Cortland
Semi-Weekly Standard, Friday, March 25, 1898.
CRISIS AT HAND.
Action
on Cuba Must Come Very Soon.
MAINE
VERDICT TONIGHT.
Lieutenant
Commander Marix Will Reach Washington Late Today, and the Report Will Go to
Secretary Long at Once, Who Will Convey It to the President—It Will Not Be Made
Public Before Monday—La Lucha of Havana
Does Not Believe the Court of Inquiry Gave as Much Time as Necessary to the
Investigation.
WASHINGTON, March 24.—The feeling is
universal throughout official circles that the culmination of the Spanish
crisis is near at hand. With the report of the Maine court of inquiry only a
little while off, with the White House the center of long and earnest
conferences between the president and the party leaders of congress, and with
exceptional activity toward emergency preparations in the war and navy
departments, there is an abundance of evidence that definite results regarding
the Maine disaster and the Cuban question in general about to be reached.
Among the president’s callers were Senators
Cockrell, Turpie and Foracker; General Daniel Sickles, former United States
minister at Madrid, and Representative William Alden Smith of Michigan , who
has recently returned from a trip to Cuba. The call of Messrs. Cockrell and
Turpie was regarded as particularly significant, as they are representative
Democrats in the senate, and their visit followed that of Senator Gorman.
Secretaries Long and Alger also conferred
with the president during the day. Secretary Long said later that the Maine
report probably would reach Washington tonight. If, however, it did not come
before 8 o’clock this evening, Mr. Long said he probably would not receive it
until Friday morning, when it would be laid before the president immediately.
The secretary did not think the president would give the document any
consideration at a late hour. It was more probable, he thought, if Lieutenant [Commander]
Marix would take the report to a hotel for the night.
There has been no change in the plan of
sending the report to congress early next week, probably Monday, accompanied by
a message from the president. It is definitely settled, however, that the
message and the papers accompanying it will relate exclusively to the Maine
disaster. It will not take up the fearful condition of affairs in Cuba as shown
by the reports of United States consuls, these being reserved for subsequent
action and a later message to congress.
 |
| Fitzhugh Lee. |
A HASTY
INVESTIGATION.
La Lucha
Claims Our Court Did Not Properly Examine the Maine.
HAVANA, March 24.—Miss Clara Barton,
president of the American branch of the Red Cross society, left for New York on
the Key West mail steamer. Miss Barton says the cause of her departure is
purely personal and has to do with private financial matters. Miss Barton
expects to go to Washington, and expressed the hope that she would soon be able
to return to Cuba.
La Lucha, in an editorial, maintains that
the American court of inquiry, owing to the short time it was here, could not
give a scientific report on the Maine disaster. “American naval officers,” says
La Lucha, “are not likely to decide against brother officers. The divers could
not give expert testimony, owing to the fact that the machinery was embedded
four feet in the mud. It is greatly to be regretted that more time and care
were not given to the preparation of a report for which the whole world waits,
and which is likely to change the entire feelings of a part of the American
people toward Spain and Cuba.”
La Lucha publishes also an interview with
Consul General Lee which quotes him as saying that he knows nothing of the
nature of the report, but is satisfied that General Blanco never conceived the
disaster until he heard the shock in the harbor.
Gunner Morgan left for the fleet at Key
West. With him went the naval divers Fisher, Rundquest and Schluter, with Hanz
the helper. Hanz belongs to the Fern and has been ill. This leaves two navy
divers and five civilians on the contract work.
The body of a white man was found in the
forward part of the wreck. It will probably be identified by marks on the
clothing when the latter has been disinfected. The body was sent to Key West on
the Olivette. No orders have yet been received by the Maine officers here to go
north. A Whitehead torpedo was recovered from the wreck. Some divers complain
of not feeling well. At present yellow fever is almost unknown on the island,
and the season is regarded as remarkably healthful.
 |
| P. Mateo Sagasta. |
Must Not
Use Dynamite.
MADRID, March 24.—A semi-official note, just
issued, says: “At the cabinet meeting yesterday Senor Sagasta (the Premier)
read a telegram from Captain General Blanco saying that the captain of the
Maine had requested permission to blow up the wreck with dynamite, and that
permission to do so had been refused him.
 |
| Chauncey M. Depew. |
PAGE
FOUR—EDITORIALS.
Mr.
Depew on Cuba.
