Washington sentinel., 1901-04-06
A KANSAS HERO.
Funston's Act wins applause at
Sacrifice of Honor.

He has done great and noble
deedl-says w. A. Croffut in the
POSt-the greatest and noblest
deed that our soldiers have per-
formed since they shot Sitting Bull
dead when he was a prisoner Of
war, and killed his men, women
and children at pence conference
at Wounded Knee. OF this last
victory Brig, Gen. Colby says:
"One hundred warriors, and one
hundred and twenty women and
children were found dead on the
field the object being only
to kill Indians regardless OF age or
SEX"
To be sure, Gen. Funston is not
wholly original. His cunning is
not without precedent. The sub
lime art OF duplicity is not new.
The good Gen. Jesup, in Florida,
entrapped Osceola under a flag Of
truce and held him prisoner until
he died Of grief. Lord Give served
England in India by forgeries and
lying that would disgrace a canni-
bal, if they had not been in such
holy cause. The fact that tor
century and a half his name has
been detested by all decent men.
only shows that good men some
times are martyrs to progress and
benevolent assimilation.
Gen. William Henry Harrison,
during hostilities accepted Tecum-
seh's invitation and visited him in
his tent, accompanied only by an
interpreter. One Of the great
chiefs British allies suggested that
he might detain his guest as pris-
oner, and to him the uneducated
savage scornfully replied; 81 am
a fighter, not liar" So Black
hawk received Gen. Gaines under
a flag of truce, and it does not
seem to have occurred to the tool
isb warrior to seize or kill his very
troublesome enemy. They had
not learned the white mans
"stratagem."
William Wallace, the renowned
Scotch patriot, was captured by
the identical "ruse" now repeated
by the great Funston and the
"ialse Monteith" has tor 600 years
been execrated throughout Scot
land. BY the way. when Wallace
was arraigned for treason he repu-
dated the charge on the ground
that man could not be a traitor
to country to which he had never
acknowledged allegiance - the
same plea that is now made by the
wicked Aguinaldo. And it is
worth remembering that the-be-
heading Of Wallace wakened the
slumbering soul of Robert Bruce
to lead the Scotch to victory and
restore the Liberties OF his country.
So the romantic and heroic
Montrose was betrayed to the
heaeIsman by degenerate Scotch
man, OF whom the Edinburgh poet
says:
A traitor sold him to his foes;
o, deed Of deathless shame
charge thee, boy, if e'er thou meet
With one of Assynt's name
Be it upon the mountain side,
Or set within the glen,
Stand he in martial gear alone,
Or backed by armed mem
Face him as tho u would'st face the man
Who wronged thy sire's Tenown;
Remember of what blood thou art,
And strike the caitiff down.
Gen. Funston's exploit is not
new even in Manila. Several years
ago the same useful Macabebes
made the same identical PROPOSE
ton to PolaVisja-that they would
go under pretense Of surrendering
some Spanish officers, and with the
plausible lie capture the trouble
some Aguinaldo. Polavieja was
worse than Weyler-the most
cruel and inhuman of all the Span.
ish generals-the wretch who shot
Rizal-but he had some self re.
spect left, and was not trained to
latest diplomacy" so he only
laughed and said, "Oh, no! no!
that would be too dirty trickw
This feat OF Funston's makes us
wonder why Washington and Gen.
Grant did not resort to similar tao
tics. In the confused battles Of
the Wilderness there were several
occasions when Gen. Grant might
have captured Lee in this way.
He might have summoned Sheri-
dan to his tent and said: "See here,
Phil, this Lee has bothered us now
for three years. / want you to
dress yourself in your best uni
form, get a Confederate flag and
bag oi corn meal. capture a rebel
sentinel, and subject him to the
water cure torture till he tells you
the countersign, then take a hun.