The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-08-04
CAPT. 0'CONNOR ADDRESSES KRUGER
Whole English Empire Engaged
in the Bloody War.
RNGLAND'S PRESTIGE IS SHATTERED
British Brutality at Spion Kop
Without a Parallel.

| In letter to the New York Herald,
dated Pretoria, April ~, Richard Hard
ing Davis, the American war CORE
spondent, writes in part as follows:
! They have sent out the regular army,
the reserves, the militia, the volunteers,
three dukes, the Honorable Artillery
Company, the postofficc clerks, the bar
risters from the Temple, the cashiers
from the bank, the ycomen from the
farms, the Especial corps" Of gentle
men," the croftcrs and gillies from Scot
land, the caddics from the golf links,
the Canadian rough riders, the Austria
liam mounted police, the New Zealand
Light Horse, the Bengal Lancers, the
| Indian coolies.
/ They have Sent the good queen to
Ireland for the first time in half CEN
fury electionecring, and have bribed the
Irish with the privilege, which they
should always have enjoyed, of standing
guard at St. James palace. They have
robbed the ships Of war Of men and
guns, they have coquetted with poverty
stricken Portugal, they have sent all the
way to Klondike to get all American to
act as their chief of scouts, and they
have finally sent their two great gen.
erals to the front, only to find that they
have but one great general, and that
the other, upon whom they had lavishly
bestowed fortune and title, is not a
tactician nor fighting man, but an in
teligcnt train dispatcher and chief Of
commissariat.
We have small war OF our own on
Our hands at present. We have an army
OF 10000 men locked up in the Philip
pines, having taken all Of its chief cities,
from none of which it darcs move at
night for fear Of being captured. In
Our newspapers we give our war short
quarter OF column of space a day,
partly because we are rightly ashamed
of it, and partly because we are too
busy over other things to treat it except
as an incident.
The Boer treats his war as an Incl
dent. He is not hysterical. He does not
repeat every old woman's tale OF poi
soncd wells and poisoned bullets, OF
trcacherous white flags, or talk Of hang
ing rebels, nor accuse the enemy Of
cruelty, brutality and firing on Red
Cross flags. When man is in the
wrong he invariably busters and makes
wild accusations to cover up the fact
that he is ashamed OF himself and oil
what he is doing.
1t must be because the English are SC
conscious of the enormity of this wal
that they rail as they do at the Boer
The Bocr, with his independence threat
encd, might be excused if he rallied al
the men who arc trying to rob him, but
he does not. He is only somewhat hur
and a good deal dazed at the charges
they make against him, but he is still
good humorcd, calm and determined.
For the last four months l have sal
in tents, OIL steamer decks and on the
terrace OF the Mount Nelson hotel and
listened to old friends from London talk
on this war with spirit OF intolerance
unfairncss and crcdulity which made me
doubt if they could possibly be the
same sportsmanlike, hcalthy-mindcd
wcll-balanced men that / had formerly
known. Never in its most unlicensed
moments did the yellow press of Amer
lea concoct such absurd stories as clean
limbcd, clean-mindcd English officers
will believe and rctcll against the Bocr,
their enemy, whom few of them, except
those who have surrendered to him.
have ever seen.
I Compare their attitude of mind to-
ward the Bocr with the attitude OF the
Bocr toward thcm--thc Bocr who has
had to suffer many things, who has
every excuse to ccnsurc, who has much
to forgive.
The wife OF one OF the chief men III
the republic told me OF call she made
on Mrs. Kruger three days after the
battle Of Spon Kop. will report what
happened exactly in her words. She
found the wife OF the president rcd-cycd
with weeping and in state of COM
plctc detection. "The president" cx-
planned Mrs. Kruger, "has just received
telegram from General Botha. He
says the English have not buried their