The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-06-05

country; they scorn to buy what belongs
to them by natural right; and all they ask
from foreign countries is the recognition
which is their due.
Why is IL that our Federal government
hesitates to do for the Cubans what was
done by Madison and Monroe for the
Spanish-Americans of the mainland dur
ing their uprising against tyranny?
From an early stage of the struggle"
as we learn from one of Monroe5 messag-
es, and from the Instructions of Secre-
tary j. Q. Adams to Mr.. Rush, President
Madison recognized the Spanish-Ameri-
can insurrectionists as belligerents and
observed an impartial neutrality between
them and their Spanish opponents. AT
the proper time President Monroe pro-
ceeded to take the step next in order by
recognizing the Spanish-American COM
munities as independent States. Neither
of those Presidents offered to mediate be-
tween the oppressed and the oppressor,
it occurred to neither of them as possi-
BILE that in a struggle for liberty there
might be something to be said on both
sides; by neither of them was despotic
Spain countenanced in lying proffer of
sham reforms; neither proposed to help the
insurrectionists to buy the freedom which
they were fighting for Madison and Mon
roe themselves had played a part in our
own war for independence; they We're
keenly alive to the truth that "who would
be free himself must strike the blow" but
they also felt it to be the duty of onlooI-
ing republics to give new aspirants for
liberty fair field. and 20 see to it that
no favor was enjoyed by their antagon-
lists. To that end they withheld from
Spain every privilege which was not
equally open to her revoted subjects; and
they promptly extended to the latter such
q u1pa S1Ira of rppOPnitiOn would ana hla
them to turn their own resources to ac-
count, and would assure to them decent
treatment in accordance with the laws of
civilized warfare. That is all the Span
ish-Americans of the mainland got from
us; it was all they asked; and it sufi!ced
Defeated and bankrupt, Spain had to iet
them go without dollar of indemnity.
What have the Cubans done that they
deserve at our hands less ympathy and
announcement than their Spanish-Amer-
lean brethren received? VIII 1t be said
that our Federal government is haunted
by the spectre of Hayti, and breads to see
independence achieved by an island which
contains a large colored population? No
such apprehension can be honestly felt
by men acquainted with the facts; and
men unacquainted with the facts have
no business to pe trusted with the powers
of government in Hayti, at the time of
the insurrectioI, the blacks and mulattocs
outnumbered the whites in the proportion
of 20 TO /; in Cuba, at the date of the
last census, the whites outnumbered the
colored people of all shades in the proper
tion of to 1. The whites in Cuba today
constitute a far larger proportion of the
population than they did in any of the
other Spanis colonies, the bel
ligerency of which we recognized at an
early stage of the struggle, and the indie
pendonce of which we acknowledged in
| 1922 Why, then do we continue to with
| hold our countenance from Cuba? Is It
| because her children have not fought
| long enot gh, or hard enough? They
| fought for ten years, from 1858 TO 1878, and
| they only ceased to fight because Marshal
Martinez Campos, whom they knew q
| be a man of truth and honor, pledged his
word by a solemn treaty that they should
receive a large measure of autonomy. The
marshal was practically disavowed by
| the Madrid government; the pledge was
broken: and all hope of securing justice
| from Spain at last died out. Then the
| Cubans rose again, and by their vigorous
| operations have compelled Spain to main
| tain under her colors in the island for up.
| ward of two years an army OF 100000 men
| a much larger force than she was able
| to dispatch across the Atlantic in the frs
| quarter of this century wherewith tC
| cope with all her revClted colonies ir
South, Central and North America. We
add that the force sent ty Spain to Cubs
is incomparably larger than that will
which our own forefathers had to 81 appl,
in our Revolutionary war.
| The Cubans ask to be treated as wer'
their Spanish-American bI ethren by Mad
ison and by Monroe. No better; M
| worse. They want no assurances of ou
kind offices to secure from Spain anothe
mendacious offer of spurious reforms
They want no guarantee from the United
States Of bonds wherewith to buy the lib
erty which is their birthright, and which
like brave men, they decline to pay for
They simply want us TO observe neutral
ity between the Cuban and the Spaniard
They wish to gain through a righteou
! recognition of their beiligerency a statu
In international law which Will secure L
them, when captured, the treatment o
prisoners OF war. They do not come be
fore as as borrowers o. as beggars. The
appeal to equity, not charity. They as
for justice. Shall they not be heard?