He says very truly:
'My own party, the Democrats, will say if they read this book--If this
man takes it upon himself to be a Plenipotentiary without authority,
we had better not employ him any more--I frankly cannot understand
your action, as to its unwisdom I have no doubt at all.'
"Admiral Dewey goes home, it is believed, to advise the President on
Naval and Colonial Affairs, he knows exactly what did take place and
what did not, and I should know if he had any ground to think that the
slightest promise was made by Pratt to Aguinaldo he would declare it
unauthorized and decline to sanction it. I am certain Pratt reported
what he supposed took place accurately; he had no surety on what you
might have said, naturally.
"And, curiously, you never mentioned to me anything of the agreement
as having taken place then, nor in the paper you communicated to me
was there any mention of one, nor did Pratt know of any. It is only
more recently that the fiction took shape. 'The wish father to the
thought,' or the statement repeated till it has become believed by
the--, [37] this is common.
"Now I would like to urge you, from the practical point of view, to
drop any such foolishness. The vital thing, and nothing else counts,
is what Dewey said and did when he at last met Aguinaldo.
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