The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-05-18
American Degeneration.

w utU lllt IldFEdtItS DIOht OUT III
Armenia and the Christian powers of
Europe permitted them to go on until
thousands of lives had fallen forfeit
10 Islam, there was indignant protest
throughout the length and breadth OF
the United states. 1t was with diff
fculty that the press, the pulpit and
the rostrum found adjectives sufficient
ly severe with which TO express their
contempt and denunciation of these
European palterers. We called them
towards until our faces were blue; and
the clergy particularly wanted the
United States to send q fleet of war
ships to Constantinople and shell the
sultans palace unless security were
assured to the remnant Christians in
his domain.
a condition of affairs has arisen in
unhappy Cuba which differs from the
Armenian massacres mainly in partic-
ulars creditable to the Turk. The Turk
butchered those whom he regarded as
infidels and traitors; but Weyler is
starving to death or cond GINNING
to the slow torture of wasting dis
ease nearly two hundred thousand
pacficos who worship the same God
as His Christian Majesty, the King
of Spain, does; recognize the same
faith: pay obedience to the same
ecclesiastical system, and whose only
crime is the misfortune of not be-
ing in possession of arms and am
munition with which to take adequate
care of themselves. These doomed vic
Tins of Weyler's hellishness are not
and have not been rebels against the
sovereignty Of Spain; they have not
fought against the regularly estab-
lished government; their entire offence
consists of having tried to earn an
honest living by tilllng the soil. For
this they have been ordered into the
fortified towns, put like criminals
where they cannot work and left tc
die with hunger or rot with the un.
checked ravages of disease.
When the Turk started to butcher
the Armenians, the powers Of Europe
were so situated that each was afraid
to intervene. Russia was jealous OF
England, France feared Germany and
Austria lay between the Kaiser and the
Gar We cursed them roundly fol
their cowardice; but here, less thar
a days journey from our southern
main land, lies an island whose wrongs
put Armenia's far into eclipse. No ma
tion save semi-civilized Spain stands
in the way of American Intervention
and still the butchery goes on, with
out a protest from the United States
Our arms are free where Europe's wer,
| tied no crazy concert pins us (,
ignominious shame; the strength il
| ours and the duty is ours to stol
| this frightful sacrifice of human life
| but the most that we are apparent!
| willing to do, after months of unex
| ampled provocation, is to send food anC
medicines to the few hundred threat
| ened Americans, leaving the two hun
| dred thousand other victims of Span
ish infamy to die like dogs.
In Scriptural days such a spectacle
Of mans inhumanity to man woul,
have drawn from the heavens al
| aVenging bolt of Gods consuming
wrath; but in this piping time of stocl
speculation and pink teas, apparently
the most that it nowadays does is t
cause the good citizen to talk a littl
! more fluently in favor of arbitration
and to inspire in the seats of tn
mighty an increased subserviency t
the spirit of profit and loss.