Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1899 — Gen. Funston’s Letter. [ARTICLE]

Gen. Funston’s Letter.

General Fnnston, of Kansas, has written a letter to the Topeka Capital which presents the intelli-' gent soldier’s view of the Filipinos and the situation as obtained by observation and contract. The following extract from the letter is interesting at the present time: • “This is different business from seeing Cubans killed. But how gloriously these countrymen of ours fight! When I tell them to charge, which I have three times, the trouble has been not to get them to come on, but to keep from getting run over by them. We are at present occupying the trenches at Caloooan, three miles north of Manila, the extreme left of the cordon of trenches fifteen miles long that protect the land side of Manila. “The insurgents are close in our front, quite well intrenched, and there is some bloody business ahead when we advance. But that will happen long before this reaches you; in fact, we are expecting it in a few days. “It would take a great psophpt to even guess how long this thing will last. It may be that the leaders, discouraged by their recent severe defeats, will give up, or it may be that they will for years maintain a guerilla warfare. “I am afraid that some people at home will lie awake nights worrying .about the ethics of this war, thinking that our enemy is fighting for the right of selfgovernment, etc. The word ‘independence,’ which these people roll over their tongues so glibly, is to them a word and not much more. “It means simply with them license to raise hell, and if they got control they would raise a fine crop of it. It is true that they have a certain number of educated leaders—educated, however, about the same way a parrot is. * “They are, as a rule, an illiterate, semi-savage people, who are waging war not against tyranny, but against Anglo-Saxon order -and deoency. Their whole oonduct daring the several months preceding the outbreak was one of insufferable arrogance and egotism. They were swollen np by the fact that onr people made too much of them at first. I, for on«, hope that Uncle Sam will apply the chastening rod good, hard and .plenty and lay it on nntil they come in to the reservation and promise to be good ‘lnjuns.’ ”