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Show The Spoliation of the Phiilippines. Freeman's Journal: In the October number of the American Catholic Quarterly Review there is an article entitled "The Work of the Philippine Commission," from the pen of Mr. Bryan J. Clinch, which should be read by all who wish to get an insight into the kind of work the Taft commission is engaged in. In the first place, Taft and his fellow commissioners- are attempting at-tempting the impossible in trying to make ttie Filipinos abandon old customs, cus-toms, old laws and eld methods and accent ac-cent instantly and without questioning iews that have the indorsement of the foreign rulers who have been forced upon them. A student of history would have told the Talt commission that such attempts, at-tempts, whenever and wherever made, have proved abortive. As the writer in the American Catholic Cath-olic Quarterly Review points out, the Republicans of Fiance in the last quarter quar-ter of the eighteenth century tried I v hat cur commissioners in the Philippines Phil-ippines are endeavoring to do. The miserable failure the French met with in attempting- to fit other people to the French Procrustean bed should serve a? a warning to the Taft commission, who have confidently entered upon the work of remcldinir a whole people in a 7'ew months. The writer of the article in the American Catholic Quarterly Review to which we have referred gives us the description of the task they have undertaken to perform: "I hj Taft commission seems engaged on a task in the Philippines like that which the French c'tizen commissioners commission-ers tried so unsuccessfully in Milan and Naples. It is trying to mold the language, lan-guage, religion, schooling, laws, land tenures, methods or" taxation and cor-rorate cor-rorate life of a people of 8,000,000 within with-in a few months. It is doing al' this, not in accordance to the wishes or wants of that people, but on ideas borrowed bor-rowed from the experience of a community com-munity foreign to them in language, tace, ideas of government and social life. The commissioners are not men experienced in administration or acquainted ac-quainted with even the language, much less th? character and the history of , the millions whose'destiny they under- ' take to mold so confidently. Two of them are college professors and three lawyers. Moreover, their task is not to apply the. principles of government devise a new system for Philippine con-ditnns, con-ditnns, different either from what the Filipinos are used to or Americans use fo;- themselves. "This is a fair statement of the stupendous stu-pendous work our commissioners have t ndertaken to perform in the far-away Philippines. They are in no way daunted daunt-ed by the task before them. They landed land-ed at Manila in June, and in November Novem-ber they sent to the secretary of war a report, the dominant note of which was cock-suredness. In five months the two college professors and three lawyers had succeeded in learning all ' that was worth knowing, and they rendered ren-dered their judgments with the air of experts. They were sure that the natives na-tives were not fit for self-government, and therefore advised that the franchise fran-chise should be severely limited. To acknowledge that the Filipinos are ca- able of taking care of their own affairs would be a condemnation of im; erialhm, which is based on the assumption as-sumption that the S,O0C,000 inhabitants of these Pacific'! islands must 'be governed gov-erned from Washington for their own good. . .: One of these ; commissioners, Mr. Dean Worcester., had visited the Philippines Phil-ippines twice before the Snnnkti. American war, : and had written a book, in which he roundiv abused the Catholic priests of the islands. It is easy to guess his attitude toward the religion of the Filipinos an attitude that he assumed in common with his fellow commissioners. We believe the writer in .the American Quarterly Review Re-view is fully justified in asserting: "The elaborate plan, imposing a compulsory com-pulsory school system, moulded on "non-sectarian' lines, on the Catholics of the islands gives further reason to believe that the rooting out of the Catholic religion is a prominent object of the commission. Mr. Moses, who, we are informed, is a Swede and familiar fa-miliar with the system of intolerance I of. Catholics, still prevailing In Sweden, Swe-den, has been charged, with the task of providing schools for the people whom (Judge Taft would leave without priests." This criticism is borne out I by the fact that whilst the commission' strictly prohibited the people from electing any Catholic "ecclesiastic," a Baptist minister. Rev. Mr. Brink, was appointed to take charge of the schools in one of the large islands. A Catholic priest familiar with the language and the customs of the people is unfit to hold any official position in connection with the schools in which all the pupils pu-pils are the children of Catholic parents, par-ents, but a Protestant minister who knows not a word of Spanish and is a foreigner, naturally prejudiced against (lia f,nfV-.Tin mlitrinn ia fnlK- rrmrP- tent to direct the schools attended exclusively ex-clusively by Catholic children. This is Judge Taft's idea of "non-sectarian schools." The American Catholic Quarterly Review Re-view article sums up the situation when it makes a comparison of the methods employed by England to rob the Irish of their religion with those resorted to by the Taft commission to deprive the Filipinos of the priceless gift of religious faith. We quote once more: "Any person familiar with the English penal code and the attempt made by some English politicians to draw the Irish people from their faith by the means of public schools cannot but be struck by their likeness to the methods suggested by Professor Moses.' the municipalities must have no voice in the matter, and the schools must be entirely controlled by irresponsible agents of the government at Washington. Washing-ton. In like manner the national education edu-cation of Ireland was handed over in 1839 to the control of a Presbyterian, minister. The exclusion of Catholic instruction from the Irish schools was required as it is oy Air. Moses in the Filipino schoools. The ignoring of the native language might have been taken bodily from the Eng- j lish school legislation in Ireland. The commission does not go quite so far as to make it a felony for a Catholic to teach school, but the spirit which describe Catholic schools as incapable of giving a rational education is the same as that which moulded English legislation." Yes. the motive which was back of English legislation in respect re-spect to" Irish schools is identical with that which animates Taft and his fellow fel-low commissioners. An attempt is made to win away Filipino children from the religion of their fathers, even as the English sought to proselyte Irish children by handing over the schools to Protestant control. It is not mere accident that no American Catholic is on the Philipppine commission. commis-sion. In common decency the Catholics Catho-lics of the United States should have been represented on a commission which exercises ' autocratic powers in dealing with questions vitally affecting affect-ing the Catholic Church. But a Catholic Catho-lic commissioner would have been unwilling un-willing to fall in with the programme of proselyting Filipino children. There- fnra nn Cnllinlin it-oc onnninturl tn Vintfl in check the anti-Catholic bigotry which has manifested itself ever since the commissioners set to work to Protestantize Pro-testantize the Filipinos. |