The American Legacy him. The shooting now had attracted the villagers, who came out of their homes in alarm, wondering what it all meant. They offered no offense, did not display a weapon, made no hostile movement whatsoever, but they were ruthlessly shot down in cold blood—men, women, and children. The poor natives huddled together or fled in terror. Many were pursued and killed on the spot. Two old men, bearing between them a white flag and clasping hands like two brothers, approached the lines. Their hair was white. They fairly tottered, they were so feeble under the weight of years. To my horror and that of the other men in the command, the order was given to fire, and the two old men were shot down in their tracks. We entered the village. A man who had been on a sick-bed appeared at the doorway of his home. He received a bullet in the abdomen and fell dead in the doorway. Dum-dum bullets were used in that massacre, but we were not told the name of the bullets. We didn’t have to be told. We knew what they were. In another part of the village a mother with a babe at her breast and two young children at her side pleaded for mercy. She feared to leave her home, which had just been fired—accidentally, I believe. She faced the flames with her children, and not a hand was raised to save her or the little ones. They perished miserably. It was sure death if she left the house—it was sure death if she remained. She feared the American soldiers, however, worse than the devouring flames. Company M was under the command of Capt. Fred McDonald. g) Genocide in the Island of Samar General Jacob “Howling Jake” Smith became the public symbol of barbarism in the Philippines. While still a Colonel he openly bragged to foreign reporters in the Philippines that Filipino soldiers were “worse than fighting Indians” and that he had devised tactics appropriate to “savages”. This resulted in a series of articles in major dailies that included ‘Death for Luzon Bandits’; ‘Guerrillas Caught by Col. Smith Will Be Shot or Hanged;’ ‘Campaign Worst than Fighting Indians.’ 18 Smith was found guilty in a court martial for ordering his men to “kill everyone over the age of ten” and to turn Samar into “a howling wilderness”19. Smith’s conviction came only because the others accused in the massacres under his command produced 67