[THE CHILIAN MESSAGE, JANUARY 25, 1892.]
Just as this book is going to the printer there has appeared a most satisfactory closing chapter—the masterly message on the Chilian difficulty. This message quickly won the approval of the civilized world, and has stirred, as it has not been stirred in years, the patriotic pride of our own people. It will rank side by side with Monroe's famous declaration of American policy. It at once impresses one with its character as the official statement of their position by a powerful yet generous people, who, conscious of their own strength, will firmly assert their rights and maintain their dignity, without any disposition to despoil or humiliate their weaker neighbors. The position taken by the President was so firm and the justice of our claims was so clearly set forth that three days after the date of the message he was enabled to announce to Congress that Chili had substantially complied with our demands.
Such parts of the message as contained only a recital of facts, or were not necessary to an understanding of the policy announced have, for the sake of brevity, been omitted.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
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We have now received from the Chilian Government an abstract of the conclusions of the Fiscal General upon the testimony taken by the Judge of Crimes in an investigation which was made to extend over nearly three months. I very much regret to be compelled to say that this report does not enable me to modify the conclusion announced in my annual message. I am still of the opinion that our sailors were assaulted, beaten, stabbed, and killed, not for anything they or any one of them had done, but for what the Government of the United States had done, or was charged with having done, by its civil officers and naval commanders. If that be the true aspect of the case, the injury was to the Government of the United States, not to these poor sailors who were assaulted in a manner so brutal and so cowardly.
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It is not claimed that every personal collision or injury in which a sailor or officer of such naval vessel visiting the shore may be involved raises an international question; but I am clearly of the opinion that where such sailors or officers are assaulted by a resident populace, animated by hostility to the Government whose uniform these sailors and officers wear, and in resentment of acts done by their Government, not by them, their nation must take notice of the event as one involving an infraction of its rights and dignity—not in a secondary way, as where a citizen is injured and presents his claim through his own Government, but in a primary way, precisely as if its minister or consul or the flag itself had been the object of the same character of assault. The officers and sailors of the Baltimore were in the harbor of Valparaiso under the orders of their Government, not by their own choice. They were upon the shore by the implied invitation of the Government of Chili and with the approval of their commanding officer; and it does not distinguish their case from that of a consul that his stay is more permanent or that he holds the express invitation of the local government to justify his longer residence. Nor does it affect the question that the injury was the act of a mob. If there had been no participation by the police or military in this cruel work and no neglect on their part to extend protection, the case would still be one, in my opinion, when its extent and character are considered, involving international rights.
Here follow the details of the attack upon the sailors of the Baltimore in the streets of Valparaiso, October 16th.
The scene ... is very graphically set before us by the Chilian testimony. The American sailors, who, after so long an examination, have not been found guilty of any breach of the peace so far as the Chilian authorities are able to discover, unarmed and defenceless, are fleeing for their lives, pursued by overwhelming numbers, and fighting only to aid their own escape from death or to succor some mate whose life is in greater peril. Eighteen of them are brutally stabbed and beaten, while one Chilian seems, from the report, to have suffered some injury; but how serious or with what character or weapon, or whether by a missile thrown by our men or by some of his fellow-rioters, is unascertained.