mcw i r\ /s 
 
DS 679 
 .W52 
 Copy 1 
 
 , 'irst to the people of the United States. Congress never redresses a 
 *b>rong until the people demand it/' — Secretary Stanton to Bishop Whipple. 
 (Senator Lodge gives to Secretary Stanton a place even higher than that which he 
 accords to Secretary Root, "the American Carnot") 
 
 TO 
 LINCOLN'S PLAIN PEOPLE 
 
 FACTS REGARDING 
 
 " BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION " 
 
 IN THE 
 
 PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 
 
 - - 
 
 44 CITY AND STATE" 
 
 J305 ARCH STREET 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 MAY, J903 
 

 1«\jLtnJ* JL-rv±- LU 
 
 jlXa -w 
 
The plain people of the United States- — those who are 
 not too much interested in money-getting-, or too much tied 
 up with selfish interests of any kind, so that they are pre- 
 vented from feeling the suffering of others — are especially 
 appealed to in relation to the terrible facts here reprinted ; 
 and this suggestion is made in regard to the matter : Every 
 American citizen, man or woman, who believes that these 
 crimes are an outrage upon the American name, should 
 express that sentiment practically and without delay by 
 writing (a) to the President, (b) to the Secretary of War, 
 and (c) to their Congressmen, respectfully asking their 
 attention to these disclosures and asking that such crimes 
 as that charged against Major Howze be impartially inves- 
 tigated, and if the facts be found as alleged, the perpe- 
 trators be suitably punished. It is especially urged that 
 newspaper publicity be sought for these facts. 
 
 [From the New York "Evening Post."] 
 
 CRUELTIES TO FILIPINOS. 
 
 TERRIBLE BARBARITIES CHARGED TO MAJOR HOWZE. 
 
 [Special Correspondence of the " Evening Post."] 
 
 Manila, P. I., February 4. — It has been going the rounds here 
 in Manila that an investigation has been made at last in the town 
 of Laoag, province of North Ilocos, Island of Luzon, as to the beat- 
 ing to death of several natives there by the orders of the then 
 Lieut. -Col. Howze, Thirty-fourth United States Volunteer Infantry, 
 then in command of the province of North Ilocos, and now by 
 special favor of the President a major of the Porto Rican Regiment. 
 This investigation and bringing to light of some of the horrible 
 doings under Lieut. -Col. Howze is due to Gen. Miles, who, having 
 heard of the affair, sent an officer there whose principal instructions 
 were not confined to covering and hiding the truth, and hushing 
 the matter. 
 
Though some weeks have passed since the investigation was 
 made, it was not until this writing that your correspondent has 
 been able to get at the substance of that report and subsequent 
 developments in the case. Witnesses from all over the province 
 were examined by that officer, and they testified so nearly the 
 same as to show that there was no collusion in their evidence. 
 Indeed, they were summoned without knowing for what they were 
 wanted. From them this officer procured some thirty sworn affi- 
 davits, and, based on these, he preferred charges against Lieut. - 
 Col. Howze. These charges passing through the hands of Gen. 
 Davis, the latter ordered another officer to go to the scene of the 
 barbarities and procure the affidavits of two natives reported by 
 the first investigator to have stated that they had been beaten. 
 It is to be regretted that the instructions to the second officer 
 limited his investigations to procuring two affidavits, because there 
 was much more evidence of the savage brutality of Howze which 
 did not appear at the first investigation, and which is yet available 
 to any one who can speak Spanish, and would not be dependent 
 upon an interpreter for everything. 
 
 Briefly stated, a mere sample of Howze 's doings is as follows: 
 About April 20, 1900, the town of Laoag, then occupied by United 
 States troops, was attacked by Filipinos from the east side — from 
 the direction of a town called San Miguel. Before this there had 
 been plenty of beatings of natives by Lieut. -Col. Howze 's orders, 
 but this was the cause of the arrest of a large number of natives 
 for the purpose of forcing confessions from them and discovering 
 who the assailants had been. Among this large number arrested 
 were two prominent citizens named Jose Ver, Mayor of San Miguel, 
 and Juan Avila, Mayor of San Nicolas, another town near Laoag. 
 The system of Howze for extorting confessions was to arrest the 
 parties and put them in jail. They were then sent over to the 
 municipal building and there questioned by three specially selected 
 men named Aguedo Agbayani (since deceased) ; his son-in-law, 
 Pedro Valdez, and Isidoro Guerrero, the last being Mayor of Laoag 
 at that time, and the first-named being the "civil adjutant" of 
 Howze, regularly appointed as such by him. 
 
 The prisoners in this case, as in others, were questioned by these 
 arch-questioners, and, replying that they knew nothing as to who 
 were the parties that made the attack on Laoag, they were beaten 
 in the manner inaugurated by Howze — they were laid face down 
 on benches about ten inches wide, their trousers removed from 
 their buttocks. They were then beaten by policemen standing on 
 
both sides of the bench, usually six policemen — three on a side — 
 using rattan rods about three-quarters inch in diameter and five 
 feet long, with which they flailed the outstretched prisoner, using 
 all their force with every blow, so that the buttocks were cut and 
 gashed and the trousers shredded. Frequently the beatings pro- 
 duced insensibility, and after them the prisoners were unable to 
 rise. In the cases in question, blood streamed from the gashes 
 and bits of flesh were scattered about the floor. 
 
 PRISONERS DIED FROM THEIR BEATINGS. 
 
