

The coming of the Americans brought the modern
world to their doors, and the public schools, the right
of voting and the beginning of a legislative life of their
own have led them onward and upward to this hour.

15

SOBRE FILIPINAS

MARIANO PONCE

La aparici6n de un nuevo libro sobre nuestro pais
ha sido siempre mirada por nosotros con vivo interns;
este interns adquiere mayor calor cuando, como en el
caso presente, el autor de la obra nueva es una extran-
gera ya conocida en nuestra reptiblica literaria, como
uno de los que nos estudian con amor y justicia y nos
juzgan al trav6s de un temperamento de bondad e im-
parcialidad: caso este de qu6 encontramos muy pocos
ejemplos.

Miss M. M.' Norton, Ueva publicados ya varios
voMmenes, unos en, prosa y otros en verso, sobre Fili-
pinas. Alma generosa y bondadosa, ha tratado siempre
nuestras cosas con carino y afecto, dentro de un criterio
justo y razonable. Por eso leemos siempre con placer
tanto sus versos como sus prosas.

En el presente libro trata esta eximia escritora de
presentar a los pueblos que hablan el ingles un grupo
de nuestras personalidades representativas, que ban con-
trijjuido y contribnyen, de uno y de otro modo, al desa-
rroUo de las ideas democrdticas y de progreso en nuestro
pafs.

Es muy satisfactorio decir que esas ideas no han
nacido hoy en la mente de los filipinos. Se arrancan
desde muy atrd.s y han ido desenvolviendo paulatina-
mente durante varias generaciones, hasta llegar al es-
tado de completo desarroUo como son al presente.

De nada nos hubi^ran servido las modernas ense-
nanzas democrdticas si no hubi6sen encontrado un te-
rreno preparado por el trabajo de las generaciones pre-
cedentes. Esa preparacion no se improvisa, y la semilla
se hubi6ra malogrado a no haber encontrado abierto el
surco.

Podriamos seguir, por ejemplo, la trayectoria que Mn
tomado esas ideas, desde los primeros anos de la centuria
decimo-nona, por no ir mas atrds, hasta nuestros dlas.

17

18 BUILDERS OF A NATION

En efecto; cuando a principios del siglo mencionado,
Napoleon Bonaparte invadi6 Espana, los espanoles opu-
si6ron resistencia formidable y decidida, haci6ndo re-
troceder al coloso en su carrera de triunfos por Europa.
Espana, nuestra antigua metr6poli, se propuso enton-
ces verter la dltima gota de su sangre para defender su
independencia y libertad. Filipinas se ha sentido con-
movida ante esta actitud noble y her6ica, y se resolvio
unirse a su nietr6poli para participar de su suerte.

- Fu6 en esta 6poca cuando apareei6 un folleto titu-
lado "Proclama historlal que para animar a los vasallos
que el Senor Don Fernando VII tiene en Filipinas a
que defiendan a su Rey del furor de su falso amigo,
Napole6n, primer emperador de franceses, escriue, de-

dica 6 imprime a su costa Luis Rodriguez Varela

Sampaloc, 1809."

EI filipino Rodriguez Valera, por el hecho de enu-
merar los privilegios que las leyes concedlan a los nati-
vos y por ser filipino, fu6 tachado de laborante y fili-
bustero encubierto, a pesar de mostrar ardiente entu-
siasmo por Espana en aquellas crlticas circunstancias.
Valera 6ra autor, ademds, del "Elogio a las provincias
de los reinos de la Espana europea," "Elogio a las mu-
jeres de Espana" y "Parnaso Filipino." Pasando el
hervor de las pasi6nes engrandadas por la lucha, pode-
mos hoy juzgar los sucesos a la luz de la razon frla, y
no encontrdmos motives para dudar de la sinceridad
de Rodriguez Valera al excitar a los filipinos a que se
uni6sen con Espana en aquellos momentos dificiles.

Era verdad qu6 el huracan del separatismo que
empezaba a desfogar sobre la America latina no dejaba
de enviar sobre nuestro ambiente alguna rd.faga, algun
soplo; pero ello no ha sido bastante a hacer encarnar
en las inteligencias, de un modo difinitivo y claro el
ideal de la independencia, cuyo desarroUo y madur^z
exigfan tiempo atin.

Se puede, pu^s, afirmar que de los entusiasmos
espanolistas de Rodriguez Valera participdba el pafs.

SOBRE FILIPINAS 19

No han dejado de apreciarlo as£ los nuevos poderes
metroppliticos, y en consecuencia, el Supremo Consejo
de Regencia de Espana i Indias, en nombre del rey
Fernando VII, por decreto de 14 de Febrero 1810, "con-
siderando — dice — la grave y urgente necesidad de que
a las Cortes extraordinarias que han de celebrarse in-
mediatamente que los sucesos militares lo permitan,
concurran diputados de los dominios espanoles de Ame-
rica y Asia, los cuales representen dignamente la vo-
luntad de sus naturales en aquel congreso, del que han
de defender la restauraci6n y felicidad de toda la mo-
narqufa", orden6 la concurrencia de los representantes
de Filipinas, en uni6n de los de las colonias de America
latina en las Cortes mencionadas.

El mismo rey Fernando, en alocuci6n impresa hd-
cia 1819 y dirigida "a los habitantes de Ultramar",
invitaba a sus stibditos del otro lado de los mares a que
nombren sus representantes en C6rtes, para, "reunidos
los padres de la patria, salvar al Estado, fijando para
siempre los destinos de dmbos mundos."

Han tenido lugar en aquella ^poca varias eleccio-
nes para diputados a C6rtes y diputados provinciales,
precedidas de las indispensables campanas y luchas
en que chocaban las ideas y las opini6nes, brotando
chispas y luces en no pocos casos, 6 iniciando a los fili-
pinos la vida polltica. Merece leerse el discurso que el li-
cenciado Jos6 de Vergara, diputado electo por Manila para
las Cortes ordinarias pronunci6 el 19 de Sept. de 1813.

El 17 de Abril del mismo ano de 1813 qued6 pro-
clamada en Manila la Constituci6n de la monarquia
espanola que se promulg6 en Cddiz en el ano anterior
de 1812, y iu6 acogida con delirante entusiasmo por
los filipinos, por Ip mismo que les concedfa muchos de-
rechos de que jamd,s habfan disfrutado. Los filipinos,
gracias a esta circunstancia, se inicidron a la vida cons-
titucional.

A fin de preparar al pals a este nuevo estado de
derecho y para que resulten mds eficaces para nuestro
progreso los beneficios que trae consigo el regimen cons-

20 BUILDEBS OF A NATION

titucional, unos cuantos filipinos dotados de esplritu
ptiblico decidieron organizar agrupaciones que instru-
y6ran al pueblo y lo pusi^ran a la altura de las cir-
cunstancias.

No dran estas agrupaciones verdaderos partidos
poHticos, como los que hoy tenemos, pero si grupos
de ciudadanos propagandistas. Entre estos pod^mos
citar a Luis Rodriguez Valera, autor del "Proclama his-
torial", antes mencionado y. del "Parnaso Filipino"
Regino Mi j ares, el capitan Bayot, el abogado Mendoza,
el factor de la Compafila de Filipinas Jos6 Ortega; Jos6
Maria Jugo que era un eminente jusrisconsulto y agente
fiscal de lo^civil en la Audiencia de Manila; el acauda-
lado comerciante de Manila Domingo Roxas y otros
mucbos.

Por lo mismo que estos filipinos sostenlan ideas
avanzadas, eran mal mirados por los elementos con-
servadores y retrdgados que querian mantener al pais
en un estadp de perpetua infancia.

La lucha qued6 entablada entre dmbos elementos.
Los filipinos tenian que pasar por mil vicisitudes, apurar
muchas amarguras, y sufrir muchos dolores, durante
largo espacio de anos, hasta ver triunfantes sus aspira-
ciones. Tenfan que luchar contra las preocupaciones y
los prejuicios; contra la tradici6n, los inter^ses egoistas
secularmente establecidos de ciertas entidades 6 insti-
tuciones; contra la ignorancia y el fanatismo de su pro-
pio pueblo. Tenian que ir sucedi^ndo las generaciones
para ir continuando la lucha, eslabondndola hasta con-
ducirla a la victoria.

Largo y escabroso 6ra el camino, y los enemigos
se encargdban de sembrarlo de mayores dificultades
cada vez.

Pero los filipinos se di^ron cuenta desde un prin-
cipio de que su causa entrana la vida 6 la muerte para
el pais, y decidieron defenderla a toda costa, conven-
cidos de su justicia, porqu6 6ra la causa del progreso
y de la civilizaci6n.

Las carceles, las deportaci6nes, las persecusiones
inicuas, los mismos abusos del poder, solo ser-vlan para

SOBRE FILIPINAS 21

afirmar mds y mds en el coraz6n de los filipinos la tena-
cidad del empeno.

Para apreciar el efecto que producla en la opini6n
la campana de los patriotas que hemos mencionado,
basta el citar el siguiente hecho:

Cuando el gobernador general Juan Antonio Mar-
tinez vino al pais para tomar posesi6n de su cargo el
30 de Octubre de 1822, habfa traido consigo un buen
mimero de oficiales peninsulares, para sustituir con ellos
a los muchos oficiales filipinos que Servian ent6nces en
los regimientos de Filipinas.

A Martinez le hici&on creer, cuando se embarcaba
para Manila, que los oficiales natives 6ran desleales 6
indignos de confianza, indicdndosele la necesidad de
que fu^sen sustituidos por peninsulares, y a esto obe-
decla la venida de los mismos.

Como 6ra de suponer, los oficiales filipinos no Iban
a ver esto con buenos ojos. Se les inferfa la ofensa de
dudar de su lealtad y se les posterg£ba en sus ascensos.

Hubo reuni6nes, cambios de impresiones para ver
como Iban a defender los inter^ses de la class a que
perteneclan, pu6s se sehtian ya con personalidad polltica.

Las suspicacias y los recelos hici^ron ver en esto
a las autoridades alguna tenebrosa conspiraci6n contra
la integridad nacional, y bastdron las meras sospechas
para que fu^sen deportados a Espana bajo partida de
registro el 18 de Febrero de 1823 a una infinidad de ciu-
dadanos filipinos, entre los que figurdban Domingo
Roxas, Jos6 M. Jugo, Rodriguez Varela, el abogado
Mendoza, Regino Mijares, Jose Ortega, el capt. Bayot,
Figueroa, F. Rodriguez, el sargento mayor Dieste y los
capitanes Cidr6n y Gomez.

N6tese que los disgustos se circunscribfan dentro
de los circulos militares, y sin embargo, muchos de los
deportados por aquellos sucesos no tenfan nada que ver
con la milicia. Era que se empled.ba ya ent6nces el
procedimiento de eliminar a los no deseables aprove-
clid,ndose de cualquier acontecimiento, no importando
nada que estos hayan tornado o no parte en 61.

22 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Y se estremaron tanto las medidas de rigor contra
determinados elementos, comO 6ra el caso de capitan
Andres Novales, que, acosado, compelido, se decidi6 por
fin a levantar bandera de rebeli6n.

No hemos Uegado a ver claro si Novales toc6 el
resorte del separatismo al ponerse frente a aquel mo-
vimiento sedicioso; lo que parece indubitable es que solo
se consigui6 sofocarlo mediante gran esfuerzo; pu6s,
Novales consiguid ganar a su causa a unos 800 soldados.
que se posesiondron del cuartel del Rey, del Palaeio Real
y del Cabildo, teni^ndo presos a muchos jefes, oficiales
y sargentos espanoles: toda la plaza 6ra suya, a excep-
ci6n de la Ciudadela de Santiago y del parque de arti-
Uerla.

Por liltimo, el fusilamiento de Novales y algunos
oficiales que le secunddron di6 fin a aquellos sangrientos
sucesos.

Por aquellos dias, Espana atravesdba una situaci6n
dificil.

Las exageraciones de los exaltados pollticos libe-
rales, por un lado, y por otro la aversidn con que siempre
ha mirado Fernando VII el regimen Constitucional,
tenian completamente comprometida la libertad, cuya
conquista cost6 grandes sacrificios.

Contribuy6 a hacer mds dificil la situaci6n poll-
tica de Espana, la conducta de los diputados america-
nos, que, amparados por la inmunidad parlamentaria,
plantearon en las mismas Cortes espanolas la cuesti6n
de la independencia de aquellas colonias. Era esta
cosa tan delicadaque el inero hecho de tocarla, produ-
cfa conmoci6nes.

Obedecia esta conducta de los diputados ameri-
canos a un fin premeditado, como se manifiesta en las
siguientes palabras del diputado por Yucatdn en las
Cortes de 1820-21 y agente despu^s de la revolucion Ame-
ricana, Lorenzo Zabala; "Los diputados americanos —
decfa; — testigos de los efectos prodigiosos que hablan
hecho en America los discursos de sus predecesores de
1812 y 1813, no crefan poder coadyuvar a la causa de

SOBRE FILIPINAS 23

su pais de una manera mis eficaz que promovi^ndo en
el seno de las Cortes cuesti6nes de independencia, que
presentdsen a sus conciudadanos lecci6nes y estimulos
para hacerla. "{Ensayo histdrico de las revolucidnes de
Mijico desde 1808 a 1830, por Lorenzo Zabala: Paris,
1831.)

Los movimientos revolucionarios que en distintos
puntos de America se inicidron ban contribuido pode-
rosamente a que se adoptdse en la metr6poli una polf-
tica regresiva, con respecto a las colonias. Han pro-
porcionado motivos a Fernando VII, 61 que no necesitaba
tenerlos; para privarlas de las garantfas y privilegios
constitucionales, baci^ndo que sean gobernadas por
leyes especiales, sin derecbo a ser representadas en las
Cortes.

Fu6 un gran paso hdcia atrds en lo qu6 respecta
a la conquista de derecbos polfticos; pero un avance en
lo relativo al progreso" de las ideas, que iban ganando en
experiencia ante los acontecimientos.

Los mismos espanoles en su afan de sofocar por
cualquier medio toda manifestacion de la opini6n, por
lo mismo que conocfan la enormidad de sus propias
culpas y temfan la censura de la conciencia piiblica,
no hacian otra cosa que avivar el fuego y dar pd,bulo
al descontento popular.

Para ilustrar este aserto bemos de Uamar la atenci6n
del lector hdcia un suceso acaecido en 1843. En este
ano tuvo lugar una sublevacion militar, provocada por
las torpezas del gobernador general Marcelino de Or£a
Lecumberri.

Vdmos a dejar la palabra para el relato de este be-
cbo bistdrico, a un agregado a la misi6n francesa en
Cbina que ba viajado por Filipinas a raiz' de aquellos
sucesos, M. Jules Itier, cuyos datos le babfan sido pro-
porcionados por uno que se vi6 envuelto en los procesos
que se formd,ron por este motivo, el Sr. Inigo de Azaola
(Assaola escribe Itier), que ba estado acompanando a
este en varias excursi6nes. H6 aqui sus palabras, tra-
ducidas del francos: "He deseado vivamente conocer

24 BUILDEBS OF A NATION

lo que habfa en la enigmdtica sublevaci6n de los regi-
mientos tagalos de Manila en 22 de Enero de 1843, y
h6 aprovechado la ocasi6n para pedirle (a Azaola) acla-
raci6nes sobre el asunto.

"La fiesta de S. 3os6, me respondi6 €ste, habfa
reunido en Litao, provincia de Tayabas, una gran
afluencia de indfgenas, contra la voluntad expresa del
alcalde mayor y del cura, que pretendi6ron oponerse a la
celebracion de esta fiesta. El alcalde se puso a la ca-
beza de sus alguaciles y quizo conseguir por la fuerza
lo que sus palabras y requerimientos impotentes no ban
logrado. La muchedumbre no opuso, sin embargo,
mds que una resistencia pasiva; pero el alcalde, de tem-
peramento violento, no pudo contenerse y se arroj6 sobre
los indios apaleando rudamente a todos los que tuvo
a su alcance. Fu6 en esta confusi6n cuando recibi6 un
golpe. iQuien le did? Nadie lo sabfa; pero el golpe
fu4 mortal. A la noticia de esta desgracia, debida a la
extremada imprudencia de la vfctima, el gobernador
general Orda (Itier escribe Oxaa) entr6 en furor y no
queriendo ver en este hecho mds que el comienzo de un
levantamiento contra la metropoli, levantamiento que
jam^s serla bastante castigado severamente, orden6 el
envlo de 500 hombres de infanlerla contra los preten-
didos sublevados de Litao. El pueblo fu6 bloqueado
durante la noche y su poblaci6n degoUada: 1400 perso-
nas de todas edades y sexos pagdron con su sangre la
muerte accidental del alcalde.

"Los soldados tagalos de la guarnici6n de Manila
tenfan muchos parientes y amigos entre las vlctimas
y sinti^ron un odio violento contra el gobernador ge-
neral que orden6 aquella horrible carnicerla. Muchos
actos de crueldad y tiranla acrecentdron este odio, ha-
ci^ndo nacer proyectos de venganza, cuya ejecuci6n
se difiri6 hasta el 22 de Enero de 1843. En este dia,
muy de manana, los regimientos tagalos, teni^ndo a su
cabeza algunos oficiales y sub-oficiales del pals, tomd-
ron las armas y se apoderdron de la Ciudad de Manila
sin resistencia. El grito de guerra 4ra: Muera Orda!

SOBKE FILIPINAS 25

"Pero sin plan de ataque y privados de una direc-
ci6n general, estas tropas tuvi^ron momentos de vacila-
ciones que han dado tiempo a la artillerfa espanola a
reunirse para contener sus ataques. Pasado el pri-
mer impetti, estos pobres soldados se dejaron desarmar
como tlmidos corderos. Buen ndmero de ellos fu6ron
fusilados y el 6rden se restableci6. Mds el gobernador
general Or^a, en vez de ver en este acto de rebeli6n
una respuesta a la carniceria de Litao, se esforz6 en hallar
en ^1 una conspiraci6n que tenia por objeto la indepen-
dencia de Filipinas. Por medio de esta combinaci6n 61
quizo, por un lado, ponerse a salvo de la censura de ha-
ber excitado con sus violencias a las tropas tagalas, y por
otro, abrogarse el papel de Salvador de una colonia que
habia intentado sacudir el yugo de la metr6poli. En su
egoismo, ciertamente, 61 puso a un lado el efecto moral
que no podia dejar de producir semejante hecho.

"Proclamar que las tropas tagalas se habian suble-
vado a la voz de independencia nacional, 6ra darles la
idea de como deberia hacerlo para otra vez; 6ra indicar-
les un fin noble y grande; 6ra decir a los enemigos de
Espana lo que deberlan hacer cuando llegue la ocasi6n.

"Y prosiguiendo su sistema, procedid al arresto de
muchas personas importantes del pals; uno de ellos, M.
Roxas, rico comerciante indlgena, fu6 acusado de haber
sobornado a las tropas, y no falt6 hombre que mediante
dinero declar6se falsamente haber sido encargado por
aquel para distribuir 200 piastras a las tropas.

Esta declaraci6n ridlcula que se reputa por si sola,
no fu6 admitida por la Real Audiencia, y esta orden6
la libertad de M. Roxas. Pero el odio de Oraa ha es-
tado vigilando la puerta del calabozo, que no se abri6,
apesar de la sentencia absolutoria; solo la muerte pudo
arrancar a Oraa su victima: Mr. Roxas muri6 en la
prisi6n; su hija ha ido a Espana a demandar justicia
contra el asesino de su padre." (Fragment d'un Journal
de voyage aux lies Philippines, par Jules Itier: Paris,
Imprimerie de Bourgogne et Martinet, rue Jacob, 30
1846.)

26 BUILDERS OF A NATION

No necesitan comentarios estas Ifneas del viajero
francos; ellas solas se comentan.

Lo que sf anadiremos es que, con pretexto de estos
sucesos, fu^ron detenidos y sujetos a proceso, ademds
del citado Sr. Domingo Roxas, los Senores Antonio de
Ayala, Inigo Gonzales Azaola, Miguel Escamilla,
Mamerto Luis, Leonardo P6rez, Diego Teodoro, Jos6
Rafael y otros.

Estos en uni6n de Mariano y Jos6 Roxas, hijos
del difunto Domingo, promovieron una exposici6n de
queja sobre los procedimientos seguidos contra los mis-
mos y sobre todo, contra el padre de los dos liltimamente
citados, con motivo de la sedici6n ocurrida el 21 de Ene-
ro de 1843, y hubo de tardar tr^s anos hasta que el
Ministerio de la Guerra dictase una real 6rden fechada 8
de Enero de 1846, declardndo qa6, "atendido lo que
resulta de la misma causa, su formaci6n y la prisi6n
y padecimientos que ban sufrido por consecuencia de
aquella, no sirvan de nota ni perjuicio a la opini6n y
fama del difunto D. Domingo Roxas, sus hijos D.
Mariano y D. Jos6, ni a los demas recurrentes."

Consignamos aqui la fecha 21 de Enero de 1843,
como la del levantamiento porque es la que se lee en
la real 6rden del Ministerio de la Guerra fechada Enero
8, 1846, y que no concuerda con la de Itier, que pone la
de22.

Desde aquellas fechas remotas se oy6 la frase "las
Filipinas se perdlan", pu6s un folleto con este titulo,
6 mejor dicho "Las Filipinas se pierden", de 12 pags.
en 4.° (Madrid, Imp. de Aguado 1842 se circul6 entonces
a profusi6n.

Lop senores que acabo de mencionar no han tenido
efectivamente la menor parte en la sublevaci6n militar
de 1843; pero eran tildados de filibusteros, porque eran
liberales en ideas, partidarios de que sean respetados los
derechos de los filipinos y enemigos de la inicua explo-
taci6n y de los abusos de que era objeto el pais por parte
de los frailes y de otros elementos colonizadores, y se quizo
aprovechar de aquella sedici6n militar para perderlos.

SOBBE FILIPINAS 27

En Espana estaba declarada la lucha entre los li-
berales y los retr6gados 6 sean progresistas y los con-
servadores, lucha que se hacla cada vez mas encarni-
zada. Planteado el mismo problema en Filipinas; en
pi6 el conflicto entre los que abogaban por un regimen
mas liberal y los que querfan mantener el pais en estado
de ca6tica confusi6n y desgobierno, entre el pais y sus
explotadores, en una palabra, las peripecias de la brega,
tenlan que marcar los vaivenes de la que se entablaba
en la peninsula.

Los partidos progresista y conservador turnaban
en el poder; el primero fu6 sustituido luego por la uni6n
liberal en 1856, y ban continuado los mismos turnos
entre esta y el partido conservador. Cada vez que
sublan los progresistas o los de la Uni6n liberal se respi-
rdba en la colonia con algun desahogo; y por el contra-
rio, la presencia de lbs conservadores en el gobierno de
la metropoli se senaldba por un recrudecimiento de las
persecucidnes, abusos y opresi6n.

Y sigui^ron asi las cosas hasta que vino el Sep-
tiembre de 1868 en que una revoluci6n triunfante ech6
abajo el trono desp6tico de Isabel II, con sus abusos
y arbitrariedades.

Para tener una idea de como ^e conducfan aquellos
gobernantes del tiempo de Narvaez, vdmos d. relatar
un hecho que el docto historiador espanol, Miguel
Morayta nos habla contado un d(a:

El Sr. Morayta estaba un dia en un caf6, en Madrid,
con unos amigos. Un hombre se acerc6 a uno del grupo
para decirle que un senor deseaba hablarle y le esperdba
en la puerta. El hombre se levant6, dejando el sombrero,
ya que solo era cuestion de hablar con uno en la entrada
del mismo establecimiento. Pasaron los momentos y
el Sr. Morayta y sus camaradas no se fijdron en un
principio en la tardanza del amigo en volver a su asiento;
pero fu6 larga esta tardanza que hubo de llamar despues
su atenci6n. AlH estaba todavfa el sombrero colgado
de la percha. No vieron a nadie en la puerta y se mar-
charon. Al dia siguiente, algunos individuos de la fa-

28 BUILDERS OF A NATION

milia del desaparecido, cuyo nombre ya no recordamos,
recorrfa las casas de los que iban con fete en la tarde
anterior. Morayta y sus amigos no ban podido decir
otra cosa que lo que acabamos de contar: que se levantd
sin sombrero para acudir al Uamamiento de un hombre
que le esperaba en la puerta del caf6, y ya no se le vol-
vi6 a ver, hasta que 611os se marcharon despues de
transcurrido mucho tiempo. Y el sombrero segula
colgado de la percha del establecimiento. Di^ron parte
del hecho a las autoridades, acudieron a las oficinas de
informaci6n, revolvieron todo Madrid, envid,ron emisa-
rios a provincias y no habfan encontrado el menor
rastro de nuestro hombre. HaWa transcurrido mas
de un ano; su familia ya la tenfa por muerto, cuando
recibi6 una carta del mismo, dando noticia de su para-
dero y de su suerte. Estaba en Filipinas. Aquella
tarde de autos en el caf6, al salir para ver a la persona
que le queria hablar, fu6 Uevado por unos agentes de
policia, sin permitirle coger el sombrero; estuvo ence-
rrado en im calabozo por varios dias, despues de los
cuales iu6 transportado a Cadiz y embarcado en un buque
que salfa para Manila. Durante todo este tiempo
estaba vigilado para impedir que pudiera comunicarse
con su familia y amigos. Despues de varios meses de
viaje por el cabo de Buena Esperanza lleg6 d Filipinas.

Si esto se hacia en la misma capital de la metropoli
iqu6 no harian en Filipinas?

Tal 6ra el gobierno que derroc6 la Revoluci6n de
1868; no se paraba en los medios, cuando se trataba de
desembarazarse de cualquier liberalote que le estorbase
en su politica de despotismo.

Pero esta conducta inicua ha sido en nuestro caso
un instrumento impulsor eficaz para el desarroUo de
las ideas democrdticas. Nuestra tierra i\i& uno de los
puntos de destierro para estos liberalotes, los cuales
podfan muy bien repetir lo que el vate espanol Zorrilla
decla hablando de sus deportaciones.

((

pero yo que de laurel semilla 6ra,
ech^ frutos donde cal."

SOBKE FILIPINAS 29

El triunfo de los liberales en 1868 que determino
la implantaci6n de una monarquia democrdtica bajo
Amadeo de Saboya, y luego la de la Repdblica, por un
lado, y la apertura del canal de Su6z (17 Nov. 1869) por
otro, prestdron mayor impulso aun al desarroUo de las
ideas entre nosotros.

Una lucha porfiada se entabldba entonces entre el
clero secular formado en su mayoria por cl6rigos filipinos
y el regular que componfan los frailes europeos de todas
las 6rdenes religiosas, sobre provisi6n de parroquias. Los
frailes monopolizaban los curatos. En 1849, de los 168
que tenia el arzobispado de Manila solo una quinta
parte y de los mas pobres pertenecfa & los Cl^rigos,
y cada dfa se reducfa esta proporci6n por parte de estos
61timos; pues, un decreto de 10 de Sept. 1861 di6
facultad i, los recoletos "para administrar los curatos
de la provincia de Kabite u otros que hubi^re, servidos
por el clero indlgena, al paso que vayan vacando."

El P. Pedro Pelaez y el P. Jos6 Burgos sostenian
pol6mica acalorada por este motivo contra los frailes.
El primero era Vicario capitular de la Diocesis de Ma-
nila, sede vacante por muerte del arzobispo Aranguren
y en esta capacidad emiti6 razonados informes el 1.°
Marzo 1862 y redacto vma exposici6n a la reina, en
nombre del Cabildo manilense, demostrando la gran
injusticia y la transgresi6n de las leyes que se cometfa
desposeyendo al clero filipino de los curatos para entre-
garlos a los frailes que por su cardeter monacal no de-
blan gozar del beneficio secular curado. El P. Burgos
por su parte estaba enzarzado en pol^mica periodlstica
con el recoleto Guillermo Aguido en El Clamor de Ma-
drid, y detrds de estos campeones estaban todos los
cl^rigos filipinos, muchos de los cuales ^ran respeta-
dos por propios y estranos, por su sabiduria y virtu-
des.

El clero indfgena tenia que sufrir muchas vicisi-
tudes. Los frailes, gracias a sus riquezas inmensas,
ejercfan una verdadera soberanfa, la soberanfa monacal,
como la Uamaba del Pilar. Hacian ostentaci6n de ella.

30 BUILDERS OF A NATION

persigui6ndo cruelmente a sus enemigos, a las familias
y hasta a los amigos de estos. For consecuencia,
muchos de los que estaban senalados por el dedo de la
fatalidad, ban tenido que emigrar al extrangero. Asi
mucbos j6venes, aprovecbdndose de las facilidades que
ya ofrecla el viage, fu6ron a Europa, y alii emprendi6-
ron una campana, denunciando abuses y proponiendo
reformas. En 1871 pubUcaron un quincenario El Eco
Filipino, que llevaba por lema: "Espafia con FiUpinas;
Filipinas con Espafia", y otro peri6dico "El Correo de
Ultramar", costeado con el producto de una suscrip-
ci6n voluntaria, entre varios elementos pudientes de
Manila y provincias. La cuesti6n del clero era la que
mas monopolizaba la atenci6n general, y constituy6 la
materia principal de su campana.

Esta activa campana de los filipinos liberales empe-
zaban a producir favorable efecto cerca de los nuevos
poderes metropoliticos traidos por la Revoluci6n. Para
contrarrestarla, los elementos retr6gados encabezados
por los frailes hici^ron surgir de la nada la revoluci6n
de Kabite de 1872. Decimos esto, porque hasta abora
los datos que ten^mos a mano no nos dicen otra cosa
mds que aquello fu6 una mera sedici6n militar, apro-
vechada con suma babilidad por los elementos retrd-
gados para darle carActer politico, con el fin de envolver
en ella a los filipinos que por sus prestigios y por sus
luces estorbabaii sus planes de explotaci6n y dominio.
En efecto, con motivo de aquellos sucesos, los pre^bl-
teros Burgos, Gomez y Zamora subidron al cadalzo y
otros muchos entre abogados, sacerdotes, comerciantes
y propietarios prestigiosos fueron a la deportaci6n. Unos
han muerto durante ella, otros se establecieron en el ex-
trangero y otros pocos han podido volver al pais, des-
pues de muchos anos de penalidades y miserias.

Con el golpe de Kavite crey^ron los enemigos de
nuestro progreso haber dado muerte para siempre a
toda aspiraci6n en la mente de los filipinos. Un pe-
ri6do de relativa calma, de unos nueve o" diez anos,
parecfa dar apariencia de verdad a esta creencia.

SOBRE FILIPINAS 31

Decimos relativa, porque durante los afios que
sigui^ron al suceso Kabiteno el Joven Manuel Regidor
no ha cesado de hacer campana en pro del pais desde
las columnas de un peri6dico cuyo nombre no recordamos
ahora, que fund6 Rafael Maria de Labra para ser 6rgano
del ideal autonomista cubano, cuyos dos principales
redactores ^ran el cubano Juan Gualberto Gomez y el
filipino Manuel Regidor. La circunstancia de arder
entonces la guerra separatista de Cuba que termind
provincialmente en la paz del Zanj6n, hacfa que la cam-
pana del peri6dico de Labra anduvi^se con mucha pru-
dencia en su campana.

El Dr. Gregorio Sanciangko y Gozon, un abogado
de Manila ent6nces residente en Madrid, de cuyo cole-
gio de abogados era miembro, emprendid campana fili-
pinista hacia 1880, desde las columnas de La Discusion,
uno de los mas importantes peri6dicos de la Corte espa-
nola. En 1881 public6 la primera parte de su libro "E1
Progreso de Filipinas: Estudios econ6micos, administra-
tivos y poHticos." En 1882 los filipinos residentes en
Madrid fundaron el circulo Hispano-Filipino, centro
que adquirid mucha importancia hasta Uegar a ser sub-
vencionada metdlicamente por el Ministro de Ultramar,
de que era casi un cuerpo consultor. Esta sociedad pu-
blicaba un peri6dico "La Revista del Circulo Hispano-
Filipino", que tom6, segun Pardo de Tavera, un carac-
ter hispanofobo.

En 1885 Paterno dio a luz su Ninay, novela nacio-
nalista. Por aquellos anos tambien Pedro Govantes,
Jos6 Rizal, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Eduardo de Lete,
Manuel Regidor y algunos otros procuraban a traer la
atenci6n piiblica hacia Filipinas, vali6ndose de la prensa
peri6dica.

Asi Uegamos al ano 1887 en que tomo mayor acti-
vidad y energfa la campana en pr6 de reformas para
Filipinas. El Noli me tangere de Rizal, La antigua civi-
lizadon tagala de Paterno y el semanario Espana en
Filipinas, pertenecian A este ano.

32 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Pero lo que verdaderamente podfa llamarse el
principio del fin era la aparici6n de la Solidaridad en
el estadio de la prensa espanola en 1889. La lucha
entre los reformistas y los retr6gados, que como queda
dicho, estaban encabezados per los frailes, era cada vez
mds enconada; el sentimiento de la dignidad y del honor
se despertaba con mas viveza y encendia en los corazo-
nes el amor al terruno, a medida que extremaban los
poderosos sus abusos, arbitrariedades y violencias en
su afan de sofocar en g^rmen las rebeldfas y las protestas
que empezaban a asomarse en la superficie del cardc-
ter tranquilo de los hijos del pais.

Los elementos directores de nuestro pueblo pronto
vi6 la necesidad de encausar esos sentimientos y esas
ideas para dirigir las fuerzas que de unos y de otros
nacian, a un fin comun, y a este objeto fundaron La
Solidaridad. Este peri6dico recogi6 esas manifesta-
ciones psiquicas que flotaban vagas e indecisas en el am-
biente, y les di6 forma difinida y concreta; puso de
manifiesto el derecho que tenfamos a la vida y a la feli-
cidad; sefial6 con el dedo el origen y la raiz de nuestros
males e indic6 los medios legales que podrlan reme-
diarlos. Hizo ver al pueblo su verdadera situaci6n y
aquella otra a que tenia derecho a aspirar; y advirti6
al gobierno metropolltico las desastrozas consecuencias
que resultarfan inevitablemente de aquella polftica de
opresi6n, sin dar satisfaccion a las aspiraciones populares.

Se respiraba un ambiente de malestar general;
todos sentian el peso de algo que oprimfa los pechos y
producla inquietudes en los dnimos; todos se sentian
amenazados de un peligro misterioso, tanto mas terrl-
fico cuanto era desconocido; pero nadie se atrevfa a
comunicar sus sensacidnes y sus pensamientos a otro:
tal eran las suspicacias, los recelos y las desconfianzas
que infundla el terror de lo desconocido.

Se vi6 entonces que no bastaba predicar las ideas
desde las columnas de im peri6dico, como desde una
cdtedra. Habia necesidad tambien de Uegar al seno
del mismo pueblo para educar las costumbres y los hA-
bitos. Y la masonerfa se establecid para dar a nuestro

SOBRE FILIPINAS 33

pueblo una escuela que le proporcione normas de so-
ciabilidad, y le acostumbre a la vida colectiva. En
el seno de la masoneria hemos aprendido a vivir vida
de asociaci6n; en medio de aquella fraternidad nos he-
mos comunicado mutuamente nuestras impresiones,
nuestro pensamientos, nuestras aspiraciones y nos
hemos puestos en condiciones de aunar nuestros deseos
y nuestro actos.

No &amos ya aquellas almas que vagaban aisladas
y solas, reeelosas unas de otras.

Pero mas tarde la masoneria con sus principios gene-
rales de fraternidad universal no satisfacian ya las an-
sias de nuestro pueblo, deseoso de concretar y de definir
mejor la finalidad de su destine, y a este estado de nues-
tro esplritu respondio la creaci6n de la Liga Filipina,
ideada por Rizal. La Liga era una especie de masone-
ria con fin concrete. No tenfa por programa el separa-
tismo. Era algo asi como una sociedad de socorros
miituos qu6 se estaWecfa con el fin de hacer m^nos
amarga la suerte del hermano que caia en la lucha
y al propio tiempo animar a los luchadores y levantarles
el coraz6n a la idea de que no estdban solos, sino que
habia hermanos que le guardd,ban las espaldas.

Los opresores, los d^spotas, a la vista de la resis-
tencia cada vez mas tenaz que ofrecfa nuestro pueblo,
se enfurecian, llegaban al paroxismo de su c61era y
redobldban sus actos de violencia. Este hizo ver a los
filipinos que no habfa reconciliaci6n posible con los es-
panoles.

La Liga, lo mismo que la campana poUtica legal
que se emprendla en Madrid por medio de su 6rgano
en la prensa, La Solidaridad, con sus fines pacifistas no
respondfan ya a las necesidades del momento, y La Liga
lo mismo que La Solidaridad desaparecfan para dar
sitio al Kataastaagan at Kagalang-galang na Katipu-
nan, con su finalidad eminentemente revolucionaria y
separatista.

Desde principios del alio 1889 en que se inici6 la
campana de La Solidaridad, campana que se sigui6 con

34 BUILDERS OF A NATION

algun m^todo y 6rden, porque la sostuvi^ron entidades
organizadas, hasta el final de 1895 en que se orden6
desde Manila el cese del peri6dico, vista la inutilidad
de sus esfuerzos conciliatorios, solo ban mediado siete
anos. Pero en ese corto lapso de tiempo se ban operado
radicalfsimos cambios en las ideas, j Qui6n lo Iba a creer !
El becbo es que ocbo o nueve meses despues, en Agosto
de 1896 se lanzaba el grito rebelde en Balingtawak.
Verdad es que el Katipunan ba estado funciondndo
desde 1892, a raiz de la deportaci6n de Rizal a Dapitan.

Esa docilidad del espfritu popular en responder a
la voz de la orgaiiizaci6n en los iSltimos siete u ocbo anos
no podrd atribuirse mds qu6 a la larga preparaci6n
de que acabdmos de bacer una ligera revista.

Jos6 Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar y Graciano L6pez
Jaena estuvi^ron al frente de esa tiltima etapa de la
campana. jLoor a ellos que ban sabido poner a nuestro
pueblo en el camino de su redenci6n!

No ban acabado de conducirle bd,sta el seguro puer-
to, pu6s, les habla faltado tiempo para ello; pero acer-
tdron a poner a nuestro pueblo en condici6nes de poder
navegar por si mismo, abrazado al ideal.

Por ese ideal lucb6 contra los espanoles; por ese
ideal, y en virtud de una mala inteligencia, lucb6 con-
tra America bdsta el agotamiento de sus fuerzas. Se
sometid, despues, siempre abrazado al ideal, a la sobe-
ranla de esta liltima, con la firme esperanza de qu6
serdn reconocidos sus derecbos, por los cuales babla
estado lucbdndo durante casi una centuria.

Los bechos vi^nen demostrd,ndo qu6 sus esperanzas
no son vanas, qu6 descdnsan sobre firme fundamento,
afianzado por el trabajo y los sacrificios de una sucesi6n
de generaci6nes, y qu6 no estard. l^jos el dia en verlas
convertidas en realidad bermosa, bajo la protectora
sombra de la bandera estrellada.

Ob, no puede ser md,s oportuna la aparici6n del
libro de Miss. M. M. Norton!

Viene, a modo de alegato a nuestro favor, en el me-
mento en que estd pr6ximo a pronunciarse el fallo final

SOBHE FILIPINAS 35

y decisivo de nuestro largo pleito; y el voto de Miss
Norton es de mucha importancia, es de mucho peso,
porqu6 tiene por base una s6rie de hechos histdricos
qu6 nos dicen de la verdad de estas palabras de un
personaje de Rizal:

"No todos dormlan en la noche de nuestros abue-
los."

Mariano Ponce.
Manila, Diciembre, 1913.

^*o^

HISTORICAL STUDY
OF PHILIPPINES

MARIANO PONCE

uu

The appearance of a new book about our country
has always been looked upon by us with keen interest.
This interest becomes all the more intense when, as in
the present case, the author is a foreigner already known
in our literary circles as one of those who study us with
love and fairness and judge us with a kindly spirit and
an impartial mind, of which there are very few examples.

Miss M. M. Norton has already published several
books, some in prose, others in verse, about the Philip-
pines. A generous and kind-hearted soul, she has
always treated of our affairs with a warm feeling and
in a just and reasonable measure.

This notable author intends in this book to present
to the English-speaking ^orld a group of our represen-
tative men who have done and are doing much for the
development of democratic and progressive ideas in
our country.

It is pleasant to say that such ideas were not con-
ceived only of late in the minds of the Filipinos. They
were born many, many years ago, and have gradually
grown strong through several generations and now they
have attained their full and vigorous maturity.

The present-day teachings of democracy would
have been utterly useless to us had they not fallen on
a soil made fertile by the work of former generations.
Such process does not go by leaps and bounds, and but
for the open, ready furrows, the seeds would have died.

We might, therefore, trace the paths of these ideas
from the beginning of the nineteenth century (although
we could go further back) to the present time.

When, at the dawn of said century. Napoleon Bona-
parte invaded Spanish territory, the Spaniards made
a formidable and decided resistance, compelUng that
mighty giant to halt in his triumphal march throughout

36

HISTORICAL STUDY OP PHILIPPINES 37

Europe. Spain, our mother-country of yore, made up
her mind to shed her last drop of blood in defense of
her independence and liberty. The Philippines was
deeply moved at this noble and heroic stand and joined
the mother-country in her lot.

It was at this period when a pamphlet entitled,
"a narrative proclamation which, in order to
encourage the vassals of ferdinand vii in the
Philippines to defend their King from the furt

OF HIS FALSE FRIEND, NaPOLEON, FIRST EmPEROR OF

THE French, Luis Rodriguez Varela. Published in
Sampaloc, 1809."

Rodriguez Varela, a Filipino, by enumerating the
rights and privileges granted by law to the natives,
and because he was a Filipino, was accused of being an
agitator and rebel in disguise, despite the proofs of his
ardent enthusiasm for Spain in those critical moments.
Varela was likewise the author of the Elogio a las pro-
vincias de los Reynos de la Espana europea, Elogio a
Zos mujeres de los Reynos de la Espana europea and
Parnaso Filipino. Now that the last embers of passion
fed by conflict and war are dead, we can judge the
events in question in the light of cold reason, and we
see no reason for doubting the sincerity of Rodriguez
Valera when he tried to induce the Filipinos to help
Spain in those hard times.

It is true that the storm of national independence
which was beginning to rage in Latin America sent over
some gusts and the storm center included us, but
this was not sufficient to give a definite form to the
ideal of independence in the minds of the Filipinos.
This movement bided its time.

It can thus be asserted that the country was with
Rodriguez Varela in his enthusiasm for Spain.

The new rulers in Spain did not fail to see this,
so the "Supreme Consejo de Regencia de Espana 6
Indias," in the name of King Ferdinand VII, in a decree
of February 14, 1810, "considering the grave and

38 BUILDERS OF A NATION

to be held as soon as the miUtary occurrences permit
being attended by delegates from Spanish dominions
in America and Asia, who should dignifiedly represent
the will of the natives in said Congress upon which the
restoration and happiness of the Monarchy depend,"
ordered the participation of representatives from the
Philippines, together with those of the colonies of Latin
America, in the above mentioned Cortes.

King Ferdinand himself, in a manifesto printed about
1819, addressed "to the inhabitants beyond the seas,"
invited his oversea subjects to choose their represent-
atives in the Cortes in order that the "fathers of the
country being assembled, the State may be saved and
the destinies of both hemispheres forever fixed."

At that time several elections for delegates to the
Cortes and provincial representatives were held, pre-
ceded by the indispensable campaigns and conflicts
in which ideas and opinions fought for supremacy and
light appeared in many cases, the Filipinos being thus
initiated into political life. The speech which Licen-
tiate Jos6 de Vergara, delegate elected by Manila to the
ordinary Cortes on September 19, 1813, should be read.

On April 17 of the same year 1813 the Constitu-
tion of the Spanish Monarchy, promulgated at Cadiz
the preceding year 1812, was proclaimed in Manila and
received with burning enthusiasm by the Filipinos
because it granted them many rights never theretofore
enjoyed by them. Thanks to this event, the Filipi-
nos were installed in constitutional life.

In order to prepare the country for this new con-
dition of government and to the end that the benefits
of constitutional regime might be more efficient for the
furtherance of our progress, a few Filipinos endowed
with public spirit decided to organize associations for
the purpose of teaching the people and to put them in
a position to meet the exigencies of the times.

These associations were not political parties, such
as those we know at the present time, but only groups
urgent need (so the decree ran) of the extraordinary Cortes

HISTORICAL STUDY OF PHILIPPINES 39

of citizens devoted to propaganda. Among them we
may mention Luis Rodriguez Varela, author of the
"Proclama Historial" already referred to and of the"Par-
naso Filipino" ; Regino Mij ares; Captain Bayot; Attorney
Mendoza; Jos6 Ortega, manager of the Companfa de
Fihpinas; Jos6 Maria Jugo, who was an eminent jurist
and "Agente Fiscal de lo Civil" of the Audiencia de
Manila; Domingo Roxas, a wealthy merchant, and
many others.

On account of the fact that these Filipinos enter-
tained advanced ideas, they were not well looked upon by
the conservative and reactionary elements that wished
to keep the country in a state of perpetual infancy.

A struggle between the two elements began. The
FiKpinos had to imdergo many difficulties and suffer
many hardships for many years until their aspirations
could triumph. They had to struggle against preju-
dice; against tradition and the selfish interests estab-
lished by certain entities and institutions; and against
the ignorance and fanaticism of their own people.
Generation after generation kept up the fight until
victory came.

Long and rugged was the path and the enemy
saw to it that the obstacles were greater and greater
every day.

But the Filipinos were aware from the beginning
that their cause meant life or death to the country and
made up their mind to defend it at any cost, convinced
of its justice, for it was the cause of progress and of
civilization.

In order to have an idea of the effect which the
patriots' campaign produced on public opinion, it will
be sufficient to cite the following event:

When Governor-General Juan Antonio Martinez
came to the country on October 30, 1822, in order to
take possession of his office, he brought with him a
goodly number of Spanish military officers in order to
take the place of many Filipino officers who were then
serving in the Philippine regiments.

40 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Martinez was made to believe before sailing for
Manila that native officers were disloyal and not worthy
of confidence, and the need of their being replaced by
Spaniards was pointed out to him. This was the reason
for the arrival of the Spanish officers.

