stated also: "Two hundred and fifty of them sought in vain to get passage to Hongkong on one boat." Showing how well aware they were of affairs. American intervention was then their only hope.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

TREATY OF PEACE AND TITLE TO THE PHILIPPINES.

Although, as advised by Americans, among whom were Major-General Wesley Merritt, at the time our Commanding General or Governor General of the Philippines, and Consul Oscar F. Williams, the only representative of the United States civil government in the Philippines, Aguinaldo sent commissioners both to Washington and Paris to represent the Filipinos, they were ignominiously ignored.

No grosser violation of justice could be imagined, and Agoncillo filed a protest on behalf of the Filipino people.

They were at once notified with the rest of the world, upon the completion of the treaty, of the clause requiring the release of the Spanish friars, as follows:

[By the Associated Press.]

"Paris, Nov. 29.-As the result of the work of Mr. Moore and Senor Ojeda, the draft of the articles embodying the protocol agreements was completed this evening. It will be presented to the two commissions tomorrow, in the morning, at their separate sessions, and in the afternoon at the joint session, when it will receive final consideration. There will be little delay on these articles.

"Mr. Moore will alsó submit to-morrow to the United States commissioners the subjects to be presented to the Spaniards for negotiations. These, for convenience and greater dispatch, are being drafted into the form of articles.

"The release of the insurgent prisoners held by Spain will go into the protocol agreements, it having been already agreed that Spain is to release them on the United States undertaking to secure the release of the Spanish prisoners in the hands of Aguinaldo. This question is so intimately related to the peace treaty that it has been removed from the subjects that are matters of negotiation and has been embodied in the articles containing the protocol agreements."

That clause alone would have forced the war which followed.

The following are portions of a few of the articles in this "Treaty of Peace" between the United States and Spain referred to:

"Article 1. Spain relinquishes all claim of sovereignty over and title to Cuba.'

* * *

"Article 2. Spain cedes to the United States the island of Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and the island of Guam, in the Marianas or Ladrones."

"Article 3. Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands," etc.

Article 6 forms a mutual agreement whereby Spain and the United States are to release all prisoners of war taken by them, or in the hands of insurgents, both in Cuba and the Philippines, including, of course, the Spanish friars in the Philippines held by the Filipinos.

Article 3 of the Treaty of Peace concludes with this inexplicable and unwarranted clause:

"The United States will pay to Spain the sum of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) within three months after the exchange of the ratification of the present treaty."

Thus the victorious country appears in the absurd attitude of paying an indemity to the vanquished, which could only be justified upon the ground of some acknowl

edged injustice in action, but, possibly, as an explanation, which does not explain the unexplainable, we find the following touching on this point, upon page 210 of Senate Document No. 62, part 2:

"The American Commissioners are authorized to offer to Spain, in case the cession should be agreed to, the sum of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000), to be paid in accordance with the terms to be fixed in the treaty of peace." Was it a bribe?

So we appear to have paid Spain $20,000,000 for a title to a land which she did not possess, and could not deliver, her only claim to which had been founded upon bloody conquest, or "criminal aggression" according to our President, already cut off by the repossession of their own land by the Filipinos, fighting, as the Cubans fought, the same foe, for the same reasons; freedom from civil and religious tyranny; and as our forefathers fought before us for independence.

In other words, we bought no better title to the Philippines than Spain possessed, that of "criminal aggression," a war of conquest, "contrary to our code of morals," according to McKinley.

The title to the Philippines which Spain received from the Pope was as baseless as would be such a title to the moon. Aside from that all the title to the Philippines which Spain possessed, at any time, was based upon bloody conquest only, or to use the apt words of President McKinley, "forcible annexation that cannot be thought of," "that by our code of morals would be criminal aggression."

The title of Spain to the Philippines had been forfeited by the same sort of conquest, or claim, to the Crown of England, in 1762, and the nonpayment of the redemption price, or promised ransom, of $5,000,000, for

whatever right,, title or interest she may then have had in them, whether real or imaginary, by such right, is in reality thus vested in Great Britain still, if any right can accrue from such "criminal aggression.'

As the Philippines and California were both dependencies of Mexico, and as the title to California was lost to the Spanish Crown when Mexico freed herself from Spanish oppression, so some claim, that both actually and technically the legal title of the Crown of Spain to Mexico, California and the Philippines ceased simultaneously.

Upon pages 45 and 46 of his official report of August 31, 1899, General Otis incorporated a letter written by him on October 31, 1898, to certain foreign merchants in Manila who had complained of the interruptions to trade at that time.

On page 46 he referred to the Spanish government in the central Philippines as "A government almost in extremis mortis as certainly the Spanish Government in the central Philippine Islands must be considered to be at present." Months before that, as already quoted, according to General Anderson, "We held Manila and Cavite. The rest of the island was held not by Spaniards, but by Filipinos. On the other islands the Spaniards were confined to two or three fortified towns. At the time referred to we had no claim to hold by purchase, for we had not then received Spain's quit claim deed to the archipelago."

So whatever so-called right, title or claim, whether real or imaginary, just or unjust, either of them or any others, may have ever held in the past, by any so-called right of conquest, had been completely abrogated by the subsequent repossession of their own native land by the

Filipino people at the cost of priceless blood, untold agony, and countless treasure.

But aside from or in addition to all this fallacy of title came that fatal defect, or flaw, or error as any one may choose to call it, to which that worthy Spaniard referred when he spurned the offer of $20,000,000 for the Philippines, which was really a mere mask for robbery, or only an apology for a great international, if not illegal, game of hold-up, with this ringing and deserved rebuke:

[By the Associated Press, Paris, Nov. 22nd, 1898.] "Suppose," said the speaker in question, "that Spain says to the United States we are exhausted. We have no funds with which to continue the war. We do not want to continue it and we cannot. You serve us with an ultimatum. We must submit to your power. Prepare your treaty and when you want us to sign we will sign. We must bend to physical force.

"You will have the Antilles and you will possess the Philippines as a conquest from a helpless people. We yield, but we decline $20,000,000 for property on which our valuation was not asked nor respected. You have your will. We trust you will not continue the war upon our helplessness because, forsooth, we decline your $20,000,000. Surely this waiver by us of your money will not provoke a further use of arms against Spain.

"We sign, we cede, we are dumb. It is finished and we may be permitted to retain the privilege of assuring our people and our national creditors that we at least have not stolen and resold territory we had pawned."

Had we been half as frank, as we were unfair, or as honest in profession as we were dishonest in dealing, it might not have seemed quite as disgusting in history as our cloak of "humanity"-with which we tried to cover our hypocrisy, or our pretense of Good Samaritanism in behalf of robber politicians, financiers and friars.

When we proved false to our noble professions of hu