The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-10-02
The Proper Course.

Greatly as we admire President Nc
Kinley and strong as is our respect for
the uneXampled smoothness and GER
tainly unsurpassed success of the first
six months of his administration, we
are nevertheless free to confess to some
disappointment at the seemingly eX-
cessive caution with which he is ap-
preaching the Cuban issue, and we be-
lieve thac in this opinion we do not
lack companionship. Public informa-
tion on the subject may be wholly in
adequate to the formation of a just
estimate of the administration course;
and it may be that when the facts are
fully set forth those who now feel i'm
patient will be the first to acknowledge
their error and offer applause; but in
the light which we have it seems that
more consideration has been shown to
Spain both by Cleveland and McKin-
ley than would under similar circum-
stances be shown by any European
power, and much more than the United
States would, with the tables reversed,
have received from Spain.
Bear in mind the facts. It is ad-
mitted on all sides that the three years
struggle in Cuba has converted that
fairest of islands into a desert, reduc-
ing to ruins, among ather things, mill
lions of dollars of American invest
ments; that the so-called war has been
characterized by utterly ineXcusable
atrocities which put to shame the COM
monest instincts of humanity; that
pestilence and famine have come in the
struggles wake, involving a grave
menace to the health of the United
States; and that during the whole time
that our government has sat an un-
moved spectator of this sickening car
nival of brutalism it has been put to
continual annoyance and great expense
in doing police duty for the benefit of
Spain. These facts are in evidence by
common consent, even Spain being
forced to admit them. 1t is also in
evidence, though not with Spain's as
sent, that the revolt in Cuba came
about in direct and inevitable cOnse-
quenCe of Spains constitutional inabil-
ity to rise to the moral height of
humane and enlightened colonizing
power; that back of the revolt stands
every consideration of justice and
humanity for which the American peo-
pie and government, in view of their
own history, should feel the deepest
veneration and sympathy; and that
under adversties of incOnceivable poig-
nancy the Cuban insurrectionists have
made the most wonderful struggle of
the century. These facts. ana many
more, have from the first appealed to
the dominant republican power in the
new world to give its earliest possible
aid, moral if not material to the Cuban
patriots, yet what has been done?
Practically, nothing at all There
has been some vague and indefinite
limiting to Spain that a time might
come when American patience would
give way; but both Cleveland and Nc
Kinley have, for reasons never salts
faCtorily explained, thrown the weight
Of their influence in the scales against
the one step which this government
could take with perfect propriety in
the direction of freedom for Cuba; the
one step which the Cuban patriots ask
us to take and all they want of us as
a nation; the step that Spain took to-
ward the Southern Confederacy sixty
days after the firing on Fort Sumpter
namely, the recognition of the Cuban
insurgents as a belligerent power It
is announced that the present executive
hopes to induce Spain by pacific and
conciliatory overtures to propose ad-
ministrative reforms in Cuba; but
what American is there who would, if
a Cuban, now consent to accept from
a tyranny like Spain a single thing
short of unconditional independence? =?
BY what right can the executive Of
the American republic say to the offic-
ials of the new but sturdy republic Of
Cuba; You should surrender your
dream of existence and resume the
yoke of an intolerable foreign domina-
tion?"
AS we view this matter the duty Of
the government at Washington is to
put its foot down fiat and firmly on
the atrocities of Weylerism; proclaim
the belligerency of Cuba, and if trouble
some consequences follow, face them
with traditional Yankee grit. Only in
this way can the United States be true
to its history