Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1898-06-30
"Foreign Conquest. F"
Philadelphia Press. ]

Inllduclpuiu ISSS'
.Ex-President Cleveland finds consider
able difficulty in drawing an indictment
when he has no counts.
He objects, in his address at Lawrence
vile to schemes of foreign conquest. "
He names none, and for very good rea-
son-there are none to name. Who has
any "schemes of foreign conquest" In
not another war in history has a nation
solemnly declared that it would not ac-
quire its lenemys most profitable posses
sion, as has the United States with Cuba.
The situation is simple. 1t is discredi-
table either to Mr.. Ceveland's perspicac-
ity or to his candor that he either does
not see it or does not accept it in his
speech. The United States is at war.
The cause of the war has had Mr. Cleve-
lands approval. 1t is the outgrowth of
his policy, policy he inherited from his
predecessors and which his successor has
carried to its logical and legitimate con-
clusion.
\ This war has to be waged, as any other
has to be, by attacking the possessions OF
the enemy and securing the military and
naval bases needed to do this. There is
no other way to make war. Limited war
entails limited liability of victory. In
making war, as an act of war and because
there is no other way to make war, the
United States has seized Manila and will
seize the Philippines, and has bombarded
San Juan and will seize Porto Rico. 1t
is about to annex Hawaii as a necessary
naval base. This is no more ''scheme OF
conquest" than Montgomery's attack on
Quebec, the landing IN the Bahamas,
Eaton's march in North Africa and his
seizure of post there, our second inva-
sion of Canada, the landing at Vera Cruz,
or our seizure of the Pacific ports of
Mexico.
These were all acts of war. They were
not acts of conquest. When the war was
over we decided then what we would do
with the result. We shall now. He is a
rash man, lacking in prudence, not to say
patriotic prescience, who anticipates this
decision in time or war and thereby d.
vides national councils and raises partisan
issues over the conduct of war in which no
step has been taken not demanded by
military and naval experts. Would MIR.
Cleveland, if he were directing war as
President, disregard military and naval
advice?
When the war is over the United States
will be forced to decide as to its next step.
The Hawaiian Islands every military and
naval expert deems necessary, and it
would to-day be the gravest moral wrong
to neutral rights and most dangerous
precedent if we did not annex them, or
used them, because we are strong, in de-
fance of international law. The country
has had an object lesson which has con-
WINGED the country, the President and a
majority of both houses that we are not
safe without them.
As to the two Spanish possessions, the
Philippines and Porto Rico, the decision
comes later. 1t will raise moral consider
atoms we must face and decide. War
will have made the United States respon-
sible for these islands. Mr.. Cleveland ap-
parently thinks that nations are under no
moral considerations. He breathes no
word of the grave moral responsibility Of
this nation for the future of the popula-
tons of these islands. They are weak,
defenseless, and, in the Philippines, as
whole, incapable of self-government.
Porto Rico is in doubt on this point. A
moral responsibility may not appeal to
Mr.. Cleveland, but the nation over which
he has twice presided never has avoided
moral responsibilities, except in the dark
period in which the party which elected
Mr.. Cleveland misled it. The nation will
not now, and it will neither be deceived
nor deferred as to iGs moral duty to those
made its wards without desire by vague
defamation about "schemes of foreign
conquest" particularly when they are adj
dressed to nation which has annexed
more square miles, not all contiguous, in
ninety-f years, from 1903 to 1898, than
any civilized government-except Eng
land and Russia.