Man of the Trees Richard St Barbe

Baker the First Global Conservationist

Paul Hanley
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 ADVANCE PRAISE for
MAN of the TREES

“Richard St. Barbe Baker saw, years ago, what many of us are only now realizing,
that environmental degradation is threatening our life support systems. He is
celebrated by the environmental movement, including environmental activists like
the late Professor Wangari Maathai, for his vision of a healthy future.”
—Wanjira Maathai, Chair of the Board, Green Belt Movement

“There are many books written by Baker on his life and work. However, given the
impact of his life and the prophetic nature of his call to arms to save the earth
though all means possible from military-style all-out attack to people-centred social
forestry movements, I have long wondered why there were none written by others.
At last, Paul Hanley has addressed this omission.…I thank Paul Hanley for seeing
this project through to completion and for making the life and work of Richard St.
Barbe Baker better known globally.”
—Tony Rinaudo, World Vision Australia

“Paul Hanley’s beautifully written biography of St. Barbe Baker reaffirms the
everlasting legacy of a great earth healer; yes, that is what he was, a great earth
healer. Whoever is interested in the right relationship between people and planet
earth should read this book. It is a source of spiritual nourishment and timely
reminder for practical actions.”
—Satish Kumar, Founder, Schumacher College

“The Centenary of the establishment of ‘Watu wa Miti’ (Men/People of the Trees) in

Kenya in 1922 clearly emphasizes the vital durability of the foresight of its founders
Richard St. Barbe Baker and Josiah N’jonjo, who as environmentalists had a clear
comprehension of the important ecological, social and economic roles of trees in the
lives of ordinary people…Hopefully this book will stimulate a renaissance of the
vision of Richard St. Barbe Baker and Josiah N’jonjo and trigger a reawakening of
positive attitudes of society towards trees.”
—Roger Leakey, Vice Chair, International Tree Foundation

“My friend and mentor Richard St. Barbe Baker was a genius at figuring out how to
seamlessly integrate tree planting into the cultural DNA of millions of people from
all walks of life and all corners of the globe. This book is part biography and part
handbook for engaging a new generation in conserving and restoring the world’s
forests.”
—Hugh Locke, President, Smallholder Farmers Alliance – Haiti
 3
MAN of the TREES

RICHARD ST. BARBE BAKER

The First Global Conservationist

Paul Hanley
© 2018 Paul Hanley
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be
reproduced or used in any form or by any means — graphic, electronic, or
mechanical — without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for
photocopying, recording, taping or placement in information storage and retrieval
systems of any sort shall be directed in writing to Access Copyright.
Printed and bound in Canada at Marquis. The text of this book is printed on 100%
post-consumer recycled paper with earth-friendly vegetable-based inks.
Cover design: Duncan Campbell, University of Regina Press
Text design: John van der Woude, JVDW Designs
Copy editor: Marionne Cronin
Proofreader: Kristine Douaud
Indexer: Patricia Furdek
Cover art and frontispiece: Richard St. Barbe Baker holding a tree. University of
Saskatchewan Library, University Archives & Special Collections, Richard St. Barbe
Baker fonds, mg071_baker_m1_holding_a_tree.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Hanley, Paul, author
Man of the trees : Richard St. Barbe Baker, the first global conservationist / Paul
Hanley.
Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-88977-566-4 (softcover).—ISBN 978-0-88977-567-1 (PDF).—ISBN
978-0-88977-568-8 (HTML)
1. Baker, Richard St. Barbe, 1889-1982. 2. Conservationists—Biography.
3. Forest conservation—History. I. Title.
sd411.52.b39h36 2018 333.75'16092 c2018-903899-3 c2018-903900-0
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

University of Regina Press, University of Regina

Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, s4s 0a2
tel: (306) 585-4758 fax: (306) 585-4699
web: www.uofrpress.ca
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing
program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada. /
Nous reconnaissons l’appui financier du gouvernement du Canada. This publication
was made possible with support from Creative Saskatchewan’s Creative Industries
Production Grant Program. This publication has also received generous funding
from the D. F. Plett Historical Research Foundation.
 3
Contents

FOREWORD by HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES

INTRODUCTION by JANE GOODALL

PROLOGUE

chapter one

CHILD OF THE TREES

Fortunately, fortunes change; The temple of the woods; A life mission
takes shape; To kill bears with a spade; Baker’s Southern Wonder; A
practical proposition; No collars at all; Gentling horses; Charlie Eagle
and Beaver Creek; Breaking land, felling timber

chapter two
 CALL TO THE FOREST
War or peace?; Back from the dead; Call to the forest—and social
activism; Back at school; A lucrative dream; Ghosts of Bakers past;
Lost in the bamboo; A paradox; The Treeless Place; Dance of the
trees; Sacked for taking a blow; Uncle Dick

chapter three

SOCIAL FORESTRY
Sustainable yield in Nigeria; A brief idyll in Europe; Igi Oka;
Education or catastrophe?; Baba Wa Miti

chapter four

BECOMING MAN OF THE TREES

In Palestine; Meeting the grandees; The ruse; Feast of the Trees; At
Bahjí

chapter five

SAVE THE REDWOODS!

A slim wallet; Another stroke of luck: Lowell Thomas; Gifford
Pinchot, President Hoover, and the lecture circuit; The cathedral of
nature; Save the redwoods!; With the Maoris; The battle drill; A lone
fiver; I need both legs; A life not his own; He’ll marry a tree one day

chapter six

THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS

FDR and Morgenthau; A new kind of army; Men—and Women—of
the Trees; Like a raven; The royals and the redwoods; The
Scandinavian front; The war effort; A strange likeness of Shaw; World
Forestry Charter Gatherings

chapter seven

A NEW EARTH
An emerging global consciousness; Marriage, children…and trees; A
hectic schedule; The Green Front Against the Desert; On the
continent; Skinned alive; The Sahara expedition

chapter eight

THE DESERT SHALL BLOOM

The most inhospitable route; Mirages and fossils; A solitary tree; A
graveyard of dying races; An international forest reserve; Small fields,
tree surrounded; Congo; Kampala; The ‘Temple of Pure Science’; An
unusual conference

chapter nine

THE VISION UNFOLDS

Join the Green Front!; Other fronts; Land of Tane; At The Firs; Ban
the Bomb!; Wedding bells, again; Retirement?; “The world’s greatest
conservationist”; A global network; The Pope and Dr. Sen; An ever-
wider circle; A World Conference on Desertification

chapter ten

EARTH HEALER
The headwaters of consciousness; The Kenya conference and Maathai;
India’s tree-huggers; A few words to Her Majesty; Declining health;
Ninety years, ninety trees; Children of the Green Earth; A final tour

EPILOGUE

NOTES ON SOURCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Appendix: BOOKS BY RICHARD ST. BARBE BAKER

