The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1907-04-16
DODDS HAS THE ODDS
Renegade Soldier Is a Dangerous
Oatto of the Malays.
ARMY TRYING TO CATCH HIM.
Remarkable Tale of Raw Recruit
From Massachusetts Who Deserted
to the Enemy In the Philippines and
Keeps the insurrection Active.

From Massachusetts Who Deserted
to the Enemy In the Philippines and
Keeps the insurrection Active.
Advices from the Philippines tell of
government difficulties because Of one
Datto Dodds. erstwhile Private Dodds,
who was for some ten minutes a mem
Der Of the Nineteenth United States
infantry. Until Dodds Is dead or paci-
fed they say there will be no peace In
the Malay part of the islands, writes
the Washington correspondent Of the
Kansas City Star.
Once they were bending all their eff
forts toward catching and hanging
Private Dodds. Just now they are pa
| tiently trying to negotiate with him, or
SO the story runs. Dodds was ordinary
enough appearing army material when
a serpent tongued recruiting sergeant
enlisted him at Boston some years ago.
Shock headed, dull eyed, bull necked,
deep chested, shambling In his gait,
Dodds attracted no attention on the
transport beyond the small notoriety
| OF eating more and drinking more awk-
WafQly tHan Ine rest.
But when he and his fellow rockies
| landed at Manila the Massachusetts,
| factory hand kept right on marching
from the end of the gangplank through
Manila and out toward the violet green
mountains, where lurked the restless
| insurrecto.
A searching party found him and took
him back 1t was not believed he In
| tended to desert, so he was not punish
| ed, but was sent, with eIghty-eight 9th
er recruits, to join battalion Of the
Nineteenth infantry, then stationed In
Cebu. Dodds glanced into his tent
| and kept on going. Another searching
party looked In vain for him, and 1t
was supposed he had been killed by
natives. A little later there was a
night attack by natives, and the voice
OF Dodds was heard urging the enemy
| to their work. Time and again this oc-
Cured and Dodds always managed to
get away.
Why Dodds joined the insurgents has
never been explained. He may have
been inoculated before enlistment with
| the anti-imperialistic virus Of Edward
Atkinson and other Boston friends Of
Aguinaldo, or it might have been some
heritage of Morse pirate blood that
| blossomed In his brain under the orien-
| tai sun. The deeper mystery Is how the
untutored factory hand mastered
barbaric people and a more barbaric
language in so short time. The sol
| diers of the Nineteenth rejoiced when
peace fell on Cebu and the insurgents
agreed, as one Of their terms, to sur
| render the white renegades and desert
ers among them At last the outraged
infantrymen would get their hands on
Dodds, and halter, too, but he was
not among the renegades surrendered.
While the exact movements of Dodds
from this point are a mystery, he is
supposed to have fed by banca or lor-
cha to Mindanao or Sulu. Subsequent
ly he turned up in the household Of
Datto Tantung. on Tawi Tawi island,
where he was said to have married a
daughter of that potentate and to have
been initiated by him and to have been
raised to the rank of postmaster
among dattos.
| At any rate, Dodds wore the silk
drawers, silver embroidered vests and
arsenal sash of the Malays, did little
cautious pirating with his adopted ma
ton perhaps and was satisfied to be
| separated from civilization and the
cocktail, which, as George Ade says,
follows the flag. Dodds had the max
ing of a good Utah Mormon Of the last
generation, 1t seems, because in all
| his wanderings the native institution
which he adopted first was the harem.
| And everywhere he was the most
| unreconstructed of all the rebels
against his mother country. In time
/ the deserter came to acquire some
| thing like belligerent right and privi-
lege of treating with American author
ity like other dattos.
] But the army has never lost its de-
sire to catch Datto Dodds In fight
where the ferceness of the onslaught
will make it convenient to overlook
| giving quarter. And Datto Dodds re-
ciprocates by stirring up the Malays
whenever expeditions and treaties
have calmed them down to something
| like peace. Just now he Is kicking up
| trouble again.
| Meanwhile this hairy oaf Of New
| England factory town, silken clad,
| barbarously hung with pearls and
weapons, reigns like king or feudal
| lord In an ARABIAN Nights" setting.
| with the soft southern seas murmuring
| about his island and host of fierce
| eyed. brown faced subjects bowling at
| his big feet.