Referring to the statement made by Blount [492] that Vice-Governor Wright made a visit to Albay in 1903 in the interest “of the peace-at-any-price policy that the Manila Government was bent on,” and the implication that he went there to conduct peace negotiations, General Bandholtz, who suppressed outlawry in Albay, has said that Vice-Governor Wright and Commissioner Pardo de Tavera came there at his request to look into conditions with reference to certain allegations which had been made.

Colonel Bandholtz and the then chief of constabulary, General Allen, were supported by the civil governor and the commission in their recommendations that no terms should be made with the outlaws.  The following statement occurs in a letter from General Bandholtz dated September 21, 1903:—­

“No one is more anxious to terminate this business than I am, nevertheless I think it would be a mistake to offer any such inducements, and that more lasting benefits would result by hammering away as we have been doing.”

And General Allen said in an indorsement to the Philippine Commission:—­

“... in my opinion the judgment of Colonel Bandholtz in matters connected with the pacification of Albay should receive favourable consideration.  Halfway measures are always misinterpreted and used to the detriment of the Government among the ignorant followers of the outlaws.”

These views prevailed.

Blount has claimed that the death rate in the Albay jail at this time was very excessive, and cites it as an instance of the result of American maladministration.

Assuming that his tabulation [493] of the dead who died in the Albay jail between May 30 and September, 1903, amounting to 120, is correct, the following statements should be made:—­

Only recently has it been demonstrated that beri-beri is due to the use of polished rice, which was up to the time of this discovery regarded as far superior to unpolished rice as an article of food, and is still much better liked by the Filipinos than is the unpolished article.  Many of these deaths were from beri-beri, and were due to a misguided effort to give the prisoners the best possible food.

Cholera was raging in the province of Albay throughout the period in question, and the people outside of the jail suffered no less than did those within it.  The same is true of malarial infection.  In other words, conditions inside the jail were quite similar to those then prevailing outside, except that the prisoners got polished rice which was given them with the best intentions in the world, and was by them considered a superior article of food.

With the present knowledge of the methods of dissemination of Asiatic cholera gained as a result of the American occupation of the Philippines, we should probably be able to exclude it from a jail under such circumstances, as the part played by “germ carriers” who show no outward manifestations of infection is now understood, but it was not then dreamed of.  One of the greatest reforms effected by Americans in the Philippines is the sanitation of the jails and penitentiaries, and we cannot be fairly blamed for not knowing in 1903 what nobody then knew.