Panorama

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Part of Panorama

Title: Panorama
Issue Date: Volume XII (Issue No. 10) October 1960
Year: 1960
Language: English
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extracted text: I OBER 1960 Centavos CONTENTS Articles: Earth’s Interior Is Cooler Than Previously Believed ............... 2 Our Political Parties....................... Claro M. Recto 3 How Serious Is the Fallout Threat? .................... Helen Buechl 22 Bottles in the Briny .................................................... '7J Writers and Our Educational System..................... Vicente G. Sinco 2$ A Hard Look at the Anti-Red Law ..................... Perfecto V. Fernandez Why We Can’t Speak the Same Language........... Maximo Ramos 49 In Search of Magicians and Princesses.................. Francis A. Neelon 57 Numbers Game ............................. I. G. Kalin, Jr. 66 Beauty and the Beast............Virginia R. Moreno 6! What Makes a Man a Hero .. Glendon Swarthout 76 Spare Parts for Sick People............Ray D. Owen 82 The Dying Seas............................................................. 89 The Teeth of the Matter.................Horace Loftin 92 Regular Features: Book Reviews: Liberation of the Philippines .... Leonard Casper 73 Literary Personality — LXIX: Nevil Shute: The Hear* Is a Condition ............................ 76 PANORAMA is published monthly by the Community Publishers, | Inc., Inverness St., Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines i Editor: Alejandrino G. Hufana Foreign contributing editor: LEONARD CASPER i Art director: NARCISO RODRIGUEZ Business Manager: MRS. C. A. Maramag Subscription rates: In the Philippines, one year 5*8.50; two years ; P16.00. Foreign subscription: one year $6.00 U.S.; two years ; $11.00 U.S. Single copy 75 centavos. 'I Zell your friends about the Panorama, the Philippines’ most versatile, most significant magazine today. (jive them a year’s subscription — NOW! they will appreciate it. Subscription Form .................... 1 year for P8.50 ...................2 years for P16.00 .................. Foreign subscription: one year $6.00 U.S. Name .................................................................................................... .. Street .................................. ...................................................................... City or Town .................................. Province .................................. Enclosed is a check/money order for the amount specified above. Please address all checks or money orders in favor of: COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS. INC. Inverness St, Sta. Ana, Manila, Philippines Srd&iw Mu Temperatures inside the earth are probably some what lower than they were believed to be a few years ago, a geologist reported. Present observations indicate the bottom of the earth’s crust to be about 900 degrees Fahrenheit and the outer boundary of the core to be about 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit. The origin of heat changes that lead to volcanism and mountain building, however, is still obscure, Dr. Verhoogen said. If more could be learned about the tem perature-distribution within the earth, man’s understanding of such geological phenomena would be greatly enhanced. Temperature distribution could be exactly determin ed if one knew the earth’s surface heat flow, the distribu tion of heat sources and the mechanism of heat transfer and relevant thermal conductivity, he said. Temperature at any depth can also be evaluated from phase relationships, such as melting, or from the ef fect of temperature on elastic properties and density. The latter method seems most promising, he said, al though it still involves “considerable uncertainties.” — Science Service 2 Panorama OCTOBER 1960 Entered as second elaps mail matter at the Manila Post Office on Dee. 7, 1955 VOL. XII MANILA, PHILIPPINES No. 10 In the valley of decision Our Political Parties by Claro M. Recto or many years the nation r * has stood on artificial props. We have allowed alien and beguiling forces to chart for our people a course that does not lead to the realization of their legitimate aspirations. We have been made to fear new ideas, to abhor independence of thought and action, to shun examples, precedents and experiences of other peoples that have attained their goals. We have been basking in the feeling that all is well with us and all good things will come to us under the protection of powerful friends. So we have come of age with frail limbs and a lethargic mind, unable to stand on our own feet or to think for ourselves, light-hearted and com placent in an attitude of depend ency, with our most vital prob lems, such as national security and survival and economic recon struction, left in the hands of a guardian who has to look after his own more numerous and per plexing problems. The onrush of world events has reached such mighty propor tions that we can not but be shaken from our lassitude. The change in the balance of world forces which has ended myths of impregnability to nuclear devastation among the super-powers, has made us realize that, after all, we will still have to fend for ourselves for our survival. Every conscious nation that has a mis sion to accomplish and a destiny to fulfill is doing it. Peoples on whom we have hitherto wasted hardly a shred of sympathy and attention, are marching with firm determination on the same trail which the industrial nations of the West had to blaze to reach the summit of wealth and power. Self-help and self-reliance are the order of the day. It is time that we pondered and took stock of our situation, bearing in mind George Washington’s wise and prudent counsel in his political testament—his Farewell Address— that “it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another,” because “it must pay with a portion of its independ ence for whatever it may accept under that character.” tional dogma in Asia and Africa is still heing challenged in our midst by the pharisees and pro phets of the colonial-agricultural economy. And, what is worse, men of little faith and unrepen tant prodigal sons and foolish virgins of our own race, richly deserving the gospel’s appellation of * "a generation of vipers,” in dulge in the suppression of the teachings of Rizal which indoc trinated our people in patriotism, civic consciousness and national dignity at the supreme sacrifice qf his noble life. *T’ HE impact of our revolution against Spain on other Asian dependencies was formidable and there was a time when we were looked up to as the pioneers of freedom in colonial Asia. But that was only for a short while. Today we are only camp-followers of the mighty movement that is sweeping the under-developed countries of the world* But, sad to say, nationalism which is the soul of that movement and a na A nation’s political, economic and cultural life is of its people’s own making. Of course there are what we call the forces of history but it is for the people, in the present advanced state of civiliza tion, to channel them toward the realization of national objectives. We must accept, therefore, full responsibility for the backward condition of our economy, our political immaturity and pompous ness, our opportunistic mentality, our predilection for dramatizing minor issues to the neglect of long-range basic questions, and for our confusions and indecisions that have delayed for decades the progress of the nation. One of the most influential fac tors in the shaping of a nation’s life is its political system as de veloped by its political parties. I shall, therefore, comment as brief 4 Panorama ly as possible, on the manner tney have conducted the affairs of the nation, political and eco nomic, dfaring the first three-score vears of this century, and the impact of their actions on our mentality. is to bb deplored that our major political parties were bom and nurtured before we had attained the status of a free de mocracy. The result was that they have come to be caricatures of their foreign model with its known characteristics—patronage division of spoils, political bossism, partisan treatment of vital national issues. I say caricatures because of their chronic short sightedness respecting those ulti mate objectives the attainment of which was essential to a true and lasting national independ ence. All over the period of Am erican colonization they allowed themselves to become more and more the tools of colonial rule and less the interpreters of the people’s will and ideals. Through their complacency the new col onizer was able to fashion, in ex change for sufferance of oratorical plaints for independence and for patronage, rank and sinecure, a regime of his own choosing for his own and in his own self interest. o answer the question as to why the Americans embarked upon the conquest of the Philip pines is to define the role that our political parties actually play ed, or were allowed to play, be fore the attainment of independ ence. Shortly after the War of Se cession the United States saw the rise of corporations and the obli teration of the so-called American frontier. Her industrial capitalism expanded rapidly with the result that her domestic market became alarmingly insufficient for her mounting manufactures and farm produce. When in the 1890’s she was gripped by a major economic crisis, ner leaders in trade and finance thought that the best way to solve it and avert new ones was to expand her economic fron tiers. The new thinking was sum marized by Senator Beveridge in 1892, in the following words: “American factories are making more than the American people can use; American soil is produc ing more than they can consume. Fate has written our policy for us; the trade of the world must, and shall be ours.” It was during this period, too, that the Western powers were "cutting the Chinese melon” by establishing their respective en claves and spheres of influence in that huge prospective market. Having joined the scramble for China late, and not possessing any enclave on Chinese soil the United States announced her October 1960 5 Open Door policy to preserve— that was the stated purpose—Chi nese territorial integrity and se cure equal trade opportunity. But America was not a Pacific power like Britain, Japan, Russia, France, and Germany, and tocompensate for this disadvantage she sought to establish nearby a springboard to the China main land. The Philippines was found to be the ideal springboard. The evolution of American thinking, which inevitably led to the Spanish-American war and the conquest of the Philippines, may be readily perceived in the following quotations. Theodore Search, President of the National Association of Manufacturers, as early as 1897 said: “Many of our manufactures have outgrown or are outgrow ing their home markets and the expansion of our foreign trade is their only promise of relief.” He' was1 followed bv the As sistant Secretarv of the Treasury, Frank A. Vanderlip, who said in 1888: 'Together with the Islands of the Japanese Empire, since the acquirement of Formosa, the Phil ippines are the pickets of the Pa cific, standing guard at the en trances to trade with the mil lions of China and Korea, French Indochina, the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of Indonesia to the south.” On January 4, 1900, Senator Beveridge, in sponsoring a Joint Congressional Resolution (S. R. 53) spoke in this guise: ‘The Philippines are ours for ever . . . ana just beyond the Philippines are China’s illimitable markets. We will not retreat from either, we will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago, we will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. . . . Our largest trade, henceforth must be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean. More and more Europe will manufac ture the most it needs, secure from its colonies the most it con sumes. Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geo graphy answers the question. China is our national customer . . . the Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East.” In the light of these pronounce ments it is not difficult to see in retrospect what Admiral Dewey was really doing in Hongkong in the last stages of the Philippine revolution against Spain, and how the sentimental fiction came to be woven that America could not bear to see us, orphans of the Pacific after the end of the Span ish rule, swallowed up by the Germans, English and Japanese who were waiting for the op portunity to fall upon a priceless booty. It was President McKinley and the American Senate who expli citly announced America’s purpose in taking forcible possession of 6 Panorama the Philippines in 1898, indirect ly but plainly revealing the rea son for the presence of Dewey’s fleet in Hongkong long before the outbreak of the Spanish-Amer ican war. McKinley said: "There is nothing left for us to do but to take them (thfc Philippines) all and to educate them all, uplift and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could for them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.” According to McKinley himself, when he made that fateful deci sion he was on his knees before the Almighty in search for di vine guidance, and that, right thereafter, and I quote, "I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly . . .” The unbelieving Christian Ad vocate of New York, in its issue of January 22, 1903, commented irreverently: "If seems probable that McKin ley confused the voice of the people with the voice of God, for he touched upon almost every string in the familiar harmony of imperialism.” As for the American Senate, that body merely supplemented the presidential statement with the adoption of the so-called Em ery Resolution, by adding the following, in the indicated order of priority: "And to make such disposition of said Islands as will best pro mote the interests of the citizens of the United States and the in habitants of said Islands.” Our attitude towards our erst while conquerors, incurably biased in favor of everything that comes from them, must have been based on this mystical belief in the "providential” origin of our his toric relations. Since nothing last ing can be built on such a delu sion, we must, in order to enable ourselves to evolve the rightful policies for our country in the fu ture, start ridding our minds of out-dated superstitions. rJnHE armed forces of the First Philippine Republic were still fighting fiercely, though disorgan ized and poorly equipped, against those of the mighty new con queror, when some wealthy and conservative members of the Fili pino community, aided and abet ted by the first Civil Governor of these Islands, W. H. Taft, later Presidept and, still late, Chief Justice of the United States, de cided to organize a political party. It was called the Partido Federal designed to cooperate, as its im mediate purpose, with the Amer ican military authorities in the task of coercing and cajoling the people into accepting American rule. Its platform, which had Gov ernor Taft’s blessings, decried fur ther resistance and advocated as its final goal a statehood in the American Union. Patronage was October 1960 7 promptly awarded to the new par ty by the colonial Administration and, in consequence, its leaders were exclusively chosen for the juiciest and choicest positions in the government. Don Cayetano Arellano and Don Victorino Mapa, the two greatest Filipino jur ists of the time, and Don Floren tino Torres, were appointed Chief Justice and Associate Justices, res pectively, of the first Philippine Supreme Court. The great scholar Pardo de Tavera, together with Benito Legarda and Jose Luzurriaga became members of the Phil ippine Commission which was headed by Taft himself. Other prominent Federates were ap pointed Judges of First Instance, public prosecutors and bureau di rectors. rp o insure the supremacy of the Federal Party, liquidate the remnants of the resistance moveirient, discourage all inde pendence propaganda, and stabil ize the new regime, several ex pedients were resorted to: 1) mo nopoly of patronage for those af filiated with the Federal Party; 2) enactment of the Sedition Law (Act No. 292, November 4, 1901), which made it a criminal offense "for any person to advo cate the independence or separa tion from the United States, whe ther by peaceful or other means, or to publish pamphlets advocat ing such independence or separa tion”; and 3) approval of the Act of Brigandage or "Ley de Bandolerismo” (Act No. 518, November 12, 1902) under the provisions of which any person could be sentenced to death, to life or from 25 to 30 years im prisonment, for stealing a carabao if it could be proved, even by circumstantial evidence, that the accused was a member of an armed band organized for the pur pose of stealing carabaos or other personal property, without the need of establishing that he ac tually participated in the robbery but only that he was a member of the band. It is. well to remember that under this Act, within a period of ten years only, hundreds of Filipinos who remained in the mountains in opposition to the American regime were sent to the gallows, or imprisoned for life or for 30 or 25 years. These were General Macario Sakav and his fellow officers and their men, and hundreds of others. Separate crim inal informations were filed against them in the various courts of first instance of the country, and in all of them the different judgments of conviction were af firmed unanimously by our own Supreme Court. With reference to the Sedition Act it made impossible for Fili pino nationalists to organize them selves into political groups ad vocating independence, until after Panorama the middle of April, 1906 when the Act was repealed. It was for this reason that the Nacionalista Party could not be organized be fore 1907. Those were the years, accord ing to a Filipino historian and political writer, of "suppressed na tionalism.” *p olitical patronage, a charac teristic of the American party system, was established forthwith bv Taft himself under a policy of this tenor: "In the appointment of natives, the fact that the man is a mem ber of the Federal Party is a good recommendation for him for appointment for the reason that we regard the Federal Party as one of the great elements in bringing about pacification, and if a man is in the Federal Party, it is fairly good evidence that he is interested in the government we are establishing and would do as well as he could.” This frank, forthright statement presents the principal characteris tic of the new colonization pol icy, which was to establish a gov ernment with a semblance of Fili pino representation through trust ed Filipino agents enjoying the respect of the people because of their social position or intellectual reputation. For, in a country with such limited economic opportuni ties, men of intelligence and am bition had to look up to the gov ernment to further their personal advancement. Government ap pointments, carrying handsome emoluments and distinction, were adequate rewards for acquiescence, loyalty and cooperation. From 1901 to 1907 the Federal Party was the only one legally in existence. Not only was it the party in power; it was the party. It won, as was to be expected, all local elections prior to 1907. Its leaders, however, did not know how to make the most of the spoils system to strengthen the party. Doctor Pardo de Tavera, the head, was a great man and a highly educated Filipino, but he was not a politician. From the point of view of party politics and its connotations his direction of the Federal Party was a failure, w ith the popular sentiment fast crystallizing with a new note of urgency for self-govern ment and independence, the ab andonment of the statehood plan of the Federates, a plan which was openly discouraged by in fluential members of the American Congress, and the repeal of the Sedition Act in 1906, the Fili pino nationalists saw the oppor tunity for organizing themselves into a political group, and took full advantage of it. Thus the Nacionalista Party, which later made history, and a very brilliant one, came into existenc.e This was early in 1907. October 1960 9 The first encounter between Nacionalistas and Federates in the same year, to elect diputados to the First Philippine Assembly, resulted in a sweeping victory for the Nacionalistas. This madei it manifest that the Filipinos were unqualifiedly ready for independ ence, and that in the face of such an overwhelming popular senti ment even patronage and official pressure counted for nothing at the polls. The American adminis trators, practical politicians that they were, thought correctly that if they were to accomplish their colonial objectives, they would need the support of the triumph ant political group. Such support they could secure only by entrust ing to that group the distribution of government jobs and allowing its leaders freedom in their advo cacy of independence, in exchange no doubt for the group’s coopera tion in the execution of the essen tial policies' of the colonial power. Taft, then Secretary of War nroclaimed the Speaker of the Phil ippine Assemblv the No. 2 offi cial of the Philippine Govern ment, a rank second onlv to that of the American Governor-Gen eral. From that time the partner ship between the representative of the new sovereign and the Filipino leader operated smoothly as pre-arranged. Professor Dapen Liang rightly commented: “During the later years of the Forbes administration legislation became largely a matter of pri vate arrangement between the Governor-General and the Speak er.” Forbes was succeeded by Har rison, and what follows is the appraisal made by an American writer of that period, D. R. Wil liams, of the relations between the American Governor-General and the leader of the “Filipino participation in the government: “During the Harrison admin istration, this (control of the pa tronage) lay with the Naciona listas,” whose chiefs “dictated ap pointments from auxiliary justices of the peace to Supreme Court justice.” The death knell tolled for the Federates and it was a “red let ter day,” if I may use the expres sion, for the Nacionalista leaders. There was general jubilation. But how long was it to last? ecause the broad colonial policies for the Philippines were pre-determined and formu lated in Washington, the limited authority given to the Filipino participation found expression mainly in the distribution of pa tronage and in the constant jock keying for positions of rank and distinction. Political patronage on the scale and in the strictly partisan man ner it was being administered, and the lack of autonomy of 10 Panorama provinces and municipalities in the administration of local affairs, particularly in the matter of rais ing their own revenues, placed these administrative units com pletely at the mercy of the cen tral government. Their growing needs, especially permanent im provements like markets, schools, barrio roads, made inevitable the continuous grants of aid bv cen tral government to the local gov ernments which practically made the latter veritable fiefs of the former, with the controller of the party patronage as the feu dal lord, whose will had to be obeyed in all matters of party business by the local chieftains under pain of political liquida tion. In such circumstances no opposition party could survive. In reality true party system became known in this country only since 1946 with the birth of the Lib eral Party, a splinter of the Na cionalista, motivated bv a purely personal rivalry between two Na cionalista leaders in the struggle for the Presidency. But on top of the party in power was the American colonial administrator, the prime source of government patronage, who could at will continue to dispense it or could withdraw with its im plied commitment to accommodate the administration in the attain ment of the latter’s own colonial objectives. The Nacionalistas were so aware of the political implica tions of the situation that they could not afford to displease the colonial power and alienate its good will. It would have meant the loss of their political para mountcy. They needed each other and, therefore, acted as was ex pected. Oratorical clamor for in dependence continued to thunder deafeningly and patronage kept on being distributed abundantly while economic policies were si lently but surely chaining the na tion to the oars of the colonial galley. With the government as the main employer and with econo mic conditions as backward as those of any other agriculturalcolonial country, the efforts of the people to insure their liveli hood were principally directed to securing government jobs. The limitation of opportunities out side the official world made cen tralization inevitable and the gov ernment omnipotent. This was the corrupting influence which impelled the astute and the am bitious to use politics as an in strument for personal advance ment in the social, official and economic spheres. Patronage