Show THE ABSORBING TOPIC TOM OT it to la rare in these days of heated assertion to hear a good word for the spanish cause in cuba all the misery all the destruction all the death is attributed tri buted to the spanish when the facts really are that directly or indirectly the insurgents or rebels are the cause of all the fact that they are rebels to is made to excite sympathy on their account for say we they are fighting for liberty for freedom for life Is in it not strange that rebellion against a constituted government existing over three hundred years should be tso lauded by a people who to put down rebellion in their own nation spent billions of treasure over a million lives and whose expenditures on that account today thirty or more years after the close thereof to is paying more than it costs several of the largest nations of europe for their standing arr armies nies liberty how many crimes have I 1 been committed in thy name said madam roland what liberty do the cubans want have the rebels issued a manifesto stating their grievances and promising what if successful they intend to give or have it is said that the great majority of the combatants while cubans by birth are negroes what means of liberty will the haughty spaniard give to them are they any more disposed to be dominated by an inferior race than are the chivalry of the southern states some ask if the course of the american people towards spain is or has been all it should be Is it true that with rare k exceptions the guerrillas are officered by americans as the press asserts some ask if from sympathy and expected benefits the officials of this country did not wink at the who by one vessel and another sent aid men money medici ribs and contraband of war which were successfully passed to the rebels for many weary months of warfare which was not war at all Is it not a fact that but for this covert aid this practical sympathy supremacy would have been determined and the rebellion quashed many moons ago should this method have obtained against a friendly power without vastly more diligence than was given to the condition Is it the right thing free country though this be that the acting plotting cuban junta should have had its headquarters in new york tork city and auxiliaries elsewhere without remonstrance and suppression by a so go called friendly power would there have been the feelings of estrangement that now exist between the two countries if justice had been done or will this nation be willing to have others go do as we would do by them would suspicion so intense have been created by the loss of the maine if this nation upon its honor could have said we are the friends of spain and hold tw that proud and once great power beyond the very breath of treachery during the war of the rebellion in this country had cuba been made the base of supplies for the confederacy and its pirate craft had run those supplies into southern ports while a junto junta in havana had directed movements and furnished the contraband of war what would the feelings of patriotic americans have been and would not both north and d south have burled buried their differences in the face of a common foe it is a serious question whether thu this nation can afford to foment reb rebellion eltion in a neighboring nation or island this 17 S is not so ao stable yet but tw that this chicken may come home to root there is an increasing restless element here which seeing aid and comfort given to rebels even in search of liberty which may conclude that re rebellion bellson war and blood to is the only way tor for so C curing rights thought to be inherent 4 the constitution 1 the inquirer to is without special ift terest in either the spanish or cuban cause but is in a lover of true liberty a believer in american far all who are fI 40 enjoy them nr own colored population freed by he e sword are yet in the experimental po go lotical stage and it is in said that instead of making progress under freedom they are retrograding year by year A devastated island the aueril guerilla spirit made chronic by habit and possibly py by climate and to is not the ext element to redeem from desolation the te gem of the antilles and make its population entitled to the position of high class power the islands of the pec aea A LOOKER ON |