The times., 1898-04-12

skin of a philanthropic person, hides
the body of a hyena exactly like Wey-
Ter.
The next step in the Presidents ar
gument is even less tolerable. He
prates Of the power which the "au-
/ tonomous" Cortes of Cuba may exert
in restoring peacei He knows, at the
same time, that those alleged Cortes
rest upon no legal foundation, and that
| their very conception was an uncon-
| stitutional subterfuge. Yet he speaks
of them as something endowed with
| legality and power, which he knows,
and Congress knows, that they have
not.
1t would take columns of review ade-
| quately to treat the useless words and
vapidity of this message of shame. We
have only time or patience to take into
serious consideration a very few of its
points And even that seems a waste
of time. The communication itself is
its own condemnation, and it has car
ried discredit and anger for its total
lack of patriotism into every hamlet
in the Union.
Mr.. Mckinley attempts to excuse his
offense against the genius of free in
stitutions in refusing to recognize Gu
ban belligerency, and wickedly invokes
the shade of Gen. Jackson TO uphold
him. This is unfortunate. He quotes
a message of Jackson on the question
of recognizing Texas, which does not
careful to ignore all American prece-
dents and all dicta of international au-
thorities which do. Mr. Mckinley as
serts that the Cuban Republic has not
such an organization and effective civil
government as to entitle it to belliger
ent rights. 1t is evident that either
his information or his honesty is at
fault He quotes his December mes
sage, in which he said: 1T is to be
ban insurrection possesses beyond dis
pute the attributes of statehood which
alone can demand the recognition of
belligerency in it favor" What utter
nonsense,
The full attributes of statehood"
might form condition precedent to
the recognition of independence, and
we may safely say that all the condi-
tions have been fulfilled by the Cuban
Republic; but the question of bellger-
ency rests upon different grounds.
Judge Grier lays down the rule q
Black, 66D:
A civil war is never solemnly declared 1t
becomes such by accident, the number. power
and organization of the persons who organize
and carry it When the party in rebellion
occupy and hold in hostile manner GER
tain portion of ferritory, have declared their in
dependence have cast off their allegiance, have
organized themselves, have commenced hostili-
ties against their former sovereign, the world
recognizes them as bellgerents, and the contest
as war.
We might go on and cite Vattel,
Bluntschli, Lawrence and other recog-
nized authorities to the same intent;
but the dictum Of so great an Ameri-
can master of the subject as Judge
Grier will suffice to show that Mr. Nc
Kinley is without a leg of justice, equi-
ty or precedent to stand upon when he
attempts to apologize for his outrage
upon civilization in refusing to recog-
nize the belligerency of the Cuban pa
triots.
A community which holds under or
derby civil government four-ffths of
the territory in dispute with the former
sovereign, and which can rout with
slaughter nineteen thousand troops of
it's enemy in open battle as happened
in Cuba last week, cannot be denied the
right of beIligerency with any regard
to international law, American concep-
tions of liberty, or humanity.
There are only two other things in
the message that demand our attention.
AS a whole it is too fagrantly and
openly redolent of Hanna and McCook
to justify analysis. The country will
see through it without much exposition
on our part. One of these things is
that Notwithstanding his vacillation,
his repeated offenses in saying one
thing to Congress and doing another,
Mr. Mckinley asks that full faith and
confidence shall be placed in him, to
use the war power of the nation, when,
how and to what extent he may see fit.
This is something that the American
people will not tolerate for a moment.
Congress is the war-making power The
Spanish situation is in its hands II
must not delegate that power, or any
; part or parcel of it, to a discredited
Executive. If it should, then look out
for trouble in this American Union!
The country is tired of seeing its in
terests and honor made subservient to
the Spanish bond sharks And delega-
ton of power to President Mckinley
would be tantamount to putting the
war force of America in commission
, in the hands Of Mark Hanna and ]. J.
McCook
Secondly, the message is outrageous
in that it treats the Maine massacre as
a diplomatic incident Mr. Mckinley
states that the Board of Inquiry
which It is needless to say commands