 3
Introduction

BY JANE GOODALL

I first learned about Richard St. Barbe Baker when a friend gave me a
copy of one of his books, My Life, My Trees. Before I was even
halfway through reading it I was wondering why on earth I had not
heard of this incredible man before, and as I learned more about him I
became increasingly impressed by his life and his accomplishments.
Indeed, he has become one of my true heroes, for he was, without
doubt, one of the greatest advocates for the protection and restoration
of forests ever. And, without doubt, he blazed a trail for many
twentieth-century conservationists.
One of the things I learned about him was that his love of trees and
forests began in much the same way as mine when we were children
and, by a strange coincidence, both growing up in Hampshire. I had a
particular affection for a beech tree in our garden. I spent hours high
up in his branches where I felt closer to the birds. I thought of “Beech”
almost as a person and with him I shared my most secret thoughts.
When Baker was about five years old he went off into the forest alone
and also developed a special relationship with one particular tree—
which just happened also to be a beech tree. She became, he says, a
mother confessor to him, his “Madonna of the Forest.” He would
stand close to her and imagine he had roots digging deep down into
Mother Earth and that up above were her branches, reaching up to the
sky. After such an experience he believed he was imbued with the
“strength of the tree.” (How interesting that I thought of my beech as
a ‘he’ while Baker’s was a ‘she’!)
Baker seemed imbued with extraordinary strength. After serving in
the First World War he became a forester, and for the rest of his life
worked tirelessly to help protect forests around the globe, starting in
Kenya. He was one of the earliest foresters to realize the terrible harm
that was being done to the planet through deforestation. This
realization impelled him to act, and act he did. For the better part of
eight decades, he campaigned to restore forests and reclaim deserts all
over the world, including in many parts of Africa. He
supported reforestation efforts in all the countries bordering the
Sahara and extended his efforts to the Middle East, Europe, North
America, India, China, Australia, and New Zealand. It is estimated
that billions of trees were planted during his lifetime and since then by
people he inspired and by organizations he founded or advised and
assisted.
Some of his dreams—such as a worldwide tree-planting campaign
or a global children’s green movement—were too far ahead of their
time to be realized while he was alive. But he planted seeds of hope
that would flourish through the efforts of many others. Today, the
Billion Tree Campaign has planted more than 15 billion trees and
almost all groups in the youth movement I started, Roots & Shoots,
which involves hundreds of thousands of young people, from
kindergarten through university, in 100 countries, choose to plant
trees as part of their effort to make this a better world.
Baker’s life was inspirational and I hope that this book is very
successful so that thousands of people will come to learn about his
amazing work. And that they will then be prepared, in Baker’s own
words, to “dedicate their lives to the service of the earth.”
3
 Prologue

I met Richard St. Barbe Baker in 1976. He was a vigorous eighty-five.