and centralization became, therefore, the twin products of that peculiar colonial situation which seemed to fit the designs and wishes of both parties. October 1960 11 J^ut the gravest sin of Phil ippine politicking was the gross neglect to exert efforts to wards economic emancipation. So obsessed were the politicians with their power struggles and the dol ing out of the spoils of office that, either they did not foresee, or having foreseen, they completely neglected the economic problems of independence. Politics, with its enlivened election campaigns and its dispensation of patronage, be came a national sport which dis tracted and amused the people, in the same manner that bread and circuses distracted and amused the Roman populace, which did not mind whether it was Nero or Cincinnatus, or Cali gula or Marcus Aurelius, who was their Caesar. In our case while the more fortunate of us were living in comfort and luxurv with the fat proceeds of our privileged agricultural exports and the hold ing of high government positions, the nation was slowlv being con signed to perpetual economic slavery. Had our leaders been from the beginning more far-sighted, and had they prepared the people for the responsibilities of independ ence, in the same manner that a true Christian is trained to stand ready at every hour for his final accounting because death comes as a thief in the night, our sovereignty and independence would now be real and complete and on the other hand, our lead ers would not have exposed them selves to the charge that they did not sincerely desire independence that their outcries and agitations for it were just intended for poli tical effect, and that their sole aim was to win and retain the monopoly of power with its ac companying privileges. u nder Article IV of the Treaty of Paris Spanish ships and goods were admitted to Phil ippine ports on the same terms as ships and goods of the United States for a ten-year period. Con sequently no preferential arrange ment between American goods and Philippine products could be established then without violat ing that Treaty or necessarily ex tending the same privilege to im ported commodities from Spain. Moreover, the establishment of preferential rates for the Philip pines at the time would have proved embarrassing to the Am ericans who were bidding for equal treatment in the China mar ket. When the 10-year period ended the United States approved with out loss of time the Tariff Act (Payne-Aldrich) of 1909 establish ing a limited free trade with the Philippines. This allowed the en try of American goods on a pre ferential basis and geared Philip pine agricultural production to the American market. Such was 12 Panorama the situation until certain Phil ippine agricultural products came to be a serious menace to power ful vested interests in the United States, which prompted her, at the irresistible behest of those in terests, to terminate, in form if not in substance, the colonial re lationship between the two coun tries. Thus, the hour for Philip pine independence struck when, according to a distinguished Am erican historian, already “the wis er Filipino leaders had ceased to desire it.” N o more dispassionate and cor rect anlaysis of the motiva tions behind the so-called “grant” of independence to the Philip pines could have been made than the one by Dr. Julius W. Pratt, Professor of American History of the University of Buffalo. From his book, “America’s Colonial Ex periment,” I offer to this select audience the following excerpts: “No chapter in the history of American policy towards its pos sessions was marked by such glar ing contradictions and inconsisten cies as that relating to the Phil ippines. Although political policy pointed steadily toward self-gov ernment and eventual independ ence, economic policy has steadily built up the Philippines as a source of raw materials for the American market and created an economy dependent upon conti nued free access to that market. Cp. 291) “The Independence Act of 1934, then and since adverted to the world as an exemplary deed of renunciation, found probably 90 per cent of its motivation in a cynical desire of American pro ducers close to the American mar ket to the Filipinos at whatever cost to the latter. Independence was granted when the wiser Fili pino leaders had ceased to desire it and upon terms almost certain to produce economic disaster in the Philippines, (p. 291) “As early as 1924 one writer had noted that independence for the Philippines was advocated by certain groups in the United Statse engaged in the production of beet and cane sugar, tobacco, and vegetable oils of the compe tition with their products of dutyfree commodities from the Philip pines. (pp. 301-302) “Of special interest, in view of the economic motives of the legis lation were its trade provisions. These were hardly generous. Throughout the transition period American products would conti nue to be admitted free of duty to the Philippines. Philippine im ports into the United States, on the other hand, would be sub jected to progressive restrictions, (p 306) "All in all, the economic out look for an independent Philip pines was gloomy enough. Cer OCTOBER 1960 13 tain features of the act were glar ingly unfair. The time allowed for economic readjustment was too short. The free market gua rantee to American products in the Philippines to the end of the transition period would postpone till independence any opportunity for the Philippines to make reci procal trade arrangements with other countries, (p. 307) ‘The United States was the first modern power to grant in dependence voluntarily to a rich colonial possession. American pub lic men have frequently pointed to the act as one of generosity and statesmanship, which other colonial powers would do well to copy. It is unpleasant to have to record that the law thrusting in dependence upon the Philippines showed little statesmanship and no generosity. It sacrificed the well-being of the Philippines for the supposed benefit of American farmers and workers, disguising the injury with the kiss of inde pendence. It was, of course, with in the power of Congress to res trict or tax Philippine imports and yet to refuse independence. But it is no valid defense of an ungenerous act to say that a still more ungenerous one was possi ble.” (p. 310) 0 ur free trade with the Unit ed States precluded the es tablishment of local industries, and, by channeling our farming activities towards a few selective export products, we prevented our selves from diversifying our pro duction and from attaining greater economic flexibility, growth and stability, while our domestic con sumption continued to increase far beyond our capacity to sup ply. As Philippine economy be came more dependent on the Am erican market and manufactures and our people became more ac customed to American products, the struggle against free trade be came increasingly hopeless to a point where it had to be aban doned altogether. The result was the sorry spectacle of confused leaders now debating on whether we can afford to be independent or not, now pleading for the ex tension of free trade after inde pendence, in mortal fear of los ing tariff preferences for our ex port products and of having to dispense with consumer goods to which we have been so accus tomed and which we could not produce. Those leaders, who had taken upon themselves the task of carrying to a successful con clusion the fight for freedom which our heroes and martyrs be gan in 1896, have sadly mistaken, so it seems, the shadow and van ity of personal power for the substance and honor of a true national independence. grievous a mistake, amount ing to official dereliction, on 14 Panorama the part of our leaders, can best be illustrated by an analysis of the platforms of the major poli tical parties which have domin ated the national scene the turn of the century. The Nacionalista platform of 1907 contained no economic pro gram at all. What follows, which is one of its planks, cannot be considered as having any econo mic connotation from the point of view of our discussion: “Our people are thoroughly adaptable to democratic institu tions and have men with suffi cient wisdom and intelligence to organize a stable government, and wealth and natural resources to maintain an economical public service, the more so when it is hoped that under their own law, the material conditions of the is lands will develop and increase satisfactorily for the benefit of the Filipinos.” The platform adopted by the two Nacionalista factions in 1921 dealt with generalities and made no mention of any economic plans. When the two factions re united in 1924, the platform they adopted also failed to make re ference to economic policies or programs essential to independ ence. It was apparent that our leaders had already come to ac cept limited free trade with its anti-industrialization connotation as the correct pattern of our eco nomic relations with the United States even after independence. here were, however, politi cal elements which saw the necessity of preparing the country for the economic responsibilities of independence, and of granting autonomy to provincial and local governments to release them from the domination of the central gov ernment and thus encourage the formation of opposition parties and insure free elections. At the height of the Speaker’s supremacy as national leader, a group of Nacionalistas led by General Sandiko seceded from the party to form a new group, the Partido Democrata National. It was launched in April, 1914 with a platform advocating industrial ization, markets for Philippine products, and protection to na tional commerce, trade and agri culture. But in the national elec tions which followed, the new party was overwhelmingly de feated. The people were still un concerned with economic prob lems; patronage and pork barrel were still the favored securities in the political stock-market. Sumulong’s Progresistas joined the Democratas and a new group was born in August, 1917: the Partido Democrata. This party advocated autonomy for local gov ernments, promotion of agricul ture, commerce and industry and development of our natural re OCTOBER 1960 15 sources. It, too, was disastrously defeated by the all-powerful party in power. The people remained apathetic towards tne economic future of the nation; to all ap pearances pork barrel and patron age were still the only things that mattered to them. Our masses continued to suffer from their age-old poverty, but the well-entrenched plutocracy and the politically-minded and active American-educated minority enjoyed a measure of colonial prosperity. The latter’s indifferent attitude toward economic nation alism helped the party in power in defeating Don Juan Sumulong’s attempts (1914-1934) to bring to the political forum a frontal discussion of our econo mic problems. Our political historians have dismissed with a few derogatory remarks such movements as the Sakdal in Southern Luzon in 1935. It was1 a mistake. The case for the Sakdals could not have been regarded as a mere tempo rary aberration, for the member ship of that party was numerous enough and loyal enough to elect in 1934—in the only province, Laguna, which was the seat of its organization—the provincial governor, the two representatives to the Legislature and the major ity of the local officials. But peo ple who rise up in arms under the banner of independence and economic emancipation do not risk their lives simply because some silver-tongued rabble-rouser tells them to. What may have im pelled them to take up arms could be the sincere belief that their poverty and' lack of opportuni ties would be remedied only if the Philippines were politically and economically free. They be came skeptical of peaceful solu tions. For while our political lead ers were orating on independence the mainstream of mass conscious ness was being directed toward liberation from total economic bondage: the bondage of a feudalagricultural structure which had been keeping them impoverished, and the bondage of foreign over all control of our economy, which gave them. no hope of improving their means of livelihood. ViceGovernor Hayden, who was here during the Sakdal uprising in 1935, described them as “hard working, family-loving people who exemplified the fine basic quali ties that are typical among the Filipino masses . . . they were desperately worried about earning a living for their women and children and genuinely concerned over the welfare of their coun try . . .” Not all, therefore, were apa thetic, or, as Filosofo Tasio in Rizal’s Noh would say: No todos dormian en la noche de nuestros abuelos. 16 Panorama JUST before the outbreak of the Second World War our leaders realized the deleterious ef fects of continued economic de pendence on the United States, and they recoiled in horror, but, strangely enough, the only solu tion they thought possible was the continuance of preferential trade agreements over a period of readjustment. It was a solution that merely complicated and ag gravated the problem. It only postponed the impending disaster. Years of dealing with petty mat ters, of squabbling over the spoils of office and of big talk while picking crumbs from the Amer ican table, had so sapped the strength and courage and so dim med the vision of our leaders that they became incapable of opening a new path which would lead the nation to real political freedom through economic emancipation from alien control. The sterility of pre-war politi cal thinking on economic prob lems is reflected in the Naciona lista platform of 1935 which ad vocated a revision of the TydingsMcDaffie Act, “so that preferen tial trade with America may be allowed to continue after inde pendence and shall not be ter minated until the expiration of such period as may be considered reasonably necessary to permit the Philippines to make a proper ad justment of her economy.” This was the result of the prevailing political and economic fallacies of the time namely: that the special relations between the Philippines and the United States were mu tually beneficial, that the Philip pines could not live and survive without America, and that some how American benevolence would prolong the so-called adjustment period indefinitely. The war years and the rigors of enemy occupation gave us an opportunity to reassess our needs and our capabilities as well as our policies, to bring out the best in our own initiative, and to strengthen the national character. Many realized for the first time in those trying days that we could stand on our own feet if we only exerted the necessary effort, and make a fresh start on a more independent basis, politi cally and economically, after the war was over. fl ut the popularity of G.I. Joe, his jeeps, his cigarettes and his candy bars, the early handouts of canned goods and used clothing, rekindled within us the dying embers of old co lonial beliefs. Flushed with the excitement of MacArthur’s dra matic return, the people did not detect beneath the surface of mag nanimity the same old imperialis tic policies at work slipping round our necks once more the leash of economic control. The new party in power, a chip off the old NaOCTOBER 1960 17 cionalista, whose leadership could have set this country on the right road to economic independence, chose to accept, on the very eve of the nation’s independence, a reimposition of the colonial eco nomic control. Its new-found devise was the Bell Trade Act and its twin-sister legislation, the War Damage Act, which made payments dependent on our acceptance of the former, particularly its iniquitous “parity right” clause. The new imperial ists, led by a ruthless American High Commissioner, used the pov erty and devastation brought upon us by their war as a lever to get what they wanted. Inheritor of a pre-war political tradition of re liance on the United States with a blind faith in her benevolence and sense of altruism, the new post-liberation leader, thinking no doubt of the needs of his own administration, quickly capitulat ed. His new party accepted the Bell Trade Act and amended the Philippine Constitution granting parity rights to Americans in the enjoyment of our natural resour ces, and bartering future econo mic stability and the nation’s na tural resources for short-term gains and temporary accommodations. The pitiful and shameful surren der of our patrimonial, political and economic rights was almost complete. We became the only losers in the war we had just helped to win. It was a sad ex perience in Philippine-American relations. 'Derhaps because it was tem porarily out of power and therefore had the leisure and was at a better distance to view the national problems ip a clearer perspective, the Nacionalistas of fered to the electorate in 1949 a platform that expressed sorqe re cognition of the country’s need for industrialization, for develop ing our power resources and for attaining other economic objec tives. But the election in that year was the most cynical piece of fraud ever perpetrated in the history of our democratic experi ment and the Nacionalistas were defeated. In the Nacionalista platform of 1953 I succeeded in incorpo rating, with the help of Justice Barrera, Senator Locsin, Councilor Barredo and other nationalistic Nacionalistas the following planks: “Readjust the character of our economy from its present predo minantly colonial-agricultural sta tus to a progressively industrial system, thus removing unemploy ment and accelerating the attain ment of economic independence and sound national prosperity. “Remove present limitations on our economic freedom of action contained in existing executive agreements and trade agreements under the Bell Trade Act.” 18 Panorama For the first time in our poli tical history a major party came out with an unequivocal state ment for an industrial economy against an agricultural economy and continued foreign economic dependence and control. The victory of the Nacionalistas in 1953 was unprecedented, but because their' standard-bearer him self, as it turned out, did not be lieve in his newly-chosen party’s nationalistic platform, the Nacionafista goal of economic emanci pation through industrialization suffered, ironically, a resounding defeat. The new President, illadvised by his foreign advisers, tried to maintain our agricultural economy, reviving the pre-war mvth that we are essentially agri cultural and that we cannot hope to industrialize. Instead of abro gating the parity rights in the Vol tairian spirit of ecrasez I'infame, or at least of limiting their field of application, the same admin istration expanded them, through the Laurel-Langley Agreement, to all other forms of business ven tures or enterprises. "J t was at that period of our political history which saw my break with certain leaders of the Nacionalista Party. It was not motivated by personal consi derations. It was purely a matter of principle: whether we should continue our agricultural-colonial status, or industrialize in order to achieve real, true independ ence, and whether we should formulate an independent foreign policy and act accordingly, or continue to be retainers of the State Department. It was, in fine, a break between the growing le gions of nationalism and the wellentrenched forces of colonialism. I took pains to explain the issue of nationalism to our people in the 1957 Presidential campaign and, although I lost, I sincerely believe that the task of bringing to the attention of my country men the need for a nationalistic orientation in our political and economic life, which my fellow crusaders and I have set for our selves, has borne fruits beyond our expectations. We should all feel gratified that the present administration has decided to follow the nation alist planks of the Nacionalista platform which the Nacionalista standard-bearer in 1953 discarded so disdainfully. The present ad ministration, by its advocacy of the Filipino First policy and its acceptance, at least in principle, of the need for real industrializa tion, has at last come to grips with the true vital issues in this period of our national existence. Of course, one may say quite candidly, that nothing more than a modest beginning has been made; in fact, on some aspects of nationalist policy, notably in dustrialization, the Administration October 1960 19 has acted in a curiously half hearted manner, as if it were not yet fully certain of the course it must take, or as if there were powerful extraneous forces work ing on it. The Administration should show, I suggest, greater vigor and determination now that it has started to move in the right direction. The problem of corruption still plagues the government. It can not be helped. How much of this should be ascribed to the present Administration is any body’s guess. But if we are fair, we must admit that there was a tremendous backlog of it that has been received from previous ad ministrations. The Opposition par ty which, for all the oratorical protestations of its titular head, is still basically anti-nationalist, has tried to make graft and cor ruption an overpowering political issue despite its own questionable record, little realizing that it is colonialism that has been mainly responsible for this cancer that is gnawing at the entrails of our body politic. But with power-poli tics still as a primary concern of our political parties there can be no permanent cure for graft and corruption. Only industrialization and eventual economic emancipa tion will provide our people not only with economic security and well-being but a greater latitude of economic opportunties which will minimize the influence of government patronage and allow merit to become the yardstick for employment and promotion. •"pODAY the nationalist struggle is far from won. There are elements in both parties that seek to perpetuate colonial rule. Alien economic interests are trying hard to oppose and to sabotage the movement. Spine enemies of na tionalism are fighting it frontally. Others, masquerading as nation alists, are boring from within, act ing as fronts for powerful foreign interests, or seeking to emasculate its meaning by trying to limit its operation to our cultural life alone so that the nation’s econo mic exploitation by aliens may continue undisturbed behind a pleasant facade of cultural rela tionship. But these anti-nationalists must realize that their hours are num bered, that everywhere there are unmistakable signs that the peo ple are experiencing a reawaken ing of the nationalistic faith which animated and gave mean ing and substance to the lives of their forefathers, and of a grow ing awareness and understanding of the vital importance of reshap ing our policies with a view to freeing them from alien control, so that, after our economy shall have passed into Filipino hands, this and future generations may at long last come into the full fruition of their heritage. 20 Panorama If the party in power is cour ageous and loyal to its goals and the people are steadfast and deter mined, we shall be able to era dicate once and for all from our national politics the dual role of serving God and Mammon at the same time which our political par ties have been playing since their inception, with such disastrous re sults for the nation. After fourteen years of inde pendence it is certainly time we developed a political leadership whose sole allegiance is to the people, whose sole concern is the welfare of that people, and whose sole desire is an unquestioned obedience to the people’s will. After fourteen years of independ ence surely there could be no earthly reason why our political parties should still allow them selves, wittingly or unwittingly, to be used as instruments of co lonial rule. Our people must de mand undivided allegiance from the men they have chosen to govern this country. And they must be vigilant and profess lo yalty only to the leadership that best expresses their will and only for so long as such leadership continues to express and obey that will. ¥ ¥ * Verdict A new YORK attorney made such a bombastic closing argument that the jury seemed over whelmed by his sheer volume. As the reverberations died away, his opponent rose. “Listening to the thunderous appeals of my learn ed friend,’’ he began, “ I recalled an old fable. A lion and an ass agreed to slay the beasts of the field and divide the spoils. The ass was to go into the thicket and bray to frighten the animals out, while the lion was to lie in wait and kill the fugitive as they emerg ed. In the darkest part of the jungle, the ass lifted his awful voice and brayed and brayed. “The ass was intoxicated with his own uproar, and wanted to see what the lion thought of it. With a light heart, he went back and found the lion looking about doubtfully. “ What do you think of that?’ said the exultant ass. ‘Do you think scared 'em?’ ‘“Scared 'em?’ repeated the lion in an agitated tone. Why, you’d ’a scared me if didn’t know you were a jackass!’ ” The jury’s verdict went to the quiet lawyer. October 1960 21 No kidding? How Serious Is the FALLOUT THREAT? by Helen Buechl Every time it rains, it rains fallout from nuclear blasts. The amount of fallout that comes down with each rainstorm varies, but the fact remains that radioactive particles accompany each show er. The fallout consists of such radioactive particles as iodine * 131, cesium-137—and strontium-90. Fallout is classified either as “local” or widely dis tributed. The larger particles produced by the nuclear explosion give the local fallout. This radioac tive debris falls to earth within a radius of a few hundred miles of the blast. Widely distributed fallout consists of smaller particles thrown very high into the at mosphere by the explosion. This debris tends to remain in the stratosphere for a few years, los ing some of its radioactivity during this period. Man receives radiation from the radioactive particles that drift down from these bomb blasts. He acquires this radio activity through the food he eats and drinks. The particles settle on vegetables and grains that man eats, and on the grains and feed that animals eat. When animal products are eaten by man, some of the animal’s radioactivity is added to the hu man diet. Such is the case with milk. 22 Panorama Local fallout can produce ra diation sickness, skin burns and death. These acute effects de pend mainly upon the dose of radiation. Chronic effects such as cancer, lowered resistance to stresses, premature aging and premature death also depend upon the size of the radiation dose from local fallout. ^^cientists are still wrestling with the concept of thres hold. That is, can man receive a certain dose of radiation with out harm, and if there is such a “safe” amount, what is it? An other unknown is the rate at which fallout is settling on the earth. In an attempt to answer these question, scientists have been studying the strontium-90 level in milk. This is a relatively re vealing indext of the amount of fallout reaching the United States daily. It is measured in strontium units. Strontium-90 levels in milk across the country reflect the increased amount of fallout that has cluttered the atmosphere since 1954. For instance, Atomic Energy Commission reports show that at that time the strontium-90 level in milk in New York City was 2.5 units or micro-microcuries of stronstium90 per gram of calcium. (A micromicrocurie is equal to one million-millionth of one curie; the curie is an amount of radia tion equal to that produced by one gram of radium.) Before January, 1959, the figures reveal, the level had ri sen to more than 11 micromicro curies of strontium-90 per gram of calcium. The National Committee on Radiological Protection has es tablished a maximum permissi ble level of 100 strontium units for the general population. Meanwhile, the International Committee on Radiological Pro tection (ICRP) has tentatively lowered the level to 67. This in cludes the entire radioactive count of strontium-90 in man’s complete diet, not just milk. The permissible level does not mean that any radiation le vel over the limit will automa tically cause death or injury, nor, on the other hand, does it imply that any dose below the level will automatically be safe. It is simply a recommended ceiling in the lifetime strontium concentration in the bones. Other data show that bread picked at random off the shelf of a supermarket in New York Ci ty in February, 1959, was four times as “hot” as the ICRP ma ximum permissible level. The clover grown on a Raleigh, N. C., farm in July of 1957 regis tered strontium-90 content of more than twice the 100 unite allowed. October 1960 23 ■Further alarming news was revealed in a summary re port by scientists on the 1959 Fallout Prediction Panel to the Congressional Joint Subcommit tee on Atomic Energy. The re port predicted that the dose of radiation to the reproductive or gans of Americans would dou ble within the next few years. This increase will occur when cesium-137, now stored in the stratosphere, begins to descend. This prediction applies to all persons living in the north tem perate zone, including Europe ans and Russians as well as Am ericans. Currently, the dose of radiation to the reproductive or gans of persons in this zone is already two and one half times the world average. This figure, however, is within the maximum permissible level, scientists reas sure. Despite this evidence, the General Adyisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission recently stated that total ex ternal radiation from fallout to date, together with any estimat ed fallout from future weapons tests, is less than 5 per cent as much as the average exposure to cosmic rays and other natu ral background radiation. The amount is also less than 5 per cent of the estimated average radiation dose Americans re ceive from X rays for medical purposes, the committee added. (Man-made radiation sources include X-ray machines, radio isotopes, fluoroscopes and radiaactive waste products. Another source is radium.) This, however, is only an average. The percentages fluc tuate from 15 percent to 30 per. cent, depending upon the sec tion of the U.S. that is sampled. T he committee also report * ■ ed that human beings have lived for many generations in parts of the world having five or more times the background radiation normally found in this country, or more than 100 times the average amount of radiation from fallout in the U.S. No one has yet proved these levels are safe, however. No studies have been made to de termine the biological effects of these higher levels. But it is now beyond question that humans exposed to fairly large doses of radiation have an increased chance of developing leukemia, Dr. Austin M. Brues, director of biological and medi cal research, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Ill., stated before a Congressional Subcom mittee on Atomic Energy. Simi lar evidence makes it clear that radium in the human skeleton has been responsible for cancer of the bone in humans, he said. There is still no direct evi dence that small doses of radia tion, such as those from natural background and fallout, will de 24 Panorama finitely produce a proportional ly lower number of leukemias and cancers, nor that a low dose will necessarily shorten the average life span, the scientist said. On the other side of the coin, Dr. W. L. Russell of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., presented re\ealing evidence concerning the effects of radiation on pregnant mice. He showed that genetic dam age—sterility, for example—can occur in unborn female mice, depending upon the length of time a dose of radiation is di rected on a target. He suggested there may be a similar reaction to radiation in pregnant humans that could result in sterile baby girls. But this does not neces sarily lead to the conclusion that there is a threshold dose of radiation above which genetic damage will occur. I^cientists appear to agree that the most likely victim of radiation exposure will be the unborn child and the infant. This is due to radioactive iodine attracted to the thyroid gland, which, in the infant, receives some 15 to 20 times the dose re ceived by adults. In addition, bone growth is most rapid during this stage of human development. Since strontinum-90 is attracted to bone, and since both radioactive iodine and strontium are pre sent in milk, an important com ponent of the child’s diet, it seems logical that the young sters will be the more likely candidates for thyroid and bone cancers. Meanwhile, Atomic Energy Commission scientists are busy considering methods for testing weapons that will avoid creat ing fallout in the first place. Dr * . Willard F. Libby, a scientist on the Commission until last June 30, has reported several pro posed ideas. One method is un derground testing deep within rock formations. The rock con tains and seals off the radioacti vity produced. Five nuclear ex plosion have been detonated in this fashion to date. Weapons may someday be fired into outer space to avoid the dangers of fallout. A dis tance of halfway to the moon or beyond would be most desir able, the AEC scientist said. * * ¥ Philosopher: “What’s the difference between a stoic and a cynic?” Coed: “A stoic is what brings babies and a cynic is what we wash them in.” October 1960 25 Ahoy, there! Mottles in the Mriny on’t ignore that halfburied bottle on the beach. It could contain a message that might help solve a mystery of the sea, win you a wife or husband, save a ship wrecked sailor or make you rich. One winter day in 1955, Aarke Wiking of Goteburg, Sweden, tossed a bottle off his ship into the Mediterranean. The bottle contained a note which asked “all girls aged 16 to 20” if they wanted to marry a “handsome, blond Swede.” Last May, Sebastiano Puzzo, factory worker and father of many girls, found the sealed bottle on a lonely Sicilian beach. Smashing it open, he saw the Swedish sailor’s mes sage, had it translated and promptly sent him a picture of his 18-year-old daughter, Paolina. She soon started corres ponding with the 24-year-old sailor, and married him not long ago in Syracuse, Sicily. A farm boy in the Azores discovered a sealed bottle con taining a note which promised to pay the finder $1,000 — if the note were forwarded to a New York address. The boy duly collected his reward from a radio-program sponsor who had cast the bottle into New York harbor as a publicity stunt. Such “money-bottles” are often tossed into the sea by wealthy cruise passengers. Recently a scrawled S.O.S. sealed in a bottle, supposedly signed by two shipwrecked German pilots 15 years ago, washed up on the island of Majorca. Written on the back of an instruction that told how to inflate a life raft, the mes sage said: “August 1943, ship wrecked south of Espiritu San to Island, S.O.S. Heil Hitler.” It carried two signatures — of men who were never found. Twenty-five years ago, Doyle Branscum sealed a picture of himself in a basketball uniform inside a bottle and tossed it in to a river in Arkansas. Last winter the bottle washed up on a beach near Largo, Florida. Bill Headstream of Largo found the photo and, using the return address on the back, mailed it to Branscum. Headstream and Branscum were boyhood friends when Headstream lived in Ar 26 Panorama kansas. They hadn’t heard from each other until the bot tle incident Some years ago, a Soviet fisherman plucked a small wa tertight container from sea ice in the Russian Arctic. Inside was a note, written in Norwe gian and English, which read: “Five ponies and 150 dogs re maining. Desire hay, fish and 30 sledges. Must return early in August. Baffled.” HE MESSAGE had been re leased by the polar explo rer, Evelyn Baldwin, and had drifted in the Actic Ocean for 45 years. (The expedition came through safely anyway, and Baldwin died a natural death in 1933.) Scientists for many years have been using bottle-mail to study ocean currents and winds. Such studies enabled Benjamin Franklin to chart the Gulf Stream. Perhaps the busiest bottle mailers are members of the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Of fice, Washington, D. C. Each year, they throw thousands of corked bottles, containing forms printed in eight languages, in cluding Esperanto, into waters around the world. Finders are asked to take or mail the en closed forms to any U.S. con sul for forwarding to Washing ton, where the information is used to study ocean currents. Some time ago one such bottle was dropped into the In dian Ocean. It was subsequent ly picked up off the coast of British Somaliland by a Mos lem named Mohammed Mustapha. Unable to read any of the printed languages, he jumped on his camel and raced to the nearest British agent, who filled out the form and mailed it to Washington. About two months later, the native rushed back to the agent’s office waving a large pilot chart of his native waters and a letter from the hydrographer thanking him for his services. The chart, Moham med insisted, was a draft on the U.S. Government, and he de manded to know why the local bank would not cash it. Bottle messages are also used to help spread the word of God. A West Coast preacher collects empty liquor bottle. After cleaning them, he inserts ser mons and sets them adrift on the seas. There are, of course, the bot tle-message practical jokers. Once in a while bottle-mail washes up a message such as “Ship sinking! Help!” These are readily recognized as hoaxes because the alleged ship’s given position usually plots atop a mountain or miles inland. Beer bottles, ketchup bottles, whisky bottles, champagne botOCTOBER 1960 27 ties, Chianti bottles — all kinds of bottles are bobbing up and down on the waters of the world. What messages to they contain? S.O.S.? Lonelyhearts? Money-mail? Not even the winds and the ocean waves know the answers. ¥ * * Try Again Q ff the coast of Newfoundland, a ship collided with a fishing boat in a heavy fog. No real damage was done, but as the offending ship tried to back off, it banged into the boat again. The cap tain was afraid he might have done some damage with the second blow. “Can you stay afloat?” he shouted through a megaphone to the floundering vic tim. “I guess so,” called back the skipper of the boat. “Do you want to try again?” Young Logic ^Tive-year-old Jimmy’s mother was seldom sur prised by anything she found in her offspring’s pockets. However, she was a little more than curious when she found a wad of grass in his pocket one day. She called him in from play and asked why it was there. Answered Jimmy with firm logic, “That worm 1 have in there had to eat, didn’t he?” 28 Panorama Writers and Our EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM The dean of one of our col leges once told me that the reason he has quite a num ber of eccentrics in one of his departments is that there are sev eral writers in it and these men and women are well-known for their eccentricities. But he added, he expects them to produce soon er or later excellent poems, es says, and novels which will sur round the University of the Phil ippines, so to say, with a halo of fame and glory. At the same time these men and women are them selves the very creators of more creative writers who in turn will bring more fame and glory to the Filipino nation. The argument is beautiful and quite persuasive even if not completely convinc ing. At any rate, the fact that we have in the faculty of the Uni versity of the Philippines a num ber of well-known Filipino writers is sufficient proof that our insti tution has at least some under standing of the importance of writers as teachers and as schol ars. By Vicente G. Sinco President University of the Philippines UT hen we speak of writers, ” giving it a restricted mean ing, it is assumed that we refer to men and women who produce literary works of a creative na ture. I understand that this group belongs to that category. Their productions take the form of po ems, dramatic plays, novels, es says, and treatises, either creative or critical. In that restricted sense, I should not include writers of textbooks and reporters of news papers. But we must admit that they perform an important serv ice to a particular group, and in the case of textbook writers they need not at all be dull and un imaginative. Many of them can also be creative and even liter ary. If given the right incentive, October 1960 29 they should be able to write text books that stimulate interest, cu riosity, and a hunger for aesthe tic, intellectual, or emotional pos sessions and aptitudes ... If tney do rise to that stature, their text books may perhaps even find their way to the higher literature of the nation. As a matter of fact, we have read purely in formational and factual works that have become classics and, in my student days, were used as text books in our political and social science courses. I have reference especially to De Tocqueville’s De mocracy in America, Woodrow Wilson’s The State, and James Bryce’s The American Common wealth, which are considered treatises, but nevertheless serve and may still serve as effective textbooks. They are literary mas terpieces, for behind their factual content they reveal brilliant ima gination and an appeal to the finer ‘sensibilities of the indivi dual for love, beauty, valor, and truth. To say that our country is in need of good writers and that in our social and cultural milieu native literature of some excel lence is altogether inadequate is to state the obvious. This is not, however, saying that we have no competent writers at all. Your presence in this room would con tradict such a thought. I believe, however, that we have but very few of them who are giving their full time or much of it to the production of works comparable with those produced in the coun tries of Europe, in the United States, South America, and some countries of Asia. I would not be positive in concluding that the works of Filipino writers, whether they be the works of Rizal, or Recto, or Apostol, or Gonzales, or Lopez, and others, are inferior in their intrinsic literary value, their style, or their significance, to similar works of men and women in Europe or in America and other Asian nations. I am quite convinced that the reason they have not received due recogni tion outside of our country is that they have not been given the right amount and the right kind of publicity. In fact, they have not received wide and gen eral recognition even among our own people and are known only by a small circle of habitual read ers and book lovers. The question that has to be answered is how we would de velop a sufficiently large reading public in our country that appre ciates the works of our own writ ers. I am convinced that this task may well be started in our col leges and universities. In fact, the work might well be started in our elementary and high schools. It involves improvement of our teachers, revision of textbooks, and some overhauling of the cur riculum. And the process might 30 Panorama also result in giving more vigor and vitality to the nationalistic element in our culture. Thirty or more years ago, the high-school curriculum was not quite as empty and sterile as it later became. The deterioration of secondary education has been brought about by the simplifica tion of courses and the removal of certain subjects from the cur riculum. This action was largely the result of the desire of certain educators in the United States to adjust the standards of secondary education to the level of the mentality of the poor student who must have an education which could be labeled second ary education as he or his parents desired. That the curriculum had to be watered down, made no difference at all to those whose concept of education was not in tellectual training, but the mere learning of a job. While the change was .partly brought about by outside pressures, this idea had also an appeal to a certain tribe of educationists who formulated a special theory made to fit the new system, the theory of learn ing, by doing, which was practi cally substituted for the principle of learning by thinking. That theory had a strong appeal to many persons, some of whom were rightly critical of the old rote and memory system. But the remedy applied was not only far from being a cure, but was actually a death-dealing blow to real education, which is basical ly improvement of the mental faculties. Mechanical standards were used in evaluating the qual ity and excellence of schools and colleges. Teachers who prepared themselves to work in such schools lost their sense of appreciation of books and intellectual develop ment. I shall quote from David Riesman’s article in the Anchor Review what one of the high school principals in an American city stated about intellectual training: Through the years we’ve built a sort of halo around reading, writing and arithmetic . . . The Three R's for All Children and All Children for the Three R’s! That was it. We've made some progress in getting rid of that slogan. But every now and then some mother with a Phi Beta Kappa award or some employer who has hired a girl who can’t spell stirs up a fuss about the schools . . . and the ground is lost . . . When we come to the realization that not every child has to read, figure, write and spell . . . that many of them ei ther cannot or will not master these chores . . . then we shall be on the road to improving the junior-high curriculum. Between this day and that a lot of selling must take place. But it’s coming. We shall some day accept the thought that it is just as illogical October 1960 31 to assume that every boy must be able to read as it is that each one must be able to perform on a violin, that it is no more rea sonable to require that each girl shall spell well than it is that each one shall bake a good cherry pie . . . When adults finally realize that fact, everyone will be happier . . . and schools will be nicer places in which to live . . . C or some reason or other the ’ depreciated system of second ary education in the United States found its way into the schools in the Philippines. Thus the quality of the high schools of thirty years ago in our country was debased. The literary works that used to form part of the courses of study in our former high schools disappeared one after another. I still remember vivid ly some of the literary master pieces1 that' we had to study in our high school. Among them were the essays of Lord Macaulay and Ralph Waldo Emerson, some of the longer poems of Longfel low, Tennyson, Walter Scott, and Arnold, some of the novels of George Elliot, Hawthorne, and Dickens, and the tales of Wash ington Irving. I doubt if these works or other works of the same literary excellence and broaden ing effect are required reading even in our college courses today. Perhaps the time is now pro pitious for our education authori ties to re-introduce in our high schools and colleges the study of good literature, such as we for merly had in our high schools and, by way of establishing a cultural balance, to introduce more and more the writings of Filipino authors, both past and present, which could well be con sidered worthy of being placed side by side with the literature of other countries. Reading and studying them day after day, stu dents in our schools and colleges may soon develop a deeper ap preciation of the works of their fellow countrymen. That appre ciation will be a source of en couragement to our writers to im prove their literary output. At the same time, the wider distribution of these literary products in our country will bring them to the attention of countries outside our own land. T referred a while ago to the 1 development of nationalism through a more intensive read ing'program of the works of our own writers. This method of spreading the spirit of national ism does not seem to have been given much importance. The teaching of nationalism in our schools seems to have been con fined largely to the teaching of the biographies and works of our great men in public life and our national heroes .While it is doubt 32 Panorama less one way of fostering nation alism, it could have a more tell ing effect if its scope is broad ened. Even the study of the works of the great men of our country should be supplemented by the writings of newer authors in or der that a more realistic under standing of the contemporary na tional ethos may be obtained. I for one would not care to con fine my reading to decalogues and platitudes, which abound in older Filipino writings, and to the na tional episodes of the distant past, which could not have any signi ficance to our new environment. Nationalism is better fostered by understanding the thoughts, the sentiments, the aspirations, the hopes of the nation than by listen ing to mere exhortations and verb al effusions of the demagogue, the parvenu, the nouveau riche, the Sybarite, or the so-called leader who preys on the credulity of the masses. The spirit of na tionalism is more concretely re vealed in the account of the typical lives of the average man and woman, the forgotten man and woman, and the masses that furnish the physical, the moral, and the psychological make-up of the nation. The triumph and tra gedy in the lives of our great men are interesting to know. They are springs of inspiration to us. But the daily trials, suf ferings, joys, ambitions, disap pointments, problems of the men and women that do not hold high public offices and do not occupy the brilliant stage of our national life supply those ele ments that enable the artist to draw the picture of the life of our people and of our country. From these elements are derived the themes of great literary works, and these are the things that we want the world to know in order that the Filipino may be better understood and better seen in his true perspective. The question of what language to use in an intensive promotion of Filipino literature should not find great difficulties for its an swer. In my opinion, we should count ourselves fortunate because we have considerable groups who have acquired two of the most widely-used languages