He had started in his bureau a practical school for Filipino surveyors
which was training really well-qualified candidates for positions
desired by the politicians for themselves or their incompetent friends.
Last, but not least, he had helped to upset the plans of the men
primarily responsible for the so-called "friar lands investigation"
conducted by the House Committee on Insular Affairs, which cost
the United States government a very large sum, and resulted in
demonstrating his uprightness and the efficiency of his administration.
Mr. John R. Wilson, the assistant director of lands, was absent at the
moment, but his resignation was demanded on the day of his return. He
too was an active, efficient, upright man.
Both of these removals were political acts, pure and simple. Sr. Manuel
Tinio was appointed Director of Lands. He is a bright young Ilocano
of good character, who had become a "general" in the Insurgent army
at twenty-one years of age. He is unfit to hold the place, because,
as he has himself frankly said, he knows nothing about the work. He
is charged with the duty of administering $7,000,000 worth of friar
lands, and the whole public domain of the Philippine Islands, and with
such minor duties as the checkmating of the machinations of numerous
wealthy Filipinos who seek fraudulently to acquire great tracts through
fraudulent claims to unperfected titles and by other improper means.
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