 These two prisoners after this first beating were carried or led 
 back to jail, and were brought the next day again before the three 
 questioners, and, again saying that they knew nothing about the 
 attack on Laoag, they were beaten again as before This time 
 neither of them was able to walk back to jail. They were carried 
 back. Neither one was able to eat again, and in three days both 
 died from their injuries. They were known to have been in good 
 health before receiving their beatings, and there are those in 
 Laoag who will so testify. The doctor of the little town, Batac, 
 will testify that he was a prisoner at the same time with these 
 two unfortunates, and that he bathed their wounds after coming 
 from their beatings, and he will testify to their character. Indeed, 
 the jail records, which have not yet been put out of the way, show 
 that these two men died "from no disease whatever" (" sin enfer- 
 medad ninguna " ) . 
 
 These beatings were so awful that two of the army officers then 
 at Laoag took courage and wrote private letters to the authorities 
 regarding them. One wrote a personal letter to Gov. Taft, and 
 the other wrote a personal letter to Gen. Young, who was the next 
 higher military commander, but at a great distance away. The 
 only action taken in regard to the matter was a telegram from 
 Gen. Young to Howze, saying that if there was whipping going 
 on at Laoag it must be stopped. Howze telegraphed back that 
 there had been none except during two days while he was absent 
 from Laoag. These two telegrams have not yet been disposed of. 
 
 As to the two days of absence of Lieut. -Col. Howze, immediately 
 after the death of the two prisoner Mayors — three days after the 
 second beating which caused their death, there was a good deal 
 of talk about these deaths and the cruelty of Howze, and the 
 latter left Laoag for two days. During his absence Major Swigert 
 (now Colonel) of the Third Cavalry had the bodies exhumed — 
 four days after death — for examination, but the doctor who was to 
 
examine them was the surgeon in Howze's regiment. The bodies 
 were in such a state of putrefaction in this hot climate that no one 
 could examine or hardly approach them. It can be proved that 
 all that this surgeon did was to raise up a corner of the cloth cover- 
 ing the bodies and take one glance at them. From this he stated 
 that he had examined the bodies, and that the prisoners did not 
 die from their beatings. 
 
 PUBLIC WHIPPINGS IN THE PLAZA. 
 There were also two public whippings or beatings ordered by 
 Lieut. -Col. Howze. These took place in the public plaza of Laoag 
 in the manner described above. From the effects of one of these 
 one poor prisoner died the same night. He had been a captain 
 in the revolutionist army against Spain. John Merrill, then a 
 private in Company E or G (I have been unable to find out which), 
 and now a teamster employed by the Army Quartermaster's De- 
 partment at Dagupan, was among many other soldiers an eye- 
 witness to the public whipping, so-called, of this captain. He 
 states that he was beaten and cut so badly that the blood streamed 
 from his wounds, and that when led away every step he took 
 left bloody tracks and that he was so injured that he could take 
 steps of but three inches at a time, and that the poor wretch 
 begged the sentry to shoot him, saying in Spanish, "My death is 
 of no importance. I am not going to confess." ("Mi muerte no 
 importa. Yo no hablo.") Merrill says, and others will say, that 
 this beating was so terrible that it made soldiers shed tears who 
 stood by and watched it. The force with which the rods were 
 applied to the poor outstretched prisoners, the sounds of the blows, 
 the gashes, the streaming blood, and the suffering, quivering 
 wretches, were more than those hardened soldiers could endure. 
 Their exclamations at the force and sounds of the blows showed 
 that their hearts had yet a soft part to them, though commanded 
 by a man more representative of the North American savage than 
 of civilized white beings. 
 
 WITNESSES OF CRUELTIES STILL AVAILABLE. 
 
 Most of the policemen now in Laoag can and will testify to 
 these beatings mentioned and to many others in which they were 
 the ones that wielded the rattan rods (they cannot be called either 
 whips or lashes). One of these policemen was himself beaten 
 for refusing, when ordered, to beat one of his relatives. 
 
 Witnesses at Laoag will testify that it was no uncommon sight 
 
 
5 
 
 in the municipal building in Laoag to see natives lying stretched 
 out on benches, face down, with their buttocks bare, gashed and 
 bleeding. They were at times beaten to insensibility. On one 
 occasion there were seen in that municipal building as many as 
 twenty natives lying thus stretched out and bleeding, and unable 
 to rise. 
 
 Although it is now two and a half, nearly three, years since 
 the reign of this American savage at Laoag, native men have been 
 examined there recently who were beaten by the orders of this 
 cruel whelp, and these men to-day bear the marks of those beatings. 
 These scarred witnesses are still available. Also many others who 
 were beaten, but who have not been examined for the scars re- 
 maining. 
 
 HOWZE'S REPUTATION AMONG HIS FELLOWS. 
 
 Howze is a graduate of West Point, appointed from Texas, and 
 is a captain in the Sixth Cavalry; but, as above stated, now holds 
 the temporary appointment of major in the Porto Rican regiment 
 by special favor of President Roosevelt, whose friend he is. He 
 was called "The Squaw" by the cadets at West Point, on account 
 of the cruel Indian face he has. He has very few friends among 
 his fellow-officers who know him, who have always considered him 
 one of the coldest blooded men in the army. 
 
 The public has heard a great deal about the "water-cure" 
 inquisitional punishment which was borrowed from the natives, 
 but until recently it has been kept in ignorance of the fact that 
 an American army officer invented and practised in the islands 
 something equally severe and barbarous, but more representative 
 of the North American savage. 
 
 The questions now arising are: Will he be punished? What 
 effort will be made to get evidence against him? Will he continue 
 in the army ? Will he continue a Presidential favorite ? 
 
 [From City and State, Philadelphia.] 
 
 DISCREET SILENCE. 
 
