Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1898 — DEMOCRATS AND THE WAR [ARTICLE]

DEMOCRATS AND THE WAR

They Vied With the Republicans In Giving the Administration Financial Support McKinley’* Lack of Diplomacy and Vigor In Dealing With Spain Was Roundly Criticised by the Republicans—Chairman Hernly Would Make a Nonpartisan War a State Issue to Bolster Up His Party. It ought to be remembered, because it is true, that the Democratic party was the real war party of the nation. It was in favor of the war with Spain for humanitarian considerations. It believed that Spain’s role in Cuba was brutal, savage, horrible, ahd it believed that the Cubans ought to enjoy liberty and independence. So persistent were Democrats in demanding a declaration of war against Spain that the remark was often made: * ‘This is a Democratic war. ” It is a matter of record that when it became apparent that war with Spain was inevitable and the administration wanted the means for war purposes, Democrats in congress vied with Republicans in giving to the administration all the money it demanded and 160,000,000 was voted and placed in the hands of the president to be expended as he might deem proper. If Democrats doubted the policy of issuing interest bearing bonds to sup* ply war revenue, it was not because of any hostility to the war, or for the purpose of embarrassing the administration, but, rather because they believed the time had not arrived making it necessary to burden the people with an additional bonded debt and taxation. They believed that the war would be of short duration, that tne reserves of the treasury were ample to carry on the war, even if it should continue to December, when, if bonds were required, the" facts would be before the country, and a bond loan could speedily be made to meet all emergencies. In a word, the Democrats, in and out of congress, with patriotic unanimity have sought in every possible way to uphold the hands of the administration in conducting the war. If there were criticisms of Mr. McKinley’s diplomacy and of his lack of vigor in dealing with Spain, it should be stated that Republicans were even more pronounced in their complaints than were Democrats. And it will be remembered that it required heroic efforts on the part of Republican whips to restrain Republican members of congress from breaking through all restraints and openly condemning Mr. McKinley’s dilatory policy.. The Democratic party studiously declined to drag the war into politics. It was not, in its origin, a party war. If Mr. McKinley was obnoxious to criticism, it was because he “detested” war, and exhibited the greatest reluctance in beginning hostilities. In his own language he desired to be satisfied that a war with Spain would be a “righteous war,” and .even the sinking of the battleship Maine did not arouse him from his lethargy. And the facts show that Republicans were more censorious than Democrats over such exhibitions of supineness. And in this connection it is worthy of mention that the Democracy of Indiana, in state convention assembled, in patting forth their platform, ignored the war as a political issue. There was not one word in the platform arraigning Mr. McKinley’s administration for anything done or omitted in conducting the war. On the contrary, the platform gave only expression of patriotic sentiments. The war plank of the platform was in the highest degree eulogistic of the war, army and navy. Indeed, in such regards its indorsement of the war was even more pronounoed than the declarations of the Republican platform. To still further demonstrate that the Democratic party was opposed to dragging the war into politics, on Aug. 17 Hon. Parks M. Martin, chairman of the state Democratio central committee, gave expression to his views in an interview in the Indianapolis Sentinel on the war as a political issue, and is reported as follows: “As I said, I don’t believe that the war should be made an issne in this state campaign. It was not a political war. It was waged in the interest of humanity to succor the down-trodden, starving people of Cuba. The Democrats are not disposed to bring the war into the state campaign, not that they’re afraid to, for if the Republicans show a disposition to make it a campaign matter we are going to take care of ourselves all right. If they are going to make this a war campaign it is not patting it too strong to say that we will handle them without gloves. We might be able to show, for instance, that the war was brought about by the Democrats in congress, assisted by a few Republicans, and that if it had been left to President McKinley and his advisers we would probably never have had a war. Ido not say this in the way of criticism and lam opposed to trying to make campaign material ont ot a war that was supported loyally by all parties and all sections.”

This completely disposes all the shallow. talk of the Republican press regarding the position of the Democratic party on the war as a politioal issue in the campaign in Indiana. But, Mr. Hernly, chairman of the Republican state central committee, in au interview published in the Indianapolis Sentinel on Aug. 18, the day following the appearance of Mr. Martin’s interview, took occasion to insist that war should be and ought to be an issne in the campaign in Indiana. Evidently, Mr. Hernly believed the war issue would be highly conducive to Republican sue? pess, and is reported as saying: “I read The Sentinel’s interview with Parks Martin in which he said that the war should not he made an issue iu this campaign, but that the Democrats axe ready to meet it if the Republicans

