Country's next injustice with another insurrection. Very wise and cheap-George policy, which we have adopted whole.

The 'army' believes so and so: let us see about this, what is the army which has this mind? Out of eighteen regiments of it, only scraps to form two regiments consented to stay on any terms; we can be certain that those sixteen regiments had no such opinion as their tumid chief ascribes. The army simmers down to the generals, as it is they who think so and so, they who censor the news, they who have it sent abroad that the army wishes their wishes. But the army would not be coming home and deserting Otis if it approved Otis. We catch that belligerent sprig of power in a very inflamed fib. Why did he not say like an honest blackguard, My laurels, even if they be McClellan laurels, are more toothsome while the war goes on, and I therefore think we had better reduce the Filipinos back to chalk. Is it well for a republic to have an armed force in whose name the ambitious general can propagate his schemes? This appearance of the army as a special entity to influence American destinies is ominous of the strong Europeanizing tendencies among us. When a European army thinks something and the unarmed people think another thing the popular mind is wont to be quietly coerced.

By this far-reaching system of fraud and scoundrelism in the conduct of the Philippine imbroglio, militarism and its consequences drop like a pall over the blindfolded and unwilling American people. A series of mountebank tricks played by those who boss, the people gape amazed, hypnotized, wonder why they don't move, are dully aware of being renegades to liberty in yielding to an authority which asks not their advice or consent, and wake from the trance at last, manacled. The trick is shallow? Yes, as light as ether. Its nature is commit

ting the people without their knowledge or consent to a course desired by the national bosses, then saying to the people, 'We can't honorably withdraw now, we have gone too far.' It is a detestable game of gambling government sharpers? Yes, but administered to a nation of simpleton chanticleers, all crowing, a nation not tutored or diploma'd in the methods of the great, believing any grotesque flummery that is trigged out in the sewer rags of medieval honor. How unrepublican the people to be drawn into they know not what! how unrepublican to stay in a false position when they learn its falseness! Very true, but if they soddenly fold their hands while their eyes are put out, they will probably remain immobile when they discover they cannot see. Weak enough to let the army and colonial system be grafted on us, we shall be weak enough to let it stay.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Washington Magazine of Lies.

1. Star-Chamber Creations.

In overwhelming support of everything that has been said come the reports of the returned soldiers. The disgrace of the situation as they picture it is unspeakable. Back in November last, nearly three months before we broke out on the Filipinos, a stirring protest, signed by a number of Colorado volunteers against being longer held in Manila, was published in the Pueblo Cheiftain. (Nov. 11, '99.) It recited that

since landing on Luzon the men had not eaten a decent meal unless they paid for it out of their own cash, and that on August 13, at the battle of Manila, the men charged upon the Spanish trenches when they were so weak from constant hunger that they could hardly carry their ammunition; and declared that had the Spanish forces remained in their trenches they would have had little trouble in dispatching the attacking force, so utterly exhausted were the men from continuous duty and weakened from hunger.

Soldiers who went through this knew the inestimable debt of the United States to Aguinaldo. The protest continued:

As true Americans, we, on May 5 last, enlisted in the cause of humanity. We were soon convinced of one fact, viz., that we did not have to go to Cuba to find hungry men. In the cause of humanity we offered our services, and not for the special aggrandizement of any one, two or three men. Over 1000 Colorado boys are anxiously awaiting developments.

Even then the common soldiers were getting it through their medullas that the army officers and the McKinley politicians were the principal beneficiaries of the fighting.

On the 5 of March Sergt. Fritz Andrere of the U. S. V. signal corps, 18th company, having returned on account of ill-health, was in Los Angeles and interviewed by the Herald said:

If the American people knew what they were doing, or rather what they have allowed to be done in the Philippines, they would shrink in horror from the task. It will take worse than Spanish cruelty to suppress the rebellion in the Philippines, and Butcher Weyler will be an angel compared with the governor general who is to be successful in exterminating these people, who are naturally peace-loving, but who will fight to the bitter end for the holy principle of freedom.