The Filipino officers did not of course look at this
measure in a favorable light. They were offended
because their loyalty was doubted and their promotion
thwarted.

There were meetings, interchanges of ideas in order to
find some way to defend the interests of the class to which
they belonged, for they already felt the dignity of their
political rights.

Distrust and bias made the authorities see in this
attitude some dark conspiracy against national integ-
rity, and mere suspicion was a sufficient cause for the
deportation to Spain, by an order dated February 18,
1823, of a great many Filipino citizens, among whom
were Domingo Roxas, Jos6 M. Jugo, Rodriguez Varela,
Attorney Mendoza, Regino Mijares, Jos6 Ortega, Cap-
tain Bayot, Figueroa, F. Rodriguez, Sergeant Mayor
Dieste and Captains Cidron and Gomez.

In those days, Spain was going through a critical
situation. The extreme enthusiasm of liberals on one
hand, and opposition of Ferdinand VII to constitutional
government on the other, had jeopardized liberty, which
demanded great sacrifices.

The political situation of Spain was all the more
difficult because of the attitude of the delegates from
the New World who, under the protection of parliament-
ary privileges, brought up in the Cortes the question
of independence of the Spanish-American colonies.
This subject was so delicate that even a passing refer-
ence thereto stirred up men's minds.

This conduct on the part of the representatives
from Latin America was due to a preconceived plan,
as shown by the following words of the Delegate
from Yukatan in the Cortes of 1821-1823, Lorenzo
Zabala, who later became an agent of the revolution

HISTORICAL STUDY OF PHILIPPINES 41

of the Spanish colonies: "The American deputies, who
have witnessed the prodigious effects produced in
America by the speeches of their predecessors who held
office in 1812 and 1813, did not think they icould further
the cause of their country in a more effective way than
by raising in the Cortes questions relative to independ-
ence, which should impart to their fellow-citizens
lessons and encouragement." (Ensayo historico de las
revoludones de Mejico desde 1808 a 1830, by Lorenzo
Zabala, Paris, 1831.)

The revolutionary movements which were stated
at different points in Latin America greatly contributed
to the adoption in the mother country of reactionary
poUcies with regard to the colonies. They gave a pre-
tejct to Ferdinand VII, who indeed did not need any,
to despoil the colonies of their constitutional rights and
privileges, causing them to be governed by special
laws, without any right to be represented in the
Cortes.

This was a mighty step backward in so far as poli-
tical improvement was concerned, but it was a great
stride in the progress of ideas which were being carried
out in the midst of the happenings.

The Spaniards themselves, in their desire to suppress
through any means all manifestations of public opi-
nion, knowing the enornoity of their sins and fearing
the condemnation of the public conscience, did nothing
but add fuel to the fire and v^iden the avenues of
popular unrest.

To illustrate this fact, we should Uke to invite the
attention of the reader to an event which took place in
1843. In this year there was a miUtary uprising, provoked
by the foolishness of Governor General Marcelino de
Oraa Lacumberri.

Let us read the words of a man connected with the
French mission in China who was travelling in the Phil-
ippines at the time, M. Jules Itier. The facts were
given him by Sr. Inigo de Azaola (Assaola, according
to Itier) who had been involved in the proceedings

42 BUILDERS OF A NATION

instituted apropos of the same, and who had accompa-
nied Itier in his trips. Here are the French author's
words, as translated:

"I greatly desired to know the truth about the
mysterious uprising of the Tagalog regiments of Manila
on Jan. 22, 1843, and I seized the opportunity to ask
him (Azaola) to throw some light on the subject.

"He said that the feast of Saint Joseph had gath-
ered in Litao, province of Tayabas, a great concourse
of natives, contrary to the order of the Alcalde Mayor
and the cur6 who were opposed to the celebration of the
annual hoUday. The alcalde led his policemen (algua-
ciles) and wanted to carry out by force what his words
and powerless commands could not accomplish. The
people, however, did not actually resist, but only showed
a passive, silent opposition, but the hot-headed alcalde
lost his self-control and threw himself upon the natives,
cruelly beating all who were within his reach. During
this brawl he received a blow. Who had dealt it?
Nobody knew, but it was deadly. Upon hearing the
news of this misfortune which was due to the extreme
recklessness of the victim. Governor General Oraa
(Axaa, according to Itier) became furious and did not
want to see in this event anything but the beginning of
an uprising against the mother-country, which could
not be too severely punished. So he sent 500 infantry-
men against the supposed rebels of Litao. The town
was blockaded during the night and its population
butchered: 1400 persons of all ages and both sexes
atoned with their blood for the accidental death of the
alcalde.

The Tagalog soldiers of Manila had many rela^
tives and friends among the victims, and they felt an
intense hatred toward the Governor General who had
ordered this horrible massacre. Many cruel and tyran-
nical acts augmented this hatred, giving rise to a plan
of revenge, the execution of which was postponed till
Jan. 22, 1843. Very early in the morning of this day,
the Tagalog regiments, headed by some native officers

HISTORICAL STUDY OF PHILIPPINES 43

and sub-officers, took up arms and captured the city
of Manila without any resistance whatever. The war-
cry was: "Death to Oraa!"

But, without any plan of attack and general lead-
ership, these troops hesitated, which gave the Spanish
artillery time to rally and hinder their attacks. Their
first impulse having passed way, these poor soldiers let
themselves be disarmed like meek lambs. Quite a num-
ber of them were shot and order was restored. Gov-
ernor General Oraa, instead of seeing in this rebellion
the outgrowth of the Litao massacre, tried to find in it
a conspiracy which had for its object the independence
of the Philippines. By this contrivance, he wanted to
forestall any criticism to the effect that he had through
his violent conduct caused the Tagalog troops' uprising,
and at the same time to assume the role of savior of a
colony which had attempted to throw down the yoke of
the mother-country. Surely, in his egotism, he laid
aside the moral effect which such happening could not
fail to produce.

To proclaim that the Tagalog troops had risen in
response to the call of national independence was to
give them an idea as to how it should be done in the
future; to point out to them a noble and great purpose;
to tell the enemies of Spain what should be done when
the time comes.

And following his policies, he proceeded to arrest
many prominent men in the country; one of them, Mr.
Roxas, a rich native merchant, was accused of having
bribed the troops, and there was not lacking a man who
through money, falsely testified to having been
intrusted by said Roxas to distribute 200 piastras
among the soldiers.

This ridiculous testimony which refutes itself, was
not admitted by the Supreme Court {Real Audiencia)
which ordered the release of M. Roxas. But the bitter-
ness of Oraa closed the jail doors, despite the acquittal;
only death could take away from Oraa his victim; Mr.
Roxas died in jail, his daughter has gone to Spain to

44 BUILDERS OF A NATION

demand justice against the murderer of her father."
{Fragment d'un Journal de Voyage aux lies Philippines,
par Jules Itier: Paris, Imprimerie de Bourgogne el
Martinet, rue Jacob, SO: 1846.)

These lines, written by the French sojourner, need
no comment; they are self-explanatory.

We shall add, however, that these events were made
an excuse for the arrest and prosecution of other persons,
such as Messrs. Antonio de Ayala, Inigo Gonzales
Azaola, Miguel Escamilla, Mamerto Luis, Leonardo
Perez, Diego Teodoro, and Jos6 Rafael. These,
together with Mariano and Jos6 Roxas, sons of the
deceased Roxas, addressed a memorial complaining
against the proceedings taken against them, especially
against the father of the last two, as a result of the
sedition of Jan. 21, 1843. Three years had to elapse
before the Minister of War issued a royal order dated
Jan. 8, 1846, stating that "Considering the evidence in
the case, its institution, the imprisonment and hardships
suffered, let these steps be not injurious to the reputa-
tion of Don Domingo Roxas, deceased, his children Don
Mariano and Don Jos6, and the other petitioners."

We put down here Jan 21, 1843, as the date of the
uprising, because it is the one appearing in the royal
order of the Minister of War dated January 8, 1846,
and does not agree with the statement of Itier, who has
Jan. 22nd.

At such a remote period the phrase "We are losing
the Philippines" was already heard, for a pamphlet
thus entitled, of 12 pages, (Madrid, the Aguado Press,
1842), was being widely circulated.

The men whom I have just mentioned did not really
have the least participation in the military uprising
of 1843, but they were called rebels because they had
liberal ideas, stood for the rights of the Filipinos and
were the enemies of the iniquitous exploitation and the
abuses committed on the country by the friars and other
elements, and that movement was made use of in order
to destroy them.

HISTORICAL STUDY OF PHILIPPINES 45

In Spain, there was a struggle between liberal and
refractory elements, or progressives and conservatives.
The conflict became more and more bitter. The same
question having taken root in the Philippines between
those who advocated a more liberal regime and those
who wanted to keep the country in a state of chaos and
misgovernment, between the country and its exploit-
ers, the success of one or the other party in Spain went
far to determine the trend of events in the islands.

The progressive and liberal parties took turns in
power; the former was displaced by the Union Liberal
in 1856, and the same rotation took place between this
union and the conservative party. Whenever the pro-
gressives or the men of the "Union Liberal" came to
power, the people of the colony could breathe with some
freedom, and on the contrary, the presence of the con-
servatives in the government of the mother-country was
marked by a renewal of persecutions, abuses and oppres-
sion.

And things went on thus until the month of Sep-
tember, 1868, arrived, when a triumphant revolution
tore down the despotic throne of Elisabeth II with all
its abuses and arbitrary policies.

In order to have some idea of how those rulers to
the time of Narvaez behaved themselves, we wish to
relate a fact of which the profound Spanish historian,
Miguel Morayta, once told us:

Sr. Morayta was one day in a Madrid caf6 with
some friends. A man approached one of the group
and told him that a gentleman desired to speak to him
and was waiting for him at the door; so the man got up,
leaving his hat, as he was only going to speak to someone
at the entrance of the same building. Minutes passed,
and Sr. Morayta and his friends at first did not notice
the failure of their friend to resume his seat, but the delay
at last attracted their attention. His hat was still hang-
ing on the rack. They saw nobody at the d oor, so they
left. The next day, some relatives of the missing man
(whose name we do not remember) inquired at the houses

46 BUILDEBS OF A NATION

of the men with whom he was seen the preceding after-
noon. Morayta and his friends could not tell them
anything but what we have just narrated: that he left
his hat in order to see a man who was waiting for him
at the door of the caf6, but he was seen no longer, so
they left after a long time had elapsed. And the hat
was still in its place. His family informed the author-
ities, went to all sources of information, ransacked the
whole city of Madrid, and sent agents to the proAdnces;
still they could not discover the least clue to his where-
abouts. More than a year passed; his family had
already taken him for dead, when they received a letter
from him stating where he was and his lot. He was in
the Philippines! On the afternoon referred to, on going
out to see the man who wanted to talk to him, he was
taken by certain police agents, without allowing him
to fetch his hat; he was locked up in a cell for several
days, after which he was taken to Cadiz and placed on
board a vessel bound for Manila. During all this time
he was watched so that he might not send any message
to his family and friends, after several months of
sailing, he arrived in the islands, by way of Cape of
Good Hope.

If this was being done in the very capital of the
mother-country, what could not be done in the Philip-
pines?

Such was the kind of government destroyed by
the Revolution of 1868. No scruple was entertained
as to the means, when some Liberal who hampered
its despotism was to be eliminated.

But this wicked conduct was to us a powerful
instrument for the development of democratic ideas.
Our land was one of the places to which Liberals were
banished, who could well repeat the words of the Spanish
poet, Zorrilla, about these deportations:

"pero yo que de laurel semilla era,
ech6 frutos donde cal."

The victory of the Liberals in 1868, which implanted
a democratic monarchy under Amadeo and the Republic

HISTORICAL STUDY OF PHILIPPINES 47

afterward, as well as the opening of the Suez Canal
(Nov. 17, 1869) gave a still greater momentum to the
progress of democratic ideas among us.

A ruthless fight was then raging between the
secular clergy made up mostly of Filipino priests, and
the regular clergy, composed of European friars of all
the religious orders, over parishes. The friars mono-
polized the parishes. In 1849, out of the 168 parishes
which were under the Archbishopric of Manila, only
one-fifth, and the poorest ones at that, belonged to the
Filipinos, and day by day this number was being
reduced, for the decree of Sept. 10, 1861, gave power to
the Recollects "to administer the parishes of Cavite
province and other parishes now under the native clergy,
as they are being vacated."

Father Pedro Pelaez and Father Jos6 Burgos had
many heated discussions with the friars over the ques-
tion. The first was capitular vicar of the Manila Dio-
cese, which became vacant by the death of Archbishop
Aranguren, and as such he wrote some well reasoned
reports on March 1st, 1862, and drew up a memorial
to the Queen, in the name of the Manila chapter, show-
ing the great injustice and the violation of the laws
committed by de^priving the Filipino clergy of the
parishes to be turned over to friars who, on account of
their monastic condition, could not take charge of such
mission. Father Burgos was engaged in a discussion
with the Recollect, Guillermo Agudo, in "El Clamor"
of Madrid. The two champions, Pelaez and Burgos,
were supported by all the Filipino clergy, many of whom
were respected by Filipinos and strangers, for their
wisdom and virtues.

The native clergy had to suffer many hardships.
The friars, thanks to their immense riches, exercised
real sovereignty, which was called by del Pilar "the
monastic sovereignty." They boasted of the same, cruelly
persecuting their enemies, families and even their enemies'
friends. Consequently, many of those indicated by the
finger of misfortune had to go abroad. Thus many

48 BUILDERS OF A NATION

young men, availing themselves of the facilities of trans-
portation then already existing, sailed for Europe and
there started a campaign, denouncing abuses and pro-
posing reforms. In 1871 they published a magazine,
which appeared twice a month, called "El Eco Filipino,"
having for its motto: "Spain with the Philippines; the
Philippines with Spain," and another periodical, "El
Correo de Ultramar," maintained by voluntary sub-
scriptions from well-to-do elements in Manila and the
provinces. The clergy question was the one which
absorbed the public mind, and was the principal sub-
ject of their campaign.

This active campaign by liberal Filipinos began
to have some favorable effect on the new rulers in the
mother-country put in power by the Revolution. In
order to thwart this campaign, the refractory elements
led by the friars created out of nothing the Cavite
revolution of 1872. We make this statement because
up to the present time the facts in our possession tell
us nothing but that it was simply a military sedition,
made use of with supreme abihty by reactionary ele-
ments in order to give it a political significance, thus
involving in the same those Filipinos who, by their
influence and education, were hampering their plans for
exploitation and control. So, in view of those events,
Father Burgos, Gomez and Zamora were sent to the
gallows, and many others, among whom were many
lawyers, priests, merchants and property-holders of
good standing, banished. Some died in exile, others
settled in foreign lands, and few were able to return
to the islands, after many years of pains and sufferings.

The Cavite stroke was thought by the enemies
of our progress to have sounded the death-knell of our
aspirations. A period of about nine or ten years of
relative peace seemed to sustain this belief.

We said "relative," because during the years follow-
ing the Cavite event, a young man, Manuel Regidor,
kept up the campaign for the country in the columns
of a newspaper, the name of which we do not now remem-

HISTORICAL STUDY OF PHILIPPINES 49

ber, founded by Rafael Maria de Labra as an organ
of Cuban autonomy. Its principal writers were Juan
Gualberto Gomez, a Cuban, and Manuel Regidor, a
Filipino. The fact that the revolution of Cuba was
then on fire, which was stopped for the time being by
the arrangement at Zanjon, made Labra's paper very
careful in its campaign.

About the year 1880, Dr. Gregorio Sanciangko y
Gozon, a Manila lawyer and member of the Madrid
bar, then residing in Madrid, defended the rights of the
Filipinos in the columns of "La Discusion," one of the
most important papers in the Spanish capital. In 1881,
he published the first part of his book: El Progreso de
Filipinas: Estudios econdmicos, administrativos y poli-
ticos. In 1882, the Filipinos who were living in
Madrid organized the Circulo Hispano-Filipino, a club
which became so important that it was financially aided
by the Minister for the Colonies who was its adviser.
This association published a paper, La Revista del
Circulo Hispano-Filipino, which, according to Pardo de
Tavera, became a Hispano-maniac.

In 1885, Paterno published his Ninay, a novel
inspired by the Filipino national spirit. At that time,
Pedro Govantes, Jos6 Rizal, Graciano Lopez Jaena,
Eduardo de Lete, Manuel Regidor, and others were
also trying to call the attention of the public toward
the PhiUppines, by means of the newspapers.

Thus we come to the year 1887, when the campaign
in favor of reforms in the Philippines became more
active and energetic. NOLI ME TANGERE, by
Rizal, LA ANTIGUA CIVILIZACION TAGALA by
Paterno, and the weekly paper, Espafia en Filipinas,
belong to this year.

But what might be properly called the beginning
of the end was the appearance of La Solidaridad in the
arena of Spanish papers in 1889. The conflict between
the reformers and the reactionary elements, the latter,
as has been said, being headed by the friars, became
more and more vigorous; the sense of dignity and honor

50 BUILDERS OF A NATION

of the Filipinos was strengthened and brightened the
flame of patriotism in their hearts, as the powerful
redoubled their abuses, arbitrary conduct and acts of
violence in their desire to stifle the first rumblings of
rebellion and protests which began to emerge from the
peaceful nature of the Filipinos. ,

T?he leaders of thought in our country soon realized
the need of guiding these feehngs and ideas in order to
direct the energies bred by such feelings and ideas to
a common goal, and for this reason they founded La
Solidaridad. This paper gathered these psychic mani-
festations which floated timidly and in an indefinite
manner in the atmosphere, giving them a concrete and
tangible form; demonstrated our right to life and hap-
piness; pointed out the root of our grievances, and showed
the legal means which could remedy them. , It made
the people see their real situation and the condition to
which they had a right to aspire; it warned the mother
country of the disastrous results which would inevitably
flow from that oppression, which did not satisfy popu-
lar aspirations.

The air was filled with general unrest; we all felt
something which weighed down on our breasts and created
disquietude in our minds; everyone had some fore-
boding of an impending, mysterious peril which was all
the more terrific because it was unknown; but no one
dared convey his impressions and thoughts to another,
for great were the suspicion, distrust and lack of
confidence created by this threat of an unknown
fate.

It was then seen that it was not sufficient to preach
from the columns of a newspaper as if one were explain-
ing from a professor's chair. It was likewise necessary
to reach the very heart of the people in order to guide
their customs and habits. And freemasonry was estab-
lished in order to give our people a school which
should teach our people standards of social conduct
and accustom them to public spirit. In freemasonry
we learned the spirit of association; in the midst of that

HISTORICAL STUDY OF PHILIPPINES 51

brotherhood we told one another our impressions, our
thoughts, our aspirations, and fitted ourselves for a
united effort.

We were no longer those souls that wander alone
and isolated, distrustful of one another.

But later on, freemasonry with its principles of
universal brotherhood, ceased to satisfy the longings of
our people who were desirous of determining in a more
definite way the destiny of the country. To this state
of our spirit, the creation of the Liga Filipina, started
by Rizal, responded. The league was a sort of freema-
sonry with a specific purpose. It did not want inde-
pendence. It was something like an association for
mutual help for the purpose of making less burden-
some the lot of a brother who fell in the struggle, and of
encouraging the fighters, thus lifting up their hearts to
the idea that they were not alone but that there were
brothers who were ready to minister to them.

The oppressors, the despots, in view of the growing
tenacity of the resistance offered by our people, became
furious, were in a paroxysm of anger and made their
acts of violence more vigorous. This awakened the
Filipinos to the fact that there was no possible concilia-
tion with the Spaniards.

Then the Ldga and the campaign carried on in
Madrid through its organ in the press, La Solidaridad,
with their peaceful methods no longer answered the
needs of the times, so they disappeared in order to make
room for the "Kataastaasan at Kagalanggalang na
Katipunan" which stood for revolution and inde-
pendence.

From the early part of 1889, when the campaign
of La Solidaridad was commenced, which was kept up
with some method and system because it was main-
tained by organizations, to the end of 1896, when said
paper was stopped by an order from Manila, only seven
years elapsed. But in such a short period of time,
great changes in the ideas of the people took place.
Who would believe it! But the fact is that eight and

52 BUILDERS OF A NATION

nine months later, in August 1896, the first cry of rebel-
lion was uttered at Balingtawak, although the Kati-
punan had been going on since 1892 when it was
organized by reason of Rizal's deportation to Dapitan.

This readiness of the popular mind to answer the
call of organization during the preceding seven or eight
years is due no other cause than the long preparation
which I have tried briefly to trace.

Jos6 Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar and Graciano
Lopez Jaena were at the head of the last stage of the
campaign. Let us praise them, for they knew how to
place our country on the path toward her redemp-
tion!

They have not been able to guide her to the last
haven for they lacked time, but they put our country
in a condition to sail by herself, embracing her ideal.

For the sake of this ideal, our land fought against
the Spaniards; she also fought against America, on
account of some misunderstanding, until her strength
was exhausted. She subsequently submitted to Amer-
ican sovereignty, but always true to her ideal, and
with the firm hope that her rights, for which she
has been striving for almost a century, will be
recognized.

It is being shown that her hopes are not in vain;
that they rest on a strong foundation, supported by
the work and self-denial of many generations, and that
the day is not far when they are at last fulfilled, under
the protecting shade of the Stars and Stripes.

Ah! the appearance of Miss M. M. Norton's book
could not be more timely!

It comes out as a brief in our favor at a time when
the final verdict in our cause is about to be given, and Miss
Norton's views are of great weight and importance for
they are based on historical facts which bring home to
us the truth of these words, put by Rizal in the lips
of one of his characters:

"Not all slept during the night of our forefathers."

Translated from the Spanish by Senor Bocobo.

NUESTRA LITERATURA
A TRAVES DE LOS SIGLOS

Por EPIFANIO DE LOS SANTOS CRISTOBAL

Dear Madam:

Me pide Vd. unas cuartillas sobre literatura, asl
indlgena como castellana, de Filipinas, antes de la con-
quista, y su evoluci6ii bajo las influencias del pasado
y presente r6gimen. Debo ser brevfsimo y en Ifneas
generates, para poder llenar medianamente la tarea que
Vd. equivocadamente puso en mis pecadoras manos.

Antes de la conquista, los filipinos tenlan literatura
escrita con caracteres propios. Sus manifestaciones
en verso consisten en sentencias (sabi), proverbios
{savrikain), cantos de mar {soUranin, talindaw), epita-
Idmicos (diona, ayayi, dwit, y otros cong^neres que se
diferencian solamente por la miisica), y una especie
de farsas y sainetes donde se exponen y critican cos-
tumbres locales {duplo, karagatan, donde los acertijos,
bugtongs, tienen gran papel y las narraciones 6pico-
ditirdmbicas llamadas dalits); cantos de guerra, can-
ciones amorosas (kumintang, kundiman), etc., etc.;
bastantes de ellas pueden todavfa recogerse de los artes
y vocabularios tagalos de los siglos XVII y XVIII,
y arin del XIX.

En prosa, todavla existen c6dices de cardcter
religiose y jur£dico-penal con marcada influencia malayo-
mahometana.

Como la conquista la llevaron castellanos del siglo
XVI, el siglo de oro de su literatura, impregnada del
Renacimiento, tom6 carta de naturaleza en Filipinas.
Circunstancias especiales determinaron que la influencia
castellana se reflejase primeramente en los dialectos
del pals que no en la misma lengua castellana, que se
hizo de moda en los comienzos de la conquista.

53

54 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Al hecho de que los dialectos, principalmente el
tagalo, ya tenia cardcter. literario antes de la conquista,
fu6 posible la publicaci6n xilogrdfica de la Doctrina
cristiana tagalo-espanola, atribuida a Plasencia, 1593,
en donde la Ave Maria tagala, Chirino, helenista y
latinista, pone por eneima de la griega, latina y caste-
liana. Lo mds notable en esta pieza literaria es que
carece de influencia castellana, en l^xico y conexi6n
gramatical, que denota la colaboracion an6nima del
isleno.

Desde el Memorial de Blancas de San Jos6, 1606,
comenz6 a parecer el nombre de un filipino como autor :
Don Fernando Bagongbanta, que versified en romance
octosflabo, castellano y tagalo. En 1610, Tomd,s Pinpin
public6 su Ldbrong..., y Pinpin, sobre conquistarse el
titulo de prlncipe de los tipografos y grabadores filipi-
nos, di6se a conocer como fil61ogo y humanista en una
pieza, creando adem& el tipo del filipino industrial
de cardcter reproductivo. Fu6 autor bilingiie. Su prosa
como sus versos marcan era.

Bagongbanta us6 el romance de ocho sllabas.
Pinpin, en una sola composici6n, combin6 romance-
rillos de cinco, seis y siete sflabas. La m^trica de ambos
escritores es la que posteriormente privo a lo largo
de toda la literatura indfgena.

En las comedias y composiciones de caracter
herdico, se usaron versos dobles de seis y dobles de
siete; y en algunos epigramas de caracter popular,
dobles de cinco. Los dobles de cinco, tanto pueden
ser de nueve como de diez sflabas. Serd,n de nueve,
si la novena sflaba con que termina el verso estd acen-
tuada, porque la sflaba final acentuada s61o por excep-
ci6n, en tagalo, vale por dos. Si la sflaba d6cima estd
acentuada, esta serd de diez sflabas para los filipinos,
y de once para los espanoles. En la Bibliograffa Fili-
pina vdn muy marcadas las dos grandes divisiones
de la Po^tica filipina. Los awit, o sea poemas her6ico-
caballerescos, estdn escritos en dodecasflabos filipinos.

NUESTRA LITEKATURA A TRAVES DE LOS SIGLOS 55

o sea versos dobles de seis castellanos; y los corridas,
poemas legendario religiosos, en octosilabos filipinos.

Digo filipinos, porque en estos dodecastlabos no
hacen sinalefa la vocal con que termina la sexta sllaba
con la vocal con que comienza la s^ptima sllaba. La
cesura en la sexta tiene que ser invariablemente en la
sexta sin que los primeros hemistiquios, como los de
los castellanos, puedan ser de cinco o siete silabas; y
m£s que cesura, es una verdadera pausa. En dicha
sllaba sexta se completa el sentido del verso, y solo
por excepci6n la palabra que trae la sexta, por conexi6n
gramatical, se apoya en la siguiente. La rima y sobre
el ritmo son enteramente distintos de los de doce sila-
bas castellanos, ritmo que va al unisono con el kumin-
tang, aire musical genuinamente tagalo con que suele
acompanarse estos dodecasilabos, y cuyo movimiento
es de sexasllabo, o parecido al romancerillo mon6rrimo
de seis silabas. Aunque a los ojos, los dodecasilabos
filipinos parezcan mon6tonos, su lectura tagala, por
la variedad del ritmo y de los sonidos artieulados finales,
no carecen de gracia y de dulzura a veces inefable,
como los dulclsimos Adagios de Beethoven y ciertos
trozos epicos de Wagner.

Con el trascurso del tiempo, los versos de cinco,
seis y siete silabas se acantonaron en las adivinanzas,,
proverbios y cuentos populares, por ejemplo, en el
cuento La tortuga y el mono. Los de nueve, diez y
catorce silabas desaparecieron desde el siglo XVII.
Por excepcion, solo podrd hallarse en el siglo XIX
diferentes metros y combinaciones de ellos, creo yo,
en un solo autor: en el del Ldhro nang Martir sa Golgota,
Juan Evangelista (1886). Todo esto respecto a los
filipinos. Respecto a los espanoles y religiosos, casi
todos usaron exclusivamente el octosllabo, y por excep-
cion el dodecasilabo. En los filipinos, apenas Uega a
un ocho por ciento de los dodecasilabos la proporcion
de los octosilabos.

Aunque no tenemos una Bibliografia Poetica como
la de Ritson que cataloga unos seiscientos poetas ingle-

56 BUILDERS OF A NATION

ses de los siglos XV y XVI, en donde el noventa y nueve
por ciento son meras sombras de nombres; algunos,
simplemente inieiales, se puede afirmar que Filipinas
tuvo bastantes poetas. Los cronistas espanoles estdn
de acuerdo que los filipinos tan poetas nacen como
miisicos; y que la poesfa es para ellos bocado de buen
gusto. Y para no repetir cuanto tengo escrito sobre
la literatura de los dialectos, especialmente la tagala,
tanto en prosa como en verso, me limitary aqul a repro-
ducir una apreciaci6n general acerca del cardcter y
tendencias de su Poesfa, aplicable a la prosa, y tambi^n
a la literatura castellana, con muy pequenas diferencias
en cuanto al cardcter y tiempo de su aplicaci6n.

La inagotable malicia, la cortesania, el ingenio
parab61ico, la gracia y la primaveral frescura que dis-
tinguen el estilo siempre pintoresco de los poetas anti-
guos, informaron hasta cierto punto el estilo de los
eruditos y soberanos maestros de principios y mediados
del siglo XIX; quienes, al ensanchar los caracterlsticos
cuadros de g^nero que hallaron, anadieron variedad
de matices y tonos a su dialecto portico, pactaron alianza
con la civilizaci6n occidental, haciendo carne de su
carne las conquistas de que aquella mds puede enva-
necerse y gloriarse, y al propio tiempo que un cuadro
mds amplio de la vida y el conflicto de voluntades ele-
vaban el interns dramdtico de sus obras, ya de poderosa
unidad orgdnica, la elevaci6n moral, la tolerancia reli-
giosa y la noble indignaci6n patridtica encontraban
por vez primera la mds perfecta expresi6n en ellas.

Desde 1872, y especialmente desde 1882 a 1896,
por imperativo imperio de las circunstancias, los vates
bebieron en fuentes desconocidas de sus predecesores,
y como mds que poetas eran sacerdotes y ap6stoles
de la buena nueva, empunaron el Idtigo de la burla
y del sarcasmo, y con 61 sacudieron las espaldas de los
tiranos; sus robustas estrofas despertadoras de la con-
ciencia nacional, son todavla fiel eco del estruendo de
la lucha y de los vigorosos miisculos de los luchadores.

NUESTfiA LITEBATUBA A TBAVES DE LOS SIGLOS 57

No hay que buscar en ellos ni la frescura primaveral
ni la malicia ingenua, sino intencidn y fanatismo liber-
tario.

El periodo hist6rico de 1896 a 1899 es el de mayor
efervescencia del entusiasmo lirico; como que los vates
entonces, ademds de los heroes nacionales Burgos,
G6mez y Zamora, tenlan el H^roe nacional por anto-
nomasia, el Gran Filipino (Rizal), al Gran Plebeyo
(Andres Bonifacio) y gloriosas fechas nacionales: Nove-
leta, 13 de Agosto de 1896, la Declaraci6n de la Inde-
pendencia y la inauguracion de la Repiiblica Filipina,
y podian hacerse oir y leer por un piiblico de heroes
que podrfan renovar los laureles conquistados por sus
antepasados.

Pero a partir de 1900, los fuegos b^licos fueron
apagandose, con suerte tal que las salvas de las baterlas
y de las plazas ya solo eran para conmemorar con reso-
nancia una fecha o un episodio patri6tico, o para salu-
dar el triunfo o el advenimiento de las artes de la Paz.
Las innovaciones m^tricas y el prurito de ensanchar
los dominios de la lengua vernacular fueron el cardcter
dominante, y no por el estudio de los antiguos modelos
ni por el contacto directo con el pueblo, sino que los
poetas, haci^ndose eco de las agitaciones sociales moder-
nas, inventaron o creyeron inventar palabras, giros
y frases con que poderlas apropiar, y aspiraron a ser los
hierofantes de su pueblo; la generosa y noble indig-
nacion patriotica trocose en sus manos en la menos
noble y generosa de facci6n y de partido politico.

De rechazo lanz6se al descubrimiento de nuevos
mundos el Teatro Tagalo, y con base histdrica contem-
pord,nea, y por lo mismo, no muy depurada y sujeta
a contencion, y con tendencia a simbolismos, pero con
orientaci6n restauradora hasta cierto punto de lo neta-
mente nacional.

Cuanto a la literatura castellana, ya dije que
Bagongbanta en 1606, y Pinpin en 1610, escribieron
bilingiie en tagalo y castellano, con un senorio de este
tiltimo, por parte de Pinpin, de que hay pocos ejemplos.

58 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Chirino (1604) dice que los filipinos, en castellano,
"escriben tan bien come nosotros, y aiin mejor, porque
son tan hd,biles, que cualquiera cosa aprenden con suma
facilidad." Blancas de San Jos6 (1606) se llen6 de
estupor de ver que apenas hubo mujer en su tiempo
que no supiera leer libros en castellano "dificultoso
de creer a quien no lo viere," y esto no solo en los habi-
tantes del llano, sino aun en los serranos, los negritos.
Un negrito de siete anos de edad, en 1611, alab6 en
latin y castellano a San Ignacio dq Loyola, "con la
gracia que pudiera hacer un elocuente orador."

Las disciplinas del saber entonces eran: Instituto,
Teologla, Filosofia, Cdnones, Gramdtica, Leyes Civil
y de Indias; y las carreras predominantes, la Eclesids-
tica y la Abogacfa. For testimonio del Dr. Francisco
L6pez Adan (1737), se sabe que en las Universidades
de Santo Tomds y de los Jesuitas, los filipinos que ayer
apenas eran Discipulos actuaron bien pronto de Maes-
tros y Catedraticos con una idoneidad propia "no solo
de las Cd,tedras de estas Islas; pero aun de las primeras
en Europa."

Asf no ini extrano que los filipinos se hicieran de
los puestos mds altos de la sociedad. Hubo muchos
Obispos; uno de ellos interin6 de Gobernador General
y Presidente de la Real Audiencia. P. Pedro Bello
fu6 electo Provincial de los Jesuitas. Los juriscon-
sultos filipinos no quedaron a la zaga de los eclesidsticos.

Como entonces desconoclanse las castas domi-
nantes (que aparecieron en pleno siglo XIX), y el gober-
nalle de los pueblos no manejaban buenos hombres
de la tierra, la influencia de las campanas no podia
ser entonces mds edificante y democrdtica. Por esto,
las ideas y cuanto agita, intriga y regocija la vida uni-
versitaria, se reproducfa en los pueblos, encontrando
eco en la cabana del labriego. En los domingos, fiestas
de guardar y, sobre todo, tutelares, todos los habitantes
de una regidn, en romerla, iban a oir y pender de los
labios del orador sagrado de fama, que a toda costa
y con montanas de oro se trafa de Manila, o de donde

NtTESTRA LITERATURA A TRAVES DE LOS SIGLOS 59

se le hallaba. Los conceptos que vertfa el orador no se
limitaban a lo que sugerlala vidadel Santo del,dfa;a lo
mejor, de lo teol6gico, filosofico o juridico, entraba a carga
cerrada con las cuestiones palpitantes del momento, em-
pleando un lenguaje oratorio donde retozan perlas de
erudicion. La poblaci6n se convertfa muy luego en
una academia viviente. Todos los t^rminos del serm6n
o la catilinaria, segiin los casos, se comentaba dramd-
ticamente, con apostillas de parte de los alumnos uni-
versitarios ■ del pueblo, de vacaciones entonces, o de
los alumnos, graduados de los pueblos y provincias
limltrofes. Del casco de la poblaci6n, la disputa de la
lira emigraba a los bantayanes y huertas; de estas,
de un respingo, salfa disparada para la choza riistiea,
y de esta al parrado del pastor que sestea el ganado.

Y jclaro!, en otros siglos, por muy lenta que se
difundiese la cultura latino-castellana, habrd de quedar
firmemente difundida, germinando y produciendo frutos
de sabor y color conocidos para los hijos del Archi-
pi^lago de Legaspi. Cultura no debida a los libros,
a la Prensa, a los clubs, a las escuelas, a las conf erencias,
sino a un ambiente especial como el ambiente y cielo es-
peciales de Holanda que acondicionaron a un Rembrandt,
un Potter, en fin, a la escuela denominada flamenca;
cultura que estimul6 el natural ingenio, la natural saga-
cidad del filipino, industridndole en las rudas disciplinas
teol6gicas, filos6ficas y juridicas ; que crearon y f ortificaron
la unidad de ideas y sentimientos del pueblo filipino, in-
fundi^ndole ese espfritu de critica que le distingue, tal
vez estrecha antes de la Revoluci6n, pero estrecha y todo,
formidable para confundir al adversario con los propios
t^rminos de su razonamiento. No produjo escritores
a destajo, durante el tiempo en que las circunstancias
poHticas se lo vedaban, pero produjo sutiles improvi-
sadores, ingeniosos conversacionistas, y ese primor
suyo en el trato social que ilumina y regocija la vida,
y de que se hace lenguas el extranjero que tiene la opor-
tunidad de conocerle de cerca.

60 BUILDEBS OF A NATION

Los filipinos, pues, por un consorcio dichoso de
circunstancias y cualidades, tanto innatas come adqui-
ridas, vinieron a ser como el italiano y el frances del
Mediodia que describe Taine: "si sobres, si prompts
d'esprit, qui, naturellement, savent parler, causer,
mimer leur pens^e, avoir du gout, atteindre k I'^l^gance,
et sans effort, comma les Provencaux du Xlle siScle
et les Florentins du XlVe, se trouvent cultivfe, civi-
lises, achev^s du premier coup."

Ahora bien; un pueblo de estas condiciones, 6chelo
Vd. en brazos de una revoluci6n como la francesa,
para que al contacto con el rocio, el sol y la arena se
entregue febrilmente a la acci6n y a la producci6n lite-
raria, sin traba de ningiin g^nero; por el contrario,
en medio de una atm6sfera vivificante y protectora,
donde los materiales y la corriente de ideas hacen de
mosto y alimento divino para magnificar la facultad
creadora, y verd Vd. si serf an capaces de lanzarse a la
conquista de nuevas tierras.

Con efecto, las preciadas joyas de Cecilio Apostol,
Fernando M.a Guerrero, Jos6 Palma, Clemente J.
Zulueta, Honorio Valenzuela y otros, son de este
momento hist6rico, 1895-1900, sin igual en los anales de
Filipinas en frescura, pasi6n y espontaneidad, cualida-
des esenciales en todo arte, principalmente en la Poesfa.

Mucho antes que el ambiente favoreciera la inspi-
raci6n individual, ya estos poetas tenlan cierta pericia
t^cnica en su arte, cierta maestrfa en el hd,bil uso de
cortes y pausas y en aquella manera peregrina de
ayuntar, castiza unas veces, artificial otras, palabras,
frases y periodos porticos. Eran duenos de un dia-
lecto portico, mds o menos rico, y vates, en una palabra,
de medida y niSmero.

Asl los Afectos a la Virgen, de Zulueta, "flor tropi-
cal" premiada con lirio de plata por la Academia Biblio-
grdfico-Mariana de L6rida, Espana, data de 1895;
El Kundiman, de J. Palma, sabrosa frutilla del solar
nativo, abonado con mantillo del huerto de Rueda, de
1895; la inspiradfsima Mi Patria, de Guerrero, que vi6

NUESTBA LITERATUEA A TKAVBS DE LOS SIGLOS 61

la luz por vez primera en La Independencia en 1898,
estd escrita en 1897. Muchas composiciones, por
ejemplo, de Apostol, anteriores a 1898, nada perderian
en la comparacion con otras suyas de fecha posterior,
excepto con la dedicada A los Mdrtires Andnimos de la
Patria y con La Siesta (1898), la cuales, aunque recuerdan
El Nido de Condores del poeta argentino Andrade y el
Idilio de Nunez de Arce, no son solamente de lo md,s sobre-
saliente en el repertorio de Apostol y que lucirfan en
cualquiera antologfa, sino que son todavla mejores
que las citadas de aquellos excelsos vates, por el arranque
Ifrico y el colorido del paisaje tropical de que 6stos care-
cen. Celebraban, ademds, peri6dicas tertulias, modes-
tas academias, en donde todo se lefa, discutia y comen-
taba desinteresadamente; en ellas comenzaron a hacer
alarde de sus dotes crfticas Jaime C. de Veyra, Zulueta y
Macario Adridtico.

La era revolucionaria fu6 para los filipinos lo que
el siglo de Isabel para los ingleses. La diferencia,
aparte las naturales y circunstanciales que se sobre-
entienden, es que gran parte de lo sembrado, crfado y
cosechado durante la Revolucion, se ha quedado en los
campos de labor, porque no hubo tiempo material
para recoger todo el grano. Mas como este grano
no es de los que se pudren en las eras, pero pueden malo-
grarse, por esto, desde 1900 en adelante, se ha ido reco-
gi^ndole de prisa, puliendole, para que gane en esti-
macion y precio. Tambi^n semillas de otro 6rden,
de importacion americana, se han echado en el surco
y han prendido. Y se espera que los botoncillos que
ya comienzan a sonreir muy pronto se convirtirdn en
panojas.

Mucho se ha hecho; mucho se ha adelantado. Pero
los espanoles, los filipinos y los americanos deben tener
en mientes que la obra fu^ y serd, de todos. A nadie
le es licito reclamar la exclusiva del privilegio. Todos
deben cooperar a la obra ya comenzada, trabajando
sin cesar y con los ojos hacia aquella Ciudad Celestial

62 BUILDERS OF A NATION

de que habl6 Goethe: Que lo hecho es bien poquisima
cosa para lo muchisimo que todavfa estd por hacer:

Das wenige verschwindet leicht dem Blicke
Der vorwarts sieht, wie viel noch ubrig bleibt

Y con los buenos deseos de su devoto servidor y
colega en letras: "ingatan po cayo ng Dios at ni Guinoong
Santa Marfa," que dirfa el plo Modesto de Castro.

Malolos, 30 Noviembre 1913.

SHORT HISTORY OF TAGALOG
LITERATURE

Madam :—

You ask me for a few lines on native and Spanish
literature in the Philippine Islands prior to the conquest,
and their evolution under the influence of the past
and present regime. In. order to acquit myself, in
anything like a fair manner, of the task which you have
committed the error of entrusting to me, I must be very
brief and treat the subject-matter along general lines.

Before the conquest the Filipinos had a literature
written in characters of their own. Its manifestations
in verse consisted in maxims (sabi), proverbs (sawikain) ,
boat songs {soliranin, talindaw), nuptial songs {diona,
ayayi, awit, and others of the kind, the only difference
being in the music), and a kind of farces representing and
criticising local customs {duplo, karagatan, in which
riddles or bugtongs play a considerable role, and epic-
dithyrambical tales called dalits); war songs, love songs
{kumintang, kundiman), etc., etc. A considerable num-
ber of these can still be gathered from the Tagalog
grammars and vocabularies of the 17th and 18th cen-
turies, and even of the 19th.

In prose there are still codes of a religious and
criminological character, in which a marked malayo-
mohammedan influence is noticeable.

The conquest being effected by CastiUians of the
16th century, the golden century of their literature,
impregnated with the Renaissance, was transplanted
to the Philippine Islands. Owing to special circum-
stances, the CastilUan influence was reflected first in the
dialects of the country before it appeared in the Spanish
language, which became fashionable at the outset of
the conquest.

The fact that the dialects, principally the Tagalog,
already had a literary character before the conquest,

63

64 BUILDERS OF A NATION

rendered possible the xylographic publication of the
Doctrina cristiana tagalo-es'panola, attributed to Pla-
sencia, in 1593, in which Chirino. a Greek and Latin
scholar, places the Tagalog Ave Maria above the Greek,
Latin, and Spanish. The most noteworthy in this
piece of literature is that it is devoid of all Spanish
influence in its vocabulary and grammar, which denotes
anonymous collaboration on the part of the islander,

Beginning with the Memorial of Blancas de San
Jos6, 1606, the name of a Filipino author appears: this
is Don Fernando Bagongbanta, who versified in octo-
syllabic romance in Spanish and Tagalog. In 1610,

Tomas Pinpin published his Librong , and

besides conquering for himself the title of prince of the
Filipino typographers and engravers, he made himself
a reputation as philologist and humanist and gave
origin to the type of the Filipino industrial of a repro-
ductive nature. He was an author in two languages.
His prose as well as his verse mark an epoch.

Bagongbanta made use of the romance of eight
syllables. Pinpin, in one composition, combined romarv-
cillos of five, six, and seven syllables. The meter of
these two writers is the one which became at length
the accepted fashion in all native literature.

In the comedies and compositions of a heroic
character, double verses of six and of seven were used,
and in some epigrams of a popular character, double
verses of five. These latter may have either nine or
ten syllables. They have nine if the ninth syllable,
with which the verse ends, is accented, because the
final syllable^ accented in Tagalog only in exceptional
cases, counts for two. If the tenth syllable is accented,
the verse has ten syllables for Filipinos and eleven for
Spaniards. The two great divisions of Filipino poetry
are clearly marked in the Filipino bibliography. The
awit, or chivalric-heroic poems, are written in Filipino
dodecasyllabic verse or iii Spanish double verses of
six, and the corridas, legendary and religious poems.

SHOBT HISTORY OF TAGALOG LITERATURE 65

in Filipino octosyllabic verse. I say Filipino, because
in these dodesyllabic verses there is no synalepha
between the vowel with which the sixth syllable termi-
nates, and the vowel beginning the seventh. The
caesura in the sixth must invariably be in the sixth, and
the first hemistichs can not be of five or seven syllables,
as in Spanish, and it is a real pause rather than a caesura.
This sixth syllable completes the sense of the verse,
and the word to which it belongs has only in exceptional
cases any grammatical connection with the one next fol-
lowing. The rhyme and especially the rhythm are en-
tirely different from those of the twelve-syllable Spanish
verse; the rhythm is unisonous with the kumintang,
a purely Tagalog musical air which is generally used
as accompaniment to these dodecasyllabic verses and
has a sexasyllabic movement, similar to the mono-
rhythmic romancerillo of six syllables. Although the
Filipino dodecasyllabic verse may look monotonous
to the eye, yet, if read in Tagalog, the variety of the
rhythm and of the final articulated sounds gives it grace
and at times ineffable sweetness, reminding one of the
exceedingly soft adagios of Beethoven and certain epic
pieces of Wagner's.,

In the course of time, the five, six, and seven syl-
lable verses took possession of conundrums, proverbs,
and popular tales, such as the Tale of the Turtle and
the Monkey. Those of nine, ten and fourteen syllables
began to disappear in the 17th century. Exceptions
are to be found in the 19th century in only one author,
I believe, who uses different meters and combinations:
in the Idbro nang Martir sa Golgota, by Juan Evangelista
(1886). So much for the Filipinos. The Spaniards
and the members of the religious orders used almost
exclusively the octosyllabic verse, and, as an excep-
tion, the dodecasyllabic. Among the Filipinos the
proportion of the octosyllabic verses to the dodecasyl-
labic is scarcely eight to the hundred.

