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press disorders and to maintain the authority of the civil government until all the forces of natives, whether constabulary or scouts, should be used for this purpose. Nothing could be further from the truth, nothing could be more unfounded or unfair, than the inference that the use of scouts in association with the constabulary for the suppressing of disorder is a reflection upon the military establishment or upon those who are in command thereof; but we know in our own country how loth governors of States are to call out militia, and how loth the President is to summon the Regular Army in the suppression of domestic disorder. In this country it is politically most important that Filipinos should suppress Filipino disturbances and arrest Filipino outlaws.

RECONCENTRATION.

With reference to the act of the Commission which authorized, upon resolution of the Commission, the provincial governors to withdraw the outlying barrios of towns to their respective centers of population and, in a sense, to reconcentrate the residents of the outlying barrios, it may be said that this course is justified by the peculiar character of the country and the wonderful opportunity that it offers a comparatively small body of men to terrorize an entire province and to allow persons to evade the utmost efforts of large bodies of constabulary. The act is appended hereto as Exhibit E. So effective is this system. against ladrones, if carried on properly, and so comparatively easy is it for the people in this country, without great suffering or inconvenience, to move from one part of the country to another, erecting temporary houses of light material, that in Tayabas, which at one time was much afflicted with ladrones under a man named Rios, to whom I referred in my last annual report and who has now expiated his crimes on the gallows, the so-called reconcentration was used voluntarily by the towns that were invaded by Rios and carried to a successful conclusion before the central authorities were advised of the methods pursued.

BANDOLERISMO STATUTE.

The treatment of ladrones by criminal prosecution has been most effective. A statute known as the "bandolerismo statute" was enacted in November of last year to meet an emergency which then seemed to be great. The statute is as follows:

SECTION 1. Whenever three or more persons, conspiring together, shall form a band of robbers for the purpose of stealing carabao or other personal property by means of force and violence, and shall go out upon the highway or roam over the country armed with deadly weapons for this purpose, they shall be deemed highway robbers or brigands, and every person engaged in the original formation of the band, or joining it thereafter, shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by death, or imprisonment for not less than twenty years, in the discretion of the court.

SEC. 2. To prove the crime described in the previous section, it shall not be necessary to adduce evidence that any member of the band has in fact committed robbery or theft, but it shall be sufficient to justify conviction thereunder if, from the circumstances, it can be inferred beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was a member of such an armed band as that described in said section.

SEC. 3. Persons guilty of the crime defined in section one may be punished therefor in the court of first instance in any province in which they may be taken or from which they may have fled.

SEC. 4. Every person knowingly aiding or abetting such a band of brigands as that described in section one by giving them information of the movement of the police or constabulary, or by securing stolen property from them, or by procuring supplies of food, clothing, arms, or ammunition, and furnishing the same to them shall, upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment for not less than ten years and not more than twenty years.

The difficulty of proof against persons known to be ladrones in fixing upon them particular acts of violence or robbery and the necessity for severe punishment led to the enactment of this statute. It is frequently very easy of proof to show that the persons captured have been members of an armed band running about the country, committing or attempting to commit robberies and murder, but to prove that individuals were present at particular robberies is entirely impossible. The act was therefore drawn to permit the proof of the existence of the band and the membership in the band, beyond reasonable doubt, as establishing the crime of ladronism. It is not too much to say that the act has been most effective in securing convictions and ridding the various provinces of this pest of centuries. The courts have had an immense amount of labor to perform in hearing the various cases, but they have responded with energy and with justice to the call, and both Filipino and American judges have exercised much firmness in imposing suitable penalties when the proof required conviction.

