and adopted by the President of Santo Domingo pending the consideration of the treaty between the two Governments submitted to the Senate of the United States and the Congress of Santo Domingo for confirmation. At the request of the Secretary of State one of the clerks was loaned and accompanied, as his secretary and disbursing officer, the special commissioner of the United States to Venezuela. He has been absent four months. These clerks so drafted and transferred have been found generally and specially proficient in the work assigned them, much of it in an original field demanding a deal of ability and good training. For instance, special mention may be made of the services performed by one of the clerks in the Insular Bureau detailed in the Santo Domingo work, where the duties assigned him were to go to Monte Cristi, organize the customs service, make a trip along the unknown Haitian frontier, learn the country, establish a customs guard, and enforce the service along this wild frontier. The route was unknown, the country infested with bandits, and food and water were uncertain. With one attendant he made this trip, riding some 200 miles. On the journey was subjected to much hardship, was knocked out in health, but he did what he was directed to do effectively, established the customs guard, showed rare tact in dealing with the local officials, and gained the confidence of his superiors, both American and Dominican officials. His health required him to return to the United States and another employee of the Bureau was sent in his place, who, it is understood, is doing equally well. The former was getting in the Bureau $1,400, and since his return has been promoted to $1,600. It is reported that the other men so assigned have rendered satisfactory service in their various fields of work. The highest salary of any clerk in the Bureau of Insular Affairs is $2,000, which is received by only one man, the chief clerk. The next highest salaries are $1,800, received by the chiefs of its various divisions. The total cost of this force is under $85,000 per annum, and with the kind and amount of work performed it is believed there is no more effective and economical personnel in the Government service. In the last three or four years some 70 employees from the small force under this Bureau have left it to better their condition, generally by transfer to higher salaried positions in other departments of the Government. It has been shown that the Bureau lost by transfer or detail during the last year for other Government work 20 of its best clerks. During all this time the current work, increasing in importance, has been efficiently performed. Pardonable pride, therefore, may be taken in the belief that the organization upon which it is founded is good, and that it has stood the test of unusual demands. Respectfully submitted. The SECRETARY OF WAR. CLARENCE R. EDWARDS, Colonel, U. S. Army, Chief of Bureau. ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PHILIPPINE COMMISSION TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR. MANILA, P. I., November 1, 1905. SIR: The Philippine Commission has the honor to submit its sixth annual report, covering the period from November 1, 1904, the date of its last report, to November 1, 1905. The report is accompanied by the reports of the governor-general, the secretary of the interior, the secretary of finance and justice, the secretary of public instruction, and the secretary of commerce and police. CONDITIONS AS TO PEACE AND ORDER. In our last annual report we stated that as a result of vigorous operations carried on by the constabulary and other peace agencies of the insular and municipal governments ladronism had largely disappeared and that peace and order prevailed throughout the archipelago, with minor and insignificant exceptions, save in the island of Samar and the Moro Province. At that time the hillmen of Samar, who are fanatical and semibarbarous, under the direction of several shrewd and enterprising leaders, fired by the fanatical teachings of an old Filipino who called himself Papa [Pope] Bulan, began a series of attacks upon the coast towns of the island, in which they were guilty of many cruelties and barbarities. It was then believed that the constabulary forces had succeeded in checking the further progress of this outbreak and that quiet would be speedily restored. Events proved, however, that we were not correct in our prognostications. The hillmen, who are termed "pulahanes" by the natives, far from subsiding, increased in numbers and activity. Their scattered bands were concentrated by two or three of their leaders and succeeded in surprising and practically annihilating two detachments of the Thirty-eighth Company of Philippine Scouts-natives commanded by American officers-stationed in the towns of Oras and Dolores, on the east coast of the island. In the detachment at Oras there were 20 men under a native sergeant, and in the encounter at Dolores the detachment consisted of 38 soldiers of the Thirty-eighth Company of scouts, 6 ex-scouts, 1 hospital corps man of the Regular Army, under the command of Lieutenant Hayt, who was en route from the town of Taft to Maslog, a place up the Dolores River. The significant feature of these attacks was that the assailing pulahanes, who probably outnumbered the scouts 10 to 1, succeeded in thus exterminating their adversaries by creeping in through the high grass which surrounded the location of the scouts until they were at close quarters and then making a concerted rush and using their bolos in a hand-to-hand conflict. As a result of these two victories the pulahanes secured 59 carbines and 6 revolvers, but this was of minor importance as compared with the tremendous encouragement which it gave them and the moral effect which it had upon the people of the towns upon the eastern and northern coasts of the island. In order fully to appreciate the situation it must be considered that the eastern coast of Samar lies broadside to the Pacific Ocean, has never been charted, so far as known has no safe harbors, and is exceedingly difficult of approach. There are no roads leading from one side of the island to the other, and as a consequence the constabulary and troops stationed in the towns on this side of the island must be supplied by vessels from the western side, which are liable to many dangers from hidden reefs and sudden storms. As an instance of this, it may be mentioned that the coast-guard cutter Masbate, while taking a company of constabulary from Catbalogan, the capital of the province, on the west coast, to reenforce the scout detachment stationed at the town of Taft, and of which Lieutenant Hayt's body of men at Dolores was a part, was wrecked the day before the disaster at Dolores. But for this mishap reenforcements would have reached Taft and Dolores, and the result of the encounter with the pulahanes at the latter place might have been different. The vessel was a total wreck, and it was only through the exertions of the officers in command that the constabulary and crew were, after many narrow escapes, safely landed. Seeing that in view of the concentration and activity of the pulahanes it would be necessary greatly to strengthen all the detachments of constabulary and scouts scattered among the coast towns for the purpose of giving protection to the people, and sufficient insular forces not being available, the governor-general requested MajorGeneral Corbin, commanding Philippines Division, U. S. Army, to occupy with United States troops the towns on the north and northeast coasts of Samar, which was promptly done, and thereafter operations against the pulahanes were conducted both by regular troops and scouts and by the constabulary, the former being under the control of Brig. Gen. William H. Carter, U. S. Army, and the latter under the direction of the chief of Philippines constabulary, Brig. Gen. Henry T. Allen, who had by direction of the governor-general gone to Samar to take personal charge of operations. It was obvious that no substantial results could be obtained merely by guarding the coast towns and awaiting the attack of the pulahanes. |