 All good citizens, who wish to see the civil and personal rights 
 which the late President McKinley guaranteed the Filipinos, at 
 the time when by executive order he extended our sovereignty 
 over them made real and vital, will feel grateful to the Philadelphia 
 ' ' Ledger ' ' for its admirable editorial on the Howze death- whipping 
 case, published recently. We advise all honest men who have 
 
any kind of a heart left in their bosoms to read that ringing word. 
 We hope President Roosevelt will read it in quiet moments (if he 
 finds any such) during his 16,000-mile second term electioneering 
 tour; the "American Carnot," Secretary Root — he should read it, 
 also, between the preparation of skilful legal briefs showing that 
 white is black and black white, when seen through War Department 
 spectacles, and that there is one sauce for the Filipino goose and 
 a very different one for the army torturer gander in the great 
 War Department kitchen. Senator Lodge, as well, should include 
 what the ' ' Ledger ' ' says about the Howze death- whippings in his 
 library of select literature, over which he casts a cultured eye in 
 preparation of anti-imperialist declamatory castigations, such as 
 he recently gave before the Boston Home Market Club. Nor 
 should Governor Taft be excluded from the administrative coterie 
 of select readers, — Governor Taft who told the Senate Philippine 
 Committee about a year ago : "I have heard charges of whippings, " 
 and said "they were rife in Manila." He certainly should read 
 what the "Ledger" has had to say on this subject of Howze 's 
 bamboo beatings which not only drew the blood of men subjected 
 to them, but actually scatter ei bits of flayed flesh on the floor of 
 their blood-splashed torture chamber. And as Governor Taft 
 reads the awful but true indictment, — so awful that it recalls the 
 worst things ever read or imagined of Russian knout or Turkish 
 bastinado, or Neronian mania cruelty, — he should lay the facts 
 now brought out, — as they are in studiously restrained language, — 
 side by side with his testimony of a year ago. The people of the 
 United States, also, — not the high and cultured, who seem through 
 much learning and overfatness of wealth, opportunity, and privi- 
 lege, to have lost the old-fashioned heart-beat, — but the plain 
 people — Abraham Lincoln's plain people, those who hew, and 
 sweat, and delve in the toil of plain living, and whose hearts still 
 beat and have some red blood in them — red enough to feel pity 
 for red blood cruelly spilled under the Howze bamboo death- 
 whippings, — these also should watch Governor Taft as he makes 
 the strange comparison. 
 
 "These charges of whippings and charges of what has been 
 alluded to as the water cure [water kill, dear Governor, in the case 
 of Father Augustine and some others], they were rife in Manila, 
 and I was about to proceed as to the responsibility and how they 
 came about, and the possible explanation of them. Of course it 
 was no duty of mine. That was a military question.'" Was this 
 strictly so, Governor — no duty of yours? Was this whipping sim- 
 
 
ply a rumor rife in Manila ? Did it come no nearer your humane 
 ears than you here indicate, in time to stop the horror and countless 
 other horrors that trod swift on its bloody heels, because the 
 guilty murderer was not executed, if the charge were proved 
 against him, as he ought to have been? 
 
 The " Post's" correspondent, evidently an intelligent, careful 
 man, who had an accurate knowledge of the truth as given in 
 Colonel Hunter's exhaustive, evidence-buttressed report, says: 
 "These beatings were so awful that two of the army officers then 
 at Laoag took courage and wrote private letters to the authorities 
 regarding them. One wrote a personal letter to Governor Taft and 
 the other a personal letter to General Young, who was the next 
 higher military commander, but at a great distance away. The 
 only action taken in the matter was a telegram from General Young 
 to Howze saying that if whipping was going on at Laoag it must be 
 stopped. Howze telegraphed back that there had been none except 
 during two days while he was absent from Laoag " — a false state- 
 ment, as afterward shown. "These two telegrams have not been 
 disposed of." In other words, they are, we assume, to-day avail- 
 able as evidence. (Italics ours.) 
 
 But first a concluding query to Governor Taft which we hope 
 he will answer. Did you, Governor, ever receive the letter from 
 the army officer referred to above, — the letter which must have 
 apprised you of the horrible and vitally important alleged truth, 
 that not only had a few war prisoners been whipped to death, 
 under orders from Howze, but that scores, probably more than 
 one hundred, had been similarly whipped, so that they could 
 not stand, so that some did not recover for days and weeks? If 
 you received this letter, Governor, how could you, the representa- 
 tive of American law, justice, and humanity, say before the Senate 
 Committee that such a matter was "rumored," or that it was 
 "no business" of yours and was a "military affair"? According 
 to this statement, the officer who wrote you, at great personal 
 peril, trusted that your sense of justice and humanity would secure 
 justice and humane action. If it was true that Colonel Howze 
 had been guilty of this awful crime, he should have been tried 
 and shot for the "honor of the army," for the honor of humanity, 
 just as Kitchener shot the Australian officer in South Africa who 
 plundered and murdered a Boer clergyman. Did you ever hear 
 of the Filipino woman tortured under orders from an American 
 army officer at Cabatuan, Panay, in June, 1900, — the poor native 
 woman who was stripped of clothing, and with a rope attached 
 
8 
 
 to her ankles was lowered, head downward, into a deep well and 
 so tortured until, half dead with fright and drowning, she gave 
 so-called evidence on which four men were hanged — the presidente 
 of Cabatuan, the vice-presidente, the chief of police, and the 
 sergeant of police? Four human souls, so the story runs, were 
 sent by an ignominious death out of life. For what crime? Because 
 they knew the fact that the husband of this woman had killed 
 a United States soldier and had not informed on the slayer. Be- 
 cause, so the story further runs, the native's wife had entered into 
 criminal relations with this member of an invading subjugating 
 army. These four members of the conquered people were hanged 
 because they hid that fact! And hanged on tortured testimony 
 of a woman! O Liberty (or O Justice), what crimes are com- 
 mitted in thy name! And suppose, Governor Taft, the theory 
 of justice on which that military officer is said to have acted, and 
 on which we have good reason to think he did act, were applied 
 to this case — if the facts are as stated? 
 
