FILIPINOS ARE "REGULAR FOLKS"
Simms, William Philip
Filipinos are "Regular Folks" Of the 10,000,000 Population Less Than One-Tenth Belong in Semi-Civilized Category. By WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS William Philip Simms, famous as a war correspondent and...
...The remainder are the real Filipinos in much the same sense as the real Americans are the civilized people who supplanted the Indians...
...One of the most refined homes I ever had the honor of entering was a Filipino home...
...All these groups and tribes represent less than a tenth of the total population of the Islands...
...Only 886,999 of these belong to the semi-civilized category, the non-Christian class...
...a straight-haired dwarf people of Mongol affinities...
...One of the prettiest gills I ever saw was a Filipino girl...
...THERE has been more rot written about Filipinos than probably any other people in modern times...
...Poker is the most American of indoor sports...
...There are 10,350,730 people in the islands, according to the last census, which is not yet off the press...
...Much is always made of the story that their favorite viand is dog-meat and their costume, of course, is abbreviated to next to nothingness...
...There is nearly always a bunch of Igorots or Ifugaos exhibited as Filipino natives...
...Most Filipinos, I vaguely thought, dressed in a gee-string on week-days and on special occasions, like the capture of an unfortunate missionary or something, they added an extra string of colored beads...
...Before seeing the Philippines for myself I had somehow got the idea that the natives were mostly reformed head-hunters and that their favorite dish was rabbit-hound...
...Mongoloids...
...The truth is the average Filipino is the best fox-trotter, onestepper, hesitator, waltzer, shim-mier, and toddler that ever shook a couple of ankles...
...In short, the Filipinos taken by and large, are regular folks, and whether Democrats or Republicans, American politicians in Washington, when they come to discuss the question of whether or not the people of the Philippines are ready for independence, will do well to remember this...
...Polygamy and other Mohammedan customs are still practiced, but the younger generation is attending school and drawing away from such customs...
...These natives are to the mass of Filipinos precisely what the American Indian was to the American colonists...
...Still it is not an uncommon thing in America to see pictures of grizzled old murderers holding onto the skulls of their victims...
...She was the kind you would like to have holding on to your arm as you entered I'Abbaye, in Paris, conscious that envious eyes would be leveled at you—and her, Like Old South THE most enthusiastic poker players I ever saw, in any clime, east or west, are the natives of those very islands...
...The negritos, a dwarf people of the negro type...
...They are mostly Pagan or Mohammedan...
...third category of the backward tenth...
...By WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS William Philip Simms, famous as a war correspondent and writer on international affairs, has made a personal survey of conditions today in the Philippines for 400 newspapers served by the Newspaper Enterprise Association...
...Primitive Malays make up the...
...They have manuscript books, principally historical or religious works or relating to magic...
...The partially civilized minority, or non-Christians, are the Pigmies, Indonesians and...
...pictures of fierce-looking negritos staring wild-animal-eyed out of trees...
...Among these are the Tinguians, Bontoks, Igorots and Ifugaos, all living in the mountains of the northern Luzon interior...
...Gentle, courteous, they wait on you at table, keeping your plate filled with specially prepared dishes and, at one stage or other, never fail to introduce you to some carefully guarded bottle of rare Spanish- wine, or some liquor of which the host is particularly proud...
...Your hosts cannot do enough for you...
...to determine what course the United States shall pursue with the islands,—Editor's Note...
...All the rest are church-attending, church-going Christian people, who till the land, live in houses, rear families and carry on in more orderly fashion than some communities in the United States...
...and a hairy dwarf, a cross between the aboriginal Australian and Japanese Ainu, are the Pigmy peoples...
...Have Own Books OTHER Mohammedans live in the southern islands—in the Sulu Archipelago, at the southern end of the Province of Palawan and the Provinces of Zamboanga, Cotabato and Lanao, Island of Mindanao...
...Of the Moros, the Lanaos and Maguindanaos have a culture of their own and in their own language some are literate, reading and writing a sort of Arabic...
...The Moros follow the Koran and the Turkish authorities are recognized in religious matters...
...The Indonesians, who came to the islands later, were a tall people of an Asiatic cast...
...The Moros belong in this part of the country...
...He dresses in Broadway styles, probably has a college education, knows how to mix a salad dressing better than a French waiter and, if called upon to do so, could make Chauncey M. Depew look at his laurels as an after-dinner speaker...
...First among the guilty come the World's Fair press agents...
...It was not so elaborate as some I have seen, but one have I witnessed more beautiful devotion between brothers and sisters and parents and children...
...The hospitality of the Filipino is proverbial and reminiscent of the Old South, now rapidly disappearing...
...pictures cf nearly nude females under the caption of "Filipino Belles," and so on and so forth, all conveying the impression that of such are the Philippine Islands made up...
...His stories on the results of this survey are especially valuable at this time when the Wood-Forbes Commission, appointed by President Harding, is making a similar survey...
Vol. 13 • September 1921 • No. 9