To me, at twenty-four, he seemed the archetypal sage: snow-white hair
and gentle face, worn by long years of travel; compassionate wisdom
and utmost confidence; zeal undiminished after decades of relentless
effort to save forests on six continents.
He even used a staff.
He had invited himself to the University of Regina, in my
hometown, to lecture on trees. Apparently he was a world-renowned
conservationist, yet none of my circle had heard of him. There was an
aura about him, but who was he? People seemed a bit confused. Was it
his name? Was he considered a saint? Someone called him Sir Richard.
I was part of the Earthcare Group, a university seminar on bio-
dynamic agriculture. It seemed the place to send a ‘Man of the Trees.’
An impromptu talk was organized. Little did we know that Dr. Baker
was well known in the biodynamic movement launched by the
Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, whose ideas Baker had helped
introduce to Britain; or that he was a close friend of Herbert Koepf,
whose book was a course text; or that he was considered, along with
Sir Albert Howard and Sir Robert McCarrison, among the founding
fathers of organic agriculture in England. He never mentioned these
credentials.
After studying his life I now see that his short visit to Regina was
classic Baker. That night we met at an apartment he had
‘commandeered.’ The hosts seemed delighted, if a little surprised, when
dozens squeezed in for a fireside chat. Baker was a storyteller par
excellence. We were rapt as he told us of the first dance of the trees in
Kenya, of the fight to save the redwoods, of his campaign to reforest
the Sahara. His enthusiasm was infectious.
I also met Hugh Locke that night. Hugh’s story is a good example
of the influence Baker often had on people. Originally from small-
town Saskatchewan, Hugh was about to move to London to take a
second degree in architecture. As we walked home that night, he told
me he had decided to combine his studies with offering to be Baker’s
assistant. He did, and eventually this work morphed into a career in
international development. Later, Hugh co-founded Haiti’s
Smallholder Farmers Alliance. Using social forestry methods pioneered
by Baker in Africa, thousands of Haitian farmers are now planting
over a million trees a year, overcoming poverty while restoring the
landscape. Baker is still planting trees, through many proxies.
Also among the guests that night was the provincial minister of the
environment, listening intently. Who invited him? Baker always
courted government officials, the higher the better. He aimed to meet
the top dog and had met dozens of heads of state, royals, aristocrats,
chiefs, and ministers. His message was always the same: Plant Trees to
Save the Planet!
Today, most environmentalists—most people, perhaps—have heard
of Al Gore, Wangari Maathai, David Suzuki, Jane Goodall, and other
world-renowned conservation activists. Though not so well known,
Baker was arguably the first such ‘global conservationist’ and most
certainly a pioneer of the modern environmental movement.
Born in England in 1889, Baker had a long connection to
Saskatchewan, where he had made a stab at homesteading in 1909. He
later became conservator of forests in Kenya and Nigeria in the 1920s,
an international forestry advisor, popular lecturer, and bestselling
author. He was dubbed “Man of the Trees” by the famed American
broadcaster Lowell Thomas, who predicted Baker would someday
marry a tree. (Trees did figure prominently at his weddings.)
The day after our gathering at the University, I joined Baker at the
Indian Head Tree Nursery. The nursery, opened in 1901 to produce
trees for the treeless Canadian plains, was turning out millions of
saplings a year for shelterbelts and wildlife habitat. As we toured the
place, we noticed that herbicides were being used to control weeds.
Baker mentioned that the last time he had visited the nursery they
weren’t using herbicides. When was that? our guides asked. 1910, he
said. Without a hint of criticism, he simply noted he had never used a
herbicide in any nursery or forestry situation in over eighty years as a
tree planter. It really was eighty years: he planted his first trees in his
father’s nursery as a toddler. (No doubt, Baker turned over in his grave
when the Canadian government shut down the Indian Head Tree
Nursery in 2013.)
Baker was well ahead of his time in advocating sustainable forestry.
He predicted the local and global impacts of deforestation and
desertification decades before these were widely acknowledged. In
1922 he started the first international ENGO (environmental non-
governmental organization), The Men of the Trees, which in its heyday
had members in 108 countries. In 1936 he launched Trees, which after
eighty years is considered the oldest environmental journal still being
published. In addition to kings and presidents, his extraordinary
networks of contacts included leaders of thought, visionaries, eminent
scientists, artists, eccentrics, crackpots, and ordinary people
everywhere who loved trees. He had a particular affinity for
Indigenous people, especially in Africa, where he was the first
European inducted into the secret society of Kikuyu elders.
Like his uncle, the explorer Sir Samuel White Baker, St. Barbe (as
friends called him) had a taste for adventure, which he indulged in
every corner of the world. A cowboy and lumberjack in Saskatchewan,
he was among the first one hundred students at its fledgling university.
In the 1970s, his alma mater awarded him an honorary doctorate,
presented by an old friend, John Diefenbaker, the university’s
chancellor and a former prime minister of Canada.
After recovering from wounds sustained in the First World War and
completing his forestry training at the University of Cambridge, Baker
began his career in Africa’s tropical forests. At one point, the territory
he administered was as large as France. An early advocate of racial
equality, he was blacklisted by the colonial service for his interventions
on behalf of Africans, after which he began his ceaseless planet-wide
travels to promote forest conservation.
In his twenties and thirties, he pioneered now familiar development
concepts such as social forestry, permaculture, agroecology, fair trade,
and ecotourism. In his forties, he succeeded in manoeuvring the
warring factions in Palestine into a collaborative reforestation scheme.
In his fifties, he campaigned to save California’s redwoods. In his
sixties, he crossed the Sahara on a ground-breaking ecological survey.
In his seventies, he traveled the length of New Zealand—more than
1,500 kilometres—on horseback. In his eighties, he took up the study
of Chinese, intending to cross the Gobi Desert on a Mongolian pony.
In his nineties, he finally made it to China.
His greatest obsession was the idea of reforesting the Sahara by
way of a military-style campaign requiring an army of twenty-two
million tree planters. Twice he traveled around that desert—and once
through the middle of it—visiting every Saharan leader to promote the
project. Queen Elizabeth recognized his efforts to save the world’s
forests by awarding him the Order of the British Empire.
That’s it in a nutshell. But as you read about his life in detail, what
emerges is a portrait of an indefatigable conservation hero full of
paradox. Baker was a sylvan Don Quixote, a forester who rarely had a
steady income, often surviving on the largesse of others. He was at
once humble and self-aggrandizing; was equally at home in a thatched
hut or a mansion; was by turns paternalistic and progressive,
conventional and eccentric, soldier and peace activist.
 By today’s norms, readers will find aspects of his early attitudes
toward Africans antiquated, even offensive. No attempt is made to
whitewash his comments from the 1920s. By 1966, in his book Sahara
Conquest, we see he has rejected the “scramble for colonial power,
which unfortunately characterized the latter part of the nineteenth
century” and embraced the African liberation movement. As his story
unfolds, we see the gradual transformation of his consciousness as he
sets aside the Edwardian values of imperial Britain and becomes a
world citizen and an ally of Indigenous people. Significantly, he
recognized in the traditional cultures of Indigenous peoples he met in
Canada, Africa, New Zealand, India, and elsewhere, keys to rectifying
the dominant mechanistic worldview that sanctioned the systematic
destruction of the ecosphere.
Serendipity was his currency. He had a way of being in the right
place at the right time to nudge others, whether presidents or popes, to
action.
Or did he? At times, his stories strain credulity. Did he really plant
the seed that became Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps? Did he
deliberately exaggerate his role? Did he consciously craft his own
mythology?
Clearly, he was a visionary, a charismatic speaker, an engaging
writer, a great campaigner. In 2006, when the United Kingdom’s
Environment Agency proposed the one hundred greatest eco-heroes of
all time, there is Baker. He is ranked below figures such as Rachel
Carson and Al Gore, but, curiously, above the Dalai Lama, Charles
Darwin, Mahatma Gandhi, and even Gautama Buddha!
Some things are certain: He started planting trees as a child and
never stopped. He mobilized thousands to plant and protect billions of
trees. And the thousands he inspired carry on his work.
Dr. Baker’s epitaph can be distilled to the words of his favourite
poet, Henry Van Dyke:
He that planteth a tree is a servant of God,
He provideth a kindness for many generations,
And faces that he hath not seen shall bless him.
 3
CHAPTER ONE

Child of the Trees

Bumbling about the nursery, stopping now and then to sniff

buttercups, a child drenches a bed of pine seedlings from his
little watering can. Now he salutes his “troops,” popping off the
seed coats of the tiny “soldiers” with the flick of a sharp twig
“sword.”
He races through the damp yard and gardens. Roses are in
bud. The cattle are fat. Fowl flap and scatter as he runs past.
With the Queen on the throne, the colonies rich and vast, “The
Firs” on sunny Beacon Hill on the fringe of a pine wood in the
south of Hampshire is secure, blessed in its soil and the mildness
of its weather—a blessed spot to be born and tend trees.
Richard plays childhood against this bucolic backdrop, with
the suffering and sinister world, its dark satanic mills, well
 beyond the hedgerows. Home is innocent, pastoral, Arcadian, a
world of country parsons, farm folk, God-fearers. Embraced in a
fair wood of oak, beech, and pines, it is a green and pleasant
land.

FORTUNATELY, FORTUNES CHANGE

C
harlotte Purrott, the only daughter of the local squire, had
refused to marry John Baker, a man who could not provide in the
manner to which she was accustomed. Baker, being of inauspicious
means, was more intent on serving the Evangelical Revival of the times
than pursuing the family tradition of a Cambridge education and life
as a wealthy country gentleman, an ambition further interrupted when
he was cheated of the family fortune by its trustees.
When Miss Purrott’s father also lost his money, this time in a
business venture, she wrote John Baker:

Dear John,
My father has lost all his money. Please marry me.

