1. The Black Man’s Burden
Take up the white man’s burden,
The yoke ye sought to spurn;
And spurn your father’s customs;
Your father’s temples burn.
O learn to love and honor
The white God’s favored sons.
Forget the white-haired fathers
Fast lashed to mouths of guns
Take up the white man’s burden,
Your own was not enough;
He’ll burden you with taxes;
But though the road be rough,
“To him who waits,” remember,
“All things in time shall come;”
The white man’s culture brings you
The white man’s God, and rum.
Take up the white man’s burden;
‘Tis called “protectorate,”
And lift your voice in thanks to
The God ye well might hate.
Forget your exiled brothers;
Forget your boundless lands;
In acres that they gave for

2. The blood upon their hands.
Take up the white man’s burden;
Poor simple folk and free;
Abandon nature’s freedom,
Embrace his “Liberty;”
The goddess of the white man
Who makes you free in name;
But in her heart your color
Will brand you “slave” the same.
Take up the white man’s burden;
‘And learn by what you’ve lost
That white men called as counsel
Means black mean pays the cost.
Your right to fertile acres
Their priests will teach you well
Have gained your fathers only
A desert claim in hell.
Take up the white man’s burden;
Take it because you must;
Burden of making money;
Burden of greed and lust;
Burden of points strategic,
Burden of harbors deep,
Burden of greatest burdens;
Burden, these burdens to keep

3. Take up the white man’s burden;
His papers take, and read;
‘Tis all for your salvation;
The white man knows not greed.
For you he’s spending millions –
To him, more than his God –
To make you learned, and happy,
Enlightened, cultured, broad.
Take up the white man’s burden
While he makes laws for you,
That show your fathers taught you
The things you should not do.
Cast off your foolish feathers,
Your necklace, beads, and paint;
Buy raiment for your mother,
Lest fairer sisters faint.
Take up the white man’s burden;
Go learn to wear his clothes;
You may look like the devil;
But nobody cares who knows.
Peruse a work of Darwin –
Thank gods that you’re alive –
And learn the reason clearly: –
The fittest alone survive.
– Edgar Rice Burroughs

4. I rest my case.
And by the way — what an absolute delicious delight. He completely eviscerates Kipling — and
he’s on the right side of the argument. Racist? I think not.
From the tone of it, it seems that ERB was in solidarity with the Anti-Colonialists, a very vocal
movement that included among its most prominent members Mark Twain and Andrew
Carnegie. But this was pretty much ERB’s only salvo on this topic. I think it reveals a lot about
the man, and I like what I see.
Now …. this post should end here, but bear with me. Reading ERB’s poem reminded me of
another writer who wrote with the same flair as ERB. His name is James H. Blount. He went out
to the Philippines as an officer in 1899 and stayed on as a colonial judge for more than half a
dozen years, traveling around the country meting out American justice to Filipinos when a
“circuit” court meant just that — you traveled. Eventually he became passionately opposed to
the U.S. Occupation of the Philippines and wrote a truly remarkable book called “The American
Occupation of the Philippines”. Here is a tribute I wrote to him on my other blogsite. You’ll see
from the introduction that when writing “over there”, my head was a little bit “over here”,
because Blount was a little bit of a John Carter or Jake Sully.
Remembering James H. Blount, an unsung hero of Philippine-American history (and a real life
Jake Sully or John Dunbar)
(Note: Written before John Carter came out, or I would have referenced our Virginia cavalryman
as well in the opening paragraph. MS)
In popular culture we’ve seen this tale on the silver screen: John Dunbar in Dances With Wolves,
or Jake Sully in Avatar; the American soldier who is sent to a distant land and finds himself siding
with the “enemy”, who is not an enemy at all but a culture as worthy (or moreso) than
America’s own. In the real world pantheon of American soldiers who have been thrust into an
alien environment and seen their values transformed, James H. Blount stands out as one who
contributed much, but is remembered little. Those undertaking a formal study of Philippine
American History in sufficient depth to warrant seeking out “primary source” historical texts will
be familiar with his work; but he has no place in the general consciousness of Americans or

