Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1896 — PLAIN TALK BY CULLOM. [ARTICLE]

PLAIN TALK BY CULLOM.

Illinois Senator Pleads for Intervention in Behalf of Cnba. Senator Cullom Thursday raised his voice in the Senate in Cuba’s behalf. He not only made an eloquent speech, but preceded it with a resolution which, if udopted, will pledge the United States to the extinction of Spanish title ajrd the termination of Spanish control of tha islands nt the gateway of the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Cullom is not an orator, but he is a very impulsive speaker. His exhaustive and nt times eloquent review of the history of Spain’s oppression in Cuba was closely followed by Senators Sherman, Call, Hoar, Mills, Palmer and others, who have been particularly interested In the Cuban question. “All the diplomacy of the ages never found a prayer by which slavery could be dethroned," said Senator Cullom, in opening. “It required the humanity of Lincoln and the progress of the republic to open the prison walls to liberty and make glad a waiting world. If we wait for precedent we shall wait forever,” declared the Illinois Senator a little later. “If a precedent is needed we shall make one. Cuba to-day is lost to Spain. The public proclamation of Spanish defeat may not have been officially and definitely announced, but in truth and fact the submission of Cuba will never again be yielded ns of old. Tribute of $25,000,000 to $40,000,000 annually so long exacted will never again replenish the treasury of Spain. The struggles of 1895 and 1890 sadly crippled Cuba, but they will ruin Spain. The American people are coming to the consideration of the Cuban situation ns they already have in certain other cases, as a great political question: a continental question, if you please. And being a political continental question It will be decided ultimately by the continent whose interests are most clearly involved. Geographically considered, Cuba cannot belong to Spain. She is in American waters and politically is entitled to statehood in the continent of American republics.”