66 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Though we have no Bibliographia Poetica like Rit-
son's, which catalogues some six hundred English poets
of the 15th and 16th centuries, ninety-nine per cent,
of whom are mere shadows of names and some simply
initials, it can be affirmed that the Philippine Islands
have had a considerable number of poets. The Spanish
chroniclers are agreed that the Filipinos are born poets
as well as musicians, and that poetry is very pleasing
to them. And in order not to repeat what I have
already written with regard to the vernacular litera-
ture, especially the Tagalog, both in prose and in yerse,
I shall merely reproduce here a general opinion on the
character and tendency of their poetry, which is also
applicable to the prose and to the Spanish literature
as well, with slight differences as regards the character
and the time of their apogee.

The inexhaustible playfulness, the graciousness,
the parabolic acuteness, the grace and primaeval
freshness that distinguish the always picturesque style
of the ancient poets had a certain influence on the style
of the erudite and sovereign masters at the beginning
and middle of the 19th century who, broadening the
scope of the characteristic models they found, added
variety of shades and tone to their poetical language,
assimilating those conquests of occidental civilization
which are its greatest pride and glory. A broader
field of life and the conflict of ideas enhanced the drama-
tic interest of their works, which were already possessed
of powerful organic unity, and moral elevation, reli-
gious tolerance, and noble patriotic indignation found
for the first time expression in them.

Beginning with 1872, and especially from 1882 to
1896, the poets, due to the imperative force of the cir-
cumstances, derived their inspiration from sources
unknown to their predecessors. Priests and disciples
of the new gospel rather than poets, they seized the
scourge of ridicule and sarcasm and with it plied the
tyrants' backs. Their rugged stanzas, which awakened
the national conscience, still echo faithfully the din of

SHORT HISTORY OF TAGALOG LITERATURE 67

the battle and the vigorous onslaught of the com-
batants. In them we find neither freshness of spring
nor ingenuous playfulness, but the strife and fanaticism
of the struggle for liberty.

The historical period from "1896 to 1899 is the oiie
in which lyrical enthusiasm reached its highest degree
of effervescence. The poets had then, besides the
national heroes Burgos, Gomez, and Zamora, the national
hero by antonomasia, the Great Filipino (Rizal), the
Great Plebeian (Andres Bonifacio), and glorious national
dates: Noveleta, the 13th of August, 1898, the Decla-
ration of Independence, and the inauguration of the
Filipino Republic, and they were able to sing to and
write for a public made up of heroes, capable of refreshing
the laurels won by their ancestors.

Beginning with 1900, however, the bellic fires died
down and the salvoes of the batteries and strong places
thundered only to commemorate some patriotic date
or episode or to salute the triumph or advent of the arts
of peace. Metrical innovations and a desire to enrich
the vernacular tongues predominated, but the poets,
inst.ead of studying the old models or placing themselves
in direct contact with the people, reflected what is
agitating modern society and invented, or thought they
invented, words, turns of speech, and phrases where-
with to express it. They aspired to being hierophants
of the people, and in their hands the generous nad noble
patriotic indignation was transformed into the less
noble and generous expression of factional and poli-
tical strife.

Then the Tagalog theatre went forth in quest of new
worlds to conquer. Its plays now were based on con-
temporaneous history and this not being of an established
order they reflect the changes. They showed also a
tendency towards symbohcism and, to a certain degree,
towards the restoration of everything purely national.

As to the literature in Spanish, I have already
mentioned that Bagongbanta, in 1606, and Pinpin,
in 1610, wrote in two languages, Tagalog and Spanish,

68 BUILDEES OF A NATION

the latter of these authors with a command of the Cas-
tillian tongue of which there are but few examples.

Chirino (1604) says that in Spanish the Filipinos
"write as well as we, and even better, because they are
so skilful that they learn everything with great ease."
Blancas de San Jos6 (1606) was astonished to see that
at his time there was scarcely a woman who was not
able to read books in Spanish, which he considered
"hard to believe for anybody who had not seen it,"
and this not only among the inhabitants of the plains,
but also among the hill dwellers, the Negritos. In
1611, a Negrito seven years of age lauded San Ignacio
de Loyola "in Latin and Spanish as gracefully as any
eloquent orator."

The sciences then taught were institutes, theology,
philosophy, canons, grammar, civil law, and laws of
the Indies, and the predominant careers the priesthood
and law. Through Dr. Francisco Lopez Adan (1737)
we know that at the Universities of Santo Tomds and
of the Jesuits, the Filipinos, who but yesterday were
mere students, acted very soon as "teachers and pro-
fessors" with a competency making them worthy "not
only of the professorial chairs of these Islands, but
even of the first of Europe."

Thus it was not strange that Filipinos occupied
the highest positions in society. There were many
Filipino bishops; one acted as governor-general and
president of the Real Audiencia. Father Pedro Bello
was elected Provincial of the Jesuits. The Filipino
jurists did not remain behind the priests.

As the dominant castes (which did not appear until
the middle of the 19th century) were then unknown and
the government of the pueblos was in the hands of good
sons of the soil, the influence of the country could not
have been more edifying and democratic than it was
in those days. The ideas and everjrthing that agitates,
worries, and cheers university life were reproduced
in the pueblos and found an echo in the hut of the hus-
bandman. On Sundays and holidays, and particu-

SHORT HISTORY OF TAGALOG LITERATURE 69

larly on the patron saint's day, all the inhabitants of a
region would make a pilgrimage to hear and hang on
the lips of the noted sacred orator who had been brought
from Manila, or wherever else he was, at the expense
of much trouble and gold. The subjects on which he
spoke were not confined to those suggested by the life
of the saint of the day: often, leaving the theological,
philosophical, or juridical field, he would enter fully
upon a discussion of the current topics of the moment,
using language replete with pearls of erudition. The
town was then quickly converted into a live academy.
All the features of the sermon or philippic, whichever
it was, were discussed dramatically, with commentaries
by the university students of the pueblo home on a
vacation, or by the university graduates of the adjacent
pueblos and provinces. From the town proper the
lyrical discussion migrated to the outlying barrios,
and thence, by a bound, it' would translate itself to
the rustic hut and from it to the shelter of the herder
tending the cattle.

And, of course, during the three centuries that the
Latin-Spanish culture had for diffusing itself, however
slowly the process took place, that culture was bound
to become thoroughly diffused and to germinate and
bear rich fruit for the sons of the Archipelago of Legaspi.
This culture was not due to books, to the press, to
clubs, to schools, to lectures, but to a special atmosphere,
like the special atmosphere and sky of Holland, which
shaped a Rembrandt, a Potter, in short, what is known
as theFlemish School. It stimulated the natural genius,
the natural sagacity of the Filipino, helping him along
on the rough path of theological, philosophical, and
juridical studies, and created and fortified the unity
of ideas and sentiments of the Filipino people, infusing
it with the critical spirit that distinguishes it and which,
though perhaps confined within narrow bounds before
the Revolution, was nevertheless sufficiently formidable
to confound the adversary with his own arguments.
It did not produce writers in abundance during the time

70 BUILDERS OF A NATION

when political conditions prevented it, but it brought
forth subtle improvisators, ingenious conversationalists,
and that exquisiteness in social intercourse which bright-
ens and cheers life and is so highly spoken of by the
foreigner who has had an opportunity to become more
closely acquainted with it.

By a happy combination of circumstances and
qualities, innate as well as acquired, the Filipino has
become like the Italian and southern Frenchman, whom
Taine describes as "si sobres, si prompts d'esprit, qui,
naturellement, savent parler, causer, mimer leur pens^e,
avoir du gout, atteindre h I'^l^gance, et sans effort,
comme les Provengaux du XII siScle et les Florentins
du XIV, se trouvent cultiv^s, civilis6s, achev^s du
premier coup."

Now, just throw a people with these qualities into
the arms of a movement like the French Revolution,
so that, touched by the dew, sun and soil will enter
upon feverish activity and productivity, without any
impediment whatever, surrounded by a vivifying,
favorable atmosphere in which the materials and the
current of ideas serve as stimulant and divine nourish-
ment to the creative power, and you will find them
capable of conquering new worlds.

Indeed, the beautiful gems of Cecilio Apostol,
Fernando M.^ Guerrereo, Jos6 Palma, Clemente J.
Zulueta, Honorio Valenzuela, and others, belong to
that historical period of 1895-1900, unequalled in the
annals of the Philippine Islands in freshness, passion,
and spontaneousness, all essential qualities in every
art, but principally in poetry.

Long before the atmosphere had begun to be
favorable to individual inspiration, these poets had had
a certain technical skill in their art, a certain mastery
of the proper use of stops and shorts and of that rare
manner of joining together words, phrases, and poetical
periods, sometimes in a natural and at others in an arti-

SHORT HISTORY OF TAGALOG LITERATURE 71

ficial way. They were masters of a more or less rich
poetical dialect — in other words, they were poets of
measure and number.

Thus Zulueta's Afectos a la Virgen, a tropical flower
that was awarded a silver lily by the "Academia Biblio-
grafico-Mariana" of L6rida, Spain, dates of 1895; El
Kundiman, by J. Palma, a savory fruit of the native
orchard fertilized with the soil of the garden of Rueda,
of 1895; Guerrero's inspired "Mi Patria," which first
saw the light in "La Independencia" in 1898, was written
in 1897. Many compositions, for instance Apostol's,
written prior to 1898, would lose nothing by a compari-
son with other poems of his of a later date, except with
that dedicated to Los mdrtires andnimos de la Patria
and La Siesta (1898) which, though they remind one
of El nido de cdndores, by the Argentine poet Andrade,
and of Nunez de Arce's Idilio, are not only the best in
Apostol's repertoire and would grace any anthology,
but are superior to the poems of the poets cited by us,
because of the lyrical impetuousness and the coloring
of the tropical landscape which these lack. They held,
besides, periodical, tertulias, modest academies where
everything was read, discussed, and commented upon
disinterestedly, and in which Jaime C. de Veyra, Zulueta,
and Macario Adriatico began to show their critical
gifts.

The revolutionary time was for the Filipinos what
the Elizabethian era was for the English. The differ-
ence, aside from the natural and circumstantial differ-
ences, which need no explanation, is that a large part
of what was sown, grown, and harvested during the
Revolution remained in the fields of labor, as there was
a lack of time for gathering all the grain. This grain,
however, is not of the kind that will rot in the field,
but it ma^ become lost, and for this reason it has since
1900 been hurriedly gathered and poUshed in order
to enhance its value. Seed of another kind, brought
to us from America, has also been cast into the furrow

72 BUILDEBS OF A NATION

and has taken root. It is hoped that the buds which
are already beginning to show will soon ripen into
fruit.

Much has been done; much headway has been made.
However, Spaniards, Filipinos, and Americans must
bear in mind that the work was and will be everybody's.
Nobody is entitled to claim the exclusive privilege.
All must cooperate in the work already begun and labor
without cessation, with the eyes turned towards that
celestial city of which Goethe speaks, because what has
been done is very little compared with what still remains
to be accomplished :

Das wenige verschwindet leicht dem Blicke
Der vorwarts sieht, wie viel noch iibrig
bleibt.

And with the good wishes of your devoted servant
and colleague in letters, "ingatan po cayo nang Dios
at ni Guino6ng Santa Maria," as the pious Modesto
de Castro would have said.

Malolos, November 30, 1913.

(Translated from the Spanish by Mr. Leo. Fischer
of the Executive Bureau.)

'THE PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY. "

From an Address Delivered Before the College of Law
of the University of the Philippines

BY GREGORIO NIEVA

(Formerly Secretary, First Philippine Assembly, and Member, Second
Philippine Assembly.)

The Philippine Assembly:

When we speak of the Assembly, a thought of
reverence unto those, known and unknown, who fell
in the struggle would be most appropriate, and any
individual or party exclusive claim for that work that
brought it about to a successful materialization would
be inconsistent with such reverence to our glorious past.

The work of a people, no matter who it may be,
imless stunted to the contrary,* is always permanent,
constructive, progressive in character, tends always
towards the promotion of its own welfare, towards its
national goal, and cannot, with any propriety, be attri-
buted to any one single man or party, although for
every situation all along centuries history shows there
has always been a man entrusted by Providence with
the execution of the corresponding labor, with its leader-
ship. There was only one Washington, only one Rizal.

Thus, if we make even a cursory research of those
events of our country's history that may lead us to the
birth in the Islands of the idea of people's representa-
tion, not to speak of what is connected with our pre-
historj'', i. e., prior to the record of imposed alien gov-
ernment here, we would have to go as far back as Jan-
uary 22, 1809, when the Islands were considered an inte-
gral part of the Spanish Monarchy, and allowed national
representation in the Congress or Cortes of Spain.
(Artigas.)

(*) I hope European colonists will realize this sooner or later.^ I indeed am
anxious to see the immediate universal awakening of public consciousness, parti-
cularly in the Far East, thus ending sooner the odious, painful existence of the
so-called colonies which, anyhow, must and shall come to an end.

How pleasant it should be to see the East side by side with the West, both
great, helping each other, instead of the latter exploiting the former.

This is not altogether impossible.

But this has to be worked out, unfailingly, solidly, en maase, by the
Easterners themselves.

73

74 BUILDERS OF A NATION

We find the following in our historical record by
Blair and Robertson, Volume LI:

"Three times in their history have the
Philippines had representation in the Spanish
national Cortes, namely, for the years 1810-1813,
1820-1823, and 1834-1837." '

"Several general measures enacted by the
Cortes touch the Philippines incidentally. The
first matter, however, specifically connected
with the Philippines was the receipt by the Cortea
(March 16, 1811) of the report of the governor
of the Philippines (dated August 8, 1809) in
regard to the French vessel Mosca, which
had been captured by the parish priest of Batan-
gas (Fray Melchor Fernandez), and the dis-
patches carried on that vessel. The reading
on April 26, 1812, of the proposed decree pre-
scribing the manner of holding elections in the
regular Cortes to be convened in 1813, aroused
lengthy discussion. On May 6, Reyes moved
that a special form of election be granted for
the Philippines because of their distance and the
character of their inhabitants. The islands had
neither the funds nor the men to send by which
equality of representation would be justified,
and he requested that it only be declared that
they must not send less than two. An amend-
ment offered by the committee on the Constitu-
tion proposed that to the instructions regarding
the elections ,in Ultramar be added a clause to
meet Reyes' wishes, but the matter was hotly
contested by the American representatives who
feared that such a clause might sometime lead
to the cutting down of their own representation,
and as a consequence the proposal of the com-
mittee was not voted on."

The age and enthusiasm of Representative Ventura
de los Reyes are noteworthy.

PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 75

In the Malolos Constitution :

"Art. 33. — The Legislative power shall be
exercised by an Assembly of the representatives
of the nation."

"Art. 34. — The members of the Assembly
shall represent the entire nation, and not
exclusively those who elect them."

From the draft of a constitution proposed by prom-
inent Filipinos as the Philippines National Consti-
tution, we also read:

"Art. XXXIII. — The senate and the cham-
ber of deputies shall exercise the legislative power
with equal powers, except in cases determined
by this constitution, and both colegislative bodies
in sessions shall form the national congress."
"Art. XXXIV.— The members of both bodies
represent the whole nation, and not exclusively
those electors who may appoint them, and can
receive no imperative command from any one."

And Paterno's scheme of June 19, 1898, for Phil-
ippine Autonomy under the Spanish sovereignty, speaks
of the Assembly as the "Representation of the Arch-
ipelago."

As the Malolos Constitution was only the expression
of that ideal, of that unfailing birthright, dignified coun-
tries' ambition of our people to exercise by and for itself
its own sovereignty, which dates back still very much
earUer than the death of Magellan at Mactan, we have
to conclude that the idea of popular representation
is not a new one in the Islands.

Speaking of the Assembly as a concession to our
people, Secretary of War Taft says:

"I can well remember when that section was
drafted in the private office of Mr. Root in his
house in Washington. Only he and I were
present. I urged the wisdom of the concession
and he yielded to my arguments and the section

76 BUILDERS OF A NATION

as then drafted dif ered but little from the form
it has to-day. It was embodied in a bill pre-
sented to the House and passed by the House,
was considered by the Senate, was stricken out
in the Senate, and was only restored after a
conference, the Senators in the conference consent-
ing to its insertion with great reluctance. I had
urged its adoption upon both committees, and, as
the then Governor of the Islands, had to assume
a responsibiUty as guarantor in respect to it which
I have never sought to disavow."

In fact, every hope was rather lost in Congress
when a recourse was made to Rizal's works and life
as a last resort. His my last farewell was recited
by Congressman Cooper himself, with such an intense
feeling that it attracted the profoundest respect. A
change, a turn was effected, and hopes revived. Since
then the Assembly became a fact.

After the recital, Mr. Cooper continued:

"Pirates! Barbarians! Savages! Incapable
of civilization! How many of the civilized,
Caucasian slanderers of his race, could ever be
capable of thoughts like these, which on that
awful night, as he sat alone amidst silence un-
broken save by the rustling of the black plumes
of the death angel at his side, poured from the
soul of the martyred Filipino? Search the long
and bloody roll of the world's martyred dead,
and where — on what soil, under what sky — did
Tyranny ever claim a nobler victim?

"Sir, the future is not without hope for a
people which, from the midst of such an environ-
ment, has furnished to the world a character so
lofty and so pure as that of Jos6 Rizal."

Thus it is extremely pleasing to note that, while
we should feel very fortunate, soulfuUy grateful, to
have had the invaluable efforts and services of Messrs.
Root and Taft, yet it should be noted, and foreigners

PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 77

should even kindly concede it, that, without the
influence of Rizal from the Great Beyond, the proposed
concession would have been simply a flat failure.

This teaches us once more that, no matter whatever
help you may have from without, reliance in one's
own self is of absolute necessity in any undertaking.
It is basic. The first help must come from within.

It is, therefore, most becoming to here quote that
portion of the speech of .Speaker Osmena at San Miguel
de Mayumo, Bulacan, May 7, 1910, on the Philippine
Assembly as the work of our own people:

"The impetus given by the revolution to
the work for national liberty was felt during
the war as well as after it. During the war,
the revolution produced, among other things,
the pact of Biak-na-bat6 which, as a distinguished
gentleman (Mr. Buencamino, Sr.) has said but
few moments ago, opened the door to belli-
gerency for us. During peace, the most precious
fruit of the Philippine revolution has been the
Philippine Assembly. The estabhshment of the
Philippine Assembly was not an isolated, much
less casual, fact. Its casual cause was the Act
of Congress of July 1, 1902, but its true cause
is lost among the gloomy mists of that past over
which we have cast a retrospective glance. The
Assembly was not the result of a fatality, but
the work of our men, of those men who, as
a thinker has said, having lost faith in justice
on this earth, after exhausting all of the resources
of their intelUgence, turned their eyes toward
heaven, and, commending their cause to God,
took up arms. The bloody sacrifice in the un-
equal struggle which terminated in disaster to
the Filipino arms was not in vain; nor were the
national aspirations lost in the vacuum. As
the revolution was not the work of one man nor
of any particular set of men but of the entire
Filipino people, the ideal which remained unim-

78 BUILDEES OF A NATION

paired after the war now requires the existence
not of one man, but of an institution which shall
perpetuate its life through new dangers and diffi-
culties.

"This institution has been the Philippine
Assembly. This Assembly, which was inaugu-
rated on the 16th of October, 1907, was born of
the blood and tears that burst forth in abundance
in the past. The Philippine Assembly is noth-
ing but the child of the Philippine revolution."

Its Blessings:

It brought on complete peace in the Islands,
reestablished order throughout. '^

Secretary of War Taft says:

"The importance of the agency of the Army
of the United States in suppressing insurrection
I would not minimize in the least; but all who
remember clearly the succession of events from
1901 to 1903 will admit that the return to peace
and the acquiescence of the FiUpino people in
American sovereignty were greatly influenced and
aided by the prospect held out to the Filipinos
of participation in the government of the Islands
and a gradual extension of popular self-control.
Without this and the confidence of the Filipino
people in the good purposes of the United States
and the patience with which they endured their
many burdens that fate seemed to increase, the
progress which has been achieved would have been
impossible."

And Governor Wright on February 1, 1904:

"It seems to me, furthermore, that when a
comparison is made between the situation as it
existed three years and a half ago and as it
exists now, even the least observant or the most
censorious must be struck with the marvelous
change for the better. Then there was a blaze
of insurrection extending from one end of the

PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 79

Archipelago to the other; to-day general peace
prevails. Then life and property were only
secure in those towns garrisoned by American
troops who occupied several hundred stations;
to-day the number of our troops has been reduced
by more than three-fourths, occupy only a few
strategic points, and yet with the exception of
the occasional depredations committed here
and there by insignificant and fugitive bands
of ladrones life and property are as secure in
these Islands as in other well-ordered commu-
nities. I do not for a moment pretend that this
gratifying change has resulted wholly from the
labors of the Commission. Unquestionably in
the mere suppression of insurrection the chief
credit is due to the efforts of our gallant Army
and Navy. But I think I may say, without
the imputation of egotism or the desire to unduly
exalt the Commission, that but for its efforts
to establish in the minds of the intelligent and
thoughtful Filipinos a conviction as to the rec-
titude and benevolence of the intentions of
the American people with reference to them,
and thereby securing, in a multitude of instances,
their cordial and zealous cooperation in the estab-
lishment of peace and order, these gratifying
conditions would not now exist."

When in 1901 it was announced that

"Two years after the completion and pub-
lication of the census, in case such condition
of general and complete peace with recognition
of the authority of the United States shall have
continued in the territory of said Islands not
inhabited by Moros or other non-Christian tribes
and such facts shall have been certified to the
President by the Philippine Commission, the
President, upon being satisfied thereof, shall
direct said Commission to call, and the Com-
mission shall call, a general election for the choice

80 BUILDERS OF A NATION

of delegates to a popular assembly of the people
of said Territory in the Philippine Islands, which
shall be known as the Philippine Assembly."

guns from the hills were surrendered, and the revered
flag that motherly covered the graves of countless sons in
the fields of battle, that flag that made us feel as wholly
immune against deadly shells, that united us together
as into one single soul and body, that dear flag was
lowered down to stand no more in the air, but to only
be still closer to us, in the minute temple of our hearts,
there to be still more deeply revered, there to wait the
resurrection day. And, at this cost, and with faith
in God and in the words of honor and greatness of
America, there was peace, and peace as desired to mate-
rialize the inauguration of the Assembly.

Thus you see that the people itself made the inau-
guration of the Assembly possible.

This shows national consciousness on the part of
the people.

Its Exclusive Representation:

During the second Legislature, there took place, in
November of 1910, a happy occurrence which, in the
lengthy discussions between the managers on the part
of the Philippine Commission and the managers on the
part of the Asseihbly as to the election of, and repre-
sentation held by, the Philippine Resident Commis-
sioners to the States, gave occasion for the drawing
of the following final conclusion:

"That the Assembly represents the Filipino

people, and is, under the present regime, the

only body representing it here."

I should quote the same language used by our
managers in this matter at the conference:

"What has been said about the House of
Commons and the colonial houses of representa-
tives has singular application to the Philippine
Assembly. Engendered amidst the suffering of
the people who were seeking the just redress of

PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 81

their wrongs and struggling for their liberty,
the Assembly has had the virtue of taking to its
bossom the longings of the people. These long-
ings were not buried by the disaster. As they
lived, so they still live. Only, they have passed
from the breasts of the combatants to the seats
of the new national temple. It was thought
that the appearance of its foreign origin would
have influence upon its structure, but the struc-
ture is Filipino, purely Filipino, from the founda-
tion, which rests in the soil of patriots, to the
top.

"And when the canons dissolved the assembly
of representatives created, in the days of our
trial, by the organic law of January 20, 1899
(the constitution of the PhiUppine Republic),
the political sagacity of the American statesmen
caused them to incorporate into the Act of July,
1902, subsequently called the Organic Act,
the provision relative to the Philippine Assembly.
From whichever point of view it may be con-
sidered, whether from that of the Government
or from that of the people, its nature is well
defined — ^it, and under the present form of gov-
ernment, it alone, represents the people."

A Tremendous Responsibility:

Many have indulged themselves in onslaughts on
the Assembly, either because their personal interests
have not been served, or for other reasons of more or
less veiled personal character.

Some have even ventured the suggestion that the
Assembly was a plain failure, and, figuring in pesos and
cents by the hundreds of thousands what they termed to
be a useless expenditure or avoidable loss to the country,
unhesitatingly averred a better condition would obtain
thru ,the suppression of the House.

Those who so felt, either held their personal interests
above those of the nation, or wholly ignored the pro-
visions of the organic act of the Islands.

82 BUILDERS OF A NATION

While it is true, on the one hand, that the Assembly
was given the "right to initiate legislation, to modify,
amend, shape or defeat legislation proposed by the
Commission," and legislative equipotency was thus
established between the two Houses, on the other, the
grant was not complete, and the power and duty of
making rules and regulations for the government of the
Islands are still in Congress.

The plain letter and spirit of the Treaty of Paris
were even ignored.

There was, therefore, on the part of those gentle-
men, a clear overestimation of their personal worth,
and an absolute lack of that self-sacrificing spirit so
necessary in the task of uplifting a nation.

They never realized, or never were in condition to
realize, the tremendous responsibility for the calamity
that would have befallen upon the country thru their
lack of pubhc spirit.

Fortunately for the people, the era of this class of
leaders is drawing to a close, and it is the source of the
greatest national satisfaction to see that the masses are
beginning to judge them for themselves.

But, coming back to the Assembly, under the present
regime, were the House to only seat in the Chamber,
there to initiate no new legislation, but simply to defeat
whatever measures of doubtful wisdom or unclear public
purpose may come from the Commission, its existence
and continuance, no matter at what cost, no matter
at what sacrifice, should appeal to every true Filipino
as fully justified, and every cent spent, most wisely
spent.

Organization:

Absolutely without precedents, absolutely without
even copies of parliamentary books or rules to help
them in organizing, the Delegates to the First Philippine
Assembly, wholly unexperienced in parliamentary mat-
ters, relied upon their ownselves in the organization of
the House.

PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 83

I doubt if anywhere in the civilized world there
could be found any other House organized under the
same circumstances.

However, looking only for the good of the country,
their public spirit led them to the best o^f results, and
in forty minutes the House was in complete working
order.

Rules:

Preliminary meetings were held before the formal
opening, for the purpose of determining the rules they
would have to adopt. The discussions were most inter-
esting and vivid, particularly as to freedom in debates,
and at once revealed the men's respective future places
in the Chamber.

They marked frpm the beginning two different,
opposing tendencies: on the one hand, those who were
educated in Europe, or imbued with European ideas
in matters parliamentary, advocated for absolute,
unrestrained freedom in discussions. On the other,
those with a clearer vision of the situation, of the Assem-
bly itself as created by the Act of Congress, advocated
for a procedure similar to that with which the creators
of the Assembly were familiar.

Paterno, Agoncillo, Dr. G6mez, Velarde, Guerrero
(F.), Barretto, and others, militated over one side, and
Quezon, Adridtico, Gabaldon, Clarln, Sotto, and others,
over the other.

The latter won the case, and the Rules of the 59th
Congress of the United States, of which they had copies
neither in English nor in Spanish, and with which they
were absolutely unfamiliar, were adopted.

This should not be construed, however, as meaning
that said rules were the ones best suited to our needs,
or the best we found of all rules in use. In fact we
found none, we had none at hand.

But, the Assembly being an extension by Congress of
our political grant, to judge of our qualifications to

84 BUILDERS OF A NATION

assume a greater public responsibility by legislating for
ourselves, it was extremely necessary for us to facilitate
their judgment, to show them how we conducted our legis-
lative matters, and one of the best, wisest means that
could have been afforded to them was the adoption of
their own Rules in the conduct of their own House
matters, so that, in this way, they could judge us with
a greater ease than thru a procedure unknown to them;
and, should success crown our efforts, it would be hard
for them to evade recognition of the successful trial.
Until after a few weeks, we were not in condition
to make distribution of the Spanish translation copies of
the rules of the 59th Congress, when everjrthing was done
and smoothly running as though the House were not
sitting for the first time.

Formal Opening:

The program read as follows:

Wednesday, Oct. 16,
9:00 a. m.

INAUGURATION OF THE ASSEMBLY.
MANILA GRAND OPERA HOUSE.
PROGRAM.

Entrance of the Delegates to the First Philippine

Assembly.
Entrance of the Honorable Secretary of War, and the

Members of the Philippine Commission.
Governor-General Presiding.
Music: — Constabulary Band.
Prayer by Bishop Barlin.

Address: — Honorable William H. Taft, Secretary of
War.

Address: — Honorable James F. Smith, Governor-Gen-
eral.

The Star Spangled Banner.

Reception of the Delegates to the Assembly by the
Secretary of War and the Governor-General.

PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 85

The ceremonies at which the highest official
representations, Metropolitan, Consular, Insular, Army.
Navy, Church, and Provincial, were present, were
most imposing, most thrilling, particularly for every
Filipino who realized that, notwithstanding all adver-
sities, his country, steadily, inevitably, was advancing
towards its final, loftiest goal.

The invocation to God Almighty was pronoimced
by the late Bishop Barlin, the first Filipino Bishop in the
present situation, as though the first one to be con-
secrated expressly for the first Philippine Assembly.

The official description of said ceremonies is as
follows:

"Pm-suant to the proclamation of the Gov-
ernor-General dated September 14, 1907, as
amended by the proclamation of the Governor-
General dated October 11, 1907, made in accord-
ance with the provisions of the Act of Congress
approved July 1, 1902, the members of the
Philippine Commission and the members-elect
of the Philippine Assembly met in the Grand
Opera House, Calle Cervantes, city of Manila,
at 9:00 o'clock and 25 minutes of the forenoon.

"The Delegates-elect of the Philippine Assem-
bly entered the hall in a body at 9:00 o'clock
antemeridian, and shortly after the hour of
9, Honorable WilKam H. Taft, Secretary of
War of the United States; Honorable James
F. Smith, Governor-General of the Philippine
Islands, and Honorable Dean C. Worcester,
Honorable T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Honorable
Benito Legarda, Honorable Jos6 R. de Luzu-
riaga, Honorable W. Cameron Forbes, and Hon-
orable W. Morgan Shuster, members of the
Philippine Commission, accompanied by Major-
General Leonard Wood, commanding the Phil-
ippine Division of the United States Army;
Rear-Admiral Hemphill, commanding officer of
the United States Asiatic Fleet at this station;

86 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Brigadier-General Clarence R. Edwards, Chief
of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, and Honorable
Arthur W. Fergusson, Executive Secretary for
the Philippine Islands, arrived and took the
seats provided for them on the stage;

There were present also the members of the
Supreme Court; Monsignor A. Ambrose Agius,
apostolic delegate, and Right Reverend Jorge
Barlin; the official representatives of foreign
governments in the Philippine Islands, and the
various provincial governors."

I am not going into the details of the opening. It
would require time and space much longer than those we
have at our command now. I am going to remark,
however, that President Roosevelt, in his due appre-
ciation of the step taken, sent Secretary of War Taft
and Brigadier-General Edwards, Chief of the Bureau of
Insular Affairs, to personally convey his congratulations
to us, to mark, with the representation they held, and
with their own presence, that day on which our people,
thru their representatives, began to assume their part
in the affairs of the present governmeni.

This would seem to give us reason to expect that,
when the final day has come for the re-enthroning of the
people into its own full sovereignty, the President of
the Great Republic would not trust the most pleasant,
unequalled duty of inaugurating a new, young, inde-
pendent, republican nation, of delivering the message
of liberty to a people who for centuries and centuries
has been helplessly struggling for it, but to himself,
so that he may here personally receive in his own hands,
for himself and for his own people, the most precious
love token of a nation, its sincerest, heartfelt, everlast-
ing, united gratitude.

Membership:

Originally 80, including the Speaker, as per Act
No. 1582.

PHILIPPINE ASSEMBLY 87

Increased to 81 members by Act No. 1952 which
created a delegateship for the Batanes Islands.

Appohtionment :

Is made in the ratio of one Assemblyman for every
90,000 of population, and one for an additional major
fraction thereof. One at least for one province, the
total number not to exceed one hundred Delegates.

Qualifications of Members:

They should be residents of the Assembly districts
in which their candidacies are offered, duly qualified
electors of said Assembly districts, and eligible to hold
the ofiice for which they are candidates. And

Electors are:

"Every male person twenty-three years of
age or over who has had a legal residence for a
period of six months immediately preceding the
election in the municipality in which he exercises
the suffrage, and who is not a citizen or subject
of any foreign power, and who is comprised within
one of the following three classes:

(a) Those who, prior to the thirteenth of
August, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, held
the office of municipal captain, gobernadorcillo,
alcalde, lieutenant, cabeza de barangay, or
member of any ayuntamiento;

(b) Those who own real property to the
value of five hundred pesos, or who annually
pay thirty pesos or more of the established taxes;

(c) Those who speak, read, and write
English or Spanish — shall be entitled to vote at
all elections; PROVIDED, That officers, soldiers,
sailors, or marines of the Army or Navy of the
United States shall not be considered as having
acquired legal residence within the meaning of
this section by reason of their having be^n sta-
tioned in the municipalities for the required six
months."

88 " BUILDERS OF A NATION

As a man who has been in actual election campaigns,
where I was first defeater, and then defeated, I would
say the lesser electors, the better.

But I must not speak from my own convenience's
standpoint and should say that subsections (b) and (c)
reduce unjustifiedly the actual number of votefs.

You know how poorly our real estate properties
are declared, — and many are still undeclared.

You also know that we have splendid writers in
our own languages, who can favorably compare with
any other writers, but who do not know either Spanish
or English.

In neither case I see the wisdom of depriving them
of the franchise, nor should the reduced number of
electors be taken as an indication of our lack of interest
in public affairs.

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF THE PHILIPPINES

AUSTIN CRAIG

When by the "glorious revolution" of '68 Spain
rid itself of the unworthy Isabel, the Philippines profited
to the extent of a proclamation secularizing its public
education. Like most Spanish reforms this began at
the top, and the existing higher institutions of learning
in Manila were ordered by Minister Moret y Prender-
gast to be at once consolidated into a new "University
of the Philippines."

The carrying out of the decree, however, was
delayed till by changed conditions it became ineffective.
Within less than two years the unjust executions and
illegal banishments, for which the Cavite mutiny was
probably only a pretext, had shown such peril to Filipinos
in progressiveness that no one in the Philippines any
longer thought of claiming denied rights or dared to
point out disregarded laws.

Yet, as the death of a just man always sanctifies
his utterances, the garroting of Father Burgos, posses-
sor of two doctor's degrees, the most popular of the pro-
fessors and the one principally responsible for the reform,
so impressed his dying injunction upon his young coun-
trymen that they began to think of university training
abroad. As he had directed, where it was possible
they studied in the freer lands, but numbers who got
no further than their preparation in Spain contributed
to that notable campaign of education which kept a
people ground down under military oppression from
despairingly seeking the suicide of revolution.

The fortnightly review, "La Solidaridad" of Madrid,
which the Filipino students in the Peninsula pubUshed
in the later eighties and earlier nineties, was a real uni-
versity extension movement, and that the idea of the
university in the Philippines was not forgotten appears

90 BUILDERS OF A NATION

in a series of articles setting forth the shortcomings of
the advanced instruction then available in Manila.

Rizal, too, planned a school first for Paris and
later for Hongkong, with a course of study quite like
our present high schools, which should give a prepara-
tion enabling young Filipinos to better avail them-
selves of foreign university training.

Then the government of Aguinaldo, early in its
brief existence and in spite of the war conditions, pro-
ATided for a Malolos university in recognition of the per-
sistent and long deferred aspiration of the Filipinos.

Next D,r. David P. Barrows, now dean of the grad-
uate School of the University of California, a Director
of Education whose acquaintance with Philippine his-
tory made him familiar with the foregoing facts and
whose studious bent put him in sympathy with the pre-
vailing desire, announced in his first bulletin that the
public school system would lead to an University of
the Philippines to be estabUshed as soon as students under
the new system were ready for it.

The realization of the long-deferred hope came
through the development of a "Junior College" carried
on in connection with the Philippine Normal School,
under Superintendent Geo. W. Beattie. On June 3,
1910, this passed from the control of the Bureau of
Education and became the College of Liberal Arts of
the "University of the Philippines," founded under
Act 1870 (June 18, 1908) of the Philippine Legisla-
ture. The colleges of Veterinary Science, at Pandacan,
and of Engineering were opened simultaneously with
the College of Liberal Arts; the School of Fine Arts,
on Calle Echague, began to receive students a year
eariier as had the college of Agriculture at Los Bangs,
and the College of Law is half a year younger. Under
the administrative control of the College of Liberal
Arts is a course in Pharmacy and with the coming year
a course in education will be added.

The oldest of the colleges is that of Medicine which
was estabhshed as the Philippine Medical School by

UNIVEESITY OF THE PHILIPPINES 91

a special act of December, 1905, opened to students on
June 10, 1907, and was incorporated with the Univer-
sity December 8, 1910. The beautiful campus of the
University, conveniently situated in Ermita, Manila,
where a magnificent University Hall houses the prin-
cipal ofiices, foreshadows a stately and extensive quad-
rangle, the yearlyincome exceeds two-thirds of a mil-
lion pesos, in the faculty are one hundred and sixty
Filipinos, Americans, and foreign members, and the
student body totals nearly two thousand.

The young institution promptly linked itself with
the Philippines' past by honoring in its^ three commence-
ments men from the old era who were pioneers for
the new: the first among the jurists who presides over
the Insular Supreme Court; a Spaniard whose success
in studying the weather of his adopted land has made
him the world's authority on its peculiarities, typhoons
and earthquakes; and the most cultured of Filipinos'
sons who entered politics for his country's sake and
then sacrificed his career to be true to his convictions.

The school of 1910 has this in common with its
forerunner of forty years before that, just as the earlier
one's foundation was signalized by establishing a course
of Philippine Dialects in a Spanish University, so our
American University, Johns Hopkins, began giving
instruction in Tagalog and Visayan about the time the
later university was proposed.

But there is a radical difference between the two
schools in Spain's seeking to limit the history of these
islands to the date when Spaniards first came to them,
while America wants to revive the spirit of that earlier
Philippines which a thousand years ago was in contact
with the then most advanced civilization.

The opening of the University permits changing the
Philippine public school course of study from the semi-
American standard which had to prevail when students
were being prepared for colleges on the continent to a
type more practically Philippine. Also the localization
of its subjects, a departure from English education in

92 BUILDERS OF A NATION

the Orient, makes the Manila school a leader among
the higher institutions of Asia, its influence despite its
youth being already apparent.

Such is the story of a school which boasts no
ancient lineage nor recalls a founder of illustrious name,
yet notable because it is the fruition of the prayers of
an oppressed people during half a century of bondage
and is embodying the hope of democracy among two-
thirds of the world's population.

PARDO DE TAVERA

Statesman, Scholar, Member of Royal Academy of Madrid.

DR. T. H. PARDO DE TAVERA

That a nation is forming around us is what gives
the poignant zest to the lives of most Americans in these
islands. It is preeminently interesting at this moment
in Filipino history, when parties are forming, when
ideals which have been in the Malay race for centuries
are coming to bud and to promise of blossom, to study
some of the figures which most fully embody these ideas
and facts, some of them almost historic personalities
who will doubtless soon have left but a memory behind
them. As you mingle with them as friends, in busi-
ness, charity, or socially, certain large lines, or traits conti-
nually repeated, come to be essentially "Filipino," such
as balance, common-sense, quiet confidence, patience,
dignity, marked consistency of action, all, in a word,
which is the antithesis of vulgar. FiUpinos are extremely
patriotic, yet in their own way; they breathe and think
and pray country, with the intensity of a mountain and
sea people that loves freedom, as it feels it in the air about
it and in the blue over its head and longs for it, not so
much as an expression of personal rights (few of us really
do that after all) but as an expression of its inner life,
expression which has been denied it for hundreds of years.

That aching desire for self-revelation is as impos-
sible to kill as it is to thwart the sunlight. You can
deflect it, but it will shine on. How this new state shall
be brought to birth is the constant thought underlying
the everyday life of the men and women you elbow in
the streets and salute in the market place, in the hos-
pitable home; it underlies all the banter and the serious-
ness of life, and reveals itself by a flash of the eye, a
grasp of the hand, a word, a jest. That it has met
a signally practical nation on its path towards its own
national expression is one of those reasonable facts of
history which go to prove that a Master Statesman is
over the program of the complex thing we call life. All

94 BUILDERS OF A NATION

that is of value or much of it in this quality of the present
incumbent appeals to the Filipinos in the highest degree,
and it is this practical side which is stirring them into
activity in commerce, education and government in a
most felicitous manner.

Historically, the present awakening began with a
group of men who went to Europe some quarter of a
century ago and at the centers of national life in France,
Italy, and Spain, at the hearth of their step-mother,
if one can so speak of the Latin race, in regard to the
Malays of these islands, learned many lessons. They
were spurred to this study by the noblest incentive,
love of fatherland, and the contrasts between the
advancing, leaping progress of the ^ states about them
and their own land burned into their hearts until they
were fused to the point of martyrdom. Rizal alone
paid this supreme price, his companions lived to carry
out the no less often painful task of constructing what
he had seen in the "heavenly vision." Some of those
men matured by life are with us today and are looked
up to "as fathers in Israel" by their countrymen.

Such is the subject of this first chapter: Pardo de
Tavera, who proved for years, as one of the heads of
the government, that he could, with moderation and
conspicuous ability, administer the affairs of state, as
well as dream of a Utopia and so brought into relief
this dual side of his countrymen, which has won him a
place, second to none, in their esteem.

Leopardi, one of the saddest hearts of a sad human-
ity (what is it that always takes one back to Italy?)
has sung in the vernacular of poets Italian:
"Oh hopes, my hopes! illusions false and sweet,
Oh my first youth, how do I still return ever to these;"

Not so these valiant men, who have survived their
first youth of years but kept that of the heart. Is it
because the Philippines are so young, is it for deeper
reasons? That is the question it will be left these
typical men and their gospel to reveal.

DR. T. H. PAKDO DE TAVERA 95

As one sits in the presence of this Nestor of the
brood of Filipino statesmen, it is to feel the magnetic
current of a buoyant, almost boyish eagerness and
exultant hopefulness and confidence. Pardo de Tavera
also represents in the supreme degree the culture which
under the Spanish rule was accorded the intellectual
students among Filipinos. He has but just sold the
finest private library in the islands and his spare hours
for years have been spent in researches along the many
lines through which scholars in Europe and America
are seeking the solution of the social and political salva-
tion of humanity. It is but just that in the quiet
library, so full of souvenirs of the middle ages, typical
of the character and race of the man who has a great
cardinal-statesman as one of his ancestors, one should
begin a reflective as well as prophetic study of the men
who are leading this people to political manhood.

Integrity of purpose — ^for, happily, the forebears
of this nation have had much of this priceless article
— is the characteristic that stands out from the nervous,
delicate figure which, in repose even, has a sort of breath-
less, nervous organism and one which though today in so
styled private life mingles in numberless enterprises of the
city and country. A busy man is what you have before
you, one who must think and act often rapidly; a man,
you feel, of prompt decision and exceeding tact, one to
whom the word is so often applied by his fellows "caba-
Uero." This distinction does not leave him even in the
privacy of home, or in moments of relaxation, and it is
this which has endeared him to many outside his own
race. Below a forehead sprinkled with grey are eyes
which can become piercing, meditative, or kindly at
will, and they are more often the latter, with an expres-
sion of roguishness which is the charm of what might
be else too severe a face.

The program of the conservative patriots of these
islands cannot be more fittingly given than in the very
language of this man whose life as private citizen and
public man illustrates so fully those traits which are

96 BUILDEKS OF A NATION

dear to his people: high-mindedness, chivalry, intellectual
probity, patriotism and hopefulness, as well as untiring
industry.

"First when I consider the European colonies — and
I have read much of all that has been written — I have
noted that they have accused the natives of not having
taken any interest in all which concerns their progress
and benefit. Some have deducted, as a consequence
of this observation, that the races which are under
colonial government, are incapable to direct their
proper affairs. I have wished to know if this accusation
was true, and it has seemed to me that we must take
it as an expression of a fact. Now I have set myself
the task of seeking the cause of this effect and I have
found it logical and natural that this is so for the simple
reason that no colonizing people has placed its sover-
eignty with the object of forming an independent nation,
but only to maintain people and races in submission to
their permanent control.

"Now, on the contrary, the Philippines gives us
the new example of a people conquered, whose most
intense preoccupation is to constitute itself in the quick-
est possible way an independent nation. This mental-
ity of the Filipinos is very natural and was exerted
under the Spanish regime for causes too vast to go into
in this restricted space, and I reserve their expression
for later, contenting myself to note that the American
domination has not been imposed for permanent domi-
nation, but for tutorship, whose principal object is to
educate and make capable the Filipino people for self
government. Naturally this political program is des-
tined to develop this fact and to right all the thought
and feeling of national independence. From this it
results that as much the Americans as the Filipinos are
working together toward a common end, in order to
form the Filipino nationality and as a consequence of
these antecedents, it seems to me that we should direct
all our energies to the constitution of our nationality.
Often this attitude is called illogically "ingratitude,"

DR. T. H. PARDO DB TAVERA 97

but, on the contrary, is not this awakening to a sense of
nationalism when we were offered the opportunity to
educate ourselves for self government most logical and
national as well as natural?

"Then we must expect that out of gratitude we
should renounce the nationality towards which we are
moving and which the American people desires us to
have!

"No one out of gratitude would desire to make him-
self a slave to him who offered him his liberty, for the
only reason that he had made the offer. I personally
do not think such a course could be called gratitude.
The real name of such a phenomenon I don't know,
but it would not be gratitude.

"It would seem possible that this accusation has
come partly from the attitude of our youth who were
educated in America; such youth coming back to the
Philippines with the national ideal emphasised have
demonstrated only that they have known how to
take advantage of the teaching which the thoughts
and acts and the example of the American people
have inculcated. I say this as an introduction to my
poUtical creed in order that the Americans residing
in the Philippines should neither be astonished at
this attitude, nor offended by it nor still less wish to
oppose the development of this national feeling. For
the day that the' Americans recognize this legitimate
love of country and struggle for a national life on our
part, that hostility on the part of the Filipinos will
cease. A sentiment, be it said, which has been created
and sustained by a lack of confidence. Then in that
happy hour we shall march united cooperating for the
moral, intellectual and material welfare of the Phil-
ippines. Only so shall we be faithful to the program of
the American people, as well as to the sentiments of
the entire Filipino people.

"This alone is the basis of a fecund statesmanship
and of a harmonious accord and friendship between
the teacher and the taught, between the governor and

98 BUILDERS OF A NATION

the one who is learning self government. A nation is
necessary here in these Islands. That is the basis of
my platform. Questions such as epoch and capability
will resolve themselves in the logical sequence of the years.

"The Spanish, in the ultimate period of our relations
with them, did not treat us as colonies, but liked to
have us treated as an integral part of the homeland.
We were not a part of the Spanish colonies, but a part
of the Spanish nation. Naturally that created in us a
sentiment of nationality.

"As we considered ourselves as a real part of 'The
Patria Espanola.' Personally I was led to the con-
sideration of how I might become useful to her, and
during the Spanish epoch I became acquainted with
the errors of that administration, and for the benefit of
my country, I wished to work together with the Span-
ish then in power, in order to correct some of the abuses
and modify the situation.

"I was an intimate friend of Rizal, many times we
thought together and aspired and planned together over
the Philippines and her problems, but never of separa-
tion from Spain nor to follow out our ideals by violence,
but by reform and justice.

"I did not take part in the revolution against Spain,
nor did I know the inside workings of the Katipunan,
which was the force which brought about the revolu-
tion. I worked with the Americans for the establish-
ment of peace and for the new organization, for I had
confidence in the principles of justice of the American
people and the generosity which characterizes their
history, and each act of my political and private life
has been guided for the thought of the benefit to my
people of their coming to these islands, and for the har-
mony and friendship between the Americans and Fili-
pinos.

"I have never lost hope, nor changed my convic-
tions in the diflBiCulties we have met and which we will
meet with, and I do not feel astonished at them nor
does my courage fail before them.

DR. T. H. PARDO DE TAVERA 99

"We are beginning a long work and a difficult one,
it is only natural we shall meet with obstacles, which we
must conquer, guided always by^ sentiments of justice
and humanity, the two elements the strongest as well
as the most noble of civilization."

The library of Senor Pardo de Tavera has been
bought by the Philippines General Library for F25,000,
and now the Filipiniana division is the finest collection
of Philippine works in the world.

The passing of collections, either of books or of
objects of art, from one hand to another, is an event of
more than ordinary interest, of unusual interest, when
the collection, as in this case, is unique, rich, and of
world fame, of three thousand well chosen numbers from
far sources and of many years of gathering.

At the door of a comfortable home in Quiapo,
there stands a very debonair saint smiling even after
his downfall, as a saint should do. But to be accurate
this is one of still higher degree, a Gabriel taken from
the former church of that name, which stood where the
garage of the Estrella del Norte now stands.

Church and worshipers are gone, but this figure of
wood, half saint, half pagan, with the wreath of vines
on the head and high foot gear, is all that is left of a
fane into which many have passed.

This figure is a fit introduction into a house where
we find priceless Chinese porcelains, sculptured tables
of the eighteenth century, a Tanagra figura, portraits
by Hidalgo and in the entresuelo of which are housed
the treasures of the library. On the walls of these
rooms are photographs of President Roosevelt, John
Hay, President Taft, Generals Wood and Otis among
others, all presentations with inscriptions to the master
of the house. On the table stands a matchless piece
of Chinese art with grotesque figures in the feet. It
was carved over two hundred years ago. You see the
plaster model, the design of Senor Tavera's brother

100 BUILDERS OF A NATION

which the distinguished sculptor sent to the concours
for the Rizal monument. About it is, in the picturesque
confusion, or one might say in this case order, the litter
of the student's workshop.

In this spacious room you can wander about for
many a quiet moment. It is strange, but where books
are it is always quiet; there the reflections of the think-
ers, the songs of the poets, the stories of the story-
livers all seem to conduce to calm and audacious must
be the spirit which breaks it.

About you in this room, or rooms in alcoves (was
there ever a proper library room without an alcove?)
are wooden carvings, figures which at first might discon-
cert you if you did not see that even in their now lowly
estate they were saintly, and difficult as it is to be a saint,
without a niche they seem to have done it. Perhaps
they are so saintly because they are so old, many dating
into past centuries. One virgin, who is the pride of the
owner, has the svelte form and delicate lines still after
the survival of a fire and the outrages of time. She is
two centuries in age.

Every detail of this room bears the impress of that
nameless something we call culture, or refinement, and
which money cannot buy. One angel alone is worth a
visit, as he hangs with both limbs amputated, but wings
intact, clasping a problematic flower to his breast and
with serene physiognomy looks out on life's smiling
morning with all the hopefulness of eternal youth.

Here in a case is a collection of reliquaries from
Rome and Jerusalem and in another such choice bits
as a vase made in Japan in the 17th century when the
Franciscan brothers had already a pharmacy in Manila
and had their porcelain imported from the North.
There are the arms of the order in indelible colors
today.

A tiny trunk bearing the arms of Austria of exqui-
site detail was opened in glee and the contents displayed
— pearls and topazes — ^just arranged to remind the
owner of one of the Arabian Nights' tales. So do book-

DR. T. H. PABDO DE TAVBRA 101

lovers love all that books tell about. And what book
was ever loved more that man has made than that?

This library is rich in linguistic works. The Arte
de la Lengua Tagala, by Father Totanes, was published
in Manila in 1745. This volume, Senor Tavera called
attention to as having an added interest, as having
been in two famous libraries, i. e., the Ramirez library,
and later in the no less celebrated Comte deBenahavis
library in Paris, from which it passed into his possession.
Another book from the same library is The "Chronico
del Cardinal Don Juan Pardo de Tavera," printed in
Toledo in 1503, called the Magnificent Cardinal Tavera,
Protector of the Arts. The printing looks as if done
yesterday. In the bookplate are the arms of the Tavera
family and there is also a picture of the relative of
this book lover, the Cardinal himself, an astute look-
ing man — as he must have been to serve such a
master as Charles the Fifth, in whose name he
ruled over Leon and Castile for a long regency during
the traveling of that much traveled monarch, who was
as restless as the pesent ruler of Germany.

One other feature is a collection of autograph books:
names such as Rizal, A. R. Meyer, Dr. R. Kern, Blu-
mentrit, Brandstater and others. A wonderful collection
of Manila Almanachs and, almost best of all, Novenas,
or religious books of devotion.

Senor Tavera has written a very erudite article in
the Cultura Filipina on the "Cartografia de Filipinas,"
in some seventy-three pages, and there are noted his
own maps about thirty of which have hundreds of dollars
of commercial value; to the vulgar that is more significant
than the other. Books one might name are "Arte de
Lengua Bisaya by Father Ezguerra, Manila, 1747, a
most celebrated tome. "Arte y Reglas de la Lengua
Tagala" of Father San Jose, Manila, 1752, and "Arte
de la Lengua Bicol," by Father San Augustine, date
1795.

Among the very rare books is a copy of the Franciscan
publication of Lipa bearing the date of 1613, one of the

102 BUILDEKS OF A NATION

only three known to exist. Unfortunately it was
attacked by the destructive anay before Dr. Tavera
acquired it and it is to be sent to the Library of Congress
for the necessary repairs, the delicate work necessary
being beyond local talent.

Dictionaries, grammars of Ibanay, Pangasinan,
Japanese, and other dialects of the Asiatic islands and
from India, are here.

In "bandos" the collection is also most remarkable.
In a bibliography of A. P. C. Griffin was inserted the
catalogue of this library; it was published in Washington
in 1903 under the auspices of the Library of Congress.

For the same time as Goethe was writing his famous
poem. Dr. Tavera has been collecting this library —
thirty years. Now the tomes handled, studied, loved,
associated with so many years are passing out to enrich
other minds, so many untaught ones that could never
have known their value, if this hospitable and well-
stocked mind had not gathered these treasures from the
four corners of the earth.

It is only another case of the "greater good," and the
wisdom which brought them together is providing for
their future when in the long years to come other minds
shall grow by perusal and be nourished, by their use, to
finer, juster thinking. So, added to his years of states-
manship, Senor Tavera, the student, is making his
country a still greater debtor by the passing on of this
unique library.

4

MARIANO PONCE

uu

'*A trinity of men, Rizal, Del Pilar and Ponce,"
so say their compatriots, "stand at the forefront of the
national movement in Spain. Rizal was its genius.
Pilar the statesman, and Ponce its student and scribe."
It is not without significance that he has survived
the other two.

Inasmuch as he has lived history, he can bring
vividness in the recital of events such as only those
men can who are able to say "part of which I was."

A book from the press not yet dry is lying on many
tables in Manila, the life of Sun Yat Sen, by Mariano
Ponce. This proves that Senor Ponce is a historian
up-to-date. Dr. Sen, the founder of New China, is
a warm personal friend of the author, and the former
librarian of the Philippine Assembly has cherished
that friendship since the year 1899, not only knowing
the foremost figure in the East today in friendly rela-
tions, but as an apostle, whose every thought and
purpose was dear to hiin.

Read the pages of the story of China's "Grand
Young Man" and you will have revealed the fiery soul
of the sedate scholar as in no other way.

No romance is more thrilling than that of the
twenty years in which Dr. Sun massed his forces in
Europe, America and the East, and when the moment
had struck throttled the supposedly strongest tyranny
of the world, one which was hoary at the dawn of the
Christian era.

That, year by year, our historian has traced the
work of this stupendous man of destiny, is only saying
that he has lived into it his own hopes and the hopes
for a universal benefit to the East and to humanity. But

103

104 BUILDERS OF A NATION

New China lying at our doors, thrilling the thought
even of the most indifferent minds, those least in touch
with the statesmanship of the time, is only one of the
sympathies of Senor Ponce, who has spent seven years
in Japan, much time in Indo-China and Siam, and from
1897 until 1908 devoted his every day energies, not
to making money, or to becoming renowned in his
profession of medicine, but in the study of the poli-
tical conditions of the Orient, not alone in the masses
but in personal contact with the great leaders, exiled
princes of Korea, ministers of Japan, high officials in
China, the builders of states and the demolishers of
the past. It has been a wonderful training of eleven
years.

Senor Ponce has caught much of the urbanity
of our polite neighbors over the way, but in the depths
of the student eyes there lies the suppressed fire of a
soul which can consecrate itself to a noble purpose and
watch the years fade out, still waiting confident of the
end.

In 1887, Senor Ponce left the Philippines for Europe
to study and carry on the Filipino political campaign
in company with a cousin. His studies had been pur-
sued in San Juan de Letran, where he received the
degree of bachelor of arts in 1885, and at Santo Tomas,
where he began the course in medicine which he later
completed in Madrid.

When he arrived in Barcelona he found that the
patriotic newspaper published in Madrid called "Es-
pafia en FiUpinas" had been discontinued on account
of a lack of fimds. He established relations with a
body of patriots who wished him to act as an agent
for them in this matter, they standing behind the ven-
/ture financially, and it was at first attempted to revive
the paper, but it was found impractical and, two years
later, the famous patriotic newspaper, "La Solidaridad,"
was put out at Madrid. Of this paper Senor Ponce
became the managing editor, the hterary editor being
Graciano Lopez y Jaena during a few months, until

MARIANO PONCE 105

October, when his post was filled by Marcelo del Pilar.
At the same time in the capital city was established
the famous society or association called "Associacion"
Hispano-Filipina, formed by some known to us today:
Senores Miguel Moriata, Manuel de Labra, Graciano
Lopez Jaena, Eduardo de Lete, Julio Llorente, Eva-
risto Aguirre, Pedro de Govantes y de Azcarraga, Fran-
cisco y Jos6 Gonzales Esquivel, Ceferino de Leon and
Balbino de Unquera.

Their political program is interesting reading even
now.

Seiior Ponce was for some time secretary of this
society, which lasted until 1896, when events in the
PhiUppines brought it to an end. The newspaper
La Solidaridad was the mouthpiece of this association
and it was printed until 1895, covering a period of
seven years. It was sold in political Spanish circles,
on the street, given to the members of the Cortes,
and in this way the ideas of the radical Filipinos were
widely spread in the motherland as well as in the far
away islands for which they were working. The plan,
so often tried before and since and which, on the break-
ing out of the revolution, was abandoned, was to obtain
the rights of the islands in a legal way. The opposing
organ representing the government was a sheet called
"La Polftica de Espana en Filipinas." Senor Feced
and Senor Retana were the famous editors and they
were the spokesmen for the conservative party in
the islands in Church and Government.

It is hardly necessary to state that a violent pole-
mical discussion was carried on between these two
organs. If you care to revive these burnt out passions,
you can do so by consulting the files of both papers
in the Philippines Library.

You will find them quite warm reading in spite
of the cooling process of lying twenty years among
the archives. The conservative organ, it is also needless
to say, contrived to have the last word and to exult
over the demise of its revolutionary neighbor.

106 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Senor Ponce had the distinction of being arrested
on Spanish soil, just as he was setting sail from Bar-
celona. He was kept a prisoner for only 48 hours,
just to see what it would be like, and what political
career is of value without a little incarceration thrown
in! His papers were searched and nothing incrimi-
nating found,, so, not for any consideration for a peaceful
gentleman but for others quite different, he was allowed
to pursue his way to Hongkong, unmolested.

Del Pilar died shortly before the revolution broke
out in August.

Without losing any time another association was
formed in Hongkong, devoted to aiding and abetting
the revolutionists, raising money and arms being the
chief aim, but in the latter they were not markedly
successful, however. These gentlemen were in direct
communication with the men at the front and their
society was in existence until November 1897, when,
at the peace of Biak-na-bato it was dissolved.

General Aguinaldo and other revolutionists being
sent to Hongkong — expatriated, — according to one of
the terms of the peace, Senor Ponce became the secre-
tary of the exiled general until May, 1898, when Agui-
naldo returned to the PhiUppines. In July of that year,
Senor Ponce went to Japan after the founding of the
government at Malolos, being named diplomatic dele-
gate to that country with the intention of seeking
sympathy and if possible aid. Here, as the turn of
events proved, he was to stay as a student, rather than
a political agitator, as the American occupation of the
islands put an end to his mission. Subsequently he
traveled in Shanghai, Canton, Hangkow, Hongkong,
Indo-China especially Cambodia and Siam. His return
to his own country took place in 1908, in the month
of December, about twenty years from the time he had
left her, in his first youth, to look for her salvation in
the land of her conquerors. Now he found the real-

MAKIANO PONCE 107

ization of his hopes nearing their completion, but under
far different conditions than he had expected.

In 1909 he was made editor of El Renacimiento.
An illustrious son of the province of Bulacan, he was
elected from the second district of that province and
in 1909 was chosen by the lower chamber to the pres-
idency of the committee of libraries. While he held
this post he compiled a "Bibliografia Parlamentaria."
In regard to this work Speaker Osmena has said:

"The present members of the Assembly can con-
sider themselves most fortunate in the entrance into
the chamber of one of the Filipinos, without any question
the most competent in matters biographical."

Many works have come from the pen of this brilliant
writer, and one has only to peruse the pages of his life
of Dr. Sen to realize the future of valuable work Senor
Ponce has before him. He expects to devote his time
to the pacific pursuits of a librarian and, to use his own
words, his aim is, "to enlighten my countrymen as to
the future needs of the Islands along the path marked
out by education and industry, and to propagate intel-
lectual fire and light." He will employ his hours in
the quiet work of upbuilding the culture of his race.

That Sun Yat Sen is Senor Ponce's ideal statesman
no one can doubt who reads these pages, warm with
friendship and consecrated to a great life; and that
purity of purpose which animated the leading Chinaman
of the age guides his biographer.

"It was not ambition of power which led this man,
Dr. Sun, through, his long apostleship; it was the aspi-
ration of seeing his country governed in conformity
with the requirements of the world's progress." Thus
Senor Ponce writes, and on the next page quotes that
immortal telegram sent from Dr. Sun, "Tell Yuan
Shi Kai to acknowledge at once the abdication of the
emperor and come to Nanking immediately, that he
will be elected president as soon as he declares himself
a citizen of the Min-kuo."

.108 BUILDERS OF A NATION

What superb lines from a man who could give a
lifetime to erecting that presidency!

This same eloquence is that of the life of this noted
Filipino who can occupy a quiet nook in a library,
or write books after a score of years, the best of his
life, devoted to his coimtry, traveling over thousands
of miles and enduring many hardships for her.

hM

DOCTOR APACIBLE

yu

Doctor Apacible is one of the most distinguished
figures of the Past, who moves 'among his fellow country-
men in the Philippines today. He has the Websterian
brow of a thinker and the fine facial lines of one who has
lived deeply and wrought earnestly far beyond the
majority. Born in Balayan, Batangas, in June, 1864, his
mother was Seiiorita Castillo, of a family of that prov-
ince, and his father an hacendero or, as we should say,
a gentleman farmer. The mother had been educated
in the college of Sta. Catalina, where the Spanish nuns
are among the most famous of our islands for their
piety and refinement and the father studied at San
Juan de Letran. His grandparents were large landed
proprietors, owning the famous hacienda of Nasubu,
one of the great haciendas of the Philippines.

The characteristics of his native province are highly
marked in the doctor and he bears the stamp of this
people jof Batangas who might be designated as the
Saxons of the islands for their gentle breeding.

The first studies were taken in the private schools
of his native town and, at eight years of age, he came
up to Manila and entered the school of Don Benedicto
Luna.

From there he went to San Juan de Letran and Sto.
Tomas and then for his degree to Spain in '88 where he
lived with his cousin Rizal in whose charge he had been
placed.

Rizal gave to this youth the best of care and from
him young Apacible imbibed the ideals and projects
which were the daily inspiration of that wonderful life.
The doctor took his degree of B. A. in Tarragona and
that of M. D. in the University of Barcelona.

He practiced medicine in Madrid and also was an
externa in several of the hospitals of Paris, returning
to Manila in '93. While in Spain he was associated as

109

110 BUILDERS OF A NATION

president with a political society called "Asociacion
Filipina solidaridad en Barcelona." He was also one
of the founders of what was known as the "Solidaridad"
with Senores Ponce, del Pilar and others. He was never
given to scribbling, nor to literary expansion, but he
contributed some articles for this paper and also for many
since in the islands on his favorite studies in medicine.
He made many trips to France as a sort of recreation
from his work and political propaganda and was there
with Rizal, Tavera, and Luna at the time of the Expo-
sition of '89. Many Filipino youths were in France at
this same epoch and they had many talks over the best
methods to benefit their country.

At the reunions in Barcelona and Madrid many of
the elder and more conservative compatriots did not care
to mix with them for fear of compromising themselves.

Rizal was the leader fire and soul of these gather-
ings in the calle Principe.

Here amid the dark shadows which came from,
thoughts of their home and her problematical future,
they awaited the dawn. Rizal was no flowery orator,
but the few words he said told more than all the rest
and many are hving even today after a generation has
passed, living what he taught.

As Doctor Apacible journeyed back to his native
land, he found that his family was under the ban of the
government. His brother, a judge of the court of 1st
Instance, was exiled to Bontoc and Rizal had been sent
to Dapitan.

At Hongkong therefore he stopped with the family
of Rizal for three months when he returned to his
country.

On arriving he found that he was being watched
both for his former political agitations or cogitations in
Spain and on account of his being a Mason of the 30th
degree, so he retired to Balayan and there in semi-
obscurity he lived with his mother. At the epoch of
the Revolution in '96, however, the governor of the
province, one Villamil, a Spaniard, called him to his side

DOCTOR APACIBLE 111

in order that he might not aid or be in commilnication
with his friends and he was followed by detectives.
In order to escape from this espionage, he made as a
pretext that he wished to be a doctor on the Zafiro, a
small steamer, the forerunner of the one so well known
to Manilians which plies to and fro today between our
port and Hongkong.

Thereafter making a few voyages (to satisfy the
authorities), he settled down and they formed a revolu-
tionary "junta" in that city. Ponce, Don Vicente Fer-
nandez, Agoncillo and others. In '98 when the national
government at Malolos was founded. Doctor Apacible
was made president of the "Comite Central Filipino
en el Extranjero" and was sent to Tokyo as a special
agent. While there he met the leading figures of the
hour in the political world. Marquis Ito and count
Okuma and others. The latter man he pronounces
one of the most marvellous men of his time, for,
although he did not speak any foreign language,
the count's understanding of the affairs of the world was
simply a miracle. ■

At the same period he knew Dr. Sun Yat Sen, with
whom to this day he has kept up a correspondence.
These two men were in the closest companionship as
they were each working for their beloved fatherland.
The same radiant load star led them both.

They were strangely, both even at that dark hour,
filled with a prophetic hope for their respective countries.

Doctor Apacible came and went to this kingdom
of great brain and dauntless heart, Japan, many times and
by the manly spirits there his soul was always stirred.

During his stay at Hongkong one of his duties was
to provide the insurgents in the islands with arms and
ammunition which diflScult enterprise he carried out
some times successfully!

In '99 he was sent with Del Pan to America, as a
delegate of the revolutionary government, to seek the
intervention of the United States in making peace with
Spain.

112 BUILDERS OF A NATION

This mission was a very delicate one it is needless
to state and, as many of its negotiations were of a pri-
vate nature, they are not confided to the pen of con-
temporaneous historians.

It was a mission in part successful and in circles
of power today much of the work done then is still felt.
It envolved much traveling and amount of writing also
very fatiguing and, as the campaign of 1900 was in
progress they had a sight of political life at near range
and learned much about men and events in America.

They traveled even to Canada and heard Laurier
in the parliament at Ottawa and enjoyed that colossal
figure of the great north and admired his land.

On returning to Hongkong as General Aguinaldo
had surrendered to General Funston, the committee
was dissolved and, in 1903, the doctor returned to Manila
to take up his work in the peaceful profession of a physi-
cian for a time until in 1907 he was elected governor of
Batangas and he occupied this high office in his native
province until he was elected Assemblyman in 1909 and
reelected again in 1912. When Secretary Bryan came
to the Philippines in 1906, Dr. Apacible was chosen
by the guest himself and by the reception committee to
accompany the great "commoner" on his tour and went
with him as far as Borneo.

One of the doctor's sincere admirations is for this
gifted citizen of the far away republic.

In politics Doctor Apacible has been a founder of
one of the parties of his land with others, i. e., the Nacio-
nalista, and is actually its president.

In the legislature he has done some notable work
and has been chairman of various committees such as
that of "Metropolitan relations" and is in the present
legislature chairman of the committee on "Public works."

He has planned many laws and is particularly
interested in roads and bridges.

Married to his cousin, a cultivated lady from
Batangas, the home has been blessed by the birth of a
daughter.

DOCTOR APAOIBLE 113

His chief reading has been history, critiques and,
of course, scientific works on medicine, but still he owns
for a fondness for novels as he loves best the study of
humanity.

The language in which he prefers to read is French
and he delights in Balzac, Hugo and the modern school.
He is a member of several clubs, the "Filipino club,''
"Club Nacionalista," etc.

He is also one of the owners of the leading daily, the
"Ideal," and is oneof the directorsof the "Angat Iron Com-
pany" and an hacendero as well of Batangas. He is not
however a money maker and his patriotism has always
been of a not sordid type.

Although the committee at Hongkong had to handle
some million pesos the doctor would, unless his friends
had loaned him money, have been obliged to make that
rival city his permanpnt home for want of enough to buy
his return ticket. He has always desired the inde-
pendence of his land, but at the same time his mind,
which is the mind of a calm thinker and very level-
headed statesman, knows that its political welfare must
be in step with that real welfare the material.

He does not look at the relation with foreign powers
as insurmountable questions, but as events pass he has
faith that they will largely resolve themselves. For every
month the drama of the nations is sifting its scenes.

When the great life of Rizal shall be written, it will
have many chapters by this companion of his youth
to whom he confided so much of his ideal.

And when this debt to history shall have been paid,
we shall owe more, perhaps, to Sen or Apacible than even
we do now for his years of unselfish patriotism and bril-
liant record as a legislator.

'X

JUDGE JULIO LLORENTE

yu

Judge Llorente was born in Cebu on May 22, 1863.
His father was a Spaniard from Castile la Vieja, a mer-
chant of the city of the Holy Child. His first educa-
tion was received in a private school of his native city
from whence he went to Manila and entered the Ateneo
Municipal. At 18 years he left for Spain where he
completed his studies at the University of Madrid at
22 and took the degree of Doctor of Laws and was
admitted to the bar and practiced in Madrid until'91 when
he returned to the Philippines and established himself
at Cebu and occupied various positions of trust during
the Spanish period in the department of justice and
was made magistrate of the supreme criminal court of
the province of Cebu.

While in Madrid Llorente lived as one of four
including Rizal, the others being Leon and Lete. It
was during this epoch that Rizal was writing his "Noli
me Tangere." These youths had relations with poli-
tical organizations, such as the "Solidaridad." They
also contributed to a newspaper of same name. Another
of their associates was the painter Luna, since so famous.
During this epoch Rizal went to Paris where Julio
Llorente followed him and the two young men visited
that first great world's exhibition of 1889. Julio Llorente
returned to Madrid and then to the Philippines after
ten years of wanderlust and experience taking with him
his bride of but a short time, the distinguished senora
who has exercised in their charming homes such lavish
hospitality and who has followed her husband in the
dark and light days with that old time devotion which
characterizes her countrywomen.

When the insurrection took place against the
Spaniards, Judge Llorente, who was a magistrate, was

114

JULIO LLORENTE 115

arrested in his mother's house April 3, 1898, and taken
to the prison called Cotta-de Cebu, a sort of fortress
which had been erected against the Moros. Here he
was examined by a military court and condemned to
death and while in the prison for ten months was treated
with great harshness, the cells being but a few feet wide,
their luxury consisting of a seat on the floor and the
same soft place serving as well for a bed!

This torment for himself and family was endured
until the American occupation. The sorrowing little
group of wife and children found shelter in the Hospital
of San Jos6 with the Paulist Fathers.

After the blockade and the Treaty of Paris, the
judge was liberated. The same day of the evacuation
at 7 in the morning about 100 of them were set free and
at 10 a. m., on the Francisco Reyes, the Spaniards said
"Adios" to the city they had governed from the
time of the great Magellan. Before this, however,
the situation of the political provinces has been slightly
bettered. After Aguinaldo had taken prisoner 6,000
Spaniards, the families were admitted oftener and con-
versation could be carried on without a guard. Judge
Llorente's family was thus able to communicate the
welcome tidings of prospective liberty. Much crushed
physically and with not too buoyant a mental state
of mind on the day of Uberation, he sought his family
at the hospital and brought them back to their home,
left under such distressing circumstances, ten months
before.

The revolutionary troops were in command of
the city, and after a certain order was established Julio
Llorente was made presidente of Cebu and when the
captain, of the Petrel ordered the surrender of the city
within 48 hours the presidente, together with the
provincial treasurer, Pablo Mejia, procured from the
assembly which Judge Llorente had convoked the
surrender of Cebu, which was given over to the

116 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Americans on the following day, upon which they, the
judge and treasurer, were condemned to death.

Senor Pablo Mejia, while waiting in the streets
one dark night to meet the judge, now imder the
American rule provincial governor of Cebu, was set on
by two ruffians and killed. Fate or Divine Providence
had interposed to save Julio Llorente again. Accom-
panying the Commission through the southern islands
Judge Llorente assisted in the work of reconstruction
and was at this time governor, which position he
occupied for one year aiding the military authorities
as well as the civil in the pacification of the city and
province on the accomplishment of which arduous and
delicate task he received a telegram of thanks from the
then Governor General, Mr. Taft, and was named
judge advocate of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

Later, after serving as governor of Cebu, he also was
named governor of Samar. The position was one offer-
ing no little difficulty to the man in power, but be it said
it was to the satisfaction of all that this great trust
was given to this young man who was already in posses-
sion of so much self-control and dignity as well as
judgment.

In 1903 he was named judge of first instance of the
12th district, this judicial district including Leyte and
Samar, and within a few months he was transferred to
the 4th district, including Pampanga, Tarlac and Nueva
Ecija, which eminent position he has filled for ten years.

Judge Llorente has the vision of a practical admin-
istrator of affairs. He believes in evolution, not revolu-
tion and hopes for a national life when the moment of
intelligence shall come for the masses, when the hour of
destiny has struck, prepared by hard work and wider
knowledge. Having weighed questions of diplomacy and
state-craft and, what is still more serious, put them to the
test of daily life, he is not a man of illusions. You realize
as you talk with him that a v6ry unusual experience
has shaped a naturally upright character, possessing

JULIO LLORENTE 117

thought and feeling far beyond that of most of his fellows
and that this has won for him, in all the high service
he has set himself to, the respect of Spaniards, Americans
and Filipinos alike. Judge Llorente has a suggestion
of the Roman about him perhaps more than any of his
countrymen, nay, not only a touch, the effigy of that
unmistakable coin, pure metal.

yi

RAFAEL DEL PAN

LU

One of the coterie of men who belong to the past,
and are as well men of the hour, is Rafael del Pan,
one of those intrusted with that most responsible
task, the revision of the Codes, which was entered upon
on the passing of a law to that effect by the Assembly
ratified by the Governor General, in 1911. Associated
with him was the distinguished jurists Judge ArauUo, as
chief, now a member of the Supreme Court, and Judge
Goldsborough, Sr. Ortigas and Mr. Street are actually
associated with him with Adriatico. This work was to
extend over a period of five years and means the moder-
nizing and harmonizing of the civil, penal, procedure
and general laws of the Philippines. That this involves
a degree of acumen as it means the revamping of
ancient customs and modernizing legislation until it is
up to date, is evident.

During the last four years Senor del Pan has visited
America, England, Holland, Germany, France, Swit-
zerland, Italy, Japan, Java, Australia, etc., and gathered
a vast amount of information and practical, up-to-date
experience of men, institutions, treatment of criminals,
especially reformatory methods, as well as many of the
most enlightened processes of the scientific uplifting of the
masses. In no department of that cumbrous machine
we call "administration" has there been such a change
in the past fifty years as in that of the treatment of
prisoners. The fascination of his theme, which touches
so vitally the race, has allured Senor del Pan into a
wide field and added to that side of his own nature
most strongly marked, as does life occasionally, the
philanthropic.

The first time the writer had the pleasure of seeing
this figure who has been so active in the sociological and
historical past of his country, was at a memorial meeting
held in the httle sala of the Gota de Leche for Mr. Doherty,
its founder, that knight-errant of the unfortunate.

RAFAEL DEL PAN 119

One strongly resembling Mr. Charles Bonaparte
of Baltimore rose, and with much of that gentleman's
impassioned Italian fire which generations has not
quenched, spoke of his dead friend and the debt his
countrymen owed him. There was the flash of the
true orator in the words and, better than that, the
gratitude of a sincere heart. From that day the
name del Pan had a significance to me.

Daring perspicacity and a fearless insight, the
birthright of certain spirits, markedly that of the great
nephew of the great Napoleon, have been given to this
son of a Spanish father. A sense of urbanity belongs
to his character, which is the counterpoise of the
vehement temperament of these men of meridional
natures and southern souls.

Senor del Pan's father came from Spain a young
man and settled in the city of Manila, where he entered
the office of the secretary of the Governor-General and
by degrees rose to the position of executive secretary
and occupied this post at the time of the birth of his
son Rafael. Some time after he retired and devoted
himself to journalism and literary work.

He began this, his favorite avocation, on the
"Diario de Manila" and afterwards carried on a news-
paper which he founded, "La Oceania," the most liberal
paper published at that time in the city of Manila.
As editor of this progressive sheet his son succeeded,
on the death of the father in 1894. This paper was
established as far back as 1878 and Senor Rafael del
Pan continued as its editor until the year 1897, when
he left for Europe.

The Press Reference Library gives as follows:
"Rafael del Pan was born June 17th, 1863, in Manila,
P. I. Son of Jos6 Felipe Del Pan and Amalia Fontela.
Educated in the College of San Juan de Letran, Manila;
University of Santo Tomas, with degree of A. B., 1880;
University of Madrid, Spain, with degree of Licenciado
en Derecho, 1885, and Doctor in Civil Law, 1887."

120 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Senor del Pan was married shortly after taking
his doctor's degree and returned to the Philippines to
Senorita Blanca Garcia Fontela in Manila, whither
the distinguished lady had come to become a bride,
as has been often the case with the fair daughters of
Spain and America. Sra. del Pan and her young daughter
are among those who have most adorned the social
life of this city. Seven children have been born to
this family, five of whom are living.

After marriage nine years passed in the tranquil
pursuits of his chosen profession until just after the
death of Rizal in the month of April, 1897. In the
sad penumbra of his illustrious friend, Senor del Pan
returned to Spain, to make it, however, only a pied-
a-terre, as he travelled extensively through England,
France and Italy, for two years.

In 1898 was formed, in Madrid, the political society
composed of Filipino young men students and others
to the number of some 150 and of this society Senor
del Pan was made the first president, to be followed
by Tomas Ar6jola, the prominent assemblyman.

From Madrid the incipient politician passed io
Hongkong and to America as representative of the
temporary government at Washington, although he
possibly realized then that this title was somewhat
more tangible than the post. He presented to the Senate
a petition signed by two thousand representative Fili-
pinos which had been forwarded to him from Hongkong.
This was laid before his colleagues by Senator Teller
and was given most careful consideration by such men
as Senators Hoar, Pettigrew, and Towne. Then followed
the remarkable and well remembered speeches of these
men advising immediate independence to the islands,
which were undoubtedly influential in obtaining the
•generous concessions made in the Philippine Act passed
by Congress. This act has become the Constitution
of the Philippine Islands.

Senor del Pan at this time travelled through many
cities of the United States, meeting many notable

RAFAEL DEL PAN 121

public men, among others the present governor of
New York, Sulzer, Henry George, Jr., and Crosby of
the Single Tax and a host of literary men and jour-
nalists. This affinity with Uterary men is one of the
sides of this many-sided citizen, who began in very
early years to write poems as the result of a prize which
(as he claims) an injudicious jury awarded him and
so filled his soul with Byronic fervor that he thought
he had Pegasus saddled and bridled; but at twenty-one,
sterner facts of life and his soul, which outran his meters
in many directions, most notably in that of the un-
poetic though dramatic studies of sociology, tamed
his poetic ffights.

He was drawn into this sociological vein when, as
a student in Madrid, he was made a member of the
leading private Uterary and scientific society of that
city, the Ateneo of Madrid, and he was made a secre-
tary of one of the sections, that of social science. Asso-
ciated with him as secretary was the Count of Roma-
nones, the present premier of Spain.

Shortly after the passing of the Philippine Act
Senor del Pan returned to the Philippines from Spain,
where he had gone to join his family, and resided for a
year. Under the American administration he passed
his examinations and resumed his law practice asso-
ciated with Senor Ortigas and Mr. Fisher. The grow-
ing spirit of philanthropy I have' noted was now in-
creased by the breadth of the Hfe on which he entered
and the number and variety of positions he has held.
He was founder of the Chamber of Commerce and its
president, also one of the founders of the Bar Asso-
ciation and its president. Under the Spanish rule he had
been Sohcitor General of the Philippines in 1891-3.
His connection with the American government began
by his appointment as special attorney to examine
the titles of the Friar lands and to act as attorney for
the government after their purchase in registering
their titles.

122 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Since his appointment on the Code Committee
Sefior del Pan has traveled, as has been said, through
some dozen countries, studying at close range the treat-
ment of the degenerates, vagrants and criminal class.
He visited Elmira Reformatory, Auburn Penitentiary,
the East Penitentiary of Philadelphia, the Penitentiary
of Baltimore, workhouses in many places and prisons
in England, France, Italy, Australia and Java. The
Elmira Reformatory was one of the, to him, most
excellent institutions.

Mr. Scptt, one of the greatest adepts in the refor-
mation of boys of the century, won the enthusiastic
admiration of this traveler and from contact with such
institutions Senor del Pan returned to his own country
on fire with the desire to see put to practical proof
some of the theories gathered and seen in action.

In considering this life it would be most difficult
to embrace it in all of its phases, if the one thread of
altruism did not run through it from beginning to the
end, making it one of the most consistent. Devoted
to the wide philanthropic ideals of his age, Sefior del
Pan has been at the forefront as a worker from young
manhood in endeavoring to accomplish so much per-
sonally and to assist others to do so, in this most
generous task, the uplifting of humanity. A true socialist
in the highest and best sense, he has devoted time,
pen one of the most brilliant, speech, of the most elo-
quent, to this noble pursuit of the good of the many.
Belonging himself to the privileged class, he has been
one of those philanthropists born, who are among the
most useful and necessary factors in human progress.

Speaking of himself he may say: "I don't like
stagnant water. During the Spanish days I was one of
the most radical men of the islands and was abused
for asking for reforms for my country, for measures
of self-government, and I have never deviated from
this beginning, looking and working for reform; not
too fast, but as fast as the laws of nature and human
development will allow.

RAFAEL DEL PAN 123

"In our land, the crying need of the hour is along
sociological lines, for improvement in the condition
of the aged, the orphans, insane and poor; in a word,
those who cannot do for themselves. In legislation
we must have better laws for young offenders as ours
are utterly inadequate at present.

"I am a constructive worker and today as under
that true liberal man. General Blanco, with whom I
planned for the same ends, I am endeavoring to con-
tribute my part to the building of the race. Go ahead
but go ahead in order. Thinking a moment for a
motto, Goethe's was decided upon! 'Ohne Hast,
Ohne Rast', 'Without haste, without rest.' "

If we should look for a parallel for this character
across the sea, it would be to call him the Edward
Everett Hale of the Philippines. Such men never grow
old and without seeking any of the ambitious prizes
of Ufe, the best of it all comes to them: the gratitude
and admiration and affection of their fellow men. Senor
del Pan is one of his countrymen who has realized the
exquisite truth in that noble story of Tolstoy, the story
of the angel who lived six years in the shoemaker's
hut: "I understood that God does not wish men to
live apart, and therefore he does not reveal to them
what each one needs for himself; but he wishes them
to live united and therefore reveals to each of them
what is necessary for all."

>u

RAFAEL PALMA

^*»7^

As you enter the Marble Hall and pass up the steps
where Elcano still is at the helm and the lions in repose-
ful attitude — reposeful because full of a sense of power
instinctive in lions, whether they be British or Gas-:
tiUian — you feel two waves or breaths pass over you; and/
one is of the Past. Wh^o is this strange figure, unfamiliar .
to you, with, his dashing sailor mien who confronts you;
whose the names which you read about the walls quite
other, than thos^ you have found inscrilDed on the walls
of fame, across the seas?, You are .meeting another
racfe; another history, and if it awakienis in your. breast
no corresponding thrill of sentiment and feeling, such
as you once knew, it opens out new vistas and leads, you
to know new peoples and to be in touch with new sym-
pathies. . ' ■

There is a subdued quiet in the air, and although
many feet step here on many missions, there is a sense
of seriousness about it all, that sense, or atmosphere
which abides always where men think over deep things,
and act after meditation. One of the broad halls
leads you to one of those high-studdfed' rooms, which
is adorned by two large paintings, pictures taken from'
Filipino history and painted by two Filipino artists.
One is that of the first Spanish stea.mer at anchor in
Manila harbor, and the other dead men lying on the
beach in the slowly rising dawn, after the battle of the
pirates led by Limahong.

In this room, one of the most reposeful of the series
which are, or might be ca,lled, the ante-chambers of
the Marble Hall, sits, during many hours of many weeks
of the year, a member of the Philippine Commission —
one of the quietest figures in Filipino public Ufe.

The Commission!

This word, rather singular as nomenclature, is
the sign which covers the eight personalities, decidedly

124

COMMISSIONER PALMA

RAFAEL PALMA 125

differing in type and even race, who, with the chief
executive and an Assembly, rule over the seven millions
of these islands.

This Commission has had several phases, or rather
there have been several Commissions. The first dates
back to our great President McKinley who selected
those pioneers, headed by Jacob Schurman, who went
out to investigate the then unknown lands of the Far
East which lie now under the luminous light of the press
and are so well known to the American public. This
was in war. days before the guns had ceased to throb, and
their keen and impartial investigation contributed much
to the re-construction of the Spanish-Oriental land.

These men went back to their chief, whose splen-
did heart responded to their cool judgment, and his
human sympathy and able statesmanship framed for
these islands the course they have pursued until this
day. A year later a second commission, headed by ex-
President Taft, came out to carry out the instructions
of the President in order to obliterate the traces of
conquest and bring back the civilized state, out of the
chaos of conflict. Mr. Taft demonstrated by his tact
and mental grasp, as well as administrative capacity
in his relation to the Filipino peoples, such kindness
and pacific charm that he largely won all parties, those
at home and those here, and the Filipino people were
confirmed in their trust as to the beneficent intentions
of the American people. This is the second phase.
Now the third :

In the organizing of the civil government it was
thought wise to appoint three Filipinos with five Ameri-
cans, who, by their knowledge of the facts of Philip-
pine history, local topography, technology and intimate
sentiment, or psychology of the people, should supply
what of necessity a foreigner could not.

It was of course natura,l to take representative men,
men of conservative influence in the islands, rich beyond
the possibility of the incentive of cupidity, who should
give their services as a personal dedication to this

126 BUILDERS OF A NATION

intensely routine and oftentimes arduous work. There
were chosen at first: Legarda,TaveraandLuzurriaga;these
three alone served up to the time of the first Assembly.

During the visit of Mr. Taft, then secretary of
war, in view of the fact that the majority of the Assem-
bly belonged to the Nacionalista party, it appeared to
this wise leader to appoint another who should represent
the feehngs, wishes and sentiments of this faction of
the legislative body, and in order to bring this about
the members of the Commission were increased by one,
making nine, the magic number of the Muses. Another
reason, and the one most apparent, was that as the com-
missioners are frequently absent on trips out of Manila
it was necessary to increase the working staff in this
foremost branch of the government, in order that there
should be a quorum.

So the illustrious gentleman whose name stands
here, Rafael Palma, was chosen, in 1908, when he was
a member of the Philippine Assembly from Cavite and
has served continuously up to date, last year only
taking a short vacation to Europe of five months.

Senor Palma is a son of Manila. He was born in the
city, in 1874. His father's name was Hermogenes
Palma and his mother was a Senora Hilaria Velasquez,
of a noted family of Tondo.

This father was an accountant, from which modest
post he became an "oficial quinta de hacienda." His
residence was always in Manila in the ward of Tondo.
From this union four children were born, three boys
and one girl, and in this popular and democratic and
industrial quarter, a truly working quarter, with its
crowd of hurrying feet, not of the pleasure seeker, but
of the serious men and women who hear the cry of bread
and are out winning their fortunes and their sons in the
'stern marts of trade.' There he grew up; in this some-
what grey setting this serious-minded boy learned to
sympathize with the humble. His first education was
received in a public school among the people whom
later he was to guide from so exalted a post.

RAFAEL PALMA 127

From this school he went to the Ateneo of Manila
for his secondary education and was graduated with
the title of B. A. in 1891, after a seven years' course.

From this extensively laid foundation he passed
to Sto. Tomas to study law, which superstructure,
tower and pinnacle, took the very long period of seven
years and was not finished on account of the war.
Despairing of ever reaching the observation tower of the
ripe jurist then, he took to the journalistic pen, that
terre-a-terre instrument..

Anterior to this, during Spanish days Sefior Palma
was appointed to the unpoetic though lucrative task
of an officer of internal revenue, so he was already
initiated into the mysterious paths of administration,
often very deep ones, as well as the study of economic
questions all to serve later, although this hack work
was, as is often the case, more instructive than congenial
to him, by taste a literary man. In '98 he became a
member of the famous staff of General Luna's paper,
"La Independencia." When Luna died Senor Palma
had demonstrated his journaUstic talents to such a
purpose that he was chosen editor. This was not as
simple a post as it may seem.

Their Odyssey was, if not Homeric in dimensions,
quite as exciting as those titanic contests of the stately
measure for they had to fly before the advancing lines
of American troops and their editorial room was often
the car of a train and the periods were punctuated by
jolting and bullets, while the size of the paper decreased,
in direct ratio to the advance of the American army,
from the voluminous proportions of four sheets to one
octavo.

When it was found impossible to continue this paper
Senor Palma was invited by Senor Osmena to assist
in editing a journal in Cebu, which was called "El Nuevo
Dia." This was under the censorship of General Mc-
Intyre and on the appearance of the first number, the
editors were left in the very singular position of seeing
every prominent article blue penciled! Senor Palma

128 BUILDEKS OF A NATION

returned to Manila in 1900 after the suppression of this
paper, and, as a federal party had been formed whose
chief tenet was the annexation of the islands, it was
thought that in order to combat this growing sentiment,
it was better to found a paper and accordingly the "Rena-
cimiento" was started, which was to voice the national
longings of a vast majority of their fellow countrymen
and the old staff of the "Independencia" worked on
this periodical, which was at once most successful.
A new writer was added, Senor Corpus, author of a
work on America, "Fuera de Filipinas."

There was no desire to keep anything more than a
moderate tone, without arousing any sectional feel-
ing as long as Senor Palma was editor.

He strove to bring about a friendly feeling between
the two peoples. General Bell, who was the command-
ing officer in Batangas at that time, carrjdng. out a
reconcentration plan, was somewhat stirred at the
criticism of the paper, but on the mediation of Governor
Taft it was seen that there was no ill feeling and the
distinguished and most popular officer was convinced that
no unfair intention animated the articles and news
items.

Senor Palma was admitted to the bar in 1902 and
left journalism for law. In this career he was one of
the leading figures in his profession. In 1907 he moved
his residence to Cavite in order to run for the election
as assemblyman for that district. He was elected by
a big majority out of four candidates. As assembly-
man he was a representative to the legislature of his
countrymen for the special extraordinary period of
1907 and 1908. He presented the "irrigation bill"
with Senor Hernandez, the present governor of Iloilo,
also the resolution for a creation of a code committee,
the original draft of the bill which was approved later.