During the year several members of the Hongkong junta have come to Manila. They have been required to take the oath of allegiance to the government and after that have not been disturbed. I am in receipt of a verbal communication from Señors Apacible and Agoncillo, the two most prominent members of the junta. They have signified their intention of coming to Manila if they are not to be subjected to prosecution. They distinctly repudiate having had any communication with San Miguel or the recent ladrone leaders, whom they characterize as cattle thieves and not worthy the support of men who have been actuated by other motives. I have assured them that should they return to Manila they would simply be required to take the oath of allegiance, and if they thereafter lead lawful lives and take no part in the insurrection movements they will be wholly undisturbed. (December 18. Since writing the above, Doctor Apacible has presented himself and taken the oath.)

There is one Filipino, named Ricarte, who was at the head of the plot to explode dynamite bombs during the Lawton funeral in Manila,

and also set on foot a number of conspiracies to burn the city. He was subsequently sent to Guam, and then on his return from there declined to take the oath of allegiance and went on to Hongkong. It is reported that he has quarreled with the other members of the junta and that he continues his plotting. There is also said to be a socialistic or anarchistic society which has its headquarters at Paris, directed to the establishment of a universal democratic Filipino republic, on socialistic lines, but, so far as we are advised, they have attempted nothing in the way of actual operations, though they occasionally favor the mails with their publications.

Dominador Gomez y Jesus was born in the Philippines and subsequently went to Spain where he studied medicine and was graduated as a surgeon. He entered the Spanish army as a surgeon and served in Spain during the two revolutions of 1896 and 1898. He appears to have been a member of the junta of Madrid, organized to oppose American sovereignty in the islands after 1898, and to have written articles for a paper published in Madrid, called the "Filipinas ante Europa." After peace had been completely restored in the islands, Doctor Gomez came to Manila. His cooperator, Isabelo de los Reyes, had organized a working man's union, called the "Union Obrera Democrática," but having been arrested and subjected to criminal prosecution for an illegal connection with a strike, he resigned the presidency and Doctor Gomez was elected to take his place at the head of the union. Subsequently Doctor Gomez also became the president of the Nationalist party. By contributions from the members of the Union Obrera, he was able to publish a newspaper called the "Los Obreros." He was a man of considerable power of speech and able to arouse audiences of the lower class of Filipinos by his grandiloquence. It soon became evident that there were members of the Union Obrera and of the Nationalist party who were very strongly in sympathy with the ladrone bands, headed by San Miguel, then operating in Rizal and Bulacan. Doctor Gomez recommended to me in his newspaper that as a solution of the difficulties, we invite all the ladrones to come in and surrender their arms on the agreement that we should guarantee them immunity and insure them food or labor for one year. Subsequently Doctor Gomez applied to me for the pardon in advance of Faustino Guillermo, second in command in Rizal, one of the most noted desperadoes and ladrones in the islands, a man since captured and now under sentence of death for murder. It was reported that Doctor Gomez was using the Union Obrera as a means of collecting money to run his newspaper, and to enrich his own pocket. This led to the passage of a law, denouncing as embezzlement the diversion of funds collected in such societies from the purpose for which the society was organized and for which the funds were contributed. Prosecution of Doctor Gomez was begun under several different

charges. Under the first charge of organizing an illegal association he has been convicted and sentenced for four years to Bilibid. There are other charges against him for which he will be tried, including embezzlement and aiding and abetting ladrones. His prosecution has much assisted in bringing about the present satisfactory condition throughout the Archipelago.

DISSOLUTE AMERICANS AND VAGRANCY ACTS.

