In view of this tangible evidence of intimacy on the part of the United States with the Hawaiian Islands, Webster in 1842 brought them within the scope of the Monroe Doctrine by declaring that European powers must not interfere with their government. Marcy, Secretary of State, framed a treaty of annexation in 1853, but the Hawaiian Government withdrew its a.s.sent. Twenty years later Secretary Fish wrote: "There seems to be a strong desire on the part of many persons in the islands, representing large interests and great wealth, to become annexed to the United States and while there are, as I have already said, many and influential persons in the country who question the policy of any insular acquisition, perhaps even any extension of territorial limits, there are also those of influence and wise foresight who see a future that must extend the jurisdiction and the limits of this nation, and that will require a resting spot in the mid-ocean, between the Pacific coast and the vast domains of Asia, which are now opening to commerce, and Christian civilization."
All immediate action, however, was confined to a specially intimate treaty of reciprocity which was signed in 1875, and which secured a substantial American domination in commerce. When Blaine became Secretary of State in 1881, he was, or at least he affected to be, seriously alarmed at the possibility of foreign influence in Hawaiian affairs, particularly on the part of Great Britain. The native population was declining, and should it continue to diminish, he believed that the United States must annex the islands. "Throughout the continent, north and south," he wrote, "wherever a foothold is found for American enterprise, it is quickly occupied, and the spirit of adventure, which seeks its outlet, in the mines of South America and the railroads of Mexico, would not be slow to avail itself of openings of a.s.sured and profitable enterprise even in mid-ocean." As the feeling grew in the United States that these islands really belonged to the American continent, Blaine even invited Hawaii to send representatives to the Pan-American Congress of 1889. When he again became Secretary of State, he was prepared to give indirect support at least to American interests, for the new queen, Liliuokalani, was supposed to be under British influence. On the arrival of a British gunboat in Honolulu, J. L. Stevens, the American Minister, went so far as to write on February 8, 1892: "At this time there seems to be no immediate prospect of its being safe to have the harbor of Honolulu left without an American vessel of war."
Revolution was, indeed, impending in Hawaii. On January 14, 1893, the Queen abolished the later const.i.tution under which the Americans had exercised great power, and in its place she proclaimed the restoration of the old const.i.tution which established an absolutism modified by native home rule. At two o"clock on the afternoon of the 16th of January, the resident Americans organized a committee of safety; at half-past four United States marines landed at the call of Stevens. The Queen was thereupon deposed, a provisional government was organized, and at its request Stevens a.s.sumed for the United States the "protection" of the islands. Without delay, John W. Foster, who had just succeeded Blaine as Secretary of State, drew up a treaty of annexation, which he immediately submitted to the Senate.
On March 4, 1893, Cleveland became President for the second time. He at once withdrew the treaty and appointed James H. Blount special commissioner to investigate the facts of the revolt. While the report of Commissioner Blount did not, indeed, convict Stevens of conspiring to bring about the uprising, it left the impression that the revolt would not have taken place and certainly could not have succeeded except for the presence of the United States marines and the support of the United States Minister. Cleveland recalled Stevens and the marines, and requested the provisional government to restore the Queen. This Sanford Ballard Dole, the President of the new republic, refused to do, on the contention that President Cleveland had no right to interfere in the domestic affairs of Hawaii. On the legality or propriety of Stevens"s conduct, opinion in Congress was divided; but with regard to Dole"s contention, both the Senate and the House were agreed that the islands should maintain their own domestic government without interference from the United States. Thus left to themselves, the Americans in Hawaii bided their time until public opinion in the United States should prove more favorable to annexation.