in the world, English and Spanish. Both languages have been im ported into our country and used by our people not just as mere second languages. The fact re mains that they are still our offi cial languages. Our national Con stitution is written in the Eng lish language. The two languages have been with us as vehicles of instruction in different epochs of our national history. In many instances they have been and are being used even as a means of communication in the home, in business, and in social inter course. Therefore, not just among a few of us these two languages October 1960 33 have been assimilated in the thinking process and in the ex pression of emotions. But besides writers in these two foreign languages, we have had authors who have em ployed the native language of the region where that language is spoken by no less than a million people. While the works in these indigenous languages are not quite as widely distributed and read as those written in Eng lish, their popularity is steadily growing. This is especially true in the case of those written in our new national language—Ta galog, which promises to become more widely used all over our country. Aided by the radio, the moving pictures locally produced, some magazines, and the schools Tagalog threatens to displace English as the most widely used language in this country. But English may not be easily up rooted from its position in the intellectual and literarv life of the Filipinos in which it has been developed for over half a century. It still remains the lan guage used in all the principal daily newspapers of the countrv with steadily increasing circula tion. and it is the language ac tually used by most of the better writers of the nation. But there are certain essential factors beyond the direct control of writers and educators that must appear in an environment where literature is expected to flourish. Without them a coun try cannot hope to produce an adequate crop of excellent writ ers, scholars, and thinkers. Chief among these is the economic well being of the country. The flower ing of any national litreature re quires the existence of a degree of national economic prosperity as a prerequisite. Genius, especially literary genius, cannot thrive on starvation rations. To grow, to ac quire robust dimensions, to pro duce and be productive, the man of genius should be relatively free from the harassment of hunger and worrv. Above all. he should have at his command ample mo ments of leisure. We are informed that in the cultural history of Great Britain, the continental countries in Eu rope, and the United States, we find the truth of these observa tions portrayed in lucid outlines. The English author John M. Ro bertson in his Essays in Socio logy devotes a portion of it to a discussion of what he entitles ‘The Economics of Genius” to disprove the theory of Francis Galton that genius is sure to work its way to the front, to appear bv itself, independent of the conditions and the social en vironment in which he lives. Gal ton emphasizes the role of here dity and the supposed superiority of certain races from which a 34 Panorama large number of great writers and other men of genius have risen in proportion to the country’s po pulation. Robertson, citing sev eral studies by Cooley, Nichols, and Candolle on the subject, dis proved Galton’s thesis, which was based principally on the relative infrequency of great writers and thinkers in the population of the United States as compared with that of England. He was refer ring then to the conditions ob taining fifty or sixty years ago when elementary schools were more1 numerous and made more easily available to all classes in the United States than in Eng land. Galton argued that if genius were suppressible by adverse so cial conditions and cultivable by favorable conditions, the American people ought to have yielded more writers, thinkers, poets, art ists, and scientists than the Bri tish at that time. Robertson, how ever, disposed of this argument, which is only apparently plausi ble, with this statement: "That the emergence of high literary capacity is the outcome of the totality of intellectual and econo mic conditions, and that Galton has given no thought to the to tality, which varies greatly from age to age, and which differs widely as between England and the United States.” He then men tioned the different factors which existed at that period of English history and which he considered responsible for the rise of a pro portionately larger number of fa mous writers and thinkers in Eng land than in America. Among those factors were (1) a much larger leisure class in England, who attained their condition through inherited incomes, (2) a large provision for intellectual life in the way of university and other endowments and ecclesias tical semi-sinecures, (3) public offices with sufficiently high sala ries permitting a speedy accu mulation of savings or a great deal of leisure, (4) certain kinds of business positions, such as that of banker or stockbroker, which permitted a much larger amount of leisure in England than was usually possible in similar posi tions in the United States, (5) the presence of an old and rela tively rich literary soil and liter ary atmosphere furnished by the liberally educated classes and the scholarly groups with good in comes, and therefore an adequate amount of leisure, (6) the high prestige attached to the work of British writers not only in their own country, but also in Amer ica, where reprinted books by English authors were sold at lower prices, because American laws gave them no copyright pro tection. J HUS THE TOTAL opportunities arising from these factors were pointed out by him as res October 1960 35 ponsible for the development of a larger proportion of literary men and productive scholars in Eng land than in America. These con ditions, of course, have changed since the time Robertson made that comparative study. But the validity of his argument has not been impaired. Instead it has found additional support. For the opportunities for greater leisure in the United States, resulting from the enhancement of the eco nomic prosperity of its people during the last generation or so, have given rise to a greater num ber of writers and scholars in America. The large number of books that are published everv year in the United States find a big market not only in the schools and universities, but also with the general public at large. The standard of living of the American people has risen to such height (that the mass of the po pulation doe's not only have the money to spend for books and magazines, but also the leisure to read them, either for enjoyment or for edification or for escape from boredom. On this subject, I should like to quote a portion of the monumental work of Max Lemer, who spent twelve years to finish his book, which has just gotten off the press. Here it is: In the last generation some thing like a revolution in reading has taken place in America in the form of low-cost paperbound books, making of Americans a nation of readers. With this has come a rise in publishing costs, which makes books that are des tined for a very limited audience a luxury few publishers can af ford. Thus there has been simul taneously a dwindling of the Small Audience for reading and a vast growth of the Big Au dience. The emergence of the paper backs, along with the book clubs, has had a revolutionary impact on American reading habits. The clubs have served not only as large-scale distributors, but also as reading counselors, and through them millions of Americans have shaped new reading tastes and habits. The book industry had been more backward than most American industries in developing large-scale merchandising through retail outlets. There are 1,400 bookstores in America, compared with 500,000 food stores, 350,000 restaurants and bars, almost 200,000 gas stations, and over 50,000 drugstores. The revolution of pa perbacks has been accomplished by mass-production cuts in cost, by a shrewd editorial selection of titles suggesting sex, crime detec tion, and violence, along with a number of classics, and finally by a revolution in distributing tech niques. This has been achieved mainly by adding drugstores, newspaper stands, and even food markets to the bookstores, thus 36 Panorama bringing the reading habit to the ordinary American in his every day haunts. At mid-century Americans were buying almost a quarter billion paperbacks a year, with about a thousand titles appearing annual ly. Freeman Lewis calculated that the five most popular authors have been Erie Stanley Gardner, Ers kine Caldwell, Thorne Smith, El lery Queen and Mickey Spillane. Three of the five are murder mystery writers, and Spillane’s books embody the worst fusion of violence and sexual exploita tion in American writing. Yet a different kind of book, including some of the classics of social sci ence and literature, has already found a way to a mass-reading public. The long-range consequen ces of paperbacks are likely to include the popularization of the best in literary achievement. Whe ther this will counterbalance the shoddy and, sadistic stuff is an unresolved question. It should also be added, for perspective, that, despite their astronomic sales, paperbacks are bought by some thing less than 10 per cent of the American population. At this juncture and by way of what you might call an epi sodic digression, I wish to draw your attention once more to our schools, particularly the elemen tary and secondary schools, which at present offer the only large market for the works of our writ ers. It seems most unfortunate, however, that the requirements obtaining in this field, more often than not, repel, rather than en courage, good literary writing and sound scholarship. 1 fear that the demand in this area is not for originality of presentation and free expression of an author’s un derstanding of subject matter. The field has been made available only to those dogmatically prescribed in minute detail by textbook com mittees and their assistants. The books for elementary schools have to be written on the basis of an extremely limited vocabulary which must be mechanically and rigidly followed if writers expect their works to be adopted as text books. Unless a change has taken place in the last four or five years, the books that had been prescribed either as basic or sup plementary readers in elementary schools are either written by Am erican authors and published by American publishing companies or written by Filipino authors who are mostly teachers in public schools or persons who were at one time connected with the pub lic schools. The criteria of adop tion have nothing to do with beauty of presentation. They em phasize instead the slavish use of a very limited vocabulary and the boring repetition of simple words of one or two syllables. If such conditions are suggested by studies and researches of October 1960 37 some educational psychologists of twenty years ago, it is about time that we suggest a re-examination of the whole system. After all, we are living in a dynamic so ciety which calls for constant re examination, review, and revision of our mode of thinking, our ways of working, and even our methods of dying. No wonder that most of the textbooks used in our schools make reading so unpleasant and disagreeable a task that the culti vation and acquisition of the read ing habit becomes impossible. The objective apparently is to adjust the book to the immature men tality of the young rather than to pull up his undeveloped intel lect and lead him to an appre ciation of well-written books on things that arouse his interest within the field of his limited experience. Stevenson’s "Child’s Garden of Verses,” for instance, becomes too difficult for a fifthor sixth-grade pupil in our schools to understand and appreciate and yet it is a book intended to stir up the imagination and the in terest of the young child who has reached that stage in his school ing. Iff HILE MOST of the books for primary and elementary grades are now being written and published locally, the text books for secondary schools and colleges, with a few exceptions, are still written by American au thors and produced by printers and publishers in the United States. There is absolutely no ex cuse for this state of things. Academically and economically, the practice is detrimental to the interests of our nation. I believe that a country that claims to be politically independent should never remain educationally and culturally dependent in this man ner. To be so is to perpetuate colonial mentality. It should be a cause for national embarrassment that a group of leading American university administrators and pro fessors who came to make a sur vey of the University of the Phil ippines ten months ago urgently recommended in their report that we prepare and publish our text books for college and university students. If thev as Americans are convinced that we could write such advanced textbooks, is it not strange, if not downright shame ful, that we have not taken steps to stop the importation of ele mentary and secondary textbooks for our schools and prepare them ourselves in our own country? Where is our spirit of national ism? Let me not be misunderstood when I appeal to the spirit of na tionalism before this audience. There are things that should pro perly belong to one’s country and should be done by it, unless that country should choose to be dis 38 Panorama loyal to its duty and thereby lose its self-respect and the respect of others. It is neither national bi gotry nor fanatical patriotism for a nation to let no other people perform its own obligations or carry its own burdens. But the writer, the thinker, and the scholar of today cannot afford to cultivate or to encourage anv form of national Philistinism. We need not adopt an attitude of hos tility to strangers in order to feel proud of our own nation. Our writers could exalt the virtues of our people without pouring con tempt on the character of other nations. They need not be smug and cocky. For in the final ana lysis their field of service need not be restricted to a specific area of the earth, or to their native country, or to a particular class, or to specific interests. It is man and humanity. "For,” in the words of Lewis Mumford, "the writer is still a maker, a creator, not merely a recorder of fact, but above all an interpreter of possi bilities. His intuitions of the fu ture may still give body to a bet ter world and help start our civ ilization on a fresh cycle of ad venture and effort. The writer of our times must find within him self the wholeness that is now lacking in his society. He must be capable of interpreting life in all its dimensions, particularly in the dimensions the last centurv has neglected, restoring reason to the irrational, purpose to the de featists and drifters, value to the nihilists, hope to those sinking in despair.” A Case of Latin T n a backwoods courtroom in Oklahoma, a farmer A was suing a railroad for the death of his cow, struck down by a train. The railroad attorney claimed it was a clear case of “damnum absque injuria”—dam age without liability. The farmer’s lawyer, a backwoodsman, saunter ed to the jury box. “Gentlemen,” he drawled, “I don’t know much Latin. But I think I can translate that expression ‘damnum absque injuria.’ It means: Ifs a damn poor rajlroad that will kill a cow and not pay for it.’” The farmer collected in full. October 1960 39 Check your color A Hard Look at the ANTI-RED LAW By Perfecto V. Fernandez As men who claim to live in a free society it is well that we ask ourselves from time to time, how free are we? If we find we have enough freedom, there would be some sense in believing that we are in a Republic. On the other hand, if we find we are not free this will provide us ground for complaint that may later moti vate action for freedom. Know ing our condition would not al ways help, of course, as when we find ourselves in a strait jacket. But there is always an advantage in knowing where we really are, so that we will not feed on moonbeams and so that we can start the struggle for the greater mobility that we need. A law passed last year invites such an inquiry. Its official de signation is “Republic Act No. 1700” and it outlaws the Com munist Party of the Philip pines. On the surface, this law raises no problems. It worries no one save the communists and few would be anxious for their men tal composure. The great num ber of our people have not heard of the law; even if they have, it is doubtful whether they would care. There are few who know better but these peo40 Panorama pie value the law for a variety of motives and their voices are loud enough to pass for popular sentiment. Public opinion, as a consequence, is said to ap plaud the law. Outlawry serves the commu nists right. For it is obvious that they seek to replace our democracy with a totalitarian government and make us all slaves. This is a change that must not be allowed to happen. Democracy is good — especially for those who get more than enough to eat under it; all other forms of polity are evil. Surprisingly, some of those who say this profess an admiration for Franco but this can be ex cused because Franco has the appropriate religious views. With the communists, it is dif ferent, so we are constantly told. And so a law is adopted out lawing the Communist Party and declaring its members pros pective inmates of the cala boose. Unfair? Of course no. The Republic has both the power and the right to take care that it is not replaced by something worse. At least, it is entitled to maintain and pre serve its own existence. Such is authorized by the fundamen tal laws of nature. Those who like the law argue thus and it cannot be said that their reasoning is unsound. But it misleads because it leaves out one big question. How does freedom fare under the Act?' This question is legitimate because individual liberty is among the chief aims of the Republic. At least, that is the fair inference to be gathered from our fundamental law. If our Constitution is to have meaning, it is not to be taken that the sole aim of the governm e n t is to preserve itself against threats to its safety; it is equally important that what ever it does, it preserve its re publican character. A Republic, to be true to its nature, should take care that enough freedom remains to make it democratic. It cannot always seek safety in suppres sion, for suppression carried too far would annihilate freedom. Our government then has the duty to maintain individual rights as far as it can. This was recognized by the CAFA itself in its warning against subversion “emanating from those who in their sincere de sire to fight communism would go so far as to do away with the very freedoms which we are supposed to defend against the communists themselves.” So we are back to Lincoln’s dilemma once more. Is our government too strong for the liberties of its people or is it too weak to maintain its own existence? The opposition is between the safety of the State and the liberty of the indivi October 1960 41 dual. The problem is how to have enough of both. It is not always true that a sharp anti-thesis obtains bet ween governmental stability and individual freedom. A gov ernment that respects the liber ties of its citizens is not neces sarily weak. In the long run, it is more stable than a tyran nical government because it can count on such popular sup port as comes with giving its citizens the multitude of op portunities we call freedom. Justice Jackson has shown as much in his decision in a fa mous flag-salute case. "Put what happens when sharp conflict occurs? Na turally, the demand of the State for safety is preferred. It cannot be otherwise. Its exis tence is a precondition of liber ty. Freedom is founded on law and there fan be no law with out some government. It is idle to talk about constitutional rights unless there is a govern ment not only democratic en ough to respect them but also strong enough to enforce them. But when is the sacrifice of freedom necessary? So that freedom may receive enough protection, necessity should be the sole test. Freedom must not be abridged except when the danger to the government arising from the exercise of freedom is at least clear and probable. Such is the logic of constitutionalism. Such is the theory of our Constitution which establishes not just a government but a government burdened with the duty to pro vide a maximum of liberty to its citizens. Let us now particularise. Has Republic Act No. 1700 clashed with this logic and with this theory? Is the vise on civil liberty tighter than what is clearly needed for the safety of the Republic? The answer depends on how the courts will rule as to what its provisions mean. The pivor tai point is whether this law permits the Communist Party of the Philippines to seek con trol of the government through legal means. If our courts say it can, there is no quarrel. This law would be consistent with the democratic hypothesis. But if our courts say it cannot, the law thus interpreted imme diately clashes with , the theory of the Constitution and the clash is serious. Let us investigate this latter possibility. The thesis of this brief paper is that Republic Act No. 1700 would in such a case have unreasonably ab ridged political liberty. The argument may be briefly outlined thus. Political free dom is, in essence, tolerance of anti-democratic creeds and ideas. To be real and effective, 42 Panorama such freedom includes not merely the freedom to think and speak one’s mind on public questions but also the freedom to seek political power through lawful means so as to imple ment belief as to what is good and proper for the country. If our courts should then forbid the Communist Party from taking part in elections even in a lawful manner, there would be a denial of this freedom. It is not sufficient to argue that the Communist Party seeks power so as to change the gov ernment from a democratic one to a depotism. No Republic can be true to its nature if it declares illegal the ambition of a group to amend the Constitu tion through legal means. It would render the amending clause in the Constitution with out significance. Our inquiry will thus center on the implications of the de mocratic hypothesis. We pro pose to answer two questions. First, does the democratic hy pothesis provide freedom for anti-democrats in their peaceful bid for control of the govern ment? Second, if so, what means are constittHtonally open to them? Answer to the first is made difficult, not because tolerance is not an explicit democratic principle, but because the tole rance of anti-democrats does not fit our natural feelings. It goes against human nature to allow freedom to ideas which oppose ours, ideas we deeply feel to be mistaken. "KT evertheless, we provide ’ freedom for these heresies for a number of reasons. We have to allow a man some chances of getting the govern ment to follow a policy of which he is enamoured; for to deny him lawful advocacy is frustrate him badly and thus sow the seeds of revolution. This is in the interest of peace and stability. A better reason than simply giving him a chance to speak out the mind is that he might have something important to say. Freedom here is given in the interest of truth. But much better than these two reasons is that the people are entitled to know whatever a man has to say on public questions. There are a hundred opinions as to what is good and proper for the country but per haps the h u n d r e d-and-first might be the best. We cannot then forbid any man his free voice, for the crucible of free discussion may later prove his opinion to be the wiser. Free dom here is in the interest of a wise choice of policy for the government. But ultimately, faith in the toughness of democracy to sur vive opposition is the basis of its tolerance of anti-democratic ideas. Republicans are so sure October 1960 43 that very few reasonable men will refuse to share their ideals if given a choice, that radical theories may be allowed free voice and propagation without much danger. There is little reason to fear defeat at the polls by ideas admittedly futile because inferior. It is this faith in its own invincibility, its be lief in the irresistibleness of its appeal, its confidence in its po wer to fire the imagination of men and keep their loyalties, which makes democracy willing to give the adherents of totali tarian creeds a chance to be heard. We go to the second ques tion. What means remain open under the Constitution to pro ponents of radical views for securing control of the govern ment? The Constitution sanctions only lawful and peaceful me thods of seeking political po wer and introducing change. There are two. If change in the administration is sought, the way to do it is through the elective process. This means organizing a party, putting up candidates who believe in the platform, convincing the elec torate of the wisdom of their ideas and getting enough of the