The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1900-05-16

III Cupa! VIII have much to do with
the Democratic victory this wear.
Inc FoSt has rendered Democracy q
soou service by giving it & tiptOp bat.
tlecry. 1t will not do to underrate the
force of happy phrase. Lord Whar-
ton always claimed that he whistled
Nlns James III out of three Kingdoms,
anu everybody knows what a marvel
GUS part few jingly sentences. some
or them we'll nigh idiotic, cut in the
famous campaign Of 1910. But "Open
the Books In Cuba.' is not idotic. 1t is
rull OF meat and founded on wisdom.
The quicker they are opened the better.
In the following words Senator Hoar
tears the jingoes and their fantastic
arguments into tatters, or, in ring par
lance, cuts them into ribbons.
Why, Mr.. President, is it credible that an,
American statesman, that any American senator,
that any intelligent American citizen anywhere
two years ago could have been found to affirm
that proceeding like that OF the Paris treaty
could give just and valid title to sovereignty
over people situated IS were the people of those
Islands! title of Spain, originally by conquest
never submitted to nor admitted by the people of
the islands, with frequent instructions at differ.
enI tlmes lot centuries, and then the yoke ali
thrown off, constitutional government, schools.
colleges, churches, universities, hospitals, town
governments legislature, cabinet, courts,
code OF laws tnd the whole island occupied and
controlled by ats people, with the single excep-
tion OF one city, with taxes lawfully leSied and
collected, with an army and the beginning Of
navy.
And yet the senate, the congress- enacted less
than two years ago that the people of Cuba-con-
trolling peaceably part of their island, levyinc
no taxes in any orderly peaceable way, with
no administration Of justice, no cabinet-not only
OF right ought to be- but were, in fact, free and
independent state. / did not give my assent to
that declaration of fact. l assented to the doc
trine that they Of right ought to be. But l
thought tie statement Of fact much calculated to
embarrass the government Of the United States,
II 1t were bound by that declaration, and it has
been practically disrcgarded by the administra-
tion ever since. But the question now is very
different one. You not only deny that the Fill.
pinos are, but you deny that they Of right ought
to be, free and Independent, and you recognize
Spain as entitled to sell to you the sovereignty of
an island where she was not at the time occu.
pylng foot OF territory, where her soldiers were
held captires by the government of the island,
government to which you had delivered over q
large number Of Spanish prisoners to be held as
captives. And yet you come here today and say
that they not only are not, but they of right
you are pressed you answer us by talking about
mountains Of iron and nuggets Of gold and trade
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 title to ter
rtory OF which the power that undertakes to sell
1t or the power from whom you undertake to
wrest it has not the actual possession and do
minion. Under municipal law you cannot buy a
horse of which the seller is dispossessed; you
cannot buy foot of land OF which he is disseiz-
cd; you cannot purchase lawsuit. Under inter-
national law you cannot buy a people from q
power that has no actual dominion over 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
dispossessed tyrant--liberties they have bravely
won for themselves in arms. You cannot buy
sovereignty like merchandise and men like sheep.
The king Of England kept, down to $500, the title
OF duke Of Normandy and king Of France. Could
any other country or all Europe together have
bought France Of King Georgea / wonder what
would have happened il, instead of acknowledge
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
paign. not in party platforms not alone in a sim
gle campaign a 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 are cold And
there will be to them but one answer.
Gates Goes Free.
When the old woman was Informed
that the COW bad eaten the grindstone,
she exclaimed, Il told you So" 1 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
fieeced gamblers had applied arnica to
their wounds and had had time to re-
fleet they concluded that, as Gates had
already realized a colossal fortune at
their expense, he might. il driven to
the wall, take 1t 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 n few addition
al millions.
l wish to repeat that as between
Gates and his Wall street opponents it
is choice betwiXt tweedledum and
tweedledee. When they abuse each
other, it is case of the pot calling the
kettle black, but the public has this di-
rect interest in having Gates p-osecut-
ed to the full extent of the lava bona
fide prosecution conducted by brave,
resolute, mcOrruptible prosecuting at
tOrney before n fair, capable, incorrupt-
iblc court might or might not end in
cf 1,,1t