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I couldn't fit the whole article into one audio file.
Part 1 of the article:
Part 2 of the article:
Part 3 of the article:
Part 4 of the article:
Papa Charles's speech can be rather dense, and I that reading it was easier when I was listening to the audio, although I get tired of my own voice. Also, I've put lots (26 notes, at the current count) of information in the Notes section to help you along.
I was unable to upload the audio reading all in one piece because the file was too large, so I have split the reading into four sections:
I was unable to upload the audio reading all in one piece because the file was too large, so I have split the reading into four sections:
- The headline, plus the part of the article before the speech - i.e. the headline plus segments #1 through #3.
- The beginning of the speech up to the words "danger of outlawry" - i.e. segments #4 through #9.
- The middle of the speech, up to the words "It was not necessary" - i.e. segments #10 through #13
- The end of the speech - i.e. segments #14 through #17.
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There are 19 images below:
Since it is a long article, I've labeled the segments, with the segment number and the first few words of the segment. I've also divided the transcript that is below the images into the same segments, with the same labels, so you can more easily correlate the transcript to the images of the article.
There is no meaning to where the segment breaks are. My sole plan was to make the segments roughly the same length.
- An image of the whole article
- The headline of the article
- The article divided up into 17 segments to make everything bigger and more legible.
Since it is a long article, I've labeled the segments, with the segment number and the first few words of the segment. I've also divided the transcript that is below the images into the same segments, with the same labels, so you can more easily correlate the transcript to the images of the article.
There is no meaning to where the segment breaks are. My sole plan was to make the segments roughly the same length.
[THE WHOLE ARTICLE]
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[HEADLINE] #SCHOLAR DISCUSSES# [Beginning of part 1 of the audio]
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[SEGMENT #1] #In a dignified, scholarly address#
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[SEGMENT #2] #Mr. Stokey is not an orator#
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[SEGMENT #3] #crime that is being committed#
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[SEGMENT #4] #MR. STOKEY'S ADDRESS# [Beginning of the part 2 of the audio]
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[SEGMENT #5] #Of all men#
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[SEGMENT #6] #ple just broad enough#
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[SEGMENT #7] #On the 6th of May#
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[SEGMENT #8] #Lorimer goes on further#
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[SEGMENT #9] #the matter was soon dropped#
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[SEGMENT #10] #The leaders in 1895# [Beginning of part 3 of the audio]
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[SEGMENT #11] #Campos was recalled#
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[SEGMENT #12] #The last proclamation was issued#
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[SEGMENT #13] #By the way#
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[SEGMENT #14] #The Dingley bill# [Beginning of part 4 of the audio]
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[SEGMENT #15] #was to help the members of congress#
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[SEGMENT #16] #Senator Foraker#
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[SEGMENT #17] #Not being an athlete#
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audio---images---~COMMENT~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
I like my great-grandfather's sympathy for the Cubans. Some of his other opinions don't impress me so much.
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[HEADLINE] #SCHOLAR DISCUSSES# [Beginning of part 1 of the audio]
SCHOLAR DISCUSSES
The Question That He Considers the Most Important In This Campaign.
PROF. STOKEY SPEAKS.
Hall Was Not Large Enough to Admit the People Who Came
TO HEAR THE ADDRESS.
People Were Given Something to Think About -- Milton Shaffer Presided and Attorney James Sterling Made a Brief Talk That Was Quite Warm.
The Question That He Considers the Most Important In This Campaign.
PROF. STOKEY SPEAKS.
Hall Was Not Large Enough to Admit the People Who Came
TO HEAR THE ADDRESS.
People Were Given Something to Think About -- Milton Shaffer Presided and Attorney James Sterling Made a Brief Talk That Was Quite Warm.
[SEGMENT #1] #In a dignified, scholarly address#
In a dignified, scholarly address, at the assembly room in the city hall Thursday evening, Prof. Charles F. Stokey explained to his neighbors and friends his reasons for the faith that is in him and his purpose in departing from the political party with which he has been associated for so many years. When Mr. Stokey, always a student, studied the trend of events as they were made apparent from Washington, he warned his Republican friends that there was danger that a mistake would be made. A soldier in the dark days of 1861-65, he loved liberty and stood opposed to putting the shackles on the black man at home or the saffron-hued citizen abroad, and he did not believe, therefore, in purchasing a race of people or obtaining them in any other way than with their full and free consent. So he opposed imperialism, though not being opposed to legitimate expansion. Like other American citizens, he wanted this country, as a result of the magnificent victories in the bay of Manila and on the island of Luzon, to have better trade facilities and freer intercourse with the people of the island than any other nation on earth. He wanted trade to expand in that direction by a liberal regulation with the natives but he did not believe that it is necessary to own a country in order to trade with it nor did he believe that the time had come in American history when the institutions of the country were to be set aside and the nation for which he has fought in his daily life and in the forum of debate and for which he shot in the sixties should follow in the wake of designing men and adopt imperialism. So Mr. Stokey bolted. It grieved him much, and he told his friends so, but he could not follow the government when he knew the government was not following the people. The News-Democrat heard of his condition of mind and succeeded in interviewing him and getting from him a statement of his position. When it was printed it created a sensation in political circles. When it was announced that, in order to let his friends and neighbors know just where he stood and why he was going to give an address in the assembly room the people got ready to attend and at 8 o'clock there was not even standing room. The hall was packed and many could not gain admittance and were forced to go home without hearing the scholarly address of the speaker of the evening. The magnitude of the meeting indicates that the people of Canton thought Mr. Stokey's notions worthy of consideration and believed in his honesty and integrity. The applause that greeted him assured him that he was among friends in that big audience and the demonstration of commendation that interrupted him during the course of his address made assurance doubly sure that he was not alone in the position he had taken and that his Democratic friends were with him to a man and his Republican friends, many of them, saw that he was right. It is believed many of them will profit by his example. There were many young men and older ones in the audience who went to school to Prof. Stokey, who taught them about all they knew about other things and did it so well that they are very likely to insist that he knows what he is talking about now. He never led them from the path of duty and right before and they do not believe he will begin at this late date. The audience gave Mr. Stokey a most attentive hearing and frequently applauded his utterances.
[SEGMENT #2] #Mr. Stokey is not an orator#
Mr. Stokey is not an orator. He never claimed to be and he couldn't substantiate it if he had, but he is a student and a thinker and what he says reads well and is full of meat. He talked from manuscript, only occasionally becoming extemporaneous.
Mr. Frank Kessler called the meeting to order and moved that Mr. Milton Shaffer be made chairman of the meeting. The selection was made with unanimity demonstrating Mr. Shaffer's popularity and the applause was general as he took his place on the rostrum. He said he had not come to make a speech but he thanked the audience for the honor it had conferred on him in choosing to preside. Before introducing the speaker of the evening Mr. Shaffer stated that the question that would be under discussion was so broad that Mr. Stokey would not be able to conclude his argument in one evening and that he would conclude his speech from the same rostrum on next Tuesday evening. After Mr. Stokey had concluded his address for the evening the crowed called for Attorney James Sterling, who made a brief address, pointing out the
Mr. Frank Kessler called the meeting to order and moved that Mr. Milton Shaffer be made chairman of the meeting. The selection was made with unanimity demonstrating Mr. Shaffer's popularity and the applause was general as he took his place on the rostrum. He said he had not come to make a speech but he thanked the audience for the honor it had conferred on him in choosing to preside. Before introducing the speaker of the evening Mr. Shaffer stated that the question that would be under discussion was so broad that Mr. Stokey would not be able to conclude his argument in one evening and that he would conclude his speech from the same rostrum on next Tuesday evening. After Mr. Stokey had concluded his address for the evening the crowed called for Attorney James Sterling, who made a brief address, pointing out the
[SEGMENT #3] #crime that is being committed#
crime that is being committed in the name of "benevolent assimilation" in the Orient. Mr. Sterling has contributed a son to the cause of imperialism, and that boy was sent back to him a mental and physical wreck. He feels deeply on the subject and never having been in the habit of mincing matters he is less inclined to do so now than at any period of his life. He scored the president roundly for departing from the constitution and from the declaration of independence and did not hesitate to do it in language that could be understood. He talked but a few moments as he had not come to the meeting to make a speech, but during the few moments he did talk he demonstrated his ability to make himself understood. A Republican in the audience interrupted and said:
"You would like to have a man like McKinley in your party."
"I wouldn't belong to a party that had him in it," was Mr. Sterling's retort.
That ended the interruption and Mr. Sterling closed by paying a compliment to the speaker of the evening, Mr. Stokey.
"You would like to have a man like McKinley in your party."
"I wouldn't belong to a party that had him in it," was Mr. Sterling's retort.
That ended the interruption and Mr. Sterling closed by paying a compliment to the speaker of the evening, Mr. Stokey.
[SEGMENT #4] #MR. STOKEY'S ADDRESS# [Beginning of part 2 of the audio]
MR. STOKEY'S ADDRESS.
When Chairman Shaffer introduced Mr. Stokey to the audience he was most cordially received. During the course of his address Mr. Stokey said:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a man to dissolve, for the nonce, the bands which have connected him with a political party, in order to vote, on the supreme issue, in the next coming election, according to the dictates of his consience guided by the laws of nature and of nature's God, a decent respect for the opinions of his old friends, requires that he should declare the causes which impel him to the temporary separation.
For some time my Republican friends have been saying to me that they are surprised at me for my position on the supreme question of this fateful time, especially surprised are they in view of the fact that a Democratic School Board had treated me so unjustly. My answer is that I am surprised at them. That's reciprocity. It is "Not Free Trade but Fair Trade." No, it's not quite a fair trade either; for I am surprised not only at them, but at their surprise. I am surprised that they didn't know me better. Yes, still more surprised when they tell me I must be "sore" for not getting an office from a president that I worked so hard to elect.
My answer is, that I did not ask for any office; I did not expect any; and so I am not disappointed on that point, and I am not "sore." But. I am pained to see going astray, a man whom I have loved for thirty-two years, in whose path, more than thirty years ahead, I saw the White House, and for whom I predicted it to friends and strangers twenty-four years ago, and have watched ever since with pride and solicitude.
