Tfloyd gibbons
Adventurers' Club
“Head-Hunters’ Axes’9
By FLOYD GIBBONS
Famous Headline Hunter.
AND what a yarn this is! It starts in the head-hunting jungles ol
■* *■ the Philippines—where jaw-bones are used as drumsticks foi
dancing tom-toms—and has an astonishing climax in the pulpit ol
Trcmont Temple in Boston.
Gather around, you doubters that “truth is stranger than fiction"
and hearken unto fellow adventurer Jeremiah Sullivan.
Jerry was n captain in the A. E. F. during the World war but his story
gics back to ItHMJ when lie was Inspector of Wild Tribes In the Philippine
lio. eminent service.
Two twelve-year-old Filipino boys attracted Jerry's nttention while on an
Inspection trip to tiie settlement of lion toe.
liontoc in those days was a savage head-hunting district in the mountains
about 150 miles from Manila.
The boys were sons of native head-hunters—but were learning
English at the American Mission and were proteges of the Rev. James
Clapp, missionary in that wild district.
The native boys were close friends and shared a strong religious
Inclination. Their names were Jose Fortanato and Pit-taw-Pit.
They lived In straw huts nnd attended the Mission school barefooted and
naive I—except for a pee string.
Blood-Curdling Scream Rents the Night.
Now Jerry's duties ns inspector were to discourage tribal warfare and par
ticularly to put a stop to the frightful habit the savages had of chopping off an
enemy’s head.
He had heard rumors of head-hunting activity in the district and wa«
there for that reason.
One sultry night as he sat in his straw hut a terrific scream rent
the silent jungle night.
Jerry grabbed his revolver and a pitchwood torch and ran out onto
jy
Little Jose Was the Victim of Head-Hunters.
the trail. He saw a smouldering torch on the ground some distance
away.
As he reached the torch he heard a thud and the sound of someone rum
aing through the brush.
He went toward the noise and, some feet off the trail, a terrible sight
oiet Ids eyes.
Little Jose of the Mission lay breathing his last—his head almost
severed from his body by a terrific blow from a head-hunter's axl
Almost at once, Jerry says, the war drums of tho Bontoc drummed ou)
the news. As he stood there savage after savage passed him and silently
disappeared in the jungle on tlie warpath for human heads.
Little Jose’s Burial Is Pitiful Affair.
Knowing that the savages consider it a disgrace to attempt to take n head
nnd then fail, Jerry stood on guard by Jose's body, expecting every moment
that the enemy head-hunter would return for his ghastly trophy.
But tlie head-hunter who had killed Jose valued his own head too highly to
risk returning.
The next day, Jerry says, Jose was given a Christian burial. His
chum, Pit-taw-Pit, dry eyed and silent, stood reverently by, as the mis
sionary read the service.
Then, as the body of his best friend was lowered Into the grave
Pit-taw-Pit—son of a savage head-hunter—murmured a pitiful little
prayer in broken English and walked with bowed head on his naked
chest, to his hut.
That was the last Jerry saw of the boy Plt-taw-PIt in the islands. The
head-hunters on the warpath claimed most of the Inspector’s attention and II
was all that he could do to Induce the chiefs to stop making war on the othei
tribe nnd concentrate on tracking down the lone murderer.
Head-Hunter Loses His Own Head.
But this the Bontocs finally did and Jerry soon had the satisfaction ol
seeing another burial—that of a head-hunter whose headless trunk was bound
round and round with rattan and strapped to his war shield—like a turkey or
a platter nnd buried in a sitting position in the side of a hill.
And then the years went by—as years will—and Jerry had almost
forgotten the incident of the two little Filipino Christians in far off
Bontoc.
The World war came and went and Jerry’s restless feet carried
him to many distant places.
And now comes the strange climax to his strange tale.
On a September day In 1033—some thirty years after—Jerry wandered
into Tremont Temple in Boston. The Iteverend Hilary Clnpp, ordained prelate
of the Episcopal faith, mounted the pulpit to preach the sermon.
The name of the minister, Jerry says, recalled the missionary of the same
name back in the islands and Ids mind went back to those far-off days In th«
head-hunter's settlement In the Philippines. He looked up at the minister and
thought he was dreaming!
The Reverend Hilary Clapp, ordained minister of God, and Pit
taw.Pit, head-hunter’s son of Bontoc, were one and the same manl
How’s that for a climax? And yet the explanation is simple. Pit
taw-Pit had already begun his studies for the ministry at the Mission
In Bontoc before he left the islands.
He had finished his studies at n theological seminary In the Stutes ant
had taken the name of Reverend Clapp out of respect foi1 bis first teacher and
benefactor In the Bontoc Mission.
Thanks, Jerry and niy deepest respect to you, Reverend Hilary Clapp, and
ns you preach the Word of God here below, may my wandering footsteps carry
me one day to hear you.
