American Support for Philippine Friars
WE have a copy, which we ourselves made, of a letter from a responsible man in the Philippines, to a friend in this city. With the letter he sent copies of Manila papers. Statements in the papers confirm what is said in the letter. He says that Chaplain McKinnon, the Catholic priest who went to the Philippines and returned with his regiment to this country, and again went to the Philippines at the special request of the President, “is no more than secretary to [Archbishop and Apostolic Delegate] Chappelle;” and conspicuously “wears full United States uniform, to impress the simple people with the authority behind Chappelle.” He says that the bitterness of the opposition of the Filipinos to the friars can not be imagined, and that it is all for cause; but that the influence and the authority of the United States are with Archbishop Chappelle in upholding the friars. He says that “at the second reception of Chappelle there were two hundred police, most of them American soldiers, to see that the sentiment of the people was not voiced against the friars. Every day the bitterness of the controversy grows in the Spanish and Tagalog papers. . . . I have sent you the sentiment of a week. The censorship of the press is strict, or more would have been printed. Fill the papers in America with the facts: . . . With honest dealing the war would have been over long ago. If I were a Filipino, and had the danger of the priests hanging over me, I would fight on. Of course they will be killed off. Their vision is short: they see Otis and Rome here together; but they fail to see the justice and mercy and good will of the people of America—and I confess I don’t see anything but political scheming either.”