THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GIFT OF Paul Scharreriberg LOYAL TRAITORS LOYAL TRAITORS A Story of Friendship for the Filipinos RAYMOND L. BRIDGMAN Author of "Ten Years of Massachusetts," "Biennial Elections," "The Master Idea," etc. " Fear not them that kill the body and after that have no more that they can do." BOSTON JAMES H. WEST COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1903 By James H. West Company LOAN STACK GIFT Farewell, adored fatherland ! Our Eden lost, farewell ! Farewell, O sun's loved region, pearl of the Eastern sea ! Gladly I die for thy dear sake : yea, thou knowest well Were my sad life more radiant far than mortal tongue could tell, Yet would I give it gladly, joyously for thee. On bloodstained fields of battle, fast-locked in madd'ning strife, Thy sons have dying blest thee, untouched by doubt or fear. No matter wreaths of laurel ; no jnatter where our life Ebbs out, on scaffold, or in combat, or under torturer's knife, We welcome Death, if for our hearths, or for our country dear. DR. Jos RIZAL ( Written just before he was execiited.) (3) 118 " I cannot get over the idea that others shall legislate for me and my people, and in so doing govern us. It is better to die in exile than to prostitute my conscience, for at best I have but a few years to live." APOLINARIO MABINI (Formerly President of the Council of the Philippine Re- public : on being exiled to Guam for refusal to lake the oath of allegiance to the United States). (4) CONTENTS CHAPTER I George Brown Abandons a Military Career 9 CHAPTER II The Philippine War Divides Friends 17 CHAPTER III Faith Fessenden Makes a Discovery 27 CHAPTER IV Col. Philip Hotspur Takes a Lesson in the Code of Honor 34 CHAPTER V Rev. Ansel Robinson Raises a Parish Storm ... 42 CHAPTER VI Pastor Robinson's Parishioners Strike a Return Blow 54 CHAPTER VII How a Lay Brother Could not Get out of the Church 60 CHAPTER VIII Alfred Wheelwright Has an Opinion about His Native Land and the Boers 69 6 CONTENTS CHAPTER IX PAGE Professor John Harvard Holbein Discusses Evo- lution with Rev. Thomas Swift Gunn . . 80 CHAPTER X Washington Douglass Has a Vision of Duty. . 95 CHAPTER XI Brown, Douglass, and Wheelwright Enter the Filipino Service 100 CHAPTER XII In which American Sacrifice Strives to Promote Filipino Nationality 117 CHAPTER XIII The Filipinos Learn a Trick or Two 126 CHAPTER XIV The Morals of an American Deserter 132 CHAPTER XV Faith Fessenden Reads the Newspapers 145 CHAPTER XVI A Letter and a Proclamation 150 CHAPTER XVII An American Detachment Meets an Obstacle . . 155 CHAPTER XVIII Loyal to Two Countries and to Principle Above All 160 CHAPTER XIX Another Letter and Its Reply 167 CONTENTS 7 CHAPTER XX PAGE The Filipino Fastness again Attacked. The Death of Douglass 172 CHAPTER XXI George Brown is Suspected of Treachery 1 84 CHAPTER XXII Alfred Wheelwright Joins Washington Douglass 192 CHAPTER XXIII Faith Fessenden Keeps an Important Appoint- ment 207 CHAPTER XXIV Never Surrender 213 CHAPTER XXV Women and Children Patriots 224 CHAPTER XXVI American Methods of Persuasion 238 CHAPTER XXVII A Little Wit Changes Tragedy into Comedy. . 250 CHAPTER XXVIII Preparing for the Day of Judgment 266 CHAPTER XXIX Macaria Henderson Pleads in Vain 279 CHAPTER XXX An Oath which Cannot Bind 292 The safety of the weak nations in the presence of the strong is the best test of international morality. -W. E. H. LECKY. Our fathers to their graves have gone : Their strife is past, their triumph won ; But sterner trials wait the race Which rises in their honored place, A moral warfare with the crime And folly of an evil time. So let it be. In God's own might We gird us for the coming fight ; And, strong in Him whose cause is ours, In conflict with unholy powers We grasp the weapon He has given, The light and truth and love of heaven. JOHN G. WHITTIER. (8) LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER I GEORGE BROWN ABANDONS A MILITARY CAREER ONE of the first nominations to West Point made by John F. Andrew after his election to the National House of Representatives from the Beacon Hill and Back Bay district of Boston was that of George Brown. Young Brown was son of a lawyer having an office in the Equitable Building. Brown senior was well acquainted with Andrew, and it required no hard work to secure the nomination. The abilities of Brown junior were of a high order and he had not the slightest difficulty in passing the examina- tion. Physically, mentally, and morally he was abun- dantly qualified, and his own confidence in his ability to pass was fully justified by the ease with which the entrance barrier to the military academy was sur- mounted. Brown had, at first, a young man's exalted ideas of io LOYAL TRAITORS West Point and of the glories of a military career ; but a year's life at the academy, with a practical acquaintance with the barbarities which have given a scandalous name to the institution, opened his eyes to the real situation and he determined to throw aside his appointment. No longer did he think that a military training would develop the manly and honor- able side of a cadet, and a letter to his old school-girl friend, Faith Fessenden, told of his change of view : " I don't believe any longer that a man's highest service to his country is in war. I notice that our West Point graduates are never men who want to settle difficulties by the right and wrong of the case. They want to fight. They stand up for their own side, ho matter whether they are right or not. They would never think of disobeying the orders of their superiors, no matter if they believed those orders to be grossly unjust. Now, I am not built on that pattern. I want to do the right thing, no matter whether my superior officer thinks as I do or not. I do not like to think of being tied up all my life to do as some other man orders me, if the orders go against my conscience. Besides that, the army is the last place in the world for a man to grow in and to make the most of himself. Look at our army officers, tied up to a routine of duty, and jealous of each other lest some one gets a grain of credit more than he deserves ! Look at their wives, how jealous they are of each other ! what sorts of petty gossip they retail ! how LOYAL TRAITORS n narrow their lives are ! It is a miserable outlook and I don't like it." One day an acquaintance who sang in a burlesque opera company needed a cadet uniform, and Brown gave him his. That was the turning-point. He talked the matter over with his father, then chose the law for his profession, and in time made a name for himself in Boston politics. He was sent in turn to the Common Council, to the Board of Aldermen, and to the Legislature, where exposure to corrupt influences developed the unusual conscience and will power of the man until, before he realized it, he had in him all the stuff for a hero. Thus, when the war with Spain was declared, his equipment included some military knowledge, civil experience, legal training, a keen conscience, and strong determination. He believed that the war was necessary as a demand of humanity for Cuba. He was a Republican in politics and he heartily approved the policy of the Administration. Brown's nearest masculine friend at this time was Alfred Wheelwright, an Englishman by birth and an American by naturalization, who served with honor in Cuba. Of the other sex, Faith Fessenden was his ideal. The youngest daughter of a well-to-do-family neither noted nor notorious, Faith was an active, as- piring, well-balanced young woman. Brown had no fear that in her his ideal would ever be shattered. She was not ambitious so as to seek self-preferment, in any 12 LOYAL TRAITORS line of thought or action, but by nature she was noble, and should circumstances ever call her to evince strength she would not be found wanting. Of such is the kingdom of good sense and nobility, and there are many like her. Faith's superior judgment of social forces and tendencies impressed itself upon George Brown in the anxious days of the Spanish War. The reader who cares to know somewhat more of the young woman, and of her thoughtful mode of considering passing events, will perhaps find in the following conversation which she held with the young lawyer a suggestion of her womanly earnestness on matters of public import. " George," she said to him, one evening when he was at her home and the latest news by the afternoon paper had been mentioned, "consequences which the people do not foresee will grow out of this war." "Are you going to play the role of Cassandra?" asked Brown, noting the anxious look on Faith's countenance. "I will make my forecast. You can name me afterward." "Proceed, then, prophetess. And remember that it was Cassandra's fate to have her prophecies always disbelieved." "Our people will get a taste for blood and for military excitement, by this war," declared Faith, with a pained expression. " There will be a growing indifference to cruelties of all kinds. We are now in LOYAL TRAITORS 13 the midst of our broil with Spain. Fired with our victories, the next thing will be oppression of some of the weak peoples of Asia. The nation is learning its military and naval possibilities, and business and missions will be seeking with louder voice than ever their long-wished < open door ' to the East, at whatever cost/' " I doubt it. Our religious training is too general. All the pulpits would preach against it." "On the contrary," replied Faith, "all our pulpits will be for it, as a rule. George, a woman sees some things a man doesn't." "One of which is ?" " That the tone of society to-day in our country is changing. The change will affect business, pulpit, press, and National Administration." " How changing ? " " For instance, money and display during the past decade or more have had a very marked effect on the morals of influential people. The next time you go to the opera or to the horse-show I want you to notice the faces of a certain elderly type of women the most conspicuous there. Study their bearing. See if it would require much of an effort to imagine them in the front row at a Roman amphitheater, crying, ' Thumbs down ! ' ' "You are very severe." "Perhaps so. But, just the same, make your observations. See if their faces are not selfish, arrogant, and cruel. They lack wholly the beautiful 14 LOYAL TRAITORS tenderness which was in my grandmother's face when she was their age." "And which has been transmitted to her grand- daughter. " " Don't be silly, George." " Truth is not silly." " Don't flatter, then." " Truth never flatters." "You have interrupted what I was saying." " I promise not to offend again." " Women have a great political influence, even if it is indirect. You know how it is at Washington, how social ambitions affect Congressional action. Women's ideas count for much. Look also at what our women read." "How can you get any idea of what they read, as a class?" asked Brown, his barrister's love of fresh, well-expressed thought making it frequently his favor- ite employment, when with Faith, to draw her out, though before they were through he never failed to take a positive part himself. " Look in the book-shop windows. Note what are the most popular books. See what a rage there now is for historical ' novels. Enlarged drawings of the pictures are put in the windows ; what do they set forth ? Violence, shootings, rapier-thrusts, fires, runaway horses, shipwrecks, assassinations, anything sensational in a grossly material way." "But are not those things features of American life ? You must not be too critical." LOYAL TRAITORS 15 "Women are the greatest readers, and the nation which has taste for such matters will in time show its character in its actions." " Hence you expect further scenes of violence, as a result of the present war ? " " I can't foresee otherwise. George, what are our nation's enthusiasms ? Speculative enterprise, inven- tion, expansion, wealth, display, mastery of material things. Greece had its enthusiasm for philosophy, poetry, the drama, sculpture, and architecture, and she has ever since been a prodigious force for civiliza- tion. Even Ireland, many hundred years ago, had thousands of students in its great universities." " So has the United States to-day." "Yes, but see what is going on in many of our colleges ! It is recognized by the faculties that the multiplying sports of the students, with their frequent horrid brutalities, are a serious and increasing detri- ment to the study side of their work. Again, during some years past, the growing sentiment and determi- nation of a few leading instructors and other earnest people have caused some of the barbarous excesses of ' hazing ' to diminish. Already the severer forms are renewing. It is evident, to one who ponders, that if the United States should rise no higher than to-day we shall leave to after generations precious little of all that our people make most of. Our religion is losing its hold on the masses. Our one great contri- bution to the world is a political principle, and our present Administration and many people are to-day 16 LOYAL TRAITORS false to that. If that is betrayed, we are a national failure and the nation will perish." George Brown did not contradict Faith's earnest, forelooking words. They agreed too nearly with his own forebodings. They fell upon a soil already fruit- ful and influenced his course later. For the present he said only : " Faith, you are no Cassandra, though a prophetess. I believe you are right. The nation must suffer before it is in the right path again. " When the visit ended, both were in stronger agree- ment than ever on principles which shaped their after lives. LOYAL TRAITORS 17 CHAPTER II THE PHILIPPINE WAR DIVIDES FRIENDS VERY early in the war between the United States and Spain it became clear that two contending forces were trying to shape the course of the nation in its foreign policy. Those forces have since come to be known under the names of imperialist and anti-imperialist. The tendencies toward imperialism were so threatening that, as early as June 15, 1898, a meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, to protest against certain acts of the Administration and to fore- warn the people of the danger. As the negotiations in Paris proceeded between the treaty commissioners of the United States and Spain, it became more and more evident that the Adminis- tration would not stop short of taking the entire Philippine archipelago. As a local counteracting force, Brown and a few friends formed a patriotic League. Their only motive was to prevent the success of a movement which they believed to be fatal to the principles of American liberty and to the liberty of all men. One of the original members of the League, a man active in work and ready with ideas at the meeting when the formal organization was made, was Rev. i8 LOYAL TRAITORS Ansel Robinson, pastor of a Congregational church in the suburbs. Already his preaching on public questions had caused a soreness among the regular Republicans who composed a large majority of the voters in his congregation. He could count upon only four men whom he knew positively to sympathize with him in his opposition to the Administration, though he and they in 1896 had voted the straight Republican ticket. He could not keep silent, as he understood his duty, and his worthy people objected seriously to hearing preached what they believed came very near to treason. Believers in a growing kingdom of God on earth, they upheld the imperialist method as the true way of spreading Christianity. They were unquestioning readers of their religious weeklies, and they held reverently the doctrine that in civilizing the dark places of the earth Christian missions are a feeble force compared with military enterprise. George Brown, holding steadfastly to the path illumined by his conscience, was an ardent anti- imperialist ; but almost every one of his friends was against him. Occasionally a prominent Republican came out openly on the anti-imperialist side, and from his conversation with many of his party Brown was well satisfied that, if the issue had been put before their judgment and conscience wholly apart from political and religious influences, they would have insisted, as he did, that the inborn rights of the Filipinos were superior to any claims of sovereignty on the part of the United States. LOYAL TRAITORS 19 The Fessenden family was divided. The married daughter and her husband, moving in circles where prominent Worcester manufacturers and capitalists predominated, could say nothing too strong in favor of the Administration. Their letters home, and their visits, helped to persuade the mother and the second daughter especially considering the social position of their imperialist acquaintances that it was the loyal and proper thing to be on the side of the wealth and education and higher social classes of the city. Faith was sure that George Brown was on the right side, and the senior Fessenden, standing on his youth- ful ideas of liberty and equality and constitutional government, said to her : " My law and your intuition, Faith, come to the same conclusion, and we'll stick together on the anti-imperialist side/' The family division became so serious that conversation on the great issue of the day was scant, and neither side could be moved a hair by the argument of the other. The breach between friends was in many instances deep, according to the patriotism of the persons con- cerned and according to their sense of the magnitude of the forces at work. Long-time associates were separated and could get along only by not speaking on the one subject on which they most wanted to speak. Brown's most serious difference was with his friend Dexter, a West Pointer, a captain who had served in Cuba and who was now waiting to be ordered to the Philippines. 20 LOYAL TRAITORS "Dexter/ 1 said Brown, "the old question comes up again which was one influence compelling me to leave West Point. You take your orders from the govern- ment and from your military superiors. You don't have any opinion of your own when it comes to a matter of action. But it is really as much on your conscience as it is on mine to take your stand on this question where conscience says you must stand. I believe that the Filipinos are right in fighting for their independence, and if I were in your place, feeling as I do, I should resign my commission sooner than do one solitary act against a people fighting for their independence." " But/' responded Dexter, " I am not responsible for my acts when I am under orders. I have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. I am in military service. I am bound to obey the orders of my superiors. Conscience never had and never can have any place in military service as against a soldier's oath to obey. Conscience com- mands him to keep that oath. The soldier must obey his general. That is the supreme act of conscience for him, and that is the end of all argument." " It is not the end of it," contended Brown. " Do you suppose that God will hold you any the less to account because some other man tells you to do a certain thing? You can't swear away your own responsibility." " I don't swear it away," argued Dexter. " I swear to obey my superior. My responsibility and my duty LOYAL TRAITORS 21 are to obey. My oath requires me to do that. If I failed to obey, I should break my oath. That would be proving false, and I am bound to be an honest man/' " But if your general commands you to do what you know to be a wrong thing, would you do it just the same ? " " Of course. My oath requires me to obey my superiors, and I am bound by my oath. If the act commanded is wrong, I am not responsible. The responsibility rests on the man who gives the order. I am simply his subordinate. I am not responsible and no guilt rests on me." " No, Dexter, that is not so. You're wrong. You can't swear away your responsibility. Do you sup- pose that God abdicates his sovereignty over any man for any cause whatever? Do you suppose he lets some man come between him and any of his creatures, and permits that man to be greater that he himself is in regard to personal obligation? That is contra- dictory to the very nature of the Supreme Person. If God were to do that, he would not be supreme, and the bottom would fall out of everything. Your first responsibility is to God, no matter about your oath to obey your general. It is absurd to think of forswear- ing your accountability directly to God." " But see how ridiculous you are, Brown. If you are right, and if, on the ground of conscience, every soldier must judge for himself whether or not he will obey orders, don't you see that there is at once an end 22 LOYAL TRAITORS of all discipline ? The best army in the world would go to pieces in two days under such destructive ideas/' " Dexter, see here. If the best army in the world were doing right, then its soldiers, fighting conscien- tiously, would be all the more enthusiastic and effective for the right. If the army were in the wrong, then it ought to be beaten, no matter what consequences would follow. The triumph of righteousness and justice would then be sure and the wrong could never triumph. But the right and the wrong of acts are not to be judged at all by their consequences in human affairs, never. If all discipline were destroyed, that in itself would not be worth consideration. Far higher than any other concern stands right and justice. They must be upheld, no matter what the consequences may be to armies or to countries. If you or your general or your country are wrong, you deserve to be beaten ; and in the long run you will be beaten, for God sits eternal in the heavens and bides his time. If your conscience tells you that your general is wrong, then, by the very fact that you owe allegiance first to God, your duty is to disobey your general or to get out of the service." "H'm!" snorted Dexter. "To disobey and be shot, under military discipline, if worst came to worst ! " " If you value your life more than your honor or your duty to God/* said Brown, "that may seem a good argument. But, if you put conscience and duty LOYAL TRAITORS 23 first, the question of being shot will be altogether a secondary matter." "Brown, you are getting too fine spun in your theories. Such talk is not for this practical world. I am a military man. I am under orders. I am bound to obey. When I am ordered to do a thing, I am going to do it ; my first duty is to keep my oath to obey my general and my country. Further than that I don't go, because that gets to the bottom of my philosophy. You can't convince me, and I don't suppose that I can convince you, for ever since we were two feet high together you have been a queer child about your conscience ' and so on." So Brown argued no more, and each stuck to his own ideas about duty and conscience. The next day Brown had an encounter with an altogether different specimen of an imperialist. He was an old high-school friend who lived in the same ward with Brown, and who had always kept up an acquaintance with him. Willing to turn a little business into his schoolmate's law-office, as well as to have a correct bit of work done for himself, Mr. Morgan Rich walked into Brown's place and asked him to draw up the papers for a steamer which he had just bought for the Philippine trade. " What line of business are you going to take up, Rich ? " asked Brown. " I expect to send out whiskey, beer, and that sort of goods, and bring back hemp and other Philippine products. I believe there is a mint of money in it for 24 LOYAL TRAITORS the man who jumps in first. I tell you, McKinley is a great President. We Americans have got to expand. We have got to have bigger foreign markets ; and if there is anything contemptible it is these little Amer- icans who are talking about the rights of those niggers out there. We have bought them and paid for them. Now we will make money out of them/' "The fact is, Rich, I am just one of those little Americans, if a great continent like ours, half- unexplored as yet, is little, and I believe the Filipinos are right. They have got the spirit of Patrick Henry, and they deserve to win." " I don't remember just who he is. I don't recollect seeing his name lately on the list of Dun & Co.'s agency. What is his rating ? " " His rating is A i, but it is not on Dun's list. He is the man who said, ' Give me liberty or give me death.' " "And a mighty queer draft it was, too. Did he say whether it was spot cash or thirty days? He couldn't have had it sent C.O.D., I suppose." " He would have taken death on the spot before he would have gone into the liquor business with people whom we are cheating out of their rights and their liberty.' 1 " Oh, fudge ! As soon as those Filipinos see what we do for them they will submit. We are a regular silver spoon in their mouth, if they only knew it." "Abraham Lincoln said that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other man's consent." LOYAL TRAITORS 25 " It's some years since I have had time to look up Lincoln. I've been too busy. We used to hear more or less about him, but I haven't heard his name men- tioned for a good while. I guess he don't count for much now." " You are right there, he doesn't count for much, these days. But I suppose you remember that Grant was very strong for the rights of men ? " " Yes, I remember Grant. He was the great adver- tising agent who made a trip around the world, advertising American goods. Our foreign markets were a good deal better because he made that trip and showed off such a line of samples. But it seems to me he failed in business, didn't he? Didn't his notes go to protest ? " " I always understood that he was one of the great Americans." " Well, perhaps he was unfortunate. Most of us make mistakes sometime. I won't lay it up against him. But I mean to keep a sharp lookout ahead." " Now look here, Rich, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to be so wrapped up in business that you don't keep the run of your own national affairs." "Oh, bosh! I let those run to politics who want office. They want office, I want money. We both get what we want, and I don't complain." "What good will this money do you which you make out of these oppressed Filipinos ? " "Well, after I have salted down all I care to, I might have a memorial window put into Trinity church 26 LOYAL TRAITORS ' to the memory of Morgan Rich, the eminent philan- thropist : he never let his left hand know what his right hand did/ or some other such suitable sen- timent. " " No, it ought to be this : He turned the blood of brave men into money and bought this window with the price of souls/ " " Come, Brown, now you are getting personal." "I can't help it, Rich. I wouldn't draw up the papers for your business if you would give me the steamer outright." " What a ridiculous fool you are ! Say, you don't mean that you are serious ! Plenty of lawyers would like the job." " I suppose so ; but I won't take it, nor will I ever at any time touch a dollar made out of the Filipinos/' " Well, it's fortunate that precious few men are like you. I mean to make an honest dollar where I can. Good day ! " " Good day ! Be sure that they really are ' honest ' dollars ! " LOYAL TRAITORS 27 CHAPTER III FAITH FESSENDEN MAKES A DISCOVERY IN the shorter days of December, 1898, events in two widely different spheres of action were hasten- ing to a crisis. In each case, in the very nature of the elements involved, the culmination could not long be delayed. Friction between the Americans and the Filipinos was increasing. Weeks before the treaty of Paris had been signed, and while it was yet wholly uncertain whether the United States 'Senate would ratify the treaty ; while the Filipinos occupied toward us the attitude of allies who had assisted us by their army in effecting the conquest of Spain, the Administration, regardless of the rights of the case, without proven necessity and without any authority from Congress, proceeded to make war upon the Philippine people. It issued the historic Proclamation of December 21, 1898, directing the military occupation of the Phil- ippine Islands, a proceeding wholly without excuse in law or morals ; and this Proclamation was followed by the naval expedition against Iloilo, under General Miller, thus beginning the open hostilities against the Filipinos long in advance of the outbreak of February 4 at Manila. 28 LOYAL TRAITORS That was one of the two incidents referred to, the consequences of which will have their due attention. The other affair was in connection with George Brown and Faith Fessenden. Brown was becoming morbid. He loved Faith, but she herself made no sign. He saw her frequently, but she was not partial enough to him to satisfy his prejudiced mind. He would have liked wholly to absorb her. She, on the other hand, allowed herself other male acquaintances. Her young woman friends, of whom she had plenty and with whom she was popular and charming, had plenty of others, also, and she and they were frequently meeting. She did not lack for escorts abroad nor for company at home. The weeks went on, and more and more he wished to assert an exclusive claim ; but he saw no practical way of doing it. The only comfort which he extracted from the situation was that no other, more than him- self, seemed to be the favorite. He was at least on equal ground with all others, though he did not know whether to call them rivals or not. He fancied any number of unreasonable and improbable situations; but his fancies were so inconsistent with each other that he scored himself mentally every day or two for being such a fool, and then went on and made just the same fool of himself over again as if he had not trav- ersed the same ground a hundred times before. But Brown had the advantage, though he did not know it, and though Faith did not realize it. In all matters of interest he was so absolutely frank in his LOYAL TRAITORS 29 way of talking with her ; moreover, he was so inter- ested in his public duties when he was in public life ; again, he was so direct in going to the vital moral point of that one great issue of the day in which he was so ardently bound up, and so positive in his judg- ment of right and wrong in the case, that she felt the imperative respect which one feels in the presence of a mind clear and strong upon vital themes. Besides, he was and she knew that he was really more considerate and thoughtful of her than was any other young man of her acquaintance. True, the others were as polite as the most Chesterfieldian manual would have required ; but Brown went beyond Chester- field, and had built for himself, in her habitual attitude toward him, a standing which neither of them appre- ciated or even suspected. At that point, however, singularly or naturally, their nearness to each other paused, and to Brown the situation had reached a stage where it must have some outcome. Waters cannot pile up against a dam con- tinually without breaking over. The breaking over came after Brown had lost a case in court. Through some psychological impulsion he felt as if, in another case, he must also know the worst. Faith had again been at some entertainment with a masculine acquaintance, and Brown was in- wardly unreasonable and hasty on account of the incident. " It is time to find out about this," he said. " If I live to be seventy-five years old, things may go on like 30 LOYAL TRAITORS this, unless I do something. She gives me no clue whatever as to how I stand. I'll ask her, and face the worst." He called. Had he been more practised in the arts of pleasing, and not so mathematically rectilinear in his approach, he might have applied a bit of flattery no, with Faith Fessenden flattery would have failed at the outset ; but of persuasiveness : whereupon he might have found that the drawbridge was not up all the way around the castle which he ardently wished to enter. Or had not Faith, in her personal failings, been so much like himself, matters might have been different. But he was as Nature made him, and so was she, and that caused the misunderstanding at this very critical moment. Resolving, as he said, to "face the worst," he of course went at it in the very worst way, and got the worst out, of it, as the laws of soul-contact would have prophesied for him. There are laws of mind as truly as laws of body, and they work on just as mathematical principles of cause and effect, though we have not yet reduced their workings to science in our books, not- withstanding that the laws are working in every day practice just as truly as gravitation and the multiplica- tion-table. Brown put himself in the way of the law and the law wreaked its penalty upon him. It was a practical way of learning mental and emotional science ; but if people will not learn in any other way, experience must be their school. He was at his worst and bluntest, and she, under LOYAL TRAITORS 31 the touch of some home unpleasantness, catching his mood, was certainly not in her best or most favorable mood, though usual satisfaction in his presence, and her trust in his absolute honesty and frankness, made it always a pleasure to meet him. " Faith,'* he began abruptly, the moment he en- tered her presence, seizing her hand as they sat near each other, "we can't go on like this forever. I come here and go away again. I come and go, come and go, and we get along nicely together. And then I come and go, come and go some more, and we are just at the same place that we were before. I can't endure it, Faith. I can't live like this forever. I love you, Faith. I have loved you with all my heart a long, long time. Will you be my wife ? " Faith looked him straight in the eyes, though she drew her hand away. "George," she said, "you know I like you. I like you very much. It is good to be with you. But I never thought of our acquaintance coming to this. I perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps I ought to have seen this before. But I did not. I did not see that it meant all this to you. You must not think too hardly of me if I have done you wrong. I have been frank and friendly with you, but I never thought of anything further." She never had. But George did not take this into account. Nor did he pause an instant. " Then it's ' No '," he cried. " Faith, you are an honest girl. I must accept my fate. I shall always 32 LOYAL TRAITORS love you, whether I am here or far away. You have my heart and always will have it. I cannot help that, for you have won it ; it is not mine any longer. You can't prevent it now, and you can't give it back to me. Don't say anything more. I will accept your decision and not visit you any more." Faith could not help looking at him with a sort of surprised curiosity. But in her response she was very tender of his sensitiveness. "If you cannot come to see me and be happy, George, then certainly I must not ask you to come. But need you bring our friendship to an end ? You are my honest and frank friend, just the same as ever. We have had these years together, and, if you can forgive me for my blindness, I would not have them come to an end now." " But they must, Faith ; I can't live so." He paused a moment, and the maiden waited. "And yet, Faith," he went on an instant later, his mind flashing forward into the future as that future would be without her, " I can't live without you ! Yet you say I must, and I will accept your decision ! " " I do not see that it is necessary for you to say good-bye," she replied. " You will feel differently by and by. You will see that I am your true friend, and you will forget this day and what has been said." " No, Faith, I shall not forget or change. But, if you desire it, I will not say good-bye. Perhaps it is better so. Possibly the future will not be so dark that way." LOYAL TRAITORS 33 So he left her, and set his face as to a lonely future, while she let her thoughts run back over the past. She saw now many things in a light she had never suspected at the time, things which she had accepted as matters of courtesy and common politeness. They took on a new meaning. As she recalled incident after incident of this sort she said : " George has been very good to me." 34 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER IV COL. PHILIP HOTSPUR TAKES A LESSON IN THE CODE OF HONOR "~T-HE truth about this Philippine War," wrote Alfred Wheelwright to George Brown, " is that half of our people do not approve it if they are left to their sober judgment and to their sense of right and wrong. In my new position on this Boston and Savannah steamship I have an opportunity to hear a great many people say what they think. Most of them say that we are now so far in the scrape that we must carry it through. Others stand by their party, right or wrong. Still others are indifferent. But there are a good many in all, Republicans, too, who wish we were out of the whole business. They put no trust in this talk about duty and destiny, and believe that the attempted conquest of the islands is all a matter of dollars. If it were not for the hot military spirit of the army, the ambition of men to do something for their own glory, the blind zeal of some religious people, and the cursed love of the almighty dollar on the part of our business men, we should never have been in this disgraceful war, with all its unspeakable horrors for the Filipino people, its suffer- LOYAL TRAITORS 35 ing to our own men, and its dangers to our very government/' Brown soon had a realizing sense of the effect of the " military spirit," as mentioned by Wheelwright, in shaping our national history. He was dining one day with Dexter and another friend at the Union Club, of which he was a member, when he chanced to sit near Colonel Philip Hotspur, one of the officers just home from Cuba with new honors. The colonel was a striking military figure. With protuberant chest, elevated shoulders, and stiff spinal column he would have attracted attention anywhere. But above his physique was his evident mental attitude. He was an American all over. He was proud of American prowess. He gloried in America's power. American imperialism rang through the vibrant chords of his voice whenever he spoke, especially to the " nigger " waiters. American spirit flamed from his eyes whenever he turned them upon a subordinate. American scorn revealed itself in the curve of his nostril and the inclination of his lip. American stalwartness asserted itself in his ground-devouring stride. American glory he was such an overflowing embodiment of it streamed from the ends of his Kaiser William mustache like electricity from the tip of a lightning-rod in a thunder-storm. The colonel and some friends were so near George Brown and his companions that they could not but hear the conversation. Brown's mind was full of the 36 LOYAL TRAITORS wrong which was being perpetrated in the name of his country upon the victims of commercialism, militarism, and clericalism, and he discharged some of his contempt for the cause of the evils, not hesitat- ing to challenge Dexter to another encounter in the arena of reason and justice. " Now, Dexter," said Brown, " you know that the army officers are ambitious for glory and are pro- digiously jealous of each other. You know that many of them would not hesitate to sacrifice the Filipinos if thereby their own promotion might be assured. It is an unspeakable outrage on humanity that such influences are so strong right at the very top of the Administration." " What are you going to do about it ? " asked Dexter. " It is true of some officers, though it is false of a great many others. It has always been so in military circles, and it always will be. It was so in the Northern army in the Civil War. Not every officer who was shot in battle was killed by confederate bullets. You can't make over human nature." " That is one thing which convinces me more and more that an army is about the worst asset any nation can have if it expects to deal fairly with everybody," responded Brown. " You get a large standing army, I do not mean a little one for police purposes, and the officers are hungry for a fight. It is their business to fight. You remember General Frothing- ham's speech we heard the other day : < If we are pugnacious, it is natural. The ram is a very pretty LOYAL TRAITORS 37 little animal, but the farmers say that if you put one in the field where there is nothing else for him to butt, he will butt a stump, because it is his nature to. Now, it is as natural for an American boy to butt a stump as it is for a ram. The way we are educated, you must not be surprised if we occasionally look for stumps.' That is the truth of the matter. Our military men are looking for stumps. They are glad to pick a war, reckless of other people's rights, provided they can make something for Number One. And you yourself, Dexter, will defy your real con- science and obey these blood-thirsty egotists when they tell you to fight for their shoulder-straps." It happened that no one in Brown's party had been observing the other group of diners. Had they done so, they would have caught a vision of the officer's angry face and glaring eyes. " Traitor ! " shouted Colonel Hotspur, who had heard with rising wrath Brown's denunciation of the military character. Both groups of men jumped to their feet as the enraged ideal American, defending his profession, and himself by inference, advanced upon his calumniator with clenched fist and shook it in his face. " You lie ! It's an infamous lie, and you know it. You lie in your black heart. You lie in your brain. You lie from head to foot. I defy you to make your words good. I here and now challenge you to meet me on the field of honor. Your blood or mine must flow for this infernal outrage upon brave men." 38 LOYAL TRAITORS George Brown, the instant the first furious words belched from the mouth of the colonel, put the strong- est restraint upon himself. Before the last fling of fury had escaped he was looking straight into the eyes of the colonel with a cool smile, ready in resource, and with his line of action perfectly clear before him. "Please put your communication in writing," he replied. "It shall receive my prompt attention. Meanwhile, as we are through with our repast, permit me to wish you good day and a quiet meditation in this matter." He turned away at once, bowing low to his adver- sary, and was followed out by Dexter and their other friend. The colonel was left to comply at his dis- cretion with Brown's request. For Colonel Hotspur there was no alternative after such a beginning. He knew Dexter, and he felt that Brown must be at least a man who was serious when he invited him to put his communication in writing. So he wrote without delay the formal challenge, nam- ing his second, and asking Brown to carry on further negotiations through him. Brown still saw the line of duty and of action as clearly as it had flashed upon him when the colonel denounced him as a traitor for reflecting upon the char- acter of army officers. First of all, reason and truth were to be defended. The matter of fighting with an angry officer was more remote. So he replied to the letter : LOYAL TRAITORS 39 " COLONEL PHILIP HOTSPUR : "Sir: This is a very serious matter, and shall receive my prompt attention, as I promised you. You have challenged me to mortal combat. Thereby you offer yourself as the best possible illustration of the truth whose utterance provoked your wrath and leads you to take my life. If what I said is worthy of the attention which you have given to it, then the first thing is to establish the truth or falsity of my charge. Whether I live or die will have no effect upon the main question. You have evaded the issue. If you believed that I spoke falsely, why did you not prove the falsehood ? Why should you try to kill me and thereby make it impossible for me to support my case ? If I spoke the truth, and I affirm that I did, then I shall most surely not put myself in a position where I cannot defend it against your attack. If you had the truth on your side, you would have confuted me with it. But as you did not, therefore your act is a confession that the officers of the army are open to the charge I made against them. Furthermore, your own haste makes it probable that you yourself fell under condemnation. " The first matter to be settled is whether or not my charge is true. All plans for a hostile meeting must be postponed until the main issue is settled. After that has been disposed of, it will be for you to say whether it will promote the cause of truth for you to murder me. You are doubtless a better shot than I am. If, after the more important matter has been 40 LOYAL TRAITORS disposed of, you suppose that the reputation of army officers will be enhanced by making a corpse of me, you are welcome to try your hand. I shall not attempt any return shot. I do not believe in murder. I do not believe in force as the right way of settling a dis- pute. I believe that all differences between men should be settled by justice and reason. Thus, if you can prove me to be in the wrong, I will apologize and retract. But until then, I repeat my charge with all its original force, insisting that it is true and that army officers are so prone to fight for the sake of fighting and for the sake of their own advancement as to affect seriously for evil the history of our country. I have facts wherewith to sustain my charge. " I therefore await your settlement of this first matter, after which negotiations for the second part of the program will be in order. Captain Dexter is my representative. " With all due respect, " GEORGE BROWN." Though Dexter disagreed with the vehemence of Brown's charge, yet, from his own army experience, he was well aware that facts enough existed to make a plausible foundation for it. His friendship for Brown was strong enough to hold him fast to him in this matter, in spite of the reflection on his own profession, and he consented to act as his second. He indorsed Brown's course, sharing his contempt for the folly and wickedness of dueling. So he delivered the reply LOYAL TRAITORS 41 from Brown to the colonel's second and awaited the result. Colonel Hotspur read Brown's answer with an abundant outflow of unscriptural language. He was not as fertile in intellect as he was ready in wrath, and he could not see a satisfactory way out of the matter. Brown had promised to meet him after the most important matter was settled, therefore the challenge had not been declined. But Brown had challenged him to prove his charge false. Now, there are a great many army officers, and it would be impossible to prove a general negative. Besides, however it might be with powder and ball, Brown had some ammunition to fire in the first duel with intangible bullets. In this primary conflict might not he himself be hurt worse by standing up than if he should not expose himself ? To his prudent mind that seemed to be the safer course. In some way he must save his dignity. So, by consultation with his second, the following was prepared : " MR. GEORGE BROWN : "Sir: Since you fail to meet my challenge directly, and propose an evasive course which does not satisfy my standard of military honor, a course to pursue which would lead to no valuable result, I desire to have no further communication with you. "PHILIP HOTSPUR, Colonel" With which reply the incident was closed. 42 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER V REV. ANSEL ROBINSON RAISES A PARISH STORM said Rev * Ansel Robinson to his friend at one of the meetings of their League, " I expect to say something about national issues in my sermon the Sunday before the Fourth, and I should like to have you there. I can't hold in any longer. Ever since we began the war on the Filipinos last winter I have been boiling to think of our duplicity, our cruelty, our inhumanity, our utter disregard of our own political principles, and our con- tempt for the very essence of the Christianity we profess. Here are our worthy people acting as if we were doing the Lord's work, when I am sure that it is inspired directly by the very devil himself. I must speak, even if they throw me out of the church for it. No man who is worthy to stand in a Christian pulpit will let any consideration of personal conse- quences to himself hinder him in preaching the truth to his people." " I shall be glad to come, Mr. Robinson ; and you may be sure that I shall stand by you if anything happens because you tell your people the truth about this inexpressible Philippine wickedness." LOYAL TRAITORS 43 In another place in Boston there were minds running in the same channel. "Faith," said Mr. Fessenden to the one daughter who sympathized with him on the great topic of the times, " I hear that Pastor Robinson is a very strong anti-imperialist. It would be just like him to preach on imperialism on the Fourth of July Sunday. If you would like, we will go out to hear him." "I shall be delighted to go, father; and I hope he will make it so warm for the other side or, at least, so clear to them that they will be ashamed of them- selves and turn about." George Brown asked his father to go with him. The Fessendens took a couple of sympathizing neigh- bors. None of them were disappointed in Pastor Robinson. His soul was aflame with the indignation he felt at the utter denial of the principles of Chris- tianity in those who supported the conquest of the Philippines for the spread of the gospel and of civil- ization, and he was never in his life more vehe- ment than he was when laying open, to the view of every one who chose to see, the utter inconsistency between the love of Christ and the conquest of a weaker people in order that the gospel might be given to them. But the congregation, except in a few instances, was not sympathetic or responsive. One of the prominent Republican politicians of the suburb walked stiffly out of the church to express his displeasure. At the close of the service some came up to expostu- 44 LOYAL TRAITORS late, and to remonstrate against using the pulpit for such purposes. The few who indorsed the sermon remained to say how much they were delighted with it. Thus there gathered quite a storm right about the sacred desk, such as is inevitable when conflicting forces come in contact. The Fessenden party had been given seats near the front, and they remained unnoticed in the pew while the discussion raged over the pastor and his provoking sermon. Just four of the men members of the church stood by Pastor Robinson, Henry Trueblood, a carpenter ; Frank Ledger, a cashier; Paul Nutting, a farmer; and William DeNim, a salesman. Every deacon, the Sunday-school superintendent, and all who were of importance in shaping the course of the church, except these four, were stanch supporters of the policy of conversion by force which the pastor so strongly con- demned, and they warmed to the attack as they saw their relative numerical strength. The Brown party took a hand in the debate, and there was no tenderness of each other's feelings in the give-and-take which followed. " I do not see how any Christian man can uphold the policy of the Administration," said Pastor Robin- son, replying to the sharp question of Deacon Harrow as to why he had given his people such a sermon. " I believe that we are in the most critical period our nation has seen since the Civil War, and it would be as wrong for me to keep still now as it would have been wrong to have said nothing against slavery then. LOYAL TRAITORS 45 Do you say that a minister ought not to preach against great national sins ? " " This isn't a sin. We are doing right. We want to convert and civilize those savages. We want to give them the gospel. It will all come out best in the end. It is for their good/* said the deacon. " But it is never right," replied the pastor, " to spread Christianity by force. What a spectacle we make of ourselves, killing men in order that we may preach the gospel to the survivors ! We only make them hate us. If your ideas are right, then Mohammed, with fire and sword, was i;ight." " There is a difference," argued the deacon," between blind fanaticism and reason enlightened by the Chris- tian religion. This nation is following the pointing of the finger of God. It is perfectly clear to the reverent mind that God is in these events." " God never tells men to steal and murder," pro- tested the minister. " We are doing neither. We are simply and regret- fully applying force temporarily, to make these people better." "We have no right to apply force. The people own themselves ; and the land they live in is theirs, as truly as the land we live in is ours." " Spain held the title to the Philippines before she transferred it to us," argued the deacon. " Which means," responded the minister, " that if a thief keeps stolen goods long enough he has a moral right to them." 46 LOYAL TRAITORS "But the possession by Spain was recognized by international law, by the civilized world," the deacon asserted. "Which means," retorted the minister with calm indignation, " that if everybody steals, then stealing is right, and therefore the thief in our country to-day who steals all he can and tries to make the practice general is a moral reformer for the benefit of man- kind and ought to be encouraged in his missionary effort." " It seems to me," hotly replied the deacon, who in the figures of his speech betrayed the symbols of his daily occupation, " that your mind is badly warped to talk such nonsense as that ! The T-square of your candor is twisted out of shape. The plumb line of your judgment is blown one side by the blast of your prejudice. Nobody can argue with such a man." " I am glad," said Brown quietly, " that you make such an admission." Deacon Elderkin, a young man who had just been elected to the office on the principle that the available material of the church ought to be brought into action, joined in the attack with the warmth of a young Republican, loyal to the President. " I hold," said he, " that a man ought to be loyal to his country. Love of country is the highest duty we owe. We are bound to stand by the superiors whom God has placed over us. I say that William McKinley is President by the providence of God, and I believe that he has been led by God in trying to conquer the LOYAL TRAITORS 47 Philippines in order to establish American sovereignty and give them the blessings of civilization.'