OCR Text |
Show SIBLEY FOB EXPANSION 4 "Washington Feb. 1. Representative Joseph Sibley of Pennsylvania, who attained great prominence in the Fifty-fourth congress by his earnest championship of free silver, assailed his Democratic colleagues today for their opposition to expansion in a speech that made the floor and galleries roar. Mr. Sibley.iias recanted his views on free silver and is now generally out of line with his colleagues on the Democratic Demo-cratic side. He insisted today that expansion was an original Democratic doctrine promulgated by Jefferson, and adhered to by Madison, Jackson, Tyler, Polk and Buchanan. In eloquent language lan-guage he pictured the destiny of the United States carrying the arts of peace and the story or ui cross to tne remotest corners of the globe. In reply to Mr. Cochran's, taunt that civilization was being shot into the Philippines, Mr. Sibley said that the history of civilization had been traced in human blood. Wendall Phillips had said that every achievement of human justice had gone from rack to rack and scaffold to scaffold. - "Shall we hold Pourto Rico and the Philippine archipelago? asked Mr. Sibley. Sib-ley. "Every foot. No nation on earth , has a higher right of title to a rod of soil. We have double title of purchase and conquest and my belief is that when once the shadow of our banner has fallen, there will survive a race cf free men, and I would hold Cuba until Mtability, order, good government and the' protection of life and property were assured. "I am goine to echo tha president's query, 'Who will haul down the flag?' Who planted it there? What cabinet council, what warrior, what statetiman, what senator or representative, "what body of men formed any plan of conquest? con-quest? , ; "The cries of suffering humanity rang In our ears and we stopped our ears. The groans were heard, but we answered not. We saw them stripped and wounded on our way to Jerico and like the priest and the Levite we passed by on the other side. Not unheard those cries and groans at the throne of the Almighty who, to awaken us from apathy of almost criminal indifference, in-difference, permitted the engines of his wrath to hurl their thunderbolts under the bows of the Maine, lying peacefully at anchor in the Havana harbor. Nor keenest sighted statesman, nor most daring- warrior, had dreamed even of the possibility of great gain, growth or greatness to come to us as a nation from that war of which the blowing up of the Maine was the first declaration. declara-tion. "God and the valor of American arms gave us that territory not because we are a nation altogether free, altogether pure, altogether blameless but because working through him as an Instrumentality, Instru-mentality, he has given it to the boldest, bold-est, the freest, the most progressive, the most enlightened and the most Christian Chris-tian of all nations of the present age." Mr. Sibley said expansion had been favored and advocated by Jefferson, Jackson, Polk and Buchanan. " 'Only cowards oppose it,' Buchanan said, and he was the last Democratic president we have had." (Laughter.) "If this administration" he went on, "shall surrender, the Philippines the historian of the future, which extols Jefferson, Madison, Tyler, and Polk, will write down McKinley's action as the most pusillanimous in the record. But this administration will not surrender. sur-render. Its critics will be forgotten. Every advance to, higher and nobler forms of life has ien opposed by some old, conservative mossbacker, who prated of the good old days when his grandfather swung by hia tail in the forest primeval." Mr. Shafroth (Colo.), made a speech saying it was the duty of the United States to mediate between Great 'Britain 'Brit-ain and the Transvaal. He traced the history of the Transvaal Dutch from the migrations from Holland to show that England was invading the rights of the South African republic. He con-tended con-tended that England had practically abandoned her claim of suzerainty over the Transvaal in the convention of I 1884. The demands of Great Britain that the Transvaal should adopt naturalization laws for the benefit of the Outlanders, should adopt the English Eng-lish language as the official language and should not impose certain taxes upon the mines were outrageous. He concluded with the statement that no fair minded' man could examine the controversy without being convinced con-vinced that England was wrong and the Transvaal was right. His remarks were liberally applauded. |