He did. And so Richard was born, on October 9, 1889, to a father

who had taken up his hobby, nursery work, to make a living. Richard
grew up drinking in the world of trees and tree care with his mother’s
milk.
His was a loving Christian home earnestly dedicated to the virtues
of the time: pious worship, hard work, and the Arcadian ideal—a
simple harmony with God’s creation, His reflection seen in nature, an
honest agrarian life.
Beside the work of planting, tending, and selling trees, John Baker
involved himself with missionary work. He built a Mission Hall
seating three hundred people in his own garden and set to work filling
it with people from the neighbourhood. The work attracted
missionaries from abroad, including the likes of General Booth, the
founder of the Salvation Army, as frequent guest speakers. The
Mission was a haven for all. The poor and unemployed were
welcomed to coffee suppers, paying for their meal with an attentive
ear to the sermons, the singing, and the illustrated talks on Pilgrim’s
Progress. It was a life rich in speculation about scripture and the
Second Coming.
Richard St. Barbe Baker grew up among trees. He played with
them, made friends with them, talked to and hugged them, planted
and tended them, absorbing silviculture in a garden world. He later
recalled:

When I was two I had my first little garden. The first things I
grew were nasturtiums and soon after that with the help of my
Nanny I scratched my name in the soil and sowed white
mustard seed. A week later I was proud to spell out the letters of
a green RICHARD.
At four with the help of an old sailor I rigged up a little flag
made from a larch that grew in the wood. I was proud of my
flagpole which I had barked and painted myself; it was the
centre of the little garden. Each morning I hoisted a flag and
each evening I took it down, carefully rolled it up and tied it
correctly ready to hoist and ‘break’ the next day. At the entrance
of my garden I stuck two withies and made an arch just big
enough to allow me to pass under it. In a months time to my
great delight they started to grow leaves. It was a great thrill, for
until then I had not grown anything more ambitious than
nasturtiums and mustard.
When I was given a wheelbarrow I used to collect leaves from
an oak wood at the end of the garden. I dug a little pit up to my
waist and gradually filled it with layers of leaves, covering this
with road scrapings and stable manure from our pony, and
finally topped it with inverted slabs of turf.
I watched my father bud roses in the summer and graft pears
and apples in the winter. He allowed me to tie the buds in with
wet raffia grass from an iron bowl. I became quite expert at this
and soon I was allowed to prepare the bud myself. If the graft
on the apple stock had not taken there was a chance to bud it
later. I loved doing this and vied with the gardeners in getting
the best results. On Saturday evenings instead of playing cricket,
as a great treat I was allowed to help my father sow tree seeds in
long narrow beds I had helped to make. As the little pine
seedlings came up they wore a little ‘cap’ which they seemed to
be raising in salute. I was fascinated by the regiments of tiny
seedlings and I protected, weeded and watered them. Their care
was more important to me than any game.
Charlotte and John Baker. Source: University of Saskatchewan Library, University
Archives & Special Collections, Richard St. Barbe Baker fonds,
mg071_baker_m2_1890-1920_parents
Richard and his sister, circa 1897. Source: University of Saskatchewan Library,
University Archives & Special Collections, Richard St. Barbe Baker fonds,
mg071_baker_m2_1890-1920_with_sister

While other children played with toy soldiers, Richard marched

about the seedbeds, saluting the new trees and popping off their seed
“caps” with his toy sword. He moistened the soil with a little watering
can, making hundreds of trips from the rain barrel to the seedlings.
Near the house there was a sand pit to play in, a little desert which he
set to reclaim, shaping contours and ‘treescaping’ with leafy twigs
dropped about by squirrels or the wind. These he placed strategically
in avenues leading to a castle, complete with moat and drawbridge.
There was something unusual about this lad. Tree love was in his
blood. Years later, traveling and lecturing on trees, he liked to tell the
following story—the reverse of the young George Washington myth—
to American audiences. Once when he was five, his father discovered
that a number of young cherry saplings were missing and that Richard
had a guilty look about him. “Where are the cherry saplings,
Richard?” “I cannot tell a lie, Father,” answered Richard. “I planted
the cherry trees.” He had found some little trees and couldn’t resist the
urge to settle them in the earth. He’d apparently done a decent job of
it, too.

THE TEMPLE OF THE WOODS

In 1894 he had an unforgettable experience that, at the early age of

five, altered his perception and, in his words, “I believe more than
anything else influenced the way by which I have come.”
His old nurse, Perrin, was a true Hampshire native, married to a
forester whose charge adjoined the Baker estate. Perrin would take
Richard walking through these dark woods—which seemed to him to
be so full of romance and adventure—to visit her cottage, where the
weekly batch of bread was baked in a brick oven. He watched her
remove the sweet-smelling loaves from the oven: “To me Perrin was a
sort of High Priestess officiating at the altar and the scent of the
burning gorse seemed like incense to me.”
The surrounding woods were extensive and, to a small boy, strange
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
detailed many things regarding the wild flight of himself and
Aguinaldo's party up the coast. The last words written in it
were pathetic and indicated something of the noble character
of the man. The passage, which was written only a few minutes
previously, while the fight was on and while death even then
was before him, said: 'I am holding a difficult position
against desperate odds, but I will gladly die for my beloved
country.'

"Pilar alive and in command, shooting down good Americans, was

one thing, but Pilar lying in that silent mountain trail, his
body half denuded of its clothes, and his young, handsome,
boyish face discolored with the blood which saturated his
blouse and stained the earth, was another thing. We could not
help but feel admiration for his gallant fight, and sorrow for
the sweetheart whom he left behind. The diary was dedicated to
the girl, and I have since learned that he was to have married
her in Dagupan about two weeks before. But the Americans came
too soon. Instead of wedding bells there sounded the bugle
calls of the foe and he was hurriedly ordered to accompany his
chief, Aguinaldo, on that hasty retreat to the mountains. The
marriage was postponed, and he carried out his orders by
leaving for the north. Pilar was one of the best types of the
Filipino soldier. He was only 23 years old, but he had been
through the whole campaign in his capacity as
brigadier-general. It was he who commanded the forces at
Quingua the day that Colonel Stotsenberg was killed, and it
may be remembered that the engagement that day was one of the
most bloody and desperate that has occurred on the island. He
was a handsome boy, and was known as one of the Filipinos who
were actuated by honestly patriotic motives, and who fought
because they believed they were fighting in the right and not
for personal gain or ambition."

Chicago Record's Stories of Filipino Warfare,

page 14.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1899 (March-July).
The establishment of a provisional government
in the island of Negros.

Negros "was the first island to accept American sovereignty.

Its people unreservedly proclaimed allegiance to the United
States and adopted a constitution looking to the establishment
of a popular government. It was impossible to guarantee to the
people of Negros that the constitution so adopted should be
the ultimate form of government. Such a question, under the
treaty with Spain and in accordance with our own Constitution
and laws, came exclusively within the jurisdiction of the
Congress. The government actually set up by the inhabitants of
Negros eventually proved unsatisfactory to the natives
themselves. A new system was put into force by order of the
Major-General Commanding the Department [July 22, 1899], of
which the following are the most important elements:

"It was ordered that the government of the island of Negros

should consist of a military governor appointed by the United
States military governor of the Philippines, and a civil
governor and an advisory council elected by the people. The
military governor was authorized to appoint secretaries of the
treasury, interior, agriculture, public instruction, an
attorney-general, and an auditor. The seat of government was
fixed at Bacolod. The military governor exercises the supreme
executive power. He is to see that the laws are executed,
appoint to office, and fill all vacancies in office not
otherwise provided for, and may with the approval of the
military governor of the Philippines, remove any officer from
office. The civil governor advises the military governor on
all public civil questions and presides over the advisory
council. He, in general, performs the duties which are
performed by secretaries of state in our own system of
government. The advisory council consists of eight members
elected by the people within territorial limits which are
defined in the order of the commanding general. The times and
 places of holding elections are to be fixed by the military
governor of the island of Negros. The qualifications of voters
are as follows:

(1) A voter must be a male citizen of the island of Negros.

