Businessman Bacon

When he lately introduced a bill in Congress for partitioning the Philippines and establishing a second native government under the U. S. control in the islands of Mindanao, Jolo, Basilan, Siassi, Tawi Tawi and a few others, Representative Robert Low Bacon of New York dwelt chiefly upon the temperamental and tribal differences of the morose Mohammedan Moros who live in those places and the Christian Filipinos who control the present government at Manila; upon the wisdom and justice of treating these immiscible citizens as the British treated the two strains of Irishmen. (TIME, June 28).

Last week Mr. Bacon read into the Congressional Record what sounded more like the real motive underlying his bill. He called attention to a Department of Commerce report; locating in Mindanao, Jolo, Basilan, etc., at least a million and a half acres as good as, or better than, the acres in Sumatra and Malaya where Dutchmen and Britishers raise raw rubber for the world's markets. He said, in effect, that whereas the "selfish, shortsighted" Filipinos have repeatedly refused to permit U. S. interests to build up a much-needed raw rubber supply, by refusing to permit public lands to be acquired in tracts greater than 2,500 acres, the Moros grateful for self-government, would surely be more farsighted and generous. They would not shy as do the Filipinos at the thought of "exploitation" but would gladly permit U. S. corporations to acquire, besides rubber forests, huge coffee, camphor, quinine and sisal plantations as well, for which there will soon be need according to Mr. Bacon. Like a good businessman he brushed aside the antiquated altruism of the U. S. commission of 1900-1902 under William Howard Taft and the Act of 1902 signed by President Roosevelt, whose sole purpose was to make the islanders fit to govern themselves. "That epoch has passed forever," said Mr. Bacon.

Pedro Guevera, Resident Commissioner of the Philippines, appeared on the House floor to score the Bacon bill, to protest that "Moro" was only a sort of nickname for Mohammedan Filipinos; that "Moros" and Filipinos were homogeneous; of one racial stock, of like temperaments and character.*

*Racially, Filipinos and Moros are homogeneous, both springing from Malayan origins. But in the migrations from Malay there were many distinct tribes, of which the Visayan is now preponderant in the Philippines. The Moros were the last tribe to migrate, after their Mohammedan conversion. They are still classified among the Islands' "wild" tribes and their frequent uprisings against the Visayans are due as much to tribal as to religious animosity.