"All the world loves a lover," is an old and true saying. Socrates, more than two thousand years ago, in a very interesting dialogue, discussed the question whether the world should love a lover, and my impression is that even that hen-pecked old man thought the world was all right on that point.
If, however, on a critical occasion, shutting his eyes, the lover is blind, shall we shut our eyes too and follow him until both fall into the ditch? Should we not, rather, warn him of his danger and ours? Yes, even though it should become necessary to give him a good shaking up. As his friend I have tried gentle means, but all in vain. Shakespear says there is a divinity that doth hedge about a president.
When Chairman Shaffer introduced Mr. Stokey to the audience he was most cordially received. During the course of his address Mr. Stokey said:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a man to dissolve, for the nonce, the bands which have connected him with a political party, in order to vote, on the supreme issue, in the next coming election, according to the dictates of his consience guided by the laws of nature and of nature's God, a decent respect for the opinions of his old friends, requires that he should declare the causes which impel him to the temporary separation.
For some time my Republican friends have been saying to me that they are surprised at me for my position on the supreme question of this fateful time, especially surprised are they in view of the fact that a Democratic School Board had treated me so unjustly. My answer is that I am surprised at them. That's reciprocity. It is "Not Free Trade but Fair Trade." No, it's not quite a fair trade either; for I am surprised not only at them, but at their surprise. I am surprised that they didn't know me better. Yes, still more surprised when they tell me I must be "sore" for not getting an office from a president that I worked so hard to elect.
My answer is, that I did not ask for any office; I did not expect any; and so I am not disappointed on that point, and I am not "sore." But. I am pained to see going astray, a man whom I have loved for thirty-two years, in whose path, more than thirty years ahead, I saw the White House, and for whom I predicted it to friends and strangers twenty-four years ago, and have watched ever since with pride and solicitude.
"All the world loves a lover," is an old and true saying. Socrates, more than two thousand years ago, in a very interesting dialogue, discussed the question whether the world should love a lover, and my impression is that even that hen-pecked old man thought the world was all right on that point.
If, however, on a critical occasion, shutting his eyes, the lover is blind, shall we shut our eyes too and follow him until both fall into the ditch? Should we not, rather, warn him of his danger and ours? Yes, even though it should become necessary to give him a good shaking up. As his friend I have tried gentle means, but all in vain. Shakespear says there is a divinity that doth hedge about a president.
[SEGMENT #5] #Of all men#
Of all men, the good man can do the most good, and it is the good man going wrong that can do the most harm. We all love the man William McKinley, the pure young man, the undefiled, tender lover-husband. We are thankful that he has set many good examples to be followed; but have we not also in him an example of evils to be guarded against? No other president could have led us into the danger we are in now. Shall we shut our eyes, and continue to follow?
Many of my Republican friends have told me that they have strong misgivings in regard to the Administration's Philippine policy, but they have not been able to learn much about it.
My study of History and Sociology has led me, on several occasions, to take an active part in politics. I now turn aside again, for a short time, from an interesting study of the laws that govern matter, to give some of the results of my study of the laws that govern man, the most interesting object in nature.
At the request of such Republicans I have at last decided to make public the result of my own study of the subject. Now, I would not say to President McKinley what a witty husband said to his scolding wife: "With all thy faults I love thee still -- the stiller the better." I would omit the latter part, for I want him to speak more, I want him to say to General Otis, that he has made a mistake. I know this last sentence is ambiguous; but I will let him parse the "he."
In order to understand the Philippine question, it is necessary to review carefully the Cuban, for the former not only led to the latter, but the principles and motives are largely the same. The advice, "let by-gones be by-gones," should be taken with a grain of salt. Not only is Patrick Henry's rule of judging the future by the past, true, but it is equally true that we can understand the present only by knowing the past.
Besides the Cuban question is not yet fully settled. Our ballot box decision of the one will influence the final decision of the other. A great deal of dust about international law has been thrown into the air and some of it has got into the eyes of the people; let us try to rid ourselves of this dust.
A little lawyer seeks for technicalities to support a wrong; but a great lawyer, like Judge Story, says: "Show me the right, and I will find the law to fit it." Regard for President Monroe does not prevent our present administration from beginning to violate the second half of the Monroe doctrine with the purpose of violating it more by meddling with the affairs of the old world later on.
To justify his recognition of some revolted Spanish-American colonies, President Monroe enunciated a princi-
Many of my Republican friends have told me that they have strong misgivings in regard to the Administration's Philippine policy, but they have not been able to learn much about it.
My study of History and Sociology has led me, on several occasions, to take an active part in politics. I now turn aside again, for a short time, from an interesting study of the laws that govern matter, to give some of the results of my study of the laws that govern man, the most interesting object in nature.
At the request of such Republicans I have at last decided to make public the result of my own study of the subject. Now, I would not say to President McKinley what a witty husband said to his scolding wife: "With all thy faults I love thee still -- the stiller the better." I would omit the latter part, for I want him to speak more, I want him to say to General Otis, that he has made a mistake. I know this last sentence is ambiguous; but I will let him parse the "he."
In order to understand the Philippine question, it is necessary to review carefully the Cuban, for the former not only led to the latter, but the principles and motives are largely the same. The advice, "let by-gones be by-gones," should be taken with a grain of salt. Not only is Patrick Henry's rule of judging the future by the past, true, but it is equally true that we can understand the present only by knowing the past.
Besides the Cuban question is not yet fully settled. Our ballot box decision of the one will influence the final decision of the other. A great deal of dust about international law has been thrown into the air and some of it has got into the eyes of the people; let us try to rid ourselves of this dust.
A little lawyer seeks for technicalities to support a wrong; but a great lawyer, like Judge Story, says: "Show me the right, and I will find the law to fit it." Regard for President Monroe does not prevent our present administration from beginning to violate the second half of the Monroe doctrine with the purpose of violating it more by meddling with the affairs of the old world later on.
To justify his recognition of some revolted Spanish-American colonies, President Monroe enunciated a princi-
[SEGMENT #6] #ple just broad enough#
ple just broad enough to cover the case in hand. Later presidents have tried to hide themselves behind this as a precedent when the plain dictates of humanity demanded the proclaiming of a broader principle -- nay, worse than that, they failed to find one that had already been proclaimed and accepted by the great powers of Europe -- a principle in harmony with our Declaration of Independence. It is worthy of note, too, is that it originated in the same great brain and was prompted by the same warm heart as the Monroe doctrine, and enunciated only a year or two later.
In 1825 George Canning, now regarded as one of the greatest of English statesmen, recognized the belligerency of the Greeks who had revolted against Turkish rule. He justified the recognition by declaring that "the character of belligerency is not so much a principle as a fact; a certain degree of force and consistency acquired by any mass of population engaged in war entitles that population to be treated as a belligerent, even if their title were questionable." He added, by way of explanation, that a power or a community which was at war with another, must either be acknowledged as a belligerent, or treated as an outlaw. Canning admitted that he based his declaration on the doctrine of the universal right of self-government, and the right of each nation to act for itself. This was the reverse of the Doctrine of the Holy Alliance, adopted by the International congress at Vienna in 1815, according to which the nations were to help each other in suppressing uprisings of the people. Our government seems to have adopted this monarchial doctrine, instead of that of Jefferson, Washington, Canning and Monroe.
In 1825 George Canning, now regarded as one of the greatest of English statesmen, recognized the belligerency of the Greeks who had revolted against Turkish rule. He justified the recognition by declaring that "the character of belligerency is not so much a principle as a fact; a certain degree of force and consistency acquired by any mass of population engaged in war entitles that population to be treated as a belligerent, even if their title were questionable." He added, by way of explanation, that a power or a community which was at war with another, must either be acknowledged as a belligerent, or treated as an outlaw. Canning admitted that he based his declaration on the doctrine of the universal right of self-government, and the right of each nation to act for itself. This was the reverse of the Doctrine of the Holy Alliance, adopted by the International congress at Vienna in 1815, according to which the nations were to help each other in suppressing uprisings of the people. Our government seems to have adopted this monarchial doctrine, instead of that of Jefferson, Washington, Canning and Monroe.
[SEGMENT #7] #On the 6th of May#
On the 6th of May, 1861, when the Confederate States of America had not yet given to the British government any official evidence of war, and when this "power or community" had not a ship at sea and scarcely an army on land, before it had fought a battle, for the attack and capture of an isolated and neglected garrison in time of peace is not a battle -- Lord John Russell, her Majesty's chief Secretary of State, in a speech in the House of Commons, quoted this declaration of George Canning's as his sole and sufficient justification of the action that he and his colleagues had decided upon, namely: The recognition of what they called officially the "Southern Confederacy of America." They didn't even know the right name.
Simultaneously France adopted the same action, declaring that it concurred entirely in the views of her majesty's government. This acceptance of Canning's broad principle by Great Britain and France without protest by any other power was an acknowledgement of its justice by the powers of Europe, and an acquiescence in its practice.
It should be remembered here that Spain followed the example set by Great Britain and France, and recognized the Southern Confederacy only a few days later. Our refusal to return that little courtesy was not returning good for evil, for it resulted in greater humiliation to Spain and in terrible injustice and in humanity to the poor Cubans.
Some may think that the Alabama Claims decision annulled Canning's humane principle, but it did not. The award against Great Britain was because she had violated the law of nutrality. Let us see what is real neutrality in such cases.
Lorimer, in his "Law of Nations," says, "by recognizing bellingerent rights, neutral powers pronounce no judgment whatever, either on the merits of the claim, or the probability of its ultimate vindication." Now, some of my hearers will remember that the apologists for the administration, pretending to be oracles on international law, contended that we would become responsible for the success of the insurgents, and for their good conduct, if we recognized their belligerency.
Simultaneously France adopted the same action, declaring that it concurred entirely in the views of her majesty's government. This acceptance of Canning's broad principle by Great Britain and France without protest by any other power was an acknowledgement of its justice by the powers of Europe, and an acquiescence in its practice.
