And State Papers 313 



was such failure, and the Government at home, the 

 civil authorities in the Philippines, and above all 

 our gallant Army, had to do their work amid a 

 storm of detraction. The Army in especial was at 

 tacked in a way which finally did good, for in the 

 end it aroused the hearty resentment of the great 

 body of the American people, not against the Army, 

 but against the Army's traducers. The circum 

 stances of the war made it one of peculiar difficulty, 

 and our soldiers were exposed to peculiar wrongs 

 from their foes. They fought in dense tropical 

 jungles against enemies who were very treacherous 

 and very cruel, not only toward our own men, but 

 toward the great numbers of friendly natives, the 

 most peaceable and most civilized among whom 

 eagerly welcomed our rule. Under such circum 

 stances, among a hundred thousand hot-blooded and 

 powerful young men serving in small detachments 

 on the other side of the globe, it was impossible 

 that occasional instances of wrongdoing should not 

 occur. The fact that they occurred in retaliation for 

 wellnigh intolerable provocation can not for one 

 moment be admitted in the way of excuse or justifi 

 cation. All good Americans regret and deplore 

 them, and the War Department has taken every 

 step in its power to punish the offenders and to pre 

 vent or minimize the chance of repetition of the 

 offence. But these offences were the exception and 

 not the rule. As a whole our troops showed not 

 only signal courage and efficiency, but great hu 

 manity and the most sincere desire to promote the 



