Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-10-17
Very Embarrassing

road corporations and for making NO
4 effort to enforce the antitrust laws.
Grover Cleveland looked upon his work,
and finding it after his own heart pro
NOTED Mr. Olney This example was not
needed to convince any ambitious incum'
bent of a cabinet clerkship under Mr..
Cleveland that the shortest road to fame
lay in toadying to the whins and egotisnl
Of the occupant Of the White House
President Cleveland has ever found just
such men for his cabinet and underllngs,
for he has shrewdly gone out In quest OF
mediocrity when nc wished to fill va
cancy in his political household. Like
third rate theatrical star he has resorted
to the well known trick for self aggran
d,zemept by surrounding himself with a
support so poor that the principal would
shine by contrast rather than by personal
merit.
The new attorney general, Mr.. Har-
mon, seems in all these respects to have
acceptably filed the niche made vacant by
Mr.. Olney. Moreover he has been 80
shrewd as to guage the likes and dislikes
of his chief. His conception of the fish
blooded patriotism of the fisherman OF
Buzzard's bay seems to have been accu-
rate to nicely, so accurate in iact, thaI
| to expose 1t as he has done may bring
about the very opposite OF what the
| accommodating Mr.. Harmon intended.
A few days aga certain citizens, who
may have heard threats of incarceration
on account of their pronounced sympa-
thies for Cuba, timidly inquired OF the
| mighty attorney general what the effect
| of such sympathy with down trodden
people might be- That functionary didn't
| funk, not bit of It, He felt himself so
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the
administration SO admirably supported by
precedents-so far as the Cleveland ad-
ministration is concerned-that he quick
| ly responded as follows:
While there is no law to prevent Ameri
can citizens from speaking their senti-
ments Oh any subject singly or together,
taking such action as you mention in
your letter would in my Judgment be
dscourteous in the highest degree to a
| friendly power, and tend to cmbar rass and
obstruct the government in carrying out
| its determination faithfully to execute the
| laws and fulfill its treaty obligations.
How nice of Mr. Harmon to assure the
trembling citizen that there was no law
which could throw him into a dungeon
for daring to hope that the Cuban patriots
| now sacrificing their lives, and whom a
| Spanish force three times as large as our
standing army has been unable to crush,
may win freedom Having removed this
source Of terror Mr.. Harmon in his most
bland and jnsinuating way essays to
impose upon these warm blooded patriots
a sense of duty toward the great and good
President, who fears he may be "em-
barrassed" Think of 1t " Embarrassed
because American sense of justice revolts
ut the medieval cruelty and tyranny,
which Spain inflicts upon country in
the new world; embarrassed because,
while American war ships patrol the
| coast in the interests Of Spanish oppres-
| sion, and the administration unwilling
to recognize the right must necessarily
| aid the wrong, because under these condi-
lions though their hands be tied, the
hearts of free men and the voice of
American manhood respond to the sup
plications of the struggling Cubans
How very embarrassing
And then to think of the accumula-
lions of just such embarrassment that
have fallen to the lot of Grover Cleveland.
Armcnians were tortured and outraged
ny the Turks or course the United
States was on friendly relations with the
Porte consequently how exceedingly en-
barrassing it must have been to President
Cleveland for Americans to lift their
hands in horror at the massacre of Chris
As n figure head in China and left to Eng
land the duty of putting an end to
Chinese massacres of missionaries, how
very embarrassing to Mr.. Cleveland it
must have been to see Americans actually
praying for the safety of other American
citizens In China, to which this country
under treaty obligations
But what will Americans have to say
Mt the embarrassment they feel in having
an administration that doesn't know the
meaning Of patriotism? As compared
| with the embarrassment of Grover Cleve-
land because of treaty obligations -
we'll, there isn't any comparison. Treaty
obligations indeed. Why, hasn't this
government treaty obligations with al
most every government ON the face Of the
globe, and for that reason are We to re.
train from speaking In behalf of justice
and humanity and in opposition to in
ustice and inhumanitys
Mr.. Harmon evidently knows the mind
Of his chief much better than the minds
of the American people. Even the most
partisan organs OF the administration
dare not support such shameful sense