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The after dinner speeches evidenced many sentiments of friendship. A full account of the function was published in the Manila newspapers. The topic was discussed at headquarters and the officers who attended were not commended. Thereafter it was chilly for those who exchanged social greetings with the Filipinos."

6. The Trumped-Up Pretext That the Natives Would Pillage and Slaughter.

Regarding the apprehension that the natives were bent on pillage, riot and murder in Manila, General Reeve said there never was the slightest danger in that direction. "There were five thousand insurgents in the city at the time of the American occupation. On the Calle Real they had as many posts as the Americans had and not an act of rioting or pillage was reported. Another example of their good behavior in this respect was given at Iloilo. The natives had possession of the town before the Americans went there and their first act was to send in a force of 500 men to protect the city. The protection was ample. There was no destruction of property until they executed the threat to destroy in the event of Americans landing to take possession."

7. Was It Aguinaldo, or the People, Who Wanted Absolute Independence?

"While Aguinaldo was seeking to obtain from General Otis some outline of the future policy of the United States, the war party in the Cabinet, headed by General Luna, was gaining strength daily. Instead of Aguinaldo controlling those who demanded absolute independence, the parties making the demand succeeded in getting him

under control."

sentences.

The history of the war is compressed in these piercing If they are lies let Butcher McKinley cashier and court-martial Reeve. If not, let the nation cashier and court-martial McKinley.

The poet sings:

"There is a Something sacred and sublime
Moving behind the worlds, beyond our ken,
Weighing the stars, weighing the deeds of men.
Take heart, O soul of sorrow, and be strong!
There is one greater than the whole world's wrong.

No truth so low but He will give it crown;

No wrong so high but He will hurl it down.

O men that forge the fetter, it is vain :

There is a Still Hand stronger than your chain.

'Tis no avail to bargain, sneer, and nod,

And shrug the shoulder for reply to God." *

*Edwin Markham, poem "Dreyfus."

Tush and fiddlesticks! Gazzling cozoloon! cozoloon! How long, how long? We've heard about this sacred Something and sublime, but little good did It ever do until too late! too late! Dreyfus a wreck and France a wreck, then It steps down (per schedule), turns around, and steps out, and all things circle as before to another wrecked being and another wrecked State! Let Him or It stay out, It rectifies nothing. Our Butcher wrecks two worlds-who weighs him? This sacred Something stays behind the world, beyond our ken. It's just as well, O soul of sorrow, He never yet did aught but furnish muses for poets and amusements for the thoughtful. A Still Hand, forever still! Stronger than your chain—but not stronger than Its chain, which It never breaks! One greater than the whole world's wrong-in books. ishingly hopeful seashore sentiments, where the surges of the sweet deep drown the beating waves of earth's unintermitting damnation storms! No wrong so high but He will hurl it down, when it has submerged all, and spent its force, and receded to return again with fresh and indefatigable destruction! And if you question this, read on the Filipino page of our history, written with fountained bayonets in blood, of McKinley's success, inviting General Reeve to direct you to the Something sacred and sublime as you move on.

Rav

We now follow those Philippine events with a guide book. General Reeve is our interpreter. While citizens and mothers kiss McKinley's gouty knees and the dust of his feet and bow before his long list of their dead, we know the hand that struck them, and why. Come, let us follow the drums and the buzzards. The Butcher must be King.

CHAPTER XV.

The Dignity of the Flag.

1. Flags and Business Signs.

I have a word to say about the 'dignity of the flag.' Said Major Gandenstone a few pages back, "We must hold the islands for the sake of the dignity of our flag, if nothing more. We have taken hold of the islands, they say, it is undignified to let go of them. Calmly and candidly this is the doctrine of fools. Apply it in any other walk of life and you will see that only a fool would say it or follow it. We have taken hold of a redhot iron, it is undignified to let go-therefore we burn our hands off. Even imperialists would perceive that the act of a fool. We have raised our shotgun to blaze at a deer, as we suppose, but just in time we see that it is a grizzly bear, very likely to eat us alive unless we rescind our ultimatum: but it is dishonorable to turn back, undignified, so we shoot and perish. We have involved ourselves in a business venture which will cost us more than we shall make, may ruin us, but a business man must never correct a mistake, he must never acknowledge that he has made one, he must never turn back, it would be undignified, would reflect dishonor on his name.

