The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-04-18
Going at II in an
ErroneodS Manner
From the Chicago Inter-ocean.

From the Chicago Inter-Ocean.
G-1 HE report of the senate committee
on foreign relations is "a crushing
arraignmcnt of our own foreign
policy in the last three years.
From the beginning Of the Cuban
revolution we have drifted through COM
plcations and embarrassments. seeking
ever an amicable settlement instead of
asserting our rights. The report of the
senate committee illustrates the fatal de-
fects of this policy, as no previous Cta-
tion of facts has done.
o
In tracing the progress of our negotia-
tiOns with Spain, the committee makes it
painfully clear that from the very first
we have erred. In our negotiations with
Spain we have come forward constantly
to seek merely as many of our rights as
we could obtain without friction. Instead
of standing ever on the firm basis of
treaty law, we have stood on any ground
or have faced any way in our efforts to
secure our objects without giving Offense
to the Madrid cabinet. Consequently we
have left in Madrid the impression that
we were supple, yielding, and ever con-
Ciiatory in Difference to a bold front.
Whittier all this has led us we all know.
o
In the case of the Competitor the expos
tulations of this government were IN ef-
feet merely petitions for royal Clemency.
The Competitor prisoners, captured under
our flag, were imprisoned nearly seven
teen months and were never brought
properly to trial though they were sub
jeCted to harsh, illegal, and degrading
preliminary examinations The entire
proceeding against them was unlawful.
In this case, as in others, the United
States permitted itself to be put teChuiC-
ally in the wrong, and in the end its citi-
zens We're pardCned as for a crime in
stead Of being released with indemnity as
right. In the case of Ruiz an American
citizen was assassinated by act of Span
ish officials. No reparation has been
made for this. Had the release of the
Competitor prisoners been demanded as a
treaty rights, which it indsputably was
and had the government at that time in
sisted on their release, there would have
been no Ruiz case and no destruction Of
the Maine
one of the strongest indictments made
hy the committee is that the United
States has been placed i'm an attitude Of
concurrence with the Spaniards ever
since the beginning of the war in CUBA /;
that Americans have been in effect silent
partners i'm the work of Spanish infamy
Having been pushed into this attitude,
the nation I'm a spirit of forbearance has
submitted to many atrocities perpetratcd
by Spain on our own citizens. This takes
no account of the atrocities committed
against the Cubans. 1t is Independent Of
the devastation of the island. The Amer
lean losses alone have amounted to $780,
900 in property and to hundreds Of
lives.
The argument Of the committee is that
the foreign policy of the government must
be changed. We can no longer pursue a
course that subOrdinates everything 20
amicable settlement. When we are clear
ly in the right we must say so, and in
stead of accepting simple justice as a
favor we must demand 1t. AS the begin
ming of this new policy the committee
recommends Intervention. This will be
an assertion of the right of the United
States to look after It's own interests in
its own way, II will do away with n
policy which, while frittering away treaty
rights with the mistaken idea of gain
ing peace, merely piles up complications
for the future.