June 8, 1899 [Filipinos Retreat from Trenches]

In his warning, almost scolding, of a year or so ago, Kipling in "Recessional" writes of not only "lesser breeds without the Law" but also the lessons of Nineveh and Tyre, the "wild tongues" loosed, "drunk with sight of power"—leading, he fears, to "valiant dust that builds on dust."

Empires are not complicated—but building them complicates the Empire-builders, especially the sensitive ones like Kipling peering through their spectacles at the "tumult and shouting" leading to nothing but the "pomp of yesterday"—and I peer as well at the trench in New Jersey filled with Edison's version of Filipinos. As the soldiers advance on horseback, the lesser breeds dutifully fall back from "reeking tube and iron shard"—which Kipling disdains as the trust of "heathen hearts"—but smoke and shards seem to work just fine for the Empire-builders, while the tumult makes both of us—Kipling and me—reel, his call, "lest we forget," shouted down in silence.