The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-18
LODGE ENDORSES CLEVELAND.
If Arbitration Is Refused Agrees
sion Must Be Resisted.

WASHINGTON, D. c.. Dec. 17.-Com-
menting on the Presidents message sena-
tor Lodge (R.) of Massachusetts, said:
"This message is the most serious and
important which has been submitted by
any President to Congress for many years.
As matter of course / heartily approve
OF its spirit, its conclusions and the gen.
eral position taken, for I took the same
grounds myself last June in an article in
the North American Review before public
attention had been drawn to the matter at
all, and again in an interview which I gave
to the correspondent of New York news
paper last October in Paris. The Presi-
dent argues briefly the standing of the
Monroe doctrine as matter of inter-
national law. l do not myself think that
1t is question of international law at all.
1t is really mere question of fact, like
the independence of the United States.
1.-THE President seems also to have gone
to the very verge of safety in stating that
we should assent to any amicable agree
ment between Venezuela and Great Britain
as to boundaries. We undoubtedly should
do so in this instance, but we should
equally, of course, not assent to indefinite
cessions of territory by any South Ameri-
can state to European power. For ex-
ample, any attempt of Great Britain to
take possession of Cuba under cession
from Spain. which the morning papers
state is in contemplation, would be re-
garded by the United States as an act of
war. The President, however, has, think,
guarded his statement on this point from
being drawn into precedent by the use
of the word boundaries
'But these are small points, compare
lively speaking. The main contention of
the message is thoroughly sound and will
meet with universal support. That con-
tention is that Great Britain, on the pre-
text of boundary dispute, has seized
American territory which she did not hold
prior to 1923; that she has declined to
submit the question to arbitration, and
thus proposes to hold the disputed terri
tory by force. This being the case, as the
President states, there is nothing for the
United States to do under these clrcum-
stances but to determine the true divi-
sional line between Venezuela and Guiana
and then resist by all means in her power
any attempt of the British to take terri
tory beyond that line.
"This is q sound American position. I
do not myself believe that the English
people have the least desire to engage in
hostilities with the United States; they
care but little and know less about the
Venezuelan dispute; they do not realize
that, while 1t is mere question of more
or less territory to England, it involves for
the United States a principle as vital
almost to their rights and interests as a
nation as their own independence. Am
bilious politicians in England, eager for
personal political reasons to distinguish
themselves by a vigorous foreign public
spirited colonial policy, have undertaken
to push and browbeat the United States
until they have brought the two countries
nearly to the verge of war. 1t is to be
hoped that the Presidents message will
make the English people understand that
this is to us vital question; that we are
wholly content to leave it to arbitration;
but that if arbitration is declined we shall
resist this aggression to the utmost, and
that, although We do not seek war, we do
not fear it"