Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1920 — SOME FACTS ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES [ARTICLE]

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES

The University of Santo Tomas Is 25 years older than Harvard. The Filipino people number 10,850,640, of which 9,495,272 are Christians and only 9 per cent non-Chrlstlans. They have been Christians for 800 years and have a culture and refinement that will compare very favorably with that of other nations. There are only 6,684 Japanese In the Philippines. There are about 100,000 Japanese in California alone, or 15 times as many as in the entire Philippine archipelago. English Is taught exclusively In the Philippine public schools. Two mil-lion-natives now speak English fluently, and there are 700,000 English speaking children In the public schools. It is destined to be the national language. Seventy per cent of the Inhabitants of the Philippines over ten years of age, according to a census Just completed, are literate. This is a higher percentage of literacy than that of any South American country, higher than that of Spain and higher than that of any of the new republics of Europe whose independence is being guaranteed by the Allies. The Filipino people are unanimous in their desire sot independence. Whenever they are called upon to deposit their ballots they have always ratified this aspiration. At every session before adjournment their representatives In the Legislature reiterate their faith in the principles of liberty and the independence of the Filipino people.

The Filipinos deciare they have ne grudge or grievance against the American people. Their appeal Is accompanied by a message of friendship and gratitude for all that America has done for them. They point out that Uncle Sam gave Independence to Cuba, and they hope that they, too, will receive that boon without which, they declare, no clvlllied and patriotic people car enjoy! the maximum of happiness and self-respect

A special delegation of Filipinos, of flclally representing the Filipino peopie, attended the Republican and Dem ocratlc National conventions, seeklnj an Indorsement of the Filipino desir« ;for Independence ih the two platforms Their arguments, briefly stated, wer< ; as follows: First.—That the American Declaration of Independence declares thai • governments derive their just powen from the consent of the governed; Second.—That the American Congress, In the Jones law, solemnly promised the Filipinos Independence upos the establishment of A' stable government, and that their claim that the said stable- government is now in e» istence in the Islands has been officially confirmed by Americans own representatives there ;; and Third.—That America went before the world |n the recent war aS the avowed charhplon of "self determination,” American soldiers having been told It was one of the thing* they were fighting and dying for. •, ,