(2) Of the age of 21 years.

(3) He shall be able to speak, read, and write the English,

Spanish, or Visayan language, or he must own real property
worth $500, or pay a rental on real property of the value of
$1,000.

(4) He must have resided in the island not less than one year
preceding, and in the district in which he offers to register
as a voter not less than three months immediately preceding
the time he offers to register.

(5) He must register at a time fixed by law before voting.

(6) Prior to such registration he shall have paid all taxes

due by him to the Government.

{384}

Provided, that no insane person shall bc allowed to register

or vote. The military governor has the right to veto all bills
or resolutions adopted by the advisory council, and his veto
is final if not disapproved by the military governor of the
Philippines. The advisory council discharges all the ordinary
duties of a legislature. The usual duties pertaining to said
offices are to be performed by the secretaries of the
treasury, interior, agriculture, public instruction, the
attorney-general, and the auditor. The judicial power is
vested in three judges, who are to be appointed by the
military governor of the island. Inferior courts are to be
established. Free public schools are to be established
 throughout the populous districts of the island, in which the
English language shall be taught, and this subject will
receive the careful consideration of the advisory council. The
burden of government must be distributed equally and equitably
among the people. The military authorities will collect and
receive the customs revenue, and will control postal matters
and Philippine inter-island trade and commerce. The military
governor, subject to the approval of the military governor of
the Philippines, determines all questions not specifically
provided for and which do not come under the jurisdiction of
the advisory council."

Message of the President, December 5, 1899

(Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,
volume 2, page 47).

Also in:
Report of General Otis (Message and Documents,
volume 2, page 1131-1137).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1899 (May-August).

Agreement of terms with the Sultan of Jolo concerning
the Sulu Archipelago.

On the 19th of May, a detachment of U. 8. troops took the

place of the Spanish garrison at Jolo, the military station in
the Sulu Archipelago. On the 3d of July, General Otis, Military
Governor of the Philippines, issued orders as follows to
General J. C. Bates, U. S. V.: "You will proceed as soon as
practicable to the United States military station of Jolo, on
the island of that name, and there place yourself in
communication with the Sultan of Jolo, who is believed to be
at Siassi, where he was sojourning when the last information
concerning him was received. You are hereby appointed and
constituted an agent on the part of the United States military
authorities in the Philippines to discuss, enter into
negotiations, and perfect, if possible, a written agreement of
character and scope as hereinafter explained, with the Sultan,
which upon approval at these headquarters and confirmation by
the supreme executive authority of the United States, will
prescribe and control the future relations, social and
political, between the United States Government and the
inhabitants of the archipelago. … In your discussions with the
Sultan and his datos the question of sovereignty will be
forced to the front, and they will undoubtedly request an
expression of opinion thereon, as they seem to be impressed
apparently with the belief that the recent Spanish authorities
with whom they were in relationship have transferred full
sovereignty of the islands to them. The question is one which
admits of easy solution, legally considered, since by the
terms of treaties or protocols between Spain and European
powers Spanish sovereignty over the archipelago is conceded.
Under the agreement between Spain and the Sultan and datos of
July, 1878, the latter acknowledged Spanish sovereignty in the
entire archipelago of Jolo and agreed to become loyal Spanish
subjects, receiving in consideration certain specific payments
in money. The sovereignty of Spain, thus established and
acknowledged by all parties in interest, was transferred to
the United States by the Paris treaty. The United States has
succeeded to all the rights which Spain held in the
archipelago, and its sovereignty over the same is an
established fact. But the inquiry arises as to the extent to
which that sovereignty can be applied under the agreement of
1878 with the Moros. Sovereignty, of course, implies full
power of political control, but it is not incompatible with
concessionary grants between sovereign and subject. The Moros
acknowledged through their accepted chiefs Spanish sovereignty
and their subjection thereto, and that nation in turn conferred
upon their chiefs certain powers of supervision over them and
their affairs. The kingly prerogatives of Spain, thus abridged
by solemn concession, have descended to the United States, and
conditions existing at the time of transfer should remain. The
Moros are entitled to enjoy the identical privileges which
they possessed at the time of transfer, and to continue to
 enjoy them until abridged or modified by future mutual
agreement between them and the United States, to which they
owe loyalty, unless it becomes necessary to invoke the
exercise of the supreme powers of sovereignty to meet
emergencies. You will therefore acquaint yourself thoroughly
with the terms of the agreement of 1878, and take them as a
basis for your directed negotiations. …

"It is greatly desired by the United States for the sake of

the individual improvement and social advancement of the
Moros, and for the development of the trade and agriculture of
the islands in their interests, also for the welfare of both the
United States and Moros, that mutual friendly and well-defined
relations be established. If the Sultan can be made to give
credit to and fully understand the intentions of the United
States, the desired result can be accomplished. The United
States will accept the obligations of Spain under the
agreement of 1878 in the matter of money annuities, and in
proof of sincerity you will offer as a present to the Sultan
and datos $10,000, Mexican, with which you will be supplied
before leaving for Jolo—the same to be handed over to them,
respectively, in amounts agreeing with the ratio of payments
made to them by the Spanish Government for their declared
services. From the 1st of September next, and thereafter, the
United States will pay to them regularly the sums promised by
Spain in its agreement of 1878, and in any subsequent promises
of which proof can be furnished. The United States will
promise, in return for the concessions to be hereinafter
mentioned, not to interfere with, but to protect the Moros in
the free exercise of their religion and customs, social and
domestic, and will respect the rights and dignities of the
Sultan and his advisers."

{385}

Of the results of the mission of General Bates, General Otis

reported subsequently as follows:

"General Bates had a difficult task to perform and executed it

with tact and ability. While a number of the principal datos were
favorably inclined, the Sultan, not responding to invitations,
kept aloof and was represented by his secretary, until
finally, the general appearing at Maibung, the Moro capital, a
personal interview was secured. He being also Sultan of North
Borneo and receiving large annual payments from the North
Borneo Trading Company, expected like returns from the United
States, and seemed more anxious to obtain personal revenue
than benefits for his people. Securing the port of Siassi from
the Spaniards, establishing there his guards and police, he
had received customs revenues from the Sandaken trade which he
was loath to surrender. Negotiations continued well into
August, and finally, after long conferences, an agreement was
reached by which the United States secured much more liberal
terms than the Spaniards were ever able to obtain."

Report of General Otis, August 31, 1899

(Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,
volume 2, pages 1162-1164).

