The free lance. (Fredericksburg, Va.) 1885-1926, 1899-05-02
From The Brown Mans Country
rhc Baltimore sun say

] WIN III ilTliin' 'tf ft|'iN lii'.'t ''
hcmently that Baltimore is IA white
man city, will cOnccdr that the Phil-
| lppinc Islands have been from tune im-
memorial "thc brown mans country, -
at least that is the teaching Of history.
which in matter of this kind. can.
not be- supposed 10 lie They were the
brown man S country, inhabited, own
ed and governed by brown men, for
countless centuries before the Splniards
eyer appeared upon the scene. Dur
my the three hundred and fifty years
Of nominal Spanish rule, they continued
practically the brown mans c0nn-
try still, and down % tine arrival II
the Americans within the las twelve
months. the population was yari0u-iy
estimated a. consisting Of eight T. ten
millions Of brosn men, one hundred
thousand yellow men. chiefly Chinese
IN aud about Manila, and about fifteen
thousand white men, nearly all Span
iards.
The Spaniards. during their long
stay in the islands, never seemed 70
have pursued the policy Of Pizzaro IN
Peru or Cortez in Mexico. nor was Wey-
Ter when captain general Of the Philip
pines, distinguished for any of those
actions which made his name famous,
or infamous In Cuba What effect upon
the population is being produced by the
policy Of benevolent assimilation,
and the vigorous methods Of ciyiliza-
tion and OhristianizatiOn introduced
under the Presidents recent proclama-
tions, we are without the means Of
knowing with absolute certainty, in
the absence Of recent statistics. Still,
private letters from soldiers serving in
the Philippines serve to supply, to
some extent, the deficiencies in the
cable dispatches in this respect Thus,
a Mr.. n. A. j. Mcdonald Of Salt
Lake City, serving in the Utah bat
terry, writing on the 22d OF February,
says: "Onicial reports say over four
thousand two hundred natives have
been buried by American troops. How
many they have buried themselves and
how many are dead in the brush no one
knows
At still latter date, February q, a
member Of the Tenth Pennsylvania
writes. 1--WE have been in this niger.
lighting business now for twenty three
days, and rave been under fire for the
greater part Of the time. The niggers
shoot over one anothef's heads or any
other old way. Even while | am writ
ing this, the black boys are banging
away at our outposts, but they very
seldom hit anybody The morning Of
the Gth a burying detail from our regi-
ment buried forty-nine niger Unlisted
men and two niger officers, and
when we stopped chasing them the
night before we could see them carry
ing a great many with them We are
supposed to have killed about three
hundred. "
A member of the Washington regi-
ment, describing the scene after the
lighting around Manila. says: The
next day after the battle we went over
the battle field in squads. burying the
dead niggers. saw seventy -four bur.
led in one hole We would rake them
up in a pile, dig hole and dump them
in, throw little dirt over them and
90 ahead In the path of the Wash
ington regiment and Battery ID, Of the
Sixth Artillery, there were 00S dead
niggers and great many wounded.
We burned all their houses. | don't
know how many men, women and
children the Tennessee boys did kill.
They would not take any prisoners.
One company of the Tennessee boys
were sent into headquarters with thirty
prisoners. and got there with about
100 chickens and no prisoners "
A member Of the Kansas regiment,
describing the scene of yet latter date,
the charge of his regiment at Oaloocan,
writes Enthusiastically: 1T was fine
shooting, as if it was open ground we
picked them off like quail. " The
same writer adds: Company had
taken a few prisoners and stopped.
The colonel ordered them into line and
finally sent Captain Bishop back to
start them. There occurred the hard
est sight ever saw They had four
prisoners, and did not know what to do
with them. They asked Captain Bish.
op what to do, and he said "You know
the ORDERS" and four natives fell
dead -
The New York Evening Post, in ad-
dition to the foregoing extracts in an
editorial article on Monday upon "Our
Savage War for Humanity. copies
from the Brooklyn Eagle of Sunday a
private letter just received from Fred
B. Hinchman, formerly a student in
the Polytechnic Institute, who is now
serving with Company A, United
States Engineers, and whose testimony,
it adds, on this point would of itself
be conclusive Writing from Manila
on the 22d of February and describing
the first engagement between our forces
and the natives, Mr.. Hinchman says:
AT 1 80 o'clock the general gave me
a memorandum with regard to sending
out Tennessee battalion to the line
He tersely put it that they were look
ing for fight At the Puente Col
gante suspension BRIDGE met one of
our company, who told me that the
Fourteenth and Washingtons were driv-