©—W.NU Service
Weather Man’s Workshop
The weather man employs a rather
Imposing workshop of Intricate Instru
ments In addition to Ills barometer,
lie has therniometerii to measure tern
tierature and instruments to measure
humidity, air direction (wind vane),
air velocity (anemometer), and com
binations of these to gauge and record
the different factors of the weather at
a single operation nnd automatically,
auch as the aerometeorograph, which
he dispatches aloft In an airplane. H«
has rnln gauges and snow gauges, bal
loons nnd kites, sunshine recorders
and scores of other complicated me
chunicai assistants.
Live Oak Forest 100 Years Old
Standing near Pensacola, Fla., Is f
forest of live oaks planted 100 yean
ago by the administration of President
John Adams to produce timber toi
naval ships.
Philippine Independence Won
After Struggle of Centuries
President Roosevelt Handing Signed Philippine Constitution to Manuel
Quezon, President of the Philippine Senate. Inset, Emilio Aguinaldo, Who May
Be a Candidate for President.
By WILLIAM C. UTLEY
IN 1S98, when Admiral Dewey's
guns had hardly concluded their
pronouncement that America had
become a world power, and the
echoes were still rumbling over Ma
nila bay, the 10,000,000 inhabitants of
the Philippines were already demand
ing complete political Independence.
Ten years from this coming Fourth
of July they may get it at last, after a
long struggle, both physical and diplo
matic. President Franklin D. Iloose
velt signed his name in ink to the con
stitution of the new Philippine gov
ernment. So did Manuel Quezon, pres
ident of the island senate. Six weeks
before that, members of the Philippine
house of representatives signed it, one
of them in his own blood.
Philippine Independence lias not al
ways been our worry. The struggle
bad its beginning centuries before the
United States ever existed.
The story really opens, so far as ttie
white race is concerned, in the year
1521, when Fernando Magellan, that
most Irrepressible of all gadabouts,
“discovered” the archipelago of the
eastern Pacific. It may lie well Im
agined that Skipper Magellan's heart
ies, with many moons on the open sea
having depleted their food supply to
tlie extent that the dinner menu con
sisted of fricassee of leather riggings
and boiled tongue (of shoe), hailed the
Islands with delight. The native rice
and sugar, which would have been .lust
another Tuesday night dessert at Sirs.
Gomez’ Seaman’s home hark in sunny
Spain, must have looked to them like
a banquet for the gods.
Senior Magellan is still there, but not
because he fell in love with the scen
ery. lie was killed by natives on the
island of Mactan. And what remained
of his stout-hearted crew continued
around the globe without him.
When the boys got back home they
were pretty much the toasts of their
respective communities and were in
vited to address the local Kiwanis and
Itotary and the Iberian equivalent of
what we call the Hot Stove league.
Egged on with bribes of hot tamales
and rare Castillinn wines, they were
not above spellbinding wide-eyed se
nnrltas with reluctant admissions of
tliL.r daring deeds. Mixed in with
their revelations there was probably
a little truth and the word eventually
got out that there were Philippine Is
lands somewhere In the Pacific, say
about two mutinies and three famines
out from Barcelona.
Bullied the Natives.
At nny rate, Spanish sailors of the
next generation again found the l’liil
Ippines, and began bullying, the na
tives Into submission In 1505, gaining
complete control In 1570. It is doubt
ful If these Spaniards knew, or any
body else knew until the Rnnd-McNal
ly map makers got busy, that their new
colonial holdings Included 7,OS3 Is
lands—two of them, Luzon and Min
danao, 40,000 and 38,000 square miles
in ni^a, and nine others more than
1,000 square miles npleee.
However, Filipinos, like elephants,
never forget, and the Idea of complete
Independence kept rankling In their
minds for quite n spell until In 1SPG it
swelled forth In open revolt under
Emilio Aguinnldo. The Spanish rul
ers pacitied Senor Aguinnldo with
threats, promises nnd-goodness knows
how many pesetas, and he nnd his
principal henchmen retired to the het
erogeneous obscurity of llong Kong in
1807, there to plan their subsequent
revolt of 1SD8.
In that year America won the war
with Spain and Spain celled the islands
to the United States for $20,000,000.
The Filipinos thought they ought to b<
given independence ut that time, and
when they failed to get it they broke
out again and were not pacilled until
July 4, 1901.
Tlie United Slates still later nrrest
ed an Independence movement by
granting them an autonomous gov
ernment under the Jones act of 1916.
The islanders were quick to offer their
aid to tlie United States in tlie World
war, and us soon ns It was over be
gan a consistent petitioning for inde
pendence which has never subsided.
Must Wait Ten Years.
They made some headway in Decem
ber of 1932, when congress passed the
Ilnwes-Cutting bill. This provided
that, subject to tlie approval of the bill
by tlie Philippine legislature, tlie is
lands would be allowed to draw up a
republican constitution which would
have to be acceptable both to them
and to the President of the United
States. Then, after a period of ten
years, the Islands would he granted
complete independence. During the
ten years, exports and tlie number of
Philippine immigrants to tlie United
States would lie restricted. After that
tlie islands were to l>e outside tlie
American tariff wall.
