of
ordered justice and liberty of rapid improvement in material and moral
conditions and progress in the art of government which reflects great
credit upon the people of the United States.

The President thanks the officers and enlisted men of the army in
the Philippines, both regulars and volunteers, for the courage and
fortitude, the indomitable spirit and loyal devotion with which they
have put down and ended the great insurrection which has raged
throughout the archipelago against the lawful sovereignty and just
authority of the United States. The task was peculiarly difficult and
trying. They were required at first to overcome organized resistance
of superior numbers, well equipped with modern arms of precision,
intrenched in an unknown country of mountain defiles, jungles, and
swamps, apparently capable of interminable defense. When this resistance
had been overcome they were required to crush out a general system of
guerrilla warfare conducted among a people speaking unknown tongues,
from whom it was almost impossible to obtain the information necessary
for successful pursuit or to guard against surprise and ambush.

The enemies by whom they were surrounded were regardless of all
obligations of good faith and of all the limitations which humanity has
imposed upon civilized warfare. Bound themselves by the laws of war,
our soldiers were called upon to meet every device of unscrupulous
treachery and to contemplate without reprisal the infliction of
barbarous cruelties upon their comrades and friendly natives. They
were instructed, while punishing armed resistance, to conciliate the
friendship of the peaceful, yet had to do with a population among whom
it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe, and who in countless
instances used a false appearance of friendship for ambush and
assassination. They were obliged to deal with problems of communication
and transportation in a country without roads and frequently made
impassable by torrential rains. They were weakened by tropical heat and
tropical disease. Widely scattered over a great archipelago, extending
a thousand miles from north to south, the gravest responsibilities,
involving the life or death of their comrades, frequently devolved upon
young and inexperienced officers beyond the reach of specific orders or
advice.

Under all these adverse circumstances the army of the Philippines has
accomplished its task rapidly and completely. In more than two thous