Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1905 — The Monroe Doctrine A Faded Fraud. [ARTICLE]

The Monroe Doctrine A Faded Fraud.

Castro, the little sawed-jff dictator of Venezuela, has sent a deoidedly ioeoleat end defiant reply to Uncle Sam, and it looks like there ie nothing the old gentleman can do t> eave his dignity in the case better than to grin and baar it. We csm’t make war on him without a previous declaration of war, and if we did there would be no advantage nor satisfaction in warring witn and oonquering an insignificant and uncivilized nation like that, wbioh would be at alloommeneurate witn its coat in money and lives, and the good will of the other Spanish Amerioan countries. And right here in this new Venezuela trouble is another illus. tration of what a faded fraud that once necessary principle the •‘Monroe Doctrine” has growa to be. It is mighty.for mischief aud powerless for gcod. President Cleveland and his big bluffer Plney brought ue to the verge of what; bad it occured, would have been the wiokedest war of the century, when they insulted and defied Great Britain, in behalf of this same insolent and swindling Venezuela, and wbat did it all Slhount to?

Simply that Eagland was given much more by the coart of arbitration than she hai'offered, time and again, to'-accept without arbitra. tion. And not muoh better wai the resalt when the United States again interfered a few years ago. and prevented Germany and Franoe from collecting by force the money Castro was trying to swindle the people of those nations out of. And all we get for our “butting in” for Venezuela is whet we are getting now, d fiance and insalts. ,The Monroe Djctrine as it now exists, is never invoked except to proteot some revolutionary end misgoverned nation, like Haiti or Venezuela, from deserved squeezing or punishment; for the reepeotable and well governed nations south of us are no longer in the lease danger of Earopean aggressions. The doctrine has outgrown its usefulness and the sooner we recognize the faot the better for us.

Noted Correspondent and Traveler. Few newspapers in the United States are able to command the service of as brilliant a oorps of correspondents bs that of The Chicago Record-Herald. Its choice of a Washington correspondent is indicative of The Record-Herald’s policy of staining the best there is to b a had. Walter Wellman, the well-known author on political subjects and one of the ablest writers of the day, acts in that capacity. Mr. Wellman was born in Mentor, Ohio, Nov. 3, 1858. At the age of 14 he begen his newspaper experience establishing at that ege a weekly paper in the little town of Sutton, Neb In 1878 he returned to Ohio, and a year later established the Cincinnati Evening Post. In 1884 he beoame the Washington correspondent of the Chicago Herald, and in 1892 he visited Central America and the West Indies and located the landing plaoe of Columbus on Witling’s (San Salvador) Island, and marked the spot with a hugh stone monument. Mr. Wellman’s dashes for the north pole are well known. In 1894 he made the first of his two aotics voyages of exploration, reaobing a ' latitude of 81 degrees northeast o * Spitzbergen. In 1898 he returned to the North, penetrated to Franz Jocef Land < returning again to this co ™try in 1899 On each trip he * " lth wonderful success in the 4'soovery of new islands and laiidd, and brought wk with him scientific data and information of great value to the American Geographical Society. Mr Wellman has been a voluminous writer for scientific magazines and popular periodicals. On returning from his arctic trips be renewed hia connection with The Record-Herald, and is now the Washington correspondent of mat paper. His incisive discussion of contemporary affairs has given him a high place in the regarded statesmen and scientists of the day.