* " Led by God ? " cried out George Brown. " What right have you to say that he has been led by God any more than any man has been led by God who acts contrary to the principles of the gospel and of his own country ? I charge the Administration at Wash- ington with defying the principles of Christianity and the fundamental ideas of the Declaration of Independ- ence. God is no respecter of persons, and he created all men equal before him. No nation has a right to conquer another under pretense of spreading the gospel or of raising them in the comforts of life. God is in every event of history, good or bad, and it is no more to be presumed that he approves the slaughter of the Filipinos by the Americans than that he approves the slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks. It is as easy to prove the special interposition of God in the one case as it is in the other. If William McKinley should be assassinated you would have to argue that the crime was a part of the purpose and wisdom of God ; that the assassin did right, and there- fore that he ought to be commended." " Such talk is nothing less than blasphemy," replied the young deacon. " The hand of God is as plain in this case as if he had spoken from heaven. Besides that, can't you trust the President ? He is as patriotic as you are, and he has inside information which you don't have. Can't you trust him ? " " I cannot trust," answered Brown reverently, " that 48 LOYAL TRAITORS any man is moved by the hand of God when the action is contrary to wisdom, love, and justice. " The discussion here branched out into dialogues between several groups, who could not hold themselves in, such was their heat and abounding conviction that they were right in their respective views, till the deacons, with Trueblood, DeNim, Nutting, and Ledger, these four being on the side of the pastor, and about every one else in the group, had taken a voice. Pastor Robinson stood in the midst of the storm, answering questions and defending himself bravely, but making little headway against the set opinions of those who differed from him radically and who made their politics a part of their religion. They were getting to no conclusion whatever, and the pastor, seeing how hopeless the case was, and filled with the gathering force of the righteousness of his position, launched out, with a vibrant voice which silenced all the wordy tumult about him, into a defense of his course and an attack upon the attitude of relig- ious people in general who favored the Philippine war. " We ought not to be surprised," he said, " that the large number of religious people favor the use of force in extending the gospel and are opposed to the true method of peaceful means. It has been the history of the world from the beginning of recorded times that religious people, especially the organized representatives of religion, have employed the most cruel and inhuman means of sustaining themselves and LOYAL TRAITORS 49 of spreading their power. Religion has two faces : hand in hand with its immeasurable good it has always been a cloak for the worst intolerance, the most out- rageous inhumanity, the blindest conservatism, and the deadliest opposition to the rights and the progress of man that the world has ever seen. The religious mind in man in religion's organized form, when it has seized power or got the upper hands, as it has in the United States to-day has always been the center of the most anti-Christian conduct and has held the most reactionary principles. Tear anywhere out of the great book of history a page, and it dis- closes the tyranny, bigotry, and bitterness of perverted religious feeling. It exhibits the tendency to padlock the human intellect, to coerce and control opinion, to gag the mouth of confession, to terrorize the con- sciences and convictions of men ; and it also reveals the utter and hopeless futility of all such proceedings. True progress in human liberty never comes from the organized religious forces. You have got to go out- side of the church, to the few men who see the vital essence of truth, not the mere husk of its forms and ceremonies and nominal principles, if you would find the soul of truth and progress. If men of this sort are found inside the church, then they are in a weak minority, as they are to-day. " The pastor looked around him sorrowfully, and went on : " Look at history from the very beginning and see what religious men have done. It was religious men 50 LOYAL TRAITORS who opposed our Savior and put him to death. They represented the highest religious thought and activity of the times. It was religious men who shaped the policy of the Roman Empire and put to death hun- dreds of thousands of men and women for professing the new Christian religion. After this new religion had conquered the Roman Empire and had got control of the government, then it, in turn, became oppressive and opposed to all progress. It was the religion of the world, yes, the Christian religion as it was professed by the body of organized Christianity, which caused the Dark Ages to shut down over the world, which kept the light of the gospel from the mass of the people, which retained the Word of God in Latin and gave the people only what the priests and pope were disposed to impart. When a few brave souls, like John Huss and Martin Luther and their followers, braved death for truth's sake, then it was the religious people who put many to death amid inconceivable tortures. In England, Catholics burned Protestants and Protestants burned Catholics. In this country, it was the organized religious people of the times who opposed free thought, who hanged Quakers on Boston Common, who hanged the Salem witches and made the State a Theocracy. It is the religious people who stand in the way of modern thought. They have opposed the advance of science. They have misinter- preted the scriptures until science has smashed down the barrier of their opposition and let the light of truth shine. In former days it was Catholics and pagan LOYAL TRAITORS 51 priests and Established Churchmen who committed all sorts of crime against human life, liberty, and con- science, in the name of religion. The religious mind in possession of temporal power is just the same to-day that it has been for two thousand years, yes, ever since the time of the priests of the Egyptian mysteries and their control over the nation. It is the Greek Church priests in Russia who preserve their despotic form of government, who deny religious liberty, who kill patriots in Siberia. It is religious people, in con- trol of the government in this self-governing country of ours, our Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and so on, who to-day believe that it is right to kill men in order to spread the gospel ; who pretend that the gospel of love is to be spread by force. These men have no more conception of the true spirit of the gospel of love than the old people of the Spanish inquisition had. We are getting new light on those old days. Our pretended enlightened people in our most advanced churches to-day stand in exactly the same category as the men who put the martyrs to death for the sake of principle. We do not doubt that there were a great many honest persecutors in the Catholic Church who put men to death for the good of their souls. But the fact that they were honest does not make us shudder any the less when we read of their terrible cruelities. The same fate will happen to our imperialist clergymen of to-day. They will be judged by a future generation, and they will be *put in the same list as those who sawed righteous men asunder 52 LOYAL TRAITORS and boiled them in oil. I am an optimist. Times will become better. Higher standards will prevail. Other- wise there would be no reforming or converting power in Christianity. Brotherhood is our true motto, not expansion, for expansion is nothing but selfishness. Expansion is always selfish looking out for its own good. Every man who upholds our infamous war upon the Filipinos, our neglect of our vital political principles, and our hardness toward our fellow-men, will be judged by a standard as much higher than ours of to-day as ours is higher than that of the saints who killed their fellow-Christians for the glory of God, no matter how many virtues they have by our present standard. This is inevitable, and all we may say now will not change their future condemnation one iota. Time will bring terrible retribution for all offenders against the fundamental laws of love and liberty. Force is not right, and the law of love will prevail. But we must bide our time. You don't agree with me now. I can't convince you now ; but I stand my ground and appeal to the future." The good pastor was profoundly excited and spoke with terrible earnestness. No one cared to answer him and the party broke up. Faith Fessenden had seen George Brown and had heard his defense of truth and liberty. In the excite- ment he had not noticed her presence, or that of her companions, and she thought best not to put herself in sight. But she felt sure that there was a man who LOYAL TRAITORS 53 knew his mind, and who would not only stick to it, but sacrifice himself for his convictions if necessary, in order to maintain them. The visitors returned to Boston and Pastor Robin- son went home to prepare for the storm which he foresaw would break out against him. 54 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER VI PASTOR ROBINSON'S PARISHIONERS STRIKE A RETURN BLOW "I IE has no right to preach politics in the pulpit," exclaimed Deacon Harrow excitedly, to a little group who gathered after the next mid-week prayer-meeting to give vent to their indignation against Pastor Robinson. " He has no right to take advan- tage of the place we put him into, and vilify our good President and condemn his Christian policy. I believe he had better go." " But, Brother Harrow," answered Henry True- blood, "if he thinks that the nation is doing a wicked thing, surely he ought to preach against it ; and if he finds that the Administration is responsible for the wick- edness, he is justified in pointing the finger at it/' " But he has no business to preach politics. We hired him to preach the gospel, not to tell us what we ought to do in politics. I guess we know as much about politics as he does." " Politics is very often a matter of right and wrong for the nation," broke in Frank Ledger. " It is a minister's duty to preach against sin, and if he finds that the nation is committing a hideous sin it is his duty to preach against it, no matter if it is politics LOYAL TRAITORS 55 and no matter whose corns he treads on. I believe he did just the right thing. And he did a very brave thing, for he knew that you would all raise a howl against him. He is right and I stand by him." " It's a minister's business to preach the gospel, and to let his people make the practical application for themselves/' said young Deacon Elderkin. " He ought to use more common sense. He can't expect the big majority of this congregation, twenty to one against him, to submit to be talked to as if they were a lot of cut-throats. If he can't be broader-minded, he might as well stop preaching. He is so sore over this Philip- pine business that he thinks of that more than he does of his duties, and I believe that his usefulness here is at an end." " You can't show that he is wrong ; he has you on the hip when it comes to an argument," put in William DeNim. " You shut your eyes and go it blind. You stick to your ' party,' while he gets down to bed-rock in the Bible and the Declaration of Independence. You had better let him alone and prove him wrong before you go any further." "The majority of this church are satisfied already that he is wrong," Deacon Harrow retorted. "We want the gospel preached to us ; but when it comes to politics, we think he is out of his sphere, and if he can't let politics alone, and he can't, then it is time for us to part company." The division came upon the lines already laid down. Few outside of the four anti-imperialists who supported 56 LOYAL TRAITORS the pastor had any defense to make for his course. It was decided that his resignation should be asked for. As soon as the proper forms of church business could be observed, a meeting was called and the motion of Deacon Harrow that Pastor Robinson be requested to send in his resignation was carried by show of hands, women also voting, by vote of seventy-three to six. The motion was not debated. They had talked themselves out in private beforehand until they were weary and knew that further talk would be utterly use- less and merely aggravate the feelings of both sides. One request of Mr. Trueblood was granted without objection. He asked that the names of the minority be recorded, and that it be added to the record that the resignation was requested because of the pastor's preaching upon imperialism. To one who asked him after the meeting why he had done this, he said : "Because there will be a hereafter to this matter. Pastor Robinson will be vindicated, and I want it put on record beyond dispute just why he has been turned out, and who stood by him." Ansel Robinson was ready for the communication which was sent to him. He foresaw that he must either resign or keep silent upon as great a national sin as had ever been committed by any nation under pretense of doing right, or without pretense of right- eousness at all ; for he recognized fully the commercial spirit which was at the bottom of the imperialist propaganda, as well as the religious blindness which took advantage of it. LOYAL TRAITORS 57 "It is as much my duty to preach against this national sin," he soliloquized, " as it was for the Hebrew prophets to preach against the national sins of their time. They meddled with politics. It was politics mainly which disturbed them. It was the national unrighteousness which they condemned. It was impossible to draw a line between politics and religion. If religion is good for anything, it is good for national sins, being the only thorough remedy to be found. Therefore, if the nation sins, it is the duty of the faithful minister to preach politics, even if he knows that he must suffer martyrdom for it. I am not sorry for what I have done. I am ready to stand alone, but I am ashamed of my profession that so few ministers have the insight to realize the underlying truths in this crisis or the courage to stand up and oppose the corrupting influence of wealth which is poisoning the morals of the people. But I must bide my time. * Truth crushed to earth will rise again.' I shall be fully vindicated. Meanwhile, I have no other course but to yield to the storm. It would be folly to insist upon my legal rights and compel the church to pay my salary as long as I choose to stay." So he wrote a letter : " To THE CLERK OF THE COTTON MATHER MEMORIAL CHURCH : " Dear Brother v In compliance with the wishes of a large majority, as made known by the vote of the 58 LOYAL TRAITORS meeting which has been transmitted to me, I hereby resign my pastorate, the resignation to take effect as soon as the dismissing council can be held. I have no regret or apology for the course which has proved so offensive to most of my people, and I confidently look forward to the time when you, in the brighter light of truth and history, will see as I see and will do your part to atone for our great national sin. "Wishing you grace, mercy, and peace, I am " Very affectionately yours, ROBINSON." The council was called promptly, but Pastor Robin- son held that it was his right and opportunity, before walking down from the pulpit for the last time, to set before his flock once more the broad reasons for his course. Since they had got the better of him, and had forced him out, the sense of fair play returned, and Deacons Harrow and Elderkin and most of the others who supported the Administration policy from motives of religion and party politics listened with more of a disposition than before to hear what the condemned clergyman had to say. He could not hurt them now, let him fire away. The farewell sermon went straight to the equality of all men before God, to their brotherhood, to the great principle of love in the government of the world, to the truth that the best way to make men of persons is to treat them .like men, and that the best LOYAL TRAITORS 59 way to promote self-government is to permit nations to exercise it. He showed how the policy of conquest was markedly in contrast to these truths. He showed in strong colors the awful inhumanity of slaughtering thousands and thousands of fellow-men simply because they fought to be free, exercising their inherent rights. He appealed to the very principles upon which the American government was founded, and pictured the great Republic of Mankind which is yet to be realized, when the nations small and great will be in one federa- tion, the great not conquering the small by slaughter and cruelty, but recognizing their equality in essence, if not in numbers, when true Christianity shall have come into full possession of the world's politics. It was a noble deliverance. It shook the sternness of some. Others were bored. Others "wished he would not press them so hard. Others mentally clung to their rock of loyalty to party and the gospel of force, though Pastor Robinson's truths nearly swept them from their feet. After that came the council, the dismissal, and the removal of the pastor and his beloved family from town. Imperialism had scored another triumph and the Angel of Justice had another account to settle. Among the many letters of approval which the defeated pastor received was one signed by Mr. Fessenden and Faith. George Brown had a long talk with him and, by writing to friends, found occasionally an open pulpit where he could preach for a Sunday or two at a time. 60 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER VII HOW A LAY BROTHER COULD NOT GET OUT OF THE CHURCH BUT the disturbed waters of the Cotton Mather Memorial Church were not to resume at once their wonted placid condition. The conse- quences of the conflict over Pastor Robinson could not be disposed of instantly. Henry Trueblood, stirred to the depths of his heart by the unholy course of the nation, and by the attitude of nearly all of the members of his church, came to be in such a state of mind that he could no longer contain himself. " Come over and see me to-night, " he said to Frank Ledger one morning soon after the pastor's dismissal, "and bring Nutting and DeNim with you. I want to talk over a plan I have in mind. I want to get out of the church. I can't stand it to be identified any longer with such a set of Christians." " I'll come, Henry ; but don't get worked up too much over the situation. There are two sides to think of and you want to do what will count for most in the long run." " I know it ; but there is a limit to endurance, and it may be reached sooner than you think for." LOYAL TRAITORS 61 So, that evening, Ledger, Nutting, and DeNim met at Trueblood's house. "I want to talk over with you," he said, "a plan I have for getting out of the church. It grows out of the way they have abused Pastor Robinson, and out of their general indifference to the horrible things we are doing in the name of patriotism and religion. I can't endure it any longer, and must do some- thing." " What is your idea, neighbor ? " asked the farmer. " You don't mean to do anything rash, I hope. You can't make the world over in a day." "Just look at it," said Trueblood. "Here are the members of our church, men and women, the biggest part of them doing what I can't endure. They have sworn to be true to the light. They profess to illus- trate the gospel in their daily living. Yet they pray for the success of the government in its foreign policy. They support the Administration in its infamous course toward the Filipinos. They seem to have no moral sense. I am coming to the conclusion that people may be very religious and very immoral at the same time. They may be like the Greek pirates who held religious services and asked God's blessing upon their scheme of plunder and murder. There is more truth than sarcasm in the story about the chicken- stealer who said to his friend in reply to the ques- tion whether they were not doing wrong : < That is a great moral question ; hand down another chicken/ I find that there is a vast difference between religion 62 LOYAL TRAITORS and morals. It is wicked to dance and to play cards and to go to the theater, but it is all right to take your gun and go out and shoot down your innocent fellow-man whose only offense is that he wants to govern himself according to his own ideas, and who believes that he has a right to his own native land. A man who is so refined that he would not wear even a necktie that was off -color has no scruples against shooting down his fellow-man who is struggling only for his common human rights. Our people say that it is all for the best ; that we are doing it for their good, and that if they will only submit and do as we want them to do they will be a great deal better off than if we leave them to themselves. So they keep on killing them in the name of religion." "But what can you do about it, neighbor ?". con- tinued Nutting. " You can't argue with them. They fall right back upon their good intentions and upon the superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization, and there you are." " I know it, and that is what provokes me. They are so thick-skinned that they can't be persuaded of anything which goes against their own general good- ness and their loyalty to their particular political party." "You said, " put in Ledger, "that you have a plan for getting out of the church." " I have, and that is what I wanted to talk with you about. Here I am, a member of the same church with men and women whose hands are all besmeared LOYAL TRAITORS 63 with the blood of their fellow-men. Deacon Harrow and Deacon Elderkin and all the rest are really just as guilty of the murder of these Filipinos as if they shot them with the rifle in their own hands. They believe it is right. They approve the killing. They have no word of pity for the Filipinos until they surrender their birthright. ' Let them surrender first and then we will consider their case afterward/ they say. They approve the government's policy of uncon- ditional surrender as a condition of saying the first kind word to them. They will not give the slightest assurance that the Filipinos will ever be an independ- ent nation. They act in the most despotic way and call it God's plan of spreading Christianity and civil- ization. I call it utter barbarism, and I can't take the hands of such people with any sense of sympathy. I am ashamed to belong to the same church with them. I do not think they are true Christians. I don't see how they can have the true love of God in their hearts and be so totally hardened to sympathy with their fellow-men and so blind to common natural rights. The time has come for me to make a break from them. It is as much as I can do to live in the same town with them. Sometimes I feel as if I must get out of the country if I could find any place on earth where men were less hypocritical and had more regard for the rights of men. I can't bear the sight of the United States flag. It is a floating lie. It stands for deceit, for hypocrisy, for trampling on the rights of man, for robbery, murder, and oppression in the name 64 LOYAL TRAITORS of liberty. I am going to get out of the church. I would rather be counted with the wicked, outside, than with such hypocrites on the inside. It is too much for any honest man to endure/' "Now, brother," soothingly replied the salesman, "just go slow for a few minutes. I sympathize with you on the main question. You know that. I con- demn the Administration and the whole imperialist crowd as much as you do. But there are other things to consider. Which is worse, for the church to consist wholly of men who believe in killing their fellow-men in order to civilize them, or for it to have even a small minority who stand up for the right? Is it not better, taken wholly from the religious point of view, for you to stay in the church and help to save its reputation, than it is for you to pull out and let those on the other side have their own way to the full?" "Then there is another fact that you need to remember/ 1 said Nutting, "and that is that these people, after all, are very good in the eyes of the community and especially in their own opinion. They pray to God conscientiously. They sincerely ask to be led into the light, even if you may say that they follow the leading of the devil rather than of the Lord. Now, if you believe in the light's being its own revealer, as I have heard, you say, then you must believe that sooner or later the light will shine in their darkened minds, getting the better of their partianship and fanaticism and making them think as we do. It LOYAL TRAITORS 65 seems to me that you had better keep still, associate with them just as usual, keep on their humane side, put in your work as you have opportunity, and trust to the future to bring things around all right." " That sounds all right," said Trueblood, "and you can live on that plan, for you are not as sensitive as I am. To tell the truth, I am just horrified to think how these men and women must be made up inside, with all this blood on their souls. I can't bear to shake hands with them. I am not angry with them, but this indignation at wrong is in my nature. I could not be friendly and cool with a Turk after he had been slaughtering a lot of Armenians, and I can't be civil to these people when they pray for the spread of the gospel and then get their guns and go out and shoot Filipinos. You may stay in the church, but I shall get out." Trueblood's friends could not persuade him to change his plan. He became highly wrought up the more he considered the matter, his very nature, as he had asserted in the conversation with his friends, revolting against contact with neighbors who were guilty of what seemed to him unspeakable offenses against both the Christ they professed to serve and the principles of liberty and equality to which they professed to be so loyal. So he sent the following letter to the clerk of the church : " I desire to have my name dropped from the list of members in our church. I sympathize fully with the 66 LOYAL TRAITORS views of our late pastor. I believe that we are com- mitting a gross national sin in our foreign policy, and I find myself so completely out of sympathy with the large majority upon this matter that my present church relations have become intolerable. Will you therefore bring this letter before the church at the next meeting and ask for a vote dropping my name from the list of members ? " Accordingly the clerk of the church, at the next meeting, which was held within a few days, read the letter of Brother Trueblood and moved that his name be dropped from the list. The members, however, now that they had removed their offending pastor and had had time to see more clearly his reasons, as pastor, for denouncing what he believed to be a national sin, were getting their sober second thought. But Deacons Harrow and Elderkin still stuck to their original position. " If Trueblood wants to get out of the church," said the former, " I shall not hinder him. If he don't want to associate with me, I don't care to mix up with him. If he can't shake hands without feeling as if he were getting all bloody, he had better not touch me. I am not worrying about what he thinks. I hope that the motion will be passed." Brother Aretas Friend, a benevolent member whose words, reinforced by a halo of white hair and beard, usually carried weight and calmness, gave his views. " It seems to me that Brother Trueblood is a little hasty. We have known him for a good many years. LOYAL TRAITORS 67 We all think highly of him, and we all know that he is a valuable member of the church. We can't spare him, and it would be a pity if he were to leave us in such a frame of mind as this. I believe he will see things differently if we only give him time." " There is another thing which ought to settle the case," said Deacon Little, the member of the church committee who always kept in the background until there was a conclusive point to make. " This motion is out of order. We have our rules specifying on what grounds a member's name can be dropped from the list. There is honorable dismission to another church. A member can be dropped because of change in religious belief. We can drop a member for neglect of public worship and for failure to help support the church. We can terminate the member- ship of a man because of immoral and un-Christian conduct. But there is no way under our rules for a man to withdraw or get his name off the list for any reason like this. Then, too, I think there is sense in what Brother Friend says. Therefore I move that Brother Trueblood's letter be placed on file, and that the clerk be instructed to write to him that under our rules it is impossible to grant his request ; and, further, that the church hopes that he will exercise full Christian charity toward his fellow members, such as we feel toward him, and that he will reconsider his determination and resume his usual activity among us." The moderator thereupon ruled that the clerk's 68 LOYAL TRAITORS motion to drop Trueblood was out of order because it proposed something contrary to the rules of the church. Deacon Little's motion was passed unan- imously, without debate ; and the next day Henry Trueblood found that he could not get out of the church on anti-imperialist grounds, and that he was still a member in good and regular standing with Christian neighbors to whom he was expected to show Christian charity. LOYAL TRAITORS 69 CHAPTER VIII ALFRED WHEELWRIGHT HAS AN OPINION ABOUT HIS NATIVE LAND AND THE BOERS ALFRED WHEELWRIGHT'S friendship with George Brown, as it advanced in length, grew in strength. On every trip of his boat to Boston he managed to see Brown and to reach a broader under- standing with him of the issues of human rights and human government which were involved in the great question before the American people, a question full of grave consequences to their national existence. Brown was the leader, but Wheelwright was a strong second, and he frequently supplied, to the judicial temper which characterized Brown, the temper which seeks opportunity for action. Both were in complete accord upon the wrongfulness of the government's foreign policy, upon its infringement of undeniable Filipino rights, and upon the fundamental principles of the American government. Both were opposed to the current theory of expansion, and neither of them sympathized with the idea that only as a man owns the face of the earth can he enjoy the beauties of Nature. One of the acquaintances made by Wheelwright on yo LOYAL TRAITORS the boat was Washington Douglass, a full-blooded Negro in the service of the company. His manly bearing, genial disposition, and evident strength of character made him an exceptional figure, and a warm friendship grew up between the two kindred natures, which afterward bore abundant fruit. In October, 1899, came the outbreak of the war by Great Britain upon the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. On the boat from Savannah to Boston, directly after the outbreak of hostilities, were two Englishmen on their way to England to enlist in the British army. Of course they were enthusiastic for their country and had no question that she was right or that she would win a complete victory in a few weeks. Wheelwright made their acquaintance and felt the bond of common national origin. But he could not indorse their ideas of England's rightfulness in the Boer War. He had too much sense of right in his own nature, and he had talked too much with George Brown, clearing up many hazy points, to leave any doubt in his mind as to the only just course for England to pursue. " Mr. Pemberton," he said, as they neared Boston, when the three were together, "I should be very sorry to have anything happen to you in the Boer War, but I hope that you will not succeed." " That is not a very stimulating farewell message, Mr. Wheelwright." " I know it ; but I can't possibly see how England can be justified. If she has a good cause against the LOYAL TRAITORS 71 Boers, why does she not submit it to arbitration ? It is beyond question that the South African Republic is a sovereign nation, except that England has the right to supervise any treaty with any foreign nation, while the Orange Free State is a full sovereign nation, just as England herself is. The relative size of two countries makes no difference with their rights. The Free State has treaties with other nations, with the United States, for instance, just as England has." " But the Boers," asserted Pemberton, "have treated our people shamefully in the Transvaal. They put heavy taxes upon them. They refuse to give them a fair share in political affairs. They make conditions as hard as possible for the outlanders." "There are two sides to that story," replied Wheel- wright, "and the Boers have a pretty strong case against the Englishmen. But my point is here : that the Boer republics are sovereign nations, and, in the eyes of international law, are entitled to just as con- siderate treatment at the hands of England as any one of the Great Powers is. If there are international differences, they should be settled by right and reason, not by force. Submit your case to arbitration. Force is not the right recourse of a Christian people. Right must prevail in the long run. In the court of the nations the great nation ought not to be too proud to stand on the same level as the small one. Rights are just as tall on one side as on the other, and before that court all nations are of the same size." " That sounds very well, but there are certain things 72 LOYAL TRAITORS which no self-respecting Englishman will submit to. We ought not to run any chance of England's being the loser in this affair, for the progress of Christianity and civilization in South Africa depend upon our having full control from the Cape to Cairo." "And what's more, Mr. Wheelwright," spoke up the other, a Mr. DeLancey, " I don't propose to see any dirty Boers stand in the way of British progress. They are an ignorant, bigoted, unprogressive lot of country farmers who know little and care less for what is going on in the world." " I resent your slur upon the Boers," replied Wheelwright, " but your argument amounts to nothing more than this : that when a less dirty man meets a more dirty man, then the less dirty man, by the fact of being less dirty, and solely because of that fact, has a right to command the more dirty man to wash himself, and to kill him, if he refuses, even if the more dirty one be otherwise the superior man." "But it is not decent that a lot of ignorant and dirty Boers should tell Englishmen what they must do." "I don't see how either their ignorance or their dirt affects the right and wrong of the case," replied Wheelwright. " We can't run government on such lines. Besides, if reports are true, there is a progres- sive party among the Boers which had actually got into control in their Volksraad, and they would soon have put an entirely new face upon the situation if it had not been for the infamous Jameson raid. That LOYAL TRAITORS 73 outrage drove the liberals into their holes and made the Boers intensely suspicious of the British. I sympathize with them." " Jameson was right," ejaculated DeLancey. " The Boers have no right to camp down upon a great chest of gold and sit on it, not developing it them- selves or letting other people do it. Such people ought not to be allowed to cumber the face of the ground. I wish Doctor Jameson had cleared out the entire crowd." " You may believe that you are right," said Wheel- wright, "but the Boers have a right to their own country, just as much as the Englishmen have a right to theirs, and they are right in defending it. They have a perfect right, too, ,to make such laws about naturalization of foreigners as they please, and they have a right to impose such conditions as they see fit upon foreigners who do business in their country. What would we in the United States think if a foreign nation should undertake to dictate to us on what terms its citizens should do business here or how long a term we should require for naturalization ? We would not stand it for an instant." "The Boers began hostilities, too," said Pemberton. " You must remember that. England could in honor do nothing else but take up the challenge which the Boers threw down." " But the Boers knew from bitter experience what England's practice had been, and they knew, what you know and what everybody knows, that England was 74 LOYAL TRAITORS massing troops on the borders of the Boer territory for the very purpose of making an attack in force. The Boers are peaceable people. They do not wish to fight. They will endure much before they will fight. Just see what a hopeless prospect it is to challenge the great military power of England ! I tell you, men, that the Boers have shown a magnificent physical and moral courage in throwing down the gauntlet to England, such as nothing in the glories of English history surpasses. Among modern nations there is not one which stands higher to-day, in all that makes men and soldiers, than these same Boers whom you call ignorant and bigoted and wish to wipe off from the face of the earth.'' "One thing, Wheelwright," said Pemberton, "you don't seem to recognize, and that is that it will be the best thing for the Boers themselves, as well as for all of South Africa and for the world at large, if they are conquered. They will be made a part of the British Empire. After they are conquered we shall treat them well. They will really be better off than they will under their own government with its backward- ness and intolerance and lack of touch with the outside world. New capital will flow into their country. It will be developed and improved wonder- fully. Modern ideas will find entrance, and the country will grow more in one year under British rule than it would in ten under the Boers." "Just there is where you fail to grasp the vital element in the case," argued Wheelwright. "What LOYAL TRAITORS 75 has the rate of material progress to do with the rights of the Boers ? If they own the property and the country, you have no right to rob them of that prop- erty and that country, no matter whether you can make them advance ten times as fast or not. If they prefer to run their government their own way, it is their privilege and their right, and you can have no possible excuse for interference unless you have a justifiable cause of war. Such a cause you cannot have in any of the regulations which they impose upon foreigners and foreign trade. But there is another point I want to make, and that is that this affair ought to be settled by arbitration. You pretend to be a Christian nation ; that you have high regard for the rights of weaker people. Those are your principles, whatever your practice is. Now carry out your principles. Submit your case to arbitration. Recognize the independent existence of these two nations. Don't you see that is the best way to promote the development of Christianity and the arts of peace and progress in South Africa? You can have no excuse for making war on any people, no matter how small and weak, or how aggravated may be their offense against supposed rights of the British people, unless such people are on so low a plane that they are the common enemies of mankind. Pirates and slave-dealers are regarded as common enemies. The Turks, in their slaughter of the Armenians, might be regarded as so low in the scale of humanity as to have forfeited the right to national existence and to 76 LOYAL TRAITORS deserve being wiped off from the map of the nations. But no such charge can possibly be brought against the Boers. Morally they are on a higher plane than England herself. Compare the morals of the Boer people, even in their worst districts, with the heathen- ism which prevails in London. Contrast the horrible vice and crime in the great English cities with the morals of the Boers ; see how much the former have to do with making the public sentiment which is so strong against the Boers, and then ask if for a moment any candid man can pretend that the British are morally so superior to the Boers that they are justified in slaughtering them in order to promote the cause of civilization and Christianity. The British claim is ridiculous nonsense, and the world sees through it all." "Well, Mr. Wheelwright," rejoined DeLancey, "we must agree to differ. We both are Englishmen, but we see things in a very different light. I believe that we ought to wipe the Boers off from the map." " And I believe that England ought to be wiped off herself if she tries to commit this infamous crime against the nations." " And I expect to win." " And I hope, and more than half believe, that you will be defeated. The Boers are terrible fighters. There is no more patriotic people on the face of the earth. But if England wins, that will never give her the slightest right either to the territory of the Boers or to their allegiance. No matter how long a robber LOYAL TRAITORS 77 remains in possession of property gained by force or fraud, he gets thereby no title to it either in law or morals. An oath of allegiance by the Boers would never condone the offense of England. On the other hand, such an oath could not be given rightfully by them, for they cannot abdicate their responsibility and existence as an independent people any more than a man can abdicate his own status as a morally respon- sible person. An oath compelled by force has no moral quality, and so England can never claim right- fully any validity for an oath of allegiance to her given under stress of arms." "Perhaps you think that such argument as that would be accepted in court, but you ought to know that it would not stand two seconds/* " So much the worse for the court if it refuses to recognize the moral status of a man as directly accountable to God rather than to his fellow-man. But there is a further truth along the same line which I affirm, in spite of your theory of courts. If any British subject takes up arms in behalf of the Boers, he commits no wrong. It is his privilege and his right to oppose his country when he believes his country is wrong. No matter whether he be Cape Colony Boer or Irishman or Briton or Scot or Canadian or Australian, the British subject who believes England's course toward the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State to be wrong and who takes up arms with the Boers to oppose that wrong is not only not under any obligation of loyalty 78 LOYAL TRAITORS to support his government, but he is worthy of excep- tional honor as a man who faces death on the field, and contempt and misrepresentation at home, in order that his life may promote the cause of right and liberty." "If any British subject practises that system of morals, he will find himself on the gallows if he lives through the war ! " " Very likely. It is the way of the world to hang its best men. But those who come after, less brave than they, enjoy the rights which the martyrs died to maintain." " There is a difference between martyrs and crim- inals, between patriots and traitors." " Men who die for the rights of man will never be regarded as traitors." " It is useless, Wheelwright, to talk further with a man who holds such impractical views as you do! We will send you a letter from Pretoria within six weeks, and the Boers will be a submissive part of the British Empire before New Year's." "As God is my judge, I believe that England is committing an abominable sin against humanity ! " exclaimed Wheelwright. " She will pay dearly for it in men and money. She will win the contempt of the world. She will disgrace herself in the eyes of mankind. England and the United States are com- mitting the greatest sins of the century. Both ought to be ground to powder under the mill-stones of LOYAL TRAITORS 79 Providence, and I believe that both will have to retrace their steps at infinite cost and in unspeakable shame." "All right, if you think so. We will run our chances of it and will stand by our flag. We don't propose to desert that, as you are doing." " I put humanity and justice higher than any flag. We will see who is right." 8o LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER IX PROFESSOR JOHN HARVARD HOLBEIN DISCUSSES EVOLU- TION WITH REV. THOMAS SWIFT GUNN PROFESSOR JOHN HARVARD HOLBEIN of Cambridge, one of the founders of the League to which Brown and Robinson belonged, was one of the most modern of scientific men. His mother, from one of the best-known families living on Dana Street in Cambridge, had met her fate while traveling in Germany, and had married Professor Wilhelm Holbein of the University of Heidelberg. Their son, John Harvard, was born there. The son was early trained in the specialties of his distinguished father, the Hegelian and Kantian philosophies, and just after his father's death, in the year following his graduation, he had come to Cambridge with his mother, who returned to her girlhood's home to live, and finished his education by specializing himself in psy- chology and philosophy. It was not long before his remarkable attainments secured for him a position on the faculty of Harvard College. By nature and educa- tion he was eager for the truth, even at the bottom of a well, and he had an instinctive love of liberty, joined with passionate devotion to human rights and to justice to the weaker classes and nations. It was as inevitable LOYAL TRAITORS 81 that he should be in the League as it was that Abraham Lincoln should desire the emancipation of the slaves. Deacon Harrow was an acquaintance of his, and after Holbein heard of the action of the Cotton Mather Memorial Church in requesting the resignation of the Rev. Ansel Robinson, he could not restrain his strong desire to visit his old friend and protest against his conduct. On making the call he was introduced to one of the deacon's friends and fellow-imperialists, Rev. Thomas Swift Gunn. The professor soon realized that he was in the ratio of one to two on the matter nearest his heart, but he had always believed that " one with God is a majority " and he did not hesitate to carry out his purpose of telling Deacon Harrow what he thought of the action of the church. The deacon was very sore on the subject. " It seems to me," he said, "that the outside public is meddling where it is not concerned. Here is a letter from a woman, she signs her name * Faith Fessenden,' calling me to account. What right has she to interfere ? " " The right of every honest person to protest against a wrong," answered the professor. " This Philippine business has been a mistake and a shame from the beginning." This brought Mr. Gunn into prompt action, and each spared not the other in advancing his views of the foreign policy of the Administration. 