"By Article I the sovereignty of the United States over the

whole archipelago of Jolo and its dependencies is declared and
acknowledged. The United States flag will be used in the
archipelago and its dependencies, on land and sea. Piracy is
to be suppressed, and the Sultan agrees to co-operate heartily
with the United States authorities to that end and to make
every possible effort to arrest and bring to justice all
persons engaged in piracy. All trade in domestic products of
the archipelago of Jolo when carried on with any part of the
Philippine Islands and under the American flag shall be free,
unlimited, and undutiable. The United States will give full
protection to the Sultan in case any foreign nation should
attempt to impose upon him. The United States will not sell
the island of Jolo or any other island of the Jolo archipelago
to any foreign nation without the consent of the Sultan.
Salaries for the Sultan find his associates in the
administration of the islands have been agreed upon to the
amount of $760 monthly. Article X provides that any slave in
the archipelago of Jolo shall have the right to purchase
freedom by paying to the master the usual market value. The
agreement by General Bates was made subject to confirmation by
the President and to future modifications by the consent of
the parties in interest. I have confirmed said agreement,
subject to the action of the Congress, and with the
reservation, which I have directed shall be communicated to
the Sultan of Jolo, that this agreement is not to be deemed in
any way to authorize or give the consent of the United States
to the existence of slavery in the Sulu archipelago."

Message of the President, December 5, 1899

(Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,
volume 2, pages 47-48).

"The population of the Sulu Archipelago is reckoned at

120,000, mostly domiciled in the island of Jolo, and numbers
20,000 fighting men. Hostilities would be unfortunate for all
parties concerned, would be very expensive to the United
States in men and money, and destructive of any advancement of
the Moros for years to come. Spain's long struggle with these
people and their dislike for the former dominant race in the
Philippines, inherited, it would seem, by each rising
generation during three centuries, furnishes an instructive
lesson. Under the pending agreement General Bates, assisted by
the officers of the Navy, quietly placed garrisons of one
company each at Siassi and at Bongao, on the Tawai Tawai group
of islands, where they were well received by the friendly
natives. With the approval of the agreement, the only
difficulty to a satisfactory settlement of the Sulu affairs
will arise from discontent on the part of the Sultan
personally because of a supposed decrease in anticipated
revenues or the machinations of the insurgents of Mindanao,
 who are endeavoring to create a feeling of distrust and
hostility among the natives against the United States troops.

"The Sultan's government is one of perfect despotism, in form

at least, as all political power is supposed to center in his
person; but this does not prevent frequent outbreaks on the
part of the datos, who frequently revolt, and are now, in two
or three instances, in declared enmity. All Moros, however,
profess the Mohammedan religion, introduced in the fourteenth
century, and the sacredness of the person of the Sultan is
therefore a tenet of faith. This fact would prevent any marked
success by a dato in attempting to secure supreme power. Spain
endeavored to supplant the Sultan with one of his most
enterprising chiefs and signally failed. Peonage or a species
of serfdom enters largely into the social and domestic
arrangements and a dato's following or clan submits itself
without protest to his arbitrary will. The Moro political
fabric bears resemblance to the state of feudal times—the
Sultan exercising supreme power by divine right, and his
datos, like the feudal lords, supporting or opposing him at
will, and by force of arms occasionally, but not to the extent
of dethronement, as that would be too great a sacrilege for a
Mohammedan people to seek to consummate. The United States
must accept these people as they are, and endeavor to
ameliorate their condition by degrees, and the best means to
insure success appears to be through the cultivation of
friendly sentiments and the introduction of trade and commerce
upon approved business methods. To undertake forcible radical
action for the amelioration of conditions or to so interfere
with their domestic relations as to arouse their suspicions
and distrust would be attended with unfortunate consequences."

Report of General Otis, August 31, 1899

(Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,
volume 2, page 1165).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1899-1900.

 Military operations against the Insurgents.
Death of General Lawton.

"The enlargement of the field of operations and government in

the Philippine Islands made it impracticable to conduct the
business under the charge of the army in those islands through
the machinery of a single department, and by order made April
7, 1900, the Philippine Islands were made a military division,
consisting of four departments: The Department of Northern Luzon,
the Department of Southern Luzon, the Department of the
Visayas, and the Department of Mindanao and Jolo. The
Department of Northern Luzon is subdivided into six, the
Department of Southern Luzon into four, the Department of the
Visayas into four, and the Department of Mindanao and Jolo
into four military districts. …

"At the date of the last report (November 29, 1899 [see
above]) the government established by the Philippine
insurgents in central Luzon and the organized armed forces by
which it was maintained had been destroyed, and the principal
civil and military leaders of the insurrection, accompanied by
small and scattered bands of troops, were the objects of
pursuit in the western and the northern parts of the island.
{386}
That pursuit was prosecuted with vigor and success, under
conditions of extraordinary difficulty and hardship, and
resulted in the further and practically complete
disintegration of the insurrectionary bands in those regions,
in the rescue of nearly all the American prisoners and the
greater part of the Spanish prisoners held by the insurgents,
in the capture of many of the leading insurgents, and in the
capture and destruction of large quantities of arms,
ammunition, and supplies. There still remained a large force
of insurgents in Cavite and the adjacent provinces south of
Manila, and a considerable force to the east of the Rio Grande
de Pampanga, chiefly in the province of Bulacan, while in the
extreme southeastern portions of Luzon, and in the various
Visayan islands, except the island of Negros, armed bodies of
Tagalogs had taken possession of the principal seacoast towns,
and were exercising military control over the peaceful
inhabitants. Between the insurgent troops in Bulacan and the
mountains to the north, and the insurgents in the south,
communication was maintained by road and trail, running along
and near the eastern bank of the Mariquina River, and through
the towns of Mariquina, San Mateo, and Montalban and the
province of Morong. This line of communication, passing
through rough and easily defended country, was strongly
fortified and held by numerous bodies of insurgents.

"On the 18th of December, 1899, a column, under the command of

Major General Henry W. Lawton, proceeded from Manila, and
between that date and the 29th of December captured all the
fortified posts of the insurgents, took possession of the line
of communication, which has ever since been maintained, and
destroyed, captured, or dispersed the insurgent force in that
part of the island. In the course of this movement was
sustained the irremediable loss of General Lawton, who was
shot and instantly killed while too fearlessly exposing his
person in supervising the passing of his troops over the river
Mariquina at San Mateo.