5. Filipinos. He deserves better, and since the means to make a movie about his life (oh, would I
love to do that!) don’t immediately exist, I will content myself with writing an article about why
he should be remembered, and hope that it finds its way into google search results in a way that
helps, at least a little, in increasing awareness of Blount and his writings.
First, the good news: Blount’s Anti-Imperialist magnum opus “The American Occupation of the
Philippines 1898-1912″ is now available for free in eBook form. Just click on this download link
and and it’s yours. If you don’t have Kindle software on your computer — that’s free too and can
be downloaded here for Mac and here for PC) you can have a free copy of this very important
and highly readable book.
Blount had a unique perspective. After serving in Cuba during the brief campaign of the Spanish
American War, he was transferred to America’s new colony of the Philppines where he served
as a military officer from 1899-1901 during the peak period of the Philippine American War, and
then as an American colonial official serving as a circuit Judge from 1901-1905. Suffering from
various infirmities, he returned to the US in 1905 where he became a leading voice in Anti-
Imperialist Circles, giving speeches and lectures and writing articles all of which were focused on
calling attention to the injustice of America’s policy toward the Philippines, culminating in 1913
with the publication of “The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 ″.
I first came across Blount’s opus when I was “reading in” at the State Department in preparation
for assignment to the Philippines in the months after the EDSA Revolution in 1986. I found
myself quite taken by Blount’s vivid, passionate, and colorful account of the ironies and
hypocrisies of American Policy toward the Philippines, by one who had been tasked to
implement those policies. He had a highly intense and personal way of composing his
arguments. A good example comes in his introduction to “Occupation”:
This book is an attempt, by one whose intimate acquiantance with two remotely separated
peopels will be denied in no quarter, to interpret each to the other. How intelligent that
acquiantaince is, is of course altogether another matter, which the reader will determine for
himself.
The task here undertaken is to make audible to a great free nation the voice of a weaker
subject people who passionatelyy and rightly long also to be free, but whose longings have been
systematically denied for the last fourteen years, sometimes ignorantly, sometimes viciously,

6. and always cruelly, on the wholly erroneous idea that where the end is benevelot, it justifies the
means, regardless of the means necessary to the end.
At a time when all our military and fiscal experts agree that having the Philippines on our
hands is a grave strategic and economic mistake, fraught with peril to the nation’s prestige in
the early stages of our next great war, we are keeping the Filipinos in industrial bondage
through unrighteous Congressional legislation for which special interests in America are
responsible, in bald repudiation of the Open Door policy, and against their helpless but universal
protest, a wholly unprotected and easy prey to the first first-class Power with when we become.
Blount’s passionate and articulate attack on American policy toward the Philppines, rooted in 7
years of personal experience no just in Manila, but throughout the Philippines, did not endear
him to what we now term the “mainstream” media, as the New York Times review in 1913
makes clear:
It is doubtful whether public opinion in the country will be affected much by James H. Blount’s
book entitled “The American Occupation of the Philippines 1899-1912.” This criticism is not
based on the fact that the author is an “anti-imperialist” and an ardent pleader for Filipino
independence, but on the fact that in presenting his views he is undified, unjust, intemperate,
and abusive.
Really?
Even when I first read Blount’s book, at a time when I was about to journey out to the
Philippines in a similar capacity — i.e. to work side by side with the officials of Cory Aquino’s
government to help re-establish democratic instituations in the aftermath of 15 years of martial
law– I thought his views were anything but abusive: they were cogent, articulate, and
enlightening.
“Occupation” begins at what is arguably the beginning of America’s adventure in the Philippines
— with American Ambassador Spencer Pratt in Singapore in April 1898 at the time of the
outbreak of war between America and Spain. Meticulously researched and vividly re-created,
Blount recounts how Pratt approached Philippine leader Emilio Aguinaldo, then exiled in
Singapore, and engineered for Aguinaldo to go to Hong Kong and present himself as an ally to

