The evening times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1902, 1900-08-07
Circulation Statement.
At War With China.

IN case no reply 10 MI Mckinney III
timatum to China were received. the
natural presumption would be that
the Administration would recognize
a state of war and that Congress
would be called in extraordinary SEES
sion at once. But SO fearful are the
President and his advisers of what might
happen, were the National Legislature to
sit in Washington this summer, that its
presence viii not be invited while there is
an excuse, no matter how lame for keep
ing it away Our dispatches today state
that Ii Hung Chang has notified the for
eign consuls at Shanghai that the men,
bers of the legations in Pekin left that
city on August for Tientsin escorted by
a Chinese army commanded by Gen. Tung
Lu. We are assured that none of the for
eign representatives in Shanghai or else
where believes a word of LIS assertion
But it will be good enough peg for the
Mckinley Administration to hang another
delay on, before being finally driven to
perform the plain and mandatory duty it
is deliberately violating in failing TO call
upon the war-making power OF the Gov
eminent for authority to wage war.
We quite agree with Senators Morgan
and Teller in the opinion that the President
has exceeded his constitutional powers, in
sending a military expedition to invade
foreign state, with which he claims that
we are on terms of friendship. His color
Of authority TO protect American lives and
property is not substantial enough in the
view of constitutional lawyers to cover
warlike operations of so serious a eharac-
ter that they contemplate the lombard
ment capture, and occupation OF an i'm
Perial capital and the collection OF a war
indemnity.
1t is time that our authorities should
abandon the farcical fiction that we can
have general and an army in China, who
fighting the Chinese generals and
regular army, representing the Pekin Gov
eminent and acting under its direct or
ders, and yet be not at war. The battle
of Tientsin was as distinctiveIy a decIara-
ton of war on the part Of this country as
could have been put in an instrument in
writing. and Mr.. Mckinley has no right
to declare war. Yet he usurps that right
and is preparing to prosecute war on
larger scale than at present by increasing
General Chaffee's command to six thou
sand men. Before another week has gone
by the chances are that he viii realize the
necessity of sending twenty-five thousand,
and possibly fifty thousand, men to China.
That of course will mean an extraordinary
session of Congress, and hence the neces-
sity will be lodged as long as possible
But, whether our force in Chinese terri
tory be small great, it is engaged in a
war not authorized by the only war-mak-
ing power Of the country, and therefore in
an Illegal and unconstitutional war
1t was entirely right for the President
IN an emergency, such as the peril of cur
people in Pekin constituted, during a re-
cess OF Congress, to rush troops to their
assistance. If he had despatched the whole
army of the Philippines to the scene no.
body would have found fault with his
course in doing so. But having stretched
his constitutional power in the presence
of an emergency, it would be and was his
duty at once to call Congress together.
Not to do so was TO assume for the Exec
ntlVe pTeTogatiye only possessed by the !
Congress of the United States As an OBJ
iect lesson in imperialism the conduct of
The Administration in relation to the Chi
nese war undoubtedly has its uses, and we
are entirely confident that it will not be |
thrown away upon the voters of the coun- |
frY