The Friend Of Barbarism

[fit is had taste to Bpeak ill of the dead, fidelity to historie truth requires Mimi. the last words regardingthe foreign policy of tliis Administration should be spoken before il becomes defuuel on Thnrsday. Tlie recent disclosures in Consul-General Lee's dispatches to Secretary Olney, and the exposure of the secret barter with the Spanish Government by which Sanguily was made to confess himself guilty and to forfeit all claims against Spain for ialse imprisoumeot as liia soleineans of getting life and pardon, flnished the record of an administration which lias been darker with dishonor t han any other, at least for iiiaiiv years. Sanguily was known lo Secretary Olney to be an American citizen, not one of those recently naturalized for the purpose of gaiuing immunity in Cuba, Not a shadow of evidence thathe was guilty of any crime was before the Secretary, and lus imprisonment, so far as the Administration had any knowledge, was a wanton and barbarous outrage against an American citizen. Yet direct orders of the Administration he was made to confess Kuilt and forfeit all claims for redress. Consul Lee is the warm personal friend of President Cleveland. The locked doors of the State Department will soon open to Major McKinley the long suppressed reporta of Consul Lee ibuut the s ate of tbings in Cuba. II is diapatchea plainly indícate that there will be fastened upon the Administration the.gravesi of all crimes against American eitizenship, delibérate refasal to protect it wlien exposed to intolerable barbarity. Public policy may have forbidden the step which the Consul advised. Bot it (lid QOt hinder emphatic and urgent deinands which were never made. About Spanish barbarity, the fresh testimony of the correspondent of a Madrid paper is in order. Sent to Cuba by bis jom nal to learn the prospect of acceptance of reforma proposed, and having there seen both Weyler and Gomez in their campa, tliïs correspondent testiiies that Americana are right who cali Weyler "the butcber," and that every Spaniard is disgraced by the barbarisinjconstantly practised under Spanishjauthorify. Now this is the one Goyernnient of all others on earth which President Cleveland has labored most to befriend and to please. His duty to enforce the neutrality lawa must be fully recogni.ed. In doing all that the law requires, he was only performing that duty. Nor can level-headed Americaus flnd fault with bis refusal to recognize Cuban independence or belligerency. That is a question of fact, and unless the doors of the State Department hide matter not known to the country, he acted upon facts. But this Administration has gone much further. It bas made itself, in superserviceable excess of zeal, the pólice officer of Spain, has kept armed vessels perpetually on the watch where there was no proof but only Spanish fears that neutrality laws might be infringed, bas courted Spanish pride and sacrificed the rights of American citizens for the sake of the most barbarous power now called civilized. When it is remembered that this same quality of excessive and superserviceable zeal in bebalf of intolerable barbarisui characterized the conduct of this same Administration regarding Hawaii, and that it was not content to prevent annexatiou or to cause the American flag to be hauled down where it had been raised without adequate authority, but proceeded to conspire througb its chosen Minister month after month against the Government to which he was accredited, and continued to treat a deposed and intolerable barbarie ruler as a true Queen, and still gives her sutih treatment, quite enough has liepu said of the foreian policy of this Administration. lts conduct in other affairs was bullying beyond occasion toward Great Britain in the Venzuelan matter, although essentially rightful in purpose and fortúnate in result. In other matters it cannot be said that the Administration has been at any time prompt to defend American risrhts. But where it stands alone, and acts by itself, it lias chosen as its peculiar objeets of unwarranted favor the tvrants of Cuba and Ilawaii.-