Be Sure You Are Right
Title
Be Sure You Are Right
Description
With nations as with individuals, the prudent maxim of old David Crockett holds good - "Be sure you are right and then go ahead." If there was ever a time in our history when the spirit of this often quoted but less frequently observed maxim needed to be invoked upon our counsels, both national and individual, it is now, when the peace of our land is threatened with the tragic possibilities of war.
Before giving vent to our belligerent emotions in the crisis which is now upon us it first behooves us to fasten the responsibility for the destruction of our battleship. If the commission which is now faithfully at work in Cuba endeavoring to ascertain the exact truth in regard to the destructionof the Maine finds that cause of the disaster springs from Spanish treachery, it will then be time enough to inflame the passions of our people into the fires of belligerent enthusiasm; but not until then. While the commission is exerting its utmost resources to ascertain the cause of the horrible disaster and to fasten its responcibility upon the proper shoulders we have the satisfaction of knowing that the sympathy of the entire world is with us, and that we are not required in the present ordeal to stand alone. At this critical juncture can we afford to forfeit the world's friendly interest in us by prematurely giving vent to our hostile rage? Such precipitation may do honor to untutored savages, but not to civilized men.
Moreover, it should be remembered that war is something direful and calamitous, and while in the experience of nations, it is sometimes necessary to resort to arms, it is worse than criminal to engage in mortal combat and imperil human life without sufficient provocation. If war was perilous some twenty-five or thirty years ago, when so many of our brave countrymen offered up their lives in obedient sacrifice to principle, it is ten times more perilous at the present time, when muskets have been largely superseded by ponderous and destructive war engines. So the part of wisdom in the crisis which is now at hand constrains up to withhold judgement until the matter has been thoroughly investigated and the truth established, whatever it may be. With so many sacred interests at state, the American people cannot afford to rush headlong into war; they must first weigh carefully every syllable of the evidence connected with the destruction of the battleship, and then if it appears that Spain is responsible for the disaster and refuses to atone for it, they will be ready to accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
Before giving vent to our belligerent emotions in the crisis which is now upon us it first behooves us to fasten the responsibility for the destruction of our battleship. If the commission which is now faithfully at work in Cuba endeavoring to ascertain the exact truth in regard to the destructionof the Maine finds that cause of the disaster springs from Spanish treachery, it will then be time enough to inflame the passions of our people into the fires of belligerent enthusiasm; but not until then. While the commission is exerting its utmost resources to ascertain the cause of the horrible disaster and to fasten its responcibility upon the proper shoulders we have the satisfaction of knowing that the sympathy of the entire world is with us, and that we are not required in the present ordeal to stand alone. At this critical juncture can we afford to forfeit the world's friendly interest in us by prematurely giving vent to our hostile rage? Such precipitation may do honor to untutored savages, but not to civilized men.
Moreover, it should be remembered that war is something direful and calamitous, and while in the experience of nations, it is sometimes necessary to resort to arms, it is worse than criminal to engage in mortal combat and imperil human life without sufficient provocation. If war was perilous some twenty-five or thirty years ago, when so many of our brave countrymen offered up their lives in obedient sacrifice to principle, it is ten times more perilous at the present time, when muskets have been largely superseded by ponderous and destructive war engines. So the part of wisdom in the crisis which is now at hand constrains up to withhold judgement until the matter has been thoroughly investigated and the truth established, whatever it may be. With so many sacred interests at state, the American people cannot afford to rush headlong into war; they must first weigh carefully every syllable of the evidence connected with the destruction of the battleship, and then if it appears that Spain is responsible for the disaster and refuses to atone for it, they will be ready to accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
Creator
uncredited
Source
The Goldsboro Headlight
Date
March 3, 1898
Type
Newspaper Article
Identifier
http://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn91068337/1898-03-03/ed-1/seq-2/
Files
Collection
Citation
uncredited, “Be Sure You Are Right,” The North Carolina Experience in the Spanish American War, accessed April 28, 2024, https://csilkenat.omeka.net/items/show/10.