The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-12
nP1Rxx or THE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current T Topios-Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.

administration, has proven to be well
founded. The San Domingo treaty, which
was pending when we last went to press, has
been knocked on the head by powerful vote;
and a wholesome rebuke is thus administered
to the President by friend and foe, for at
tempting to manipulate and sell the action of
q coordinate and superior branch of the
Government, in order to carry out his policy.
This attempt on the part of the President
to pledge the action of Congress to a foreign
power was accidentally but happily revealed
through the discovery of a secret protocol
made between General Grant and President
Baez, of st. Domingo, in which the former
''privately pledged ESQ says the protocoD his
influence" over Congress, in favor of the San
Domingo purchase. So assured did the
President seem to be of his Influence" and
of the subserviency of Congress to his wishes
in the premises, that he handed Baez
800, 900 in cash and 100000 worth of
arms, as a complete proof thereof, and also
as earnest money on the uncompleted bar
gain.
Now, in the face of this extraordinary reve-
lation, there can be no one, outside of the
transaction, to regret that the Dominican
treaty failed; for it is very important that the
country should know how the President
acquired the right to an influence" over the
Senate; and whether that right is of sufficient
substance to be sold or pawned as one of the
ease, the Presidential power is unlimited.
The President may then not only make trea-
ties, but may spend public money to confirm
them; and, with liberal secret-service fund
at his command, may, in time, make himself
master of the ratifying power. This would
present as close picture of monarchy as the
world has ever seen, in which Congress, sink
ing to the subserviency of an imperial parlia-
ment, would be left with the sole function
of endorsing Cesarian DEGREES We
say, therefore, that the defeat of
the Dominican treaty by the Senate
is a great blessing to the country, and
at the same time a warning to the President
that the balances of the Constitution may not
be encroached upon with impunity, by even
favorite with the people. Nay, this reso-
lutte and patriotic action of the Senate does
yet more. 1t reveals to the people the fact
that a man of naturally good intentions and
homely common sense has fallen into the
hands of set of sharpers and adyenturers
who are misleading him for their own pur-
poses; and who are pluming themselves upon
the belief that they have found, in his mex
perience, placer by which they may all get
rich.
We do not doubt the personal integrity of
the President in all and every of the jobs
which these adventurers have decoyed him
into; but we more than doubt the honesty of
those who lead him into these speculations
and therefore ask the press Cat any rate, those
who are not into these jobs themselves) to
unite with us in defeating the adventurers,
and in thus saving the honor of the nation.
Let us promptly and earnestly turn to account
the lessons which these sharpers have given
us by their experiments to open and monopo-
lie an Isthmian canal; and the still less iusti-
fable project of seizing every eligible planta-
ton or estate in San Domingo Thus far the
actual evils into which these people have led
the President is but small. The three or four
millions of dollars which have been wasted
against the impenetrable mountains of Co.
lOmbia, and the hundred and fifty thousand
dollars of which Baez has outwitted him, are
together, mere bagatele in comparison with
the value of the warning they impart; for
through the exposure of the motives which
governed these two little land transactions
(both happily foiled), we are enabled to
understand the secret interests which have
till now embarrassed and confused the Cuban
question.
We believe it to be not too much to say
that nine-tenths of the American people are
in cordial sympathy with the Cuban cause,
and that unless an immediate change of
front is made by the administration on that
question, the Republican party may spare
itself the running of a candidate at the next
Presidential election. For a time, the ad-
ministration had, in support of its Cuban
q
the country to take any step which might i'm
pair our position with Great Britain in the
Alabama claims; and also natural
popular desire to give Spain a liberal
time to do justice to Cuba herself, under her
then apparently republican tendencies; but
the American people, finding that Spain has
relapsed to monarchy, and that the period in
which she, as well as England, recognized
our Rebels as belligerents has been more
than quadrupled, have turned in one vast
sudden tide carrying such powers as Senator
Sumner and The Spirit along with it), de-
manding an American expression of sympathy
Cor Cuba, and also an application of the prin.
cpie of an American primacy on the Ameri-
can continent, to the extent, at least, of oui
right to regulate the peace and decorum OF
the neighborhood.
Finding, however, in the face of this un-
mistakable sentiment of the people of the
United States, that the President, under the
control of his personal advisers, had actually
attempted to stem this sympathy with 9
message which took sides with Spain, the
people began to inquire as to what motives
beyond those of an obvious American policy
had instigated this inexplicable course II
was at this point that the motives which hat
governed the two land schemes flashed upoI
the public mind as the motive which wa.
now steering Cuba. 1t was plain that th,
secret advisers of the President had, al
In the cases of tunnelling the Isthnaus and IL
purchasing San Domingo, succeeded in per
suading him that the best way to obtain Cub
for the United States, was to buy it will
money, and that it would be cheap even a
the round sum of a hundred millions of dol
lars. This is the drag which has constantl
retarded the Cuban question in the hands o
our administration and kent IL immovahla