unspeakable blessing to mankind of the struggle from which we are now emerging is the genuine brotherly sympathy for the people of the United States, flowing from that land "Of old and great renown, Where freedom broadens slowly down And it is returned in no unstinted measure. But two months ago the flagship of Admiral Dewey steamed slowly into the battle-line at Manila. As she passed the British flagship Immortalité, its band rang out the inspiring air," See the Conquering Hero Comes," and as the gorgeous ensign of our Republic was flung to the breeze at the peak of the Olympia, there now came thrilling o'er the waters from our kinsmen's ship, the martial strains of " The Star-Spangled Banner." Certain it is that we also had the sympathy of the mothercountry when, in 1823, it became necessary to call a halt to the Holy Alliance. Then it was that President Monroe announced that famous doctrine which bears his name. It was expressed in his message to Congress. It admonished the Holy Alliance " that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety." It was, writes an American historian," the courage of a great people, personified in a firm chief magistrate, that put the fire into those few momentous though moderate sentences, and made them glow like the writing at Belshazzar's feast." The logical result of this doctrine, as it has been developed in our subsequent international relations, made it the sacred duty of the American people to terminate the Spanish atrocities in Cuba, peaceably if we could, forcibly if we must. Experience had shown that it could not be done save by a strong dis play of force. This would not be made by any of the great European powers, except for a substantial equivalent in Cuba. The Monroe Doctrine had forbidden this. Then the duty was on us in the sight of God and man, to stay the unholy policy, which, as demonstrated before the Senate Committee, had in one year resulted in the starvation of two hundred thousand men, women, and children, within a half-day's sail from our shores. To this purpose our President devoted every expedient of his resourceful nature, every firm but moderate and considerate representation, and all the gentle magnanimity of a Christian heart, and all in vain. Finally when our gallant seamen, reposing in fancied security, in the scorching blast of the treacherous explosion, were cruelly and remorselessly slain, and calm investigation had developed the truth, we had been despicable on the historic page had we not appealed to the God of Battles for retribution. The pious rage of seventy millions of people cried aloud to heaven for the piteous agony, for the shameful slaughter of our brethren. Our noble fleet was swiftly speeding to its duty. Poetic genius bodied forth the spirit of our navy as the mighty ships sped on their way. "In the winds that blow about me the voices of the dead Are calling to me, brothers, to urge my topmost speed, In the foam that's upward flying in whirling wreaths of white The wraiths of murdered brothers beckon onward to the fight." Let the waters of the Orient as they moan through the shell-riven wrecks at Cavite, the booming wave of the Caribbean, as fathoms deep it sweeps over Pluton and Furor, and breaks into spray on the shapeless and fire-distorted steel of Viscaya and Oquendo, tell how the navy has paid our debt to Spain. Nor is the renown which crowns the standards of our soldiery one whit less glorious. Nothing in the lucid page of Thucydides, nor in the terse "Commentaries of Cæsar," nothing in the vivid narrative of Napier, nor the glowing battle-scenes of Allison can surpass the story, how spurning the chapparal and the barbed wire, pressing their rifles to their throbbing hearts, toiling up the heights, and all the while the machine-guns and the Mausers mowing the jungle as with a mighty reaper, on, and yet right on, they won the fiery crests, and Santiago fell. America, our beloved country, humane in the hour of triumph, gentle to the vanquished, grateful to the Lord of Hosts, a reunited nation forever, well may thy people rejoice with the Royal Poet of Israel, "O sing unto the Lord a new song for He hath done marvellous things; His right hand and His holy arm hath gotten Him the victory." JOHN M. THURSTON [Extracts from a speech delivered in the Senate, March 24, 1898, by John M. Thurston, after having visited Cuba in company with Mrs. Thurston, who died on the journey. Mrs. Thurston's dying request to her husband was that he should lose no time on account of her death in doing his utmost to save and free Cuba and its people.] I. SPAIN'S HEARTLESS CRUELTY MR. PRESIDENT, I am here by command of silent lips to speak once and for all upon the Cuban situation. I trust that no one has expected anything sensational from me. God forbid that the bitterness of a personal loss should induce me to color in the slightest degree the statement that I feel it my duty to make. I shall endeavor to be honest, conservative, and just. I have no purpose to stir the public passion to any action not necessary and imperative to meet the duties and necessities of American responsibility, Christian humanity, and national honor. I would shirk this task if I could, but I dare not. I cannot satisfy my conscience except by speaking, and speaking now. For myself, I went to Cuba firmly believing that the condition of affairs had been greatly exaggerated; but there has been no exaggeration, because exaggeration has been impossible. After three years of warfare and the use of 225,000 Spanish troops, Spain has lost control of every foot of Cuba not surrounded by an actual intrenchment and protected by a fortified picket-line. She holds possession with her armies of the fortified seaboard towns, not because the insurgents could not capture many of them, but because they are under the virtual protection of Spanish warships, with which the revolutionists cannot cope. Under the inhuman policy of Weyler not less than 400,000 self-supporting, simple, peaceable, defenceless country people were driven from their homes in the agricultural portions of the Spanish provinces to the cities, and imprisoned upon the barren wastes outside the residence portions of these cities and within the lines of intrenchments, established a little way beyond. Their humble homes were burned, their fields laid waste, their implements of husbandry destroyed, their live stock and food supplies for the most part confiscated. Most of these people were old men, women, and children. They were thus placed in hopeless imprisonment, without shelter or food. There was no work for them in the cities to which they were driven. They were left there with nothing to depend upon except the scanty charity of the inhabitants of the cities, and with slow starvation their inevitable fate. It is conceded upon the best ascertainable authority, and those who have had access to the public records do not hesitate to state, that upward of 210,000 of these people have already perished from starvation or from diseases incident to starvation. Such a spectacle exceeds the scenes of the inferno as painted by Dante. There is no relief and no hope except through the continued charity of the American people until peace has been fully restored in the island and until a humane government has restored these people to their homes and has provided for them anew the means with which to begin again the cultivation of the soil. Spain cannot put an end to the existing condition. She cannot conquer the insurgents. She cannot re-establish |