The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-05-04
EX-PreSident Harrison Ad-
dresses Indiana Volunteers
In Presenting a Flag to Bat
terry A.
A WAR FOR HUMANITY
He So Styles the Conflict With
Spain.
Says We Are But Doing Plain
Duty.

Indianapolis, Ind, May AT Camp
Mount, where 5000 Indiana volunteers
are assembled, Gen. Harrison made his
first public utterance on the war, in
presenting flag to battery A on behalf
of society ladies.
After complimenting the officers and
men of the battery upon their efficiency
in drill, Gen. Harrison said:
You have, as a trained and organic
ed militia, great advantage over the
volunteers of 1S61-62 Our foes now are
not, thank God, those of our own house
hold. That was war for the life of the
Union; this a war for humanity. That
for ourselves; this for the oppressed of
another race. We could not escape this
conflict. Spanish rule had become eff
fete. We dare not say that we have
Gods commission to deliver the op-
pressed the world around.
ITO the distant Armenians we could
send only the succor of a faith that
oVercOmeS death and the alterations
which the nurse and the commissary
can give. But the oppressed CubanS and
their starving women and children are
knocking at our doors; their cries PEN
citrate our slumbers. They are closely
within what we have defined to be the
sphere of American influence. We have
said to us, not to Europe and we can
not shrink the responsibility and the
dangers of this old and settled Aneri-
can policy. We have, as a nation, to-
wards Cuba the same high commission
which every brave hearted man has, to
strike down the rufian, who, in his
presence, beats a woman or child, and
will not desist. For what, if not for
this, does God make a man or a nation
strong?
I'VE have disclaimed in the face of
the nations of Europe, who are now di-
viding continents much as hungry boys
might divide a melon, that we have no
purpose to seize and appropriate Cuba.
We go to set her free, to give to her
own people that which we have claim
ed and established for ourselVes-the
right to set up and maintain govern
ment suitable to their own necessities,
controlled by their own suffrages.
1--WE covet from her, as from all the
nations of America, only the offices of
good neighbors and the fair and natural
exchanges of commerce. We do not
deny dominion to Europe in order to
seize it for ourselves. But we may
justly, I think, in the West Indies and
in the far eastern sea, where out gal
liant navy has won so splendid a VIC
tory, hold some little unpeopled har-
bors where our cruising warShipS may
coal and find a refuge when in stress.
"I do not doubt that speedily-though
no man can set the time which God
plans-that this great work to which
the United States has addressed itself
will be completely and permanently &C
complished. 1 congratulate you, my
young friends, that you are to have
part in it. I challenge your interest
and your duty, that you acquit your
selves like men; that you enter upon
your duties with seriousness and sense
of obligation, which will make you eff
ficient and victorious in your cam
paign. Let US not forget that there is
in all this, a moral impulse and that
the soldier who goes from this high
impulse of moral courage is the best
soldier after all.
These women send you to the succor
of the starving and oppressed women
of Cuba, they cannot carry the flag into
battle, but they bring it to you who
can. And to the significance and glory
of the national emblem they added the
beauty of their love and their charge
that you bear it in honor and bring it
home in triumph"