CHAPTER VI. Venezuela
Probably no President ever received so much personal abuse in his own day as did Grover Cleveland. In time, however, his sterling integrity and fundamental courage, his firm grasp of the higher administrative duties of his office, won the approval of his countrymen, and a repentant public sentiment has possibly gone too far in the other direction of acclaiming his statesmanship. Unlike Blaine, Cleveland thought soundly and consistently; but he was more obstinate, his vision was often narrower, and he was notably lacking both in constructive power and in tact, particularly in foreign relations. In his first Administration, through his Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, Cleveland had negotiated fairly amicably with Great Britain, and when he failed to secure the Senate"s a.s.sent to a treaty on the irritating question of the northeastern fisheries, he arranged a modus vivendi which served for many years. In American affairs he opposed not only the annexation of Hawaii but also the development of the spirit of Pan-Americanism. He was, however, no more disposed than was Blaine to permit infractions of that negative side of the Monroe Doctrine which forbade European interference in America. His second Administration brought to the forefront of world diplomacy an issue involving this traditional principle.
The only European possession in South America at this time was Guiana, fronting on the Atlantic north of Brazil and divided among France, Holland, and Great Britain. Beyond British Guiana, the westernmost division, lay Venezuela. Between the two stretched a vast tract of unoccupied tropical jungle. Somewhere there must have been a boundary, but where, no man could tell. The extreme claim of Great Britain would have given her command of the mouth of the Orinoco, while that of Venezuela would practically have eliminated British Guiana. Efforts to settle this long-standing dispute were unavailing. Venezuela had from time to time suggested arbitration but wished to throw the whole area into court. Great Britain insisted upon reserving a minimum territory and would submit to judicial decision only the land west of what was known as the Schomburgh line of 1840. As early as 1876 Venezuela appealed to the United States, "the most powerful and oldest of the Republics of the new continent," for its "powerful moral support in disputes with European nations." Several times the United States proffered its good offices to Great Britain, but to no effect. The satisfactory settlement of the question grew more difficult as time went on, particularly after the discovery of gold in the disputed region had given a new impulse to occupation.
President Cleveland took a serious view of this controversy because it seemed to involve more than a boundary dispute. To his mind it called into question the portion of Monroe"s message which, in 1823, stated that "the American continents... are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." According to this dictum, boundaries existed between all nations and colonies of America; the problem was merely to find these boundaries. If a European power refused to submit such a question to judicial decision, the inference must be made that it was seeking to extend its boundaries. In December, 1894, Cleveland expressed to Congress his hope that an arbitration would be arranged and instructed his Secretary of State to present vigorously to Great Britain the view of the United States.
Richard Olney of Boston, a lawyer of exceptional ability and of the highest professional standing, was then Secretary of State. His Venezuela dispatch, however, was one of the most undiplomatic doc.u.ments ever issued by the Department of State. He did not confine himself to a statement of his case, wherein any amount of vigor would have been permissible, but ran his unpracticed eye unnecessarily over the whole field of American diplomacy. "That distance and three thousand miles of intervening ocean make any permanent political union between a European and an American state unnatural and inexpedient," may have been a philosophic axiom to many in Great Britain as well as in the United States, but it surely did not need reiteration in this state paper, and Olney at once exposed himself to contradiction by adding the phrase, "will hardly be denied." Entirely ignoring the sensitive pride of the Spanish Americans and thinking only of Europe, he continued: "Today the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition."
The President himself did not run into any such uncalled-for extravagance of expression, but his statement of the American position did not thereby lose in vigor. When he had received the reply, of the British Government refusing to recognize the interest of the United States in the case, Cleveland addressed himself, on December 17, 1895, to Congress. In stating the position of the Government of the United States, he declared that to determine the true boundary line was its right, duty, and interest. He recommended that the Government itself appoint a commission for this purpose, and he a.s.serted that this line, when found, must be maintained as the lawful boundary. Should Great Britain continue to exercise jurisdiction beyond it, the United States must resist by every means in its power. "In making these recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred, and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow." Yet "there is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor beneath which axe shielded and defended a people"s safety and greatness."
