Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1898-03-02
THIS IS SPANISH WAR.
Speech of Senator VIM. 3.
Mason, of Illinois.
A Vivid Description Of One OF
the Horrible Features of the
Cuban Struggle.

the Horrible T Features or the
Cuban Struggle.
The speech of Senator William
E. Mason, of Illinois, on his reso-
luton to request the President to
notify Spain and the insurgents
that the war must cease, and that
the United States will declare and
maintain peace on the Island OF
Cuba, was one of the most telling
addresses delivered in the Senate
for many years. In the course Of
his speech, Senator Mason read a
letter from an American girl, who
is now mother superior in an instl-
tuition in Havana. The nun says:
Lately some of our older pupils
discovered a place called Los
Fosos,' which means the bitches,
because it is a low and marshy
place. There over a thousand wo-
men and children of both sexes
are living abandoned, unknown,
and starving. Many are perfectly
naked; all are heaped up pell
melll They have been there nearly
two months. Of their number
fifteen to twenty or thirty die
daily. At night there is no light,
and in the morning the corpses
and living are found together.
Our Children of Mary are perfect
heroines, but only the older ones
can enter into this den where the
government has concentrated the
country people for the purpose of
making them die from inanition.
Their iniquitous plan is a great
success. After having passed
weeks without food, they are
brought salt Goldfish or rice, and
in eating tavenously they die"
Commenting on this statement,
Senator Mason said:
"Mr. President, I do not care
what your religious faith may be-.
|, who have studied in a modest
way the evolution of nations, am
here to say to my colleagues in
this Senate that there is no vica-
rious atonement for a nations
crime; no suffering on the Cross
of Calvary will lift the shadow of
the law of compensation. For a
hundred years we set our flag in
the sky, and said: This is the
land of the free aud the home of
the brave at the same time selling
women and children to the highest
and best bidder for cash. No plc-
tire could be painted of the genius
OF America wherein the whipping
post and the slave pen did not rear
their heads, 10 music Of the Union
but what was discorded by the
songs of the slaves. 1t was not
the fault of the South; it was the
fault of our country. The Su.
preme Court was as much my
court in Illinois as it was yours in
South Carolina; but we committed
a national crime, and the law of
compensation demanded settle
ment.
"To be sure, we tore down the
slave pen and the whipping post,
but we did not have material
enough to make headboards for
our graves. On this continent it
was written by q little American
nun that in Cuba there are starving
and naked women and children,
while the bucket shops and the
money loaners are sending insult
ing kilograms to Inc to-day asking
me to consider the price of wheat
and pork in my own State. I say
to you with the picture of starving
women and children before me, l
have no heart to look at the price
of pork in illinois,
"Those VINO fear war, those who
watch the markets and the tickers
and the bucket shops, those who
fear for the disturbance of prices,
tell us that war is bell. All right.
In Cuba it is worse than hell.
- liz, -. &c