THE U.S.A. IMPERIALISTS PROBABLY LEARNED FROM RIZAL'S WRITINGS

It is highly probable that policy makers in Washington DC learned from a thorough reading of Dr. Jose Rizal's novels; and particularly the Seventh Chapter of El Filibusterismo which served as a guide for them to draft a new imperialist policy.

This thesis can be gleaned from the speech by Senator Albert J. Beveridge when the Treaty of Paris was under consideration for ratification in the US Senate.

It can be said that America's consuming desire to retain our country as a territory was expressed by Senator Albert J. Beveridge when he spoke in the U.S. Senate on January 9, 1900.

Said he: "But to hold it (the Philippines) will be no mistake. Our trade henceforth will be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean. More and more Europe will manufacture the most it consumes. Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus?

Geography answers the question. x x x The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East."

What followed was the shiploads of American SOLDIER-TEACHERS, the so-called Thomasites because they were on board the US ss Thomas, who immediately taught all Filipino children of school age the English language, through memory work, parrot style, and forbade them from speaking our own languages within the school premises.

The Washington policy makers were possibly and probably influenced by the thesis of Dr. Jose Rizal concerning language, as lucidly expounded in the Seventh Chapter of El Filibusterismo, as it had been tanslated from the original Spanish by Charles B. Derbyshire.

There was the clue on how to enslave the Filipino mind! Let it not be said that this piece is designed to foment hatred for America; for in truth, we never lacked friends in that great champion of democracy and liberty of men.

Senator William Bate, on April 2, 1900, condemned the (1898) Treaty of Paris when he declared that therein was announced and ratified the "un-American doctrine that a whole people, 10 million (Filipinos) in number, could be bought for a money consideration, in total disregard of all those rights heretofore held by all American statesmen as inalienable. "

But history has sadly shown that statesmanship, indeed, is too often overwhelmed by commercial greed!

From: Leonidas Agbayani