 But let us apply only this moral test: Were not you morally 
 bound to lift up the voice of protest, the crime-accusing voice, 
 if that army officer's letter from Laoag ever reached you, — that 
 some justice might be done to these terribly outraged people, and 
 that a human monster who had so wronged them might be pun- 
 ished? Were you not morally bound to have the whole affair 
 investigated to the bottom, as three years later General Miles is 
 forcing investigation of it? You said in your testimony before 
 the Senate Committee, page 65 : "War is hard, war is rough, — war 
 is cruel, and when the death and sufferings that were caused to 
 many Filipinos were known to their brethren, it is not reasonable 
 to expect that they should love the instrument by which that punish- 
 ment was inflicted. ' ' 
 
 Yes, Governor, City and State admits what you say is true 
 about war in general. But how about war in particular? How 
 about this war? How about the war in which officers like Chaffee, 
 Smith, Hughes, Bell, gave to hundreds of officers orders which 
 were in effect a direct and terrible carte blanche to commit atrocities 
 like the flowze death- whippings, like the Father Augustine torture, 
 robbery, and murder, to create the concentration camps that were 
 described by a military officer as "suburbs of hell," a war in 
 which orders were issued which, as another military man has 
 said (a man better acquainted with necessary horrors of war than 
 you or your associates), gave direct warrant to kill the Christian 
 priest as he elevated the host at the altar or administered the 
 
last Sacrament to the dying; such a war as that which forces 
 one to turn to the times of Alva or Nero for suitable comparison, 
 a war which our Carnot has said "was conducted with scrupulous 
 regard for the rules of civilized warfare, with careful and genuine 
 consideration for the prisoner [think of the prisoners who died 
 under the Howze death-beatings] and non-combatant, with self- 
 restraint and humanity never surpassed, if ever equaled in any 
 conflict, worthy only of praise and reflecting credit on the American 
 people " ? Well, in a war like that, it is true, as you say, Governor, 
 the people over whom its besom of destruction has passed, like 
 the tenth plague of Egypt, can scarcely be expected to "love the 
 instrument" (death-dealing, flesh-chopping, Howze bamboo flail, 
 or smooth-operating water cure, as the case may be) — that smites 
 them. But, O Governor, to think that you, the learned, the 
 benevolent representative of American humanity and kindness, 
 should have known at the time, before any two years' slow move- 
 ment had dragged with them that welcome murderer-saving statute 
 of limitations, — had known this awful truth, that you might have 
 spoken it timely, savingly, to our honor and to the protection 
 of the poor people whom we were punishing "just for their good"; 
 and you kept silent; you held back the word which never can 
 be spoken again! Oh, the pity of it! 
 
 COURT OF INQUIRY FOR HOWZE? 
 
 According to newspaper reports, Major Howze has asked for 
 a board of inquiry to investigate the charges against him, of having 
 whipped Filipino prisoners of war at Laoag, P. I., in the spring of 
 1900. In a letter to the New York "Evening Post," Mr. Herbert 
 Welsh, of Philadelphia, after stating he was glad to see that 
 Major Howze had asked for a court of inquiry, offered the following 
 suggestions for the aid of the court in investigating the matter: 
 
 "Require the War Department to publish and circulate in 
 full, through the medium of the Associated Press, those portions 
 of Lieut. -Gen. Nelson A. Miles's report, now catacombed in the 
 War Department, at present 'not printed,' but regarded by the 
 Department as 'an Inspector's report,' and hence 'secret and con- 
 fidential.' Let this report be regarded as open to the entire Ameri- 
 can public, whose units are supposed to be the lawful governors 
 of our American dependencies. Also publish in full report of 
 Major Hunter, on which your Manila correspondent evidently 
 bases his statements. Also summon before this court of inquiry 
 the two military officers who are reported to have notified Governor 
 
IO 
 
 Taft and General Young respectively; also summon GovernorTaft 
 and General Young; the former to show in full the contents of 
 their respective letters, and the latter to make known to the court 
 and public their respective replies to these letters. Also summon 
 the surgeon who examined the bodies of Filipino prisoners of war 
 who were whipped to death, which examination was said to have 
 been made several days after the death and burial of the victims. 
 Also summon the surgeon, Dr. Woods, who, in the Father Augus- 
 tine murder case, reported to the authorities that the priest died 
 of 'fatty degeneration of the heart,' and of 'extreme mental an- 
 guish,' when he really died of strangulation by torture, at the 
 hands of Capt. Cornelius N. Brownell. Also summon Lieutenant 
 Sinclair, who wrote Mrs. Richter after her son had died at Das- 
 marines of gag and iced-water torture at his hands, that it was 
 his 'painful duty to inform her that her son died the night before 
 of appneumatosis.' These witnesses are important to show what 
 methods of concealment and misrepresentation were employed to 
 cover the perpetration of hideous crimes under the cloak of natural 
 causes. A court of inquiry following these general and specific 
 lines will be more apt to do justice to Major Howze, and to all 
 concerned, than one following opposing lines. In closing I beg 
 to suggest that the thirty-odd native and some white witnesses 
 to the alleged bamboo beatings, or the after-effects of beatings, 
 who were gathered from different parts of the province of Ilocos, 
 and whose testimony, I understand, was obtained by Col. Hunter 
 separately, ought to be summoned before the proposed board; or 
 at least their affidavits should be secured. Colonel Hunter him- 
 self ought also to be summoned, and, of course, all witnesses who 
 may be desired by Major Howze. General Young ought to be 
 asked why, when he received information of the alleged bamboo 
 death-beatings in 1900, he did not order a court-martial at once, 
 so that Major Howze might be fairly tried for murder of prisoners, 
 and for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." 
 