One of the great obstacles that this government has to contend with is the presence, in a large majority of the towns of the Archipelago, of dissolute, drunken, and lawless Americans who are willing to associate with low Filipino women and live upon the proceeds of their labor. They are truculent and dishonest. They borrow, beg, and steal from the native. Their conduct and mode of life are not calculated to impress the native with the advantage of American civilization. When opportunity offers, however, they are loudest in denunciation of the Filipinos as an inferior, lying race. To rid the country of this class of Americans the Commission passed two acts. The first of these is No. 519, "An act defining vagrancy and providing for punishment therefor," and reads as follows:

SECTION 1. Every person having no apparent means of subsistence, who has the physical ability to work and who neglects to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling; every person found loitering about saloons or dramshops or gambling houses or tramping or straying through the country without visible means of support; every person known to be a pickpocket, thief, burglar, ladron, either by his own confession or by his having been convicted of either of said offenses, and having no visible or lawful means of support when found loitering about any gambling house, cockpit, or in any outlying barrio of a pueblo; every idle or dissolute person or associate of known thieves or ladrones who wanders about the country at unusual hours of the night; every idle person who lodges in any barn, shed, outhouse, vessel, or place other than such as is kept for lodging purposes, without the permission of the owner or person entitled to the possession thereof; every lewd or dissolute person who lives in and about houses of ill-fame; every common prostitute and common drunkard, is a vagrant, and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine of not exceeding one hundred dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding one year and one day, or both, in the discretion of the court.

The second is as follows:

SECTION 1. Upon the conviction of any citizen of the United States under act numbered five hundred and nineteen, entitled "An act defining vagrancy and providing for punishment therefor," the court may suspend sentence, conditioned upon the convict leaving the Philippine Islands and not returning thereto for a period of not more than ten years; and the fulfillment of this obligation shall be deemed as an extinguishment of the prescribed sentence.

SEC. 2. In such cases the court or judge may order the removal of the convict to Bilibid Prison, in the city of Manila, there to remain in custody until he can be placed upon a steamer returning to the United States. This order shall be executed in the manner prescribed by the civil governor in each case.

SEC. 3. There is hereby appropriated, out of any funds in the insular treasury not otherwise appropriated, an amount sufficient to pay the actual and necessary expenses in carrying out the provisions of this act.

The former of the two acts has also been useful in enabling towns to rid themselves of Filipinos suspected of complicity with ladrones, who have no visible means of support and who are probably spies of the ladrones for the purpose of enabling them to make lucrative raids.

FRIARS' LANDS AND RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS.

As early as 1898, the Peace Commission, which negotiated the treaty of Paris, became convinced that one of the most important steps in tranquilizing the islands and in reconciling the Filipinos to the American Government would be the governmental purchase of the so-called friars' agricultural lands in the Philippines, and the sale of these lands to the tenants upon long, easy payments. The same policy was recommended by the first or Schurman Commission after an investigation by it, and in the first report of the present Philippine Commission much time was devoted to the political phases of the relations of the four great religious orders to the people and the wisdom of buying the agricultural lands and selling them to the tenants was much commented on and approved. The Secretary of War and the President concurred in the recommendations of the Commission. Accordingly in May, 1902, the writer, as civil governor of the Philippine Islands, was directed by the Secretary of War to visit Rome and to confer with the Pope or such agents as he might designate in respect to the question of buying the friars' agricultural lands and other questions of a similar character which were pending between the Roman Catholic Church and the Government. The negotiations which were had on this subject in Rome were set forth in the corre spondence published by the Secretary of War in his report to Congress for last year. In a word, the Pope approved the purchase of the agricultural lands of the three great religious orders that owned agricultural lands in the islands and appointed an apostolic delegate with as full powers as he could be invested with to bring about this result.

The apostolic delegate, Monsignor Jean Baptiste Guidi, archbishop of Staurpoli, reached the islands in the fall of 1902, and negotiations were at once begun. In one of the letters written by Cardinal Rampolla, contained in the correspondence already referred to, he stated on behalf of the Holy See that the resources of the religious orders would be taken into charge by the supreme authorities for the benefit of the church in the Philippines, and it at first seemed that the religious orders, with little prospect of reaping much pecuniary benefit from the sale of the lands under this arrangement, were not anxious to further the proposed purchase. Probably this inference did an injustice to the religious orders in view of the event. It turned out upon examination that the agricultural lands which had originally belonged to the three religious orders of the Philippines,

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