Gloucester County Democrat., 1902-06-05
DEFENDS THE ARMY
President Roosevelt's Address to
Veterans at Arlington.
PHILIPPINE WARFARE HUMANE

PHILIPPINE WARFARE HUMANE
He DepIored CrueIties and Said the
Nations Defenders Have Their De.
famers Today AS They Had In the
Civil War.
Washington, May 31.-Tae address
of President Roosevelt at the memorial
exercises in Arlington yesterday was
the most important deliyerance OF the
kind in many years. The patriotic
spirit of the occasion furnished him a
timely text for the expression of his
sentiments towards the country's de-
tenders of today as well as those of
generation ago.
The address was almost wholly de-
voted to a vigorous defense of the
United States army in the Philippines,
and partook of the nature of a presi-
Dental message to the people on sub
ject now engrossing their attention and
provoking acrimonious discussion in
the halls of congress. The president
said:
at is a good custom for our country
to have certain solemn holidays in
commemoration of our greatest men
and of the greatest crisises in our his
tory. There should be but few such
holidays. To increase their number
is to cheaper them. Washington and
Lincoln-the man who did most to
found the Union, and the man who did
most to preserve it-stand head and
shoulders above all ether public men.
and have by common consent won the
right to this pre-eminence.
"You whom 1 address today and your
comrades who wore the blue beside
you in the perilous years during which
strong, sad, patient Lincoln bore the
crushing load of national leadership,
performed the one feat the failure to
perform which would have meant de-
struction to everything which makes
the name America a symbol of hope
among the nations of mankind. You
left us reunited country.
"The army of the United States to-
day is carrying to completion small,
but trying and difficult war, in which
is involved not only the honor of the
flag, but the triumph of civilization
over the black chaos of savagery and
barbarism.
"The rules of warfare which have
been promulgated by the war depart
ment and accepted as the basis of
conduct by our troops in the field are
the rules laid down by Abraham Lin
coin when you, my hearers, were fight
ing for the Union. These rules pro-
vide, of course, for the just severity
necessary in war. But all cruel
ty is forbidden, and all harshness be-
yond what is called for by need. Our
enemies in the Philippines have not
merely violated every rule of war, but
have made of these violations their
only method of carrying on the war.
We would have been justified by Abra-
ham Lincolns rules of war in infinitely
greater severity than has been shown.
The fact really is that our warfare in
the Philippines has been carried on
with singular humanity. For every act
of cruelty by our men there have been
innumerable acts of forbearance, mag
nanimity and generous kindness. These
are the qualities which have character
lied the war as a whole The cruelties
have been wholly exceptional on our
part The guilty are to be punished;
but in furnishing them, let those who
sit at ease at home, who walk deli
cately and live in the soft places of
the earth, remember also to do them
common justice. Let not the effortless
and the untempted rail overmuch at
strong men who with blood and sweat
face years of toll and days and nights
of agony, and at need lay down their
lives in remote tropic jungles to bring
the light of civilization into the worlds
dark places. The warfare that has ex-
tended the boundaries of civilization
at the expense of barbarism and saw
agery has been for centuries one of the
humanity.
"It behooves us to keep a vigilant
watch to prevent these abuses and to
punish those who commit them; but
if because of them we finch from fin
ishing the task on which we have en-
tered, we show ourselves cravens and
weaklings, unworthy of the sires from
La It'll
abuses and to spare in the Civil War
Your false friends then called Grant
butcher and spoke of you who are
listening to me as mercenaries, as
'Lincoln's hirelings.' Abraham Lincoln
was singled out for especial attack be-
cause of his spirit of barbarous fe-
rocity.' Verify, these men who thus
foully slandered you have their heirs
today in those who traduce our armies
in the Philippines, who fix their eyes
on individual deeds of wrong so keen
| ly that at last they become blind to the
great work of peace and freedom that
has already been accomplished
"This should no more be a party
question than the war for the Union
should have been party question. At
this moment the man in highest office
in the Philippine Islands is the vice
governor, General Luke Wright. of
Tennessee, who gallantly wore the
gray in the Civil War, and who is now
working hand-in-hand with the head
of our army in the Philippines, Adna
Chaffee, who in the Civil War gallant
ly wore the blue. These two, and the
men under them, from the north and
from the south, in civil life and in mill
tary life, as teachers, as administra-
tors, as soldiers, are laboring nightly
for us who live at home. All honor to
them; and shame, thrice shame, to us
IL we fail to uphold their hands!"
WILL NOT ARBITRATE
President Baer Says Only Uncondi-
l..