The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-12-26

form as possible, to present some points which the moral and religious sense of the country should face. It can rest satisfied with no answer which appeals merely to sentiment or to supposed commercial interests, unless it shall also stand squareIy upon the law and the evidence.
 First, then, as to the law. That has been laid down for this country in the unbroken policy which our government has pursued towards the Latin-Ameri- can countries until November 2, 1903. It has been clearly and repeatedly stat ed by our presidents and statesmen. l regret that the Outlook will not allow me to give these citations to it's readers. These utterances are not mere prece- dents, as the Outlook calls them, as it lightly casts them aside; they consti- tute in their totality the body of law which this country has always respect ed, and which it ought never hastily to disregard. Space permits me to cite here but four of them. John Quincy Adams: "When a sovereign has a req sonable hope of maintaining his author i ity over insurgents the acknowledgment of the independence of such insurgents would be an international wrong" An drew Jackson: "Our uniform policy and practice to avoid all inter ference in domestic controversies, and eventually to recognize the prevailing party without reference to our particu- lar interests" President Mckinley:
 Recognition of independent statehood is not due to a revolting dependency un- til the danger of it's being again subju- gated by the parent state has entirely passed away" And also Daniel Web ster, in his speech on the Panama ques- ton: "There is no question about it. We are under treaty obligations to maintain the neutrality of the Isthmus and the authority of the government of New Grenada over it." Could Daniel
 Webster speak again on the Panama question, Senator Hoar would not find himself in so solitary pre-eminence ill
 the senate.
 1 Such being the established principle and historic policy of our government,
 the question returns in the facts: Has the administration violated this law, and broken with this policy? No right minded man would wish to see our na- | tional standard lowered, or consent to see a pirates flag run up in isthmian
 waters. All of these facts necessary for judgment can be brought to light only
 through a searching congressional in- vestigation. But an array of facts al- ready known, is lined up against our policy-facts cold as steel. regret that
 they cannot be withdrawn from the of-
 ficial records as easily as they are run
 away from by the Outlook's columns.
 I can here specify but two. l refer first
 to the order given on November ga day of unclouded peace-to the com- Imander of the Nashville not to allow , Columbian or insurgent troops to land
 at Colon, or porto Bello, or other Point,
 on the soil or Columbia. This order de Inying to the government of Colombia free access to its own harbors, in viola tion of all international law, was anx- iously repeated by "Loon1is, Acting"
 with the fear of France in his heart, and
 his question: on the wire, whether the
 uprising had occurred The other and
 even more revolutionary order was sent to Admiral Glass, November 2. It for Ibade the landing of government or in-
 surgent troops within fifty miles of the lrailroad. There were no insurgent troops when that order was sent from Washington. The treaty gave us the fright to keep the traffic going. It war Iranted us, if Colombia could not pre-
 serve order, to intervene for the protec- tfon of the line of transit. Nothing lgave us the right, no administration be- fore ever dreamed of assuming the right, of keeping the Colombian govern- Iment off it's own soil over zone one hundred miles broad. Those two orders were a sudden and lawless reversal of our whole polity; they were acts of un- declared and lawless war. And there are others.
 The question reverts, thirdly. to the Iethics of it. John Randolph said of the ialiiance between Adams and Clay that lit was an alliance between the Puritan land the blackIeg. A similar alliance jseems to be struck in the reasonings of lgood citizens when they say that we ltske the canal because we must have lit; that there is no law for us In dealing with a weaker nation like Colombia, land, at any rate, we shall get the canal. II would not charge our religious organ
 with entering into such alliance of the Puritan and the highwaylnan in it's req
 sonings; on the contrary, I rejoice to
 find in it's editorial comments some signs lof sound ethics: as when 1t asserts that
 the recognition of Panama was not, as
 we had supposed, a nine days wonder,
 hut-I know not from what private
 sources it draws it's information--that
 lit was really the result of patient, de- lliberate praiseworthy and long-contin- lued investigation!" So certainly. it fought to be. And there may be other isigns of the Puritan in the Outlook s
 reasonings which I may have over- Hooked. But the ethical tone changes,
 and the dalliance with mere political lopportunisrn becomes suspicious, when
 the reasoning runs with the land, to the
 effect that it is all right because the ca- inal must be built, and we must build it;
 because civilization must have at once tits benefits; because Panama should re- 3ceive from us the gift of freedom, and Ethe "robber politicians" of Colombia be Iprevented and also because by "a lstrong government" the feelings may be lrelieved of a man whose wife and daughter may be travelling" for their Ihealth across the Isthmus; and all this to be achieved instantaneously, prece- |