We are a practical people. There can be no doubt about that, but still we are occasionally moved by sentiment, as when we undertook to free Cuba from oppression, but at the bottom of every national action there is a sound practical idea.
It was a pure and unselfish sentiment, however, that impelled us to prevent the extermination of the people of Cuba, a country so near to our own doors, and to demand for them by force of arms, the freedom and independence which was and is most unquestionably their right.
With Cuba freed, the rule of Spaniards in Porto Rico would be both absurd and dangerous. It would be a menace to the perpetual peace between Spain and the United States, which the latter are determined on for the future.
Moreover, as we have seen, Porto Rico wishes most strongly to become an integral portion of the Union, and we desire to receive her as such.
The rule of common sense should be applied, and both sentiment and practicality are united in calling for the conditions which the American Government has demanded as to the former Spanish possessions in the Western Hemisphere.
The war against Spain was inevitable, was just and necessary for the sake of humanity and the progress of the world. Both our army and navy have shown glorious bravery and heroism, and their marvelous achievements must not be allowed to bring forth no results.
By the fortunes of war a great responsibility has been placed in the hands of the United States, and it would be criminal to shirk in any respect this responsibility. We must not give back to Spain any portion of the earth in which to continue her abominable misrule. Let the United States move forward to its manifest destiny.
In a powerful editorial the New York Sun declares that our success will make for the world's peace. We alone were the nation to free Cuba and the other Spanish colonies. No one of the European powers could have come forward to the rescue of the colonies without provoking the enmity and jealousy of the other powers. If we had neglected to discharge our duty, then that duty would probably have fallen to a commission of the European nations. The consequence would have been that Spain would have been superseded in the Spanish Antilles by a strong European power, which would have led sooner or later to a partition of Spanish America. The United States alone could upset Spanish colonial rule without exciting an uncontrollable outburst of envy and greed in Europe, and occasion a general scramble for the spoils of the New World.
Neither Cuba nor Porto Rico could have been kept by Spain with any assurance of the general safety of nations. So long as the so-called mother country exercised any power there, both the islands would have been firebrands, which, if not aflame, would surely have been smouldering.
The Sun concludes its editorial with these words: