The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1898-06-03

speakable Spaniard! And behind all
this were accumulated centuries of in
justice and wrong to these Cuban peo'
pie. They called upon us as we called
upon France 1879 years ago, to come tc
their help.
| While pillage and crime thus cried
aloud for justice, there came to the
scene that awful tragedy, under the
very shadow of Moro castle, when no
BILE American war vessel was blown tt
atoms, and the forms of the CHASTITY
dead, even now rush swift on our sight
With closed eyes we see their helpless
and mangled forms this very moment
Under the aggravation of that awful
hour we waited, with patient indulg
ence, for the official investigation to an
nounce it's solemn verdict. Then, and
then only did the nation move with
majestic unanimity, to remedy their I'M
speakable wrongs.
For these causes, therefore, say
that this is a just war, and will be ap
proved by heaven itself. We may
proudly send our sons to enroll under
its banners, for the flag they follow is
the emblem of liberty and humanity,
and will stand for all that is noblest
and best in the worlds highest civiliza
ton.
What is SPANS character in the
world, at best? For four hundred years,
always an oppressor, always cruel, and
as blood thirsty now as in the days OF
Pizarro. She stands a pariah among
the nations. Christianity and civiliza-
ton owe her nothing. She is dead to
the progressive world. Such days as
she may have had of glory and splen'
dor, are as tale that is told, She is
decrepit, decadent, dying. She is only
proud of those things of which she
should be most ashamed. Once Spain
owned nearly three-fourths of the Yves.
tern hemisphere. But by misrule, ex'
tortion and robbery she lost Mexico
Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, the Argen,
tine and Central America. Even al
original Louisiana and Florida once
were hers. For her Columbus discover.
ed America; for her Ponce de Leor
found Florida; for her Balboa, crossing
the isthmus, first beheld the Pacific
ocean; for her bold navigators discover
ed Opulent islands in every sea. The
whole new world seemed to open its
golden doors to Spain. But the sword
exile, the scaffold, the inquisition, the
dungeon, extortion and robbery have
devoured her people and alienated
her colonies The last post of Spain, on
the American continent, fell at Callao,
near Lima, in 1926. Las Cassas, him
self Spaniard, said Spain had cruelty
doomed four hundred millions o.
human beings to dismal deaths. Wha
a saturnalia of crime? Where too, arr
her proud navies on which she expend
ed princely revenues wrung from the
sweat and blood of her enslaved
provinces2 Her proud Armada perish
ed before the might of England and the
storms of heaven. At Cape St. Vincent
and at Trafalgar, Drake and Horatic
Nelson Inundated her flag and
destroyed her fleets. At Manila
Dewey swepther from the seas.
She never yet won a great naval
victory. Her fleets have persisted and
her rich provinces have fallen from her,
as fruit from blasted tree. Her crimes
have been pursued by the judgments of
heaven And now, if her last remain
ing jewels are torn by American PROV
ess from her bloody crown, all that can
be said is, just and righteous are Thy
judgments, o Lord, God Almighty
1t is not unbecoming on this day and
in this presence to consider some of the
lessons taught us already by this war,
Veterans, your own noble work in re-
building so grand and strong the very
arches of this union, are the foundations
which give conditions and scope to the
war with Spain, The strength, the
illimitable resources, the exhaustless
treasures of this nation are of your
creation. To the nation thus in the
zenith of power, this new war came.
1t found US equal to the task. And in
it's very outset there came to us a sud-
den victory that has surely wrought a
revolution in our national thought and
purpose, and imposed upon us duties
new, imperious and unexpected.
On the other side of the world daring
deeds were done, which have overturned
all previous ideas, and set all statecraft
at new employment.
In historic line, with that noble list
of naval heroes from Preble, Decatur
Jones, Perry, Dupont and Farragut, now
comes another noble commodore, who.
gliding along Oriental shores, in the first
purple blush of an Eastern dawn, past
hidden mines, sleeping torpedoes and
great batteries to the open harbor o.
far-off Manila, where Spanish fee
lay under the protection of Spanish
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