Birmingham state herald., 1895-10-19
OUR LETTER BOX.
Cuba.

Cuba.
 Editor State Herald:
 South Highlands, Oct. 18.-I have just read with great pleasure and approbation the comment of the New York Sun in your columns today upon MT. HarnIonS s Idea of the Cuban struggle for freedom.
 The ladies of the Edgewood BOOK club have been studying the past week the lives of those illusrrious statesmen and patriots, Clay, Calhoun and Webster.
 In reading with my wife, who1s d mem- Der of the club, the life and speeches of Henry Clay was forcibly struck with hls great speech in the senate in favor of sending message of sympathy to Greece in her struggle for independence in 1924.
 It Is so appropriate at this day that have made the following extracts substi- tuting the name Cuba for Greece, and ask you to give it place in your valuable columns, with the hope and prayer that it may inspire our able Ala bama represen- tatives to work for the recognition as bellgerantS by the American congress of those brave patriots now struggling for liberty in the queen of the Antilles.
 Surely, sir. we need no long or learned lectures about the nature of government and the influence of propriety or ranks on society. We may content ourselves with studying the true character of our own people; and with knowing that the interests are confided to us of nation CdpdOle OL uOlHB anu SulleIliB di thlh6o for its liberty. Such nation if its rulers be faithful, must be invincible No, sir, no united nation, that resolves to be free, can be conquered. And has it come to this? Are we so humble, so low, so de- based that we dare not express our sym- pathy for suffering Cuba; that we dare not articulate our detestation of the bru- tai excesses of which she has been the bleeding victim, lest we might offend some one or more of their imperial and royal majesties? If gentlemen are afraid to act rashly on such a subject suppose, MT. Chairman, that we unite in an hum- ble petition addressed to their majeste5 beseeching them that of their gracious condeScension they would allow us to ex- press our feelings and our sympathies.
 Are we so mean, so base, so despicable that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter indignation at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high heaven?
 But sir, it is not for Cuba alone that desire to see this measure adopted. It is principally for America, for the cred 1t and character of our common country, for our own unsullied name that I hope to see it pass. MT Chairman, what ap- pearance on the page of history would a record like this exhibit? Tn the month of December, in the year of our Lord and Savior, 1895, while all European christen- dom beheld with cold and unfeeling indlf- ference the nuexamped wrongs and inex- pressible misery of Cuba, a proposition was made in the congress of the United States, almost the sole, the last, the greatest depository of human hope and human freedom, the representatives of a gallant nation containing 100000 free men ready to fly to arms, while the people of that nation were spontaneously ex- pressing its deep-toned feeling, the whole continent, by one simultaneous emotion, was rising and solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking high heaven to spare and succor Cuba and to invigor- ate her arms in her glorious cause, whilst temples and senate houses were alike re- sounding with one burst of generous and holy sympathy; in the year of our Lord and Savior, that Savior of Cuba and of us a proposition was affirmed in the American congress to send message to Cuba, to inquire into her state and con dition with kind expression of our good wishes and our sympathies-and 1t was rejectedv Go home, if you can; go home, If you dare, to your constituents and tell them that you voted it down; meet, if you can, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments; that the spectres of of cimiters, and crowns, and crescents gleamed before you and alarmed you: that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty by na- tional independence and by humanity"
 All true Americans will pray that the star of liberty may shine triumphant over downtrodden
 "CIJBA." {