The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1898-04-28

the undertaking in which we are embark
ed but my conviction is that we viii gain
all we lose and infinitely more. Two things
we have already gained, and one is the out
spoken sympathy of this great English
speaking race Of which we are a part. and
another is a larger sense of the unity of the
American people, a unity that has already
killed the spirit of sectionalism, taking the
person out of partisan strife and brought
in the better era of American patriotism
Nor do think that our people will ever
regret the part they have assumed. There
are times in the life of nations when they
move upon impulses so pure that the appro-
baton of the national conscience is full
reward for sacrifice, however grievous.
Such an hour has come to the people of
the United States, putting to silence, let
us hope, the passion of party politics, and
lifting the whole nation above the care
of stocks and bonds and lands and offices,
into the upper atmosphere where the hid
den things of liberty and civilization are
brought to light.
I'VE have citizens in Cuba whose prop
erty has been totally destroyed, their bust
ness broken up and they themselves cast
without trial into the military prisons of
Havana or left to be among the miserable
refugees at Matanzas. Yet we speak the
Spanish tongue; yet we have consented
to negotiate for their relief and have feebly
tried to do with diplomatic correspondence
what other countries are accustomed to do
with shot and shell.
We Do Not Complain
yet we did not complain. A forbearance
like that such an anxiety to keep peace,
born OF neither weakness or fear, pre-
sents a record of national self-restraint
that has not escaped the attention of the
world at large. Even in the troubled time
when rumor and heresay successfully COM
peted with the truth for a place in the
headlines of the daily press the presi-
dent of the United States kept his course,
refusing to be coerced or driven or turned
aside, calm In the Apr sbatioa If his own
conscience. grateful for the confidence Of
men of sense, Indifferent 20 The noise Of
cheap and transient tongues.
IF any have grown restless and uneasy
in the slow movement of cve1ts, If this
chamber has been degraded by brutal and
fncoherent ISLANDERS against his name. If
the honest zeal of some has tried TO out
run him to the goal and the crafty zeal Of
others to run over him, the time for con-
troyersy with all sides is passed.
But as one who has never for a mo-
ment doubted his wisdom his patriotism,
l venture the prediction that when these
days of feverish and babbling criticisms are
forgotten, the world will hold in increasing
honor that brave and kindly man who in
the interest of an unexampled clamor, his
lips sealed by the very nature of his duty,
has had the moral herosm while the small
est chance remained to stand as the mag
istrate of Christian people, exercising the
Influence of his office for an honorable
peace. The fact that all these, humane
aspirations of our government, known and
read of all men, have called out no ade-
quate response either from Havana or
Madrid, fully verifies the picture of Spain
drawn by the historian, Buckle: She sleeps
on unmoved, unheeding, impassive, receiv-
ing no impression from the outside world,
and making no impression upon it,
Waited in Pitiful Silence
Even the events of the last two months,
in which our people have waited in pitful
silence, while board of officers, famous
and honored in the service, has taken tes-
timony that tells the awful tragedy of our
i'll fated man of war, have not awakened
her. That testimony, including the unans-
werable witness of the wreck itself, Is now
before the world, and if the national in
dignation has not long since avenged the
CHASTITY crime. it is because all hearts have
been stirred by the revelation of q crime
still more ghastly-the atrocity which de-
liberately planned the determination of an
innocent community, and within sight of
our own shores, has turned the fairest
landscape of the earth into a hdeouS spec
tacle of cruelty and torture The despair of
men and women, the bitter cry of starry
ing children, the agonies of the living, the
skeletons of the dead, the increditable
alitieS in Spanish warfare, have driven
from the minds of the American people all
thought of themselves, of their commerce,
scattered to the winds, of their property,
despeiled; of their countrymen, cast into
dungeons; of their seamen, entrapped and
assassinated; all thought even of the rag
ged, little army of freedom yonder in the
invincible mountains of Santiago, ard have
filled the heart of the great republic with a
sense of divine mission-to give help and
mercy to the perishing multtudes of that
wasted and stricken population.
Cannot stop Now
1--WE cannot stop now to put forward
claim to be reckoned in the coinage of Il
bankrupt treasury for the noble ship
which lies today broken and dismanted in
the most infamous harbor of all the seas.
We do not know how to find by paltry
calculation the equivalent of human lives.
We will not betray our dead. The nation
of America in the fear of God, counting all
the cost exacts from Spain indemnity in
full for the abuses of the Fast. Not the
soil of subjugated provinces, but the enan-
cipation of an oppressed race; not the 1an-
som of besieged cities but tie nobler salts
faction of raising the flag of free COM
monwealth, to keep watch with tender
gratitude forever above the dust of the
unforgotten heroes of the Name
While Mr.. Dolliver was speaking many
VI the lduieS OIL the galleries. Wept ana
when he concluded his brilliant peroration
there was scarcely a dry eye in the vast
hall. The demonstration which followed
continued for several minutes.
The Sum Too Large
Mr. Savers. of Texas, said the bill pro-
posed to place at the disposal of the gov
eminent $500, 1000 in addition to the ordi-
nary revenues The expenses of the civil
war in 1864 were 81, 100,000O0O. But the gov
eminent was then supporting an army of
100000 men and fleets containing four times
as many warships as we now have While
no one would go farther than he in the
support of the government with these facts
before him, he felt convinced that $69O,0O0,-
600 was vastly too large sum to appro-
pirate. 1t was dangerous. The corridors of
the capitol already swarmed with men
seeking fat contracts. The president would
be more than human If he could resist their
opportunities.
Then discussing the provisions of the bill
bod xrrtaxy