Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1902 — NO MERCY TO REBELS. [ARTICLE]

NO MERCY TO REBELS.

Reconcentration and the Unsparing Pursuit of Filipinos Begun. Having failed during two years’ strife In subduing the insurrection in Batanagas Province, which lies just south of Manila, and having become convinced that lenient treatment of the insurgents is productive of no good results, Gen. J. Franklin Bell, military commander in that province, has decided on the enforcement of the war in the most vigorous and determined fashion, involving reconcentration in a modified form, the application of martial law in all directions and the unsparing pursuit and punishment of natives who act as spies and traitors to the United States. All tills appears from a long report to the War Department. The reconcentration order in substance provides for the establishment of a zone around the garrisons into which the friendly inhabitants are to be required to come under penalty of confiscation and destruction of their property. This is said to be necessary to prevent the collection of forced contributions from the inhabitants by the insurgents. The military officers are allowed to fix the price of necessaries of life and it is promised that the people may return as soon as peaceful conditions are established. This order is followed by a long circular by Gen. Bell to his station commandera, commenting on existing conditions and giving them advice how to proceed. He says it is regrettable that the innocent must suffer with the guilty, but the . greatest good to the greatest number I can be brought about best by putting a 1 prompt end to the insurrection. Therefore he directs the application of general order 100, in force during the Civil War in he United States, which practically regards nn insurgent as a guerrilla, outside the pale of civilized warfare and subject to the death penalty wherever such an insurgent does not engage in the tnr continuously and observe all the rti-.s of war.