COLOMBIA. 



r. lii. -in" into ignorance: and they accuse the 

 vea of having made a compact with 



the I'ope. not only to pay annually $100.000 in 

 gold to the Vatican, but to submit the legislation, 

 iuriMmulenee. and administration of the country 

 to the direction of the clergy. and to hand over to 

 the Jesuit- all instruction of the young, ihe 

 Minister of War has suppressed all private teacli- 

 in. and anv teacher or professor who is de- 

 nounced bv a pricM is removed. The free univer- 

 sitv ha* bcrii handed over to the Jesuits, and 

 large subventions are paid to their other colleges. 

 Tin- cemeteries have been given up to the Church, 

 and reereant Catholics as well as non-Catholics, 

 native or foreign, ean not be buried in them or 

 even oul-ide of them in places to which the priests 

 ohjiftcd. The Conservatives not only abolished 

 <ivil marriage. but annulled all the marriages that 

 had been contracted civilly or by any religious 

 rite rvcpt that of the Catholic Church during 

 twenty years. The Masonic order has been sup- 

 pre <-d." Tin- rights of free assemblage and of .free 

 .-.jMivh are suspended, and freedom of the press 

 ran only l>e exeicised subject to the penalty of im- 

 prisonment or banishment or to the suppression of 

 an offending newspaper, which the minister can 

 order at any time. Opponents of the Government 

 have under* military law been imprisoned, exiled, 

 and even slain by soldiers acting under the verbal 

 orders of the President or his subordinate officials. 

 .Secret-service agents are supported for the pur- 

 pose of watching the Liberals, who complain 

 that their private letters are frequently opened in 

 the post-office. The Liberals are opposed not only 

 to the clericalism of the dominant party, but also 

 to the centralized Government that was estab- 

 lished by the Constitution of Aug. 4, 1886, which 

 abolished the sovereignty of the nine states, which 

 became departments administered by governors 

 appointed by the President, although still retain- 

 ing the management of their own finances and cer- 

 tain other state rights. The Liberals of the neigh- 

 boring republics are likewise devoted to the prin- 

 ciples of federalism and secularism, and therefore 

 are in thorough sympathy with the Colombian 

 Liberals. All three republics formed, for a brief pe- 

 riod after gaining their independence from Spain, 

 a single state that was known as Great Colombia. 

 Their population is homogeneous, and political 

 rivalries or jealousy have not disturbed their good 

 relations, boundary disputes, as they have arisen 

 from time to time, having been settled by arbitra- 

 tion. Of each of them the political history has 

 consisted of a long struggle to uproot the clerical 

 rule that is a heritage from Spanish dominion. 

 As a result of clerical rule in Colombia for fifteen 

 while public works have been neglected and 

 the public credit ruined, friars and nuns swarm 

 everywhere and live on the fat of the land. The 

 religious orders have gained the upper hand, and 

 what they have accomplishd in Colombia they 

 hone to in Venezuela and Ecuador. Hence the 

 ^iberals of those republics wre impelled to take 

 an active part in the revolutionary uprising in 

 Colombia. 



In the summer of 1901 Gen. Uribe Uribe arrived 



the I nited States to take the lead of a 



fresh insurrection against the Government. Revo- 



lutionists gathered early in July at Code, and in 



sequence the Government sent troops to hold 



Hocas del Toro, where martial law was pro- 



A enezuelans and Colombians marched 



across the frontier, and between La Hac.ha and 



Cruajira.\ enezuelan gunboats commanded bv Gen 



Ju-heverna. who was a Colombian by birth hov- 



the coast. On July 18 the GoVernment an- 



nounced that it would suspend payments on ac- 



count of war materials it had purchased in order 

 to be able to pay the armed force and civil offi- 

 cials, and would expropriate whatever was neces- 

 sary for feeding, equipping, and transporting the 

 army, and levy forced loans or impose war con- 

 tributions in the departments without resorting 

 to national funds. The governors were authorized 

 to proceed in the matter without requiring the ap- 

 proval of the Government, and each governor was 

 held responsible for the suppression of rebellion 

 in his department. A force said to number 6,000 

 crossed the frontier on July 29 into Venezuela, 

 and was repelled by 10,000 Venezuelans and Co- 

 lombians assembled there after a fight that lasted 

 all day and part of the next. A few days later 

 another Colombian force, 2,000 strong, crossed the 

 frontier under the command of the Minister of 

 War. Colombian rebels attacked Government 

 troops on the isthmian railroad near Colon, but 

 were driven off. The American yacht Namouna, 

 which the Colombian Government had bought to 

 convert into a war vessel, and renamed the Gen- 

 eral Pinzon, arrived at Colon, and was equipped 

 with guns. Gen. Castro denied that a state of 

 war existed between Venezuela and Colombia, de- 

 claring that the two invasions were the work 

 of the Conservative Government of Colombia 

 against the majesty of the nation of Venezuela, 

 not an international attack by the people of Co- 

 lombia against the people of Venezuela. A sec- 

 tion of the Colombians., he said, had attacked 

 Venezuela. This attitude was altered into one 

 more warlike in consequence of the action of the 

 military authorities in Cucuta toward the Venez- 

 uelan consul and the invasion of Venezuela by 

 organized Colombian troops who plundered the 

 people. The attention of the Colombian minister 

 was called to this fact, and he explained that 

 troops had crossed the border contrary to express 

 orders to observe neutrality. Venezuelan revolu- 

 tionists joined the Colombians in incursions into 

 Venezuelan territory and seized the opportunity 

 to raise the standard of revolt against President 

 Castro (see VENEZUELA). Venezuelan troops 

 landed in Colombia and Colombian troops in- 

 vaded Venezuela, but still a state of war was not 

 recognized. A force of 10,000 Venezuelans was 

 concentrated on the frontier for the avowed pur- 

 pose of protecting the national honor of Venez- 

 uela and the inviolability of her territory, with- 

 out, however, breaking off commercial and friend- 

 ly relations with Colombia. The Venezuelan 

 President, after establishing the fact that regular 

 Colombian troops had crossed the frontier, pro- 

 claimed martial law, recognized the Colombian 

 rebels as belligerents, directed that his passports 

 should be given to the Colombian minister, who, 

 without waiting for that formality, left the coun- 

 try, and withdrew the exequature of Colombian 

 consuls. The governments of Ecuador and Nica- 

 ragua gave assurances that they would remain 

 completely neutral in relation to the internal con- 

 flict in Colombia. 



A German merchant steamer was detained in 

 the harbor of Cartagena and searched by the Co- 

 lombian authorities, and Abel Murillo, secretary 

 to Gen. Uribe, was arrested on board in spite of 

 the protests of the captain of the ship, who 

 claimed that the passengers enjoyed the protec- 

 tion of the German flag. German cruisers were 

 ordered to Colon and Panama. When the revo- 

 lutionists appeared on the Isthmus of Panama the 

 United States gunboat Machias was sent to Colon, 

 and subsequently the battle-ship Iowa was ordered 

 to Panama, and the Philadelphia and the Ranger 

 to the Pacific side of the isthmus. The naval com- 

 manders had orders to interfere in case the rail- 



