such as can be saved, and yet there are those who
still say it is right for us to send food, but we must keep hands off. I
say that the time has come when muskets ought to go with the food....

The time for action has, then, come. No greater reason for it can exist
to-morrow than exists to-day. Every hour's delay only adds another chapter
to the awful story of misery and death. Only one power can intervene--the
United States of America. Ours is the one great nation of the New World,
the mother of American republics. She holds a position of trust and
responsibility toward the peoples and the affairs of the whole Western
Hemisphere.

Mr. President, there is only one action possible, if any is taken--that
is, intervention for the independence of the island. But we cannot
intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of force, and force means
war; war means blood. The lowly Nazarene on the shores of Galilee preached
the divine doctrine of love, "Peace on earth, good will toward men." Not
peace on earth at the expense of liberty and humanity. Not good will
toward men who despoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their
fellow-men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ, I believe in the doctrine
of peace; but, Mr. President, men must have liberty before there can come
abiding peace.

Intervention means force. Force means war. War means blood. But it will be
God's force. When has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won
except by force? What barricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has
ever been carried except by force? Force compelled the signature of
unwilling royalty to the great Magna Charta; force put life into
the Declaration of Independence and made effective the Emancipation
Proclamation; force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of the
Bastile and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly crime;
force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows
of Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; force held the broken line at
Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the
clouds on Lookout heights; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode
with Sheridan in the valley of Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at
Appomattox; force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, made
"niggers" men.

Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may plead for
further diplomatic negotiations, which means delay; but for me, I am ready
to act now, an