Hon. Chauncey M. Depew was the principal
speaker at the sixth annual dinner of the Empire State Society of the Sons of
the Revolution, Saturday evening, in New York. There were many able and
patriotic speeches during the evening, and nearly all of the speakers touched
on Cuba; but the reference of Mr. Depew to the blighting influence of Spanish
rule surpassed all in breadth and power. Mr. Depew said:
One power alone in Europe sympathized with
Lord North and George III in their attack upon the rights of the American
people; one power alone in Europe held off till the last—until long after Great
Britain herself had acted—in the recognition of the independence of the United
States. That power was Spain. She had at that time the most magnificent of
colonial empires; she possessed nearly one-half and the most productive half of
the continent of North America, the whole of the Isthmus of Darien, the whole
of South America, and nearly all the islands of the adjoining seas. She feared
that the example of the American revolution would spread to her own colonies.
Had she learned the lesson of the American revolution she might still have been
an imperial power. That lesson on the American revolution in colonial empire
was home rule and self-government for the people of the colonies and the
working out of their own destinies according to the conditions of the country
in which they lived and their surroundings. This lesson costs Great Britain the
fairest of her possessions, but by adopting the policy which it taught her
colonies now encircle the globe. It was one of the sights of the century to see
in the jubilee procession last summer the representatives of every continent
and climate of the earth, of every race and religion loyally following the
queen, as subject to her authority in an imperial sense, and sovereign
themselves in their own home governments. Spain has persistently clung to the
ideas of Lord North, and worse than that, to the Roman pro-consular system,
which recognizes prosperous colonies only as opportunities for the rapacity of
imperial rulers. The spirit of the age has broken her power, has wrested from
her marvelous possessions, and has reduced the empire of a quarter of the globe
to a few fertile islands in the Atlantic and Pacific. Too late, she recognizes,
when all is lost in Cuba, the folly of her past and of her present. With the
independence of Cuba will disappear from the face of the earth the last remnant
of that kind of power which was represented by Lord North and fell with his
ministry.
Mr. Depew doesn’t argue about the
independence of Cuba, he assumes it as a foregone conclusion. While other
speakers dallied and talked about autonomy and the election to be held in Cuba
on the 23d of April, Mr. Depew went straight to the mark. Like every far-seeing
and patriotic American, he sees nothing ahead but independence for the brave
men who have shown a courage and tenacity equaled only by the colonists during
the American revolution.
The
Cadaver Bill.
ALBANY, March 24.—The assembly has passed Assemblyman
Van Hoesen’s bill exempting cadavers of the Oswego, Onondaga, Madison and
Cortland almshouses from the disposition to the Medical college of Syracuse
university.
A
VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY.
Jury in
County Court so Declares in the Mary Hennessey Case.
The case of The People against Mary
Hennessey, indicted for bigamy, was given to the jury in county court at 4:30
Wednesday afternoon. The charge of County Judge Eggleston was an eminently fair
and impartial one, as attested by the fact that neither of the attorneys in the
case made any exceptions to any of the charges or made any additional requests.
The defense claimed that when the girl was first said to have been married, she
was too young to comprehend the meaning of the act, and did it under compulsion
or fear, and also that at the time of the second marriage, she believed John
Hennessey to be dead. The jury at 9 o’clock Wednesday night rendered a verdict
of not guilty.
Telephone
Office Removal.
On or soon after April 1 the office of the
Empire State Telephone exchange, now located on the third floor of the Beaudry
block, will be removed to the rooms at the rear of the second floor of the
Wallace block over Brogden’s drug store. The new location will be more
convenient for the public, and the rooms are admirably suited to the needs of
the office, being well lighted and nicely arranged.
A LETTER
FROM THE CHAPLAIN.
Mrs. P.
C. Nelson Hears from Chaplain Chidwick of the Ill-Fated Ship.
Mrs. P. C. Nelson of 8 Frank-st., whose
brother Charles Johnson was one of the unfortunates in the Maine wreck, has
received a letter from her mother in Lowell, Mass., in which is enclosed the
following letter from Chaplin Chidwick of the Maine:
Hotel Inglaterre
Havana, Cuba, March 1, 1898.
