Note 15 — Chapter XVIII · Governor Wright—1904

Of course Judge Parker’s figures were rather high—of which more anon. He was not going to miss anything in the way of a chance of “getting a rise” out of the Administration, by understatement. But some statement from the Philippines at once became a supremely important desideratum, to counterbalance Judge Parker’s over-statement, some optimism to meet the Parker pessimism. Encouraged by the public interest aroused by the figures furnished him, and the consequent apparent uneasiness it created in “the enemy’s camp,” Judge Parker soon had the whole Philippine group of islands going to “the demnition bow-wows.” On October 20th, Secretary of War Taft cabled Governor Wright, then Governor-General of the Islands, a long telegram, quoting Judge Parker as having used, among other language descriptive of the beatitudes we had conferred on our little brown brother, the following: “The towns in many places in ruins, whole districts in the hands of ladrones.”15