The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-02-22
Good For kentucky!

| TTENTUCkY boasts of its beautiful
! n women and fast horses. and some
say the best whisky in the world
| is moonshined in Kentucky. There is
another feature of the kentuckian that
commands our admiration. He is 4
genuine American and will remain a
genuine American until Daniel Boone
and Henry Clay are blotted from her
| history But no such misfortune will
| befall Kentucky SO long as such men
as Wheeler represent that state in
| congress. M
Representative Wheeler threw a
bomb into the house the other day, and
its echoes are heard over the ocean.
1t was a caustic arrangement of Amer
lean fiunkeyism, the like of which was
never heard in this latter-day con-
gress. A half century ago, there was
no occasion for such speech. Amer
leans had not outgrown their Ameri-
canism in that day.
Mr.. Chairman" said he, Il have
read with lively interest the recent ex-
posture and criticism in the press of the
attitude of Great Britain and the other
European powers toward the republic
during the war of 1898. Divisions of
public sentiment among the people of
the United States are to be desired,
but, until the Inauguration of the pres
ident in 1897, there never was any divi-
sion of sentiment upon one great ques-
ton, and that was the splendid isola-
ton of the republic and its fixed deter
mination to hold aloof from all entang-
ling alliances with foreign powers.
Then the belief and fixed Judgment of
well-nigh every patriotic citizen was
overturned, and, for the first time. we
witnessed a president of the United
States, aided and egged on by a pitia
BILE turnkey in the state department,
stretching his arms across the water to
embrace the historic enemies of the
American people.
From that good hour until now we
have made ourselves laughing stock
at every court in Europe, because of
our fiunkeyism. our truculency here
and the disgraceful sycophancy of the
representatives of the republic at the
feet of Great Britain, and now, when
it serves the purpose of some other
great nation, the pitiable spectacle is
presented that We have been hugging
to our bosom during the last five years
a nation that has Systematically and
persistently attempted to destroy the
liberties of the American people since
the battle of Yorktown. We find now,
despite the fact that the present adj
ministration is afraid, even in the face
of its great majority, to ask an appro-
priation of $4,000 or $1,000 to nav
shome shoulder gold-laced
turnkey to cross the water and bow the
knee and kiss the hand of some English
king; that While this very pitiable spec
tacle is being, presented to us, it is be-
ing heralded abroad that in 1898. when
we We're seeking to strike the shackles
of serfdom from off the heels of Cuba.
that nation was then secretly in our
capital attempting to form a coalition
of the great powers of the world to pre-
vent that interposition. And it has not
caused a ripple in diplomatic circles.
1t has been the boast of America, di-
plomacy to the contrary notwithstand-
ing, that when our state department
said no. we meant no. and when we
said yes we meant yes
Mr.. Wheeler went on in this strain
for an hour, but he did not stop when
he ought to stop. He denounced the
arrangements made for the visit to this
country of Prince Henry. That is an
entirely different affair, not to be
placed alongside the toadyism to be
observed at Edwards coronation.
Prince Henry will make himself at
home to American people and exact no
courtly etiquette from those who grasp
his German hand and raise their glass
to 'Hoch der Kaiser" No kissing of
hands and prostrations. Nothing of
that English flummery which would
disgust a German courtier as it would
an American gentleman.
Even though Mr.. Wheeler may have
made political mistake, his speech
will count for one that Henry Clay
would not discredit in the height of
his fame.
Our Catholic exchanges complain that