It should be remembered here that Spain followed the example set by Great Britain and France, and recognized the Southern Confederacy only a few days later. Our refusal to return that little courtesy was not returning good for evil, for it resulted in greater humiliation to Spain and in terrible injustice and in humanity to the poor Cubans.
Some may think that the Alabama Claims decision annulled Canning's humane principle, but it did not. The award against Great Britain was because she had violated the law of nutrality. Let us see what is real neutrality in such cases.
Lorimer, in his "Law of Nations," says, "by recognizing bellingerent rights, neutral powers pronounce no judgment whatever, either on the merits of the claim, or the probability of its ultimate vindication." Now, some of my hearers will remember that the apologists for the administration, pretending to be oracles on international law, contended that we would become responsible for the success of the insurgents, and for their good conduct, if we recognized their belligerency.
[SEGMENT #8] #Lorimer goes on further#
Lorimer goes on further. Belligerent recognition is a mere declaration of impartiality. To withhold from the claimant for recognition the rights of bellingerency, while we extend them to the parent state, would be plainly, to take part in the war on the part of the parent state." Before the administration was a month old a proclamation was issued providing for the effectual blockade of our ports to prevent vessels from carrying arms and ammunition to the insurgents.
This was called "Enforcing the Neutrality Laws," although Spain was contending all along that there was not "a state of war" in Cuba. There is no need of neutrality where there is no war. Pomeroy, in his "International Law," makes this very plain, saying: "To refuse such recognition (that of belligerency) might, under certain circumstances, have the direct effect of causing the state so refusing to take the part of the mother country against the rebels. As a consequence, if another power would remain strictly neutral to the contest, that very attitude must involve the recognition of the insurgents as belligerents. Unless another power desires to take active part in the hostilities and throw the weight of its influence and, under some circumstances, the positive aid of its executive powers in favor of the mother country, it must treat the rebels as belligerents."
From the foregoing it will be seen that our senator from Ohio was really unreasonable when he said he had "No patience" with president McKinley's "Neutral intervention" message, of April 11, 1898. The president was really improving under the pressure from congress. For, instead of "taking a part in the hostilities" against the suffering insurgents, he proposes now, according to his own explanation of "neutral intervention" to impose "a hostile constraint on both the parties to the contest."
It is still asserted that recognition would not have helped the Cubans. Let us see.
The Cuban insurrection of February 25, 1895, was really a renewal of that of 1868 to 1878, but on an immensely larger scale, and incomparably better organized. Though many of us were living then, yet I have found very few who remember it. It attracted very little attention here in the United States. The Virginius outraged in 1873, when fifty-one American sailors, in violation of law and treaty obligations, condemned to be shot to death did stir us up a little, but, very much against President Grant's inclination,
This was called "Enforcing the Neutrality Laws," although Spain was contending all along that there was not "a state of war" in Cuba. There is no need of neutrality where there is no war. Pomeroy, in his "International Law," makes this very plain, saying: "To refuse such recognition (that of belligerency) might, under certain circumstances, have the direct effect of causing the state so refusing to take the part of the mother country against the rebels. As a consequence, if another power would remain strictly neutral to the contest, that very attitude must involve the recognition of the insurgents as belligerents. Unless another power desires to take active part in the hostilities and throw the weight of its influence and, under some circumstances, the positive aid of its executive powers in favor of the mother country, it must treat the rebels as belligerents."
From the foregoing it will be seen that our senator from Ohio was really unreasonable when he said he had "No patience" with president McKinley's "Neutral intervention" message, of April 11, 1898. The president was really improving under the pressure from congress. For, instead of "taking a part in the hostilities" against the suffering insurgents, he proposes now, according to his own explanation of "neutral intervention" to impose "a hostile constraint on both the parties to the contest."
It is still asserted that recognition would not have helped the Cubans. Let us see.
The Cuban insurrection of February 25, 1895, was really a renewal of that of 1868 to 1878, but on an immensely larger scale, and incomparably better organized. Though many of us were living then, yet I have found very few who remember it. It attracted very little attention here in the United States. The Virginius outraged in 1873, when fifty-one American sailors, in violation of law and treaty obligations, condemned to be shot to death did stir us up a little, but, very much against President Grant's inclination,
[SEGMENT #9] #the matter was soon dropped#
the matter was soon dropped. Nevertheless, about two years later President Grant prepared a short message recognizing the Cuban insurgents.
The "Business Interests" of New York heard what was proposed and were alarmed; they hastened to bring through their representative in the cabinet, the secretary of state, pressure to bear upon the president to kill the proposition.
The secretary, an affable and accommodating old man remonstrated with President Grant and wrote a long opinion arguing that according to international law we had no right to recognize the insurgents. The president did not profess to know much about international law; the secretary did; and so, in the president's message for that year, the long argument against recognition found a place, and the short decision for recognition did not. The grand-son of this secretary of state, a brave and noble young man, was the first of the Rough Riders to be killed in Cuba. Do you think this was "in the providence of God? If not, read the argument in the first of the Ten Commandments, before you sleep again.
Peace was made in 1878 by Spain's promises of reform and general amnesty. Both of these promises were violated and vengeance was wreaked on the persons of the now disarmed insurgents, and property was confiscated for aiding the insurrection. Spain has always taken the second alternative in the advice that History gives to rulers: "Do not oppress at all, or crush."
She tried to reduce the native Cubans to a condition that would make resistance impossible, and all but succeeded. The Spaniards monopolized every business that paid, except some of the professions. As a natural consequence, more Cubans became dissatisfied, and all became more cautious. The few who had acquired property knew that aiding an unsuccessful uprising meant confiscation at least, if not worse, and so many who sympathized with the later insurrection remained neutral until recognition by the United States should take the insurgents out of danger of outlawry.
The "Business Interests" of New York heard what was proposed and were alarmed; they hastened to bring through their representative in the cabinet, the secretary of state, pressure to bear upon the president to kill the proposition.
The secretary, an affable and accommodating old man remonstrated with President Grant and wrote a long opinion arguing that according to international law we had no right to recognize the insurgents. The president did not profess to know much about international law; the secretary did; and so, in the president's message for that year, the long argument against recognition found a place, and the short decision for recognition did not. The grand-son of this secretary of state, a brave and noble young man, was the first of the Rough Riders to be killed in Cuba. Do you think this was "in the providence of God? If not, read the argument in the first of the Ten Commandments, before you sleep again.
Peace was made in 1878 by Spain's promises of reform and general amnesty. Both of these promises were violated and vengeance was wreaked on the persons of the now disarmed insurgents, and property was confiscated for aiding the insurrection. Spain has always taken the second alternative in the advice that History gives to rulers: "Do not oppress at all, or crush."
She tried to reduce the native Cubans to a condition that would make resistance impossible, and all but succeeded. The Spaniards monopolized every business that paid, except some of the professions. As a natural consequence, more Cubans became dissatisfied, and all became more cautious. The few who had acquired property knew that aiding an unsuccessful uprising meant confiscation at least, if not worse, and so many who sympathized with the later insurrection remained neutral until recognition by the United States should take the insurgents out of danger of outlawry.
[SEGMENT #10] #The leaders in 1895# [Beginning of part 3 of the audio]
The leaders in 1895 who were, of necessity, mostly professional men, such as lawyers and doctors, some of whom had taken part in the earlier uprising, foresaw all this. They organized a better civil government than in 1868. They provided for everything that sagacious patriotism could suggest -- Made arrangements in New York not only for the printing of Cuban Republic bonds, but also learned how they could be sold when recognition came, and reason and humanity said it must come soon. Yes, they established a junta in New York, the impudent fellows. 'Tis true our forefathers had a junta in Paris and it secured for us recognition. And as the success of our junta is to the lasting credit of France, so the failure of the Cuban junta is to our lasting discredit.
In telling the story of Cuba, I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator as Burrows is; but as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, that love my friends; for I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men's blood. I only speak right on and tell you that which you, yourselves do know. Pardon me, ye tortured concentrados, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood! Over your wounds now do I prophesy -- which like dumb mouths do ope' their ruby lips to beg the voice and utterance of my tongue -- a curse shall light upon the limbs of men; domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all Columbia's parts; Blood and destruction shall be so in use, and dreadful objects so familiar grown, that mothers shall but smile when they behold their infants quartered by the hands of war, if all pity's choked with custom of foul deeds.
In May, '95, a Spanish general with a large army had been defeated by Maceo; on the 23 of December, '95, the Spanish Captain General, the brave Campos, with a still larger army, had been routed by Gomez and driven in panic back to Havana.
In telling the story of Cuba, I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts. I am no orator as Burrows is; but as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, that love my friends; for I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men's blood. I only speak right on and tell you that which you, yourselves do know. Pardon me, ye tortured concentrados, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Woe to the hands that shed this costly blood! Over your wounds now do I prophesy -- which like dumb mouths do ope' their ruby lips to beg the voice and utterance of my tongue -- a curse shall light upon the limbs of men; domestic fury and fierce civil strife shall cumber all Columbia's parts; Blood and destruction shall be so in use, and dreadful objects so familiar grown, that mothers shall but smile when they behold their infants quartered by the hands of war, if all pity's choked with custom of foul deeds.
In May, '95, a Spanish general with a large army had been defeated by Maceo; on the 23 of December, '95, the Spanish Captain General, the brave Campos, with a still larger army, had been routed by Gomez and driven in panic back to Havana.
[SEGMENT #11] #Campos was recalled#
Campos was recalled; he was too brave. A butcher, Weyler, who had won that title by his bloody work in '78, after the insurgents had surrendered was sent to employ a cheaper plan for ending the insurrection.
He declared that he would not leave Cuba until he had subdued the insurrection, and if it was necessary to accomplish his purpose, he would destroy with their homes all native Cubans, for he knew they were all at heart, insurgents, and were "pacificos," now combatants, only because the insurgent government was too poor to provide them arms and ammunition. This terrible work of destroying everything that was genuinely Cuban was deliberately begun -- everything but the soil -- that was to be enriched by the blood of the Cubans and the ashes of their homes. The plan adopted was indeed the cheapest -- to the Spaniards.
