Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1899-12-21
"THE ENEMY"


puDlISngu IN GnlS country ny sJne
Harpers, new light is thrown upon the
settlement of our Venezuelan oontro-
versy with England. Plnyfair acted as
an unofficial GO between and peace
maker. The letters which passed be-
the one hand, and Ambassador Bayard
on the other, are now printed for the
first time. They make most interesting
reading, letting US behind tho scenes as
they do.
Playfair was happily pitched upon
for unacknowledged negotiator. He
had warm interest in our country,
and many friends here. Several of
them appealed to him in the emergency.
The letter which ore "eminent Ameri-
CAM wrote him on Christmas eve of
1895 is given in full in the Memoirs
Mr.. Chamberlain also urged him to see
what could be done by private con.
ference and negotiation. Accordingly,
Lord Playfair, after an interview with
the Colonial Secretary, saw Mr.. Bayard
and left with him memorandum
which, in his opinion. offered the basis
for an equitable agreement 1t began
by treating Mr.. Cleveland's unhappy
message as If 1t had never existed that
is, it pointed out that the President OF
the United States had made no reply
to the last of Lord Salisbury's dis
patches. 1t was as il one of two
negotiators had left tho room for o
moment to relieve his feelings by utter
ing a loud yell outside. That was not
eermane to the discussion, which had
better be resumed quietly, and Lord
Plsyfair suggested buses on which the
whole affair might be amicably ad-
iusted, as, indeed, it was in the end.
Ambassador Bayard received Play
fairs advances in the way that would
be expected of his humane and lofty
nature. His letters breathe of peace
and the desire for it. In one CT them,
dated Febr uary 23d, 1896, he gave it as
an argument for speedy coming 10
terms, that, while q .'most wholesome
public sentiment was showing itself
on both sides of the Atlantic, and
while this was encouraging inter-
national anity, sit also," he wrote,
notifies the enemy" This is a very
striking phrase. Who was the enemy?
Whose hostile activity was 1t that Mr..
Bayard SO much dreaded? He does not
explain, but it is perfectly clear whom
he meant. 1t was not England; he
was at the moment straining every
nerve to secure Leaoe with her, and was
writing to one of her most distinguished
sons. 1t was their common enemy-ro
particular nation, no foreign malice,
no army afield or fleet with steam up,
but the whole devilish spirit of Jingo-
SIN and brute love Of war. 1t was the
wicked press, the inflamed and reckless
Representative, the hanjo-patriot, the
popularity-seekiDg Clergyman, ''the
yells and counter-yells Of faction in
either country, but more particularly
In his own, that, this high minded
statesman and lover Of his kind had in
his thoughts when he spoke of 1.-THE
enemy
Who can deny that he was right, and
that the revived laudation of war in
our time, and inflammatory Indictments
to 1T, constitute the true foe of civil
lied men and nations9 1t is against
it that we must all raise the cry 'sVoila
i'ennemi - This would have been q
commonplace 90 years ago. War was
then, to every thinking man, q mere
monster out of the dark backward and
abysm Of time, trying to smear with
its bloody hand the fairest trophies Of
peace and progress. We should all have
shrunk then from entering upon war
not sternly necessary, as we should from
the commission of, a crime. But our
ideals have been eaten into by events
The leading civ ilized nations have gone
swarming over the, earth seeing whose
lands they might fitch, and what native
rights they might beat down with iron
shard and reeking tube. Men cannot
tolerate or encourage this sort Of thing,
least of oil engage in it, without los
ing something of fine considerateness,
and the delicate regard for the dignity
of human nature, however debased in
appearance, which evolution has gone
through its thioes to produce in US.
Yet so thin was our veneer Of civiliza
tion that you had only to scratch us
and the brute showed through.
"Grattez-le, and there was the Tartar.
A fancied cause of war over Ven
ezuela, the chance of fighting Spain,
| the opportunity to, avenge Majuba and
| teach the Dutch who was master-that
was enough TO fill the Jingoes in
America or in Engla with frenzied
| Joy like Cetewayo's at the prospect OF
washing the spears of his impi. The
horror and peril of this were, we say,
part Of the intellectual furniture OF
every educated man score of years
ago; but we have lived to see it apoli-
gized for, then excused as a necessary
evil, and finally glorified as the noblest
work of man No wonder that Mr..
Bayard wrote shudderingly Of this mad
eagerness for war US 1.-The enemy
But the whole Playfair incident
| happily illustrates also the resources
of civilization against the barbarians
| who have arisen in its very midst Men
of light and leading. educators, scient-
| lists, writer's, artists, are banded into a
tacit International League against
them. Lord Playfair's secret intelven.
| tion in the name of both American and
striking example of what Sir Michael
before the British Association, called
the ''deep undercurrent'' in all
branches of science, which is ''sapping
the very foundations of war; If one
touch Of science makes the whole world
kin, it never does SO more truly than
| in the universal brotherhood which Is
at once revealed in men Of genuine on
lightenment, as against the abettcrs and
applauders of war. Science and art and
| literature start up instinctively to join
hands against his common enemy.
knowledge and philanthropy iise to
oppose it as tbey would to stamp out a
plague, or relieve the victims of a
famine OF of cataclysm of nature. Ii
the Jingoes of pen and sword rage and
imagine vain things, the quiet workers
in science and the humane arts the
world over set in motion their invisible
ornaments to bring to nought the
Vaccinations and the malice of the
| great enemy.
| In it's advanced and chronic form q cold In
| the head is known Nasal Catarrh aud IS the
recnn Iliznd snIIrrt. of ,iher llsAlsAs. unNlu .