Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1902 — NATION'S CHIEF UPHOLDS ARMY [ARTICLE]

NATION'S CHIEF UPHOLDS ARMY

President, in Memorial Day Address, Stands by the Boys in Blue. HAS NO EXCUSE FOR CRUELTIES Soldiers Guilty of Atrocious Conduct Must Pay the Penalty—lnhumanity on Part of Filipinos Does Not Justify Retaliation. ft Memorial day was more generally observed ip Washington than ever before. President Roosevelt. delivered on oration at Arlington, where the principal services of the day were held. After the invocation and the rendition of several numbers by the band and choir, E. B. Hay read Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. President Roosevelt followed. President Roosevelt said in part: “You whom I address to-day and your comrades who wore the blue Deside you in the perilous years during which strong, sad, patient Lincoln bore the crushing load of national leadership performed the one feat the failure to perform which would have meant destruction to everything which makes the name of America a symbol of hope among the nations of mankind. You did the greatest and most necessary task which has ever fallen to the lot of any men on this western hemisphere. “Just at this moment the army of the United States, led by men who served among you in the great war, is carrying to completion a small but peculiarly trying and difficult war in which is involved not only the honor of the flag, but the triumph of civilization over forces which stand for the black chaos of savagery and barbarism. The task has not been as difficult or as important as yours, but tue men in the uniform of the United States who have for the last three years patiently and uncomplaining championed the American cause in the Philippine islands are your younger brothers, your sons. They have shown themselves not unworthy of you and they are entitled to the support of all men who are proud of what you did. These younger comraues of yours have fought under terrible difficulties, and have received terrible provocation from a very cruel and treacherous enemy. • “Under the strain of these provocations, I deeply deplore to say that some among them have so far forgotten themselves as to counsel and commit, in retaliation, acts of cruelty. The fact that for every guilty act committed by our troops 100 acts of far greater atrocity have been committed by the hostile natives upon our troops, or upon the peaceable and law-abiding natives who are friendly to us, cannot be held to excuse any wrongdoer on our side. “But keep in mind that these cruelties in the Philippines have been wholly exceptional, and have been shamelessly exaggerated. The rules of welfare which have been promulgated by the War Department and accepted as the basis of conduct by our troops in the fields, are the rules laid down by Abraham Lincoln, when you, my hearers, were fighting for the Union. These rules provide, pi course, for the just severity necessary in war. The most destructive of all forms of cruelty would be to show weakness where sternness is demanded by iron need. But all cruelty is forbidden, and all harshness beyond what is called for by need. Our enemies in the Philippines have not merely violated every rule of war, but have made of these violations their only method of carrying on the war. We would have been justified by Abraham Lincoln’s rules of war in infinitely greater severity than has been shown. “The fact really is that our warfare in the Philippines has been carried on with singular humanity. For every act of cruelty by our men there have been innumerable acts of forbearance, magnanimity, and generous kindness. These are the qualities which have characterized the war as a whole. The cruelties have been wholly exceptional on our part. “The slowly learned and difficult art of self-government cannot be grasped in a day by a people only just emerging from conditions of life which our ancestors left behind them in the dim years before history dawned. We believe that we can rapidly teach the people of the Philippine islands not only how to enjoy, but how to make good use of their freedom; and with their growing knowledge their growth in self-government shall keep steady pace. When they have thua shown their capacity for real freedom by their power of self-government, then, and not till then, will it be possible to decide whether they are to exist independently of us or be knit to us by ties of common friendship and Interest.’’