people’s votes to win. If the change is in the struc ture or purpose of the govern ment, the way to it is by am endment as provided for in the Constitution. This means get ting the Congress to consider amendments or to call a con vention for that purpose, secur ing the passage of proposals to amend through either of these bodies and convincing the elec torate to ratify the proposed amendments. These two me thods of change exclude all others. WIOLENCE THEN as a means v of reform is frowned upon. The theory of the Constitution is clear. Where the battlefield is the mind of men, democracy as an idea is given a better than even chance of winning. Its victory is assured where ap peal to reason through free dis cussion is the only instrument in political struggle. This is part of the democratic faith. But where a rival creed like communism appeals no longer to reason, no more to the mind of citizens, but to brute force and the power of arms, demo cracy loses its advantage. It may win or fall not on its me rits as free reasonable men would see them, but through the accidents of war. It then uses the army to defeat radical groups which resort to violence and similar techniques; and for this it cannot be blamed be cause the competing creed by appealing to arms forfeits the right to be rationally consider ed. You cannot answer with 44 Panorama mere words and still expect to win against the advocate who uses bullets. When the Com munist Party of the Philippines then used the Huks in its at tempt to overthrow the Repu blic, the government committed no constitutional breach in meeting fire with fire. It was not obliged to become a victim by using reason when its ene mies were using force, by using only weapons of debate as against weapons of steel. Our Constitution then allows change but it must be peaceful change and according to proce dures provided for. It does not dogmatise its perfection and instead grants freedom to those who think it can be improved. It thus allows the communists, among other radicals, the free dom to propagate their ideas through free discussion, the free dom to secure political power through elections and the free dom to establish a communist state under the Constitution by appropriate amendment of its provisions. This is not fool-hard iness. It grants freedom be cause it is convinced of the futi lity of the attempts of such creeds to gain power through peaceful means. But what does the law say? Section 2 declares as illegal and outlawed the Communist Party of the Philippines and any other organization having the same purposes, after finding that the former “is an organized conspi racy to overthrow the Govern ment of the Republic of the Philippines for the purpose of establishing in the Philippines a totalitarian regime and place the Government under the con trol and domination of a foreign power.” No mention, it may be noted, is made as to the means, the technique, the method, by which the anticipated capture of the government would be at tempted. The preamble of the Act makes a finding of fact and states that the Communist Par ty seeks its goal “by force, vio lence, deceit, subversion and other illegal means,” but the law itself makes no distinction between constitutional and im proper ways of seeking power. This would enable our courts to deny the Communist Party the right to work for the control of the government even through le gal or parliamentary means. The communists will be pre vented, whatever means they use, from legitimately aspiring for political power. Such construction would neg ate political liberty. It would present a new version of free dom. It offends the democratic hypothesis because it says in ef fect that the democrats have no right to work through lawful process for the changes they want; that unpopular ideas are to be denied the chance to get October 1960 45 embodied in the Constitution through amendment; that only the friends of freedom are free to secure power. It translates the principle of tolerance into intolerance of minority ideas. Its effect on the amending clause in the Constitution is especially hard. It is restricted to mean that changes can legal ly be proposed only when such are not serious. The Constitu tion is closed to amendments which would alter its republi can character. If freedom here is still to have meaning, this interpreta tion must be avoided. The Communist Party should be accorded the right to seek po wer as long as the means are lawful. I am not unmindful of the risk. I do not underesti mate the danger which commu nism poses to our democratic institutions. But if we are to re main a democracy, we cannot behav£ as totalitarians do. We have to accord freedom “not for the thought that agrees with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” IT seems to me we have not much to fear. If violence is resorted to, the army may be utilized. If preaching of vio lence as the way to power con tinues, we can penalize them for conspiracy to rebel. If they use infiltration and deceit and oth er illegal means, we can give full publicity to such. We can keep a strict watch on their ac tivities through various agencies like the N.B.I., the M.I.S. and the N.I.C.A. We can even for bid the appointment of known communists to governmental po sitions. As long as they and o her radicals use illegal means, the full terrors of the law should be brought to bear upon them. This is not only under standable, it is laudable; it is consistent with the democratic hypothesis. It should be otherwise when their way of seeking power is legal. It matters not that their attachment to the constitution al process is not sincere, that they resort to it because it is the only feasible means under the circumstances. What is im portant is that the lawful way prevails. Freedom in such a case should be accorded them. They should be permitted to seek through debate and the ballot in the same open manner as do the Nacionalista and Li beral parties. They should be tolerated if our constitutional craftsmanship is not to go away. Outlawing the Communist Party even when it takes legal action has been defended as consistent with the require ments of freedom. What is made illegal is the Communist Party and not communism, the instrument for power and not the ideology. It is then claimed 46 Panorama that tolerance is observed. Though a communist is forbid den to act, he is free to believe. This distinction is not con vincing. Freedom would not be real. For ideas are not enter tained in a vacuum. They are instruments of action. They are held as imagined possibilities of what can be realized in the world of fact. They are as fu tile as dreams if not allowed a program of political action—le gal, if you will, but action. If our Constitution grants on ly the right to believe it would give only the same quantum of freedom which fascistic socie ties give, and no more. What is bestowed as liberty of thought is a farce. Whether it likes what is conceived or not, law cannot control thought and therefore has to allow it since it cannot effectively forbid. Our law thus conceived would say, in the manner of Stalin and Hitler: You can believe in communism or syndicalism or fascism but you cannot express your ideas through a party, you cannot work for a change in the poli tical system, you cannot be al lowed to persuade people to vote for your program of gov ernment. Your mind is free but this is all. The government can not reach into your brain and control your thought; but it can restrict what you do. This seems to me strangling freedom in the effort to pre serve freedom. So eyil a result can be avoided if we do not hearken too much to our fears. Democracy has its toughness and its appeal. We need not fear that democracy will be de feated in the agoras of opinion. If communism is a sham, why do we have to be afraid? We have enough safeguards against subversion through violence and other illegal means. Against communism’s insidious propa ganda, we have the weapons of freedom. A thorough airing in the halls of public discussion would make short work of its claims. Exposure is our reme dy, for repression would lend to it the color of truth when there is none. I? ear is entertained that freedom could end in di saster for democracy. I do not share this pessimism. I do know that unless we grant enough freedom to the radicals in our midst, democracy as we know it would disappear. My bet then is still on freedom. We can both be free and secure. For freedom for the commu nists does not mean their vic tory. I doubt whether our peo ple would by their ideological wares. I doubt whether they could steal the allegiance of our people to our democratic tradi tions. As we have said, demo cracy has also i‘s appeal and in the clash of opinions, we need October 1960 47 have no fear but that it would appear more palatable. Freedom, of course, involves a gamble. The attachment of our people to democratic ideals may be much less than I sup pose. My faith might be mis placed. Nevertheless, I would insist on their fullest liberty. Our Constitution makes our people king. They are free, I think, to vote communism into its provisions. It would be a most unhappy turn of events were that to hapen, but it would be lawful. Our Constitution not only declares our people so vereign, it provides for them the freedom to experiment. The only significance of the amend ing clause is that the sovereign people have the power and the right to change their minds through the ballots as to what form of government shall most likely effect their safety and their happiness. Elaboration on Dinner Does the Asiatic anteater capture his ants with his tongue? Not a first. When the Asiatic anteater finds a swarm of ants, he plumps himself down on them, opens his scales and gives the ants a chance to crawl under them. Then he snaps his scales shut and shuf fles off and into the nearest stream. There he opens the plates and allows the ants to rise on top of the water. Then while they float about on the surface, he licks them up with his tongue. * 48 Panorama So desu ka! Why We Can’t Speak the Same Language by Maximo Ramos J whole lot has been 2\1_ spoken and written about the language ills of our country. Should we keep English in our schools? Can we? Was it wise to start our child ren’s schooling in the vernacu lars beginning last school year? Are our vernaculars adequate means of communication in a technological world in which peoples speaking a wide variety of languages are meeting one another across the conference table as they could hardly have dreamt of doing not so long ago? Why did we add to our language headaches by requir ing our students in liberal arts, law, commerce, education and foreign service to present 24 units of Spanish before we grant them a college degree? These and numerous related questions have occupied our educational leaders for some time now and, on the whole, we have answers to them neatly for mulated and tucked back of our collective minds. What has not received the attention it de serves, however, is the body of sociological bearings of our lan guage situation. Frequently in history, lang uage has been used by an en trenched minority to dominate a population. Such of a minor ity may be the priestly class, a group of political schemers or a self-appointed upper caste. Just as literacy in a dead language October 1960 49 in China or Tibet and in Latin and Greek was employed by the class using its ability to read and write in that language as a means of controlling society, so has literacy in Spanish — and in more recent years English — which have been learned by re latively few of our people, been used by the social elite in this country to lord it over the ma jority. During the entire American regime, the ability to use Eng lish was the chief test for em ployment in the civil service. More than a decade after inde pendence, and in spite of the Constitutional injunction that we develop a national language based on one of the native ton gues, the ability to read and write in English is a prerequi site to the practice of the pro fessions: the board examina tions for instance, are all in English. A class language helps the members of the group using it to monopolize the cultural and so cial advantages in the commu nity. Thus in early modem Europe, since French was used as the language of the court, this helped the privileged classes preserve their feeling of belong ing to a brotherhood of the elite. Hebrew. Latin and Greek had earlier served their users in a similar way. In its time, Hebrew was considered the language spoken in Paradise. It was, therefore, believed to be the an cestor of all languages, and only those who spoke it were regard ed as truly patrician. Latin grammar used to monopolize the European child’s school hours, to the neglect of such subjects we now consider indis pensable to the child’s educa tion as science, arithmetic and social studies. Grammar was synonymous with Latin for cen turies, since only Latin was deemed worth studying. The traditional secondary school in England was known as the “grammar school” until almost yesterday, and in Denmark the secondary school is still known as “latinskola.” For Latin was the language of the Church and the universities. Those whose only languages were the “vul gar” tongues were fit to be ex ploited. Similarly, Spanish has long been a class language in the Philippines, and English, if we do not drop it or, keeping it, we do not upgrade the efficien cy with which we teach it to more of our people, may well become another class language in a few decades. Tach one of the colonial powers, as indeed each of the peoples of the world at all times, thought its language the most beautiful language ever spoken and the most adequate for the needs of mankind, * in cluding those who were unfor 50 Panorama tunately not able to learn it. The Spaniard, the American and the Japanese, unless he was of a scholarly turn of mind, never bothered to learn a Filipino lan guage when he was here. He held the native tongues in con tempt — thought them crude, unwieldy, completely inade quate for the communication needs of civilized society. Some writers, more fluent than re liable went so far as to try to make others believe that the language of a people was ac countable for their cultural achievement, or their lack of it. It used to be contended, for ex ample, that in chemistry the Germans were way ahead of other peoples because the Ger man language easily lent itself to the formation of new words, i.e., the chemistry of words. It was seriously claimed that Eng land was the first European state to become industrialized because the English people spoke English instead of Rus sian, German, French, or Italian. What these writers forgot is that functionally, as Richard T. La Piere has put it, “one lang uage is or can readily become just as good as another for any particular purpose.” It is true, of course, that European culture was in a number of ways super ior to that of the peoples the Europeans conquered. But the difference did not lie in any su periority of the European lan guages over those of the natives; it lay, rather, in the materials and methods for conquest the Europeans had perfected. J) REAMERS HAVE long envi sioned a world society whose members are bound to anoe another by common lang uage ties. Esperanto and the more recent Basic English have been advanced as languages that should unite the world by making it easier for people to communicate with one another. It is true that people are get ting to meet and know one an other better because new inven tions have made travel and communication faster. And it is true that the more people get to know and another the more they will find that they have a lot more things in common than differences among themselves. A world language, therefore might well be a means of blend ing the many dissimilar cultures of the human race. Unfortunately, the problem is formidable. For instance, there are at least 28 principal lang uages in the world each of which is spoken by at least 20 million people. The physical problem, alone, of disseminating a universal language all of them can use profitably seems insur mountable under our present political and technological ar rangement. Nor is the picture dim only October 1960 51 because of numbers. More im portant is the fact that language is deeply seated in the psycholo gy of the people who speak it, and it cannot be easily super seded either by edict or by cul tural domination. The sociolo gist Kimball Young has writ ten: “While technology and modern business, politics, sports and so on may have made for a kind of universal lingua franca in these matters, the deeper emotional meanings of culture, which are imbedded in speech and writings, serve as a basis for variability and separateness which cannot be gainsaid. Cer tainly any plan for an interna tional order must reckon with the linguistic factor if it is to fact reality.” Even more important is the fact that languages are constant ly being changed by those who speak them. Only a dead lang uage, one no longer spoken or written, does not change. Hence, even if the world’s three billion people were to speak the same language today, that language would not sound and look the same everywhere tomorrow. The ways in which the people spoke their old languages, plus their particular needs, chance a language. Note how the English spoken by Filipinos varies with the vernacular background of the speaker. Those who propose Esperanto and similar synthetic tongues make their own task even hard er by not stopping at the claim that their new language will unify the world. They also aver that the new language is super ior to any of the existing tongues in that it is more pre cise, more logical, more versa tile, more easy to learn. The proponents of these made-up languages forget that no lan guage, living, dead, or artificial, is superior to any other lang uage. To any given society the language that is the most useful the most adaptable, the easiest to learn, the most accordant with logic, the most musical and sonorous and mellifluous is its own language. The misconception about the alleged superiority of the lang uage to all others led to the myth of the superior race which saw in Hitler’s regime what tra gic excesses a foolish myth can lead to. The race myth is traceab’.e to certain doctrines of the later years of the 18th cen tury. Some imaginative writers of the time came up with the idea that what they called “na tional character” was all that ac counted for the differences in people’s cultures and institu tions. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, for example, claimed in his much-cited Address to the Ger man Nation (1807) that what gave rise to German culture was the unique quality of the Ger man language. The stress laid 52 Panorama by Fichte and his followers on the decisive place of the Ger man language in determining the German character as a peo ple triggered a series of reac tions. It gave rise, first, to the science of philology — certain ly a fruitful result. Philology, in turn, led to comparative studies on the languages and institu tions of the languages of Europe and Asia. Scholars were parti cularly fascinated by the simila rity between certain European languages and Sanskrit, the an cient languages of faraway In dia. The belief soon grew that Sanskrit was the original lang uage from which the European tongues were descended, Heb rew having long been deprived of that preeminence. Tt was all very fascinating in* deed, and for an entire gen eration after 1830, the philolo gists were engrossed in the nice game of tracing the origins, mi grations, and kinships of these languages which soon came to be known as “Indo-European,” “Indo-Germanic,” or just “Ar yan.” Before long, a doctrine which won wide support grew; this claimed that there had been a parent Aryan language and that a primordial Aryan race spoke it. This, it was held cer tain, explained the unmistak able resemblances between Sanskrit and the languages of Europe. From this point, it was only one short step to the claim of the cultural superiority of a race and the consequent call on such a race to save the world from barbarism. It could have been easy, of course, to show that contrary to such racist nonsense, race and language are not identical. Even a well unified race like the Am erican Indian, for example, has over 100 distinct languages, plus a far more numerous variety of dialects. Different races in some European states speak the same language, for language is no res pecter of national boundaries and historical barriers. T he races have also been assigned “temperaments” by superficial observers who fail to realize that the differ ences they see are merely caus ed by differences in gestural language. For example, the Western visitor’s idea that Fili pinos are a placid and unemo tional people, and on the other hand the Filipino’s idea that Westerners are by temperament violent and lacking in self-con trol may be traced to the fact that the Westerner uses more and livelier gestures in his lang uage than the Filipino. Our continued use of English and Spanish in our schools at the expense of our mother ton gues has hampered our artistic development as a people. Thought and language are inse parable: “It can be said that October 1960 53 the whole history of an area will be mirrored in the ways of sayins things, the ingenious mean ings words take on, the idioms, proverbs, humor, and the like.” Dr. Clifford E. Prator, who was Fulbright lecturer in the teach ing of English here some years ago and later wrote what is per haps the most definitive study of the language problems beset ting this Republic, has arrived at the conclusion that we Fili pinos are — to make a blunt summary of his chief finding — wasting our time on English. He goes on to say: “When com mand of the language is imper fect, then thinking is inhibited. If a man borrows a strange lang uage to express himself, at least part of his thought is also bor rowed and vital elements of his individuality are sacrificed. Yet true creativeness involves the fullest possible expression of self. . . Four centuries of colonialisrti have reduced Philippine cultural individuality to a low ebb. Much of the art, architec ture, music and literature of the Islands is unmistakably deriva tive. There can be no doubt that this cultural eclipse is due part ly to the long-continued neglect of the local languages in which the native culture found expres sion. In the eyes of the child who finds his natural medium of thought and communication almost entirely banned from school, the vernaculars lose pres tige. The child fatally develops an inferiority complex toward his own thinking.” To illustrate, thousands of Fi lipino children grow up bating or, at least, indifferent to Lapulapu, Diego Silang and even Gregorio del Pilar and Andres Bonifacio, all heroes in their an cestors’ long fight for liberation from their conquerors, because even some Filipino historians treat these men little better than hoodlums. One argument often advanc ed to frighten our people into continuing with our wasteful at tempts to master English and Spanish is that we have more than 80 vernaculars. As a mat ter of fact, however, too much has been made of the differ ences among Cebu Visayan, Ilo ilo Visayan, Tagalog, Ilocano, Bicol, Pangasinan, etc. The pro ponents of the foreign tongues blind us to the fact that the Philippine vernaculars are real ly variants of one and the same language; they have identical patterns of sound and structure. Dr. Cecilio Lopez, a Germantrained Filipino linguist, has compiled a list of some 2,000 words common to all the major Philippine vernaculars. Surely, with all the means of travel and communication that modem technology has made possible, a Filipino national language is bound to arise much faster than we have heretofore be 54 Panorama lieved possible. In the course of time, the dialectal differences between the Lancashireman and the Bedfordshireman have been blended out into modern Eng lish, and that between the Rhinelander and the Prussian into modern German. Without doubt, the differences among the Philippine vernaculars are bound to disappear and blend into a Filipino national lang uage, an outgrowth of Filipino culture. Philippine social life and Philippine history. Almost every country that has been faced with a language problem as knotty as ours has decided that each child’s educa tion should begin in his mother tongue, a transition being later made to the national or com mon language which is the prin cipal medium of instruction. In fact, there has been what amounts to a world-wide move ment in that direction. In Me xico, the school system saw a complete rejuvenation under Jaime Torres Bodet, the coun try’s minister of education and later the Secretary-General of UNESCO, who made general the use of the different Indian dialects in the first few grades of school. A carefully written series of bilingual primers is now being used in Mexican schools. Both Peru and Bolivia are final