The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-05-26
The House of Representatives and
Cuba.

Representative undoubtedly llIlak tiu thoS
they are doing a wise thing for their party
In preventing the consideration Of the joint
resolution. recognizing the Cuban revolu-
tionists as belligerents, which the other
day passed the Senate. We believe, on the
contrary, that they are committing q blum
der In political strategy which has already
hurt their party, and IL not speedily re-
dressed. may prove OF irreparable injury.
Our belief is founded upon the outcome Of
the stand taken by the Republicans in the
Hawaiian business, and also on the course
pursued by them with regard to Cuba up to
the opening of the present Congress.
It Is we'll known that, almost at the out
set of the Cleveland Administration, it lost
It's hold upon the public confidence through
the withdrawal OF the treaty annexinS Ha-
wall to the United States, followed as this
was by the disgraceful attempt to depose,
by threat, President DOLE, who had been
formally recognized by our Government.
BY those performances Mr.. CLEVELAND
committed political suicide. That would
have been, however, a matter of trivial mo-
ment to the country had not the Demo
cratic party become involved in his eclipse
through the support given to his Hawaiian
policy by the Democratic majority in the
House Of Representatives, and by almost all
the Democratic members of the Senate with
the especially bright exception OF Senator
MORGAN. The support may have been given
reluctantly and sourly, but it was given;
and thenceforth the party stood condemned
as the accomplice of it's nominal chief. The
Republican party, on the other hand, with
nn1.-r .-l ,,,1to-Ntol ,na-t~1
ity arrayed itself against the Chief Magis-
trate's treatment of Hawaii, and thereby
came to figure in the public eye as the or.
ganized upholder Of the nations interests
and aspirations. So thoroughly convinced
is the Democracy of the calamitous result
of C~LEvELAND's Hawaiian programme, that
should 1t again be forced into the fore
ground through a renewed proposal of an.
nexation, it would find no Democratic
defenders with the possible exception of
one or two surviving ~Clevelandites. rari
nantes in gurgite aasto: the few faint
swimmers in a maelstrom vast.
From the beginning of the Cuban insur-
rection in February, 1898, the Republicans
naturally assumed with regard to it an at
titude similar to that which they had taken
OF loCiy ALI DiolSaDlS III w I1d"ttildu
matter. Taught, however, by the stagger-
ing reverse encountered by them in the
Congress elections in November, 1894, the
Democrats had also learned sagacity. They
had discovered that, even from i partisan
point Of view, it was worth while to be a
patriot and a fervent we'll wisher of peo-
pies struggling to be free. They Wed,
therefore, with the Republicans in echo.
Ing the popular demand that some
sort of encouragement ought to be
given by our Government to the Cuban
combatants for liberty. The result of the
conversion effected among Democrats by
the violent reaction of the country against
C~levelandism, was that the concurrent reso-
luton In favor of acknowledging the Cuban
revolutionists as belligerents obtained more
than a year ago almost a unanimous vote
from each Of the great political parties in
both houses of Congress. The Presidents
arrogant refusal TO respect the decision of
the Federal Legislature hurt nobody except
himself. So far as the Cuban question was
concerned, the Democrats and the Republi-
cans had deserved equally well of their con-
s~tituents, and they seemed equally prepared
to Invite a renewal of confidence when the
last Congress came to an end.
When the platforms, however, came to
be framed upon which the political parties
were to go before the country there was
disclosed in their respective references to
Cuba a difference 10 striking as to convey
the impression that the true friends of the
revolutionists were to be mainly found
among Republicans. The attempt to plead
thu Ct1han carga In the narpnoeaft, ,on-on
tion at Chicago was contemptuously 81
fenced and the a~llusion to it In the plat
form was curt, vague, and perfunctory.
The Cuban plank, on the contrary, in.
serted In the Republican platform framed
at st. Louis was full, explicit and emphatic,
N distinctly committed the party, II sue.
cessful, to prompt and efficient demonstra-
lions on behalf of the revolutionists. The
Republicans thus found themselves on
March A, 1897, placed in a widely different
position with relation to Cuba from that
occupied by Mr.. CLEVELAND and the De-
mocracy with regard to Hawaii on March
4, 1893. The Hawaiian question had not
figured in the political campaign which
ended In November, 1892; 1t had not been
mentioned In the platform of either po-
litical organization. Neither Mr.. CLEvE-
LAND nor his party was pledged
to any particular action with reference
to the Hawaiian Islands. When, there
fore, they rejected the annexation treaty
and strove to upset n friendly foreign gov
ernment, they were not guilty Of a viola
tlon OF a public promise made to their own
people they were simply c~hargeable with
q breach of patriotic duty and with a wo.
full lack of political foresight. Had they,
however, been openly and repeatedly com.
mitted by solemn declarations in Congress
and conventions 70 the annexation of IIa.
wall. Mr.. CLEVELAND and the Democracy
would have stood on March 4, 1893, pre-
cisely where the Republicans are standing
ut h present hour with reference 10 the
encouragement OF Cuba.
The considerable strategic advantage
touching the Cuban question which the
Republicans gained through the failure of
the Democratic National Convention to re.
peat and accentuate the previuus uttcrances