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

by Thomas V. Cooper; Hector T. Fenton

“Under these circumstances, and without any cessation of the howling and throwing of stones at the North Americans, the conductor entered the car, and seeing the risk of the situation to the vehicle, ordered them to get out. At the instant the sailors left the car, in the midst of a hail of stones, the said conductor received a stone blow on the head. One of the Yankee sailors managed to escape in the direction of the plaza Wheelright, but the other was felled to the ground by a stone. Managing to raise himself from the ground where he lay he staggered in an opposite direction from the station. In front of the house of Señor Mazzini he was again wounded, falling then senseless and breathless.”

No amount of evasion or subterfuge is able to cloud our clear vision of this brutal work. It should be noticed, in this connection that the American sailors arrested, after an examination, were, during the four days following the arrest, every one discharged, no charge of any breach of the peace or other criminal conduct having been sustained against a single one of them.

The Judge of Crimes, Foster, in a note to the Intendente, under date of October 22d, before the dispatch from the government, of the following day, which aroused the authorities of Chile to a better sense of the gravity of the affair, says: “Having presided temporarily over this court in regard to the seamen of the United States cruiser Baltimore, who have been tried on account of the deplorable conduct which took place.” The noticeable point here is that our sailors had been tried before the 22d of October, and that the trial resulted in their acquittal and return to their vessel.

It is quite remarkable and quite characteristic of the management of this affair by the Chilean police authorities that we should now be advised that seaman Davidson, of the Baltimore, has been included in the indictment, his offence being so far as I have been able to ascertain, that he attempted to defend a shipmate against an assailant who was striking at him with a knife. The perfect vindication of our men is furnished by this report; one only is found to have been guilty of criminal fault, and that for an act clearly justifiable.

As to the part taken by the police in the affair, the case made by Chile is also far from satisfactory. The point where Riggin was killed is only three minutes walk from the police station and not more than twice that distance from the Intendencia; and yet, according to their official report, a full half hour elapsed after the assault began before the police were upon the ground. It has been stated that all but two of our men have said that the police did their duty. The evidence taken at Mare Island shows that if such a statement was procured from our men it was accomplished by requiring them to sign a writing in a language they did not understand and by the representation that it was a mere declaration that they had taken no part in the disturbance. Lieutenant McCrea, who acted as interpreter, says in his evidence that when our sailors were examined before the Court the subject of the conduct of the police was so carefully avoided that he reported the fact to Captain Schley on his return to the vessel.

The evidences of the existence of animosity toward our sailors in the minds of the Chilean navy and of the populace of Valparaiso are so abundant and various as to leave no doubt in the mind of any one who will examine the papers submitted. It manifested itself in threatening and insulting gestures toward our men as they passed the Chilean men-of-war in their boats, and in the derisive and abusive epithets with which they greeted every appearance of an American sailor on the evening of the riot.

Captain Schley reports that boats from the Chilean warships several times went out of their course to cross the bows of his boats, compelling them to back water. He complained of the discourtesy, and it was corrected. That this feeling was shared by men of higher rank is shown by an incident related by Surgeon Stitt, of the Baltimore. After the battle of Placilla he, with other medical officers of the war vessels in the harbor, was giving voluntary assistance to the wounded in the hospitals. The son of a Chilean army officer of high rank was under his care, and when the father discovered it he flew into a passion and said he would rather have his son die than have Americans touch him, and at once had him removed from the ward.

This feeling is not well concealed in the dispatches of the Foreign Office, and had quite open expression in the disrespectful treatment of the American Legation. The Chilean boatmen in the bay refused, even for large offers of money, to return our sailors who crowded the Mole, to their ship when they were endeavoring to escape from the city on the night of the assault. The market boats of the Baltimore were threatened, and even quite recently the gig of Commander Evans, of the Yorktown, was stoned while waiting for him at the Mole.

The evidence of our sailors clearly shows that the attack was expected by the Chilean people; that threats have been made against our men, and that in one case, somewhat early in the afternoon, the keeper of one house into which some of our men had gone, closed his establishment in anticipation of the attack, which he advised them would be made upon them as darkness came on.

In a report of Captain Schley to the Navy Department he says: “In the only interview that I had with Judge Foster, who is investigating the case relative to the disturbance before he was aware of the entire gravity of the matter, he informed me that the entire assault upon my men was the outcome of hatred for our people among the lower classes because they thought we had sympathized with the Balmaceda Government on account of the Itata matter, whether with reason or without he could, of course, not admit; but such he thought was the explanation of the assault at that time.”