The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1902-09-09
WHITE FIXES Blame
On Men Who Wanted Pie
Counter Patronage for
DEFEAT OF RECIPROCITY
Americans, He Says, ReSpon-
sibIe for Cuban Rebellion.
DEFEAT OF RECIPROCITY

pecial Correspondence of The Eagles
Topeka. Kan, Sept. Sin his article in
the September McClure's on Cuban Reel
procity a Moral ISSUE" William Allen
White of Emporia places the blame for
the failure of this legislation at the last
session of congress on purely moral
grounds.
In other words, it was not the beet peo-
pie, not beet influences, nor mere COM
mon insurgency that defeated President
Roosevelt's wishes, but the fact alone
that Roosevelt would not appoint unit
and uncIean men TO public office and
therefore reciprocity was slaughtered.
Witness this paragraph:
And the senators and representatives
aforesaid vexed wroth. They felt Of the
president. looking for his soft spot; they
saw he would compromise on any COM
nerciaI issue like the location of the
canal or the treatment of trusts, or the
army and navy appropriation BILL but
that on what he considered a moral issue
President Roosevelt would fight. They
desired a fight; they believed that
drubbing before the country would break
the presidents influence with the people.
So the offended statesmen, who were men
OF minor Importance and without national
fame. began looking for moral issue.
and stumbled on Cuban reciprocity. And
then the trouble began"
Prior to this paragraph is a detailed
and reasonably accurate account, or re-
sumo in general, of how senators tried
10 secure places of preferment for unfit
men, and the trouble they had in each IN
stance with this new-fangled president,
who had his peculiar ideas on morality
in public men and oficeholders, and held
to his ideas with wonderful tenacity.
Thus, then, says White, did the real fight
begin.
There are many truisms in Whites ar
ticle For instance the point he makes
that the Americans were as responsible
for the Cpban rebellion as Spain herself,
an idea which has not generally occurred
TO people, yet which has been long con-
ceded by those who have paid close at
tention to this rather vexatious Cuban
problem. The repeal of the Mckinley law,
causing such sad havoc commercially and
socially in this country, repealed at the
same time the reciprocity then existing
between Cuba and this country. We had
our Coxey armies; Cuba had its insurrec-
ton against Spain. The two are so SINH
lar, so intermingIed and intertwined as
to be iseparable. But White tells the
story best Here is what he says on this
point:
Now the Now the Latin race differs
a little from the American army game.
When the American forms a mob, after
the first impulse of rage leaves him, he
passes resolutions and appoints a COM
nittee to do something. The Latin mob
organizes an insurrection. Coxey's army
m the United States was marching when
the idle laborers of Cuba opened the re-
bellion. Coxey's men did little damage to
property, but every time the Cuban rebels
found a sugar plantation or a sugar mill
they wrecked it. 1t was the outward and
'isible sign of their anger al Spain. But
She actual oppression of Spain was a
small>natter compared with the economic
troubles that came when Cuban sugar
was shut out of the American market by
American laws. America was as much re-
sponsible for the Cuban rebellion as SPAN
was Indeed, when the Maine blew up,
Spain was trying TO settle the Cuban re-
bellion in the only way 1t might have been
settled a Spanish agent was trying TO
negotiate reciprocity treaty which would
restore Cuban sugar to the American
market If the anime had not blown Up
in Havana harbor Mckinley would have
settled the Cuban rebellion without in
tervehuoI. and without shedding a drop
OF American blood, by securing a reci-
procity law cor Cuba's owes had their
rise more in economic causes than in So
cial ana political ones"
And yet on the heels of such patent
facts as these, chimerical opponents of
reciprocity with Cuba. who would suggest
bounues and such foolish things and rem
edies. say that there is. there cannot be.
a repetition of such economic conditions
in Cuba. now, unless something is done,
despite the fact that sugar sells for from
Sl.60 per hundred pounds at Havana,
which costs s. per hundred pounds TO
place on the market. II would seem that
no prophet or expert fgurer were re-
ditions. There is also the contention that
a loss like this to the planter does not
AFFECT the laborer. I talked this week
with an intelligent gentleman from Wich-
tia, man holding a high state Office.
who had the temerity to insist that be-
cause the planter was starving. the lab
oUer necessarily did not do so, too. He
would not even concede the weu-known
fact that ia this country. where mills and
factories and railroads are either closed
OF running al a loss. labor suffers in pro-
portion. OF course the man knew better.
but he was so anxious 10 make his point
against reciprocity with Cuba that he
talked foolishly
There are whole chunks OF good things
in this, also from Whites piece:@
Congress adjourned without a reci-
procity Law on the statute books. The
insurgents went home. saw the people.
began explaining. and q funny thing hap
pened. Instead OF glorifying in their VIC
tory over the president. nearly every man
Jack Of the nineteen insurgents found oc-
castor for telling his constituents that
he was IN perfect accord With the presi-
dent. that the president was the greatest
Statesman scholar and patriot since Lin
coins time. and that while certain other
Republican leaders were against Roose-
veIt. he. the orator OF the occasion. had
supported every measure which by any
hint or indefinite intInation had seemed
Ike 4 Roosevelt measure No American
president has more thoroughly and CON-