 Commenting on the proposed Howze inquiry case, City and 
 State says: 
 
 "To return to Major Howze, of the Porto Rico Regiment. 
 Under an application of our rules of war, no more rigid than is 
 necessary to preserve discipline and to keep the army up to a 
 morale quite necessary if we are to cope successfully with a first- 
 class foreign military force, the following declaration may be 
 safely made: When General Young was informed, in 1900, by the 
 
II 
 
 military officer who knew the facts, of the crime alleged against 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Howze, it was General Young's duty to im- 
 mediately order a court-martial of Howze. If the charges were 
 proved true, Lieutenant-Colonel Howze should have been shot 
 without delay, for the 'honor of the army.' General Young, 
 failing to do his duty in this regard, should have been court-mar- 
 tialed and suitably punished 'for the honor of the army.' If 
 during his trial it had come out he failed to do his duty on account 
 of orders, open or secret, that came from an officer superior to him, 
 that officer should have been court-martialed and punished; and 
 so on up — even if it came to the Commander-in-Chief of the army, 
 who is the President of the United States. If it could have been 
 shown that he gave such orders or allowed them to be given by 
 others, or permitted these orders to do their deadly work after he 
 knew of their existence, by not countermanding them, then the 
 President of the United States should have been impeached by 
 the highest law-making body of the country, which becomes judicial 
 in its functions; under such circumstances Andrew Johnson was 
 impeached. By so doing, evil would have been put away from the 
 House of Israel, to use the old biblical phrase, which some of our 
 readers will understand. 
 
 "To return again to Major Howze. A court of inquiry for 
 which the accused has asked does not fit this case. We under- 
 stand it is contrary to military procedure to call for such a court 
 in such a case. What is required is a court-martial. This is a 
 murder case, and Major Howze is still in the service. Care should 
 be taken as to the selection of officers to form that court. The 
 court should not be composed of men who believe in torture and 
 who have themselves committed crimes similar to that of which the 
 accused is charged, as has frequently been the case in the Philippines . 
 The witnesses summoned should be men or women who know the 
 facts, not those who do not know them (as in the case of the Met calf - 
 Bishop whitewashing); also, they should be persons who can be 
 depended on to tell the truth, not those who hold their consciences 
 clear when they lie for the 'honor of the army.' We know such. 
 Then if Major Howze is found guilty as charged, he would be shot 
 as Lord Kitchener shot the Australian officer in South Africa. 
 All this should be done for 'the honor of the army' and of the 
 country, and the safety of the country and the army, and because 
 justice is justice, and must be done, though the heavens fall; and 
 because truth is truth, and cruelty cruelty; and because what 'ye 
 would men should do to you do ye also to them'; and because 
 
12 
 
 'no lie thrives'; and because blood spilled unrighteously on the 
 ground cries to God for vengeance; and because we are not to go 
 to a living God, as this nation is now doing, with a lie in its right 
 hand; and because the nation that 'will not serve me/ saith God 
 'shall perish'; and because words of this kind once uttered, return 
 not to Him void. 
 
 "There would therefore seem to be sufficient 'becauses,' since 
 with varying phraseology, perhaps, they contain fundamental 
 truth which is written in the spirit of all loving men of whatever 
 name they may be called, in letters that no sophistry or devil's 
 argument of any kind can erase." 
 
 In writing on the Howze, case and the speech of Senator 
 Lodge, delivered before the Home Market Club in Boston, in which 
 Mr. Lodge defended the Administration's policy in the Philippines 
 and stated that the Republican Party would not "hound down" 
 officers and men for cruelties committed in the Philippines the 
 editor of the "Public Ledger" said: 
 
 "But the honor of the army is not to be maintained by hiding 
 and excusing the unworthy acts of individual rascals numbered 
 among its officers or in its ranks. Never in the world was there 
 an army without its scalawags; to pretend that our men in the 
 Philippines are without exception faultless is to exceed the re- 
 quirements of patriotism; while to shield the torturers and mur- 
 derers, whose proved crimes have shocked the moral sensibilities 
 of the world, is to implicate the whole army and the government 
 itself m the shame, which the swift punishment of the actual 
 offenders would leave upon them alone. 
 
 "There is one way by which to do something toward effacing 
 the blot. Captain R. L. Howze is still in the service of the United 
 States. Although Governor Taft and General Young were in- 
 formed of thejLaoag barbarities, their perpetrator has since been ad- 
 vanced in rank. Very likely his guilt was not so clear as it has 
 since appeared. But the facts are now in possession of the War 
 Department. There are in this case no technicalities, such as 
 allowed Captain Brownell to escape punishment for the torture 
 and murder of Father Augustine. The charges do not proceed 
 from those citizens whom it pleases thick-and-thin, right-or-wrong 
 Administration organs to denounce as copperheads and malignant 
 defamers, but from army officers themselves, jealous of their 
 country's good name. The policy of the War Department in 
 the whole miserable business of outrages by degenerate officers 
 
1 3 
 
 upon people in the Philippines, supported, as it is, by the wretched 
 paltering to false sentiment by men like Senator Lodge, affords 
 little hope that the army will be saved from the disgrace it lies 
 under so long as Howze goes unpunished; but it is none the less 
 the duty of those who love their country to cry out against the 
 hideous outrage of allowing this brute to go about in the uniform 
 of the United States army." 
 
 [From the New York "Sun."] 
 
 " BELLAIRS." 
 
 The name of the assailant of Governor Taft and the eulogist of 
 Gen. Leonard Wood does not appear in the New York Directory. 
 Neither the Brooklyn Directory nor that of Jersey City contains 
 it. It is unknown in Hoboken. It is not included among the 
 contemporary citizens mentioned in "Who's Who in America." 
 No Bellairs has found a place in the seven volumes of the "Cyclo- 
 paedia of American Biography." 
 
 These circumstances do not prove that Bellairs is a pseudonym, 
 but they illustrate the exceeding rarity, in this country, of the 
 name which appears on the title page of "As It Is in the Philip- 
 pines," the book recently contrived for the purpose of pulling down 
 the reputation of Governor Taft and exalting Gen. Leonard Wood 
 as his foreordained successor. . . . 
 