nring it. Ido not agree with Mr. Mar* 1 tin that we who happen to be in positions of party responsibility can make the issue* of this or of any campaign. The people make the issues. They know what they are vitally interested in, and unless the stump speaker talks of these things he will Rad himself without audiences. Just now the people want to have the story of the war told them. It -is a story in which they are vitally interested. They want It told from the stump by the stamp speak* era. They are interested in the question of territorial expansion and the thonsand-and-one questions growing out of the war, and they want to know what our public men think about them. The people of Indiana have decreed that the war shall be au issue in the campaign. “While we Republicans do not claim the sole credit for having brought on this war, we are all proud of the masterly way in which the war was conducted by President MoKinley, and we see no harm in saying so from from the stump. • **•*# “The Republicans are forced to make the war question an issue, even though they were not inclined. The Republican party was the party in power during this war crisis. It has many things to explain to the people. It has to explain why it was necessary to issue bonds; why it was necessary to establish a war revenue, and it has to answer to the people for all the steps of the campaign. It will try to answer to the people of Indiana this fall. ” It will be observed that Mr. Hernly, speaking for his party, declared in favor of making the war a campaign i3sue, besides, it will be observed that Mr. Hernly declares that “the Republicans are forced to make the war question an issue even though they were not inclined,” and that the Republicans “havemany things to explain.” Let it be understood that the war by itself considered—that is to say the declaration of war and the battles of the war on the land and on the sea—is not, and cannot be made a partisan political issne, since all parties and all sections favored the war. Mr. Hernly sounded a keynote when he said, “The Republican party has many things to explain,” and it is doubtless true that the people, if they have made the issue, it is with the understanding that Republicans shall “explain many things”—not about“bonds” nor any of the land or naval battles, since they have been explained by officers in command. What, then? The question is answered by the appointment of a commission by the president and his instructions to that commission, in which he said: “There has been, in many quarters, severe criticism of the conduct of the war with Spain. Charges of criminal neglect of the soldiers in camp and field and hospital and in transports, have been so persistent, that, whether true or false, they have made a deep impression upon the country.” v Who made these charges which Republicans must explain? Mr. Hernly says “the Republican party was the party in power during this war orisis.” And the Republican party must explain. Certainly, Democrats did not make the charges. The Democratic party was not in power “during this war orisis.” No part of the infamy charged, and whioh, as Mr. McKinley says, has “made a deep impression upon the country,” attaches to the Democratic party. These charges have been made by soldiers, by officers wearing the insignia of generals, by correspondents of journals of the highest character for prudent statements, by army chaplains, and, to the extent they dared to talk, by private soldiers. This pelting storm of charges, growing more fierce as the days went by, horrified the people. Nor was it required for the private soldiers, who returned alive from pestilential camps, to talk. To see them, as Colonel Studebaker said of his splendid regiment—the One Hundred and Fittyseventh Indiana —“with fever in their very bones,” weak, wasted and but a shadow of their forpier selves, was a speech more terribly eloquent than Mark Anthony made over the dead body of Caesar. True, they were not in the battle at Santiago nor Manila—they were not in war at all. Their battles were for life in the camps assigned them by the administration, by McKinley’s war secretary. They were in American camps within a few hours’ travel by rail of Washington, they were within reach of telegraph and telephone, and yet they suffered and many died for want of medicines, food and care. Suffered by criminal neglect and criminal incompetency, the result of the lowest degree of partisan politics in making appointments. Mr. MoKinley, in his instructions to the investigating commission, among other things, said: “I cannot impress upon you too strongly my wish that your investigation shall be so thorough and complete that your report when made will fix the responsibility for any failure or fault by reason of neglect, incompetency or maladministration upon the officers and bureaus responsible therefor —if it be found that the evils oomplained of have existed. “The people of the country are entitled to know whether or not the citizens who so promptly responded to the oall of duty have been negleoted or misused or maltreated by the government to whioh they so willingly gave their services. If there have been wrongs committed, the wrongdoers must not escape conviction and punishment.” These are brave words, and, peradventure, like stray chickens, he may find them coming home to roost. The war department has had charge of the army, and at the head of this department is Seoretary Alger, for whose aDpointment President McKinley is solely responsible. Hence, the traoks of the criminal blunders of that department point to the white house as certainly as the hoofprints of Phil Armour’s cattle point to the slaughterhouse. The nation believes that the first criminal blunder was the appointment of Alger as secretary of war. If the people are right in this, the multiplied i wrongs of whioh the people complain, the investigating commission may hold William McKinley, president of the United States, responsible. In the relentless search for wrong doers it may be in order to track them to their hiding places, bat it is in consonance with the eternal fitness of things to find, if possible, the one man, the higher his position the mote important the investigation, who is responsible, and when found stand him up before the pitiless gaze of the world and say to him, as Nathan said to David, “Thou art the man.”