The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-07-21

heard, and why shouldn't we want to
get home?
The volunteers in the Philippines
have demonstrated to the world that
they can fight, that they are not COW
ards as they were represented to be in
cuba, that they can, with guns that will
not shoot half as far as the ones used
by the enemy, move forward and when
they get in range of the enemy he is
gone.
But is this any reason why they
should do it all? Is it necessary that
they should wade mud, sWamps and
rivers, endure the heat of tropical
sun, be half fed and half clothed, sleep
on the battlefield while the rain IS
pouring down at the rate of an inch
per hour? Must they do all this while
their regular brothers sit around in nice
cool barracks and do nothing, not be-
cause they do not fight as well, but be-
cause they are not given a chance
No doubt we have earned a big name
in this war, but it has been dearly earn
ed, and 1t will be still dearer before we
get away. Out of about a thousand
men who were fit for duty in the Kan
SaS regiment when hOstilitieS broke out,
scarcely half that many are on the line
now. 1 saw a company in the Nebraska
regiment with sixteen men only, and
commanded by a corporal all his SEN
Tor officers being in the hospital
on, 1t IS fun, this war; we are heroes,
they say. 1t will be so nice to go out
to the cemetery, where there is a newly
MADE grave, take off your hat and say
there Is d nero VINO Q1GQ OF I6Ver or was
shot in the Philippines. Praises do that
man great deal of good nit" We
have a good name and that is all we
can get out of it. We have not saved
the Union, we have not gained anybody
their independence, we have not avenged
the blowing up of the Maine. We have
just simply whipped a few thousand
poor ignorant MalayS who wanted to
attend to their own affairs and us to
do the same Well, 1 have written
enough OF that kind of stuff. I do not
want you to think 1 am kicking, but
When you are reading of the brave
deeds of the Twentieth Kansas, think
a little bit of the other Commonly called
the dark side of the thing.
L am still in excellent health, have
just eaten a dinner (of bacon on the
rind'D hard tack, black coffee, cream
and mango sauce. The latter delicacy
is one of my own get up and is very
good. The mango is about the size of
a pear and shaped like a paw paw
when ripe it is awful good raw; and
when green they make the finest sauce
ana preserves imaginable. with DlpntV
of sugar, which is plentiful here, nearly
every other house being a sugar ware
house, and every where are cane fields
half grown and entirely deserted by the
owners. We have left nearly all the
rice fields behind US and are within a
days march of the mountains on three
sides of US. We are forty miles north
of Manila and in the largest town on
the end of the island. The town is full
of dogs which howl constantly at night
and Amigos" whose banner is a white
flag, whose weapons are eggs and
bananas, and whose battle cry is
Amigo (friend.)
Well, we have had another battle
since last wrote. It was like all the
rest. Kansas crossed another bridge
and drove the ''niggers'' out of another
trench and another town, killed a good
many and captured twenty-five
L am very sorry to read so many in
fernal lies written by soldiers here
Kansas has done some remarkable
things. She has done her whole duty.
but she has, fear, been blowed up too
much by her own men. ''Self-praise is
half scandal you know, and while we
are gaining big name in the states
we are getting the i'll will of the other
troops in the Philippines. Nebrask
South Dakota, Montana, and the Third
artillery, have been with us all the way.
and while it fell to our lot to probably
do little more than they, they did
their duty and deserves as much cred
it.
No soldier cares for such a reputation
as the Rough Riders" because every
soldier knows that dead men don't win
battles, and that any one who is fool
enough can go out and get shot But it
IS the man who shoots and keeps from
getting shot that wins the victory. and
as said in one of my letters before
this, many a man would be alive and
Well, who is either dead or nursing a
wound, If he had kept himself behind
rice dyke when he had the chance