But
the poorer people live under conditions that seem hard and unjust
to them. The country is economically in a wretched state, and the
working-classes have neither the knowledge nor the ambition to apply
themselves to its development. Unable to discover the real cause of
their misery (which is simply their own sloth), they have heard just
enough political talk to make them fancy that the form of government
is responsible for their unhappy condition. With them the causes which
drive men into dying for an abstract idea do exist; and it is easy
for a demagogue to convince them that the alien occupation is the
root of all evil, and that a political change would make them all rich.
Among the extremely poor of the Filipinos there exists a certain
amount of bitterness against Americans, because they think that our
strong bodies, our undoubtedly superior health and vitality, our
manner of life, which seems to them luxurious past human dreams,
and our personal courage are attributes which we enjoy at their
expense. The slow centuries which have gone to our building up,
mental and physical, are causes too remote for their limited thinking
powers to take into consideration. Moreover, though we say that we
have come to teach them to work and to make their country great,
we ourselves do not work; at least, they do not call what we do
_work_. A poor Filipino's conception of work is of something that
takes him into the sun or that soils his clothing.
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