The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-03-14
NOT A CASE FOR ARBITRATION.


Captain PeraPs statement foreshadowing
the report of the Spanish court of inquiry
regarding the cause of the Maine disaster
Is so puerile and so absolutely unsupported,
either by evidence or by reason, that it can
only be accounted for on the theory that
the Spanish government intends to try and
lay basis for demand for arbitration.
This would be in strict accordance with all
we know of Spanish policy, which is moth
ing If not dilatory, and which regards the
defeat of justice as one of the first princi-
pies of diplomacy.
If the American court of inquiry shall
find that the vessel was destroyed by an ex-
plosion from the outside, and support it's
finding with facts and evidence strong
enough to convince any reasonable and
impartial person of its correctness, ought
the United States to consent to arbitration
if Spain suggests it? The Journal thinks
not. and this Notwithstanding the fact that
the United States government has been the
foremost advocate of arbitration in interna-
tional controversies. In the first place, it
is the duty of this government to stand by
it's court Of inquiry, and to accept its re-
port as a. finality. Arbitration is for open
questions, but when our court reports this
viii be a closed question so far as the
United States is concerned. 1t will be what
civil courts call res adjudicata-a matter on
which final judgment has been passed. To
submit it to arbitration would be to reopen
it without new evidence. 1t would be
equivalent to submitting to arbitration the
professional honor, ability and integrity of
the members of our court. They would vir-
tually be made defendants in a proceeding
in which they would be at a great disad-
vantage because new investigation made
by a court of arbitration weeks or months
after the disaster could not possibly be as
thorough or satisfactory as one made
few days after the disaster. A considerable
part of the debris of the ship, including
many plates, pieces of machinery, ETC.. have
been removed from the places where they
were first found, and other important evil
dences, accessible to the present board,
have been obliterated put beyond the
reach of another inquiry 1t would be cruel
and cowardly to make the members of the
present court perhaps witnesses before
tribunal of arbitration to testify as to the
intelligence of their original views or the
grounds of their verdict.
But there is another reason broader than
this why the United States should not con-
sent to arbitration. 1t is conceded on all
hands that a question of national honor
cannot be submitted to arbitration. A
question of international law, boundary
dispute, or a matter of dollars and cents
may be submitted to arbitration, but not
question involving national honor Now, if
our court shall report that the Maine was
blown up from the outside, that will mean
that she was destroyed by Spanish subjects
in Spanish harbor because she was an
American ship. The act was not the work
of a mob aiming at the destruction of all
kinds of property or the ships of all ma
tons indiscriminately. 1t was the work of
enemies of the United States, aiming at the
destruction of that particular ship, and
therefore was, to all intents and purposes,
an attack upon the flag and territory of the
United States. If the Maine was blown up
from the outside she was attacked not on
general principles, but because she flew
the United States flag and the brave men
on her were sent to the bottom of Havana
harbor not for any private grudge or by
the blind fury Of a mob, but because they
were United States sailors. In the case of
the attack upon some of our sailors in the
streets Of Valparaiso in 1891, President Har-
rison said in a special message to Congress:
am of the opinion that our sailors were
assaulted, beaten, stabbed and killed, not
for anything they or any one of them had
done or was charged with having done,
but for what the government of the United
States had done or was charged with hav-
ing DONE by its civil officers and naval
commanders. If that be the true aspect of
the case, the injury was to the government
of the United States, not to those poor
sailors who were assaulted in a manner so
brutal and cowardly.
In that case President Harrison presented
an ultimatum, and was preparing to back
it up with war when Chile yielded every
point This is even less case for arbitra-
ton than that was, as the motive Of the
act is more clearly hostile to the United
States government and flag. We cannot
submit the national honor to arbitration.
We cannot allow foreign commission to
decide what punishment we shall infiict or
what measure of reparation we shall de-
mand in a case where the government has
been insulted. the flag outraged and Amer
lean sailors murdered simply because they
were Americans. If the report Of the court
shall be as we now expect. there will be no
room for arbitration