That I had been removed because I published it. In just one instance, so far as I know, has a Filipino considered the possibility that the motive which actuated me was a desire to help many thousands of unfortunate human beings. Good old Arcadio del Rosario, at one time insurgent governor of Benguet, who has a kindly feeling for the wild-men and was glad to note certain immediate results which followed the publication of my report, has said: "Would that Sr. Osmeña [81] might have had the glory of doing what Sr. Worcester has done." What is needed to end slavery and peonage is congressional legislation enforced by Americans. Without hesitation I assert that their existence in the Philippine Islands is the greatest single problem which there confronts the government of the United States, in its effort to build up a respectable and responsible electorate and establish representative government. Is it reasonable to suppose that the hand which to-day crushes down the Filipino servant, the Filipino labourer, and the wild-man of the hills, will to-morrow raise them up and point them on the way to freedom? CHAPTER XXVI MURDER AS A GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY In discussing the prevalence of slavery in the Philippine Islands, Sr. Manuel Quezon has stated that it has never existed there as an institution. This is true, to the extent at least that it has never been recognized as a legal institution, nor directed nor authorized by order of any competent governmental authority. The same statements cannot be truthfully made with reference to murder, as I shall conclusively show by the records of the Insurgent government. I wish at the outset to draw a sharp line between acts of barbarity or ferocity, committed without authority by ignorant and irresponsible Insurgent officers or soldiers during the heat of battle or as the result of passions aroused by armed strife, and those which I now discuss. The former must be regarded as breaches of military discipline. Aguinaldo sought to protect his government from their consequences by issuing endless orders in Spanish strictly forbidding them. His troops were ordered again and again to respect American prisoners and treat them with humanity. So far as concerns his own people, however, he displayed a very different spirit from the outset. As we have already noted there exists among the Insurgent records a document written in Tagálog by him, and therefore obviously not intended for the information of Americans, which contains the following:-- "Any person who fights for his country has absolute power to kill any one not friendly to our cause." [82]