I therefore look upon the war as unnecessary, and consider the lives already sacrificed, and that will have to be sacrificed, as absolutely thrown away.
The tragical side of American unpreparedness is manifest in the state of anarchy in which the whole Archipelago has been plunged by the American unreadiness to occupy the military posts as soon as they were vacated by the Spanish garrisons. A hideous orgy of murder, plunder, and slave-raiding has prevailed in Visayas, and especially in Mindanao.
Three conditions were essential to a peaceful settlement:—
First.—A broad-minded and sympathetic representative of America, fully authorized to treat, and a lover of peace.
Second.—A strict discipline amongst the American forces.
Third.—The principal aim and object of the Tagal insurrection must be secured.
General Otis does not seem to me to fulfil the first condition, he lacked prestige and patience, and he showed that he had an insufficient conception of the magnitude of his task by occupying himself with petty details of all kinds and by displaying an ill-timed parsimony. Apparently he had no power to grant anything at all, and only dealt in vague generalities which the Tagals could not be expected to accept.
As regards the second point, I regret that I am not personally acquainted with the gentlemen from Nebraska, Colorado, Dakota and other states serving in the United States Army or volunteers. I have no doubt that they are good fighting-men, but from all I can hear about them they are not conspicuous for strict military discipline, and too many of them have erroneous ideas as to the most suitable drink for a tropical climate.
Manila was in the time of the Spaniards a most temperate city; a drunken man was a very rare sight, and would usually be a foreign sailor. Since the American occupation, some hundreds of drinking saloons have been opened, and daily scenes of drunkenness and debauchery have filled the quiet natives with alarm and horror. When John L. Motley wrote his scathing denunciation of the army which the great Duke of Alva led from Spain into the Low Countries, “to enforce the high religious purposes of Philip II.,” not foresee that his words would be applicable to an American Army sent to subjugate men struggling to be free “for their welfare, not our gain,” nor that this army, besides bringing in its train a flood of cosmopolitan harlotry,[2] would be allowed by its commander to inaugurate amongst a strictly temperate people a mad saturnalia of drunkenness that has scarcely a parallel.
Such, however, is undoubtedly the case, and I venture to think that these occurrences have confirmed many of the Tagals in their resolve rather to die fighting for their independence than to be ruled over by such as these.