The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-06-18
4 CONTRAST.

For the next few weeks the battle
In the United States senate will rage
about the question of the ratification Of
the Hawaiian annexation treaty. To
that will be transferred the windy and
verbose attention of the senators who
dearly love an opening for oratory
which will serve to conceal the real
purpose of their presence in that body
as servitors of powerful private inter-
ests The halls of the capitol will re-
sound with descriptions of the splen-
doris of the Pacific trade, and word pic
lures of the mighty destiny that the
United States will achieve when it
shall have taken into it's communion
few worthless islands, peopled mostly
by lOW-caSte races, some two thousand
miles from its shores. All the argu-
ments that we have heard before will
be lugged in to buttress a weak posi-
ton. The abandonment of the political
faith of our fathers and of the wise
policy that has kept this country free
from foreign aggression and disastrous
war viii be covered with a plaster of
insincere adulation of what these men
really propose to destroy.
In the meantime, they will have for
gotten utterly the subject that engross-
ed their attention and tapped their elo-
quence for a year past. 1t will be re-
bo+
sion of the previous congress, little or
nothing could gain a hearing in the
senate chamber except the rights and
wrongs of the Cuban people. 1t will
be remembered that, at this special
session called for a special purpose. the
tariff bill sent up by the house could
not be considered in the senate until
the Cuban resolutions had been debated
and passed,so peremptory did the neces-
sity of this action appear. Now the
scene will be shifted. The committee
on foreign affairs will lead the way
with facility from Cuba to Hawaii. and
forget the woes and sufferings of the
former in furthering the great scheme
OF political plumber and political cor
ruption that lies behind the annexa-
ton project.
1t matters nothing to the senate, as
1t matters nothing to this administra-
ton, that men, women and children are
dying at our doors, under tyranny as
cruel and bloody as this century has
seen. For them there is neither rescue
nor respite. The arm of the United
States government cannot reach out TO
help those whom the tongues of it's
official representatives beslaver with
simulated sympathy. The Cuban cues
ton was a good enough subject for
debate; answered we'll the purpose of
airing oratory; served to avert the
necessity Of actually legislating for the
people, and turned attention away from
the pressing matters nearer home
Now it is discarded, forgotten. unin-
teresting to the senator's; while the
flightful conditions which they portray
ed have passed from a Pigment of the i'm
aginatiOn to an awful fact. They have
done with Cuba. The Hawaiian uues-
ton offers them double the attraction.
Not only is it another far cry; not
only does it take the place of domestic
concerns Of real moment, but the rev.
erend senators can actually sniff the
carTion in the air. What admirable
pickings and stealings there will be
when the Sandwich islands are brought
IN. How the spoilsmen and the patron
age nongers Will rejoice. And then. a
little later, shall we not have the state
of Hawaii with two more sugar SEN
ators to sit in our upper house and
dictate legislation for the rest of us,
and make good thing of it for them
selves while they carry out the orders
OF the sugar trust? No more disgrace
full light could be thrown upon the con-
dition Of cur politics and the status of
the senate and administra ton than this
cold abandonment of the Cuban people
to tfci- horrible fate in order to enjoy