The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1898-05-13

and most holy of all earth's wars
should become inevitable. They
have died that the strength of Amer
ica's weakest should become irresist-
IDLE and the courage of her faintest
hearted be firm and inflexible as
adamant. They have died to give
10 their surviving brethren watch
word of victory that yet,-if the foe
continue to resist shall be heard
echoing and re-echoing in all the
palaces of ancient spain, and even as
the walls of Jericho fell before the
shouts of the Lords chosen people, so
shall the ramparts of Madrid crum-
BILE into dust before that battle cry
Of battle cries, Remember the
Maine ~
~
America and her sons, Spain and
hers, are:what history, environ ment,
institutions have in each case made
them. When Spain under Ferdinand
and Isabella had become one united
realm with history's unwritten page
lying before her as a sheet of white
paper on which to write her record
for good or i'll, America was just in
the womb of the future, an unborn
realm. SPANS enterprise enabled
the Great Genoese wsnderer to dis
cover thissfair new world. Spain's
valor enabled her to conquer the then
wealthiest portions of it, and she
thereupon began in the words of the
poet,
ITO wade through slaughter TO throne
And shut the gates of mercy on manknk."
"She wrote and illuminated the
history of all Southern and Central
and of vast districts of North Amer
lea in flame colored characters of
mingled blood and gold,-gold with
blood upon it.-blood with gold soak
ed in and sunk beneath it. Such is
in brief the story of all Spanish
America"
Wv
"While the princes have thus gone
from bad to worse the people, first
under the benighting spiritual rule
of bigoted hierarchy, by whom all
freedom of religious thought was pun
ished by torture and death, and after
wards by the ignis fatuis of utter
aghosticism, tempted with more
than medieval superstition, have
simply rOtted under the Influence of
that enervating tide of gold which,
Turing the more ambitious and vigor-
Gus to follow IN the footsteps of
Pizarro and his ilk rendered the
hOmestayers dissatisfied with toll and
eager rather to gain wealth by meth
DDS and means less wholesome and
invigorating. The hideous bar bar
tiles of their one national sport, the
bull fight, have deadened all their
What wonder that the Spanish
character has rotted, festered, de-
composed, until the Spaniard be-
comes not individually only, but ma
tionally capable, first of such crime
as the destruction of the Maine,
secondly of such defeat as the blood
less victors of Cavite have leisurely
inflicted upon him.
~
1.-THE scene changes. We are off the
entrance Of Manila bay. The fleet of
Commodore,-not yet Admiral
Dewey is advancing in line of battle
to attack the Spanish squadron,
backed by the frowning batteies of
Cavite. i see the foes artillerymen
pointing their pieces at the advancing
ships. | hear the roar of great guns
again, again, again, but all to no
purpose. The ships of Columbia
sweep on uninjured. And now / see
the reason: Whenever the skilled
gunners of the foe direct their aim
there intervenes the shadowy, phan-
tom shape.Of another ship, no part of
Dewey's command, a thing by itself,
which seemsIto.fiit hither and thIther
and up and down upon the waters and
on whose: mystic deck 1 see the
ghostly forms of silent seamen, pale
and mOtionless and still as death.