The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-01-24

wind. Is there no Columbus on board
OF the democratic craft to stand up
boldly and insist upon keeping straight
ahead on the course marked out by the
last democratic national convention2
The Hon. Grover Cleveland has as
serted that an officer of the United
States, Minister Stevens, has brought
damage upon Liliuokalani, the last
queen of the Sandwich Islands. There
is not a scintila of valid evidence that
the revolution which threw down her
throne hinged on Stevens, or that the
latter even committed any act of in
discretion. Nevertheless, President
Cleveland has said it, aud if the lady
thinks it is true, let her sue for her
throne or for money reparation before
congress or before our courts, wherever
she can get standing There is,
however, bOna-fde sufferer from this
episode, whose claim for damages no
one can deny. Regarded as a diplo
matte absurdity, the policy of infamy
has made the United States appear as
fool among nations. Regarded as a
serious plan of business, it has, so far as
it lay in the presidents power, made of
this country swag Lering and con-
temptible bully, undertaking TO scare a
weak and friendly free government into |
surrendering to barbarous monarchy.
If the history Of congress shall record |
that M. Cleveland was allowed to make |
with impunity declaration so distinctly |
provocative of war, there are no limits, |
except those Of his personal pusillan-
unity IN fhn aforementioned IfAfnn1ti.a
and dangers in which we NAV hereafter |
be involved. 1t may be that the pres !
ent president would long hesit ite be. |
fore perpetrating like outrage upon a
power strong enough to return the |
blow. But, in times to come, we may |
have, as we have had before, a military |
president of type different from that
of those civilians who sent substitutes
to the war, and such man may make
sinister use OF the precedent set by Mr..
Cleveland, unless that precedent is re-
pudiated by at least one branch of the
federal legislature. The blow struck
by Willis at Honolulu on December 10 |
was leveled not only at the Hawaiian
government, but at the rights reserved
to congress by the American constitu.
ton, and, therefore, unless it be visited
with severe reprobation, it may event
ually prove as dangerous as it was das-
tardly.
DURING the whole of that interval
Mr.. Dole and his friends would have
been at the mercy of savage and
bloodthirsty woman and the gang of
scoundrels by whom she is surrounded;
and the chances are hundred to one
that they would have been tried, con-
victed, sentenced, and beheaded within
been as clear to Mr.. Cleveland and his
secretary of state when, with the sup
pressed despatch before them, they
the instructions of December
3, as it is now to every intelligent and
candid reader of the suppressed docu-
ment. Mr.. Cleveland knew that, if
that despatch hal accompanied the
other papers submitted to the federal
it would have provoked such
a whirlwind of indignation that con-
gress would have been forced to order
him to take his hands off Hawaii, and
recall every order, written or oral,
which might place in frightful jeopardy
the lives of upright and high-minded
men of pure American descent like
President Dole and his supporters. He
knew that such would be the result of
divulging this document, and he DELHI
erately withheld it, so that his agent
Willis might have some weeks longer
in which to coax a sham promise out of
the ex-queen, and thus expose President
Dole and his friends to the gravest
peril. He pretended, indeed, that de-
'patch No. 3 had been withheld from
of the public interest;
out we challenge Mr.. Cleveland, or any
Of his official or officious champions,
low to say what public interest was
,ubserved by the suppression of that
document.