Part 38 (1/2)

The utmost limit of achievement in the Philippine Government service, the only one of the higher positions not subject to political caprice, the only one regarded out there as a ”life position”--and this excepts neither the Governors.h.i.+p of the Islands nor the Commissioners.h.i.+ps--is the position of Justice of the Supreme Court. The salary is $10,000 per annum, American money. But there is not an American judge on that bench who would not be glad at any moment to accept a $5000 position as a United States District Judge at home. All of them whom I know are most happily married. But I believe their wives would quit them if they refused such an offer from the President of the United States, or else get so unhappy about it that they would accept and come home.

While we have now considered the case from bottom to top, we did not originally figure on the young American going out to the Philippines otherwise than single. In this behalf Mr. Arnold himself says:

I do not think it can be fairly called other than risky for an American to attempt to practise love in a cottage in the Philippines.

Says the late Arthur W. Fergusson--who gave his life to the Philippine Civil Service--in his annual report for 1905, as Executive Secretary:

The one great stumbling-block, and which no legislative body can eradicate, is the fact that very few Americans intend to make the Philippines their permanent home, or even stay here for any extended period. This is doubtless due to the location of the islands, their isolation from centres of civilization and culture, the enervating climate, lack of entertainment and desirable companions.h.i.+p, and distance from the homeland. Every clerk, no matter what his ideals or aspirations, realizes after coming here that he must at some time in the future return to the United States and begin all over again. After spending a year or more in the islands, the realization that the sooner the change is made the better, becomes more acute. This condition causes, doubtless, the cla.s.s of men who are not adventurous or fond of visiting strange climes to think twice before accepting an appointment for service in these islands, and generally to remain away, and a great majority of those who do come here to leave the service again after a very short period of duty. [497]

Then Mr. Fergusson comes to the obvious but apparently unattainable remedy, which he says is

to make a Philippine appointment a permanent means of livelihood by providing an effective system of transfers to the Federal service after a reasonable period of service here. * * * Under the present regulations influence must be brought to bear at Was.h.i.+ngton in order that requisition may be made by the Chief of some bureau there for the services of a clerk desiring to transfer.

You see, if a Was.h.i.+ngton Bureau, say the Coast and Geodetic Survey, or the Geological Survey, sends a man out to the Islands, he is never for a moment separated from the Federal Civil Service or the Federal Government's pay-roll. The same is true of civilian employees of the army. But the man in the Insular Service, when he wants to get back home, is little better off than if he were in the employ of the Cuban Government, or the British Indian Government, or that of the Dutch East Indies. Mr. Fergusson also says:

It is believed to be useless to try to influence men to come out here unless there is something permanent offered to them at the expiration of a reasonable term of service. * * * The average European is content to live and die ”east of Suez”; the average American is not. * * * I am firmly convinced that a permanent service under present conditions is entirely out of the question.

How can you have ”a permanent service” unless you have a definite declared policy? Why not declare the purpose of our Government with the regard to the Islands?

In his annual report for 1906 [498] Mr. Fergusson says:

Our relations to the islands are such that the education and specialization of a distinct body of high cla.s.s men purposely for this service as is done in England for the Indian service, will probably be always a practical impossibility.

He then goes on to reiterate his annual plea for a law providing for transfer as a matter of right, not of influence, from the Philippine Civil Service to the Federal Civil Service in the United States, and tells of a very capable official of his bureau who got a chance during the year just closed to transfer from the Philippines to a $1400 government position in the United States, and was glad to get it, although $1400 was ”considerably less than half what he received here.” Mr. Fergusson quickly gives the key to all this in what he calls ”the haunting fear of having to return to the States in debilitated health and out of touch with existent conditions, only to face the necessity of seeking a new position.” He adds:

That this is not a mere theory is proven by the number of army (civilian) employees who contentedly remain year after year.

In 1907, Mr. Fergusson reports on the same subject [499]: ”Matters do not seem to be improving,” and that the Director of the Insular Civil Service informs him that ”during the fiscal year there were five hundred voluntary separations from the service by Americans, of whom one hundred were college graduates.” He adds: ”When the expense of getting and bringing out new men, and of training them to their new work is considered, the wastefulness of the present system is evident.”

You do not find any quotations from any of the Fergusson disclosures in Mr. Arnold's North American Review article. He would probably have lost his job, if he had quoted them. Yet the evils pointed out by Mr. Fergusson come from one permanent source, the uncertainty of the future of every American out there, due to the failure of Congress to declare the purpose of the Government.

On January 30, 1908, Arthur W. Fergusson died in the service of the Philippine Government. No general law putting that service on the basis he pleaded for to the day of his death has ever yet been pa.s.sed. Since his death, his tactful successor appears to have abandoned further pleading, and concluded to worry along with the permanently lame conditions inherent in the uncertainty as to whether we are to keep the Islands permanently or not, rather than embarra.s.s President Taft by discouraging young Americans from going to the Islands.

The report of the Governor-General of the Philippines for 1907, Governor Smith, says [500]:

American officials and employees have rarely made up their minds to cast their fortunes definitely with the Philippines or to make governmental service in the tropics a career. Many of those who in the beginning were so minded, due to ill health or the longing to return to friends or relatives, changed front and preferred to return to the home land, there to enjoy life at half the salary in the environment to which they were accustomed. * * * That which operates probably more than anything else to induce good men drawing good salaries to abandon the service * * * is the knowledge that they have nothing to look forward to when broken health or old age shall have rendered them valueless to the government.

If Congress should ever care to do anything to improve the Philippine Civil Service and the status of Americans entering the same, certainly the one supremely obvious thing to do is to make transfer back to the civil service in the United States after a term of duty in the Islands a matter of right.