The population of Cuba, at this time, was in round numbers sixteen hundred thousand; a little more than a million and a half; fourteen hundred thousand natives, and two hundred thousand Spaniards, without counting the Spanish soldiers.
About four months before McKinley's inauguration, Weyler issued the first of a series of proclamations for wholesale concentration, ordering all the inhabitants of farms, country districts, villages and towns not under Spanish garrisons, to abandon their homes and concentrate in the nearest fortified towns held by Spanish garrisons.
These poor people were to bring with them their cattle, and such personal property as they could carry. The cattle thus brought in, by a later order, were sold at prices fixed by Weyler. The first order applied only to the province at the west end of the island, Pinar del Rio, but it was gradually extended to the other five provinces.
If within the eight days allowed, the people did not voluntarily comply with this plan for their "benevolent assimilation" to the soil, strong detachments of Spanish troops were sent out into one region after another as it was left unprotected by the insurgent army, and these poor pacificos, men, women and children, were driven to be penned up with their cattle in the towns still held by Spain while their homes and other property left behind were burned.
He declared that he would not leave Cuba until he had subdued the insurrection, and if it was necessary to accomplish his purpose, he would destroy with their homes all native Cubans, for he knew they were all at heart, insurgents, and were "pacificos," now combatants, only because the insurgent government was too poor to provide them arms and ammunition. This terrible work of destroying everything that was genuinely Cuban was deliberately begun -- everything but the soil -- that was to be enriched by the blood of the Cubans and the ashes of their homes. The plan adopted was indeed the cheapest -- to the Spaniards.
The population of Cuba, at this time, was in round numbers sixteen hundred thousand; a little more than a million and a half; fourteen hundred thousand natives, and two hundred thousand Spaniards, without counting the Spanish soldiers.
About four months before McKinley's inauguration, Weyler issued the first of a series of proclamations for wholesale concentration, ordering all the inhabitants of farms, country districts, villages and towns not under Spanish garrisons, to abandon their homes and concentrate in the nearest fortified towns held by Spanish garrisons.
These poor people were to bring with them their cattle, and such personal property as they could carry. The cattle thus brought in, by a later order, were sold at prices fixed by Weyler. The first order applied only to the province at the west end of the island, Pinar del Rio, but it was gradually extended to the other five provinces.
If within the eight days allowed, the people did not voluntarily comply with this plan for their "benevolent assimilation" to the soil, strong detachments of Spanish troops were sent out into one region after another as it was left unprotected by the insurgent army, and these poor pacificos, men, women and children, were driven to be penned up with their cattle in the towns still held by Spain while their homes and other property left behind were burned.
[SEGMENT #12] #The last proclamation was issued#
The last proclamation was issued in August 1897. The island is large, and as it was necessary to draw away the insurgent army from one region to another, the work was slow and was not completed until some eight months after President McKinley's inauguration.
Then, about four-sevenths of the native population having been thus penned up to die by slow starvation, and Weyler's work being so far advanced that another could easily see it finished, the blunt butcher was recalled, and Blanco, the bland hypocrite, was sent to watch Weyler's machine finish its work.
These concentrados, native Cubans, and a few native Americans did not starve at once; they had brought something with them. That was soon exhausted. Besides they were permitted to go out to the limits of the free zone around each fortified town, covered by the guns of the garrison.
But, these small patches of ground could not support a population of about eight hundred thousand. The products of these generous patches of soil, both cultivated and spontaneous, were soon devoured; even the earth worms soon gave out; the weakest starved to death first; those who could go out farther and dig deeper stretched out their inexpressibly wretched lives a little longer.
The first reports of death from starvation came to us in May, 1897; in June the concentrados were starving by hundreds; by September the death rate had been multiplied several times, and they were dying by thousands in December, when President McKinley sent his first regular message to congress, in which he quoted Secretary of State Fish's long argument that we had no right to recognize either the belligerence or the independence of the Cuban insurgents. President McKinley did not explain that the conditions in Cuba were very different from the conditions in President Grant's time; he did not explain the perfidy of Spain in 1878 a fact that alone would have justified a radical change in our policy; but, he left us to infer that the great Grant would have sent the same kind of a message at this time. He sought to hide his shame behind Grant's noble name.
Then, about four-sevenths of the native population having been thus penned up to die by slow starvation, and Weyler's work being so far advanced that another could easily see it finished, the blunt butcher was recalled, and Blanco, the bland hypocrite, was sent to watch Weyler's machine finish its work.
These concentrados, native Cubans, and a few native Americans did not starve at once; they had brought something with them. That was soon exhausted. Besides they were permitted to go out to the limits of the free zone around each fortified town, covered by the guns of the garrison.
But, these small patches of ground could not support a population of about eight hundred thousand. The products of these generous patches of soil, both cultivated and spontaneous, were soon devoured; even the earth worms soon gave out; the weakest starved to death first; those who could go out farther and dig deeper stretched out their inexpressibly wretched lives a little longer.
The first reports of death from starvation came to us in May, 1897; in June the concentrados were starving by hundreds; by September the death rate had been multiplied several times, and they were dying by thousands in December, when President McKinley sent his first regular message to congress, in which he quoted Secretary of State Fish's long argument that we had no right to recognize either the belligerence or the independence of the Cuban insurgents. President McKinley did not explain that the conditions in Cuba were very different from the conditions in President Grant's time; he did not explain the perfidy of Spain in 1878 a fact that alone would have justified a radical change in our policy; but, he left us to infer that the great Grant would have sent the same kind of a message at this time. He sought to hide his shame behind Grant's noble name.
[SEGMENT #13] #By the way#
By the way, Grant, who was one of our officers in the Mexican war, said that, on our part, it was an "unholy war." Was he a traitor too?
During the summer and fall, the president had been begging members of congress to be patient and to trust him and to help him keep the people quiet and to trust their president. He had a plan, a great plan; they must not ask questions about it, and it would come out all right. Editors who had received offices or who had their relatives appointed like Kohlsaat, cried "what a patient man is our president," and all the little echoes repeated "patient man." Abominable nonsense! McKinley is a patient man, but that wasn't patience! Patience is to suffer in one's own person willingly for a good cause; it is not patience to look on the suffering of others without using the means at our command to relieve them.
Mr. Hannis Taylor, President Cleveland's minister to Spain, said the message was heartless and selfish."
In his last message President Cleveland had said that no other great power would, under similar circumstances, have been so patient. Resolutions were at once introduced in both houses of Congress. Senator Cullom, of Illinois, said "if we wait for precedent (for recognizing Cuban belligerency) we shall wait forever. If a precedent is needed we shall make one. * * * When we announced the Monroe doctrine in 1823 it was in defiance of precedent."
A majority of Republicans, both in and out of congress, were clamorous for recognition, which was defeated only by the claim set up that the president had sole power in the matter.
Secretary Olney said "Wait; the new administration policy must not be forestalled." Republicans said: "Yes, wait until our own McKinley is in and we'll get all the glory for making Cuba free." McKinley is inaugurated; he calls a special session of congress but says nothing about Cuba. It was not necessary.
During the summer and fall, the president had been begging members of congress to be patient and to trust him and to help him keep the people quiet and to trust their president. He had a plan, a great plan; they must not ask questions about it, and it would come out all right. Editors who had received offices or who had their relatives appointed like Kohlsaat, cried "what a patient man is our president," and all the little echoes repeated "patient man." Abominable nonsense! McKinley is a patient man, but that wasn't patience! Patience is to suffer in one's own person willingly for a good cause; it is not patience to look on the suffering of others without using the means at our command to relieve them.
Mr. Hannis Taylor, President Cleveland's minister to Spain, said the message was heartless and selfish."
In his last message President Cleveland had said that no other great power would, under similar circumstances, have been so patient. Resolutions were at once introduced in both houses of Congress. Senator Cullom, of Illinois, said "if we wait for precedent (for recognizing Cuban belligerency) we shall wait forever. If a precedent is needed we shall make one. * * * When we announced the Monroe doctrine in 1823 it was in defiance of precedent."
A majority of Republicans, both in and out of congress, were clamorous for recognition, which was defeated only by the claim set up that the president had sole power in the matter.
Secretary Olney said "Wait; the new administration policy must not be forestalled." Republicans said: "Yes, wait until our own McKinley is in and we'll get all the glory for making Cuba free." McKinley is inaugurated; he calls a special session of congress but says nothing about Cuba. It was not necessary.
[SEGMENT #14] #The Dingley bill# [Beginning of part 4 of the audio]
The Dingley bill, a very good measure, was the only thing discussed. A quiet word from President McKinley to a select few of the senators and representatives, that a genuine American plan for Cuba was about to be adopted -- that the hopes raised by the Cuban plank in the St. Louis platform were to be realized -- just such a hint as McKinley knows so well how to give -- might have hastened the passage of that bill. But it passed in good time, and was signed July 24th. Then the president disappointed the people, both by what he said on the money question and by what he did not say on the Cuban question. Hints were again thrown out that he had a plan for settling the Cuban question that would completely satisfy the American people, but we must be patient.
His apologists "pointed with pride" to the fact that brave, sympathetic American citizens, who had been captured while trying to help free Cuba, had not been shot, but had been liberated as a result of his diplomacy.
In this the Spaniards were shrewd enough to accommodate him. Our people were restrained, but not quite satisfied.
The Cuban plank on the platform on which McKinley had been elected had made the Spanish government afraid of Mr. McKinley, and during the first three months after his inauguration had taken pains to impress upon the new administration that war would be the result if it went farther than a tender of good offices. The message removed all fears in Spain. The "yellow journals," as they were called by the gold bugs --- strange as that may seem -- had had enough of genuine American enterprise and sympathy to send brave correspondents to report the increasing rate of starvation. The publication of these reports, not the starvation itself, had alarmed Blanco, and about four weeks before the message he had begun to make a great show of feeding the concentrados; but after the message he abandoned even the pretense of feeding them.
