The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-12-30
Pass the Cameron Resolution.

The basis upon which President
Cleveland hopes to arrange peace be-
tween Spain and Cuba has not been
explained in detail. if, indeed, details
have yet been reached. In general. he
desires, it is said, to be permitted by
Spain to say to the insurgents in Cuba
if they will lay down their arms, the
government at Madrid will grant them
autonomy not unlike that enjoyed by
the people of Canada with the approval
of Great Britain. He has no assurance
that they would listen to such propo-
sitiOn. ON the contrary, the fact that
Spain made similar promises at the
conclusion of the Ten Years Rebellion,
only to break them as soon as she got
the chance. would seem to render i'm
probable the acceptance by the insur-
gents of new promises from Spain. re-
inforced though they might be by some
vague sort of moral inducement from
the United States. They have been
fooled so often, and each time To their
further undoing. that their credulity
ana patience have probably both been
exhausted No fair-minded man could
blame them for saying that the time
for compromise and concession had
now iuevocably gone by.
1t is admitted on all sides that il
Cuba We're granted satisfactory home
rule by Spain, Cuba's usefulness to
Spain would soon cease. Spain has
used Cuba as an orange, always to be
squeezed. she has coolly appropriated
half of Cuba's productiveness: and
most OF the other half she has managed
to capture by imposition or subterfuge.
Cuba under Spanish rule, although by
nature the fairest and most fertile spot
on earth, and with an enlarging Amer
lean market for her choicest products
directly at hand. has grown, not richer
but always steadily poorer. DCbt after
debt has been saddled upon her; it is no
eXaggeration to say that before the
present revolution began more than
half of every taxable Cuban's earnings
went into Spanish pockets in payment
of taxes, while the remainder was held
right confiscation. These are facts of
record; they cannot be denied. Spain
falsiies her own representations wheT.,
after alleging that the Cuban rebellion
rested on no warrant of justice, she
now evinces willingness to meet the
rebels half way.
In view of these facts, is it not a
pitable begging of the question for
the United States to use its good Of
fices-not for the establishment of Gu
ba's independence. but for the extern
sion of the period of Spain's anomalous
and utterly indefensible tyranny? The
powers of Europe at this moment are
issuing orders to the sultan because
in a war of the creeds his Mohammc-
dan subjects have shed Christian blood
shall the republic of the United States.
founded on liberty and dedicated to the
preservation of what Were said by the
founders to be inalienable human
rights, sully its traditions as the para
mount eXemplar of republican institu-
tions by cringing the knee at the an
tiduated court of Madrid in meek sup
plcation that His Christian Majesty of
Spain will deign to be a little less in
human toward 100000 fellow Christian
beings whom he holds in bondage
eighty miles from the American MAIN
land?
Let congress preserve us from such
intolerable humiliation. Pass the Cam
eron resolution!