organized as are companies of the Regular Army, in squadrons or battalions, with officers and noncommissioned officers corresponding to similar organizations in the cavalry and infantry arms. The total number of enlisted men in said native organizations shall not exceed 12,000, and the total enlisted force of the line of the Army, together with such native force, shall not exceed at any one time 100,000.

I oppose this action, Mr. President, because, while the majority of the population of these islands, in fact from 70 to 80 per cent of them, are educated and civilized, and 6,000,ooo of them worship the same God that we do, and believe in the same religion embraced by over 8,000,000 of our own population, still within the borders of that country as well as within the borders of the United States there are savage and uncivilized tribes-not many, but in my opinion enough to supply the 12,000 troops which it is proposed to enlist. Those are the only people you can secure soldiers from-the barbarous tribes of that country.

We have had experience with those people. We enlisted 200 of them, and their conduct was outrageous. I propose to show from the testimony of the Secretary of War that such is the fact. Secretary Root says:

By far the most economical way to take the place of the outgoing volunteers is to put regulars in their place. I do not believe we could get volunteers. There is not the enthusiasm, the opportunity for adventure, which would attract volunteers. No doubt we could get

regulars.

Senator WARREN. If we got into a scrap with England or Germany we would be able to get volunteers easy enough?

Secretary Rooт. We could get them quick enough then. We got them quick enough when there was real, sure-enough fighting in the Philippines.

Senator SHOUP. Have you considered the question of enlisting natives over there?

Secretary RooT. Yes; and there is quite a good deal of discussion of that in this year's report. I said in that everything I have to say. I think no doubt it will be practical, but we have to do it slowly. We can not take them in fast. We have to take them in slow, as we have officers to discipline them and instill in them the spirit of discipline, because they murder and burn and rob like the rest of the crowd until they get some idea of discipline and the necessity of following the lines of civilized warfare.

And yet, Mr. President, this bill provides for recruiting a class of soldiers who, according to the testimony of the Secretary of War, murder and burn and rob. I intend to give the facts in regard to this burning and robbing in the Philippines on the part of our Army. We enlisted 200 Macabebes. These savages are accustomed to fighting the white man's battles, 300 Macabebes serving in the Spanish army. They were enlisted from a town of that name on one of the western islands of the group. When the Spanish war closed they surrendered to us and were paroled. The captured Macabebes offered their services to Aguinaldo, but he declined their offer and refused to take them into his army, because they had been fighting with Spain after the revolt of 1896 and had been so barbarous in their conduct. Our officers then recruited 200 of them, and we sent out this band of marauding robbers to murder and burn. In perpetuation of uncivilized methods of warfare this bill provides that 12,000 more of them may be secured and turned loose upon the Christian people of that country. You can get no other native troops there, and these 12,000 soldiers must be gathered from among the savages in the archipelago.

The Taft Commission the other day passed a law making it a criminal offense, subject to imprisonment, for natives to refuse to take office under the commission and perform the functions of civil government. If we have made it a crime for the civilized natives to refuse to take office and perform the functions of civil government under us, how are we going to get them into the Army to fight their own countrymen?

No, Mr. President, this paragraph in the bill means the enlistment of 12,000 of the savages of that country, the Moros, if you please, to fight against the civilized and Christian people of those islands. This provision alone ought to prevent us from agreeing to the conference report.

Whether or not the crimes which have been committed in the Philippines against civilized warfare were the result of enlisting these Macabebes I can not tell. But I ask that the Secretary read a letter from the military governor and commander in chief of one of the provinces of the Philippines, he

CHAPTER XII

ATROCITIES

R. PRESIDENT:1

MR

I voted against the passage of

the Army bill and I would have been glad if I could have defeated it entirely. I do not believe it ought to have been passed or that any necessity has been shown why it should pass. The report of the Committee on Military Affairs disclosed nothing beyond an argument in favor of Army canteens. The only argument the committee made was one in favor of enlarging the usefulness of that institution by enlarging the Army. The Senate having beaten that portion of the bill, which received such earnest attention on the part of the Committee on Military Affairs, the necessity for enlarging the Army, from the standpoint of the committee, disappeared with the defeat of the canteen. If there exist other reasons why the Army should be enlarged the committee have not disclosed it to the Senate or the country. Their report contains nothing on the subject.

