“I sentenced both Dimas and Ventura to life imprisonment for being accessory to the murder of the Spanish officer above named, Lieutenant Piera.  Villa officiated as arch-fiend on the grewsome occasion.  I am quite sure I would have hung Villa without any compunction at that time, if I could have gotten hold of him.  I tried to get hold of him, but Governor Taft’s attorney-general, Mr. Wilfley, wrote me that Villa was somewhere over on the mainland of Asia on British territory, and extradition would involve application to the London Foreign Office.  The intimation was that we had trouble enough of our own without borrowing any from feuds that had existed under our predecessors in sovereignty.  I have understood that Villa is now practising medicine in Manila.  More than one officer of the American army that I know afterwards did things to the Filipinos almost as cruel as Villa did to that unhappy Spanish officer, Lieutenant Piera.  On the whole, I think President Roosevelt acted wisely and humanely in wiping the slate.  We had new problems to deal with, and were not bound to handicap ourselves with the old ones left over from the Spanish regime.” [285]

But it happens that this was the Filipino regime.  Piera’s torture occurred at the very time when, according to Blount, Aguinaldo had “a wonderfully complete ‘going concern’ throughout the Philippine archipelago.”

Furthermore, it occurred in the Cagayan valley where Blount says “perfect tranquillity and public order” were then being maintained by “the authority of the Aguinaldo government” in a country which Messrs. Wilcox and Sargent, who arrived on the scene of this barbarous murder by torture four weeks later, found so “quiet and orderly.”

Not only was Blount perfectly familiar with every detail of this damnable crime, but he must of necessity have known of the torturing of friars to extort money, which preceded and followed it.

The following statement seems to sum up his view of the whole matter:—­

“It is true there were cruelties practised by the Filipinos on the Spaniards.  But they were ebullitions of revenge for three centuries of tyranny.  They do not prove unfitness for self-government.  I, for one, prefer to follow the example set by the Roosevelt amnesty of 1902, and draw the veil over all those matters.” [286]

The judge drew the veil not only over this, but, as we have seen, over numerous other pertinent matters which occurred in this land of “profound peace and tranquillity” just at the time Wilcox and Sargent were making their trip.  My apologies to him for withdrawing the veil and for maintaining that such occurrences as those in question demonstrate complete and utter unfitness for self-government on the part of those who brought them about!

If it be true that Blount knew more than one officer of the American army who did things to the Filipinos almost as cruel as Villa did to Lieutenant Piera, why did he not report them and have the criminals brought to justice?