Connecticut western news., 1898-04-21
THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 1898.
The Situation.

The Situation.
 People, who can remember the sor- rowful days of the Civil war when Abra- ham Lincoln was at the helm, and when such giants as William H. Seward. Sal mon P. Chase and Elwin M. Stanton were members of his cabinet, and when the Senate and the House of Represen- tatives both contained long list of in- tellectual and broad-minded men, are apt to contrast them with the pigmies that are in control of the destinies of the republic to. day. Iu place of Sew ard we have John Sherman, administer ing tho affairs of the country by proxy, at time when the broadest statesman ship is necessary to guide the ship safe- ly through the perilous channels of for eign complications. Mir Sherman. how ever great and strong he may have been in times past, is, to say the least, not a proper man to occupy the exalted and important position of Secretary of State to-day. Beyond that very apparent weak spot in the cabinet, there are other places in President McKinley's cabinet that are notoriously weak. No right thinking man desires to add feathers weight to President McKinley's bur dens, but it is apparent that there is a lack of appreciation of She situation with Spain. not only in executive cir clss, but also in the legislative circles. Theodore Roosevelt, an assistant to 8 cabinet oficer,i is the only public official, apparently. who from first to last, has given the president the sound and wholesome advice. which he seems so much to be in need of.
 The terrible national calamity which happened in Havana hsrbor. put an en- tirely new aspect upon Cuban affairs, and rolled up the screen which had yelled revolution between Spanish colony aad the mother country, and from dim perspective placed the American republic at the front of the stage where international tragedy was being enacted.
 Notwithstanding the declarations of President Mckinley. the awful act that hurled into eternity the men of the Maine, was not an incident; it was the first blow struck by Spain, or its repre- sentatives, no matter who, 80 long as it was Spanish subject that pressed the button that sent the electric spark to the mine that rested beneath the war ship of friendly nation upon friendly visit. And without regard to Spanish preiudices and misconceptions, that is what the visit of the great bsttleship was intended to be, and so far as this government was concerned, it acus
 The duty of every loyal American is too plain to need elucidation. He who is not for his country at this hour is against it, and through veal or woe. from the beginning to the end, every American subject should stand Loyalty by his country. The presidents have made mistakes. Congress has followed suit, since the close of the Civil war, in it's parsimonious and niggardly policy with both the army and the navy, but now, at the eleventh hour, when great national crisis is at hand, the stern necessities of situation which ought never to have been allowed to become possible. but has nevertheless become an actual situation, will. perhaps after costly further experimenting, force the men in charge of national affairs to rise to the occasion, and become something broader and larger in the scale of lsgis- lAtors than garden seed dispensers, dis tributors of bonn bastic efforts at oratory, dead-head frankers of Congressional Records with speeches never delivered, voters of millions of dollars on creeks and unnavigable mud holes. and petty barroom wranglers for partisan effect.
 If we arc to have war, which God forbid, then let all its preparations be upon the scale of magnitude common surste with the fact that the Great Re- public, whose voice is for peace, still has the power and the will to strike, if it must, 80 that its blows shall enforce the peace which it asked. demanded, and will have.