Arizona republican., 1898-04-20
THE MAINE AS THE ISSUE.

The destruction of the Maine in Ha- vana harbor is rapidly coming to the fore as the casus belli between the United States and Spain. There has been complaint that President McKin- ley has been disposed to relegate the loss of our ship and our men to a sec ond place in the pending controversy. But nothing of the kind has been done or attempted. A correspondent of the New York Tribune thus points out the status of the Maine question in con- nection with the presidents attitude
 In treating the Maine disaster as evidence of lack of control justifying intervention rather than as primus casus belli the president has placed any action which may be taken above and beyond all criticism by foreign powers and prevented any false sym pathy for Spain by her offer to arbi- trate the question of fact and amount, and to abide by the award. Doubtless Spain would have addressed such a note to all the powers and accompanied it by a declaration that evidence ex- isted as to internal causes, and in this age of arbitration some of the powers would have considered that the United States were bound to accept the prop osition which would have resulted in two or three years delay, and mean while, having made that the basis of our grievances, all intervention would necessarily have been suspended dur ing such arbitration. That contin- gency, however, is eliminated by using the Maine for the present only as the strongest link in the chain of evidence which conclusively proves, not only Spains inability to control Cuba, but that such lack of control is an unceas- ing menace to the lives and property of our citizens. Our claim against Spain for indemnity for our ship and the lives of the sailors remains unprej udiced, as we'll as our right to make it the basis of hostile retaliation ii Spain refuses properly to recognize the atrocity of the act. Furthermore. the president has acted in accordance with precedents established by his il- lustrious predecessors.
 This view of the case has already gotten into the heads of many of the presidents critics. He clearly stated in his message that one of the reasons for intervention was the inability of Spain to protect the ships of friendly nation while in Spanish harbors in Cuba. That was the cue taken up by the senate when, in the preamble to the resolutions of the senate foreign relations committee, it was set forth that
 "The abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian civil liZation, eliminating as they have, in the destruction of a United States bat tleship with 266 of it's officers and crew while on a friendly visit in the harbor of Havana, and cannot longer be endured"
 Thus it is clearly discovered that the Maine question, instead of becoming of secondary importance, is in reality the one thing-the one act-that has forced the United States to its pres that torn and ragged mass of iron rusting in the mud of Havana's har- Dor, and the recollection of the sev- enty American sailors whose bodies still rest in that shattered battleship comes a feeling of revulsion and hatred for a nation that cannot protect friendly visitor. The explosion un- der the Maine has simply hastened the crisis.