The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1899-03-04
RESULTS OF THE WAR
Senator Cushman X. Davis on Its
Cause and Effect.
Work OF the Peace Commission al
Paris ApprOved-RetentiO of
Philippines nm Ameri-
can Duty.

Gun Duty.
At the Washington day celebration of
the Union League club of Chicago Sem
atcr Cushman X. Davis, of Minnesota,
in n speech which President Charles
Kendall Adams, of the University of
Wisconsin, later said would form part
of history, revealed for the first time in
public the workings Of the Spanish and
American peace commissioners at Paris
and declared his belief that the United
States should continue to govern and
control the Philippine islands till such
time as this nation shall decide it safe
ly can give the archipelago freer and
better form of government. Senator
Davis spoke Of the results of the war
with Spain, which he said werehot con-
templated in its beginning, as of the
greatest importance to the future of
this republic and calculated to prevent
the United States from becoming the
selma of the west" as he said twould
become if it permitted the other ma
tons of the world to extend their en-
pire over the portions of dismembered
China and become menace to the west
ern coast of this country Senator
Davis said:
''Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen o. the
Union League Club The American people
and humanity within the last II months
have advanced an unreasonable distance,
never to recede. Nations. like individuals,
do not shape their own destnies. Wisely
as we may plan by constitutional require
ments, by statutory enactments, by party
4
or the evolutionary process-interventions
i'm the affairs of nations. AS said we have
passed through an eventful u months. and
you will pardon me e say here-not In the
spirit of partisanship, but in just tribute to
conspicuous public character who has
largely guided these momentous events
that / regard President, Mckinley, from
the complete equilibrium Of his character,
from his attentive observation of the die
tates of that majestic public opinion by
which the results of all American issues
are finally determined, by his firmness
when a course of action has been resolved
on, by his observance of the restrictions of
the constitution and the laws, as a charac-
ter altogether unique among American
presidents
"Mr President, the Spanish war was n
Just and necessary war. 1t was sedulously
avoided by the United States. Against all
manner of provocation of outrage to Amer
lean property and American citizenship;
against the taking of the lives of Ameri-
can citizens, the destruction of scores of
millions of property, the American people
abstained from war until 1t became indis-
pensable-neces1ary not only for the cause
OF humanity, but for national honor 1t
was a humane war. IT was war in the
interest of Christianity and civilization. 1t
decreed the determination of Spain from
all her insular possessions in both hemi-
spheres. and all mankind knew-the nations
L xxhf oil of act
humanity was.
1.-THE results OF that war were sudden and
spectacular. No war was ever so shortly
ended; no war was ever marked with such
total humiliation OF one of the opposing
forces. And finally the time came when
Spain was obliged to sue for peace, and the
result was that the president of the United
States empowered five citizens to proceed
to Paris TO endeaYor to negotiate final
treaty with that monarchy. All of the
members of the commission, excepting one,
were men of no diplomatic experience
whatever. The one exception was Mr..
Whitelaw Reid, who had had great expert
ence in that way, and whose counsels in
that respect and whose ability in all other
respects were of the greatest assistance to
us. We proceeded to Paris, and met there
the Spanish commissioners. 1t may be in
teresting to you to learn what impressions
they created upon me. The head of that
body OF men was Mr.. Montero Rios an able
lawyer, who was a casuist of such skill,
dexterity and subtlety that his arguments
often COMPOUNDED and puzzled the under
standing He had a face like an ascetic
1t was lit up with marvellous intelligence.
lie could grasp a complicated argument,
and carry 1t quicker and answer II more
readily than any man l ever saw. The
other members of the Spanish commission
were likewise men of great experience.
'Of course the terms of the treaty up to
tnit, INT ,1ai nj Ia
the protocol which had been entered into
between Spain and the United States in
August last, ard the first point OF conflict
tina. we encountered was the insistence of
Spanish commissioners that with the re-
of the sovereignty of Cuba
should go an assumption by the United
States of the entire so-called colonial debt
of Cuba That debt amounted Ia $700,O00,0OO.
OF course, we rejected the proposition, and
we would have rejected 1t If that debt had
been 700 cents. l had the honor myself of
making an answer to an able argument of
Senior Montero Rios that as matter of in
ternational law of course there should be
an apportionment of the debt, prorating
OF the matter by some scale which was
easy to adopt, and he had cited from the
treaty by viii ch France ceded Alsace and
Lorraine, from the treaty by which Spain
had recognized the independence of the
South American republics. He cited many
instances where such an adjustment of the
colonial debt had been made, and from that
he endeavored to exhaust these matters of
special convention into matter of general
law. To that we made one
answer: that the true principle was that
whenever the integrity of the original en-
pre remained, as in the case of Spain,
where any nation or people had risen In the
assertion OF their liberties and had achieved
them either independently or by the aid of
another power that the mother country
took the entire burden of the debt, especial
ly when large part of 1t was created in an
effort to subjugate and subdue that colony
which had attempted to gain It's indepen-
dence.
1--WE cited, with the conclusive effect, the
great conquest of British North America
by England as against France, where from
Montreal all the French possessions in
North America became the property of
England. 1t never was contended that the
great French national debt which was piled
up In an effort to prevent the conquest by
England be apportioned. We cited the
revolution of our forefathers, and that 1t
was never intended that the claims were
to be a debt of Great Britain and could be
apportioned as against the United States.
We cited the case OF our accessons from
where. Notwithstanding her debt
exceeded the extension of that country by
France, England and Spain. that 1t was
never intended that the United States was
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