A considerable although disputed sum was finally, however, raised. And because this "Independence Fund," whatever it was, came through individual effort, public interest for the first time enquired as to its administration. La Nación said: The beneficial influence of the action of Insular Auditor Wright is now being observed, for at the meeting of the National committee for the Independence Fund, Representative Rafols explained the necessity of strict economy by abolishing superfluous services and reducing salaries. It is understood that an account of all the expenses and activities of the independence commission will be presented to the public, together with a list of all the employés and their corresponding salaries which until now have been kept from public knowledge. . . . The sending of useless missions, like that which went to the United States knowing that it would find Congress adjourned and President Wilson in Europe, will not be repeated. Yet not so easily, nor at all, did the officials of the Commission accede to the demand for publicity in the matter of disbursements, and the Filipino press agreed that it was not always advisable to publish expense accounts. El Debate, for example, was ready to concede that the Commission should enjoy "intelligent publicity compatible with secrecy which they have a right to, in view of their delicate work." But in June 4, 1924, the Manila Times (American) carried an open letter from Representative Gregorio Perfecto of the National Committee on Collections, giving a list of the reduced salaries or per diems as allotted from the new Independence Fund. Aside from accounts with beneficiaries in the Philippines, this letter gave figures as to the members of the mission then in Washington as follows: Manuel L. Quezon For clothes, P1800 ($900) monthly. Per diem during stay in the United States, at P180 a day, P5400 monthly. Manuel Roxas For clothes, P1800 monthly. Per diem, during stay in the Sergio Osmeña For clothes, P1800 monthly. Per diem, during his stay in the Claro M. Recto For clothes, P1800 monthly. Per diem, during his stay in the This statement omits mention of expense, entertainment and transportation arrangements. Next day, however, the Philippines Herald, violent Independista organ, had a moment of emotion. In the past patriots not only fought but died for their country. To-day we still have patriots who are also fighting for their country. . . . They are paid hundreds of pesos a day and are fêted and banqueted and honoured. ... And on top of that P1800 given them for well-tailored suits that Beau Brummell may hide his face in shame when they appear on Pennsylvania Avenue, spick and span, the cynosure of feminine eyes. On April 30, 1924, the Attorney General of the United States rendered his opinion on the question raised by the Insular Auditor as to the constitutionality of the act of the Philippine Legislature creating a standing Independence Fund. Upon this opinion, the Insular Auditor made final his suspension of payments under the Act. Without going into the grounds of the Attorney General's decision it may be stated that he held the Philippine Legislature to be wholly outside its powers and province in the matters concerned. Once again it was exhibited as committing its constant offense-overlaying and confounding the executive with the legislative. Once again it had broken the Jones Law, Two days later the Philippines Herald attributed to Representative Perfecto an indirect statement to the effect that this sum represented, not a monthly but a total clothing allowance per person. The point is insufficiently established. 6 Juan de la Cruz is the symbolic name of the tao. and at several major points. Once again it had encroached upon authority belonging solely to the United States Congress. As an epitaph upon the grave-stone of the thing, the Insular Auditor quoted Mr. Justice Field: An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal contemplation, as unoperative as though it had never been passed. The Independence Commission still exists. But its millionpeso special drawing account upon taxpayers' money is cancelled. Chapter XXII AN ANGLO-SAXON PERFORMANCE THE record of the present American Administration in the Philippines has thus far been touched only here and there. It is a great and a strange story, and, to be handled adequately, would require a second volume. Think for yourself what needed to be done, and then be assured that an honest American attempt has been made to do it. Passing over the restoration of credit to a bankrupt and discredited government, the restoration of currency values and of the vanished reserve fund, and the balancing of the Government's budget, all accomplished in two years' time by sheer skill and persistence, not only against the grain of the machine but against the machine's furious opposition-passing over these points as already recorded, we may glance here and there in other directions. For instance: With the coming of Governor-General Wood, the use of the governmental health structure as a political perquisite could no longer go on undisturbed. "The tremendous waste of human life in these Islands can and must be stopped," said the new Executive, early.1 And continued not only to say it but to act upon it so vigorously that the idea has become almost as afflicting as that embodied in His Excellency's companion verdict: "Free and unsecured circulation of public funds among political friends is finished." The attacks of the political leaders been ceaseless and not without effect. sapping and mining, General Wood had upon this salient have But, in spite of their succeeded, by the end 1 Message to the Sixth Philippine Legislature, October 27, 1922. of 1923, in forcing down the general death-rate by 14 per cent below that of the last year of Harrison. Real vaccination campaigns have been renewed; smallpox has almost disappeared; cholera, too, has been driven out; the fight against tuberculosis is once more resumed-and so it continues along the line. Again:-By the end of the second year of General Wood's administration either he or a member of his staff had visited every prison in the Islands, had investigated its condition and had looked into the case of each several prisoner. The result has been, not only a great improvement in the jails themselves, but the release of a large number of persons frivolously or needlessly confined, and the turning of thousands of wretched, diseased and useless lives into sound productivity moving toward freedom. A third example of reconstruction is the checking of the plagues of locusts, of rinderpest and of anthrax that the previous lax government had let loose upon the Islands. By the practical support of General Wood, Dr. W. H. Boynton, inventor of the rinderpest serum, was first able to put his great discovery into such shape as to serve the whole archipelago. This one thing has already saved the farmers over 110,000 draught animals, the main-springs of their livelihood. The autonomized legislature's political plays are still prone to reproduce their old fruit-criminally loose quarantines. But to General Wood's strong, though ever handicapped, intervention is due to-day the survival of the draught animal in the islands. Coming to the schools, public instruction has commanded the Governor-General's lively interest, and, besides a continuous effort to raise fallen and debased standards in general, he has laid particular stress on the importance of farm schools, on the teaching of trades and of domestic science, and on the study and cultivation of the English language. The clearing-out of American school-teachers, now so nearly complete, is rapidly reducing the tongue taught in the provinces to "bamboo English." Many of the Filipino teachers themselves now speak a species of patois dangerously near plain pidgin. And a dis |