DEAR MRS. JOHNSON—I offer you my heartfelt
sympathy. Your son, Charles Johnson, is with the vast number of our noble men
who have gone before their God. I knew him well—a steady, faithful man, one to
be relied upon for any duty. God will have mercy upon our men. Let us never
forget that although his ways are inscrutable to us at times, his justice and
mercy reign over us all forever. He is more loving than we and looks down more
benignly upon the unfortunate victims of the disaster than we. Let us leave
them at the feet of an all merciful God. I regret to say that I do not remember
to have recognized as yet the body of your son. It may have been one of
twenty-four which I did not have the opportunity to see. It is most probable
that his remains have been recovered and now lie at rest with those of his
shipmates in the beautiful cemetery in this city. It was interred with Christian
rites. If the body has not been recovered, and I will identify it, I will notify
you. The body will be sent to Key West, Florida. If you remember any marks upon
his body kindly let me know what they are. In prayer and sympathy, yours
sincerely,
REV. JOHN
P. CHIDWICK,
Chaplain
of Maine S. S.
BREVITIES.
— Dr. O. A. Houghton will preach in South
Cortland this evening.
—The interior of the D., L. & W. station
is being freshened up with new paint and varnish.
—The mother’s meeting (east) will be held at
3 P. M. Friday, March 25, at the home of Mrs. Chorley, 116 Elm-st.
—Vesta lodge, I. O. O. F., will give the
next in its series of hops in the lodgerooms Saturday night. The music will be
furnished by Daniel’s orchestra.
—Franklin L., son of Mr. and Mrs. John
Hudson, aged 10 months, died Tuesday at their home on Railway-ave. The funeral
was held at 2 o’clock Thursday afternoon.
—The courthouse has been wired for electric
lights in the jail in accordance with an order made by Supreme Court Justice
Walter Lloyd Smith at the last term of court.
—Arrangements are nearly completed for the
removal of Hopkins’ grocery from its present location to the store in the
Sugarman block now occupied by G. O. Whitcomb about April 1.
—Timothy Gleason, aged 74 years, died Sunday
at his home on Hubbard-st. from the effects of a shock [stroke] suffered a few
weeks ago. The funeral was held from St. Mary’s church Tuesday morning.
—The store at 30 Main-st., formerly occupied
by the Cash Book store, is receiving attention in the way of new ceiling and
floor, paint and paper in preparation for its occupancy April 1 by J. J.
Reider, jeweler.
—Another indoors athletic contest occurred
in the Y. M. C. A. gymnasium Tuesday evening. W. C. Reynolds now leads the
contestants with a score of 1,123 points. E. H. Richards is second with a score
of 1,056.
—The ladies of Ithaca who attend the Lyceum
can prove to anyone interested that an anti-big hat law is unnecessary. With
one or two exceptions they invariably remove their hats. The few exceptions are
people who are not in the habit of attending the theatre, or are too obstinate
to follow the general custom, which is so agreeable to the theatre-going public.—Ithaca
Journal.—The same can be said of the ladies who attend the Cortland Opera
House.
 |
| Fast mail train at Cincinnatus, N. Y. |
CINCINNATUS,
N. Y.
Cincinnatus, March 22.—Mr. and Mrs. F. B.
Miner of Cortland were in town over Sunday.
P. H. Reed and wife of Binghamton are
spending a few days with Mrs. Reed’s parents.
Hon. F. B. Saunders of Cortland was in town
Monday.
Harry Hartwell of Cortland spent Sunday with
friends here.
T. E. Dye of Cortland was in town over
Sunday.
Mrs. Frank Wiles and Miss Mabel Howes spent
the latter part of last week in Willet.
Mrs. Stella Bolster leaves the last of the week
for Syracuse to purchase her
spring stock
of millinery.
Mrs. Frank Baldwin of Ithaca visited her
father, Wm. Thompson, in this place the past week.
Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Murray spent Sunday with
Mrs. Murray’s parents in Smithville.
Rev.
and Mrs. Edson Rogers returned Tuesday from attending the funeral of Mrs. Rogers’
mother near New York.
Work was completed on the Harrington cut for
the new railroad yesterday, it having required nearly five months’ time to do
the work. The large trestle is well toward completion and it is expected that
track-laying will be resumed this week under the foremanship of Mr. Smith. Mr.
Lawton has returned to oversee the remaining grading to be done. The stakes are
set for the depot here and it will soon be erected. It will be 16 feet by 45
feet with a platform 6 feet wide surrounding it. This will be about 15 feet
longer than the other depots on the road.
Mr. Atkin, who is to have charge of the new
milk station in this place, together with his family, has arrived in town.
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