Spain's threats of war had been effective and she had no need to fear the new administration.
There was something in the message about possible intervention at some indefinite time in the future, but that
His apologists "pointed with pride" to the fact that brave, sympathetic American citizens, who had been captured while trying to help free Cuba, had not been shot, but had been liberated as a result of his diplomacy.
In this the Spaniards were shrewd enough to accommodate him. Our people were restrained, but not quite satisfied.
The Cuban plank on the platform on which McKinley had been elected had made the Spanish government afraid of Mr. McKinley, and during the first three months after his inauguration had taken pains to impress upon the new administration that war would be the result if it went farther than a tender of good offices. The message removed all fears in Spain. The "yellow journals," as they were called by the gold bugs --- strange as that may seem -- had had enough of genuine American enterprise and sympathy to send brave correspondents to report the increasing rate of starvation. The publication of these reports, not the starvation itself, had alarmed Blanco, and about four weeks before the message he had begun to make a great show of feeding the concentrados; but after the message he abandoned even the pretense of feeding them.
Spain's threats of war had been effective and she had no need to fear the new administration.
There was something in the message about possible intervention at some indefinite time in the future, but that
[SEGMENT #15] #was to help the members of congress#
was to help the members of congress in keeping the people quiet.
President Cleveland had also said something about possible intervention in the future. If recognition had come in 1897 most of the 600,000 concentrados would have been saved from the most horrible of all the forms of death -- slow starvation.
Thoughtless people often ask, "Was this nation under any greater obligations to rescue the concentrados than were the nations of Europe?"
Most certainly it was. First, by the well known natural law of proximity; second, and especially, by the acceptance of the Monroe doctrine by the nations of Europe and their interpretation of it at the time; that while it was certain that Cuba must pass from Spain, yet, under it, the United States would not permit any European power to acquire Cuba by purchase or conquest -- no, not even to occupy it temporarily to restore order. Our doctrine said to all Europe, "Hands off."
We were in the position of the dog in the manger, we did nothing ourselves, and would not permit others to do anything. The short-sighted ask, Well then, couldn't they feed them? The feeding of one people by another can never be more than a very temporary arrangement. The only way was to help them to help themselves. Would recognizing their belligerency have helped them? Yes.
Notwithstanding all the denials, Senator Sherman, chairman of the committee having charge of such matters, that on foreign relations, told the truth when in a speech that reveals a head clearer and a heart warmer than those of a younger and more affable man, he said in the Senate, February 28, 1896, that the State Department had the evidence that the Cuban insurgents had a civil government, performing the functions of a civil government.
President Cleveland had also said something about possible intervention in the future. If recognition had come in 1897 most of the 600,000 concentrados would have been saved from the most horrible of all the forms of death -- slow starvation.
Thoughtless people often ask, "Was this nation under any greater obligations to rescue the concentrados than were the nations of Europe?"
Most certainly it was. First, by the well known natural law of proximity; second, and especially, by the acceptance of the Monroe doctrine by the nations of Europe and their interpretation of it at the time; that while it was certain that Cuba must pass from Spain, yet, under it, the United States would not permit any European power to acquire Cuba by purchase or conquest -- no, not even to occupy it temporarily to restore order. Our doctrine said to all Europe, "Hands off."
We were in the position of the dog in the manger, we did nothing ourselves, and would not permit others to do anything. The short-sighted ask, Well then, couldn't they feed them? The feeding of one people by another can never be more than a very temporary arrangement. The only way was to help them to help themselves. Would recognizing their belligerency have helped them? Yes.
Notwithstanding all the denials, Senator Sherman, chairman of the committee having charge of such matters, that on foreign relations, told the truth when in a speech that reveals a head clearer and a heart warmer than those of a younger and more affable man, he said in the Senate, February 28, 1896, that the State Department had the evidence that the Cuban insurgents had a civil government, performing the functions of a civil government.
[SEGMENT #16] #Senator Foraker#
Senator Foraker, a member of the same committee, told the truth when in April, '98, he said the same thing. Mr. McKinley knew these facts about Cuba and our grand old man when he selected him to be the head of the cabinet. Yes, the Cuban insurgents had a civil government. True, it was still young and weak, but it was Republican, modeled after ours, and all it needed to make it grown until it was strong enough to cover the whole island, was our recognition; the recognition that it had a right to expect and ought to have received from the nearest neighbor, the great republic which for more than a hundred years had been holding high the torch of Liberty enlightening the world; the hope and inspiration of the oppressed everywhere, but especially on the western continent, over which, by the great Monroe doctrine, declared in the interest of the universal right of self-government, we had assumed and maintained a general protectorate.
The question was not then, and as Senator Burrows proved Saturday at the tabernacle, the real question is not "Shall we haul down the flag?" but "Shall we haul down that torch?"
Of the Cuban Republic's bonds already mentioned, four hundred million dollars worth, face value, had been printed by the N. Y. Bond and Bank Note Printing Company, the entire amount sold was only $105,000, face value, at an average of about 35 cents on the dollar.
With recognition, a vastly larger amount could have been sold and at a much higher rate. With the proceeds, an abundance of arms and ammunition could have been secured, and that not necessarily in the United States. Insurgents already in the field would have been better armed and thousands of pacificos would have been added to the patriot army, especially if the recognition had come under President Cleveland's administration, when an overwhelming majority of Republicans clamored for recognition. Don't you remember how suddenly most of them flopped after Mr. McKinley's inauguration? So sudden was the flop that the dizziness it caused made many of them forget where they had stood.
The question was not then, and as Senator Burrows proved Saturday at the tabernacle, the real question is not "Shall we haul down the flag?" but "Shall we haul down that torch?"
Of the Cuban Republic's bonds already mentioned, four hundred million dollars worth, face value, had been printed by the N. Y. Bond and Bank Note Printing Company, the entire amount sold was only $105,000, face value, at an average of about 35 cents on the dollar.
With recognition, a vastly larger amount could have been sold and at a much higher rate. With the proceeds, an abundance of arms and ammunition could have been secured, and that not necessarily in the United States. Insurgents already in the field would have been better armed and thousands of pacificos would have been added to the patriot army, especially if the recognition had come under President Cleveland's administration, when an overwhelming majority of Republicans clamored for recognition. Don't you remember how suddenly most of them flopped after Mr. McKinley's inauguration? So sudden was the flop that the dizziness it caused made many of them forget where they had stood.
[SEGMENT #17] #Not being an athlete#
Not being an athlete, I didn't flop. Then those who had flopped so suddenly as to forget all about it, called me a "jingo," although the policy they themselves had advocated before the flop would probably have made war unnecessary on our part. Besides, it would have probably saved most of the poor concentrados.
As we have seen, the first report of this starving came in May, '97, and that the concentration was not complete until about eight months after Mr. McKinley's inauguration. So that if recognition had come early in the new administration, as Republicans expected, it would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Pacificos would have become insurgent soldiers; the army thus increased would have captured one of the weaker garrisoned towns, released and armed the concentrados held therein, then, thus still further strengthened, attacked and taken the next, and so on, ending with Santiago and Havana.
A few months ago administration papers published with evident glee a dispatch to the effect that the Spaniards in Cuba, "to a man," would vote for annexation. It is not surprising that Spaniards feel very kindly toward our government, but the feelings of the native Cubans must be somewhat mixed. In the early part of 1898, a correspondent of the Repository, whose letters are always meaty and whose acquaintance with the administration was exceptional, mentioned, as a fact bearing on the non-recognition of the Cuban republic, that capitalists had not joined the insurgents, who were mostly employes and professional men, and therefore their government could not be a stable one.
Judging from some of his acts and expressions since that, I suspect that this courageous and warm blooded correspondent did not endorse the views he reported. He deserves a hearty greeting when he comes to Canton after his long absence.
Review in your minds all these facts and see if you can still exclaim, "Mr. McKinley has made no mistakes!" If not, then you are ready to look into the Philippine question.
Not being an athlete, I didn't flop. Then those who had flopped so suddenly as to forget all about it, called me a "jingo," although the policy they themselves had advocated before the flop would probably have made war unnecessary on our part. Besides, it would have probably saved most of the poor concentrados.
As we have seen, the first report of this starving came in May, '97, and that the concentration was not complete until about eight months after Mr. McKinley's inauguration. So that if recognition had come early in the new administration, as Republicans expected, it would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Pacificos would have become insurgent soldiers; the army thus increased would have captured one of the weaker garrisoned towns, released and armed the concentrados held therein, then, thus still further strengthened, attacked and taken the next, and so on, ending with Santiago and Havana.
A few months ago administration papers published with evident glee a dispatch to the effect that the Spaniards in Cuba, "to a man," would vote for annexation. It is not surprising that Spaniards feel very kindly toward our government, but the feelings of the native Cubans must be somewhat mixed. In the early part of 1898, a correspondent of the Repository, whose letters are always meaty and whose acquaintance with the administration was exceptional, mentioned, as a fact bearing on the non-recognition of the Cuban republic, that capitalists had not joined the insurgents, who were mostly employes and professional men, and therefore their government could not be a stable one.
Judging from some of his acts and expressions since that, I suspect that this courageous and warm blooded correspondent did not endorse the views he reported. He deserves a hearty greeting when he comes to Canton after his long absence.
Review in your minds all these facts and see if you can still exclaim, "Mr. McKinley has made no mistakes!" If not, then you are ready to look into the Philippine question.
audio---images---comment---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
This is one of a series of documents that I have uploaded about Papa Charles's involvement in politics.
You can find the whole list in:
2.
Here's a very basic timeline of the events that prompted Papa Charles's speech (with help from Wikipedia):
3.
In a dignified, scholarly address, at the assembly room in the city hall Thursday evening, Prof. Charles F. Stokey explained to his neighbors and friends his reasons for the faith that is in him and his purpose in departing from the political party with which he has been associated for so many years.
