Excerpt from Cuban Intervention: Speech of Hon. Stephen M. White, of California, in the Senate of the United States, Saturday, April 16, 1898

Here we can rest an instant to look upon conditions as they actually exist, and to write in compliance with verity a record which in cooler moments will be scrutinized by our children, who will ask themselves whether we were right. There may be no re call for our error. There can be no excuse for a mistake easily detected or direful in result.

The President of the United States, charged by the Constitution with the conduct of our diplomatic affairs, has been earnestly and actively engaged in attempting to bring about order in Cuba, fol lowed by the independence of that island. It is my opinion that if he is permitted to pursue the course he has marked out for him self, if we let him alone, Cuba will be free, the Maine incident will be justly and honorably settled, and not one drop of American or other blood will be shed as a result of present estrangements.

But we are to have war. Every Senator who has spoken de clares so, and in the same breath deprecates such a consequence. In beautiful language, in phraseology I will not attempt to rival, Senators have depicted here the atrocities of warfare. Who knows them not? Who has read the story of man and has failed to sicken at the ghastly spectacle of the battlefield?

Lo, the giant on the mountain stands, His blood-red tresses gleaming in the sun.

When did reason assign to brutal conflict the settlement of any dispute? What true Christian ever willingly consecrated to the arbitrament of brutality issues involving rectitude and honor? War is the last resort. If wantonly resorted to it is wholesale murder.

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