The Commission actually has sittings only during
the ninety days, while the Assembly is in session, as an
upper house, but the members are at work on govern-

RAFAEL PALMA 129

mental projects during the entire year, many of which
have to do with the territory inhabited by the Moros
and non-Christian tribes. The power of the Commis-
sion resides in its capacity of initiating bills, refusing
to pass bills, confirming all the appointments of the
Governor-General, and in rendering service to the Gov-
ernor-General in important matters of policy. The
commissioners have no executive power and no bureaus
under them, as this is the province of the secretaries
alone.

Much of Sefior Palma's work within the regular
office hours, which are supposed to be seven, consists
in examining projects of laws of legislative councils,
such as that of the Moro Province. Much work on
committees comes into his life as a legislator, also such
as the pardon committee and the committee on geo-
graphical names of which he is chairman.

Beyond all this routine task, he loves that which
he has as a regent of the Philippine University, which
position he has held from its initiation and into which
work both in the monthly meetings and in its public
exercises he throws his heart and soul. He sees in it
so much hope for the future of his land and looks to
it above all to bxiild up character. Senor Palma's tastes
lie along sociological lines and he is at this time writing
a series of articles on the "Theory of Races" in "El
Ideal," bringing out the psychology of the Filipinos.

He has a future of large interests laid about before
him in the expenditure of the one-half million pesos
granted by the Assembly for the collecting and placing
of the Filipino exhibit at the Panama Exposition, which
the distinguished commissioner hopes to visit with the
other members of the board, Senores Tinio and Mr.
Taylor and the secretary. Judge Daniel Williams.

Mr. Palma says that he is not by choice a public
man by any means, but is rather a country squire, in
his tastes. His home in Paco is set in large grounds
and is very provincial, he claims. Over this home
presides the sweet mother who was Senorita Carolina

130 BUILDEES OF A NATION

Ocampo, the daughter of the editor of the "Renaci-
miento Filipino." They have four children living, and
four have passed into immortal childhood. Senor Palma
is a child-lover and loves children as only a father can.
Senor Palma is a club man as well and is very fond of
what has been called "the aristocratic game of tennis."
His character may be summed up as one possessing
with a quiet equipoise, with a meditative and subjective
mind, weighing matters slowly; deeply reflective and
hating show or sham, in a word, seeming, or ostentation,
such is this serene figure. He is reserved in feeling and
balanced in conduct; a man who makes few intimates,
but for those he loves has a lifelong fidelity, a man of
quiet solid attainment, attainments dispassionate and
sensible and consistent like himself. Wit may be
numbered among his accomplishments, or endowments;
a gentle wit, and he appreciates immensely a good story
and is most social, but not, he claims a brilliant
speaker.

Delicacy is the dominating note of this character
and no one could think of this generous, courtly gentle-
man without it being a pleasant thought. Urbanity,
which is fast disappearing from public life and even from
private, is so characteristic of this man that there seems
a perfect harmony in his every day bearing.

One of his compatriots, being asked the opinion
of this man so well-known in Manila and through-
out the archipelago replied: "All Filipinos trust Rafael
Palma."

Hon. VICTORINO MAPA

Fjimcr Justice of Supreme Court and actually Secretary of

Justice and Finance.

uu

FILIPINO JURISTS OF
THE SUPREME COURT

uu

Jurists, men of highest ability and conscience, there
are in Manila,, and have been for many years, for the
history of the legal profession in these Islands is one of
which the people have every reason to be proud. The
following data was furnished by one whose "word is law"
on such matters, and are personal notes which are of all
the greater value. One may affirm as a fact that,
at least from the middle of the 18th century, there
have been in these islands men profoundly versed
in the science of law, lawyers of the lower and higher
courts. The usual courts were the Real Audiencia de
Manila and the courts of primera instancia. The lawyers
of the court of first instance were the alcaldes mayores
of the provinces.

These men were naturally Spaniards and as they
came out from the mother country were often men not
at all versed in legal matters so they were obliged to
have an adviser, and this latter was naturally a Filipino.
This was the case as well in provinces which were not
governed by alcaldes mayores, but by governors, or
lieutenant governors, i. e. military men.

These also had legal functions and were a part
of the court of first instance, and were obliged to have
at their side a Filipino lawyer.

The Governor Superior Civil, called ultimately.
Governor General up to the time of the creation of the
Council of Administration, which did not occur until
the year 1861, had an asesor, who was a Filipino, Don
Julio Guevara.

There were also, apart from these ordinary lawyers,
special lawyers. One each for the Departments of
War, Marine, Commerce and Agriculture as well as
to the Church and one for the bienes de difuntos; these
were associated with the Real Audiencia. Also the
army and its branches, the artillery and engineers,

131

132 BUILDERS OF A NATION

had their special lawyers, who were always Filipinos.
From the middle of the 19th century, began the reform
of the tribunals in the Philippines, and from the date
of the opening of the Suez canal, a large number of
Spanish lawyers came out and assumed the functions
before held by FiUpinos.

The culture of the Filipino lawyer was never incon-
siderable, for, from the earliest date, the Filipino .
lawyer was not admitted to the practice of his profes-
sion after simply having read law with some firm, but
he was obliged first to obtain a doctor's degree from
his academic course. Not only this, but he was obliged
to follow an eight years' course in jurisprudence, a
most rigorous program, which contained not alone
studies in colonial law, but such as were required in
the leading universities of Spain and Europe. These
studies comprised legislative law, and the universal
principles of law, of civilized nations.

We have names known the world over, such as
Azcarraga, Vizmanos, Arrieta, Marcaida, Timoteo Joe-
son, Gervasio Sanchez, Lorenzo Francisco.

We have no need to mention those of modern times
who are too well known and have been preeminent
since the date of university reform, in 1877.

We have only to open the introduction of the penal
code of these islands to find there the record of how
Filipino lawyers were ranked by Spain: "The native
race has had a direct influence upon the social and
political affairs of the country and from a uniformity of
experience is open to distinction in every profession
and those requiring superior merit and of the highest
order."

In an address delivered by former Justice Willard
before the South Dakota Bar Association in January,
of year before last, we have an admirable resume of the
Camara de I'Audiencia, from the time of the American
occupation and before.

The first judges of the Audiencia arrived in Manila
in May, 1584. It was suspended in 1590. It was

FILIPINO JURISTS OF THE SUPREME COURT 133

re-established on May 8, 1598. Since then its life
has been continuous. This statement can, I think,
be safely made, for by section 39 of the Act of the
American Commission above referred to it was declared
that the supreme court thereby established should
be substituted for the Audiencia. All of the cases
then pending therein were transferred to the new court
and decided by it. All of the books, papers and files
were turned over to the clerk of the new court and are
now a part of its records. The oldest document now
remaining in the present clerk's office is a judgment
in a criminal case entered in 1602. The ink with which
this judgment was enrolled shows as clearly and as
plainly now as it did when it was placed upon the parch-
ment three hundred and ten years ago.

The Audiencia until the 4th of June, 1861, exer-
cised both legislative and judicial functions. The
Captain General, the highest executive and military
official in the Island, was its president or chief justice.
The judge of the court of first instance in each province
was the governor of the province until a comparatively
recent date.

The present judicial establishment is similar to
the Spanish one and to the organization of courts in
this date.

Generally speaking the jurisdiction of the supreme
court is appellate only. It may however issue writs
of mandamus, certiorari, habeas corpus and prohibi-
tion. Owing to the peculiar ecclesiastical situation
created by the Aglipay schism in the Roman Catholic
Church, a law was passed on July 24, 1905, giving to
the supreme court original jurisdiction of controversies
between the Roman Catholic Church and the munic-
ipalities concerning the title to churches, convents
and cemeteries. Under the operation of this law many
cases were brought in that court, one from about every
province. They were all decided in favor of the church,
following a decision made by the same court in a suit
brought by a Roman Catholic Isishop against a priest

134 BUILDERS OF A NATION

whom he had placed over a church in his diocese but
who had seceded from the Roman Catholic Church
and had attempted to carry with him the church build-
ings of which he was in possession.

A subsequent law gave to the supreme court
original jurisdiction in controversies between the govern-
ment and those railroads in the Islands the interest
on whose bonds the government had guaranteed for
a term of years.

From the supreme court of the Philippines an
appeal lies to the supreme court at Washington in
cases where the amount in controversy exceeds $25,000
gold or where the construction of an Act of Congress
is in question.

The Philippine court consists of seven justices.
They are now and have been since July 1, 1902, ap-
pointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
The law does not say of what race they shall be. But
ever since the court was established in 1901, four have
been Americans and three Fihpinos. It was probably
thought necessary to have the majority of the court
of American birth for fear that some prejudice might
arise.

The president of the Audiencia, and consequently
the head of the judicial estabUshment of the Islands,
was Don Cayetano Arellano, then and now the most
learned lawyer and one of the most distinguished Fihpi-
nos in the Islands. Thoroughly famihar with the laws,
customs and history of his country, he had rendered
the most valuable aid to General Otis in the organiza-
tion of the courts, in the preparation of a marriage
law, a municipal code, and a code of criminal procedure.
He became the first chief justice of the American Supreme
Court and now holds that office. In 1904 he came
to this country and received from the University of
Yale the degree of Doctor of Laws.

Don Florentino Torres was appointed fiscal of the
Audiencia, or as we would designate him attorney
general of the Islands. He had held important judicial

FILIPINO JURISTS OF THE SUPREME COURT 135

offices during the Spanish domination, and upon the
organization of the American Supreme Court was made
the Senior Associate Justice.

Justice Torres was born in Santa Cruz, in 1844,
and his first studies were taken in San Juan de Letran,
from which he graduated as Bachelor of Philosophy;
in 1871 he received the degree of Civil and Ecclesias-
tical Law, in 1871 he, was also admitted to the bar,
and was named prosecuting attorney of Binondo, and
confirmed in the same position the next year.

In 1873 he was named attorney of Misamis from
where he went to Barotak Viejo. In 1875 he was ap-
pointed secretary relator of the supreme court, and
remained in this position until 1879, when he was named
as attorney of the supreme court of Havana. This
position he refused and in 1888 was made Judge of the
Court of First Instance. In 1898 he was appointed
judge of Ilocos Sur and in 1890 came to Pampanga.
In 1892 he was appointed lieutenant attorney of the
territorial court of Cebu and was named magistrate
of the same court 1893; in '98 he returned to Manila
and under American rule was made attorney general
and afterwards in 1901, was made magistrate. Judge
Torres is a man of masterly ability and genial as he
is distinguished.

The other member of the supreme court up to
November 1913, Justice Mapa, now Secretary of Justice
and Finance, was born in Capiz. His ancestors were
churchmen and merchants, and he has something of the
mysticism of the one and the keenness of the other. He
received his primary education in the schools of his
province, and came up to Manila for his university
course, which he received at Sto. Tomas, taking the
degree of Ph. D. and in the course of law, two degrees-.
In 1877 he commenced the practice of his profession
in Iloilo and was elected mayor of that city twice,
1893-95.

In 1904 Justice Mapa was one of the Honorary
Commission sent to represent the Philippines at the-

136 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Exposition of St. Louis. During this same period
Justice Arellano was appointed as representative from
both the United States and the Philippines, at the
Congress of Jurisprudence held in St. Louis.

During the FiUpino revolution Senor Mapa was
president of the tribunal of justice and counselor of
the Federal government of the Visayas. His wide
learning and deep thinking along matters legal has
placed him as one of the three foremost lawyers of his
land, and his beauty of character and personal virtue
are so illustrious as to be as well known as is his name.
In his own province as well as in his adopted city, his
presence is cherished as one of the rarest and finest
gifts to the Filipino people.

The chief justice asks the writer, nay begs,
that no mention of himself should be made. It is
an exhilarating experience and what punishment the
breaking of the half promise will be meted out, she
trusts will be light, as it is given by one who has studied
for a lifetime to be just, pleading guilty and only giving
as an excuse that something which is stronger than our
will, and which leads to crime. In this case it is the
veneration which the great man calls forth, veneration
which is called forth so rarely.

The being who arouses this feeling must possess
all private virtues: boundless charity, the courtesy
of a prince, and the humility of a beggar. He must
have more: the loftiest ideals, lived so quietly that
you would image them all unknown, so potently that
they move hundreds, nay thousands of lives. Yea
and do more, decide the issue of same. All these things
make one whom to meet is a benediction, and to know
intimately must be an inspiration.

Senator Hoar said what might be paraphrased as:
''A people who can produce Rizal is worthy of the high-
est destiny. All glory to Rizal, yes, but to live the
brilliant ideals for which he died in the humdrum of
routine life, and create in one's work the inspiration

FILIPINO JTJKISTS OF THE SUPREME COURT 137

once which brought him to death, that, as ex-governor
Gilbert once said most eloquently, is even more heroic!
That a slight, shrinking figure, bearing the heaviest
burdens, is doing this in our midst every day is the
reason why the name Cayetano Arellano is written
here, a name which stands spotless today before the
Filipino people, as it has stood for years. Rising from
humble boyhood by fidelity and integrity he has, in
Sto. Tomas, where he received various degrees, in his
professorship there as "supleinte" of the supreme court,
as member of the state council under the Spanish regime,
as administrator of Obras Pias, always answered to
the illustrious ideals of scholar and gentleman that
adorn many places in our East, but nowhere more
luminously than in the chair occupied by the chief
justice of the Philippines, which position he honors
now, proving to his countrymen, for all time, that one
of their number — and if one then many — may have
the beauty of character and loftiness of intellect which
is the gift of God to his chosen sons, be they Malays,
or Chinese; of England or Bombay; be they born where
the ardent sun first lights the race or finishes its tired
course.

^v^

SERGIO OSMENA

Journalist, Governor, Party Leader, Speaker
of the Philippine Assembly

yj

Man's supremacy over man is one of the most
fascinating phenomena of life and its causes will furnish
material for study when the intricacies of human nature
are reduced to a science and are not, as today, rele-
gated largely to the story teller.

The electric current of responsibility has touched
men here in our islands as well, and, when, on returning
six years ago from a visit to the Japanese parliament,
where it had been my privilege to be the guest of Mr."
Ozaki, then Mayor of Tokyo, one of the first places
which drew my thought was the Assembly, then a brand-
new legislative body, and to contrast the two was by no
means uninteresting. It is a long way from that first
session to today, and the ideas and aspirations proper
to a democracy have grown apace which a free govern-
ment is trying to teach and teach it quickly, and there
have been developed here notable personalities, who
have risen to be leaders, men of affairs who are carving
out a modern Philippines on models which the gift
of selection is taking from England, America, France,
and building it into the foundation laid by the ancient
mother, Spain.

The native aristocracy — ^for the Philippines has its
aristocracy — ^is feeling the impulse towards work and
the conservative element is looking on and applauding
when not actually taking part in the struggle. When
the Americans arrived, they naturally chose men of
years, for the most part, or those who had reached at
least the age of discretion, for the posts of honor, but as
time has demonstrated the Filipino talent for adminis-
tration, the power has passed into younger and more
vigorous hands and the makers of the Philippines today
are men in their early manhood, with all the flush of
the time of creation upon them, when to do is the joy of
life and to aspire is as natural as to breathe. A record.

SERGIO OSMENA 139

if not stupendous for the length of time, at least in a
sense remarkable which attests the manifestation of a
rising tide of achievement and power in this Malay
land. The legislators who have had an experience but
of six years in sessions have sent their men out through
Europe and many have been the results of the close
following of the acts of the English parliament, Japa-
nese parliament, the Duma, the statecraft of the new
China, as well as the close touch with the Congress of
the United States.

At first, rather timidly, by untried men of limited
experience and endowed with that self-depreciation
which is natural and cultivated in the Oriental, the Fil-
ipino begins today to realize his position as one of the
forces in a country which has boimdless possibilities
and which can play a brilliant and important role in the
East if she rises to her full height and grasps the occasion
and the resources within her.

As the history of the movement towards a na-
tional life has been traced in preceding articles, it has
been seen to reach back to the Spanish days, indeed, to
have been carried on largely on Spanish soil. Some of
its propagators are, as has been shown, still alive and full
of the enthusiasm if not the vigor of those days, but,
among the modern group which is shaping to a con-
spicuous extent the practical, beneficent agricultural and
industrial movements as well as placing the govern-
ment of the provinces and that centralized in Manila
on a footing worthy of a country of first class pos-
sibilities, none stands higher than Sergio Osmena.

The inspiration of the man is a contagion, and it
is as a man fortunately that one can present him first,
and, perhaps, with the greatest enthusiasm. Delicate
in physique, a fact which has more than one drawback,
yet formed with the symmetry of a wiry frame, lithe
as a deer in movements, dainty almost to effeminateness
in taste, a polished man of the worldin the broad and
best sense, with the tact of a tactful woman and the
subtle desire to please of an Asiatic, yet, underneath, the

140 BUILDERS OF A NATION

blood of a racer, the quick spring of the skilled fencer
and the unerring sense of the time, the place and the
hour, cool yet comprehending by the emotions, with
senses of the most acute matched by a brain whose
forehead stands with that unflinching mark of the
mathematician, — such is, in rapid strokes, the man who
today stands as the foremost statesman of fiis land, a
position which he holds at the astounding age of thirty-five !

The culture of Spain hes behind the manhood of
each of the notable men of this land and the humanities
have raised them all into the higher atmosphere of edu-
cated beings, which does not only mean they read Latin
fluently, but that they have "inwardly digested" the
Past from an extensive study, if not from close scrutiny,
and from her theories and ideals patterned their own; and
Senor Osmena has that mobility of temperament which
the law makers of the Capitoline Hill had to disguise their
inflexibility. Masterly have been many of his decisions
and consummate his ways of handling facts, for his
powers of decision are so perfectly at his command
that you might compare him to some instrument which
a touch starts in motion.

His head is thrown back often with that seeming
effort to cast off all obstacles, in that sense of the strength
which lies within and then brought gently back to bend
in that submission which, alas, all souls at war with
human conditions have to learn so early, facing the
facts without. His smile is winning, gracious, merry
frequently, and full of a very magnetic humor, but
there sweeps across it, as across the lips of many a large
nature and genius, the sometimes sadness of a shadow.
The great undone forever haunting them.

The face seems at first too delicate, but as you
watch it, there come out the strongest lines of intrinsic
manhood, and the stern lines of the mental fighter, the
man who has a destiny, knows it, and, set on a seat of
power, means to wield the scepter lightly, yes, but to.draw
from out that substance, or shadow, we call things, all
that they can yield for the highest ends.

SERGIO OSMENA 141

Seen at a distance the slight, very slight figure
gives you a disappointment at first, but as it is brought
into close range and the perfect balance of the face is
noticed and its masterly lines, while the magnetic aura
like a flame envelops the whole, the true strength of the
man dawns upon you and it is the highest kind of
strength, i. e. the strength of a pure spirit.

Senor Osmena is a father and much of that sacred
dignity clings to him and gives him that understanding
of weakness as nothing else could. He has had to
sacrifice, to the infinite regret of the high-bred woman
who shares his life, the intimacy, much of it, of home,
so dear to a Filipino, for public life.

Senor Osmena was born in Cebu on the 9th of
September 1878 and received his first education in the
"College and Seminary of Cebu" under the Paulist
fathers. He took his degree of B. A. at San Juan de
Letran afterwards entering the university of Sto. Tomas,
where he began his law course, continued up to the time
of the revolution.

When very young Senor Osmena's tastes were for
the career of a physician, but these tastes were set aside
for the wishes of his family, and the career of a lawyer
was substituted. His first reading was consequently
along the fines of science and fortunately, for it meant
mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural history, etc.
Later this mental bias with the stirring movement of
events became more or less changed to a literary and
sociological one. Before he was admitted to the bar his
first essays were put forth in "El Comercio" and "El
Diario de Manila", which were then the most impor-
tant papers of the metropolis. These, given his extreme
youth, were naturally idealistic flights and this side
of his character can be studied at leisure in the files of
these dailies and you can trace the change in his style,
from the suavity of the university student, the acade-
mician, to the man of the forum, who must think in-
stantly and decide as quickly and go to the point with
rapid strokes, without circumlocution. The first men

142 BUILDERS OF A NATION

who influenced his life have left, as is always the case
in deep natures, their imprint and among them he holds
first and always Judge Logarta, who, from a neighbor-
ing town of Cebu where he was an eminent lawyer,
attorney and afterward judge, taught also a school in
Cebu for a time and was Seiior Osmena's first-year
Latin teacher. This friendship of pupil and teacher
ripened into an intimacy which lasted until Judge Lo-
garta's death. "What impressed me so," says Senor
Osmena, little given to passionate attachments, "was
his great character, his wonderful will power and power
of abiding. " This man of rather an English type fashion-
ed his favorite pupil, whom he loved as a son, after his
own heart and transmitted, by his example, something
of his masterful and lasting traits. Many more men
have come and gone in his life, says Senor Osmena, but
he is faithful to this dead teacher, and he holds the first
place in his memory as in his friendship. This whole-
souled devotion has exalted the public man and he de-
clares that his sense of public duty he took from the
same source and also that impulse towards untiring
devotion- to the good of country.

One characteristic of the young Osmena was his
taking part very early in the important movements
of his city. Cebu was one of the last cities to enter the
contest but became characteristically bitter. His tastes
were not military, and, although he was offered some
conspicuous places under that regime he refused, prefer-
ring the less militant one of journalism. Lest he should
incur however the accusation of lack of manliness at a
later period when called to pacify that region as gov-
ernor and forced to put down a long continued brigand-
age and much public disorder, he took the field himself
and, shouldering his gun, marched into the mountain
region, driving the outlaws by tact as well as with a
strong hand, to lay down their arms. This was a signal
triumph for the governor of only twenty-five, as the Con-
stabulary, after a very valiant siege had been unsuccess-

SERGIO osmeSa 143

ful in their efforts. He was later called to put down
the disturbances in Negros, which was done as
effectively.

First a practicing lawyer and journalist, then at-
torney, he was called to Manila as the initial step in his
markedly unusual fate by Governor Wright and offer-
ed the post of acting governor, to replace one chosen
on the honorary commission who had gone to America.
When confronting the young man Mr. Wright said:
"You are too young to be even a councilman," but
quickly added: "Never mind; you shall be governor
just the same."

During the first month of acting governorship the
young man went to work visiting forty municipalities
with bad means of communication and reorganized
all the public offices of the district. As in his method
of pacification, so in his construction Seiior Osmena
followed a policy of confidence in the people, not distrust
of them. It was then that his custom of personal in-
vestigation began one of the most admirable parts of
his program and one which has been the practice of
others in positions of trust in the islands, American and
Filipinos. So he early was learning to make his opinions
first hand and, as there were many elements to har-
monize, it was his custom to be accompanied by several
gentlemen, all representative men in their lines, and al-
though the area was large a degree of thoroughness
was obtained. Shortly after, Senor Osmena was elected
almost unanimously as governor of the province. A
vigorous campaign was begun for education through-
out the country doubling the number of pupils in the
public schools in one year. The governor was obliged
occasionally to go down into his own pocket and assist
personally in the construction of school buildings in
poorer districts. All this meant work, but there were
other things which meant more. Of strikingly delicate
physique, that misfortune which many able men have
had to offset by brain, the journalist stripling who
would govern his townsmen had not a little to do to

144 BUILDERS OF A NATION

overcome the impression of juvenileness and inex-
perience and to convince the hardheaded Cebu farmers
and wealthy burghers that he was "on to his job" as
the vulgar would say, but he did it in the best possible
manner, not by promising something, or talking about
what he was going to do, but by taking off his coat and
going to work, — a very good rule for statesmen'to follow;
one, however, which is not nor ever has been much a
la mode!

On one trip of seven days duration — not in a com-
fortable coast guard steamer as now, nor on a Pullman
sleeper — but over mountain trails on horseback, he
visited twenty-seven villages and held two or three
meetings in each. town personally, Ustening to any who
wished to enter complaints and investigating all the
jails and public buildings. New plans and projects for
roads and bridges were made and for the reconstruc-
tion of Cebu, which plans that city is now carrying out,
and which it will take at least years to complete.

The port of Cebu and the city proper which has
suffered from four or five devastating fires at a loss of
millions of pesos, has been made a modern city largely
from resources within itself. This governor found it
an antique burg, with narrow streets without plan or
beauty and today in the business zone it boasts of
thoroughfares of twenty meters in width, with concrete
sidewalks, concrete buildings, hospitals, custom house,
modern waterworks, electric light system and conces-
sion for street car.

So Senor Osmena, believing that building like charity
should begin at home, showed in his own home town
en petit, what he could do en grand. Unlike the per-
sonage of George Eliot's novel, his philanthropy does
not "increase with the square of the distance," but his
first experience of administration he gained in his own
city.

In 1907 Governor Smith called together the gov-
ernors of the provinces, of which there were about
thirty, and they met for their deliberations in the very

SERGIO OSMBNA 145

room at the Ayuntamiento which is the Speaker's office
today, where, gazing about and up at its high studded
cornices, little did the young man fresh from his guber-
natorial triumphs dream that he was to hold for nine
years that office as the center of the action of the chief
legislative body of his country!

As this was an elective body it can be said to have
been a small Assembly and then special committees
were formed for the consideration of legislation for
provincial and municipal government, wherein Sr.
Osmena began the study of practical rules of procedure
and, of more importance still, to measure his forces
not with inferiors, but with his equals and already stood
out, as one historian noted, as a marked man of very
superior ability, a presiding officer and one who, from
prompt decision, good judgment and level head, cool,
unimpassioned thought, would be capable of taking charge
of greater affairs later on.

Five or six men rose out from the thirty and at
once controlled the situation, and in the electric choice
of men which runs over notable gatherings the focus
was Osmena.

This power of distinguishing pubhc men is a new
science in the Philippines, but it is growing fast
and the Oriental intuitions, far more unerring than
the Occidental, will make them past masters later on
in the science which differentiates human beings more
infallibly than any other: i. e., that of insight. Sr.
Osmena drafted a bill, afterwards approved by the Com-
mission, extending the power of the provincial govern-
ment and, most important of all, the projects for a
law increasing the Filipino members of the provincial
boards by election to two as against one formerly.

At this point began the real life of the statesman,
or rather his public career, for in the subjects at that
time considered began his wider outlook, and he was
judged as one who could see far and grasp opportunities,
and quickly put into shape the most pressing needs;
and he begun the education of his sympathies and by

146 BUILDERS OF A NATION

more extensive reading of the world's affairs and the
procedures in England and America and France the
preparation was being made for a stronger, larger man-
hood and, as always happens, when the hour struck he
was ready.

For years he had formed himself on the thoughts
of the past; historical and economic study had been
his delight and now he was to make history for his
country.

When the first Assembly met, though elected, so
loath was he to leave the work begun and carried out
so well in Cebu, that he lagged behind and, arriving
only at the eleventh hour the last of any of the delegates
to reach Manila, he was unanimously chosen to the
Speaker's chair, which he has held for six years and will
hold for three more.

He has been reelected twice and so established
his hold on the Assembly by his tact and judgment
that to him they have turned in the critical moments
of legislative strife and found the same sane, cool, dis-
passionate spirit striking at the root of things and plan-
ning with a forethought for the future that all men
have learned to respect.

To be the Speaker of a legislative assembly perhaps
brings into play as many intellectual and moral quali-
ties and those of as high an order as any position in
which a man may be placed. Firstly, the man to hold
the position must have himself completely under con-
trol, be in absolute command of the forces within him-
self and, what is equally difficult, be able to control the
vastly varying personalities before him, not negative
potentialities, but often those strung to the highest
pitch of feeling and passion, and know how to direct
those powers into channels for good and out of their
very intensity evolve, not at his leisure, but instanta-
neously often, the most difficult of times seemingly results.
Senor Osmena moreover came to a position new not only
for himself, but absolutely new for the men he placed; he
had to create his own position without even having

SERGIO OSMENA 147

had the opportunity to study at close range other legis-
lative bodies, and he was twenty-nine years of age.

Another point was the delicacy of regulating the
degree of power between the different departments of
state — the Commission, Judiciary and Governor-Gen-
eneral, all of whom had been intrenched in their positions
for some years and were, at the opening of the first session
of the Assembly, the ruling potentialities of the islands.
Another difficult fact to face was the almost complete
centralization of the power of the state in Manila, which
had begun under the Spanish rule and still continued, the
control of seven millions in the hands of a very few men,
millions scattered over a vast area of territory consist-
ing of an almost innumerable number of islands and
places all but inaccessible.

So this almost youth was confronted with problems
from the start which have handicapped experienced and
ably qualified statesmen.

In the twenty days preceding the opening of the
Assembly, many models were presented and discussed
as tentative plans for the type of the new legislative
body. At once on taking the chair Senor Osmena set
these aside and asked permission to adopt his own: i. e.,
that most resembling the American Congress. The
quickness with which his wishes were accepted at once
demonstrated the hold he had over these men, his perfect
possession of himself, of the hour, and the limit of that
possession as well. Some of these suggestions were
cumbersome, some obsolete; he, comprehending the
needs of the country over which he was to hold such a
potent influence, chose the most radical methods as the
best!

He had inspected many of the systems of legisla-
tion including the most recent, that of Cuba, and the
business point of view of Congress seemed to his prac-
tical mind the best adapted to the case, as it meant
the fewest discussions and the quickest voting. His
choice showed that far sightedness also and consum-
mate tact which has never played him false, as he saw it

148 BUILDERS OF A NATION

would mean bringing the legislative body of this people
associated with his own destiny in a more comprehen-
sive relation with the central government through pro-
cedures with which they were familiar.

One might quote the words of Reinsch in reference
to Mr. Reed: "It is difficult to disassociate Mr. Reed's
rulings from the influence of his powerful personality."

The organization of a legislative body is by no
means its least important side, but rather is its
major, this consideration of parliamentary procedure,
or governmental etiquette.

The acceptance or non acceptance of rules of order
was the first thing to be considered. It will be inter-
esting to note how they adopted here methods "which a
little later were so violently discussed, revised in Con-
gress and which resulted in the loss of power of Mr.
Cannon and later of the Republican party in Congress.
These rules have been accepted three times by the
action of the Assembly during the various sessions. The
manner in which Seiior Osmena has used these rules
has shown the man.

Senor Osmena has endeavored to use these rules
with the maximum degree of flexibility, and it is just
in the way he has used them that the power of the
man lies. When you consider that the same men are
by no means in the Assembly today who were there at
thef beginning, it marks an unusual stability in follow-
ing out the same, course of procedure as at first.

The effort of the Speaker has been wisely, as he
knows his country men, not to use this power arbitra-
rily, but to allow each member the fullest individual
privilege compatible with the interests of the whole: a
discretion amounting to genius. This discretion appears
to be an absolute sine qua non with Orientals who
take even less than Occidentals to domineering acts,
individualism being contrary to the inner spirit of the
East. He has pushed this discretion so far as not to

SEKGIO OSMENA 149

be willing for this reason to serve on the committee of
rules (as is often done by the Speaker in the United
States) even as a member.

He has given this prerogative to the members
themselves, who, in return, appreciating this leniency,
have returned a full measure of consideration.

Another strong and consistent course with the
Speaker has been that he has treated minorities always
with the maximum of consideration and they have
been frequently placed on committees sometimes as
chairmen, which is rarely done elsewhere. This certainly
goes far to demonstrate that the Filipinos do not mean
to rule as an oligarchy, or even worse, as a unscrupu-
lous democracy and the vindication of this latitude
and catholicity has come in the result of the working
efficiency of the Assembly, where there is a marked
degree of accord and harmony in action.

This has been a surprise to the general public,
in view of the supposed localism of feeling in the different
centers, out of which these men have come and the often
violent struggles over the election.

A wonderful dispatch has come about by this unity
of feeling; this can be shown when you realize that the
first organization and adopting of rules, preparing of
proper message and resolution for the other branches of
the government including the chief executive and the
war department was concluded in just forty minutes!

The first law approved by the Assembly was passed
in about ten minutes. This law, called the "Gabaldon act,"
becaused introduced by the member of this name, pro-
vided one million pesosf or the country or barrio schools^
and in the five years succeeding more substantial schools
were planted in these islands than in the three centuries
before.

This marked an epoch in the history of this branch
of the Malay race and they leaped by this one act to
step side by side with civilized modern states, and at

150 BUILDBRS OF A NATION

that moment demonstrated what enlightened action
they were capable of when allowed to control their
own affairs!

This act as well ratified at once what is best in the
fabric of the civilization of America, which they had
given in the beginning of their rule here — the public
school — and, contrary to even the thought of so keen
a reader of men and events as Mr. Taft and the opinions
of other statesmen, the Assembly, instead of commencing
to tear down and attack the policy of the United States,
began the constructive work of attendihg preeminently
to the education of the people.

One of the strongest sides of Senor Osmena's eti-
quette, as well, has always been not to allow his name to
stand before the public as the originator of any bill,
but it can be- certainly surmised that no important
bill from the first to the last has been projected without
his supervision and that when the first law, which meant
so much for this race, was being drafted he was not
far from the table.

The next serious thing to be considered was the codify-
ing of that mass of more or less incoherenb laws which
had been handed down from early Spanish legislation
and augmented by those passed since the American
occupation.

It was a tremendous task and at once the Assembly
was confronted with the necessity of appointing a com-
mittee for this purpose, which was done, and this com-
mittee, composed of the leading jurists of the country,
have been at work from the time of the first Assembly
up to today on the gigantic task of harmonizing antique
laws to modern needs and modifying the penal system
to up-to-date and more civilized methods than in use
formerly.

As Senor Osmena has been the presiding officer
of the Assembly from the beginning uninterruptedly to
date, he has had to consider laws of primary importance.
These may be classified as those relating to schools.

SERGIO OSMENA 151

Large sums have been appropriated for the establish-
ment of a state university and also for a normal school.

This latter has more than one thousand pupils and
today more than seven thousand Filipino teachers are
enjoying the result of this education.

Osmena, the statesman. In a few words one can
define this man as having been consistent and persistent
in his life as a public man. His creed has been never
changed, nor his form of action.

"I have kept close to the heart of the people
always," so he affirms, "and never had any illusions as
to their desires for liberty and progress, and, moreover
whatever my public mistakes have been — and they
have doubtless been many — or the things left undone,
I have labored unceasingly for one result, both in my
travels and visits to different parts of the country,.
or sitting in the Assembly, i. e., the union first, last and
always of the entire archipelago."

From the beginning he has entered into the publie
political life of his people, into the formation of many
political organizations and was one of the founders of
the Nacionalista party.

Of this party he has been one of the foremost mem-
bers and wrote a large part of its rules and regulations.
Its program of independence he indorses fully and he
gives as his reasons for this opinion that the intimate
contact which he has had for ten years with his people
has ratified his personal feeling that they are fast near-
ing the point when they should be an independent
nation. The first qualities of a republican form of
government being hard common-sense, thrift and gen-
eral self-control he has not found the Fihpino people
wanting in these essentials and so judges that the na-
tional characteristics would justify his faith. He con-
siders that in the East his land has a role, qualified as
she is by three hundred years of European culture and
now instructed by the adopting of modern political life
of the most up-to-date teacher of the same — America.

152 BUILDERS OF A NATION

As journalist, fiscal, governor of a province, Speaker
of the Assembly, he has developed most consistently,
not springing thus full-armed like the goddess, but as
a learner he has risen step by step.

Post after post has been given to this young man
and he has risen each time to its responsibilities with
conspicuous ability. He stands now in the full flush of
his manhood, ready for greater service and a grander
future for his country.

Sincerity: untiring energy, that is the supreme word
for the man, a man notable in his own country and, if
nothing intervenes, one day a world figure.

No one who has met him casually can doubt this,
much less those who work by his side and watch the
whole-hearted devotion and deep seriousness with which
he gives himself both to the drudgery and routine of
his oflice as well as its public acts.

When the Philippines shall one day raise her Hall
of Fame, one of the figures, alert with sweeping glance,
upright, swift in thought and crowned with manhood's
crown of deeds well done, will be that of Sergio Osmena.

uw

JAIME C. DE VEYRA

^*w^

Senor de Veyra has had a career which has been
marked by a notable variety of very differing avocations.
He is a Visayan, a native of Leyte, that province which
produced notable men and over which he was governor
from 1906 to 1908, when he left that position to figure
in the 1st Assembly, to which he was elected and re-
elected for the second term. Since then he has passed
long vacations in the Assembly building on CalleCabildo,
where so much real work goes on of a less showy kind,
and at last he has taken up a former and no less arduous
profession, which requires the insight of the statesman
and the knowledge of men and deeds as astute as any
at the command of the public actor of the hour: i. e.,
journalism.

Senor de Veyra has been president of the corpora-
tion of "El Ideal," the organ of the Nacionalista party,
and is now consulted as to the policy of the paper and
the exposition of its political tenets, so valuable is his
opinion considered in such matters. On this paper he
has worked also in collaboration with Sr. Ponce, upon
a series of articles historical and literary, called "Efeme-
rides Filipinas" and every day an original article has
appeared on some subject of vital importance nearest
the heart of the Filipino people, subjects such as "Pri-
mera Villa de Espafioles," "El Arte del Padre San
Agustin," "La Constitucion de Malolos," "Despujol
y la Reforma Municipal," "El Principe de los Poetas
Tagalos," "Graciano Lopez Jaena," "La Tragedia de
Palanan," etc., etc. These articles are now in press
and four volumes will soon be the result.

"Senor de Veyra," so says the official directory of
the Assembly, "was bote in Tanawan, Leyte, November
4, 1873." His father was a professor, a man of excellent
education, at the head of a private school and there,
under the most favorable early instruction, with his

153

154 BUILDERS OF A NATION

father as a teacher, he began his life amid books and
thoughts. He then had the wider if rougher experience
of the public school of the town. His father's name
was Felix de Veyra and his wife was Senorita Ildefonsa
Diaz. He thus descended from Spanish-Filipino stock,
"an ancestry which though not blue-blooded," so says
this offshoot, "made up in brains what they lacked in
color," inasmuch as they did and their descendants do
possess a goodly quantity of that useful commodity and
stand as one of the most cultured families of the region.
It once happened that the parish priest of a town of the
province, the president, the treasurer, secretary, justice
of the peace and a majority of the municipal council
were all de Veyras!

This peculiarity of monopolizing the best positions in
sight was not bounded alone by the circumference of this
pueblo, but extended into other municipalities. The
Rev. Pantaleon de Veyra of Tanawan, "vicario" of
the oriental coast of Leyte, is considered as one of the
most able of the Filipino clergy, and had it not been
for his somewhat masterful disposition, would have
undoubtedly gone as far as a bishop's chair. The father
of the subject of this sketch, Felix de Veyra, besides
being a useful and distinguished pedagogue, was the
first clerk of the court which Leyte produced. Tanawan
thus has the distinction of being the birthplace of the
first Filipino governor of Leyte, the leading lawyer,
Simeon Spina, and, that the fair sex should not be ex-
cluded, the former wife of that most courtly and erudite
judge, Senor Romud,ldez, now of Capiz. When she
was at the Concordia, as Maria Marquez of Tanawan
she received a prize which is only very rarely and only
once given in many years that for the most exceptional
scholarship.

Senor de Veyra, thus coming from a family tree of
good fibre and goodly branches, passed to Manila for
the ripening of highest education which was to bring
the blossoming and fruit time of life. He entered
San Juan de Letran for his secondary education in

JAIME C. DE VEYRA 155

1888, where he remained until 1893. He entered the
course of literature and philosophy and law at Sto.
Tomas University and remained until 1897, when he
retired to his province. During the revolution he served
as civil secretary to General Moxica, until 1900, when
Senor Osmena called him to assist on "El Nuevo Dia,"
in Cebu, with Senor Rafael Palma.

This paper, as has been before stated, had a para-
mount interest in the eyes of the Filipinos, inasmuch
as during this epoch when the national idea was just
coming to the first, it was not permitted to be brought
out in the public press in Manila. From this sheet
Senor de Veyra passed to the editorship of "Nueva
Era," a paper which appeared alternately with one in
Visayan entitled "Tingog sa Lungsod" (Voice of the
People). These rose from the ashes of "El Nuevo
Dia" as "La Vanguardia" from "El Renacimiento."

From this editorial work Senor de Veyra went to
take charge of Liceo de Maasin, Leyte, a private
institution for primary and secondary education, which
post he occupied until 1904. He was then sent for from
Manila by the "Gomit6 de Intereses Filipinos," who
intended to send him as their representative to America
to voice their ideals but this was not carried out and
his fate again placed him, pencil in hand, in the office
of "El Renacimiento." His work on this paper was
that of a very intense campaign in favor of a reform of
the constabulary.

The first prosecution of this paper was on this
account but the good results were a justification of the
work. The betterment of the organization stands as
a proof of the active assault.

From this militant journalism work he passed to
the governorship of Leyte. The program laid out,
which by the way he still possesses, was most admirable,
but as often happens the circumstances did not allow
of its being carried out to the letter. Incidental ob-
stacles such as Pulajanes (in this case) did not permit
the wheels of state to run as smoothly as might be

156 BUILDERS OF A NATION

desired. These unruly members of society gave the gov-
ernor no little trouble and the military authorities, having
had some experience of his pen, did not trust his rule.
However, Governor Ide and his successor, Governor
Smith, gave him the benefit of the doubt and upheld
him until the public order was in a large extent restored.
It was at this time that the "Assembly of Provincial
Governors" was held in Manila, when, " for the first
time, was demonstrated the superior ability in guiding
a body of men of Speaker Osmena, and this afterwards
drew attention to him in the first Assembly, when he
was elected speaker. Governor Curry, at this time
much en vue, asked Senor de Veyra, then, who this
man was, where educated and how it came about that
he could be so capable a presiding officer.

When this reunion closed Governor Smith appoint-
ed a committee to compile the resolutions of this body.
Three names were on the list: those of Osmena, Quezon
and de Veyra.

As an assemblyman from the 4th district, his chief
work as a legislator was that on appropriations and
public works, of which committee he was chairman and
had the responsibility of disbursing a large part of the
funds granted for this purpose.

This fact was mentioned at the recent despedida
given at the Nacionalista Club to Governor Forbes,
when he spoke of the support received from Senor de
Veyra in many of the enterprises undertaken by him
in the islands.

Senor de Veyra also worked for appropriations for
the "Gota de Leche" of the "Society for the Protection
of Infants." He has the honor title of "Protector of
Childhood" in the former. His chivalry was also dem-
onstrated by projecting a law, afterwards passed
which states that half of the members of the boards of
education in all provinces in the islands shall be women.
A splendid feather in the feminine cap in the Orient!
That Senor de Veyra should be gallant is not strange,
given the fact that he had the rare good fortune to obtain

JAIME C. DE VEYBA 157

for his wife Senorita Sofia Reyes, in Jiine, 1907, a woman
as famous for her womanly attractiveness as for her
rare intellectual gifts. Senorita Reyes (now Mrs.
de Veyra) was in her early womanhood directora of a
government dormitory school in Bacolod and later
assistant superintendent of the young ladies' dormitory
in Manila, a position which she adorned as much socially
as mentally, drawing towards her a large following of the
leading women of the islands, both American and Fili-
pinas and bringing out the best feeling between the
two. Perhaps no woman in the Islands has done more
to raise the prestige of Filipina womanhood than has
this mos.t admired wife and mother, now a foremost
figure in philanthropic circles, and a social power in
the city. In the leading clubs of which she is a member
and on the numerous boards on which she serves, her
unselfish labor and good judgment both given most
unostentatiously, are highly valued by other women.

Senor de Veyra has had a large place in the literary
life of his country, both as a writer of numerous articles
for the press and as a student of history and philology.
He has been particularly interested in public libraries
ever since the Cebu days, when he suggested to pro-
vincial board to appeal to Carnegie and finding that
Napoleon of givers too severe in his requirements)
donated his own books to the founding of a library
for that city and begged others to do the same. This
idea is still mastering him as he contemplates conse-
crating, as a monument to his father, the house he left
in Tacloban, where will, in time, be gathered, a public
library.

As a club man Senor de Veyra has taken an active
part. He was president of the Rizal Club, in Cebu,
is honorary president of the "Saghiran san Binisaya"
and member of the Philippine committee of the geo-
graphical names. He was president also of the com-
mittee of organization of the celebration of printing
in 1911, which was the tercentenary of the introduction
of printing in the Philippines. Senor de Veyra has

158 BUILDERS OF A NATION

written a pamphlet on philological subjects entitled
"Tandaya o Kandaya."

Senor de Veyra is now one of the Commissioners or
Members of the Upper House of the Philippine Legislature,
one of those recently appointed by President Wilson.

This literary career which is after all his by prefer-
ence as well as destiny, began, he says, years ago when,
as a student at Sto. TomaS, he entered a contest with
a young Spaniard, discussing a poem of Guerrero's
entitled "Borja ante el Cadaver de la Emperatriz Dona
Isabel," in '95. The youth and passion of thought
carried him very far and this contest was then the talk
of the ancient seat of learning.

Today in public paths he still follows the "gleam"
and it leads him where it leads natures like his own, into
deep paths and far lands of research and often of hard
toil and patient endeavor, where the light of truth alone
illumines the way. Simple, direct without any by-ends,
this man has won the esteem of those with whom he
works, and his talent claims their admiration. He has
been frank to express his opinions always, but without
bitterness and all know it is at the wrong not the wrong-
doer he aims at. Right for his people he desires and
justice and that he desires to grant to all- as well. An
admirable figure and above all a trustworthy one, as
such is known by friends and foes alike (if he has these
latter) this brilliant and modest son of the Visayas.

^v^

TEODORO M. KALAW

uu

Born in Lipa, Batangas, still a very young man,
full of the projects of youth, plus the tempering of an
already extended experience of men and things, such
is the large browed and kindly faced man who sits at
his desk in the Assembly building and discharges his
duties as secretary, from the hours of nine to twelve,
every day of the vacation time, where you may meet
him and receive that mingled gentle and manly welcome
which is characteristic of the student and thinker and
the man accustomed to move more largely than most
of his countrymen, men of action, in the arena of poli-
tics, a field as we all know which tests men as no other,
differentiating them into trustworthy, or unreliable,
or as the vulgar phrase has it "sound, or unsound."