This is the speech that Papa Charles was talking about giving in the article about him a few days earlier:This article was in the October 31, 1899 edition of the Stark County Democrat. That was a Tuesday, so Papa Charles must have given the speech on Thursday, October 26, 1899.
4.
When it was announced that, in order to let his friends and neighbors know just where he stood and why he was going to give an address in the assembly room the people got ready to attend and at 8 o'clock there was not even standing room. The hall was packed and many could not gain admittance and were forced to go home without hearing the scholarly address of the speaker of the evening.
Wow!
5.
After Mr. Stokey had concluded his address for the evening the crowed called for Attorney James Sterling, who made a brief address, pointing out the crime that is being committed in the name of "benevolent assimilation" in the Orient.
James Sterling was one of the defense attorneys in the trial of Annie George for the murder of President McKinley's brother-in-law, in which Papa Charles testified about the weather:
6.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a man to dissolve, for the nonce, the bands which have connected him with a political party, in order to vote, on the supreme issue, in the next coming election, according to the dictates of his consience guided by the laws of nature and of nature's God, a decent respect for the opinions of his old friends, requires that he should declare the causes which impel him to the temporary separation.
Here is the section of the Declaration of Independence that Papa Charles adapted for his speech:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
7.
Now, I would not say to President McKinley what a witty husband said to his scolding wife: "With all thy faults I love thee still -- the stiller the better." I would omit the latter part, for I want him to speak more, I want him to say to General Otis, that he has made a mistake. I know this last sentence is ambiguous; but I will let him parse the "he."
Here's Wikipedia on General Otis:
Elwell Stephen Otis (March 25, 1838 – October 21, 1909) was a United States Army general who served in the American Civil War, Indian Wars, the Philippines late in the Spanish–American War and during the Philippine–American War.
8.
A little lawyer seeks for technicalities to support a wrong; but a great lawyer, like Judge Story, says: "Show me the right, and I will find the law to fit it."
Hmm, didn't that kind of thinking get us the reversal of Roe v Wade?
9.
To justify his recognition of some revolted Spanish-American colonies, President Monroe enunciated a principle just broad enough to cover the case in hand.
I'm figuring that if you're going to the trouble of reading this speech, then you're willing to learn about the Monroe doctrine. The basic idea is that the US told Europe that European countries were no longer allowed to meddle in affairs in the America. Here's Wikipedia on the subject:
The full document of the Monroe Doctrine, written chiefly by future-President and then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, is long and couched in diplomatic language, but its essence is expressed in two key passages. The first is the introductory statement, which asserts that the New World is no longer subject to colonization by the European countries:
The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.
The second key passage, which contains a fuller statement of the Doctrine, is addressed to the "allied powers" of Europe; it clarifies that the U.S. remains neutral on existing European colonies in the Americas but is opposed to "interpositions" that would create new colonies among the newly independent Spanish American republics:
We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare 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. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.
10.
In 1825 George Canning, now regarded as one of the greatest of English statesmen, recognized the belligerency of the Greeks who had revolted against Turkish rule.
a) For George Canning, Wikipedia says:
George Canning FRS (11 April 1770 – 8 August 1827) was a British Tory statesman. He held various senior cabinet positions under numerous prime ministers, including two important terms as foreign secretary, finally becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for the last 119 days of his life, from April to August 1827.
He died of tuberculosis.
b) About the Greeks, Wikipedia says:
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829.
c) About belligerency, not to be confused with belligerence, Merriam-Webster gives the following definition:
the status whereby a recognized military force is granted the protection of the international laws of war
11.
On the 6th of May, 1861, when the Confederate States of America had not yet given to the British government any official evidence of war, and when this "power or community" had not a ship at sea and scarcely an army on land, before it had fought a battle, for the attack and capture of an isolated and neglected garrison in time of peace is not a battle -- Lord John Russell, her Majesty's chief Secretary of State, in a speech in the House of Commons, quoted this declaration of George Canning's as his sole and sufficient justification of the action that he and his colleagues had decided upon, namely: The recognition of what they called officially the "Southern Confederacy of America."
Golly what a long sentence. What I'm focusing on is:
before it had fought a battle, for the attack and capture of an isolated and neglected garrison in time of peace is not a battle
I assume that the isolated and neglected garrison that Papa Charles is talking about Fort Sumter, about which Wikipedia says:
The Battle of Fort Sumter (also the Attack on Fort Sumter or the Fall of Fort Sumter) (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina, by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender of the fort by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War.
Papa Charles was 16 years old at the time.
12.
Some may think that the Alabama Claims decision annulled Canning's humane principle, but it did not. The award against Great Britain was because she had violated the law of nutrality.
The Alabama Claims decision: Wikipedia says:
The Alabama Claims were a series of demands for damages sought by the government of the United States from the United Kingdom in 1869, for the attacks upon Union merchant ships by Confederate Navy commerce raiders built in British shipyards during the American Civil War. The claims focused chiefly on the most famous of these raiders, the CSS Alabama, which took more than sixty prizes before she was sunk off the French coast in 1864.
So: the British built ships for the Confederacy, and the US government was not pleased. Of course, having read this, I had to go find on YouTube the song "Roll, Alabama, Roll" one of my favorite Civil War songs.
13.
From the foregoing it will be seen that our senator from Ohio was really unreasonable when he said he had "No patience" with president McKinley's "Neutral intervention" message, of April 11, 1898.
The senator from Ohio was Senator Joseph B. Foraker. Wikipedia says:
Joseph Benson Foraker (July 5, 1846 – May 10, 1917) was an American politician of the Republican Party who served as the 37th governor of Ohio from 1886 to 1890 and as a United States senator from Ohio from 1897 until 1909.
Also:
Foraker was impatient with McKinley's policy towards Spain, decrying the President's State of the Union communication to Congress in December 1897 and his so-called "war message", which some deemed insufficiently bellicose, in April 1898. The senator stated to a reporter of the latter, "I have no patience with the message and you may say so. I have heard nothing but condemnation of the message on all hands."
McKinley's "war message" was a request for declaration of war, which Congress granted. So Senator Foraker thought that the request for a declaration of war wasn't warlike enough.
14.
The Virginius outraged in 1873, when fifty-one American sailors, in violation of law and treaty obligations, condemned to be shot to death did stir us up a little, but, very much against President Grant's inclination, the matter was soon dropped.
Here's Wikipedia on the Virginius Affair:
The Virginius Affair was a diplomatic dispute that occurred from October 1873 to February 1875 between the United States, Great Britain, and Spain (then in control of Cuba) during the Ten Years' War. Virginius was a fast American ship hired by Cuban insurrectionists to land men and munitions in Cuba to attack the Spanish regime there. It was captured by the Spanish, who wanted to try the men onboard (many of whom were American and British citizens) as pirates and execute them. The Spanish executed 53 men but stopped when the British government intervened.
15.
Nevertheless, about two years later President Grant prepared a short message recognizing the Cuban insurgents.
The "Business Interests" of New York heard what was proposed and were alarmed; they hastened to bring through their representative in the cabinet, the secretary of state, pressure to bear upon the president to kill the proposition.
The secretary of state was Hamilton Fish. Wikipedia says:
Hamilton Fish (August 3, 1808 – September 7, 1893) was an American politician and statesman who served as the 16th governor of New York from 1849 to 1850, a United States senator from New York from 1851 to 1857, and the 26th U.S. secretary of state from 1869 to 1877. Fish was the most trusted advisor to President Ulysses S. Grant and recognized as the pillar of Grant's presidency. He is considered one of the nation's most effective U.S. secretaries of state by scholars, known for his judiciousness and efforts towards reform and diplomatic moderation. He settled the controversial Alabama Claims with the United Kingdom, developing the concept of international arbitration and avoided war with Spain over Cuban independence by coolly handling the volatile Virginius incident. He also organized a peace conference and treaty between South American countries and Spain. In 1875, Fish negotiated a reciprocal trade treaty for sugar production with the Kingdom of Hawai'i, initiating the process which ended in the 1893 overthrow of the House of Kalākaua and statehood.
So Mr. Fish was involved with the Alabama Claims decision mentioned above, and with the Virginius Affair, also mentioned above. I included the bit about Hawai'i in the quote as an indicator that Mr. Fish was, as Papa Charles says, friendly to the "Business Interests" of New York.
16.
The grand-son of this secretary of state, a brave and noble young man, was the first of the Rough Riders to be killed in Cuba. Do you think this was "in the providence of God? If not, read the argument in the first of the Ten Commandments, before you sleep again.
A quick google didn't get me the name of the grandson. The first officer to be killed of the Rough Riders was Captain Allyn Kissam Capron, but his parents were Agnes Kissam and Allyn Capron, so I think Mr. Fish's grandson must not have been an officer.
17.
In May, '95, a Spanish general with a large army had been defeated by Maceo; on the 23 of December, '95, the Spanish Captain General, the brave Campos, with a still larger army, had been routed by Gomez and driven in panic back to Havana.
I can't find the Spanish general.
Maceo: Wikipedia says:
Lt. General José Antonio de la Caridad Maceo y Grajales (June 14, 1845 – December 7, 1896) was a Cuban general and second-in-command of the Cuban Army of Independence.
He was killed in the Cuban War of Independence.
Campos: Wikipedia says:
Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón, born Martínez y Campos (14 December 1831 – 23 September 1900), was a Spanish officer who rose against the First Spanish Republic in a military revolution in 1874 and restored Spain's Bourbon dynasty. Later, he became Captain-General of Cuba.
Apparently his death was not a result of war.
18.
Campos was recalled; he was too brave. A butcher, Weyler, who had won that title by his bloody work in '78, after the insurgents had surrendered was sent to employ a cheaper plan for ending the insurrection.
Weyler: Wikipedia says:
Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, 1st Duke of Rubí, 1st Marquess of Tenerife (17 September 1838 – 20 October 1930) was a Spanish general and colonial administrator who served as the Governor-General of the Philippines and Cuba, and later as Spanish Minister for War.
19.
