Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1912 — “FORGETS” THE FACT [ARTICLE]

“FORGETS” THE FACT

ARGUMENT CF STEEL TRUST C'L GAN' WILL NOT DECEIVE. Attempt tc Make- Eogy Cut «?f Ma 1. lena S/-; i ; ir. C-ner to Get i ! ;:- th. A.., -opria'.icn Thi cugn Congress. “t a Cem-erni'M dw.ini.'ijig of the re-.-C O ,i i-Tf-.c VU! b:.se OT. .Magd ilena bay u tie tegity of a fishJ.g i, to a J i i.i.vse pri'...tienterprise -. p , ; re suii.-'-d to find..the Philadei; !ii. Press committing itselt to a reductio ; 1 absurd-im of the whole business as follows: Bl 1 ■‘But the I'nited States cannot, in these mattei s, permit airy concessionto be made, however harmless in appearance, however justifiably commercially, and however completely, withih the national 'power and policy of any qf the American republics it may be, which can in time on occasion be turned Into a foreign, naval station, Japanese or other. On this point the policy of this republic has been fixed irrevocably for a century, since President Jefferson wrote his. familiar letter tq James Madisoh declaring that the United States could not permit any European power, to acqjnr© Cuba or to secure any .island in the Gulf or Carribbean sea ” . ■, . i

This is first calculated to evoke inquiries wht i her naval stations are so light and ephemereai things that they can be evolved at . hort notice out of fish warehouses' in harbors so inconsiderable as to,be unknowh. jf. so, the entire argument for naval preparation is punctured, since that has been based ,on the assertion that, it is a work of time to create naval stations and to equip and supply them effectively. As a matter of fact, the fishing concession would be of less use to Japanese for naval purposes'than the franchise for a railroad in the United States owned by British stockholders would be to the British government. The assertion that the settled policy of the L nited States is to forbid such grants is far from correct. What Jefferson’s letter to Madison declared against was the acquisition of sovereignty over American territory. As a matter of fact, at least one European government has held a fishing concession on the Atlantic coast for a century. And at the very time that the United States was ordering the 1-Yench out of Mexico for infringement of the Monroe doctrine it made no objection whatever to the French fishing rights in Canadian waters. The strenuous effort to get a battleship appropriation through congress had better confine itself within the limits of fact—Washington Herald.