The record-union., 1896-03-20


luton.
WASHINGTON, March 19-The
Cuban debate in the Senate to-day was
of a character to maintain the intense
public interest in that question. 1t was
to have been opened by Mills of Texas,
but that Senator was too i'll to be pres
ent, and the debate was opened by
Stewart of Nevada. He declared him
self anxious for action, said that the
facts were too notorious to need further
statement, favored the adoption of the
conference report, and said that if a
concurrent resolution did not produce
the desired effect Congress ought to
pass a joint resolution and place the re-
sponsibility on the President.
Gray of Delaware, a member of the
Committee on Foreign Relations, rose
in order, as he explained it, to give the
reasons which compelled him to with
hold his assent from the conference re-
port, but he was subjected to so many
Interruptions that his brief statement
occupied over an hour. 1t closed with
an expression of the hope that Spain,
without rupture of friendly relations,
shall sit down with US at the council
board of nations and consider whether
there may not be some other issue of this
controversy than the determination of
a whole people fighting for their lib
erty"
Gray was interrupted all through his
speech by Hale of Maine, in the course
of which Hale fatty contradicted a
statement repeatedly made by Sherman
of Ohio, Chairman of the Foreign Re-
11% -
violated all the promises and reforms
stipulated in the capitulation of 1873,
when the insurgents of that day laid
down their arms. Sherman had said
among other things that although rep
resentation in the Spanish Cortes was
then promised the Cubans had only one
delegate there. but Hale affirmed that
he had a list of forty-five members in
the House of Deputies and fourteen or
fifteen members in the Senate from
the two islands of Cuba and Porto
Rico. Hale declared with warmth that
he was laboring under a sense Of indig-
nation at the suppression Of the facts
of the case by the Committee on For
eign Relations.
Gray made a mock apology to Hale
for interrupting his speech so much,
but spoke Of him by an intentional slip
of the tongue as The Senator from
Spain.'
The junior Senator from Texas Chill
ton. advocated the passage on a Joint
resolution rather than of concurrent
one, and expressed his belief that inter-
vention by the United States meant the
ultimate annexation Of Cuba, to which
he was opposed.
The last speech of the day was made
by Caffery of Louisiana, and was
against the entire proposition as having
no better basis than stories in the
Arabian Nights
When the Senate met the bill to enable
the people of New Mexico to form
Constitution and State Government,
and to be admitted into the Union as a
State was reported from the Committee
on Territories and placed on the calen-
dar.
Senate bill authorizing the expendi-
ture of the unexpended appropriation
for the construction of canals and locks
at the Cascades of the Columbia River
in the construction of projecting walls
was passed.
The conference report on the Cuban
belligerency resolutions was then taken
up.
Stewart Pop) of Nevada addressed
the Senate in support of the resolutions.
1T was reproach to the American peo-
pie that they had stood by so long, he
said, and witnessed the vain attempt of
Spain to govern Cuba. He compared
the case of Spain in Cuba with that of
England in Egypt, and said that the
English policy in Egypt was being ex-
tended to this hemisphere. If Spain
held Cuba she would hold her as she had
done for the last hundred years, with an
army and would increase the Cuban
debt and enslave the people. The heart
OF every patriot in the United States
went out to Cuba
Should the Senate, Stewart asked, an
swer the demand or the American peo-
pie and extend that sympathy in the
most effective way, or should 1t spend
its time quibbling about the fact
whether there was war in Cuba? He
hoped to have action. and speedy ac-
ton, and if it did not bring results let
the Senate pass joint resolution, and
throw the responsibility on the Execu-
tive.
Then Stewart took his seat, and as no
other Senator sought the floor the Vice
President asked whether the Senate
was ready for the question, and he
stated the question to be on agreeing to
the conference report.
Then Gray (Dem.) of Delaware, one
of the members of the Committee on
Foreign Relations, rose and said that he
wished to state briefly the reasons
which compelled him to withhold his
assent from the conference report. 1t
was easy TO say, Gray remarked, that
the resolutions of the two houses were
substantially the same, but in q matter
of this kind words were things. 1t
would be vain to attempt to disguise
the feeling of sympathy that occupied
the breast of every true American in
regard to that struggle. And yet the
Government Of the United States. as
IN duty bound, had strictly observed its
duties toward the friendly Govern
ment of Spain. It had strictly enforced
the neutrality laws. IT had suppressed
all aid in the shape of military expedi-
tions, and had gone to the very verge
Of its international obligations in pro-
tecting Spain from the effects Of that
widespread sympathy That feeling
had found proper. respectful and cour-
teous expression in the resolutions