Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1896 — PLAIN TALK BY CULLOM. [ARTICLE]

PLAIN TALK BY CULLOM.

Illinois Senator Pleads for Intervention in Behalf of CSba. 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 adopted,' will pledger'the United States to the extinction of Spanish title and the termination of Spanish control of the islands at the gateway of the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Cullom is not an orator, but he is a very impulsive speaker. His exhaustive and at-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 hare 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 w r e 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 as 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, btit they will ruin Spain. The American people are coming to the consideration of the Cuban situation as 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 ure most clearly involved. Geographically considered, Cuba cannot beloug to Spain. She is in American waters and politically is entitled to statehood in the continent of American republics.