 But if, on the other hand, it is true, as we have had for some 
 time good reason to suspect, and as the "Evening Post" last night 
 assured us, that Charles Ballentine is the real name of "Captain 
 Edgar G. Bellairs, late of the Surrey Volunteers," the attack on 
 Governor Taft and the elaborate effort to boost Gen. Wood into 
 Taft's place assume an altogether different complexion. 
 
 For if Bellairs is Charles Ballentine, formerly of Norfolk, 
 England, and lately the extremely serviceable friend of Gen. 
 Leonard Wood, we need go nowhere else for his credentials than 
 to page 220 of that "Who's Who in Rascaldom," Inspector 
 Byrnes's encyclopaedic treatise on the "Professional Criminals of 
 America." Here we find Ballentine 's portrait, numbered 346 in the 
 rogues' gallery, directly beneath the likeness of "Lizzie Myers, 
 alias Mary Sad and Queen Liz, Shoplifter," and alongside of 
 "Thomas E. Hardman, Badger and Swindler." 
 
 In such company is exhibited " No. 346, Charles Ballentine, 
 alias Ernest Allaine Cheiriton, Forger and Swindler," with the 
 following biographical details as compiled by the omniscient and 
 indefatigable Byrnes: 
 
14 
 
 "346.— C. Ballentine, alias Ernest Allaine Cheiriton, Forger 
 and Swindler. 
 
 "description. 
 'Thirty-four years old in 1895. Born in England. Journalist. 
 Single. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 10 inches. Weight, 155 
 pounds. Light-brown hair, light-blue eyes, fair complexion. 
 Marks, etc. An anchor in ink on right forearm. Very gentle- 
 manly appearance. 
 
 "record. 
 Ballentine is a clever English swindler. He has been swindling 
 people from the time he entered Cheltenham College in England, 
 nineteen years ago. 
 
 " He made a book on the principal English races while in that 
 school as shrewdly and as profitably as the most expert gambler. 
 His everyday companions were sacrificed on the gambling altar, 
 and the extravagances of this youth came from the pockets of 
 the indulgent fathers of misguided sons. 
 
 "His name is not 'Ernest Allaine Cheiriton,' 'E. Elaine,' 
 nor ' E. A. Cameron.' His real name is Charles Ballentine, and he 
 is the son of a clergyman in Norfolk County, England. 
 
 "Since he left Cheltenham School he has been living on his 
 wits. He has visited every country on the face of the globe, and 
 the number of his victims runs into the thousands. The most 
 successful part he plays is that of a society confidence man. The 
 best families of England, France, Australia and Canada have been 
 taken in by his suavity. The famous French watering place, 
 Dieppe, was the scene of his first professional operations. 
 
 "He went to Dieppe as an English swell, and left there after 
 a four weeks' visit with a lot of money, owing an immense 
 hotel bill. His movements after leaving Dieppe cannot be def- 
 initely traced. He visited every European and nearly all the 
 Asiatic countries, and in 1886 struck Australia. The big-hearted 
 inhabitants of that promising colony took him in, and he in turn 
 took them in. 
 
 "At the time of his arrest in New York city (June 3, 1891) on 
 a requisition issued by Governor F. P. Fleming, of Florida, he said 
 that he had just come from Jamaica, W. L, and that as soon as 
 certain money matters were fixed up he intended going back 
 again to Australia. On June 10, 1891, he was delivered to the 
 State agent of Florida and taken to Tampa, where he was wanted 
 for forgery. 
 
 "On this complaint he was sentenced to seven years in the 
 
i5 
 
 State Penitentiary at Chattahoochee, Fla., on Dec. 23, 1 891, by 
 Judge Mitchell, Circuit Court, Tampa, Fla. 
 
 " Picture taken June, 1891. " 
 
 The statement as to the fact of Ballentine's conviction at Tampa 
 we are able to confirm by this memorandum from the Clerk of the 
 Circuit Court where he was tried and sentenced: 
 
 "On Dec. 16, 1891, E. Allaine Cheiriton (alias E. Allaine) 
 was indicted for 'obtaining money under false pretenses.' On 
 Dec. 18, 1891, he was tried and convicted, and on Dec. 23, 1891, 
 he was sentenced to the penitentiary for seven (7) years at hard 
 labor. 
 
 " Hon. H. L. Mitchell was presiding Judge. 
 "W. L. Hanks, Clerk. 
 "D. B. Grimes, Deputy Clerk. 
 "Tampa, March 20, 1903. " 
 
 From Tallahassee we learn that Ballentine served five of his 
 seven years at hard labor in the Florida State Penitentiary ; he was 
 received there on Jan. 3, 1892, and discharged on pardon — appar- 
 ently for good behavior while in prison — on Dec. 12, 1896. He had 
 been out of convict garb only about fourteen months when the 
 " Maine " was blown up at Havana and the war came on. 
 
 It is proper to say that "Bellairs" was discharged from the 
 service of the Associated Press as soon as the management of that 
 establishment had reason to doubt the integrity of his character 
 and the cleanness of his record. The fact of his dismissal is not 
 chronicled on the title page or in the preface of "As It Is in the 
 Philippines." Whether or not the termination of his employment 
 as a news gatherer resulted from a full identification of Bellairs 
 with Ballentine-Cheiriton, we do not know. 
 