Perhaps no American doc.u.ment relating to diplomacy ever before made so great a stir in the world. Its unexpectedness enhanced its effect, even in the United States, for the public had not been sufficiently aware of the shaping of this international episode to be psychologically prepared for the imminence of war. Unlike most Anglo-American diplomacy, this had been a long-range negotiation, with notes exchanged between the home offices instead of personal conferences. People blenched at the thought of war; stocks fell; the attention of the whole world was arrested. The innumerable and intimate bonds of friendship and interest which would thus have to be broken merely because of an insignificant jog in a boundary remote from both the nations made war between the United States and Great Britain seem absolutely inconceivable, until people realized that neither country could yield without an admission of defeat both galling to national pride and involving fundamental principles of conduct and policy for the future.
Great Britain in particular stood amazed at Cleveland"s position. The general opinion was that peace must be maintained and that diplomats must find a formula which would save both peace and appearances. Yet before this public opinion could be diplomatically formulated, a new episode shook the British sense of security. Germany again appeared as a menace and, as in the case of Samoa, the international situation thus produced tended to develop a realization of the kinship between Great Britain and the United States. Early in January, 1896, the Jameson raid into the Transvaal was defeated, and the Kaiser immediately telegraphed his congratulations to President Krtiger. In view of the possibilities involved in this South African situation, British public opinion demanded that her diplomats maintain peace with the United States, with or without the desired formula.
The British Government, however, was not inclined to act with undue haste. It became apparent even to the most panicky that war with the United States could not come immediately, for the American Commission of Inquiry must first report. For a time Lord Salisbury hoped that Congress would not support the President-a contingency which not infrequently happened under Cleveland"s Administration. On this question of foreign relations, however, Congress stood squarely behind the President. Lord Salisbury then toyed with the hope that the matter might be delayed until Cleveland"s term expired, in the hope he might have an opportunity of dealing with a less strenuous successor.
In the summer of 1896, John Hay, an intimate friend of Major McKinley, the probable Republican candidate for the presidency, was in England, where he was a well-known figure. There he met privately Arthur J. Balfour, representing Lord Salisbury, and Sir William Harcourt, the leader of the Opposition. Hay convinced them that a change in the Administration of his country would involve no retreat from the existing American position. The British Government thereupon determined to yield but attempted to cover its retreat by merging the question with one of general arbitration. This proposal, however, was rejected, and Lord Salisbury then agreed to "an equitable settlement" of the Venezuela question by empowering the British Amba.s.sador at Washington to begin negotiations "either with the representative of Venezuela or with the Government of the United States acting as the friend of Venezuela."
The achievement of the Administration consisted in forcing Great Britain to recognize the interest of the United States in the dispute with Venezuela, on the ground that Venezuela was one of the nations of the Western Hemisphere. This concession practically involved recognition of the interest of the United States in case of future disputes with other American powers. The arbitration treaty thus arranged between Great Britain and Venezuela under the auspices of the United States submitted the whole disputed area to judicial decision but adopted the rule that fifty years of occupation should give a sufficient t.i.tle for possession. The arbitration tribunal, which met in Paris in 1899, decided on a division of the disputed territory but found that the claim of Great Britain was, on the whole, more nearly correct than that of Venezuela.
Cleveland"s startling and unconventional method of dealing with this controversy has been explained by all kinds of conjectures. For example, it has been charged that his message was the product of a fishing trip on which whisky flowed too freely; on the other hand, it has been a.s.serted that the message was an astute political play for the thunder of patriotic applause. More seriously, Cleveland has been charged by one set of critics with bluffing, and by another with recklessly running the risk of war on a trivial provocation. The charge of bluffing comes nearer the fact, for President Cleveland probably had never a moment"s doubt that the forces making for peace between the two nations would be victorious. If he may be said to have thrown a bomb, he certainly had attached a safety valve to it, for the investigation which he proposed could not but give time for the pa.s.sions produced by his message to cool. It is interesting to note in pa.s.sing that delay for investigation was a device which that other great Democrat, William Jennings Bryan, Cleveland"s greatest political enemy, sought, during his short term as Secretary of State under President Wilson, to make universal in a series of arbitration treaties-treaties which now bind the United States and many other countries, how tightly no man can tell.