President Hoover vetoed tlie bill
January 13, 1933, on the grounds that
It had been selfishly planned to protect
American agriculture against Philip
pine labor and products: it did not
satisfactorily discharge American re
sponsibility towards tlie Islanders, who
were unready for independence (“Eco
nomic independence of tlie Philippines
must tie attained before political in
dependence can he successful” was tlie
way lie put it) ; and It would lay the
islands open to the dangers of turbu
lent conditions in tlie Far East. Con
gress overrode tlie veto four days la
ter. The Philippine legislature rejected
tlie hill nine mouths afterward.
The new constitution was prepared
under the conditions of the Tydings
McDuffle bill, which was passed by tlie
last congress and signed by President
Roosevelt. Its chief differences from
tlie Jones act are in the manner in
which It allows (tie islands a gradual
ly increased dosage of economic di
vorcement from tlie United States for
their people to taste before they de
cide finally to cut away nil ties on
July 4, 1945.
At present all Philippine exports to
tlie United States come in duty free.
The Tydings-MeDuffle bill provides
that in tlie sixth year of tlie ten-year
commonwealth period a duty of 5 per
cent will lie levied. This will lie grad
uated annually until at tlie end of five
years tlie duty would he 25 per cent.
Economic experts are generally of the
opinion that lids would cut terrifically
into Philippine exports, some even con
tending that tlie islands would he eco
nomically ruined even before they
gained their complete independence.
Varied Resources.
The Philippines nre not, as many
folks in tlie metropolitan centers of
the states might believe, a nation of
elevntor operators, bus boys mid pro
fessional ping-pong players. They
raise great quantities of rice, sugar
cane, hemp, amnila, coconut, corn, to
bacco and maguey. Their forestry,
fishing nnd mining is Important. They
munut'acture sugar, cocoa, coconut oil,
cigars and cigarettes, chocolate and
eolfee.
The new Philippine constitution,
which now becomes effective ns soon
ns the existing government is terminat
ed by a proclamation of President
Itoosevelt, is much like'oar own Con
stitution, with the following important
differences:
The president may serve only one
term, six years. lie can veto any part
of any bill. The legislature, with two
minor exceptions, cannot appropriate
more money than his budget calls for.
The vice president Is a member of the
cabinet, and cabinet members may
speak before the legislature.
Women to Vote on Suffrage.
There will be only one legislative
body, the assembly. In times of war
or other great national emergency It
can vote to make the president a dic
tator. The Supreme court will have
eleven justices, automatically retired
at seventy.
Literate men over twenty-one will
he allowed to vote. A plebiscite will
be held in two years on woman suf
frage, and If tSOO.OOO women vote for it
they will be given the right of suf
frage.
All natural resources are to become
the property of the state, not to be
leased for longer than 25 years. The
state may operate and establish indus
tries and systems of communication
and transportation, In the Interests of
national defense. The state will pro
tect labor and regulate relations be
tween landlords and tenants and be
tween labor and capital. It may pro
vide for compulsory arbitration.
Treaties will be rntified by a major
ity of the assembly, and that body
alone may dednre war.
Economic Future.
A congressional committee headed
by Senator Millard F. Tydlngs of
Maryland, co author of the hill, has
Just returned from the Islands with
recommendations which will probably
provide material for a study of their
economic future. The bill calls for a
conference on that subject one year
before the commonwealth period ex
pires, but it Is probable that this will
take place at an earlier date.
The final outcome. It Is thought, will
result in one of the following possi
bilities :
(1) Complete Independence, exactly
ns proposed, which will Involve (ac
cording to most authorities) economic
ruin and probable absorption of the
Philippines by “nn Oriental power.”
(2) Independence, exchanging tariff
preference to the Islands for free en
try of American goods.
(3) Dominion government of the Is
lands, nllowing them trade preference,
but keeping a political string attached
to them.
The Islands are determined to have
Independence, complete and at any
cost, according to Quezon, who has
fought for It in diplomatic circles In
this country for many years, served as
president of the Island senate since
1010, and will in nil likelihood be its
first president.
The dapper little diplomat, some
where about sixty years of age, ad
mitted that his nation was setting out
on a great adventure and would prob
ably make mistakes.
“What nation does not?” he asked.
“But we have been prepared for our
ndventure by a great republic. We
have trusted you in the past nnd have
been rewarded for our trust. We have
depended upon you nnd we have not
been disappointed. We know that we
can count upon you In the future."
Mentioned ns a possible candidate to
oppose Quezon for the presidency Is
Aguinaldo, the same Emilio Aguinnldo
who led the revolts and guerilla war
fare more than thirty years ago.
Quezon then wns his trusted lieutenant.
tl Western Newspaper Hulun.