The San Francisco call., 1896-04-09
TURPIE'S BITTER SPEECH.
Senators Sherman and Lodge Are Mer
citessfy FIayed,

CtcSofB 6tuDeus
WASHINGTON, D. c., April s.-Sena-
tor Turpie OF Indiana, who has achieved
quite reputation in the Senate for his
skill in clothing the most stinging sarca SIN
In picturesque language, gave an illustra-
ton of his powers in that line to-day,
affording an hour and half of entertain
ment to his brother Senators and to large
audience in the galleries
The speech was made in support of the
joint resolu ton introduced on the 1st of
April by Call of Florida proposing inter
vention in the war now being prosecuted
in Cuba.
The object of Turpie's invectives were
not so much General Weyler and the Span
1sh Government as the chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations tSher-
many and the junior Senator from Massa-
chusetts (Lodge). He ascribes to Sher-
man helpless inertia, delay and irrational
obstruction, and spoke of his taking refuge
in the crypt of the conference committee
very glad TO be rid OF his former action.
Lodge was portrayed by him as belong
ing to the jingo class of extremists, and as
being singularly gifted with the power to
clothe an interesting and exciting subject
with all the dullness of time-worn COM
mon-pIaces. [Laughter.l
Turpie drew an amusing sketch of the
controversy between Lodge and the
Spanish Minister, and said that he had
expected it to end in duel, in which the
champion OF SenatorIal privileges would
go into the lists fully armed, his visor
down, his lance at rest But instead of
that, the junior Senator from Massa-
hQH 20
Committee on Foreign Relations and re-
galed himself on puffs-mere puffs.
1t was Impossible, Turpie said, to con-
celVe OF more wholly unlegislatlve legis-
lative proceeding, more wholly abnormal
proceeding than the action taken by the
| chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Relations with reference to the Cuban
question. There could not be more un.
fortunate disposition of that matter than
that which it suffered from the action, the
inaction and the reaction of the honorable
chairman OF the Committee on Foreign
Relations.
Turpie contrasted the joint resolution
introduced by Call with the concurrent
resolutions reported from the conference
committee.
There was in the former no double en-
tendre, as there was in the other 1t con-
tanned plain statement of the necessity
of interposition. In the third resolution
OF the conference report intervention"
was mentioned twice, but it did not say on
which side the United States should in
teryene. For his own part, he was in
favor of intervening on the side of Cuban
freedom and independence and for the
sake OF freedom and independence and for
| other reason or cause.
he then proceeded to draw a sketch of
the Cuban Government and of the opera
tlon o. the forces of either side He had
Kept the track, he said, of the raids made
by the Spanish troops upon country stores
IN the eastern portion of the island. the
portion held by the insurgents, ard he
argued that the very existence of country
stores IN the region meant there were no
thieves there, or that the thieves had been
overawed or punished. 1t meant that
there were no burglars. no robbers in that
region, or that they had been punished.