The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-08
SPIRIT OF TIE PRnss.
x ,storiaI Opinions of the Leading Journals
Upou Current TOpIcs-COmpiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.

From the ". Y. hOTn
General Butler is represented, in a morn
inc radical print, as saying that the admins
tration has pursued a triting policy towards
Cuba unworthy of great government; that
it should either have granted bellgerent
rights to the Cubans long ago, or else have
frankly told them its policy was cold nom
Intervention. In aword he is reported to be
generally disgusted with the conduct of the
Government on the Cuban question.
We are inclined to think that when the
official correspondence of the Department of
State on this topic is made public, as it will
be when Congress assemblies, it will be found
that Mr.. Fish has sailed on pretty steady
and well-defned course. And yet it is un-
doubtedly true that the course of this Gov
ernment in respect to the Cuban instruction
NAV seem to an outsider to wibble-wabble
like that of drunken man. This has come
very much, we feel sure, from the words and
acts of General Grant and certain members
of his Cabinet who have legally nothing
TO do with the administration of foreign
affairs. Grant was early persuaded by
Banks and one or two other sensational
politicians that all sorts of things were to
come out of the proposed insurrection, and
he made commitments which it was not easy
or convenient for Secretary of State to for
mrllate into an official note to the Spanish
Minister or to any one else. The views of
the President were as impractcable of codif-
cation in official form as were the propositions
of Mr.. Summers Alabama speech. Grant
found it was necessary to execute the neu-
trality laws but yet he talked to the enthusi-
astic friends of Cuba in way to lead them to
suppose that no serious obstacle would be
interposed to their filibustering schemes.
Hence, the general impression which prevailed
that the President would wink at violations
of the law. Thus, too, it has been in respect
to beligerency recognition. While the State
Department, so far as the public knows, has
found no solid ground for recognition" and
has not been able to possess itself of reasons
sufficient in the forum of international law
to Justify the act either to the Senate this
country, or foreign countries, President
Grant, in his summer vacation, has managed,
unconsciously perhaps, to satisfy all in
quirers about Cuban affairs, and their number
has been legion, that he was so decidedly
for Free Cuba that belligerence could not fail
to come at an early day. The conversation of
the late Secretary Rawlins $50 gratefully re-
membered by the Cubans), and that of Post
master-General Creswell, all tended in the
same direction. The representatives of the
Cubans, Messrs. Lemus and Ruiz, had con-
slant access to these Cabinet ministers, and,
in their zeal, supposed they spoke for this
Government. The unguarded words of Sickles
before he left New York contributed largely
to produce general impression that Grant
was to move at once on the works of Spain,
as on the Notifications of an enemy. District
Attorney Pierrepont has, in like manner, done
much to create the belief that this general
flood of Cuban sensation bore along with it
the Department of Foreign Affairs.
By making this distinction between the
policy of the Government, as manifested by
its official communications with foreign
powers through the Secretary of State, on
the one hand, and the sentiments of promi-
IN private conversation, on the other hand,
we save the United States from the charge of
vacillation and uncertainty preferred by
General Butler.
That this general outside sensational talk
of these members of the administration very
like the twaddle of Postmaster-G General Cres-
well on the Stock Exchange the other day,
has done incalculable harm to Cuba, there
can be no doubt. For, while the policy of
the Government was really non-intervention
and honest neutrality towards Spain, these
fussy busybodies have made that power be-
iieve that the United States not only had
sympathy for her rebels but bitter autipathy
against herself. Thus it was that when, a
little time since, such belief obtained firm
foothold in Madrid, there was an expression
of a universal purpose throughout the PENN
sula, including republicans, conservatives,
Carlists, partisans of Isabella, and every
body else, to put down the rebellion in
Cuba at all hazards. While the good offices
of the United States were accepted by Spain
with gratitude, mediation was peremptorily
refused. All negotiations for transfer of Cuba
to the Cubans ended in an instant. The
man who should to-day in Madrid seriously
propose the sale Of Cuba at any price, would,
our correspondents inform us, be hooted in
the streets. General PrIm, as we know, has
tened from Paris to hurry forward troops to
Cuba, resolved to put down the insurection,
no matter at what sacrifice money and means
therefor were obtained All this feeling has
been evoked by something in the United
States which appeared to Spain to be threats,
OF by suspicious of threats, of interference on
our part in favor Of the Cespedes insurgents