The New York Times/1902/9/25/The Case of “Father Augustine”

THE CASE OF “FATHER AUGUSTINE”.

While we by no means agree with the estimate of their own public services put on them by the excellent gentlemen who are trying, in the face of every discouragement, to save the American people from themselves, we hope not to do any injustice to the anti-imperialists. And it is mere justice to say that any statement as of fact to which Mr. Carl Schurz and Mr. Charles Francis Adams put their names is entitled to consideration. There is at least no doubt that they thoroughly believe it themselves. And, although they require less proof against the United States Army in the Philippines than they would require against a body of persons quite indifferent to them, and less than an entirely impartial investigator, or a common jury, would require, yet their belief in a story, even to the discredit of the American Army in the Philippines, does raise, in candid minds, a presumption that that story is true.

The story is horrible enough. It is that an officer of the United States Army tortured a Filipino priest in order to find out the whereabouts of some hidden hoard, which was apparently intended to be confiscated for the personal behoof of the officer in question. The priest was tortured three times, and after the third application of the torture he died.

We are not only sure that Messrs. Schurz and Adams believe this story. We are afraid there is nothing about it intrinsically incredible. It is expressly stated that the officer inculpated was an officer of a volunteer regiment. It is added that he is not now in the service. The presumption is that he was appointed from civil life in the emergency created by the enlargement of the army. The appointments then made did President McKinley, upon the whole, the greatest credit. He gave commissions in the enlarged army only upon some proof or fair presumption of merit. If he had laid it down as an inflexible rule that a beginner in soldiering should begin at the beginning, we do not see how the business of officering the new regiments could have been much better done. The appointments, as a whole, have vindicated themselves. But, among such a number, it was certain beforehand that there would be some black sheep. And it is not unlikely that one of these was guilty of the atrocity described by Messers. Schurz and Adams.

If that be the case, nothing more is needed to insure justice than the course the Secretary of War has taken in referring the report to the Judge Advocate General. If the offender be not now in service his case must be handed over to the civil courts. If he be in service there is no body of men in the world from which such an offender, not a soldier but a brigand, could expect less mercy than from a court-martial composed of the officers and gentlemen of the United States Army. If the facts be as Messrs. Schurz and Adams report, they do well to be angry. They only do not do well, and, in fact, do outrageously ill, when they impute, as they can scarcely deny that they do impute, the action of a blackmailing brigand as characteristic and typical of the United States Army in the Philippines.

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