Since, as you state in your letter to the Tribune, “the case against Mr. Ament would fall to the ground” if Mr. Ament denied the truth of the Sun’s first dispatch, and if the ‘Sun’s’ news agency in Peking also declared that dispatch false, and these two conditions have thus been fulfilled, I am sure that upon having these facts brought to your attention you will gladly withdraw the criticisms that were founded on a “cable blunder.”
I think Dr. Smith ought to read me more carefully; then he would not make so many mistakes. Within the narrow space of two paragraphs, totaling eleven lines, he has scored nine departures from fact out of a possible 9½. Now, is that parliamentary? I do not treat him like that. Whenever I quote him, I am particular not to do him the least wrong, or make him say anything he did not say.
(1) Mr. Ament doesn’t “deny the truth of the C. E. dispatch”; he merely changes one of its phrases, without materially changing the meaning, and (immaterially) corrects a cable blunder (which correction I accept). He was asked no question about the other four fifths of the C. E. dispatch. (2) I said nothing about “special” correspondents; I named the right and responsible man--Mr. Chamberlain. The “correction” referred to is a repetition of the one I have just accepted, which (immaterially) changes “thirteen times” to “one third” extra tax. (3) I did not say anything about “the Sun’s news agency”; I said “Chamberlain.” I have every confidence in Mr. Chamberlain, but I am not personally acquainted with the others. (4) Once more--Mr. Ament didn’t “deny the truth” of the C. E. dispatch, but merely made unimportant emendations of a couple of its many details. (5) I did not say “if Mr. Ament denied the truth” of the C. E. dispatch: I said, if he would assert that the dispatch was not “authorized” by him. For example, I did not suppose that the charge that the Catholic missionaries wanted 680 Chinamen beheaded was true; but I did want to know if Dr. Ament personally authorized that statement and the others, as coming from his lips. Another detail: one of my conditions was that Mr. Chamberlain must not stop with confessing that the C. E. was a “false invention,” he must also confess that it was “unauthorized.” Dr. Smith has left out that large detail. (6) The Sun’s news agency did not “declare the C. E. dispatch false,” but confined itself to correcting one unimportant detail of its long list--the change of “13 times” to “one third” extra. (7) The “two conditions” have not “been fulfilled”--far from it. (8) Those details labeled “facts” are only fancies. (9) Finally, my criticisms were by no means confined to that detail of the C. E. dispatch which we now accept as having been a “cable blunder.”
Setting to one side these nine departures from fact, I find that what is left of the eleven lines is straight and true. I am not blaming Dr. Smith for these discrepancies--it would not be right, it would not be fair. I make the proper allowances. He has not been a journalist, as I have been--a trade wherein a person is brought to book by the rest of the press so often for divergencies that, by and by, he gets to be almost morbidly afraid to indulge in them. It is so with me. I always have the disposition to tell what is not so; I was born with it; we all have it. But I try not to do it now, because I have found out that it is unsafe. But with the Doctor of course it is different.
EXHIBIT G
I wanted to get at the whole of the facts as regards the C. E. dispatch, and so I wrote to China for them, when I found that the Board was not going to do it. But I am not allowed to wait. It seemed quite within the possibilities that a full detail of the facts might furnish me a chance to make an apology to Mr. Ament--a chance which, I give you my word, I would have honestly used, and not abused. But it is no matter. If the Board is not troubled about the bulk of that lurid dispatch, why should I be? I answered the apology-urging letters of several clergymen with the information that I had written to China for the details, and said I thought it was the only sure way of getting into a position to do fair and full justice to all concerned; but a couple of them replied that it was not a matter that could wait. That is to say, groping your way out of a jungle in the dark with guesses and conjectures is better than a straight march out in the sunlight of fact. It seems a curious idea.
However, those two clergymen were in a large measure right--from their point of view and the Board’s; which is, putting it in the form of a couple of questions:
1. Did Dr. Ament collect the assessed damages and thirteen times over? The answer is: He did not. He collected only a third over.
2. Did he apply the third to the “propagation of the Gospel?” The answer is this correction: He applied it to “church expenses.” Part or all of the outlay, it appears, goes to “supporting widows and orphans.” It may be that church expenses and supporting widows and orphans are not part of the machinery for propagating the Gospel. I supposed they were, but it isn’t any matter; I prefer this phrasing; it is not so blunt as the other.
In the opinion of the two clergymen and of the Board, these two points are the only important ones in the whole C. E. dispatch.