The age-herald., 1898-03-16

submitted by a dying people to the most prosperous and, in theory at least the most humane of nations.
 And the humanity of the people of the United States when put to the test has usually responded nobly Periodically we send ship leads of provisions to starving IrelanA Our Red Cross forces have but recently returned from Armenia. Our mis- sionarles dispense both spiritual and bodily balm in every heathen country. But the exBlIpation of the Cubans by slow star vadion has been in progress for years, has indeed been brazenly announced as an es- sentlal part of the Spanish plan of cam paign, and only recently have we-well fed and with abundant harvests-taken any cognizance of the suffering at our doors. Then all that was done was to send in- sufficient aims to enable the victims to bear up little longer against the slow starva- tion to which Spanish policy has doomed them.
 Is it then the best we can do to meagerly feed the sufferer while the vampire is left to suck at his jugular?
 The pictures of human misery which the Journal publishes are drawn from photo- graphs. Their publication is a duty, not a pleasure. They are selected from a hundred or more in the possession of thts paper, and are far from being the most ghastly the mosa horrifying of all, for some are foo rserI,t fr1 to ph No effort of the Spanish censorship can temper their story of infamy and of woe. Verbal exaggera- tion could not increase their horror the coldest conservatism must be stirred to hot in lgnation by the thought oI the human agony they reveal.
 Is a slender strip of salt water to put an impossible barrier in the way of manifesto tion of Amerdcsm humanity? Shall the heart of the nation which the imaginary hariships of Uncle Tom'' once moved so profoundly remain as adaGnant while the annfhlation of the Cuban people proceeds? Does not the savel5ge violation by Srain of every humane law imposed by civiliza- tion give us the right to intervene, that
  may be checked and the wall of the starv- ing widow and orphan be heard no longer under our windows?
 Civilized Europe set us a precedent once when France, in the excesae of new and hardly won freedom, fed the guillotine with the heads of "a worthless king and a cor rupt and rapacious afistocracy. In the name of civilization and humanity England, Prussia, Austria drew the sword against the French revolutionists. Never perhaps, did the words civilization and humanity serve to clolal1 more ignobIe or narrow pur- poses than then, but they may be fitly used in justification of American interven- ton in Cuba today. In Cuba the people are being murdered that liberty may perish and tyranny be upheld. In France tyrants were slain that liberty might be esItab- hshed.
 It rests with President Mckinley to prove tflaf we are not "a nation of shopkeepers" as indeed We are not It is within his power to restore life and hope to thousands of his fellow beings now weakly lowering about the brink of the grave. His fiat delivered to Spain will command peace in Cuba, wild stop the ghastly march of fam inc will restore order on our coasts Glo- rous is the opportunity presented to him as a man. ENalting beyond computation will be the effect upon the conscience, the heart and the mind of our whole people if he shall seize upon it and, with united nation behind him, say to Spain in the name of civilization, mercy and Godhness that she shall Nithdraw from the island she has so cruelty rivaged and leave its people to fBsal their wounds in peace.