The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1894-06-01
Spite Work.

oplC0 WOIk.
What misfortune it is to this coun-
try to have persons in positions of great
responsibility and power whose under
standings are so beclouded with preju-
dice and animosity that they can only
view the acts of their opponents or
predecessors in Office of the opposite
party through some medium of distor-
ton?
An instance of this personal hatred
in politics, that affected adversely the
welfare of the country, was the per-
sonal feeling entertained by Charles
Sumner and few other radical Repub-
lican senators against General Grant,
so manifest in the opposition which
they made TO the annexation OF the
island of San Domingo. They succeeded
il defeating the treaty in the senate.
The speeches of Mr.. Sumner showed
plainly that the chief actuating motive
which instigated him in opposing the
treaty was his hatred of the president.
Everyone now believes that the re-
lection of that treaty of annexation was
great misfortune. There ought not
10 be two minds in the Nation on the
matter.that we should possess San Do
mingo. Here was an opportunity of
our possessing one of the best of the
West India islands, lying almost within
sight of our shores, and yet the treaty
ceding it TO us was rejected solely
through the qualification of spite.
Again we have a similar instance of
the rejection of treaty giving to us an
important foothold that promised to be
of vast future benefit to this country,
and this time also the actuating motive
is clearly personal luminosity against
the president through whom the treaty
had been made. All the acts and cor
respondence of Mr.. Cleveland and Sec
rotary Gresham show as plainly as
pike-staff that the stimulus of their
course in the matter of the annexation
of Hawaii was hatred against President
Harrison
While the possession of this feeling
has undoubtedly lost us, temporarily at
least, the Hawaiian islands, the presi
dent and his secretary of state have not
fully escaped the punishment which
their unpatriotic and groveling course
in the mvtter eutitle them to receive.
They stand pilloried in public opinion
AS having carried into the highest ma
tional official action motives that would
disgrace low down village politician.
But Messrs. Cleveland and Gresham
do not seem to have been satisfied with
the Senegambian that they thought
they had discovered in the wood pile of
the late Republican administration, for
they think to have found mares nest
in the Samoan treaty and propose, it is
announced, to withdraw our govern
ment from it and give up the rights
which we have acquired in those islands
simply because, as they say, we have
far less commerce there than other ma
ton, and the cost of maintaining our
part of the agreement is in excess of the
advantages which we derive.
What sort of argument is that for a
man upon whom has been placed the
responsibility of conducting the foreign
policy of this great nation of seventy
millions of people9
The truth is, our commerce in the
Pacific is just beginning. Many wise
men, who are not optimistic, either,
foresee that it is likely to grow in mag
nitude until it becomes greater than
that of any other nation. Why notg
We are nearer the Great East than are
other commercial western nations, and
we were not wont TO be lacking in en-
terprise on the high seas.
The key to Messrs. Cleveland, Bayard
and Gresham's action in this Samoan
matter lies in the fact that our trouble
with England and Germany over these
islands had its origin during President
Cleyelands first administration and re-
NAMED unsettled when Gen'l Harrison
came into office. Then Secretary Blaine