Mark Twain\'s Perspective on the Moro Crater Massacre

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Document III, written by Mark Twain (also known as Samuel Clemens) provides readers with the opportunity to look at the event from the narrator's perspective. Clemens provides harsh criticism with regard to the way that the military conducted itself in those circumstances and seems to introduce a form of satire in the discussion with the purpose of emphasizing the tragic nature of events occurring there. The writer wanted to take people's attention away from information it saw in public reports in order to actually be able to understand the degree to which the U.S. army had harmed natives.

The Moro Crater massacre involved a military unit sent by the U.S. authorities to attack a village on Jolo island, the Philippines. Clemens intention in writing the document was to highlight the degree to which those in power were determined to succeed from a material point-of-view. The writer's membership in the American Anti-Imperialist League was essential in getting him to write the essay. He was seriously opposed to the American involvement in the Philippines and wanted to do everything in his power in order to discourage such behaviors. Clemens' experience as a writer enabled him to use his abilities with the purpose of denouncing the U.S.' interest in persecuting other nations. Clemens was, in general, against warfare, and wanted to have the masses understand the degree to which the process harmed society as a whole.

Clemens obviously considered that society contemporary to him had a limited understanding of the idea of life and an even more limited understanding of the idea's importance to the world. By describing the way that events unfolded on the isle of Jolo on March 10, 1906, Clemens intended to make readers better prepared to deal with the government's tendency to achieve its goals regardless of the suffering it provoked. Moreover, the writer wanted people to know that the authorities put across such behaviors while trying to get the masses to support them by portraying them as actions that were actually beneficial for the nation. The government practically took people's attention away from things that actually mattered and made them feel as if those in charge were actually concerned about the world's well-being. "The official report quite properly extolled and magnified the "heroism" and "gallantry" of our troops; lamented the loss of the fifteen who perished, and elaborated the wounds of thirty-two of our men who suffered injury, and even minutely and faithfully described the nature of the wounds, in the interest of future historians of the United States." (Clemens)

As previously mentioned, Clemens makes full use of satire in an attempt to have readers comprehend the gravity of the event. The fact that he relates to the episode as being "incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States" (Clemens) is essential in proving that. He addresses ideas like false piety and the false sense of fighting for the forces of good in an attempt to have people admit that themselves and the individuals they are inclined to support are actually the 'bad guys' in this overall chain of events.

The text is intended to criticize the modern society's tendency to relate to particular communities as being inferior and as thus being unworthy of the same compassion one would put across toward a person who is a member of the civilized world. The simple thought of considering naked savages as being the victim of proud U.S. soldiers seemed enough for many individuals in the early twentieth century. This was the Manifest Destiny type of thinking all over again, considering that the masses were persuaded to see the episode as one in which the noble military fought uncultured and beastly people with the intention of helping the civilized world enrich its resources.

Clemens' text is significant from a historic point-of-view because it displays how he felt toward the idea of war and toward the idea of knowing that his country was involved in a ruthless conflict that left hundreds of innocent people dead. While there were mixed feelings in the U.S. concerning the event at the time, people in the era were unable to truly understand the degree to which their government harmed people during the Moro Crater massacre.