St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1900-08-11
NOTES FROM washington
Items of Information Upon Issues
and Affairs of National
Interest.
MISTAKES OF PRESENT ADMINISTRATION.
cance-McKinley Getting Into Deep
Water-The Tool OF Great Britain
Cuban Scandal Remains Unlnvesti-
gated.
[special correspondence.l ]

Mckinley got the Chinese war well
under way and then proceeded to his
home in Canton, where he will spend
the summer receiving front porch
delegations. In the intervals of cam
paign work he will endeayor, by tele-
phone and telegraph, to instruct the
war department how to keep the real
state of affairs well hidden from the
people, while at the same time he
still furthers his designs of imperial
ism and militarism.
The war department carefully
states, as matter of form, that we
are not in a state of war with China
and that we are merely trying to keep
that country from being partitioned
among European powers. 1t Is said to
be our plain duty to land troops and
send warships, even at the risk of los
ing splendid battleship like the Ore
gon. When pressed to explain just
what business our forces have in the
Chinese row, the war department
doesn't exactly like to state but hints
that it is best to allow the matter
to develop.
The people of the country may as
well understand what our presence in
China means. In the first place it is
in plain violation of the letter and
spirit of the Monroe doctrine for Unit
ed States troops to be mixing up in an
oriental scramble for the division of
an empire.
Aeroi in 1fr-au of hQ
action Of The Hague peace confer
ence-though nobody has ever taken
that very seriously, except the admin
istration when it wanted to use it in
the republican platform.
Granted that the lives and property
of United States citizens should be
protected in foreign countries, it must
have been murdered and despoiled of
property in other countries and no
such extreme action as the landing of
thousands of troops has ever been
contemplated, much less carried into
effect. And the piles of dusty claims
IN the state department. show how lit
tie such affronts have been resented
in the past.
1t should ba noted, too, that the
missionaries had ample notice of the
Boxer insurreetion and most, if not
all of them, escaped to the sea coast.
Now comes the AS urance that the
foreign ministers i Peking had no
tice of the uprising and did not think
it worth while to fee from that city.
So the people begin to wonder what
all the outcry has been apout.
The troops were not sent in the
direction where the missionaries
might possibly have been in danger,
because the real intent of the whole
move was to use the missionaries
merely as a blind for other designs.
The cold fact is that Great Britain
feared that the time had come for the
partitioning of China and, owing to
her war in South Africa, she could
not spare troops for the Chinese af-
fray, So what was easier than to use
Mckinley to pub her chestnuts out
of the fire? With his usual prompt
ness when there is any question of
carrying out the Anglo-American al
lance, he PIT American troops and
American prestige at the disposal of
the British They marched under a
British admiral, and about the first
thing British stupidity did was to
walk into an ambuscade of Boxers and
allow nearly the whole force to be
annihilated.
The Administrators Mistake.
It is. of course, difficult to tell what
the outcome may be. But the admin
istration is getting into deep water.
Tt will be remembered that its excuse
for the expense and loss of life in car
rying on war of determination
against the Filipinos was that, al
though we perhaps made a mistake
in the beginning, yet we must now
carry on the war to the finish.
1t is making just that sort of mis-
take in mixing up in the Chinese i'm
broglio. And when it gets itself hope
essly involved in the continental trou-
bic that is likely to follow it will then
plead with the tax payers to pay the |
bills and furnish soldiers and prate |
about never hauling down the flag"
Hiding the Facts.
Already the administration carefully |
censors all Chinese news. 1t comes in
the first place from British sources and |
over cables controlled by British inter-
ests, but the people may rest assured |
that Mckinley will be in the future as
he has been in the past, the willing tool
of Great Britain, but that he will take |
every precaution to hide the true state |
of the case from the voters until after |
election.
The Chinese trouble has asdistinct adj |
vantage too, in that it diyerts atten- |
tion from the Philippines, Porto Rico |
and Cuba and also keeps the people
from noticing too closely that about all
the prosperity in sight is that which
the trusts take unto themselves.
The Cuban Postal AFFAIR.
While the administration has been
promising that the Cuban
postal scandals should be probed to the
bottom promptly and the guilty par
ties punished, yet Neely tarries in New
York and, in spite of the special act
passed by congress for the purpose of
extraditing him, his counsel has the
effrontery to tell the court that the
Saw is unconstitutional and on this and I