it? Shall we drop it? Now that Mr. McKinley is dead, shall we adopt the "scuttle policy" that we would never have adopted while he was President? We shall make mistakes in performing our duty as Mr. McKinley saw it. We have made some already. That we shall make more is certain. No work of any magnitude can be done without mistakes. There will be recurrences of the insurrection. Some of our people will be murdered out there before our work is done; and if we go along, sometimes stumbling, to be sure, but always making progress, the Antis and the opposition that always kicks up against anybody that is really doing anything, will bark and snarl at us at every misstep. We shall have to have our dark, worrying, doubtful days. We shall keep bumping our heads. Shall we go on? What is the answer of the American people?

There is one reason why we cannot leave the Philippines till we have set up a sound republic there: and it is conclusive to me. That is because American soldiers have laid down their lives out there in the work, and the American people should never, for a moment, question about the advisability or the necessity of completing a good work which was baptized with the blood of an American volunteer!

The nation owes an obligation to the mothers of those who die at its behest to see to it that they do not die in vain.

COLONEL GUY HOWARD'S DEATH.

WORDS

HIS HEROIC LAST

Nearly four years ago, General Lawton was just starting his last great expedition over in the Philippines. His supplies had to be taken in to him by a river that ran through a hostile country, and, as his success or failure depended very largely upon the haste with which he could be furnished with his rations, the detail to rush these supplies in to him was of the greatest importance. Colonel Guy Howard, the eldest son of Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, one of the great commanders of the Rebellion, was placed in charge of the work. Regardless of the almost certain consequences and of the warnings of his brother officers, Colonel Howard determined to push up to General Lawton in broad daylight, as he could thus save General Lawton ten or twelve precious hours if he could but break his way through; and, with a handful of companions, he was soon on his way, steaming along in a small launch that dragged

far behind it in its wake the line of barges that carried the precious supplies.

All went well for a time, but as the stream grew narrower and ran along through banks hidden with deep, overhanging, tropical underbrush, there was suddenly a cruel, blinding, deadly volley fired into their very faces from the bank. Colonel Howard, who had been seated in the stern, fell forward on his face and one or two of his men dropped,-killed on the spot. But Colonel Howard struggled to his feet and then, standing there drawn up to his full height with his hand pressed convulsively to his breast in a vain endeavor to stop the life blood from spurting from a jagged hole in his lungs, he shouted with all his remaining strength, "Whatever happens to me, keep the launch going! Keep the launch going!" -and fell over-dead-his last thought of his unfinished duty.

But from up there beyond the stars where his heroic soul had already gone, Guy Howard saw his work done, for they kept the launch going and before the sun had set they brought her safely to her little haven around the hill, under the Stars and Stripes!

Our history records no grander death. His last

thought was not of his wife, his little ones, his father, his mother, his sisters, or his brothers-but only of his duty. His dying words and his name should be emblazoned in letters of imperishable gold high up on the list of our most honored dead.

And this launch of State that carries the great Philippine people that America has just started out to plow seas unknown to her precious freight, but seas whose bays and currents and eddies and rocks, and shoals, and safe harbors, too, are perfectly familiar to our pilot at the wheel-as she sails out on her search for American freedom, American prosperity, American ways, a Christian religion, the little red schoolhouse, and the American home; I believe the orders of the American people to her representatives who direct that voyage will be Guy Howard's immortal words, "Keep that launch going! Keep that launch going!”

FINIS