While, however, Cleveland"s action was based rather on a belief in peace than on an expectation of war, it cannot be dismissed as merely a bluff. Not only was he convinced that the principle involved was worth establishing whatever the cost might be, but he was certain that the method he employed was the only one which could succeed, for in no other way was it possible to wake England to a realization of the fact that the United States was full-grown and imbued with a new consciousness of its strength. So far was Cleveland"s message from provoking war that it caused the people of Great Britain vitally to realize for the first time the importance of friendship with the United States. It marks a change in their att.i.tude toward things American which found expression not only in diplomacy, but in various other ways, and which strikingly revealed itself in the international politics of the next few years. Not that hostility was converted into affection, but a former condescension gave way to an appreciative friendliness towards the people of the United States.
The reaction in America was somewhat different. Cleveland had united the country upon a matter of foreign policy, not completely, it is true, but to a greater degree than Blaine had ever succeeded in doing. More important than this unity of feeling throughout the land, however, was the development of a spirit of inquiry among the people. Suddenly confronted by changes of policy that might bring wealth or poverty, life or death, the American people began to take the foreign relations of the United States more seriously than they had since the days of the Napoleonic wars. Yet it is not surprising that when the Venezuela difficulty had been settled and Secretary Olney and Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Amba.s.sador, had concluded a general treaty of arbitration, the Senate should have rejected it, for the lesson that caution was necessary in international affairs had been driven home. Time was needed for the new generation to formulate its foreign policy.
CHAPTER VII. The Outbreak Of The War With Spain
Before the nineteenth century ended, the Samoan, Hawaiian, and Venezuelan episodes had done much to quicken a national consciousness in the people of the United States and at the same time to break down their sense of isolation from the rest of the world. Commerce and trade were also important factors in overcoming this traditional isolation. Not only was American trade growing, but it was changing in character. Argentina was beginning to compete with the United States in exporting wheat and meat, while American manufacturers were reaching the point where they were anxious for foreign markets in which they felt they could compete with the products of Great Britain and Germany.
In a thousand ways and without any loss of vigor the sense of American nationality was expressing itself. The study of American history was introduced into the lower schools, and a new group of historians began scientifically to investigate whence the American people had come and what they really were. In England, such popular movements find instant expression in literature; in the United States they take the form of societies. Innumerable patriotic organizations such as the "Daughters of the American Revolution" and a host of others, sought to trace out American genealogy and to perpetuate the memory of American military and naval achievements. Respect for the American flag was taught in schools, and the question was debated as to whether its use in comic opera indicated respect or insult. This new nationalism was unlike the expansionist movement of the fifties in that it laid no particular stress upon the incorporation of the neighboring republics by a process of federation. On the whole, the people had lost their faith in the a.s.similating influence of republican inst.i.tutions and did not desire to annex alien territory and races. They were now more concerned with the consolidation of their own country and with its place in the world. Nor were they as neglectful as their fathers had been of the material means by which to accomplish their somewhat indefinite purposes.
The reconstruction of the American Navy, which had attained such magnitude and played so important a part in the Civil War but which had been allowed to sink into the merest insignificance, was begun by William E. Chandler, the Secretary of the Navy under President Arthur. William C. Whitney, his successor under President Cleveland, continued the work with energy. Captain Alfred T. Mahan began in 1883 to publish that series of studies in naval history which won him world-wide recognition and did so much to revolutionize prevailing conceptions of naval strategy. A Naval War College was established in 1884, at Newport, Rhode Island, where naval officers could continue the studies which they had begun at Annapolis.
