Helena Weekly Herald

The recent proclamation of the Captain General of Cuba exceeds in cold-blooded atrocity anything since the days of Caligula. This ruffian deliberately proclaims that after the 15th of January he will shoot every insurgent captured, that all white women taken in the woods shall be banished, and all the negro women returned into slavery, and condemned to wear a ball and chain for five years.

This fiendish proclamation is of course made with the full consent of the Madrid Government, which has just dispatched a fresh batch of troops to complete the extirpation of the Cubans. What can be thought of the Government that tolerates, nay indorses and orders, such beastly cruelty as this? Will civilized nations stand idly by without protest, while brutal Spain stamps the life out of the unfortunate people who are fighting so determinedly for their freedom? Humanity forbids such apathy, and after President Grant's protest in his message, national self-respect should counsel intervention. If Spain cannot subdue Cuba without resorting to a policy of extermination, she has no right to meddle with the island further. The United States Government must not countenance the atrocities thus coolly announced by the Captain-General. A prompt, cautious, but emphatic protest should be laid before the Court of Madrid, and it should be made clear that the American people insist upon the usages of humanity being extended to the Cubans. If this is not attended to, we don't know that the Government can do better than to take Cuba and present it to the Cubans.