Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/196

172 upon continuing the fight. General Otis says in his report: “The engagement was one strictly defensive on the part of the insurgents and of vigorous attack by our forces.” The only excuse given for his action is that the Filipinos would have wanted to fight if they had been ready, and that they had become “abusive,” and “insulting,” and “defiant”—terms often freely applied by some Anglo-Saxons to people of other, especially darker, races who presume to think that they have some rights. Thus the plain fact is that our men actually began the slaughter, and that our commander refused to stop it when he might have done so with honor.

But more important is the other fact, also set forth in General Otis's report, that the President had directly provoked a collision with the Filipinos by his notorious order of December 21, 1898—a document so inflammatory in its character that General Otis found it necessary to suppress it and to substitute a proclamation of his own—a scheme which failed, as the President's order became public through a subordinate commander. General Otis knew that the President's order would be taken by the Filipinos as a declaration of war, which in fact it was. No criticism of the President's action can place the responsibility for the Filipino war more conclusively upon the President than this part of General Otis's report. And when, after all this, we hear the President say, as last summer he did say in his speech at Pittsburgh, “the first blow was struck by the insurgents”; and at Fargo, “then it was that the insurgent leader made an attack upon our men, and then our boys let loose”; and in his message, “An attack, evidently prepared in advance, was made all along the American lines”—when we hear him say to the people such things, in the face of such facts, we fairly hold our breath and bow our heads.

After all this we must not be surprised that the im-