The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-06-16
ID TO THE CAR
I~nsercedes I'm Behalf OF the Headies-.
Lifcless and !Ar1niess Army aud
Navy

Akaf1sS aAAu @1Tfss1s. GEIHN AHA
Navy.
Is. W. Gillian in Baltimore American.)
Washington. D.. C.-Dear Nick: I've
held in just as long as | could. / had
Il little that with Cassini the other day
Here is the substance Of what | told
Cassie, and [ want You to get straight
from me without any diplomatic frills
put onto il:
This scrap with Japan has gone on
just as long as decent nations can
stand to see those poor dubs of yours
starved, frozen, shot, drowned and re-
treated to death. Your side of the war
has been a hollow sham from soup TO
nuts. By the latter I mean you. If you
will look carefully in the former you
will find Linevitch, kuropatkin and
R~ojestvensky. Every wise man in the
universe foresaw this finish of things
when the first few battles had been
fought Your men, on land and sea,
fought like a group of clothine-store
dummies matched against their weight
III hungry wildcats. 1t has never been
anything but an unvarnished case of
assault and battery from the word 90.
Your men have taken all the assaults
and the Japanese all the batteries. 1t
hasn't resembled a war at all.
With your nation rotten to the core
with graft, your army running on a
basis of buy and sell positions where
opportunities for stealing from the
people We're good, your navy in the
same fix, your people rising up and
calling you everything but blessed
every few minutes, with your reputa-
ton as a weaking and your govern
ment's reputation for brutality, with
your lack Of loyalty among your COM
non people-with all this weakness
and ro%ttenness pitted against a bunch
of little brown knots of physical
strength and endurance, who are raw
ing maniacs On the subject of patriot
ism, and mechanical wizards in the
matter Of war fixtures and ammunition
whose government is clean and free
from graft and whose armies and ma
vies were fighting for what they be-
lieved to mean their national preser-
yation-what show had your crowd of
moral leapers and vodka tanks against
a bunch like that?
OF course, it wasn't my putin
isn't yet, for that matter. But you're
down and out and the world has al
ready counted far more than ten, and
I'm going to do all in my power to
stop the inhuman slaughter of those
poor, helpless dubs that make up your
~headless, l~ifeless, armless army and
navy.
The other time | got to feeling this
way took a bear hunt just to relieve
my emotions and keep me from hurting
somebody. This time I'm going to
blurt it out. For heavens sake, Nick.
do something and do it quick. Admit
that you are licked, Or Japan will show
you that she has been merely juggling
with you up to now.
A word as to this friendliness that
some>of your representatives have said
should always exist between this
try and yours: Russia Of forty years
ago, when this ~befriending they harp
about was done, was made up other
people, and was a different nation.
Once I had a good friend put West
who did kind things for me. After
ward that man turned out to be a
brute and a thug, killed a man in cold
blood and was sentenced to be hanged
for it. Was it my place as President
to try to saw that man.? He wasn't
the n who befriended me-he was
what was left of that man. So I, now,
as nominal head of the greatest nation
On earthfor that's right, Nick, we
could even lick Japan, and do it easyr
have no right to interfere with your
criminal nation in it's just punishment
according to international law. That
for any obligation, unless you straight
en- up and be decent.
AS [ said in the beginning, for heav-
ems sake boiler enough, or somebody
about my size will holler it for you.
International decency, of which my
country is always a consistent advo-
cate, demands that this thing be de-
clared to have gone far enough. Yours
strenuously. TEDDY.