Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-02-21
WASHINGTON LETTER.


| ESPECIAL ooRRRsPon DENcE OF THE MONITOR.
Washington, Feb. 18th, 1898.
President Mckinley has never justie.
fed the confidence reposed in him by
the American people to more mark
ed extent than since the publication
| of the grossly insulting letter written
/ by Senior de LONE, late Spanish Min
| lister to the United States. In that
letter, Senior de LONE personally in
suited the President as we'll as his own
government. When Washington was
in a ferment of excitement and men
of prominence, who are usually cool
headed were advising all sorts of hot
headed steps on the part of this gov
eminent, President Mckinley never
| for moment lost the GOODNESS which
has always marked his acts at critical
periods, although there isn't the
slightest doubt that his blood fairly
boiled at de Lome's insults. Like the
/ true patriot that he is, he sunk his
individuality and acted only as the
ecountry's executive. He merely re-
quested the I Spanish government,
through the American Minister at
Madrid, to recall de LONE. Senior de
Lone had anticipated that and cabled
his resignation, and it was accepted
by his government before the request
for his recall was presented. The wis
dom of this moderation on the part of
the President is daily becoming more
apparent. There was another i'm
portant feature of de LOme's letter,
in which he declared that autonomy
for Cuba and negotiations for reci-
procity treaty were only shams. Had
this letter been made public in legit-
innate Manners it's contents would have
justified the most extreme measures
upon the part of this government, but
it was stolen, and that fact was not
mitigated in the least by the acknowl-
edgement of it's authorship by de
LONE. The government of Spain, by
accepting de Lome's resignation has
relieved this government Of the disa-
greeable contingency Of taking official
cognizance of a stolen letter, and at
the same time has placed itself in a
position from which it cannot escape
without renouncing responsibility for
the contents of the letter and apollo
giving for it's having been written,
without losing the respect of this and
every other civilized nation. In fact,
the Spanish government has either
got to call de LONE liar or acknowl-
edge itself to be both liar and hypo-
critic. Surely there is nothing in this
situation to cause any patriotic Amer
lean to feel otherwise than proud of
his President.
No statement or apology from
Spain can remove the effect of its
minister's assertions concerning au-
tonomy and reciprocity; therefore
Senior de Lome's letter is likely to be
a factor in determining the future re-
lations of this government toward
Cuba. There is little doubt that
President Mckinley would have
taken steps before now to have
brought the war in Cuba to close,
had it not been for .Spain's autonomy
scheme. Although he did not proba-
bly, have more faith in the success of
autonomy than the average man IA
miliar with the situation in Cuba,
President Mckinley felt bound to ac-
cept the claim of Spain that it was
honest in it's offer of autonomy, and
to allow sufficient time to demonstrate
its success or failure to elapse before
taking action. Regardless of what
Spain may do or not do, de Lome's
letter has changed the whole situa-
ton, and it is not now thought in
Washington that anything short of
Spain's developing an unexpected
ability to bring the war in Cuba to an
end herself will prevent early action
on the part of this government. Con-
gress deserves credit for having kept |
quiet and allowed the President to
manage this affair.