In the Philippines

In Manila, a bill was proposed in the territorial legislature forbidding sending through the mails: "Photographs, engravings, lithographs, books or any kind of printed matter depicting any inhabitant of the Philippine Islands belonging to the so-called non-Christian tribes and to the tribes inhabiting the provinces of northern Luzon."

The Director of Posts recommended the bill as follows:

"The government and the people of the Philippine Islands are annually spending large sums of money to show the people of the United States and other foreign countries the state of our culture and the degree of civilization we have attained, for the purpose of securing the aim of our national aspiration, namely, the absolute independence of our country.

"All know that the work undertaken for this purpose is to a certain extent neutralized by the photographs and prints of members of the non-Christian tribes, which the newspapers and reviews are publishing from time to time, either for commercial purposes or in order to defeat the pro-independence campaign we are conducting in the United States.

"These photographs are being sent through the mails, so that the postal service is made an involuntary agent of the propaganda of the enemies of independence."

Governor General Wood made his feelings known some time ago when a similar bill was proposed:

"The proposal would operate to deprive these people themselves of the privilege of mailing their own or friends' pictures and would completely prohibit mailing any scientific or ethnological work concerning them. The Governor General considers it so intolerant and such an unwarranted intrusion upon the fundamental rights and privileges of the community at large and of the so-called non-Christian people in particular that it is unworthy of serious consideration."