[The following is a reprint of an article that appeared originally in the
New York Evening Post.--G. M. D.]
The New York Evening Post has thus been "called down" by General Grenville
M. Dodge, who is well known throughout Iowa and the Nation as one of the
leading Corps Commanders of the Union Army during the Civil War:
_To the Editor of the Evening Post_:
As one who has had some experience in the necessities, usages, and
cruelties of war, which always prevail during a campaign in an enemy's
country, I am surprised at the position of your journal, and its
bitterness against the alleged action of Major Glenn, Lieutenant
Conger, and Assistant Surgeon Lyon.
The testimony of Sergeant Riley, upon which you base your attack on
these officers, goes to prove that they gave the water cure to a
Filipino who had been made presidente in one of the provinces by our
Government, who had taken the oath of allegiance to our country, and
then used his official position to cover his acts as captain of an
insurgent company which was acting in arms against our Army and within
our lines. Therefore, he was a traitor and a spy, and his every act
was a violation of the laws of war, and branded him an outlaw and
guerilla. If these are the facts, under the usages of war these
officers were justified in what they did; in fact, if they had shot
the traitor they would never have been called to account, and in all
probability this is what would have happened to him in the Civil War.
An officer has great latitude under such circumstances, and it is not
safe or fair to condemn one for almost any act that detects a traitor
and spy in arms against the Government which he has sworn to protect,
and which has put him in a position of trust. You ignore entirely this
side of the question, and only treat Major Glenn's acts as cruelties
to peaceable Filipino citizens. I can remember when the journals of
this country upheld and applauded an officer who, in the Civil War,
ordered a man shot if he attempted to haul down the American flag, and
cannot understand the present hysterics of some journals over the
terrible violation of the laws of war in punishing a traitor, caught
in the act, with the water cure only. The treatment may have been
severe, but it is not permanently harmful.
I am astonished that these fearfully wrought-up journals have no word
of commendation for our soldiers in the Philippines, who have suffered
untold cruelties, assassinations, burning by slow fires, burial alive,
mutilations, and atrocities; who have submitted to every indignity
without resentment or complaint; and I have been greatly gratified
over their excellent behavior under such trying circumstances. In
their comments these journals are very careful not to say why these
punishments are given to such traitors, knowing well if they did our
people would look upon the acts as one of the necessities of war, and
would wonder at the leniency of Major Glenn and his command.