The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-04-12
Weather Forecast.
ROCHEFORT'S APPEAL FOR THE
CJTBANS.

116nT1 hOCnGlOIl WHITES IL NiAN -
um' of Cuba and the United States
from the standpoint of a french Re-
publican. He thinks he sees in the poll
teal change going on in the Greater
Antilles the beginning of an Industrial
and commercial upheaval from which
will result moral transformations; that
the victory of the insurgents IN CUBA
may bring about the establishment OF
another republic in Spain. Why not!
More improbable political changes than
that have occurred.
Rochefort looks at Cuba with an ele-
waited horizon kept in view. He does
not see merely the mixed race, the de-
scendants of the Spaniard and of the
negro, and the mixtures of the TWO
bloods fighting side by side, but he sees
a possible new civilization in the Queen
of the Antilles inspired by the spirit
of the age and lifted up and out of
whatever is now low and depiorable.
On one side he sees a splendid army
well equipped differed by men whose
breasts are starred with orders, and
whose pathway is marked by death
trailing prisoners, captive women and
children. and the ruins of smoking PLAN
tations On the other, a less numerous
body of half-clad ill-fed, devoted
whites, blacks and mulattoes, intelligent,
heroic and daring death and privation
that they may give liberty to their
land. 1t is this army, hiding, fighting
from cover, doing all it can do to win
and employing methods that the mill
tary mind considers with disgust, as
not being in the open-it is this band
that appeals to the masses of the peo-
pie of France, says Rochefort, and as
he believes to the masses of the people
in America also.
In Rochefort's opinion the Cuban rev.
olution is an all important factor in the
transformation of the world that is to
come. Evidently Rochefort looks away
over the heads of the ragged rebels,
black and white to the future OF which
they may be laying the foundations 1t
is because people, says Rochefort, fol-
lowed Barbes to the barbados, ap-
plauded Garabaldi, and saluted John
Brown, that to-day they unite in imag-
ination in clarifying the memory of
Maceo. He declares that there is daily
and constant application of Frenchmen
in France for enlistment to go to Cuba
and fight the battles of the insurgents.
What is true in France is true with us.
What is it that inspires men in two
hemispheres to thus throw themselves
into a desperate cause? Is not destiny
working out in high, great purpose in
this matter? How comes it that even
such a man as Rochefort should feel
moved upon to call from another hem
isphere to the Cuban insurgents and bid
them be of good cheer? He declares
that for nearly half century France
has felt it's heart throb within the bos-
ON of all oppressed nations, and it can
not therefore be Indifferent to the cause
of the Cubans When Rochefort wrote
by the way, did he contemplate the
French cruisers and gunboats with
yawning cannon trained on the patriots
of Crete?
Who. asks the French editor, is the
foe of the Cuban? The most retrograde
and savagely ecclesiastical monarchy in
Europe, the one that under the varnish
of constitutional government exerts an
intolerable oppression over free
thought. re-establishes in its prisons
the torture of the Middle Ages, and
sullies itself by atrocities similar to
those perpetrated by the worst of des-
pots-the Bourbons of Naples, the
SHAREHOLDERS and the Abdul Hands.
1t is the power at once imbecile and
tyrannous that disseminates every
where anger and revolt-in the Philip
pine Islands as well as in Cupa-after
having caused the whole of Latin
America to rise up against it,
We are quite ready to join with the
inflammable French revolutionist in his
question: Between republican Cuba
and monarchical Spain, can those hest
tate who believe in the meaning of the
words progress. liberty humanity
Concerning the plea that there are ne
groes among the revolutionists in Cuba
Rochefort is particularly severe, and
asks If it would not be infinitely more
glorious to be a mulatto like Maceo
than a Castilian like Canovas? So far
as that is concerned. however, to the
mind that contemDlates the right OF
men to choose the form of government
by which they will be governed, ii
would seem that not even those who
reject Cubans because some of them
are of negro blood, will venture to say
that Spain has therefore license to OPP
press them, or that the man with a
black skin has not the same right to
rise against tyranny and strike for hui
man right. as he of the white skin.
Rochefort makes an excellent point
whenhe declares that the Latin nations
are never successful in colonization
Countries they dominate beyond the seas
invariably become the prey of favor
ties upon whom the mother country be-
slows office, and the church and the
barracks become the two sacrosanct in
stitutions. Rochefort is unquestionably
right. and the difference between these
Latin colonies and those the English
establish and invest with autonomous