Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1890 — MENENDEZ WAS POISONED. [ARTICLE]

MENENDEZ WAS POISONED.

How the President of San Salvador Was Disposed of. Washington dispatch: Further particulars, giving a complete insight into the recent disturbances in San Salvador, Central America, haye just been brought to light from semi-official sources. The sudden death of j»en. Menendez, President of Salvador, thQ assumption of power by Gen. Carlos Ezeta, and the attitude of Guatemala in the present?cris--Is, all have a bearing toward each other, and |end to show the possible outcome of the difficulty. It is known that Gen. Menendez was poisoned. There is a feeling which pervades all Central America just now tliat the ratification of the Central American union, which was agreed upon by the delegates of the five Republics of Guatemala, Honduras, Salvador. Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, in San Salvador in December last, will not be completed on the 15th of September next. In the first place the treaty of the union has to be ratified by each of the individual Congresses of the separate States, and this has not yet been done by either Nicaragua or Costa Rica. The treaty -will only come before the Costa Rica Congress in next December and before that of Nicaragua in February of next year, as there has been no session of Congress in the latter republic this year.

It is pretty clearly given to understand by those two named Republics that neither one of them will ratify the Central American Union comnact. as they are assured t at a sc terne is on foot whereby it is intended that the Guatemalan element shall predominate. Neither the Nicaraguans nor the Costa Ricans have a superabundance of love for the Guatemalans. The reasons are historical ones and need not be repeated here. The present unsettled state of affairs in Salvador had its origin with the burning of the National Palace in San Salvador in November of last year, and to this day the cause of the conflagration has never been correctly ascertained. When the palace was burned all the archives of the Government of Salvador. consisting of treaties and other valuable historical and political documents as well as the accounts of the treasury, were completely destroyed, nothing whatever being saved. It was currently rumored at the time that the fire was the work of an incendiary sent over to Salvador by Guatemala. and that the ob’ect of the* fire was to institute a revolutionary movement to depose Gen. Menendez from the Presidential chair. William Welch, aged 70, of Hope, 111., fell into a well he was' repairing and was drowned,:’» • >