? Take, for
instance, General Smith's position when he was sent to Samar, with
instructions to wipe out the insurrection there. He is said to have issued
instructions to kill everybody found in arms that was over ten years of
age, and to burn the country, if it was necessary to wipe out the
insurrection, and the result is that in ninety days or less he did wipe
out the insurrection, and without any great loss on our side or on the
part of the enemy. Now they are denouncing him for a threat,--not an act.
The temptation to retaliate must have been very great, for the treatment
the Ninth Infantry received from those savages was nothing short of
murder, followed by the most horrible mutilation, by a people who
pretended to be their friends and at peace. In the ninety days he was
operating there General Smith brought the island to peace, everybody in it
had surrendered, and it is quiet. If he had made war under the methods
advocated, allowing no one to be hurt, in all probability the subjugation
of the island would have required a year's time, and there would have been
ten times the suffering and loss of life than actually occurred. He simply
followed the plan of war that was pursued by Grant, Sherman, and other
commanders in the Civil War; that is, made it just as effective and short
as possible. You know Sherman's position was that after a certain length
of time when an enemy had been whipped, it was their duty to cease making
war, and if they did not do so, he considered that any means were
justifiable in order to bring it to an end. He stated this very clearly in
his St. Louis speech. He stated the case as follows:

I claim that when we took Vicksburg, by all the rules of civilized
warfare the Confederates should have surrendered, and allowed us to
restore peace in the land. I claim also that when we took Atlanta they
were bound by every rule of civilized warfare to surrender their
cause, which was then hopeless, and it was clear as daylight that they
were bound to surrender and return to civil life; but they continued
the war, and then we had a right under the rules of civilized warfare
to commence a system that would make them feel the power of the
Government, and make them succumb. I had to go through Georgia to let
them see what war meant. I had a right to destroy, which I did, and I
made them feel the consequences of war so fully they will never again
invite an invading