82 LOYAL TRAITORS "I believe that President McKinley is specially guided by Providence/ 1 said Mr. Gunn. " It is as plain as daylight that the hand of God has been in this affair from the very beginning." " I grant that the hand of God is in everything on earth and under the earth/* replied Professor Holbein. " I accept that as fully as any minister can preach it. Science can stop short of nothing else. But that does not justify us in violating the rights of the weak, in trampling down men who are our equals as men, whatever may be their stage of civilization. Besides, it is a question how much higher we are in civilization. We are not far above cannibals. Killing innocent and brave patriots is the main fact. Whether we eat them after they are dead is a mere matter of taste." " My argument," said Mr. Gunn, " is just this : that the present order of things is the special order of Providence ; that He has carried on the evolution of the world in this way from the beginning ; and there- fore it is right, absolutely and undeniably right. And it is not for man to question the wisdom and justice and love of God as they are revealed in the course of history." " Do you believe that God has been the cause of all the wars in the history of man, and that it has been right that such wars should have occurred ? " asked Holbein. "I believe that God has overruled all of these events for the good of man and for the glory of His name. There are mysteries about some of these LOYAL TRAITORS 83 things which we cannot understand. But the fact is that there have been wars, and that through them and through many sufferings and apparent injustice and wrong to man the human race has made progress. It is all part of the divine plan. God is working out the redemption of the race through suffering and purification, and there is no possible doubt that the world is steadily growing better by these means of progress/ 1 " Then you must argue that whatever wrong has been done by man against his fellow-man is a part of the divine plan, and that therefore it was part of the plan that the strong should do wrong to the weak and that thus the world is to become better." " I believe that it must needs be that offenses come, though it may be woe unto that man by whom the offense comet h." " Then, if your argument is true, it was right for Judas to betray his Lord ; jjt was right for Nero to massacre the Christians ; it was right that there should be a slaughter of Saint Bartholomew, and it was right that the Sultan of Turkey should murder thousands of innocent Armenians. It is right for the United States to shoot thousands of Filipinos in order that civilization may be spread and that the survivors may thereby advance in Christian living more rapidly." " My position is just this," contended the reverend gentleman : " that evolution is the order of the world's progress. That is evident to none more clearly than to yourself as a scientific man. You will 84 LOYAL TRAITORS not pretend to deny it. You know just as well as I do that every forward step has been at the expense of suffering and death to many human beings. Some must die in order that others may live. Except the seed be cast into the ground and die there can be no life from it. Death as the basis of life is the law of Nature. That is God's plan and nobody can dispute it. It is evident, according to this law, that force is the ultimate arbiter in human affairs. The weak must serve the strong. I believe that it is the duty of the strong to do what they can to make the weak better. They have the responsibility for the government of the earth. If there is weakness and wickedness on the earth, it is their duty to check it or remove it, if possible. It is their duty to God and to man. Look at the history of England and see what an immense amount of good she has done for the spread of Chris- tianity and civilization. See her course in India and Egypt. Can anything fye clearer than that she has served the cause of civilization ? " "Yes, look at England in India! See the land drained of its resources to the amount of hundreds of millions of dollars in order to enrich the capitalists of England ! See the land bled white, and see the millions of corpses from famine, chargeable to Eng- land, and then talk to me about the benefit of the gospel of force ! See the general distrust of England in India, and remember that the day of reckoning has not yet come." "But look at what England has done in Africa. LOYAL TRAITORS 85 See how the light has been shed in the dark conti- nent. Missions are feeble in comparison with Eng- land's power. All that missions have done in the dark continent is but as the light of a glow-worm in a dark meadow toward accomplishing full enlight- enment ! " " And after all that, it remains as certain as can be that the gospel of love is more powerful than the gospel of force. But you defend the policy of con- quest in the name of science, and because it is accord- ing to the laws of evolution/ 'the scientist led on. " I say," the clergyman responded, " that history shows that all progress has been made under the con- ditions of the survival of the fittest, and that force is the ultimate criterion in the world, no matter what may be said on the other side. We, being Anglo-Saxons, go straight to the mark, making the end justify the means." "Very well," responded Holbein. " Now the point I want to make is this, and I make it as a scientific man. It is that the gospel of love is just as much a part of the evolutionary forces of the world as the gospel of force. It is as unscientific to argue that we must conquer the world before we Christianize it as it is to argue that the world is flat. You ministers, all through this infernal imperialist policy, have been preaching the policy of conquest in order that we may carry the blessings of our civilization to the Filipinos. I tell you that you are just as unscientific as you were when you said that the world is flat, that it does not 86 LOYAL TRAITORS move, and that the world was created in six days because the Bible says so. You are as antiquated now in your philosophy as your predecessors were when they took these positions which you admit to-day are ridiculous." "Isn't it true/' asked the clergyman, "that the nations have always been under the law of force, and that all our progress has been made under these con- ditions ? You can't deny that." " I do not deny it, but I do affirm that our progress is not in consequence of the operation of the law of force expressing itself in injustice and war, but that it is in spite of it, and that the world is sure to advance faster by the gospel of love than by the law of force. The mathematics of morals is as exact as the math- ematics of physics. Law, which is the will of God, rules in morals everywhere, and the sequence of cause and effect is as inevitable and as inexorable in morals as it is in physics. Holding as fully as you do that God is behind every act in history from the beginning of time till now, I nevertheless, as a scientific man, hold that immeasurable wrong has been done to the defenseless and the patriotic, and that much of our present earth-power ought to be overthrown." "But the powers that be are ordained of God," urged the minister. " The wrong is never ordained of God. I take my stand on the scientific ground that, if you are to be scientific, you must take account of all the forces in the world. There is an unselfishness, a regard for the LOYAL TRAITORS 87 rights of fellow-men, a sympathy, a love of justice, which exists as truly as selfishness and injustice. The rights of men are not any the less because they are embodied in men who have not the physical force to defend them against stronger neighbors. Your entire theory of evolution is wrong because you see only a half-truth. The church is as bigoted as it was in the days of the Inquisition. Every man of you who believes in the progress of civilization and Christianity by force is a bad scientist and a worse Christian. He is a bad scientist because he omits the greater truth of love in affirming the lesser truth of force, and he is a worse Christian because the part which he omits is the very part which, as a Christian, he is bound to affirm. To use some of your own scripture, you are blind guides leading the blind. You pretend to be spiritual and you are absorbed by the material. You see only the side of force, when, if you had the true Christian sense, you would also see that love is greater than force and that love is in the world as truly as force, and that you are unscientific in not affirming it." The clergyman sat grim. "You can't go back of the common consciousness of the times," said he; "and the general sense of the Christian Church of the United States to-day approves the policy of conquering the Filipinos, with the expec- tation and desire of doing them good and only good, and of raising them up to the the same plane as our- selves." 88 LOYAL TRAITORS "I know/* said Holbein sadly, "that the sense of the Church justifies your position, and this is one ground of my contempt for the Church of to-day/' "And more than that," went on the clergyman. " The Christian Church is the only earthly embodiment of the Spirit of God. The Church is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. It was the Christian sense of the Church which passed upon the inspiration of the scriptures, which decided the canon of sacred writings, and which is the supreme guide of the world to-day. It is higher than the conscience or the judgment of any one man." " So you say," retorted Holbein ; " and by that very argument the Christian Church was right when it persecuted the martyrs of the Middle Ages. Luther and Huss were wrong and the Church was right. You prove too much." " There is no higher guide. I stand on the most solid rock that is under the feet of any man. The Christian people of the United States approve what President McKinley is doing, and there is not the slightest doubt that the world will be a great deal better for what we are doing in the Philippines." "The question is not whether the world will be better, it is whether we are doing right. I affirm that we are not doing right ; that the law of evolution does not justify our course ; that the law of love and justice squarely condemns it, and that there is a much shorter and better way of securing the same result, without slaughtering a single man or spending a single dollar LOYAL TRAITORS 89 for the army or navy. The true doctrine of evolution and a fair recognition of the forces which have been actively at work in the world surely ever since the beginning of the Christian era demand that we abandon our present policy, and that we turn right about and do justice to the Filipinos, recognizing their essential equality with us in all that goes to make up men.'' "You have nothing but your mere assertion to support your position," said the reverend teacher ; " I have the authority of the Christian Church, as you yourself admit, to support me ; and that authority is the highest guide for man, for it is the spirit of God himself. " " If you are right/* still contended the professor, " there is no such thing as progress whatever. Men must always go by majorities. Christ was wrong. Paul was wrong. Luther was wrong. John Robinson was wrong. Abraham Lincoln was wrong. There is nothing but majority rule, with death and destruction for all who are not strong enough to cope with the strongest." The Reverend Mr. Gunn moved uneasily in his chair. It was evidently necessary that he should make a bold stroke. "I see that you admit your defeat," he claimed, " and it is not likely that further conversation would be profitable between us." " Evidently not," agreed Holbein, " for you are a typical clergyman of the times." 90 LOYAL TRAITORS With this parting shot the professor bade good- night to Deacon Harrow and his strenuous imperialist friend. After Holbein's departure the clergyman also was about to go, when the deacon asked : " Did you notice that murder sensation in The Morning Gazette ? Horrible affair ! " " The Gazette is always spreading out some horrible sensation. That is what it lives on, and I am getting disgusted with it. Who has been killed now ? " in- quired Mr. Gunn. " Nobody, lately. It is a singular story. It seems that some bodies had to be moved from a South End cemetery to make room for improvements, and a skull was found with a large fracture on the back, as if it had been crushed in by a heavy blow. Investigation showed that it was the skull of the first wife of old Peter Withington, and the discovery revived the ugly rumors current at the time of her death. The police were put on the case; they found one clue after another, and, to make a long story short, they obtained evidence sufficient to warrant them in arresting him for murder/* " The next thing will be to prove it," the minister asserted. " No. He admits it. What is worse, he justifies it. He tells a very queer story, and says that the crime was committed so long ago some fifteen years now that it ought to be overlooked ; tha,t is, it ought to be outlawed, as he puts it." LOYAL TRAITORS 91 " The wretch ! How does he justify murder of his wife?" The deacon reached out his hand and took the news- paper from the table near which he was sitting. " The Gazette has a long story about it, publish- ing what it calls his confession, but which I call his conscience-seared justification. Let me read an ex- tract :- " ' I always had a good opinion of Sarah Jane, and can say so even now, after I have been married almost fifteen years to Consuelo. But she never was very strong. She wasn't a very good manager. Her tastes were wasteful and we didn't get ahead very fast. But more than that, she had never had but one child, a puny girl who died young, and she was getting a little bit on the downgrade in the incline of life. I knew it would be a great deal better for me, for the community, yes, I may say, for the State, in view of the sinful decline in Anglo-Saxon population, if I were to have a considerable property where otherwise I could have but little, and should gather around me a blooming family under my own vine and fig-tree. It was a very clear case of the greatest good to the greatest number. I told Sarah Jane what my views were and that I thought Consuelo would make a good wife for me, and tried to persuade her that it was her duty to take herself out of the way. She angrily refused to be convinced, although I made it perfectly plain to her. I told her she could go away, or she might stay at home and use laudanum, or some other 92 LOYAL TRAITORS peaceful means, and I would give her a respectable Christian burial. But she wouldn't hear to it. Then I told her she was standing in the way of God's providence and the good of the State, which was higher than any personal consideration, and that it was my duty to be God's servant in carrying out his evident purpose for the public prosperity. So I took a pillow and smothered her. She struggled so hard that I was regretfully obliged to put a hammer to her head to quiet her, but I used no unnecessary violence/ " " You say he thinks his crime, with all its horrid deliberation, ought to be outlawed ? " asked the clergy- man with severe indignation. " That is what he pleads. Here is what he says further : * Consuelo and I were married soon after. We have been prospered and God's blessing has plainly been with us. We have a good stock of this world's goods. We have six children, four boys and two girls, all smart and obedient. The oldest two boys and the oldest girl belong to the church, and the whole family is a blessing to the community. All these interests, vested interests, I might say, per- sonal interests, with many innocent children concerned, have grown up since the death of Sarah Jane ; and no good purpose would be served by going back to that forgotten matter. I claim that I ought to be released and restored to my family.' " Mr. Gunn sat silent for several minutes, looking very thoughtful. Then he ejaculated : LOYAL TRAITORS 93 " I say, deacon, that is a most remarkable case." Here he relapsed into reflection again, but after a moment or two he repeated, as if he had not used the expression before : " I say, deacon, that is a most remarkable case/' Both men were silent for a moment, and finally Mr. Gunn observed : " Dear brother, let us ever remember that ' God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.' ' Conversation drooped from that point, though as the minister was being ushered out he reverted to the talk with Holbein long enough to say, "Deacon, in this Philippine matter let us try to impress upon all whom we meet the fact that, no matter what features of apparent cruelty and inhuman- ity the case may now seem to present, we must be patient and give time for results. Think of that great archipelago with its vast forests of beautiful and valu- able timber, its unworked mines, its fertile, unculti- vated fields, and its unsaved souls ! How wasteful the natives are of their opportunities ! Why, the Philip- pines now have no literature ! The day will come when, as the emancipated South has its new birth of literature, so, too, the Philippines will have their lit- erature ; when commerce, the great missionary, will have put them in still closer relations with us. I think we shall do better in the Philippines than our fathers did here, who not only subdued the savage, 94 *L O Y A L TRAITORS but dispossessed and exterminated him. In a few years those islands will so blossom like the rose under American capital and American church missions that the saddest and most shameful barbarities now per- petrated will seem in retrospect as nothing in view of the prosperous business and inspiring religious oppor- tunities that will have come to pass there." " That is an excellent point," said the deacon. " I will bear it in mind." Then they said good-night. LOYAL TRAITORS 95 CHAPTER X WASHINGTON DOUGLASS HAS A VISION OF DUTY ONE evening, just after the boat on which Wheelwright and Douglass were employed had left Savannah for Boston, a quarrel broke out among some of the deck-hands who had been on shore too long for the health of their temperance principles. They were ugly, and were coming to blows, when Wheelwright saw the trouble and stepped into the middle of the angry group to separate the men. " What business is this of yours, John Bull ? " demanded one of the half-intoxicated men. " If you don't mind your business and let us alone, I'll let daylight through you," yelled another. " Stand off and behave yourselves," replied Wheel- wright. "There shall be no drunken rows on this boat if I can prevent it." " You had better look out for yourself, if you value that precious skin of yours," came from the furious lips of a third man, as he drew a knife and made as if he would attack the would-be peacemaker. Washington Douglass had heard the high words, and came to the place just in time to see the danger which threatened Wheelwright. Instantly he plunged into the thick of the brawl, drew Wheelwright to one 96 LOYAL TRAITORS side and was shielding him with his own body when, with the cry of " You infernal black nigger, I'll kill you," the man with the knife made a vicious stab at him. Douglass raised his left arm to parry the thrust, but exposed his side, and received the blade below the ribs, suffering a severe wound. Wheelwright instantly wrested the knife from the half-drunken man, threw him to the floor, and led Douglass away, while the brawlers, seeing that some- thing serious had happened, and partly sobered, did not molest them further. Douglass was put to bed with such attention as was possible under the circumstances, and for several days it was a question whether he would live. But good care and attention to his wound and his diet made him able to sit up and talk before the boat reached Boston. Not long before the time for landing he asked to have Wheelwright visit him, and when he came said that he wished to have a talk with him. "What is it about, Douglass?" asked Wheel- wright ; " the topic we have discussed before ? " "Yes, but in a more practical way. Since I've been lying here I've been thinking a great deal about what I ought to do for the Filipinos. I know how you feel about what we are doing to them. Now, I have just been pretty near death, Mr. Wheelwright, and things seem different to me from what they ever did before. It seems to me as if it does not make so much difference how soon I LOYAL TRAITORS 97 die, provided I do some good in the world. Suppose I stay here on this boat and work as long as I live, or do something else of the same sort ? What does it amount to ? My mother was a slave, and I know something of the wrongs of our race. I know that her body was all covered with scars from the terrible bites of the bloodhounds which pursued her when she tried to run away to freedom. I know what the Emancipation Proclamation meant to the Negro race. I believe that I have some idea of what freedom and liberty and duty mean. Now we are trying to conquer the Filipinos. As nearly as I can understand it, they have just as much right to their freedom as we have to ours. If the black people have a right to their liberty, if there is such a thing as human rights anyway, I don't see why the Fili- pinos have not a right to themselves. We can't get any right to them by buying them or by conquering them. But I am ashamed to say that there are two regiments of Negroes in the United States army who have gone over to help the white men conquer these brown men, killing them because they are fighting for their liberty and independence. Perhaps I may be wrong, but I believe I am right, and it seems to me that my duty calls me to go over and fight with the Filipinos and help them to get their independ- ence." Wheelwright had sat in silence during this rather long speech of his companion, but in his heart, with every word, there had been growing a great, burning 98 LOYAL TRAITORS admiration for the black man lying before him. Douglass was one of the most intelligent Negroes Wheelwright had ever met, and by patient study had freed himself from many of the crudenesses of his race and was in fact a student and thinker of no mean proportions. " You know how I feel about the policy of our government, Douglass," said Wheelwright, after a moment. " You know that I believe practically as you do in the matter. But what makes you think that it would be right for you to go over there and fight against our own soldiers ? " " Mr. Wheelwright, we are doing wrong to them, and somebody must pay the penalty of it. The Fil- ipinos are right, and no man can make it right for us to kill them for defending their native land. I be- lieve I can help them. It would encourage them if only one American, and he even a black man, came out to help them. I could stand the climate. I could learn their language. I could help them in a great many ways. I am going to get well from this hurt, and it seems to me as if my life could not be spent better than in helping these much abused people to their liberty and their rights. I am ready to die for them, if necessary. My life could not be spent better/' "Now, Douglass," said Whelwright, "let me tell you that this idea of yours is one not wholly foreign to myself. The same question has come up in my mind : if I believe that the Filipinos are right, why LOYAL TRAITORS 99 should I not help them ? If our government is strik- ing down the rights of men, why should not I, as a free man and bound to do my duty to uphold the cause of freedom, oppose my country by every means in my power ? That is the question which comes up to me frequently. I much more than half believe that you are right in your wish in your purpose to go to them/' " Think it over more, Mr. Wheelwright. Perhaps you will come to think altogether as I do, and we will go out together." " Certainly I will think it over ; and I want you to see my friend George Brown, one of the very best men there are in Boston, and talk over your plan with him. Perhaps he will approve it. Or, perhaps he will convince you that it is your duty to stay here and do what you can to get your fellow black men to stand up for the cause of th^ Filipinos in this country, and so help to change the purpose of the Republican party and of the Administration. If you are to go, he will be able to help you on your way to the Philippines. At any rate, I want you to meet him, for what he says will be well worth hearing." As soon as possible after the boat reached Boston, Wheelwright arranged a meeting for Brown, Doug- lass, and himself ; a meeting which was of the high- est personal consequences to each of them and which might prove to have national significance. ioo LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XI BROWN, DOUGLASS, AND WHEELWRIGHT ENTER THE FILIPINO SERVICE THE meeting was in Brown's office, one evening, when they would be in no danger of callers. Thus they could discuss the great question of patriotic duty without interruption. " What better place in Boston could there be for a talk on justice and international loyalty ?" remarked Douglass, with the quick sentiment of his race. " As I turned in from the street I noticed that this is the Equitable Building ! " " Yes," said Brown, "these offices were my father's before me. It was the name of the building that drew him to it. And in fact, the word well character- izes his life, his idea in the practice of his profession, and his highest ambition for his son. May his son never disappoint him ! " Wheelwright had already told Brown about Doug- lass's purpose, and had added that he himself was so deeply impressed by the soundness and unselfishness of Douglass's views that the question had been forced upon him whether he ought not to accompany the black man into the service of the Filipino Republic. At Brown's request Douglass again went over the LOYAL TRAITORS 101 principal reasons by which he had come to his con- clusion. He stated again his belief that his life ought to be spent in positive service to the cause of human liberty as a personal and race tribute and requital to the memory of Abraham Lincoln, whose Proclamation freed his mother, and to the spirit of human liberty which makes all men free under gov- ernment of the people, by the people, and for the people ; a government which cannot tolerate colonies, and in which there must be the harmonious assimila- tion of all the people who share the government. He set forth his conviction that duty to country may in- volve a higher standard than support of any Adminis- tration ; that it may at times demand armed resistance to an Administration, in 'order to preserve the true spirit and forms of liberty ; the danger to the United States if it should permanently adopt the policy of conquest ; his positive belief that the Filipinos were thoroughly right in their moral and political position, and that the United States was without legal or moral justification for its war against them. These and other arguments involving his personal duty to help the weaker party fighting for its rights against the nation of which he was a part, and to whose unjust course he seemed to become a party unless he made this personal protest, he set forth intelligently and with enthusiasm. The disclosures made a deep impression upon the mind of George Brown. Sympathizing as he did, completely, in Douglass's opposition to the Philippine 102 LOYAL TRAITORS policy of the Administration, and sharing his horror of the awful and inhuman means by which the United States sought to crush the brave patriots into subjec- tion, demanding unconditional surrender on penalty of death before any assurance whatever would be given regarding their status under the government of the United States, Brown nevertheless had not yet thought of carrying his opposition to the point of personally helping the Filipinos in arms against the United States forces. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized the strength of Douglass's position, and he knew enough of human nature and of the ter- rible course of human history to realize that some- times only the utmost personal sacrifice is equal to an emergency. Brown had no doubt of the moral soundness of Douglass's argument. He recognized that there is a higher allegiance than to the government or to the nation of which one is a citizen. First of all he put personal loyalty to his Maker, with all the right and justice which are inherent in infinite perfection, and saw through the fallacy of those who say that it is treason to oppose "the Administration/' But he wanted further time in which to consider the matter ; and so, after an hour's further conversation, they post- poned any conclusion until the following evening. " Brown," said Wheelwright, twenty-four hours later, when they resumed their discussion of the pressing personal question; "the more I think of LOYAL TRAITORS 103 this matter, the clearer I am about it. I believe that Douglass is right and that I shall go out with him." " Don't let us influence you against your judgment and conscience, Mr. Brown," said Douglass. "But I don't see how we can do differently. I have made up my mind, and I am ready to be sacrificed for liberty and for the Republic of the United States, if necessary, even if I am found fighting against its present mistaken and ruinous policy." " My good friend," replied Brown, " I shall try to follow my conscience and my judgment at all times. I only want to be sure that I am right ; to be certain that I can stand before the bar of God and say that I have done the best I could, no matter what my fellow-men may think of me and no matter what the consequences may be to myself. If duty demands that I fight against the Administration, I shall not hesitate." "How can you come to any other conclusion than ours ? " asked Wheelwright, with sudden friendly vehemence. " I cannot ! " replied Brown. " I cannot, as I see the facts and my duty ! We three men are without ties which hold us here by any plausible pretense of duty stronger than the call of duty to go to the aid of the Filipinos. I have come to the conclusion that I ought to go with you." " Thank the Lord ! " ejaculated Douglass. "God bless you," said Wheelwright. "And after all, it is no sudden fancy," replied 104 LOYAL TRAITORS Brown, "nor any spasm of conscience. Since you were here last night, I have gone over this matter most carefully ; but you know that I have been in full accord with you on the main question all the time, and for a long period. We have no moral right to the Philippine Islands, and, ultimately, moral rights must decide this contest. It makes no dif- ference whatever as to the standing of the case in international law. We must do right to the Fili- pinos as men equal with us in the human race. Inter- national law is only the recognition by the Great Powers of accomplished facts, as far as national existence is concerned. Because Spain was recog- nized as the owner of the Philippines, that gave her no moral right over the people there. And even if she once had a right, the Filipinos had thrown off their yoke. The accident that international law, moving at a snail's pace, had not kept up with the accomplished facts does not alter the facts. The United States could not buy a title from Spain, be- cause Spain did not own the islands. She had been ousted by the Filipinos, by force, from every place but Manila, and a Filipino Republic had been estab- lished with working Constitution and full authority of law." "The Administration might argue that the United States owns the Philippines by conquest/' interposed Wheelwright. " The United States cannot claim the Philippines by conquest," replied the lawyer, " because a war of LOYAL TRAITORS 105 conquest has no possible moral ground to rest on. We cannot justify our course 'because it will be for the good of mankind/ for there is no possible moral ground for conquering people, slaughtering them incidentally by tens of thousands, in order to spread civilization. We cannot justify our course on the ground that our motives are good, for the rights of the Filipinos to self-government, so long as they are not the enemies of mankind, are not in the slight- est degree dependent upon our intentions toward them. I may have good intentions toward a beggar in the street, but that does not justify me in killing him if he does not like to submit to my intentions/* " But the beggar in this case is unable to resist. There is where the Administration has the advan- tage." "The Administration does not dare, and never will dare, to give the beggar a chance to be heard. It dare not appeal to reason or to justice. Fur- thermore, the policy is totally wrong and dangerous from the point of view of the peace and pros- perity of the United States. If we keep the Philip- pines, we must admit them to a share in our government, or hold them as a colony forever. We cannot do the latter, for our government is not adapted to it, and we have no right to hold them in subjection. Assimilation on an equality, or complete national independence, are the only alternatives. But if we admit Filipinos to our Senate and House of Representatives on equal terms with the members 106 LOYAL TRAITORS from the present States, then we are no longer gov- erned by ourselves ; we are governed to some extent by the Filipinos. They would vote upon questions affecting our entire policy regarding our present ter- ritory. In close questions, matters which concern the States would often be settled, very likely, by the Filipino contingent ; and close votes are usual in progressive policies when new ideas are making their way against natural conservatism. The United States would thus be in part governed, I say, by the Filipinos, and the Philippine Islands would be in part governed by the Congress of the present States of the Union. Such an arrangement would bring end- less wrongs and injustice. Each people ought to be independent of the other, and their right relation will be found only under a body of international law which recognizes the rights of the small and large nations equally." "However you have reached your decision," said Wheelwright, " I am mightily glad you believe it is your duty to go." "As to my duty," replied Brown, "it is clear that our government is totally wrong, on moral grounds and on grounds of policy. We ought to change our course. We are carrying out our mistaken policy through the blood of a people weaker than ourselves who are absolutely right by any standard of morals and human rights which is recognized in this Repub- lic. That we may be true to the spirit of the United States, then, the question is what we ought to do. LOYAL TRAITORS 107 Our government at the present hour is hostile to the basic principles on which it stands. Our duty is first to God and his truth before it can be to any interpre- tation of men, no matter how largely they are in a majority and no matter how sincere may be their benevolent intentions." " Then we must ? " The interrogation was begun, but in the intensity of his emotion Wheelwright was unable to finish. " Yes," assented Brown, deliberately but with a painful tension of voice that spoke the secret hurt in his soul that such a course seemed necessary that such a course seemed the only way open to a man who saw things as he saw them ; " yes, we must oppose the government." For fully a minute the three men sat in silence, looking at each other. Not one of them stirred. A mail-wagon rattled out from the driveway under the post-office opposite ; the clock in the high tower in the neighboring Square struck ten ; even the sputtering of the electric light on the corner near-by was plainly audible. Then Brown went on. " We must oppose the government. Now, how can we best do this ? Most of our fellow-citizens who sym- pathize with us at all in this matter believe that they ought to work to change public opinion. That is vitally important and I will not criticise them. But it is also possible that we may do more by strengthening the Filipinos to hold out for their rights. If they io8 LOYAL TRAITORS can keep the field indefinitely, as the Boers promise to do, resisting by arms our effort to conquer them, it may help to bring our people to see their side of the case. They are now suffering and enduring death as bravely as did our Revolutionary forefathers. They have the right stuff in them for a nation. If they can hold on till a change in the Administration, our people may get over their land-hunger a trifle ; they may see that the trade of China is not worth the blood of these men and the tears of these widows and orphans. Therefore, we are doing right to help the Filipinos prolong the contest." "But many people might say," suggested Wheel- wright, "that it would be wrong to help perpetuate needless slaughter." " There is not a particle of force in any such argu- ment as that," rejoined Brown. "These people have the right to determine in what manner they will fight for their liberties. If they believe that it is better to submit, and to agitate by peaceful means, then that is their privilege, though it can never make it right for us to force them to submit. But if they choose to die for their independence, that, too, is not only their privilege, but their right, and we cannot condemn them if they prefer death to loss of national independ- ence. ' Liberty or death ' is a true American motto, and no man who has a spark of sense or of apprecia- tion of what true Americanism is, or of what true liberty is, can criticise a man for dying for his nation's cause, even if it seems absolutely hopeless. If they LOYAL TRAITORS 109 want to die rather than live, they have the right to make the choice, and, in dying, to inflict as much injury as possible upon their oppressors." No one favored enough to see this group of three men and overhear their talk would have held for a moment that it was any light conversation in which they were engaged. They sat in painful earnestness, close to each other in their tremendous absorption in the great theme, drops of sweat on their faces. On the black skin of Douglass the perspiration, gleaming in the office lights, shone red. " Now," added Brown, with intense force, " I believe that our duty to our country requires us to face death for the cause of the Filipinos, just as much as it required our fathers to face death for the Union in the Civil War. I have made up my mind ! I am ready to go ! I will go with you, and we will give our lives to the cause of human liberty and to main- taining the principles of the Republic of the United States, to which I shall always be loyal, whether or not I fight under the national flag." Thus the three patriots reached their decision. As they rose from their seats, still gazing into each other's faces in the intensity of their holy purpose, the eyes of Brown and Wheelwright met in awe as they saw on the dark forehead of Douglass the per- spiration shining in the reflected incandescent elec- tric lights like a red dew of prophecy. Instinctively they felt that it was prophecy, and in the hearts of both there was a weight of woe for their comrade no LOYAL TRAITORS which mingled with the joy of their divine hope, yet which could not quench it. And for themselves as well as for Douglass ! Were the chances not equal for all three ? As they were going down the stairs, Wheelwright, walking one step behind, laid his hand on Brown's shoulder. When he reached the foot he said : " You spoke last night of your father, George. Of course you have thought of the stigma there will be upon your name, a stigma in which he must share. In the eyes of the multitude our course is nothing less than that of is nothing less than enduring shame. I was going to say 'of traitors/ but the word traitor sticks in my throat." They stepped into Milk Street, and Brown waved his hand upward across the front of the building they had just left. " You see this massive granite pile," he said. " In stateliness and strength my father's character is like unto it. He knows all I have told him ; and while he would prefer that I should remain in Boston for he is old now, and if I go away we may never see each other again he yet says I must be my own judge of duty. That the probable stigma will not cause him to blanch you will be confident when I tell you that, although he some time ago ceased to come to the office, he will in my absence return to these chambers and endeavor to hold my business together. How is that for a young old man of eighty ? But LOYAL TRAITORS in what of yourself and the ' stigma/ and what of Douglass ? " " Bless your brotherly heart ! " cried Douglass. "For me and for all my race what stigma can be added to the one condemning fact that we are black ! In this great free land what have I to-day, and what have the seven millions of people like unto me ? In the South, after nearly forty years of emancipation, we have still the Jim Crow car, the torch at our hearth- stone if we are prosperous, the quick execution without trial if we err ; and in the North we have any position we can secure if it be menial enough : the place of a deck-hand, of a janitor or bell-boy, of a coachman or waiter. Is there any stigma to be added ? But with you the case is different, and you should consider the matter fully. In the eyes of your fellows and in the eyes of the law you will indeed be traitors, and no sticking of the word in Wheelwright's throat may prevent a noose from encircling it." " I myself much prefer the word * loyalist ' to the word 'traitor,'" remarked Brown smiling. "And in truth to-day in this land only those like unto us are loyalists, for we are loyal to the principles on which the nation was founded, while the majority have forsaken those principles." " Yes," said Wheelwright, " we are the loyalists ! Yet, even if no physical harm come to us, will it be otherwise than with a sneer that the majority will affirm of us, < Three " loyalists " against eighty millions of destructionists ! ' " ii2 LOYAL TRAITORS Brown answered simply : " It must needs be that the sneer cometh, but woe is unto him from whom it comes the woe of a pitiful ignorance of right, an ignorance none the less piti- ful if unconscious, and doubly, nay, a hundred fold pitiful if it be perverse." Walking up Milk Street arm in arm, the three men paused for a moment in front of the birthplace of Franklin, the ambassador of freedom. In the flicker of the street lights the gilt bust of the great states- man and deprecator of war seemed to smile down upon them from its elevated niche. Reaching Wash- ington Street, the walls and steeple of the Old South meeting-house echoed to their midnight tread as it had echoed to the tread of freedom-lovers in '76. Their decision reached, the next course of the trio was to carry that decision, without delay, into action. No one of them required a long time for prepara- tion. It was easy for Douglass and Wheelwright to sever their connection with the steamship company. Brown's legal business was to be in the hands of his father. There was one most important matter for Brown, however, before he sailed for London. His love for Faith Fessenden still burned as brightly as it did when he had faced his fate before and made the worst of it ; and he could not leave the country, perhaps never to return, without telling her why he went, doing what he could to justify his course to her, and, if possible, LOYAL TRAITORS 113 laying for himself some foundation for at least a bit of hope for the indefinite future. She had continued friendly and frank. They had occasionally talked over the Philippine question, for Brown was so intensely interested that he could not refrain from it, and he had always found in her a most willing listener. " Do you really think that you ought to risk your life for the Filipinos," she now asked him, when he called to tell her of his purpose. " It is not only for the Filipinos, but for my own country also," he answered. " Both causes focus in the same point, and patriotism compels me to go, just as much as does my sense of duty to the people whom our government is treating so unjustly. Americans must atone for the wrongs done by Americans, and those who are willing must suffer for those who are unwilling to go to that extreme." " But why can you not work here to change public sentiment, and accomplish your purpose in that way?" " Because that is not enough. Without help the poor Filipinos are likely to be crowded to the wall and lose all power of resistance. It is of the utmost consequence for them to preserve a form of govern- ment and the semblance of an army, no matter if the government must frequently change its seat in order to escape capture, nor if the army must run more than it fights. They must keep their boat's head to the wind." " Well, George, I believe that men should do their ii4 LOYAL TRAITORS duty to their country and to mankind. Our mothers in the Revolution and in the Civil War suffered much that the men might fight for country. But, George, I shall be very, very sorry to have you go." " Why shall you be sorry, and not rather pleased, that one of your friends gives himself to his country and to mankind ? " " Because I can't help it ! " "I shall be sorrier than I can say, Faith, to go where I cannot see you or hear of you, and possibly you might not be sorry to hear about me ! I hope that sometime I shall come home leaving a Filipino Republic behind me ! " "I also hope so, George; and be sure that while you are there I shall do what I can here to promote the Filipino cause and the cause of true American principles, for I too believe that they are one ! " " I admire this spirit in you, Faith. I did not ex- pect you to go quite so far. More than ever I must ask you to let me tell you that I still feel toward you just as I have felt all the time ! I can't go away without saying so. Don't blame me ! " " Oh, George, I am very sorry for you ! Why don't you give me up ? " "Because I can't. You are my life. But I will not pain you. You are very good to think as you do about my going, and I am glad you approve my pur- pose. Good-bye." He took both her hands in his, and this time she did not withdraw them. LOYAL TRAITORS 115 " Good-bye, George. I hope you will succeed, and surely I hope that you will come home safe and sound. I shall want very, very much to see you." " Good-bye again." " Good-bye/' The trip to London was without marked incident. Thence the three volunteers for the Filipino service went to Paris and made the acquaintance of Agon- Sillo, the Filipino representative there. They told him of their journey and convinced him of their sincerity and reliability. By Brown's suggestion, Agongillo sent word at once to the Filipino Junta in Hong Kong, telling them of the little band. He also gave Brown and his friends information about the Filipinos in Hong Kong, where to find them, and how to get in communication with Manila. In the outward passage ,by steam across the Indian Ocean and around to Hong Kong, the earnest trio were necessarily exposed to the perils of wind and wave ; but on the whole it may be said that they experienced only the familiar and commonplace inci- dents of an easy voyage. During the trip Wheel- wright utilized his Spanish to the best possible de- gree in instructing Brown and Douglass in the lan- guage which they must use in order to make their services effective in the Philippines. On reaching Hong Kong they had no difficulty in finding the Junta. By general consent they remained there several weeks, perfecting their Spanish and ti6 LOYAL TRAITORS acquiring especially the vocabulary most in use among the Filipinos, and developing their plans of assistance. Brown's prominent contention was that, somehow or other, there must be kept up at least a nucleus of a Filipino government, with a military organization, about which the people might rally, to which they would be glad to contribute, and which as representa- tive of the Filipino people could communicate with American officers, demanding recognition even if the Americans refused the recognition desired. Such a representative of national honor in arms and in government was needed as should be able to show that, even after years of trial, it had never been crushed out of existence. So they learned and studied and planned. They ascertained also who would meet them in Manila, and whom they could depend upon in helping to raise the government to the highest possible activity and strength. LOYAL TRAITORS 117 CHAPTER XII IN WHICH AMERICAN SACRIFICE STRIVES TO PROMOTE FILIPINO NATIONALITY IT was about New Year's, 1900, that the three companions set foot on the Philippine islands at Manila. Their unselfish purpose had decreased no w hit indeed, it had grown to more and more as they came nearer and nearer to the land where purpose was to be transformed into action. Their plans had now taken a somewhat definite shape, conditioned upon the co-operation of the Filipino leaders. Fully convinced that some form of Filipino government must be maintained, and finding these views shared by the Junta at Hong Kong, a path of immediate procedure was mapped out. A member of the Junta had gone over on a preceding vessel to prepare the Filipino leaders for their new American supporters, and to give a general idea of what plans they might present, though these involved no material departure from the ideas already held by the most far-seeing patriots at Manila and elsewhere on the islands. Manila was reached without incident and no time was lost in making the needless acquaintance of Americans there, either in civil or military life. n8 LOYAL TRAITORS Whatever information about the military situation was necessary could easily be obtained from the Filipinos in Manila and other parts of the islands. The trio found that they had convinced the Hong Kong Junta of their sincerity, for they were admitted fully into the secrets of the Filipino leaders and were informed of their plans of operations. By this time the United States troops had made material advances toward the conquest of Luzon, for the railroad to Dagupan, run- ning north from Manila, had been captured throughout its entire length, after a heroic resistance by the native troops, and thousands of brave men had died in defense of their homes, trying desperately, though in vain, to save them from the invaders. Though the entire population was bitterly hostile to the United States, and though every forward step of conquest was resisted as stoutly as was possible for a people inferior in arms to the United States troops, yet the Filipino line of battle had been constantly driven back, and the railroad the line of communication which had been so valuable was wrested completely from the hands of its rightful owners. Aguinaldo had been put to flight and was in hiding in the mountains, pursued closely at times by the American troops. Frequently he was in desperate straits, but was never captured and never betrayed by any native. He was still the ruling spirit of the resistance to the unrighteous conquest, and com- munications from him were received not infrequently in Manila, telling of his whereabouts, urging the local LOYAL TRAITORS 119 leaders never to relax their resistance, and command- ing movements of Filipino troops wherever he thought they could act with success to cut off an American detachment or to drive back an exposed outpost. The Filipino leader with whom Brown, Wheelwright, and Douglass were brought most in contact in Manila was nominally in civil life. He was in command of a force of men who never were suspected by the United States troops to be organized or under the command of any one, yet who were under strict military dis- cipline in the service of the Filipino Republic, pay- ments for the support of which were made frequently, regularly, and willingly by the natives, under the very eyes of the American authorities. This officer sent out his runners to Aguinaldo regularly with informa- tion of the movements of the American troops to date. He received information from all parts of the, archipelago by messengers, acting