Senator Rawlins is trying hard to carry through the Senate a resolution calling for the records of court-martial trials in the Philippines. But Senator Lodge struggles to keep these records out of sight with the ingenuity and grim determination of a criminal's lawyer objecting to the admission of a particularly incriminating piece of evidence. The worldly wisdom of Mr. Lodge's policy is evident when it is considered that Maj. Glenn, charged with torturing natives, and pleading in his defense that he did it under orders, has been acquitted by the court-martial that tried him.

When impartial history answers that question, as in time it will, Americans who are not shameless will blush for their ancestors who invaded the Philippines and cruelly tortured and wantonly slaughtered their inhabitants.

The Public

"The President again asserts at Conton as a matter now patent to all men that abandonment of the Philippine Islands would have 'led to a welter of bloody savagery.' Does the President really believe that his high office can give permanent value to this unjustified assertion, however often reiterated? The peaceable establishment of a government by the Filipinos, with excellent auguries for its continuance, is a well-known historical fact. The "welter of bloody savagery" is, as his own words imply, a purely gratuitous invention of the President's imagination, invoked perhaps like a back-fire to divert attention from that which has been proved, alas, against the United States in the conduct of the Philippine War. Compare with the orders given and approved by General Bell, General Smith, General Chaffee and the War Department, to "kill and burn," to make a "howling wilderness" of suspected provinces---one of the last proclamations of General Malvar, of which a translation follows:

ORDERS AND GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS ISSUED BY THE COMMANDING OFFICER OF THE SOUTH OF LUZON STRICT COMPLIANCE IN THIS DISTRICT

The generals, field and line officers of the army of liberation shall forbid the maltreatment by soldiers or people of the country of all unarmed enemies, or enemies found asleep or intoxicated, or those who by throwing their rifles to the ground and raising their hands, declare that they surrender, or those who fall in any manner into our hands as prisoners, an exemplary punishment being imposed upon violators hereof.
They shall receive with affability and courtesy and treat well any soldiers, non-commissioned officers, line officers or field officers of the invading army who may appear in our camp, after leaving their rifles in a certain place, in order to avoid deception, the treatment and consideration mentioned in previous provisions being extended to them.

At the headquarters, April 28, 1901.
The Commanding General
MIGUEL MALVAR

"The responsible authors of what was indeed a 'welter of bloody savagery' are in a painful position when they try to persuade us that such as one as Gen. Malvar would have created such conditions, had he and his compatriots been left to work their own fate. Which is the Christian here, and which is the savage?"

When impartial history answers that question, as in time it will, Americans who are not shameless will blush for their ancestors who invaded the Philippines and cruelly tortured and wantonly slaughtered their inhabitants. --- The Public