The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-05-23

suffered at Valley Forge, who endured
all the incredible hardsbips of the War
of the Revolution, were true to the
cause of freedom in all the fluctuations
of battle, these people have a kin
ship with every other people contend
ing for their liberties, and they would
be traitors to the sacred cause for
which their fathers fought and suffer-
ed if they did not iceland express
quick and spontaneous impulse of
sympathy for the farmer patriots of
South Africa. 1t is right and natural
that the American people should de-
clare their sympathy for the Beers, and
it would be proper for the delegates of
Republican national convention, that
representative body of American peo-
pie who in this generation have fought
for the fruits of the freedom the early
patriots achieved, to tell their kinsmen
of South Africa that they are not I'M
moved or pitiless spectators of their
heroic battles for independence. 1t is
not much, but it is all America can do
for the embattled farmers of the dis
tant Transvaal, and every human and
national instinct or impulse commands
that it be done in becoming phrase and
spirit, without turbulence or belliger-
ency.
q. 1t is true, as the Free Press says,
that "the American people can afford
to study the various steps leading to
our intervention in behalf of Cuba"
but not, as the contemporary argues,
for the purpose of REFRESHING the nat
ural impulses and deeds of humanity,
which is the lesson enforced from the
/ story of American Intervention in be-
half of the long suffering Gu bans.
The Free Press, true to its anti-imper-
ialistic bent, regrets that the United
States government interposed to save
its neighhor from the despoiler-one Of
the really glorious chapters in the ma
TONS history If the Transvaal were
Cuba, or Venezuela, or any other State
of Central or South America, and Eng
land had lifted her armed hand against
its sovereignty, as she has against the
South African Republic, there would
be no resolutions of sympathy in Con-
gress or conventions. There would
instead have been votes of unlimited
treasure for increasing and mobilizing
fleets of war ships, there would have
been measures of offense and defense
on sea and land, and every utteranc e
OF organized Americanism would have
been, Hands off, or fight.
But the little republics of South AT.
RIGA are far beyond tbs reach of the
material aid that was freely and eff.
GENTLY rendered Venezuela and Cuba
Such Intervention is a physical i'm
possibility. The great republic is not q
knight Grant. Wherever it could in.
tervene effectively, for the good of hui.
] mainly and without sacrifices every
consideration both of prudence and
humanity forbade, it has INTERVIEWED
But there is nothing in case beyond
this reasonable zone of armed inter.
ference, like that of the Armenians OF
the Beers, that should prevent the
American people, through the press, in
public assemblies, or in any organized
capacity, expressing for an unfortunate
people the natural and honest feelings
of their hearts. The Free Press is
quick to resent, in the case of the Beers
this instructive exhibition of an inheri
| ted sympathy with people fighting fol-
freedom and independence as a viola
ton of "the spirit if not the letter OF neu-
trality, "but the contemporary has seem
ed to find nothing to condemn in the
violation by England of both the spiri
and the letter of neutrality in the unre
stricted purchase in the United States
OF supplies for her armies in South
Africa. 1t is an exceedingly one-sidet
neutrality for which this contention il
made. If England's purchasing agents
were barred out of the United States
and shipments Of supplies to her troopl
effectually stopped-which they would
be if the fight were with any power O
Europe, likel France or Germany
Americans would find therein ampl,
compensation for Withholding resolu
tions of sympathy, and very substan
tial material aid would be indirectl,
rendered the Beers.