The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1885-05-21
American sympathy.

Some of our contemporaries are dis
cussing the question whether the sym
pathy of the people of the United
States ought to be with England or
Russia, in ease of war between those
nations.
With England, says the Commercial
Advertiser, because she is battling for
the right against the wrong, for the
preservation of civilization against the
last great assault of the barbaric prin-
ciple of the divine right of force"
With Russia, insists the Herald, be-
cause the Gar patted us on the back
at the time of our own war, while
England gave US no word of comfort
or sympathy.
We would respectfully suggest, with
due respect for our contemporaries,
that the sympathies of our people
ought to be with neither England nor
Russia.
What is there in tle course of either
to win the sympathy of free, liberty
loving people? Both are prepared to
sacrifice hundreds of thousands of
lives to promote their ambitious ends.
Both nations are freebooters who have
seized territory belonging to others in
order to enrich and aggrandlze them
selves.
What right has England in India
other than that of the strong robber
who seizes and holds by force other
peoples property?
What business has Russia IN Afghan.
istan except to play the ruffian free
booter there, as she has so often done
elsewhere?
Can a people who believe that all
men are created equal that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit OF hap
piness- can people so believing sym
pathize" with mOnarchies which play
their brutal and selfish game of war at
the cost of hundreds of thousands of
men whom they call their ''subjects?"
When England sent her troops and
her guns to slaughter the Soudanese
was she battling for the right and
4" for the presence of the dangers which
menaoed the American Union," and
mt the same moment ploughed the
flesh of her own men and women with
the murderous knout and filled the
fatal mines of Siberia with political
prisoners Humbug!
The pathies of our people ought
to be with the Afghans whose territory
is assailed with the Soudarese, who,
however, seem pretty well able to take
care of themselves with the oppressed
and wronged of every country who
are drawn into the vortex of war by
the ambitions of rival thrones with
the misguided men who are driven or
enticed into the ranks of both armies,
and whose lives, laid down on the
bloody field of battle, are no more con-
sidered by those who make the war
than are the spent and battered bullets
that have gone whistiing among the
trees.
If people were fighting for their
rights, if the sacred cause of liberty
were in the balance, if the war was
against tyranny and oppression, the
sympathy of Americans would be
aroused and there would be no douat
as to which side it would choose. But
there is nothing to enlist that sympa-
thy on the side of throne whose
splendor is purchased with the lives
OF hundreds of thousands of victims,
whether it would be erected in st.
Petersburg or in London.
If war actually occurs we shall re-
gret the lives of the brave men who
will fall in battle. We shall respect.
their mistaken loyalty" but we shall
wish that they may in the end turn
their arms against their own oppfess-
ors wherever they are found and top
ple over the thrones which are built
on the liberties of the people, whether
they press on them lightly. as in Eng
land, or . heavily, as in Russla.-
EWorld.