Omaha daily bee., 1902-02-07


A mans hindsight is always better
than his foresight. 1t is always much
more difficult to forecast than to back
cast It Is easier to tell what might
have been if-than it Is to tell what viii
be without an II. Ex-senator Chandler,
for example. tells the country that Spain
would have yielded independence to
Cuba without war II 1.-THE United States
had offered to purchase the islands and
made the tender in terms to which the
queen could honorably accede." Former
Minister Stewart L. Woodford, who rep
resented the United States In Madrid
before the outbreak of the Spanish
American war. retorts that he was never
authorized to make such a demand for
Cuban independence upon the Spanish
queen, and IL he had made such a de-
-mand he feels sure that he would have
been thrown out of the window, diplo-
matically speaking, without much Span
ish ceremony.
All Of this information will be very
interesting to the future historian, but
1t does not help us to solve the Cuban
problem as presented under existing con-
ditions. These back-action speculations
and explanations are about as irrelevant
and immaterial as the claims and coun-
ter claims Of the diplomats OF Germany,
France, England and Russia to credit
for keeping their hands of the United
States while Spain was being mauled.
Looking backward dispassionately we
can oncur with ex-senator Chandler
that the war could have been averted
by an amicable agreement with Spain
for the purchase OF Cuban independence,
but we do not concur with the former
New Hampshire senator when he says
that the liberation Of the Philippine
islands was contemplated as an incident
of the Cuban war by those who precipi-
tated it. Nobody in or out of congress
thought of the Philippines before war
was declared. 1t is a matter of history
that President Mckinley and his closest
advisers were opposed to a bloody con
fict with Spain and IN favor Of a more
humane policy for the relief Of Cuba,
and even the republican jingoes in con-
gress would have been impotent to force
Mckinley into a war had it not been for
the shortsighted democrats and populists
in congress, who believed that they
would promote their party interest by
forcing the republican administration
into a conflict that would compel the
country to resort to bond issues, war
taxes and CONSUMPTION. For these pur-
blind partisans the explosion of the
Maine, which was charged to the Span
lards without any tangible proof, proved
to be q godsend.
Had these malevolent partisans been
endowed with ordinary provision, and
had they been guided by the lessons of
the past, they would surely have fore.
seen political ruin and disaster for them
selves and their party as a natural con-
sequence Of the war. 1t is a matter Of
history that the American people have
sustained the party in power in every
war whether right or wrong, and 1t was
a foregone conclusion that in the war
with Spain the party in power would be
sustained by American patriotism to a
triumphal ending at every sacrifice, even
should 1t last twenty years.
When the democrats and populists in
congress voted to force the war upon
Mckinley they voted themselves out Of
power for a generation. Their action
after the war in helping to ratify the
treaty Of Paris showed that they were
still bourbons and will always be bour-
bons because they never will learn any
thing. 1t was within the power of their
leaders to force the modification of the
treaty on such lines as would have es-
tablished an American protectorate for
the Philippines, but they helped to ratify
the treaty without dotting an 1 or cross
ing a t in order to embarrass the re-
publican administration that became
charged with the responsibility of estab-
fishing law and order and governing the
islands al part Of the United States.
In this they exhibited their bourbonic
wisdom that is akin to Macauley's de-
scription Of the Puritans, 'in order to
enjoy the miseries Of others, they were
--fIll~- a.