The Savannah morning news., 1901-11-24
C0L0MBlA'S CIVIL WAL
THE ATTITUDE OF THE NEIGHBoR-
ING REPUBLICS.

The United States 10 Carefully
Watching the Progress of Events
Around Panama-Venexue1a and
Ecuador May Become Involved.
The Present Insurrectton Is
Spreading Southwark Rapidly and
of the Present Administration.
Too Early to Prophecy Eject on
south America.
Copyright 1901 by c.. c. Adams).
Washington, Nov. 22.-During the Of
fetal sojourn in Caracas of a former
British minister there hung on his Of
flee walls two water colors-one show
ing a coffee plantation in the morning,
the happy faces of the black labor
ers revealing their peace and con-
tentment; the other depicting the
same field in the afternoon, the sky
darkened with the smoke Of burning
buildings and the bodies of the field
hands scattered among the coffee
shrubs. Another South American rev.
olution had supplanted the orderly
quiet of the morning with fire and
tragedy before shutdown. The world has
come to regard most of these ebulli-
tions with contempt or Indifference.
More buster. than bloodshed marks
the course of many of them Merely
personal ambition or private malice is
the handspring of much of this bellig-
erence. In these Latin American re-
publics where active volcanoes make
rapid changes in the landscape, we
have come to regard upheavals of
government as too frequent for no
tice. On occasions, however, these con-
f1icts have been precipitated by wrongs
that needed righting, by misgovern-
ment too atrocious to be borne. The
present war IN Colombia is one Of these
occasions.
The causes of this civil war can be
only briefly referred to here. Colombia
has two intensely antagonistic politi-
cal parties. The Clerical or "Conserva-
tive" party advocates a centralized
government welding really despotic
power which 1t shares with the Church.
in other words, a government copied
after the old Spanish model The Lib
eral party, on the other hand, favors
a progressive, democratic form of
government modelled after that of the
United States. Though these parties
numerically, are nearly equal, the
Clericals have held the supreme power
since 1886, when President Nunez sub
verted the government and overthrow
the Liberal constitution by a coup
d'etat as drastic as that of Napoleon
III. in France.
From that day till he was poisoned
by enemies in his own party in 1894
Nunez lacked nothing but the title OF
an absolute sovereign. The federal
government was abolished, the right
Of suffrage was taken from nine
tenths Of the people, and nine autono-
nous states became merely so many
districts governed from Bogota, the
liberty of the press and all private
teaching were suppressed and educa-
ton was conferred in the hands of the
Jesuits. 1t is impossible here to detail
the miseries that have befallen Colom-
bia under the despotic rule of Nunez
and his successors. 1t will suffice to
say that Colombia, having repudiated
its debts, has no public credit, and her
exports have been so heavily taxed
that the country can not vie with its
neighbors in foreign commerce; with
a population a third larger than that
OF Venezuela, the imports are much
smaller; and the opponents of the gov
eminent have been treated as public
enemies.
This in brief, was the situation that
caused the armed revolt of the Liber-
al party in October, 1899. The northern
one-fourth Of Colombia has been the