under his command. He was in communication with Generals Tinio, Alejandrino, Cailles, Malvar, and a score of others in different parts of Luzon, besides those in Panay, Samar, Leyte, Mindoro, and other islands. To the mind of Brown, remembering his training at West Point, the most efficient service he could render was to drill the Filipino troops so that they would be better able to stand up against the Amer- icans, and be better marksmen. He proposed to place himself at the service of his friends in this particular, offering to labor merely for the necessaries of life, which he was to have like a common soldier, 120 LOYAL TRAITORS drilling the Filipino troops in different parts of the island as occasion might offer. Meanwhile, in season and out of season, he persisted in urging the leaders to maintain their form of government at all hazards, a program which they were already struggling to follow, recognizing, as clearly as he did, the necessity of having something which could properly be called the organ of the Filipino people in their communica- tions with the United States. Brown had had a better military training than was at the command of the Filipinos for drilling their troops, and his offer was received gladly. He insisted that .the real command of the troops should not be changed, but that it should remain with the native officers as theretofore. He had not come to assume authority, but to be a servant among them, to share their hardships and to give his life for their cause if necessary. So he was sent to as convenient a place as possible in the mountains of Luzon, as near to the inhabited portion as was considered safe, yet far enough away to avoid suspicion, and there he began a work which extended over months, drilling detach- ments of a few hundred troops at a time, as best he could, and being assisted by faithful subordinates with whom he studied by night as well as by day, inducting them into the mysteries of drill and evolution and developing in them some better ideals of marksman- ship and of soldierly service. On every hand he found the utmost enthusiasm for the Filipino cause. They were ready to suffer the LOYAL TRAITORS 121 loss of everything, even of life, for their country, and they bore without complaint the hard service into which Brown pressed them. At first Douglass and Wheelwright were with him, and they worked under his direction to enlarge the Filipino stores of supplies, to lay up arms and ammunition, to make roads and bridges, to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, and to do the many other things which came into play as a part of the scheme of defense. They formed a wide acquaintance with the country. They made many friends among the people. Their presence became known to practically all of the leading Filipinos in all parts of the islands, and they thus laid for their future service the foundation which was so essential in the progress of the war. But the American troops, as Brown had foreseen, proved too strong in the field for open resistance on the part of the Filipinos., He foresaw that there would be for a time an apparent triumph of the American forces, that the patriotic Filipinos must pass through a period of great discouragement and of seeming defeat, when their situation would resemble that of the American soldiers of the Revolution in their struggle for independence from the tyranny and outrage of Great Britain. It was for him, as far as possible, to prepare the Filipinos for this prolonged period of depression ; to encourage them to a per- sistence in armed resistance and to a continuance of the spirit of sacrifice, in order that the blood of the thirty thousand patriots already martyred might not 122 LOYAL TRAITORS have flowed in vain, in order that there might be fruit from their endurance of terrible punishment and vengeance at the hands of the United States troops, in order that they might develop their national traits of patience and of steady resistance to wrong, and in order that they might be in condition still to assert to the world, whenever the opportune moment might arrive, their determination to gain their independence. He would have them able to show that they had never ceased to fight ; that they had always kept up a military administration ; that they had the real sup- port of practically all of the Filipino people, no mat- ter how much they might have been forced to bend before the superior military strength of the Ameri- cans, and that the Filipinos were capable of defending their own country, their right to which they had established in the blood of their bravest sons and brothers. He consulted with their leaders, in Manila, in Dagupan, in Benguet, in Aparri, and with others elsewhere in Luzon. He made a trip to the Visayan Islands and saw the generals in Samar, in Leyte, in Cebu, in Negros, and at Iloilo. He pressed upon them the imperative need of establishing some center which should be known to the people generally and which would receive their contributions for a long time. It was Brown's idea that, though Aguinaldo might remain in command in Luzon, and though the leaders in the other islands were under his orders, yet the harassing pursuits to which Aguinaldo had been su.b- LOYAL TRAITORS 123 ject, and which would doubtless continue, made it neces- sary to have a more stable seat of government, leav- ing the military authority with Aguinaldo in the field. He advised that a mountain retreat, not far from Manila, unsuspected and almost inaccessible, be selected as a permanent headquarters for the government's central meeting-place, where the leaders could confer without danger of capture, whence information could be sent out all over the archipelago, and whence directions could be easily issued for the conduct of operations, in case the hot pursuit of Aguinaldo should make it advisable for him to retreat there. This idea was approved, and in the rough solitudes of Mount Maquiling, in sight from Manila, a place was found which could be transformed by labor and ingenuity into the desired headquarters for the Fili- pino Republic. An eminence was fortified so as to be capable of resistance against a strong force, and the safety of the departments of the government was provided for by the construction of underground pas- sages and defenses. They were so arranged that a small amount of light and a sufficient amount of air were available for the defenders, while they them- selves were absolutely concealed. At every entrance to the underground passages were strong stone posts. Iron framework and bars guarded the entrance, mak- ing it impracticable for ordinary infantry to force a passage. Everything artificial about the entrance was painted green, to avoid observation. Vines were trailed over the place. Back of the outer bars was i2 4 LOYAL TRAITORS a solid iron door, also painted, made with the strong- est bars behind it, so that nothing but cannon could break it down. Occasional shafts were made through to the upper air, acting like chimneys to give ventila- tion to the long underground passages. These open- ings were also covered by natural growth, so that their existence would never have been suspected by any one three feet from them. Side passages led off from the main one, cham- bers in which the important records of the govern- ment might be kept, each chamber having its door made so ingeniously that, even if the main passage were discovered and forced, the invaders would never suspect the existence of the others. Various open- ings were made so that it was impossible for the defenders to be shut in and captured, if discovered, so long as one exit remained free. Then a system of communication by messengers was arranged care- fully, so that the headquarters was safe and yet close to the center of information, the leaders being able to direct operations whenever necessary. This was the work to which Brown addressed him- self in the outlining of it, committing its execution to Wheelwright and Douglass while he continued his drilling of Filipino troops. For, notwithstanding the building of the stronghold, there was to be no abandon- ment of the field in Luzon and the larger islands so long as an inch of ground could be held. The invader was to be resisted at every point, and Brown not only had the direction of drill, but he also LOYAL TRAITORS 125 went into action, though never in command of even the smallest detachment, for he insisted that the Filipino officers alone should give orders to their own men, and that no one should ever be able to say that he was ambitious of place or power other than as the best means of setting the Filipinos on their feet as a nation. Thus he shared the hardships of the camp and of the field with the soldiers. He studied their work under fire. He checked the haste of their retreats. He encouraged them to greater steadiness under the exposure of their lives. He did a thousand things to raise the quality of Filipino soldiership. And he had an encouraging measure of success, so that the people of the central region of Luzon came to know him as the American who loved the Fili- pinos. 126 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XIII THE FILIPINOS LEARN A TRICK OR TWO IT was not only in military matters that George Brown served and taught the Filipinos. Supreme over the military he knew must eventually be the civil authority. Though the Filipinos had learned much while under Spanish rule, yet there was much more for them to learn in civil matters, especially in the best forms of self-government and in the principles which should govern their civil procedure. Here is where his legal training and his experience in the Massachusetts House of Representatives came into practical service. Naturally a man of action, and of great executive capacity, he organized, at the same time with his military drill, experimental sets of officials for practice in civil government among the soldiers. He also had these organizations formed all over the islands, right under the American guns, and where it would have been easy for the conquerors to have prevented the meetings had they suspected what was in progress. But the Filipinos were faithful. They did not betray the work. They had an aptitude for it. They abundantly justified the opinion afterward expressed by General MacArthur that " the Filipinos L'OYAL TRAITORS 127 alone in the far East have somehow been imbued with the nineteenth-century spirit." They were ambitious and quick to learn. They came to revere the names of the great patriots and statesmen of the United States, with whom Brown made them familiar, and they discriminated sharply between the principles of these and the principles of the Administration which was trying to subjugate them in violation of the truths upon which the United States democracy was founded. They had an exalted idea of liberty, of the equality of all men, and of the duty of true patriots to die for their country, if need be. The terrible experience of their native land, the familiar fact that the theoretical student of one night was the practical martyr of the next day, gave a tre- mendous force to their appreciation of human liberty and drove the truth into their hearts with a force which will remain in the memory.of the Filipino Republic of the future as long as its citizens are true to the mem- ory of Jos6 Rizal and its other great founders. But, after all, for the time being, civil government was not the first and greatest duty. It was war that demanded the instant thought of the people ; and for war, long continued, if need be, they made their prep- arations. "Armed resistance to the United States must never end," Brown kept repeating as he labored among them both in his military and civil leadership. " Independence is worthy of any sacrifice you may be called upon to make for it. No nation has yet achieved independence which was not ready to fight 128 LOYAL TRAITORS for it. Better die fighting for it than live without it. That was the spirit which inflamed Patrick Henry and the heroes of the American Revolution, who laid the foundations of the great Republic. That is the spirit in which you must fight, and in which it is better for you to die than to live in submission to an alien people/' His words fell on fruitful soil, and the enthusiastic Filipinos drilled by day, studied by night, then fought and died, sealing with their blood their vows of loyalty to their native land and their determination never to yield to the invader. But they were physically inferior to their conquer- ors, though the holy flame of love for liberty which filled their hearts as they went bravely and knowingly to their deaths was far superior to any emotion which could have filled the breasts of those who shot them down, whose conduct will always be an eternal stigma upon American arms. The Filipinos could not succeed in the open field against superior might. They were forced to frequent flight, in order to escape annihila- tion. Yet the stubbornnesss with which they held their ground against overwhelming odds, together with the unprecedented policy in American warfare which was followed by the American soldiers in disposing of the Filipino wounded, is nowhere more eloquently set forth than in the accusing figures which are found in the official reports of the commanding officers of the Americans. General MacArthur's official report of the Filipino casualties between May 5, 1900, and June LOYAL TRAITORS 129 i 30, 1901, included the terrible list of 3854 killed and 1193 wounded, while of the Americans 345 were killed and 490 wounded. His report for the period between November i, 1899, and September I, 1900, was that 3227 Filipinos were killed and 694 wounded. During the same time there were 268 Americans killed and 750 wounded. General Wheaton gave the casualties for northern Luzon for April, May, June, and July as 1014 Filipinos killed and 95 wounded, while the Americans had 36 killed and 63 wounded. For the last four months of 1899 the Americans had 69 killed and 302 wounded in the Luzon campaign. In the first four months of 1900 they had 130 killed and 325 wounded. The Filipino casualties for May, June, July, and August of the same year, in the same campaign, were 1513 killed and 222 wounded. John T. McCutcheon, who is quoted as a reliable witness, wrote under date of Manila, April 20, 1899 : " There has now begun a time of terrific slaughter ; for, since the insurgents have adopted their guerrilla methods of attacking weak parties of Americans and boloing men who get outside of our lines, a feeling of intense bitterness has sprung up among our soldiers. It is the old cry ' the only good Indian is a dead one ' repeated with a deep thirst for revenge behind it to strengthen it. It is the spirit of ' take no pris- oners ' and s kill everything in sight ' that has accounted for some of the terrific slaughters that have occurred during the last two months." 130 LOYAL TRAITORS Such was the system of warfare which the Filipinos had to meet in the field. Against such methods did they stand up bravely until their death-roll numbered, as is believed, over 30,000 heroes. Civilized warfare nowhere shows such a ghastly disproportion of killed to wounded as in the Philippine War, and those figures have gone into history, never to be erased, forever to stand to the eternal shame of the professedly Chris- tian Republic, but especially of the Administration which approved such methods, of the soldiers who practised them, and of the generals under whose com- mand they flourished. The odds were too great. The Filipinos could die, but their lives were not profitably spent. They must strive further, and in other ways, to see if they could possibly gain independence, before they accepted death as the alternative preferable to American sovereignty. Like Cardinal Richelieu, they found they must eke out the lion's skin with the fox's. They must avoid such terrible sacrifice of life. They must resort to stratagems and surprises. At this time in the war the patriots had not lost all of their offensive arms. One of their latest acquisi- tions was a machine gun which had been secured in Hong Kong by the Junta and sent over in pieces in small craft so as to escape capture. This gun was put together near Vigan on the west coast of Luzon, and was carried into the mountain region in the prov- ince of Bontoc, where the defense was comparatively easy, and where a few Filipinos, with such a gun as this, LOYAL TRAITORS 131 could, if they were properly handled, stand strongly against a superior American force. By this means they now hoped in part to avenge the deaths of so many of their comrades, and to hold the Americans in check for a time, thus permitting other Filipinos, in other parts of the island, to push offensive operations as near to the large towns as practicable. Brown gave his presence and advice in the con- struction of the intrenchment behind which the Filipinos hoped to make an effective stand, placing the gun so that it should be perfectly concealed, yet in position to deliver a resistless point-blank fire upon any approaching foe. This fortification was one of the strong points of the Filipino resistance. But near to Dagupan and Tarlac and Bacolor, on the line of the railroad from Manila to the former place, they also constructed their intrenchment s and perfected their plans of , ambush so that they might make it as dangerous as possible for the Americans to use the road or to venture at a distance from their garrisoned places. They toiled ceaselessly and without complaint, and foremost among them always, helping by counsel and sharing the work of their hands, were the three American lovers of the Filipinos, Brown, Douglass, and Wheelwright. 132 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XIV THE MORALS OF AN AMERICAN DESERTER IT was near the end of a stubborn fight by the Filipinos against an American detachment, not far from Malolos, that Brown first met John Nelson, an American deserter who was hastening forward at the head of a company of Filipinos to support the company in which Brown was fighting, just when he was trying to check their retreat, to rally them in some sort of shape before the onset of the Americans, and to save them from the demoralization of total rout. The Filipinos never fought better. Brown's instruc- tions had not been lost upon them. They held their positions, though their men dropped fast here and there under the superior American fire, and though they made but small impression upon their foes in return. They held to the cover of trees and rocks as much as possible. They took advantage of the irreg- ularities in the ground, and many a shot, sent with a heart braver than the aim was direct, was fired into the American ranks. It was when the Filipinos were being driven back, and seemed at the end of their formal resistance, that firing was heard in the woods upon the left flank of the Americans. This forced the advancing American LOYAL TRAITORS 133 troops to abandon what they had just expected to make a hot and murderous pursuit, and compelled them to turn in the other direction, to meet the new attack. The Filipinos with Brown were thus given an opportunity to press forward again, and, between the two fires, the American detachment was forced to withdraw, doing so in good order, but leaving a few dead and twice as many wounded upon the field. Almost the first one whom Brown saw at the head of the advancing company of Filipinos was a white man, evidently in command of the relieving party. Brown had not heard of this acquisition and was intensely surprised to see a man who was apparently one of his own countrymen, though dressed in the civilian costume of a native Filipino. Brown saluted him : "We have you to thank, captain, for coming just in the nick of time. Who are you, and how did you happen to reach us just when you did ? " Nelson gave his name, and grasped Brown by the hand, saying : " It was truly a good turn I did you. You would not have got out of here alive, for another company of United States troops has been sent to reinforce these men whom we have beaten back as I have just learned." There was no time just then for further conversa- tion. Both men were in demand in various quarters. But later, when there was opportunity, the conversa- tion was resumed : 134 LOYAL TRAITORS "Captain Nelson," said Brown, "how is it that I have not heard of you sooner if you have been in the Filipino service ? We ought to have met long ago/' " That was not possible, for I have not been fight- ing on this side very long. The truth is, Captain Brown, I am a deserter from the United States troops." And he mentioned his regiment and com- pany. " Then you must believe about as I do regarding this Philippine business," said Brown. "I hold that the Filipinos are absolutely right ; that the United States is equally wrong ; and that the only course for an honest man, to say nothing of a brave one, is to fight as he believes." " I have not been out here very long, captain, and I didn't realize what it means to our country and to these poor Filipinos here. I never really thought about it, as I do now, for we had never seen war, and the fellows were all hot to come, and things didn't look as they do now." "How long since your regiment came?" asked Brown. " We have been here about six months, but we were at Manila for a while. I didn't realize what this business means until we were sent to the front, and then, I tell you, my eyes were opened pretty quickly. I have been doing some of my best thinking since, and have wound up by finding myself in the Filipino service." "You are right, captain," declared Brown, "you LOYAL TRAITORS 135 are absolutely right, no matter how you came to think as you do. I came out here from the United States with two as brave comrades as you ever saw, just to fight for these noble Filipinos." " Who are the other two," eagerly inquired Nelson, "and where are they ? " " One is Alfred Wheelwright, a born Englishman. The other is Washington Douglass, as black as they grow, born of a slave mother. They are now helping the natives to build fortifications back in the moun- tains. Are you the only white man in your com- pany ? " Nelson's lip quivered as he said : " Yes, I am the only one now, though there were two of us. We were in a fight further down the road two days ago, and Charlie Sumner, who deserted with me, was killed. He was as brave a soldier as ever fought for liberty under any flag, and he died like a hero. We buried him with his Filipino comrades, and the regiment which attacked us never knew that there were two Americans fighting on the side of the Filipinos. He lived quite a little time after he was shot." " Did he hold out brave to the last ? " " If ever there was a born hero, Charlie Sumner was the man. He faced what few United States sol- diers ever dared to face. You see, after we had been over here a while and had been at the front, and knew more what war means and what sort of people the Filipinos are, he began to talk to me about it. 136 LOYAL TRAITORS He did not believe we are doing right, and he made me see it as plainly as he saw it. He used to talk about the rights of the Filipinos, and how they are as good as we are ; how they ought to be helped to set up for themselves ; how we ought to promise them that we would help them to their independence, instead of killing them for fighting for their liberty. He stood it as long as he could. He came to know my feelings pretty well, and finally he said to me : " ' Nelson, I can't endure this any longer. I feel like a cut-throat fighting these brave men who are doing just what we would do if we were in their places. I am sure that we are wrong. I have made up my mind that I am going to fight on their side, and not against them any longer. I would like to have you go with me, if you feel like it. That is for you to settle. My conscience is clear." " I asked him what made him think he ought to fight for them, and not simply run off ; how he could raise a hand against our own troops." " ' Well/ said he, ' we are doing a terrible wrong. Somebody must pay the penalty. That is the way in the world. You can't do wrong unless somebody suffers the consequences. Our government is com- mitting the greatest sin it ever committed in all its history, and the American people do not rise up and prevent it. But it will not be many years before the blackest stain on the name of an American soldier will be that he served in the Philippines. I pre- fer to fight on the side of right. I took my life in LOYAL TRAITORS 137 my hand when I came out here and I am ready to stand the risk now. These Filipinos are right and our country is wrong, and I am going to fight on the right side/ " So I agreed to join him. We did not speak to any other comrades about it, though I know that a great many of them believe that the war is wrong, for they have said so and have told me about their writ- ing home to their families that they feel so. One night, when Sumner and I were on picket duty, we deserted and came over to the Filipinos." " When Sumner was dying," asked Brown, " did he say anything to show that he was sorry for desert- ing?" " Captain, that boy was just as clear that he was right as if it had been revealed to him by a special message from Almighty God. After he was shot, when he was looking death straight in the face, he told me, if ever I went back, to give his good-bye to his friends at home. " ' Perhaps/ he said, and it took him long to say it, he was so weak; in fact, he did not say it all at one time, ' they will be ashamed of me. It is a terrible disgrace for a man to die as a deserter from his regiment and to be in arms against his own coun- try. But I had to do it. There was no other honora- ble way. Our government is surely wrong, and I say it knowing that I shall stand before my God this day. But, Nelson, just see how we are fixed. We profess that United States soldiers are brave. We know 138 LOYAL TRAITORS that some of them believe as we do that the govern- ment is wrong. But when it comes to the question of killing Filipinos or being shot for disobedience to orders, then not a man of all those we have left but prefers shooting innocent men to being shot him- self. They are not brave enough to stand up and do what they know is right. As for the men who believe that the government is right and that it is right to shoot the Filipinos, I pity their heads as well as their hearts. They do not know what the true American spirit means, and they give their judg- ment into the hands of their superior officers. No true American can ever do that, and no Christian can ever take the command of his colonel in the place of the command of his God for that is what con- science is. So I am ready to die, even though branded as a deserter. It comes harder than it would to stand up and be shot fighting for the right on the side of my country. I hate to be in arms against my own regiment. I hate to fight against the Stars and Stripes, but when the Stars and Stripes are on the wrong side, then I have no choice. And in truth, I am really fighting for my country when I am fighting against this Administration, and I go to meet my God with a clear conscience ! ' " So he died, and we buried him ; and I tell you, Captain Brown, there was never a whiter soul or a braver man than Charlie Sumner." " Nelson, " exclaimed Brown, " you are worthy to stand in his company, for you ran the same risk and LOYAL TRAITORS 139 took the same ground. I hope that his death and your sacrifice, and my own risk here, will do some- thing in the long run to help the Filipinos to their independence and to bring our beloved country back to its true place on the side of the weak and oppressed." " But there's more yet, Captain Brown, about our fighting these Filipinos and being on the wrong side." " More ? " " Yes. Since I have been in the army, I have come to the positive conclusion that the entire mili- tary profession is degrading. All the glory and honor and courage that are talked about in connec- tion with war are mere shams. I have come to the point where I attack the entire military profession as a profession.' 1 For the time, Brown sank the expression of his own largely similar belief, in order that he might bring out the thought of the other man. " There have been a great many brave and patri- otic soldiers," he said. " I am not now criticising any man whatever," re- sponded Nelson. " I denounce the entire profession as degrading and destructive to honor in any man." " How do you figure it out ? " " In the first place, the very requirements of the profession that a man shall obey orders unques- tioningly compel him to deny his best nature. He abjures his relation to God, or believes he does, and acts as if he had, though he never can do anything of the sort. The first essential in a sol- 140 LOYAL TRAITORS dier is obedience. He must have no judgment or conscience of his own. 'Obey,' 'Obey,' that is the first thing ; and he swears to do it. No matter how wrong he or his commander may be, he must obey. The ultimate necessity of the soldier's profession is killing men, no matter whether they are right or wrong. If no killing were required, then an unarmed police force would be sufficient. The first essential of every soldier, then, from the private up to the gen- eral, is that he be ready to kill any and every innocent person, upon command, without question or mercy. The very essence of a soldier's calling is that he strip himself of common humanity, that he become deaf to all appeals of mercy, and that he degrade himself to the level of a brute. That is the first thing that a soldier must be in himself, if he is an ideal soldier." "I have condemned many things about the army," said Brown, "but I never looked at the matter in just this light before." " This is not a particle of exaggeration," continued Nelson, "but the cold and impartial truth. Every man who enters the military profession, unless he reserves to himself his obedience to God, makes of himself a Godless brute at the outset." " You are pretty plain-spoken. Don't you believe that our soldiers in the Civil War were brave and humane men ? " asked Brown. " Yes, but that is a totally different case. Citizen soldiers, whose occupation is not war, but who enter it of necessity, are on a very different footing from LOYAL TRAITORS 141 professional soldiers. Your professional soldier not only throws conscience, honor, self-respect, and God himself to the winds, but he takes the position of a reasonless animal also. That is, in the settlement of disputes, he says deliberately that reason and common sense shall not be the final standard. He throws reason to the winds along with God and conscience, and with what he holds to be other rubbish of that sort, and says that the dispute shall be settled by brute force. These are not mere incidents of the military profession, they are essentials. They lie at the foundation of the profession. Just as a lawyer or doctor cannot enter his profession until he has been examined and shows that he has certain qualifications, so the soldier is not permitted to enter upon his profession until he has shown himself possessed of the qualifications of absolute brute indifference to right and mercy, of lack of conscience, and utter barrenness of reason. No man who realizes the worth of con- science or the dignity of reason would ever consent to take such a terribly humiliating position." " You would not say that the great soldiers of the past were men of that sort ? " " I have said that I criticise no man. Generals and privates fighting for their country and the right, men who would fight equally against their country if it were in the wrong, do not come under the charge." " Where can you draw the line ? " " The soldier who takes his training for the purpose of defending his country, at the same time determined 142 LOYAL TRAITORS to die rather than obey his superior if he is ordered to do wrong, takes a position at the outset in violation of the fundamental position of military morals as they are now accepted. Such a position can be justified, but the few instances in which men have disobeyed orders for conscience' sake, fighting against their country because they thought the other side was right, prove what the military profession really amounts to and what it rests upon. The world seems to think that there are two standards of right, one for peace and one for war. But God's truth is always the same. Right is not a creature of circumstances. Because war lets loose the passions of the infernal, it does not follow that the horrible license of war is right. Outrage, injustice, and killing are as wicked in war as in peace.'' " But you admit that war is necessary sometimes ? " argued Brown. " Yes, when an aggressive nation encroaches un- justly upon a peaceful one. But my point is against the military idea altogether, as it is commonly accepted. Our Civil War illustrates it. Though our citizens became soldiers for justifiable reasons, yet they suf- fered from the brutalizing consequences of war just the same as if they had been professional soldiers. Their moral tone was horribly degraded. Army morals break down the sense of right and wrong. If there were one soldier who disobeyed his general for conscience' sake, the general would order his comrades to shoot him for disobedience of orders, and those LOYAL TRAITORS 143 comrades would obey, though they knew that the dis- obedient soldier was the bravest and most honorable of men. Your professional soldier is a professional butcher of humanity, of men, women, and children, it makes no difference which. The profession, when you come to see it in its true light, is itself the most degraded that the human mind can conceive. It is without palliation or justification, for the soldier who reserves conscience to himself fails in the first requisite of an ideal soldier. By so much as he insists upon his manhood and admits his obligation to God, by so much does he diverge from the standard of the true soldierly type. Such men can never become real soldiers. Your ideal soldier is unthinking, regardless of honor, truth, mercy, property, life, and God him- self, for he ignores all of these at the word of his commander/' Brown was silent. "And there is another thing," Nelson went on, "which I affirm as a conclusion from my experience out here. That is, that a great republic can never be a great military power. The essential ideas of the two conflict. In a republic, with a democratic form of government, you must have deliberation. The representatives of the people must have time to act. The will of the people must control the military arm of the body politic. But a military power must act promptly. Its councils must be secret. Its blows must be unannounced. Its policy must be shaped by a few. If a democracy wishes to become a military H4 LOYAL TRAITORS power, it must abandon its democratic form of govern- ment and become a monarchy/' " I must believe you are right, Nelson ; and I tell you that this Filipino War and the Boer War will work wonders in stamping the truth into the minds of the alleged Christian nations. Your brave comrade Sumner was one of the glorious martyrs in the grow- ing cause of justice and humanity." A call for Brown, from some of the Filipinos, here interrupted this exchange of views. Work was to be done. The wounded must be cared for ; the dead must be buried. But the death of Charles Sumner was fruitful in helping forward the righteous cause of the Filipinos ; nor will it be without influence later, aiding in the restoration of a right mind in the Amer- ican people when the story of his brave and complete self-sacrifice to death and disgrace is known. LOYAL TRAITORS 145 CHAPTER XV FAITH FESSENDEN READS THE NEWSPAPERS EH.AITH FESSENDEN' S mother made the re- mark one day, to her husband : " William, it seems to me that Faith is alto- gether too much interested in this Philippine War. She always turns to that part of the morning paper first, and she spends more time on it than on all the remainder of the paper put together.' 1 " Perhaps she is interested in the study of geog- raphy," remarked Mr. Fessenden. "You remember, she was always curious in, school to know all about the distant parts of the earth." " Nonsense, William ; you don't believe, yourself, that that is her object. I'm afraid she is going to be one of those strong-minded women, with her head filled with public matters and without a care for home life." " Is that your idea of strong-minded women ? But I have no fear that Faith will not care for home life enough, if she ever has a home of her own. She is that kind." " I used to feel so ; but she thinks more of the Anti-Imperialist League these days than she does of 146 LOYAL TRAITORS her literary class or of her friends all put together. She talks too much about it. I wish you would see if you can't turn her mind to something else." "What does she say about the anti-imperialists, Clara?" " Oh, she doesn't say so very much, in' the way of talking about them, but she is working for them, ask- ing her friends to contribute money for the cause, telling them that they ought to distribute literature for them, sending in addresses, and that sort of thing." " Why don't you try your hand first, and see if you can't persuade her ? " " She seems to think that she understands this case better than I do, and, really, I haven't read much about it. I believe our minister is right when he supports the Administration. What are ministers for if we can't trust them to study public questions for us and preach to us about them and tell us which side is right ? All the respectable people, all of our set, anyway, support the Administration." " Well, I have heard of such a thing as a minister being on the wrong side, Clara. Faith has a pretty clear head, you know." " But she need not make herself different from all her friends and all the family." " Except me." " Well, you are a man, and you don't care half as much for the opinions of your friends as you ought to. You set up your opinion against the world, and then LOYAL TRAITORS 147 stick to it, just as if you knew better than everybody else." " Faith is pretty good company. However, I'll find out whether she is overdoing the business. " Mr. Fessenden had had his eyes open. He had been young himself once. He understood his daugh- ter better than, with her absorption in social and club duties, the mother had any idea he did. Faith herself helped to throw light on the situation. " Father," she said, very soon after the above con- versation, " it seems to me that we ought to have a later atlas in the house. The papers have lots of news about the Boer War and the Philippine War. A good many places are mentioned in the dispatches which we know nothing about. Won't you get one ? " " You are very much interested in the Philippine news, aren't you, Faith." "Why, of course I want to keep posted on the events of the times, father." " So I see. Yes, I'll get you a recent atlas, and you may study up all the little places you please. I'll wager that you know to-day all about Manila and its suburbs, and Malolos, and Dagupan, and Iloilo, and what not. Don't you ? " " Why, of course, father, those are all well-known places. If those were the only ones I shouldn't want a new atlas." " Well-known to you, of course ; but you want to learn about the smaller places ? Well, chick, you shall have your atlas." 148 LOYAL TRAITORS When Mr. Fessenden brought the atlas home and found Faith alone, he could not resist the temptation and the opportunity to fire a shot at the bull's eye. " Here, Faith, here's your atlas, but they didn't put George Brown on it." "Oh, father!" " Little girl," said Mr. Fessenden slowly and sympa- thetically (though she was no longer little, but of royal stature now) : " I am very sorry for you. You have a hard sorrow to carry. I have suspected for a good while that your great interest in the Fili- pino cause has a personal element in it. I know about George Brown's going and taking his two friends with him. And you know that I believe that George is on the right side. If he sees his duty to lie in that direction, I do not say that he has done wrong even to take up arms against his country. But he took his life in his hands, and I am very sorry for you. I wish I could help you carry your burden, but * every heart best knows its own sor- row/ Faith." "Father, George is a brave man, and he has sacri- ficed himself for what he believes is right. He be- lieves he is fighting for the true cause of human liberty, just as much as your grandfather fought for it at Concord Bridge. I love him. I can't help it. But he does not know it. I didn't know it myself till after he went away." " Little girl, I will keep your secret. I believe George is a true patriot and one of the bravest men LOYAL TRAITORS 149 Massachusetts ever sent out to fight for liberty. May he be preserved to come back in safety ! " " I believe he will be, father. Somehow I feel that I shall see him again. I work for his cause. I am thinking all the time what I can do to help make people think the right way about this Philippine business. I have done ever so much for the Anti- Imperialist League. I shall keep at work. I should die if I could not help along in this cause." " Faith, your love for him is as sacred as if it were openly acknowledged and protected in union under the law. I will cheer you up as long as there is any- thing to hope for. And the outlook is not all dark, by any means." "You are very, very good to me, father. " And father and daughter were closer than ever before. 150 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XVI A LETTER AND A PROCLAMATION *+* MARCONI'S wireless telegraphy might give a hint of the explanation. Or possibly telepathy was the real cause. But whether or not there was any etheric disturbance extending from Boston to Luzon, and whether or not immaterial psychical pulsations traversed the space around the globe or took a short cut through it, escaping combustion on the way, certain it is that George Brown's mind came to a certain important decision at just about the hour that Faith Fessenden made to her father, in confidence, the recorded remark of much personal interest to the distant patriot. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," and Faith's virtues and attractions did not suffer in the heart of the fondly imaginative lover by reason of rolling seas between, nor from months of unbroken silence regarding her, nor by the possible unlikelihood that he would ever win his suit. She simply grew in the strength of her hold upon his heart and upon his imagination until she was as truly his life-companion, in the sense that she was always with him in heart, as if she had gone through the forms of law and religion making them legally and psychically one. LOYAL TRAITORS 151 But to a man who had strong practical sense, as well as an ardent imagination and a changeless quality which made his heart as true to its pole as if his love were returned, there must be some further action when the time was ripe. And time was ripening in him. It all came out clear to him one night as he lay sleepless, his thoughts in their familiar place and his imagination raising still a little higher the throne upon which he had placed her. " I will write to her," he said. It then only remained to put his thought into action. It was not difficult, by means of the frequent com- munication with friends in Manila, to procure the conveniences of letter writing and the stamps where- with to prepay the postage. Like the straightforward man he had always been, he was true to himself now. This was the letter : " FAITH : " Is it Yes or No ? " GEORGE/' It was inclosed with two envelopes for her use. One of the envelopes was directed to a friend in Manila, a Filipino not suspected by the American officers, and whose mail was not cut open and read by the United States censor. That was to inclose the other, which was directed to himself in the inland town where he was most likely to be found and to 152 LOYAL TRAITORS which he arranged that his Manila friend should send the reply, provided one ever came. Having done all that was necessary to make sure that Faith might reply if she wished, he gave the life- shaping letter to a trusty messenger to mail at Manila, and then turned back to his duties of war and civil government with a new hope in his heart and a limit of time fixed in his mind before which, he said to himself, he ought to receive a reply if ever any earthly happiness was to be his. In the affairs of the Filipinos, duties of a civil nature were declining in importance. Brown had never ceased to urge upon his Filipino friends that the civil authority, or government by the people, though for a time held in abeyance by the bitter necessity of fighting, must supersede the military as soon as possible, that they might be judged by their ability to maintain civil administration. He asserted that they must put the islands under civil rule, inch by inch, as fast as possible, wherever they could find a town free from American domination. For the present, however, the military must still be supreme. At his suggestion a meeting of the leaders in the different islands was called at their new government headquarters in the secret fortification on Mount Maquiling. Aguinaldo was present, though he main- tained his camp in the north as more convenient for operations in that part of the island. At this meeting, Brown urged upon the leaders the LOYAL TRAITORS 153 advisability of making as strong a showing as possible of the fact of their opposition to the Americans, so that the invaders would realize that the entire popula- tion was practically a unit in demanding independence and in their determination never to cease to agitate for a nominal equality with the other republics of the earth. He was careful not to be offensive with his views, but to show their reasonableness; above all, not in the slightest way to seem anxious for any credit to himself for ideas or personal prowess. He had sacrificed himself for the cause and was content to be obscure in it, provided only that he was serviceable. Aguinaldo was persuaded. Other leaders fell in with them. It was agreed that a Proclamation should be issued to the Filipino people, saying that the Filipino government would adopt a system of currency, promising to pay, one year after the independence of the Filipino Republic was acknowledged by the United States, the face of its several printed obligations given to the people in exchange for supplies. These gov- ernment notes would be given to all people furnishing supplies, at the current market rate in coin under the American rule. It was also agreed to proclaim that, wherever possible, the local authorities must open schools and undertake the construction of good roads. This was in order to prepare the way for self-government, and to prove to the world that the Filipinos were establish- ing a nationality for themselves as rapidly as possible after the success of their rebellion against Spain. 