The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-05-01
HOAR,s INCONSISTENCY.

We did not read the much lauded
and admired speech in the senate of
Senator Hoar, Of Massachusetts. He is
a scholar, a rhetorican and an orator,
and his last speech is praised in the
north and in the south with equal en-
thusiasm as Of mastery ability and
almost supreme ~eloquence, rivalling the
greatest species in the senate in the
past. We do not know how this is.
We know how extreme the senator has
been as an enemy Of the south almost
ever since the great war, and how in
consistent he is, and so being busy or
Indifferent We did not read his fine ef-
fort. We have long ago seen how asy
it is to be truculent and one-sided and
violent against a people. The senator
made a powerful plea against McKin-
ley in one place we see quoted, and
then in another place has only conf
dence and admiration for him. OF his
policy he has this very impressive on
demnation:
81 believe, Mr.. President, that perse-
verance in his policy will be the aban-
donment of the principles upon which
our government is founded; that it will
change our republic into an empire;
that our methods of legislation, of di-
plomacy, Of administration must here
after be those which belong to empires
n not to republics"
And yet he is willing to trust Nc
Kinley and the republican party with
the destinies of the country as we'll as
with the fate of the conquered people
of the empire. Hear the Massachu-
sets oracle:
Il do not expect to accomplish any
thing for liberty in the Philippine Is
lands but through the republican party.
Upon it the fate of these islands for
years to come is to depend. If that
party canno be persuaded the case is,
in my judgment, for the present hope
less. party will be in power for
the next II months 1t will be contin-
ued in power for at least -four years
thereafter. If it were otherwise what
We do within the next II months could
not be undone without the consent of
a republican senate"
Why he put himself to the trouble
to prepare his splendid oratorical effort
is singular, for as the able Baltimore
Sun says:
THE reelection of Mr.. Mckinley n
the election of another republican house
would be an Endorsement of the very
acts which Mr.. Hoar so e~loQuently de-
nounceS as crimeS-crimeS against the
constitution, crimes against the eternal
principles of justice and of right. ;SuS-
tanned by such an Endorsement, n
possible ground can Senator Hoa have
for expecting a change of policy or a
change of heart on the part of those
men who have brought upon the coun-
try all the evils he SO vehemently de-
plores?"
The Massachusetts senator cannot
tolerate Mr.. Bryan, but prefers Nc
Kinley. Very we'll. Then his speech is
empty rhetoric and spasmodic elo-
quence-"sound and fury s%ignifying
nothing" "Ephraim is welded to his
idols"
Since preparing this we find an edi-
torial in tina able New York daily,
the Evening Post, discussing Hoar and
his denunciations of McKinley's policy,
in which, it says, his affection for Mr..
McKinley's person seems ~unbounded."
1t is pitiful to see the oratorical gyra-
lions of the senator. If he is sincere
he is unfortunate in his admiration
n confidence. To show how inconsis-
tent n absurd Hoar is. how extrav-
agant and unbalanced in his rhetorical
fanfaronade and gush, take this from
the Evening Post:
"Of the reasoning which the president
has publicly employed to justify our
asserting sovereignty in the Philip
pines, Mr.. Hoar asserted that this is
the doctrine of the purest ruffianism
and tyranny Rising in crescendo, he
affirmed hat the presidents gloss on
the doctrine of the consent of the gov
erned would have been received with
a burst of derisive laughter in hell, and
Satan himself would have led the
chorus Yet Mr.. Mckinley remains,
to the Massachusetts senator, the
great president who holds a place in
the affection of the people at large
which no one of his predecessors ever
attained in his life time This, we can
but think, is al example of the Ameri-
can want OF high seriousness in pol
tiles"