Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-11-19
Are We Periurersf

New YoAk Journal.
The country is rapidly gathering the
fruits of last weeks verdict at the
polls. First the trusts began putting
up the prices of the necessaries OF llfe.'
Then the plans were announced for a
standing army of 100000 men. Now
the Administration is preparing ito re-
pudiate our promise to grant lndepen-
dence to Cuba.
The Washington correspondent OF
our Republican contemporary, the Mail
and Express, undertakes to give an
official explanation of the purpose OF
Secretary Root $ visit to Cuba. 1t says:
THE Administration will insist that
the constitution of the Cuban republic
shall cede to the United States voice
in all its foreign policies, as well as in
its financial affairs. Mr.. Root will en-
deavor to convince the leaders of the
convention that the United States can
not permit its new sister republic to
engage in foreign wars or alliances
without the benefit of the mature adj
vice of this country, and that the only
protection of the new republics treas
ury from schemes for loot in the shape
of an enormous bonded Indebtedness
will be a provision that the United
States Congress must ratify all its fin
ancial legislation.
In other words, the United States Is
to commit perjury, openly, shameless
ly, in the face of all the world. When
we began the war against Spain Con-
grass passed and President William Nc
Kfnley signed a. resolution which de-
clared:
That the people Of the island of
Cuba are, and of right ought to be,
Free and Independent.
-
THAT the United States hereby dis
claims any disposition or intention to
exercise sovereignty jurisdiction or
control over said island except for the
pacifcation thereof, and asserts its de-
termination, when that is accomplish
ed, to leave the government and con-
troll of the islands to its people"
The kind of government the Admin
istration is preparing to set up in
Cuba would be no fulG.nent of that
promise 1t would be in no sense in
dependent. 1t would be a mockery to
call it a republic 1t would be at best
a semi-autonomous State under Amer
lean suZerainty
There are ten Latin-American repub-
lies, each less populous and less fitted
in every way to manage its own affairs
than Cuba. Paraguay can engage in
foreign wars and alliances without
the benefit of the mature advice of this
country So can Nicaragua, and Costa
Rica, and Honduras. The ebony
statesmen of Hayti and Santo Domingo
can incur all the bonded Indebtedness
for which they can induce anybody to
trust them, without any reservation by
the United States Congress of the right
to ratify all their financial legislation.
We allow eighteen American republics
to 90 business as they happen to please,
bearing the consequences of their own
blunders, and the only one with which
we try to interfere is the only one we,
are pledged - let alone We might
undertake to regulate the government
of any of the others without being
guilty of anything worse than a blum
der, but we cannot do it in Cuba with
out dishonor And that dishonor the
Mckinley Administration is preparing
to incur.
Would it be prepared to fight for it
if the Cubans should draw their mach
etes for the resolution signed by Will
liam Mckinley on April 20. 1882