y to declare
that they are born free and equal; but we do not undertake to put these
theories into practice. Every individual citizen of the United States
is not walking about with a harrowing dread of doing something that
admits a lesser self-esteem than his neighbor may possess. If a fire
breaks out in his neighborhood, and a little action on his part can
stop it before it gets a dangerous start, he does not hesitate to act
for fear doing so will show him possessed of less personal pride than
his neighbor up the street. If he is earning sixty dollars a month, and
learns that some other employee in another house is getting more money
for the same work, he does not take the chances of starvation because
to submit to the condition is to admit that he is less important than
another man. Yet the whole laboring element of the Filipino people
is permeated by just such a spirit. It is practically impossible to
fix a price for labor or for produce by any of the laws of supply and
demand that regulate such things elsewhere. The personal jealousies,
the personal assertions of individuals continually interfere with
the normal conditions of trade. If in the market some American
comes along in a hurry and pays a peso for a fish, the normal price
of which is about thirty-five cents, the price of fish goes up all
through the market--for Americans. You may offer eighty cents and be
refused, and the owner will sell two minutes after to a Filipino for
thirty-five. But in so doing he does not "lose his face." The other
man got a peso from an American, and a man who takes less--from an
American--is owning himself less able than his companions.

We talk of democracy, but we never know how little democratic we are
till we come in contact with the real article. Can you conceive what
would be the commercial chaos of America to-morrow if the humblest
laborer had the quick personal pride of the millionaire? With all
our alleged democracy, we realize the impossibility of ringing
Mrs. Vanderbilt's doorbell and asking her to sell us a few flowers
from her conservatory or to direct us to a good dressmaker, though
we can take just such liberties with houses where the evidences that
money would be welcome are patent.

The American laborer does not mind going to and from his work in
laboring clothes, and he makes no attempt to seem anything but a
laboring man. But you cannot tell in a Manila street car whether
the white-clad man at your side is a go