Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1898-04-15
DELAYED MESSAGE.
THE PRESIDENT WANTS AUTHOR
ITY TO ENFORCE PEACE.

Is Ready to Carry Out the WiShe.
of Congress Destruction o
the Maine Shows Spain Cnabl,
to Guarantee Security to For
cisn Vcssels-Thc Condition o
Cuba IntOlcrablc.
WASHINGTON, April 1.-THE Presi
dent today sent the following. mes
sage to the Congress of the United
States:
Obedient to that precept OF tht
constitution which commands the
President to give from time to time tC
Congress information OF the state o.
the Union and to recommend to theil
consideration such measures as Inc
shall judge necessary and expcdient, il
becomes my duty now to address youl
body with regard to the grave condi
ton that has arisen in the relations OF
the United States and Spain by reason
of the warfare that for more than
three years has ragged in the neighbor-
ing island of Cuba.
l do so because of the intimate con.
nectiOn of the Cuban question with
the state of our own Union and the
grave relation the course of which is
now incumbent upon the nation to
adopt must needs bear to the tradi-
tional policy of our government if it
is to accord with the precepts laid
down by the founders of the republic
and religiously observed by succeeding
administrations to the present day.
HUMANITY OUTRAGED.
The present revolution is but the
successor of other similar insurrec-
tiOns which have occurred in Cuba
against the domination of Spain, ex-
tending over period of nearly half a
century, each of which during its prog
gress has subjected the United States
to great effort and expense in enforc-
ing its neutrality laws, caused enor-
nous loss to the American trade and
caused irritation, annoy
ance and disturbance among our citi-
zens, and by the exercise of cruel, bar
barous and uncivilized practices of
warfare, shocked the sensibilities and
offended the humane sympathies of
our people.
Since the present revolution began,
in February, 1895, this country, once a
fertile domain at our threshold, has
been ravaged by fire and sword i'm the
course Of a struggle unequalled in the
history of the island and rarely paral
lelled as to the number of the COM
batants and the bitterness of the con-
test by any revolution of modern
times where dependent people, try
ing to be free, have been opposed by
the power of the sovereign state.
OUR TRADE HAS SUFFERED.
Our people have beheld a prosperous
community reduced to comparative
want, its commerce virtually para
lyzed, its exceptional productiveness
its fields laid waste, its
mills in ruins and its people perishing
by tens of thousands from hunger and
destitution. We have found ourselves
in the observance of that
strict neutrality which our laws enjoin
and which the law of nations COM
to police our own waters and
watch our own seaports in prevention
of any unlawful act in aid OF the Gu.
bans.
Our trade has suffered and the capi-
tai invested by our citizens in Cuba
has been largely lost, and the temper
and fOrbearance of our people have
been go sorely tried as to beget peri
lous unrest among our own citizens,
which has inevitably found its express
sion from time to time in the national
so that issues wholly ex-
ternal to our body polite engrOss at
tention and stand in the way Of more
close devotion to the democratic nd.
that becomes a self-con-
tented commonwealth, whose primal
maxim has been the avoidance of all
foreign entanglements.
All this must needs awaken and has
indeed aroused the utmost concern on
the part Of this government, as we'll
during my predecessors as my own nd.
PREVIOUS PEACE EFFORTS.
In April, 1896, the evils from which
our country suffered through the Gu
ban war became 80 enormous that my
predecessor made an effort to bring
about peace through the mediation
of this government in any way that
might tend to an honorable adjust
ment of the contest between Spain
and her revolving colony on the basis
of some effective scheme of self.govern-
ment for Cuba, under the flag and
of Spain.
It failed, through the refusal OF the
Spanish government then in power to
consider any form of mediation, or in.
deed any plan OF settlement which did
not begin with the actual submission
of the insurgents to the mother coun-
try, and then only on such terms as
Spain herself might see fit to grant.
The war continued unabated. The
resistance of the insurgents was in no
wise diminished. The efforts OF Spain
were increased, both by the dispatch
of fresh levies to Cuba and by the ad-
ditiOn to the horrors of the strife.
The new and inhuman phase,
happily unprecedented in the modern
history of civilized Christian people,
the policy of devastation and con-
centration inaugurated by the captain
generals order Of October 81, 1896, in
the province of Pinar Del Rio, was
thence extended to embrace all of the
island, to which the power of the Span
iards vas able to reach by occupation
or by military operations.
THE LAND MADE DEsOLATE.
The peasantry, including all dwell
ing in the open agricultural interior,
were driven into the garrison towns or
isolated places held by the troops.
The raising Of provisions of all kinds
was interdicted. Fields were laid
waste, dwellings unroofed and fired,
mills destroyed, and, in short, every