That the subject of this sketch is decidedly the
former — "sound" to a degree of decision underneath
a suave exterior, — has been proved by the record of
his work in the short years in which he has served the
public in conspicuous capacities, both as a writer, a
journalist, and as now acknowledged authority among
his countrymen on matters pertaining to the law, since
he has published one notable book and still more
recently a pamphlet on questions pertaining to Con-
stitutional law, legislation and parliamentarism. In
his political life he has already demonstrated that
"power of abiding," a characteristic along with intuition
most likely to serve well the statesman.

Lipa is a good place to hail from and Batangas
is quite the Ohio, Virginia, or Massachusetts of the
Philippines, as from this province have come up to
Manila men of foremost rank in all the professions,
— Mabini, Ilustre, Agoncillo, Apacible, Baldomero Roxas
and a host of others. Sr. Kalaw's father occupied
many public offices in his town. He was, at the time
of the last insurrection in the Spanish days, when the
insurgents entered Lipa, the municipal presidente.

159

160 BUILDERS OF A NATION

At the coming of the Americans he was called to the
position of presidente and asked to assist the miUtary
forces in putting down the brigandage in the vicinity,
which role he filled for many months. The mother
of Teodoro Kalaw was one of the real mothers who
live a retired life devoted to her family.

This son began his education in a private school
under the direction of a Senor Virrey, one of the most
famous teachers under the Spanish regime, albeit a
Filipino, a sort of Thomas Arnold of his time, though
in an elementary way. One of his pupils was Mabini,
a distinguished man, defined by Senator Beveridge
as "the most representative man of the Malay race."
The next step in the pursuit of knowledge was taken
at the Rizal Institute, also in liipa, where he began
a sort of High School course. This institution flour-
ished during the epoch of Filipino independence. Here
he had as instructors such men as Jose Petronio Catibac,
now one of this, city's valued servants. From this
school he passed to the "Liceo of Manila'" to finish
his High School studies and spent there about two years.

There he met Fernando Guerrero, whose personal
influence played then and afterwards, in forming his
literary ideals, a very vital part. From this school
Kalaw passed to the "Escuela de Derecho," where
he completed his course in law. Here the man who
gave most color and impetus to the young student's
thought towards serious studies and deep investigation
and acquisition was the late Professor Calderon, one
of the greatest teachers of law in the Philippines, whose
memory is cherished by his pupils to an unusual degree,
for his qualities of a noble heart. This summary of
education shows us that the subject of this sketch was
stamped by his training, as well as by heredity, with
the intimate thoughts and ideals of his race. He is
a pure Filipino, as his name will tell you. Kalaw means
in local dialects "Bird," and in this distinctly oriental
appelation we have the man rooted in the soil and breed
by her sons, without scarcely any foreign influence.

TEODORO M. KALAW 161

Having been admitted to the bar in September
1907, he began immediately his law practice in Manila,
in an office in Intramuros, in Calle Anda, and associated
with him as a law partner was Senor Salas, delegate
to the Philippine Assembly from Iloilo. This law firm
was dissolved on the election of Mr. Kalaw to the second
Philippine Assembly in 1910. In the capacity of legis-
lator he served in this body one year and a half when
a severe illness, during the last year of his term, took
him to St. Paul's Hospital. This illness, with its out-
come, which struck at the roots of life, was one of those
catastrophes which men of strong will and marked
personality come out from hke tempered steel, some-
times with a trace of bitterness, when a large portion
of littleness is mingled with their fiber, but, when of
the right stuff, broader, deeper and grander, with the
birth of new sympathies and finer feelings. Still a young
man, Sr. Kalaw took the latter course, or, shall we say,
with his heredity and training by men of high spiritual
feeling, he rose to meet the test and came out a man.

In 1910 the graceful and amiable Purita Villanueva
became his wife. This young woman had been one
of the social ornaments of Iloilo and Manila and has
since developed into a womanly woman, that modern
compound of an altruist and home keeper, interested
in public questions, as she can hardly fail to be as the
wife of such a public man. Mrs. Kalaw is a member
of the "Woman's Club of Manila" and her sister
women have already intrusted to her matters requiring
judgment and decision. She was a delegate recently
to the "Workers' Congress" held in Manila.

The first family sorrow that met this gifted pair
was in the death of their little son, Sergio, the godson
of Speaker Osmena. So the two most refining influences
of life, physical pain and the loss of one most deeply
loved, have touched the ambitious man in the first
years of his career and taught him those relationships
which lie deeper and are more eternal than political
parties and their ephemeral cpnt^sts, triumphs, or defeats.

162 BUILDERS OF A NATION

In considering the talents and aspirations of this
life we find that along with a logical mind and very
concrete comprehension of men and things, there is
allied the artistic temperament, which led Mr. Kalaw
in his first years to choose as his favorite study litera-
ture. "Two kinds of men have influenced me, purely
literary writers and thinkers," he says. This shows
at once in his style; he thinks and also loves good writ-
ing. Clear, at times cut out in vivid strokes and touches
not unlike "Gogul" with an abhorrence of the over-
drawn, or the bombastic, his style avoided even from
•the first the errors of much Spanish work. Now he
has a simplicity bordering on nudity, a nudity which
is always chaste and warmed to life by strokes often
fresh as Nature herself.

His works are most translatable and for this reason
can be pronounced good writing; for all that is weak
is weaker, when put into another language.

His journalistic career began in Lipa, when as a
student he was editor of a juvenile manuscript review.
This was most appropriately named "The Voice
of Youth." At the Liceo de Manila he wrote on "La
Alborada." In his first years course in the "Escuela
de Derecho," when Commissioner Palma was one of his
professors he invited the young pupil to write on El
Renacimiento. This was as far back as 1903 and
he served first as reporter, then as city editor and was
afterwards editor in chief. He was on this paper for
four years and during this period steadily improved
his style as well as his mind by wide reading.

As a youth his first models were French and Spanish
such as Enrique Gomez Carrillo, Ramon del Valle
Inclan and Angel Ganivet.

His later models after the study of English masters
of modern prose have been Americans and Englishmen
of the hour who are Hving and making history — Bryce,
Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt, Elihu Root, many others —

TEODOBO M. KALAW 163

and the tense, to-the-point, caustic often, periods of
the up-to-date thinkers of the West are most admired
by him at this time.

From the time of his election to the Assembly
this education in things sociological has gone on, as
well as extended studies in parliamentary usage and
constitutional law. A broad cosmopolitanism has
strangely taken possession of the man, who so pro-
foundly knows and actively wofks for his own country.
At the time he was a member of the Assembly he pub-
lished "La Constitucion de Malolos," a treatise on the
constitution promulgated by the Filipino legislature
during the government of Aguinaldo. The aim of
this publication was to set forth intelligently to the
public the program of that government. It has become
an "historical and critical document."

Out of still more extended studies was published
his most notable work so far, "Teorias Constitucionales,"
an exposition of many of the theories and principles
followed by American and European statesmen, authors
on constitutional and governmental subject. This
book has been received as a text book in some private
law schools and as a reference book by the Philippines
University. Sr. Kalaw's last work on these matters
is a pamphlet called "Como Puede ]V[ejorarse Nuestra
Legislaci6n." This will give an idea of the direction
of this man's mind; and his most recent brain produc-
tions, now his political ideals, give the rounded pubhc
man.

Immediately after his recovery in April 1912, Mr.
Kalaw was appointed to substitute Senor Diokno, who
had resigned, as secretary of the Philippine Assembly,
and in the following October at the Inaugural session
of the 3rd Philippine Assembly was almost unaniUiously
elected secretary of the body. This post, during the
sitting of the members entails the duty of being present
on the part of the secretary, the aiding in the preparing
of the bills and the supervision of all the technical

164 BUILDERS OF A NATION

work of the Lower House, overseeing the clerks who
are taking notes for the records and assisting the
Speaker in keeping order.

On assuming the position Mr. Kalaw realized that
this was by no means all the role the secretary ought
to fill, and at once began the creating of a department
of legislation which he has outlined in his recent work
entitled "Como Puede Mejorarse Nuestra Legislaci6n."
This department will be built up for the training and
development of the often untrained statesmen, and
lawyers will be placed at the disposition of the members
whose time would be given to the gathering together
of materials on foreign and home affairs, as well as
arranging the same in practical literary shape.

During the vacation the secretary sees to the pub-
lishing of the Record and Journal of the last session
and collects material for the use of the coming Assembly.
At the present time a large amount of matter upon
municipal governments is being collected, as that is the
topic which is to occupy the forthcoming session in
October next. The thought is to investigate the gov-
ernments of cities of Europe and America, such as
that by commission in Galveston, Texas, and Des
Moines, Iowa, and see if they might be made efficient
here.

Another of Mr. Kalaw's most important tasks at
present is the study and applications of parliamentary
questions, inasmuch as the Assembly just born has few
if any precedents and the creation of these for the future
is the next step in the order of education of this august
body.

There are some 35 projects and laws on record
originated by this present secretary when he sat in the
2nd Assembly, so he is no novice in the art he seeks
to teach.

The most famous speeches which drew out his
gifts as an orator and indicate the forcefulness of his
personality were one on the Filipino Constitution,
one on the contested seat of Senor Gomez, another,

TEODORO M. KALAW 165

perhaps the most briUiant on the famous "Divorce"
question and a fourth touching the bill of Apacible
on "El Referendum."

Of committees of the Lower House he has served
on the following: on Rules (chairman), Committee
of Three (chairman), on railroads and franchises
(chairman), relations with the sovereign government
(member), elections (member), printing (member),
appropriations (member).

His political creed may be told best in his own
words: "I beUeve that the most urgent need of the
hour is the popularizing of the ideas of government
so that they may become practicable for the majority
of the people: in a word, the principal mission of the
leader should be to prepare the people to receive
the benefits of a real democracy. We are an ancient
people, it is true, our civilization dates from long ago.
Before Spanish days we had our own proper life in its
social, political and economical expressions. We are not
at the beginning as a nation, we are completely formed.
That which we need is the practical exercise of our pre-
rogatives in the sense of a modern government of our own.

"We have not this experience because we have
not had the opportunity to acquire it.

"We have among us those who have received their
education abroad, those who have had an education
in schools formed on the older systems, and still others
who are self taught so the work of instruction of the
uncultivated masses can go on today and tomorrow.

"Our ideal, like the ideal of other cultivated people,
is that our government shall be the real result of the
spontaneous consent of the majority of the people.

"It is true that as the Philippines have until now
a larger proportion of the uncultured than Switzerland,
England or America so there has been, as noted some-
times to our discredit, formed a directing class, but
this class is not so much a class, as it is the leaders of
the actual intellectual and advanced political movement
of the country.

166 BUILDERS OF A NATION

"They have used this power for patriotic purposes
not for selfish ones and whoever should find himself
usurping this right for himself alone will soon find that
he is set aside by his fellows.

"This has been proved and is a promise of what
by tomorrow might be were we in possession of our
own government."

Mr. Kalaw's statesmanship is by no means insular.
More than most public men of his country he reads
and makes himself conversant with the movements
of the entire world and especially of the East. In Senor
Ponce's recent life of Sun Yat Sen he has written an
introduction which ably demonstrates this fact. The
parliament of the new Chinese republic has been one
of his most recent subjects of study.

He is at present member of the following prominent
societies: "The Academy of Political Science" of New
York, "The American Political Science Association" of
Baltimore, and "The American Society of International
Law."'

Mr. Kalaw has been a regent of the "Escuela de
Derecho" of Manila, and is actually a professor of
constitutional and administrative law.

He has inherited religiously straight orthodoxy.
His father is at present the president of the "Centro
Catolico" of Lipa. His own creed is set forth in his
speech on "Divorce." He is an optimist, believing
in the existence and goodness of- God and in the brighter
future for his fellow men. "Life is an apostleship,"
to quote his own words, "it must be used not for our
own benefit but for the good of our country and hu-
manity. Only we must work along facts, not dreams.
The first are the leaders of the people, the last mis-
sionaries of the impossible. So let us advance in the
line of facts, as they are the real upbuilders."

We can hardly write the word "statesman" over
the name of any man at twenty-nine; but whatever the
crises his country has to face, whatever is reserved in the
destiny of nations, for the land he with keen intuitions

TBODORO M. KALAW 167

and same understanding loves, we know that just as
he meets the routine of every day with a quietly poised
spirit beyond his years, so he will meet them.

He has acquired already what many a mature
man lacks: "a right perspective" and balance and
beyond this from the forces visible and visible in man-
hood and what is above it — that which was meant
by an American who said at the time of "the Iron
Chancellor's" downfall after making Germany and
largely her sovereign: "Now we will see if Prince
Bismarck really was a great man." There are perhaps
many of his compatriots who could stand this supreme
test, but it is to be doubted if any better than Teodoro
Kalaw.

7

VICENTE SINGSON
ENCARNACION

b4^

Commissioner Singson, although he lives in a stately
mansion on Calle Alix, is a provincial man, and his
personality has much of the boyish freshness and vigor
and directness which such men unspoilt by conventions
have, for the wider spaces have set their indelible mark
upon them.

A leading lawyer and assemblyman, as well as the
president of the Progresista party at the time of his
appointment by the President of the United States
as commissioner, his cheery voice and hearty manner
bespeak his youtti, and his wide experience and large
views are the direct result of birth and training in the
midst of sane conditions and a quasi-country life. When
we speak of Vigan as the country, however, it is almost
as when a Londoner introduces his friend from Man-
chester as "my friend from the country."

Some two hundred miles by sea to the north of
Manila, where all the big ships pass to and fro along
our majestic coasts, is the city of Vigan, set in a prov-
ince of some two hundred thousand inhabitants, the
most populous, for its area, in the islands. She is
one of the queen cities of the Philippines, and her
commercial relations are with all the towns, her neighbors
on our seas and beyond. The center of the trade of
that part of Luzon before she lost her suburbs, now
made into townships, she numbered forty thousand
souls.

Even in the Spanish days this proud city had her
episcopal residence, her criminal supreme court, and
was the military center of the north. Not only is this
populous province thrifty within its borders, but it
has overflowed its boundaries and the Ilocanos have
gone into the provinces of Isabela, Cagayan, and Pan-
gasinan and Nueva Ecija, increasing their population
about half by this people called the "Yankees of the

168

VICENTE SINSGON ENCAKNACION 169

Philippines." Practically the entire trade of the prov-
vince is in the hands of the natives. •

The climate is cooler than Manila's and more
invigorating and the people are more active in temper-
ament. Vigan boasts also that she is the only city
in the islands where there are no nipa houses permitted
to be built within her residence and business limits
and all the homes are of cement or stone, some of them
of very ambitious proportions. There are even not
a few examples of domestic and ecclesiastical architec-
ture of note in the place and the cathedral is quite
imposing, in its restored state. A college for boys and a
large girls school carried on by the French sisters are
also a pride of the city, and from Vigan came Father
Burgos, a famous writer and political reformer who
paid dearly in former days for his too great expression
of freedom. From this province came the Lunas,
the painter and his brother, the general, and today
another son, a man endowed with the sterling qualities
of industry and progressive activity, Vicente Singson
y Encarnacion, has given a new prestige to the province
which was his birthplace in 1870, and which he devo-
tedly loves. One of the pious and industrious Ilocano
women was his mother and she was a person of, for
those days, unusual culture among her countrywomen.
Her studies included the higher branches, and the most
refining and elevating of the humanities was her delight,
i. e. philosophy, which study was carried on in the
school of Vigan founded by the bishop of that province,
now no more.

This philosophy stood the noble woman in good
stead, when, a widow with seven children, she faced the
problem of education for them, with Hmited means;
faced it and conquered it. And to this mother the son
today, at that time but six years old, pays the tribute
of fervent respect and she rises to the rank of so many
notable Filipinas, women who have raised in the prov-
inces famous sons.

170 BUILDERS OF A NATION

This mother was a great reader and her sturdy
and virile intellect passed as an inheritance to her chil-
dren, three only of whom are living.

The father, whose early death left the family to
be largely molded by the mother, was a merchant and
from him the man who takes his recreation from the
law, his profession, in business, doubtless inherited
the passion for enterprise which has meant, in his case,
work and plenty of it.

Vicente Singson's first initiation into the mysteries
of scholarship was made in a local school of a certain
Father Enriquez del Rosario, up to the age of six, when,
as was and is so much the custom in the provinces,
he was sent to the capital and put under the care of the
Jesuits, in the famous school, then called the Ateneo
Municipal, attaining there the degree of A. B., after
six years of study, in 1894. Afterward he studied
philosophy and law in the University of Santo Tomas
of the Dominican Order and in the law school of the
Liceo de Manila, and in April of 1901 was authorized
by the supreme court of the islands to practice law.
In September of the same year he was appointed pro-
vincial fiscal of his province, and later on, of Ilocos Sur
and Abra. He filled the position until 1907 when he
tendered his resignation and came up to Manila as a
member of the Assembly. Commissioner Singson's
political life has been a most strenuous one, and its
history has been bound up in that of one of the two
leading political parties of the islands, i. e. the Pro-
gresista party.

This party, the rival party ot the Nacionalista,
was founded in 1900 by the leading statesman of the
Filipinos and one of its most eminent scholars, a member
of the Academy of Madrid too, Pardo de Tavera.

The role of the Nacionalistas today is a foremost
one and somewhat for the moment overshadows the
other party, but we must not forget the past in making
up our judgments of men, nor of parties.

VICENTE SINGSON ENCARNACION 171

This party, the Progresista, antedates the other
by six years and at the time of its formation it was
called the "Federal Party." The noble spirit of its
founder, a man of the widest culture and a descendant
of an ancient and honorable title of Spain on his father's
side, marked out for the organization a truly progres-
sive program, which his own experience as a law maker
and shaper of public affairs dictated as sound and in
the right sense conservative. His own private virtue
and public probity entitled him to be a leader of younger
men, many of whom bear the stamp of his leadership
today. "Evolution, not revolution" was its motto,
and the succeeding president, Judge Sumulong, in 1904,
began certain reforms and a spirit of greater desire for
national life began to be noticeable among its members.
In 1907 Commissioner Singson came to Manila as a
member of the Assembly, and in 1908 he became pres-
ident of the Progresista party, with an idea of reforms
still more radical and of the introduction of independ-
ence at the earliest possible date.

The party has as its proudest boast that it asked
and obtained the legislative privileges, the Assembly
itself, from the government at Washington and also
the autonomy of the municipal and provincial govern-
ments. The petition was for a senate and assembly,
but the Assembly only was granted at that time. Many
notable men are numbered on its roles: Arellano, Legarda,
Luzurriaga and many more eminent jurists and men
in public life. Many thousands are its adherents and
its central office is in Manila, Calle Villalobos.

As a rule two meetings per month have been held;
sometimes, preceding some important steps, every day.
This uninterrupted experience of things political — for
Commissioner Singson has been the president of this
society for the past five years — has been of the utmost
value to him and given him an up-to-date knowledge
of men and affairs. His term of office will probably
expire this December,as one of the articles of their code
is that no man called to public office shall be president.

172 BUILDEES OF A NATION

The difference between these two parties is not
a radical one and consists in that the Nacionalistas
wish to force an issue and the Progressistas want to
wait for a "step by step policy, to prepare the way; but
both are agreed on ultimate independence. Strangely
they have been a minority in the Assembly from
the start but they have made up in force what they
lacked in numbers. Such men as Governor Soriano
of Surigao, Fiscal Angel Roco of Negros and Salvador
Laguda, the leading lawyer of Negros, and Carlos
Ledesma, one of the foremost in his profession in Manila,
Lopez Vito and other jurists of Iloilo, Governor Zan-
dueta of Union, are all men of notable talent and attain-
ments.

These men, forming a strong minority, do not
need to blush at the results of their legislation. One
must not imagine that these parties have been at war
in the Assembly. Whoever was present on the
notable occasion when the commissioners now serving
took their oath and heard the Speaker's stirring appeal
for perfect harmony, knew that the desire was a real
one. The most manly despedida of the then Assem-
blyman Singson, the leader of the minority, left with
his hearers the feeling that it was but the noble echo
of the same desire. Country first, foremost and always,
with personality subordinate to the same, has been the
watchword of both parties.

As a legislator Commissioner Singson has had the
r61e of reorganizer of the judiciary system of the Phil-
ippines and he hopes that this long labor will one day
become a law. As an assemblyman also he has con-
secrated much work to the reorganization of the rights,
powers and practical prerogatives of the justices of the
peace throughout the islands and their distribution
through the different districts as well. This has been
incorporated in law. He has taken a part in the draw-
ing up and in the pushing of the appropriation bills.
He was during his uninterrupted term of five years,
being one of only seven, the Speaker among this magic

VICENTE SINGSON ENCABNACION 173

number, to be returned three times to his seat, on many
committees, such as the judiciary, ways and means,
revision of laws, elections, education, archives and
municipal and provincial affairs.

This continued service as a legislator for five years
has given Sr. Singson a command of legislative matters
quite unusual. On the floor and in debate, he is known
as direct, logical, clear and very earnest. His con-
victions are deep, and he sets them forth with great
simplicity and his oratory is not flowery nor over ornate.
He commands his hearers by the right point of view
more than by style, and wins by an exceeding friend-
liness which is most genuine and a marked camaraderie
which are among his^ most attractive qualities. He
is cool and unimpassioned also and decidedly fair and
most markedly calm in his polemics. He took the
opposition on the divorce bill for the present, but he
also looks into the future, as do all statesmanlike minds,
when it may become practical for his countrymen and —
women! As assemblyman he was one of seven members
who asked for a Fihpino Senate from Congress of the
United States which should bear to the Governor Gen-
eral the same relation and power as the Senate at Wash-
ington to the President. In 1909-1910 Assemblyman
Singson presented a resolution to the representatives
of the Progresista party throughout the islands gathered
in Manila asking from Congress the definition of the
political status of the Phihppines and the intention of
the people of the United States towards the islands. He
wrote also to each member of the House and Senate
and to the leading newspapers and universities of Amer-
ica in regard to this all vital question. During his
sitting in the Assembly Senor Singson was the leader
of sixteen or seventeen members of the minority and
his judgment dominated their councils very largely
and very often. The Assembly has but eighty members,
divided between the two parties, with about twenty-five
independents.

174 BUILDERS OF A NATION

His law career has not, until now, been entirely
suspended. Strongly built and of robust health, his
recreation is business and he has been, during late years,
the president of the Luzon Gold Mining Company,
vice-president of the Insular Life Assurance Company,
one of the directors of the Hemp Manufacturing Com-
pany, which represents a considerable capital invested
in his country's industries and an intimate interest
in the same which is far more than theoretical, and
second vice-president of the Philippine Bar Association.

During his residence in Ilocos Sur, before he was
made fiscal of the province and after his term, he was
engaged in the sugar and maguey industry and other
practical industries, as well as in agricultural pursuits
of other kinds.

This side of his life as a tiller of soil brought him
into actual touch with the economic needs "of his land
and developed both his knowledge, as in no other way
possible, and his manliness. It makes him an all-round
legislator as nothing else could, and an enthusiastic
supporter of commercial ventures likely to benefit
the Philippines.

As a member of society Commissioner Singson
has singular qualities of charm. He is sociable, pre-
eminently, a club man as well, a member of the Phil-
ippine Columbian Association, Club Filipino, Auto-
mobile Club, (he is passionately devoted to this latest
engoument of the well-to do.) Billiards are his indoor
recreation and hunting his outdoor. Seiior Singson has
been a great reader along his chosen profession; naturally,
and yet not confined to it, his intellectual pastime has
been like his mother's i. e. philosophy, and dipping
into its translucent pool which washes away much
of the misery and littleness of life has lifted him into
still loftier regions than those of politics!

He wisely also gave up bachelorhood two years
ago, and Lucila Diaz Conde became Senora Singson and
from this marriage he has won his highest title, which

VICENTE SINGSON ENCARNACION 175

he prizes even more than that of commissioner, i. e.
"father," and two eminent young men rule the ruler.

He was a member of the honorary commission
which has visited the Saint Louis Exposition in 1901,
and, after touring through several States and cities of
the United States, went to Europe, where he spent
several months visiting important cities and collecting
interesting data on social, economical and political
problems.

On this commission were the then most prominent
men, Filipinos, of the islands. They received marked
courtesies both in Japan and in the United States. In
the former they were tendered both in Yokohama and
Tokyo, banquets by the chambers of commerce of the
respective cities. In America, while in San Francisco,
they were for three days the guests of the city and the
Chamber of Commerce. In new York, Philadelphia,
Pittsburg,. Cleveland, Washington, St. Louis, Boston,
West Point and Leavenworth they were received with
special social functions and innumerable banquets.
In Boston, at the banquet offered by the mayor, Senor
Singson made his maiden speech on American soil,
but it was in purest Castilian and only reached the ears
of the Bostonian Brahmins through an interpreter.
These men were entertained at the pivotal hub of New
England culture, Harvard, and inhaled its classic odors,
or rather perfumed elms. These various touches with
the most advanced expression of our democracy were,
of course, of the utmost value to the men who were one
day to see much of what they saw copied and applied
to their own land to her immense advantage. In Wash-
ington they met with notable men and notably with
the dynamic character of Roosevelt, who must have
inspired them, as they confess it did, with the idea
of doing something.

The trip did more: it gave them warm personal
friendswith many Americans. Six of the Commission
passed over the Atlantic to Europe and there Commis-
sioner Singson traveled through England, Italy, France,

176 BUILDERS OP A NATION

Spain and Germany, returning by the Suez. Rome
was naturally the city which, as a Catholic trained
in the Latin traditions, would please him best and as a
lawyer have most in its past to command his respect,
but for the regard for personal rights, he most admired
England, and for its power to interest both the mind
and taste, Paris.

His idea for his country is this: "To give her a
right to live her independent life like other nations for
her own welfare and for that of the Malay race. I
do not consider that it is necessary that she be devel-
oped first to this end economically, but politically, and
she must then work out her education and industries
along the lines of her own character and traditions.
I have striven to educate the masses for years in these
political matters which shall make them competent
to hold a rational opinion of their own and also, as rapidly
as possible, be able to vote intelligently. I approve
most certainly of the introduction of foreign capital
for the establishment of banks and railroads and up-
to-date industries. The deepest wish of my heart
is for the national life of my country."

Commissioner Singson represents the statesman
of the hour most perfectly — practical, optimistic, pro-
gressive, and an untiring worker. A man who does
not waste words nor work, so not opportunities. His
creed, like his nature, is a simple one, based on the best
traditions of life, namely: to do one's best without
any blowing of trumpets, and, as was said before, his
greatest charm lies in a certain boyishness, which is
the most delightful of all qualities in a serious man.

^^i?^

IGNACIO VILLAMOR

uu

Some years ago, at the christening of the little child
of a Manila jurist, I noted particularly the man who
took the responsible position of padrino. There was
so much more than a perfunctory interest in his atti-
tude; it was that of a man of feeling, a paternal man
and on coming out I heard the name pronounced:
"Villamor." Walking up the steps of the Ayuntamiento,
years later when the mother of Rizal lay in state, the
same man saluted me and in a few words showed that
he felt the dignity and pathos of that hour equally
and again made manifest that unmistakable friend-
liness called brotherly.

There are men who, as one has said, "make it
easy for their biographer" and such is and must ever
be the subject of this sketch. Endowed with an in-
tellect of the first order, with other qualities which
make for success (for intellect alone is not enough)
there is something in this character which is perhaps
a complete r6sum6 of the qualities of the oriental of
modern days: the cultured, matured man of affairs
who has risen from step to step, bearing great burdens
in unobtrusive power and capacity and today assuming
still greater with an ease which is not' in the least boast-
ful nor self seeking, but one who can laugh at criticism
in healthy amusement, enjoying the distrust of his
ability quite as much as the trust and so proving him-
self, after all, worthy of the latter. A rounded out
personality shows in the slightest touch with the man,
for he has been what educates more than any pro-
fession — a teacher.

In a home in a back street in a practical district
of Quiapo, among factories and sawmills, those of some
of our most worthy knights of industry, where the
smoke of tall chimneys floats across the sunshine and
their black bars cross the moonlight bringing the unreal

177

178 BUILDEBS OF A NATION

world down to the real; in an old fashioned home, which
is a home, cosy and comfortable and has the atmosphere
in just the right proportions of the outside world and
the "shut in," where a "sefiora encantadora" receives
you with a gentle smile, the master, with the warmth
of a Filipino when he admits you into his intimacy,
makes you forget all the chill of the outside, or the far
awayness of the foreigner. You are at liberty to wander
about the house at will — truest hospitality — and some
way you feel that the center of the life lies in the library.
There are two of thege; in the one upstairs the distin-
guished law maker can rest and read until twelve at
night, as has been his custom for years, for when not
working on his official business he is preparing his
lectures (of which he gives not a few during the year),
or one of those volumes which have made an epoch
in the judicial world of these islands and you can study
the titles of enormous envelopes where this methodical
worker puts away his material for years before begin-
ning his erudite studies of his scholarly treatises on law
matters. One bears the now rather hackneyed nomen-
clature "Slavery in the Philippines," another "Reports
on Criminology in the Islands," "Mabini," "Blu-
mentritt," etc., etc. Others of these ample covers
contain orations delivered before schools and others,
the lectures given to new graduates and aspiring juve-
niles who are as sympathetic an audience to this^
grave man of many thoughts as would be his peers
of the courts of Manila-
All these depths are the wells where he draws the
refreshing brightness and brilliancy of some of his efforts
as author or speaker, and as such you are curious to
study them. Out on the table by the window you
can look at books of letters from distinguished men
preserved with that care which is so characteristic of
men of letters to whom other men's tastes, suggestions,
or appreciation when they are men of talent are so
precious.

IGNACIO VILLAMOR 179

As you turn the leaves you read letters from the
head of the "Bibliotheque Nationale," Paris; from
Anthony Comstock; from Attorney General Foreman;
Elliot, of the British Museum; Baron Hanao, Tokyo;
Ide, Madrid; Ugarte of that same city (of whose royal
society Senor Villamor is a member) and from the
"Koniglishe Bibliothek, Berlin, etc." Here are the
catalogues of the library downstairs of works on
history, philosophy, pedagogy, criminology, law books
and literature (general) works on the Philippines and
last and least in this somewhat ponderous list, novels,
welcome and more familiar acquaintances to this visitor.
Here also you can handle the works of the kindly host,
whose running banter makes you forget for a moment
how much he knows and has read, among them the
volume whose first edition was so soon exhausted:
"Ley Electoral of 1908," the second edition appearing
in 1911.

Another notable work from his pen, "Criminality
in the Philippine Islands, 1903-8," compiles all sta-
tistics relative to this subject published by the Spanish
government.

On this last, in an article in the "Journal of Amer-
ican Institute of Criminal Law," Prof. Wigmore writes:
"At least there are those who believe that it is a matter
for national chagrin if the Attorney-General's office
in our newest territory can make a report which en-
lightens and vivifies the whole subject of this part
of his duty, while the other offices of our Attorney-
General do not show the progressiveness that would
lead them to do the same."

These are not Senor Villamor's only works, for
in early years he wrote for his pupils a geometry, a geog-
raphy and a Spanish grammar and other manuals
in use in the school founded by him. Among speeches
perhaps the most famous are "A Discourse Preliminary
to the Conferences of the Philippine Institute of Penal
Law and Criminology," another "Hombres Laboriosos"
and "Fraudes Electorales y Sus Remedios" (published

180 BUILDERS OF A NATION

in pamphlet form) and his address before the "Uni-
versity of the Philippines in April of this year.

One on "Filipinos que Se Han Hecho por sus Pro-
pios Esfuerzos" was given before the Liceo of Manila
and has been widely read and much noted.

Of societies Senor Villamor is a member, in America,
of the Academy of Political and Social Science, and
National Geographical Society, in Madrid of the Real
Academia de Legislaci6n y Jurisprudencia. In the
Philippines of the Philippine Geographical Society,
the Bar Association of Manila and the Bar Associa-
tion of Ilocos Sur.

Material for a future book is being gathered in one
of these receptacles before mentioned and judging
by its bulk will prove as scholarly as the others and,
as do they, represent the work of years.

The study downstairs contains, as says its owner,
"my wealth," and he was not content to show the some
dozen huge book cases filled with treasures, but must
forsooth have unlocked drawers and hidden shelves
to bring out, now a Catholic encyclopedia of some
forty volumes and again a work of German scholarship
in many tomes with richly illumined plates showing
the development of manners through the centuries
of all climes and races with the changes and variety
of dress of thousands of years.

As your host turns over lovingly the pages and
points out armor, escutcheons, ceramics and bronzes,
you are suspicious at once that the jurist has lost the
world — an artist. So Oncken's "Historia Universal,"
the work of indefatigable diggers, has served you to
reveal the tastes, conceal them as he may, of the man.

Solemn looking volumes on law reverting to the
days of the Dons tell of laws centuries old, customs
and jurisprudence of dead ages — or ages fortunately
dead, as you choose to put it. Law, law old and new,
in hundreds of volumes, in antique leather and new and
odorous calf skin, with names which mean a life's work
to the man beside you and are as dull of meaning to

IGNACIO VILLAMOR 181

you as a Sanscrit root. "These are my haciendas
and fincas" says the jurist, and in the voice there is
the unmistakable caress of the book lover who takes
his recreation upstairs when that little sparkling-eyed
son you catch a glimpse of romping through the open
door is fast asleep.

The teacher habit can never be outlived and the
dearest joy of such men or women is, after all, as the
old Latins said "in a nook with a book." To many
there may be deeper joys, but to them few so satisfy-
ing. Here there are volumes a trifle less august, such
as those on sociology and as a relief to the light reader
many rich looking, inviting books on Spanish literature,
or still better of Spanish literature, a distinction with
a difference.

Upstairs again you slide and glide about on the
highly polished floors and watch flgures of serene age
and the gentle swirl of the robes of the feminine
inmates as they greet you from time with a nod and a
smile and the youthful mother denies by her elasticity
her grown up son; and presently you find yourself
seated at the table where there blends into a peaceful
whole that delicate hospitality of the East that has
charmed you a hundred times and the public man
becomes the host, with that ease for which he is most
known; for his friends say first and last of him "Un
hombre de mucho mundo" and he never gives the lie
(as so many do, alas) to his friends' praises.

Sitting later by one of the windows, in the twilight,
all his life story unfolded, from his youth in Ilocos
Sur in Bangued, Abra, in that same province of Singson
and Paredes where Florencio Villamor and Wenceslao
Borbon watched over their boy just starting on the
great race of existence. The mother and two brothers
and a sister are still living and since 1882 three visits
have been made to the town, over which his father
was presidente and in which he was a merchant lum-
berman. The executive secretary passed from his
early education from Abra to Vigan at 14 years. Here

182 BUILDEHS OP A NATION

he studied five years in the "Seminario" of that city,
one of his fellow students being Isabelo de los Reyes,
and another Judge Nepomuceno. From this school
he passed to San Juan de Letran, Manila, to complete
his secondary education and there he received his degree
of "Profesor de Segunda Ensenanza."

While studying law in the University of Sto. Tomas
he opened a private school where many young Fili-
pinos notable today were educated, among them Diokno
and Dr. Velarde. He then practiced law two years
and continued in his profession as professor until the
American occupation. Shortly after the declaration
of peace he founded, with Senor Mendiola, the well
known teacher, head of the Instituto de Burgos, the
Liceo de Manila.

In 1900 he was appointed the prosecuting attorney
for Pangasinan. Six months after when the corps of
justices was organized, June 1901, he was appointed
judge of 1st Instance of the sixth district, which includes
the provinces of Cavite, Laguna and Tayabas. In
June, 1908, he was appointed attorney general to suc-
ceed Senor Araneta, when the latter was made secre-
tary of finance and justice. This position he has held
for the past five years up to this year when he has been
made executive secretary. As a lesson to the present
disappointed salary seekers it may be well to note that
the man who has been in public office for 13 years has
only risen slowly from the first P4000 per year to the
present n2000.

The office of executive secretary is one that is
peculiar to this country and may be compared to that
of secretary of state in some others; it is in intimate
relation with the chief executive, as it executes his
orders and it has many specified powers. As one slight
item of its work one may note that all the provincial
treasurers are under this bureau and it is the final power
to which the rebellious taxpayer may appeal and the
secretary is appointed by the Governor General, con-

IGNACIO VILLAMOK 183

firmed by the Commission, and strangely, once in,
the executive secretary has little to do with these gen-
tlemen.

The chief work lies with provincial matters and
the governors of provinces and municipal officers. "It
is a more comprehensive work," so says the new secretary,
"and less specific than that of attorney general." But
as the two bureaus are in closest relation the training
of the past five years of work are only a preparation.

The branch of law to which Senor Villamor has
dedicated himself has been criminal law and the strain
of the work of years has matured the thinker and the
man. As so many of the decisions are final and become
lines of irrevocable action (as change in such matters
is to be deprecated) the responsibility is often very
great, especially as often the executive bureau puts
the decisions at once into effect.

As a teacher Senor Villamor has learned human
nature, as a lawyer the deep problems of society and
how to handle many of them, as attorney general he
has remodeled some of the antique maladministration
of his land and studied the leading theories of all coun-
tries on these immense themes of the social fabric. He
has now to put into practice the learning of a lifetime.

If readiness and ability mark the man, he is well
chosen for one of the highest positions in the govern-
ment. Courteous to urbanity, tactful to an art, it is
as a gentleman, after all that he may owe his highest
success. For what is it to be a gentleman but a whole
man? And the secretary is a step higher yet in the
evolution of man, a Christian gentleman, genial at
home and abroad, and a gentleman, Marcus Aurelius
told us, some years ago, was sure to make a conquest
first of himself, then of life.

It would not be possible in a short biographical
sketch to define all the qualities of any man, nor his
talents but no attempt to portray the distinguished
Executive Secretary would be in the least adequate
unless one spoke of his unusual gifts as a linguist and as

184 BUILDERS OP A NATION

an orator and author. The masterly way in which
he can cite authorities and amass facts can be found
in a pamphlet in which he answered the question : "Had
the Governor General the power to order the expulsion
of said persons of Chinese nationality under such cir-
cumstances as aforesaid?" Something of the thorough-
ness of the former Attorney-General's work can be
seen in this same pamphlet, when you consider the
number of the authorities consulted, which are about
half a hundred and from almost as many countries
as men!

Many of these statesman-like documents have
been prepared only for the eye of those in high places
and their value as monuments of research can be seen
even after the occasions which gave rise to them have
passed away forever. Thoroughness, however, has not
made this keen-brained and sunny-hearted reader of
events either obscure or ponderous. He has the true
lawyer's instinct to go to the point, with clearness
obliterating the superfluous and the unnecessary. His
quickness of apprehension has been an enormous asset
and one which must be doubly powerful in the present
opportunity for treating a still wider and more com-
prehensive class of subjects.

A kindly approachableness which disarms criticism
and a warmth of manner which invites confidence have
won him a host of friends of all ranks. One of those
types of men he has drawn to him (and this is rarer
than people think) are the newspaper men, whose
opinion taken as a whole is most often a very just one
and a most embracing one of the complete character
of men and women, as it comes to study them with
as few a priori feelings, or judgments as any class of
critics.

Senor Villamor likes men of the press and they
(naturally) reciprocate. He appreciates their appre-
ciation and so they respond all the more cordially and
whatever they may say of him the man is liked. He
from the inside, being a writer himself, enjoys even

IGNACIO VILLAMOR 185

their sweeping statements (which amuse him) and
bears them no malice, even when they are far from just.
He is a fair man and like all such is exceedingly indulgent
of lack of knowledge in others. He is a deep thinker
and yet can put up with the superficial as very few can,
who are such, for he is blessed with that saving quality
in occidental or oriental — a sense of humor.

As a conversationalist he is admirable and while
perhaps not as profound as Arellano or as scholarly
as De los Santos he has a vividness, a tact, a charm
and a playful humor which make that lost art live again.
You can imagine anything of this delightful and ready
talker but one: i.e. that he should ever be a bore. He
comprehends the listener; therein lies his marvelous
gift and is there any gift more desirable in modern life?

The taste for music is his supreme one, as in the
case of so many of his countrymen and it has just the
restful quality that the meditative nature of Senor
Villamor desires, when not at work. His social life,
that most congenial to him, is the life of the families
of his numerous friends, not large functions, so although
a polished man, he has kept his heart through all official
routine and humdrumness; and the maA who has kept
his heart has kept his sincerity.

What do we note as the one quaUty which marks
people as above others — ^the sine qua non of superiority?
Is is not this: the ease with which they meet every
relation of life and surmount difficulties? That the
position of the executive secretary of the Philippines
is filled by such a man you couly never question, no
not even if you had only met him for the first time.

Macario Adriatico is the leading orator in Spanish
of his country and has been made a member of the
Royal Academy of Madrid for his brilliant use of the
Castilian tongue.

Senor Adriatico was born in Calapan, the capital
of Mindoro, March 10, 1869.

Mindoro is an island of large extension, the fourth
in size in the islands; it has few inhabitants, some 50,000,
and, as is true in Switzerland, it is divided into two parts
as to language, one-half speaking Tagalog, the other
Bisayan. In natural products, after Mindanao, it is
the richest of the islands in mines, forests and agri-
culture.

Calapan has about 7,000 people and, while its citi-
zens cannot boast of the high degree of culture of Manila,
perhaps many of them sooner have become distinguished
in scholarship and have made their mark in their nation's
life, as has the subject of this sketch.

In the oratorical contest of this year, Juan Luna,
a son of Mindoro, bore off the first prize.

The president and secretary of the Philippine
Junior Assembly of the Normal school of Manila comes
also from Calapan. One of the most brilliant young
ladies of the girls dormitory, of the same school, is also
from Mindoro, Senorita Laura Mariano.

History tells us that at the time of the coming
to these islands of Legaspi and Urdaneta, the largest
towns in the Philippines were in Mindoro, but that
as they resisted in the fiercest manner the invaders
they were put down by destruction and the leveling
of their fortifications.

This was chiefly so on the western coast, and as a
consequence of this the Moros of Mindanao constantly
invaded these coasts and took many prisoners from
time to time, these raids causing the settlers along the

186

MACAHIO ADRIATICO 187

sea to retire to the mountains for refuge and so, although
but ten hours by sea from Manila, Mindoro has not
increased in population in the last two hundred years
of Spanish occupation.

And what is true of its population is in a sense true
of its culture.

The tribes who fled to the mountains are called
"Maginanes" and these Moro invasions were the real
cause of the retarded development of the islands. More-
over, a port named "Puerto Galera," as its name indi-
cates, had been destined for deported delinquents and
this has naturally turned other immigration from the
islandj as it cast a shadow over the honorable pioneer.

The Spanish government also had projected placing
on Mindoro a penal colony for the offenders of the
peninsula, and this added to the dislike of home seekers
to settling there.

Now the country is governed by a military govern-
ment in part, and the population under good rule has
commenced to increase and all the different commercial
undertakings and agriculture have taken a leap forward
in these last years.

Among this people of mixed language, but pure
Malay race, Senor Adriatico was born and passed his
fiirst youth, until at the age of fifteen he came to Manila.

His father was a native of Cavite and his mother
of Calapan. The father was employed as a clerk in
the office of the judiciary of the court of 1st Instance
under Spanish rule in Mindoro, so this son's leaning
towards the law was natural.

His first education was for five years received in
the public schools of his city, and his secondary in-
struction was taken in two schools in Manila affiliated
with Sto. Tomas. The first had as its headmaster,
Senor Hypolito Magsalen, and the second was under
the charge of Senor Mendiola now at the head of the
"Instituto de Burgos," and in these two schools he
studied for three years.

188 BUILDERS OF A NATION

The fourth and fifth year of his student Hfe were
at San Juan de Letran, afterwards his law training was
taken at Sto. Tomas.

Senor Adriatico also had a preparatory course
in medicine and in philosophy and letters. He showed
no especial bent, he claims, in those days for any study
finding them all "hard at first, and easy at last," but
his dominant talent, as is so often the case, unconsciously
was leading him to his career, so he made hterature
the first of his studies.

In Spanish times it was not permitted Filipinos
to form literary societies, or found newspapers, but
on this very account Senor Adriatico, who Hked to
carry out his ideas even when there was some opposi-
tion, formed a secret society of more than forty members
called "The Academy of Spanish language and litera-
ture." Among these men (one can now lift their incog-
nito) were Commissioner Ilustre, Epifanio Santos y
Cristobal, Judge Paredes, Lorenzo Fenoy, Dionisio
Mapa, Fernando Guerrero, Juan Medina and many
others, who will be spared publicity. After two years
they were obliged to give up this society on account
of the fact that they were watched and denounced.

They did the next best thing, i. e., foimded a
manuscript paper, which they passed from member to
member, and in it they continued their literary work
until the Revolution. When peace was signed, these
same men became editors, and many of them became
literary men of the new era.

In 1901 Senor Adriatico was admitted to the bar
at the same time as Palma, Singson, Ledesma, Sumu-
long and others.

He has been as well the editor of the following
papers, "ElDiario de Filipinas" and the "Independencia,"
and has been a constant contributor to reviews and
leading daihes for the past fifteen years, and has
continued his practice of law as well as the career of
a pubhc man.

MACARIO ADHIATICO 189

His most conspicuous literary articles have been
in "Domus aurea," a critique on "Modernism," in the
"Renacimiento" a polemic on the "Eternal feminine,"
in "Cultura FiUpina" historical studies on "Public
instruction," besides articles on "Scientific liberty,"
"The probable invasion of Japan" and one on Kalaw's
book: "Teorias constitucionales." These are among some
of the more recent literary outputs from his pen.

He is a member of the "Veteran association," for
he was a colonel in the war; a member of the "university
of the Philippines extension movement" and of the
"Nacionalista club," but apart from this he does not
go into club life, but takes his recreation in his home
with his delightful family of beautiful children and wife.

To day he is president of the committee on appro-
priations, and various other committees, and has had
a part in the reorganization of the various bureaus,
as he has had for years in most of the bills of the
Assembly in which he has represented alone his vast
island since the first session of that body until now.