izing plans to follow Mexico’s lead in this program. Upon ad vice of American educators, Haiti has abandoned French in the first two grades of school and put the Creole vernacular in its place. The American au thorities in Puerto Rico have re luctantly, but finally, accepted the hard fact that it is Unwise to continue using English as the vehicle of instruction in the grades. In all the dominions and colonies of the British Em pire, the children’s native tongue is now used as the language of the first few grades of school. hat is the probable out come of our langauge si tuation? Do our native tongues have a chance of survival? They have no influential backers, and their literature is, admittedly, not exactly rich. But they be long to the population, and they have proved their durability by surviving half of millennium of linguistic colonialism. A Filipino writer who has pro duced a considerable body of highly competent English prose, having been writing in the lang uage since 1930, summed up the whole situation in a remark he made to me soon after he re turned from Korea and Japan where he had gone on a writing scholarship. “I never realized how silly we Filipinos have October 1960 55 been in trying to use English un til I heard two Koreans trying to speak to each other in Eng lish.” ¥ ¥ * Is That So? “I hear that your uncle who tells those tall tales has a slight cold.” "He’s dead” “Still exaggerating, huh?” Is There Such an Animal? Husband: “It says here that the musk ox of the far north is not really an ox at all, but a member of the sheep family” Wife: “Well, just who is he trying to fool?” A Juvenile Report Y SMALL DAUGHTER had spent some time with ’’ her grandmother and broke something for which she had been reprimanded. A few days later, she was listening to a discus sion a friend and I were having about weapons, and afterward my daughter asked me what the word meant. I answered that it usually referred to an ob ject that did damage. She thought about this for a moment, then asked in a little voice, “Mother, am I a weapon?” ---- MRS. W. H. DE MOURE ¥ 56 Panorama Where are you? — In Search of Magicians and Princesses by Francis A. Neelon Federico Garcia Lorca is a poet. He was also a Spaniard, the net result of which is that practically eve rything written about Lorca’s work is concerned with the poems as they appear in the original Spanish, the English translations being perfunctorily dismissed as falling short of the attainments of the Spanish verse. If however, we look at both the Spanish and English we shall see that in the incredi bly difficult business of transla tion Lorca’s poetry fares quite well. Most of the translations, besides remaining faithful to the spirit and the letter of the text, are fine poems in themselves. To be sure, some of the nuances and subtleties of the original are bound to be lost; and allu sions and inferences which are quite familiar to a Spanish au dience evade an English. For the two languages are exceed ing different, and we cannot look to find in the one what we would expect in the other: the two tongues have their own ways of approaching the same end, and if the two roads are different, both are interesting; October 1960 57 and one, at least, is certainly well worth traversing. We shall take the low road, as it were, of the English translations and though we lose some of the eu phony of the Spanish and some of the references to Lorca’s na tive literary idiom along the way, we may glimpse a sight of something more important in the poetry, something which transcends language barriers and which gives Lorca more than a tinge of immortality. I ORCA was born in the tiny Grana dine village of Fuentevaqueros on June 5, 1899. His parents belonged to a wellto-do Andalusian family, his mother, Dona Vincenta Lorca, being a sensitive and intelligent scholteacher. It was she who encouraged and nurtured the poetic and musical sensibilities of the young Federico; and it was in the Garcia Lorca house hold that Federico early pre sented his first attempts at a rhetorical drama. He would produce original puppet shows in theaters of his own design and construction; and displayed youthful piety and considerable histrionic ability as priest in his home-made “masses.” In fact his sermons were delivered with such gusto and ardor that one of the servants (and thus a par ticular favorite of Lorca’s) would weep spontaneously and fervently at the orations. At the age of eighteen Lorca left to study the law at the Universiy of Granada. It was here that Lorca came under the in fluence of Fernando de los Rios whose encouragement and ad vice led to Lorca’s decision, in 1919, to quit Granada and take up student’s quarters at the famed Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid. The best teach ers of Spain had already begun to gravitate to Madrid under the influence of Francisco Giner de los Rios, of whom it has been said that there was not one of his Spanish contemporaries who had come under the influence of his teachings. It was at Madrid that Lorca became intensely interested in his national literary heritage, studying with fervor the writ ings of his countrymen — Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca, Luis de Gongora and the other writers of the Spanish Golden Age (1500-1700). Lorca soon became a prominent member of the avant-garde Madrid li terary set, and his poems, ma ny of which were composed verbally and delivered sponta neously, were passed from mouth to mouth for want of publication. It was in Madrid likewise that Lorca’s musical talents (he played the Spanish guitar and the piano with such skill that the great Manuel de Falla took him under his wing and at one time considered Lorca his most promising pupil) 58 Panorama and his love of the gypsy cante jondo (literally, “deep song”) began to exert their lyric effect on his poetry. During his nineyear stay at the Residencia he began painting, which endeavor led him into contact and close friendship with Salvador Dali. But his paintings were received without much acclaim, and the visual arts have never been considered one of Lorca’s for tes despite a one-man show of his paintings in Barcelona in 1927. It was, however, during this period of the Residencia that Lorca laid the foundations for the development of his deeply personal poetic idiom that subsequently raised him to the pinnacle of modern Spanish poetry. I F WE are to attack that body 1 of Lorquian poetry which we find in English translation it will be necessary, then, to consider the aspect of Lorca’s which is the most immediately striking and which is the most perplexing to the uninitiate reader—Lorca’s imagery. The image is a compressed objective index into the subjec tive; it tells us something we did not know before; it focuses our attention upon some point, some aspect of reality which had previously escaoed our no tice. The image may give us a genuinely new insight into the comings-in and goings-out of the real world, or it may pre sent us with a new way of look ing at familiar things; but one point is of paramount impor tance and must be kept in mind whenever we are discussing poetry: the valid image deals always with reality. At times the poetic imagery of the socalled “moderns” (an extremely inept terminology, since many contemporary poets write in only the most lucid and sim ple of styles, while many of their historical predecessors did not) may seem to be so oblique or so surrealistic that there can be only the most tenuous con tact with reality. But if an image has no relation with the real world it is not an image in the veridical sense, only a private “sign”, and the poet has defeated poetry’s own purpose. That is not to say that such “poetry” and such “poets” do not exist, but that they are not poets and that Lorca is not one of them. “I, in my intricate image, stride on two levels,” says Dy lan Thomas, and so do all poets in the symbo’ism contrived from their poetic images. For just as images are the stuff out of which poetry is made, so are they the bui’ding-blocks of symbols. And symbols (in this case, verbal symbols) may be divided into two broad cate gories: the traditional and the personal, and these two catego October i960 59 ries may be distinguished in all art forms. If an artist em phasizes the traditional we can understand his works with re lative ease, for he has used that which is common and familiar, frequently from the treasure trove of racial memory. If on the other hand, the artist’s work preponderates in a highly personal symbolism we tend to regard his work as hermetic and abstract, perhaps defying “understanding.” But the two are never com pletely divorced, for it will be found that the artist can never escape himself; that he is in evitably the victim of the past, of Tradition; as there can be no art without Tradition as T. S. Eliot says, much of the appreciation of the individual artist lies in “the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.” To judge we must compare and we can compare artist with artist because, des pite differing personal idioms, they have a common meeting ground in tradition. For tradi tional symbols are the concrete images of the race experience, those contained in the body of world literature and available to all people. They are, in this sense, universal in mean ing and significance. Now, some symbols are traditional within the folk culture of a particular race or country; others are the common proper ty of the entire human race, for example, the sea, the wind, or the sun. But even those symbols fundamental to each particular nation’s oral tradi tions—those we might expect to be somewhat esoteric— seem to transcend ethnic bar riers, for as Jung points out, his theory of the “collective preconscious” gains weight from the universality and striking similarity of the common my thic symbols of all tribes. There is, however, a rather more constricted notion of tra dition which has come to mean that which has already been done, those ideas which have been used in the past and have gained respectability from their durability, if not always from their own indubitable, intrinsic merit. We are not interested in “tradition” in this sense. Rather, the traditional symbols in which we are interested are the sum total of all the thoughts, feelings and emotions of man kind (albeit experienced by in dividual men acting individual ly men acting individually) and preserved in such a man ner that Everyman can take them up and say: “These are my own.” I orca is natural, not cere■■ bral, that is, his works are sensuous, emotional—not pri marily intellectual. His poems are born of a deeply personal, 60 Panorama if perhaps only semi-conscious, experience as he himself ad mits: “The poet who embarks on the creation of a poem... begins with the aimless sensa tion of a hunter about to em bark on a night hunt through the remotest of forests.” Yet interwoven with the personal elements are the tradition, the great pity being (as far as the average reader of the transla tions is concerned, at least) that the traditions are, for the most part, wholly unfamiliar; where they are not peculiarly Spanish they are nevertheless not in the mainstream of Euro pean literary and philosophical thought. The Iberian peninsula, separated from greater Europe as it is by the Pyrenees, has continued to go its own way, paying little heed to the artis tic trends and developments of the rest of Europe. As a result Spain has produced some won derfully original artists—Picas so, Dali, Cervantes, de Falla— and mystics—Theresa of Avila, John of the Cross. But the religio-cultural atmosphere that produced these giants (all of whom were familiar to Lorca) is almost entirely alien to non-Spaniards. To one unac quainted with the Spanish men tality, it is difficult to identify those aspects of Lorquian poet ry traditional or racial in ori gin. We may, nevertheless, in dicate some of the factors which exerted their influence. Many of his verbal practices were derived from the body of medieval Arabi c-Andalusian folk poetry and ballads; others from the writings of Spain’s Golden Age authors, especially the “conceptist” poet, Luis de Gongora; some of his lilt stems from the gypsy are of cante jondo; and his complexity from Arabic poets (who, in their turn, were influenced by the neo-Platonism of the Greeks). The Moorish occupation has left an indelible stamp on Spain; and the Arabic poets have duly influenced Lorca who freely adapted their casida and gacela (short, rhymed, fixed verse forms) to his own sys tem. As Edwin Honig reminds us, the tendency among the Arab poets was to “petrify the image, to treat the metaphor according to definite analogies based on hierarchies found in nature: man compared with animals, animals with flowers, and flowers with precious stones.” Lorca follows the pat tern: from SOMNAMBULE BALLAD Green, how much I want you, green. Great stars of white frost come with the fish of dark ness that opens the road of dawn. The fig tree rubs the wind with the sandpaper of its branches, and the mountain, a filching October 1960 61 cat, bristles its bitter aloes. But who will come? And from where? She lingers on her balcony, green flesh, hair of green, dreaming of the bitter sea. The Arabs also liked to work microscopically; that is they would take some small event, some insignificant happening and discover in the microcosm the wonder of the universe. To do this they attempted to rep resent an ever-flowing, mutable world in a frozen, crystalline, immutable image—a form ever present in Lorca’s poetry: NIGHT Candle, lamp, lantern and firefly. Constellations of arrows. Small windows of gold are quivering, and superimposed crosses trembling in the dawn. Candl^, lamp, lantern and firefly. In seeking the traditional in Lorca’s poetry we must remem ber that he was a “popular” poet in the most elemental sense of that world. His themes rose from the deepest experien ces of his people, especially the gypsies, and his art frequently employs the Andalusian folk image. We must remember that in Spain even children’s tales are couched in a meta phorical style closely resem bling the Lorquian technique. Thus a confection is a “nun’s sigh”; a fountain rises up, a “bull of water”; and a cupola is a “half-orange.” There is nothing in our traditions of Grimm and Andersen or in our abortive attempts of nursery “rhymes” which can give an ink ling of the intense poetic im agery to which even the most illiterate of Spaniards is ex posed. And when Lorca says the “keel of the moon breaks purple clouds” or calls “the frogs, muezzins of shadow” he speaks the language of the peo ple. So if Lorca seems abstruse to foreign readers it is in a good measure owing to the fact that he was observing a tradition of the most fundamental nature. The poet’s brother, Francisco, is “convinced that he addressed himself to simple persons, or to what there can be simplicity in persons who are not simple.” And now we are arrived at ** the crux of our problem. The complexity and variety of Lorca’s simple images impress us at first as alien and incom prehensible and, to be sure, some are just that. But dili gence and patience can pene trate beyond the facade of ob scurity, the rewards of knowing the work of one of the world’s greatest modern lyricists being well worth the effort. For the great bulk of Lorca’s poetry defies dissection, in the pejora62 Panorama tive sense. One must come to see that: My heart of silk is filled with lights, with lost bells, with lilies and bees. means just that. We may squeeze each metaphor and scan each line, but the key to all of Lorca lies not in the squeezing or in the scansion, but in a realization that in the Lorquian paradigm the meta phor reigns unchallenged as the method of communion between poet and reader. The metaphor out of its context is like the fish out of water; out of its element it cannot function and meaning is lost. The reader must attempt rapport with the poet, he must become familiar enough with the poem to say: “My heart of silk is filled with lights.” The meaning of the metaphor and, ultimately, the poem become part of the per sonal experience of the reader. The difficulties presented in the beginning by the strangeness of Lorca’s metaphors will re solve themselves upon better acquaintance with Lorca and these very difficulties will come to be one of the stellar quali ties of the poetry. “The poetic image,” says Lorca, “is always a transference of meaning.” In Lorca’s poems this tranference tends to be ra dical that is, the poet does not describe the real world photo graphically; “instead he carries the object, the action, or the thing into the darkoom of his brain, from which it issues transformed.” We must come to expect this transformation and look closely if we are to see what is being transformed and how. Once we have done that we have begun to under stand. Lorca’s comments on the poetry of Gongora could be as aptly applied to his own work: “Nothing could be more ill-advised than to read his madrigal to a rose with an ac tual rose in one’s hand. Either the rose or the madrigal should be more than enough.” In Lor ca’s poetry we must expect this divergence from the stereo type: THE LITTLE MUTE BOY The little boy was looking for his voice. (The king of the crickets had it). In a drop of water the little boy was looking for his voice. I do not want it for speaking with; I will make a ring of it so that he may wear my silence on his little finger. In a drop of water the little boy was looking for his voice. (The captive voice, far away, put on a cricket’s clothes.) It is important to note also October 1960 63 that Lorca reveled in his “five and country” senses: For the poet makes him self the mentor of his five bodily senses—the bodily in the following order: sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste. To command ideal images he must open the doors of communica tion between the senses; and frequently he must superimpose his sensations at the expense of disguis ing his very nature. If we realize that this was part of Lorca’s credo we can begin appreciate the marvelous nuan ces of some of his images which had hitherto been lost: THE SPINSTER AT MASS Under the Moses of the in cense you drowse. Bull eyes are watching you, youf rosary raining. In that dress of dark silk you do not move, Virginia. Give the black melons of your breasts to the rumor of the Mass. Now the alchemy of the images is apparent: one can almost smell the vague, stale incense of some sleepy Spanish chapel. A spinster then, her beads “raining” softly; the very atmos phere is of our patriarch Abra ham and the high priest Melchisedech. We can see her, her femininity remote in the dress of black silk. In the distance we can bear the soft dull mur mur of the priest. We also note that the meta phor is the bridge which links the disparate worlds of Lorca’s poetic images. Through the metaphor Lorca can compare the mineral with the vegetable, the human with the forces of nature. (Thus the wind is a “suitor of towers” and the “light shrugged its shoulders like a girl.” His “quick” metaphor is a strange new look at our world, assaulting our obtuseness and, in the end, vivifying us: Because the roses search in the forehead for a hard landscape of bone and the hands of man have no other purpose than to imitate the roots be low the earth. As I lose myself in the heart of certain children, I have lost myself in the sea many times. Ignorant of the water I go seeking a death full of light to con sume me. And magnificent is the scope of Lorca’s metaphor with its very limited range of subjects, creating so many poems from variations on that range. Prac tically all the themes (the false lover, the persecution of the gypsies by the Civil Guard, the madness of the “sane” world, the inescapability of one’s des 64 Panorama tiny) that are developed in the abundance of his later works are found in the slim mustard seed of his first volume of verse. And here lies the clue to the best method of learning to enjoy Lorca (or poet for that matter)—read all his poetry and then reread it. For by see ing an image or a symbol in context we gain some idea of its Lorquian meaning and by seeing the same image in yet another context we gain new insight into its niceties and ra mifications. In Lorca’s poetry universality is attained by re presenting concrete situations which must be realized abs tractly, then reapplied to the concrete, personal experience of the reader before full apprecia tion is achieved. The reader must come to say with Lorca as in the “Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”: But now he sleeps without end. Now the moss and the grass open with sure fingers the flower of his skull. And now his blood comes out singing; singing along marshes and meadows, sliding on frozen horns, faltering soulless in the mist, like a long, dark, sad tongue, to form a pool of agony close to the starry Guadal quivir. Oh, white wall of Spain! Oh, black bull of sorrow! Oh, hard blood of Ignacio! Oh, nightingale of his veins! No. I will not see it! No chalice can contain it, no swallows can drink it, no frost of light can cool it, nor song nor deluge of white lilies, no glass can cover it with silver. No. I will not see it! ¥ ¥ ¥ Hi and Fi Hi: “Where are you going?" Fi: “For a walk around the park.” Hi: “Would you mind wearing my self-winding wrist watch? It needs the exercise.” October 1960 Funny, isn't it? Numbers (fame by I. G. Kahn, Jr. 7 he science of numbers, the foundation of all phy sical sciences is express ed in ten simple symbols, name ly, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 and 0. Through the mastery of num bers man has been able to achieve unbelievable technolo gical advances. Many of us though can still remember those grade-school days when we cursed the Hin dus for having invented the Ze ro — a consistent hallmark of many a schoolboy’s proficiency in arithmetic. To cover up for such defi ciency in arithmetic, we have come up with easy-to-follow tricks with unpredictable inte gers making us as precise as an IBM computer. These number tricks can be learned by an average third grader in ten min utes. Play them on unknowing parents, girl or boy friends, and anyone who can count. They will swear that you have the making of another Einstein. 1. Examine the square of the figures below. 4 3 8 9 5 1 2 7 6 Notice anything about it? If you’re keen you’ll easily disco ver that any three numbers in straight line, including the dia gonals, add up to 15. Thus, 4 plus 3 plus 8 equals 15; 8 plus 1 plus 6 equals 15; and 2 plus 5 plus 8 equals 15. 2. Now, for another trick. Have your friend — without your seeing it — arrange any set of figures in the following manner: 4 5 3 6 3 By having him tell you only the sums of the “outer’ ’numbers ,the horizontally-arranged numbers and vertically-arranged numbers 66 Panorama you will be able to “guess” just what digit he placed in the mid dle. (In our example —3). The trick works this way: By adding the outer numbers — 5 plus 4 plus 6 plus 3 (the circumfer ence we call it) — we arrive at 18. Then total the vertical num bers — 4 plus 3 — is 10. While the sum of the horizontal num bers — 5 plus 3 plus 6 — comes up to 14. Add the horizontal and vertical totals and subtract it from the circumference total (whichever is bigger) and di vide by 2. Thus, 10 plus 14 equals 24, and 24 minus 18 gives us 6. Six divided 2 equals — which is the middle number in our example. Simple as abc, isn’t it? 3. Nine is an amazing num ber. With it and its multiples, i.e. numbers divisible by 9 like 18, 36, 81, countless numerical oddities can be drawn out. For instance, take any three digits (caution: the first digit must be bigger than the last). Sub tract from it its inverted order, as the example below. 6 4 3 —3 4 6 2 9 7 difference By simply giving you 7 as your clue, you can instantly supply him the correct difference. This trick is guaranteed to leave them open-mounthed everytime. How it works: You will observe that in this trick the middle number is always 9. By know ing the last number, subtract it from 9, and the result will be the first number. Thus 9 minus 7 equals 2. Right off the butt, you come up with 297, the right answer in our example above. Caution: this applies only to three-digit minuends. 4. This is another one of those 9 tricks. Have your “vic tim” (always without your see ing it) draw up any series of numbers as many number as he desires. Next, have him add them all up, and from that same series, subtract its sum. Sup pose he writes: 67336978 — 49 — 49 6733^929 difference Ask him to cancel any number ed he choses from the differ ence, and minus the cancelled number, to add them all up again as in the first procedure. Thus, 677334929—39 By telling you that the resulting sum is 39, you will be able to tell your astonished friend that the number he crossed out is six (as in our example). The secret: What number will you add to 39 to bring it up to a number divisible by 9? Why, 6, of course, to make it 45! So that if the resulting sum is 18, 9 is the crossed-out num ber that will make it a multiple of nine, meaning 27. (Caution: if the resulting sum is either 9 October 1960 67 or 0, then the cancelled number is also either 9 or 0.) 