Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

"You don't suppose Americans will 'hire wives,"" said the wife of an army officer who had remained on duty while she returned to California to regain the health she had lost during her six months' residence in Manila.

66

Certainly not," smiled the captain, "our Americans are nothing like the English, Germans, and Spaniards in that respect. Though if some of them should fall into the customs of the Europeans there, it would be small wonder.

[ocr errors]

The young wife rose and walked into the social hall with a troubled look on her face.

"Yes," said Colonel Handy, "one of the most serious problems confronting us is the climate. When we sailed from Luzon the rainy season had just got well started, yet out of 30,000 men there were 2,500 in the general hospitals, and more than as many more in the regimental hospitals, while it is safe to say there were fully 3,000 more sick in quarters who should have been in the hospitals had there been room. Then it must be remembered that more than 1,200 sick

[ocr errors]

men had been sent to the United States dur ing the two months before we sailed."

[ocr errors]

"It may also be well to bear in mind,' said a captain of volunteers, "that no force of Americans can stay more than a year and a half in the Philippines without becoming totally disabled, so far as campaigning goes. Mr. Robert De C. Ward, instructor in climatology in Harvard University is authority for the statement that fully twenty-five per cent. of the Spanish soldiers sent to the Philippines during the fifteen months preceding the insurrection of 1896 died from the effects of the climate. With our superior hospitals and better sanitary conditions in the camps, we have never been able to keep the percentage of the sick lower than twenty-five. When we reached San Fernando the number on the sick roll of the volunteer regiments amounted to from fifty-five to seventy per cent. of the entire force of many regiments.'

Captain Bevans admitted the truth of these statements, and stated his second reason for declining to debate the affirmative of the colonization question. "Remove the climatic barrier," he said, "and we have left the fact

2

[ocr errors]
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]

THE AUCTIONEER FINDS NO BIDS.

Capt. Bevans: "We shall sell the Filipinos flour and beef, cheap cotton goods, cheap lumber, cutlery, clocks, watches, and jewelry."

that American labor cannot compete with Chinese and Filipino cheap labor. I have here a copy of the Review of Reviews for April in which Samuel W. Belford, assistant adjutant general to General Otis says: 'The best skilled labor at Manila receives the equivalent of $15 per month in gold, while the average earnings of the working classes. will not average $4 in gold, out of which provision must be made for the support of one's family.' Belford knew what he was writing about, and we all know that he stated the fact; so I see no need for a discussion of the colonization scheme, and if that has been claimed in favor of annexation, I yield it at once.

[ocr errors]

The chairman-" But, captain, how about opportunities for men with capital to locate there?"

[ocr errors]

Capital," replied the captain, “can make money anywhere, if wisely handled, but in the Philippines it would meet the Chinaman who has been master of the mercantile field for years. With his cheap living, shrewd business judgment, and tireless industry, he is a dangerous competitor for the small capital

ist, as San Francisco has been learning for the past twenty years. Millionaires might find responsive fields for their money, but not so good or safe as are afforded in the United States, besides I am not fool enough to advocate the forcible seizure of territory for the purpose of making multi-millionaires of millionaires when no benefit can accrue to labor. I am an expansionist, an annexationist-an imperialist, if you please—but for far better reasons than that of colonization. have been emphatic on this point because I don't care to run up against a buzz-saw. Every man here knows that colonization is more impractical for Americans in the Phil. ippines than for the British in India, yet after long years of rule there the English population consists wholly of military men and civil servants of the government, with a few own ers or managers of business houses."

I

"How about gold?" asked the chairman. "Where gold can be found in paying quan tities the American will go in spite of climate."

"For three hundred years the Spaniards have hunted for gold on the island of Luzon.

[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »