The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-05-16
1t Is Time to Decide.

since the American army of occupation
formally assumed control of the island
of Cuba for its pacification pending the
construction of a stable government
by the people thereof. Throughout
this period the insurgent army, in
creased by many recruits since the
withdrawal of Spain, has preserved its
organization and its arms, on one pre-
text or another refusing to disband
even after the United States, in the in
terest of peace and good order, had offer
ed to distribute among its members the
sum of 81, 900, 600 in cash, a gift without
other condition than that the insurgent
veterans should yield up their now su-
perfluous rifles and machetes and re-
sumo the ways of peace.
In it's effort to persuade the insurg-
ents to surrender the military for the
civil role the United States govern
ment has gone to extreme lengths of
conciliation and patience; but no soon
er had one programme of disbandment
been assented to by the representatives
of the insurgent forces than they raised
new objections. asked new concessions
and petulantly flew off on a tangent
Even old General Gomez, the steadiest
Of the men prominent in the insurgent
cause, has lately fallen into the bad
habit of asking impossible things and
sulking when denied them. His re-
fusal yesterday to have anything fur
ther to do with the matter is not the
act of man of courage, but rather that
Of tired and peevish child. The dis
patches from Havana and private ad-
vices from the same city agree that as
a result of this prolonged period of
seeming irresoluton on the part of the
American authorities a spirit of con-
trariness amounting almost to sedition
| has gradually permeated the insurgent
| element, and unless these advices are
| wholly at fault our people at Havana
are consciously or unconsciously per-
mittng a crop of probable trouble to
| grow up around them.
We do not undertake to say how far
| this condition is attributable to the
| temperamental limitations Of the
| American military governor, General
| Brooke. In Santiago province General
| Leonard Wood had harder problems to
| handle and he handled all of them
| with comparative ease. No man can
say whether il Wood had been put in
charge of the whole island as a re-
| ward for the extraordinary merit dis
| played by him in the most turbulent
! part of it these tangles over disband
| ment would have been obviated. The
| probabilities are that they would; but
in any event the expected contingency
is now fast appearing when either there
must be a change in the military gov
ernor at Havana or a change in his
| policy of handling these irreconcilable
insurgent politicians. 1t is not to be
tolerated that the great purposes Of
the United States of America shall be
indefinitely held up and scoffed by the
few dozen disappointed Cuban office
seekers who have been at the bottom OF
this prolonged resistance to disarma-
ment. Either the insurgents must take
| Uncle Sans peace present and disarm
or they must take to the woods and be
disarmed by force. A sufficient time
has been allotted for parley and medi-
tation Now let the United States act.
Instead of presenting Colonel Funs-
ton with costly sword to be admired