Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 233, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1910 — WANTED A New King for Palawar [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WANTED A New King for Palawar

L nOr. i A-KiSk’LJ A

HE Tagabanos are disconsolate, for their man-god, soldier-king is dead. Salip Akib and Salip Tomi, the pirate Moro chiefs, are again despoiling the peaceful and fertile island of Palawan, for was not the man they had come to fear as the devil incarnate seen to tumble ingloriously from a boat, flounder helplessly and

fiins to the bottom. Lieut. Edward Y. Miller, the governor of the most outlying of all Uncle Sam’s territory, and the inspired uplifter of its people, has been drowned ip the course of duty and where is the man who will be able to fill his place ? This is the question that is facing the Filipino government and the Bureau of Insular Affairs. This is the question that is bringing to light a piece of work that has been carried forward in the wilds of the great East that is as full of romance and accomplishment as the most fanciful yarn aver spun by the imagination.

For Lieut. Miller, U. S. A., has for eight years been absolutely ruler over 34,000 people; wild, barbaric, unchristion. He has single-handed brought peace to those people in the place of continuous warfare. He has repelled the Moro pirates in many pitched battles, armed and drilled his natives and • made his coasts a place to be shunned ■of all else by these gypsies of the sea. Yet Miller died inglorlously a month ago from falling overboard from a boat in the still waters of an Inland stream. The Moros have learned of the nature of his death in such a simple emergency that any mere native would have been able to save himself. The fear of him and his kind has consequently vanished and the Moros are again at war , . Dean C. Worcester, American secretary of the interior for the Philippines, came a little later into Palawan to Emergency Governor Evans, was attacked by the Moros and much blood has been shed. All is chaos in Palawan, where peace has reigned for six years. The insular bureau and the provisional government is s (looking the 90,000,000 over for a man who can fill the place of the dead (governor-king, but with little hope of (success. All of which leads to the story of Lieutenant Miller. He was at the time of his death a member of the Twenty-ninth Infantry, but had never seen that regiment and was unknown to its officers. This because of the fact that he had been, since the time of his appointment, on detached duty as governor of Palawan. At the breaking out of the Spanish-American war he had been an officer in the Chicago militia and had enlisted. His service was with the Fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry and had first taken him to Porto Rico and later to the Philippines. He served in the outlying southern provinces anfl his superiors soon recognized his genius for (getting along with the natives. Because of it he received his appointment in the regular army and his detached detail. Lieutenant Miller wag but 24 years ©ld when he first enlisted. Yet he left a soldier's sweetheart behind him in Illinois and when he received the permanent detail the sweetheart came Into the wilds to him and they were married. All the years between then and now Mrs. Miller has spent at the side of her husband, and hand In hand they have sought to lead the way for their charges from the darkness of barbarism to the light of civilization and to better living. They have left behind a monument of accomplishment that is perhaps unequaled in the history of so small a force working for the-unlift. Palawan is the very outpost of the (Philippines. It lies in that great reach of the Island that runs out to the southeast, two days’ Journey nearly to (Borneo, and separates the China Sea (from Sulu Sea. It Is a strip of land 20 miles wide and 275 miles long. Timbered mountains store the moisture which makes its valleys perennially feritle. Its long coast line offers itself to the spoliation of the Moro pirates, who have swarmed through these waters for centuries and have preyed continuously upon their natives. The mountain people and those of the valleys are wild but sweet natured and simple. They are the Tagbanos, good-natured wanderers, for whAn much hope is expressed. Yet all was chaos, and war never ceased in the old days. It was into these conditions that Lieutenant Miller brought his young wife. The men of the army protested against such exposure, but the yotmg officer believed that he knew the natives better than they and that he was safe with them. He established ■himself at Puerto Princesa, which had once been a Spanish town of some Imiportance, but had become a deserted city of the south seas. Here he made his capital and here, he began his work with the natives. » Soon he was able to muster a numtber of cnoaen young natives into a militia organisation. These he sup-

