The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-07-23

in India and in other of its colonial
possessions. Russia, inside of three
weeks, had three small instructions to
put down, and was fighting the natives
in China Holland for twenty five
years has been conducting war in
Sumatra. While the French delegates
sat and calmly discussed means of
wiping out international warfare. some
of the most prominent and influential
of their countrymen in Paris were try
ing to overthrow the republic at home,
and President Loubet found it neces-
sary to call out 1900 soldiers to guard
him while he drove less than five miles
TO a race track.
Besides these actual warlike disturb
ances, there rose on the horizon a black
cloud indicative of an armed struggle
between the English government and
the Beers in South Africa-a cloud
which has by no means been dispeiled
as yet.
Certainly there was reason for the
meeting of the hundred men who went
to The Hague to talk of peace. Ten
times their number, while they sat in
conclave there, We're busy in their re-
spective nations planning war.
To an American layman among the
delegates it was intensely impressive to
reflect on the change in the position of
the United States in the family of ma
tions which the Spanish-American war
has brought about. L have been much
in Europe and much with European
diplomats. l know that while their
feeling toward America has, in the
past, been friendly enough, they still
failed to take US seriously. 1t did not
occur to them that we were a people
likely to either help or hinder their
plans. If the peace conference had
been called a year ago and our dele
rcta had attended haK haN
been treated cOurteousIy, but their
opinions would have had little weight
in the deliberations of the body. AS
ii was Andrew d. White Seth Low.
Captain Mahan. Frederick d. Hollis and
Captain CroZier formed a group which
WAS really the center of interest around
which the peace conference revolved.
Not even the Russian delegates, repre-
senting the monarch who called the
conference. were regarded by the 9TH
ers with the interest shown in the
Americans.
The first question asked by a Euro
pean delegate. who had something to
think of it? or what will Germany
think of it? or what will France think
of it? but what viii the United States
think of it?
Another interesting result of the
war was the absolute unimportance of
the Spanish broken
Spaini Her naughty hidalgos received
no more consideration than did the
delegates from Servia or Siam AS
they left the door of their apartment in
the Hotel NieuX Doelen, they saw in
the little flag nailed on another door.
almost adjoining, the symbol of the
nation which rose through their fall.
and they went quietly to the sessions
entirely bereft of the pompous self
Importance which in all times gone by
has marked the conduct of the Span
lard on such occasions.
Spain alone of all the nations repre-
scented, made not one single proposition
10 the conference during the first three
weeks of its existence. Even little
Servia had a message to the con-
ference, but poor Spain. disheartened
and bowed down, did naught but listen. |
The dining room Of the Hotel Vieux |
Doelen is a superb apartment with a |
ceiling about forty feet from its highly |
polished hard wood floor. At any |
time from to 10 o'clock in the morn |
ing one of its small tables was likely |
10 be occupied by one or more of the |
men who came here from the land of |
the stars and stripes. Mr.. White, deli |
cate and fragile in appearance with |
thinker, with the whitened hair which |
is as much the result of unremitting
mental toll as it is of old age, made |
the final plans of the delegations work
while he ate his simple breakfast Mr.
Hollis, tall. fat, bald-headed good-Ira-
tured, read the amazing mail which !
poured in to him as the American sec
rotary, while he drank coffee and