“There are some movements so base, some causes so depraved, that neither victory can justify them nor defeat entitle them to commiseration. Such a cause was that which was vanquished yesterday, by the favor of God and the ballots of the American people. While it was active and menacing, it was unsparingly denounced and revealed as what it was, in all its hideous deformity. Now that it is crushed out of the very semblance of being, there is no reason why such judgment of it should be revised. The thing was conceived in iniquity and was brought forth in sin. It had its origin in a malicious conspiracy against the honor and integrity of the nation. It gained such monstrous growth as it enjoyed from an assiduous culture of the basest passions of the least worthy members of the community. It has been defeated and destroyed, because right is right and God is God. Its nominal head was worthy of the cause. Nominal, because the wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid vanity and mouthing resounding rottenness, was not the real leader of that league of hell. He was only a puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the anarchist, and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desperados of that stripe. But he was a willing puppet, Bryan was, willing and eager. Not one of his masters was more apt at lies and forgeries and blasphemies and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign against the Ten Commandments. He goes down with the cause, and must abide with it in the history of infamy. He had less provocation than Benedict Arnold, less intellectual force than Aaron Burr, less manliness and courage than Jefferson Davis. He was the rival of them all in deliberate wickedness and treason to the Republic. His name belongs with theirs, neither the most brilliant nor the least hateful in the list.
“Good riddance to it all, to conspiracy and conspirators, and to the foul menace of repudiation and anarchy against the honor and life of the Republic. The people have dismissed it with no uncertain tones. Hereafter let there be whatever controversies men may please about the tariff, about the currency, about the Monroe doctrine, and all the rest. But let there never again be a proposition to repeal the moral law, to garble the Constitution, and to replace the Stars and Stripes with the red rag of anarchy. On those other topics honest men may honestly differ, in full loyalty to the Republic. On these latter there is no room for two opinions, save in the minds of traitors, knaves, and fools.”
NEW ISSUES
The half decade between 1895 and 1900 may justly be considered one of the most important in American history. It witnessed the fiercest battle between political parties ever fought over the question of finance,—a contest exceeding in bitterness and the general participation of the people of the United States therein even the great struggle in which Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle were the opposing leaders. And, further, as the outcome of the war with Spain, it saw the birth and growth of an issue theretofore alien to American soil and portentous for its ultimate influence over the form and structure of our government. It was at once recognized as an issue overshadowing in its importance, and in the face of the greater danger the mutual fears of the friends of gold and the friends of silver were laid away in one common sepulchre.
On the part of the Democratic party the wraith of imperialism hovering over the Republic was recognized as the hideous and supreme exhalation from the poison swamp of plutocracy from which high tariff, trusts, and a gold standard had already sprung. Through all these policies, asserted the Democracy, through its recognized leader, Mr. Bryan, ran the common purpose of exalting the dollar and debasing the man. The Republican party hesitated long to recognize and admit the new issue, and when it finally took up the gage of battle it was on the declaration that a colonial policy, with alien and subject races under its dominion, had become the “manifest destiny” of the United States.
The cruelties and severities of General Weyler, the commander of the Spanish forces in Cuba, toward the insurrectionists who were in arms against Spain’s authority, early in Mr. McKinley’s administration aroused the indignation of the American people. The fact that the Cubans were bravely fighting for liberty, that their rebellion was against the exactions of an old world monarchy, even as ours had been, won them an instinctive sympathy that grew stronger each day and that finally swept like a tidal wave into the cabinet meetings at Washington, bearing the demands of the people of the United States for the intervention of our government in Cuba’s behalf.
On December 6, 1897, in his message to Congress, the President discussed the Cuban question at some length, arguing against any interference by the United States, on the ground that “a hopeful change has supervened in the policy of Spain toward Cuba.” Speaking of the possible future relations between this country and Cuba, the President used the words since so widely quoted against his subsequent policy in the Philippines: “I speak not of forcible annexation, for that is not to be thought of. That, by our code of morality, would be criminal aggression.”
The evident reluctance of the administration to recognize Cuban independence was shortly after forced to give way to the compelling power of public opinion. On February 15, 1898, by the explosion of a submarine mine, the Maine, a first-class United States battleship, was destroyed in Havana harbor, with a loss of 248 officers and men. A fierce hatred for Spain was thereby added to the sympathy for Cuba, and war, or the abandonment of Cuba by Spain, became inevitable. A month after the destruction of the Maine Congress voted the President $50,000,000 to be used in the National defense. On April 11, President McKinley, in a message to Congress exhaustively reviewed the Cuban complications, disclaiming a policy of annexation and arguing for neutral intervention to enforce peace and secure for the Cubans a stable government. On the 20th, Congress declared Cuba to be free and independent, demanded that Spain relinquish her claim of authority, and authorized the President to use the land and naval forces of the United States to enforce the demand.
Congress expressly declared: “The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.”
From such a lofty plane the United States entered into that brief but glorious combat with Spain that has rightly been called “the war for humanity.” On April 23, the President called for 125,000 volunteers. One of the first who offered the President his services in the war for “Cuba libre” was William J. Bryan. Long before, Mr. Bryan had declared for intervention, saying, “Humanity demands that we shall act. Cuba lies within sight of our shores and the sufferings of her people can not be ignored unless we, as a nation, have become so engrossed in money-making as to be indifferent to distress.” Mr. Bryan’s proffer was ignored by the President. He was later commissioned by Governor Holcomb, of Nebraska, to raise the Third Nebraska regiment of volunteers. This he did, becoming the colonel of the regiment. General Victor Vifquain, of Lincoln, a gallant and distinguished veteran of the Civil war was made lieutenant-colonel.