It has been alleged that my views on Philippine problems were coloured by a desire to retain my official position.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed, no man who has not served for long and sometimes very weary years as a public official, and has not been a target for numerous more or less irresponsible individuals whose hands were filled with mud and who were actuated by a fixed desire to throw it at something, can appreciate as keenly as I do the manifold blessings which attend the life of a private citizen.
I trust that I have said enough to make clear my view point, and now a word as to subject-matter.

It is my intention to correct some of the very numerous misstatements which have been made concerning past and present conditions in the Philippines.

I shall quote, from time to time, such statements, both verbal and written, and more especially some of those which have recently appeared in a book entitled "The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912," by James H.Blount, who signs himself "Officer of the United States Volunteers in the Philippines, 1899-1901; United States District Judge in the Philippines, 1901-1905." Judge Blount has indulged so freely in obvious hyperbole, and has made so very evident the bitter personal animosities which inspire many of his statements, that it has been a genuine surprise to his former associates and acquaintances that his book has been taken seriously.
It should be sufficiently evident to any unprejudiced reader that in writing it he has played the part of the special pleader rather than that of the historian.