Filipinos Freed?

For 143 years the U. S. has gradually increased its domain by battle and bargain until today 137,008,435 persons live under its flag from Point Barrow on the North to Pago-Pago on the South, from St. Croix on the East to Balabac Island on the West.* Last week Congress sent to the White House the first bill in history proposing that the U. S. decrease its territorial empire.

The bill was H. R. 7233 providing for the independence of the Philippines. Fortnight ago the Senate, without a record vote, adopted the final conference report on the measure. Last week by a standing vote of 171 to 16 the House followed suit. Last session the House first passed (306 to 47) H. R. 7233 after only 40 minutes debate. Last week it disposed of the islands in 60 minutes.

A veto is widely expected when President Hoover returns from his Florida fishing. He will probably have a hard time mustering the Congressional one-third necessary to sustain his disapproval. Though he has never publicly committed himself on the issue, two potent members of his Cabinet, Secretary of State Stimson, onetime Governor General of the Philippines, and Secretary of War Hurley, who visited the islands as President Hoover's "eyes & ears" in 1931, have been loud in their opposition to turning 13,000,000 Filipinos loose. Common arguments against freeing the Philippines: 1) they are not economically or politically prepared to govern themselves; 2) their freedom would upset the delicate balance of international power in the Far East; 3) U. S. citizens who have invested $197,000,000 developing the islands would be wiped out by the economic chaos to follow; 4) the U. S. would breach its moral trust to prepare the Filipinos for self-government; 5) Congress has no constitutional power to alienate U. S. territory.

History-The House's hurried action climaxed 34 years of continuous agitation for Philippine freedom, following the islands' acquisition by the U. S. from Spain on payment of $20,000,000 under the Treaty of Paris (Dec. 10, 1898). William Jennings Bryan campaigned for the Presidency on that issue in 1900. William Howard Taft got his political start as the islands' first civil governor. Democrat Francis Burton Harrison proclaimed a "new era" when in 1913 he arrived to govern them. The Jones Act of 1916 declared: "It is, as it has always been, the purpose of the people of the United States to withdraw their sovereignty over the Philippine Islands and to recognize their independence as soon as a stable government can be established." Said Presidents Harding and Coolidge: "The time is not yet." In 1928 and 1932 the Democratic platform declared for "immediate independence."

Not until the farm lobbies in Washington put their husky shoulders to the issue did Philippine independence make more than sentimental progress. Cane raisers in Louisiana, beet growers in Utah, were told that duty-free sugar from the Philippines was ruining their business. Philippine cocoanut oil was competing with domestic cottonseed oil. Manila hemp seemed to be hurting U. S. cordage producers. These miscellaneous economic units were pulled together in one grand and wholly selfish drive to put the Philippines outside the U. S. tariff wall by means of making them a free and foreign country. Louisiana's loud Senator Long frankly exclaimed; "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. That applies to the cotton for the Senator from Mississippi [Harrison] and to the sugar for the Senator from Louisiana [himself]. So what's the argument?" At such an unabashed expression of motive, the Senate rocked with laughter.

Machinery, H. R. 7233 proposes the following machinery: Within two years the Philippine Legislature is to call a convention to frame a republican constitution which must be approved by the U. S. President and the Philippine people. Thereafter an eight-year probationary period will follow during which the U. S. will retain control of the islands' International affairs, foreign loans and defense. A U. S. High Commissioner will replace the Governor General. Filipinos will be restricted to a U. S. immigration quota of 50 per year. Duty-free sugar imports to the U. S. will be limited to 850,000 tons per year, cocoanut oil to 200,000 tons, cordage fibre to 3,000,000 Ib. To give Filipinos a taste of the tariff, collection of an island export tax equal to 5% of the U. S. tariff rate on different goods will begin in the sixth year, rise to 25% in the tenth. On July 4 following the ten-year period the President will proclaim the Philippines a sovereign commonwealth and the U. S. will withdraw all civil (but not military) authority.

To prove to the House that the Philippines, which he visited last autumn, are ready for independence, South Carolina's Hare, H. R. 7233's sponsor, cited these personal observations: "The school is the best index to the character and intelligence of a people. . . . I was greatly impressed with the architectural design of all the school buildings. . . . They are all painted. ... I was further impressed with the lawns, flowers, shrubbery . . . the orderly arrangement of desks and chairs. . . . The furniture was not marred with pencil marks. Placards were placed high on the walls of schoolrooms. Some I noted:

Health and dissipation never go together.

The cost of a sanitary closet will be much less than your doctor's bill, if without.

A clean face produces no pimples.

A healthy scalp harbors no dandruff.

Vegetables are prods to lazy intestines.

"These prove to me that the people have an advanced conception of the modern rules of life and that they are capable of establishing and maintaining rules of conduct equal or superior to those found in many of the old and independent nations.''

Brown Views-Final passage of H. R. 7233 filled brown little Camilo Osias, Philippine resident commissioner in the House, with a sense of personal triumph. Cried he: "Mr. Speaker, I rise to give thanks! When this bill becomes law, it will be a new charter in human liberty which the people have gotten heretofore only through bloodshed. . . . The provisions of the measure will be carried out in a manner which will do credit to the American people as well as to the Filipinos. . . . Patriotic Filipinos can ill begrudge the hardships that may be occasioned, knowing full well that liberty has always entailed great burdens and responsibilities. . . . I'm happy and I'm grateful. I envision for my people a future grander and more glorious once we are independent and free."

Badly muddled was Manila's reaction to passage of H. R. 7233. Owners of Benguet Consolidated, best Philippine mining stock, which has just paid a 50% dividend, dumped 2,000 shares at 50 centavos (25-c-) below the market quotation, so alarmed were they over the economic consequences of independence. The Philippine Legislature, sitting as an Independence Commission, wrangled and haggled from dawn to dark over H. R. 7233. Manuel Quezon, President of the Senate, denounced it as an insincere "joke," claimed it was foisted on the islands by National City Bank's investment in Cuban sugar. Cries of "Immediate independence or nothing!" rang through the chamber. Finally the legislature resolved to cable its Washington representatives that it was "willing" to have President Hoover sign the measure but not urging him to do so.

Next day steamship and factory whistles blew, crowds lined the streets for a parade--but not to celebrate the news from Washington. Ignoring that, most Manil-ans were honoring Jose Rizal y Mercado, patriot executed by Spaniards in 1896.

*Last U. S. expansion: purchase of the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25,000,000 in 1917.

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