Christianity in the Philippines

By W. E. Johnson — October, 1900

A few days ago I returned from a two months’ stay in the Philippines, where William McKinley, the Methodist, is now conducting a war of “benevolent assimilation” in the name of the Lord God and for the spread of “Christian civilization,” etc. we have, from time to time, been assured by the administration newspapers that the Filipinos were delivered into our hands by the “Providence of God.”

But Mr. McKinley’s campaign in these islands (in the name of God) bears such a striking resemblance to Moses’ celebrated campaign against the Midianites (also in the name of God), that I quote the official report of that affair from the thirty-first chapter of Numbers:

“And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.

“And they slew the Kings of Midian, besides the rest that were slain; namely, Poi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five Kings of Midian; Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword.

“And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.

“And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.

“And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?

“Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

“But all the women children that hath not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

“Divide the prey into two parts ; between them that took the war upon them, who went out to battle, and between all the congregation.

“And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses.

“And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep.

“And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him.

“And the Lord’s tribute of the sheep was six hundred and three score and fifteen.

“And the persons were sixteen thousand, of which the Lord’s score was six, hundred and three score and fifteen.”

Remond’s Church, Manila, the Leading Sanctuary in the Philippines.

Soon after my arrival in Manila, I picked up a copy of the Daily Freedom, the leading exponent of Christian civilization in the city, which, by the way, could not pay expenses were it not for an income of about $1,800 a month derived from advertising the whisky of this “Christian civilization.” I read there that six drunken American soldiers had broken into the home of a respectable native, that they looted the house, that the brutes took turns holding the struggling husband while the others ravished the frantic wife before his eyes ; that when the old mother of the girl pleaded for mercy, one of these advance agents of Christianity knocked her senseless with the butt of his revolver; that the little children ran shrieking from the house and alarmed the neighbors, and that when the police finally arrived, the American civilizers had all fled save one, who was lying in a drunken slumber on the floor.

I read the files of this paper through for the year ending with June 15 last. Its pages were fairly streaked for the whole time with the most abominable outrages of this sort committed upon inoffensive natives by these “advance agents of Christian civilization.”

I found that this same “Christian civilization” had opened nearly 400 saloons in Manila alone, besides scores of grog shops in all the cities and towns where “the flag” has been planted.

I give below a table which I have compiled from General Otis’ report and from the Bulletin of Philippine Commerce recently issued by the Bureau of Statistics at Washington:

From this report it appears that, during the first ten months of American rule, about twice as much liquor was imported into the islands as during the two years 1893 and 1894.

I examined the first annual report of Major John A. Hull, Judge Advocate of the Military Department, which covers a period of ten and one half months ending June 30, 1899.

During this period there was an average number of 21,078 enlisted men in the command, yet during this time there were 12,481 cases of court martial of various sorts. These were divided as follows:

The 11,902 trials by summary court martial, represents 7,090 different men. On this official showing a full third of all the soldiers who were sent here to teach civilization were arrested and tried for crime or misdemeanor before the first eleven months of the American occupation were completed. Besides this, the report shows 137 desertions from the American ranks during the same period.

About two hundred brothels, containing about six hundred women, are now being operated under the direction and supervision of the War Department, a regular military bureau having been organized to look after the “business.” At Jolo, in the Sulu group, no prostitutes could be found among the natives, so there advance agents of God Almighty were obliged to import a pack of women from Japan in order to stock their three military brothels opened then.

By one of the chief surgeons of the First Reserve hospital at Manila, I was told that of the one hundred thousand troops which had been sent there to civilize the natives. sixty thousand had gone through the hospitals. Of these sixty thousand boys, ten thousand had be6ll stricken with infamous diseases. Moreover, this diseased host of ten thousand soldiers did not include thousands of others who took private treatment of private physicians.

Prize fighting is another factor of Christian civilization which has been introduced into the islands. Two or three times a month, a brutal prize fight is given at the Teatro Libertad, the sluggers being toughs from this armed host of “Christian progress.”

The Catholic priesthood of the Most High have these simple peoples by the throat. There is but little in the way of houses or lands, which does not belong to the priests. They own the land, they exact a tax at birth, they demand another fee for baptism, they extort another for “confirmation,” they demand another big fee at marriage, they work in a fiesta (feast day) assessment several times a year, they extort a “coffin tax” $3.00, and demand rent for your grave. If the corpse gets behind five years on his ”rent,” the bones, coffin and all are dug up and dumped into the “bone heap” back of the church (left). I know of no words in the dictionaries by which I can express my feelings of wrath as I stood among the coffins on the bone heap behind Paco Church. And, with my own hands, handled the skulls of the dead who had gotten in arrears with their rent and who had been dug up and thrown into the scrap heap by these cowled ghouls of Christianity.

There is now a whole race of half-breeds in the Philippines, who point to this priest or that friar as their ”father.” As in the campaigns of Moses, these befrocked wretches, for an hundred years, have demanded the choicest of the Filipino maids who ”have not known man.” For eight years there has been on Calle Neuva, Manila, an establishment of lust for the exclusive use of priests of the “holy Catholic church.” This is a brief resume of the work which is being carried on in these unhappy islands by William McKinley, in the name of Almighty God. He now warrants an endorsement of this “benevolent” work from the American people at the ballot box.

The ignorant Negroto of the Luzon Mountains eats his dog and worships his pig. But, to my mind, pig worship is a harmless and elevating diversion as compared to the worship of this God of Moses, this God of blood and lust.