About four months before McKinley's inauguration, Weyler issued the first of a series of proclamations for wholesale concentration, ordering all the inhabitants of farms, country districts, villages and towns not under Spanish garrisons, to abandon their homes and concentrate in the nearest fortified towns held by Spanish garrisons.
McKinley was inaugurated March 4, 1897, so that puts Weyler's first proclamation at around the beginning of November 1897. Wikipedia says:
By the end of 1897, General Weyler had divided the long island of Cuba into different sectors and forced more than 300,000 men, women and children into areas nearby cities. By emptying the land of a sympathetic population, and then burning crops, preventing their replanting, and driving away livestock, the Spanish military made the countryside inhospitable to the insurgents.
20.
Then, about four-sevenths of the native population having been thus penned up to die by slow starvation, and Weyler's work being so far advanced that another could easily see it finished, the blunt butcher was recalled, and Blanco, the bland hypocrite, was sent to watch Weyler's machine finish its work.
Wikipedia says:
Weyler's strategy was successful only in alienating the Cuban populace from Spain completely, as well as galvanizing global opinion against Spain. When Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was assassinated in June 1897 and a new Liberal ministry took over, Weyler was recalled from Cuba and replaced by the more conciliatory General Ramón Blanco y Erenas.
"Bland hypocrite" is Papa Charles's version of "more conciliatory", I guess. As for Blanco himself, Wikipedia says:
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (8 February 1828 – 8 August 1897) was a Spanish politician and historian known principally for serving six terms as prime minister and his overarching role as "architect" of the regime that ensued with the 1874 restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. He was assassinated by Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo.
21.
The Dingley bill, a very good measure, was the only thing discussed.
Wikipedia says:
The Dingley Act of 1897 (ch. 11, 30 Stat. 151, July 24, 1897), introduced by U.S. Representative Nelson Dingley Jr., of Maine, raised tariffs in United States to counteract the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act of 1894, which had lowered rates. The bill came into effect under William McKinley the first year that he was in office. The McKinley administration wanted slowly to bring back the protectionism that was proposed by the Tariff of 1890.
So Papa Charles supported the tariff. Oh, well.
22.
The "yellow journals," as they were called by the gold bugs --- strange as that may seem -- had had enough of genuine American enterprise and sympathy to send brave correspondents to report the increasing rate of starvation.
Here's Wikipedia on yellow journalism:
In journalism, yellow journalism and the yellow press are American newspapers that use eye-catching headlines and sensationalized exaggerations for increased sales.
And later:
The term "yellow journalism" originated from the innovative popular "Yellow Kid" comic strip that was published first in the World and later in the Journal.
And here's the Wikipedia explanation of gold bugs:
The Populist Party had a strong free-silver element. Its subsequent combination with the Democratic Party moved the latter from the support of the gold standard which had been the hallmark of the Cleveland administration to the free-silver position epitomized by 1896 presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan in his Cross of Gold speech. Bryan's 1896 candidacy was supported by Populists and "silver Republicans" as well as by most Democrats.
The issue was over what would back the US currency. The two options were gold (wanted by the "Goldbugs" and William McKinley) and silver (wanted by the Silverites and Bryan). Unbacked paper (wanted by the Greenbacks) represented a third option
So the yellow in "yellow journals" and the gold in "gold bugs" had nothing to do with each other.
23.
Notwithstanding all the denials, Senator Sherman, chairman of the committee having charge of such matters, that on foreign relations, told the truth when in a speech that reveals a head clearer and a heart warmer than those of a younger and more affable man, he said in the Senate, February 28, 1896, that the State Department had the evidence that the Cuban insurgents had a civil government, performing the functions of a civil government.
Senator Sherman: Wikipedia says:
John Sherman (May 10, 1823 – October 22, 1900) was an American politician from Ohio who served in federal office throughout the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century.
He was a brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman, and the principal author of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
24.
Senator Foraker, a member of the same committee, told the truth when in April, '98, he said the same thing.
I gave details on Senator Foraker in a previous note.
25.
Not being an athlete, I didn't flop. Then those who had flopped so suddenly as to forget all about it, called me a "jingo," although the policy they themselves had advocated before the flop would probably have made war unnecessary on our part.
On "jingo", Wikipedia says:
Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests.
I guess that the idea was that Papa Charles was advocating military intervention in Cuba, which made him a jingo, but I haven't really followed it through.
26.
Review in your minds all these facts and see if you can still exclaim, "Mr. McKinley has made no mistakes!" If not, then you are ready to look into the Philippine question.
A cliffhanger. Someday maybe I'll find Papa Charles's speech on the Philippine question, if he ever gave one.
This is one of a series of documents that I have uploaded about Papa Charles's involvement in politics.
- The previous document in the series is: 1899-10-27 NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT PAPA CHARLES
- The next document in the series is: (There is no next document. This the last in the series.)
You can find the whole list in:
2.
Here's a very basic timeline of the events that prompted Papa Charles's speech (with help from Wikipedia):
- October 10, 1868 to May 28, 1878: The Ten Years' War: Cuba fights for liberation from Spain, and loses.
- August 25, 1879 to December 3, 1880: The Little War: Cuba again fights for liberation from Spain, and loses.
- February 24, 1895 to December 10, 1898: The Cuban War of Independence: Cuba again fights for liberation from Spain, and wins.
- April 21 to December 10, 1898: The Spanish American War. The US acquires Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain.
3.
In a dignified, scholarly address, at the assembly room in the city hall Thursday evening, Prof. Charles F. Stokey explained to his neighbors and friends his reasons for the faith that is in him and his purpose in departing from the political party with which he has been associated for so many years.
This is the speech that Papa Charles was talking about giving in the article about him a few days earlier:This article was in the October 31, 1899 edition of the Stark County Democrat. That was a Tuesday, so Papa Charles must have given the speech on Thursday, October 26, 1899.
4.
When it was announced that, in order to let his friends and neighbors know just where he stood and why he was going to give an address in the assembly room the people got ready to attend and at 8 o'clock there was not even standing room. The hall was packed and many could not gain admittance and were forced to go home without hearing the scholarly address of the speaker of the evening.
Wow!
5.
After Mr. Stokey had concluded his address for the evening the crowed called for Attorney James Sterling, who made a brief address, pointing out the crime that is being committed in the name of "benevolent assimilation" in the Orient.
James Sterling was one of the defense attorneys in the trial of Annie George for the murder of President McKinley's brother-in-law, in which Papa Charles testified about the weather:
6.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a man to dissolve, for the nonce, the bands which have connected him with a political party, in order to vote, on the supreme issue, in the next coming election, according to the dictates of his consience guided by the laws of nature and of nature's God, a decent respect for the opinions of his old friends, requires that he should declare the causes which impel him to the temporary separation.
Here is the section of the Declaration of Independence that Papa Charles adapted for his speech:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
7.
Now, I would not say to President McKinley what a witty husband said to his scolding wife: "With all thy faults I love thee still -- the stiller the better." I would omit the latter part, for I want him to speak more, I want him to say to General Otis, that he has made a mistake. I know this last sentence is ambiguous; but I will let him parse the "he."
Here's Wikipedia on General Otis:
Elwell Stephen Otis (March 25, 1838 – October 21, 1909) was a United States Army general who served in the American Civil War, Indian Wars, the Philippines late in the Spanish–American War and during the Philippine–American War.
8.
A little lawyer seeks for technicalities to support a wrong; but a great lawyer, like Judge Story, says: "Show me the right, and I will find the law to fit it."
Hmm, didn't that kind of thinking get us the reversal of Roe v Wade?
9.
To justify his recognition of some revolted Spanish-American colonies, President Monroe enunciated a principle just broad enough to cover the case in hand.
I'm figuring that if you're going to the trouble of reading this speech, then you're willing to learn about the Monroe doctrine. The basic idea is that the US told Europe that European countries were no longer allowed to meddle in affairs in the America. Here's Wikipedia on the subject:
The full document of the Monroe Doctrine, written chiefly by future-President and then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, is long and couched in diplomatic language, but its essence is expressed in two key passages. The first is the introductory statement, which asserts that the New World is no longer subject to colonization by the European countries:
The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.
The second key passage, which contains a fuller statement of the Doctrine, is addressed to the "allied powers" of Europe; it clarifies that the U.S. remains neutral on existing European colonies in the Americas but is opposed to "interpositions" that would create new colonies among the newly independent Spanish American republics:
We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare 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. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.
10.
In 1825 George Canning, now regarded as one of the greatest of English statesmen, recognized the belligerency of the Greeks who had revolted against Turkish rule.
a) For George Canning, Wikipedia says:
George Canning FRS (11 April 1770 – 8 August 1827) was a British Tory statesman. He held various senior cabinet positions under numerous prime ministers, including two important terms as foreign secretary, finally becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for the last 119 days of his life, from April to August 1827.
He died of tuberculosis.
b) About the Greeks, Wikipedia says:
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829.
c) About belligerency, not to be confused with belligerence, Merriam-Webster gives the following definition:
the status whereby a recognized military force is granted the protection of the international laws of war
11.
On the 6th of May, 1861, when the Confederate States of America had not yet given to the British government any official evidence of war, and when this "power or community" had not a ship at sea and scarcely an army on land, before it had fought a battle, for the attack and capture of an isolated and neglected garrison in time of peace is not a battle -- Lord John Russell, her Majesty's chief Secretary of State, in a speech in the House of Commons, quoted this declaration of George Canning's as his sole and sufficient justification of the action that he and his colleagues had decided upon, namely: The recognition of what they called officially the "Southern Confederacy of America."
Golly what a long sentence. What I'm focusing on is:
before it had fought a battle, for the attack and capture of an isolated and neglected garrison in time of peace is not a battle
I assume that the isolated and neglected garrison that Papa Charles is talking about Fort Sumter, about which Wikipedia says:
The Battle of Fort Sumter (also the Attack on Fort Sumter or the Fall of Fort Sumter) (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina, by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender of the fort by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War.
Papa Charles was 16 years old at the time.
12.
Some may think that the Alabama Claims decision annulled Canning's humane principle, but it did not. The award against Great Britain was because she had violated the law of nutrality.
