To an American of analytical tendencies a few years in the Philippines present not only an interesting study of Filipino life, but a novel consciousness of our own.  The affairs of these people are so simple where ours are complex, so complex where ours are simple, that one’s angle of view is considerably enlarged.

The general construction of society is mediaeval and aristocratic.  The aristocracy, with the exception of a few wealthy brewers and cigar manufacturers of Manila, is a land-holding one.  There is practically no bourgeoisie—­no commercial class—­between the rich and the poor.  In Manila and all the large coast towns trade is largely in the hands of foreigners, chiefly Chinese, some few of whom have become converted to the Catholic faith, and established themselves permanently in the country;—­all of whom have found Filipino helpmates, either with or without the sanction of the Church, and have added their contingent of half-breeds, or mestizos, to the population.

The land-owning aristocracy, though it must have been in possession of its advantages for several generations, seems deficient in jealous exclusiveness on the score of birth.  I do not remember to have heard once here the expression “of good family,” as we hear it in America, and especially in the South.  But I have heard “He is a rich man” so used as to indicate that this good fortune carried with it unquestioned social prerogative.  Yet there must be some clannishness based upon birth, for your true Filipino never repudiates his poor relations or apologizes for them.  At every social function there is a crowd of them in all stages of modest apparel, and with manners born of social obscurity, asserting their right to be considered among the elect.  I am inclined to think that Filipinos concern themselves with the present rather than the past, and that the parvenu finds it even easier to win his way with them than with us.  Even under Spanish rule poor men had a chance, and sometimes rose to the top.  I remember the case, in particular, of one family which claimed and held social leadership in Capiz.  Its head was a long-headed, cautious, shrewd old fellow, with so many Yankee traits that I sometimes almost forgot, and addressed him in English.  My landlady, who was an heiress in her own right, and the last of a family of former repute, told me that the old financier came to Capiz “poor as wood.”  She did not use that homely simile, however, but the typical Filipino statement that his pantaloons were torn.  She took me behind a door to tell me, and imparted the information in a whisper, as if she were afraid of condign punishment if overheard.

“Money talks” in the Philippines just as blatantly as it does in the United States.  In addition to the social halo imparted by its possession, there is a condition grown out of it, known locally as “caciquism.”  Caciquism is the social and political prestige exercised by a local man or family.  There are examples in America, where every village owns its leading citizen’s and its leading citizen’s wife’s influence.  Booth Tarkington has pictured an American cacique in “The Conquest of Canaan.”  Judge Pike is a cacique.  His power, however, is vested in his capacity to deceive his fellowmen, in the American’s natural love for what he regards as an eminent personality, and his clinging to an ideal.