The Irish standard., 1898-10-15
AN AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT
Traduced by the Rig Liar of the
Associated Press.
sIHE PRIESTS AND INSURGENTS
Talked Pleasantly and Humorously
With His Visitor.

If fame be indeed as good a thing as
King Harry asserted it to be in his
speech to his soldiers before the battle
of Agincourt, then few have gained more
by the present war than the archbishop
of Manila. Before the outbreak of the
war, few people in this country could
have told that there was such a person
as the archbishop of Manila. Probably
a small percentage of the children in the
schools were aware there was town,
somewhere in the world Of that name,
which exported high grade of hemp. A
few may have known that this town was
in the Philippine islands, and still fewer
that the Philippine islands were some
where south of China. Now, everybody
" knows, or thinks he knows, all there is
to know about the Philippines. L,1zon
has become as familiar as Cook county,
and Manila is more talked of than Chi
cago, says the New World.
AS for the archbishop of Manila, he
hight almost say, as Lord Byron said on
The occasion of the publication of Childe
Harold, that he went to bed unknown
and awoke famous. His first introduc-
tton to fame was when the Associated
!. Press man introduced him to the people
of this country as the modern represent
ative of the warrior prelate of the middle
ages. We were then assured that he was
very ferocious man indeed. He would
hear of nothing but war to the knife and
resistance to the last ditch; and, if need
We're, he was entirely ready to lead the
Spanish forlorn hope in person. 1t has
since transpired that these statements
were absolutely untrue; but that did not
interfere with their picturesque effect, or
prevent them from being the means of
making the archbishop famous
Now, we have very different charac-
ter of this famous archbishop drawn by
Murat Halsted in letter to the Chicago
Record. 1t would be difficult to imagine
two personalities more diametrically op-
posed than the archbishop of Manila, as
drawn by the Associated Press man, and
the same archbishop as drawn by MI
Halsted. According to the former, the
archbishop cordially indorsed the fan
tastic notion that, in order to satisfy
Spanish honor, it was necessary to have
considerable number Of men killed in
the taking of Manila, even though the
chances of successful resistance were
wholly desperate. Mr.. Halsted begins
by assuring us that so wholly opposite
was this to the truth that, in fact, the
archbishop, at the council held after Ad-
miral Deweys victory strongly urged
the duty of surrendering the city on the
ground that to resist would be to sacri-
flee human life uselessly and therefore
sinfully. Mr. Halsted then tells us the
sort of man he found the archbishop to
be-a remarkably intelligent man with
broad views; not in the least a fire.
eater, but rather inclined to welcome the
prospect of peace and security for the
law-abiding which permanent Ameri-
can occupation of the city would hold
FORTH Now, it will be in order for the
Associated Press man to have another
innings. And, by the time he has got
through with his side of the case, we
shall be in a position to form a compre-
hensive, If not an entirely accurate con-
ception Of this very remarkable and
many-sided archbishop, who has leaped
so suddenly into fame.
The gentleman with A. P. A. proclivi-
ties, who represents the Associated Press
at Manila, gave us, at one time, very
alarming picture of the archbishop of
thS..s.a:ty. In the very interesting letters
which he has been writing for the Chi
cago Record, Murat Halsted has given us
a picture Of the archbishop as he is,
which is something very different indeed
from the image which was evolved in the
brain of the Associated Press man. We
extract the following passages from Mr..
Halsted's letter:
The intense feeling BY the Philippine
insurgents against the Spanish priests
made it seem very desirable to see the
archbishop of Manila, and he informed
two American priests that he would have
pleasure in making an expression of his
views to me to be placed before the peo-
pie Of the United States He had been
charged with extreme vindictiveness and
the responsibility of demanding that the
city should be defended to the last ex-
tremity, when actually, in the consulta-
tion Of dignitaries that took place when
the surrender of the capital was de-
manded by Gen. Merritt and Admiral
Dewey, he declared the situation hope
less, and that it was plain duty to pre-
vent the sacrifice Of life. He was over