OCR Text |
Show TT TT t historical MigMghts Lf CUo. Scott Watdon (Hieleuied by Western Newspaper Union.) 'Aguinaldo Ii Captured 1' PORTY years ago this month " America had a new national hero. He was Frederick Funston, a native na-tive of Ohio and a soldier of fortune for-tune who had aided the Cubans in their struggle to throw off the yoke of Spain, then organized the Twentieth Twen-tieth Kansas Volunteers at the outbreak out-break of the Spanish-American war and arrived In the Philippines with his regiment In tine to help Gen. Wesley Merritt capture Manila in November, 1898. Meanwhile Emilio Aguinaldo had declared himself president of the revolutionary government of the V. i ) V,- . ; ' -' i.-f GEN. FRED FUNSTON Philippines and started an Insurrection Insurrec-tion against the new rulers of the islands. There was constant fighting throughout 1899 and 1900 but always Aguinaldo, the leader of the insur-rectos, insur-rectos, eluded capture. During 1900 he apparently gave up the struggle, but in January, 1901, he ordered the Insurgent forces in southern Luzon Lu-zon to join him at his rendezvous in the province of Isabela. However, the messenger to whom he entrusted this order, surrendered to the Americans in February and, upon securing the information as to Agulnaldo's whereabouts, Funston determined upon a 'daring plan to capture the Filipino leader. Taking with him Captains H. W. Newton and Russell T. Hazzard, Lieutenants Oliver P. M. Hazzard and Burton J. Mitchell and a company com-pany of 80 Macabebes, who spoke the Tagalog languages, he was land- EMILIO AGUINALDO ed on a beach south of Casiguran in the province of Principe on March 13, 1901. Aguinaldo's messenger also went with the expedition and he and the Macabebe scouts were to pass themselves off as a detachment of insurgent Tagalogs who had captured cap-tured the five Americans and were taking them as prisoners to Aguinaldo. Agui-naldo. After marching seven days and nights, the party reached a point eight miles from Palanan, Aguinaldo's Aguinal-do's hiding place. A message, stamped with the seal of General Lacuma, was sent forward for-ward to Aguinaldo and a prompt response re-sponse was received, welcoming the party. The Americans and their fake Tagalogs hastened forward. Funston entrusted the actual capture cap-ture to a Spaniard, Iazaro Segovia, and a detachment of the scouts. The story, as Funston told it later, follows: fol-lows: "Running up the bank toward the house, we were met by Segovia, who came running out, his face aglow with exultation and his clothes spattered spat-tered with the blood of the men he had wounded. He called out in Spanish: Span-ish: 'It is all right; we have him.' "We hastened into the house and I introduced myself to Aguinaldo. telling him that we were officers of the American army, that the men with us were our treps, and not his, and that he was a prisoner of war. He was given assurance that he need fear no bad treatment "He said, in a dazed sort of way: 'Is this not some joke?' I assured him that it was not though, as a matter of fact it was a pretty bad one on him." In after years Aguinaldo was loud in his praise of Funston for the audacity au-dacity and skill of his plan, saying that only by the stratagem used could he have been captured. The former leader of the Filipino insur-rectos insur-rectos later took the oath of allegiance alle-giance to the United States and became be-came reconciled to American rule. He even sent his daughter, Carmen, to this country to be educated and she became a student at the University Uni-versity of Illinois. Aguinaldo is still living at the age of 72. |