Washington sentinel., 1900-05-05
subjects that Interest us
A Humiliaring Situation.


and done, are you going to abuse our
patience1' So SAID the great Roman
orator on a certain famous occasion.
Our Catiline is no individual man; 1t is
the party system which has inflicted on
us the Porto Rican disgrace. It was
obvious to the common sense Of every
one that, having laid our hands on the
island of Porto Rico, there was no decent
course to take but to make it, for all
practical purposes, an integral portion
OF the Union, We had cut it of rom
the market it enjoyed In Spain, and left
it to contend with the hostile tariffs
other countrIes-were we going, in
addition to that, to make it a stranger
to the land that had seized it, and subject
its products to our own high scale OF
duties2 The President, in his message
to Congress, conceiving the proposition
to be almost self evident, had declared
that 1t was "our plain duty to abolish all
customs tariffs between the United
States and Porto Rico, and give her
products Tree access to our marke Is"
So thought nearly every dlsinterested
citizen, and yet what have we since seen?
The President, terrorlzed by the cIY OF
party unity m danger, repudiates his
former emphatic declaration, and gives
his approval to measure which makes
virtually our unfortunate possession
foreign country. With the free access
to our markets" which the President
had PROMISE d, the ISLAM would have
entered on a new career Of prosperity;
but with its leading industries weighed
down under an impost OF fifteen per
cent, there is nothing in view but com
mercial stagnation and general poverty.
That the island has already langulshed
under American Tule-Our revolutionary
foreiathers did not expect that their
descendants would so soon 20 into the
ruling" business-the most disinter.
ested witnesses attest. a leading journal
OF New York, the Herald, prints in
heavy faced type the following statement
of a correspondent:
American military officials told me
at the outset that the year and half OF
Am rican sovereignty had been a blight
on the island This was not the echo
of Spanish or OF Porto RIcan feelings
They spoke their own views with sol.
dierly irankness and sometimes with a
word Of regret for their own position. |
Their talk was more pointed than when |
filtered through official channels
II is in these circumstances that our |
Legislature, at the instance of a benev. |
olent President, decides to refund to |
the people oil the island two million |
dollars of duties collected in our ports |
on their products Our tariff system |
breeds poverty in the population, it |
oppresses, and then we rush to their
with largess. They ask for |
justice and we offer them alms-alms |
for which the correspondent already |
quoted says he cannot find a single indI.
vidual who is grateful, We rob the Porto
Rico Peter to pay our own tobacco
growing Paul; and then we rob the
whole community in order to pay back
Peter. And some OF us feel virtuous /
over the business The countenance Of |
the President glows with satisfaction
over the thought OF all the good he is /
doing. For our part, we view the matter
in a different light. The money will, Of
course, meet certain expenses of gov.
ernment in Porto Rico; but there is
reason to fear that it will do as much TO
the island in one direction as
the restriction OF its trade will do IN
another2 What the Porto Ricans want
is not aims, but commercial liberty
The repayment of this money will not
their trade; it will not stimulate
anything except their helplessness, 1t
is an open question whether they will
suffer more by our protect on greed or
by our wishy washY sentimentalitY.
Meantime what are we to think OF the
party system whose exigencies place us
IN so ridiculous a position before the
world2 How long shall it abuse our
patience7-P0bHIar Science MoHthLy.