"On the 4th of January, 1900, General J. C. Bates, U. S. V.,

was assigned to the command of the First Division of the
Eighth Army Corps, and an active campaign under his direction
was commenced in Southern Luzon. The plan adopted was to
confront and hold the strong force of the enemy near Imus and
to the west of Bacoor by a body of troops under General
Wheaton, while a column, under General Schwan, should move
rapidly down the west shore of the Laguna de Bay to Biñang,
thence turn southwesterly and seize the Silang, Indang, and
Naic road, capture the enemy's supplies supposed to be at the
towns of Silang and Indang, and arrest the retreat of the
enemy, when he should be driven from northern Cavite by our
troops designated to attack him there, and thus prevent his
reassembling in the mountains of southern Cavite and northern
Batangas. This plan was successfully executed. General
Schwan's column moved over the lines indicated with great
rapidity, marching a distance of over 600 miles, striking and
defeating numerous bodies of insurgents and capturing many
intrenched positions, taking possession of and garrisoning
towns along the line, and scattering and demoralizing all the
organized forces of the enemy within that section of country.
From these operations and the simultaneous attacks by our
troops under General Wheaton in the north the rebel forces in
the Cavite region practically disappeared, the members either
being killed or captured or returning to their homes as
unarmed citizens, and a few scattered parties escaping through
General Schwan's line to the south. By the 8th of February the
organized forces of the insurgents in the region mentioned had
ceased to exist. In large portions of the country the
inhabitants were returning to their homes and resuming their
industries, and active trade with Manila was resumed. In the
course of these operations about 600 Spanish prisoners were
released from the insurgents, leaving about 600 more still in
their hands in the extreme southeastern provinces of Camarines
and Albay, nearly all of whom were afterwards liberated by our
troops. In the meantime an expedition was organized under the
command of Brigadier General William A. Kobbé, U. S. V., to
expel the Tagalogs who had taken possession of the principal
hemp ports of the islands situated in Albay, the extreme
southeastern province of Luzon, and in the islands of Leyte,
Samar, and Catanduanes. This expedition sailed from Manila on
the 18th of January and accomplished its object. All of the
principal hemp ports were relieved from control of the
insurgents, garrisoned by American troops, and opened to
commerce by order of the military governor of the islands on
the 30th of January and the 10th and 14th of February. The
expedition met with strong resistance at Legaspi by an
intrenched force under the Chinese general, Paua. He was
speedily overcome and went into the interior. After a few days
he reassembled his forces and threatened the garrisons which
 had been left in Albay and Legaspi, whereupon he was attacked,
and defeated, and surrendered. Thirty pieces of artillery, a
large quantity of ammunition, a good many rifles, and a
considerable amount of money were captured by this expedition.

"On the 15th of February an expedition, under the supervision

of Major-General Bates and under the immediate command of
Brigadier General James M. Bell, U. S. V., sailed from Manila
to take possession of the North and South Camarines provinces
and Western Albay, in which the insurgent forces had been
swelled by the individuals and scattered bands escaping from
our operations in various sections of the north. The insurgent
force was defeated after a sharp engagement near the mouth of
the Bicol River, pursued, and scattered. Large amounts of
artillery and war material were captured. The normal
conditions of industry and trade relations with Manila were
resumed by the inhabitants. On the 20th of March the region
covered by the last-described operations was created a
district of southeastern Luzon, under the command of General
James M. Bell, who was instructed to proceed to the
establishment of the necessary customs and internal-revenue
service in the district. In the meantime similar expeditions
were successfully made through the mountains of the various
islands of the Visayan Group, striking and scattering and
severely punishing the bands of bandits and insurgents who
infested those islands. In the latter part of March General
Bates proceeded with the Fortieth infantry to establish
garrisons in Mindanao. The only resistance was of a trifling
character at Cagayan, the insurgent general in northeastern
Mindanao surrendering and turning over the ordnance in his
possession.
{387}
With [the execution of these movements] all formal and open
resistance to American authority in the Philippines
terminated, leaving only an exceedingly vexatious and annoying
guerilla warfare of a character closely approaching
brigandage, which will require time, patience, and good
 judgment to finally suppress. As rapidly as we have occupied
territory, the policy of inviting inhabitants to return to
their peaceful vocations, and aiding them in the
reestablishment of their local governments, has been followed,
and the protection of the United States has been promised to
them. The giving of this protection has led to the
distribution of troops in the Philippine Islands to over 400
different posts, with the consequent labor of administration
and supply. The maintenance of these posts involves the
continued employment of a large force, but as the Tagalogs who
are in rebellion have deliberately adopted the policy of
murdering, so far as they are able, all of their countrymen
who are friendly to the United States, the maintenance of
garrisons is at present necessary to the protection of the
peaceful and unarmed Filipinos who have submitted to our
authority; and if we are to discharge our obligations in that
regard their reduction must necessarily be gradual."

United States, Secretary of War,

Annual Report, November 30, 1900, pages 5-10.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1900 (January).

Report of the First Philippine Commission.

The First Commission to the Philippines returned to the United

States in the autumn of 1899, and then submitted to the President
a brief preliminary statement of its proceedings in the
Islands and the opinions its members had formed, concerning
the spirit and extent of the Tagalo revolt, the general
disposition of the people at large, their capacity for
independent self-government, etc. On the 31st of January
following the commissioners presented a report which deals
extensively with many subjects of investigation and
deliberation. In Part I., it sets forth the efforts made by
the commission "toward conciliation and the establishment of
peace," through interviews with various emissaries of
Aguinaldo, and others, and by means of a proclamation to the
people. In Part II., it gives an extended account of the races
and tribes of which the native population of the Islands is
composed. In Part III., it details the provision that has
heretofore been made for education, and states the conclusions
of the commission as to the capacity of the people and their
fitness for a popular government. In Part IV., a very full
account of the Spanish organization of government in the
Philippines, general, provincial and municipal, is given, and
the reforms that were desired by the Filipino people are
ascertained. From this the commission proceeds to consider the
question of a plan of government for the Islands under the
sovereignty of the United States, and concludes that the
Territorial system of the United States offers all that can be
desired. "What Jefferson and the nation did for Louisiana,"
says the report, "we are … free to-day to do for the
Philippines. The fact that Bonaparte had provided in the
treaty that Louisiana should in due time be admitted as a
State in the Union, and that in the meantime its inhabitants
should have protection in the free enjoyment of their liberty,
property, and religion, made no difference in the relation of
Louisiana to the Constitution of the United States so long as
Louisiana remained a Territory; and, if it had made a
difference, it should have constituted something of a claim to
the immediate enjoyment of some or all of the benefits of the
Constitution. Unmoved by that consideration, however, the
Jeffersonian policy established once for all the subjection of
national domain outside the States to the absolute and
unrestricted power of Congress. The commission recommends that
in dealing with the Philippines this vast power be exercised
along the lines laid down by Jefferson and Madison in
establishing a government for Louisiana, but with … deviations
in the direction of larger liberty to the Filipinos. … The
result would be substantially the transformation of their
second-class Territorial government of Louisiana into a
Territorial government of the first-class for the Philippine
Islands." To this recommendation of the Territorial system of
government the commission adds a strenuous plea for a closely
 guarded civil service. "It is a safe and desirable rule," says
the report, "that no American should be appointed to any office
in the Philippines for which a reasonably qualified Filipino
can, by any possibility, be secured. Of course the merit or
business system must be adopted and lived up to; the patronage
or spoils system would prove absolutely fatal to good
government in this new Oriental territory." Further parts of
the report are devoted to the Philippine judicial system, as
it had been and as it should be; to "the condition and needs
of the United States in the Philippines from a naval and
maritime standpoint"; to the secular clergy and religious
orders; to registration laws; to the currency; to the Chinese
in the Philippines; and to public health. Among the exhibits
appended in volume 1 of the published Report are the
constitution of Aguinaldo's Philippine Republic (called the
Malolos constitution), and several other constitutional drafts
and proposals from Filipino sources, indicating the political
ideas that prevail.

