The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-05-29
THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.
A PAPER READ By PROF. WOOLsEY
OF HARTFORD.
Intervention Justined-What Shall
We Do with the Phuippiness


The following is the principal part OF q
paper on the present war read last night
before the Congregational Club OF Hart
ford, Conn, by Theodore S. Woolsey, pro
fessor of international law at Yale Uni
versity:
When two states. after a long interval
Of peace with ali civilized Powers, act
ually fnd themselves at war, It is a shock
and surprise TO each OF them. The think
ing men in each must Inevitably question
theNneccssity OF war, ponder upon its jus
tee speculate as to It's results. A CONNER
clal people sees its trade interrupted or its
credit attacked with discomfort; a sentl-
mental people finds itself involved in a
war, and shrinlls from its passions and its
blood-shed; a practical people realizes the
| enormous economic waste of war; and nat
urally asks whether it is worth while.
There are a dozen different points of view
ranging eom peace at any price to war
for wars sake; and above all. there is the
national point OF view, which regards the
acts of its own government with a certain
Partially, which. natural and proper
! though 1t is, is hardly consistent with the
! judicial attitude Now all these many and
various interests and tendencies and pre-
| JUDGES find expression ana their result
ant expressed in action is national policy.
| 1t is wearisome perhaps, but it is ne
| cessary, even to insist upon the distinction
between law or Justice or right on the one
| hand, and policy on the other A state
may possess a right, to enforce which
would be suicidal. Germany sent a cruis-
er to little IIayti to collect an indemnity
! But let Hayu press a claim be it never
50 Just, against Germany in the same way
! ana snap would go the jaws. The Reichs-
! hund would make but one mouthful of the
/ black and tan.
| The national policy of Spain Is easy to
! understand because she is the victim of
! circumstances, not superior to them. She
is Power of the first rank only by cour-
| tesy. Burdened with debt; threatened with
revolution; her peasanry ill-educated and
| priest-ridden though frugal and indus
| trlons; between the gulf of Carlism and
/ socialism and the burden of misgoverned
| colonies, She is between the devil and the
! deep sea. Yet She stands confronting an
| evil fortune, somewhat bombastic, but
! brave nevertheless, and extorIs our ad-
! ministration. Her policy, then, is one of
| an almost passive resistance to an inevlta-
| bic fate, negative not positive, sharing
! neither the responsibilities of the European
! concert, nor its honors She is like one of
! her own grandecs, who poor and proud,
! and childless, ana weu-nigh friendless,
| never loses courage or dignity or calm, and
! so awaits his end. We have a sentimental
| regard for him. But if I've stands in the
! way he is pushed aside
And what is our own national policy -?
| Have we any? Or, rather. are we not ever
| hating between two? The one is freedom
| from foreign complcatio tons and the settle
| ment of mOmentOus domestic problems
| the other means territorial growth by an
! nexation or conquest; it means the head
! snip of this continent: 1t means a share
| In the scramble for colonial aggrandize-
ment; and in the background ever lies
/ what Europeans call Monroeism, which is
/ either rational principle of self-defense-
| the first law OF nations-or a national fet-
| ich, meaning anything you may happen to
| choose. With these preliminary and ram
| bling remarks, l beg you to consider
whether our present attitude towards
| Spain can be justified in law, and is in
! harmony with sound policy. And later I
shall touch upon the conduct of the war,
| 50 far as 1t has been developed, from the
| legal point of view
! Intervention by one state in the affairs
! of another is an exceptional thing, and
needs to be justified. There are certain
| grounds for justification given in the
| books, such as self-defense and humanity
! But l am not aware that any publicist pre-
tends TO be able to lay down exactly the
| rules which shall govern Intervention.
! And the reason is, because cases of inter-
| Vention are so unlike one another, and be-
! cause national policy enters so largely into
| them. Thus Napoleon III interviewed in
| Mexico, nominally to secure indemnities
| for French losses, really to check the po-
itical influence and trade extension south
ward of this country, and occupy the
! minds of his own people.
/ Thus. too. Russia iDtprvpped in 1877 in
behalf of Bulgaria. 1t was based in the
! DRY upon religious sympathy and upon hu-
mainly. 1t was a move, in fact, upon the
! Straits of Constantinople, in pursuance of
| Russia's century-long programme.
| Take another instance OF Intervention on
! the ground of humanity that of the Pow
| ers in Greece in 1927 resulting in the de-
! struction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino
/ and Greek independence. Here is a some
| what close parallel to our own action in
! Cuba. In both cases there was oppres-
! sion, msmanagement, revolt, cruelty and
resort 70 war of determination. Ibrahim
Pacha was the prototype of Weyler.
! Greece found sympathy and aid in liberal
| England, as Cuba has done here.
And each case will be found, l think to
! be In harmony with the broad underlying
! tendency Of the century. For in spite of
| all their hampering jealousies the Pow
! ers have pushed are pushing, the Ottoman
| sovereignty out of Europe. The carving
of an Independent Greece out of barbarous
! Turkey, unintended though 1t may have
! been at the outset of the Intervention, was
an early step in this direction
So likewise, though we may not all zee
! 1t yet, the expulsion of the Spaniard from
! unhappy Cuba, whatever government sue
| ceeds, viii be a mark of progress, of civil
! ization, because it will open the island to
! civillzing influences under the auspices of
! Ats own sons. Good government it may not
! have There is no magical efficacy in the
republican label. Better government it
! will have, because none could well be
| worse, and because it will be its own.
! This, too, will be in line with the CEN
| tury's tendency and our own prejudices,
| the freedom of American soil from the
( grasp Of European oficlalism. It may yet
be that we shall carry this parallel one
| step further, and hnd in some hitherto
! unhistoric spot a counterpart of Nava-
rino.
! That Intervention on the ground Of hu-
| manity is unsuitable is a matter of preced-
! emit then. as well as a theory. And so far
! as facts so our action in behalf Of Cuba
| IS as fair an instance of il as any of the
! earlier examples. For it IS clear from the
/ accounts of correspondents and visitors