But most of the political talk in the Philippines is
on a par with certain socialistic thought in the United States--the
socialistic talk of modern writers and speakers, of idealists and
dreamers. It seems as great a perversion of abstract justice, to a
Filipino, that an alien nation should administer his Government, as
it seems to a hard-working American woman that she should toil all
her life, contributing her utmost to the world's progress and the
common burden of humanity, while her more fortunate sisters, by the
mere accident of birth, spend their lives in idleness and frivolity,
enriched by the toil of a really useful element in society. But
to most Filipinos, as to most American women, the contemplation of
the elemental injustice of life does not bring pangs sufficient to
drive them into overt action to right the injustice. There are a few
Filipinos upon whom the American administration in the Philippines
presses with a sense of personal obstruction and weight heavy enough
to make them desire overt action; but upon the majority of the race
the fact of an alien occupation sits very lightly. No man, American
or Filipino, wants to risk his life for the abstract principles of
human justice until the circumstances of life growing out of the
violation of those principles are well-nigh unendurable to him. The
actual condition of the Philippines is such that the violation of
abstract justice--that is, alien occupation--does not bear heavily
upon the mass of the people.
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