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Show MORE MEN NEEDED. ARMY INSUFFICIENT TO MAINTAIN MAIN-TAIN SUPREMACY. General Otis' Forces Compelled to Abandon Captured Territory Because Troops Cannot be Spared to Hold What Is Gained. Manila, May 23. The events of the past week have emphasized the need of a much larger army here, without which, according to the best authorities authori-ties in Manila, it would be attempting the impossible to expect to maintain supremacy in the Philippine islands. The inadequacy of the American forces is said to be responsible for the large loss in the number of small encounters' without material results as a compensation. compen-sation. Most of the fighting has been in territory which the Americans had swept, but had been compelled to abandon because they could not spare troops to hold it. The forces commanded by Generals MacArthur and Lawton hold two important im-portant lines of communication and commerce, the railroad to San Fernando Fernan-do and the Rio Grande river. But much of the country they have swept, including scores of the smaller towns, and some of the larger ones, have been left uncovered, simply for want of men to hold them, and the insurgents have returned and are occupying the towns the Americans abandoned and are camping in the jungles and woods outside out-side of others, on the watch for chances to attack scouting parties and harass the garrisons with greater forces. This is the kind of warfare they prefer pre-fer to pursue. |