The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1898-02-22
THIS Is SPANISH WAR.
"A Vivid Description OF One of the
Horrible Features of the Cuban
Struggle.

Struggle
The speech of Senator William E
Mason, OF Illinois, on his resolution t.
request the President to notify Spail
and the insurgents tpat the war mus
cease, and that the United States vii
declare and maintb!n peace on tn,
Island of Cuba, wal one of the mos
telling addresses delivered in the Sen
ate for many years. In the course o
his speech Senator Mason read letter
from an American girl, who is now
mother superior in an institution il
Habana. The nun siys:
Lately some OF ou' older pupils dis
covered place cslled Los Fosos,
which means the disches,' because il
is low and marshy nace. There ovel
thousand women ard children of both
sexes are living Abandoned, unknown
and starving. May are perfectly
naked; all are heaped up pell nell
They have been there nearly two
months. or their pumber, fifteen to
twenty or thirty die daily. AT night
there is no light, and in the morning
the corpses and living are found to
gether. Our Chi hildren of Mary are
perfect herOincs, but only the older
ones can enter intt this den where the
government has concentrated the
country people Tor the purpose OF
making them die from inaniLion. Their
iniq quitous plan Is u great success
Alter having passed weeks without
food, they are brought salt Goldfish or
rice, and in eating ravenously they
die"
Commenting on this statement, Sen
ator Mason said:
MIR. President, do not care what
your religious faith may be. |, who
have studied in amOdest way the evo-
tuition of nations, am here to say to nv
co o.lcagucs in this Senate that there is
no vlcariOus atonement for a nations
crime no suffering on the Gross of
Calvary will lift the shadow of the law
Of compensation. For hundred years
we set our flag in the sky, and said:
This is the land OF the free and the
home OF the brave" at the same tim
selling women and children to the
highest and besthidder for cash. No
picture could be painted OF the genius
of America wherein the whipping post
and the slave pen did not rear their
heads, no music OF the Union but what
was discorded by the songs of the
slave. 1t was not the fault of the
South; IT was the fault OF our country.
The Supreme Court was as much my
court in Illinois as it was yours in
South Carolina; but we committed a
national crime, and the law of compen-
satiOn demanded settlement
ITO be sure, we tore down the slave
pen and the whipping post, but we did
not have material enough to make
head dboards for our graves. On this
contiaent 1T was written by little
American nun that in Cuba there are
starving ana naked women and chill
dren, while the bucket shops and the
money loaners are sending insulting
tclcgrams to he today asking me to
consider the price Of wheat and pork
in my own State. | say to you with
the picture OF starving women and
children before me, have no heart to
look at the price OF pork in Illinois.
"Those who fear war, those who
watch the markets and the tickers and
the bucket shops, those who fear for
the disturbance Of prices, tell us that
war is hell. All right In Cuba it is
worse than hell. Dante with all his
word painting never has described Los
Fosos. With his cruel pen he tortured
the sensitive, shocked and startled the
world and satisfied the cruel, but in
the supreme moment, although he saw
naked, writhing, burning women and
men he never dreamed to portray the
cruelty OF bringing u baby from its
mothers womb into Los Fosos, the in
ner recess of hell. And this is war:
this is Spanish war; this is the war
which the Republican party promised
to stop; and deny the right OF anyone
to be a better Republican than / am
whether he sits in the White House or
in the Senate OF ths United States"