He has had a part in modernizing certain financial
customs and usages known as "Documentos negocia-
bles" which is now a law. Another of his specialties
has been in remodehng the municipal laws of Manila
and the reforming of laws relating to his own island. He
has made speeches whose eloquence has reached even to
Spain and won for him academic laurels there such as
that upon the "Libel law," "Compulsory Instruction,"
"Divorce," and "Capital punishment." His funeral
orations, delivered over a fallen companion in civic
struggle, have won him fame, but perhaps his most
signal triumph was that at the time of the cigar strikers,
when some ten thousand men were brought to terms by
his speech at the "Grand Opera House." It was one of
the finest forensic efforts of the last decade in the islands
and the modest bearing of the man, who refused to be
even thanked by the heads of the firm afterwards, was
one of the marks of his manliness and the reasons for his
hold upon the masses.

190 BUILDERS OF A NATION

As a thinker Senor Adriatico is optimistic and has
faith in human progress along scientific lines especially,
and believes in an ideal which is in unison with the
revelations of science. His chief delight in reading
is, and has been, chiefly in the philosophy of history
and the economic sciences. For his country he hopes
the greatest things in the future, through the enlighten-
ment which follows on public instruction and the inter-
course with intelligent men and nations all working
for mutual benefit.

Brilliance and balance, two qualities not always found
united in one character, may be said to characterize
this man, who stands actually as perhaps the foremost
figure of the national legislature, at least second to
none.

yiy

MONICO MERCADO

4

It has been a great surprise to many of those occu-
pying the foremost places that, in the recent crisis,
or change of the personnel of the government, many
men, Filipinos, in every way qualified for positions,
have refused them! It has been a revelation of what
an amount of real patriotism lies back of the quiet men
who want for their country the best and are willing to
give up even fame, money, or what is still more difficult,
power, to put all in hands which they consider more
competent. Among the Filipinos there are of course,
as is the case everywhere, groups varying in their feeling
towards foreigners. There are men who recognize,
through the developing influence of a higher education
and good birth, as also always takes place in every com-
munity, the rights and gifts of others, and who are in
a very unobstrusive way helping to render the sentiment
of their people more cosmopolitan and so giving it a
more lofty type of civilization. The narrowness and
onesidedness which comes either from selfishness, or
ignorance, or often from both, which would exclude others
from due consideration, reaps in these islands, as in
every country, its reward. There is one fact which
those who have built up the Philippines — Spanish and
Americans — are too often forgetting, that only the truly
unselfish man or woman wins in the end the esteem of
humanity. Too often here, as elsewhere, "what you are
stands over what you say and will not let me hear." Begin-
ning in the home relations first and in private life is the
pivot of character. Here in the East men are judged
as in other lands, and what that judgment reveals is the
test, the final one. Many men also who have made
extensive investigations into the needs of their country
economically, are now putting their knowledge at the
service of the executive and are thus aiding in un-
obtrusive ways in the material and mental prosperity
of their land. Such a one is the subject of this article,

191

BUILDERS OF A NATION 192

one who has served his country in a public capacity
for many years and who has as truly a sympathetic
touch with those in power, both Americans and Fili-
pinos — Monico Mercado.

Senor Mercado was born in Sexmoan, Pampanga,
in 1875. His father was an agriculturist, owning land
to the extent of some five thousand acres. Senor Mercado
was very friendly in Spanish days with the authorities
and was gobernadorcillo of his town. One of his close
friends was General Rios. During the revolutionary
period he was elected presidente of the same town and
had as his friend and guest General Aguinaldo who
visited him in the home where abounded the most lavish
hospitality. In this Same home were, from time to time,
other guests, Governor Smith in 1908, and later Governor
Forbes and Vice-Governor Gilbert. The prestige of
being of one of the best known and most highly esteemed
families in the provinces, whose members are widely
famous for their hospitahty and charity, has been of
no little help to this so kindly scion, who has inherited
their intense fidelity and race traditions with their devo-
tion to the church. His maternal grandfather, how-
ever, was from Manila, a del Rosario, so Senor Mercado
has roots as well in the capital, where he has spent more
than half his life.

Educated first in private schools in San Fernando,
Pampanga, he passed to Manila where he entered San
Juan de Letran and from there to Sto. Tomas, receiving
the degree of A.B. in '89 and that of professor of second-
ary instruction in '91 and his law degree, LL.M., in '96.
During the revolutionary period he returned to his native
town and, in '99, was chosen "delegado de justicia" of
the local government of Sexmoan, which position he
held at the time of the American occupation, aind
he also was attached to the headquarters of the revolu-
tionary forces with Gen. Tomas Mascardo, commanding
general of the province. At the time of the reorgani-
zation of municipalities during the "Empire Days,"
he was appointed attorney at law for the same govern-

MONICO MEKCADO 193

ment, and during that time he contributed his influence
towards helping the United States authorities in pacify-
ing the southern part of his province. In 1901 he was
appointed clerk of the court of 1st Instance of Pampanga,
until December of that year, when he ran for governor
and was elected by a plurality, but not a majority and
his election was not confirmed by Governor General
Wright. He was then but twenty-six years old! He
at once began a business career of a lumberman which
he carriedon until 1903.

In 1900 Senor Mercado was married to Senorita
Tomasa Lorenzo, from Mexico, Pampanga, a rarely
lovely woman, the belle of her town, as well a member
of one of the best families of that region. This able
woman was of the greatest assistance to her husband
in all his public career and he says: "I am one of those
men who attribute their success in life largely to their
wives." This mother of eight children died in 1912.

In 1903 Senor Mercado moved to Manila to become
a partner in the law firm of Palma, Gerona and Mercado,
until 1906, in which year he returned to Pampanga,
there engaging in the practice of law.

In 1907 he was elected delegate of the First Phil-
ippine Assembly and was reelected to the same body
in 1909. These five years in the Assembly were ones
in which he devoted the strength of his young manhood
to the service of his country. They were years of work,
as the records attest. In the First Assembly he was
chairman of the civil service committee, member of the
committee of ways and means, committee of internal
government, committee of land, forests and mines,
committee on railroads and franchise and committee
of agriculture on which he so distinguished himself
that at the Second Assembly he was made its chairman
by Speaker Osmena.

During the First Assembly he was made a member
also of a committee created by Governor-General Smith
to report on the advisability of establishing a govern-
ment agricultural bank.

194 BUILDERS OF A NATION

During the first legislature among several bills
which, as a member, Senor Mercado introduced, the most
important was one providing for the creation of a gov-
ernment agricultural bank and a bill providing for the
amendment of the land registration law reducing the
fees paid by land owners to the court of land registra-
tion and providing for some other measures. These
were enacted as laws. Another bill he introduced was
one creating an agrarian council to promote the welfare
in the agricultural districts. This bill was passed in the
lower house, but did not receive due consideration from
the Commission. He introduced also an item in a bill
for appropriation for public works, provision for money
to be used in dredging rivers and constructing dykes
for the defence of towns and plantations against floods
and an item for drilling artesian wells.

In the Second Assembly Senor Mercado was a
member of the committee on ways and means, railroads
and franchise, internal government, public instruction and
chairman for special committee for framing the irriga-
tion law. This bill was also introduced by him as an
act providing for the use of public waters to irrigate
the land. On the first introduction of this bill so much
opposition was encountered, because of failure to
understand its true import, that it was not until the
second period of the Second Assembly that it was passed.
This opposition existed in all parts of the Archipelago
but on the closer investigation of the matter it was with-
drawn. Among secondary measures introduced by
Senor Mercado, with other members, was one for
household industries, now already in operation.

Before the close of the Second Assembly was formed
the law firm of Mercado, Adriatico and Tirona,and on
the close of the session Senor Mercado resumed the
practice of law which he has carried on up to the present.

At the expiration of his term as assemblyman,
Acting Governor Gilbert offered him a position as member
of the irrigation council and he accepted the position
on one condition: that inasmuch as he had assisted in

MONICO MEECADO 195

framing the law and defended it so vigorously as a
point of honor he would accept no emoluments, and
he serves on this council at the present time without
pay.

Since the death of Senora Mercado his life has been
a retired one; he lives in his quiet home on Calle Real,
Malate, with his children. His ideals, as expressed
by himself for his country, are these. "It seems to
me that the Philippines will play a very important part
in the progress of the Orient, not only because my
people are Christian people and possessed of that
occidental civilization which has invaded and con-
quered all the world, but on account of their intrinsic
quahties and physical nature and I firmly believe that
the Philippines will one day be one of the flourishing
republics of the East. The ancient life of our race
transmitted in her institutions can . be seen as parti-
cularly fitting her for democratic institutions. Even
from the remote periods of our history, woman in
our islands had the same rights as man and she was
allowed in many things a superior place to man, so we
have equality of sex, unlike any other country of the
Orient. Another is our immense fecundity of soil
granted us by a generous Creator. Again, the coming
to us of America I regard as a historical fact of signi-
ficance in every way providential. It has prepared
our race to play her role in the East by endowing us
with her enlightened ideas of democracy and practical
government. It has been for the civilizing of the whole
and for the spread of Christianity and republican insti-
tutions of greatest value. I believe the mission of my
people to be nothing less than that of a disseminator
of light to the millions of the Malay race. One of my
strongest convictions is that we should encourage also
a restricted immigration for if we depend upon the too
sparse population of the islands to develop our resources
it is going to mean, if not stagnation, at least a very slow
development. In a word, my creed is that the whole
world is the fatherland of every man."

196 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Senor Mercado is not only, be it said, a practical
man but a very talented one intellectually, speaking
English and writing it fluently, and is one of the gifted
poets of his land. Verses written under the influence
of the stirring emotions of patriotic events or personal
sorrows have come from his pen in the past and will
some day, after his death, be published. They are of
a high order as art and show that sincerity of feeling
and that glowing fervor for the good and the beautiful
which all who know the man admire. Quiet and un-
obtrusive in his intercourse with others, yet highly
sympathetic, he has won many of the warmest friends
among men of other nations and his genuine cosmo-
politanism is all the more rare when you realize that
he has never traveled. He is one of the cosmopoli-
tans born. A hero worshiper and an intense admirer of
what is great in all, he has fortified his taste and strength-
ened his intellect by reading and has sought the
friendship of the best and is one of those most esteemed
for his balanced judgment and good heart among such
men.

Seflor Mercado has but lately prepared a memorial
and presented it to Governor-General Harrison on the
agricultural condition of the country, of which he is
so qualified to speak. He is also preparing a work
on the financial condition of his country which will
one day be published.

EPIFANIO DE LOS SANTOS
Y CRISTOBAL

Out in the glorious dawn of the Philippines, than
which none is more full of that breath of something we
call Youth, into the inspiriting guardianship of the hills
and plains, you feel that prescience of the unusual, for
Nature prepares you for any surprise and makes you
familiar with the heights.

Not without cause has this prophetic feeling been
born, for you are nearing Malolos, that town which
means so much to the Filipino, as there he rose to the
consciousness of his birthright and entered into that
universal struggle for place and power by which we recog-
nize manhood. In a Gothic cathedral, hardly, but
rather one of those basilicas half submerged by war and
time you visit in Rome, low-browed and massive before
men dared to soar, here is the salle of the jeu de paume,
or the Faneuil hall of this people, where in '98-'99 was
held the first congress of the Revolution, the first
notable gathering of the Filipinos of that epoch to discuss
plans for a nation all their own.

This building bears the sanctity such places always
have, a double sanctity, for it is still used for worship and
besides history has touched it and written "Immor-
tality." At a short distance stands the other, now ruined,
monuments of that time, the convent where General
Aguinaldo had his headquarters and the house once the
home of Mabini, with the vast and peaceful square
adorned with a bust of Pilar.

Barasoain, Malolos are names to conjure with, for
the historian, and what elation to think that the man
who points these places out to you, who reads the runic
stones of the Past with the passion of a lover and the
intellect foremost in its line of the land he honors by
calling it his own, the incarnation of the delicacy and
intuitive genius of his race, is no other than De los Santos
Cristobal, the first of the sons of the Philippines to be
made a member of the Royal Academy of Madrid in

197

198 BUILDERS OF A NATION

these days, known in Europe as the Heading philologts
and writer on matters biographical and historic of his
country.

Read in choice Castilian the some thirty pages
dedicated to him and his work by Wenceslao E. Retana,
the Spanish scholar, and you will find in his resume of
this master's works that he placed him both as historian
and philologist, "summam cum laude," in his land and
of his people today

He, with that sensitive modesty which is par excel-
lence oriental, disclaims all this, exalting, before him-
self as "filipinista" other names, but in point of view of
real scholarship, after Rizal he will be obliged to accept
the place which the learned of his contemporaries have
given him in Germany and Spain, the two countries
which are the most sympathetic to him, as their work is
most serious on the subjects he loves best. This pretty
town of Malolos would make some charming vignettes
had one the brush or pen. Mabini's house, for example,
opposite the entrance to the transept of the grass-covered
church, now even in ruins a noble wreck, where the
devout people of this land still kneel under the vault of
heaven. Over this door is the statue of that other scholar
in his carved niche, St. Augustine, who seems to reassure
you that thought in the only commodity which resists
the tooth of Time. This house of the first president of
the Philippines has a fine bit of stone work as a founda-
tion, a door very richly sculptured with Ionic pilasters
and two windows flanking each side which would not be
out of place on the Grand Canal, any more than this face
by your side would seem foreign at some turn of the
street in the town Dante loved, with its sensitive fea-
tures cut with the fine chisel the Creator uses when he
makes rare things and rare beings, and that nose with
the slight, ever so slight, in his case, tendency to sug-
gest the eagle, which so many soaring personalities
possess, and over all that aroma of the quality we call,
for want of a better, "thoroughbred." By the most subtle
trick of memory a friend's face, "lost awhile," came

EPIFANIO DE LOS SANTOS Y CEISTOBAL 199

back constantly as the flash of genius played about the
mobile mouth, the mouth which tells the whole story,
of that high bred face of that friend who was chosen out
of the millions of her city among the half dozen men
and women to meet a prince, when he visited
America. The fiery intensity of this slim, wiry figure
has so much of the divine afflatus that every instant it
is in motion, and while the flashes of the fire of mind
sweep over it, as it moves either to the piano and plays
a snatch of a symphony — for you are in the presence
of a great musician — or to a desk where are brought
forth rich tomes bound in leather — for this writer of
matchless prose loves rich and sumptuous bindings,
and with true oriental lavishness lays them at your feet,
as an "obsequio"- — or again delving in the book shelves,
he draws some treasure out and in a word qualifies its
merits, or demerits, and then turns your attention to
his colored reproductions of his European favorites:
Titian's "Pagan and Christian Love," the figure of Christ
taken from the "Transfiguration," and you learn that in
youth he was a painter of no mean promise! It is all
done in such flashes and birdlike movements that you
feel breathless, as if you were trying to follow the
dazzling itinerary of a humming bird.

And this is the dried substance we usually call
scholarship! Wonder of the East, this man of eighteen
with all the volcanic velocity of those first years, who
tells you he was born 40 years ago!

His country, you are told again, of predilection is
Holland, which satisfies two passions: that for the pic-
torial and the historical. And there, in the little pic-
tures he shows you are reproduced evening and morning
and all the sweet peace and refinement of the land of the
dykes and clean housewives. On the fables you see,
among many others, St. Beuve, Taine, and books pre-
pared in Europe, bound in Madrid, and "Origines de la
Imprenta Filipina," prepared for that tercentenary of
printers' work in the islands.

200 BUILDERS OF A NATION

The group of ladies who welcome you to this tem-
porary house (for the family mansion is at S. Isidro,
where is kept his library) might serve for models for
those delightful dames for whom Petrarch sang. They
welcomed us and stood in parting a graceful picture in
this provincial house, where the overflowing Filipino
hospitality and absence, from any pose — ^real oriental
graces-awaits you in this gentleman-scholar, the father
of many children and brother of a large family, for he
laughingly says he fears not numbers, as his philosophy
Is that of Spinoza, and quoting Heine adds, " calming
Philosophy for youth and a sustaining one for old age."

This country gentleman by- choice was born in
Malabon, in 1871, on the edge of his country's capital,
just far enough away to hear its roar beating upon his
first consciousness, but never then or since to engulf
him in its superficialities and crush him by its potential-
ities into the commonplace mold of many a city-bred man.

Ten years of the classics under the Jesuits, those
makers of classical students, where he entered at 9 years
of age, and seven years at Sto. Tomas from whose eru-
dition you must perforce come forth wise, gave a basis
for a scholarship which is as brilliant as it is original,
kept up amid the carping cares o^ official position.

His father was Senor Escolastico de los Santos.
The mother, Antonia Cristobal, was a musician, a
finished player on that feminine instrument without
parallel, the harp; and she modeled the son on the lines of
harmony even as the father, who was a passionate student
of history, guided him in his love of the universal drama
of the race.

In 1893, when still a law student, he began to
direct his reading to the masterpieces of the Spanish
Tvriters and laid the foundation a markedly finished
(Style. He became acquainted with English and German
and French, all in Spanish translations first and at the
epoch of the Revolution started, with Zulueta, an
intimate friend who lived with him, "Libertad". This
famous paper was short lived, was printed on the

EPIFANIO DE LOS SANTOS Y CRISTOBAL 201

machines of the Augustinian friar at Malabon and was sup-
pressed by the revolutionary party after one issue and
the machines transferred by the Aguinaldo wing to
Cavite,touseinpubUshingthe"HeraldodelaRevolucion."
Then this would-be journalist was part-editor, under
General Luna, on a sheet which they wished to call
"La Solidaridad," but which was by discretion named
"La Independencia." In April he was married and
moved to his father's native town of San Isidro, where,
in 1900 he was made district attorney and afterwards
provincial secretary. He still resided in this place
when elected twice as governor of Nueva Ecija.

In 1904 he was one of the honorary commission
sent to the St. Louis exhibition and from there he went,
with Pardo de Tavera, to Paris, and afterwards traveled
alone through England, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Ger-
many, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. He spent,
during these travels, most of his time in museums and
in great libraries hunting up in the latter works on the
Philippines, and began his collection of rare first editions,
which he quaintly names "my sickness." Many of these
volumes he naturally procured in Spain, where he formed
a delightful acquaintanceship with Juan Valera, the fore-
most master of Spanish style and leader in Spanish
culture, as well as a profound student of modern literature.

On his return Senor de los Santos was still governor
for about one year and in March, 1906, he moved to
Malolos, where he has been for seven years provincial
fiscal and has fortunately time in which to devote him-
self to his chosen profession of literature, and is looking
forward to the moment when he can retire to the country
and give all of his attention to this work. His country-
men wish him to be the historian of their land and
European scholars desire him to devote himself entirely
to that investigation of the Tagalog language, on which
he has spent already some twenty years of arduous
toil. His diction in Spanish is as limpid as a mountain
pool and as correct as a sentence in a school grammar,
and, best of all, full of vitality.

202 BUILDERS OF A NATION

In an essay read before the "Liceo de Manila,"
afterwards printed in book form, as are most of his
works, by the Royal Academy printing press of Madrid,
entitled "Samahan nang Mananagalog," Senor Cris-
tobal brings out as only he can the wonders and delica-
cies of his mother tongue, Tagalog, noting its pecu-
liarities, its revolutionized orthography, in which Rizal
and Pardo de Tavera both had a share, its strange
versification, its masters, P. Modesto de Castro in reli-
gious prose with P. Florentino Ramirez, and traces its
beauties to even anonymous sources, noting the absence
of mysticism and the presence of a tendency to purely
oriental modes of thought, with an occasional trace of
theosophy. He notices the several periods of its
development: first the religious, then the purely literary
represented by Rizal and Pilar, and lastly the actual
or national, when the birth of ideals of liberty are mould-
ing its pages. This brilliant philologist can sum-
marize, in a few lines, the work of years; research carried
on often in the mountain choza of the outlaw! He has
traced rare bits of versification, roots, obsolete words
which are the nuggets of gold to the scholar, back among
the primitive people who transmit the language in its
early form.

The cost of these works, who can estimate? One
thousand rhymes alone, many set to music by himself,
are the foundation by which he writes an article, such
as that for "El Mercantil" of this year, when he told
of the influence of the Spanish language in the islands,
for he knows with absolute accuracy what is native,
or imported.

In his essay on "Retana" and others, we see his his-
torical acumen and these pages are mirrors of the great
Spaniard's work on the Philippines. "Filipinos y Fih-
pinistas" is also a pamphlet of exhaustless knowledge
on the Tagalog speech and the essay on "Emilio Jacinto,"
the organizer of the Katipunan, shows the power of the
critic, of whom he is first among his countrymen, and
also of the ideals of that time. In "Filipinos and Fili-

EPIFANIO DE LOS SANTOS Y CRISTOBAL 203

pinistas," he pays a tribute to James A. L. Roy, calling
him the leading American authority on Filipino matters,
who has written during the JBrst ten years of the Amer-
ican occupation. He is an admirer also of the work of
Mr. Worcester and his hero worshiping finds its outlet
in a most sincere admiration of Pardo de Tavera.

Preeminently a student of ethnological details he
has delved into the native life and has given in a book
of exquisite sketches, stories which contain perhaps the
greatest proof of his genius, and which Cecilio Apostol
declares will never be outdone. Upon each he has left
that stamp of the great artist and great writer. What
does this come from? Who can tell? But it is born
out of a noble heart.

These little novelettes were called "Algo de Prose"
and lifted him at once to the first rank of Filipino writers.
They were written with the fresh inspiration of youth,
that primal something which "never comes again" and
in the most exquisite language is seen in Spanish the
Tagalog soul in all its depth. They were more even than
studies of characters for the fauna and flora, and the
minutest details are worked out as by a Meissonier.

Sefior Cristobal gives himself the luxury of limited
copies and happy is the possessor, for this countryman
is the most blue-blooded of thinkers and as he does not
write for money, has a quiet scorn for the public. A
great deal of his late work has appeared in "Cultura
Filipina", the leading review of the Phihppines.

The tribes among whom he has pursued the most
of his language study are the Tinguianes, Ibilaos and
Aetas and the first essays of these he has set to music
and has composed many hundreds of these simple
romances. His latest work, not yet pubhshed but about
completed, is one on his distinguished contemporary
Pardo de Tavera.

Speaking of the past he said: "our greatest produc-
tions in Tagalog and our worst were produced during
the Revolution." This of course only goes to prove
that epochs make works of the mind as well as men,

204 BUILDERS OF A NATION

and only when the spirit is stirred to the point of anguish
can it give the sweetest music.

Yet this man has set his soul to happiness, that best
of creeds, for not until humanity has outlived the sin
and morbidness of the middle ages and learned the lesson
of Nature which rejoices with a mighty voice every
day, will it rise to its birthright. So he has chosen
wisely the motto "Laetitia est hominis transitis ad
majorem perfectionem."

One thing is needed and he possesses it, the great
soul, for that alone makes poets and poets often write
in prose.

To be a worthy biographer of Senor de los Santos
you would have to be his equal, so that remains a thing
undone, perhaps undoable, but that admiration which
he feels for his countrymen — the best — others feel for
him and they have crowned him as a leader in the path
of scholarship.

Fortunate indeed is any land who can boast of such
a literary leader, profoundly devout, highly cultivated and
endowed, above his fellows, with that gift the gods are
sparing of — genius. Such a figure is the subject of this
sketch and as such he stands alone, not in cold aloofness,
but in warm friendliness among Filipinos.

FERNANDO M. GUERRERO

In a recent number of El Mercantil, Epifanio de los
Santos Cristobal, who stands as a writer of Castellano
in the Philippines with Adriatico as a speaker of the lan-
guage of the gods, gives a scholarly exposition of the
influence of Spanish poetry on the writings of hiS native
land. It was on the occasion of the late festivals when
there are revived in Manila the jousts of the Muse in
imitation of the Provencal poets, and there comes to us
a breath of the winged trouveres and troubadours, those
most delightful of minstrels. He shows that no influence
known to the mother country has been unknown here:
influences which came to Spain sometimes by way of
France, sometimes by way of Italy, the Mother of
Europe, and again from the land of the tawny Norse-
man and his cousin the Saxon.

Music, first, last and always has charmed the ear
of these singers of the South whose bright skies and
sunny plains welcome gaiety and gladness. Trans-
planted to the East, with her mystic character and her
occultism, the plaintive strain has mingled with the
song, but the deeper tragedy which we real northerners
feel has hardly penetrated the rhythm. Art for art's
sake is easily understood by these people and as the
years advance in the new night of liberty we find a
growth in expression and in thought. Perhaps the
best illustration of this is the poem of Bernabe, which
at once shows a decided advance in virility over the older
and more flowery models, a stirring of a new manhood.
This poem won the prize of the Spanish "Juegos Florales"
and is entitled "Filipinas & Espana," and is one of which
the young poet and his countrymen may be proud.

The leading literary figure of his land today is the
subject of this sketch, and his reputation does not alone
reach the hamlets of the land he loves and sings of, but
has crossed to the Americas and Spain. Recently,
in Washington, before an audience of the most culti-

205

206 BUILDERS OF A NATION

vated representatives of Cuba, Mexico and the Spanish
speaking residents of the capital city, at a reunion
known as "The Spanish-American Atheneum," Maximo
Kalaw gave a lecture on what he styled "A National
Poet," in which a great deal of thought, in English most
unusual for a foreigner, is compressed. He has traced
the poet in his differing phases, first as the young student,
fresh from his academic prizes, singing his "religious
poems, odes to the saints and verses to the Virigin Mary,
and on through the varying moods of the man's develop-
ment, as with the extensive studies and fast moving
events of recent years he has seen larger horizons for his
land.

Senor Guerrero has what we may call a passionate
love of Nature and it is to her he most often turns,
rather than to human life for the inspiration. How
deeply he knows his land and her native beauty is seen
when you realize how often his lines are quoted and are
on the lips of the young men and maidens, for whom
he has sung, as well as graven in the memory of their
elders. He belongs, let us be thankful, to the rank of
the artists who keep to the lofty and classical ideals
of perfection in form, perfection for which his rare
culture and rare delicacy of temperament have inclined
him. As he towers above his countrymen in the depth
of his feeling for beauty, beauty and in his sense of life
its pathos and its ephemerality, so, in the form he uses,
he is unapproached as yet.

Shelley would be most certainly his favorite poet,
were he born by the Thames, and Edgar Allen Poe, were
he an American.

Baudelaire has been called the Poet-dandy and his
same fineness of sense of life, and that exquisite feeling
for the right form and the right thought, in a word,
refinement, is the distinguishing trait of Guerrero's art,
along with a spirit so genial that it seems to shed light
through even the most pathetic of his lines.

That the Philippines have such an artist at this
beginning of that larger life of the literature which is

FERNANDO M. GUEKRERO 207

making itself felt under the new conditions is most
auspicious, and the young aspirants to literary honors
cannot be too grateful for such a model.

Senor Fernando Guerrero was born in Calle Nueva,
Ermita, on the 30th of May, 1873. His father was
Lorenzo Guerrero and his mother Clemencia Ramirez,
both of this city. More than a word is due this remark-
ably talented pair. Senor Guerrero was a painter and a
professor of his chosen art, numbering among his pupils
Juan Luna, two of whose studies adorn the wall of the
poet's salon today. The elder Guerrero had also a passion
for rhyming and it is to his father that the poet attrib-
utes his skill, as he was his instructor in the sister art.
His father's favorite model was the romantic Espronceda
and "when," he says, "I was studying in the Ateneo of
Manila and was trying to master the technique of
cadence and accent in Castellano, I always had my
father write out a verse as a model and then followed
his style as to form and number of syllables, etc."

The mother was no less gifted, and among her proofs
of artistic endowment were certain embroideries done
with so much art that they were presented by some
Spanish residents of the city to Alphonso XII. This
lady had also given her by the fairies the matchless
talent of song. The influence of this couple was con-
siderable on the artistic development of their time and
has passed to their children as a rich inheritance. Of
nine children, only three grew to maturity, two sons
and one daughter. Of the others, one is distinguished
in his profession and is well known to Manilians,
Doctor Manuel Guerrero, of Sto. Tomas.

The first studies of these children were under private
tutors at home and from this private schooling Senor
Fernando Guerrero passed to the Ateneo Municipal,
where he took a nine years' course, graduating as B. A.,
and from there passed to the law school of Santo Tomas
from which he graduated with a lawyer's degree after
six years.

208 BUILDERS OF A NATION

In the meantime history was being made faster
than education was acquired, and when General Antonio
Luna founded his paper, "La Independencia," the young
lawyer who was to be ever a journalist, for so the Fates
had decreed, was put on the staff of this first real Fili-
pino paper in the islands. This staff deserves to be
mentioned, for on it were such names as Commissioner
Palma's and his late poet brother's, the famous poet
Cecile Apostol, that of that master of prose, delos Santos,
of Doctor Salvador Vivencio del Rosario, and of the dis-
tinguished judge, Jose C. Abreu, the editor-in-chief
being General Luna.

As this paper was transplanted to the provinces
during the war it passed to Tarlac, where the first Con-
gress had its sitting, to which the young writer was
named a member, and also to Pampanga and to Panga-
sinan. Senor Guerrero thus began almost simul-
taneously his journalism and his public life. He was
named at this time by General Luna "auditor de
guerra," with the rank of captain. He received another
title also, that of "Secretary of the Higher or Supreme
Court," established by the temporary government.

On Senor Guerrero's return to Manila, in 1900,
Pablo Ocampo called him to the staff of a new sheet
known as "La Patria," which was 'suppressed by the mili-
tary authorities. From this enforced vacation he passed
to a paper known by the Frenchy title of "Fraternidad" ;
this, to follow the rotation of Henry the Eighth's wives,
died a natural death, and the next to which he succeeded
as city editor, under Senor Palma, as editor-in chief
of "El Renacimiento, which was in its turn suppressed,
but not however while Senor Guerrero was its editor-in-
chief, to which title he succeeded just before he was
elected to the first Filipino Asselnbly as representative
of the 3rd district of Manila. This paper had the largest
circulation of any in the islands published in Spanish,
reaching the respectable figures seven thousand. Senor
Guerrero is today the editor-in-chief of a no less noted
daily. La Vanguardia.

FERNANDO M. GUERRERO 209

As no literary career would be correct or complete
without teaching, this poet is also a teacher and has had
the inspiring experience of imparting knowledge. He
has a class of private pupils who are studying under his
direction the rules and rhetoric of the Spanish language;
and he is professor of forensic oratory, natural law and
literature in the Colegio de Jurisprudencia and has been,
as well, professor of the Greek language and general liter-
ature and Spanish rhetoric at the "Liceo de Manila."

The literary life of Senor Guerrero, apart from the
journalistic and pedagogic, forms a chapter and a very
extended one, far beyond the limits of this sketch; it
may be summed up in these meager details: From the
age of fifteen, when he first began to write verses, which
were naturally, from his training religious, he has gone
on until he has covered five forms or classes; religious,
love, social, political and descriptive verse.

His first models were, as is usual, classical, then
romantic, such men as Espronceda and Jos4 Zanilla, the
latter poet laureate of Spain; afterwards he followed
Gaspar Ninez de Arce. Then came the modern school,
with its nudities and often crudities, but as a man of
keen insight and splendid artistic talent he was not
carried away, but has chosen a "sane idealism", rather
than a debasing realism. To quote his own words:
"In Nature there are many defects and errors which
diminish the sum of beauty which is proper to artistic
production, and if one is realist purely and only repre-
sents what is seen by the human eye, he becomes merely
a photographer, and if he desires truth alone, he must
paint the ugly often. The duty of the artist to my mind
is to purify Nature, to wrap her in a garment of beauty
which his soul has woven to cover her deformities. Ideal-
ism must not, on the contrary, fall into chimerical absurd-
ities of fantasy, for it, too, has its root and base in 'things
as they are,' in life, which is holy and sane; so actually
realist and idealist are only different in terms and
methods after all. True and supreme art is that which

210 BUILDERS OF A NATION

expresses the highest kind of beauty and is the most
perfect interpretation of aesthetic emotion."

About three volumes would be the output in the
press of the numerous poems published by Fernando
Guerrero, who, like many great artists, has been singu-
larly careless of his brain children, leaving them to be
found often "in the heart of a friend." Among one of
the sweetest is that entitled "My Country," produced
some fifteen years ago, but still repeated on many
occasions by his countrymen and women. The one
which most paradoxically came with the most astounding
inspiration was entitled "El dolor de las cuartillas vir-
genes", "blank paper", illustrating the pain of the poet
before the white page when, with the mind full of music
and ideas, the form has not come. On Rizal this poet
has naturally written voluminously and, more than
his own fame, he desires to arouse the youth of his
land to the love of their' heroes and history and to the
impulse of creating a Filipino literature.

The first salary he earned was twenty pesos per
month as a tutor, and when he had reached this dignity,
his father presented him with a watch. Today, his pen
and word support him and the charming group of merry
children who, with their graceful mother, gladden his
Ermita home.

His political ideas need no airing, for the journalist
has spoken for his country for years: "The Philippines
for the Filipinos," first, last and always; but he is not a
poHtician, merely a patriot and thinker passionately
loving his land, feeling for her and singing for her, a
man of quiet tastes and retiring disposition, bold in
words, but as delicate and unassuming in life as in
physique.

It is a great deal to have read Fernando Guerrero,
but to know him is better, and to have won his friend-
ship is one of the best things the Philippines can give
any foreigner, for he combines so much that is best in
his race: its sensitive, highbred feeling, noble intuitions

211 FERNANDO M. GUERBEBO

and serious fidelity to the common tasks which, common
though they be, can ennoble even a king or a poet.

These little verses, written as one of a poem after
only a few months study of English, will give some idea
of this master's art.

Where Is My May?
"My happy days have passed away,
The hills and woods have lost their flowers.

Where is my May?
Where are its sweet and charming hours?
* * *

Cheer me, my star, and give me light,
To see at least a pleasant way.
Show me your eyes so fair and bright
To find my May! ^

4: 4: He

With thoughts of care I bend my head,

Where is my May?
I am alone, I eat my bread
Away from you, so far away."

m

THE

EARNSHAW BROTHERS

yjj

That we are a sea people, however we may hug
the land, is forced in on the consciousness whenever the
yearly equinox buzzes about our ears, or whenever time
is allotted from the fierce fight of life on land to wander
down among the shipping on the water front, where a
life all its own, which involves thousands of lives and
millions of capital, is played. In the early morning the
ships, as you go along by the wharfs, seem to rise out
of the rosy mist, the white "jackies" ready for war, the
slim ocean greyhounds with pacific funnels, the ships
of tonnage which carry the wealth of the earth and upon
whose coming and going are founded the nations of the
world, and those argosies of wandering vessels which
come at random and, like the Fljdng Dutchman, seem
to haunt the shores and magnetize the imagination.

There, where life rises at full tide, with the day
full of the vigor and boundless hope born only by the
sea and in youth; there, where men "go down to the sea
in ships and do business in great waters," are at this
moment two gigantic weather-beaten craft, the "Tong-
Yek" and "Isidore Pons" hauled up, as a sailor would
say, for the sewing of rents, the fitting of plates, or the
scrapping of keels, as the case may be, until the rough
old fighters, harried and lashed by the sea, shall be trim
and jaunty enough for other voyages up in the strange
bays of stranger lands, of the vast ocean which lies at
pur doors and enwraps our home and life in its mighty
and eternal embrace. A sea people, yes, and the men
of whom this sketch is written are men who repair her
deeds which destroy and wear but after all rebuild
again and gives food and life and wealth as naught else
in Nature.

A sense of power compels you along the path-
to wards the old Chinese craft with its gaunt wounds, you
think of the rent tarpaulin, the strained cordage and

212

THE EARNSHAW BROTHESS 213

twisted irons as a part of the prowess of the sea and as
the rhythmic movement of the hammers and the occa-
sional chaunt of the laborer reaches you of the sagas of
old and the drama of the heroes and that something
primitive in each breast is stirred to its depths and you
too chaunt.
"Build me straight, worthy master, staunch and strong

a goodly vessel.
That shall laugh at all disaster and with wave and

whirlwind wrestle."

It takes men to man ships and men to sail them, and
men, you feel as you move along to the sound of the ham-
mer, to repair them. Over there at Barrow they build the
giant decks, from which they sight the lands to capture,
but here in the pacific islands of pacific waters we con-
struct only commercial craft and the swift moving mes-
sengers of commerce such as the Columbia, built by
this company for the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Co.

Here is the plant stretching over 30,000 meters of
ground, a tireless workshop of a manly industry. Spread
about are buildings, large and small, in that regular con-
fusion of all such places where the first thought is the
creation and the achievement of some useful or neces-
sary article of the world of trade. Everything is on a
huge scale and the bigness has a kind of refreshing
strength even when it is clumsy.

Here eight foremen and four hundred and fifty
men grapple with iron bars, and push steel plate, cutting
with mammoth guillotines pipes as thick as your finger
or bend plates as gracefully as you would fold paper.
It is something you can see and handle and feel, this
work, no sham and the gigantic piston seems set to
that music of the stars the tune to which the world
turns as spins a top.

The captains of this industry and leaders of the
little army must be thorough mechanics who have
studied in the Navy Yard at Cavite, or at Hong-
kong, at their docks. Some go out in the bay
and tinker up the boats only slightly injured, while

214 BUILDERS OF A NATION

those in the sUpway must be built from the bottom up.
An engraved certificate given the firm by Admiral
Enquist notes the refitting of the battle ships Aurora,
Oleg and Lemtchug, which floated out of the zone of
war and during two months and a half were refitted
here to the entire satisfaction of this officer who wished
to return to Russia without a mark of disgrace, and he
sailed away, as all remember, thanks to the Earnshaw
brothers, as "good as new" in gala attire.

During our war American transjJorts were repaired
by them and launches and other vessels under bids made
by them in competition with other shops. At that time
Manuel Earnshaw, now resident commissioner at Wash-
ington, was an active partner, as he is the head of the
firm today. This firm stands first and oldest among
us in this solid work although others are in the lists
as John Wilson and the San Nicolas Iron Works.

Beginning with the large cool office we see hung
upon the walls 26 models in native woods of launches,
or tug boats which have been, or can be built. These
are the samples of 3,000 to 30,000 ton craft shown as you
would be shown a bit of lace, or ribbon over a counter.
Some of the machinery out there in those noisy rooms
comes from Scotland and some from America, and in
order to prepare for this work these brothers have had
to travel over the world, to Hamburg and Bremen and
Barrow and American shops. The agents buy from
2 to 3 hundred thousand pesos of steel and iron plate
and angle iron per year, and adding to this the sum
of bolts and fittings, this sum is raised to ?^600,000
pesos for material alone.

In the quiet room sit the two members of the firm,
in Manila Tomas and Daniel Earnshaw, with their
secretary, Senor Preysler, and some four draftsmen, and
stenographers and Senor Gabriel Torres, the estimator
of the big undertakings, and clerks to make up the num-
ber in all of fifteen.

A storeroom leads out of this office where are in
reserve tons of bells, bolts, screws, wheels, propellers,

THE EARNSHAW BROTHERS 215

bars, wires, valves, iron cogs and plugs, rings of every
shade and weight of metal and form. These brains
weld and riviBt and hammer together into forms of
scientific measurement and these, when done, breast
the storms and ride the typhoons.

Beyond the storeroom one enters the arena of the
shops in full power where 140 machines, some of them
the latest from England, are whirling and pounding and
forcing the obdurate iron and steel into flexibility, with
their cunning and invincible movements, as huge bars
glide and drop and strike, the seemingly unbreakable
metal. Here one can see the latest brass propeller, just
being rubbed down for the Tong-Yek and another, still
larger, of iron, being drawn into place with chains for
the Isidoro Pons. One machine, almost overwhelmingly
inspiring in dimensions, one is told, planes iron, as one
would strike off chips from wood. Another, a hydraulic
compressor, runs with that deep music which only the
stupendous forces of Nature have. The engine power
to run all this is a huge work-horse whose piston throbs
as would a cataract, beating life into the arteries of these
hundreds of machines. Two furnaces furnish the fire
for these engines, and their great boilers are the generat-
ing force for the whole. The company has its own
electric light plant of two dynamos for lighting the shops
for night work.

Iron lathes of 26 feet long and another of 30 fashion
the plates, and as you enter the forge room, called the
blacksmith shop, you watch a machine cutting pipe of
steel an inch and a quarter thick as you would cut ^
pencil. Forges line the walls, twelve brave mouths,
consuming tons of coal, 250 per month, and to climax all
a machine so powerful as to press out iron and steel as
one presses cloth. It is 16 feet long and the cylinder
is 24 inches in diameter. Beyond is the carpenter shop
where they make the models for the machinery and
mount fittings.

Now you have come face to face with the slipway.

216 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Rising by a flight of steps you reach the plane of
the cradle, 460 feet long built of solid concrete consisting
of two parts. The engines or rather levers are two
large wheel-serving as capstans of enormous size over
which turn steel ropes 12 inches in diameter, this for-
midable wire drags the steamers from the water to a
height of 20 to 30 feet in as many minutes, 10 minutes
only being needed to lower them into the water. Cogs
in the form of small cars hold them in place while they
are being repaired. The difference between the dry
dock and a slipway is that in the dry dock the dock is
flushed with water and the ship is let in and then the
water is turned off and the slipway has no water but is
a sort 'of wharf built as an inclined plane. In this slip-
way a high bridge is erected on one side which admits
of the workmen and crew reaching the steamer with
ease on a level with the decks. Here the vessels lie
from two or three days to as many months depending
upon the work to be done. They are at the very gate
of the waterways of Manila, in the inner basin marvel-
ously near the bay and the path to the outer ocean.
This company has two more slipways in Cavite for
lesser work. These were founded in 1902, while this
was opened in 1913.

The restaurant, a simple but well constructed mod-
ern building, stands at the entrance to the compound
and here meals are furnished for the convenience of the
workmen and foremen and even for officers of vessels.
Three different classes of meals are to be had, the first
for 10 centavos of day laborers, the second for 30 and
the foremen are served for 50. Officers of the ships
in the slipway can have a meal de luxe at 60 centavos.
There are some 300. or 350 who avail themselves of
these repasts where the best of the market can be had
at so low a price as to suit the finances of all. They
are most prized by those who come from a distance
and would otherwise be obliged to eat cold lunches.
The power house is ornamented with stain glass windows
and is in its way well constructed and sightly, placed

THE EARNSHAW BROTHEBS 217

high up as it is above all. As you sit in the power
house you can overlook the restaurant building and
indeed the city beyond on the left while at your right
are the many sea craft which pass by "to their haven
under the hill." It is a mighty view and one as the
quiet, gentle man who has helped' to build it all suc-
cinctly said, "might inspire you," as indeed it did.

On the top of that power house is a good vantage
point for a retrospect to years when Earnshaw p6re was
an engineer in England and then came out to these
islands to work for Spain, who had to import her first
class engineers from other countries. In th'e Navy
Yard at Cavite this same father worked and was in-
trusted with various useful offices for this same govern-
ment with various titles such as "director of the naval
arsenal." Here in this same Cavite were born the two
eldest sons, Manuel and Tomas, the elder now commis-
sioner at Washington, in 1862, and the second in '67.
Both brothers studied at the nautical school at Cavite
and graduated from it and began their practical work
in the shops of their father, the first founded in the Phil-
ippines in 1870. Senor Manuel, the present commis-
sioner, was made, later in the eighties, superintendent
of port works, and was also engineer of the mint, both
appointments being of course given him by the Spanish
government. His own business was enlarged under the
title of Manuel Earnshaw Co., Ltd., in 1909, and in 1912
was still more developed under the head of "Earnshaws
SUpways and Engineering Co."

All three of the brothers, Senor Daniel coming out
from a thorough enginering course in England to join the
firm, have been identified with the progressive movements
of modern Manila even outside of their large business.
While absolutely faithful to their daily discipline of toil,
the two younger brothers scarcely missing a day from
their office unless to go on a hunting excursion for re-
creation, have found time from their obligations of an
exacting business involving over a million of capital

218 BUILDERS OF A NATION

to enter very largely into the civic life and into the club
life of the town. The three brothers have had a passion
to excel in whatever they undertook and their record
in the club Tiro.al Blanco would show what they can do
as sportsmen where they have carried off prize after
prize. Senor Tomas Earnshaw is a member of the Club
Nacionalista, Club Filipino, Polo Club, Club de los Mar-
tires, Club Carambola. They have each built up beau-
tiful homes and Senores Tomas and Daniel are (blessed
with charming children.

Socially there are no more welcome figures than
they are among the different groups which they frequent,
American, Spanish and Filipino, for they are equally
at home in all made so not only for their cordial and
friendly tact, but by their well-known private charities.

Not one of the brothers cares for publicity and their
wide travel and extensive intercourse with men of affairs
of many lands has given them a very broadminded con-
ception of life, as well as has their business career, which
has to do with big things. They have been through
Europe often and also America, Japan and Australia
and Russia. Their chief pleasures outside of family
life, or indeed included in it has been motoring and in
this they are experts as in any form of sport to which
they take a fancy.

When asked as to the probable future of their work
and its promise the question was met with a most assuring
optimism that as long as the Pacific washed the Phil-
ippines there would be ships to sail her waters and some
one must build and repair them and as more ships are
saihng each month this way there is no need to fear for
lack of material for even the biggest brains to work upon.
The astonishing every month development of agricul-
ture and of the natural resources of the islands is calling
for home made machinery as well as imported and this
shop with others will have to meet the demand.

THE EAENSHAW BROTHERS 219

These men are world men and as such do not look
upon change as disaster but as the coming of greater
opportunities and vaster realizations of wider dreams.
Something of the sea air they breathe has gotten into
their lungs and for us land lubbers who are at times
land-locked and blocked by exceedingly narrow horizons,
contact with such figures is a bit of a tonic like a puff
of sea air.

m

GIL MONTILLA

uu

Born on the first day of September, 1876, in Hini-
garan. Occidental Negros, Senor Montilla is a repre-
sentative of that land of the sugar planter and sugar is
one of the principal products and largest sources of
wealth of our islands.

This island of Negros belongs to the Visayan group,
in the center of the Philippine archipelago. It is
divided into two provinces called Occidental and Oriental
Negros. One of its notable features is its volcanic
mountains, chief of which is the majestic volcano Can-
laon, which rises far into the blue above sea level.

Marvellous has been the development in the past
eighty years of the sugar plantations. These haciendas
have some of them an area of 20,000 acres and this
represents a capital invested of some P300,000 pesos.
These plantations, which resemble those of Cuba in
their size, have modern machinery and most of the
modern appliances for preparing sugar for the market.

About 150,000,000 pounds of sugar are put out from
this island in one year and there is a possibility of
duplicating this capacity. This amounts in exports
to between ten to fifteen millions per year.

