The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-01-02
POLITICAL PBSSIMISM.
Joseph Dana Miller's Queer
Estimate Of the Presidents
War Message and
the President.

ception. For years We lave been treated
to threats of war on every conceivable
pretext by the lingo element of both
parties, such element, however, largely
preponderating among the Republicans.
The Democratic party has been tainted
with subservience to British interests,
and Grover Cleveland accused of being
the special guardian of everything Eng
fish. At last the friend of Lombard
street.-The man who is in favor of the
gold standard because it is British, and
of free trade for America because that
doctrine is also said to be of advantage
to English interests-casts what looks
like a gage of battle at the very feet of
the British ion! And whole reams of
| speeches that the Lodges and the Chand-
lers had premeditated are so much worth
less paper, and are made TO occupy the
peculiarly ridiculous position of seeing all
their absurd and irrelevant buncombe
reduced to positive, concrete form, and
made the exclusive property of their
political opponents. They are politicians
without an occupation.
Now here IS Grover Cleveland's con
tribution to the cause of permanent
peace. as valuable and important a con-
tribution to pacific relations between the
peoples of the two countries as a be
conceived. 1t reveals to the American
people, all at once, what has been in
volved in every vague appeal to arms,
which has so long constituted the chief
stock in trade of the miserably ignorant
and wicked men who in Congress emit
crimson phosphorescence from their lurid
threats upon every pretext. The doctrine
of the Lodges and Chambers stands re-
vealed in all its naked hideousness. War
is perceived to be something that may
not be played with for political ends,
but a cataclysm of civilization, in which
all virtuous impulses, all high motives,
all Christian ideals. and all elements
which make for progress are cast in a
single cauldron.
The message to the Lodges IS this
Here. dear boys, is the dish you have
cried for so long, all cooked and ready
for your mouths. Take it and, con-
found you, EAT TT And these poor
miserable weaklings, in the presence
of the man who dares, take 1t, n
handle 1T with apparent enjoyment,
must even pretend that they like it;
though Boutelle himself could not re-
sist making a wry face.
And wasn't that a dainty dish to set
before a king"
There are certain impulses in human
nature which must expend themselves
in one way or another. There are men
who seek the qualification of he specu-
lative instinct by risking thousands at
the race track or gaming table; in
others the same impulse is harmlessly
gratifed by games of p~ennyante or
Whist for small stakes.
In human society in its present savag
state there is an element more or less
inclined to war for wars sake. This, of
course, is not patriotism-it is Chand-
lerism. It is a scientific truth that
where there is a force there must be a
vent; hus the impulse to war must be
expended in some way, ard it is much
better that it be expended in the way
Of froth thar thai one good dog should
lose his life to crafty it.
This is Grover Cleveland's way; in
stead Of allowing Congress to indulge
itself. HI quietly takes it out of the
hands of that body to infict a war ca
lamity upon us by hasty and injudicious
action, and places the whole thing in
the hands of a commission, who can. of
course, do nothing, which is precisely
the most required of such a commission!
They will, of course, appea to do some
thing-they will eat dinners at our ex-
pense, the numbers and menu Of which
will be absolutely appalling! They will
report-God Know what; and whatever
they report, it will be all the same. If
they should say, after months of dining
in Neutrality-suspicious. they live
through the climate-and after months
of dining at Madrid and the Hague, in
the investigation into original docu-
ments. that the whole matter of the
boundary dispute is in such a vague and
involved state that the true Divisional
line between Venezeula and British
Guiana cannot be determined with ac-
curacy, all that is required Of the com
mission will have been done. If. after
all the commission should Disagree
beautifully diplomatic way out-they
would cover Themselves with even great
er glory.
But l think I hear some one say, Sup
pose the Commission should determine
that Britain is in the wrong. what then?
Must we insist on the recognition by
England of the validity of such finding,
and declare war in the event of Sails
bury's refusal?"
We will do neither one nor the other
we will then make a proposition to open
negotiations inviting a proposition to
negotiate for the appointment OF a joint
commission to examine into the ind
ings Of the late American Commission!
Or Salisbury himself may suggest me-
gotiations by which America. may be
asked to negotiate for the submission of
the report of the American Commission
to a British commission for the purpose
of ascertaining the validity of testimony
A.A ~vk H. - 1880 &--1 49,