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AUSTIN'S HAWAIIAN WEEKLY.
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It is reported by returning veteran8
that there is a more hopeful feeling in
the army now that General Joe Wheel
er is in Manila, because he is one of
the most dashing cavalry ollicers in the
army, and no power on earth will stop
him from pursuing the enemy after
a victory.
American citizen-soldiers are unanimous in
the condemnation of one man, as a childish
imbecile, and a butcher of his own men,
through criminal incapacity, it is an im
peachment before the bar of public opinion
which should cause that criminal to be
court uurtialcd.
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The Czar of the Philippines and weak
ling of the American army,
General Otis' General Otis, has deigned
Interview. to give a Sun correspond
ent an interview on the
situation. It is about time. Several thous
and volunteers have returned to the United
States who will not hesitate also to sav
something concerning the situation in the
Philippines. If wh ,t a number of these
volunteers, who were discharged i.t Manila
and lire going home by passenger steamer,
were willing to siiy ;md swear to while p .ss
mg through Honolulu, be any index to
what the thousands of volunteers dis
charged at San Francisco will also swear
to, "here will be enough accumulation of
evidence to convict this incubus of the
American Eastern question of high trea
son. As is the fate of all weak men, General
Otis has " opened his mouth to put his
foot in it." At 1 st the American people
have learned the General's novel method
of suppressing insurrection. He says:
The question is whether, after all, i' would be wise to
hasten the ending of the insurrection With the exception
of a few nbbers and adventurers, the people grow sicker
and more disgusted with independence every day they
have it. I believe that if the insurrection is not ended too
soon the Filipp'nos will be so heartily sick of independence
that there will never be any more trouble on that score.
Independence was a craze with these people. They did
not understand what it meant, but their worship of the
idea amounted almost tu fanaticism. Now that they really
know what i dependence means, it is the best object lesson
they ever had, and it will not be necessary to continue it
much longer to forever settle the question.
General Otis should have lived in the last
century. One can quite easily imagine an
English General in the revolutionary war
saying the same thing of the Americans.
The statement is weak in every respect,
and reveals the mainspring of General Otis'
most remarkable methods of warfare, which
have gained for him the opprobrium, and
even hatred, of the rank and file of the
army. It has been the policy of General
Otis to forbid any pursuit of the enemy
after a brilliant victory by the American
troops. The cavalry has thus practically
been useless. The enemy have been per
mitted to retreat and given time to entrench
themselves again, so that the troops have
been continually compelled to storm the
insurgents in their trenches. Besides this,
all prisoners taken are at once set free to
return to their respective regiments, to take
up the fight again a strange way, cer
tainly, to make the insurgents sick of inde
pendence. Such tactics rather tend to
make the American troops dispirited and
sick of fighting a foe that their command
ing general will never permit them to whip
after they have fought with extraordinary
bravery and brilliancy to gain '..the ad
vantage. Is it possible that Secretary Root, who is
committed to a vigorous prosecutionfof&e
war, can continue in command, a 'general
who openly avows it his opinion that it is '
not wise to hasten the ending1 of;. the insur
rection ? Or, is it possible that President
McKinley, who has pledged himself to
hasten the pacification of the Philippines,
is in sympathy with General Otis' policy ?
General Otis states in his interview that
he has received many let
How General ters from prominent and
Otis Answers wealthy Filipinos nsking him
Letters. to send troops to protect
their property from the in
surgents, and th .t he invariably replied:
"Wh.it's the m .tter with independence?
Go Ivck and enjoy it a while longer."
Besides being insulting and disgusting,
such an answer to an appeal for help is
positi.-ely childish and undignified. How
are the mighty f.illen? The representative
of this gre.it nation with "benevolent inten
tions," as Mr. McKinley says, sneers and
laughs derisively lit an application for pro
tection. And this childish old fool boosts
of this in his interview, as if he had said
something clever. Oh how proud we feel
to be Ameiican citizens!
