constant teaching that slaves, those who toadied to power,
and men without self-respect made possible and fostered tyranny,
abuses and disregard of the rights of others.

The character test was also a step forward, for the profession of
patriotism has often been made to cloak moral shortcomings in the
Philippines as well as elsewhere. Rizal urged that those who would
offer themselves on the altar of their fatherland must conform to
the standard of old, and, like the sacrificial lamb, be spotless
and without blemish. Therefore, no one who had justifiably been
prosecuted for any infamous crime was eligible to membership in the
new organization.

The plan, suggested by a Spanish Masonic society called C. Kadosch
y Cia., originated with Jose Maria Basa, at whose instance Rizal
drafted the constitution and regulations. Possibly all the members
were Freemasons of the educated and better-to-do class, and most
of them adhered to the doctrine that peaceably obtained reforms and
progress by education are surest and best.

Rizal's arrest discouraged those of this higher faith, for the
peaceable policy seemed hopeless, while the radical element, freed from
Rizal's restraining influence and deeming the time for action come,
formed a new and revolutionary society which preached force of arms
as the only argument left to them, and sought its membership among
the less-enlightened and poorer class.

Their inspiration was Andres Bonifacio, a shipping clerk for a foreign
firm, who had read and re-read accounts of the French Revolution
till he had come to believe that blood alone could wipe out the
wrongs of a country. His organization, The Sons of the Country,
more commonly called the Katipunan, was, however, far from being as
bloodthirsty as most Spanish accounts, and those of many credulous
writers who have got their ideas from them, have asserted. To enlist
others in their defense, those who knew that they were the cause of
dissatisfaction spread the report that a race war was in progress
and that the Katipuneros were planning the massacre of all of the
white race. It was a sufficiently absurd statement, but it was made
even more ridiculous by its "proof," for this was the discovery of an
apron with a severed head, a hand holding it by the hair and another
grasping the dagger which had done the bloody work. This emblem,
handed down from ancient days as an object lesson of faithfulness
even to death, has been known in many lands be