Report of the Philippine Commission,

January 31, 1900, volume 1.

See, also (in this volume),

EDUCATION: A. D. 1898 (PHILIPPINE ISLANDS).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1900 (March).

Institution of municipal governments.

By General Orders, on the 29th of March, 1900, the Military

Governor of the Islands promulgated a law providing for the
election and institution of municipal governments, the
provisions of which law had been framed by a board appointed
in the previous January, under the presidency of Don Cayetano
Arellano, chief justice of the Philippines. The first chapter
of the law reads as follows:

"ARTICLE 1.
 The towns of the Philippine Islands shall be recognized as
municipal corporations with the same limits as heretofore
established, upon reorganizing under the provisions of this
order. All property vested in any town under its former
organization shall be vested in the same town upon becoming
incorporated hereunder.

"ARTICLE 2.
Towns so incorporated shall be designated as 'municipios,' and
shall be known respectively by the names heretofore adopted.
Under such names they may, without further authorization, sue
and be sued, contract and be contracted with, acquire and hold
real and personal property for the general interests of the
town, and exercise all the powers hereinafter conferred. The
city of Manila is exempt from the provisions of this order.

{388}

"ARTICLE 3.
The municipal government of each town is hereby vested in an
alcalde and a municipal council. The alcalde and councilors,
together with the municipal lieutenant, shall be chosen at
large by the qualified electors of the town, and their term of
office shall be for two years from and after the first Monday
in January next after their election and until their
successors are duly chosen and qualified: Provided, That the
alcalde and municipal lieutenant elected in 1900 shall hold
office until the first Monday in January, 1902, only; and that
the councilors elected in 1900 shall divide themselves, by
lot, into two classes; the scats of those of the first class
shall be vacated on the first Monday of January, 1901, and
those of the second class one year thereafter, so that
one-half of the municipal council shall be chosen annually.

"ARTICLE 4.
Incorporated towns shall be of four classes, according to the
number of inhabitants. Towns of the first class shall be those
which contain not less than 25,000 inhabitants and shall have
18 councilors; of the second class, those containing 18,000
and less than 25,000 inhabitants and shall have 14 councilors;
of the third class, those containing 10,000 and less than
18,000 inhabitants and shall have 10 councilors; of the fourth
class, those containing less than 10,000 inhabitants and shall
have 8 councilors. Towns of less than 2,000 inhabitants may
incorporate under the provisions of this order, or may, upon
petition to the provincial governor, signed by a majority of
the qualified electors thereof, be attached as a barrio to an
adjacent and incorporated town, if the council of the latter
consents.

The qualifications of voters are defined in the second chapter

as follows:

"ARTICLE 5.
The electors charged with the duty of choosing elective
municipal officers must be male persons, 23 years of age or
over, who have had a legal residence in the town in which they
exercise the suffrage for a period of six months immediately
preceding the election, and who are not citizens or subjects
of any foreign power, and who are comprised within one of the
following three classes:

1. Those who, prior to the 13th of August, 1898, held the

office of municipal captain, gobernadorcillo, lieutenant or
cabeza de barangay.

2. Those who annually pay 30 pesos or more of the established

taxes.

3. Those who speak, read, and write English or Spanish."

Succeeding articles in this chapter prescribe the oath to be

taken and subscribed by each elector before his ballot is
cast, recognizing and accepting "the supreme authority of the
United States of America"; appoint the times and places for
holding elections, and set forth the forms to be observed in
them. In the third chapter, the qualifications of officers are
thus defined:

"ARTICLE 13.
An alcalde, municipal lieutenant, or councilor must have the
following qualifications:

1. He must be a duly qualified elector of the municipality in

which he is a candidate, of 26 years of age or over, and have
had a legal residence therein for at least one year prior to
the date of election.

2. He must correctly speak, read, and write either the English

language or the local dialect.

"ARTICLE 14.
In no case can there be elected or appointed to municipal
office ecclesiastics, soldiers in active service, persons
receiving salary from municipal, provincial or government
funds; debtors to said funds, whatever the class of said
funds; contractors of public works and their bondsmen; clerks
and functionaries of the administration or government while in
said capacity; bankrupts until discharged, or insane or
feeble-minded persons.

"ARTICLE 15.
Each and every person elected or appointed to a municipal
office under the provisions of this order shall, before
entering upon the duties thereof, take and subscribe before
the alcalde or town secretary"—an oath analogous to that
required from the electors.

Further articles in this chapter and the next define the

duties of the alcalde, the municipal lieutenant, municipal
attorney, municipal secretary, municipal treasurer, and the
municipal councilors. The fifth chapter relates to taxation
and finances; the sixth and seventh contain provisions as
follows:

"ARTICLE 53.
The governor of the province shall be ex officio president of
all municipal councils within the province and shall have
general supervisory charge of the municipal affairs of the
several towns and cities therein organized under the
provisions of this order, and in his said supervisory capacity
may inspect or cause to be inspected, at such times as he may
determine, the administration of municipal affairs and each
and every department thereof, and may hear and determine all
appeals against the acts of municipal corporations or their
officers. He, or those whom he may designate in writing for
that duty, shall at all times have free access to all records,
books, papers, moneys, and property of the several towns and
cities of the province, and may call upon the officers thereof
for an accounting of the receipts and expenditures, or for a
general or special report of the official acts of the several
municipal councils or of any and every of them, or of any and
every of the officers thereof, at any time, and as often as he
may consider necessary to inform himself of the state of the
finances or of the administration of municipal affairs, and
such requests when made must be complied with without excuse,
pretext, or delay. He may suspend or remove municipal
officers, either individually or collectively, for cause, and
appoint substitutes therefor permanently, for the time being
or pending the next general election, or may call a special
election to fill the vacancy or vacancies caused by such
suspension or removal, reporting the cause thereof with a full
statement of his action in the premises to the governor of the
islands without delay. He shall forward all questions or
disputes that may arise over the boundaries or jurisdictional
limits of the city, towns, or municipalities to the governor
of the islands for final determination, together with full
report and recommendations relative to the same. He may, with