Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-04-09
BELLAIRs THH CONVICT.
A Trusted Press Correspondent and
 Friend of Leonard Wood.

A Trusted Press Correspondent and
 Friend of Leonard Wood.
 We have before us an attractive menu of a farewell dinner given 1n Manila on July 2 1902. Among the friends of the guest of honor present were Major General A. R. Chaffee, commanding the Division of the Phll- ippines; General Charles F. Humph- rey, chief quartermaster; Colonel Charles A. Woodruff, chief commis- sary; Colonel William F. Hall, adju- tant general; Brigadier General T. J. Wint; Brigadier General J. M. Lee, and the president of the American chamber of commerce. There were forty three other men, all distinguished in army or civil life. in attendance to attest their friendship for a departing l journalist. This was the same Edgar ] G. Bellairs, full account of whose extraordinary career was printed in the Sun this morning. There were toasts to Bel1airs in Cuba. Bellairs in ! China, Bellairs in the Philippines, Bel lairs in the University club, Bellairs in | the Army and Navy club. Only one was lacking -Bellairs on the chain l gang in Florida.
 l For this man who was so greatly l honored, and so royalty toasted by the | highest officers in the American army | in the Philippines, had served a seven l years sentence for forgery. Previous | ly he had been a confidence man and 1 gentee1 swindler in Europe, Australia, l India and Egypt. Yet within less than | VOC a1seso %o,~1 r, h lc I 'vict's garb, he was in position to I nrislead a very large portion of the American public, and to help boost into undeserved prominence, and into a brigadier- -generalcy in the regular army, one Leonard Wood, captain and assistant surgeon of regulars, and gen. l eral of volunteers.
 Since the Associated Press supplies fully nine-tenths of the newspapers of 1 the United States. nine-tenths of the newspaper readers got their news about General Wood from Bellairs, or Baalenttnle, or OhIerin0n, or Elaine, or Cameron, as he has at different times called himself. It was, therefore, largely on the reputation made for General Wood by Bellairs that MT Me- Ixinley removed General Brooke and appointed the doctor military governor I of Cuba, the Evening Post and all the leading newspapers heartily concur ring. With Wood, Be4lairs moved to l Havana. there to continue his lauda- 1 ton and his admiring dispatches, as General Chaffee doubtless stated in elo- quently responding in Manila to the 1 toast of ''Bellairs in Cuba" Bellairs formed a beefsteak club, the order of l the Red Robe'-a select gathering of administrative lights-stal%sd a horse racing association, and entertained royalty basking in the favor of the military governor. And only | recently has the public begun to real ize, little by little, what an absurdly mistaken idea it has had of Wood as i an administrators Palma has governed Cuba far better and for much less money: since it has appeared that Wood had Gomez and others i'll
 his pay; that he distributed insular ] funds to MT Thurber and others to l bring about the passage of the reci- 1 procity treaty; that he left the island with nominal surplus and an actual I deficit; that he fastened the jai alai I gambling establishment on Havana 
 We have told this story of Bellafrs in Cuba somewhat at length simply to show how the swindler and forgeT
 turned journalist, was able to imposs
 upon the American public and give it , am utterly wrong impression of whad was occurring under thje American flag
 But his luck did not end there, nor his power for mischief. At General Chaf- fee's and General Humphreys requesd he accompanied tltem on the China ex pedition, and next went with them tc
 N1anila. Here he was for nearly two
 years the chief telegraphic correspond
 ent of the Associated Press, and, there. fore, except for the Suns correspond. ent, the sole medium though which the great American republic has been get
 ung its news of our colonial venture | such glimpses of the occurrences 1T
 the Philippines as the average Ameri
 cam had during Belbairs's stay in Ma
 nila were through the eyes of this con.
 fidence man, swindler, gambler, forgel
 and convict. Perfectly ready to admi
 1n private conversation the fourishins
 character of the water-cure industry
 in the Philippines, his dispatches eye] I sided with the accused officers. There
 was never a suspicion in his dispatch
 es of disloyalty to Chaffee, Humphrey
 OF any other army officer. Never was
 he accused of pessimism, or of settins
 forth the actual American opinion il
 Manfla of the situation, military or civ
 il. Meanwhile, he held always to hi.
 first 1ove-Leonard Woodland whe1
 found out and dismissed by his em 7 ployeT, the Associated Press returned
 to New York to boom him and depre
 ciate the services of Governor Taft il
 his book, "As lit Is in the Philippines.
 "Bellairs," journalist and author
 has rum his career. But his memory
 and the fame of his brilliant i
 ephen1eual, exploits will long finger a.
 nm illustration of how "aM the peopl'
 may be fooled part of the time. ."--Nev
 York Evening Post.