The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-02-23
ENDING OF THE WAR
SENATOR DAVIS, OF MINNESOTA,
TELLS OF THE WORK of THE
PEACE COMMISSIONERS
AN ULTIMATUM WAS ISSUED
Spaniards Were Given Eight Days
In Which to Come to Terms or
Risk Il breaking OFF of Peace Ne
gOtiations Pays High Compli-
Spanish Peace Envoys.


of the Union League club tonight SEN
ator Cushman K. Davis, of Minnesota,
responding to the toast, THE Treaty
OF Paris gave the first details of the
| negotiations at Paris that have been
made public. Mr.. Davis said:
! The American people and humanity within
| the last twelve months have advanced
| unreasonable distance, never to recede. Ma
tions. like individuals. do not shape their
own destinies.
AS l said We have passed an eventful
| twelve months 1t is enough for me and 1t
is worth all that this war has cost, that by
! the Intervention Of the processes which
have mentioned that hateful line between
| the North and the South has been entirely
! and forever obliterated; that condition OF
sentiment and feeling has been brought
about by the fusion Of all-embracing
| patriotism where those who fought for the
stars and bars now fight and have fought
under the Stars and Stripes where the
grandson of Gen. Grant serves upon the
staff Of the nephew Of Gen. Lee; where Jo-
! seph Wheeler leads the soldiers of the
| United States to victory against the walls of
Santiago.
NECESSARY WAR
The Spanish war was a just and necessary
war. It was sedulously avoided by the
| O4ttlSu SOdItS tASTtlaSL an 1ldQlGr Oh pro-
! vocation, of outrage to American property
and American citizenship; against the taking
! OF the lives of American citizens the destruc-
tion of scores OF millions of property, the
! American peoT'le, with great reluctancy alb
stained from war until 1T became indispen-
| sable-necessary not only for the cause of
| humanity, but for national honor We bore
indignities until those who inflicted them
| thought that they were being inflicted upon
| national pUsillenirnity, AID it was not until
! that appalling and stupendous crime the
destruction OF the Maine, aggravated by the
| attempt of Spain to trnpute the destruction
| of that war vessel to the incapacity and
want Of discipline of the American navy-it
was not until that time that all Of the stu
| pendOus wrongs and outrages which not only
we. but humanity, had suffered made it
! necessary for US to declare in the name Of
| HI inanity and national no: or war against
! Spain.
| 1t was humane war. 1t was a war in
| the interest of Christianity and civilization.
It decreed the determination Of Spain from
all her insular possessions in both hem
| fspheres and all mankind knew-the nations
knew-upon which side of that contest human
| ity was.
TREATY NEGOTIATIONS
The results of that war were sudden and
spectacular And finally the time came when
! Spain was obliged to sue for peace, and in
accordance with that wish the president of
the United States empowered and appointed
five citizens to proceed to Paris to endeavor
to negotiate final treaty with that mon
| archy. All of the members of that commits
sion. excepting one were men of no dipIo-
matte experience whatever. The one excep-
ton was Whitelaw Reid, who had had great
and considerable experience in that way and
whose counsels in that respect and whose
ability in all other respects were OF the great
est assistance to US. We proceeded to Paris
and met there the Spanish commission.
The first point of conflict that we en-
countered the insistence of the Spanish
commissioners that, with the REIMBURSEMENT
of the sovereignty of Cuba to the United
| States, which amounted to cesson, should
go assumption by the United States
and from her to Cuba whenever she should
be established a government, of the entire
| so-called colonial debt of Cuba.
! Mr.. Davis recited at length the story
! of the discussions between the two
commissions, and continued:
ULTIAIATUM TO SPANIARDS.
! After some consultation the American COM
missioners tired of this wheeling and whirl-
! ing from one point to another, laid down to
! the Spanish commissioners an ultimatum for
the REIMBURSEMENT of Cuba without the debt,
| for the cession of Porto Rico and the Philip
! pine 1SlaQQS, ana gave Ll6IQ period OIL eight
days to answer. with a prospect Of the sus-
pension of negotiations if favorable answer
was not forthcoming at the end of that time.
! At the end of eight days the Spanish COM
missioners acquiesced.
Practically the entire question as to the
| Philippines left by the president of the
United States to the Judgment and discre-
ton of the American commissioners. It wa.
at first thought that it would be sufficient
/ 70 tak he island nj ho-t
military and naval authority, Admiral Dewey
Gen. Merritt and Commander Bradbury, laid
the situation before us from a military, naval
and strategic point of view, which made it
perfectly obvious that we must either take
the entire archipelago aband IN It entirely;
that the relation of those islands to each
other was such that the acquisition of one
with hostile power a foreign power of
whatever character holding the others would
only reproduce the conditions of Cuba as
against the United States, and create per-
petual sore in the waters of the East
! We were bound, in view of the astounding
development which the Chinese sovereignt,
has been subject to, to have a sufficient naval
| station in those waters. Who in this audience
/ would have expected that we would have left
! the Philippines or any portion of those Islands
/ to the fnefable and fndescribabe atrocities
| Of Spain? When Dewey set the stars of that
nag amongst the antipodal glories of the East
| he imposed upon the American people re-
| sponsiblity which we cannot avoid and so
| considering other conditions it was decided
| that we should demand, and we did demand
ana receive, the cession of the entire archi-
| pelago of the Philippines
COMMITTED TO THE TASK.
! 1t is not a question of what we shall do
| in the future. We are already committed to
| the situation. VIII any American citizen
! under present conditions advocate that
Dewey shall sail away from the harbor of
! Manila? That troops shall vacate that
/ island? That We with an armed force of
/ insurrection arrayed against the bows in
| blue, and the American flag, who went there
as their friends, shall, in the face of the
/ civilized world, like towards in the night
evacuate those waters and remit the Philfp
| pines to Internal anarchy or foreign dismem-
| berment?
| The FilDinos not IN a present con-
! dition to govern themselves and establish
! that Independent republic which forms its
! cherished dream. I think no man In this
! audience who has read the current journals
| will for a moment question that thew are
not.
| We cannot endure, in view of our past and
coming interests in the Orient that the Phil
ippines shall be dismembered by foreign
! powers, as they will be the minute the Unit
! ed States removes itself from that situation
| and above all things, my fellow citizens
! although they appear perhaps dimIy before
US now, yet I believe there is profound
| conviction in the minds of the American peo-
! pie that part of all this force which has