The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-07-27

Three years ago the United States
seethed and boiled with indignation
over the reconcenrado system and its
horrors in Cuba. Indignation meetings
were held all over the republic; con-
gressmen shouted furiously in Wash
ington; and despite the intrigues of the
international financiers and their
agents, the supine government Of this
country was pushed into action, and
Spain, Weyler and the abominable sys
TEN Of murder of women and children
were driven from America, writes JOS
eph Smith in the Boston Pilot.
It is to be hoped for the honor Of
American manhood, the sacredness of
religion and the instructive good of hui
man nature that American indignation
and horror were genuine and based
upon the highest of motives.
Three years have come and gone and
the active war and bloodshed engen-
dered by the Spanish troubles are just
manity has not grown less sacred in
those three years; the starvation and
torture of helpless women aud children
have not grown less abominable; but
the capacity of the American people for
sympathy and Indignation. for protest
against wrong and outrage, seems to
houo disappoorod
In South Africa today the abomina-
tions of the awful reconcentrado sys-
tenn are inslfull swing; the horrors Of
the system increase with the passage
Of time; the British government denies
its existence with feeble stupidity, and
the British colonials at the Cape re-
joice with malignant inhumanity over
the slaughter. Of the innocents. The
brutality and cowardice of the British
have long since passed into human
history as proverbial; every century of
England's existence mas been stained
with kindred denominations, and yet as
people they clamor to the world of
their rectit1de, virtue, civilization and
religion. It would be idle to expect
the administration Of William McKin-
ley to intervene, even with the feeble
resources of diplomacy. Humanity is
a popular cry, and useful one, when
it doesn't interfere with the stock mar
ket; and any attempts by the admins
tration to seek a mitigation Of the
South African horrors would send
Morgan, Rockefeller, Hanna and their
Wall street auxiliaries packing off to
Washington to yell and threaten and
bluster and shrek in the interest Of
Anglo-Saxon civilization and so forth;
and the faithful British press Of the
United States would deplore the vi
cious attempts of the government to
destroy trade and commerce for this
sake of few poor Dutch women and
children. have no doubt the money
changers in the Temple of the Most
High in ancient days rebuked the noise
and clamor of the Hebrew mothers
whose children had been murdered by
Herod; yet the stock market Of Jeru-
salem has passed and Herod is a men,
ory, recalled only because his crimes
gave him record in Sacred Writ.
The blood of the starved, thirst-tor.
tured, murdered mothers and little
ones is upon the head of William Nc
Kinley and his administration, just as
much as though he individually had
slain them with his own hands. His
refusal to plead for peace in conjunc-
tion with the European powers gave
England the free hand that made it
possible for her to go forth upon the
road of death. Failing to conquer the
men Of the Boer race, she has avenged
herself by numbering their wives
and children; and never a voice of pro-
test has been raised by an administra-
tion which has practically been made a
colonial annex to the British empire.
Miss Emily Hobhouse has reported
her experiences in the South African
prison. camps and her report is before
me. The reconcentrado camps are
pitched upon the bare and blistered
veldt, where the tropical sun beats
down with awful intensity. Water is