Senor Montilla is a typical hacendero whose bearing
has not a little of the South American planter about
it, that mingling of the ranchero and the gentleman
in the right proportion to form an unusually attractive
and forceful personality, with a spice of the romantic
out-of-door-life escapades and frequent encounters with
physical dangers which give men prompt decision,
strong determination and bravery.

He is "to the manor born," as his first hours were
spent in a hacienda of his father's in Negros, called the
"San Agustin hacienda," and at five months of age
he was taken to reside with his grandfather in Bago
on the hacienda "Constantine" and here he passed his

220 ^

GIL MONTILLA 221

early years until 1885, when he entered the Jesuit school
in Manila, the "Ateneo Municipal," for his first years
of training. After the first year he returned to his
home and did not continue his studies for three years.

On returning to school he continued his studies
uninterruptedly until he took his B. A. degree with
brilliant marks in 1896, at the same time with Senor
Corpus, Luciano de la Rosa, Judge Romualdez and
Pedro Guevara. On finishing his course with the Jesuits
the young Montilla entered the University of Sto. Tomas
to study law, and after one year, on account of the revo-
lution, he returned to his province, taking part as one
of the chiefs of the movement commanding the forces
at that point, and after one month of fighting he surren-
dered to the Spanish troops, Cazadores (light infantry).

About one month later General Smith took pos-
session of the province in the name of the United States
and established soon after a Civil Government in which
prominent Filipinos took part, such as Senores Juan
Araneta, Aneceto Lacson and Melario Severino. Local
elections took place and Senor Montilla was elected
as a representative in the municipal government of
Bacolod in which position he continued for one year
until the work in hand a new system of government
was inaugurated; and during this time he also served
as teacher in the public school. He was then chosen
as chief of police of Bacolod, a city of some 48,000, the
capital of Occidental Negros. Succeeding this he was
appointed deputy provincial treasurer, after which
he became municipal treasurer of the town of Isabela
in the same province, and having finished the revision
of the finances of that town he was elected its president.
During his term of oflace he was successful in the cap-
ture of one of the most famous bandits of the entire
islands. In this capture he was assisted by an army
ofiicer, now senior inspector of Samar Province, and by
Senor Rosado.

This famous outlaw, the head of a band of some
thirty-five more, had held the country in a state of terror

222 BUILDERS OF A NATION

for some twenty-five years and this masterly stroke
relieved the province at once of the greatest dread and
most serious menace to the agricultural progress. On
one of their raids they burned an entire town, that of
Kabankalan, killing and torturing. This Papa Ysio
and his band are now comfortably housed in Bilibid.

Senor Montilla also devoted his time and energy
to the reorganization and introduction of improved
methods of agriculture in the district.

After public service of four years he again retired
to his hacienda of San Bonifacio, which was in part
his little daughter's inheritance. This child was by a
first marriage which took place in 1904, and the mother
died soon after her birth.

As one of the leaders of the Nacionalista Party
he continued, however, his interest in politics and entered
as a deputy the national legislature in 1912.

He has devoted his time to economic and financial
questions, which are now uppermost in this fast
advancing land.

He has been on three special committees, i. e.;
"Public Works," "Metropolitan Relations" and "Banks
and Corporations."

He is especially fond of music and literature and is
also a hunter and horseback rider, one of the most
enthusiastic, and enjoys tennis as well. With the pres-
ent Senora Montilla (he was remarried in 1909)
he lives in Ysabela, that town of 20,000 inhabitants
whose president he has been. On his hacienda "Enri-
queta" in the midst of a center of rich sugar planters he
finds most congenial society of men travelled and cul-
tured and here he passes his vacations from the arduous
legislative work of the three months of the year from
October to February.

He is ardent by nature and throws his whole soul
into the contest and believes in a glorious future for
his land — but wishes it under a protectorate of Amer-
ica as one at least — when she is free — for he is one of
those who most appreciate what America has done
for the Philippines.

THE PHILIPPINE LIBRARY

Of that part of the magnificent scheme to give to the
Philippines a library worthy the country, four divi-
sions — the Circulating Division (American Circulat-
ing Library), the Filipiniana Division, Public Docu-
ments and Periodical divisions — are at present open to
the public in the Walled City, in the handsome rooms
now fitted up in the old Army and Navy Club. This
building is now renamed as the Library Building.

Each shows the remarkable talent, patience and
interest that the builders of the library have put into
their work and will always be their monument.

Far from the charm of the Brera, with its match-
less sketches of great Italian painters, or of the Biblio-
theque Nationale, with its wonders of Rembrandt and
its tomes which millions could not purchase, or of the
St. Petersburg Imperial Library, where the text of the
scriptures has its chained case and its eloquent type
mutely appealing to all christian hearts; from treasures
like these we are far away, yet we are beginning some
world wide lore, some hidden manuscripts are forthcom-
ing and out of this vast Orient with its countless sacred
books, its manuscripts which time and money can buy,
it will be strange if those in charge of this library,
who are not lacking either in erudition of knowledge of
books shall not build a great library.

This is an age of book making; monarchs even go
into the field. The king of Italy has just compiled a
magnificent work on coins, of which he has a rare col-
lection, and the care and study and gifts he has devoted
to this original effort of which the first volume only
has appeared in all its royal glory of plates, make it
seem probable that to have been the editor of "Corpus
Nummorum Italicorium" is a greater thing than to
be a sovereign.

What goes first in the library here, is our own lore —
ethnological, historic and otherwise, of course, and from

223

224 BUILDERS OF A NATION

treasures collected by ripe scholars as elsewhere will be
gathered the Library of the Philippines.

Scores of Filipino students are using the books,
as well as American readers and, it is said, scarcely a
day passes that a gift is not received from some one
of the religious orders, or from some private source, so
vital a part of life has the library become.

Among donations are that of "Curtis on the
North American Indians" given by Pierpont Morgan
and a Jewish encyclopedia, donated by Mr. Jacob
Schiff, of New York city. New, so new it smells of the
press, the latest fiction is on the shelves and as eagerly
devoured here as elsewhere.

The purchase of the Rizal ms. of "Noli me tangere,"
through the disinterested intervention of Mr. Austin
Craig, of the bureau of education, was a real "aubaine",
and the "Rizal Library has," with its touch of the herb's
mind upon it, become a part of this structure of cul-
ture, to which, in so many branches, Rizal gave his
life. Here we see first many copies of the Bible in
Spanish, twelve volumes in vellum of Cicero in Latin,
Herder, some twenty volumes in German, Dumas in his
long line, in French and so on; Tacitus, Voltaire, Shakes-
peare's prodigious progeny, and rows of scientific
books — a little epitome of what the larger library will be.

The general history in outline of the American
Circulating Library is too well known by Manilans
to need to repeat. It was started in 1900 by Mrs. C. R.
Greenleaf and out of donations of money and books
from home and here the "American Circulating Li-
brary" of Manila was born. Mrs. Egbert, the first and
only librarian, put the best energies of her life into it.

In 1900, the American Circulating Library, at first
a private association, was transferred in trust first to the
military and later to the civil government.

In 1909, by virtue of Act No. 1935, the Philippine
Library was created, a term that was made to cover all
collections and books owned by the Insular Government.

THE PHILIPPINE LIBEARY 225

Dr. James A. Robertson, co-editor of the Blain-Robert-
son series "The Philippine Islands," was brought over
from the United States as the first librarian of the
new library. In the reorganization, the American
Circulating Library became the nucleus of the Circulat-
ing Division created by the act under the name of
Circulating Division (American Circulating Library).
Miss Dwyer, formerly of the library of Congress, was
appointed Chief of this division upon the resignation of
Mrs. Egbert. Hence the library is under the finest
control that could be desired and the system and de-
velopment has been corresponding to the culture of
those at its head. Miss McKee, who has been long
connected with the library, is the chief cataloguer, and
as such occupies an extremely important position.

Mr. Manuel Artigas y Cuerva, one of the best known
of all Filipino journalists and the author of many mono-
graphs on Filipino men and events, is the chief of theFili-
piniana Division. Mrs. E. 0. Elmer, being connected
with the American Circulating Library, is in charge of the
Public Documents Division, and Mr. Salvador Donado,
a bright young Filipino who has grow;n up in the library,
is in charge of the Periodical Division.

Among the most striking treasures of the Circulating
Division (American Circulating Library) is the Missale
Romanum, pubHshed at Madrid in 1765. Its binding
has marvelously withstood the tooth of Time. The fine
red and black type is as clear today as the hour it came
from the press and the wood cut of angels adoring the
sacrament on the first page is as fine a work as that done
by any craftsman. In this volume are briefs and bulls of
popes, followed by a calendar of saints, general subject
matter, Latin prayers and music; Gregorian chants,
written in ancient square notes. All the initial letters
are in red and important paragraphs in red also. This
book was the property of Mr. James A. Leroy, former
private secretary to Commissioner Worcester and later
consul in Duranga, Mexico. The copper plates in this
book are exquisite.

226 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Another important work is an early edition of
Humboldt's "Cosmos," an early translation of the
scientist's work into English.

It is the desire of the staff of the library to raise
the Filipiniana division until it contains the finest Orien-
talia in the Orient and to attract the best mentality of
the Orient to learn of the Past. It is a large ideal,
but who can doubt that it may be realized?

In this division, among the chief treasures is the
earliest important work, the "Relaci6n de las Islas
Filipinas, by the Jesuit father Pedro Chirino, published
in Rome in 1604. This book gives an account of the
earliest mission work in the islands as well as much
other valuable history.

There is also here the famous "Labor Evangelica"
by the Jesuit fathers, published in Madrid in 1663.

Important books by the Augustinians are "The
Conquistas de las Islas Filipinas," by Father Gaspar de
San Agustin, published at Madrid in 1698, and the
"Historia de Filipinas," by Father Joaquin Martinez
de Zuniga, pubhshed at the old barrio of Sampaloc
in 1803. The title page of each of the two volumes is
a marvel of the bookmaker's art. In one a group of
friars are stationed on opposite sides of a rude map,
to which they are pointii^, while the rays of heaven
shine through the Sacred Heart, held in the hand of
a mitred figure, all symbolizing the conquest of the
Philippines by church and state. The print is abso-
lutely clear and the paper is not discolored. The second
volume, that of Zuniga, is one of the very best and
most impartial ever written on these islands. The great
Franciscan history by Father Juan Francisco de San
Antonio, "Chronicas de la Apostolica provincia de
S. Gregorio," published at Sampaloc in the Franciscan
convent of Nuestra Senora de Loreto del Pueblo de
Sampaloc in the years 1738 to 1744, in three volumes,
while not in as absolutely perfect condition as the
other book, has a wonderful freshness of appearance.
The Recoleto history written by Father Juan de la

THE PHILIPPINE LIBRARY 227

Concepcion, Historia General de Filipinas, published
at Sampaloc in 1788 to 92, is in fourteen volumes and
bound in pig skin, it has become slightly yellowed by
age, but is still in perfect condition. Concepcion's work is
a mine of information and contains many quaint episodes
in the secular and religious history of the islands.

"Tratados Histdricos," by Father Domingo Fer-
nandez Navarrote, published in Madrid, in 1676, is a
very human and attractive work, entertaining and
gossipy, a sort of Spanish St. Simon. Books of very
great information are "Recopilaci6n de Leyes de Las
Indias," in which the Spanish policy in regard to its
colonies is fully outlined by the many royal decrees
defined therein.

Of considerable importance also to the student
is the "Polltica Indiana," written by Juan de Solorzano
y Pereyra, published in Madrid in 1776.

The commerce of the Philippines may be studied
as affected by royal provisions in the "Extracto His-
torial" by Alvarez de Abreu, pubUshed in Madrid,
in 1736. It is officially declared in this book that 100
copies are printed and only for the use of government
officials. The copy possessed by the library is beautiful
in binding and printing. Some early voyages and
expeditions to the Philippines will be found in the very
rare and valuable "Relations de divers voyages curieux,"
of Mechisedec Thevenot, published at Paris in 1696.
Handsome and quaint type proclaims the far wanderings
related by Maltre Thevenot, the editor of those volumes,
and in his name we seem to scent Notre Dame de Paris.

Other works of interest are Le Gentil's "Voyage
dans les Mers de L'Inde" pubUshed in 1789 at Paris,
and "Leyes," by Mallet, Paris, 1842. This has a fine
atlas of which the library is fortunate enough to have
two copies. These atlases are of commercial as well
as scholastic value.

There are various editions of Paul de Gironi^re's
"Vingt Annees aux Philippines" in the original and
in translation.

228 BUILDERS OF A NATION

One exceptional treasure is the third volume of
Sinibaldo de Mas "Estado de las Islas Filipinas en
1842," published in 1843 at Madrid. The first two
volumes of this work are common enough, but only
five copies are known to be in existence of the third,
which was published privately. They were used only
by Spanish officials and curiously enough we find a
recommendation to give the islands independence.

In the American Circulating Library w^e have,
"pour la bonne bouche," dainties indeed. "Indiscreet
Letters from Peking," by Putnam Weale, which has
had the rare distinction of some great books of having
had pressure brought to bear to prevent the issuance
of a second edition. It tells in a stupendous and lurid
brilliancy a far more terrible tale on the threshold of
the year 1900 than the siege of Troy. A wonder volume
of Hopkinson Smith's "Venice of Today," illustrated
so finely by his own hand that one is drawn from the
text, so fascinating are the illustrations, and then sent
back to the text, so enthralling is his fresh style.

"Egypt and its Monuments," by Hichens, illus-
trated by Guerin, of superb workmanship, is not far
behind, and finer still is the work of the most warm-
souled, soaring of the moderns, prince of poetry, Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, with the poem "The Blessed Damozel''
illuminated by plates. The "Royalties of the World"
in colors, crowned heads in all their gala toggery, will
be especially interesting just now at the coronation
time. These plates can be copied also for fancy dress
if the lovers of such things desire.

Among books in series we have foremost the Oriental
series: twelve illustrated volumes which make alive
the riches of China and Japan; Rudyard Kipling in
the Scribner twelve volume edition, making once
again to glow in beautiful type the stories of the wizard
of the East; Shakespeare in the Eversley edition, Sloane's
"Napoleon Bonaparte," and those handbooks of paint-
ing , published by George Bell, gems which are little
aesthetic delights.

THE PHILIPPINE LIBRARY 229

Among the old books which are drift wood of
literature and have each doubtless whole histories of
adventure behind them before they are caught and
catalogued in some library to the supreme annoyance
doubtless of their adventurous souls, we have: "Old
New York," by Dr. Francis, "The Flush Time of Ala-
bama," "Pioneer Mothers of the West," "Life in the
Clearing versus the Bush," "After Icebergs with a
Painter," all in those sober, quakerlike bindings one
used to see on the shelves of one's grandfather's book
case and take down and return so promptly concluding
they were beyond one, but now, on the contrary, they
are full of the spice of ye olden time. The names of
these old publishers have often passed out of the market,
so rapid is the rise and fall of literary stars.

Most unique among these old timers is a "Phoe-
nixiana," commercially of value from its rarity, and
its sister by the same author, whose title is a gem,
namely: "The Squibob Papers," sketches and burlesque
that open with a Fourth of July address which should
make the author immortal, as it is, strangely enough,
both witty and original. This volume is dedicated
to General McClellan. Another tome, dog-eared and
decidedly the worse for wear, looks as if it too had passed
through active service; it bears the title "Life of Gen.
Francis Marion" and opens with the trenchant quota-
tion: "0, that mine enemy would write a book,"
rambling on in the quaintest of quaint prefaces. How
times have changed from the grace and charm of the
old time "Gentle Reader" playfulness and familiarity
of reader and author — commercialism and modernism
have crushed that out long ago. Here is a journal
of travel of Lewis and Clarke to the Columbia River
in the year 1804, with frontispieces of most imposing
looking gentlemen in astonishing waistcoats and high
stocks. What romance of real life is suggested by such
titles as "Don Bosco," which gives the glimpse of great
personalities, Cardinal Lavigerie and many saintly dead
all but passed out of mind. Then there are tomes

230 BUILDERS OF A NATION

of professor's essays, in the correct leather bindings
those gentlemen always use to preserve their immortal
works in; and into this group of sedate dignitaries, as
often happens, has obtruded the "Famous Funny
Fellows," by Clemens, which has a sketch of the Clemens
from which we extract this pearl, "Your own expe-
rience may teach you but another man's can't. I do
not know anything for a person to do but just peg along
doing the things that offer and regretting them the
next day: it is my way and every body's," which is
almost equal to Lincoln's "Children do as well as you
can and you will get along somehow, I always have."

Then of course the grey heads are here, the dear
old fathers of literature: the classics, and the world
books, Don Quixote and Boileau!

"Memoirs of the Duke de Sully," another obtru-
sive library author is here and a bit of ancient science
and courtesy, Simpson's Euclid, is delicious in its pom-
pous dedication to the king. Think of a first class
scientist today, prefacing his world knowledge with
an obsequious dedication to a monarch!

The old magazines are mines of gold worth hours
of study and research, "human documents" of priceless
value to the student of manners and of history: Godey's
Ladies' Book in which your grandmother got her styles
and much of her erudition; and here, marvel of marvels,
we find the second number of Harper's Monthly.
Whoever thought they could go far enough for that
into history! And so the delightful company gathers
from every corner of the world, some thirty thousand
of them, an army of dead shades and living spirits
for us to know and they seem to court our attention
and appreciation, if only for a moment. So we read
the "Autres temps autres moeurs," and here in this
delightful company the man and the book will meet
sometimes for pleasure and some day for destiny,
for who can tell what part in the great deeds and great
men books have played?

TABACALERA COLLECTION
BY DR. ROBINSON

By the courtesy of Dr. James A. Robertson,
Librarian of the Philippine Library, the author is per-
mitted to append the following description of the Fil-
ipiniana collection recently purchased from the Compa-
fiia General de Tabacos de Filipinas, Barcelona. This
account first appeared in the "Bulletin of the Philip-
pine Library" for July, 1913.

"The history of the Tabacalera Collection, one of
the most important of all special collections known, is
interesting. The fact that a great commercial company
gathered this collection together makes it all the more
remarkable. As far back as 1883, the then director
of the tobacco company, Sr. Clemente Miralles de
Imperial, began to collect books on the history of the
Philippine Islands, collecting at first only in Spain,
and, in general, only modern works; but his field of
operations gradually extending into all the countries
of western Europe, and the scope of collection being
made to include also old and rare works. It is, indeed,
in some measure due to the company's eagerness in
collecting that the price of Filipiniana began to ascend,
although it is true that the great ascent in prices has
come only since American occupation; and the company
was a great means for the stimulation of sales. The
Conde de Churruca, vice-director of the company,
and the librarian, Sr. Jos6 Sanchez, were also keen col-
lectors, and each worked earnestly to make the collec-
tion complete. Each of the three was imbued by that
true love for books which distinguishes the book lover
from the mere collector, and each one knew intimately
the inside of the library.

"In 1894, the company entered into its first real
negotiations with Sr. W. E. Retana, newspaper writer
and the author of many works on the Philippines, and
well known in the PhiUppines for many reasons, and
with the Madrid bookseller, Sr. Pedro Vindell. After
this time the growth of the library was more rapid.

231

232 BUILDERS OF A NATION

"In 1895, following Retana's suggestion, the com-
pany began the collection of manuscript documents
on the Philippines, which were copied from originals
in the Archivo de Indias in Seville. After 1899, the
choice of the documents copied was left to Rev. Pablo
Pastells, S. J., formerly rector of the Ateneo in Manila,
a keen student in Philippine and South American mat-
ters, and who has spent considerable time in the Seville
archives. In all about 34,000 double folios were col-
lected.

"In 1900, the first large addition was made to the
collection by the purchase of the Retana collection,
then probably the best library of Filipiniana in exist-
ence. Retana had been an eager collector, and both
in Spain and in the Philippines had had excellent op-
portunities for collection. He published a bibliography
of this in 1898, which, with the bibliographical work
of Medina, the Chilean scholar, forms a valuable source
for the study of the bibliography of the Philippine
Islands.

"In 1904, Vindell published his well-known cata-
logue of Filipiniana (much of the work of which was
done by Retana), and the best pieces of this were im-
mediately bought by the librarian of the company,
Sr. Jos6 Sanchez, for the Tabacalera collection. About
this time the company decided to publish a catalogue
of its library. The compilation of this was given in
charge to Sr. Retana, who, with very great assistance
from the hbrarian, Sr. Jos6 Sanchez, finished his work
and published in 1906 a three-volume catalogue under
the title: Aparato bibliogrdfico de la Historia General
de Filipinas deducido de la coleccidn que posee en Bar-
icelona la Companla General de Tabacos de dichas islas.
This publication forms one of the best sources for the
study of the bibliography of the Philippine Islands.
It contains 4,623 separate titles arranged chronologically,
and has much valuable historical as well as bibliograph-
ical information.

THE PHILIPPINE LIBRARY 233

"The library was housed in the main offices of the
company, one entire room being given over to this.
Among its books were various from such well-known
collections as those of Sowelesi, Ramirez, Duke of Alba,
Fermfn Caballero, Marquis of Liedena, Salva-Heredia,
Emperor MaximiUan, Sancho Rayon, J. F. Medina,
Cabezas de Herrera, Barrantes, General Terrero, Tiscar,
Zapater, and others. The librarian had made a card
catalogue of the entire collection, classifying roughly
by subjects, and using as symbols the letters A-U,
each letter representing one section of eight shelves,
and being followed by the number of the shelf and book.
The company, with great generosity, allowed free access
to its collection, and many scholars have worked among
its treasures. Every book is bound, many of them
sumptuously, such well-known binders as Boyer, Bed-
ford, Zahnsdorf, Durand, Menard, Ginesta, Arias,
and H. Miralles being represented.

"Some few of the notable books of the collection
are the following: Transilvanus, Maximilianus: De
Molucds Insulis, Coloniae, 1523; Ramusio, G. B.:
Delh Navigationi et viaggi, 3 vols. Venetia, 1554, 1606,
1565; Fernandez de Oviedo, G.: Historia General de
las Indias, Valladolid, 1557; Alvarez, Francisco: His-
toria de las cosas de Ethiopia, Caragoca, 1561; Copia
de vna carta venida de Seuilla^ Barcelona, 1556 (the first
printed account of Legazpi's expedition, and unique);
Gonzalez de Mendoza, J.: Historia de las cosas mas
notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China,
Roma, 1585 (of this celebrated book, over 40 different
editions, counting translations into Latin, Italian,
French, German, Dutch, and English, have been
printed, 27 of which are contained in the collection);
Acosta, J.: Historia natural y moral de las Indias, Bar-
celona, 1591; Tello, F.: Relacidn, Sevilla, 1598; Orte-
lius, Efdtome theatri, Antverpiae, 1601; Rivadeneyra,
M. de: Historia de las islas del, y reynos de la Gran China,
etc., Barcelona, 1601; Relatione breve del P. Diego de
Torres, Roma, 1603; Chirino, Pedro: Relacidn de las

234 BUILDERS OF A NATION

Islas Filipinas, Roma, 1604; Relacion del levantamiento
de los Sangleyes, Sevilla, 1606; Wytfliet, Histoire uni-
verselle des Indes Ocddentales, Dovay, 1607; Leonardo
de Argensola, B.: Conquista de las Islas Malucas,
Martin, 1609; Morga, Antonio: Sucesos de las Isla^
Filipinas, Mexico, 1609 (one of the rarest of Filipiniana);
Fernandez, Alonso: Historia eclesiastica de nvestros
tiempos, Toledo, 1611; Verdadera relacion de la mara-
villosa victoria que en la civdad de Manila. . . han tenido
los Espanoles contra la poderosa armada de los Cosarios
Olandeses, Sevilla, 1611; Rios Coronel, H. de los: Memo-
rial y relacion, Madrid, 1621; Grijalva, Juan de: Cronica,
Mexico, 1624; Relacion verdadera; y breve de la perse-
cvcion. . . en Japan, Manila, 1625; Leon Pinelo, Anto-
nio de: Epitome de la biblioteca oriental i occidental,
Madrid, 1629; Vocabulario de Japon, Manila, 1630;
Stafford, Ignacio: Historia de la celestial vocadon mis-
siones apostolicas y gloriosa muerte del padre Marcelo
Francisco Mastrilli, Lisboa, 1639; Aduarte, Diego:
Historia de la provinda del Sancto Rosario, Manila,
1640 (extremely rare) ; Colin, Labor Evangelica, Madrid,
1663; San Nicolas, Andres de, Historia general de los
religiosos Descalzos, Madrid, 1664; Combos, Francisco,
Historia de las Islas de Mindanao, Jolo, y svs adyacentes,
Madrid, 1667; and many other little-known, unique,
and rare titles, embracing history, ethnology, linguis-
tics, theology, politics, etc., of which space permits
no mention.

"With the exception of the Philippine Library
before the purchase was made this was the largest
collection of Filipiniana in existence. Its acquisition
gives the Philippine Library, beyond any question,
the richest collection of Filipiniana in the world, and
one that can never be equaled."

THE FILIPINO SCHOOL OF FINE
ARTS AND ITS ARTISTS

, The Fine Arts school on Calle San Sebastian, which
is a part of the PhiUppines University, is an institution
which commands not only enthusiasm on the part of
those who have made such schools and their produc-
tions a part of their study of life, but it does more: it
opens up large vistas for the future in the most delight-
ful avenues of endeavor, those of the creation of monu-
ments and bibelots, those adjuncts of beauty which
appeal eternally to the taste and to the spirit of every
people. The Filipinos have revealed in two branches
or three, of the fine arts, immense talent, i.e: sculpture,
music and painting and, in a few instances, in architec-
ture, though not so conspicuously, as yet. The fine
arts have been housed before in these islands and under
the Spanish rule a school, in its day famous, was located
on Calle Cabildo, Intramuros. Its dean was Senor
Augustin Saez, a good Spanish painter and better — one
who brought to his pupils, such pupils as Luna, Hidalgo,
Enriquez and Zaragossa, not to mention Dela Rosa and
others, the knowledge of the world figures of art, the Tin-
torettos, Riberas, Velasquez, or Delacroix, of whom
they learned the principles of great work and great
thought.

The present fine arts department has been in exist-
ence since 1908; it has quarters in a spacious building
designed by the notable Fihpino architect Felix Roxas,
father of the present mayor. Its facade attests his
genius, as does the stairway (interior) and hall and it
forms one of the adornments of this modernized quarter
of the city.

Sr. Enriquez has been its director from the begin-
ning, when his staff was but three, to the hour when it
has the magic number nine. He has had an art culture
of most unusual breadth and depth. He was born in
Nueva Caceres, Camarines, but has been a resident of
capital cities most of his life: London, Paris and Madrid

235

236 BUILDERS OF A NATION

as well as in his own, Manila. He received his first
art education in the school of Augustin Saez, taking up
cast drawing, life study and history of art, from which
school he passed to the Real Academia de San Fernando,
the "Beaux Arts" of the Peninsula, which has its prizes
corresponding to the Prix de Rome. Here Senor Enri-
quez studied five years, preparing to take up his pro-
fession in Paris, which, on finishing these academic stud-
ies, he began at once, opening at the very center of
the world's art his studio. His taste was for historic
subjects and he received various prizes from the Madrid
Academy for his work. He preferred the stir of passed
events and the dignity of history and her struggles,
which appealed to his imagination and upon large can-
vases he gave this upleap of his mind and soul expression.

Of this first epoch of his creation one of the best
creations was "La Lealtad Filipina." This love of the
vast and spacious drew him into decorative studies and
he left on the walls of notable homes in Europe many
of his finest designs as well as sent them to the residences
of South American millionaires, who became among his
largest patrons. In Paris he lived eleven years and in
its sumptuous hotels can be seen more than one canvas
of the distinguished director of our art school. Among
the most famous of his portraits executed at this time
were those of the Marques de Rivera, one of the foremost
of that city's lords of finance; that of the banker Pru-
dencio Ybanes and his wife, Senor Ybanes being at that
time the banker of Queen Isabela II; another of the
Marques del Togo del Valle and still another one of
the Duke de Banos, the nobleman who had in charge
the affairs of the ex-monarch Don Francisco de Assisi;
and in one of the splendid rooms of this dethroned figure
in his place near Paris there hung also one of Senor
Enriquez' choicest canvases. Anoljher work, "Diana
and Endymion," he executed on command for the hotel
of the Count de Sohns. Leaving London he passed over
to London, where he took an apartmen| in the South
Kensington district and soon was joined by Sargent,

THE FILIPINO SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS 237

who took the rooms below him. They had met before
in Paris and here, in the fogs of the Thames, renewed
their acquaintanceship, which continued, as well as
their devotion to work, for years, in this close relation
under one roof.

Another figure of the Fine Arts school is that of
the professor of anatomy, Serior Miguel Zaragossa, who
was born in the same province as De los Santos Cristo-
bal, in Nueva Ecija, Bulacan. He too received his
first instruction in this academy of Calle Cabildo, under
Saez during five years, when he was a pensionado of the
government, with Hiidalgo, the famous painter whose
body has just been brought back to rest in his native
soil after a life abroad in Spain and Paris.

In the year 1879 they went together to Spain and
studied in the Academia of San Fernando and in this
school this leading artist-master of technique took his
first prizes and for his merit he was again made a pen-
sionado and sent to Rome, where he passed with Luna
three years, Hidalgo leaving them after a short time for
Paris, where he afterwards made his permanent home.

In the "Exposition Regional of Madrid" he took a
second prize; in the Exposicion Universal of Barcelona,
a third prize, in the Exposition of St. Louis a gold medal.
He was professor in the college of the Jesuits for eleven
years, in this city, and has left on the walls of their
institutions some of his best work in portraiture. Seilor
Zaragossa is also a writer of distinguished talent and has
contributed very unusual material on the art of his
country, to the leading periodicals.

Seiior Vicente Francisco, the professor of sculpture,
has had a no less creditable art career. He began his
art studies in Manila in the school of Seiior Lorenzo
Rocha, thus beginning his life work in the most difficult
of the plastic arts, in an atelier in the neighborhood of
the school where he now works. In the Spanish days
he was made a prize winner at the centenary of Sta.
Teresa de Jesus held in this city in '82. In the year 85
he was appointed sculptor of the naval department of

238 BUILDERS OF A NATION

the Philippines, "Esculptor de la Comandancia General
de Marina." In '87 he left for Madrid to present some of
his work at the capital and in recognition of the same he
was made a pensionado by the government, first studying
for four years in the school of "Artes y Oficios," and, on
obtaining a diploma of honor for his rare work done
there, he passed to the Real Academia of San Fernando,
receiving in the modehng class in that school another
diploma. In the Exposition of Barcelona, in '88, he was
awarded a bronze medal for sculpture and a diploma,
in the Exposition at Madrid in '91 honorable mention
in the same subject and, in consideration of a notable
creation of this epoch, was made a member of the famous
literary and scientific society of Madrid, i. e., the "Ate-
neo of Madrid." This work was a bust of Don Nines
de Arce, a writer of European reputation and incident-
ally a minister (of foreign affairs) of Spain. On his
return to Manila in '91 he was given the first prize in
the "Exposicion of San Juan de la Cruz," and in the Ex-
position of Manila (international), in '95, he received
a silver medal.

The work of Senor Francisco's pupils, which con-
sidering their opportunities or rather lack of them of
studying the masters in their work first hand, is nothing
less than astounding and would alone establish him
as an artist of rare ability and superb ability as an
instructor.

Senor de la Rosa, another of the principal profes-
sors, was born in Paco, this city, in 1869. This paint-
er, who stands as one of the foremost figures in the ar-
tistic life of the islands,- received his first instruction
from his aunt, Senora Mariano de la Rosa, a lady artist
of the old school, and then he was received as a pupil
in that Calle Cabildo institution which turned out not
only one but several budding geniuses. He left this
institution, in '96, and for many long months, which
lengthened into years, studied life in its best school,
in the country and on the city streets and took all his
models after nature exclusively; this unacademic method

THE FILIPINO SCHOOL OP FINE ARTS 239

did for the master just what he needed — gave him a
minute knowledge of humann life that was worth all
the rules. All classes and all types of his native land
are known to him and have passed under his brush in
hundreds of sketches, for like all genius, his talent has
been scattered to the winds with the rich prodigality
which only genius, knowing itself invincible, can afford.

Strangely however he has had a passion for impart-
ing his art to his'pupils second to that for creation. So
he has been the means of arousing among young men a
very furore of desire to study and to create. He has
given out his life in this sacrifice and also his time,
which has been their immense gain but perhaps, to his
creations, a loss. That his countrymen have profited
by this there can be no doubt.

He left for Europe in 1908, going after a short stay,
in Genoa, to Paris and remaining there for over a year,
making copies of the old masters and portraits of per-
sonalities of that city, such as the portrait of the Count-
ess Berny. He then went to Rome, where the ancient
city enthralled his virile brush and where he made his
home under the shadow of the Villa Medici. He was
a pensionado on this trip on the local firm "Germinal".
Some of this artist's best works are owned in this city,
such as his portrait of Don Eugenio del Saz Orozco,
the former president of the Spanish bank, and the portrait
of that noble lady of the old regime, Senora Eliza Ipa-
rraguirre, as well as other notable women and men of
wealth and talent in the city. Sefior de la Rosa painted
President Taft when he was governor general. He
received a gold medal at the "St. Louis Exposition"
and "honorable mention" at the exposition in Brazil
in 1911 for the portrait of one of their own painters.

A pupil of Baschet, the admirable French portrait
painter, a student at Julien's, all was a part of that needed
suggestion which his own genius took and profited by,
but was not conquered by. He remained his own
master! His wondrous, spiritual intuitive talent which
he as an oriental possesses, as well as his equally wonder-

240 BUILDERS OF A NATION

ful exactness of reproduction of Nature — he catches
her at her best — gives him a rank as an artist quite
apart from the vulgar. Sefior de la Rosa loves, Life
and Life, knowing the caress of the true lover, comes
at his bidding, enriching his canvases with marvelous
vitality. He is a passionate discerner of truth and
reality. That game of old chivalry which he plays so
well, fencing — for he studied in the school of Monsieur
Merignac (a name surely after Dumas heart) as he
studied it in his own land — shows how many sided is
his love of the tragedy-comedy of existence.

The School of the Fine Arts of the Philippines is
equipped with men of the first rank in training and
ability and its pupils promise to follow in their steps.
Young men like Reyes, Amorsolo, CuUel, Tolentino, Mo-
rales, Javie, Thomas show the initial production for a
distinguished artistic career and they are only a few of
many who are bringing new honors to their illustrious
masters of whom the country is so justly proud.

MISS NORTON'S NEW BOOK OF TRAVELS
"Outposts of Asia"

SOON READY FOR DISTRIBUTION; AUTHOR's BEST WORK

Just from the press comes "Outposts of Asia," by
Morilla Maria Norton, Manila's singer of lofty verse
and mistress of no less beautiful prose.

The book gives Miss Norton's impressions and
experiences during an extended tour through Japan,
Manchuria and Korea together with an interesting
chapter on Manila and the islands.

Not only places but distinguished people are pre-
sented to the reader, and one rises from a perusal of
this charming volume with a sense of having seen the
best of our neighbors and their wonderful countries,
for Miss Norton was granted interviews and opportu-
nities afforded but few travelers in the Orient.

The Magnet Press, which has got out the volume,
has made the book a pleasure to the eye both as to
binding and printing, so it is doubly acceptable as a gift
book as well as to own oneself. It will be on sale within
a few days.

Miss Norton leaves immediately for a second trip
to the Asiatic coast, a trip which it is hoped will likewise
have its chronicle.

241

MISS M. M. NORTON

Excelsior acaba de publicar el retrato de esta sim-
pdtica americana, que es, como dice la misma revista,
una verdadera poetisa manilena.

Ha publicado Miss Norton una serie de poeslas,
que son verdaderas flores del pais, por lo mismo que
estdn inspiradas en el aroma y en los paisajes nativos.

He aqul la traducci6n que hace el referido colega
de una de sus poesias, escrita en un retrato de la Reina
Madre y Alfonso XIII de Espana, en el consulado espa-
nol de Manila:

"Hasta que te ampa-
res a los pies del Senor,
victorioso, Felipe, mi
rey."

I

Estd, en pi6 la Reina viuda y el tono negro de su
traje de luto es grave y severo.

Entre sus brazos, un nino se enlaza & su arrobada
maternidad jy la mujer se alegra de que alin no turbe
sus suenos la realeza!

II

En su pecho, los infantiles deseos de su hijo estdn
alimentados por el amor que le di6 el ser.

No mira & los leones que se abaten d sus pife, aun-
que sean de oro, ni turba su Animo sereno, que duerme
todavfa el confiado suefio de la inocencia, el deseo de
dominar la tierra.

Ill

El trono y el dosel no son para 61 mas que un ju-
guete; sus entre abiertos ojos solo ven el brillo del raso
y de la ptirpura; 61 se rie de esas insignias de un rey y
las desconoce, que ellas no dan la felicidad.

242

BUILDERS OF A NATION 243

IV

Aquf, ante el trono silencioso, ante la callada madre,
agobiada per la pena que la oprime, ante su destine,
ante esa majestad, nosotros sentimos el latido de sim-
patia y reverencia que todo hombre otorga & su hermano.

V
jAsi destinado en tu infantil debilidad d regir una
antigua monarqula, vdstago de su brillante historia,
sombreada per un pasado cuya oscuridad iluminan los
suenos mds santos, tu ninez ostenta mds augusta dig-
nidad, de la que se halla en el trono 6 en la pompa
herdldica!

VI

(Reyes y pompas de los hombres de Estado! jHay
algo, algo oculto en el fondo de tus ojos de nino: el ins-
tinto con que buscas refugio en el pecho de tu madre
y ^e enlazas & su inextingaible amor, la mejor de todas
las cosas que halles en la tierra, ahora y despu6s!

VII

Asi, este momento de un Rey, exaltadb por el Arte,
mds poderoso que todos los monarcas, cautiva al mismo
tiempo mi coraz6n y mi pensamiento, y me parece que
el brazo de tu madre que te enlaza, es un brazo del
Amor, que sostiene el universo con su fuerza. jDel
Amor que es mi Rey!

M. M. Norton.

— El Renadmiento, March Snd, 1907.

SONGS OF THE PACIFIC

"Songs of the Pacific," by Miss M. M. Norton, is
unquestionably the best collection of the poems of that
well known writer yet placed on the market. These
latest poems are dedicated to the sailors of the American
navy on the "big cruise."

It is not an easy task, even for one endowed with
the poetic spirit that sees in nature and all around it
something whereof to sing, to review and criticise the
poetical writings of others; much less easy is it for one
of prosaic temperament to truly estimate the poetic
value of such verses as these of Miss Norton.

There has been a tendency in Miss Norton's former
verses to the vague. There was a something about
them that made them heavy reading, but in this last
collection that trait has completely disappeared. She
sings the Songs of the Pacific in an easy flowing rythm.
Her subject matter is well chosen, her language chaste
and simple. She wrote for the sailor in a language and
style that will surely appeal to him.

While Miss Norton considers the best of her work
to be contained in the last pages of the collection the
writer sees the choice morsels in the early pages. Con-
sidering the purpose for which the verses were written,
told by the authoress herself, there is no question but
that the "Song of the American Sailors," the first poem
in the book, is one of the best, — one that will appeal
most to the sons of the rolling waves.

Mariners we, Jack Tars!

We've sailed under all the stars.
********

Mariners we. Jack Tars!

And we defend the stars.

-Not the stars of the starry night

But the holy stars of the ribbon bright.

*********

— Cdblenews- American.

BIBLIOGRAFIA

"Songs of the Pacific"

By M. M. Norton

Miss Norton, la poetisa de Filipinas, la ideal ame-
ricana que vino i, sonar & nuestra tierra entre nuestras
rosas y bajo nuestra luna, cantando & nuestros heroes
y nuestras epopeyas, identificada en arte, unida en
gran lapso portico con el alma filipina, ahora, al torfiar
de un breve viaje al pais de Utamaro, da & luz un nuevo
antifonario de versos, — "Songs of the Pacific."

Yo OS he hablado ya una vez de esta Miss Norton,
hard un ano, hard diez meses mds 6 menos; yo os he
presentado ya d esta mujer amante de lo her6ico, de
lo noble, sacerdotisa del valor y al suplicio de cuya
lira surgen cantando en ondas de oro las estrofas sonoras
como inmensas dguilas heridas.

Mds, ante su dltimo libro, estoy tristemente ofen-
dido, tristemente impresionado de Miss Norton. Por
que Miss Norton aparece seca, arrogante, ensalzadora
de rojas efem6rides, terrorifica en sus odas A la lucha;
y es que yo anhelo en la mujer lo que es de la mujer,
ese "odor d' f^mina" que diria Sixto Roses; por eso
desprecio y abomino d tanta sufragista, d tanta meque-
trefe como por el mundo se empena en arrogarse atri-
buciones masculinas . . .

Si Dios prendi6 alas de poesla en los hombros
de una mujer, que esa mujer cante la vida, pero la vida
dulce, dulce de amor y Idgrimas, vida del alma.

Por lo tanto Miss Norton me resulta una poetiza
que puede ponerse d la misma altura de muchos poetas;
la poesfa "A Pean" es inimitable, encantadora, toda
Uena de pasi6n y cadencia para esta patria que la ofrend6
sus fiores, que abriga su alma y dd d cuerpo aterido
por las nieves de un sufrir calor de nido, calor de
hogar.

245

246 BUILDERS OF A NATION

"Songs of the Pacific" consta de tres partes: Ma-
nila, Hawaii y Jap6n, hay versos muy bellos escritos
sobre impresiones Intimas; el tomo Ueva la mejor reco-
meiidaci6ii en el nombre de su autora.

Exquisitas, musicales, llenas de sensaci6n son estas
Rimas tituladas: "Manila Bay." — "Father of Moun-
tains."— "A Filipino Love Song."— "Rizal."— "Adi6s."
"Two Islands."— "Nikko."— "Japan."— "Dai Butsu,,
the great Budha."— "Korea."- Y "Dai Nippon Banzai!"

Y para terminar; despu^s de dar las gracias & mi
querida amiga por el ejemplar que tan carinosamente
me dedica, vuelvo d insistir.

Miss Norton, V. que tiene un alma de flor, un alma
de lira, cuando tome d, cantar, cante V. noches de plata,
versos de amor, idilios vesperales y esa vida de valles,
de besos, tan dulcemente encantadora & trav6s de unas
suaves pupilas azules.

Will you do so?. . . .

Jesus Balmobi

— Vanguardia.

OBRA INTERESANTE

Estd en prensa y probablemente & fin de este mes
quedard terminada la impresi6n, una obra, por demds
interesante 6 instructiva, de que es autora la conocida
escritora y poetisa norteamericana Miss Norton.

La obra, en ingles, se titula "Las instituciones ca-
tolicas de caridad en Filipinas," y en ella se hace un
estudio historico muy complete de todos los asilos y
centros benefices erigidos en Filipinas por el espiritu
de caridad inculcado por el catolicismo en su grandiosa
obra de civilizacidn realizada en estas Islas.

En esta obra de Miss Norton una recopilacidn de
datos y hechos aut^nticos que, debidamente expuestos,
constituyen un valioso trabajo.

Suponemos que tendrd una buena acojida el libro.

—Libertas, Feb. 10, 1911.

247

NEW BOOK OUT

"Songs of Heroes and Days," a small volume in
which is collected a number of Miss Norton's poems
which have appeared in the newspapers, is just out.

Markedly original is their style, their themes
appeaUng always to the highest and holiest of human
emotions; they are instinct with that elusive, mystic
something, the soul of poetry.

The opening lines of the Washington poem, for
instance: could characterization be more perfect?

"The lineaments of truth are bathed in serenity
and round their lips

A smile half sad, half debonnaire, that all great
lips must wear." —

"Salve! — Salve! — Santiago!" runs to an exulting
strain of cannon and drums, bugles, wind and sea and
the voice of a mighty throng: it is indeed a welcome
worthy of the fleet that inspired it. The humility of
a profoundly rehgious spirit speaks in the "Prisoners
of Bilibid." It is a confiteor: I too have done and
left undone. Thus with each and all, though not
in some poems as acceptable to the ear, through lack
of rhythm, the lines carry ever their message of uplift.

NEW BOOK BY MISS M. M. NORTON

An Interesting Volume of Description
of Architecture of Old Manila

"Studies in Philippine Architecture" is the latest
publication from the prolific pen of Miss M. M. Norton,
the well known American poetess of the Philippines.

The work is in prose and divided into six sections
or chapters dealing with Early Spanish Structures;
Characteristics of Spanish Interiors; Spanish Patios
and American Verandahs; The Work of Roxas; Heras
— Introduction of Modern Catalina Architecture; and
Old and New Manila Contrasted.

In introducing her work to the pubhc Miss Norton
says: "If these notes taken of an ancient burg evolving
its future from the past through the industry of its
men and women, becoming every day a more fitting
dwelling place of health and enlightenment, shall con-
tribute something of suggestion and inspiration, their
purpose will have been served. They .... are
neither a history of Philippine Architecture, which
y is some day by another pen to be written, nor an aesthetic
pastime. They are t>its of the old walls and old streets
through which we pass from day to day, in which we are
living our lives in the far away land of the Orient, the
land we love and call home."

— Daily Bulletin.

The Baltimore Evening Sun of August 3, 1911, says:
In a privately printed little volume from the pen of
Morrila Maria Norton is given, under the title of "Char-
ity in the Philippines," a careful and detailed account
of the work that is being done by the Roman Catholic
Church in the islands for the betterment of social con-
ditions and the general uplift of the several communi-
ties there. It is dedicated] to the Sisters of Charity and
the Orders of St. Paul of Chartres and of the Assump-
tion, and has been written in appreciation of their serv-
ices to that part of the world in which their activities
are engaged. There are descriptive chapters of just
what is being done by these orders at San Juan de Dios,
San Jbs6 Asylum, St. Paul's Hospital, the Women's
Institute, Looban Orphan Asylum, Lolomboy Model
Settlement and Assumption College.

This book was printed by Staples & Howe printing
firm Manila, Plaza Goiti, publisher and printing firm,
first class workmanship.

250

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"254 ~ — — ^____

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250

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257

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260

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265"

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264

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■ ' 265

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266