The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-03-04
Cuba in Congress.

globe for political freedom has always
awakened the liveliest interest and en-
listed the warmest sympathy of the
people of the United States. In Cuba,
for generations, freedoms battle has
been bequeathed from bleeding sire
to son." The aspirations of Cuban pa
triots for liberty have been often baf-
fed, but they have never been extin-
guished, and to-day they are rising and
falling with the issues of a war for in
dependence and the course of events
among the sympathetic peoples around
them. One by one SPANS other
American colonies have declared and
achieved their independence. Cuba,
the second of Columbus discoveries,
is now the only considerable American
possession of the monarchy that sent
the discoverer on his voyages. From
the time of its occupation by the Span
lard, nearly four centuries ago, this
island,'" the gem of the Antilles" has
been the victim of Spanish greed and
oppression. For its people the liberty
loving Americans, of the North and
the South continents, have that active
feeling of sympathy that close prox-
unity to the oppressed begets, and
which flows from the hearts of men who
have themselves felt, or whose ances-
tors felt, the grinding of the oppressor's
heel.
Cuba lies at the southern portal of
this nation. Its relations with the
American states have been intimate.
If there were always eternal fitness in
geographical distribution, the beautiful
island would be part of the American
Union. Lying almost within haliDg
distance of the land of freedom, this
people regards with patriotic wrath the
practice there of methods of warfare, the
preparation of deeds of barbaric feroc-
ity, that are an echo of the fierce times
of Cortez and Pizarro. The Ameri-
can people feel the same responsibility
for the continuance Of this state of
things, and the same right to interfere,
that a strong man of humane instincts
feels when he sees brutal parent abus-
ing and maltreating his child. Con-
gress has taken note of this sympathy
for the oppressed, this national sense
of responsibility, and is preparing to
interpose between the oppressor and
his victim. In the senate on Thurs
day of last week Cuba's cause found
eloquent advocacy. In an imprisoned
speech Senator Vest of Missouri said,
elf we mean to stand by those people
in Cuba who are initiating us and are
endeavoring to make government for
themselves, we must help them in their
hour of need, - not necessarily by
taking up arms in their behalf, but at
least by declaring to the world that this
attempt to reassert dominion over Cuba
will fail. With burning eloquence the
senator spoke of SPANS bloody con-
quest and dominion in America.
"There was time when Spanish do
minion extended from the southern limits
point of South America. No American can
ever forget those burning pages of Prescott
which describe the conquest of Mexico and
Peru, when the Spaniards, with the lust Of
gold and the lust of blood, marked their
terrible pathway across these countries.
or all that vast dominion-won by blood,
won through torture and fre-there re-
mains to-day to that toothless old wolf the
single island of Cuba; and Spain to-day,
like Giant Despair in that wonderful picture
, of Bunyan's, sits almost helpless at the door
of the dark cave of despotism, and grins
with impotent rage at the procession OF
splendid republics that march ON in the
progress of civilization and the future. Mr..
President, that wolf can never retain that
, single cub. Never can Spain hold the island
, of Cuba after she has lost all these South
, American provinces"
The question, the senator said, is not
: whether Cuba has achieved her indie
=, pendence, but "Can Spain conquer
. Cuba? Can Spain continue to hold
Cuba as province?" This Senator
5 Vest denied. He showed that there
, , was in Cuba no sympathy with Spain.
With patriotic fervor he declared that
a No instance can be found in which a
q million and a half of people, combined and
confederated 30 unanimously as they are,
| mas oVor uoou except by eXU6r-
= mination. What American boy does not re-
. member the burning Grafton Of Henry Clay
when he spoke for Greece in 1924, and when
Q he predicted that 80 long as Thermopylae
and Marathon were remembered, no Greek
would lay down his arms before the Turk.
8 ish powers. We are told that these Cuban
insurrectionists are negroes, mulattoes, In.
dams SO much the more reason why we
{ should synpathize with them and say, God
a help them in their dire extremity Liberty
:. lives with the poor and oppressed not with
. the wealthy and powerful. 1t throbs in the
!. breast of the imprisoned bird 1t has gone
/ with the martyr to the stake, and has taken
! it's flight with his soul to God. Liberty
;: cannot be extinguished when people are
; unanimous in defense Of the rights which
. God has given them. And II these people
!. ignorant and poor, struggling against des-
q potism, have initiated us, why should we
q content ourselves with bare expression OF
o sympathy with their cause? 1t is mere farce
r for us to do anything else than to declare
n Our haliaf In tina world that the Snaniah