The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1899-02-03
MESSAGES TO COMMISSION
FROM PRESIDENT M'KINLEY SENT
TO THE SENATE.
ARE READ IN EXECUTIVE SESSION.
All kilograms and Letters Which Passed
Between Washington and Paris
Are Submitted.

President Mckinley sent to the SEN
ate Monday the correspondence on file
in the state department bearing upon
the peace treaty, and it was read in
executive session.
The correspondence was sent in re-
spouse to the resolution introduced
by Senator Hoar and included most of
tho letters and cablegrams from the
commissioners to the president and
from the president TO the commission
ers in the way of instructions in re-
turn. The documents are numerous,
as there were kilograms, letters and
reports for almost every day the COM
mission was in Paris.
One of the first cabiegrams from
the president instructed them to de-
mand the cession of Luzon island
only of the Philippines and he told
them that full sovereignty should come
with it.
In submitting the papers the presi-
dent sent brief message saying that
he transmitted them in accordance
with the resolution.
The reading consumed the entire
executive session, lasting from to
$50 o'clock. Much of the matter
covered the same ground as that
already published, but it was pre-
scented in the form in which the pro
ceedings were outlined from day to
day in the cable correspondence be-
tween Secretary Day as the presi-
dents representative on the one hand
and Commissioner Day as the repre-
sentative of the American commission
ers on the other.
The principal interest among the
senators attached to the presidents in
structions to insist upon the cession of
the island of Luzon, and after that in
the decision to take the entire group of
islands. This latter development APP
peared from the correspondence to be
growth, and the suggestion was
made by the president as the result of
occurrences at Paris after the arrival
there of the commissioners. In his
dispatch concerning Luzon he said
there was but one alternative-the
United States must either take the is
land and assume sovereignty or re-
turn it to Spain, and of the two courses
he preferred the former.
Spain was from the first unwilling to
cede any of the Philippines and she
made objection to letting go of Luzon
alone. The commissioners, with the
exception of Senator Gray, urged that
to take Luzon and leave the other
islands of the archipelago in the hands
of the Spaniards would be to invite
innumerable complications with other
nations and especially with Europe
and with Spain.
Much stress was laid upon the
probability of future trouble with
Spain. With Luzon under American
administration, there would coon be
such vast improvement, they wrote,
that the other islanders would soon
| grow more and more rebellious, and
with SPANS oppressive methods of
government we would soon again find
that we had another Cuba at another
door.
The president does not appear to
have at any time given explicit in
structions to consummate the bar
gain by taking all the Philippines but
rather after hearing a full explana-
ton to have left the matter to the dis
erection of the commissioners.
The entire controversy was practi-
cally over the Philippines aud the
question of assuming responsibility
for the payment of the Spanish bonds
for which the Cuban revenues were
pledged.
The American commissioners appear
to have been of one mind as to the
wisdom of taking over all the Philip
pines with the exception of Senator
Gray, who, Notwithstanding he signed
the treaty, held out to the last against
the policy of accepting these islands.
In one notable dispatch he pleaded
zealously against the policy as I'M
patriotic, un-American and inconsist-
ent with probity and good statesman
ship.
After brief debate the senate re-
fused to print the correspondence.