BOERS BECOME AGGRESSIVE—AMERICAN GOVERNMENT COMES TO ENGLAND'S ASSISTANCE AND FURNISHES HORSES, MULES AND MEN.
The year 1901 began well, and the month of January was a very lively one, as there was hot fighting in every direction throughout the land and as far south as Cape Town. The English were alarmed; affairs in South Africa looked dubious and dark. The Boers were becoming more aggressive, Johannesburg was in a constant state of excitement, expecting every moment to be attacked and captured; the people were calling for protection, Kitchener was clamoring for re-enforcements from England, and England was calling for help from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Canada, India, New Zealand and Australia. At the same time Lord Roberts was pulling the ropes for his earldom, and $500,000 for his proclamations annexing the Free State and the Transvaal, and declaring the war at an end. The English were short on horses and mules and these she must have at any cost, otherwise they were swamped.
There was but one country in the world from which she could hope to get them, and that was the last country in the world that should supply them.
The Government of the United States of America disgraced itself by violating the law and allowing British officers to establish recruiting camps for horses, mules and men on its sacred soil, thereby assisting the great monarchy of the British Empire to destroy two little republics in South Africa struggling so hard for their liberty and independence. One of these camps was in New Orleans, at Chalmette, a spot of ground sacred in the eyes and hearts of all true Americans.
The governor of the state protested against this camp. The mayor of the city protested against this camp, and the people of America protested against this camp, yet it was allowed to remain. The Government in Washington City sent two officers clothed in the army uniform to visit and report on this camp. The two officers went there, shook hands with the British officers, had some wine, returned to Washington, reported that all was well, and the Government established a police force to protect those British officers and that camp while recruiting horses, mules and men for the British Army in South Africa.
During the war of 1812 the English tried to lay waste our land, employed the Indian savages to murder our women and children, burnt our capitol, and the war closed, with one of its greatest battles, in 1815, at Chalmette, in New Orleans. So our English Government in Washington waited some eighty-five years for the opportunity to apologize to the British Government for the terrible thrashing that the famous Andrew Jackson gave General Pakenham and his English army at Chalmette, New Orleans.
It seems to me that this is enough to bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of every true American. If the people of the United States of America cannot find enough true Americans to fill the highest office in their gift, then the time has arrived when they should change their name and cease to call themselves Americans. Suffice it to say that just as the struggling Boers had all England alarmed and the English army pushed to hard straits, ship load after ship load of horses, mules and men from America began to arrive in Cape Town and Durban, and with them Lord Kitchener was soon able to put into the field ninety-one mobile columns. Many of these Americans were captured, and some of them said that the English forced them to enlist and fight, after they reached South Africa, while others declared that they were duly hired by the British in New Orleans to go with the horses and mules to South Africa and on arrival there take up arms against the Boers.
Little good it would do them, but all those who claim they were forced by the British to take up arms against the Boers, should at least vindicate themselves to the extent of laying their complaints with the proper officials in Washington City. Those who confess that they were duly hired by the English to take up arms against the Boers should be made to feel the stigma of their disgrace by being disfranchised and deprived of the rights of American citizenship.