resisted the effort. I ask unanimous consent to have the Secretary read this letter. It is brief, and it states what the Filipinos want, from one of the ablest men among them, written by a man who would do honor to any country if he were a

citizen thereof.

The PRESIDING OFFICER: The Secretary will read as requested.

The Secretary read as follows:

[Letter of A. Mabini, addressed to the correspondents of the principal American newspapers then at Manila.]

MANILA, January 22, 1900. Messrs. WILLIAM DINWIDDIE, JOHN F. BASS, and JOHN F. McCUTCHEON, Correspondents of Harper's Weekly, New York Herald, San Francisco Call, and the Chicago Record.

GENTLEMEN: Being convinced that you are treating the Philippine questions with an impartial mind and with a tendency to prevent that the public opinion in the United States be led astray, and that it be such as becomes a great, free, and civilized people, I take the liberty of requesting you herewith that you make generally known the following points:

(1) The Filipino nation does not cherish any systematic hatred against the foreigners; on the contrary, it is ready to receive with the greatest gratitude all who evince the desire of coöperating with it in the pursuit of its freedom and happiness.

(2) The Filipinos maintain their fight against the American troops not because of an especial hatred, but in order to show to the American people that, far from being indifferent as to their political situation, they know how to sacrifice themselves for a government which assures them their individual liberty and which governs them in conformity with the wishes and the needs of the people. They have been unable to avoid that fight, owing to the fact that they have been unable to obtain from the American Government any kind of formal and clear promise regarding the establishment of such a kind of government.

(3) The present condition and state of war deprives the people of the chance to manifest freely their aspirations; therefore the Filipinos desire most ardently that the Congress of the United States provide for some means to listen to them before adopting a resolution that would mean a definite decision regarding their future.

(4) To bring about that, the Filipinos request the Congress that it nominate either an American commission, which would have to find ways and means to meet such Filipinos who enjoy a positive influence both with the peaceful part and with that part of the nation which is now in arms, or that it call for a commission composed of such Filipinos,

in order to be informed by them directly as to the wishes and needs of the people.

(5) In order to provide a possibility of receiving a complete information of this sort and in order that the work of the commission, whichever may be its composition, have for a final result the establishment of peace, it is requested that the American army of occupation do not interfere with the free and unhampered manifestation of the opinion of the people in either the press or in peaceful meetings; that the same suspend for the time being their attacks on the Filipino posts, while, of course, also the latter would bind themselves not to undertake anything whatever against the American troops, and, further, that the commissioners be given the greatest liberty to communicate with the revolutionists.

(6) In view of the obvious success of the American arms, cven the least rational Filipino can not help admitting that all concessions of the class would mean nothing else but an act of liberality on the side of the North American people, which appears to me to be one additional reason why the Congress should show benevolence and indulgence.

I confidently hope that when the Americans and Filipinos have come to know each other better not only the present conflict will come to an end, but that also any future ones will be avoided. The opinion prevailing among the impartial part of the American nation appears to tend toward adhering to its old traditions and the spirit of justice and humanity, which constitute at the present time the sole hope of all upright Filipinos.

Thanking you beforehand for the great favor which you will confer upon me by complying with my request, I have the honor to be, with the greatest esteem,

Your most obedient servant,

AP MABINI.

MR. PETTIGREW: Mr. President, I am very glad to have a choice made and to find out what is the most important business before the Senate and the country. Yesterday it looked as though it was more important that the campaign debt should be paid and that the subsidy job should be the first thing to be considered, no matter if we kept our volunteers in the Philippines and refused to relieve them when their terms of enlistment had expired, and that the haste over the Army bill had disappeared from the horizon.

I am very glad to find out to-day (and I thought I would try and test the question) that after all the Army bill is the

most important to consider. I fear, however, if there were not time to consider both, the Army bill would have to give place to that most important consideration, the question whether the trail of corn, as the Senator from Tennessee [MR. TURLEY] designates it, should be strewn from the crib to the hungry mouths of the so-called shipbuilders of this country.

The PRESIDING OFFICER: The question is on agreeing to the report of the committee of conference.

MR. PETTIGREW: Mr. President, I do not care to continue this discussion.. I must regret that such a discussion is necessary in an American Congress. Still more do I regret that it is made possible; that it is true that we are engaged in an effort to subjugate another people against their will to a rule distasteful to them. I would have said four years ago that it could never happen that this Republic would be pursuing a murderous warfare against another people for no offense in the world but their refusal to surrender their own liberty and become either a State in the Union against their will, or a colony outside of the Constitution. Who would have believed it? We thought we were writing a new page in the history of the world, declaring to all mankind that nations could do right; that the obligation was upon them as strongly as upon the individual; that the integrity and character and honor of the people in the aggregate was as sacred as the integrity and character and honor of the individual, who is a component part of the aggregation. And that this nation, dedicated to liberty, an example for the world, inviting all the oppressed of every land to share our freedom, should be proposing to raise an army to crush out the liberty sought for and fought for by another people, certainly marks an era in our affairs, and writes a page in our history burdened with everlasting disgrace and shame.

If Mr. McKinley's opponent had triumphed in the last campaign, to-day there would be no effort to pass an Army bill, no effort to raise taxes to carry on a conquest across the sea. This bill would not have been brought in; and on the 5th of next March the first act of the incoming Executive would have been to withdraw our troops from that country and

give its people their liberty. Five thousand men only would have been needed to protect American interests until the government could be restored, which we have partially destroyed in that country, which would have been to the satisfaction and contentment of the people who reside in those islands. I wish this might have happened. I believe it might have happened if the American people had not been deceived by withholding information and by disseminating among them false information concerning the issue.

I do not believe the great heart of the American people throbs in response to this policy of conquest; that the people favor this enlargement of an army for the single purpose of unprovoked conquest. I do not believe they will do other than condemn the paragraph in the bill which allows us to enlist savages to murder, burn, and rob the Christian people of the Philippines, as the Secretary of War says has been their practice.

M

CHAPTER XIII

THE SULTAN OF SULU

R. PRESIDENT,1 the Sulu group of islands are located between the island of Borneo and the island of Mindanao, of the Philippine group. They are 150 in number. These islands were conquered by the Mohammedans about eight centuries ago, and they have maintained, as long as we have any history of them, a government of their own, having an absolute monarch for a ruler. Spain claimed ownership over these islands, and has undertaken at various times to take possession of them. Her power and authority reached the distance only from the shores of the islands which could be traversed by projectiles from the cannon of her fleet. These people have been pirates and slaveholders and polygamists from the earliest record of their transactions.

In 1876 Spain undertook to conquer their islands and assert her authority over them, but the effort failed; and finally the aggressive powers entered into a treaty with the Sultan by which Spain was to keep an officer representing that Government and a small number of troops at the capital of the Sulu group. The Sultan agreed to recognize the suzerainty of the King of Spain and promised to suppress piracy. He received from Spain certain salaries as compensation for his recognition of the suzerainty of the King of Spain.

Whether or not the commissioners at Paris knew what they were buying I can not tell; but in some way we purchased the entire group, including all the Philippines; and we now find that the Sultan not only has the Sulu group under his jurisdiction and control, but also the large island of Mindanao, embracing an area as large as the State of Indiana, and also the 1. Speech in the Senate January 24, 1900.