Paragraph 16 is:

"Military necessity does not admit of cruelty--that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confession. It does not admit of the use of poison in any way nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy, and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.

Now, perfidy is defined later in paragraph 117, which declares:

"It is justly considered an act of bad faith, of infamy, or fiendishness to deceive the enemy by flags of protection.

Paragraph 65 is:

"The use of the enemy's national standard, flag, or other emblem of nationality for the purpose of deceiving the enemy in battle is an act of perfidy.

Is not the uniform an emblem of nationality? If it be an act of perfidy-the use of that emblem of nationality to deceive the enemy in battle-is it any less an act of perfidy to use it to steal upon him and deceive him when he is not in battle and is in his own quarters? This is also prohibited by the convention of The Hague, which must have been well known to all our officers, which had been signed by the representatives of this government, although its formal approval by the senate took place this winter. I suppose if it be perfidy now, according to the unanimous opinion of the senate, and was perfidy before, according to the concurrent action of twenty-four great nations, the question when we formally ratified the treaty becomes unimportant.

Article 23 of the convention declares: "(f) To make improper use of a flag of truce, the national flag, or military ensigns, and the enemy's uniform "-is specially prohibited. That is classed in that article also with the use of poison and poisoned arms.

So, Mr. President, the act of Gen. Funston-not Gen. Funston himself, if he acted under orders of his

superior-but the act of Gen. Funston is stamped with indelible infamy by Abraham Lincoln's articles of war, to which the secretary of war appeals, and the concurrent action of twenty-four great nations, and the unanimous action of the senate this winter.

Mr. President, the story of what has been called the water torture bas been, in part, told by other senators. I have no inclination to repeat the story. I cannot help believing that not a twentieth part of it has yet been told. I get letters in large numbers from officers, or the friends of officers, who repeat what they tell me, all testifying to these cruelties. And yet the officer, or the officer's friends or kindred, who send the letters to me, send them under a strict injunction of secrecy. Other senators tell me they have a like experience. These brave officers, who would go to the cannon's mouth for honor, who never flinch in battle, flinch before what they deem the certain ruin of their prospects in life, if they give the evidence which they think would be distasteful to their superiors.

Now, how do our friends who seek, I will not say to defend, but to extenuate them [brutalities], deal with the honor of the American army? Why, they come into the senate and say that there have been other cruelties and barbarities and atrocities in war. When these American soldiers and officers are called to the bar our friends summon Nero and Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition and the sheeted and ghostly leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and put them by their side. That is the way you defend the honor of the American army. It is the first time the American soldier was put into such company by the men who have undertaken his defence.

All this cost, all these young men gone to their graves, all these wrecked lives, all this national dishonor, the repeal of the declaration of independence, the

overthrow of the principle on which the Monroe doctrine was placed by its author, the devastation of provinces, the shooting of captives, the torture of prisoners and unarmed and peaceful citizens, the hanging men up by the thumbs, the carloads of maniac soldiers that you bring home, are all because you will not tell now whether you mean in the future to stand on the principles which you and your fathers always declared in the past.

The senator from Ohio says it is not wise to declare what we will do at some future time. Mr. President, we do not ask you to declare what you will do at some future time. We ask you to declare an eternal principle good at the present time and good at all times. You declared what you would not do at some future time when you all voted that you would not take Cuba against the will of her people, did you not? We ask you to declare not at what moment you will get out of the Philippine Islands, but only on what eternal principle you will act, in them or out of them. Such declarations are made in all history. They are in every important treaty between nations.

The constitution of the United States is itself but a declaration of what this country will do and what it will not do in all future times. The declaration of independence, if it have the practical meaning it has had for a hundred years, is a declaration of what this country would do through all future times. The Monroe doctrine, to which sixteen republics south of us owe their life and their safety, was a declaration to mankind of what we would do in all future time. Among all the shallow pretences of imperialism this statement that we will not say what we will do in the future is the most shallow of all. Was there ever such a flimsy pretext flaunted in the face of the American people as that of gentlemen who say, if any other nation on the face of

the earth or all other nations together attempt to overthrow the independence of any people to the south of us in this hemisphere, we will fight and prevent them, and at the same time we think it dishonorable to declare whether we will ever overthrow the independence of a weaker nation in another hemisphere? . .

Other and better councils will yet prevail. The hours are long in the life of a great people. The irrevocable step is not yet taken. Let us at least have this to say: We too have kept the faith of the fathers. We took Cuba by the hand. We delivered her from her age-long bondage. We welcomed her to the family of nations. We set mankind an example never beheld before of moderation in victory. We led hesitating and halting Europe to the deliverance of their beleaguered ambassadors in China. We marched through a hostile country a country cruel and barbarous-without anger or revenge. We returned benefit for injury, and pity for cruelty. We made the name of America beloved in the East as in the West. We kept faith with the Philippine people. We kept faith with our own history. We kept our national honor unsullied. The flag which we received without a rent we handed down without a stain.

THE BEEF TRUST

There is something peculiar about the ease with which a "trust" sensation can be created in the United States. If the price of a trust-made article goes down, the cry goes forth that the monster is crushing the small dealer by low prices and driving individual producers from the field. If the prices rise, public alarm is at once raised that the large corporation is robbing the public through its power of monopoly. For example, in 1895 and 1896, because the price of wheat and farm products was very low, railroads and banks and large corporations were charged with conspiring to ruin the farmers, and war on trusts was made a conspicuous issue in the presidential election.

With the return of prosperity, prices moved in the opposite direction. The price of wheat nearly doubled, corn rose from 45 to 70 cents a bushel, and beef on the hoof rose about 70 per cent. One would naturally suppose that people who were ready to inaugurate a revolution because prices of certain products were low would be disposed to rejoice when the prices of those same products were high. But not so with the American people. The very same people, the same politicians, the same candidates for high positions of national honor, and the same newspapers set up the same alarming outcry, the same demand for revolutionary policy and suppression of large corporations because the prices of these products have gone up that they did when they went down.

The striking peculiarity of all this is that those who devote themselves to this kind of propaganda seem deadly in earnest. They repeat it so much that they really seem to believe it. In this matter of the beef trust, the state of mind, form of argument and method