Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1904-01-04
HENRY WATTERSON
DISCUSSES THE DOlNGS AND
SITUATION At PANAMA.
An lnimitable Piece Of Banter by the Veteran
Journalist in the Louisville Courier Journal.
Thinks Secretary Hay Was Too Quick on
the Trigger. lFa@ rf@F

The screed of the secretary Of state
anent the Panama revolution, so-called
reads very like the ex.post-tacto gu.
ment OF the gentleman in the mountains
OF Kentucky who has first established his
case at law and then killed his man. II
is much too prompt, much too consider.
ed; positively quick.on-trigger, as.a.body
may say. Concurrent with, nay, almost
instant after the event, Mr.. Hay comes
into the magistrates court-or before
the coroner, as the reader pleases-witll
his statement how the deceased Colombia
had invited fate, had persevered in re-
calcitrancy, had violated agreements and
trod on the defendants toes-in every
way provoking the final and fatal issue
until, goaded to desperation and driven
back upon his reserve rights, there was
nothing left to do, in the interest oil
peace and good neighborhood, but to shoot
to kill; whereat, the said defendant
pleads justification both by reason of the
facts aforesaid and the law, made and
provided and defined by Polk and Pierce,
and Dallas, Buchanan, Marcy and Jeffer-
son Davis, and many other most excellent
and accepted democratic authorities,
duly named and cited, ct cetera
We republish elsewhere some editorial
expressions OF opinion which preceded
the rash delberation, the precipitous but
carefully prepared and guarded strenuos-
ity OF the administration. designed, ap.
parently, to warn it against impending
danger. --4.. .ss
Led by that delightful old Mugwump,
the New York Evening Post, with those
rather equivocal Independents, the New
York Times and the Philadelphia Ledger,
for close seconds, these doctrnaires have
not little to say about the national
honor. They 90 the length Of question
ing the character and quality of the revo-
luton in Panama. They actually intimate
that the Hay-Herran treaty, which
Colombia rejected with such marks Of
contempt, has had something to do with
it. They are go irreverent as to suspect
the canal. "a vulgar plot with millions
in it, says the Post; rather strong Ian
guage, though the Post doesn't mind.
"The United States" suggests the Ledg-
er, "wil be accused by the censorious
with having instigated it" The idea Of
it! Perish the thought! can the world
will say" concludes the Times, that we
got up this revolution, that we procured
the establishment of the little republic
because of Colombia's refusal to give us
the right to build the canal" Alas,
always the canal!
But-these things in the green leaf-in
advance OF the act of recognition-what
must our doctors of morality and law say
in the brown-now that, without wore
of "by your leave" or "bless YOUR eyes.
the president has taken the little niger
of Panama to his bosom, even as he took
Booker Washington, and with tears roll
ing down his ensanguined cheek, ex'
claims, "Come to NEE arms, NEE long
lost brotherv' Why, the dear creatures
they will just 60 away and strike one
another on the w'ist, don't you know
that is what they will do!
In the nomenclature of the modern
counting room journalism Of the grea
money centers, there is no such word a!
spade! The one thing one must not de
is to mention it. He may vilely intimate
deal in dishonoring insinuations, draw
out infamous but refined deductions; bn
the unforgiveable sin is to call a spade {
spade. That is why their newspaper
have 80 little real influence. They wer'
united the other day in New York in ad
vccating the reelection of q certain
mayor and in opposing and forecastinl
the defeat OF certain candidate TO
mayor by an overwhelming majority; bu
when the votes came to be counted thei
predictions were exactly contradictet
and their predictions reversed. And 81
it will be in this matter OF the Panama
revolution, so-called. What does the ad
ministration care about them? The.
may hit it with feather. They ma.
even blast it with broomstick. Thu
president knows them too we'll to be afrai'
OF them. Even the secretary of state
himself an old hand at the bellows-wil
peruse the impersonal preachments Q
the Evening Post, the mild pleading
and gentle admonitions of the Ledger ant
the Times, and, in the words Of Faxon'
imprisoned Wide Awake, who, surveying
from the room in which his wife hal
locked him, the long row Of gas lamp
down the street and installing it for tn
torchlight procession his mind was las
bent on, murmured, "The Herald ma.
not say its 10, 900, but (hic) the Tribune'l