Note 14 — Chapter VII · AGAIN IN THE PHILIPPINES
Reading edition
He observed now the approach of the taxation issue and, one might say, went forth to meet it. His facile and powerful mind absorbed the whole business. Taxation he studied until he seemed to know more about it than any other man in the Islands. In the manner of the true modern investigator, he sought for facts, not arguments: what the poor man paid upon his small holding, what the rich owner paid upon his great estate. When these had been gathered, he reduced them all to a report that the overburdened taxpayers took for their own and presented to the Government impressively signed by their local officers.14