The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1899-06-21
dHattsman 4 yuurnal
ARTHUR ROPES. General Edito,
The Regeneration of Cuba.

There are i'll birds that foul their |
own nest. There are those bearing
the American name who persistently, |
and with malice aforethought, SANDER |
their own countrymen. Here is one
newspaper characterizing as "twaddle"
the Presidents talk of benevolent
assimilation" in respect of the people
in the East and in the West Indies
who have come under the dominion of
the stars and stripes, as the result of
the war with Spain. In the Philip
pines, 1--WE are simply conquering $1,000
900 of nightly mixed Orientals for
what we think can be made off of them
and their country" After "killing,
footing, burning, and laying waste in
general, we may try to bring the Ia
gals and the others up in the way they
ought to go, but that will be done to
crafty our own pride, and in the hope
that it will help toward lining our own
pockets" One newspaper bird fouls
its nest with calumnies of this sort and
a companion in vileness transfers them
to its own columns and wallows in the
slanderous and unpatriotic increment
to its own beastly accumulations.
In the case of Cuba: 1t is less than
year from the surrender of Santiago,
and the island in its entirety has been
hardly six months under American con-
troll. In view of what has been under
taken and what has been accomplished
in the work of the islands regenera-
ton the Outlook pertinently asks these
slanderers of their countrymen: "Has
our administration since then been de-
voted to seeing what we can make out
of the Cubans and lining our own
pockets?" and the Outlook thus ans
wers its inquiry:
Santiago was .indescribably filthy. 1t is
now as clean as New York or Boston. It's
death rate was nearly seven hundred a
week; its death rate now does not exceed
thirty or forty week. Its stores were
closed and its streets idle; now its streets
are full and its stores open and full of buy
ers. 1t was without market; its market
now is as we'll supplied as those Of our best
American cities OF equal size. year ago
there was not cultivated plant within ten
miles; now there is scarcely an uncultivated
acre. A year ago there was not a single
public school building in the city; now
there are seventeen elementary and gram
mar schools, with an average attendance OF
II o mil Tban
ruption was universal; fraudulent accounts
and the exaction OF over-payment by Of.
fcals was the rule; now they are almost
unknown. The courts are reorganized; laws
have been promulgated guaranteeing rights
of person and property which for three Cen.
turtles of Spanish misrule have been I'M
known; bull-fghting and cock-fghtng are
prohibited; tradesmen are required to give
just measure according to standard weights
and measures; Cubans have been appoint
ed not only to minor offices, but as mayors;
under United States supervision and sub
lection to United States veto, local self
government is already we'll under way.
Similar work has been done in Havana,
Guantanamo, and other cities and will
b undertaken throughout the length
and breadth of the island, But the
work of regenerating Cuba is not alto
gether physical. Provision is making
to provide Cubans who wish to teach
at home with education to fit them for
their work. Free Christian churches
have been opened and the people are
occupying them in large numbers. The
means of regeneration are moral as
we'll as material. And the same COM
bination of means is at work in Porto
Rico, and will be put in vigorous oper-
alton in the Philippines when order
has been restored there, and will be
followed by similar results.
In view of all the real facts of the
matter, the Outlook pertinently asks
what justification the Evening Post OF
New York and its companions in vii
lany of peculiarly heinous type have
for their original and borrowed Sian.
ders of Americans? and comes to this
conclusion to which all the people will
say, amen: "The man who can see nc
nobler motive for the American battle
against despotism in Cuba and anarchy
in the Philippines than desire by
Americans to line their own pockets
by thus aspersing the motives of mer
whose unselfsh patriotism he canno
comprehend affords a just ground FOL
suspecting the motives that dominate
him.