I was surprised that the minority found no objection to this remarkable report. They seemed to think that the enlargement of the Army was necessary in order to enlarge the scope of the civilizing influences of a barroom at every post. What lulled them to sleep I know not.

We sought information as to why the Army should be enlarged, what use was to be made of it, what was the necessity for increasing it to 100,000 men, and our inquiries were not answered. I introduced a resolution calling upon the Secretary to furnish us desired information regarding the operations of our Army in the Orient, and the resolution was re1. Speech in the Senate January 31, 1901.

ferred to the Committee on the Philippines, and there it slumbered. Information is denied and refused, not only to the Senate, to the Congress, which is expected to create legislation, but to the people of the United States, who give their money to sustain our legislation. Ever since the conflict began in the Philippines a steady practice of concealment has been carried on by the Administration. There has been a constant refusal to furnish information that might justify Army operations. This was not because it was feared the enemy might secure information, but with the purpose of keeping information from the people of the United States.

In the first place, the correspondents found their news censored, and when they made inquiry and protest they were told by General Otis that he took that course because he wanted to do nothing that would hurt the Administration at home; that practically he censored their news to keep the facts from the people of the United States. When we asked by resolution for information, it was denied, and to-day there are concealed in the archives of the State Department a vast amount of information that, in my opinion, if disclosed to the American people would be deemed by them as discreditable to the Administration.

I believe, Mr. President, from what little information we can get from this source that the battle which commenced on the 4th of February near Manila, in 1899, was begun under orders from Washington, and that if we could procure access to the records they would disclose that fact. We began the war, and I fully believe that General Otis was ordered to begin the war. He says the battle of Manila, which began on the 4th of February, was one of vigorous attack upon our part and one exclusively of defense upon the part of the Filipinos.

Important information is denied. Only such portions of the official record are given to the public as it seems in the interest of the party in power to disclose. We were told that if it were not for the sympathy of the people at home the war in the Philippines would cease. It was said to us that if we had not encouraged the insurgents, as they were called, they

being military governor and commander-in-chief under the native government, which letter describes some of the things we are doing in that country.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kean in the chair): In the absence of objection, the Secretary will read as requested. The Secretary read as follows:

To the American people:

To you, noble people, model of civic virtues and champion of liberty, the present appeal is addressed, setting forth the inhuman proceeding of your imperialist Army in the present war, which it is maintaining against the Filipino people in order to impose on them the yoke of slavery.

Since General Otis, the blind instrument of the ambitious McKinley, has declared war on us, with the infamous purpose of snatching from us our sacred independence, which we have conquered by dint of very costly sacrifices and at the cost of numberless victims offered up at the altar of our freedom; since the 4th of February, when, trusting in the friendship which linked us with the army in occupation, we were surprised by the latter; finally, since the first booming of the imperialist cannon, threatening to destroy our defenseless towns if they would not submit to the dominion of the invader was heard; since then our land has been the theater of all kinds of vandalic acts, performed by the said army. They have violated the most sacred rights, trampled down even the very laws dictated by the sentiments of humanity, and, not contented with the superiority of their arms and machines of war over ours, they have resorted to all kinds of destructive elements, whose usage in a campaign is entirely forbidden by international law, in order, doubtless, to thus secure the destruction of our race, which is struggling for its freedom. That international law is transgressed in this campaign is proven by the fact that the American cannons are loaded with dynamite and other infernal substance, and by the fact that when the bullets of their rifles penetrate into the body they expand and when they come out they make an ugly and uncommon wound, giving the victims horrible sufferings.

When the American troops occupy a town after it has been cleared by the nationalist troops the noncombatants thereof become the objects of all kinds of abuses and cruelties. Robbery, pillage, violation, and murder, in certain cases, are the first proofs of "protection" which we receive from those who, under pretext of educating the Filipino people and leading them into the way of prosperity and modern culture, violate our homes and deprive us of our properties without even respecting the persons of our wives and daughters.

I wish, however, to pass over this savage conduct in silence, for its