nt in the
Islands. Most of the men who have risen to prominence in the Islands are
mestizos, and while in political life some of the leaders are merely
Spanish metis, the financial leaders almost without exception, the
captains of industry, have Chinese blood in their veins, while this
class has also taken an active part in the government of the
archipelago. Emilio Aguinaldo is one of the most conspicuous of the
Chinese mestizos. Individual examples might be multiplied without limit;
it will be sufficient to mention Bautista Lim, president of the largest
tobacco firm in the islands and also a physician; his brother, formerly
an insurgent general and later governor of Sampango province under the
American administration; the banker Lim Hap; Faustino Lechoco, cattle
king of the Philippines; Fernandez brothers, proprietors of a steamship
line; Locsin and Lacson, wealthy sugar planters; Mariano Velasco,
dry-goods importer; Datto Piang, the Moro warrior and chieftain; Paua,
insurgent general in southern Luzon; Ricardo Gochuico, tobacco magnate.
In most of these men the proportion of Chinese blood is large.

Generalizing, we are justified in saying that the cross between Chinese
and Filipinos produces progeny superior to the Filipinos. It must be
remembered that it is not a very wide cross, the Malayans, who include
most of the Filipinos, being closely related to the Chinese.

It appears that even a small infusion of Chinese blood may produce
long-continued favorable results, if the case of the Ilocanos is
correctly described. This tribe, in Northern Luzon, furnishes perhaps
the most industrious workers of any tribe in the islands; foremen and
overseers of Filipinos are quite commonly found to be Ilocanos, while
the members of the tribe are credited with accomplishing more steady
work than any other element of the population. The current explanation
of this is that they are Chinese mestizos: their coast was constantly
exposed the raids of Chinese pirates, a certain number of whom settled
there and took Ilocano women as wives. From these unions, the whole
tribe in the course of time is thought to have benefited.[154]

The history of the Chinese in the Philippines fails to corroborate the
idea that he never loses his racial identity. It must be borne in mind
that nearly all the Chinese in the United States are of the lowest
working class, and from the vicinity of Canton; while those in the
Philippines are of a higher class, an