Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1900-05-17
NUMBER II

70 oe, nee and Independent, and you recognize
Spain entitled to sell to you the sovereignty Of
an island where she not at the time occu-
pying foot Of territory, where her soldiers were
held captives by the government Of the island,
government to which you had delivered over
large number Of Spanish prisoners to be held az
csptiYes And yet you come here today and say
that they not only are not, but they Of right
ought not, to be free and independent, and when
you are pressed you answer BY talking about
mountains Of iron and nuggets OF gold and trads
with China.
affirm that you cannot get by conquest. and
you cannot get by purchase, according to the
modern law Of nations. according to the law Of
nations as accepted and expounded BY the United
States, sovereignty over people or title to tar
ritory Of which the power that undertakes to sell
it or the power from whom yc1 undertake to
wTest it has not the actual possession and do
minion. Under municipal law you cannot buy =
horse Of which the seller Is dispossesaeds you
cannot buy foot Of land Of which he is disseix-
ed you cannot purchase lawsuit. Under inter-
national law you cannot buy a people from =
power that has no actual dominion them.
You cannot buy war More than this you cam
not buy tyrant's claim to subject again an op-
pressed people who have achieved their freedom
You cannot buy the liberties Of people from
a dispossessed tyrsnt-liberties they have bEsyely
won for themselves in arms. You cannot buy
sovereignty like merchandise and men like sheep.
The king Of England kept, down TO 1900, the title
Of duke Of Normandy and king Of France. Could
any other country all Europe together have
bought France OF King George9 wonder what
would have happened If, instead Of Acknowiedg-
ing our Independence any time before the French
treaty France had bought England out and UNDER
taken to assert her title to the United States.
These questions have to be answered, not amid
the shouting and applause Of a political cam
paign, not in party platforms, not alone in SIN
gle campaign single generation They have
got to be answered to history, to the instructed
conscience Of the civilized world, when the pas
sions and the greed and the ambitions Of a SIM
gle generation have gone by and cold. And
there will be to them but one answer.
Gates Goes Free.
When the old woman was informed
that the COW had eaten the grindstone.
she exclaimed, 81 told you soF' / am
in her frame of mind Recently pre-
dicted in these letters that the prosecu-
tion against Hon. John W. Gates for
cheating, swindling, fleeing and other
wise maltreating other Wall street
gamblers would come to naught. That
prediction has been fulfilled, & New
York judge having liberated Gates. OF
course he did. guess that after the
heeced gamblers had applied arnica to
their wounds and had had time to re-
feet they concluded that, as Gates had
already realized a colossal fortune at
their expense, he might, if driven to
the wall, take it into his head to give
the snap away and thereby prevent
them from recouping themselves for
losses inflicted upon them by Gates by
fleeing tenderfoot operators In that
perilous street. So Gates goes free to
arrange other coups and to throw 9TH
er thousands out of employment In or
der that he may pile up few addition
al millions.
wish to repeat that as between
Gates and his Wall street opponents it
is a choice betwixt tweedledum and
tweedledee When they abuse each
other, it is a case of the pot calling the
kettle black, but the public has this d.
rect interest in having Gates prosecHt-
ed to the full extent Of the lava bona
fde prosecution conducted by a brave,
resoIute, incorruptible prosecuting at
torney before fair, capable. incorrupt-
ible court might or might not end in
his conviction. but would drag to the
light of day the inside working Of the
wire and steel trust, which is neither
better nor worse than the rest of the
trusts
The trusts must be destroyed, or the
bulk of the people win be reduced to
the condition of Russian serfs or Mex
lean poems. which God forbid!