Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-04-02
WaY-W hat Ii Means.

To the Editor of The Dispatch:
War with Spain seems inevitable, but
It is most certainly unnecessary. If UNI
necessary, it will be criminal beyond the
power of expression. a strange spectacle
confronts us. Sagasta's administration
and McKinley's administration both pro-
fess the most earnest desire for peace,
and the terms of peace, honorable 10
both sides, are actually in sight, and yet,
when so tremendous a matter demands
the most cautious and calm considera-
ton, we cannot wait a single day for the
outcome of peace negotiations between
the two cabinets! We cart await a
cablegram! Electricity is too slow 20
satisfy the hot blood and added brains
of Congress!
Why should Spain and the United
States engage in war? Because of Spain's
humanity? The Cubans also have been
active in destroying farms and crops.
and are responsible with the Spaniards
for the great restitution and suffering
that prevail on the island. II this be the
ground of war, we should fight both
Spaniards and Cubans, and drive them
from the SOIL and like the ancient Ger
mans, make a solitude and call il peace
That Spain has been cruel and inhu-
man, / do not doubt, but / do doubt If
she mas Deen more so imam we ourselves
have been within living memory. Have
We so soon forgotten the civil war? Was
It not true indeed, was it not our boast
that we had made the restitution so
complete that crow to fly across the
Valley of Virginia, would have to carry
his rations I'm his beak? Mills were burn
ed, cattle. grain. horses were taken
away or destroyed, private houses were
plundered and the people were left to
starve. Many did starve. and il all had
starved, the act of the conqueror would
not have been more inhuman. He had
done every thing in sis power to produce
exactly this result.
Have we forgotten the march through
Georgia and South Carolina? There are
some who can never forget II. A swath
thirty miles wide through the two States
was an unbroken scene Of fire and smoke.
havoc, plumber, and blood. People fled
in terror from their burning houses to
swamps and forests: fed in agony and
despair. The inhuman march found it's
fiji elimination in the burning of Column
bia, S. c. The area of the march covered
more ground than the whole area OF
Cuba, and sorrow, outrage. agony, and
death marked its every step. The
Spaniards have done many bad things.
but none worse than this
WAR Is hell" said Sherman, and so 1t
is. But 1t becomes us to remember what
fiends men become when accustomed TO
carnage and the license of camps. The
lurid rhetoric which we launch against
the Spaniards is applicable to ourselves
also, and should teach us charity.
And when the war is over and victory
crowns our arms, the worst is yet 10
come. Another army of pensioners comes
forth to corrupt our manhood, and eat
out our substance Ito the last syllable OF
recorded time" This army is more 10 be
feared than the army that will fight the
battles. For to judge the coming army
of pensioners by the present one, deple-
ton will but fill its ranks, death will but
multiply its numbers. II will live and grow
forever. an eternal blight upon our land
and country Il. PURYEAR,
Madison Mills, Va.