The Alabama Claims decision: Wikipedia says:
The Alabama Claims were a series of demands for damages sought by the government of the United States from the United Kingdom in 1869, for the attacks upon Union merchant ships by Confederate Navy commerce raiders built in British shipyards during the American Civil War. The claims focused chiefly on the most famous of these raiders, the CSS Alabama, which took more than sixty prizes before she was sunk off the French coast in 1864.
So: the British built ships for the Confederacy, and the US government was not pleased. Of course, having read this, I had to go find on YouTube the song "Roll, Alabama, Roll" one of my favorite Civil War songs.
13.
From the foregoing it will be seen that our senator from Ohio was really unreasonable when he said he had "No patience" with president McKinley's "Neutral intervention" message, of April 11, 1898.
The senator from Ohio was Senator Joseph B. Foraker. Wikipedia says:
Joseph Benson Foraker (July 5, 1846 – May 10, 1917) was an American politician of the Republican Party who served as the 37th governor of Ohio from 1886 to 1890 and as a United States senator from Ohio from 1897 until 1909.
Also:
Foraker was impatient with McKinley's policy towards Spain, decrying the President's State of the Union communication to Congress in December 1897 and his so-called "war message", which some deemed insufficiently bellicose, in April 1898. The senator stated to a reporter of the latter, "I have no patience with the message and you may say so. I have heard nothing but condemnation of the message on all hands."
McKinley's "war message" was a request for declaration of war, which Congress granted. So Senator Foraker thought that the request for a declaration of war wasn't warlike enough.
14.
The Virginius outraged in 1873, when fifty-one American sailors, in violation of law and treaty obligations, condemned to be shot to death did stir us up a little, but, very much against President Grant's inclination, the matter was soon dropped.
Here's Wikipedia on the Virginius Affair:
The Virginius Affair was a diplomatic dispute that occurred from October 1873 to February 1875 between the United States, Great Britain, and Spain (then in control of Cuba) during the Ten Years' War. Virginius was a fast American ship hired by Cuban insurrectionists to land men and munitions in Cuba to attack the Spanish regime there. It was captured by the Spanish, who wanted to try the men onboard (many of whom were American and British citizens) as pirates and execute them. The Spanish executed 53 men but stopped when the British government intervened.
15.
Nevertheless, about two years later President Grant prepared a short message recognizing the Cuban insurgents.
The "Business Interests" of New York heard what was proposed and were alarmed; they hastened to bring through their representative in the cabinet, the secretary of state, pressure to bear upon the president to kill the proposition.
The secretary of state was Hamilton Fish. Wikipedia says:
Hamilton Fish (August 3, 1808 – September 7, 1893) was an American politician and statesman who served as the 16th governor of New York from 1849 to 1850, a United States senator from New York from 1851 to 1857, and the 26th U.S. secretary of state from 1869 to 1877. Fish was the most trusted advisor to President Ulysses S. Grant and recognized as the pillar of Grant's presidency. He is considered one of the nation's most effective U.S. secretaries of state by scholars, known for his judiciousness and efforts towards reform and diplomatic moderation. He settled the controversial Alabama Claims with the United Kingdom, developing the concept of international arbitration and avoided war with Spain over Cuban independence by coolly handling the volatile Virginius incident. He also organized a peace conference and treaty between South American countries and Spain. In 1875, Fish negotiated a reciprocal trade treaty for sugar production with the Kingdom of Hawai'i, initiating the process which ended in the 1893 overthrow of the House of Kalākaua and statehood.
So Mr. Fish was involved with the Alabama Claims decision mentioned above, and with the Virginius Affair, also mentioned above. I included the bit about Hawai'i in the quote as an indicator that Mr. Fish was, as Papa Charles says, friendly to the "Business Interests" of New York.
16.
The grand-son of this secretary of state, a brave and noble young man, was the first of the Rough Riders to be killed in Cuba. Do you think this was "in the providence of God? If not, read the argument in the first of the Ten Commandments, before you sleep again.
A quick google didn't get me the name of the grandson. The first officer to be killed of the Rough Riders was Captain Allyn Kissam Capron, but his parents were Agnes Kissam and Allyn Capron, so I think Mr. Fish's grandson must not have been an officer.
17.
In May, '95, a Spanish general with a large army had been defeated by Maceo; on the 23 of December, '95, the Spanish Captain General, the brave Campos, with a still larger army, had been routed by Gomez and driven in panic back to Havana.
I can't find the Spanish general.
Maceo: Wikipedia says:
Lt. General José Antonio de la Caridad Maceo y Grajales (June 14, 1845 – December 7, 1896) was a Cuban general and second-in-command of the Cuban Army of Independence.
He was killed in the Cuban War of Independence.
Campos: Wikipedia says:
Arsenio Martínez-Campos y Antón, born Martínez y Campos (14 December 1831 – 23 September 1900), was a Spanish officer who rose against the First Spanish Republic in a military revolution in 1874 and restored Spain's Bourbon dynasty. Later, he became Captain-General of Cuba.
Apparently his death was not a result of war.
18.
Campos was recalled; he was too brave. A butcher, Weyler, who had won that title by his bloody work in '78, after the insurgents had surrendered was sent to employ a cheaper plan for ending the insurrection.
Weyler: Wikipedia says:
Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, 1st Duke of Rubí, 1st Marquess of Tenerife (17 September 1838 – 20 October 1930) was a Spanish general and colonial administrator who served as the Governor-General of the Philippines and Cuba, and later as Spanish Minister for War.
19.
About four months before McKinley's inauguration, Weyler issued the first of a series of proclamations for wholesale concentration, ordering all the inhabitants of farms, country districts, villages and towns not under Spanish garrisons, to abandon their homes and concentrate in the nearest fortified towns held by Spanish garrisons.
McKinley was inaugurated March 4, 1897, so that puts Weyler's first proclamation at around the beginning of November 1897. Wikipedia says:
By the end of 1897, General Weyler had divided the long island of Cuba into different sectors and forced more than 300,000 men, women and children into areas nearby cities. By emptying the land of a sympathetic population, and then burning crops, preventing their replanting, and driving away livestock, the Spanish military made the countryside inhospitable to the insurgents.
20.
Then, about four-sevenths of the native population having been thus penned up to die by slow starvation, and Weyler's work being so far advanced that another could easily see it finished, the blunt butcher was recalled, and Blanco, the bland hypocrite, was sent to watch Weyler's machine finish its work.
Wikipedia says:
Weyler's strategy was successful only in alienating the Cuban populace from Spain completely, as well as galvanizing global opinion against Spain. When Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was assassinated in June 1897 and a new Liberal ministry took over, Weyler was recalled from Cuba and replaced by the more conciliatory General Ramón Blanco y Erenas.
"Bland hypocrite" is Papa Charles's version of "more conciliatory", I guess. As for Blanco himself, Wikipedia says:
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (8 February 1828 – 8 August 1897) was a Spanish politician and historian known principally for serving six terms as prime minister and his overarching role as "architect" of the regime that ensued with the 1874 restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. He was assassinated by Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo.
21.
The Dingley bill, a very good measure, was the only thing discussed.
Wikipedia says:
The Dingley Act of 1897 (ch. 11, 30 Stat. 151, July 24, 1897), introduced by U.S. Representative Nelson Dingley Jr., of Maine, raised tariffs in United States to counteract the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act of 1894, which had lowered rates. The bill came into effect under William McKinley the first year that he was in office. The McKinley administration wanted slowly to bring back the protectionism that was proposed by the Tariff of 1890.
So Papa Charles supported the tariff. Oh, well.
22.
The "yellow journals," as they were called by the gold bugs --- strange as that may seem -- had had enough of genuine American enterprise and sympathy to send brave correspondents to report the increasing rate of starvation.
Here's Wikipedia on yellow journalism:
In journalism, yellow journalism and the yellow press are American newspapers that use eye-catching headlines and sensationalized exaggerations for increased sales.
And later:
The term "yellow journalism" originated from the innovative popular "Yellow Kid" comic strip that was published first in the World and later in the Journal.
And here's the Wikipedia explanation of gold bugs:
The Populist Party had a strong free-silver element. Its subsequent combination with the Democratic Party moved the latter from the support of the gold standard which had been the hallmark of the Cleveland administration to the free-silver position epitomized by 1896 presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan in his Cross of Gold speech. Bryan's 1896 candidacy was supported by Populists and "silver Republicans" as well as by most Democrats.
The issue was over what would back the US currency. The two options were gold (wanted by the "Goldbugs" and William McKinley) and silver (wanted by the Silverites and Bryan). Unbacked paper (wanted by the Greenbacks) represented a third option
So the yellow in "yellow journals" and the gold in "gold bugs" had nothing to do with each other.
23.
Notwithstanding all the denials, Senator Sherman, chairman of the committee having charge of such matters, that on foreign relations, told the truth when in a speech that reveals a head clearer and a heart warmer than those of a younger and more affable man, he said in the Senate, February 28, 1896, that the State Department had the evidence that the Cuban insurgents had a civil government, performing the functions of a civil government.
Senator Sherman: Wikipedia says:
John Sherman (May 10, 1823 – October 22, 1900) was an American politician from Ohio who served in federal office throughout the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century.
He was a brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman, and the principal author of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
24.
Senator Foraker, a member of the same committee, told the truth when in April, '98, he said the same thing.
I gave details on Senator Foraker in a previous note.
25.
Not being an athlete, I didn't flop. Then those who had flopped so suddenly as to forget all about it, called me a "jingo," although the policy they themselves had advocated before the flop would probably have made war unnecessary on our part.
On "jingo", Wikipedia says:
Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests.
I guess that the idea was that Papa Charles was advocating military intervention in Cuba, which made him a jingo, but I haven't really followed it through.
26.
Review in your minds all these facts and see if you can still exclaim, "Mr. McKinley has made no mistakes!" If not, then you are ready to look into the Philippine question.
A cliffhanger. Someday maybe I'll find Papa Charles's speech on the Philippine question, if he ever gave one.
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