7. Admiral James Dewey, who was then preparing to sail to Manila to confront the Spanish fleet.
Blount is unequivocal in stating that Pratt absolutely did promise Philppine independence to
Aguinaldo, doing so without authority and with the result that soon thereafter, Pratt was
separated from the consular service and forced to retire.
Blount then traces Aguinaldo’s dealings with three crucial Americans: Dewey, and Generals
Andersen, Merrit, and Otis. Out of these four relationships comes the most reasonable and
balanced account I have ever read of just how it happened that America granted independence
to Spain but not the Philippines — yet gave Filipinos the clear impression that independence
would indeed be forthcoming. My Filipino friends who think much about such things tend to
simply believe that Dewey “lied through his teeth” to Aguinaldo, to gain the latter’s
cooperation. Blount’s beat by beat explanation, coming from someone who is sympathetic to
Filipino aspirations but also a good researcher and one who is aware of “the way things are” in
the US Government — manages a compelling explanation for just how Dewey came to mislead
Aguinaldo which has the ring of truth and reality.
One of the first points which Blount reminds us of is that Aguinaldo never met with Dewey in
Hong Kong — he arrived the say after Dewey sailed, and came across from Hong Kong to the
Philippines on the Mccullough, arranged by Pratt’s counterpart in Hong Kong, Consul Wildman,
who like Pratt clearly led Aguinaldo to believe that Philppine independence was in the offing , as
evidenced in a letter he wrote to Dewey in which he wrote:
Do not forget that the United States undertook this war for the sole purpose of relieving
Cubans from the cruelties under which they were suffering, and not for the love of conquest of
the hope of gain. They are actuated by precisely the same feelings for Filipinos.
General Andersen, one of the other interlocutors who would be implicated in misleading
Aguinaldo, was quoted in 1900 in the Chicago Record as saying:
Every American citizen who came in contact with the Filipinos at the outset of the Spanish-
American War, or any time within a few months after hostilities began, probably told those that
he talked with that we intended to free them from Spanish oppression. The general expression
was, “We intend to whip the Spaniards and set you free.”

8. One of the interesting aspects of Blount’s account is the degree to which it shed’s light on the
state of Dewey’s likely knowledge, or lack of knowledge, about America’s ultimate policy toward
the Philippines during the period between May 1, 1898, when he defeated the Spanish Armada
in Manila Bay, and June 30th, when American ground forces finally arrived, bringing with them
not only their military capacity but also news of the evolving view of the Philippines as seen by
an America who had wandered into the Spanish American conflict without much thought about
the Philippines–most of the focus being on Cuba.
As recently as December 1897 President McKinley had gone on record stating that war with
Spain would never be fought with “forcible annexation” in mind: ”That by our code of morality
would be criminal.” And indeed the Teller Amendment, necessary to gain the vot in Congress
necessary to authorize the war, explicitly stated that American could not take Cuba as a colony,
but would instead grant independence. The Americans first present n the Philippines seem to
have assumed that the Teller Amendment and statements of the “criminality” of forced
annexation would apply — and thus freedom would be granted to the Philippines, same as
Cuba.
Blount doesn’t give Dewey a “pass” on having contributed to the deception – rather he just
provides the kind of intelligent context necessary to make the whole sorry episode
understandable to anyone who cares to try and imagine how it actually went down.
(click to enlarge)
Chapter after chapter, with great verve and not a little caustic wit, Blount recounts each of the
beats of America’s historic involvement in the Philippines. He buttresses his own observations
with extended quotations from the subsequent congressional testimony of Dewey and others,
and puts a microsope onto the performance of a series of American military leaders, and then
governors general, in the Philippines.
In the end, Blount throws his backing to the Mcall Resolution, which was then a proposal
popular among anti-imperialists for an early grant of independence to the Philippines, coupled
with guarantees that the Philippines would be “neutral” in a manner analagous to Switzerland
(this to counter the argument that if America left, another great Power would move in and take
over).

9. The McCall Resolution read:
JOINT RESOLUTION
declaring the purpose of the United States to recognize the independence of the Filipino
people as soon as a stable government can be established, and requesting the President to open
negotiations for the neutralization of the PHilippine Islands.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America: in
Congress assembled:
That in accordance with the prinicples upon which this overnment is founded and which were
again asseterd by it at the outbreak of the war with Spain, the United States delares that hte
Filipino people of right ought to be free and independent.and announces its purpose to
recognize their independene as soon as a stable government, republican in form, can be
established by them and thereupon to transfer to such goeverment all its rigths in the Philippine
Island s upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, and to leave soverignty and ctonrol of
their country to the Fililpino people.
Resolved, That the Preisdent of the United States be, and he hereby is, requested to open
negotiations with such foreign Powers as in his opinon would be parties to the compact for the
neutralization fo the PHilippine Islands by international agreement.
That was 1913. In the end, it was 1946 before the Philippines would be released from the ‘claws
of the eagle’ — but it is worth remembering that there were good Americans like Blount who
“got it” long before the American government finally “let go” ….. they are worth remembering,
as Blount is, for taking a stand that was less than popular, but which was right and consistent
with the veryp rinciples on which America had been founded, and which its leaders seemed to
forget.
It’s a great book and it’s free: click on