the training of journalism in distinguishing the relative pertinence
and potency of facts noted. Work for more than forty years, in the
discussion from day to day of current history, has qualified me for
the efficient exercise of my faculties in the labor undertaken. It
has been my undertaking to state that which appeared to me, so that
the reader may find pictures of the scenes that tell the Story that
concerns the country, that the public may with enlightenment solve
the naval, military, political, commercial and religious problems we
are called upon by the peremptory pressure of the conditions local,
and international, to solve immediately. This we have to do, facing the
highest obligations of citizenship in the great American Republic, and
conscious of the incomparably influential character of the principles
that shall prevail through the far-reaching sweep of the policies that
will be evolved. I have had such advantages in the assurance of the
authenticity of the information set forth in the chapters following,
that I may be permitted to name those it was my good fortune to consult
with instructive results; and in making the acknowledgments due. I
may be privileged to support the claim of diligence and success in
the investigations made, and that I am warranted in the issue of this
Story of the Philippines by the assiduous improvement of an uncommon
opportunity to fit myself to serve the country.

Indebtedness for kind consideration in this work is gratefully
acknowledged to Major-General Merritt, commanding the Philippine
Expedition; Major-General Otis, who succeeds to the duties of
military and civil administration in the conquered capital of the
islands; Admiral George Dewey, who improved, with statesmanship,
his unparalleled victory in the first week of the war with Spain,
and raised the immense questions before us; General F.V. Greene,
the historian of the Russo-Turkish war, called by the President to