154 LOYAL TRAITORS This Proclamation was sent to Manila to be printed. It was done by a secret press, which was at the service of the patriots. Then the Proclamation was posted all over Manila and the islands generally, as Brown suggested. During the darkess of night, when sentries were looking the other way, or by the con- nivance of friendly police, many dead walls were liberally pasted over. Copies were stuck upon the sidewalks, right under foot. When the servant of General Otis went to curry his horse in the morning, there was a copy of the Proclamation daubed with tar upon each flank of the animal. The door of the general's headquarters bore, when daylight came, a copy of the Proclamation. Everywhere, right under the noses of the Americans, were the offensive doc- uments. The Filipino people felt a return of their aggressive spirit, and had renewed confidence in their leaders and fresh devotion to their country. LOYAL TRAITORS 155 CHAPTER XVII AN AMERICAN DETACHMENT MEETS AN OBSTACLE HAVING used his influence for this move toward self-reliance on the part of the Filipinos, George Brown returned to his military stronghold in the province of Bontoc. It had been selected as a place where the Filipinos could rally for offensive operations upon either coast, according as they found the invaders threatening their country. He continued his work on both military and civil lines, using his utmost endeavors to strengthen the military capacity of the natives, but neglecting no open door whereby he could promote their familiarity with civil affairs, which was already considerable. But the strength of the Filipinos in that province, and their constant activity, proved to the Americans that in Bontoc there must be some center of more than usual importance, and an expedition was sent out from Manila for the purpose of dispersing whatever armed resistance might be encountered there. Filipino spies sent word promptly to the forces which were under Aguinaldo's direct command, telling the number of Americans, the direction in which they were marching, and their probable object. To meet the attack, it was Aguinaldo's purpose 156 LOYAL TRAITORS and Brown warmly supported his judgment to make a firm stand with the forces then at hand, giving a good account of themselves with their present strong means of defense. But the defenses were further improved. The machine gun was ambushed where it commanded for a considerable distance the trail along which the aggressors must advance. Rifle-pits were dug on each side of the approach, so that the enemy could be attacked on the flank while he was being resisted in front. The intrenchments were extended and enlarged. Every possible preparation was made for a vigorous resistance. When preparations were completed, the brave defenders awaited the approach of the Americans. What Aguinaldo especially feared was that the advancing skirmishers would discover the strength of the position, and then lead on to an attempt to capt- ure it by moves against the flanks or rear. It was imperative, therefore, to have the entire body of the Americans come on at about the same time as the skirmish line. Accordingly he sent a score of men forward to meet the advancing troops, to fire as rap- idly as possible at first, then to retreat and draw the entire body forward in pursuit, as if all the Filipinos had given way and it only remained to follow them quickly up and then make another " official return" of twenty Filipinos killed to five wounded. The men sent for this purpose were the best that Brown could select as the result of their training under him. They were made acquainted with their LOYAL TRAITORS 157 commander's purpose, so that they might understand and co-operate as promptly and intelligently as possi- ble. They were eager to show their courage and skill. Along the wooded trail came the Americans, their skirmishers thrown out, watchful for foes in every thicket and ready to pursue anything which looked like a Filipino. As they came almost to the foremost patriots, the latter opened fire upon them from ambush, and were actually so close at hand that two Americans were killed and half a dozen wounded before the foes were aware of their presence. And still the Filipinos blazed away. The skirmishers held their ground until the main body of the detachment hurried up to their support. Then the Filipinos as quickly fell back, and the Americans rushed forward in hot and angry pursuit, eager to avenge the deaths of their comrades and to inflict punishment upon the " niggers,'* for whom they had supreme contempt. The flying Filipinos drew together, in order to con- centrate the American pursuit, thereby exposing themselves to fire, and several of them fell, wounded, outside of the breastworks to which they were hur- rying. On came the unsuspecting American pursuers. Over the breastworks and down behind them leaped the flying patriots, leaving the Americans a fair and close target for the ambushed machine gun. Then it opened fire. 158 LOYAL TRAITORS A stream of bullets was poured into the very faces of the oncoming white troops. It was too much for human flesh to stand. Over a score were killed out- right at the first discharge, and many more, wounded, were strewn thickly upon the ground. The column was staggered. It did not break, nor did it fly. Quickly the men sought cover. But then the Filipinos upon each flank opened upon them from the protection of their rifle-pits. The machine gun continued to pour its deadly fire into the place where the Americans were trying to escape. They could not go forward, for it was clear that it meant sure death. The Filipino position was too strong. The flanks of the Americans were harassed by a well protected foe. For once the wisest course was to retreat, and reluctantly the American commander gave the order, promising himself vengeance at no distant day. As they withdrew, the Filipinos pressed upon their steps, picking off a man here and there, just as the farmers of Concord and Lexington did with the British soldiers on the memorable April day in 1775. This was continued until the Americans reached com- paratively open country, when the pursuit was aban- doned. Aguinaldo then sent out a white flag, with the offer to the Americans to come and take care of their wounded and to bury their dead. This offer was ac- cepted, and the unfortunate victims to the imperialist policy of the American Administration were interred LOYAL TRAITORS 159 upon the field where they fell, while the wounded were removed to a safe place for treatment, and for removal to a hospital as soon as they could bear it. At once after the conflict, and while the wounded awaited the return of their comrades for their ex- pected removal according to the truce, Brown went over the bloody field. Among those who were help- less there he discovered his old friend Dexter. By Brown's direction Dexter was carried from the field back into the territory held by the Filipinos, and was given the best possible treatment. Brown made himself known to him, and Dexter was able to recog- nize him, but neither said anything further at the time. The battle was over. The Filipinos had won a decided victory and the Americans had a new idea of the fighting ability of the little brown men, though they had many times already had sufficient demonstra- tion of their capacity to die for liberty and their native land. 160 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XVIII LOYAL TO TWO COUNTRIES AND TO PRINCIPLE ABOVE ALL THOUGH the Filipinos deserved large credit for their heroism and success in their repulse of the Americans, yet the generous and grateful men knew that Brown had been no inconsiderable factor in the result, and they began to say among themselves that he ought to be as fully identified with them formally as he was by his patriotism and self-sacrifice. Some of the officers mentioned the matter to Agui- naldo, and he cordially favored the idea. By his com- mand a delegation of five officers highest in rank at the place, headed by Aguinaldo himself, went to Brown the day after the engagement and formally and effusively invited him to become a full citizen of the Filipino Republic. Aguinaldo was their spokes- man : " Captain Brown, " he said, standing at the front of the little group and taking the hand of his devoted friend, " the Filipinos recognize the large value of your distinguished services. They have a vivid appreciation of your assistance in enabling them to secure so brilliant a success as they achieved yesterday. They look upon you as a brother iri arms, and if all the LOYAL TRAITORS 161 American people were as friendly and helpful, then there would be the strongest bonds of undying grat- itude and brotherly affection between the citizens of the two republics. We look forward to the time when your example and the personal assurances which you can give to your countrymen will hasten the establish- ment of this brotherly relation. But you are now one of us. You have given your life to the Filipino cause. You have risked death for our sakes. We desire that you become permanently identified with us, and we therefore most warmly invite you to take the oath of allegiance to our cause and to become a full citizen of the Filipino Republic/' Brown was taken completely by surprise. But his clear grasp of the situation, and his unswerving loyalty to his native land, made his course plain to him at once. " My brothers in arms, Aguinaldo, and my associates in the Filipino service, your words of friendship and appreciation touch me more than I can tell. You know that I have devoted my life to the Filipino cause. You know that I serve with you because I believe that the government of my country has done you an unspeakable wrong, and because I sympathize fully with your determination to die or be independent. But the United States of America is my native land. Its principles are true to human liberty, however they may be forgotten or distorted by men at the head of affairs or by the mistaken zeal of the people. The principles of my republic are the same as the principles 162 LOYAL TRAITORS underlying your Constitution. The United States is the greatest republic on earth. It is, to my mind, the best country on earth. I love my country. I would die for it. I am loyal to it, though its very foundation principles drive me to fight against the policy of the men who are temporarily at its head. It will change its course in time. It must do so or cease to be a republic. It is my native land and I love it as you love yours. I hope that my work and perhaps my death here may help to a better understanding which shall secure to you complete independence and turn my beloved native land again to the path of peace and honor. You see how it is. I am devoted to your cause. I expect to remain with you as long as I live, or until you receive justice. But I am a loyal citizen of the United States, and I am held to my allegiance by the very forces which compel me to serve you. I thank you with all my heart for your honor and your friendship, and we will work and fight on until the Filipino Republic stands acknowledged among the republics of the earth, one nation with the others under the bonds of international law, and recognizing no superior." Aguinaldo at first was disappointed and would have urged Brown further, but a few words more made it clear to him that the Filipino cause itself would gain more if Brown remained an American citizen, even if the laws of his country regarded him as a traitor and worthy of death, than if he renounced his citizenship and became a Filipino citizen. Besides, he knew that LOYAL TRAITORS 163 every word of devotion to the Filipino cause which Brown uttered came straight from his heart, and so he was glad at last to have the matter remain as it was, feeling sure that, practically, Brown would be as great a pillar to his cause as though he had followed out their wishes. Brown resumed his labors with the Filipinos more actively than before, strong in the support they gave him, and hoping that some turn in affairs would give them opportunity to prove their capacity for national self-government, so that they could show to the world their fitness for nationality. Meanwhile, Wheelwright and Douglass had been in Laguna province, helping to drill and fortify. They were there at the time of the American repulse and the capture of Captain Dexter as recorded in the last chapter. Brown now recalled them for the time to the stronghold in Bontoc, for the movements of the Americans on both the west and east coasts of Luzon made it probable that hard fighting was ahead. We have now to report the renewed acquaintance between Brown and Captain Dexter. Brown had seen that his old friend was attended faithfully, after he was wounded, and as soon as he himself was through with his interview with Aguinaldo and his companions, concerning the invitation to him to assume Filipino citizenship, he went quickly to his old comrade. "Well, Brown," said the captive, "it was a little shock at first, but I can't say that I am surprised to 1 64 LOYAL TRAITORS see you here. And you have taken good care of me, I acknowledge that in the first place." "Of course I have, Dexter," responded Brown. "I am your friend just as much as I ever was. Because we think differently on some things is no reason why we should not be friends. I even believe I should do as well by Colonel Hotspur if he were in your place." " Did you know, Brown, that he is out here ? " " No, I haven't heard of it." "What is more, he is in command of my regiment." " Where is he now ? " " In hospital in Manila. The climate has been pretty hard on him and he could not stand the hard work at the front." " I don't wish him any harm, but I should like to get hold of him as I have of you, just to prove that all the spirit of fighting is not wrapped up in the army of the United States." " Brown, how on earth did you manage to get so much fighting out of your Filipinos yesterday ? American soldiers haven't any more pluck, even if the little fellows can't whip us." " I didn't get it out of them, Dexter. It is born in them with their spirit of liberty. They have the true stuff in them, just as much as the men at Concord Bridge had, or those on Bunker Hill, or in Valley Forge. The true spirit of liberty makes brothers and heroes of all true men." " I more than half believe you, Brown ; and I have LOYAL TRAITORS 165 a great deal more respect for these Filipinos than I had when I used to argue with you in Boston about this miserable muddle. I am more than half disposed to believe that you are right. At the same time I can't accept with equanimity the fact that you are fighting against the Stars and Stripes. If I should do as you do, I should have to break my oath. You remember, that is the rock on which we split before." " I remember, Dexter ; and I am as clear as ever that no oath to support one's country is superior to the obligation upon every man to follow his conscience and do right/ 1 " Perhaps you are right, Brown, but I can't break my oath. I can't, somehow, see things as you do ; but I am satisfied that these Filipinos ought to be independent and I don't mean to fight them any more. I am so badly shot up that I can't serve any more in this war anyway, and I am not sorry." " It has been my plan, Dexter, to have Aguinaldo send you back to your friends, where you can be treated with more skill than we have here. I will arrange for this to-day, and it need not be long, if you can endure to be moved, before you will be among friends again, and very likely they will send you back to the United States." " I am sure this campaigning is not to my mind or conscience, and has not been for weeks, since I have seen more of the inside of the matter. Have you any word to send home?" " Nothing but this : that I have given my life for 166 LOYAL TRAITORS liberty and for my native land, and that I am fighting for the good of the United States to-day, yes, for her honor, too, as truly as if I were in the ranks under the Stars and Stripes.'* They won't believe that, but I'll tell them." " And I will wait for time to vindicate both my motives and my judgment. Do you think you can be moved soon ? " " Yes. I believe I can stand it to-morrow, if you have an easy litter for me." So, when the morrow came, after Brown had put the case before Aguinaldo, Captain Dexter, under es- cort of Filipinos who were both tender and courteous, was sent back to the American lines, where he could be transported to Manila. It was a friendly act by the Filipinos, and a deed of warm affection on the part of Brown, but it was the beginning of trouble for the latter. Subsequent events made some suspicious Filipinos see something untrustworthy in him for insisting upon retaining his American citizenship and showing such consideration to an American officer, and the loss of many Filipino lives gave color to their suspicion. LOYAL TRAITORS 167 CHAPTER XIX ANOTHER LETTER AND ITS REPLY rAITH FESSENDEN carried the atlas to her chamber. Her mother and sister had no use for it. The geography of the Philippine Islands, where American troops were slaughtering Filipino patriots and destroying their homes, and the localities in South Africa where the British were burning the homes of the Boers and huddling their women and children to death as an illustration of modern methods of British warfare, were equally uninteresting to them. Mr. Fessenden contented himself with relying upon his general ideas of the several localities and was too busy to study the maps. So, every night, when she retired to her room, Faith took the evening's Transcript and the atlas and sat down under the light to study the progress of the fighting in Luzon, Panay, Samar, and the other islands. She followed with particular anxiety every mention of white men associated with the Filipinos. Occasion- ally the dispatches would tell of some deserter being heard of, fighting on the side of the Filipinos, or that the brown men were under the command of a white man. But she never read the name she was most 168 LOYAL TRAITORS anxious to find, and she could see only that the Americans were gradually reaping the fruit of their greater strength and better equipment for their bloody work. Her trust in the safety of George Brown, however, never failed her, and she continued her work for the cause as if she were sure of success in the near future. She continued to send to the Anti-Imperialist League the names of those she heard of who might be influenced by an appeal to reason and to humanity. She talked with her friends, and sometimes was successful in persuading them to send in money. She formed a little circle of young women who made systematic work of their devotion to the anti- imperialist cause. When George Brown's letter came to the end of its long journey, she herself was the one to meet the postman and take it from his hands. The postmark of Manila startled her, but in an instant she guessed who had sent to her, and she more than suspected what the message must be. She was happy before she opened the envelope, and her reply was ready to give as soon as her eye had glanced at the few words. That reply had been for some time prepared and laid up in a corner of her heart, tucked away in a very neat little package, ready to be produced at a moment's notice. No excuse for delay now existed, and she was not looking for excuses. She took down the very neat little package, and put its contents into visible form, thus : LOYAL TRAITORS 169 " GEORGE : It is Yes. " FAITH/' It was not long before the letter was on its way. Then she told her father of the question and the reply, and the father told the others of the family. He was not surprised or displeased. He had grown into a strong admiration for Brown, and his only question was how the young man's present enterprise would result, and what would be the effect upon the happiness of his daughter. The mother and sister were disgusted, and said so. But it did not matter much what they thought, for their opinion had no practical consequences other than to make more friction in the life of the young woman who was happy enough to endure it without sensi- ble annoyance. Father and daughter sympathized, and so they worked and waited for the next develop- ment. War and civil government did not occupy all of George Brown's thoughts after he sent his question to Faith. He must prepare for her answer, if one came. He must work and fight without it, if she never re- plied. If she did reply, two alternatives must be faced. The one would require practically the same devotion to his present service as the other. But what if she should raise him to the seventh heaven by the answer he prayed for and which he iyo LOYAL TRAITORS believed might possibly come ? What then ? He must not abandon duty by deserting the Filipino cause. Did not the brave patriots of the Civil War leave home and family to suffer and die for liberty and fellow-men ? Should he be less noble than they ? Was it not possible for her to live in a perfectly safe place nearer to him than Boston ? That question he turned over and over in his mind until he had it figured out that, if her reply was " Yes," he should , send for her to come to the Islands. He would get leave of absence long enough to meet her in Paris, be married there, and then return to carry on the work for liberty and justice. It would be perfectly safe for her to live in the place where the govern- ment headquarters had been established. She would be near enough to help in the Filipino cause, and she would be in no more danger than in Boston. The Filipino women were friendly and would be agreeable companions. The more he thought of the plan, the more reason- able it seemed to him, and it was clear in his mind before he had occasion to act upon it. So, having come to his conclusion what his course would be, whether the reply was one way or the other, and whether none came at all, he waited hungrily yet patiently for the movements of the mails. Neptune was propitious. Trains were not materi- ally out of their running time in their part of the postal route. In due time the envelope reached its destination at Manila and the outer wrapper was LOYAL TRAITORS 171 opened by hands friendly to the Filipino cause. Without delay, after the inclosure was seen to be for George Brown, a trusty messenger was on his way to deliver it. In a few hours Brown read his fate. Had he not thought out his course so thoroughly before, he would have been for some hours too ex- alted to come down to earth. But he was all ready for the next step. In a short time his reply was written. It was much longer than the first letter, and he said a great many things with which we have no right to be concerned, still less to know just what they were. He was human, and was writing to another of the human species, and that is sufficient for our purposes. Our only interest is in the fact that, among many other things he said, he arranged for her to come to Paris to be married there. He mentioned the place where she was to remain in case she reached the city before he did, though he planned to arrive there first. He told her of his plans for their life in the Philippines, and of his perfect assurance that her surroundings would be such as to make her far hap- pier there, near him, than she could possibly be if she remained at home. This plan was set forth with all needed detail of specification, with a suggestion that her baggage be not over voluminous, and then the letter was sent by the same hands as before to the waiting correspond- ent in Boston. 172 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XX THE FILIPINO FASTNESS AGAIN ATTACKED. THE DEATH OF DOUGLASS REPORTS of American advances on the east coast of Luzon led Aguinaldo to go there now at once, taking with him some of the best troops he had, including the command under John Nelson, the American deserter. Meanwhile, American pride and daring would not permit to go unavenged the defeat in front of the machine gun. The invaders determined to capture the position, though they had no mind for another assault in front. Spies told them that the Filipinos had not fortified themselves in the rear, trusting to the natural strength of their situation and supposing that the Americans would not attempt to advance otherwise than by the only road. So the Americans planned for an attack in the rear, if some passage through the natural obstructions of the neighborhood could be found, and their column was on the way at the time that George Brown sent his second letter to Faith Fessenden. One of the first thoughts occurring to Brown and the Filipino officers after their recent victory was that speedy revenge would be sought by the American LOYAL TRAITORS 173 forces. The emergency on the east coast of the island, however, as stated, made the presence there of Aguinaldo and his best officers, with their men, seem more important for the time than the defense of the fastness in Bontoc province. If worst came to worst, moreover, and in their absence a second attack was made on the fortification, Brown and the depleted garrison, after making the best defense they could, might abandon the fortress, if this proved necessary, and allow it to be captured, themselves retreating further into the mountains. In the choice of evils this seemed the least ; while, assisted by Wheelwright and Douglass, who by this time had arrived in answer to the summons, Brown and the officers remaining might at least make a sturdy if brief fight. On the morning of the day after sending his letter, Brown was more buoyant than Wheelwright had ever seen him. While about the camp, he sang to himself and whistled snatches of familiar airs, such as Wheel- wright said carried him over six thousand miles of land and sea, and acted generally like a man who has turned some critical point in life. " Brown, what's got into you ? Are you crazy ? I never saw you act so before. If there were any women here but Filipinas, I should think that some young woman had accepted you." " My dear bosom friend, joy of my labors and com- fort of my loneliness, that is just what has happened." " Honest Indian ? " " Yes, honest Indian." 174 LOYAL TRAITORS " But there are no young women around, such as you want." " I know how to write." " Boston ? " "Yes." "Well, old boy, I congratulate you." " I accept your congratulations, realizing profoundly, in the depths of my inner soul, if that is the correct way of putting it, old boy, and if it isn't, you can fix it up to suit yourself, that I am a highly suitable subject for congratulation, and that you cannot realize, yourself, how far your words fail to rise to the heights of this occasion. As Emerson said, you have builded better than you knew." " I guess it is true, for you act like a tee-total fool. If signs count for anything, you must be in good luck." " Luck isn't any name for it, Wheelwright. It's eternal blessedness." " I always had a pretty good idea of your judgment, Brown. I believe that no ordinary creature would fool you. She is something royal, or sublime, or some- thing of that sort, of course." " Of course. Of course she is. You might know that by looking at me." Sap-head ! " "Of course you can't sympathize with me, or appreciate the situation. But you will, better, after you see her. I have sent for her to come over here." LOYAL TRAITORS 175 " What is her name ? " Faith." "No surname, I suppose/' "That doesn't matter. It will be Brown in due time," " I shall be prodigiously glad to see her, and, if she wouldn't say that I was telling her what she knew before, I would tell her that she had got the best man in all the world/' " She knows that already, or else she wouldn't have said Yes/ 1 " Conceited idiot ! Well, Brown, I am glad for you from the bottom of my heart/' " So am I." " I say, Brown, I wonder that you ever had the hardihood to think of marrying any woman/' " Why, thou croaking Cassandra in pantaloons ? " " Why ? Because, though the most obstinate animal is a mule, yet every woman is mutter" " And therefore to be drawn by the ties of gentle affection, like a horse by an ear of corn, and not driven by force/' "Then you don't believe that a woman is an argumentum ad hominem ? " " Never. She is the trolley of his car. She is his lemon ice in summer and his open fire in winter, only she never makes it too hot for him. She is his com- fort in his bread-winning, the open -sesame of his purse, the fairy of his hearthstone, and the sunshine in his soul." 176 LOYAL TRAITORS " And a great befuddler of his wits, judging by the awful example before me." "Which remark would not have been made by any one but a man too ignorant of the truth to be capable even of envy. I have been thinking, Wheel- wright, of applying for a situation when I return to the States." " What ? Train-bearer to Faith Nosurname ? " " No. She isn't that kind of a trainer. I believe I shall ask for a situation as post-mortem step-son of General Grant." " What credentials can you present for the situa- tion ? " " Well, when I was walking behind him, years ago, I noticed that he trod his heels over just as I do mine. Therefore I could just fill his shoes. Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Since he is dead I am just equal to the place, though my demonstration proves that I am not a ' biger man than old Grant/ " " If your post-mortem step-father were alive he would disown you, not for running over the heels, but for running too much at the mouth, chatterer." " I am merely trying to strike a fair average between him and me. I must talk as much as he kept still, to make a fair family record." Just then came the sharp report of a rifle in the forest, at a little distance in the rear of the fortifi- cations. In an instant others and still others fol- LOYAL TRAITORS 177 lowed. Then came the running forms of Filipinos who had been furthest from the camp in that direc- tion. " Wheelwright, we are attacked/' said Brown. "Get your men in shape instantly." Wheelwright stepped forward quickly toward the running men and soon had them facing the attack, sheltering themselves behind trees and making some show of returning the American fire. Brown ran toward the main body of Filipinos, shouted to the commanding officer that the Americans were on them, and ran back to the scene of action. Douglass had been not far from Brown and Wheelwright when the firing began and he hurried forward to give his support. The Filipino officer ordered his men promptly into action, and under cover of the trees they resisted the onset of the Americans for a few minutes. Brown made his way near to Wheelwright, and steadied him as he rallied the brave Filipinos against the impetuous onset of the Americans, who showed equal gallantry in action. As they were blazing away from behind trees, making a heroic resistance to the attack, Wheelwright noticed that Brown was not as effective as usual, and chaffed him about it. " Brown, what is the matter with you ? You don't seem to be doing much but standing around." " To tell the truth, Wheelwright, I don't feel like killing anybody this morning." 178 LOYAL TRAITORS " And you are not doing it. I suppose it is that girl in your head." " In my heart, you mean." " In your eyes, I believe, so you can't see the sights of your rifle." " I'll see them when the fighting gets hotter, if it does. I don't call this much of a skirmish." The firing became hotter, but Brown seemed to mind it very little, though he was on the alert and ready for any emergency. Right in the midst of a patter of bullets he called to his friend : "Wheelwright." " Well, crazy loon, what is it ? " "This is heaven." " You'll be in heaven in good earnest, in the spirit, and your body on the ground with a hole in it, if you are not more careful ; and the rest of us will be there, too, if we don't drive back these fellows. Fire away, Brown." " Anything you say to help you, but there is no need of being worried. Take it easy and shoot straight. The little brown men are doing bravely." " So they are, and you ought to give them a hand." " All right, here goes." And Brown blazed away toward the steadily ad- vancing Americans. " My God, captain, this is hell ! " cried out a little Filipino, running back from his too close encounter with American rifles, where he had seen comrades LOYAL TRAITORS 179 falling around him and had got a puff or two close to his head. " Little man, come here," said Brown firmly. " Step behind this tree. Load your rifle again. Steady, little fellow. We will give them a good turn yet." The Filipino rallied, and was immediately facing toward the enemy, as brave as any on the other side. But the American advance was too strong. They drove forward with force. Brown was crowded back toward the fortification. Wheelwright was shot through the knee and put out of the fighting. Doug- lass and some of his Filipino supporters were sepa- rated from the main body. Soon the Americans caught sight of the machine gun which the Filipinos had not yet had opportunity to bring into action. Rushing forward, the attacking troops shot down the men who were trying to bring it to bear in the needed quarter, captured it/ and scattered the nucleus of Filipinos who were vainly trying to protect this most important part of their fortification. With this, the direct onslaught of the battle was over. The surprise by the Americans had been suc- cessful. Douglass and the men with him were pursued and nearly surrounded. The American troops came near enough to distinguish, between the trees, that a Negro was leading the Filipinos, and cries of " Kill the black nigger ! " rang through the forest. Douglass fought coolly and determinedly he was not fighting for himself, but for a great cause, and i8o LOYAL TRAITORS he needed and could afford calmness. The Filipinos kept close to him, sheltering themselves by the trees and firing with no bad skill upon their foes, while still the cry, "Kill the black nigger ! " sprang with in- creasing menace from the lips of men infuriated as they saw their comrades now and then falling around them from the shots of the despised Filipinos who were Douglass's companions. In the forest the retreating men had an advantage, and it seemed as if Douglass and the Filipinos with him were to escape from the American fire without further loss. Suddenly, however, they were obliged to cross an open space entirely void of cover. Im- mediately, they were exposed to their pursuers, and with a shout of triumph fire was again opened upon them. Two Filipinos fell dead. Several of the party, Douglass himself among them, turning to face their foes, were wounded and dropped helpless to the ground. Devotion to the foreigner in their service instantly inspired some of Douglass's comrades, at the risk of their lives, to try to help the wounded man to cover, with the hope that he might be concealed in the undergrowth and escape with his life. This devotion meant death to several of the would-be rescuers. American fire quickly stretched upon the ground all but two of the little handful of self- sacrificing brown men, and these two then ran for the woods. Hot with the combat and pursuit, the Ameri- LOYAL TRAITORS 181 cans rushed forward into the space where lay the wounded. " Ho ! ho ! Here's that infernal nigger ! " shouted one, as he came upon Douglass. " Good enough for him, damn him ! Can't we start a fire ? Let's roast him ! " exclaimed the next man who rushed up. " Look here, you black devil," demanded a third, as a group wearing the uniform of the United States army now gathered around the prostrate man. " Who are you ? " " I am an American citizen " was Douglass's firm reply. " That's all right ! And you're a dirty nigger ! You know what the white folks would do with you if they had you at home, and I guess nigger-ashes are just as good fertilizer in Luzon as they are in Mississippi. Come on, boys, rush him over to the bushes. Let's have some fun roasting the damned traitor." " No ! I say No ! We won't be so low down as that," spoke up one who seemed to be looked up to by the others of the group. "Just finish him with your pig-stickers, or with a bullet, along with his Filipino * friends ' here. I won't consent to any roasting." "Well, all right, old boy, if you say so. Bullet it is." Then, turning to Douglass while his companions inhumanly dispatched the wounded Filipinos, the 182 LOYAL TRAITORS soldier cried out : " Come, coon 1 Short prayers ! Your time's come ! American niggers who fight for yellow Filipinos and against white American soldiers get no mercy here." " My prayers were all said long ago," replied Doug- lass stoutly, without flinching, though with growing weakness from the wounds which had first brought him down. Then suddenly his face was transfigured before them as by a great inspiration and victory by an exalted sense of triumph and the coming of eternal peace. " I never expected to see this glorious hour," he said. " My life goes for the same cause as Abraham Lincoln's ! " " Hang Abe Lincoln ! " was the soldier's reply, and a bullet from his rifle through the heart of Douglass sealed the martyrdom of the American patriot to the cause of human liberty. Just as Douglass's slayer lowered his rifle, " Crack," came a report from the edge of the woods to which the two escaped Filipinos had fled, and the murderer fell dead in his tracks. The friends of Douglass were still trying to be true to him ! Once more the Americans took up the pursuit, while the nimble, fertile-minded, and faithful Filipinos made a circuit back to the field, recovered the mar- tyred Negro's body, and bore it away to be specially honored by decent burial. Such was the end of Washington Douglass, the child of a slave mother in a free land, a patriot who died to save the children of another free land from LOYAL TRAITORS 183 oppression. And died not in vain. There are those yet alive in the island of Luzon who never hear his name without a deep throb of gratitude, who tell his deeds to their children, and who while they live will never forget the zeal of his martyrdom for their cause. On the main field of battle the wounded Wheel- wright had been left in the hands of the Americans. Brown, with the surviving Filipinos, retreated further into the forest until the Americans ceased to follow. It was an unfortunate day for the patriots, and the loss of their stronghold was a disaster to their prestige. The consequences, moreover, to both of the white Americans who were fighting on the side of the Filipinos were little short of being as serious as to Douglass and the others who had fallen under the American fire, and who went to make up the total, as stated in the official report, of 1 18 Filipinos killed and eleven wounded. 1 84 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XXI GEORGE BROWN IS SUSPECTED OF TREACHERY SOME of the Filipinos had never been so sure of George Brown as to regard him absolutely with- out suspicion, although they were disposed to accept him at his face value. The day after their bad defeat at the hands of the Americans, two of these suspicious ones were talking about him. " He sent away a letter by special messenger some months ago/' said one of the men. " I don't believe he is true to us. Why should he be holding com- munication with white people if he has come over to our side and means to fight and die with us ? " " He was great friends with the American officer we captured when they tried to rush our machine gun a while ago," said the other. " He took good care of him and had him sent back to the American lines. Why should he do that?" " But I have not told you all about the letter," said the first speaker. "The day before the Americans drove us out of our works, a messenger brought him a letter, and, after waiting a little while, he carried a letter back. Then the next day, the Americans surprise us. What is the meaning of that ? " LOYAL TRAITORS 185 " And another thing which does not look right in him," said the second man, "is that when we wanted him to take the oath of allegiance to the Filipino Republic he refused to do so, and said that he should always be an American, Perhaps he thought that if he were an American he would not be subject to our discipline if he fought with us, but would be free to come and go as he pleases. He assumes to be more than a private, and he is not an officer. Possibly he thought that, if he were caught working against us, he could claim that we had no right to deal with him." " At any rate," said the first speaker, " he has done what looks as if he did not fight fairly. I believe we had better tell our colonel. Come with me." The two men went to their colonel, who was com- manding their detachment in the absence of Aguinaldo. He questioned them closely about Brown's doings, not being disposed to believe that he had done anything unfriendly to the Filipinos ; but they stuck to their story persistently, and he became convinced that they told the truth, especially as others who were called upon to corroborate, if they could, testified to the well-known facts about the treatment of Captain Dexter and the refusal to take the oath of allegiance, as well as to the arrival and departure of the messen- ger with the letters. But the colonel would not act without consultation with other officers, holding something like a little council of war over the disposal of Brown. It was 186 LOYAL TRAITORS decided that he should be arrested at once. Brown was innocently mingling with his comrades in arms when the soldiers from the colonel took him in charge. "What does this mean?" he asked in great sur- prise. " We are instructed to arrest you, Captain Brown, on charge of treachery to the Filipino cause, and to make sure that you do not escape." " I am your faithful friend," was Brown's reply. "We are instructed to arrest you, captain. We are very sorry, but we must obey orders." " Take me to your colonel at once, and I will sat- isfy him that I am as true to the Filipino cause as he is," replied Brown, submitting to the soldiers and permitting them to confine his arms so that he could not easily escape. But they had no opportunity then to conduct their prisoner to headquarters. An alarm was given that the American troops were again on their tracks and that they must run to escape. Brown was hustled along with them, and there was no thought of any- thing then but to get out of the path of the pursuers. Brown's guard treated him kindly, and he felt sure that he had at least some friends among the Filipinos in the detachment. This was one of the times when the Americans believed that they were on the track of Aguinaldo. They had been informed that he was in command of the detachment in person, and they gave no leisure LOYAL TRAITORS 187 for the Filipinos to rest long at any point. The Americans were trying to surround the Filipinos, and were divided into several columns, each one being too strong for the Filipinos to engage. So the pur- suit was hot. It was not always by the same com- pany, but when they went far from one column they were in danger from another. Time passed. Night marches, and scouting by day, were necessary, and their knowledge of the mountain fastnesses and of the trails whereby they could fly unseen were the only means by which they were able to baffle their pursuers. But it was a long and weari- some hunt. Brown was kept under guard all of the time. It was the purpose of the Filipinos to have a consultation over him, and at least to reach a plausible decision whether he should have a trial or be disposed of with- out one ; but in the heat of the pursuit they had no time for more than their fighting and running. For over five weeks this harrying continued. The Americans were led on by favorable reports from time to time, and the statement that the Filipinos had with them a white prisoner who was kept bound was an inducement to push on and to rescue their supposed comrade, if possible. But the chase was too long and the Filipinos were too wary and too familiar with the country. After a time, the circle of pursuers was completely evaded. They converged upon the central district only to find that their trap was empty and that the game had successfully eluded the pursuit. i88 LOYAL TRAITORS There was nothing to be done then but to wait for a more favorable time. As soon as the pursuit slackened, the Filipino leaders resumed their consideration of Brown's case. Aguinaldo was still absent and the officer in charge assumed the authority of commander. But Brown had been a prodigious help in some matters ; and it was not clear that he was treacherous. Perhaps he could explain matters. The council of officers was divided. Some were for his summary execution without any trial. He was not a subject, they argued ; he could claim no standing before Filipino law. At any rate, military authority was supreme and it had the right to order summary execution if the necessities of the case demanded. The officers who urged that Brown ought at least to be given a fair trial, even if he were not innocent, but who really believed that he was as true to Filipino independence as they themselves were, were over- ruled, though they were nearly as numerous as the other side. The colonel, reluctant to believe any charge against their ally, yet had such a sense of the unwisdom of showing favors to white men that he leaned backward in his integrity and, for the sake of discipline and of his reputation as a strict and efficient commander, took his stand with the hostile party and agreed to the proposition that there should be no trial of the accused, but that military tyranny, in its most absolute form, the mere will of the commander, should be carried out upon the suspected man. LOYAL TRAITORS 189 Brown had had plenty of time to think over many things during his confinement and while he was being hurried from place to place by night and by day. He recalled many points wherein the Filipinos were very suspicious. They had good cause to be so. He realized that he belonged to the nation which was trying to conquer them. He remembered that his countrymen had slaughtered many thousands of Fili- pinos, and that it would be very natural for them to suspect him, unless he could prove by the very strong- est proofs that he was with them heart and soul. He was not greatly surprised, then, to hear the result of the council. He was told that he had been condemned to death and that the sentence would be carried into execution the next day. " Very well," he replied to the regretful soldier who brought him the sentence. " I took my life in my hand, and I am not surprised at this turn. But I had hoped that I should live to celebrate the national independence of the Filipinos.'* In the dread hour when his life seemed to be about to end in mystery and failure, Brown felt no fear of death. He was strong in the confidence that under- neath him were the Everlasting Arms. Conscience gave only her approval. He knew that there was a terrible mistake somewhere, but he was given no opportunity to set himself right and the morrow would see the end of his patriotic effort. And Faith ? He took her letter from his pocket and, utilizing the little freedom of movement which 190 LOYAL TRAITORS his guard gave him, wrote upon it his good-bye to her, saying that he knew not how he had incurred the suspicion of his friends. The sleepless night was followed by an exhausted morning. He called for the colonel, having decided that he was the best man with whom to intrust his farewell message. " Colonel," he said, " I am to die this morning. Before you take me out, I wish to leave a message with you. I knew when I came here that you would be suspicious of white men. I knew that I was per- sonally liable to suspicion. I realized the risk. But I took that risk for love of the Filipino cause. I have always been faithful to that cause. I die your firm friend. Now, I have a message to give you. In America lives she whom I hoped to bring here as my wife. She is promised mine. I have written her to come. It is time, very soon, for her to be on her way. It was a letter from her which I received the day before we were attacked. I sent her my reply by the same messenger. She will come across the Atlantic. She was to meet me in Paris and we were to have been married there. I now charge you to give her this, my farewell message. Send it to Agongillo at Paris. Tell him to take it to the American consulate and to deliver it to Faith Fessenden. May God spare her when she knows the truth. That is all, colonel. I die faithful to you and your cause." But the colonel had understood even faster than Brown had talked. He saw now the meaning of the LOYAL TRAITORS 191 suspicious letters. He ordered the guard to retain Brown until further orders, and then he called the council as soon as possible. " Gentlemen/' he exclaimed, when all were be- fore 'him, " I understand the mystery about Captain Brown. He is our true friend, faithful even unto death. We have misjudged him. In the face of death, believing that he was to die at once, he gave me his farewell message, and he is as brave and true a man as we ever counted among our Filipino people." Then the colonel told of Brown's last message. The effect was as prompt upon other minds as it had been upon his own. Brown's friends shouted for joy. His critics were not sorry. The change of feeling was complete. The colonel, seeing that all was well, went personally to the guard, ordered the instant release of Brown, and embraced him like a brother. Explanations and apologies followed, sincere and extreme, and Brown was restored to full favor. He was held by a closer tie than ever, for he had stood the test of death and had proved true to the Filipino cause. They loved him and he was theirs more truly than ever before. But for a week he was prostrate, from the reaction following the terrible strain of the ordeal. 192 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XXII ALFRED WHEELWRIGHT JOINS WASHINGTON DOUGLASS ALFRED WHEELWRIGHT, after his capture by the Americans, was treated with all needful surgical skill, and was carried to Manila as soon as he was able to endure the journey. He was placed in prison, with due regard to his wound in the treat- ment accorded to him, and there awaited the course of American military law. He was charged with treason to the government of the United States, being by his own admission an American citizen, and having been captured in arms against his country. General Maximus organized a court-martial to try the accused. Wheelwright was brought in strongly guarded. He was compelled to use crutches, for his wound was far from healed and the shattered knee could bear no weight. The formality of the trial was short. There was no question regarding the facts. Wheelwright said that he was a citizen of the United States, and stated that he was fighting on the side of the Filipinos because he believed they were right and that the Americans were wrong. It needed but a few minutes to bring out these facts. No defense or excuse was LOYAL TRAITORS 193 offered and there remained for the court only the question of passing sentence. Arbitrary power rested in the hands of the com- mander-in-chief in the islands, but General Maximus hesitated before passing the extreme sentence upon the prisoner. Up to that time no man had been shot or hanged for treason. Many soldiers had deserted, but they had not been recaptured fighting for the Filipinos. No person had hitherto presented so clear a case as Wheelwright. Under the laws of war and of his country there was but one punishment which fittingly could be inflicted, yet the general hesitated before giving the sentence. The judgment of the court was that the prisoner was worthy of death. The opinion of the officers who sat in judgment was unanimous, and there was not a word of sympathy for the prisoner. He did not expect any. He bore the ordeal of the trial like a man who already looks into the future life and sees there nothing to dread; while he had the absolute approval of his conscience for every deed he had done which drew upon him the condemnation of the court. The atti- tude of each side toward the other was inflexible. Each side had a mental bearing as exact as mathemat- ics. Wheelwright wavered not a hair. He concealed nothing, palliated nothing, asked for nothing. He knew that, on the face of the circumstances, under the laws of the United States, he was worthy of death. On the other side, the officers felt little or no pity, 194 LOYAL TRAITORS and some of them only satisfaction in the swift prog- ress of the trial and in the hopeless prospect before the prisoner. They were officers of the army : was not their duty, then, imposed upon them ? Moreover, the position taken by the prisoner implied a direct rebuke to every one of them. If he was in the right, they were in the wrong. There was but one view to take : he was in arms against his country and theirs ; he admitted the facts ; let him suffer the consequences. They had only to act according to the proven facts ; there was no doubt regarding the course to pursue. But the responsibility was on General Maximus, and not upon them. The general therefore had more of a sense of prudence and of regard for the future than they, especially when he recalled the fact that not a man who had fought against his country in the Civil War had been put to death for treason. Even the head of the confederacy had been spared. Would the people of the United States approve the death of the prisoner, even if there were no doubt regarding his guilt ? " Better lean to the side of mercy, and let there be no sores to heal when the fighting is over," he reasoned. Therefore he decided to open for Wheelwright a door of escape, if he would take it. He wrote this note and sent it to the prisoner before he passed sentence upon him : " MR. ALFRED WHEELWRIGHT : " Sir: The military court before which you have been tried has unanimously found that you are guilty LOYAL TRAITORS 195 of treason, and under the law you are therefore worthy of the extreme punishment. Before passing sentence, I inform you that the officer in command does not wish to proceed to the extreme measure without first offering you an opportunity to make amends and to guarantee that hereafter you will be loyal to your country, in case your life is spared. Upon consideration of your expressing proper contri- tion for your treasonable offense, of taking the oath of allegiance to the United States, and of returning to your country as early as possible, the judgment of the court will not be carried into execution. " MAXIMUS, General Commanding'' But Wheelwright had not taken up the cause of the Filipinos in any doubt as to the right fulness of their claims, or of his own position. He had long before made the sacrifice of his life. What remained after that was merely the opportunity of completing the act he had begun. He knew that it would be as false in him to accept pardon on the ground of ab- staining from further service to the Filipinos as it would be to join with their oppressors and invaders. There was, in honor, no possible ground upon which he could avail himself of the general's proposition and save his life. The issue was perfectly clear. He must go forward and carry into execution his purpose of giving his life to the righteous cause of Filipino independence. He therefore sent a reply to the general, as follows : 196 LOYAL TRAITORS " To MAXIMUS, General in the Philippines : " Sir: Your proposition to spare my life on con- dition that I abandon the Filipino cause has been given due consideration. I entered the Filipino serv- ice as a loyal citizen of the United States, deter- mined to serve my adopted country to the extent of my life, fully believing that the government is wholly wrong in its course, false to the principles upon which our institutions of liberty are founded, and blindly mistaken in its policy. I believe that it is the duty of every American patriot, for the sake of his coun- try, to oppose the Administration to the extent of his ability, in order to save the country from the terrible consequences of this powerful attack upon its princi- ples and its form of government. I therefore, as a loyal citizen of the United States, have taken up arms against an Administration which I believe to be dis- loyal to it. As an American patriot I am ready to die with the patriots who have given their lives for their country and for human liberty on a scale far broader than our national boundaries, and I ask for no pardon at the hands of a man who is in arms against true Americanism. " Furthermore, by as much as the American Admin- istration is wrong, the Filipinos are right in their strug- gle for national independence. As a true American, therefore, and no American is worthy of his coun- try and of the truth upon which it is founded whose sympathy does not overflow the boundaries of his country, who is not as ready to fight for other people LOYAL TRAITORS 197 struggling for liberty as quickly as for his own, and who would not fight against his own people if they were on the wrong side, I take my stand in arms with the Filipinos, especially since it is my own mis- guided country which has destroyed their brave men by thousands, burned their homes, broken up their families, and brought upon a patriotic and innocent people all the horrors of war. It is my duty to fight for them and thus help to atone for the crime of the present National Administration. Better is it to die for liberty here than to live safely at home false to principles I profess and which I know are the only salvation of our beloved republic. " I must refuse your offer, and I go to my fate willingly. I have but one life to give and it can never be spent better than for human liberty and the righting of the wrongs done to this innocent people by the country of which I am a citizen. "ALFRED WHEELWRIGHT." General Maximus resented the reproof of Wheel- wright and rejected his statement that the Adminis- tration was wrong. But he knew the policy of Presi- dent McKinley not to take human life if it were to be avoided, when soldiers were guilty of offenses, and he questioned whether it ought not to be extended to such a case as this. No occasion for haste existed. He would think the matter over further. So he commanded that extra precautions be taken with Wheelwright and gave himself time for consideration. 