as The Indolence of the Filipino aimed at. It may help on the present
improving understanding between Continental Americans and their
countrymen of these "Far Off Eden Isles", for the writer submits as
his mature opinion, based on ten years' acquaintance among Filipinos
through studies which enlisted their interest, that the political
problem would have been greatly simplified had it been understood
in Dewey's day that among intelligent Americans the much-talked-of
lack of "capacity" referred to the mass of the people's want of
political experience and not to any alleged racial inferiority. To
wounded pride has the discontent been due rather than to withholding
of political privileges.

Spanish Philippine history has curiously repeated itself during the
fifteen years of America's administration of this archipelago.

Just as some colonial Spaniards seemed to the Filipinos less
creditable representatives of the metropolis than the average of
those who remained in the Peninsula, so not all who now pass for
Americans in the Philippines are believed here to measure up to the
highest homestandard.

Sitters in swivel-chairs underneath electric fans hold hopeless the
future of the land where men do not desire to be drudges just as did
their predecessors who in wide armed lazy seats, beneath punkahs,
talked of Filipino indolence.

Ingratitude, to-day as then, is the regular rejoinder to the
progressing people's protest against paternalism, and altruistic
regard for their real welfare is still represented as the reason why
special legislation should be provided when Filipinos prefer the same