Schurman on Filipino Temperance and American Drinking
PRESIDENT SCHURMAN, of Cornell University and of the Philippine Commission, says: “For one thing, they [the Filipinos] are very temperate and cleanly. I regret that the Americans allowed the saloon to get a foothold on the islands. That has hurt the Americans more than anything else; and the spectacle of Americans drunk awakens disgust in the Filipinos. . . . I have never seen a Filipino drunkard. . . . Probably no one thing has more damaged the American people in the eyes of the natives than this great vice of ours of indulging too freely in drink.” And with all this he says that “we have forty or fifty tribes to civilize, and seven or eight of these have about three hundred thousand members each,” with “one tribe of one and a half millions,” and another of six hundred thousand.