Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-09-08

ing but the official view of all events
and conditions, even when the official
view controverted the opinions of the
great mass of the officers in the field
and Of intelligent residents and was a
Justification of events which passed be-
fore our eyes. In this way every fight
became a glorious American victory,
even though every one in the army
knew it to have been substantially a
failure, and we were drilled into writ
ing quite mechanically wholly ridicu-
lous estimates of the numbers of Fill
pinos killed, knowing that if we wrote
any other description than the sort be-
ing telegraphed to the war department
our work would be wasted
Repeated appeals made by all the
correspondents to their papers to Sc
cure change in censorship methods had
been fruitless, and as conditions stead
lily grew worse, and failure was piled
upon failure, while we were sending
rose-colored pictures of successful war
and inhabitants fiocking to the Ameri-
can standard, the repeated suggestions
of correspondents that eve must do
something" resulted in a formal meet
ing. All were agreed that their work
was being made a farce, the papers
were wasting money in keeping them
here, that Otis might as well detail
some of his clerks to do the work
On comparing notes we found that
we had among us learned the views of
all the American generals and most of
the other prominent men in Manila,
whose opinions were worth considera-
ton, and that there was practical
unanimity of opinions of the situation.
The dispatch prepared was an epitome
of those opinions. These men had told
us continually that Our reports were
misleading the people at home, and
that it was our duty to tell the truth
from army officers of high rank and
men Of all classes has been something
tremendous. and we have been accused
OF cowardice and all sorts of things.
Then followed a month of history
repeating itself. Before the movement
on Antipolo Taypay and Morong we
were told that it must inevitably result
in the capture and destruction of Pr
lars army of two or three thousand
men; then the same predictions were
made Of the movement to the south OF
Cavite province; next the collapse was
about to come through the surrender
of General Tries, who would bring over
his army
About the middle of June I wrote
a conservative review to the effect that
everyone here was convinced that il
would be impossible to end the wal
during the rainy season and for some
time thereafter unless heavy reinforce
ments were sent.
THE CENSOR'S COMMENT q
MADE NOTE OF IT'D WAS: "oF
COURSE WE ALL KNOW THAT WE
ARE IN A TERRIBLE MESS OUT
HERE, BUT WE DON'T WANT THE
PEOPLE TO GET EXCITED ABOUT
1T. IF YOU FELLOWS WILL ONLY
KEEP QUIET NOW WE WILL PULL
THROUGH IN TIME WITHOUT ANY
FUSS AT HOME.
He took the story to General Otis
said: Tell Collins that if he will hold
that for week or 10 days he will
thank me for not letting him send it
and when | went to see him repeated
the same old story about the insur.
rection going to pieces, and limited SC
portentiously about having wonderful
things up his sleeve that | almost be
lieved him in the face of past exper-
fences of the same sort. The othel
men had practically the same exper
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