Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1898 — UPHOLDS THE MINE THEORY. [ARTICLE]

UPHOLDS THE MINE THEORY.

Lee Relieves ’ pantsh Officials Blew Up the Battleship Maine. The testimony taken before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in connection with the investigation into the relations betM-een the United States and Cuba was made public Thursday. It constitute* a book of abflut 630 pages andiucludes not only the testimony taken since the disaster to the Maine but also much that wa* taken before and running back for a year or more. The statement which contains the greatest currant interest is that made by Consul General Lee, on the 12th instant. Iu this statement Gen. Lee said that he was informed on good authority that the Spaniards had placed two rows of torpedoes just at the mouth of the Havana harbor by Morro Castle n-ithin the last two months, or subsequent to the Maine disaster, and that the sMitchboard is in a room in the castle. He said, however, that he had no information of the pfac-ing of any torpedoes before the Maine was destroyed, and none in regard to the purchase abroad by the Spanish authorities. “Have you any reason to suppose that the harbor was mined before the blowing up offhe Maine?” asked Senator Frye. “No, sir; I had no reason to suspect anything of that sort up to that time.” He then went ou to say that Gen. Wey* ler’s letter to Santos Guzman had led him to believe that mines might have been placed there previous to the Maine incident, and he said that this supposition M-as strengthened by a telegram from Gen. Weyler of which he had cognizance. Upon the whole he thought the Weyler letter (the Laine letter) was a correct copy of the genuine letter. The telegram to which he referred waa addressed to Eva Cane], a noted Spanish Moman and an admirer of Weyler’s, and to Senor Guzman, and it read as follows: “Grave circumstances cause me to ask you to destroy the last letter of Feb. 12.” Gen. Lee said that this telegram had * never before been published and he found in it strong confirmatory evidence of the genuineness of the Weyler letter. With reference to the responsibility for the destruction of the Maine, Gen. Lee said: “1 am satisfied the explosion was from the outside. I cabled the state department a few days after the board assembled that it was almost certain that the explosion M-as from the exterior. I have always had an idea about the Maine that, of course, it was not blown up by any private individual or by any private citizen, bat it was blown up by some of the officers who hafl charge of the mines and electrical wires and torpedoes in the arsenal there, who thoroughly understood their business, for it was done remarkably well.” ,