property and their self-respect if they had been abused as the
self-respect and property and freedom of Americans have been abused by
this fourth-rate power, and are being abused to-day.

Before I went to Cuba I was as much opposed to our interfering there as
any other person equally ignorant concerning the situation could be,
but since I have seen for myself I feel ashamed that we should have
stood so long idle. We have been too considerate, too fearful that as a
younger nation, we should appear to disregard the laws laid down by
older nations. We have tolerated what no European power would have
tolerated; we have been patient with men who have put back the hand of
time for centuries, who lie to our representatives daily, who butcher
innocent people, who gamble with the lives of their own soldiers in
order to gain a few more stars and an extra stripe, who send American
property to the air in flames and murder American prisoners.

The British lately sent an expedition of eight hundred men to the west
coast of Africa to punish savage king who butchers people because it
does not rain. Why should we tolerate Spanish savages merely because
they call themselves "the most Catholic," but who in reality are no
better than this naked negro? What difference is there between the King
of Benin who crucifies a woman because he wants rain and General Weyler
who outrages a woman for his own pleasure and throws her to his
bodyguard of blacks, even if the woman has the misfortune to live after
it--and to still live in Sagua la Grande to-day?

If the English were right--and they were right--in punishing the King
of Benin for murdering his subjects to propitiate his idols, we are
right to punish these revivers of the Inquisition for starving women
and children to propitiate an Austrian archduchess.