5. For our last game, we come to a process in addition also in volving the queer number 9. First write down any five digits. Second, draw four horizontal lines under it, and immediately under the last line write down the total which will be based on the first set of numbers. Have your friend fill in the first and third lines with any set of num bers he wishes. After he has done that, fill in the second and fourth lines with enough rapidi ty so that your “victim” will not think that you’ve had time to do some quick mental calculations. Then, have him sum up the en tire thing, and to his continuing amazement he will arrive at the exact total you wrote down at the very start! 'LL ow it works: suppose you ' I wrote down the first set of five numbers and the four lines immediately below it in our example below. 63456 88888 11111 33333 66666 263454 For our total, subtract 2 from the last digit in the topmost set of numbers and cast the sub tracted 2 before the first digit, otherwise all numbers remain the same. Suppose further, that on the first line your friend jot ted down 8-8-8-8-8, you’ll know right away that the second line which you must fill should be l-l-l-l-l because it is the num ber you add to 8 to make it 9. The principle is the same for the next two lines. Thus, if he fills in the third line with 3 3-3-3-3, you fill in the last line with 6-6-6-6-6 because 6 plus 3 equals 9. Test the example your self. Magical number, this num ber 9, itsn’t it? The beautiful thing about all these tricks is that you can not possibly be mistaken with your answers if you follow carefully the procedures laid down. Your “victim” might be in error but not you. * * * A MAN NEEDS A woman tb take care of him so that she can make him strong enough for her to lean on. 68 Panorama No combination — wd tk Butt by Virginia R. Moreno J j J HEN MY HOUSEMOTHER \\/ ushered me and my mot ley baggage to Hopkins Hall in Kansas, Millie’s ‘Hi, Honey Brown” and ear-to-ear grin were the first to greet me. Millie’s deft hands toted—my buri bag, fat to its reedy seams with my Ang Tibay slippers, my huge pillow, my sweetscoconut honey in a bamboo shoot, my pickle-salted red eggs, my paper, the Philippines Free Press, my music-from tinikling to the nipa hut song, my Gogo shampoo, my rice powder and, for evening pray ers, a brown Holy Family by Manansala. In brief, Millie carried my own games, com forts, pantry and ikons, a Phil ippine paper flag flying over them all, to my first home in America. Millie’s foot it was that kicked the door to our sitting room to let our startled roommates know that I had come—with her bang. I am sure that Barbara, Rita, Jo, Ann did things for me that first day but again it was Millie’s sowilling arms that cradled my tar-black pine box chalked on all sides with ‘Fragile China Handle with Care” while I fol lowed her gingerly up the stairs. “Where to, Honey?” she ask ed me from the stairwell. “Please, right next to my study desk,” I said, running ahead to open the door for her and her frail cargo. “Not this coffin!” She e x - claimed, grinning, “no junk in the study room, house rules you know. We get the folks and October 1960 69 boys up here some days.” “It’s Noritake china!” I an nounced and caught myself boasting pathetically. Names of Oriental makers would impress my islander friends, surely not a girl from the richest nation in the world? More, she had positive ideas on how our room should look. Here, everything must be jumping alive, Dutch clean and neater than the U.S. Navy. I shivered, longing that instant for my Manila room, ay, lizards in the ceiling, ty phoon rain on my bed and all. Barbara, Jo, Rita and Ann rushed out of our room just then, all eyes and hands sud denly on Noritake. “Git!” screamed Millie, and realizing perhaps the new im portance of the mysterious crate or her role in its safe ar rival, she raised the black box above our hands like a sacred urn while chanting abracadabra until right next to my study desk she carefully stopped to ease Noritake down. In the thrill of showing around my portable Philippines out of a buri bag, I forgot Mil lie’s parting word: “Anytime you want Noritake hauled down, you call me, Honey.” I never did call. You see, Nori take was a set of egg-shell-thin cups and saucers with a match ing teapot, so small one could hold it in the palm of one hand, and with a delicate lip from which can flow out but only the most fragrantly brewed tea. All these pieces were exquisite ly handpainted with mere breaths of carnationhood. On my last day in Kobe, I saw this, first and last love in Japan, begging to be removed from its glass cage, singing only to me. A LL the girls in the house * except Millie knew soon enough of Noritake’s odyssey and my secret fears that my family might not forget so easily the beast for the beauty. Millie had no time to listen to such idle tales. Minute-Silly, the girls called Millie, aways a demon for small work, routing dust and bugs and spiderwebs from the cloak-room, washing the telephones with alcohol, al ways moving our study-tables a fraction of an inch nearer the light so we could read better al though Millie herself had no time to read. We were all grate ful but terribly awed by Millie. Every clean-up day, Millie es pied one by one my out-of turn things, as indeed all the Philip pine things I hugged in caprice across the sea to my American home would seem “crummy” to any Midwestern girl. First, the salted red eggs must go, not to our dinner table (I had hoped to share the delicacy with peo ple who eat only plain boiled eggs) but “To the incinerator, Honey, they smell!” she said. I 70 Panorama wrote my best friend at home who can whip egg-foo-yung any old time that the Americans were no gourmet, my way of vengeance. Then the bamboo shoot that held the coco-honey attracted the ants, so off to the trash can it went, not without a secret scream from me. There after I hid my Free Press co pies lest she use them to start our picnic fires and I quaked to let my rice-powder spill on the floor, she’d think it was too white. But always with varia tions on the old theme of Nori take like: “Honey, why don’t we push Noritake a little under your bed, huh?” “No, Millie, everybody keeps horse-playing on the double decker beds and I don’t want Noritake as the late ThousandPieces Art.” “Why, I can cover the coffin with a handsome pillow and we can all use it sometimes for a divan right here in the sitting room.” “What if Fattie Sue sits on it and forgets it’s Noritake un der?” And so on. By then, Noritake was notor ious. In the house, in Lawrence and parts of Kansas where the gir^s go home and tell their folks of the war between Min ute-Silly and Noritake, I was offerred fabulous sums by Kansas housewives to part with Nori take. That would end gracious ly the house war but who sells his first love in a strange coun try? Spring came. We were clean ing for the open house with Mil lie as our director, of course. “Folks with lots of kids and the girls with their dates will be tumbling around here.” Millie said oracle-like, “we must put Noritake away safely in the basement! She even held out a cotton pad for Noritake, like the one we had for the house cat in winter. I walked away in aggrieved silence. I could hear my family’s voice scolding across the sea: “Be nice, give way, the bamboo sways with the typhoon so it ne ver breaks, be nice.” Well, I didn’t want to be nice. Noritake stays. In my eyes No ritake was the eccentricity for which there should be tolerance in the same way the Bill of Rights grants the right to work, to worship and, also, I thought, the right to be foolish. After all, what monsters of stuffed teddy bears lay at the foot of the beds when the girls slept. One of them even had a real skull for a shampoo dish! And I washed my long hair from it gladly when asked to. The first families came and Millie as official hostess receiv ed them in the parlor below. I was assigned our sitting-room upstairs as my gracious domain and there I received my first October 1960 71 guest for tea, a nice boy from my art class. “What’s that Pandora box?” he joked. “It’s Noritake,” I said grave ly, handing him his cup of tea, “It was my first love in Japan and Millie here...” All my sor rows and travails about the Ja panese beauty flowed down my cheeks as foolish tears. He lis tened to me. Yes, I had a right to keep Noritake with me, Mil lie was a “square” all right and the black box was a cubist’s dream in a proper midwestern girl’s room. I was assuaged. I flew about to give him more team, more cookies and happier tales. Once or twice he bent over Noritake, feeling the sun ken nails all around on the black pine box. “Get me a claw hammer,” he ordered. “No!” I exclaimed. “Yes!” he insisted, “everyone has a right to be foolish but it is a privilege to share a beautiful foolishness.” And Noritake emerged from its mattresses of straw, was rinsed, cup by cup, saucer by saucer, was filled with the am ber liquid gold of my best Hongkong tea. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, Millie’s folks, got their first taste of Oriental tea from Noritake, declared it splendid and Millie was not above put ting her lips to it. Noritake was safely cached with me all year afterwards except when our house entertained at tea and my beautiful foolishness was passed around and after tea, was rinsed by Millie, as a museum piece caretaker would. The year over, I went home to Manila with Noritake. I open ed Noritake tremblingly before my family. When I held the first cup and saucer in all its exquisite carnationhood in my hand, my family hissed in a cho rus: ‘Impractical!” and never used Noritake. “Impractical!” hissed my ship mates in a chorus behind me. I released the beautiful pri soners with a fistful of yen and carried them in the black box, luxuriously padded in straw and castings of ricepaper. Buy ing a Japanese beauty was to me forgetting Japan’s beast. No one would take home Noritake for me, neither the Kobe post-office, nor the ship agency in San Francisco. Mani la had not yet forgiven. So I had Noritake shipped to Kansas with me, my heart in my throat each time a porter laid his rough hands on the black box. 72 Panorama gPBEfflB Book Review Liberation of the Philippines * By Leonard Casper Boston College After the Leyte landings of October, 1944, had Admiral King had sufficient troops available to bypass Luzon and attack Formosa and Amoy, as he advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Communist China’s history might have been altered. Similarly after mopping up Borneo months later, had General MacArthur been allowed to restore Dutch rule in Java, Sukarno’s revolutionary movement might have been arrested. Samuel Morison, however, seldom pauses over such provocative spe culations but pursues the actual outcome of decisions made. Rather than chance an invasion of lukewarm Formosa, MacArthur insisted on honoring the promise of total liberation made when he fled Corregidor. Spruance seconded him, ad vising that I wo Jima and Okinawa were better approaches than China to Tokyo targets. Consequently, while the AAF consolidated Leyte, baby flat-tops supported a landing on Min doro, December 15, closing Manila Bay some 90 miles away and protecting the straits between for troop movements to Lingayen. Despite an unopposed dry landing, “suicide boats” and 200 kamikazes made Mindoro’s D-plus days as costly as Anzio’s. Only saturation flights (called the “Big Blue Blanket”) over Luzon airfields by Halsey’s Task Force 38 secured Min doro. Unfortunately; while refueling in the Philippine Sea on December 18, Halsey’s force collided with an unpredicted ty phoon that cost 800 lives and three destroyers — the worst Navy storm damage since the 1889 Samoan hurricane. The fact that planes, respecting radio silence, made weather reports ♦ Samuel Eliot Morison, The Liberation of the Philippines: Lu zon, Mindanao, the Visayas, 1944-45 (Boston Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1959). October 1960 73 normally twelve hours late was partly responsible. Never theless, collecting ships now dispersed over 2500 square miles, Halsey struck Formosan airfields to protect Lingayen during the invasion which meanwhile was underway. In Lingayen Gulf on January 6, naval units preparing the beachhead for troops transported from sixteen Pacific bases, took the full force of kamikaze explosions. One ship was sunk, eleven damaged, and a USNR rear admiral, a British lieutenant general and hundreds of others were killed. Afraid of worse slaughter during disembarkation, US planes were asked to in terdict Luzon airfields. In Philippine waters one out of every four kamikazes hit its target, and one in every 33 sank a ship. The rate of kamikaze effectiveness off Okinawa was only half so great because protective measures were devised. On the other hand, less support from naval gunfire was required at Lingayen than at any other major Pacific beachhead. There was little resistance to actual landings, January 9, because of extensive guerrilla action (as on Mindoro) and because of Yamashita’s decision to withdraw to the Mountain Province in a delaying action that allowed Kyushu to prepare defenses. While MacArthur pretended a continued local emergen cy, Task Force 38 cruised 3800 miles, attacking Camranh Bay, Hong Kong, and Hainan, and other units prepared for the Iwo Jima assault. All that prevented Krueger’s Sixth Army from dashing 100 miles south to Manila was its havjng become so accustomed to amphibious landings that it had little engineering equipment for overland movements! Meanwhile separate beachheads sealed off Bataan peninsula; and, south of Manila, Nasugbu. As soon as the 32nd and 1st Cavalry divisions arrived, the drive down the central plains began; and on February 3, prisoners of war at Sto. Tomas and Bilibid were freed. Unfortunately, Japanese naval units refused army or ders to evacuate Manila. Instead, 20,000 troops held out one month, reducing the . “open city” to a rubble worse than Cologne. It was this same navy which held Corregidor until the 11th Airborne’s drop hit Topside, February 16, and US destroyers sealed defense caves with shellfire. In 44 days of the remaining months before V-J Day, MacArthur and the Seventh Fleet completed 38 landings through 74 Panorama out the Visayas and Mindanao, in spite of Yalta’s decision (February 1) to leave these campaigns to Philippine Com monwealth troops. Only on Cebu was there any resistance. Philippine guerrillas handed over every other beachhead (the Japanese had never secured more than five percent of Min danao), and helped hunt the enemy out of the hills. When the British, preferring to be in on tfie Kyushu push at the expense of American supplies, refused to rescue their own territories, the Seventh Fleet and Australian infantry liberated Borneo, as well, their mine sweepers and frogmen working courageously under fire. Aside from such occasional British pettiness and MacAr thur’s tendency toward personal dramatization, the liberation of the Philippines as Morison records it was an interdependent operation. Under such circumstances, although he is a naval historian, the scope of Morison’s intelligence does not allow diminution of any part of that effort. Without editorializing he also makes clear that the spirit of the liberators was en deavoring to match the self-sacrifice of men like Tomas Confesor, governor of Iloilo, whose reply to puppet-President Lau rel that he surrender is recorded in Morison’s epigraph: ‘‘We shall never win or deserve the esteem and respect of other nations if we lack principles and if we do not possess the cour age and valor to defend those principles at any cost.” — From the Journal of Asian Studies. * ¥ ¥ October 1960 75 Literary Personality LX IX Nevil Shute: The Heart Is a Condition Nevil Shute Norway sounds like the pen-name for a poet, but the real man to whom it belonged had a domesti cated imagination which came home running when the lights went on at night. Although his annual royalties, as he approached 61, reached $175,000, he was more interested in flying; and had not the facts of our present, perhaps futureless generation not been startling, perhaps he might not have been either. As it is, On the Beach, his second-from-last novel, de picts the quiet cosmic end of man from radiation, between the wet kisses of Hollywood stars. Like Somerset Maugham, an older British hack, Nevil as a boy suffered an agonizing stammer, partly compensated ^or by vacations on the Continent and subsequent tales of local color shared with his father, a postal official. His childhood companions were the pioneering planes of Bleriot and the Wright brothers, encased in the London Science Museum. Af ter an engineering course at Oxford, he became a junior design er for de Haviland whose bombers had just helped win World War I. In 1923, he soloed; and decided that some day he would found his own manufacturing firm. That dream came true, in the form of Airspeed Ltd. Changing his last name so that his employers would not think him frivolous, in his offtime he wrote novels. In 1930 76 Panorama he flew to Canada in his own design, the R.100; and blamed bureaucratic bungling for the crash of its sister airship, R101, some weeks later. He himself has never crashed. But he did find himself temporarily without a job until he organized Air speed Ltd. By 1938, when he resigned, its annual orders ex ceeded three million dollars; and the old garage in which he had started had become a huge plant. That same year he pub lished his fourth novel. Every year thereafter a novel came off his typewriter, on the old secondhand rolltop desk. The style of writing was as plain and simple as the man, although the subjects should have been more inspiring; racial prejudice, in The Che quer Board; war’s refugee children, in Pied Piper; and now nu clear suicide, in On the Beach. Sometimes he seemed to have clairvoyance, writing about the bombing of England in mid1939, and the explosion of aircraft from metal fatigue long be fore the British Comets actually began to crash. But the pub lic repaid him with sales not for his intelligence but for the fun in A Town Like Alice, In the Wet, Round the Bend, Re quiem for a Wren, and The Far Country. In World War II, Shute worked on secret weapons; but later the heavy British taxes convinced him to move to Aus tralia. His heart no longer let him fly, so he settled down to a pig and dairy way of life at countrified Langwarrin, Victoria in 1950. He refused to attend the Australian premiere of On the Beach, on the grounds that the movie was insufficiently like his book; but it is not clear if he thought the movie too subtle or too distorted to be true to his work. In any case his heart did not wait to see the outcome of world fallout, but rushed him thirty miles north to Melbourne where he died in a hospital bed, in 1960. His heart had not spent its strength on any great causes, but like the great ships falling through space from metal fatigue, it had simply worn itself thin in the attrition of existence. October 1960 77 It seems so simple What Makes by Glendon Swarthout Over the field telephone the battle-hollow voice of a commander would in form us that one of his men had done in action a thing which seemed to him deserving of the Medal of Honor and he would describe briefly the dead. The soldier might have lain with an exploding grenade to save the lives of his comrades. Both legs torn off at the knee by bullets, he might have man ned a machine gun to cover a withdrawal until loss of blood overtook him. To advance his unit, he might have gone unscathed through a prolonged killing of the enemy which amounted to little less than slaughter. If our judgment concurred with the commander’s the ap paratus by means of which a nation recognizes its most phe nomenal military heroes was unlimbered. When the man survived, he was delivered at once to the re lative safety of headquarters. Statements from eye-witnesses were taken, a citation written, and the various documents for warded for endorsement from division to corps to army to the Pentagon and finally to the per tinent Congressional committee. Following the cable of approval, the soldier was flown to the States, his combat done, his life spared, paradoxically, by his very willingness to yield it. This was Europe, this was the second of the World Wars. Of all man’s curiosities none has been more constant than that in the absolutes. Courage, deity, love, death, power, cowar dice, beauty, evil; these are a few of the planets toward which he beams his impulses, his que ries, and waits till answering signals rebound to him across the silences. My concern with courage dated from the days in 78 Panorama a Man a Hero Italy and France spent with sol diers, dead and alive, who wait ed upon the coin-toss which would determine their rank in gallantry. In them I could discern no common chemistry. They were young or middleaged and ebul lient or reclusive and ingenuous or complex. In all cases their acts had been performed be yond what are considered to be the limits of human conduct. In all cases there had been time for conscious decisions. Noth ing in their demeanor pointed to a death-wish. ■Frequently what they had achieved terrified them in the recollfecting. It was as though some instinct not yet named, sacrificial, stronger by far than any other, had stripped them of self, armored than to pain and crippling, and driven them at last to their deeds, transforming them, for minutes at least, into heroes. I stood in awe of them. Their mystery obsessed me. I resolved one day to write a book about them. At its center would be a man al most mortally motivated to seek the meaning of courage. He would be granted a unique, an unprecedented opportunity to lay bare the heart of the mys tery. He would live with heroes. His would be the choice which would sanctify them forever to anonymity. He would be eter nal questioner. He would know himself a coward. His name would be Thomas Thorn. Twelve years were required to hit upon the time and place for him. The present seemed unsuitable. Needed was the per spective lent by the past, even the recent past, which is often more remote. Nor should he be swallowed up by the leviathan of a world conflict. Let him have, for a large quest, a small theatre; give him for a major drama a minor action; provide him with a stage upon which he must stand almost alone, a landscape stark and empty against which he might loom. Finally, no matter how much narrative might be in literary disrepute, afford his search a sure, simple vein of story. For these purposes no year answered better than 1916, no place than the sere plateaus of Chihuahua, Mexico, so close to October 1960 79 us yet far, and few episodes in American military records were more incidental than the Persh ing “Punitive Expedition” dis patched to Mexico by Woodrow Wilson in vain chase of Pan cho Villa. On his campaign our cavalry, doomed to mechaniza tion within months, enjoyed the luxury of a last mounted charge against an enemy at a ranch known as Ojos Azules, or Blue Eyes. I was intrigued by the irony of the task: to fit within a forgotten historical event Thomas Thom’s attempt to de fine an abstraction so crucial to his kind that they have immemorially been unable to ignore it. The planning of and research for the book, which I called “They Came to Cordura,” were completed in another year, the writing of it in ten months. Its method is Platonic. The sub ject of courage is turned this way and that, inquiries are made and responded to, significances offered and withdrawn, althought the dialectic is perhaps more of deed than of word. M|any of the most central questions Thomas Thom puts to himself. Is courage plasmal, something sent on from fa ther to son? Is it a product of environment and training? Is it separable from other qualities? Is it possible that a man may be at once treacherous and brave, shiftless and brave, vicious and brave, dishonest and brave? Or the converse, be faithful, con scientious, gentle, innocent and cowardly? Does not behavior in battle which passes understanding prove the human race is human after all? Is there not latent in man an urge more compulsive than that of self-preservation, nobler than that toward martyr dom? Does an isolated act by its spectacle and eloquence outsing the mute grandeur of a life time? When one publishes a novel which demands yet does not ap pear to reply, seems to offer yet denies, which involves rather than resolves, he must expect challenge by his readers. Ques tion: What is Cordura? An swer: A town in Chihuahua. Question: Can it be found on a map? Answer: No. Question: What does it mean? Answer: Literally, in Spanish, wisdom. Question: And figuratively? An swer: Whatever you wish. Question: What does it mean to you? Answer: To this day I am not certain. If I could choose I should prefer to think of Cor