The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-01

| States We sold them arms men sailed from
our ports to help them, President Adams sent
a message to Congress to urge that we should
join in an international convention which
they proposed to hold at Panama, and we re-
cognized their independence and made trea-
ties of friendship with them. All this did not
bring Spain to declare war against us. though
she was then stronger and we were very much
weaker than now Is it likely that she will
attempt to revenge herself upon us in 1869
for an act of less importance than other, that
she quietly bore with forty or fifty years AGO?
But the real question is not whether we
ought to be afraid of war with Spain or not
What the people of this country have to de-
eide and what in their hearts they have
already decided, is this:-Is it right for MS To
help the Cubans? and is it polite? If it is
right and polite, we ought to do it. whether
or no it eads to a petty war with a second
rate European power, struggling with bank
ruptcy, and in the crisis of civic convulsion
Let us state the reasons which we think are
conclusive on this subject
l. II is right for us to aid the Cubans be-
cause they are trying to free themselves from
the oppression of distant, alien European
monarchy and to assert the American princi-
pie of the right of self-government.
H. 1t is right to help them because they
are fighting to abolish slavery and the Afri-
can slave trade, and to establish human rights
in place of the Internal atrocities and wrongs
of the slave system.
III. 1t is right to help them to establish a
republic in Cuba because we also obtained
help from abroad in the hour of our struggle
That fact imposes upon us an obligation to
lend our own aid to a neighboring people
fighting like the men of Cuba to realize for
themselves the benefits of republican indie
pendence and democratic self-government.
~. 1t is polite to help the Cubans. Cuba
belongs, by her geographical position, to the
political system of the United States For
half century our statesmen have perceived
and have maintained that we cannot permit
that she should pass into the hands of any
other power. Indeed, she is destined to be-
come part of the American Union.
This being so, ought we to stand lazily and
cowardly by and see her devastated by a civil
war which we can arrest by word? Ought
we to consent that sle should be made a
desert, that all the work of modern civiliza-
ton shall be ami lilated on her plains and
hill sides, as a preliminary to her annexation?
We cant see it. On the contrary, it is our
duty rather to protect her against the useless
barbarism of her enemies, to avert the
further destruction of her homes, her mills,
her plantations, and to bid the ferocious
Spaniard depart from her shores with the
whips and fetters of his slaves, and all the
apparatus of his odious and intolerable tyr
amy. Her sons have proved that their an
tagonists cannot conquer them; and every
consideration that should influence statesmen
having sense and courage enough for theil
situation requires that the Government OF
the United States should decisively interfere
to stop the civil war in Cuba, and maintain
the rights of her people without any longe1
delay.