Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/244

224 discretion, but by communicating freely with President Baez, he will show you the stipulations of the agreement drawn up between the United States and the Dominican Government, which will explain to you how far you are authorized to act. While strictly complying with the agreement between the United States and the Dominican Government, you will avoid difficulties with foreign Powers when it is possible to do so, and will warn any naval force fitting out from Hayti, or any part of the Dominican republic now in revolution, that the United States will not permit any hostile acts to be committed against the Dominicans.

And now the same Secretary of the Navy is found to put over his own signature the statement that the Executive department has not chosen to take part in the internal conflicts of the Dominican republic! Truly, sir, the memory of Secretaries has grown wonderfully short. Let me attempt to revive the recollection of certain events in the Secretary's mind. Yesterday I called attention to the fact—and undoubtedly the Secretary of the Navy must have heard of it, for it is reported in his own document—that a United States man-of-war actually transported Dominican troops from Azua to San Domingo city at the request of President Baez, to be used against an apprehended insurrection there. Now, in the name of common-sense, I ask you, is the transportation of troops a belligerent act or not, when a conflict is pending? What would you have said, gentlemen, if an English man-of-war during our late rebellion had taken on board a division of rebel troops at Mobile bay and transported them to Charleston for the accommodation of the Southern Confederacy? Would that not have been considered an act of war by every sane man? Would that not have been considered active interference in the internal troubles of this country? Would we not have resented it as such? And what else was the transportation of Baez's troops