LITTLE BROWN BROTHERS
Allen, George Hoyt
Little Brown Brothers By GEORGE HOYT ALLEN (Copyrighted, 1910, The Robert M. La Follette Co.) IDON'T feel competent to write about the Philippine Islands. They aren't on a direct line around the...
...And—I was going to add—it's a foolish thing to do...
...But let us have development, not exploitation.—The California Weekly...
...It may be that the Filipino disregarded the Divine Command, "In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread," and instead stole a march on the Lord, and sneaked back into the garden, past the j.ngels with the flaming swords and has been picking his living off a tree ever since...
...USays Richard Henry Edwards, in his booklet, "Business Morals," "Upon the moral soundness of business relations largely depends the stability of credit and trade, the material welfare of the people, and in the final result their general moral standards...
...Right Side up, With Care...
...Nev-v-vaar...
...All of which goes to show you that the Philippine Islands are a delicate subject to write about, and I honestly wish I didn't have to do it...
...Singapore is on the line...
...And there you are...
...They aren't on a direct line around the world anyway...
...Absolutely undaunted with the impossibility of his task, with a heroism beautiful to contemplate, he goes to it and celebrates just as many as he can anyway...
...They were nice gold mines, too...
...Secretary Ballinger, who had sunken into inglorious desuetude, lately emerged long enough to declare that Alaska should be opened to development...
...Walked a pair of shoes off my feet, hiking over one of the mountain ranges, down in Mindinao...
...THEY tell me over here that the Philippine Islands are the original Garden of Eden...
...Well, to stop talking and say something about these islands— say...
...I was over here nine years ago...
...There was only one thing the matter with them and that's liable to happen to nine gold mines out of ten and I only had seven...
...465 Fiesta Days a Year REALLY I think we ought not to be too hard on our "Little Brown Brothers...
...This is not my first visit to the Islands...
...for the morality which reveals itself at the point of exchange is the working morality of the people...
...Just as sure as I get started on the Philippine Islands, I'll say something foolish—anyway there will be bound to be someone who will say it's foolish...
...It was a beautiful town site, a little wild, but a good site...
...I got the gold fever that time, otherwise I found the islands healthful...
...There wasn't any gold in those gold mines...
...That would be a settled policy all right...
...As are the morals of business, so are the morals of the nation...
...Says Alfred L. Baker, a prominent Chicago business man, "An anti-toxin to corruption is entering the veins of the business world...
...Should I give you his opinion of the Filipino as a laboring proposition, verbatim, you'd have to print it on asbestos paper...
...wouldn't put me on the blink with those of my friends who are so thoroughly convinced that "The Philippine Islands for the Filipinos" should be our settled policy, I would lift up my voice with all the Americans I've met over here and say "pending 'Little Brown Brothers' getting his fiesta days worked off, let the Chinese come in and develop the islands, under the guidance of the Americans now here and more who would come to represent the capital which would come once we had a settled policy and a labor element which could be depended on...
...It's going to take L. B. B. a thousand years and then some to take care of his fiesta days, current and back numbers...
...After several days of this same plaint I ran across one chap who is up against it hard...
...So it should...
...It's a sight to make anyone forget the high cost of living to watch "Little Brown Brother" utterly oblivious to the back number fiesta days to be worked off staring him in the lace, heroically taking hold of the current one—he'd keep the debt as low as possible, that's commendable, isn't it?—to see him go to the day in hand bright and early in the morning, not even taking time to tuck his shirt inside his pants, with a chew of betel nut rightly placed, a cigarette stuck on the under side of his upper lip and his fighting cock under his arm—really if it...
...they say unutterable things...
...The general concensus of opinion as far as I have been able to gather it from the Americans in the islands is, that we have been a blooming lot of unwise politicians up to date in our handling of the situation...
...We'd chuck the sum, wipe off the slate and try to figure it out some other way...
...I never had had the gold fever before and I've never had it since...
...Some of my highly esteemed friends think we ought to pull up root and branch and let the Philippines run themselves, and to do it now, right off quick...
...He's trying to handle a situation where millions are at stake, and where labor is essential to pull the situation to the centre...
...After hearing him out I said, "Well, if we should send over to Shanghai and bring over a couple of Shanghai wheelbarrow boys with their barrows and let them load every Filipino in the islands on to the barrows, good, bad and indifferent, about four million to a barrow (he has been to Shanghai and he didn't seem to think I was proposing impossible loads) and push them up to the crater of some volcano, said crater to be very deep, with perpendicular walls and the volcano bilin' good, and dump them in, that would be unjust, unchristian, cruel, horrible, barbarous, wicked, fiendish and outrageous...
...I'VE been over here several days...
...If I were to write about the Philippine Islands I'd hurt somebody's feelings—they are a delicate subject...
...Widespread business immorality means not merely the undermining of prosperity: it means the triumph of injustice, the degradation of national ideals, and the destruction of some of the highest standards in the people's life...
...After planting our flag and a billion dollars there —to say nothing of the brave boys in Khaki?—Never...
...Nev-ver...
...The fact is I've got a lot of friends who have such a diversity of opinions about the Philippines that 1 hate to say anything about them for fear I'll hurt some of their feelings...
...No, I won't write about the Philippine Islands...
...I'm going to get there as fast as I can—I'll write you from Singapore...
...I traveled the length of the Archipalego on my former visit...
...Does "Little Brown Brother" quail at his job...
...had them all buttoned up with a good tight agreement and the agreement duly witnessed by the native secretary of one of the provinces...
...I'm bound to make a mess of it no matter how hard I try...
...I'm not going to do it...
...It's not in the contract...
...Anyway, he doesn't seem to harness up first rate with the aims, aspirations and ambitions of his big white brother, who is sweating it out as per the rule laid down in the good book...
...I emerged from Mindinao with seven gold mines and a town site...
...Putting two and two together and taking all they tell me without any salt, that may be so...
...They have all with one voice filled me full of the unlimited resources of the islands and in the next breath, "We can never develop the resources without labor and the Filipino as a laboring proposition—" Oh...
...Others say we might consider this thing some time in the future, say in a thousand years, while still others say "What...
...That's a discouraging situation on the face of it...
...He does not...
...I've talk 1 to manufacturers, hotel men, bankers, school-teachers, merchants, rail-Toad men, newspaper men, importers, exporter.—oh, I've buttonholed everything and everybody who can savvey my language for their views of, and their ideas as to, and their opinions concerning the Philippine Islands and the United States' policy towards them...
...Give up the Philippines...
...The poor chaps (Little Brown Brothers) have, the islands over, 465 fiesta days a year to celebrate and only 365 days in a year to celebrate them with...
...They are a delicate subject and 645 miles off my beat...
...I was only to write on my trip around the world, and these islands are 645 miles off the beat...
...To get to them you have to sidestep 645 miles from Hong Kong, which is on the direct and beaten path...
...L. B. B. as a Laborer...
...He said it would, but that there wouldn't be anything else the matter with the scheme...
...You see, it's this way...
...It's dollars to doughnuts that we wouldn't show as much pluck in a like situation as does "Little Brown Brother...
Vol. 2 • November 1910 • No. 47
