American politics (non-partisan) from the beginning to date

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

It may be well, at the outset, to say that whatever may have been said in this country or in Chile in criticism of Mr. Egan, our minister at Santiago, the true history of the exciting period in Chilean affairs, from the outbreak of the revolution until this time, discloses no act upon the part of Mr. Egan unworthy of his position, or that could justly be the occasion of serious animadversion or criticism. He has, I think, on the whole borne himself in very trying circumstances with dignity, discretion and courage, and conducted the correspondence with ability, courtesy and fairness.

It is worth while, also, at the beginning to say that the right of Mr. Egan to give shelter in the legation to certain adherents of the Balmaceda government who applied to him for asylum has not been denied by the Chilean authorities, nor has any demand been made for the surrender of these refugees.

That there was urgent need of asylum is shown by Mr. Egan’s note of August 24, 1891, describing the disorders that prevailed in Santiago, and by the evidence of Captain Schley as to the pillage and violence that prevailed at Valparaiso. The correspondence discloses, however, that the request of Mr. Egan for a safe conduct from the country, in behalf of these refugees, was denied.

The precedents cited by him in the correspondence, particularly the case of the revolution in Peru in 1865, did not leave the Chilean government in a position to deny the right of asylum to political refugees, and seemed very clearly to support Mr. Egan’s contention that a safe conduct to neutral territory was a necessary and acknowledged incident of the asylum. These refugees have very recently, without formal safe conduct, but by the acquiescence of the Chilean authorities, been placed on board the Yorktown, and are now being conveyed to Callao, Peru.

This incident might be considered wholly closed but for the disrespect manifested towards this government by the close and offensive police surveillance of the legation premises which was maintained during most of the period of the stay of the refugees therein.

After the date of my annual message and up to the time of the transfer of the refugees to the Yorktown, the legation premises seem to have been surrounded by police, in uniform, and police agents or detectives, in citizens’ dress, who offensively scrutinized persons entering or leaving the legation, and, on one or more occasions, arrested members of the minister’s family.

Commander Evans, who, by my direction, recently visited Mr. Egan at Santiago, in his telegram to the Navy Department described the legation as “a veritable prison,” and states that the police agents or detectives were, after his arrival, withdrawn during his stay. It appears further, from the note of Mr. Egan, of November 20, 1891, that, on one occasion at least, these police agents, whom he declares to be known to him, invaded the legation premises, pounding upon its windows and using insulting and threatening language towards persons therein.

This breach of the right of a minister to freedom from police espionage and restraint seems to have been so flagrant that the Argentine minister, who was dean of the diplomatic corps, having observed it, felt called upon to protest against it to the Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Chilean authorities have, as will be observed from the correspondence, charged the refugees and the inmates of the legation with insulting the police; but it seems to me incredible that men whose lives were in jeopardy and whose safety could only be secured by retirement and quietness, should have sought to provoke a collision which could only end in their destruction, or to aggravate their condition by intensifying a popular feeling that at one time so threatened the legation as to require Minister Egan to appeal to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

But the most serious incident disclosed by the correspondence is that of the attack upon the sailors of the Baltimore in the streets of Valparaiso on the 16th of October last. In my annual message, speaking upon the information then in my possession, I said: “So far as I have yet been able to learn, no other explanation of this bloody work has been suggested than that it had its origin in hostility to those men as sailors of the United States, wearing the uniform of their government, and not in any individual act or personal animosity.”

We have now received from the Chilean 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 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 of them had done, but for what the government of the United States had done, or was charged with having done by its civil officer 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 the manner so brutal and so cowardly.