under the term "Filipino." The line of demarcation is to them at least as definite and as sensitive as is, to a Frenchman, the line that protects France from the terror across the Rhine. Yet the Filipino confessed-the Christianized lowlander-outnumbers the others ten to one. And it is exclusively of him, this Filipino proper, that the next chapters will speak, leaving both Igorot and Moro for later thought.

As to the Filipinos, then:

Malays as they are, no caste system exists among them. And they show but two classes-the cacique, or moneyed class, which bosses and from which all politicians come; and the tao, or peasant class, which is bossed, and which has, in practice, no voice whatever in governmental or political affairs. The cacique class numbers perhaps six per cent of the total, and rests, not upon inherited position, but wholly upon the grip of money and of political influence, however recently acquired.

Speaking always in general, the cacique has one occupation -"politics"; one industry-usury; one hobby-gambling. Whatever he or his friends may profess for purposes of foreign or domestic propaganda, his acts show him fundamentally indifferent to the fate of the great mass of the people—of the ninety-four per cent, whom he mercilessly exploits and oppresses and whom he holds in open scorn mingled with a sort of bitter resentment due to the mingling, in his own veins, of the people's blood.

For the cacique is a mestizo, as the Spanish called him—a hybrid. He is a Malay compounded with the Spanish or Chinese.

Chapter II

THE MARK OF THE BEAST

THE political unit in the Philippine Islands is the little cacique -the small local boss. This is the keystone fact in the make-up of Filipino-conceived control.

The little cacique takes his orders from one a size bigger than he. And so on up to the seats of the Big Caciques in Manila. Much as in Tammany's plan, but with an essential difference.xm

Voters there are, but an idea of the probable independence of their ballots may be derived from what is later to be said on such topics as usury, peonage and the channels and possible strength of public opinion.

To picture to yourself the figure of the little cacique, you must first deliver your mind from the treacherously recurring subconscious idea that he is a brown-skinned New England squire living in a tropical Lexington or Concord.

Because he is not, and does not. He is the local political boss, who lives, unless he is an absentee boss, in the better house of a very pretty village, or a barrio.1

The barrio, like the village, is mainly composed of one- or two-roomed shacks, whose walls and roofs are made of screens woven of grass or palm-leaves neatly lashed upon slender bamboo frames. The shacks, whose life is from two to three years, are single-storied and stand high on stilts. This arrangement not only keeps them relatively dry, in raintime, but also gives an open storage place beneath. Here are kept, beside the big

1 The whole territory of the Philippines, regardless of population, is divided into municipalities. A barrio is a segment of a municipality. This is the Spaniards' arrangement.

2

basket of rice on which the family subsists, the cook-pot, the wooden plough, the two or three fowls, and also the carabao and the pony, if the household is so rich as to possess them. No sanitation exists, and the invariable pig, although ultimately eaten, is maintained primarily to serve for the nonexistent closet. No other provision is made either for sewage disposal or for the pig's support. His hip bones almost cut through his skin. He is always starving. His hunger, in the intervals of his duties, often drives him into the highway, which he clogs. His sides cave in and all his ribs protrude. In every way piteous and embarrassing, he is the adjunct of every home, and is to be found as certainly in the skirts of the city of Manila as throughout the provinces.

Anywhere from five to fifteen persons, adult and children, may inhabit these one- or two-room dwellings. The rooms may be eight by ten feet square. At night every aperture will be shut tight to keep away the malignant spirits that fill night air. But by day the screens are pushed back from the windows, and all the simple intimacies of life are laid bare to the passer-by, including the inevitable noontide hunting parties co-operatively conducted through the family's hair.

There may be a new-fangled artesian well in the barrio. But even if there is, many are the ancient uses of a little drainageditch beside the highway. Here, within a space of fifty yards, I have seen women laundering garments, women washing dishes, women scrubbing meat for the pot, a man washing a dog, a pig nuzzling, and several naked youngsters kicking up the mud, while others dipped drinking water in earthen vessels for household use.

The people of the barrio speak a certain dialect-one of a possible eighty-odd. They know no other tongue. And the confines of the little field in which its dialect is spoken are the confines of any barrio's knowledge of the world.

Tenants of the cacique for the most part, and tillers of his soil, the people work fairly steadily, considering the facts that 2 A water-buffalo, the draft animal of the Philippines.

all are undernourished, that over eighty per cent have worms and that their economic outlook is dull. Their congenital passion for gambling would of itself be enough to keep them always in debt, and practically every barrio of any size has its cock-pit-which, by the way, is in far better repair than its rickety skeleton church. The women may be credited with whatever is done in the way of conserving of funds, but barrio people are doing well when they pass from crop to crop without a starvation interval between.

Six pesos 3-three American dollars-is the average family's entire income for a fortnight. And how big six pesos can look may be gleaned from a narrative related by Major-General E. B. Babbitt, U.S.A., of a personal experience in the Islands,

General Babbitt one day conceived the idea that he would like to go a-fishing. So, being in Manila, he picked up a friend and rode out to a promising spot in Laguna Province, where he bargained with a tao fisherman. Two good days the party spent, and in the end paid their man six round bright silver pesos-three dollars American-much money. So that the tao went home to his shack treading on clouds. And after he had handed the treasure to his wife, the pair sat late into the night planning and dreaming about the wonders it should bring forth.

But the news of those six pesos somehow leaked out into the barrio. Like flame on oil it flew, swift to the presidente's *

Whereupon the presidente sent for the tao and, without reasons given, threw him into jail.

In jail, then, the wretched man cowered, silent, uncomplaining, half-dead with shapeless fear. Until, the time being enough, the presidente sent for him and said:

"It appears that you are a very evil fellow. You are a robber-a bandit. What have you to say?"

The tao stammered out his protestation.

3 A peso equals fifty cents gold.

4 Head man, mayor.

"But the Americans say you are a bandit, and you must be shot," the presidente went on.

The tao wept. The presidente pondered, with deep-ribbed brow and introspective eyes. Finally he spoke: "It is true that these Americans are a rough and violent people. But I am a cacique. I am boss of the barrio. I have, of course, much power. A way might be found. . . but, no!"

The tao implored, fawning.

"No-no-it is impossible. It would cost too much.-Now, if I had six pesos-if there were any way of getting six pesos -I might be able to arrange it-to buy the Americans off."

"May it please your honour-send and call my wife," moaned the tao, beating his hands on his breast.

The wife came hastily to the presidencia. Together the pair took distracted counsel, while the presidente waited, solemn and aloof.

"May it please your honour-I have six pesos-just six pesos in the world-I will run and bring them-" the woman finished, crushed.

So the cacique received the six pesos, the woman went home to weep and the tao went back to jail.

Two days later the great man sent for the prisoner. "I have bought off the Americans. It was very difficult. You are lucky," he said. "And yet-I think you would do well to take your wife and make off to the hills. You never can trust these Americans. If they come back and find you here there is no telling. They might . . . !”

The tao shook again with fear-even as he was meant to do. And, still shaking, thanked the cacique humbly, picked up his wife and his bolo, and departed in haste to the mountains, there to become in good earnest a robber of wayfarers and all unprotected folk.

The bottom cacique is the ultimate, natural and essential channel through which his own bosses, in their ascending series,

5 Town hall.