The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-14
THE CUBAN QUESTION:


The special message of the President, re-
lating to Cuban affairs, which was transmitted
to Congress yesterday, will command general
attention. 1t will be seen that it substantially
confirms opinions that have from time to time
been expressed in the columns of this journal,
especially those relating to the desperate
character of the prospects of the revolu-
tionists, and their prevailing disposition
to ensconce themselves in comfortable hotels
and boarding houses in the United States,
and to resort to an endless succession of
schemes to induce American citizens to fight
their battles, instead of manfully facing their
Spanish foes on their native soil.
Considering the disparity of
force, and the utter absence of
thorough organization among the insurgents,
the prolongation of the contest can only be
accounted for by the disposition of all Spanish
American populations to encourage and per-
petuate anarchy. They seem to forget that
''order is heavens first law, and after
permanent and stable authority is once weak
ened, they apparently lack the capacity of
establishing new one on any other basis
than a relentless despotism. The late COM
mander-in-chief of the insurgents alleges
that they ''have not ten thousand arms" that
'all commercial intercourse or trade with the
exterior world has been utterly cut off, and
the message tells us that they ''hold no town
or city, have no established seat of govern
ment; they have no prize courts, No organi-
ton for the receiving or collecting of revenue,
no seaport to which prize may be carried
or through which access can be had by for
eign power to the limited interior territory
and mountain Businesses which they occupy"
Natural as it is for Americans to sympa-
thize with every nationality struggling against
oppression, and anxious as they may be to
see the Cubans relieved of their Spanish yoke,
they cannot fail to perceive the folly of com
plicating and endangering all their diverse
commercial interests on behalf of an organi-
zation which bears on its face such lamenta-
BILE evidences of impotence, and which
avowedly seeks effective strength in foreign
lands, rather than among the people who are
presumably oppressed. From time immemo-
rial he who would be free himself must strike
the blow. Even the colered men of this
country secured universal emancipation and
the establishment of universal suffrage
mainly by the fact that they furnished hun
dreds of thousands of soldiers to suppress
the Rebellion; for their bearing in the battle
field did infinitely more to enforce recogni-
ton of their rights than all the arguments OF
| Republican orators. The Cubans, in lacking
the capacity or the disposition to make a
resolute and vigorous stand against
their enemies, and in expatriating
| Al II. H., IL l.:
to the generous consideration which might
otherwise be granted. In our own Revolu-
tion the chances of aid from France would
have been poor indeed if, instead of merely
sending few able commissioners to the
French Court, thousands of the leading cit i
zens of that era had crossed the ocean to
enjoy the pleasures of Partisan life. If those
who have most at stake will not or dare not
directly confront Spanish power, why should
the United States as a nation become EN-