Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1900 — HIS MAIL WAS OPENED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HIS MAIL WAS OPENED

FORMER CONSUL MACRUM CRE. ATES A SENSATION. Says British Censor Read American Official Mail—Cables Also Were Held Up—Other Reasons for Wanting; to leave His Post at Pretoria. Charles E. Macrum of Ohio, the former consul of the United States at Pretoria, South African Republic, whose home

coming during the war at his own request has been surrounded by so much mystery, has given out a long statement, in which he tells why he left Pretoria. Macrum’s statement has caused a genuine sensation. Nothing that has occurred since

the sinking of the battleship Maine has so stirred political and diplomatic circles in Washington. .His assertion that official tyail and cable dispatches passing between him and his Government were held up and opened by the British censors has aroused intense indignation. Mr. Macrum strongly hints at the existence Of a secret alliance between the United States and Great Britain, and practically accuses Secretary Hay of the State Department of conniving at the suppression of the facts and keeping the American public in the dark as to the causes which forced Macrum to throw up his mission. In his statement Mr. Macrum said: “The situation in Pretoria was such that, first, as an official, I could not remain there while my Government at home was apparently in the dark as to the exact conditions in South Africa. Secondly, as a man and a citizen of the United States, I could not remain in Pro toria, sacrificing my own self-respect and that of the people of Pretoria while the Government at home continued to leave me in ; the position of a British consul and not' an American consul. “It was over four weeks from the time the war opened before I received a single mail dispatch from my Government or a personal letter. The mail for the Transvaal had all been stopped at Cape Town by order of the high commissioner. “When this mail was finally forwarded to me after Col. Stowe, the. eonsul general at Cape Town, had secured its release, I had the humiliation, as representative of the American Government, of sitting in my office in Pretoria and •looking upon envelopes bearing the official seal of the American Government opened and officially sealed with a stick er, notifying me that the contents had been read by the .censor at Durban. I looked up the international law, but failed to find anywhes that one military power can use its own discretion as to forwarding the official dispatches of a neutral Government to its representative in a besieged country. “The mail service from Delagoa bay to Europe was continually interrupted by the action of British men-of-war at that port. The service was over two weeks longer than by the west coast and there were continual rumors that that port would be closed and communication with the outside world entirely cut off. “The cable service for the Transvaal was absolutely cut off. I filed one cable in the interest of an American in Pretoria, which was refused absolutely by the censor in Durban. “When I accepted my post as consul 1 knew nothing of any secret alliance between America and Great Britain and have seen nothing in the regulations which make the consul of the American republic subject to the whims and caprice of an English military censor.”

C. K. MACRUM.