An incident is related by a sergeant in
the Mont ma regiment of an interview with
General Pando, while a prisoner in the
insurgent camp, which is interesting in
revealing the opinion of both the volun
teers and insurgents concerning General
Otis. General P.mdo, seeing that the pris
oner wore officers' stripes, spoke to him
and asked, in excellent English, why the
American troops were fighting so hard.
The prisoner answered: "Bee. use we are
ordered b- General Otis to fight you, and
being Americans, we fight : s hard as we
can, when we must." "Do you want to
fight us?" continued the General. "No; I
think we ''11 feel sorry every time we have
to kill your men. I know I do," replied
the prisoner. The General paused a mo
ment. "We do not want to fight you
either, but we must. General Otis will not
give us any satisfaction as to the kind of
government we are to have. Many of us
believe that we can have greater independ
ence and freedom under American rule if
we can be permitted to govern ourselves as
your States do. But General Otis treats
us in a most childish manner, as if we had
no intelligence. We are willing to lay
down our arms, if matters of government
are settled to our satisfaction." "The
volunteers have nearly the same opinion,"
replied the Sergeant. "We believe Gen
eral Otis to have reached the imbecility of
second childhood. There is not a volun
teer who would not infinitely rather put a
bullet through General Otis than shoot a
Filipino. He does not dare come out on
the firing line, for there are too many of
our bullets waiting for him." It is such
stories as this that probably gave rise to
Aguinaldo's statement that the volunteers
were on the point of mutiny. But the Fili
pinos can not understand that patriotism and
sense, of duty in the American soldier are
greater than hatred for any individual, and
in the presence of an enemy, they will
obey orders.
' The foregoing statement was not made
by a fault-finding soldier from the slums of
New York, but by an intelligent well-to-do
business man from Helena, Montana, and
there can be no good reason to doubt his
veracity. Where several thousand good
General Otis is described as sitting in his
comfortable palace, located
A Would-be in the inner city, with live
Von Moltke. thousand regular troops to
guard him against ass .ssina
tion by the volunteers, with a map of the
country before him, directing by wire the
operations in the field. Reports are made
every fifteen minutes by telegraph to this
inner citadel, and, when he thinks a real
victory is to be won, he orders a retreat
the moment the insurgent troops have
begun to run. This, of course, constitutes
an American victory in General Otis' eyes.
Instead of pursuit, the insurgents are per
mitted to retire a few miles and make new
trenches, out of which the Americans are
expected, next day, to dislodge them. All
the field generals even, of such as Generals
McArthur and Lawton, are made to move
according to the little telegrams from the
palace in the walled city, where Otis com
fortably sits gazing upon his maps.
If Catholic priests happened to be enter
taining the General he would spend hours
with them, and orders to the front must
wait his august pleasure.
This all seems too terrible for belief. It
is, nevertheless, the common gossip-among
the volunteers, and must have some founda
tion in fact.
An instance is given of the disasterous
effects of one of General Otis' delays. It
seems that the American army had caught
the Filipinos in a trap and were in a posi
tion to compel Aguinaldo to surrender or
have the flower of his army destroyed.
The delay in receiving orders to advance
from the palace in the walled city, gave the
insurgents time to escape.
During the battle of Rio Grande bridge,
where General Funston won promotion,
the wires were cut between the firing line
and Manila, supposedly by the insurgents,
and Funston led his command, the Kansas,
Montana and Utah regiments to glorious
victory. It was afterwards found that the
insurgents could not have been within
many miles of where the wires were cut.
It is avered, although this may be exag
gerated, that all the great victories were
won after some accident had happened to
the wires between the battle ground and
Manila.
If all due latitude be allowed for exag
geration on the part of the volunteers there
is still enough of truth to impeach General
Otis of criminal weakness and neglect of
duty.
The world's fair, which is to be opened
at Paris the 15th of next April,
The Paris will be the climax of a series
Exposition of industrial exposition in that
of 1900. city extending over a time of
more than a century. The first
of the number which took place in 1798,
and was held on the Champs de Mars,
where the coming one is to be situated, was
not of an international character. It had
only no exhibitors, and cost but $12,000.
Twenty-five medals were distributed, how
ever. The fair took firm root in popular
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