Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-03-04

smooth-shayen young officer said he would
capture a certain man and turn him over to
the Provost Marshal he would keep his prom
Use to the diacritical mark. II he made
promise that promise would be kept un-
swervingly. The savage mind does not run
to nice dlstinctions savage languages have rev
adjectives. Scott had this much in common
with the Indians-a thing was so or 1t was
not so, it was good or it was bad, without
qualifying shades of meaning. Perhaps this
more than anything else, explains why he was
beloved by the Indians and why Spanish
speaking peoples called him "simpatico." He
understood them and they understood him, be-
cause, in common, their thought went as
straight to it's mark rifle bullet.
Away back in 1891, when occurred through
all the West the last serious Indian outbreak,
when, in some mysterious manner the Indians
from the Canadian line to the Mexican border
suddenly fell victims to the Messiah craze,
went to ghost dancing and left their reser
vations for the war path, the grim jest that
was banded about through the army posts
ran:
THE United States army is holding down the
Indians in the Northwest; Scott is holding
them down in the Southwest"
1t was generally admitted that Scott did the
better job of the two. Ever since then, when
ever the Indians anywhere get restless and
trouble starts, both the Interior Department
which has Jurisdiction over the Indians, and
the War Department set up the cry, Send
for Scott"
What the Moros Learned
When in 1908, he became a governor of
the Sulu archipelago he determined that this
was time and no place to brother" the
belligerent natives. The Malay mind he mas.
tered as he had mastered the Indian mind
A licking first and brothering afterward plain
ly was the course marked out for him. And
such licking he gave them
The story is an epic in the Philippines. He
smote with the sword of the Lord and of
Gideon, which, being interpreted, means the
Krag. He swept through the land like de-
stroying angel. Wounded, he refused to quit
Both hands were torn by Moro bullets but he
had them bandaged and remained in the sad.
die. And the country was pacIied. A lesson
had been taught that impressed itself upon
the Moro mind. Then came the task of break
ing up the slave trade in the islands of the
archipelago. Alternately "brothering" and
furnishing. Scott achieved his purpose He
wiped out slavery absolutely. And when, in
1906, he came to leave, the people wept. Here
was man they could understand a man
whose word always was kept They askeS
through their chiefs, that he remain to rule
over them, but his tour of duty was ended
Back he came to the States as superintendent
OF the Military Academy at West Point
Observe him at his desk in the War Depart
ment, his bullet-torn hands, shy several fin
gers busy with the multitude OF papers Ire
sented to him, giving his orders in gentle
conversational tones, his appearance his man
ner, his attitude precisely the same as when he
was major of the line those few years ago,
modest, democratic, kindly. The erect head
the keen, searching eyes. the strong jaw pro-
claim the man who is master of himself, fit
for command.