Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1902-04-17
THE GENTLE ART OF WAR.


lordly Anglo-Saxon conducts himself
when embarked upon war against
what no considers an inferior race. In
South Africa Lord Kitchener has been
forced to end tho miserable existence
of two Australian officers who amused
themselves by killing clergymen,
women, and children, and even their
own men. Today we have the state
ment of De La Rey, the humane and
able captor of Lord Methuen, that the
British have not only used Boer women
as shields, hut have wantonly killed
others, whose names are given. DE La
Rey's own wife, it is said, has been
wandering over The yeldt with her six
children for six months, as a result Of
the orders of the very Lord Methuen
whom her husband treated so hand
somely.
In Manila, the American officer who
tortured Filipinos by giving them only
salt fish to eat and no water to drink,
has reached tho end of his rope and is
in Jail for vulgar embeZzlement In the
same place Major Il. w. r. Waller of
the United States Marines, an officer
of % years service, with hitherto
unblemished reputation, has been on
trial for three weeks on the charge of
numbering in cold blood no less tnan
II natives. One of these unfortunates
was publicly shot in different parts of
his body en- three successive days while
tied to tree, and was not put out of
his misery until the fourth day of his
agony had dawned---this in the name of
civilization and of the United States !!
There has been no denial on the part
of the accused of the correctness of
these charges, but merely an effort to
Justify them by the orders of the
general commanding in Samar, Jacob
II. Smith. Although Gen. Smith
denies that he gave the orders in ques-
tion, Major Waller today reiterates his
testimony on this point, and adds
corrohorative details. We print in
another column letter from an Ameri-
can civilian of standing and reputation
now in Manila, for whose integrity the
Evening Post vouches, and whose
recital of atrocities cannot fail to stir
deeply every true American who reads
it. Finally, in Washington, yesterday,
the Secretary Of War was severely criti-
cised for Withholding the report of an
American governor of a Philippine
province, said to be a major in the
army, whose grave charges against the
troops in his district have already been
referred to by Gen. Miles.
We do not recite this shameful record
of a week or two Of Imperialism in
order to bring the particular soldiers
of one nation or another into merited
obloquy. We are satisfied of our own
knowledge that there are many officers
in the American army who feel deeply
the shame of such happenings as have
been cited, and who would Fever lift u
finger to inflict the water-cure torture
or any other illegal punishment But
what we would call attention to again
is the inevitable decentralization which
attends every war, and particularly
every war against men of another
civilization or of another skin. So
frail is human nature that, whenever
one man obtains absolute control over
others, he must be watched to prevent
his abusing his powers. When those
powers are in the hands Of man
legally commissioned to burn, ravage,
and kill, and free to resort to almost
any measures to achieve his ends, the
chances are altogether that humanity
will be crowded to the wall or for
gotten.
How true this is, every war between
the white man and the brown goes to
show. Mortified as England was at
the terrors of the Indian mutiny, at
the frightful fate Of women and chill.
dren at the hands Of the natives, there
was still left moral sentiment which
protested in the name of Christianity
against the atrocities committed by
English troops in the unholy spirit of
revenge the hangings, the blowing from
guns, and the Wholesale massacres by
means Of which British dominion was
restored in India. Men like John
Bright and Lord Elgin could not sit
silent mt the thought of the British
flag covering such deeds, or of English
men sinking to the level of the fiends
of Cawnpore. They were quick to
realize the lasting damage which would
result to the whole moral tone of the
nation if there were not prompt pro-
tests against the deeds of their country
men. Similarly, it is necessary to call
public attention to what is going on in
the Philippines, however ungrateful
the task, and despite the protests of
Secretaries of War and of military
journals, just as it was right and
proper to reveal the barbarities of the
nclvllized" troops which entered
Pekin in 1900.
i1utts us dFe ING stories winch per-
sistently come from the Philippines,
despite official denials. as to the con
duct of the conquering forces. it would
be INFINITELY worse were they to pass
unnoticed in this country. The in
difference of partisans to such deeds
when committed by our own Anglo
Saxons is one of the most discouraging
signs of the times, in view of the public
Indignation at tho Spanish atrocities
in Cuba in 1898. Stories of such Latin
barbarisms as the shooting of Cuhans
in MORO Castle, us they stood with
their backs to the bullet riddled
death wall, melted our whole
American press and public to war
which has now resulted in similar
occurrences under our own Anglo Saxon
flag in far quarter Of the globe. Yet
there are now no blood red "extras,' -
no appeals for righteousness, 10 horrify-
ing pictures of Waller's victims PRAYING
for death, no mass meetings, no out
burst of the historic American SYM
pathy for down trodden and suffering
peoples. Even in England, in the heat
of the Boer war, there have heen gather
ings of protest, often at the risk of life
and limb for those who attended. But
our apathy must not be wholly at
tributed to the fact that it is our own
soldiers whom we must critise. War,
Gen. Gordon said, is organized cruelty,
pillage and murder. " 1t is more than
that. 1t destroys public conscience,
dulls the hearts and souls of men, and
in the long run subverts the best in
stincts of humanity, in both those who
take part in it and those who look on.
OF this, in the years to come, our
Philippine wrong doing will be cited
MS an indisputable proof.
Death of Admiral Kemnfl,s WIZ.