THE HERO OF THE FILIPINOS THE STORY OF JOSÉ RIZAL POET, PATRIOT AND MARTYR BY CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL AND E. B. RODRIGUEZ Illustrated with Photographs THE CENTURY CO. NEW YORK AND LONDON 1923 TO THE MEMORY OF APOLINARIO MABINI PHILOSOPHICAL DEMOCRAT GALLANT SOLDIER OF THE COMMON GOOD PREFATORY NOTE The great storehouses of knowledge about this extraordinary being are W. E. Retana’s “Vida y Escritos del Dr. José Rizal” and the “Lineage, Life, and Labors of José Rizal,” by Professor Austin Craig of the Philippines University. Neither is accessible to the general American public. Retana’s ponderous volume has never been translated. Professor Craig’s work was published in Manila but not in the United States and is to be found in only a few of the public libraries. Prefixed to Charles Derbyshire’s excellent translation of Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” is a biographical sketch, all too brief, of the author of the novel, but even this is denied to most American readers, for it, too, is published only in Manila. The notes that Rizal left about himself, few, fragmentary, and sternly reticent, throwing a faint light upon his psychology and character but next to nothing upon the stirring events of his life, are known only in the Philippines. In an English magazine article published in 1902, Sir Hugh Clifford, formerly governor of Ceylon, reviewed and estimated this strange career, but no more than in outline. Three American magazines in the space of twenty-five years have devoted each a page or so to the same subject. Buried in that monumental work, Blair and Robertson’s “Philippine Islands,” is liberal store of information about the historic background of the events hereinafter to be set forth, though few readers seem to avail themselves of even this assistance. John Foreman’s well known book with the same title has an interesting chapter about Rizal and his fate. An abbreviated translation of “Noli Me Tangere,” published in New York in 1900, contained a short account of his life and a version of his last poem. These, with fugitive references, are virtually the sum of the Rizal material the most resolute searcher has hitherto been able to find on American shelves.