What screaming comedy this sulky doctrine is when taken in any connection but the American flag, and the only way for a man to uphold its honor is to turn immortal fool! About flags and nations cluster a number of Middle Age fads of chivalry, not only puerile but famously silly to all but stuffy crania, representing no higher

walk of sense and insight than personal duels to heal rumpled honor. Child-men with child minds love to splash and swim in this dead sea of ancient antinomic ideas, but in all personal, practical, domestic and national affairs, the man of brains prefers to bathe in clean water. But just step out into international affairs and crowds of wise men drop to the dueling level and dive into sewers. If unwittingly they have taken hold of a redhot country they must hold on and burn the nation's hand off for the honor of the flag; they must prove themselves crescendo fools lest somebody might think they were fools. Having made a miscalculation in business they must go right on and take the gathering consequences instead of correcting their calculation and folly, lest some one might think they had not nerve to lose half a fortune. Now any idiot can lose a whole fortune any day if he has it, and he merely proves that he is an idiot by losing it, when he does not need to. All intelligent operations of men consist in closely watching for mistakes and correcting them as soon as made, in detecting missteps and retracing them. It is the blockhead and the blockhead only who perseveres in blunders. For beginners in thinking on this theme let us illustrate by arithmetic. Let us suppose that the nation has an example to solve and much depends on getting it right. At almost the start a mistake is made in a figure: but for the dignity of the flag we must maintain that mistake and go on to the end piling mistake on mistake till we reach the climax of the sum and have a colossal structure of blunders. Our national honor demands it. If the laws of arithmetic interfere with the honor of the flag, arithmetic be damned; if the laws of common sense call for correction of errors, down with common sense; if you have made a thousandth part of a fool of yourself by confusing a figure in your calculations, make ten thousand fools of yourself by not admitting it—that is the essence of flag honor and dignity.

But this is mere Middle Age callowness, not twentieth century experience and wisdom. The honor of a nation consists in solving its problems right, not in defying man and God by persisting in wrong if you have started wrong. The keen man learns, the cattle brand of the fool is that he never learns. The essential teaching of the whole Bible is, Repent; if you have sinned, repent, do better; don't go on adding sin to sin, because you have sinned once; if you have been foolish and made a mistake, repent, correct your mistake. Mad bulls having mistaken a howling abyss for a limpid stream rush over and die, but men stop and turn back. Men do, but the dignity theory of nations is that they must not, it is humiliating.

We must probe this crustacean theory, for surely there is a mine of laughter in it somewhere. It is not deep hidden the honor of nations consists in being infallible, as infallible as the Pope, as Fate, as the Almighty, as the Newspaper. A nation can't make a mistake, can't be in the wrong—that is the essence of the doctrine of the impeccable flag. It is a direct descendant, I suppose, of the broad-grinned monarchical joke with which nations cut their throats only a little while ago, that kings can do no wrong. It is a dogma which causes some inconvenience, as for instance when two equally powerful nations assert dead opposites. They are both inflallible. both absolutely right, and of course can neither back down nor budge back. Now the Middle Agers invented a way of settling the dispute without destroying the infallibility of either, they had the nations fight and destroy each other, and the doctrine came out of the war serene and unharmed, as unfallible and impeccant as ever. They preserved the doctrine by destroying the nations; they destroyed the flags but the dignity of them remained floating. No one could see it, but everyone could remember it. This satisfied the sense of fitness of the Middle Agers, who, when they were not saving their dignity

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