Connecticut western news., 1902-06-05
DEFENDS THE ARMY.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT SPEAKS AT ARLINGTON ON PHILIPPINE WAR.

Declares That the Mission of Our
 Military and Civil omcers There |.
 to Bring Justice and Responsible
 Government to the Fnipinos.
 In connection with the Memorial
 day services at the Arlington National
 cemetery President Roosevelt delivered
 an oration in which he referred at con
 siderable length to the United States
 army in the Philippines and the ad-
 ministration's policy as to the future
 of the archipelago. He said in part:
 Just at this moment the army of the
 United States led by men who served among you in the great war, Is carrying to completion a small but peculiarly try ing and difficult war in which is involved not only the honor of the flag but the tri- umph of civilization over forces which stand for the black chaos of savagery and barbarian. The task has not been as diff hcult or as important yours; but. oh.
 my comrades, the men in the uniform of the United States who have for the last
 three years patiently and uncomplainingly championed the American cause In the Philippine Islands are youI younger broth CTS, your sons. They have shown them
 selves not unworthy of you, and they are entitled to the support of all men who are proud of what you did.
 These younger comrades Of yours have fought under terrible difficulties and have received terrible provocation from a very cruel and very treacherous enemy. Under the strain of these provocations I deeply deplore to say that some among them have so far forgotten themselves to counsel and commit in retaliation acts of cruelty.
 Determined and unswerving efrort must be made and Is being made to find out ev- cry instance of barbarity on the part of our troops, to punish those guilty of t and to take, If possible. even stronger meas
 ures than have already been taken to minimize or prevent the occurrence of all such instances In the future.
 From time to time there occur in our country. to the deep and lasting shame of our people, lynchings carried on under cir cumstances of inhuman cruelty and bar parity. a cruelty infinitely worse than any that has ever been committed by our | troops in the Philippines, worse to the victims and far more brutalizing to those ] guilty of it. The men who fail to condemn these lynchings and yet clamor about what has been done In the Philippines are | indeed guilty of neglecting the beam in their own eye while taunting their brother about the mote in his. Understand. me. These lynchings afford us no excuse for | failure to stop cruelty in the Philippines Every effort is being made and will be made to minimize the chances of cruelty | occurring.
 | put keep m mlnd that these cTuelJeS Tn the Philippines have been wholly excep- tional and have been shamelessly exag- gerated.
 We deeply and bitterly regret that any such cruelties should have been committed no matter how rarely, matter under l what provocation. by American troops | but they afford far less Justification for a | general condemnation of our army than these lynchings afford for the condemna-
 ton of the communities in which they | N folw YNla In, u~n fu xxynIf to condemn the deed. and 1t Is we'll also | to refrain from including both guilty and | innocent in the same sweeping condemna- ton
 The rules of warfare which have been | promulgated by the war department and ! accepted as the basis of conduct by our troops in the field are the rules laid down | by Abraham Lincoln when you, my hear | CTS. were fighting for the Union. These | rules provide. of course for the just se- | verity necessary in war. The most de- | structive of all forms of cruelty would be | to show weakness where sternncss is de- manded by iron need, but all cruelty is | forbidden and all harshness beyond what is called for by need.
 | Our enemies in the Philippines have not | merely violated every rule of war. but l have made of these violations their only l method of carrying on the war. We would have been justified by Abraham Lincoln's | rules of war in infinitely greater severity than has been shown.
 | The guilty are to be punished, but in | punishing them let those who sit at ease | at home, who walk delicately and live fin | the soft places of the earth, remember also to do them common justice. Let not the | effortless and the untempted rail over | much at strong men who with blood and | sweat face years of toll and days and | nights of agony and at need lay down l their lives in remote tropic tungles to | bring the light of civilization Into the | worlds dark places. The warfare that has extended the boundaries of civiliza- | ton at the expense of barbarian and saw
 agery has been for centuries one of the | most potent factors In the progress of humanity. Yet from its very nature 1t
 has always and everywhere been liable to | dark abuses.
 | 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 finishing the task | on which we have entered we show our selves cravens and weddings, unworthy 1 of the sires from whose loins we sprang. Our soldiers conquer, and what is the | object for which they conquer To estab- | fish . military government No. The | laws we are now endeavoring to enact for the government of the Philippines are to | increase the power and domain of the civil | at the expense of the military authorities | and to render even more difficult than in | the past the chance of oppression. The | military power is used to secure peace in | order that It may itsen De supplanted by tthe civil government.
 | Other nations have conquered to create | irresponsible military rule. We conquer | to bring just and responsible civil govern | ment to the conquered.
 | But our armies do more than bring | peace, do more than bring order. They | bring freedom. Remember always that | the independence of a tribe or a commu- 1 nity may and often does have nothing | whatever to do with the freedom of the ' ind futA nal In hat frfh nF t1nftx The slowly learned and difficult art of 1 self government, an art which our people | have taught themselves by the labor of a | thousand years. cannot be grasped in a | day by a people only just emerging from | conditions of life which our ancestors left | behind them in the dim years before his- | tory dswned. We believe that we can | rapidly teach the people of the Philippine | Islands not only how to enjoy but how to make good use of their freedom, and with their growing knowledge their growth in | self government shall keep steady pace. When they have thus shown xheir ca | pacity for real freedom by their power of | self government, then, and not till then, will 1t be possible to decide whether they | are to exist Independently of us or be knit | to us by ties of common friendship and | interest.
 When that day will come 1t is not in I human wisdom now to foretell All that we can say with certainty is that 1t would | be put back an immeasurable distance If | we should yield to the counsels of unman- | ly weakness and turn loose the islands to | see our victorious foes butcher friends
 and shed the blood of the most humane. | the most enlightened. the most peaceful. | the wisest and the best of their own num- Der. for these the classes who have | already learned to welcome our rule. | Looked Into the Crater. At great personal risk Professor He'll | prin on Saturday ascended Mont Pelee,