The age-herald., 1898-03-26
SPAIN IN RECENT HISTORY

From the Chicago News.
 No close or careful study of history Is required to learn the position Spain occu- pies among the nations. The most casual acquaintance with the annals of Europe reveals kingdom rent by internal disssen- sion, governed by men whose sense of per sonal honor does not forbid enrichment at the expense of the people-in a word. a Christian Turkey, where the analogy is made more striking by the Darbarity which finds enjoyment in bloo8 and de- light in torture. Turkey and Armenia Spain and Cuba, Turk and Spaniard alike the conquerors of the Saraeen both re jecting the enlightenment of MoSlem civil HzatioIl-ft iS a lamentable fact tn hds- tory that the Moor and Arab had to give way before the Ottoman and Don. It is not necessary, however, to go 80 fan back Tor proof of national weakness and degen- eration. Spain in the Nineteenth Gen. tury," the last of the compilations of Mrs Elizabeth Worueley LaItimer, bears abun- dant testimony, not a little of 1t oontem- porary, of the decay of Spain and the Spaniard, and of the disesteem in which both are held all over Europe and Ameri- ca.
 The present century opened with the in- famous Godoy, prince of the peace, in power over the peninsula. He even went so far as to accept a brfbe from Portugal in heu of invading her territory and, though despised by the people, was able to maintain his position with King Charles, chiefly through the maehinations of his wife, Maria Louisa, who had long been Godoy's friend.
 Though war was everywhere about and Spain had been most humiliatingly defeat ed by the armies of the French republic, there was no attednpt to put either the army or navy in. order In 1799 the United States, angered by Spain's repeated in fractions of the treaty whereby the free navigation of the Mississippi was secured to us, made ready to attack New Orleans, and was met by the plea that the Loalis- jana territory had been ceded to France by secret treaty. France never took pos session, England holding her fleet block eded, and Louisiana was sold to us for s15, 0O0, ,0C9a Godoy was made the more un- popular by this, and though his country was threatened by France on its northern frontier, while England was towering over the seas, ready to~cut off the enormous dncome which still came from the Mexican mines, he left Spain so open to attack that todaying to England, Napoleon became eNasperated and exacted a subsidy from Godoy of $14,5O0 000 with which to invade England. The soldiers of Spain Napoleon would not accept-that most skllful of generals despised the Sparliard as a fighter.
 From the frying-pan Spain fell into the fire by this England seized four ships laden with Mexican gold, Spain declared war, and in twinklng Nelson descended upon the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar, leaving Spains navy so shatter- ed that nearly all the Spanish colonies in were ~Hb1e to obtain their inde- pendence with little difficulty during the en- suing years. Soon after war. with France
 
 than cravens, and made their cowardice all the more despicable by infamous cruelty to the French who fell into their hands, Even their allies were forced to protest against it.
 With the peninsular war the reader is more or less familiar. But, whether they were supposed to be helping the French or English, they ran away and justified the contempt in which their fighting abilities were held by both sides. From 1892 to 1887 the country had three constitutions, six ministries, two revolutions and a devas- tating civil war. A writer in the North British Review of March, 1865, says that Spain has slipped of late years so thor oughly out of the notice of Europe that it would be affectation to imagine that one person in a thousand knows even the A B c of her recent history and politics" The huge revenue which had been extorted from America had failed-and 1t Is a curious commentary on the manner in which Spain had abused her colonies to find that not one of them yielded willing aid to the mother country or failed to take advantage of her misfortunes to gain her own ends. In Egypt Great Britain was able recently to show Canadians and Australians fighting side by side in her armies, and there Is no doubt that a European war would find the entire British empire arrayed as unit. The United States has had but one war with men of Spanish blood-that with anA fG tn hn hot there the Americans never lost even a much less a battle. In short, in the words of a British historian: Spain Is the country of anomalies; and nothing in the political conduct of Spanish affairs will ever surprise us until we find them conducted according to the rules of common sense and the dictates of prudence that govern the everyday life of ordinary