plied with arms and drilled. His alm waa the repelling of the Moros. Salip Aklb had long been the terror of the coasts. The natives had ben Ineffective as warriors and the trades were at the option of the pirates. Lieutenant Miller was well prepared before he struck a blow. Then one summer night the news was brought that the pirates were ashore at a village up the coast and the natives were being robbed of their stores and animals. The raidprs had gorged themselves, had stolen a score of the pretty women of the settlement for barter in other ports and were carousing in the village. The governor massed his constabulary and crept upon the town. The pirates were surprised, but expected an easy victory. But they had reckoned without the big American, who was a fiend when aroused. His followers had been drilled into efficiency, but were yet timid, not knowing their strength when armed with American guns. But they followed their chief to battle in fairly good part The pirates were cut to pieces and the band broken up. The American that day won for himself the title of “the demon.” The timid natives learned that they were able to stand against their hereditary enemy. The gratitude of the whole community came to the governor. Recruits came to his arms. The band of Salip T>mi gave the second big battle in the working out of the problems of this Isolated law and order scheme. “The demon" met this band under similar conditions and the results were the same. The timid natives found that they could fight apd that they liked it. They placed themselves at the of the governor and did his bidding without question. They came to call him king and his word was law. They carried the tales of him to the ends of the island and all the people proclaimed him. None would have dared stand against him, even had they not loved him. He gave his orders as to cessation of war among the tribes and the allotment of land. In two years he had brought peace Into the whole island and found it in readiness for his real programme. The fear of his arms among the Moros became so great that for six years before his death there was not a piratical raid on any pan of the island. The natives called him king, and his powers with them were absolute. To all Intents and purposes he was in reality king; for them there was no authority in the land but his. Being a practical man. Lieutenant Miller knew that if the people prospered. it would be through a cultivation of their fertile soil. They were mostly nomadic, .wandering from place to place. He exerted all his influence to get them to settle down and make themselves permanent homes, cultivating more land. The Tagbanos, or inland people, were the favorites with the governor. They were intelligent, tractable, musical, lovable. He determined that he would do something for these people to fix their habits and tie them to the soil. It was in the carrying out of this plan that he lost his life. The? Aborlan river r.uns Inland through valley near Puerto Princess. Twenty-six miles up this stream Governor Miller selected the

site for'a model colony he planned to plant. Here he would erect a school that should be an agricultural and demonstration plant. Here he would get . the children of the Tagbanos to go to the industrial school. On the fertile lands that lay round about 'he would locate their parents. These he would show how to farm at the same time that the children were attending school. He would teach them the virtues of a farm life by actually demonstrating it to them. Governor Miller told his little plan to the provisional government and secured an appropriation with which to begin it. A little money he made go a long way, for the natives volunteered to do the work without charge, and there was not much call for the fine finish. The colony was this spring drawing on toward completion, and an it was the particular pet of the governor, he formed the habit of running Up to see it every night after work in a gasoline launch. It was while returning from one of these trips that the launch was upset. Governor .Miller, though a great, strong, athletic man, had the vulnerable point of an inability to swim. The men who knew him were surprised to know that he should drown in a narrow river. They supposed, of course, he could swim. But when the boat turned over the King of Balawan, the savior of the people, the man who had started the thousands on the road to development, went unceremoniously to the bottom and his native companions dived for hours before they were able to recover his body. So there had settled down upon Palawan the gloom of the great loss. The people mourn the death of the American as they have never grieved for anything before. The great work which he has established for them is at a standstill and its future is iu doubt Such work requires the gen ius of a man who fits into just such a nook, and civil service or the discre tion of the men higher up is unable to determine just what are’ the qualities needed even were the man with these qualities idealist enough to givt up the world to which he has been ac customed to live among the people oi the wild for the sake of doing good. And the Moros, these Samals or gyp sies of the sea, are again at their depredations. They had thought thia big American a demon, a thing oi supernatural strength and of charmed life. Yet he had sunk and drowned with his boat turned over. So would all his kind. They would throw the next big American overboard and drown him. Before a congressional committee last winter Major General Bell, chief p! staff for the army, was telling of . some of the remarkable men of that service and of the effective work they lyere doing. Lieutenant Miller was cited ns the most prominent of these. General Bell told of his work, and concluded by saying: “I had heard it stated that he could not be replaced by a company, probably not by a battalion, and possibly not by a regiment of troops." This was merely from the military standpoint of keeping the peace, assuredly the island overrun with troops would not have the benefilca’ effect upon tho natives that was bemg accomplished by Miller.