198 LOYAL TRAITORS Perhaps it would serve as well if the prisoner were incarcerated for life. But the primary verdict of the court-martial became public. Every one in Manila knew, or might have known, that an American citizen was under conviction of treason for fighting on the side of the Filipinos. Both the army and the Filipinos expected hourly to hear that the sentence of death had been promul- gated. On the part of the Filipinos there developed a determination to rescue Wheelwright, if possible. This determination also became known, and the guards in charge of the prisoner grew from hour to hour more and more nervous and anxious. The prison was not as strong as was desired by the soldiers. They feared an attack at any moment by Filipinos, and asked that their prisoner be transferred to Bilibid prison, the place of confinement most capable of resisting any assault by a mob. General Maximus complied with the request for a change, and appointed a guard sufficiently strong, in his estimation, to conduct Wheelwright through the streets to the new place of detention. The hour just before dawn was selected as the time least likely to witness a tumult. Wheelwright was unable to walk the distance, and an ambulance was brought. But the Americans did not realize the watchfulness of the Filipinos for their champion. The stir about the prison was quickly noticed. Brown men, hardly LOYAL TRAITORS 199 visible in the dusk, increased in numbers. By the time the ambulance was ready to start, it was evident that it would be a dangerous effort, and more soldiers were summoned, whereupon the order was given to advance. The crowd increased as the ambulance drove on. The Americans had difficulty in forcing their way and in keeping the crowd back from the wheels. Suddenly a rush was made by the Filipinos upon the soldiers. Some of them jumped for the head of the ambulance-horse, their purpose clearly being to seize the conveyance and drive away with Wheel- wright, while the sheer physical weight of the mob would prevent the guard from interfering with the escape. Without hesitation the soldiers opened fire upon the rescuers. The men at the horse's head, and those trying to get to the driver's seat, tumbled dead to the ground. A charge was made by the soldiers into the thick of the Filipino mass, and its force was broken. * Rapid firing prostrated still others. Then came a break, and a flight. The attempt at rescue was a failure, at the cost of a dozen Filipino lives. What happened next was never very clearly reported or explained. For many days after, there were con- flicting stories through the city. At any rate, the horrors of that early dawn were by no means at an end when the surviving Filipinos were in large part 200 LOYAL TRAITORS dispersed and the dead ones left in the street where they fell as the ambulance moved on. The march toward Bilibid prison was scarcely resumed, the escort now being nerved to the highest pitch by the daring attempt at rescue which had been made, and by the firing and slaughter which had ensued, when the little procession a growing throng at its heels, natives, Spanish, Chinese, Americans was met by a mob of nearly a score of sailors, of different nationalities, from vessels in the harbor, accompanied by a few soldiers off duty, all of whom had been spending the night together in a grand carouse. A frequent topic of blatant converse during their night's drinking and quarreling among themselves had been the case of Wheelwright. Every man of them had condemned him, and all had expressed the gen- erous wish that they might be present at and assist in his hanging. " He's nothing but a low-lived, rotten traitor, any- way," one of them had fulminated, toward daylight, as he set down an empty glass from which he had just swallowed a gill or more of raw whiskey as a good-bye to the saloon for that time. From his appearance the speaker might have been a slovenly pirate, but doubtless he was only a patriotic sailor of unspecified nationality, and pretty drunk, drunker than any pirate in good and regular standing cares to be if he is to preserve his self-respect and retain coolness of intellect enough to slung-shot a man LOYAL TRAITORS aoi or to scuttle a ship in the average practice of his profession. "Tell you what, Bill," the man concluded, to a com- panion, as the company staggered out into the street to seek their ships or their barracks for early roll-call, " I doubt if that Wheelwright or Wheelwrong, or What-you-call-him would come here and drink a glass of rum with you and I, like an honest, civilized man, and help make these half-breed Tagalogs howl and dance for us as we punch them ! but he can set up for a lover of ' true liberty ' and tell Maximus to his face that he's a bigger and better man than him or any of us ! I'd like to smash him ! " " Good for you, Dan ! " his companion responded. " Now mind your eye down that step ! But what in thunder's that racket up the road ? There must be others besides we having a hot time ! " The men had now fairly reached the sidewalk, striv- ing to stand and walk unitedly for safety's sake and equilibrium's, when some of the flying folk who had been dispersed by the firing near the ambulance rushed past, informing the carousers as to the meaning of the shots and of the loud cries up the street. Partly sobered by the sudden excitement, but ugly and brutal from their eight or ten hours' spree, the men rushed towards the approaching ambulance still guarded by its soldiers. " Look here, captain ! " bellowed the man who had been called Dan, close - pressed by his friend Bill. " Let us get at that traitor there, and we'll fix him 202 LOYAL TRAITORS so that he won't fight any more against American sojers ! " " Stand back ! " shouted the captain. " This pris- oner is in my charge, and I propose to see that he is delivered where I am ordered to deliver him/' " Oh, go 'way with yer bluff ! " replied the sailor. " You're all right, boss, for a sojer-boy, you know, but we can teach you how to do business up in shape. Let us get at him, I say ! " The sailors hustled around the army captain. Half of the guard had no mind to mix up in another fight that morning for a man they all now heartily wished dead. Suddenly the big sailor threw his great arms around the neck of the captain, from behind, pinioned his wrists with one hand, knocking his sword from his grasp, and pulled him over to the ground. Two more sailors jumped on the prostrate man and helped to hold him down. Some of the mob Filipinos among them again took a hand in the disturbance, the Filipinos freshly hoping for a rescue. The guard, not a quarter part as numerous now as their assailants, some of them willingly and others by force, abandoned their defense of their prisoner and the captain, and Wheelwright was at the mercy of the furious and still half-drunken sailors. The latter seized and drove the ambulance out of the midst of the melee, and then tumbled the unarmed Wheelwright out upon the ground. The victim had heard all, and he realized the extrem- LOYAL TRAITORS 203 ity he was in. But his courage never failed, nor his resolution to suffer death rather than yield. The sailors stood him up with his back against a wall, and pointed a pistol at his head. " Now, you double-dyed traitor," cried the leader, " give three cheers for the Stars and Stripes ! " Wheelwright's rough fall from the ambulance had sadly crippled him, in connection with his shattered knee ; but he knew no fear and forgot his pain. " When the Stars and Stripes stand for what they did when I swore allegiance to them, I will cheer for them," he replied, pale and resolute. " Hold up yer hand NOW, this minute, I say, and swear allegiance to the United States ! " was the rough rejoinder, accompanied by the thrusting of the pistol close to Wheelwright's head. " I am already bearing true faith and allegiance to the United States," he replied. " It is the army which is not." " We don't want no preaching, blast you ! Quit your nonsense ! " yelled the big brute. " Now, this is the last time ! Say you're sorry you fought for the Filipinos ! " " No, I am glad I fought for them, and I am glad to die for them," was the answer. The hero realized that the end had come. " Look out ! Will you retract ? " " Never ! " was the decisive answer, and without hesitation. 204 LOYAL TRAITORS " Then go to Sheol ! " retorted the willful execu- tioner. And he fired the revolver's contents point- blank into Wheelwright's brain. All was over. The sailors lifted and brought the captain of the guard up to the dead body, and said : "Here's your prisoner, cap! Now 'deliver him where you was ordered to deliver him/ " The Filipinos had been kept at a distance, powerless to effect a rescue. Those who knew their purpose had forcibly restrained them. The murder was accomplished. The sacrifice for Filipino liberty had been made. The incident, tem- porarily, was closed. The sailors slunk away. The captain took charge of the body and, returning to headquarters, informed the superior authority of the action of "the mob." One of the stories reported in the city was that, in a rush made on the ambulance by the Filipinos, one of the Filipinos themselves had by accident fired the fatal shot. Few, however, believed this, though there were some soldiers who asserted it. On the other hand, a Spanish shopkeeper claimed to have overheard enough, while behind his counter, to make him believe that the whole murder was a plot ; that the supposed sailors were not sailors, nor drunk, but disguised soldiers who had fought in the recent repulse in Bontoc province, and who hated Wheelwright for his connection with those engaged LOYAL TRAITORS 205 in it. Fearing that General Maximus would commute the victim's punishment to life-imprisonment, of which there was a rumor, they had planned to gain consent to the removal to Bilibid, learned the hour for the march, won over to their scheme the captain and men who were to form the escort, so that they would offer only a show of resistance, and then carried out their revenge in the manner resulting. Among the nine- teen hundred or two thousand liquor saloons, evil houses, and opium dens established in Manila as a result of the American occupation, the house from which the carousers made their exit at daylight, suc- cessfully to consummate their purpose, was long an object of curiosity both to residents and visitors. During the day of the murder, it leaked out and was learned by many that when the ambulance stood again before headquarters one of the officers noticed a bit of card which had been affixed to the vehicle by an unknown hand "the work of some of those Tagalog niggers ; no one else would have done it," the officer said. The card bore the sublime and prophetic lines of the American poet Lowell : " Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne ; Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above his own." 206 LOYAL TRAITORS The officer swore, and tore down the card, vowing that no such " treasonable stuff " as that should stay where any loyal American soldier could read it. At nine o'clock that evening many in the city were startled. The church bells all over Manila began tolling. By preconcerted plan the Filipinos had gained access to the belfries, and by the solemn clangor ex- pressed publicly the genuine sorrow of their nation over the death of the white friend of the patriots. The sol- diers doing police duty tried to prevent the tolling, but the doors were locked from within and many brave men were ready to resist their entrance. For several hours the bells continued their story of sorrow, but one by one they were silenced as the soldiers forced the doors open and arrested the offenders. Gradually the tolling ceased, as bell after bell joined the silent number ; but the sorrow of which the tolling was the audible expression was deep in the hearts of the people, and it formed a factor in the stubborn resistance to Amer- ican supremacy which continued to break out at widely separated places long after the passing of the patriotic white man who died for the rights of the Filipinos. LOYAL TRAITORS 207 CHAPTER XXIII FAITH FESSENDEN KEEPS AN IMPORTANT APPOINTMENT IMMEDIATELY after Faith Fessenden had sent her reply to George Brown she told her father all about it. He realized better than any other mem- ber of the family the strength of Brown's character, the purity of his motives, and the permanent quality of his combative patriotism. And he had such a high ideal of the nearness of the two whom God has made one that he would suffer no earthly obstacle to keep them apart. He was compelled, therefore, by his own heart and his own judgment, to approve what Faith had done, though he could not but regret deeply the hard road over which her love was taking her. But when he told his wife the news, she bore it in an altogether different spirit. Not realizing the great- ness of the occasion which made George Brown find the course of duty in arms against his own country ; believing that the whole war was a needless affair over a few "niggers" who would be much better off if they came peacefully under the American flag, and having no sympathy with the struggle of a brave but weaker people for independence, she thought that Faith had made a great mistake. It was very plain 208 LOYAL TRAITORS Saxon of one syllable with which she expressed her opinion of her prospective son-in-law, and she coupled her daughter with him in her objurgation. Faith's home sister shared this feeling, and when the married sister came down from Worcester to con- dole upon their common misfortune she added her contribution to the flame of indignation. But their opposition made no difference, of course, with the determination of Faith, and, as opposition had been anticipated by her, it hardly made a cloud upon her supreme joy. " Faith, you are the greatest fool I ever saw," said Edith, her home sister. " Do you expect to marry a man who is on the other side of the world, fighting our own soldiers ? " " My dear, that is just what I expect to do. It is the only right thing. If George is fighting against the United States, it is because he is right and the United States is wrong/' "You were well named, even before they knew what your character would be ; for you believe that your man is right, even if all the world should say he is wrong." " If George says that a thing is so, then it is so." " So you believe, you ninny." "He would not think it was so unless he was right. That is what makes me trust him." " There are none so blind as those who won't see." " And those who have eyes can see things which the blind don't know anything about. I can see that LOYAL TRAITORS 209 George Brown is just to all men, even the weak ; that he loves his country, but that there are things above country. He has given his life for humanity. What is more, I love him." " And want to leave your home and go around the world so that you can be with him ? " " Yes. I do, and I am going. My place is with him, and, if you call it a sacrifice, then I must sacri- fice myself, as he has done, to be worthy of him." Mrs. Fessenden was disposed to rely upon her authority as a parent. She used her utmost to have her husband lay his command upon Faith that she should not go, but he was immovable. "Faith loves George Brown," he said. " He loves her, and is worthy of her. He wants her to go to him. She is ready to go. It would be a wrong to him and to her to prevent them. It is just as true before the civil ceremony as after that what God has joined together no man must put asunder." "But just think of it, William. Are we going to let her go off there by herself ? What will our neigh- bors say ? How will it look ? It will be an everlast- ing scandal." " Clara, I have determined what I shall do, and I invite you to go with me. We will go with Faith as far as Paris. We will see her married, and will wish her a safe journey and a happy return whenever she is disposed to come back to her native land." " William, you are crazy. Do you want Faith to die out there ? " 210 LOYAL TRAITORS " No, Clara ; and I beheve she will come back in safety. But we may well remember this : that in about fifty years at the most we shall all be reunited on the eternal shore. What difference will it make then whether you and I shall have come by way of Boston, and George and Faith by way of the Philip- pine Islands ? " Mr. Fessenden held to his point, and the family breeze ended in the formation of a plan whereby the entire Fessenden family should go to Paris. When they came home without Faith, then the public might say what it pleased. So the dove of peace settled down. The objectors realized for once that scolding and sputtering and hindering were out of place. They could not but feel the strength of Faith's love and the force of her character, even if they condemned her purpose. They were forced to respect her more then ever, while the certainty of losing her made them improve the time that she remained with them. It was in these days of final preparation that the news came of disastrous Filipino reverses. A few days later was held that great and enthusiastic meeting in the Cradle of Liberty, in Boston, in behalf of " Free America, free Cuba, free Philippines." Faith was determined to go. Her father would not have missed it. For once, out of respect for Faith, the other women of the family went with them. Mr. Fessen- den and Faith, fully in sympathy with the purpose of the meeting, drank in the inspiring words of the LOYAL TRAITORS 211 speakers, while even the disbelieving members of the household could not but be stirred. They even felt ashamed of their past ignorance and indifference, as they listened to the fiery words of Colonel Charles R. Codman, to the merciless exposure by ex-Governor George S. Boutwell, the warning against imperialism by George G. Mercer, of Philadelphia, and the scath- ing words of Robert M. Morse. But the greatest demonstration was over Sixto Lopez, the talented, patient, and wise Filipino philos- opher and patriot, who spoke briefly in broken Eng- lish and then had his speech read for him by his secretary, Thomas T. Patterson. Loud was the ap- plause, and Faith's heart was stirred as she realized that here was one of the very men among whom George was working and fighting for the broad cause of human liberty, both in America and in the Phil- ippines. She was foremost among those who crowded to the edge of the platform to shake hands with Lopez as he pleasantly leaned down to take their out- stretched hands and to thank them for their interest in the Filipino cause. From that hour the Fessenden family was united upon the Filipino question, and there was more regret and sober joy mingled together as they hurried Faith's preparations. In due time the compact trousseau, such as was suitable for a long journey and for a life away from the centers of society, was made ready. The work was pressed as rapidly as possible, and in due time the voyage was begun. 212 LOYAL TRAITORS George Brown's instructions to Faith were to make herself known at the American consulate, so that any communication might reach her in case she should arrive before he did, and then to make her head- quarters at a certain hotel in the vicinity. The Atlantic voyage was duly accomplished. The trip to Paris was made. But there was no word of George Brown at the consulate. His coming was all a blank, and no one knew about him. So the party Faith having no shadow of doubt that all would yet be well found the hotel which he had suggested and established themselves to wait for word from the absentee. LOYAL TRAITORS 213 CHAPTER XXIV NEVER SURRENDER AT once upon George Brown's restoration to the full favor and confidence of his Filipino friends, he went to the vicinity of Manila in order to direct more efficiently the work of organization and instruction in the contest which he foresaw must be very long. He was within easy communication with the city, and knew all that transpired there of interest to the cause of independence. He knew that in consequence of many defeats some were becoming discouraged. He was familiar also with the character and determi- nation of the men who were nominally submissive to the American yoke. It seemed to them all that it would be best to hold a council at which the lead- ing generals should be present and reach a common understanding regarding the course to pursue. Mes- sengers were therefore sent, bearing the common opinion of the patriots in Manila, inviting the generals to attend. About a week afterward, the gathering was held. It was not far from Manila, and if the American com- mander had known what a prize awaited his enterprise 2i 4 LOYAL TRAITORS he would have followed up other successes by the capture of a dozen leading spirits. Among those in attendance were Aguinaldo, Tinio, Alejandrino, Cailles, Malvar, and others. Certain prominent civilians of Manila were also present, men who were nominally favorable to the American occupation but who were still trusted by the generals, and they were listened to in turn with as much attention as were the officers. The meeting soon developed one common pur- pose, continued determined resistance to American sovereignty and a belief that the Filipinos would gain their complete independence by force of their own arms. They believed that they could make occupation of the islands so costly and perilous to the Americans that the sober judgment of the United States would see that it was a losing enterprise, as well as grossly unjust and contrary to American principles. A way would thus be arranged whereby independence would be conceded. But there was a difference of opinion among the leaders. Brown was given his full share in the delib- erations, and his counsel was to continue their armed resistance. The civilians from Manila were disposed to favor nominal submission, and the use of peaceful agitation, to the end that life might be spared and the true heart of the Americans perhaps be reached as quickly and with as large results. Important consideration was given to the matter of taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. It was argued that such oath would be taken under LOYAL TRAITORS 215 compulsion, and therefore would have no moral force whatever. It was mentioned that even in the United States it was law that contracts and agreements made by force, as when one might be compelled to give a writing at the muzzle of a pistol, had no binding force, and that such nullity was recognized by the courts. Therefore, by the moral standard of the American people themselves, an oath of allegiance would be mere idle breath and would restrain no Filipino from subsequent hostility against the Americans, no matter how many times the oath might be repeated. Aguinaldo, Malvar, Cailles, and others stood stoutly on the same position as did Brown. They insisted that the only right course was to keep up the fighting ; that they were right, that it would be surrendering their case if they yielded, that the great Filipino people looked to them to continue the holy war for independence, that they were sure of winning if they persevered, that temporary losses and defeats were not fatal to final military success, and that the conditions of the country were such that the Americans could never conquer them. Finally, the two wings could only agree that they would persist in the conflict for independence, but that each should keep up the fight in its own way. The fighting generals returned to their commands to hold them together, to resist and attack whenever possible, to keep alive the fighting spirit in the hearts of all the Filipinos. As soon as the conference was ended, Brown went 2i6. LOYAL TRAITORS into Manila. He went to the printing establishment which preserved the Filipinos' trust, drew up a pro- nunciamento in favor of continuing military operations, and had hundreds of copies printed that night. By morning, messengers were carrying them to all parts of the islands, while they even appeared here and there on the walls in Manila, telling the Americans that the war would still go on and that their hopes of quenching the Filipino fire of liberty were vain. Then, from public duties, Brown turned to personal matters. The delay had made it impossible for him to be in Paris by the time that Faith would probably reach the city. But he now made ready for his trip at once, and took passage on one of the vessels used by the Filipinos for communication with Hong Kong. As soon as he reached that port, he sent a dispatch to Faith at the American consulate in Paris : " I leave here to-day." That would reassure her that he was coming as speedily as possible. All explanations must be reserved for word of mouth. The journey westward was as uneventful and as uniformly upon schedule time as had been his jour- ney eastward. In due time Paris was reached, and also the hotel where the Fessenden family were anx- iously awaiting his coming. His reception, his welcome by the entire family, the preparations that followed, all these matters were of vital interest to the participants, but the pub- lic has no right inside of their privacy and only a LOYAL TRAITORS 217 sympathetic interest in the heartfelt joy of the chief actors. In conformity to French law the marriage was cel- ebrated for the Americans. It was a private wed- ding, and there was no disposition to invite any of the American colony in Paris to attend upon the happy occasion. The participants were enough for them- selves, and the family were numerous enough for wit- nesses. No occasion existed for delay, and on the day after the wedding George and Faith began their strange wedding-journey, having devoted their lives to the cause of Filipino independence and to the equality of mankind in civil liberty. One of their fellow-passengers was an American investor, going to Manila to establish a wholesale house for general trade in Philippine products, which he expected would have a ready sale in the United States. He was impatient with the Filipinos for their continued resistance. Speaking with Brown, he said : " What infernal fools these brown fellows are. If they only knew what is good for themselves they would submit and stop their fighting. We could do an immense amount of trade in the islands. They could sell their products and make their ever- lasting fortunes. They might be well-dressed nig- gers above ground instead of a heap of rotting bones below/' " They are just the same sort of infernal fools that 2i8 LOYAL TRAITORS our Revolutionary fathers were/' retorted Brown, his eyes beginning to blaze at the thought of the money price which this specimen of the American business man would put upon manhood itself. " Nathan Hale was that sort of a fool, and he stands in New York city, even to-day, with a rope around his neck, when he might be sleeping peacefully underground in a rich man's coffin, favored and praised by the British and approved by the average American, who would say that he did the right thing to save his neck and not sacrifice himself for such an old-fashioned notion as liberty." "Those times were different," said the trader, staring at Brown's vehemence. " And the men were different. You can't judge everything by the stand- ard of our Revolutionary fathers." " But liberty is just as dear to a brown man or a black man as it is to a white man. Liberty is the only school in which any man can develop his man- hood. If the Americans believed half what they profess about the rights of man, they would promise these Filipinos their independence, stop the war, help them to set up their civil government as soon as they could hold their elections under their Con- stitution, and bid them Godspeed in their self-govern- ment." "Bosh ! We shall never do anything of the sort. We are in the islands to stay, and they might as well accept the fact. We will do the right thing by them if they submit, but, if they won't submit, we shall have LOYAL TRAITORS 219 to compel them. We won't stand any nonsense from these niggers. We bought their country and paid for it, and it is ours.' 1 " Perhaps that is so if the one you bought it of can give you a clear title, or if you can take possession 'of the goods. Remember what the scripture says : * Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.' My opinion is that it will trouble you a great while to take posses- sion." " Hang your scripture. It wouldn't trouble us if it weren't for those lying anti-imperialists in Boston. They keep stirring up the Filipinos with nonsense about independence." " Doubtless the Filipinos are grateful for sympathy wherever they can find it ; but I know something of them, and they are going to fight for their independ- ence as long as any of them are left alive, even if the Boston anti-imperialists turn around and join the jingoes. These men are made of the stuff which never surrenders, but always fights, one way or an- other. They never forget that they are men, as much entitled to independence as the people of the United States themselves are." " They will soon find their mistake, and it is an outrage for any man to hold out any hopes that they will win, or to help them." " The first question to settle is what is right. It is not whether it would be better for them to submit and 220 LOYAL TRAITORS find out afterward whether they are right or not. Any man who says that they ought to yield now and trust to peaceful means to gain their independence does not realize what the true American spirit means. As an American, then, I say that it is for the Amer- icans to make sure, first of all, that they are right. They cannot afford to talk about putting down the 'rebellion,' as they call it, and settling the moral question afterward. I hope the Filipinos will fight on until they win their independence. They will get it some day." " Well, sir," ejaculated the trader, " you and I might talk all day and never get any nearer together. The government and all the military power of the United States are on my side, and I am going to win. So I wish you much joy in your discomfiture." " Don't be too sure. The Filipinos, I tell you, will fight on and will win. ' For He that ruleth high and wise, Nor pauseth in His plan, Will take the sun out of the skies Ere freedom out of man.' You have got to reckon with the Almighty, and the mills of the gods grind to powder." "I'll run my chances on that with the army of the United States behind my investment. Good-day, sir." " Good-day," answered Brown, "and remember what I tell you." LOYAL TRAITORS 221 On their journey George and Faith busied them- selves in studying Spanish and in discussing their plans for the future. He had it all arranged that she should make her first home in the mountain retreat where the headquarters of the Filipino gov- ernment had been established, where she would be absolutely safe, where he could see her occasionally, and where she might be of service if occasion de- manded it. But he did not realize the scope of her plans for him and herself. He had been telling her of his pur- pose to do everything in his power to keep up the form of military resistance ; how he would promote formal recognition of the republic on the part of the people in every corner where they were not under the compulsion of the American troops ; how they must live by the arts of peace wherever these could be established, where there was no danger that ruthless and cruel American soldiers would destroy their schools and public offices ; how the Filipino people were to be constantly permeated with workers for the patriotic cause ; how even the walls and pavements of Manila, under the eyes of the American general, would be alive with appeals for support of the patriots, and how there was to be no end of the contest till it ended in victory. She heard him with enthusiasm and with a spirit of complete co-operation. She questioned here and there, grasping his plans, and showing a ready com- prehension of them. Then she said : 222 LOYAL TRAITORS " George, you expect to see a great deal more fight ing, don't you ? " " Yes, Faith, though I am sorry to say it. I don't see how these brave men can win their independence until more of them have been sacrificed. It is their fate." " You have heard, haven't you, that some of the Boer women fight in the field, and that they are brave soldiers in arms, just as brave as the men, and bear hardship as well ? " " Yes, I have heard of it, and one cannot help ad- miring them for it, too. That is one of the things which makes me so sure that the Boers will win in their patriotic war." " You are very likely to be in peril of your life your- self, perhaps many times ? " " It must be so. I would be a coward not to share the full risks of the Filipinos in their fight for liberty. Perhaps, too, it is time for another American to die on the side of the right." " One other thing, George," said Faith. " You expect me to stand by you in this struggle for free- dom. You know that I came out here determined to do my part." " Of course, I understand that ; but what are you coming to, Faith ? " "Just this, George, that there are two things in particular that I must learn to do as soon as I can." " What are they ? " "To wear man's clothes, and to shoot." LOYAL TRAITORS 223 " You are supremely loyal, my brave comrade in arms ! but I hope it will never come to that for you." " Whether it does or not, and I am ready for it, if need be, we will work and sacrifice in the sacred cause of the national independence of the Filipinos until we win, or until death doth us part." 224 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XXV WOMEN AND CHILDREN PATRIOTS GEORGE BROWN and his wife accomplished their landing at Manila in safety, in spite of the vigilance of the secret service of the United States in trying to detain every suspicious person. Nor was it long before Brown was once more in the thick of the struggle to make headway against the superior forces of the American invaders. Faith was left in Manila, concealed among trusted friends in a part of the city but little frequented by white people, feeling perfectly safe there and not yet believing that it was necessary for her to take advantage of the secret retreat provided for her. To a large number of Filipinos her sympathy and her rela- tion to Brown were known, and she was as safe from betrayal as if she had been a Filipino woman. Friendly secret service was always at her command, and there was no lack of communication with her husband. Letters were carried by messengers whose pay was her love for their cause and her husband's service for Filipino nationality. Longer acquaintance opened to her the doors of homes of all classes, and she was admitted to an active LOYAL TRAITORS 225 share in the struggles of the native women for their country's independence. " Senora Brown," one day said to her Senora Adriano, the wife of one of the most influential Filipinos, at whose house was being held a gathering of women to prepare military hospital supplies for the troops in the field, "we are indebted to your capable hands more than we can express. Our men in the swamps and mountains will enjoy heartfelt relief because of your kindness." The room was scattered profusely with supplies which would be valuable in sudden emergencies such as are inevitable in battle. Cloths for bandages, lint for wounds, splints for broken bones, and other necessaries were strewn thickly over tables and floor. Mingled with these were articles of camp comfort, and health-preservatives, such in general purpose as were familiar to the women of Massachusetts at the Commonwealth Building in Boston in the days of the war with Spain. Amid these surroundings the women talked and labored. "I am glad to work for them," replied Faith to the appreciative words of Senora Adriano, " because it is my own countrymen who are so cruelly put- ting them to all this terrible exposure, suffering, and death." "Truly it is terrible," spoke up Senora Alvarez, " and you would realize it more if you knew how many wives have been made widows, how many maidens have lost their lovers, and how many children have 226 LOYAL TRAITORS been made orphans. Oh, it is too terrible to think of!" "She is almost broken by her sorrow," said Senora Adriano under her breath, to Faith. " Husband and sons are all gone, killed with great and needless cruelty by the Americans. Her beautiful home, which stood on the road to Caloocan, was burned over her head, and she is reduced to poverty. You can see the ruins standing there now, and they haunt her like a ghost." " I am very, very sorry for you, Senora Alvarez/' said Faith tenderly, addressing the lady directly. " Love for your country has cost you dear. I wonder you hold out so well." " Hold out ? What else can we do ? " And the dark eyes of Senora Alvarez flashed forth her strong patriotic spirit. " Do the treacherous Americans think we are afraid to suffer and toil and weep and die for our beloved country ? " " You have done your full share," said Faith, work- ing away steadily at the hospital package in her hands. " No one has done more," interposed Senora Mateo, another of the patriotic company. "Full share?" repeated the much-bereaved lady. "My full share is done only when my strength is gone, my heart's love to my country burned out in its service, and my body in its grave with my husband." The energy of the patriot woman's hands illustrated the force of her spirit. LOYAL TRAITORS 227 " How brave and loyal the Filipino women are ! " exclaimed Faith ardently. "The Spartans were no braver." " Some of them are silly fools," ejaculated Senorita Adriano, daughter of the hostess, as she busily gath- ered up a pile of the hospital supplies. " Some are fools enough to lose their heads over American soldiers. They pretend they have lost their hearts, but I doubt it. It is their heads only." " Do you know any such ? " questioned Faith. " Yes," was the reply. " Many of the soldiers have made matches with Filipino girls. I tell the young women to look out ! Some of them are legally married, to be sure, but what will they do when the soldiers' periods of service are up and the men wish to return to America ? Do the poor fools think these American scamps will take Filipino women to the United States as their brides? Now, -there is Macaria Lingat, daughter of an old friend of my mother ! She has taken a fancy to one of your countrymen. She says he is noble, handsome, and well-disposed to the Filipinos." "Then," sharply flashed out a question from Senora Alvarez, "why does he not fight on our side, like the gallant husband of Senora Brown ? " "Put the question to her yourself," replied the senorita. " She will say he is too good to be shot for the sake of Filipinos." " Is any American soldier better than thousands and thousands of brave Filipino boys whom they have shot 228 LOYAL TRAITORS in cold blood?" fiercely demanded Senora Alvarez. " She is unworthy of her country, and he is unworthy of any true Filipino woman." Senora Mateo interrupted to ask the senorita to bring more cords for the bundles they were preparing, and the conversation turned further to the terrible sufferings and losses of the native women. While the workers were still busy, conversation flagging in order that hands might fly faster and the men in the field be better helped, Senorita Macaria Lingat entered. She was one of the many attractive Filipinas who caught the fancy of the American soldiers who were free from the restraints of home. Her impulsive nature did not realize the change in the situation for the young Americans, and she foolishly accepted a fanciful compliment as an expression of true sentiment. She had a magnificent crown of black hair, such as Filipinas not infrequently boast, and her black eyes and lively features made her attractive in any company. Though captured by the American lieutenant, Charles Henderson, she believed her heart was still true to her native land. " Now, Senora Alvarez," spoke up Senorita Adriano, " here is our beautiful sister, the American's captive. Ask her your question." " Macaria," curtly said Senora Alvarez. " What is it, Senora ? " inquired Macaria. "They say you love an American soldier ! " "Yes, I do. And we are to be married next week, really married, by the priest, too." LOYAL TRAITORS 229 " You think he will therefore treat you better than many American soldiers are treating other Filipinas ? You think yourself fortunate because he does not refuse marriage and treat you like a plaything. Wait and see what happens," and the widow whose own sons had been slain cast a look of scorn upon her infatuated young countrywoman. "He is a very handsome and noble man, and he is very fond of me," came the answer triumphantly, as if she were more fortunate than her sisters perhaps because of her good looks. "Why does he not fight for us, like Sefior Brown?" " He is a true American," he says. " He cannot be a traitor." " Then can you be a traitor to your country, and so be unworthy of him ? " The girl hesitated. " I had not thought of it that way," was her reply. For a moment she was downcast. " You ought to think of it that way," came the severe response. " Perhaps I can persuade him to become one of us, if he really cares anything for me," hopefully said Macaria. " Poor fool ! " said Senorita Adriano, aside. " She refuses to take warning by hundreds of cases right before her eyes. Her lieutenant will throw her aside when he has no use for her." The peaceful session of the workers was here inter- 2 3 o LOYAL TRAITORS rupted by the hurried entrance of another daughter of Senora Adriano. " Quick ! " she panted. " Put all these things out of sight ! Then scatter ! The secret-service men are coming ! " Two secret-service men, having gained a suspicion that help to Filipinos in the field was sent from Senora Adriano' s house in Manila, and not realizing that their character and activities were known to the Filipinos much better than they dreamed, were coming down the street to investigate. Swiftly the many arms gathered up the supplies and rushed them out of the house. A perfect hegira of women from the rear door, into neighboring houses, could have been seen, each woman well-laden, their exit and passage screened by trees and vines. Obedient to her hostess's judgment, Faith went with them, knowing that it would be ill for her to become known to the American detectives. The senora was left alone. Without pausing to observe the forms of politeness, the two men walked roughly into the house. " What are you doing here ? " demanded one of them. " What means all this litter over the floor ? " " Sewing, most esteemed sirs," was the gracious and tactful reply of Senora Adriano. " Let me see what you are sewing," was the rude demand. " Perhaps you would prefer to search for yourselves," was the placid response. " Then you will be satisfied. LOYAL TRAITORS 231 You would not take the word of a Filipino woman and would have to search anyway." "All right! Tom, let's be about it," said the detective. Furniture was ransacked and upset. Curtains were torn aside, mats were pulled up. Nooks and corners were searched. Some family sewing was found, but nothing more. " Look here ! " finally exclaimed the spokesman. " We believe you're crooked in here. You may be too smart for us now, but if we ever catch you helping your infernal niggers in the field we'll burn your house over your head. Do you understand ? " " The excellent gentleman has made it very clear in his most courteous speech" was the unmoved reply of the sefiora, who concealed her outraged feelings. "We shall be most happy at any time to enjoy the pleasure of another visit from such refined and thoughtful company." Finding nothing, the detectives moved further up the street to repeat their tactics at another suspected house, where they had the same lack of success. As soon as the coast was clear and a return of the women seemed to be safe, Sefiora Adriano called to her daughter : " Isabela, run and bring Senora Brown and Sefiora Alvarez here again. The others had better not return to-day." In a few moments all three were together. At the request of Faith the Filipino widow told more of her 232 LOYAL TRAITORS story, of the ruthless burning of her home, of the loss of her husband and sons while fighting bravely for national independence, and of the terrible destruc- tion of life and property wrought by the American troops, whose progress across the country could be traced by the clouds of smoke from the burning homes of the Filipinos, and in whose path were left thousands of Filipino dead who had dared to resist that merciless advance. " Oh ! the slaughter was dreadful/' exclaimed the bereaved woman. " They had no mercy. They killed almost every one they could reach. Would that I were alone in my loss, but hundreds thousands of our women have lost their all. And our men were fighting only for their rights! Moreover, the same deeds are going on still. Every day sees them. What I have read that your great President, Mr. McKinley, said of the acts of the Spanish in Cuba, that same thing the future historian will say of this American /aggression in these fair islands of ours ! In a message to Congress your Mr. McKinley said : ' It was not civil- ized warfare ; it was extermination ; the only peace it could beget was that of the wilderness and the grave/ Yes, and by and by, Senora Brown, your America will call our desolation Peace! There will be no more Filipinos to kill ! Do you really suppose the just God in heaven, whom we pray to, will permit all this Amer- ican wickedness to triumph ? " "Brave and Christian people have been conquered and destroyed before now, by others pretending to be LOYAL TRAITORS 233 Christians. We cannot fathom human inconsistency and willfulness and selfishness," said Faith. "But pray let us turn from these thoughts to practical work for your cause ! Are your women working all over Luzon?" Senora Adriano poured out all the information she could, and it showed a lack of organization among the Filipino women, though there was plenty of patriotic work. " Why can you not bring all the women workers in touch with each other, all through the islands, not in Luzon alone ? " asked Faith. "It would be a great task," replied Senora Adriano. " But we could do it," cried Senora Alvarez, quickly embracing Faith's comprehensive idea. "We could do it." Then eagerly they sat and planned. They saw how, by means of women and men acquaintances, they could proceed, and how organizers could be sent out, not only to all the centers of population in Luzon, but to the Visayan Islands also, to Samar, to Masbate, to Panay, to Negros, to Cebu, to Leyte, and to Bohol. In all of these places the women might be organized into hospital and relief corps to sustain the men in arms. A meeting of many friends was arranged for the next day, and the whole matter was gone over. When their council of war was ended the brave workers felt that they had accomplished much. 234 LOYAL TRAITORS "Now, Senora Brown," said the hostess, after the meeting had come to its decision, "you have worked hard with us these two days, as you have done fre- quently before. Take a rest for an hour or two. Go with us to the children's festival at the church this afternoon. Hundreds of women and children will be there. Dressed in our costume and surrounded by our people you will be safe. Perhaps you could darken your face a little with some cosmetic." " It will be a great pleasure to go," was Faith's reply. The latter part of the day was accordingly devoted to the festival. Faith noted many things with her keen, observing eyes. She saw the sadness of mothers temporarily cheered by the laughter of the children. She noted the neatness and courtesy of the juvenile Filipinos. She realized that there was a genuine sense of delicacy and refinement, a spirit of peace and good will, among the people ; and she thought : " If we cannot all be Anglo-Saxons and do things in the big, strong, coarse, selfish Anglo-Saxon way, yet some of us, children of the heavenly Father just the same, can be unselfish, courteous, helpful, and as Christlike in our own way as the best Americans can be in theirs. These people here could keep the peace among themselves and grow in their own way in civilization and Christianity, even if they did not do it in the white man's way. It does not follow that other ways are bad because they are not American ways." LOYAL TRAITORS 235 But her thoughts were interrupted by an invitation from Senora Adriano : " Come, Senora Brown ; let us pass farther up and hear the children sing one of their new patriotic songs." Faith followed. The little children, with shrill voices, but strongly and expressively, had just begun to sing the patriotic words of which the following may pass for a translation : " We love our fair mountains and rivers ; We love our bright isles of the sea ; We love our dear blood- bought Republic, The home of the brave and the free ! ff We sing of our fathers and brothers Our heroes who died for our sake ; We sing of our suffering mothers, Whose heart-strings are ready to break. " When foemen oppress and despoil us We hear what our great martyr saith : To die for our flag and our country ; Give liberty to us or death ! " Then rouse ye, all true Filipinos ! Make tyrants acknowledge your worth. Stand firm for complete independence A nation 'mid nations of earth." " Just the same as children in the United States ! " exclaimed Faith, seriously enthusiastic, as the song was ended. " How I have heard them sing ' America ' 236 LOYAL TRAITORS there, with just the same pride of country as these children ! " " You saw that it was real patriotic feeling," said Senora Adriano. "Do you believe that a just God would grant it to American children to sing their patriotism, and deny it to Filipino children ? Is the sentiment, so inspiring and praiseworthy in American children, worthy of death in Filipino children ? Yet your Philippine Commission makes it treason to sing these words, and every child who sang is worthy of death, by the American standard.' 