Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-05-16

Ing the great HumD9f Oh Qedd anu
wounded insurgents all around them
because million of theix lives are not
worth the life Of one of our brave
Americans and think they were just
about right. Went over to our right.
Saw a lot of dead insurgents on a
heap in trench. On our way
to town we picked up a number OF
relics. These deserted homesteads are
now being ransacked by our men and
Cinnamon. The Cinnamon are making
lot of money out of it, because they
are at it from morning until night,
hauling in clothing, furniture and valu-
ables.'
May not those desolated homes in
the Philippines move American hearts
as well as the same sad scenes IN
Samoa, Of which Mrs. Stevenson
writes:
President Mckinley allowed no fir
ing on Cuban towns unless they gave
active cause of offense, and Commodore
Watson was ordered not to attack I'M
defended Spanish cities. Does the
President keep his humanity for civil
lied countries alone?
Chief Justice Chambers has been
represented as saying in letter to his
brother: Il never was happier He
must be a person singularly devoid OF
imagination if he never pictured to
himself the scenes being enacted in the
bombardmeIt of those village the ex-
odus of panic-stricken people rushing
hither and thither; shells bursting
everywhere; the cries of bedridden and
helpless, wounded people burning alive
in their blazing houses; women sick,
mangled children crawling on the
sands, the sea before them and the bush
behind them. And we read that the
woods also were shelled. Who is to be
held accountable for these deeds that
disgrace both England and American
''Such scenes as these seem to have
touched the true American heart OF
one brave boy in blue, and this cannot
be blamed to 'seditious' matter mailed
from America. He writes
What we have all been expecting
long came. We were all very anxious
to have it come, but | for one don't
| care for any more of it, because what
I went through and what | witnessed
this night changes my opinion of the
horrors of war entirely. A lot of in
surgents. who were in the dark and
whom we had not seen, opened fire on
us with Mauser rifles. Here is where
I witnessed the most terrible sight i'm
imaginable, and one which | shall never
I forget Thousands of women and child
rem were coming out of their homes and
running around in the flames, lost, with
their clothes afire, screaming. Horses,
| dogs and other animals were running
around trying to keep out of the flames,
until they would become crazy and go
right into the worst part of it. This
sight had bad effect on us, and made
us feel faint and sick. Thousands of
| women and children must have perish
ed in the flames. Some of the boys
got lots of money
''The writer closes the account as
usual with these significant words:
Remember that all the letters I
write are for you and the folks at home
| only, and are not written to be pub
lished. Some of my letters to friends
| were published, and one of them cost
me great deal of trouble
Nov, I claim, Mr.. President, that a
contest which cannot safely be made
known in all its awful details to the
right, and that the action which seeks
to stifle free speech and stop free mails
in America and the Philippines is.
There is no word which will express
it in an American vocabulary, and Il
hope there never will be.
But it seems that this combination
of military censorship and inquisition
is responsible for untold terrors;
THAT but for this military despot-
ISM which We have adopted, they need
| never have been;
''That had we treated the Filipinos
from the first as fairly as we should.
they would not have been;
THAT military de5potism is the chief
cause of the massacre of thousands of
| men, women and children, without
mercy;
THAT it has needlessly DESTROYED
thousands of happy homes, that now
are nothing but desolate ruins:
THAT before the laws of God and
man alike we are guilty of wholesale
murder, pilage and arson for allowing
it.
Liberty cannot live in America any
more than in Manila with such a cen
sorship upon the press Still more
dangerous and obnoxious is either a
civil or military inquisition of our
mails. 1t amounts in the Philippines
to virtual suppression of free speech
among Americans. When friend fears
to write facts to friend, or brother to
brother, or sister or son to father or
mother, or husband to wife, lest they
should suffer for stating the truth,
something which the censorship seeks
to conceal must be seriously wrong in
the Philippines.
Surely no censor should conceal the
truth of this terrible contest either
from you, our beloved president, or
from the American people If there is
nothing wrong, there is nothing that
should be so concealed, and if some
thing is wrong. it should not be con
cealed. So whether things are right or
wrong, such censorship should cease
and freedom both of press and speech
be preserved.
Yours most sincerely.
H. H. VAN METER"