Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1901-04-04
A SHAME AND A DISGRACE.
Administration Hostile to Cause
of Human Liberty.
ENGLANDs CLAIMS RECOGNIZED.


Especial Washington Letter.
To future students of our history the
most mystifying phenomenon of oul
times will undoubtedly be the attitude
of the Mckinley administration touch
ing the British-Boer contest. 1t is a
shame and a disgrace to Americans
and American institutions. Every man
who voted for Mckinley and Roosevelt
last November is particeps criminis, for
nobody with two ideas above Hotten-
tot could mistake the administration
hostility to the cause of the Beers, and
therefore to the cause of human liber-
ty, ever since the inception of that as
founding struggle. Nevertheless it is
true that three fourths of those who
voted for Mckinley and ninety-nine-
hundredths of those who voted against
him are jealous friends of the Beers
and wish for them successful termi-
nation to the most heroic fight made
for liberty since the world began. That
is strong and sweeping assertion, but
it is written down here deliberately.
When the fearful odds are counted. no
other people ever made fight equal to
the Beers.
All along the American people. al
most without regard to party afiilia-
tions, have sympathized with them,
all except the administration. which
has looked on with the stolidness of a
red Indian while the British butchered
men, women and children struggling
for the same principles for which our
fathers fought. In every way the Me-
Kinley administration has shown it's
dom strangling and numbering two
tiny republics, and yet the people-God
forgive them-who were opposed, bit
terly opposed, to the administrators
policy in that regard. deliberately yot-
ed to continue that administration in
power I0r rUur years uore. fy0T=
comes the cap sheaf in this infamous
business. The United States govern
ment-i. e., it's executive branch--is
the first among nations to recognize
England's triumph and to proclaim the
extinction of the heroic South African
republics! That, too, while Botha is
still in the field, De Wet winning vic
tories and new levies hurried from
Britain to South Africa! Certainly
our cup of humiliation is full to run
ming over. If Messrs. Mckinley and
Hay are so thoroughly stuck on John
ME Bull they might at least have acted
with some decency while Liberty lies
bleeding on the other side of the globe.
Their eagerness to let the world know
that they are enamored of j. B. is
about as indecent a performance as If
a widower should take unto himself
a second wife while on the return trip
from burying his first. The fashion in
this country hath been the fashion of
liberty. The fashion being foisted on
the South African patriots at the point
of the bayonet is the fashion of des-
potism. In speaking of changing
styles of fashions. Alexander Pope
says:
Be not the first by whom the new is try'd
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside
Smacks of GhouIish Glee.
The first line of that famous couplet
! commend most cordially to Colonel
John Hay. secretary of state, and to his
White House chief. Instead of being
the first to recognize the death Of re-
public we should be the last, and then
only on overwhelming proof as to the
fact. We should at least wait till the
republic is dead.
This precipitate action of the admin
istration smacks of ghoulish glee. Is
there any rational explanation for this
amazing conduct. SO contrary to all
our history and to the desires of the
great body Of the people? There is
one, only one-one which self respect
ing Americans have hitherto rejected
with pride and scorn-and that Is the
theory proclaimed by the London pa
pers that we negotiated the treaty OF
Paris under the protecting muzzles OF
English guns! If that is true. what q
blessing it would have been to US and
to our posterity had the muzzles OF
those guns been pointed in some other
ANY other-direction and that Pando-
ra box of treaty had never been nego-
Itiated, but If that assertion of the Lon.
don press, so humiliating to our amour
propre. is true, and it looks as il it is
true. what becomes of that famboyant
letter which Colonel Hay wrote te
General Dick-Hanna's Dick-on a eel
ebrated occasion solemnly asseverating
with his hand on his heart, that we haG
no agreement or understanding, actual
or implied, with Mr.. Bull? Shame
Shame! Shamei
Gags at the Bolus.
Even the Washington Post. which il
much enamored of the administrator
generally. gags at the loathsome dose
cooked up by Mr.. Secretary of Statt
Hay. 1t says:
Some days ago The Post called attention to
newly issued pamphlet Of the state department Il
which our government was made to accept Eng
lands version of the South African situation, t.
recognize England's opera bouffe annexation o
the two Dutch republics and even to accept Eng
lard's nomenclature in the premises. The pam
ph.et referred to not only had foot notes announc
ing the '.annexations' but in the text itself
described the South African Republic as 9TH
Transvaal' and the Orange Free State as ''Orang
River Colony thus following with servile ae
curacy the impudent lead of the British govern
ment.
Our exposure Of this new instance of state de
partment Difference to England inspired numbe
of excited special kilograms to out of town news
papers, and soon the whole country was ringini
with the scandal.
The truth is that this incident merely figures a
fresh evidence Of the secret entente-s'the under
standing, the agreement, the compact, if yoi
will,' as Mr.. Jo Chamberlain described it in hi
Manchester speech last year-the entente that ha
expressed itself in a dozen different ways within
the past IL months. The abandonment Of GU
commerce with Delagoa Bay, while our sale 0
wsr material to England kept steadily along; tn
surrender Of the Porcupine district to Great Brit
ain on the sorry pretext of reaching a "tem
porary" modus yivendi; the HayP Pauncefot
treaty, which would have cursed US forever wit