1 "The American position is horrible, utterly hor- rible ! " exclaimed Faith. " It is utterly indefensible before God or man. I have heard enough. Let me go back to your home and help you work all the more earnestly for Filipino rights.'* " Wait yet a moment, Senora Brown, and listen ! " said Senora Adriano. "The children are about to sing again." The voices rose in a sweet, exultant cadence, and Faith, at once catching the words, exclaimed : " Why ! it is one of Faber's famous hymns. Who can have translated for these Filipino children the words which have inspired so many English hearts ? I think,'* she whispered, a moment later, as the lines rang out with a wierd, fiery pathos that was thrilling in its incisive- ness, the refrain rising and falling like a nation's great, bitter wail struck through with hope and never-failing courage, " I think the children as they sing must have their own slain earthly fathers and brothers in LOYAL TRAITORS 237 mind more than the fathers of their religious faith ! Just hear the pathetic and terrible earnestness of their young voices ! " The words which the children sang were these : " Faith of our fathers, living still In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword ; Oh, how our hearts beat high with joy Whene'er we hear that glorious word ! Faith of our fathers, holy faith ! We will be true to thee till death. " Our fathers, slaughtered in their prime, Were still in heart and conscience free ; How sweet would be their children's fate If they, like them, could die for thee ! Faith of our fathers, holy faith ! We will be true to thee till death. < Faith of our fathers ! we will love Both friend and foe in all our strife ; And preach thee too, as love knows how, By kindly words and virtuous life. Faith of our fathers, holy faith ! We will be true to thee till death." Sefiora Adrian o sat like a statue, her face stern, immobile ; but Faith was touched to tears. She could not speak for weeping. Touching the arm of her companion, she drew her out and they left the festival ; but the object-lesson was one which was a memory and an inspiration to Faith for many weeks. 23 8 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XXVI AMERICAN METHODS OF PERSUASION rOR months after the incidents last recorded, the women in Manila, faithful to the Filipino cause, and still making the house of Senora Adriano their meeting-place, continued their patriotic labors. The proposed organization through the islands had been made effective to some extent, and it was one of the many strong influences which were surmounting all divisions of provinces and dialects and fusing Bicol, Ilocano, Tagalog, Visayan, and every other distinction, with the exception of the few Macabebes who adhered to the Americans, into one solid Filipino nationality. Senorita Macaria Lingat, long since legally wedded to her American lieutenant, was viewed with distrust by Senora Adriano, who recognized in her a possible source of danger. At the same time, she realized that any evil consequences which might arise would come rather from the girl's weakness than from any intentional hostility on her part. At length a suspicious incident one day led Senora Adriano to take immediate action to learn if Faith's presence had been communicated to the Americans. And she was none too soon. Her husband and older son being on the field of war, she had only LOYAL TRAITORS 239 her younger boys to rely upon. Accordingly they were now pressed into service. " To-night, my little men," she said to Victor and Bernardino, who were not yet old enough to bear arms, " I want you to go out and watch the American detectives, and see where they go. Listen, if you can, to what they have to say. And keep an eye out for any squads of soldiers. Get other boys to help you, if you need them. You, Victor, may go over to the south side of the Pasig River, around the old government building. Go by the American head- quarters, watch the gates in the old walls, and return along the river-front. You, Bernardino, go through the Escolta, keeping sharp watch ; look in at the theaters, the Zorilla and the Libertad ; then hang about the Hotel d'Oriente. Pick up all the American talk you can, but note particularly if you hear a word about Senora Brown, for I have learned that that foolish Senora Henderson has not kept her own counsel ! " " Why, this will be great fun ! " cried Victor. "We shall be the Filipino secret-service men, and watch the watchers." " But you must make it very serious fun," said the mother, "for the safety of our good friend Senora Brown may depend on your faithfulness and success.*' " I'll be back before midnight," said Victor. " I'll be back when I have something to tell," was the response of the more practical and thorough- going Bernardino. 2 4 o LOYAL TRAITORS They had been gone, however, only a few minutes when a young Filipino announced himself at the door of Senora Adriano. " Say that it is Pedro Nigdan," he said, " with a very important message for Senora Adriano, which I must deliver in person/' He was admitted, and Senora Adriano was called. As soon as they were alone, he said : " I am sent by Tomaso Reyes, the servant of the American colonel who has headquarters in the cathedral three streets away. My friend has over- heard important information. The colonel has been told, by Lieutenant Charles Henderson of his regiment, that an American woman, one Senora Brown, is work- ing with the Filipino women, and that they are accus- tomed to meet in your house.'* " How did Lieutenant Henderson know that ! " was the anxious exclamation of the suspected woman, though she already guessed the answer. " He was told by Senora Henderson, his Filipino wife, who says she has often met Senora Brown at the house of Senora Adriano." The self-reliant woman assumed composure as she rejoined: "That is no more than I expected from this foolish creature." Pedro Nigdan added : " The colonel said that Senora Brown must be arrested. So it is for you to help her to escape." " I thank you and Senor Tomaso Reyes sincerely for this service to Senora Brown and to myself," LOYAL TRAITORS 241 was the warm reply, " and we will profit by it at once. Wait here a moment.'* She stepped to the door of an inner room and called : " Isabela, we need you here." Immediately the daughter came running in, and her mother said to her : " Senora Brown is in imminent danger of arrest. Do you and our good friend Nigdan here escort her for to-night to the house of Senora Mateo, and early to-morrow we will provide for her further. Prepare." Then the energetic senora ran to the room of her American guest, and told her of the bad news, giving her plan for the escape from the threatened arrest. Faith naturally realized that instant removal from her present quarters was the first necessity. " I will be ready at once," she said. Leaving much of her clothing, and all of her work and hospital materials, she presented herself speedily to the others. The trio at once went out quietly by the rear door. Through the darkened and deserted streets they hastened to the house of Senora Mateo, in the Santa Cruz district of the city. A warm welcome was given to Faith and her escort, made all the warmer when the cause of her sudden coming became known. Then Isabela Adri- ano and Pedro Nigdan departed to return to the Adriano home. Bernardino Adriano had looked in at the theaters, recognizing occasionally a masculine friend in the 242 LOYAL TRAITORS corridors, or bowing to some young Filipina, half- concealed under the broad brim of her over-shadowing hat, but had espied nothing to reward his suspicions. Afterward he went to the Hotel d'Oriente, and there, as he was lounging, with senses alert, in the shad- ows, he overheard a few words from two Americans very near him, who were conversing in low tones and who did not suspect that they were not entirely alone. "We will start in ten minutes," said one. "We have the wristlets, and we will soon see if this woman traitor will escape us." That was enough for Bernardino. The words he had heard could refer to no other woman than Senora Brown. Off he ran to .inform his mother and to help save their guest. Panting for breath, he told his story. " We know about it already ! " his mother replied, " but I did not think they would be on us quite so soon. You had better run off now. I will stay and meet them." Bernardino disappeared. His discovery proved en- tirely correct, for a few minutes later the door of the Adriano home was thrown open unannounced, and the two detectives of the previous experience in the same house entered. " You invited us to come again," was the sarcastic remark of the leader, " and we have accepted your invitation. Now bring out your American woman, your ' Senora Brown.' We want her." LOYAL TRAITORS 243 "Seiiors," was the placid reply, "you seem to remember a part of what I said to you before. Please remember some more. Please remember that I observed then that you would not take the word of a Filipina, and that you must search the house your- selves. You must do the same now; but let me inform you that, unless you show more regard for this property than you did before, I shall not be able to regard you as perfect gentlemen." "We are greatly flattered/' replied the detective, reciprocating her sarcasm, " to be placed so high in the Beau Brummel stage of progress, and we will show this old rubbish of yours the most courteous and dis- tinguished consideration. Tom, we'll make a thor- ough job of it. You keep watch of the staircase and the door, so that our bird can't fly away." A thorough search it was, and the furniture fared badly. But the bird was not found. "If the gentlemen had asked me," said Senora Adriano, as the baffled detectives stood in their impa- tient wrath ready to go, " I could have told them that no white woman is in my house." " We'll have something out of you yet," was the savage reply. Just then Isabela Adriano and Pedro Nigdan came in. " Here, you nigger ! " cried the spokesman of the detectives, with his professional shrewdness jumping to a conclusion. " Have you run off Senora Brown ? " The quick look which the poor fellow cast toward 244 LOYAL TRAITORS Senora Adriano was not lost on the detective. He felt sure he was on the right track. " Tom, put the wristlets on him/' he said, " and I'll take the girl along. We'll get the truth out of them if it takes all the water there is in the Pasig River and in the lake besides ! " The two victims were hurried away, and distress settled upon the Adriano house. Victor returned late, with observations upon American carousals, but nothing of larger importance. Both the brothers were dispatched to patrol the American quarters all night, and to learn, if possible, where the prisoners were confined and whether any word could be had with them. Following the mother's sleepless night came the dreaded morning. By persistent watch and search, and the following of certain small clues, the boys had discovered the buildings to which the detectives had carried Isabela and Nigdan. Senora Adriano went to attempt to see her daughter, but was refused ad- mission. The two prisoners were confronted at an early hour by the detectives and an American officer, and were commanded to tell what they had done with the white woman who had been at the house of Senora Adriano. Both stubbornly refused to tell. " I see that we shall have to try some gentle per- suasion," remarked the officer, and he ordered that some soldiers should be summoned. LOYAL TRAITORS 245 Under his direction a most horrible deed was then committed upon the helpless Isabela. The woman who reads these pages if she has still a belief in the gallantry of all soldiers and in the humanity of all men, and if she has still a modest and humane corner in her heart would perhaps best skip a few leaves at this point. The main incident related here is fact, and must go on record though it be written with shame that it is truth. On the premises where the victims had been con- fined over night was an abandoned well, used before the city water-supply was put in, and not yet filled up. Tearing the girl's garments ruthlessly from her body till she stood trembling in entire nakedness before their pitiless gaze, the American soldiers threw the unhappy girl to the ground, tied her ankles together, attached a long rope to the thongs, and then raised her to the brink to lower her, head downward, into the well. Unstrung by the terror of the long, lonely night which she had passed in darkness, and frightened beyond expression by the present brutality, she screamed and exerted her utmost strength to save herself from what she expected to be immediate death. But she was powerless. Down, down, into the dark, ill-smelling well she was lowered, head-first, till she was just above the water. " Will you tell us ? " demanded the soldiers from above. But she had ceased to scream or to struggle. " Draw up the nigger-wench ! " was the harsh order. 246 LOYAL TRAITORS Up she was slowly drawn, conscious, but in great distress. "Tell us what you did with the white woman. Where is she ? " But Isabela Adriano, worthy of her brave mother at home and of her patriotic father and brother on the field of war, still refused to answer. " Let her down again ! " was the angry command. Down again she went, head-first as before, the rope cutting into her tender ankles and the blood rushing to her head until it seemed as if the arteries would burst. But she did not speak. " Let her hang there a while ! " was the heartless command of the chief inquisitor. For ten minutes she did hang there, the tension upon her endurance becoming extreme, the pain from the ropes becoming intolerable, the soldiers above standing grim and determined, " obeying orders/' Not one of them made any open sign of dissent : she was only a "nigger." Then came the command once more : " Pull her up again." When she lay on the ground, rapidly weakening in physical strength, the question was once more put : " Where did you take the white woman ? " And still she did not answer. " Put her down again, and this time her head goes under water, not to come up again for an hour ! Now, blast you, tell us ! " The exhausted and broken girl could endure no LOYAL TRAITORS 247 more. Torture had broken her will, and she replied faintly : "To Senora Mateo's." The men threw her clothing at her. Hurriedly, with what strength remained, she dragged the gar- ments over her. " I'll bet she lies ! " cried one of the soldiers. " Bring on the other nigger," was the command. "If he tells the same, it's the truth. If he don't, we'll find out from them somehow." Held by two strong soldiers Pedro Nigdan was brought up. " Where did you put the white woman ? " was the fierce demand." No answer. "Throw him down," came the sharp order. Down he went. " Bring a bucket of water. Hold his arms and legs down. Now pry his jaws open. That's it ! Keep the stick in and hold his mouth open. Pour in the water." At once a soldier turned water from the bucket into the open mouth of the helpless Filipino. Compelled to swallow to prevent himself from strangling, he swal- lowed only to make space for more and still more water, with the bucket still tilted at his lips and con- tinuing to pour until his stomach became frightfully distended, his head-passages filled, and his body could be made to hold no more. " Stand on him ! " 248 LOYAL TRAITORS A soldier stepped with his full weight upon the prostrate form, making the water gush from the victim's nose and mouth, and evidently causing him the most intense distress. But the Filipino made no sign of yielding, nor indicated any disposition to plead for mercy. " Lift him up and drain him out ! " was the brutal order. The man's feet were lifted so that his head hung down, the position facilitating the outflow of the water. When they dropped him, and Nigdan lay faint and trembling on the ground, the question once more came: " Where did you put the white woman ? " Still no answer. The man would not open his mouth. The soldiers looked at the well, but concluded to try the bucket again. "Give him another drink/' was the jovial com- mand, " and put salt in the water ! " Once more the wretched man was put to the torture. The salt, irritating the inner passages of head and throat and the inner surface of the stomach, caused excruciating pain in addition to the distension by the water. He bore it heroically ; but finally the question being again and again repeated during the lengthy continuance of the torture, whether he would tell where he had taken the white woman he indicated that he would. Flesh and blood could not stand forever. LOYAL TRAITORS 249 He was released, and roughly restored, as far as possible. Then the question was repeated with a threat : " If you give us a crooked steer, we'll make it worse for you yet ; and we won't let you go until we find out. Where did you take her ? " "To Senora Mateo's," was the almost voiceless reply. " Fixed 'em both that time, didn't we ! " exclaimed one of the detectives. " Now let's see if this Ameri- can woman traitor will slip out of our hands again ! " The soldiers reconfined their two Filipino victims, and the detectives arranged for their visit to Senora Mateo's house, the arrest to be made at such hour as they should deem best suited to secrecy, inasmuch as they wished no mob around. Meanwhile, with no suspicion of these events, George Brown had been planning for a few days' furlough from the Filipino camp. His furlough hap- pened at this particular juncture, and at the very hour when Faith fled from Senora Adriano's to Senora Mateo's he was already nearing Manila. 250 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XXVII A LITTLE WIT CHANGES TRAGEDY INTO COMEDY " \ W 7E will be in Manila by midnight," said V\/ George Brown to the trusty Filipino who, in connection with his other duties in helping maintain communication between the patriots in the city and those in the field, had served him for months in carrying messages to Faith and in bringing them from her. Brown had thought the Filipino cause would permit a few days' rest and change on his part, and he was humanly anxious to see Faith and learn how she continued to enjoy her residence among the Filipino women. Entering the city protected by the darkness, Brown was escorted by his friend to the Adriano residence, reaching it soon after the distressing arrest of Isabela and Nigdan. Senora Adriano received him with all the friendli- ness she felt, but her welcome was overshadowed by her own suffering mental condition. Hastily she told Brown of the arrest of Isabela and Pedro Nigdan, and of the absence of her little sons in order to be of any possible service to them, and to bring word of them to the mother. "You can do nothing to help/' she said positively LOYAL, TRAITORS 251 to him, as he seemed to be balancing in his mind whether any interference by himself was in any way practicable. " You must look out for yourself and Senora Brown. That is the most you can do. And we must look out for ourselves." Unwillingly, Brown saw that she was right. Faith might be exposed at any moment was perhaps even then exposed in consequence of pressure by the Americans upon their two prisoners. Her danger was great, and he must go to her. Bidding good-night to Senora Adrian o, he and his escort took their way to the house of Senora Mateo in the Santa Cruz district. Faith naturally was glad beyond words to see him. Her trust in an escape from the great peril grew now into complete confidence, and they planned together what would be best to do. "No one will be here now before morning," said Senora Mateo, as they were all holding a council over their course for the next few hours. " It would be too late for questioning and for further work to-night, by the time the detectives reached their quarters with the prisoners." " I will watch all night, in any event," said Brown. " You and Faith must get your rest, for you will need all your strength to-morrow." Soon, therefore, the two women retired, while Brown kept his vigil, sleeping on a sofa for an hour toward morning, when the lapse of time without incident proved that Senora Mateo's judgment had been correct 252 LOYAL TRAITORS regarding the course of procedure by the Ameri- cans. After the torture described in the preceding chap- ter, the question had been raised by the detectives and soldiers whether they ought not to proceed at once to the house of Senora Mateo, to arrest Faith. "No," said the officer in charge. "If you go by daylight, you will have half the city at your heels. Better take her when few or none will know of it. Let the first news of the arrest be that we have got her safe and sure. That's the way to do the business." There was some grumbling that she might during the day escape. " We will stop that. Set a watch on all sides of the block," was his direction to the chief of the detectives. The watch was accordingly placed, which fact Senora Mateo soon discovered. "The house is under surveillance," said the hostess to her American guests, about the middle of the forenoon. She had recognized the well-known fig- ures of the detectives, accompanied by two soldiers, one couple being on each side of the block. " They evidently do not intend to search the house directly." " They are waiting till night, so that they will not raise a riot," conjectured Brown. "Ought not Senora Brown to try to get out of this trap in some way ? " anxiously inquired Senora Mateo. LOYAL TRAITORS 253 " If she tries to cross the street, on either side," replied Brown, " she is liable to discovery, even if she should attempt a disguise, for her stature, in contrast to Filipino women, would betray her in broad daylight. Besides, she would be away from me. I feel that she will be safer under my protection. I believe we can do something for ourselves." " I shall stay with you," said Faith firmly. " If our evil time has come now, we ought to be together." Brown set his wits to work, and forecast the prob- able course of events as best he could. He did not explain his plans, but he gave some directions which were rather puzzling to his worthy hostess, though she followed his suggestions exactly. " Sefiora Mateo," he said, " I wish you would go out and see some of our friends. You can get out, and they can get in. So long as it is only Filipinos who are stirring there will be no interference. It is the white woman who is wanted. Do not have the friends come directly to your door. Tell them to enter at the further end of the block, passing through the intervening premises until they can come in here unperceived. We must try to have a dozen men here by nightfall." During the day, while they waited, conversation turned on many topics of interest to Filipino welfare. One of the things which Faith said to her husband was this : "What puzzles and grieves me much is that the 254 LOYAL TRAITORS people of the United States, as a whole, are so utterly indifferent to the grievous wrongs and outrages being committed here month after month by their represent- atives. The American people are a Christian nation. It cannot be that they are wholly heartless, yet their continued complete indifference seems to imply that they are. One would suppose that in every city, town, and village in the States indignation meetings would be held and the demand made that the Admin- istration change its attitude. The American national torpor in this matter is an unsolvable mystery to me." " Do the people as a whole know much of the real state of things here ? " suggested Brown. " I am sure they know a great deal," said Faith. "At any rate, they know more than they act upon. Are there not the newspapers? And not only are there many press correspondents in Manila, but every expedition by the troops is accompanied by some of them every attack and slaughter and torture is wit- nessed by them. Do they not write up these things ? " " Yes, they write them up," said Brown, "and they try to forward them to their newspapers ; but the saddest features of all this barbarous aggression have never reached the American public. The system of censorship conducted here in Manila, in accordance with the dictates of the Administration at Washington to the commanding officers, effectually bars the pub- lication of the horrors." " But," replied Faith, " there was sufficient known, LOYAL TRAITORS 255 even long before I left Boston, to warn America of its mammoth sin, though truly not a hundredth part was told of the worst, such as I have learned with my own ears and seen with my own eyes since I arrived here. But if they are hampered in sending their reports, why do not the press correspondents protest ? " "They have done so," answered Brown, "and restraints on their messages have in consequence been lessened to some extent, though not materially." Referring to a memorandum-book which he took from his pocket, Brown continued : "On the 1 7th of July, 1899, ^ e sta ff correspond- ents of American newspapers stationed in Manila stated unitedly in public protest : ' The censorship has compelled us to participate in this misrepresentation by excising or altering uncontroverted statements of fact, on the plea, as General Otis stated, that "they would alarm the people at home," or "have the people of the United States by the ears." ' " " I am relieved, to some extent, by the fact of that protest," said Faith. " It accounts for much of the prevalent American ignorance of the wrongs here. At the same time it shows all the more the wickedness and falsity of those in authority! They go utterly beyond their prerogatives in a republic. If the people are kept in ignorance of the doings of their elected servants, the servants and not the people are the sovereigns. There are hosts of people in the United States, especially in the dominant political party, who are misled by their leaders into the belief that there 256 LOYAL TRAITORS is no real war here at all only a civilizing and ameliorating influence." "Well/' replied Brown with a pained smile, and referring again to his memorandum-book, "that there is no war here is the claim also of the American army officers right here in Manila. I have received, in a letter from my father, this clipping from The Chicago Record of August 10, 1900, a statement made by its correspondent in Manila under date of April 20. My father asks me if such a statement can really be a statement of fact." " Please read it," said Faith. What Brown read was this : " In the last week a correspondent took a dispatch to the censor for approval. The first sentence stated that the preceding week had been the bloodiest since the war began. "The censor mildly objected to the word 'war/ 'There's no war out here,' he said. " ' Well, what do you call it when 300 natives are killed in three engagements, which is what happened this last week ? ' asked the correspondent. " < That's not war.' " Well, what is it, then ? ' persisted the corre- spondent. " 'That's only murder.' " Neither Faith nor Brown added any word when the reading ceased, but in the eyes of Faith there was a LOYAL TRAITORS 257 betraying moisture which showed the depth of her grieved indignation that men could speak apparently so lightly of hellish acts, and add to their iniquity by concealing it. "Like the Filipinos, dear," Brown said after a moment's admiring observation, lover-like, of her deep longing for a world's righteousness, " like the Fili- pinos themselves, all really loyal Americans must be strong to bear this injustice for the time being, though at the same time we must prove ourselves heroic to resist." Then passing to their own current dangerous position, he added cheerfully : " And if we ourselves are to get out of Manila to-night without experiencing either ' war ' or ' murder/ we shall have to be wary and inventive ! " Later in the day, when one of the men who had been invited had come in to see what was wanted, Brown said to him : "Sefior Ortiz, I wish you would engage, for the latter part of the evening, at least four good horses and carts, to be ready for you when you ask for them/ 1 " Horses and carts ? " was the astonished reply. " Yes, horses and carts. That is all you need say at present." To Senora Mateo, who had been quite successful in securing the proffer of service from the men on whom she had called at Brown's request, he said : " It would be well to have plenty of cords ready, 258 LOYAL TRAITORS say about a foot and a half or two feet long ; a good pile of them." This preparation was also made, without the asking of questions. Slowly the afternoon wore away for the besieged occupants of Senora Mateo's beautiful home. The senora had brought word home with her of the horrors of the morning's torture to which Isabela Adriano and Pedro Nigdan had been put, and the story did not tend to decrease Faith's indignation at the entire war nor Brown's determination to carry out his present plans for Faith's escape. In the latter part of the day the men who had been invited dropped in at intervals, contriving to enter the block without arousing the suspicion of the watchers. About dusk Brown indicated something of his plans : " They will not be likely to send more than a dozen men. In fact, I believe they will not send half that number, for they have no reason to believe that they have anything more to do than take a woman through the streets after dark. But we can make a good fight if they bring a dozen. Faith, you once said something about learning to shoot. Perhaps to-night you will have a chance to begin to practice, though I don't intend that you shall." When forms and outlines began to appear shadowy in the streets, and artificial light took the place of daylight, the watchers within noted the next movement on the part of the watchers without. LOYAL TRAITORS 259 "It is better than I feared," exclaimed Brown, who had been observing them. " There are still but the four of them. See, they have been conferring, and now they are dividing again to prevent your escape. Two are coming to the front door, and two are going around to the rear in order to cut off any retreat that way. This is going to be so easy there will be no fun in it. If they had brought a dozen I would not have let them in more than two at a time without a contest ; but we can manage these four all right. Let them come on." No lights had been lit inside the house, and only as the street lamps sent a dim glimmer was any- thing to be seen. With their usual brusqueness the Americans, each detective having a soldier with him, opened the doors and entered, those at the front door being a moment or two in advance of those at the rear. " Light up, old woman ! " was the polite demand. " We want your white woman. Bring her out. We know she is here." " Yes, she is here," answered Brown, very quietly. " Now, sefiors, do as I instructed you." Instantly half a dozen Filipinos were at the backs and sides of the two men who were already in. " If you say a word, I'll blow your brains out," remarked Brown, putting his revolver close to the head of the soldier. Discretion was the better part of valor for the would-be captors. They saw that, for the present, 260 LOYAL TRAITORS they must yield, and they retained their tongues and therefore their brains. They were quickly bound hand and foot by the cords which had been prepared, and lay helpless on the floor. The two entering at the rear of the house forced their way to the front, amid the gloom. They could not see what had been done, and had heard nothing. They were surrounded before they could get their bearings or even hail their comrades, and the same persuasion and treatment that had been applied to the first two laid them at once in a like condition on the floor. "Gentlemen," said Brown, " permit me to introduce myself as the husband of Mrs. Brown. The next time you undertake to seize a supposedly unprotected woman, be sure that she really has no protection, or else bring more soldiers with you. Lie where you are and keep still till we get ready to move you." Turning to the Filipino who had been instructed to arrange for the horses and carts, Brown said with a laugh : " Now, Senor Ortiz, can you guess what I wanted the carts for ? Bring them here, and help load these fellows in as soon as we can. Two carts will be enough." The company of Filipinos caught the infection of humor in the turn of the situation, and laughed with him, while the bound captives on the floor, fearing some kind of torture, squirmed and fretted. " Keep still, and no harm will happen to you," said LOYAL TRAITORS 261 Brown, " but if you make a noise, you will be made quiet." Sefior Ortiz returned shortly with the two carts, drawn by horses equal to a moderate load. " Lift the men in quietly,'' said Brown, " and be ready to get away at once." Turning to the prisoners, he added : <V\Ve are going to give you a ride to-night. If you agree to keep still, you may go without being gagged. But a man will ride over you with a revolver, and will shoot the first one who makes a cry. If you won't promise, you will be gagged at the start/' The men quickly promised, and they were lifted in. An armed Filipino mounted guard over each pair of prisoners in the carts. Brown had previously told Faith of his plan, saying, " Faith, dear, even if these men are taken away, you ought not to remain hefe, or to be in the city for months. Be ready, and go with me on one of the carts, out to the camp for a while." So she was now waiting, in readiness for the start. All the instructions were followed as quickly as possible, and Brown, in order to screen Senora Mateo from the annoyance of a search and of the upsetting of her house, sent the following note which he had prepared, instructing a Filipino to deliver it to General Maximus within the next hour, or to get it in some way to headquarters, so that the failure of the detectives to return with their prisoner might not cause the arrest of Senora Mateo herself : 262 LOYAL TRAITORS "GENERAL MAXIMUS: " Dear Sir: The four men who were sent to arrest Mrs. Brown are safe in my keeping. They will return to their post in due time unharmed, if you do as I wish. You cannot find them for the present, and it will not avail you to attempt to find them. I request that you ord^r the release of the two prisoners who, doubtless without your knowledge or consent, were put to torture this morning. My prisoners will be held as hostages for the safe treatment of the young woman and the man who have been so atrociously outraged. " Permit me to sign myself the husband of the white woman whose capture was sought, and to warn all interested that further efforts to secure her will be equally futile with the present attempt, she being well defended. " With all due respect, ^GEORGE BROWN." Off into the night then set the carts and their loads. The city was speedily left behind, and the country roads entered, the route northward by the Calle de Cervantes being taken as the best way of reaching the rural districts and friendly people. Silent and steady was the advance. The captives grunted at times, and muttered under their breath, but a reminder by the muzzle of the pistol was suffi- cient to keep them quiet. With only an occasional word by the others of the party, the carts drove on. LOYAL TRAITORS 263 About two hours before daybreak they came to a village far enough out to be safe from capture or dis- covery. Brown and his assistant knew some of the residents. Friends were awakened, the story was told, and the carts were unloaded of their stiffened and hungry freight and were started upon their return to the city. "If any one says that your horse looks tired," Brown said to one of the drivers, " tell him that he ate too much mince-pie for supper and did not sleep well." "And saw his grandmother, too, I suppose," said the Filipino, with a laugh. " Yes, and grandfather," rejoined Brown jokingly. Brown's plan was to remain in the village during the day, the little party to continue its way on foot, at night, in company with the four prisoners, toward the Filipino camp. They were now within easy dis- tance, and as everybody was friendly the attempt would be perfectly safe. The plan was carried out, and Brown and his wife, with their prisoners, were, a day or two after, safely established in friendly surroundings, secure from capture. Brown kept himself informed of the situation in Manila, soon learning that Isabela Adriano and Pedro Nigdan had been released the day after their torture, and that Senora Mateo's house had not been ran- sacked. A month after the above occurrences, he sent the 264 LOYAL TRAITORS captive detectives and soldiers back to Manila, giving one of them a sealed letter to General Maxim us. They were escorted by Filipinos until near the city, and were then told that they were free to go. The inclosure to the general was as follows : THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To THE FILIPINO REPUBLIC, Dr. For cartage of four men 15 miles, at 2$c (Mex.) each per mile $15.00 Duplicate charge for same (night work, by labor-rules of the U. S.) 15.00 For board of two detectives and two sol- diers, 30 days, at 75c each per day 90.00 For guarding said prisoners, 30 days . . . 45.00 $165.00 Cr. By 22 days' work on roads by four men, at 25c (Mex.) each per day $22.00 Balance due $143.00 Please make payment to Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. This note was also sent : " To GENERAL MAXIMUS : " I regret that I cannot give a certificate for good workmanship to your men. They are the very poor- est laborers on roads that we ever set to work. This LOYAL TRAITORS 265 will account for the low wages with which we have credited them, the same being all they have earned. We cannot afford to keep them at work any longer, and accordingly they are returned. " Very truly yours, " GEORGE BROWN." Thus Brown had his fun out of the adventure, sat- isfied to have Faith safe in his keeping, and not bear- ing any ill will toward those who had tried to secure possession of her. He decided, however, that he ought not to consent to her return to Manila until the Americans had become satisfied that she was probably out of the city permanently. 266 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XXVIII PREPARING FOR THE DAY OF JUDGMENT rife THE current of war ran strongly against the Filipino patriots. By an extreme of deception and perfidy, boasted of by the American general who made the capture, and rewarded by his promotion to the rank of brigadier-general, Aguinaldo had been made prisoner. Surrender in succession followed on the part of Tinio, Alejandrino, and Cailles, leaving as the principal generals in the field only Malvar in Luzon and Lukban in Samar, the latter striving to make headway against the American " Hell Roaring Jake/' after the issue of that general's infamous order to kill everybody over the age of ten and to burn promiscuously. Malvar was one of the most stout- hearted leaders on the Filipino side, while Lukban, resolute and determined, was sustained by an almost superstitious belief that destiny had in store some great service for country by him, a belief he had cherished ever since the cruel and memorable night in his rebellion against the rule of Spain, when, after being strung up and flogged so severely that three ribs were broken, he had been thrown to die on the floor of his cell, but had survived. LOYAL TRAITORS 267 George Brown was with Malvar's force, and Faith had not yet returned to Manila. One day the messenger who ran between the little army and the friends in Manila said to Brown : " Captain, you remember that prisoner, your friend, whom you took care of in Bontoc province and sent back to the Americans ? " " Captain Dexter ? " questioned Brown. " Of course I do ! I shall never forget him." " He was sent home, you know, to the United States. But he is back here again. I saw him in Manila two days ago. He is out of the army, and seems to have some employment in a business house on the Escolta." "When you go down next time, take a greeting from me to him, tell him where I am, and say that I should be glad to see him." Within a few days Captain Dexter the Filipino being correct in his identification was accosted by the messenger, and the greeting from Brown was delivered quietly, in a way not to attract the attention of others in the establishment where Dexter was engaged. "Tell Captain Brown," was the reply of Dexter, "that I will meet him in Malolos at nine o'clock in the evening three days from now. I have messages for him from America, and have been hoping to learn how to deliver them." He designated a house a certain distance from the railroad station, where the meeting might be held. 268 LOYAL TRAITORS Promptly at the appointed time both the old friends were at the rendezvous. A warm hand-shake, with a long, firm grip, told how much they still were to each other and how glad they were to meet once more. "How is it, Dexter," said Brown, "that you are over here again ? I never supposed you would come a second time." " It happened this way," replied Dexter. " The shattered leg did not heal, and they had to take it off at the knee. Then the first two fingers of my left hand were so badly mashed that Nature could not fix them up, and they had to come off, too. I walk fairly well now with my artificial limb and a cane, but I shall never skip like a lamb again. While I was lying around, healing up and doing more meditating than working, I thought over a good many things you had said and, Brown, old comrade ! I have come pretty much to your way of thinking." "Just as every honest man must do, Dexter, when the scales drop from his eyes," replied Brown. " I am heartily glad to hear you say so." "But I can't do much," continued Dexter. "If there is any quiet way in which my influence can be used to get justice for these outraged natives, I want to be called on. That's why I'm back here. I have secured employment in a commission house, where I can do book-keeping and attend to correspondence for the firm. I can't take the field, but I may help some of my mistaken countrymen to see things more nearly in the right way." LOYAL TRAITORS 269 "The path will open for you, Dexter. And you cannot do a better thing with the remainder of your life than work for right and justice. How are things at home? " " I saw your father. He is proud of you, and he believes that you will return vindicated." "And I am always proud of him," was the quick, filial response of Brown. " He was the making of me. Few boys ever had such a father." " I saw the Fessenden family, too. Of course their whole circle know all about Faith's coming out here. The family are still prosperous, and are united at last in their political ideas, not caring much whether their neighbors approve or not at least not caring if they disapprove. I told them, and told your father, that I should try somehow to hunt up you and Faith, if you were still in the land of the living when I arrived here, and they all charged me to give you their full encouragement." "I am afraid they also are traitors!" responded Brown, with a smile. "The fact is," Dexter went on, "there are a great many of that sort, and right among those, too, who uphold the Administration when they get to the polls ! So cowardly or so inconsistent are they ! What I mean is this : that lots of Republicans do not believe in this Philippine policy. I have talked with them. It is exceedingly unfortunate that widely differing interests are incorporated in the same polit- ical platform. They could not support Bryan and the 2 7 o LOYAL TRAITORS silver ticket ; therefore they put the prosperity of the States at home above justice to the Filipinos and above human life on the other side of the world. But they are heartily sick of this entire business and wish we were out of it. They say that the only thing to do now is to put it through, but they want to keep it out of sight as far as possible. It is a skeleton in the closet for them. They want to forget about it, and want the whole country to forget. They are begin- ning to claim that neither of the great political parties takes it up prominently any longer ; that it is* a dead issue ; and that sort of falsehood." " When God forgets, when He ceases to be a God of justice and the avenger of oppression,'* said Brown seriously, " then, and not till then, will the Philippine question be a dead issue/' " But where is your wife, Brown ? How have you managed to care for her during all this time, in the midst of the war ? " " At present she is very near here, in one of the villages. She was almost captured a while ago in Manila, but that affair is settled, and we think it is safe now for her to return and carry on her work there, provided she keeps in a secluded place and that the American detectives do not strike the scent again." "You had two companions, Brown/' said Dexter, " what has become of them ? " For a moment, Brown did not reply. Then he seemed to be trying to speak ; seemed to be trying to LOYAL TRAITORS 271 shape his words to fit his evident emotion. He put his hand on his friend's shoulder, and said, slowly and tenderly : " Dexter, they both now are citizens of the eternal country. The supreme test of loyalty to that country was applied to them, and they endured it to the full. They were true to its principles. They shrank not from the sacrifice it commanded. They swore allegiance to its God and to the universal brotherhood of man, and they kept their solemn oath kept it in their life-blood. Forces hostile to the Eternal Repub- lic of the Free attacked its spirit of truth, attacked its spirit of brotherly love for all mankind. In this extremity they entered into the breach ; and in the terrible collision of contending arms it happened, as it has frequently happened before, that the front rank of the defense went down went down gallantly to death." Awed by the sublime sentiment of the bereaved patriot, Dexter sat silent, though sympathetic. Then Brown, looking upward as if he again saw his lost friends by mortal eye, stretched out his hands toward the vision, and cried : " O Wheelwright ! O Douglass ! I pray God to give me strength and courage to hold out till the end, that I may be worthy to stand in your company again ! " Here once more, for a moment, he paused, but, commanding his emotion, said quietly : " Dexter, I alone of us three am left alive on 272 LOYAL TRAITORS earth. Both of those men, for their greatness, I loved as my own soul. Braver men never fought and died for the rights of man and the Republic of Mankind. While I remember Douglass and Wheel- wright, so long must I stand true to the cause for which they died. Death alone will justify me in ceasing the contest/' " You are equally the hero, Brown," replied Dexter heartily. " The fortunes of war have ended their work and crowned it ; yours is every whit as glorious and effective. They have not died to no purpose, and your work will bear abundant fruit. I feel this to be as sure as I believe that the American people have a conscience which, sooner or later, will lash them as by a scourge of scorpions and never cease to reproach them till fhey not only turn about, but also make reparation for their offense against the laws of God and the rights of man." " I trust you are a true prophet, Dexter. But the waiting seems long." " My faith is strong," replied Dexter, " and I believe we yet shall see it true of the Americans as Jehovah said to the Hebrews by the prophet Ezekiel : 'Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and for your abomina- tions/ " "I hope the time may come speedily/' exclaimed Brown, "but we have much to do here first/' Before the end of the interview Dexter arranged LOYAL TRAITORS 273 with Brown to have frequent communication with him, and then returned to the city. Shortly after this he sought the colonel of his old regiment, Harvey Allen, who for faithful service had recently been appointed to his present rank, having been first lieutenant under Dexter when Dexter was captain. " Colonel Allen," said Dexter, after greetings had been exchanged and they turned to consider current events in the islands, " I don't mind telling you that my opinion of this Philippine conquest has changed absolutely. I have come to believe that the army is in very bad business." " I hope you are not going to attack the army, Dexter. There seems to be a growing tendency to do that. You must stand by your old friends ! " " It is not the army as the army that I am attack- ing, colonel. What I attack is downright stupidity and wickedness, wherever it exists. I say this : that what is wrong for a private citizen to do is wrong for a soldier to do. You can't have two sets of morals, one for war and one for peace. Do you suppose God, when he charges up sin to men, makes a difference whether there are a lot of them together killing and lying, or only one of them alone ? " " It seems to me, Dexter, that you suddenly take a strange position. All civilized people hold that things are done in war that we must shut our eyes to. Everybody knows that horrible things are always done just as there have been done 274 LOYAL TRAITORS out here; things that won't stand exposure. But such is war." " That is just where the common opinion of civil- ized nations is wofully backward," was the earnest reply. " But why do you attack us especially in this