 With reference to the disclosures concerning the career of Edgar 
 G. Bellairs, the New York "Evening Post" said: 
 
 "For this man [Bellairs] who was so greatly honored, and so 
 royally toasted by the highest officers in the American army in 
 the Philippines, had served a seven years' sentence for forgery. 
 Previously he had been a confidence man and genteel swindler in 
 Europe, Australia, India, and Egypt. Yet within less than three 
 years after he discarded his convict's garb he was in a position to 
 mislead a very large portion of the American public, and to help 
 boost into undeserved prominence, and into a brigadier-gen eralcy 
 in the regular army, one Leonard Wood, Captain and Assistant 
 Surgeon of Regulars, and General of Volunteers. . . . 
 
i6 
 
 "We have told this story of Bellairs in Cuba somewhat at length 
 simply to show how the swindler and forger, turned journalist, 
 was able to impose upon the American public and give it an utterly 
 wrong impression of what was occurring under the American flag. 
 But his luck did not end there, nor his power for mischief. At 
 Gen. Chaffee's and Gen. Humphrey's request he accompanied them 
 on the China expedition, and next went with them to Manila. Here 
 he was for nearly two years the chief telegraphic correspondent 
 of the Associated Press, and, therefore, except for the 'Sun's' cor- 
 respondent, the sole medium through which the great American 
 republic has been getting its news of our colonial venture. Such 
 glimpses of the occurrences in the Philippines as the average 
 American had during Bellairs's stay in Manila were through the 
 eyes of this confidence man, swindler, gambler, forger, and convict! 
 Perfectly ready to admit in private conversation the flourishing 
 character of the water-cure industry in the Philippines, his des- 
 patches ever sided with the accused officers. There was never 
 a suspicion in his despatches of disloyalty to Chaffee, Humphrey, 
 or any other army officer. Never was he accused of pessimism, or 
 of setting forth the actual American opinion in Manila of the situa- 
 tion, military or civil. Meanwhile, he held always to his first love, 
 — Leonard Wood, — and when found out and dismissed by his 
 employer, the Associated Press, returned to New York to boom 
 him and depreciate the services of Governor Taft in his book, ' As 
 It Is in the Philippines.' 
 
 "'Bellairs,' journalist and author, has run his career. But 
 his memory and the fame of his brilliant, if ephemeral, exploits 
 will long linger as an illustration of how 'all the people may be 
 fooled part of the time.'" 
 
 Further light on the career of Bellairs and his operations in 
 Canada is furnished in an article in the Toronto "News," from 
 which the following is quoted : 
 
 "Another of Balantyne's [Bellairs'] dodges was the organization 
 of what he dubbed ' The Byron Club.' It was ultimately to become 
 a kind of Toronto home of literary and scientific lights, and he 
 succeeded in securing the names of several estimable citizens on 
 his provisional committee of management. He began to reap 
 the harvest of his schemes. The first result was the collection 
 of several subscriptions to the Byron Club — $15 per man. Fifteen 
 or twenty men handed over the cash to the Secretary — Mr. Balan- 
 tyne. This was on toward the end of a certain week in August. 
 On the Saturday morning Balantyne made a progress down King 
 
i7 
 
 Street, and in every shop where he had any acquaintance, or where 
 he thought he might be known, he floated checks for from $10 
 to $50. The merchants who did not know him personally had 
 heard of him; of his open-handed generosity, and had also seen 
 him, in many cases, in company with gentlemen whose names 
 were above reproach. This latter plan was a part of Balantyne's 
 method of obtaining public confidence. He was very fond of 
 being seen in company with men of weight, and he joined them 
 in the street whenever he could. 
 
 "Well, on that Saturday morning Balantyne literally 'did up' 
 the town. Pretty nearly every merchant who had ever cashed a 
 check for a customer cashed one for him. A small purchase was 
 usually made, but more often it was a case of merely 'needing 
 the money, and the bank being some distance away.' Some of 
 the hotels contributed also, and that afternoon Mr. Balantyne, 
 the founder of the Byron Club, the cash of the merchants, and 
 Mr. Balantyne's baggage took the boat for Niagara. On board 
 were some acquaintances, whom he told that he was going to 
 Buffalo for the week end. And then forever he vanished from 
 the gaze of Toronto." 
 
WHO IS CORRECT? 
 
 To put down the insurrection 
 and restore peace to the islands 
 was a duty not only to our- 
 selves, but to the islanders also. 
 We could not have abandoned 
 the conflict without shirking 
 this duty, without proving our- 
 selves recreants to the memory 
 of our forefathers. Moreover, 
 if we had abandoned it we 
 would have inflicted upon the 
 Filipinos the most cruel wrong 
 and would have doomed them 
 to a bloody jumble of anarchy 
 and tyranny. — President Roose- 
 velt. 
 
 The administration is incor- 
 ruptibly honest; justice is jeal- 
 ously safeguarded as here at 
 home. The government is con- 
 ducted purely in the interests 
 of the people of the islands; 
 they are protected in their reli- 
 gious and civil rights ; they have 
 been given an excellent and 
 well-administered school system 
 and each of them now enjoys 
 rights to "life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness," such as 
 were never before known in all 
 the history of the islands. 
 
 Not only has the military 
 problem in the Philippines been 
 worked out quicker and better 
 that we had dared to expect, 
 but the progress socially and 
 
 That a general desire for in- 
 dependence existed in the Phil- 
 ippines, especially among the 
 Tagalogs, cannot be doubted. 
 It found its first expression in 
 the rebellion against Spain, and 
 it is not difficult to- understand 
 why it spread so rapidly. . . . 
 We accepted their (Filipino) 
 aid; ... we then practi- 
 cally turned the insurrectos 
 loose over all the archipelago, 
 to gather up the Spanish garri- 
 sons and arms, and we nearly 
 completed the apotheosis of the 
 dreamers for Filipino independ- 
 ence. — Gen. Geo. W. Davis, now 
 Commander Military Division of 
 the Philippines. 
 
 I am not prepared to say 
 whether the Filipinos are our 
 enemies or not. ... I am 
 an exploiter and I believe that 
 if we ever get any good out of >/ 
 the islands we must explore and 
 exploit them. — Gen. Adna R. 
 Chaffee. 
 
