Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1898-03-31
THURSDAY EVENING, MAR. 81, 1899.

THE WAR TAKERS who, like Marx
Twain. "are willing to give the lives
of all their wives male relations" III
the cause of Cuba li6re, are now de-
nonuncing the President "for backing
down." Backing down from what?
From nothing else that We can see, ex'
cept their threats, buster, and gascon-
ade. The United States is mighty
nation, founded upon the principle of
equal justice to all, and she can afford
to overlook in poor, but proud, old
nation, which she could readily crush.
whatever may have given her just
cause of ofense, if anything such, there
have been. Magnanimity is as great
as virtue in nations as in individuals.
But, what has Spain done to us? Elk
cept, perhaps, some want OF care in pro-
tecting war vessel OF ours in one OF
her harbors, for which, no doubt, she
will be willing to make due PREPARATION
If shown to have failed in her duty in
that respect; absolutely nothing. We
have been Just as repiss in not prevent
ing filibustering expeditions from being
organized in our territory and shipme nts
of arms and ammunition to be made
from our ports, as she can possibly
have been, and we have simply de-
clared that it was impossible for US to
prevent them. Our people are, of course,
at liberty to sympa'hiza with men
striving for independence anywhere;
they may be indignant at the cruelty
of Weyler, but they should remember
Sheridan and the fertile valley of Vir-
sinia, "over which, in its desolation, if
crow should fly, he must carry his
own rations." If the people there did
not starve, it was not his fault. They
should remember the ''reconcentIa-
doesn of our own neighborhood,
old men and boys, not brought into the
federal lines with their families. that
they might do what they could for
them and be helped by friends; but
dragged to prison IN Alexandria
their families left to starve, or not, as
best they could. These things were
done not by 1.-THE cruel and treacherous
Spaniards," but by Americans. Thirty
four years is too short time to forget
them. What does the President wish
to do? Simply to relieve the wants
and assist the aspirations of the Cubans
without war. 1t may we'll be ask
81 what warrant the Constitution
which our lawmakers have sworn to
preserve and defend, gives for appro-
priating half a million of dollars to feed
the starving people ola foreign country !;
lut the general welfare" clause, so
often invoked for all sorts of purposes,
can surely be better made to cover on
appropriation which may save innumer-
able lives of our own citizens and IL
expenditure of untold millions of their
money in war. Is it not worth while
TO wait eight months and let Spain give
the Cubans every right with which our
Canadian neighbors are so we'll salts
fed? or shall we go to war to take an
island we don't want, and which would
be 80 elephant on our hands, or estab
lish q weak nation which would always
invite the attack of the great powers of
Europe and keep US in constant state
of preparation, at enormous cost, to
protect it. The "annexationists" and
the Limoges" may not like this plan;
the spectators and contractors who
fatten on the blood of war, lOiAL not; but
honest and God-fearing men will SUI
port the President and take new pride
in their dear native land when she
stands forth among the peoples as tie
one power which will never crush a
feeble nation which helped her in her
own feebleness and to whose enterprise
she owes the very land which is now
%'the land of the free and the home of
the brave"
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