Philip- pine broil ? " asked Colonel Allen. " Our army has done horrible things before ; the people do not seem to mind that. I have recently been recalling some of those things. You know that General Grant, who took part in the Mexican War, said of it that it was 'one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.' You know, too, that Guizot, the French historian, said of the same war : * Never was a nation treated with such injustice, such insolence, such perfidy, such cruelty, as Mexico was by the United States/ Again, everybody knows that the government has been murdering and cheating the American Indians for a hundred years. Why should we out here be picked upon just now as if we were doing something new ? We are not so horribly differ- ent from folks who lived before us/ 1 "That may be true. I know our people are kept in ignorance of many disgraceful things in our history. Our historians and writers of school-books do not dare to tell the truth. They praise the United States to the skies and mislead our children into thinking that we are absolutely perfect. Such a course is all wrong." The colonel brushed a speck of dust from the sleeve LOYAL TRAITORS 275 of his new uniform, and said, " I guess the army is about as good as an army can be, Dexter. Do you like book-keeping better than drill ? " But Dexter was in too serious a mood to be willing to permit complacency or to accept quiet sarcasm. " Another point just now, colonel/* he went on, "is that this army out here, or a proportion of it at any rate, seems to be a very tough lot. We know how it left its stragglers in the vile dens of Boston when it went through. We hear how soldiers conducted themselves with San Francisco maidens of good fam- ilies while they were waiting to embark. We know the moral rottenness of large numbers of the soldiers here, as shown in the daily courtmartials and in the official reports of the medical officers. I happen to have here the last report of the Judge-Advocate General of the army, showing a horribly immoral record. It seems as if many of our soldiers must have been the very scum and refuse of the worst cities in the country/ 1 " Heavens, Dexter ! don't, don't ! Why rake all this over ! What good will it do ? Do remember, man, that these men are not under the restraint of civilization here, as they were, partially at least, at home. They must not be held to strict account ! " "Not held to strict account? Why not? It is advertised by our loving friends that our army is the pick of American youth and courage and chivalry ! Let us find * where we are at/ I say. To be sure, I know that a large number of our men out here are 276 LOYAL TRAITORS exemplary in life and lofty in ideal. They come of fine families, and were blessed by their parents when they started from home, under the mistaken idea that they were coming in Freedom's name to fight for the enslaved. They'll never go back, however, as they came out ! And what of these others these scamps, these ruffians, these filthy libertines ? Just look at this list! more than 2600 dishonorable discharges in one year! That comes near to being two full regiments. Are our men such criminals as that ? And glance over the list of crimes. From murder down or up what crime in the United States puts men in prison for life that is not represented here ? Again, the nastiness of some of it ! horrible, foul, beastly crimes some of them are. The list is too long and too filthy to read. Don't blame me for call- ing attention to it : why was it ever printed ? Who gets it up? Who sends it out? It comes from Washington ! And these men are the representatives of the United States in the eyes of the world ! Do you wonder that nobody, except a few jingoes, praises the army ? that a growing number are beginning even to criticise the army ? " "I shut my ears to everything you say, Dexter. The men fight well and march well and endure suffer- ings bravely." "Brave fighting nay, more than that, patriotic self-sacrifice and heroism in battle covers the pages of history. Every nation, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and all around the LOYAL TRAITORS 277 world, can point to brave deeds of arms. The United States has no monopoly in that respect. Even the black savages of Africa are on record as doing deeds every whit as brave as any soldier of the United States ever did. We must accept the proved facts of history, even if they do puncture our little bubble of vanity. Bravery alone is not to avail in this new twentieth century. There must be justice and there must be morality." " Well, other nations have their disgraceful deeds as well as ours, if you are going to argue like this. Look at England dashing out the brains of Irish children and tossing their bodies on their bayonets. See Russia driving the Chinese into the Amoor River and forcing them to drown. The pages of history are just as full of such things as of brave deeds in battle." " I accept all established facts," replied Dexter, " and putting them all together I still maintain that this present war is a horrible disgrace to the fame of the United States, and that no heroism or suffering of individual soldiers will make any difference in the future history of it/' " The American people seem to stand well by the Administration ! We have their approval. If there is any guilt on anybody, they are as guilty as we are." " Right you are, there, colonel. And " " I say, Dexter, it's a deuced hot day, isn't it ! Or else it's your confoundedly painful talk. At any 278 LOYAL TRAITORS rate, I feel sort of faint. Excuse me a moment, won't you, while I order some sort of soft drink ! Perhaps then I can stand anything more you may have in reserve." The colonel, out of deference to his visitor, ordered some simple lemonade, asking in a deprecating sort of way if his guest would have even sugar in it, and then settled down to a continuation of the judgment day which he felt had opened for him and for all things else. LOYAL TRAITORS 279 CHAPTER XXIX MACARIA HENDERSON PLEADS IN VAIN " \ /OU were saying," remarked Dexter, " that the y American people as a whole, who support the present Administration in its Philippine policy, are just as guilty as the army is. The American people are sufficiently selfish, we must admit, to look out for their own prosperity before they care for the Filipinos. Their eyes are blinded by the almighty dollar. The United States is mightily prosperous just now. Her treasury is overflowing. But let financial reverses come, let the enormous expense, in addition to the wrong and disgrace, of this Philippine conquest come home to them, and they will take a different tone. And such reverses are not impossible." " I think, Dexter, they ought *at least to give the army credit for merely carrying out their will." " But they won't do anything of the sort, colonel. There is where you are mistaken, if you expect in that way to get out of this war with credit. Wait. The American people will yet charge off all this infamy upon the army, and say that they knew nothing of it at home. And they really do not by any means know one tenth part of it." " Then they ought to put the blame on the officers 280 LOYAL TRAITORS who are responsible for the censorship," expostulated Allen. " They will, in part, when they are stirred up enough over the outrages. Give them credit for that much. But the sober fact, colonel, is just this : that not one solitary man of all the Americans, from the humblest private in the ranks to the highest man at the top who has had a share in this Philippine disgrace, is going to get the slightest credit for anything that has been done since the fighting against the Filipinos began. Every man of you all is now on the defensive at the bar of history. Your friends and the country have to apolo- gize for you. Not one deed of heroism or self-sacrifice has been done out here to bring one atom of glory to the American army.'* "God knows, Dexter, our soldiers have suffered enough to win glory ! think of the deaths, think of the fevers, think of the shiploads of insane bundled back home to the States, think of that list you have put back in your pocket, think of the maimed bodies and shattered lives, and of the mothers' broken hearts ! " "But, colonel, suffering on the wrong side never counts for an ounce in weight ! Did you ever hear a burglar praised, or any one say that he ought to be let off because he did some very risky and hard things ? " " We are not burglars, Dexter/' " Are we not ? I was using only an illustration, but, if it comes to that, is not the United States act- LOYAL TRAITORS 281 ually burglarizing the Philippines ? At any rate, we are doing wrong, just as burglars do, and that is what is going to damn your memory as an army forever. Nobody from now to the end of time will ever have a good word for the American army in the Philippines, or for any soldier who belonged to it." "You go to an extreme, Dexter," the colonel answered. "We have lots of friends at home who believe we are right and who will stand by us." To which Dexter replied : " Truth lives longer than the friends of any indi- vidual man. Long after this generation is in its grave, when nobody with personal motives will sur- vive to defend your tarnished memory, the facts will remain on record your horrible slaughters of wounded, your plundering of the dead, your treach- ery, your deceit of trusting friends, your trampling on your own nation's principles and on the rights of the weak whom you ought to have protected, and who, at first, trusted that you would protect them." "People will forget by that time." "Not as long as the human mind recoils from atrocities 1 Is the massacre of Saint Bartholomew forgotten ? Your own official reports show that in a little more than one year 2854 Filipinos were killed to 1 193 wounded ! And some of the battles make a far worse showing than this against American mercy." "Dexter, you must make allowance for the pas- sions of war." "There are such passions, I know. War is war. 282 LOYAL TRAITORS But all these wounded who were afterwards slain were not slain in passion. It was pure malice. The edict, 'All over ten years of age/ was not promulgated in passion. And robbery of the dead is not passion. In fact, I do not know what it is ! Was the dead body of General Gregorio del Filar stripped in passion ? Was it not in sheer brutality ? in moral deadness ? Colonel, you know the whole story of del Filar and the rifling of his corpse, but I doubt if you have read this particular account which I have here of those occur- rences at Tilad Pass on the Cordilleras that December day in 1 899, when fifty-three out of the sixty Filipino body-guard of Aguinaldo were killed. I tell you that such resistance as that makes a man thrill with enthusiasm. It was Thermopylae over again. There is something which makes us praise a thing like that, and not one solitary deed has been done by any Amer- ican in the Philippines which begins to stir us like it. Let me read you what Richard Henry Little, war correspondent of The Chicago Tribune, wrote of the death of del Filar. I have kept the clipping out of pure love for the heroism it recounts. As for the crime which followed, the story of it will forever plague the Americans. This is what Little wrote : " It was a great fight that was fought away up on the trail of lonely Tilad Pass on that Saturday morn- ing of December 2. It brought glory to Major Marsh's battalion of the Thirty-third Volunteer In- LOYAL TRAITORS 283 fantry, who were the victors. It brought no discredit to the little band of Filipinos who fought and died there. Sixty was the number that at Aguinaldo's orders had come down in the pass that morning to arrest the onward march of the Americans. Seven were all that went back over the pass that night to tell Aguinaldo that they had tried and failed. Fifty- three of them were either killed or wounded. And among them, last to retreat, we found the body of young General Gregorio del Pilar. We had seen him cheering his men in the fight. One of our companies, crouched up close under the side of the cliff where he had built his first intrenchment, heard his voice con- tinually during the fight urging his men to greater effort, scolding them, praising them, cursing them, appealing one moment to their love of their native land and the next instant threatening to kill them himself if they did not stand firm. Driven from the first intrenchment, he fell slowly back to the second in full sight of our sharpshooters and under a heavy fire. Not until every man around him in the second intrenchment was down, did he turn his white horse and ride slowly up the winding trail. Then we who were below saw an American squirm his way out to the top of a high flat rock and take deliberate aim at the figure on the white horse. We held our breath, not knowing whether to pray that the sharpshooter would shoot straight or miss. Then came the spiteful crack of the Krag rifle, and the man on horseback rolled to the ground, and when the boys charging up 284 LOYAL TRAITORS the mountain-side reached him, the boy-general of the Filipinos was dead. "We went on up the mountain-side. After H company had driven the insurgents out of their second position and killed Pilar, the other companies had rushed straight up the trail and never stopped until they were far up above the clouds and there was no longer an insurgent in sight. As we went up the trail we passed dead Filipino soldiers. We counted ten in all. Some had been shot several times. We found bloody trails that led to places on the edge of the cliffs, where wounded men had either jumped or fallen off. We passed the second intrenchment high up on the trail. It was built of heavy rocks, well banked with earth. Just past this a few hundred yards we saw a solitary body lying in the road. The body was almost stripped of clothing, and there were no marks of rank left on the blood-soaked coat. But the face of the dead man had a look I had never noticed on the face of other dead men I had found in insurgent uniform on the field of battle, in the wake of an American firing-line. The features were clear- cut and the forehead high and shapely. I decided the man must have been an insurgent officer. A soldier came running down the trail. "' That's old Pilar/ he said. 'We got the old rascal. I guess he's sorry he ever went up against the Thirty-third. " ' There ain't no doubt about its being Pilar,' rattled on the young soldier. 'We got his diary, and his LOYAL TRAITORS 285 letters, and all his papers, and Sullivan of our com- pany's got his pants, and Snider's got his shoes, but he can't wear them because they're too small, and a sergeant in G company got one of his silver spurs, and a lieutenant got the other, and somebody swiped the cuff-buttons before I got here or I would have swiped them, and all I got was a stud-button and his collar with blood on it.' " So this was the end of Gregorio del Pilar. Only twenty-two years old, he managed to make himself a leader of men when he was hardly more than a boy, and at last had laid down his life for his convictions. Major Marsh had the diary. In it del Pilar had written under the date of December 2, the day he was killed : " * The general has given me the pick of all the men that can be spared and ordered me to defend the pass. I realize what a terrible task is given me. And yet I feel that this is the most glorious moment of my life. What I do is done for my beloved country. No sac- rifice can be too great ! ' " A private, sitting by the camp fire, was exhibiting a handkerchief. ' It's old Pilar's. It's got " Dolores Hosea " [Jose] on the corner. I guess that was his girl. Well, it's all over with Gregorio/ " ' Anyhow,' said Private Sullivan, < I got his pants. He won't need 'em any more.' " The man who had the general's shoes strode proudly past, refusing with scorn a Mexican dollar and a pair of shoes taken from one of the private insurgent 286 LOYAL TRAITORS soldiers. A private sitting on a rock was examining a curl of a woman's hair. ' Got the locket off his neck/ said the soldier. . . . " As the main column started on its march for the summit of the mountain a turn in the trail brought us again in sight of the insurgent general far down below us. There had been no time to bury him. Not even a blanket or poncho had been thrown over him. "A crow sat on the dead man's feet. Another perched on his head. The fog settled down upon us. We could see the body no longer. " ' We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone in his glory.' " And when Private Sullivan went by in his trousers, and Snider with his shoes, and the other man who had the cuff-buttons, and the sergeant who had the spur, and the man that had the handkerchief, and another man that had his shoulder-straps, it suddenly occurred to me that his glory was about all we had left him.' 1 " It was a great pity to treat him that way," said Colonel Allen, " but some of our dead men left sweet- hearts at home, too." " But our men are not fighting in defense of their rights and of their native land," rejoined Captain Dexter forcibly. " It has happened that here in Manila I have made the acquaintance of this Dolores Jos6. Poor creature ! she is completely broken. She LOYAL TRAITORS 287 makes great friends with Senora Alvarez, who has suffered the loss of all she has in this world and is reduced to the extremity of poverty. It is wonderful how these women encourage each other still and hope for their country's freedom." "Well, captain," said the colonel, "when all's said, I'm glad our regiment is about through. We have been ordered home. Our time has expired, and I am not one to go farther in this business." " Just a bit more about Senorita Jose, said Dexter. " On my way out I happened to meet the soldier who had the handkerchief which she had given to del Pilar, and which was robbed from his dead body. That gave me a personal interest in the matter. It was one of the most beautiful works of the needle I ever saw. It had the very finest birds and flowers and other ornaments worked upon it, and so exquisitely that I am sure no American' woman could ever hope to equal the beauty of the art. Yet the worker is set down by most Americans as equal only to an Apache Indian." "It's wretched business, Dexter! I confess it to you. And now that we are going home, there are some other puzzling questions to settle about our soldiers. You know what the worst have done, and you know that not all even of the best of the men have been what they ought to be out here. Some of them, however, are lawfully married to Filipino wives. Come around to-morrow and see how I shall have to settle some of these cases. I have used all my influ- 288 LOYAL TRAITORS ence to have the married ones remain here like decent men, to take care of their families ; but they are kicking, and I expect trouble." Captain Dexter promised to come, and went away encouraged to think that perhaps he had made an impression upon the mind of one American colonel who might have some influence with the higher powers. The next day, when Captain Dexter, getting time off from his bookkeeping, called on Colonel Allen, he found him in the midst of a singular group. American soldiers, officers, and Filipino women with babies in their arms combined to make up the gathering. " Now, madam/' the colonel was saying just as Captain Dexter entered the room, " what is your name, and what do you want to say to me?" The person addressed was the tallest and most superior looking among the Filipino women there. "I am Senora Patrick O'Flaherty, most excellent colonel," replied the woman proudly, "and I ask you to give an honorable discharge to my husband, as you said you would do to any soldier who would stay here with his family." " Yes, I did say so, and I expect to carry out my promise. Come here, O'Flaherty." A ruddy-faced Irishman stepped up and saluted. " You remember what I said, that every soldier who remains with his family here shall have an honorable discharge." Yis, sorr." LOYAL TRAITORS 289 " Are you ready to promise to stay and take care of your wife and child ? " "And did any one t'ink I wud be after marrying a swate gir-rl and living wid her, and then run away from her and the babby ? Give me an honorable dischar-rge, sorr, and I'll stay, thank ye." "All right; I'm glad of it. You shall have the papers. Senora, here's your husband, and I wish you much happiness." " Many thanks, most excellent colonel," exclaimed the grateful wife. Then, turning to her cheerful husband, she added : " Come home with me, Patrick, and I'll make a good Filipino of you." "Yis, begorra," said Patrick, his countenance all one broad grin, "and I'll spake Spanish to bate the band, me gir-rl ! " This however, was the only instance in that com- pany in which any American soldier would remain and care for the woman he had married. During the time that another couple were before the colonel, and while he was trying in vain to influ- ence the man to do his duty by his wife, Captain Dexter witnessed with pain a side incident. There was a soldier whom he had heard addressed as Lieutenant Henderson, who called his wife by her first name of Macaria. She had a young baby on her arm, and she was pleading with the man not to desert her. He was rough and repelling. " Remember the baby, Charles," she pleaded, "even if you care nothing for me. He is yours. Remember 290 LOYAL TRAITORS that we were lawfully married by the priest and that I was not like a great many other women." " Oh, fudge ! " was his rough answer. " You better go home and mind your baby if you think so much of him. He will grow up just like any of the rest of your niggers. You'll get along all right, somehow or other. I don't propose to stay in this infernal country, and I don't propose to take you to the States. You have made your bed and you have got to lie in it." "But you promised me, Charles, that you would not treat me as other men treated their wives. You promised me you would never go away." " That was a good while ago. I have changed my mind." " But the baby, Charles ! the baby ! You can't go away and leave him." " Ain't he your baby ? Ain't you his mother, and ain't you goin' to take care of him ? I guess you'll find out that he is yours as much as he's mine, and that you have got to take care of him or let him starve." " Oh, Charles ! " exclaimed the distressed mother. " Take us both to your country with you ! " " Not by a long shot ! I have had all I want of you and of your infernal country ; so now you clear out and go off. I am through talking with you." Brutally he turned his back upon her, and Senora Charles Henderson, once Senorita Macaria Lingat, took up her baby, her shame, and her widowhood, and went sadly back to her father's house. As she was LOYAL TRAITORS 291 going slowly out, Captain Dexter's ear caught the words : " When baby is big enough, he will fight the Amer- icans ! " This scene witnessed by Dexter was typical of others. Colonel Allen's persuasion was ineffective, and the regiment went home with another heavy charge in the long score which the future has laid up against the American people for their treatment of peoples weaker than themselves, struggling for their independence. 292 LOYAL TRAITORS CHAPTER XXX AN OATH WHICH CANNOT BIND CAPTAIN DEXTER maintained frequent com- munication with Brown. Under his protection Faith returned to the city, and her work was resumed, but with greater caution against capture. She found a haven of refuge in the poor apartments of Senora Alvarez, and she formed a warm friendship for the bereaved Dolores Jos6, whose sad situation, as well as noble character, appealed strongly to her sym- pathy, to her sense of justice, and to her patriotism. Brown, in the field, worked incessantly, to the limit of his strength, to rally the declining military fortunes of the Filipinos. Up to his physical and mental capacity he toiled on, being in the very innermost councils of the patriots, bringing to their service all the military ability he could command and all the civil judgment and foresight he could extract from his Massachusetts experience, joined to his insight into Filipino character. Wherever civil administration was possible, there his advice to establish it was taken. Wherever a difficult military question was raised, he was among the leaders, sure to be consulted before the policy was finally settled. After the capture of Aguinaldo, the Filipino patriots LOYAL TRAITORS 293 closed up their ranks for further service. Brown insisted that the fighting should never end. He knew that tame submission by the Filipinos, like that of the Porto Ricans, would seal the fate of the country. Only as the Americans realized that they had a bad bargain would they ever consider the question of Filipino nationality. Submission, he foresaw, would leave the matter of independence a mere academic question, a topic to be discussed in the abstract by American philanthropists and defeated politicians, who might lament the wrong and point out what might have been, but who would have no perceptible effect upon the land-hungry adventurers who wanted the Philippine islands only to despoil them, and who regarded the bodies of the Filipinos they had merci- lessly and treacherously killed as merely so much fertilizer to increase the value of the land for agricult- ural purposes. He knew the type of politician who controlled the Philippine policy, even as the beet-sugar men forced upon the President and the nation an infamous policy toward Cuba ; and he realized in his inmost soul that the only salvation for the Filipinos was in making the islands so hot to hold that the hungry, reckless politicians would find it unprofitable to persist in their course, even though it was other men's sons whom they were sending out from America to moral rottenness and physical death in the Philip- pines, and other people's money which was paying the war expenses, in order that they themselves might wax fat from Philippine mines and forests. 294 LOYAL TRAITORS So Brown opposed to the utmost the Filipinos who argued for peace. He knew his countrymen better than they did. He believed that it was absolutely right to fight to the bitter end, even until the Filipino people were utterly wiped from the face of the earth. Any other course he regarded as of doubtful morality, as well as of doubtful expediency. He held many Filipinos to this view, and they struggled persistently on. General Malvar was his chief reliance, and for months the unequal contest with the American troops was followed by retreat, rally, and another stand. Ammunition was husbanded. Supplies of every kind were served out sparingly. People of the localities in which they were operating gave of their means as liberally as they could, and the war dragged on. But the power of the Filipinos to resist was grad- ually overcome. United States troops devastated the country, destroying the supplies, and carrying off the people under penalty of death into the concentration camps. Absolute inability to fight further was a con- dition becoming more and more wide-spread. Leader after leader surrendered his command, and the pile of rifles, some of which had been supplied by Admiral Dewey to the Filipinos under Aguinaldo, now thrown upon the ground in the hopelessness of despair, grew larger and larger. But Malvar still held out, strong of heart in himself and encouraged by Brown's persistent heroism. One of the notable incidents of Malvar's leadership, show- LOYAL TRAITORS 295 ing the true greatness of the patriot, was his issue of a proclamation instructing his followers to exercise clemency to all American soldiers whom they might capture, especially to those who were intoxicated, because they were then in a condition not to be responsible for their actions. This spirit may well be contrasted to that shown in General Bell's report as quoted a few paragraphs further on. Months passed, and the ebb tide of Filipino fortune continued to run out. Malvar could keep the field with so large a force no longer. He came to terms and laid down his arms. But a small company of his command, to which Brown was attached, refused to join in the surrender. No better description of the pursuit whereby the patriots were harried as by bloodhounds can be found than in the official report of Brigadier-General J. Franklin Bell to Major-General Lloyd Wheat on. And the method described in that report was said by General Wheaton to be a model of the way in which to suppress insurrections in like circum- stances. A portion of what General Bell said is this : " The policy of concentration no sooner went into effect than the insurgents became thoroughly alarmed and aroused, and the result was felt by increased activity on their part, inspired by resentment. As a consequence, during the month of December we had many sharp engagements and numbers of unimportant 296 LOYAL TRAITORS skirmishes, but this activity on their part resulted in such vigorous and relentless pursuit from our troops that they became thoroughly demoralized, and since January 10 there has been no armed encounter worthy of record here. We have pursued them ever since with relentless persistence. Not waiting for them to come out of hiding, we have penetrated into the heart of every mountain-range, searching every ravine and mountain-top. We have found their barracks and hidden supplies in the most unexpected and remote hiding-places. We have burned hundreds of barracks and destroyed their stores, and have pursued them so persistently by night and day for the last two months that they ceased to stay more than twenty-four hours in any one place. We have kept our troops supplied in mountains where no roads existed. These troops camped by companies at strategic points on trails, each company sending three or four detachments to bivouac at points radiating several miles from the base of the company. With five or six days' rations left in charge of a man or two, those detachments started out from their bivouacs and searched the mountains by night and day. In this way it was rendered unsafe for insurgents to travel at any time, and, having no longer anywhere to hide themselves, they became so scattered and demoralized that they have continued to surrender and be captured in shoals. " Upon the surrender of Malvar we one and all had the satisfaction of realizing that the most determined, ignorant, and persistent enemy of good order had been LOYAL TRAITORS 297 literally and unequivocally thrashed into unconditional submission to properly constituted authority, after he had scorned many opportunities to submit without inflicting hardship on his people. We have succeeded in entirely turning the people against their leader, and toward the end of operations many thousands of Batangas natives joined us in our determined hunt for their fugitive leader. Realization of the fact that the people had finally turned against him greatly aided in bringing Malvar to his knees. We have captured and forced to surrender eight thousand or ten thousand persons actively engaged in one capacity or another in the insurrection. We have secured about 3300 rifles and 625 revolvers, with many thousand bolos, rounds of ammunition, etc. The people have now all returned to their homes, where they can live free from molestation or apprehension, and with a feeling of security for lives and property, which they have been unable to enjoy for years. They appear to be relieved from a heavy burden, and glad that the delusion has run its course." * * Reports of the horrors of General Weyler's reconcentration policy in Cuba were the exciting cause of the interference by the United States to secure the independence of Cuba. Therefore, the United States government having enforced a censorship of the press so that its own deeds in the Philippines should not become known to the people at home, the following description now that the censor- ship has been removed is of large interest. Writing of General Bell's doings in Batangas province, a correspondent whose letter is dated October 12, 1902, and which was printed in the newspaper, La Renacimiento, of Manila, October 1 7, says : "Although reconcentration is a thing of the past, yet its sad and 298 LOYAL TRAITORS A few weeks later was promulgated the Am- nesty Proclamation of President Roosevelt, July 4, 1902. " A full and complete pardon and amnesty ... for the offenses of treason or sedition " was proclaimed, with the proviso that the persons who sought the benefit of it should take oath that they accepted the sovereignty of the United States and would maintain tragic effects are still felt in this district, and still the people lie crushed beneath hunger and wretchedness. No work is done and nothing is harvested from the fields. " As a result of such great poverty, assaults and robberies occur with increasing frequency, notwithstanding the efforts of the armed police, who work night and day to put an end to freebooting. This freebooting originated as the indirect result of reconcentration, which placed many where they were obliged to have recourse to robbery to preserve their life. If, instead of bullets, there should be sent rice and salt, I believe that these brigands would again become law- abiding. " In order that every one may convince himself of the awful con- sequences of the reconcentration ordered by Bell, I give the follow- ing statistics, which are of an official character and cover the period from January I to June 30 of this year [showing the enormous excess of deaths over births] : January, 1 3 births, no marriages, 1 79 deaths ; February, 328 births, one marriage, 222 deaths ; March, 331 births, no marriages, 429 deaths ; April, 248 births, 50 marriages, 752 deaths; May, 229 births, 90 marriages, 763 deaths; June, 148 births, 36 marriages, 1435 deaths. Total births, 1297 ; total marriages, 177 ; total deaths, 3780 ! Cold horror strikes the heart at such figures, and the hair stands on end. "We people of Batangas most anxiously await the coming of General Miles. When he comes, he shall hear from us the bloody history of the reconcentration. After having laid before him a thousand facts, we shall simply ask to know whether all of this is in conformity with the laws of war, as has been asserted by General Bell in a town in this province," LOYAL TRAITORS 299 true faith and allegiance thereto, and that they imposed upon themselves " this obligation voluntarily, without mental reservation or purpose of evasion." Information concerning the proclamation and the conditions attached to it were taken to Brown and his company, which was still under Filipino command, by one of their late comrades in arms, who went out from Manila with instructions from the Americans to per- suade them to surrender, if possible. Faith Brown, with two women companions, went with him to the camp, ready to use her influence to encourage her husband to persevere in his apparently hopeless cause. In the seclusion of the forest stronghold where the meeting occurred, the surrendered Filipino justified his course, and tried to persuade Brown, by means of the Amnesty Proclamation, that he and his friends ought to follow his example/ " We cannot fight any longer," he said. " Our ammunition is gone ; our supplies are cut off. We can promote our cause better by giving up the fight and appealing to the reason and justice of the Amer- icans." " Every man must determine for himself what he will do in this crisis," replied Brown. "You have chosen your course, and I will choose mine. But which ever course we take, we must agree upon one thing, that the struggle for Filipino nationality shall never be given up." " I shall never give it up," was the reply which came 300 LOYAL TRAITORS with equal vigor from the quick lip and flashing eye of Malvar's man. " Everybody knows that the oath of allegiance amounts to nothing. President Roosevelt says I must swear that I take the oath voluntarily. Of course I take it voluntarily." " Nothing of the sort," interjected Brown. "He says to me," went on the Filipino, "'You must eat a toad.' And he holds a pistol to my head and tells me that he will shoot me if I do not eat it. Of course I eat it. Then he says : * You say it is a sweet toad and you like it, or I will blow your brains out.' And Secretary Root holds another pistol into my other ear and cries out : ' Say you like to eat them and always will like to eat them.' So of course I like them. What else can I do? Of course I take the oath voluntarily. Pres- ident Roosevelt knows that I take it voluntarily, just as he knows that I eat toads because I like them. You had better surrender and eat yours. They will kill you if you refuse." " The oath is a farce," broke out the Filipino cap- tain of Brown's company. " Every American knows that not one solitary Filipino takes that oath volun- tarily, and that they force a lie from every Filipino who takes it." " What do they care if it is a lie ? Are men who torture and kill Filipinos only because they are fight- ing for their rights going to stop at a lie ? " replied the messenger. " The oath is worthless unless it is given by a free LOYAL TRAITORS 301 act/' said Brown. "They know that, and so they put in the little trick of making the Filipinos say that they impose it upon themselves voluntarily. I am not free unless I can choose.'' "They don't care for your technicalities," said the messenger. "But I care for justice and for my rights," ex- claimed the Filipino captain. " Let them give me a genuine free choice. Let them give me back my country which they have ravaged, my people whom they have slaughtered, my church which they have burned, my liberty which they have changed into exile, my two sons whom they tortured and shot, my wife who has died from grief and suffering. Give me back all these. Then offer me a free choice between allegiance to the United States and the Filipino Republic. If I then swear loyalty to the United States, it is my free act and I am bound. But not a sol- itary Filipino can voluntarily take an oath of allegiance to the United States under present conditions." All listened in silence to the tremendous outburst of the Filipino hero and patriot. Faith clapped her hands and exclaimed warmly : " Every one here knows you speak the truth." Then, half in scorn, he went on : " Are we to be sure that the Americans have so much regard for the sacredness of their word them- selves? Men who would use us as military allies, supplying us with arms to help conquer their foes, and then conquer us in turn, have small moral sense. 302 LOYAL TRAITORS Wait and see how they keep the treaty they have made with the Sultan of the Sulus. I believe they will tear it to tatters just as soon as they think it will serve their selfish purpose. What regard have they for oaths or treaties or national honor, or for anything else that stands in the way of power and money ? Wait a few months ! Just as soon as they find the treaty irksome, or think they can better themselves, they will say it ought to be abrogated! I predict that. You cannot trust the Americans." His denunciation was vehement. His eyes fairly flamed with honest wrath. And his mental storm, an outburst of righteous indignation and sense of wrong, broke out again : "The American Administration is hypocritical. What do oaths signify to them? They pretend to love freedom and all people aspiring to be free. We were free. We had absolutely conquered our in- dependence from Spain and set up our own republic, whose laws were respected, which protected life and property, and which preserved the peace. President Roosevelt ought to recognize the facts. It is unworthy of a mighty and generous nation, itself the greatest and most successful republic in history, to refuse to stretch out a helping hand to a young and weak sister republic just entering upon its career of independence. But he proposes never to grant us our rights, or to permit one solitary ray of light in our depth of dark- ness and despair to bid us hope that we may ever be an independent nation." LOYAL TRAITORS 303 Then turning to Brown as if, though recognized as a loyal friend, he represented the hostile or indifferent part of the American people, the Filipino captain again challenged fiercely the validity of the proposed oath of allegiance : " Why do you white people think us such fools ? Why do they fool themselves so much? President Roosevelt knows all these things. The Commission knows them. General Chaff ee knows them. Every official knows that this oath is a mere sham, a humbug, a disgrace to the official who administers it, a bit of worthless breath to the man who takes it, and the scorn of the God who hears it." " You are right about that ! " broke in George Brown. "This is a sample of the folly and blindness of the army at every point. The American Admin- istration is just torpid and savage enough in its con- science to believe that the form of an oath will sanc- tify a lie and will condone murder." Faith and the captain and the Filipinos in the com- pany joined in a murmur of approval, while Malvar's man added : " That is what we all believe, and so it does not hurt us to take the oath." Brown became more intensely indignant, and as- serted : " If the man who takes the oath is bound by it ; if it is wrong to break it ; if it is a moral transaction all around, then it is right that the oath be imposed ; then the conquerors have right, on their side. But if 304 LOYAL TRAITORS that is good morals, then an unjust conqueror has only to impose an oath of allegiance, taken * voluntarily/ in order to get a good moral standing in his wickedness. But a man cannot, under pressure like that, renounce his rationality, any more than he can be bound by an enforced oath to commit crime. Can God be circum- vented by man in that way ? Can President Roose- velt, by an enforced oath of allegiance, outwit God and say to him : ' Thus far shalt thou come, and no far- ther, with thy moral law and the rights of man, because I propose to settle this matter myself ' ? " "George," exclaimed Faith, "you never said a truer word than that in your life. I know you will never surrender and that you will never take this silly oath of allegiance." "But the Americans care nothing for what you say/' cried Malvar's man. " If you fight, they will kill you. If you surrender, you must impose the oath upon yourself voluntarily." " That is their soldier-argument," rejoined Brown. " A soldier has no use for conscience or reason. His major premise is a gun ; his minor premise is a bullet ; his conclusion is a dead man. That is the sum of his logical powers. He argues nothing, except by brute force. His brains are in his fists and he has no con- ception of any higher reason." "Do just as you please, Captain Brown," was the surrendered man's reply. "Fight on, if you can get any ammunition to fight with and any men to keep you company. But I believe it is time for us to rest LOYAL TRAITORS 305 and try if our wits will not serve us better than our rifles. Oaths which we know do not bind us, and which we know President Roosevelt knows do not bind us, are no trouble to us. We are just as loyal to the Filipinos as ever, and we hate the Americans as much as ever, except such men as you who recognize our rights." " But, my friend," answered Brown, " I cannot agree that it is right to surrender and take the oath volun- tarily, even if we recognize that the oath amounts to nothing. I cannot find any common standard for measuring the value of truth and the value of a man's life. I believe that it is wrong ever to surrender. We ought not to consent to a wrong in order to save our lives. If we do, and justify it as right, then we say that our lives are worth more than the truth is. Perhaps most men would lie to save their lives ; yet how highly we honor the man who scorns to lie to save his life ! " " If you keep up the fighting when you are so few, you make yourselves mere guerillas, outlaws, out- side of the rights of war/* " Who makes the few survivors in a great struggle guerillas and outlaws ? It is the international laws which are fixed by the Great Powers. They rest on might and not on right. When a man is set upon by murderers, must he cease to struggle because his strength is almost gone ? What is the meaning of ' liberty or death ' ? I know it is a terrible proposi- tion, but if it had not been that war-cry put in practice 3 o6 LOYAL TRAITORS by generations of brave men, this world would be a world of slaves to-day. If men ought to surrender in order to save their lives when their cause seems hopeless and death seems certain if they persist, then all who have died for liberty ought to have saved their lives by not fighting. Jesus Christ himself ought to have surrendered his principles, pleased his enemies, and avoided crucifixion." " You may argue, and argue, and the United States will shoot you ! That is the practical bearing of the case." "The United States may shoot I cannot prevent that. But I know that a patriot is not an outlaw be- cause he prefers to die rather than surrender. He is not wrong, and never can be wrong, if he fights the conqueror to the last. Your guerilla argument has no moral ground to rest upon, but only the recognition of force." " Why cannot you see that there is more hope for independence by peaceful agitation than by force of arms ? " " Because the United States will never permit civil agitation. This Administration, backed by the same influences that are strangling Cuba and that are plun- dering the masses of the people of the United States through trust privileges, has got its grip on the Phil- ippines and never intends to let go." " It has been officially proclaimed that the ' insur- rection* no longer exists." " That makes no difference. It is a mere politician's LOYAL TRAITORS 307 trick. The infamous sedition law, enacted by five Americans sitting in Manila, selected by the Adminis- tration, is still in force, in spite of all pretended limita- tion. I know what I say, for I have a copy of it in my pocket. It is still law, and will be law as long as the Americans remain, that any one who does any acts ' which tend to stir up the people against the lawful authorities or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the government, or who shall knowingly conceal such evil practices/ shall be pun- ished severely. They can do anything they please under that law. They are their own judges of it. We are helpless. You are altogether wrong in trust- ing the benevolence of the Administration." Here Faith, brave and loyal, came to the support of her husband : " It is a contest for the women/' she said, " as well as for the men. We will help to keep the spirit of resistance alive. We will find supplies for this com- pany in the field. We will work in Manila, right under the eyes of the United States spies who are always watching the Filipinos. We will continue our women's organizations in every province. Mothers will teach their sons to fight for independence and wives will encourage their husbands in the field. The United States is fighting a united nation, and the struggle will never end short of victory or annihilation." Brown added one further point against surrender : " Our great War President, in dedicating the cem- etery on a great battle-field where thousands of patriot 3 o8 LOYAL TRAITORS heroes died for their country, said we can never forget the words : ' It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we may highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain/ I have learned that, in one way or another, more than five hundred thousand Filipinos have lost their lives in consequence of this iniquitous warfare by the Americans. It is for us to see that those lives have not been spent in vain." Further efforts at persuasion were abandoned. Malvar's man pressed his message no more. A little council of war was held. The weakness of the patriot force was recognized. They were not fight- ing for the sake of martyrdom, but for success in their holy cause. Time must be invoked by them in which to allow events to develop and the facts in the Philip- pines to become known to the American people. To the little band Brown said : " If we can only hold out till the mass of American voters realize what has been done out here, and what conquest means, what it costs, who pays for it, and who enjoys the results, we shall yet win. But it will be a long and weary struggle against terrible odds. Many of us will not see the end of it. The American generals will hunt us as if we were criminals. They will say we are only robbers. They will try to deceive the people at home, even though they know we are soldiers and that robbers never move in force as LOYAL TRAITORS 309 strong as we can muster. Having thus characterized us, they will add that highway robbery shall be pun- ished by death and that no proof of the offense will be needed other than the fact that men are found banded and under arms. They will make it treason, under their pretended civil administration, to talk of Filipino independence. They will do all that tyrants need to do to hold an unwilling, alien people in sub- jection. But the whole Filipino people will agitate, both by reason and by arms, until they win. The American Administration is not divine or infallible. Its policy will surely be repudiated. The American masses are generous. Give them the facts. Show them the cost and the wrong, and they will be with us. But it will take years, and we must prepare to fight a long time." "Why need it take so long? Your people are intelligent. They have many papers. They read much/' " Yes, but they are political partisans, too. They have strong party spirit. This must be overcome. They are ruled by a few capitalists, and their press is largely controlled by capital. The cause of the common people, even in their own land, never has a fair chance. It will take a long time to overcome these tremendous odds." The meager band agreed to avoid decisive engage- ments, to spare their strength in every possible way, to secure support in as many parts of the islands as possible, and to keep the Americans constantly on 3 io LOYAL TRAITORS the move pursuing them but never finding them, if wit could avail. They knew that the Filipino people would be at heart always their friends, and that sup- plies could be had if caution were used in not exposing their benefactors to punishment. When the council was ended, the officers, with Brown among them and his wife standing by approv- ing his course, raised their hands to heaven and pledged their sacred honor never to abandon their cause until Filipino independence had been secured. The ambassador then returned to Manila, Faith and the companions who had come with her accom- panying him to begin a new life of activity for Filipino independence in the way of aid and comfort to the men in arms, while the Filipino company, with Brown, resumed its arms to keep alive the fire of patriotism and the form of resistance. So another chapter in the history of the war was 'begun. RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2- month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW ' 091996 20,000 (4/94) i> YB U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES