MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES
Justoutside of Asia proper as in a proscenium box are these islands, half mystic, half savage, like the kings who sent men out to conquer the world, with sword in one hand and hostia in the other!
No place on earth has had possibly a more romantic experience, full as it has been, of the acts of primitive unchained manhood and the infinitely worse aspects of human nature, the avarice, intrigue political and ecclesiastical eccentricities of civilization. The whole story is written in the annals of these verdant radiant slopes, not all written yet! Then on pages brilliant as some illumined missal is inscribed the devotion of the chivalrous sainthood of Spain. The dramatic element is furnished by the Chinese invasions followed by the British and our own and as you pass along these streets, the walls and towers “cry out.”
Just outside then of Hongkong, the “superb” the Genoa of the East, her prows turned to every point of the compass, her flags the colors of human statehood, of petty kingdoms and massive empires, the gateway of Asia, the Asia of the North, destined like everything Northern to outrank the South, in virility if not in subtility and charm, we of the Philippines have a glance which takes in more than a piece of the oriental horizon it embraces. The chiaro-oscuro after leaving the islands at the end of a long sejour, when as at the close of life, the colors seem to blend into one dominant tone, is a sort of soft grey, enveloping the receding city,built so far away, at so much sacrifice; over all the blemishes the cruelties and crudities of a society hardly half formed, of a state hardly above the first foundations, one’s feeling is wonder and pity, wonder that men and women have had the courage to face it at all, pity for their heroic struggle against ignorance and all the human brood of evils under a tropic sun, which dries the blood in the veins and leaves the nerves tingling to every breath and thought.
But were this all, who would have the power to live out their story here! In the phantasmagoria of this tropical nature there is something ever new, ever fresh, ever upbuilding and upraising, the forces of this universe of which we are a part. There is a measure in this Oriental dawn, like the lines of Omar Khayyam, which swings in the rhythm of the hours. Every day we feel we can, every day we do! Then in the embrace of the transcendant peace of the Oriental night, we learn to watch and wait, knowing we shall be soon with “Yesterday’s seven thousand years.”
There is something in the atmosphere, a certain occult fluid, which takes the place of ozone and strange as it may seem these sunburnt, sunscorched lands have rushing over them the gales of ardor, of desire to run the race of manhood worthily, every nerve taut, every tendon stretched.
“Time cannot change, nor fortune stale her infinite variety,” would well describe Manila.
Gathered from the four corners of the earth a motley crowd is her citizen’s roll! Embryo politicians, incipient scholars and philanthropists, altruists of curious conflicting lives and creeds, every social curiosity in the gamut, from those who never saw a ship until they reached San Francisco,who were once a cordon bleu and are now posing as grande dames, (?) to those who have given up all the beauty of some castle height in Spain, or some equally refined home in America to spend their best of life and service as a tropical gift, lavish and unstinted, without thought of return.
We also find all the comical inconsistent forms of religionists of every shade of narrowness and Pharisaism, at once gallant defenders of their faith and guilty of inhuman barbarity to their fellows, intriguing clothed with piety, just as in the old, old days, but where is “the milk of human kindness” on the other hand sweeter to the palate, sated as it must become with all else, where do you see lips quiver more tenderly over a sorrow, or eyes light more divinely at noble word, or deed!
There is something intensely human, in our city, expressed by the Spanish word “simpatica”! All the personalities are so well known, so intimately and injudiciously discussed and so ineptly criticised and then in a moment of abandonment, the praise is so real, the encomiums worthy of an Attic sage!
The heroes and favorites are after all well chosen in our city and her gratitude outlasts many a more ambitious burg! There is heart in what Manila does, often almost incoherent heart, but what is the rarest science, the most ambitious churchism, to one drop of that pure wine of goodness and enthusiasm, “pure and undefiled” like Him who went about doing good?
Slowly we are evolving a city from the middle ages to the present type of town, full of modern action and our institutions are rising from a substructure long preparedby the past.
Work along the humanities at the Catholic university ofSt.Tomas and by the Jesuit Fathers, at their famous school, the “Ateneo,” has prepared the way for a national university whose buildings are rising and whose instruction has already commenced.
The work of the nuns, Spanish and French and German, has been an excellent training for Filipina mothers and their family life.
They have formed whole generations of good women, whose grace and true womanhood put to the blush most of the American, or European importations, with their petty jealousies, their slanders and their utter frivolity.
Today the Filipina girl, like her sisters in every land, aspires to greater learning and the way is being opened also for them.
Still in bastion like walls within the walled city, whose ancient moat and ramparts are the pride of our town, you can see as in a vision of other more refined days, under cape of black, white and of soft outline, faces glowing with a devotion to the highest ideals, not of our time. They are like a rare vintage in crystal from the sunny slopes of Spain, or France, uplifting all women at the sight and shaming the ignoble types of today!
Spain taught her children scanty science, if you will, but if we teach these people one half the goodness she left in their souls, we may congratulate ourselves, congratulation we are not likely to be worthy of, unless there is a speedy change for the better.
Our hospitals are several of them, of the latest equipment and directed by the devotion of well instructed nurses.St.Paul’s, under the supervision of the catholics, though free to all in its beautiful catholic spirit, is perhaps the most popular institution in the city. French devotion has made it the delight of the sick and weary.
Among new hospitals are the “University,” the “Civil” and the parent of all “San Juan de Dios,” an ancient institution of splendid traditions.
“San Lazaro” for infectious diseases will some day be one of the foremost of its kind in the Orient. We need sadly a home for the aged, as our over-crowded alms house is not up to date and we ought to have other provision for our children. The “Looban convent” where a most lovely charity is dispensed by a mother superior who radiates goodness, with her choice spirits about her, needs more assistance and sympathy. The “Mary Johnson” hospital is combining a training school for nurses and the Municipal Board is encouraging in every way the training of young woman in this most necessary branch of learning. The sanitary conditions of the city are slowly being put on a par with those of other cities. A new water system just opened brings the purest of mountain liquids to our homes and down in the depths of earth a drainage up to date is being laid. We need a first class hotel large and combining the charms strangely little utilized, of our climate and delightful nature. Our present hostelries are by no manner of means to be as severely criticised as they are, as they afford quite a fair degree of European comfort. Buildings for trade, commodious and lofty and pretty private villas are going up in all parts of the city. Our water front, an unsightly mass of made land, awaits the hand of the architect to raise the state buildings, adorned with the symmetryof art to embellish our chief glory the wide, cool stretch of ground we call “Luneta” where we hope to see soon the statue of Rizal, who is the chief glory of the New National life!
A trip through the Southern islands on one of the “Smith Bell” steamers, affords entrancing pleasure and variety of experience, and the summer capital of Baguio and hot springs and sylvan sights are reached by the Manila and Dagupan Railway. We have a press which has talent but is handicapped by a narrow and very false idea of conservatism and there is a disposition to restrict its freedom, which is a sign of weakness if not of culpability. Great states and great people are not afraid of criticism nor even slander. Innocence is subjected to both, here as elsewhere, and the most innocent the most subjected here as elsewhere.
Who, but loves this people who has lived among them, not expecting perfection, nor a degree of disinterestedness which we do not as a Nation possess nor as individuals illustrate?
The Filipino has qualities which the longer you know him, commands your respect and sympathy and his imperfections are no more disagreeable than those of more highly developed peoples.
She wants freedom, this great, beautiful land, and some day it will be hers. The day she has it depends largely on herself and on those men and women of ideals and of ideal lives, whether Spaniards, Americans, or her own who march with the uncrowned monarchs of the race, not towards the spoils, but the toils of each day, head high, hearts light, because pure from greed and remorse.
A free people not in name but in reality.
We have Clubs galore, English, German, French, Spanish, Filipino, the “University Club” and the “Columbia,” this last especially for young men. These clubs would compare favorably with those of other cities of our size.
Politically the islands have taken strides since the opening of the “Philippine Assembly,” a body of men which has done credit to itself already. The future of the islands, its prosperity lies along two lines, mainly education and the agricultural development. Many rich Filipinos are sending their sons to the States to be equipped for the modern struggle, in both.
Our Judiciary is highly praiseworthy, our Supreme Court we are very proud of.
The “Philippine Commission” has had men of considerable talent, men of opportunity and availableness and its rule has not we believe been stained with any greater faults, or crimes, than that of most governing bodies. And it has been distinguished by much work well done.
Some witty foreigner has said:
“America is rather old to give as an excuse for her blundering that she is young,” behind that sarcasm as behind all there is just a stinging grain of truth. Our blunders as our self-assurance, the latter very largely responsible for the former are often as amusing as instructive to lookers-on of older civilizations, especially to those of the East, who like the grandmother with the small boy, are startled and perplexed at all the fancied improvements, she having spelt out that wonderous word “life” which is the most bewildering in its meaning, some time since.
The aged granddame the Orient is being taught by asomewhat flighty and exceedingly imperious and headstrong youngster and she smiles through her wrinkles often a superfine smile as she has seen so many toy inventions and toy states rise, fall and even pass from memory while she still lives on. She enjoys the spectacle of western sweat and energy and she watches as all age does to see what sort of beings this fancied superiority has produced. It is no wonder she still keeps on smiling as she sees the pitiful result of so much dazzling modernism and exquisite theories and grandiloquent faith shattered the moment you touch its adherents. It is a very, very old story as old as when woman first bore the transgression for herself and for man and through her patience and heroism brought atonement. But the sun still rises in splendor over Manila and we hope and wait and long, as they have since the first whiteness followed the first darkness—for the day. There is late talk of giving up the task America has set herself in the East. If she does, it will be another sign of the triumph of those qualities which are disintegrating her life at home, greed, ambition, social, religious and political, the unsatisfied passion for pleasure which makes her one of the most lawless and frivolous modern Nations.
If you touch an orange it will roll over but many shocks will not turn a world out of its orbit, for it is held in the hand of One, who can guide a tangent, quite as well as a steady methodical body, and who can remove at will a whole astral system. What the future holds is one of the most solemn enigmas but only what America is can she put in here and “would it were worthier.”
Across the East the dawn is coming, not because the Westis come to teach her new forms of greed and ambition, but because the forces within her, the eternal primeval elements are stirring and forming in the combinations which mean life.
Within her will come her salvation, not from without, from the Oriental himself will come the best of his future.
Western civilization has failed to produce on any large scale, noble character, the East knows it. It has watched the falseness of the state craft, the greater falseness of its religious love of aggrandizement, it has seen in the adherents of the latter no reason to choose them as a pattern, quite the contrary.
The simple truthful faith of Christ whose ethical teachings are so direct, so free from sophistry, a child might read it has been and is today, the excuse for the darkest crimes. Said one of the leaders of the Christian faith in Japan, “It is only with sinking heart one can point to a faith which bears such fruits, when the so-called heathen can teach us any day conduct which outshines ours as the sun a glow worm.” From within must come the truth of God in her own soul as men are every day more powerless to live it or teach it, though the truth remains eternally vital.
May the God of light guide this great, glorious Orient into a future of illustrious achievement and untarnished ideals.
PRESS OFSTAPLES PRINTING CO.142 ESCOLTA