A despatch sent by Judge Day certainly comes from high authority. The word "compromising" is therefore important. To say that Admiral Dewey did not treat Aguinaldo as an ally is to raise a mere technical point. But Aguinaldo never did get anything from him in writing. What he got consisted more of deeds than words. And actions speak louder than words. We had an alliance with Aguinaldo, a most "compromising" alliance and afterwards repudiated it. Admiral Dewey made it and General Merritt repudiated it. Dewey did, without the President's knowledge, exactly what the President and the American people would have had him do at the time. And Merritt did exactly what the President ordered him to do. But between the making of the alliance, and the repudiation of it, the President and the American people changed their minds. I say the American people, because they afterwards ratified all that Mr. McKinley did. You see the bitterness that lies away down in the secret recesses of the hearts of the Filipino people to-day has its source at this point. They had "a gentleman's agreement," as it were, with us, not in writing, made at a time when the thought of a colony had never entered our minds. They fought in a common cause with us on the faith of that agreement--drove the Spaniards into Manila in numerous victorious engagements involving much loss of life, on their part, keeping the Dons thereafter bottled up in Manila on the land side while their "ally" Admiral Dewey was doing the same on the sea side. The said Dons were living on horses and rats, and famine was imminent when our troops arrived and began to finish the work of taking the beleaguered city. And then, having changed our minds and decided to annex the islands, we repudiated our "gentleman's agreement," on the idea that the end justified the means. And the end, as it has turned out, did not even justify the means, seeing that the islands have proved a heavy financial liability instead of a profitable asset. Judge Day's telegram to Secretary Hay of October 12th (p. 27) contains this curious and surprising passage as to Cuba: Senator Gray in favor of accepting sovereignty unconditionally * * * that we may thereby avoid future complications with Cubans, claiming sovereignty while we are in process of pacifying island * * * We desire instructions on this point. The future of Cuba, however, trembled in the balance but for a moment. Before "the shell-burred cables" had had time to quit vibrating with the question thus propounded, there came back this splendidly clean-cut answer from the President: We must carry out the spirit and letter of the resolution of Congress [declaring war].