CONGRESS. (Ci-iiAX AFFAIRS.) 



205 



interest, a? a matter of policy, that Cuba should \ e 

 destroyed, and that reprisals of blood and murder. 

 the shooting of prisoners captured in war. and the 

 killing of jx'ople who were found away from their 

 homes shall be continued i I call attention to the 

 recent order of the Spanish general, with power of 

 life and death over every human being in that 

 island, for the summary shooting of all Cubans 

 found away from their homes without a pass or a 

 license or a permit, his proclamation of death to be 

 inflicted by his subordinates upon suspicion alone 

 of any kind of complicity, of any kind of sympathy, 

 with the rebellion and the attempt to establish the 

 independence of Culm. 



" Mr. President, this is the result of our action. 

 We proclaim that if there be any shipment of arms 

 for the purpose of aiding the insurgents they shall 

 be arrested by our people. We proclaim the ut- 

 most rigor, not only in the detention of vessels and 

 expeditions which may be openly ascertained and 

 proclaimed to be for the purpose of aiding the in- 

 surgents, but in every possible method of inquisi- 

 tion where they sail for another country, for another 

 port, and have on board munitions of war of any 

 kind, we take all the circumstances sxirrounding the 

 case to prove that their destination is to the island 

 of Cuba, and we are waging this war ourselves 

 against the Cuban people by these acts of extreme 

 and severe exercise of the power to prevent aid and 

 sympathy and active assistance to them." 



Senator Cameron, of Pennsylvania, who pre- 

 sented the minority resolution, said : 



For my own part I regard the question of bel- 

 ligerency as a false issue a mistake, into which the 

 friends of Cuba should not fall. If Spain wishes to 

 impede or delay effective action on our part, she 

 will encourage us to waste our energy and our 

 initiative in struggling with the legal 'difficulties 

 that involve this question of belligerency, which, 

 when stripped of all its popular notions, is at most 

 an empty, or perhaps a mischievous, legal form. 



I object to it, in the first place, for the same 

 reasons which caused Gen. Grant to reject it in 

 1*75. because it is offensive to Spain and delusive to 

 Cuba. The contest is no longer one of belligerency 

 but one of independence. 



' In the second place. I object to it because it 

 concedes to Spain the belligerent right of searching 

 our ships on the high seas, and seizing them 

 whenever they have anything on board which can 

 be considered contraband of war. You will observe 

 that the resolution proposed by the majority does 

 not mention the rights of belligerency on the high 

 sea-;, but it confers them nevertheless. 



" I object to it. in the third place, because it im- 

 - belligerent duties as well as belligerent rights 

 and relieves Spain of all further responsibility for 

 the destruction of American property in Cuba by 

 transferring that responsibility to the insurgents. 

 The insurgents hitherto have been alone obliged to 

 destroy property for military objects, and the bel- 

 ligerent duty will work to their injury alone. 



" For my own part. I wish the Government to act. 

 I want to see the chronic misery of Cuba ended. I 

 know that the course 1 favor was the fixed policy of 

 the Republican party of the United States and of 

 the American people. The course I prefer is, as I 

 believe, the true expression of public feeling, which 

 is unanimous in demanding action in favor of free- 

 dom. I do not wish or intend to antagonize the 

 action of the committee in its assertion of the fact 

 that the Cubans are belligerents a fact which 

 hardly needs discussion. The true question is 

 whether the Government had best satisfy itself 

 with the assertion of that fact or do more.'' 



Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, said : 



"Our immediate pecuniary interests in the island 



are very great. They are being destroyed. Free 

 Cuba would mean a great market to the United 

 States: it would mean an opportunity for American 

 capital, invited there by signal exemptions; it would 

 mean an opportunity for the development of that 

 splendid island. 



" Those, Mr. President, are some of the more ma- 

 terial interests involved in this question, but we 

 have also a broader political interest in the fate of 

 Cuba. The great island lies there across the Gulf 

 of Mexico. She commands the Gulf, she commands 

 the channel through which all our coastwise traffic 

 between the Gulf and our Northern and Eastern 

 States passes. She lies right athwart the line which 

 leads to the Nicaragua Canal. Cuba in our hands 

 or in friendly hands, in the hands of its own people, 

 attached to us by ties of interest and gratitude, is a 

 bulwark to the commerce, to the safety, and to the 

 peace of the United States. 



'' Spain may ruin the island. She can never hold 

 it or govern it again. Cuba now is not fighting 

 merely for independence. Those men are fighting, 

 every one of them, with a price on their heads and 

 a rope around their necks. They have shown that 

 they could fight well. They are now fighting the 

 battle of despair. That is the condition to-day in 

 that island. And here we stand motionless, a great 

 and powerful country, not six hours away from 

 these scenes of useless bloodshed and destruction." 



Senator Morgan, of Alabama, said in the course of 

 his address : 



" Why is it that every time an outbreak has oc- 

 curred in Cuba the first thing which has been done 

 by the President of the United States was to issue a 

 most radical proclamation, warning our people and 

 forbidding them in the strongest possible manner 

 from going into the island of Cuba and from violat- 

 ing our laws intended to prevent them from doing 

 sof What has caused thisf It has been, on every 

 occasion, some wrong done by Spain to the Cuban 

 people, the recognition of which we could not shut 

 out from our own consciences and our own hearts. 

 We have stood here as a guard, as a picket post, as 

 an outline of defense of the monarchy of Spain 

 through the medium of these laws and the procla- 

 mations of Presidents of the United States for very 

 nearly a century, during which time five great in- 

 surrections or revolts have occurred in Cuba. 



" What has it cost us thus to guard a people 

 whose resentments have been so justly excited, but 

 are reluctant to interfere with foreigners or with for- 

 eign governments f What has it cost us to keep in 

 check and hold down the Cuban refugees who have 

 come to the United States from time to time, driven 

 out of the islands by the stress of persecution f 

 Think of the lives of American citizens that have 

 been sacrificed ! think of the men who have been 

 leaned up against adobe walls before sunrise in the 

 morning and shot to death by Spain because, fol- 

 lowing their sympathies, they felt that they could 

 go to Cuba and give a helping hand to their rela- 

 tives, their own kindred, in Cuba, who went there, 

 as Lopez did, for the purpose of relieving their own 

 relatives from these barbarities! 



" What has it cost us i In money, Mr. President, 

 a very large sum : in blood, a very great treasure : 

 in anguish of feeling, an unutterable thing: in na- 

 tional distress, great discomfort; in our commercial 

 relations with Cuba, and even with other parts of 

 the earth, immense losses : in the honor of our flag, 

 frequent searches and visitations, outrageous wrong, 

 winch we have put up with for the time being 

 rather than to resent, because we preferred peace to 

 war. although there might have been an occasion 

 when we should have been entirely justified in going 

 to war. That is what it has cost us: that is what 

 it is costing us now. The record of our losses and 



