Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-28
SITUATION
IN ISLANDS
Ground Now Held By the
American Troops.
THE COMING CAMPAIGN
viii Not be Fought in the Flat Open
C0untry--Tearing Up the Railroads
Out Of Manila-Light Draught
Steam Boats Are Needed.

chicago, Oct 2S.--The Tribune to-day
| prints summary of the situation in the
/ Phlllpplne islands from it's special cor
respondent there. Richard H. Little.
The letter. which is dated Manila. Sept.
IA, says:
| Here are some figures, made sever. and
half months after our campaign
against the Filipinos began. Say II is
ol miles to Angeles: we hold possession
OF the railroad up to that point. We can
fairly claim possession of the land a
| half mile on each side of the track. We
nave possession of the wagon road AMI,
let us say. half mile on each side from
| San Fernando through Bacolor 10 Santa
Rita, eight miles, with four miles to
Guaga. We have a road from Malolos
TO Baliauag. II miles northeast. We can
clalm II square miles here. We have
| Mania, out as far as the waterwor,s.
/ hve miles away. That gives us, saw g
miles around the city. Then I'VE have the
road and half mile each side down IS
miles to Imus Then we have Calamba
and some other points on the lake thai
General Lawton captured before he was
|
preached by road. but by boat across the
La Guna de Bay and we only control the
land they stand on. Adding up our to-
! tai possessions we find we have III
square miles. The island of Luzon con-
tains $4,000 square miles,
Outside of Luzon, the insurrection
seems to be growing. The Insurgents
hold ports in Mindanao, the next largest
| island to Luzon, in the Philippines. aa.1
said to be rich in gold and silver mines,
! iron and copper, coal and other minerals,
/ besides possessing wonderful forests of
:! hard wood. No Americans have dared
! venture there as yet as General Otis has
sent no troops to the island. Englishmen
and Germans are proving about The
island getting all the concessions they
can. 1t is said several prospecting oar-
ties are at work.
General Otis reports conflicts betvaen
the 'robher bands and American SOL
! diers in Ne@ros and Cebu The Nine
teenth, the Fifteenth, the Sixteenth aad
one battalion of the Twenty third in
I fantrY are now in these two islands
i fighting the .srobber bands who dig
/ trenches and occupy towns and make
night attacks after the fashion or the in
surgents in Luzon. A la,e report from
| Cebu is that some 1000 robbers We're me-
! nacing our forces and a collision was
imminent.
], The next campaign is going to be dfA
ferent from the last. We will get out
, of the fiat open country. into the mount
anous, thickly wooded country. If we
do not end the war here we will have to
carry it into the high. rocky mountains
of Luzon. 1t will be no violation of a
state secret to say that the first object
of the next campaign will be to take
the rest of the railroad in the island from
the insurgents. The insurgents
ought to be firmly convinced by
this time that We want the Manila and
Dagupan road, as we have fought along
that line seven months. They know we
want it and they also know that we are
going to get it, for they are already tear
ing UP the track. burning the ties and
burying the rails north of Angeles. The
country east of the railroad, north of
Angeles and Dagupan, is much like it
is south of Manila, except higher and
more broken. West of the railroad are
high mountains, that will offer the in
surgents better opportunity of retreat
and escape than they had in the low
country. With the taking Of the rail-
road we will have cut off the provinces
of Zambaies, Paggasinan, Tarlac and
Pan Panga and Pataan from the main
part of the island and can lay claim to
good deal more country than the precise
amount of real estate on which our army
is now consisting.
The walled city cannot urAiarst and
why the enemy has SO much trouble with
the railroad. When the officers in the
field notify the walled city" that the
rails have been torn up from the sec
ton of track just captured and that the
ties have been burned and the grades de-
stroyed, they get an order TO fix it,"
So after a few miles of railroad are cap
tured the soldiers have to scatter u-.an2
down the track and go mining for steel
rails. The insurgents bury the rails five
or six feet deep. They observed that
the Americans located the rails b. sound
ing with crowbar. so they resorted to
the expedient of putting layer of ties
over the rails. To replace the burned