Dooley, Mr. (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Irish Americans -- Fiction
"'Passin' to th' pollytical situation, I will say it is good. Not
perhaps as good as ye'ers or mine, but good. Ivry wanst in a while
whin I think iv it, an iliction is held. Unforchnitly it usually
happens that those ilicted have not yet surrindhered. In th'
Ph'lippeens th' office seeks th' man, but as he is also pursooed
be th' sojery, it is not always aisy to catch him an' fit it on
him. Th' counthry may be divided into two parts, pollytically,--where
th' insurrection continues an' where it will soon be. Th'
brave but I fear not altogether cheery army conthrols th' insurrected
parts be martiyal law, but th' civil authorities are supreme in
their own house. Th' diff'rence between civil law an' martiyal
law in th' Ph'lippeens is what kind iv coat th' judge wears. Th'
raysult is much th' same. Th' two branches wurruks in perfect
harmony. We bag thim in th' city an' they round thim up in th'
counthry.
"'It is not always nicessry to kill a Filipino American right away.
Me desire is to idjacate thim slowly in th' ways an' customs iv
th' counthry. We ar-re givin' hundherds iv these pore benighted
haythen th' well-known, ol'-fashioned American wather cure. Iv
coorse, ye know how 'tis done. A Filipino, we'll say, niver heerd
iv th' histhry iv this counthry. He is met be wan iv our sturdy
boys in black an' blue iv th' Macabebee scouts who asts him to
cheer f'r Abraham Lincoln. He rayfuses. He is thin placed upon
th' grass an' given a dhrink, a baynit bein' fixed in his mouth
so he cannot rejict th' hospitality. Undher th' inflooence iv
th' hose that cheers but does not inebriate, he soon warrums or
perhaps I might say swells up to a ralization iv th' granjoor iv
his adoptive counthry. One gallon makes him give three groans f'r
th' constitchoochion. At four gallons, he will ask to be wrapped
in th' flag. At th' dew pint he sings Yankee Doodle. Occasionally
we run acrost a stubborn an' rebellyous man who wud sthrain at me
idee iv human rights an' swallow th' Passyfic Ocean, but I mus'
say mos' iv these little fellows is less hollow in their pretintions.
Nachrally we have had to take a good manny customs fr'm th'
Spanyard, but we have improved on thim. I was talkin' with a
Spanish gintleman th' other day who had been away f'r a long time
an' he said he wudden't know th' counthry. Even th' faces iv th'
people on th' sthreets had changed. They seemed glad to see him.
Among th' mos' useful Spanish customs is reconcenthration. Our
reconcenthration camps is among th' mos' thickly popylated in th'
wurruld. But still we have to rely mainly on American methods.
They are always used fin'lly in th' makin' iv a good citizen, th'
garotte sildom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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