The conflict between our forces and Aguinaldo's men was brought about by some of the American officers whose ambition is stronger than their sense of right, and the politicians in Washington who consider these far away islands a good thing.

I have many friends among the Filipinos, and my sympathy is entirely on their side. I believe the natives have been abused, and from what I can make out, Aguinaldo's report of the conflict, and the causes that led up to it, are more plausible than the American account of it.

Is this man some poor runagate? He was offered a first lieutenancy in a new signal service corps that was to be formed. He told the reporter emphatically that he was 'glad not to be mixed up in such a disgraceful assassination as was being carried on around Manila.'

has discovered that some thing other than the people is behind this war.

If someone high in authority would now come forward and firmly assert that the Filipinos did not want the war and begged after the first hostilities to have it stopped, but our commander, acting under higher inspiration, refused to stop it, would not that disclose a determined purpose in our authorities to fight if they could patch up an excuse, and evidence some powerful underground motive for the war? Gen. C. McC. Reeve, of Minnesota, supplies the firm assertion that the war was unnecessary.

On Sunday, February 5, the day after the fighting began, Gen. Torres of the insurgents came through the lines under a flag of truce and had a personal interview with Gen. Otis, in which, speaking for Aguinaldo, he declared that the fighting had been begun accidentally and was not authorized by Aguinaldo, that Aguinaldo wished to have it stopped, and that to bring about a conclusion of hostilities he proposed the establishment of a neutral zone between the two armies of any width that would be agreeable to Gen. Otis, so that during the peace negotiations there might be no further danger of conflicts between the two armies. To these representations of Gen. Torres. Gen. Otis sternly replied that the fighting, having once begun, must go on to the grim end. And it has been going on ever since. little brown fellows whom we all expected to disperse in short order are fighting well. . . [Interview in St. Paul Globe, April 26.

The

If Stabber-general Otis did this was it from an arbitrary spasm of his own fibers or under executive spell? Otis certainly knows the wishes of Washington, whether he wishes one thing or the other himself. Rev. Clay MacAuley, who had been in Manila, wrote a letter to the Boston Transcript June 1, which furnishes tips that pry open the jaws of the sphinx.

"For a long time," says he, "I could not believe that the disastrous recent events were known to the Washington authorities. I was inclined to lay the responsibility for the increasing perils upon the military commander directly in charge. Yet now it seems clear to me that Gen. Otis did this work in the main in literal obedience to his superior."

Mr. McAuley talked with Gen. Otis and states that "Gen. Otis expressed regret that there was not a better knowledge of the situation among the Washington legislators than there seemed to be. And he impressed me deeply by his declaration: 'I was ordered to this post from San Francisco; I did not believe in the annexation of these islands when I came here, nor do I believe in their annexation now. Also, "I had the privilege of a conversation with Admiral Dewey," who "spoke much of his concern over the turn affairs had taken and said that he was 'powerless to act.' Yet in one point in the remarks he declared: 'Rather than make a war of conquest of this people, I would up anchor and sail out of the harbor.':

'Mr. McAuley says he wrote President McKinley, whom he met in Washington, regarding the situation, and predicted the outbreak which has since occurred.'

If the statement of Otis's position is true there is no doubt he gave and gives the president accurate private tales of the facts, and the president burns them. If Otis regrets that the situation is not better known among Washington legislators he unquestionably does his best to make it known to them through the president, and the president pockets the knowledge. In that case someone is coolly lying to the public. For Adgt.-Gen. Corbin declared under the sting of the round robin of the censored Manila newspaper men, "The standing instructions of the President and Secretary of War are that the public shall be given all information we receive. This has been and will continue to be done. Of course, plans of campaigns that would be of help to Aguinaldo and other rebels, have not and will not be promulgated, but all facts