families. The people of France and Spain were never consulted, and, indeed, were never thought of, in these imperial and regal engagements."

These kings planned and actuated a war to set up a member of their family in the ruling craft, by giving him a royal seat somewhere, an operation parallel to the work of our capitalists in making wars for markets and causing the destruction of any quantity of their subjects' lives. In the ambition of this precious Bourbon pack to magnify its income, like the trust it looked about for other ruling establishments to imbibe. Poland was in those ages convenient prey for a swoop, and the ambition of the King of France was to seat his father-in-law on its throne, to accomplish which he embraced war. Fifty thousand soldiers were slain before this war's completion—fifty thousand people offered to gratify the fiscal lechery and profligate power of a couple of reigning scoundrels, the scrubby monarchs of France and Spain.

No imagination is required to see that if we read trusts and multimillionaires instead of kings of France and Spain we have a sprightly picture of our own nice predicament. We smite the Filipinos, why? For the benefit of the American people? No, for they derive no more benefit than the French molecules gained when the French king's father-in-law fatted in Poland; the war is to gratify the regal aspirations of the American royal family of millionaire screws. They have a compact among themselves, sure and sinister as that secret arrangement between the Bourbon bullies to work for millionaire interests against every comer, and not a feather do the people count in the transaction; the lives of ten, twenty, or fifty thousand soldiers, paid for the conquest of the Philippines, are to American royalty as little as that number of soldier cadavers were to capitalist Louis XV. If you deny this look to what monopoly has degraded the mass of our people: it is a state verging close to that of the

French people anterior to the great revolution. Now if any one says that the French Kings and Courts did care for the people in those days, all we have to do in rebuttal is to point to the condition of the people and to the fact that the furious revolution ascended out of it; and if any one says that the wealthy Americans of our day care for the people and wish the Philippines effaced and armies built for the people's good, all we need to do in rebuttal is to point to the fact that these wealthy lovers of us are taking away everything we have through the footpad appetites of their ungovernable monopolies. Truly is Imperialism the perfection of perfection for infinitely enriching the wealthy, and infinitely taxing and slaughtering the rest of us.

CHAPTER XIII.

Administration War-Bluff To Gain

An Army.

1. The Chatter of Military Fools.

Now the interesting matter is to trace how this thing is being brought about under our very chins, how the Bourbon harness is being put on the United States, for though we have been quite exploited at home by the millionaires, it is a new pleasure for them to take the Nation in hand as an instrument to exploit the world and for a more modern and exalted exploitation of ourselves. Kings did this, the wealthy class-governments of European States do it, but it is new to have it done with us, and it is immensely interesting to see by what art they are manipulating to capture this Commonwealth (ourselves organized), to wield it as their private dynamo in domestic and foreign exploitation.

We are subjugated by a series of frauds, not chained suddenly with militarism-for we should resist that— but little by little, and moral ideas are smuggled in to comatize our minds.

The clutch and keeping of the Philippines means everything necessary to this new development, hence at all hazards must be carried through. But to most Americans it is revolting, the idea of a clotted, interminable war of eradication is horrible. The squeamishness is met by methods: We must not hear the truth about the war, and we must be cozened to think it will soon be over. For the first object

the suppression of news and transmission of official lies, well groomed, from the seat of war answered; for the second, a constant volley of dispatches must be fired from the front announcing that 'the rebellion is about to be crushed.' Here are chunks of these messages, and the headlines embroidered on them by the daily press.

Let us start off with January of this year, just before the war. Everybody in the Philippines had the situation well in hand, as they have had it ever since. "Master of the Situation," said the Compost; "Gen. Otis Cables that Gen. Miller Has it Well in Hand." 'That the strength of Aguinaldo's party is waning rapidly is not doubted.' The war began and another Gen. bulged with wisdom. It was De Merritt. We had given the Tagals their first thrash and he was jubilant :

"The military organization of the Filipinos will scarcely, I think, survive this defeat-certainly not, if we at once strike hard again wherever they show front.... There is probably not an officer among them who has any respectable knowledge of modern military science."*

Poor Aguinaldo! He had not been to West Point or Red Tape and could not pass a military examination. Doubtful if he could read, even English. Therefore sure to collapse at sight of bellied martinets. Only knowledge that of swamps; such knowledge useless in a swampy country. Also said to be versed in dead climates. No such course at West Point or Annapolis, Aguinaldo therefore a blooming 'fake.' Merritt wiggles on: "I think we may expect that defeat at Manila will have a disastrous effect upon Aguinaldo's authority. The feebleness of his power having been made manifest, there is every reason to suppose that his numerous rivals, suppressed for the time, will rise to dispute his authority. When they have come to nothing through factional differences and possibly conflicts, they will be entirely amenable to

*N. Y. Evening Post interview, Feb. 1899.

our guidance and rule, I think. They are really docile and amiable people, without much stern stuff—not pugnacious and irreconcilable as our Indians are."

I quote this chatter to show what fools the generals are. Everybody in the country taking it for granted that they being generals must know more than the rest, and they smitten garrulous, squirting sappy rodomontades out of empty wind-swept heads. To such quacking goslings we confide our destinies. A docile and amiable people, without much stern stuff,' forsooth! And now our orphic officers are lisping of a hundred thousand men to put this singular amiability down. To amalgamate the nuggets of Merritt into an imperishable lump smile warmly on this: "For the subjugation and holding of the entire Philippine group, however, he [Genny Otis] ought to have at his disposal not less than 30,000 men. With that number, I believe that, despite the multiplicity of the islands, we shall with comparative ease and within a measurably short time be able completely to crush all opposition."

We pass on from month to month through the springtime promises of the situation-well-in-hand generals, president and repress. "Plans of Otis. Rebels will be Crushed in a Few Days. Advance to be made when Gen. Lawton Gets There (Hoo!). . . When Aguinaldo is Captured the Backbone of the Insurrection will be Broken." Quite

This was in early March, and at this writing, September, Aguinaldo is still at large and the backbone of the insurrection erect. The sanguine and sanguinary telegraph said:

Within a week Gen. Otis, according to advices received at the War Department from Manila, is expected to begin an aggressive campaign looking to the crushing of Aguinaldo's forces. Telegrams from Gen. Otis about his plans indicate that he is ready to begin the movement, etc. Gen. Otis will make every effort to capture Aguinaldo. It is believed here that when that is accomplished the backbone of the insurrection will have been broken.

So it coiled on through March and April, always promise and never fulfilment, holding the American peo