Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-03-02

conditions in the different islands. When
distances and difficulties of transportation
and numbers of men equipped and moved
are considered this expedition ranks among
the most notable in military history. Civil
administration governor involves the
task of creating a sound and wholesome
system adapted to existing conditions and
of gradually substituting it for that against
which the people have fevolted. and, in
the interval in order that anarchy may
not exist, of enforcing with absolutely es-
sential notifications the old Spanish laws
and customs.
The combined general and governor has
been beset at one time or another stimuli
taneously or in succession, net only by the
insurgents, but by our own impetuous volln-
teers, who under the impression that the
war was over and anxious to get home
developed until the situation was made
clear to them the possibility that the re-
public might be left without an army at
the time when che was most needed. Uncle
Sam has performed the difficult maneuver
of swapping war horses midstream- The
governor was beset also by the strong for
eign mercantile firms located in Manila
who resented the lmita tions upon their
trade necessarily imposed by the war He
was pulled This way and that by persons
with axes to grind and jobs to develop.
He had TO create a judicial system, and
to assume some OF the functions of law
giver. compelled to enforce the confused
Spanish laws while striving to codify, cor
rect and revise them in gradual preparation
for the substitution of a modern and Amer
lean system. He had to become the tax
Satherer of an empire, sitting at the re-
Ceipt Of custom, enforcing Spanish internal
revenue and customs laws and studying
them carefully in order that through judi
c,ous notifications a reasonable and hon
estly administered system might be evolved.
He had 10 create local civil governments
and ar educational system with hardly
an atom of foundation upon which to
build. Too often the labor set by the
Egyptian of making bricks without straw
was imposed upon him.
A Tremendous Task Well Performed.
Gen. Otis has attacked the task set for
him conscientiously, self-sacriffcingly and
with tremendous capacity for hard work.
A fourteen-hours day, instead of one un-
der the eight hours law represents his Pc
riod Of labor. A weak man would have
been completely overwhelmed with the
multifarious duties imposed upon him in
conducting an active military campaign in
the tropics and in caring for a great army
of men in part unaccustomed to war and
confronted by new and strange conditions,
and in serving at the same time virtually
and temporarily as President, Congress and
Supreme Court in relation to millions of
Asiatics
New Years did not mean holiday for Gen.
Otis, but it relieved the pressure upon him
so that 1 was enabled, in the course of a
long conversation, to secure from him in
teresting statements concerning conditions
and prospects in the islands. His official
headquarters are in the palace of old Ma
Mia, on the plaza, next to the cathedral of
walled city whisked from the surface of
southern Spain by some Arabian Nights
process. and set down in the tropics, with
Its moat and bastions. its narrow, gloomy
streets. showing on the building line the
blank and forbidding walls OF monasreries
and converts, or the plain, uuinvitinS ex-
teriors. broken only by cage-llke projecting
balconies which bar sight Of and entrance
to the spacious and attractive interiors of
many Spanish homes.
To reach the Office of Gen Otis one en-
tiers the impressive vestibule and ascends
to the second floor of the palace. the Wide
staircase dominated by a marble statue of
Magellan, the Columbus and Capt Cook of
the Philippines.
Questioned concerning the promise of the
New Year for the Philippines, Gen. Otis
said:
The Years Outlook.
THE year opens with favorable condi
tions and prospects. There is no actual war
in the modern sense anywhere in the is
lands. Fighting the Filipinos is not even
the most important military problem
transporting and feeding and caring for