The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-07-13
AN INDIGNANT SPANISH spy.

No intelligent person will be deceived by
Senior Du Bosses indignant ard elaborate
protest against the action of the Canadian
government regarding himself and Lieuten-
ant Carranza. Those gentlemen, it will be
remembered, were respectively secretary of
the Spanish legation at Washington and
military attache of the legation when the
war began. Senior Polo, the Spanish min
lister, received his passports on April 20 and
left Washington the same day, accompanied
by members of the legation. They went di-
lectly to Canada, where the minister had
no business except to organize and conduct
a spying system on the United States. ard
he continued this work until it was init
mated to him by the authorities that his
presence there was undesirable. After he
left the work was continued by Senior Du
Bose and Lieutenant Carranza, who, like
the minister, had no other business in
Canada but that of operating a spy system.
Spying is legitimate feature of war, and
these gentlemen would have had right
to engage in it on American soil, assuming
the risk of being arrested and treated as
spies. But they had no right to abuse the
hospitality and neutrality of a friendly
power. 1t has taken the Canadian govern
ment quite a while to get rid of them.
Their stubbornness about leaving and the
form of their final protest looks very much
if they were trying to lay foundation
for a future claim for damages against
the Canadian government. Besides this
intmaton and the threat that the Canadian
government will hear from him again
when the present troubles are over" Senior
Du Bose tries to parry the charges made
against himself and Lieutenant Carranza
by making a countercharge against the
United States government which he says
conducts the only spy organization of
which / have cognizance." He says:
Within my own comparatively short Off
cial career there have been three separate
occasions upon which the government of
the United States has utilized private let
ters as the basis of diplomatic representa-
tions. In 1889 the publication of a private
letter fraudulently obtained from the pres
ent Lork Sackville then her Majesty's min
lister a Washington, caused the retirement
from his post of that distinguished diplo
mat. Another private letter, stolen from
the post and published in the United States
was officially used by the State Depart
ment at Washington to compel the retire
LONE. Finally, the present alleged and
stolen letter, written a friend of mine, is
employed as a means of causing my eXpul-
sion from Canadian soil. What confidence
or credance can be placed in the representa-
lions of a government where diplomacy is
based upon the utilization of criminal acts
l leave to the consideration of Sir Wilfred
Laurier and the Canadian government.
This is very absurd. AS to the Sackville-
West letter, the government had nothing
to do with the correspondence or it's publ
cation. The British minister wrote his in
discreet letter to an unknown correspondent
voluntarily and when it got into print it
made him so clearly persona non grata that
a request for his recall was promptly COM
piled with. The publication of the De LONE
letter was a complete surprise to the gov
eminent, and so far from its being officially
used by the State Department at Washing
ton to compel the retirement of De LONE,
he wired his resignation to Madrid before
the request for it could be made. Finally,
the recent discriminating letter of Lieuten-
ant Carranza is referred to as "the present
alleged and stolen letter, written a friend
of mine" If the letter was written
friend of mine why call it alleged" 1t
was undoubtedly genuine, and if it was
stolen the United States government had
no more to do with its theft or publication
than it had in the other cases. This charge
against the United States is simply the cum
ming attempt of tricky diplomat who has
been playing the spy on neutral ground to
break the force of his exposure.