The people of the Philippines, their religious progress and preparation for spiritual leadership in the Far East,

THE MOROS MEET AMERICA 71
where was hard at work planting flowers, and occasionally
trying their hand at making rustic paths and fountains! If
they had not yet been converted to godliness, they were at
least converted to cleanliness. They had something to do to
take the place of killing one another.
Governor Carpenter scoured the world for new ideas in
agriculture and industry. Plots of ground were selected where
the Moros could not help seeing what was going on, and here
commercial plants of all kinds were raised. When a plant
proved adaptable to Mindanao, it was raised in quantity and
distributed free of charge, and a man went along with the
Moros to show them how to plant and care for the new crop.
One cannot to-day pass through that country without feeling
the keenest enthusiasm. With rich soil, abundant rainfall,
wonderful climate, virile, teachable, hard-working people, there'
are all the elements necessary for a paradise. During the past
four or five years the Moros of the Lanao region have been
as prosperous as any people in the Philippines, and some of
them have been buying auto-trucks-for an ordinary seven
passenger car will not hold a family of four wives and forty
children. A truck filled with a Moro chieftain, all his wives,
children, and movable property, is a strange and significant
sight. In all the world there probably has never been such a
wide and rapid leap from one civilization to another as these
Moros are experiencing-and they like it.
Moroland does not fulfill all the requirements for a paradise
yet, and there are not a few serious hindrances to rapid
progress. For example, the Mohammedan religion forbids
borrowing money, making the credit system upon which
modern business rests an impossibility among the Moros.
Everything must be done on a strictly cash basis. Countless
disputes arise, and the instinct of the Moros is to resort to
direct action, as they have always been accustomed to do.
Where lawlessness has always been an everyday matter, it
is unjust to inflict as severe punishment upon those who are
convicted of crime as is done in America. At least that is
the theory the officials in Moroland have worked on. If one
wishes to see a thoroughly modern prison in actual operation,