the worst yearly report we have yet had from the Philippines, or, to put it another way, there would be four men ill in the first year of the Civil War to three in the Philippines in the Spanish War.

CHAPTER VIII

THE VENEREAL DISEASE LIBEL

VENEREAL DISEASES

BUT, not content with attempting to frighten the parents and friends of those boys out there with false prophecies, Mr. Atkinson had to horrify and shame every woman they knew, had to thrust before the loving eyes of the mothers, sisters and sweethearts of the 100,000 men we sent out there, prophecies that they can probably never forgive. We can spend but a moment in going over this, but it seems so scandalous, so libelous, so wanting in common decency that I am not at liberty to let it altogether pass.

First I shall take the No. 2 of the Anti-Imperialist and turn to p. 18:

"The greatest and most unavoidable danger to which these forces will be exposed will neither be fevers nor malaria; it will be venereal diseases in their worst and most malignant form. It is this which has reduced the population of Hawaii to a de

generated remnant, 4 per cent. of whom are isolated under sentence of death from leprosy; a disease of a similar type, perhaps not from the same cause, which gives evidence of the utter degeneracy of these poor people."

On p. 21, Vol. II we read:

"About 13,000 soldiers return to England from India every year, and of these, in 1894, over 60 per cent. had suffered some form of venereal disease. These figures are quoted as showing more forcibly than words can, the risk of contamination, not only to the present population of this country, but also to its future generations. Of these men a number die, or remaining invalids are more or less incapacitated from earning their own livelihood, and thus become a burden on the rates."

Now here are some of his statistics-are two pages of them (Anti-Imp., vol. 2, pp. 24-5) which Mr. Atkinson says were taken from the parliamentary blue book, 1896, showing the venereal diseases in 1896 in the British army:

"Admissions to hospital per 1000 men in service: In India, as a whole, in 1896, 522.3; In Rohilkhand, 711.8; In Jhansi, 859.9; (nearly nine men out of 10.) In Newgong, 1013.5 (every man)."

And then on p. 20 of the same number of the Anti-Imperialist (No. 2). Mr. Atkinson quotes the

following from the parliamentary report, East India (contagious diseases) No. I and No. 3 (1897). It is a picture of what a committee of the English parliament saw among some English troops, and Edward Atkinson, out of kindness to the mothers of our boys in the Philippines, quotes it here as showing what they must expect to see when their boys come home. As I read it I want you to remember if you have seen any of our returning soldiers whom it would describe.

Vol. II, p. 20:

"Before reaching the age of twenty-five years, these young men have come home presenting a most shocking appearance; some lay there having obviously but a short time to live; others were unrecognizable from disfigurement by reason of the destruction of their features, or had lost their palates, their eyesight, or their sense of hearing; others again were in a state of extreme emaciation, their joints distorted and diseased. Not a few are

time-expired, but cannot be discharged in their present condition, incapacitated as they are to earn their livelihood, and in a condition so repulsive that they could not mix with their fellowmen. Their friends and relatives refuse to receive them and it is inexpedient to discharge them only to seek the asylum of the poorhouse; so they remain at Netley in increasing numbers which, as matters now are, seem likely to continue to increase."

What a picture that is to thrust in the faces of the parents of our boys! Now, what are the facts about this matter? In a word, they are as follows:

In the year 1898, it was unnecessary to discharge a single soldier in the Philippines for these troubles -not one, from a force whose mean strength was 2903 (Vide 1899 Rep. Surg. Gen., U. S. A., p. 335), and, taking our army as a whole during 1898, it is found that the admission rate to sick report for these diseases was only 3 (three) men higher in each 1000 than it was in our army during the ten years from 1887 to 1898-and in those ten years we had five men constantly ill of these troubles to less than four in 1898.

In 1899 we had to discharge only 50 men out of the 39,000 in the Philippines for this trouble,— one man in 780; and in 1900 only 47 out of an average army of 66,882 men—one man in 1423!—showing an improvement in the Philippines of nearly 100 per cent. over the year 1899; while from as much of our army as never left the United States at all in that year (1899), we discharged over 3.5 men to the 1000; that is, in 1899, we had to discharge more than three men suffering from these diseases from