 Conditions in the Philippines 
 have made it necessary for the 
 islands to buy about $15,000,000 
 worth of food on which to live. 
 . . The bane of Philippine 
 civilization in the past was 
 ladronism, and the present con- 
 ditions are most favorable for 
 its growth and maintenance. 
 Were there inducements to agri- 
 culture, were there prosperous 
 conditions in the country, it 
 would not be a troublesome 
 matter to deal with; but when 
 want and famine are staring the 
 people in the face, the life of 
 the freebooter forms to the 
 desperate and the weak a very 
 great attraction. The natural 
 discontent with the government 
 when suffering is at hand, pro- 
 
J 9 
 
 in civil government has likewise 
 exceeded our fondest hopes. 
 
 In Governor Taft and his 
 associates we sent to the Fili- 
 pinos as upright, as conscien- 
 tious, and as able a group of 
 administrators as ever any coun- 
 try has been blessed with hav- 
 ing. — President Roosevelt. 
 
 Under such circumstances, 
 among 100,000 hot-blooded and 
 powerful young men serving 
 in small detachments on the 
 other side of the globe, it was 
 impossible that occasional in- 
 stances of wrong-doing should 
 not occur. The fact that they 
 occurred in retaliation for well- 
 nigh intolerable provocation can 
 not for a moment be admitted 
 in the way of excuse or justifica- 
 tion. All good Americans regret 
 and deplore them, and the War 
 Department has taken every 
 step in its power to punish the 
 offenders and to prevent or 
 minimize the chance of repeti- 
 tion of the offense. But these 
 offenses were the exception and 
 not the rule. As a whole our 
 troops showed not only signal 
 
 moted as it has been by the 
 cholera restrictions and the 
 high prices of rice and other 
 commodities, which have been 
 greatly enhanced by the depre- 
 ciation of silver, might well 
 have caused a new breaking out 
 of the insurrection. ... It 
 may be that as the conditions 
 grow worse — for they are likely 
 to do so before they grow better 
 — it will be necessary in a 
 province like Cavite, where 
 ladronism seems inbred in the 
 people, to proclaim martial law 
 and even to call in the military 
 finally to suppress it; but it is 
 still hoped this may be avoided. 
 . . On the whole there is 
 before us a year of the hardest 
 kind of work relieving the 
 people from the hardship and 
 suffering likely to follow the 
 failure of the rice crop, and 
 suppressing ladronism and 
 other disturbances due to eco- 
 nomic distress. — Governor W. H. 
 Taft, January, 1903. 
 
 What I am trying to do is to 
 state what seemed to us to be 
 the explanation of these cruel- 
 ties: That cruelties have been 
 inflicted; that people have been 
 shot when they ought not to 
 have been ; that there have been 
 individual instances of water 
 cure, that torture which I be- 
 lieve involves pouring water 
 down the throat so that the 
 man swells and gets the im- 
 pression that he is going to be 
 suffocated and then tells what 
 he knows, which was a frequent 
 treatment under the Spaniards, 
 I am told — all these things are 
 true. [Italics ours.] 
 
 I have no doubt there were 
 such instances [of water torture 
 by Macabebes] — of course, a 
 great many more than there 
 
20 
 
 courage and efficiency, but great 
 humanity and the most sincere 
 desire to promote the welfare 
 and liberties of the islanders. — 
 President Roosevelt. 
 
 Wherever in the Philippines 
 the insurrection has been defi- 
 nitely and finally put down, 
 there the individual Filipino 
 already enjoys such freedom, 
 such personal liberty under our 
 rule, as he could never even 
 dream of under the rule of 
 an "independent" Aguinaldian 
 oligarchy. — President Roosevelt, 
 ivlay 30, 1903. 
 
 ought to have been. — Governor 
 W. H. Taft. 
 
 The women and children are 
 part of the family, and where you 
 wish to inflict a punishment you 
 can punish the man probably 
 worse in that way than in any 
 other. [Italics ours.] — General 
 Hughes, in defending the policy 
 of burning Filipino homes as a 
 mode of punishment. 
 
 . . . In the department I 
 suppose I had at times as many 
 as a hundred and twenty com- 
 mands in the field. Each com- 
 mander, under general restric- 
 tions, had authority to act for 
 himself. These commanders 
 
 were changed from time to 
 time. The new commanders 
 coming in would probably start 
 in very much easier than the 
 old ones. . . . They would 
 come from this country with 
 their ideas of civilized warfare 
 and they were allowed to get 
 their lesson. [Italics ours.] — 
 General Hughes. 
 
 As an illustration of the ' ' free- 
 dom, personal liberty, and pur- 
 suit of happiness" enjoyed by 
 the Filipinos, the following inci- 
 dent may be of interest : In the 
 early part of February of this 
 year, according to the Manila 
 "American," the American au- 
 thorities suppressed a play writ- 
 ten by a Filipino, the English title 
 of which is "I Am Not Dead. " 
 This play was being presented 
 at one of the theaters in Manila, 
 and in the midst of the per- 
 formance members of the de- 
 tective department put in an 
 appearance and seized the 
 libretto and the play. The 
 "American" in its article savs: 
 'While there is not a line in the 
 play that would appear revo- 
 lutionary on its face, there is a 
 
21 
 
 double meaning to every word 
 in it. The play is cheered from 
 beginning to end and it is easy 
 to see from the expressions on 
 the faces of the audience that 
 it understands well the revolu- 
 tionary sentiments expressed by 
 the players. There is a general 
 impression among the natives 
 composing the audience that 
 the insurrection is not dead." 
 And for these reasons the play 
 was suppressed by the American 
 authorities. 
 
ifi RARY of congress # 
 
 027 531 504 7