dura not as a place but as a si tuation, as state moral as well as physical, a conjoining of cir cumstances which would force upon man at peace a course of conduct in relation td his fel lows and to his world equivalent in selflessness to that of those we honor in war. Panorama For lack of an exact term, let us call it the instinct to magni ficence. It lies depe, I have be lieved since Italy and France, in most of us. The single re quirement is that we create in our affairs the conditions in which it must manifest itself. What I am saying, then, as uncryptically as possible, is that somewhere, beyond the rawest mountains of our animal na tures, Cordura exists, and that we may all come to it. uring the period of preparation for the novel I tra veled in person to Mexico, en gaged a car, and went on a jour ney west from the city of Chi huahua across the plateaus. The road ends. The gaunt grasslands reach. In the great distance waits the somber Cordillera of the Sierra Madre. The hacien da known as Ojos Azules stands today. The adobe walls of the cuartel are bullet-pitted from the cavalry charge forty-three years ago. Over them still call the clouds of crows. I suppose it is inevitable that the writer find his symbols where he puts them. To me the the small craters in hard clay represented man’s desperate ef fort, including mine, to chip away at truth, to dig out of his own concepts a meaning which he may each day use. * * * Or Else! A humorous story of strained relations is told about Joseph Addison, English author and statesman. A friend, to whom he had lent money, found it impos sible to talk with him on equal terms. Instead, the friend yielded tamely to whatever his creditor had to say. One day, exasperated by the man’s agreeing with him on some controversial subject, Addison ex claimed, “Either contradict me, sir, or pay me my money!” October 1960 81 As automatic as that! Spare Parts for SICK PEOPLE By Ray D. Owen When a car or bicycle washing machine needs repairing you take it to a mechanic with the idea that if he finds a part that is worn out or broken, he will almost always able to replace that part. Imagine how important it would be if it were also possible to replace parts of human be ings that had worn out, or that had been destroyed by disease, or gone “wild” as in particular kinds of cancer. Within the next hundred years—perhaps rather early in that interval—it is very possible that a lively market will develop for good used parts for the human body. Of course, the kinds of sub stitutions of parts now possible are very limited. If a person needs a blood transfusion, it is a simple matter to transfuse the right kind of compatible blood into his veins. But unless his bo dy is able to make the blood he needs, he wlil require another transfusion soon, and then an other. The transfused blood doesn’t settle down and make more blood like itself. It is a “dead-end” tissue; it is used up and disappears. Somewhat similarly, if a per son needs to grow bone in a par ticular place, it is possible to take part of another person’s bone and put it in that area, and new bone will often grow there. But this can be done with bone that has been boiled, frozen, or dried. Dead bone works because it provides only the inert scaf 82 Panorama folding onto which the host’s cells grow, producing more bone of their own. In fact, there are very few kinds of tissues that can be transplanted successfully from one individual to another, to grow and function in their new home. The reason for this is that the animal body has a kind of machinery to recognize things. This is the machinery of im munity. It recognizes the for eign, invading germ and res ponds by destroying that germ. When we have a foreign tissue transplant from another indivi dual, the body isn’t capable of making a moral judgment as to whether the foreign material is going to be good or bad for it; it recognizes simply that the ma terial is foreign and destroys it. It is possible to transplant ■ living, , growing, surviving tissue from one person to anoth er—if they are identical twins. Identical twins are so much alike, having the same heredity, that their bodies do not recog nize each other’s tissues as for eign. But in the ordinary case, if a person has a burn and needs a skin transplant to cover it, the surgeon will take skin from somewhere on that person’s own body, because only that skin will be accepted. So the problem in developing a market for good used parts for the human body is: How can we evade or control the immunolo gical reaction—the recognition and response to foreign material —when there is need for a tis sue or organ transplant? We don’t have the answer now. But we have some rather promising leads. One of the leads is, in part, derived from some observations made with my colleagues at the University of Wisconsin about 15 years ago. We were working on blood broups of dairy cattle and a very interesting and un usual case came to our attention. It happened that, on a farm in aryland, a breeder of pure bred Guernseys bred a Guern sey cow one morning to the Guernsey bull on the farm. By accident, that same day the cow was bred again to the beef bull—a white-faced Hereford— on the same farm. At the end of the proper period, the cow gave birth to twin calves. They were a remarkable pair of twins because, while one was a fe male and looked as a Guernsey should, the other was a bull and had the dominant white-faced marking of Hereford. It seemed evident, just -from looking at this pair, that they were twins with different fath ers. But when we tested their bloods, we found that their blood types were identical. This was hard to believe because October 1960 83 they could not have been iden tical twins; they were of op posite sex, and it was evident that apparently had different fathers. J TUDYING them a little furthu er, we found out why their bloods gave the same reactions. There were two different kind of blood cells there, just as there should have been for two dif ferent kinds individuals. One kind of blood cells was marked with the characteristics, inherit ed from the Hereford bull. The other kind was marked with the characteristics which came from the Guernsey. The cow had therefore evi dently produced two eggs and one of the eggs had been fer tilized by a Hereford sperm, the other by a Guernsey sperm. Both of the twins had a mixture of both of these kinds of blood cells. Nowk that shouldn’t have been so surprising either, be cause it had been known for a long time that twin cattle usual ly have a common circulation; their blood vessels join, and they give each other reciprocal transfusions of blood continu ously during much of their embyronic lives. So, we might even expect to find that two calves bom as twins have mixed blood. But the surprising thing was that, when we tested these twins again six months later, and again at the end of the year, and again over several years, they stayed the way they had been at birth. In other words, it wasn’t just a matter of blood transfusion, with the transfused blood disap pearing. There had been a per sistent transplantation of bloodforming tissue between these calves while they were embryos. And this is interesting because it means that when a transplant, ed tissue is introduced to an in dividual while he is still very young (in the embryo, in this case) his body is not able to re cognize the tissue as foreign and doesn’t rescond to it and destroy it. Instead, his body continues to accept this material as his own. A little while later some peo ple in England showed that it was possible to make skin grafts between non-identical twin cat tle. And more recently some Scandinavian workers perform ed successful kidney transplants. So bovine fraternal twins really lack the abiilty to recognize what is different in each other. Not long ago a similar case was found in a human be ing. A “Mrs. McK.” came into a British blood bank to give a pint of blood. When the sam ple was typed, it was found that Mrs. McK. had unusual blood. Her blood behaved mainly as type A, but not all her cells had the A antigen. Quite a large proportion behaved as though 84 Panorama they were O. And the O cells lacked another antigen called Kell that was present in the A cells. Her blood was apparently a mixture. Mrs. McK. was asked (with the twin cattle in mind), “Are you by any chance a twin?” “Yes,” she replied, “I was a twin, but my twin brother died more than 20 years ago when he was a baby.” It was possible to do a com plete job of blood typing on the long-dead twin brother because descendants of his cells that had been transplanted into his twin sister still survived in her body giving rise to blood cells in large numbers. Here again, a successful transplant had occurred be cause the recipient at the time was an embryo. Of course, Mrs. McK. and her brother were fra ternal twins; there is no implica tion that Mrs. McQ. has two fathers. A few years ago a group of workers in England found a way of putting this kind of si tuation on a controlled, labora tory basis. These were the same workers that did the skin trans plants in twin cattle, mentioned above, but in this work they used mice and chickens. Does this suggest any recipe for human practice? Looking ahead in a rather starry-eyed way to the next hundred years, we could say, “Perhaps.” It may even happen that when two ba bies are born, cells will they can still accept them, so that each of these babies grows up as a walking “tissue bank” for the other. However, they may well be a situation with dangers in it that we don’t recognize, so we would hesitate to attempt such applications to human ba bies as yet. There may be special cases where these experiments could be justified. For instance, there are certain kinds of anemia the person is genetically unable to produce the amount of blood that he needs because of an in herent defect in his blood-for ming tissue. If, when this per son is a baby, we inject normal blood-forming cells into him from another individual, it might well be that these would be accepted as a transplant to provide a source of normal cells to take the place of his own de fective ones. Actually, the first steps in this research have already been accomplished with mice. Dr. Elizabeth Russell of the Roscoe B. Jackson Memorial Labora tory in Bar Harbor, Me., by ma king transplants, has succeeded in saving the lives of mice that are genetically severe anemics. UU hen you look at the ” broader picture it is ob vious that the treating of very young babies in this way is not October 1960 85 a general solution to the prob lem we are discussing. If you need a tissue transplant now because something is badly wrong in you, it doesn’t help to say you could have been in jected with some kind of cell when you were a baby. What we need to solve this problem is way of suppressing and controlling the immune response in a normal adult. And it is with that in mind that a great deal of searching is going on now in laboratories all over the world. Again, we have some leads. One of them deals with very large amounts of X-ray irradia tion, or with particular kinds of chemicals which mimic the ef fects of radiation on animals. If, for example, a mouse is given 900 or 950 roentgens of total body radiation (a very high dose) it will die in a week or 10 days. But if, after the X-ray, this mouse is injected with bone marrow cells from another mouse, then he lives. This has two points of signi ficance for us. The first is that the life of the mouse has been saved by this kind of treatment. Looking toward a future in which we can expect increased use of high energy irradiation, and possible catastrophes from this, we could be very much in terested in saving the lives of individuals who have been ex posed by accident to these kill ing rays. The second point is that the X-rays have had the effect of permitting the individual to re ceive a tissue transplant that his body would ordinarily re ject. The X rays, or the chemi cals that mimic the effects of X rays, have inactivated the an imal’s ability to give an im mune response; the recognition and response machinery has been destroyed. So he accepts the tissue transplant that will save his life. Some animal experiments of this kind have been made re cently at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. An ordinary mouse colored mouse was given a le thal dose of X rays and then in jected with bone marorw from a rat. The mouse doesn’t look realy normal any more because for one thing, the X rays have killed the cells in his hair that produce pigment, so that hair is almost white. The X rays have also had some other effects on the mouse which the injection of bone marrow has not correct ed, but the main thing is that this mouse is alive and well. And within him are rat blood cells. Now, a rat is a very dif ferent kind of animal than a mouse—a different genus and species. It is remarkable that this mouse can live with all of his red blood cells derived from an animal so foreign to him. What are the prospects in ” this field for the next 86 Panorama hundred years? We now have blood banks for blood transfu sions. We have some tissue banks for keeping tissues like bone, that don’t have to live and grow in a new host. I think we can predict that in the relatively near future we will develop tissue banks for storing the kinds of tissue banks to live and grow in the foreign host. When we do, the vista that opens before us is overwhelm ing. Think, for example, of a dia betic—a person who lacks the ability to make insulin in the is let cells in his pancreas. The diabetic goes through his life being injected repeatedly with insulin from animals. How much better it might be if, instead of injecting the insulin, we could provide the diabetic with nor mal tissue, itself capable of mak. ing insulin in the diabetic’s body under physiological conditions. Or take the matter of trans planting healthy blood-forming tissues into the anemic indivi dual. Or suppose we could des troy the diseased cells in leuke mia (where a particular kind of cell goes wild) and replace them with normal ones. There are many examples that might be cited. But the ho rizon is even broader than that. If in the course of our search we find ways of controlling the transplantation-immune r e a c - tion, the way might be opened to treament of many of the more serious aspects of important dis eases. Many diseases have bad side effects from the struggle that is going on between the host’s im mune machinery and the for eign invading germ. In many al lergies, as well, the immune ma chinery goes wrong and causes bad reactions. Of we find a way to control this kind of reaction, the diseases of hypersensitivity may come under control, and we can do humanity a great deal of good. Frankenstein created a mons. ter. Mary Shelley, second wife of the poet Shelley, in the fan tasy she published in 1818, had Frankenstein say, “The dissect ing room and the slaughter house furnished many of my materials.” Our aim, a used parts market for the human body, is not to create a monster. Instead, we will serve desirable and prac tical aims—the needs of man. More than that, our effort will be to understand; and in this effort no one can predict what areas of human difficulty will yield to the understanding to be contributed by research in tissue transplantation in the next hundred years, or how far this research will help us to pro gress to ultimate comprehen sion of the essential mysteries of life. October 1960 87 Post No Bill hen Mark Twain was editor of a small country newspaper, his salary was so small he could not make ends meet. As a result, the bills kept piling up, but Twain never took them seriously. One morning, the office boy handed him a bill from his tailor. Twain took one look at it and started to throw it away. “Better read the other sicfe,” advised the boy. “He says if you don't pay him pronto, he’s going to sue.” Twain turned the sheet over. Then he said im patiently: “You should know better than to bother me with this kind of copy. Send him our form letter which says that manuscripts written on both sides cannot be considered.” Reservation T he following dialogue took place between an 1 qffice boy and his employer alter the boy no ticed two women with the boss. Office boy: “Who were those two girls?” Boss: “Well, one was my wife and the other was Marilyn Monroe.” Office boy: “Which one was Marilyn Monroe?” The boss took a dollar out of his pocket and gave it to the boy. Office boy: “Whafs this for?” Boss: “Nothing. I just want you to remember, when you get to be President, that 1 once loaned you money.” 88 Panorama Beware! The water is going up in smoke. The Dying Seas The vast oceans are still the richest source of food in the world—but the day may be rapidly approaching when there will not be “lots more fish in the sea.” If it does come, it will probably be the fault of man, not nature. The danger signs are already clear. Fishermen from Glou cester to Osaka are finding it almost impossible to catch enough fish per voyage to stay in business. Here are two ex amples of how critical the sit uation has become: The port of Boston lands more haddock than any other fishing port in the world and is one of the major fisheries centers of the United States. Yet its total landings at the Fish Pier in 1958 were the low est in thirty-six years, and had dock landed here amounted to 78,000,000 pounds, compared with annual catches of 200,000,000 pounds thirty years ago. In 1953 the total haul of sar dines on the West Coast dropped from previous annual levels of 600,000 tons to 5,000 tons. The sardine industry al most vanished that year. HY HAVE THERE been these major declines in harvests of the ocean’s food resources? There are always certain fluctuations due to natural causes. Climate changes, ocean temperatures and unusual acts of nature such as earthquakes have profound effects on the numbers and locations of the innumerable species of marine life. But some depletions are so severe and affect human life to an extent where intensive research and the adoption of corrective measures is called for. Whenever money has been spent to outfit marine biologi cal laboratories, ocean research vessels and oceanographic stud October I960 89 ies, big dividends have resulted. Norway, Japan, Britain, France, Portugal, Iceland and the Soviet Union are devoting substantial efforts and subsidies to improve fisheries techniques, to harvest fish wisely and to fathom more of the ocean's mysteries. The Soviet Union, for exam ple, recently completed a siz able fleet of huge 100-man fishing trawlers, equipped for long voyages and containing modem freezing and processing equipment Oceanographers, marine bio logists and research equipment will be carried by these ships. The Soviet Union is also ex perimenting with oceanographic submarines fitted with under water TV cameras and giant searchlights to learn more about the ocean’s bottom deposits and the behavior of fish. These innovations are the re sults of a program to expand the Soviet fisheries, which in cludes twenty-seven schools for the training of technicians, bio logists and marine specialists. It is doubtful that the United States has one such fishing trawler as these Soviet vessels. D OPULATION EXPERTS believe * the land-growth food sur pluses of today will not be enough to feed the world to morrow. They believe we will have to turn to “our last fron tier” for food and other natu ral resources, including water to drink. Over-fishing, waste, pollution of coastal regions, nuclear wea pons tests and the dumping of nuclear wastes into the ocean may eventually poison the salt water, the plants and animals of the sea and man through the complex ocean food chain. The cycle of ocean life is de licately balanced. Elimination of one species, through over fishing, may lead to the extinc tion of other species that had depended on it for food. Most dangerous is interfer ence with the growth of plank ton, minute ocean plants that are ultimate, basic food of near ly all ocean life. Pollution could interrupt this growth and upset the marine food patterns. Fresh water fish also are be ing affected by waste, pollu tion, and over-fishing. More unusual is the danger to salmon, a fresh water spawner, resulting from dams that block the salmon's attempt to swim upriver to his breeding ground. Pacific salmon constitute the single most valuable ocean re source of the northwest Amer ican coast. In 1955 the American and Canadian salmon packs were the lowest in fifty years. 90 Panorama In 1958 the total salmon pack of the Pacific Northwest was up again, but the increase was due solely to a bumper crop in Alaska, while Oregon and Washington experienced the effects of apparent declines in salmon populations. Shrewd Seer A fortuneteller one prophesied that a good friend of King Louis XI of France would die on a certain day. The prophesy came true and the superstitious king, thinking the seer had worked some kind of magic that really caused his friend’s death, planned to have the fortuneteller himself killed. When the man was brought before him the king said, "I am told you are very clever but can you tell me what your future is going to be?” The fortuneteller, suspecting the worst, answered, "Your Majesty, I shall die three days before you do.” From that day on. King Louis XI took very good care of the fortuneteller. Information, Please Oring an extremely hot day the sergeant in charge of bayonet drill at an Army base was trying hard to get his listless men to attack the stuffed dummies with more energy. Finally he halted the drill and said, "Listen men, those dummies are the enemy. They have burned your house and killed your parents. They carried away your sister, stole all your money and drank up all the whisky in the house.” The sergeant then stepped back and motioned the recruits forward toward the row of dummies. The line of men surged ahead with new purpose, eager to attack. One recruit, his eyes stern and his drawn back over his teeth in a snarl, paused to ask: "Ser geant, which one drank that whisky?” October 1960 91 It is no denture 'The leetti 0^ "The Tflatteh, by Horace Loftin 7 he fine set of teeth of the alligator performs its func tion wonderfully well. They are sharp, stout peg-like just right for grabbing and hold ing on to the prey until it is ready to be gulped down, whole or in pieces. But as in all the vertebrate animals with teeth, up to the mammals, its teeth are essentially all alike. The mammals, on the other hand, are characterized by hav ing teeth of several kinds in each individual. For example, man has incisors in front for biting, rather degenerate cani nes for stabbing and holding, and premolars and molars for chewing and grinding. There are exceptions to this generality, of course, but they are so few that they prove the rule. Each mammalian group or species has, as a rule again, its own particular kind of denti tion, its incisors, canines, premo lars and molars being so modi- . fied (or lacking) as to fit its particular feeding habits. Man is an omnivorous (all-eating) animal, and his teeth reflect this by being quite generalized — no one kind of tooth outstrips the other in size or importance. Another familiar mammal with “similar” omnivorous habits car ries a set of teeth remarkably like our own — the hog! CT he rodents are gnawing * animals; and as might be expected, the front incisors are extremely well-developed and specialized. Canines, which would be virtually useless to ro dents, are completely absent Premolars and molars are pre sent for grinding. The incisors of rodents grow continuously throughout life, being worn down (and kept sharp) by the opposing incisors on the oppo site jaw as well as by hard us age. 92 Panorama Attention: All organization heads and members! Help your club raise funds painlessly... Join the Panorama “Fund-Raising by Subscriptions” plan today! The Panorama Fund-Raising by Subscriptions plan will get you, your friends, and your relatives a year’s sub scription to Panorama. The Panorama is easy to sell. It practically sells itself, which means more money for your organization. The terms of the Panorama Fund-Raising by Sub scriptions plan are as follows: Cl) Any accredited organization in the Philippines can take advantage of the Plan. (2) The organization will use its facilities to sell sub scriptions to Panorama. (3) For every subscription sold the organization will get Pl.00. The more subscriptions the organization sells, the more money it gets. (Knoum in the U£. as Miehle 17 Lithoprint) * The most modern Offset press its size (14 x 20 inches) * The easiest to operate vith i1 centralized control panel and put button operation. * No dampening rollers to both with its patented Rotafount, gij Ing mechanically controlled dam| Ing. * Hairline register—ideal for mull color jobs on any type of pa> at low cost and great speed. . 30/90 Actual Demonstration now going o’ You are invited to see COMMUNITY PUBLISHERS, INC. PRINTERS * LITHOGRAPHERS * PUBLISHERS Inverness St., Sta. Ana Tel. 5-41-96