The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-03-01
WHO sANGUILLY IS.
He Stayed Few Weeks in Tampa and
 That is What Makes Him an Amer

That is What Makes Him an Amer ican
 If Consul-General Fitzhugh Lee has resigned it is because he is tired of having to defend a certain class of Gu bans, who at some time or other during l the last ten years have come over to Key West or Jacksonville and secured naturalization papers. As the repre- sentative of American interests on the island, of course the consul In charge cannot discriminate. He must take 1 the papers of a Cuban, and, under the | law, defend him with the same zeal as l he would in the case of native born | Ohioan. But the task is, nevertheless, a disagreeable one.
 l Take the case of Jose Sanguilly, now confined in Morro castle. This man had participated in three revolutions. In the ten-year war he was one of the rebel leaders. Previous to that he had | been a brigand. When amnesty was | proclaimed some years ago Sanguilly l was driven from the country as dan gerous citizen. He came to Tampa, re- | mained a few weeks, went before a l United States commissioners and made i affidavit that he had been a. resident of the United States for five years, and then later on secured his naturaliza- tion papers, He immediately returned l to Cuba, and when arrested as a men ace to the peace of the government in- mediately after his return to Havana, he insultingly jeered at the Spanish au- | thorities and declared that he was no longer subject of the kingdom. Of course he was released.
 | When the present war broke out San gully was again arrested. The Span ish authorities had incontrovertible ev- | idence to the effect that he was one of the foremost conspirators in the revo- lution. He was confined in prison and | Consul-General Williams was called upon to defend him. There was no one l in the consups office at Havana then, there is no one there now, who is not absolutely confident that Sanguilly is | guilty of conspiracy and should be punished. Still General Williams could not go behind the mans papers. Then, after considerable correspondence, and correspondence, too, that has strained the relationship between this government and that of Spain more se- verely than any other thing that has happened since the commencement of the war, General Williams dug up a protocol that has been in existence
 more than one hundred years, but had been forgotten, and demanded that Sanguilly be released from the militia ry and turned over to the civil authori- ties. I have seen the entire correspon- dence relating to this sensational case,
 and know that at no time was the
 Spanish government disposed to do other than what was right in the mat
 ter. Still, so inflamed was the public mind in this country over the event, that one-half the people would have
 been willing for war because of Sam guilly's arrest and incarceration.
 I merely cite the Sanguilly case to il-
 lustrate. I am not in possession of &C.,
 tual figures but if I were called upon
 to guess at the number of Cubans now
 in the field at warfare with Spain who
 are fortified with American papers of
 citizenship, I should say that one-fifth
 of them were so protected. And then
 were I asked further about the situa-
 tion would make the guess that less
 than one per cent. of the entire number
 was entitled to. residentiary rights. Ii
 is this that has given the American
 representatives so much trouble.
 Williams had been consul-general or
 the island for twenty-one years before he got so sick of the place that he could
 bear it no longer. He had legal fights
 on his hands all the time. The Spanish
 government was accusing him of un.
 warranted activity in prosecuting | Ct1h A
 were criticising him because of appa. rent indifference. He was betWeer perdition and the deep blue sea. H.
 tired of it and quit.-J. S. Evans in tht
 Chicago Times-Herald.