The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-01-02
SOME INTERESrING LETTERS.
Professors of Harvard Write to
 Congressman Mccall.

|
 by permission of the house, has embod- jed in 8 speech delivered by him in the house of representatives December 2, 1895, and which will appear in to-mor- rows Congressional Record, some very Interesting letters from the leading pro- fessors of Harvard university on the Venezuelan incident,
 s. NJ. MacNane, who holds the chair of professor of ancient and modern his tory in Harvard university, writes as follows:
 Tn my opinion the administration has committed a criminal blunder in it's appeal to warlike feelings. The house of representatives, instead of interpos-
 ing demand for moderation and care, has given way to foolish excitement and reckless haste It looks now as if, by a return of your bill with amendments, you may have an opportunity to recon slider the case. I beg you to do what 1 you can to prevent the passage of the
 commission bill in any form. It can
 only complicate and retard a rational settlement We have diplomatic ma
 chinery for dealing with foreign coun-
 tries and for collecting information re- garding any question that affects our interests. England can hardly recog
 nize the commission. The very ap-
 pointment of it would be an affront
 which she could hardly fail to resent. { It would put the whole subject on
 wrong basis would create about it an
 atmosphere of irritation highly danger
 ous to the peace of the two countries.
 The chances are strong that it would draw Us into position from which no escape could be found short of war,
 The men who get us into war with
 England over question of boundary between the English colonists in Guia-
 ma and the yenezuelans will undoubt-
 edly be held to a sharp reckoning.
 "The people of British Guiana are as
 much Americans as the NeneZuelans
 are The one spot of South America
 in which men of our own blood and
 language have set up free government
 and the rule of law is as much entitled
 to our support as are the unruly Span l ish of Venezuela. If they have carried
 Teutonic enterprise into the unoccupied
 wilds about the head waters of the Es- sequibo they have done no more.
 think, than our own people would have
 done in the same circumstances. That 1 their government should have followed
 them can hardly surprise anybody who knows that there would otherwise have been no government.
 '"rhe absence of a settled boundary lhas always been primarily the fault Of Venezuela in making demands so gross
 and sweeping that they could not be
 entertained. That England should now
 refuse to submit to arbitration the ques-
 tion of handing over her colonists in
 their new homes to the tender mercies
 of the Venezuelan rule seems to me highly creditable to her. That this oth-
 CT great Anglo-Saxon nation should
 threaten her with war for doing so
 can only be due to error and misappre-
 hension. When our people understand | the case they will know what to think
 of the president and any who weakly
 follow him
 From William James, professor of psychology, Harvard university: 'tAs one of your constituents I urge 1 you to use your influence in every way
 to mitigate the further results of the calamity which President Cleveland
 and congress together have sprung upon | the country.
 1 The good fame that one hundred years 1 have won for us, and that has made the world view us with an Indulgence ac-
 corded to no other great power, the | character namely, of being safe, and always to be counted on as throwing out vast weight into the scale that stands for humanity and civilization has in three days of delerum been flung
 so far away over the roof tops that 1 fifty years of sane conduct will doubt fully buy it back. We have written 1 ourselves down as a people dangerous
 to the peace of the world, more danger
 ous than, anything since France under
 Napoleon. The grotesque logic of the l Cleveland-Olney communications is only
 matched by their gratuitotAziy insulting 1 form. Was there ever anything more linfernally cynical than to make of an 1 incident where where we pretend to
 urge upon others the use of the human international methods the preteXt and vehicle of wantUn and clustering pro- vocation of war?
 | The presidents fearful blunder was | in coupling his direct threat of war with his demand for a commission. It is the passion aroused by that that so fatal | ly compIicate the situation. Had he simply asked for S100,000 for a judicial 1 commission to enable us to see how to
 exert most justly our influence here after, it would have left all possibi~
 lities open. And meanwhile, had the decision of the commission so solemnly 1 inaugurated been adverse to. England, it would have been exceedingly diff
 cult for the English government to go
 on in an unjust course. The liberal party would have made it an issue-we
 should have covered ourselves with i dignity and honor and appeared to the world, as we always have appeared hitherto (aIas no longer) the friends of
 new and more civilized international order.
 l All these possibilities are lost. The threat compels England to disregard | the commissions decision. It compeks
 us to declare war, if she disregards it. 1 Compels, that is, under penalty of fla grant cowardice on the one hand, under penalty of coufessing to the
 buffoon government on the other. It is
 monstrous that so sharp and calamitous SIn,,Id Inc