National Affairs: Mestizo

In Manhattan, the American Guardian Association, founded in the Philippines in 1921 by Governor General Wood for the care of half-breeds (offspring of Filipmo-U. S. unions), opened offices, issued an appeal* for a fund of $2,000,000. Some 6,000 American residents of the Philippines are members of the Association, and the campaign for funds is sponsored by General Wood, William Howard Taft, W. Cameron Forbes (former Governor General), General James G. Harbord, General Hugh E. Scott, Martin Egan (of J. P. Morgan & Co.). The appeal for 1,800 needy mestizo children, as they are called, said: “These children certainly are worth saving. Generally of a high-strung, nervous temperament, and rather emotional, their blood characteristics appear very prominently. They have initiative and imagination, which are wholly lacking in the native. You never mistake them. Their light hair, blue eyes, and clean-cut American features are too evident. The girls,, i if educated, are particularly sought as wives by ambitious and self-respecting men. They boys, if properly brought up, should become leaders of the Filipino people.

“As General Wood affirms, this situation is the one black blot on American prestige in the Orient . . . stories of little girls confined in chicken coops because they would not accede to the demands of their masters; stories of girls traded to Chinamen for pigs.

“It is unfortunately true that the majority of the Filipino women who have consorted with American men have been of the tao, or peasant class. Unable by the hardest kind of drudgery to earn more than 50 cents a day, or a single Philippine peso, many of these abandoned or widowed women have taken other partners, or, as is often the case, have drifted into immorality. In such conditions the boys soon are kicked out to shift for themselves, while the girls are farmed out, or ‘loaned,’ to friends or relatives.”

*General Wood’s superiors in the War Department although not officially taking cognizance of this appeal doubtless gave their tacit approval.