Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1898-04-21
A GREAT INJUSTICE.
! Capitalists Working Under Cover
to Preserve the Value of Their
Bond Holdings.

It now seems altogether probable tina,
| tae so-called financial interests are plot
ting to play upon the Cubans most I'M.
just trick. The game has gone on for
a long time under cover, but the hands
OF the chief players are beginning to ap.
pear. The plan is to take off of the
shoulders of the Spanish part of their
| debt and place it upon the shoulders OF
| the Cubans, to whom it in no sense be-
longs. The so-called Cuban bonds are
in no sense Cuban; they are Spanish,
and were incurred by the Spanish in
subduing and keeping subdued the Gu
ban people. They are called Cuban
bonds merely because Spain has prom
| Used to use part of the Cuban revenues
! in paying them. The men that pur-
chased those bonds took their chances
| in getting their pay. Moreover, the
men that took the bonds are particeps
| criminis of expressing the Cubans. I'm
| agine, then, the Cubans being COM
PEELED by the United States to pay a
part of the debt of Spain, incurred in
| fighting themselves, while they let go
| by their obligations to their own brave
| defenders and the families of the men
that fell fighting.
| In the revolutionary war, by which
the American colonists became ma
| ton, England incurred an expense of
| $500, 900, 900. Much of this was in the
form of a debt. Just imagine France
| insisting that the United States pay a
part of the debt of England. Imagine
again the English, while still in posses
sion of the city of New York and few
southern cities, calling upon the tories
under their protection to form gov
eminent under a charter from Eng
land, and then have that government
pose as the real government of the col
onists. That would be the counter
part of the autonomous government i'll
Cuba. Be assured that this so-called
autonomist government in Cuba is to be
used by the holders of Spanish bonds as
mighty weapon, the use of which is in
tended to place the yoke of bonds upon
the neck of the Cubans. The holders
of the bonds fear that Spain will go into
bankruptcy, and do not care who pays
her bonds so long as they are not the
losers. They consider it good morals
that people that owes them nothing
be compelled to pay them what another
that does owe them cannot pay.
It is reported that $100,00O,000 of
Spanish bonds are owned in the United
States. This being so, it may be taken
for granted that there is at Washington
a powerful lobby working under cover
for the preservation Of the value of their
bonds. This means that the demo-
Gratis, the populists and all other friends
of justice in congress have before them
a most bitter fight to prevent the con-
summation of so great an injustice as
compelling the Cuban republic to as
sumo a considerable part of the Spanish
debt.
The probabilities are that the finan-
cial wire-pullers will succeed, being en-
trenched as they now are behind an adj
ministration that came into power by
means of the lavish expenditure OF
money drawn from the pockets of the
wealthy. The new and purified demo-
cratic party is in a position to make
splendid fight for human justice, and it
will not disappoint the people. It viii
object to the Cuban republic being
weighed down with per capita debt
three times greater than that now be-
ing borne by the American people. In
its position it will have the full support
of every iberty-loving American.
H F. THURSTON.