The success of this unique system of war depends upon almost complete unity of action of the entire native population. That such unity is a fact is too obvious to admit of discussion. Intimidation has undoubtedly accomplished much to this end, but fear as the only motive is hardly sufficient to account for the united and apparently spontaneous action of several millions of people. [345] One traitor in each town would effectually destroy such a complex organization. Then follows this bit of grim humor: It is more probable that the adhesive principle comes from ethnological homogeneity which induces men to respond for a time to the appeals of consanguineous leadership-- in other words, to stick to their own kith and kin. He had in a previous paragraph used that very expression thus: "The people seem to be actuated by the idea that in politics or war men are never nearer right then when going with their own kith and kin." In all the foregoing, General MacArthur was not simply trying to score a point against Judge Taft, though his resentment of the effort of the Taft Commission of 1900 to mix politics with war in the presidential year was quite as decided, and quite as well known in the islands at the time, as was General Otis's similar attitude toward the Schurman Commission of the previous year. [346] He is simply laying before the War Department, as a soldier, the familiar facts of a situation which he had been dealing with for two years past, as well known to the 70,000 officers and men under his command as to himself. And as the details into which he goes are simply prefatory to an account of the remedy he applied to the situation, that remedy must now claim our attention. The remedy General MacArthur finally applied was a proclamation, explaining to the Filipino people--"to all classes throughout the archipelago," it read, and especially to the leaders in the field, many of whose captured comrades-in-arms he had now become thoroughly acquainted with--the severities sanctioned by the laws of civilized nations under such circumstances, and the reasons therefor; and, further, serving them with notice that thenceforward he proposed to enforce those laws with full rigor. [347]