The total neglect of the army was not entirely the result of indifference. The experience with volunteers in the Civil War had given almost universal confidence that the American people could const.i.tute themselves an army at will. The presence of several heroes of that war in succession in the position of commander-in-chief of the army had served to diffuse a sense of security among the people. Here and there military drill was introduced in school and college, but the regular army attracted none of the romantic interest that clung about the navy, and the militia was almost totally neglected. Individual officers, such as young Lieutenant Tasker Bliss, began to study the new technique of warfare which was to make fighting on land as different from that of the wars of Napoleon as naval warfare was different from that of the time of Nelson. Yet in spite of obviously changing conditions, no provision was made for the encouragement of young army officers in advanced and up-to-date Studies. While their contemporaries in other professions were adding graduate training to the general education which a college gave, the graduates of West Point were considered to have made themselves in four years sufficiently proficient for all the purposes of warfare.
By the middle nineties thoughtful students of contemporary movements were aware that a new epoch in national history was approaching. What form this national development would take was, however, still uncertain, and some great event was obviously required to fix its character. Blaine"s Pan-Americanism had proved insufficient and, though the baiting of Great Britain was welcome to a vociferous minority, the forces making for peace were stronger than those in favor of war. Whatever differences there were did not reach to fundamentals but were rather in the nature of legal disputes between neighbors whom a real emergency would quickly bring to the a.s.sistance of each other. A crisis involving interest, propinquity, and sentiment, was needed to shake the nation into an activity which would clear its views.
At the very time of the Venezuela difficulty, such a crisis was taking shape in the Caribbean. Cuba had always been an object of immediate concern to the United States. The statesmen of the Jeffersonian period all looked to its eventually becoming part of American territory. Three quarters of a century before, when the revolt of the Spanish colonies had halted on the sh.o.r.es of the mainland, leaving the rich island of Cuba untouched, John Quincy Adams, on April 28, 1823, in a lengthy and long-considered dispatch to Mr. Nelson, the American Minister to Spain, a.s.serted that the United States could not consent to the pa.s.sing of Cuba from the flag of Spain to that of any other European power, that under existing conditions Cuba was considered safer in the hands of Spain than in those of the revolutionaries, and that the United States stood for the maintenance of the status quo, with the expectation that Cuba would ultimately become American territory.
By the late forties and the fifties, however, the times had changed, and American policy had changed with them. It was becoming more and more evident that, although no real revolution had as yet broken out, the "Pearl of the Antilles" was bound to Spain by compulsion rather than by love. In the United States there was a general feeling that the time had at last come to realize the vision of Jefferson and Adams and to annex Cuba. But the complications of the slavery question prevented immediate annexation. As a slave colony which might become a slave state, the South wanted Cuba, but the majority in the North did not.
After the Civil War in the United States was over, revolution at length flared forth in 1868, from end to end of the island. Sympathy with the Cubans was widespread in the United States. The hand of the Government, however, was stayed by recent history. Americans felt keenly the right of governments to exert their full strength to put down rebellion, for they themselves were prosecuting against Great Britain a case based on what they contended was her too lax enforcement of her obligations to the American Government and on the a.s.sistance which she had given to the South. The great issue determined the lesser, and for ten years the United States watched the Cuban revolution without taking part in it, but not, however, without protest and remonstrance. Claiming special rights as a close and necessarily interested neighbor, the United States constantly made suggestions as to the manner of the contest and its settlement. Some of these Spain grudgingly allowed, and it was in part by American insistence that slavery was finally abolished in the island. Further internal reform, however, was not the wish and was perhaps beyond the power of Spain. Although the revolution was seemingly brought to a close in 1878, its embers continued to smolder for nearly a score of years until in 1895 they again burst into flame.
War in Cuba could not help affecting in a very intimate way the people of the United States. They bought much the greater part of the chief Cuban crops, sugar and tobacco. American capital had been invested in the island, particularly in plantations. For years Cubans of liberal tendencies had sent their sons to be educated in the United States, very many of whom had been naturalized before returning home. Cuba was but ninety miles from Florida, and much of our coastwise shipping pa.s.sed in sight of the island. The people of the United States were aroused to sympathy and to a desire to be of a.s.sistance when they saw that the Cubans, so near geographically and so bound to them by many commercial ties, were engaged against a foreign monarchy in a struggle for freedom and a republican form of government. Ethan Allen headed a Cuban committee in New York and by his historic name a.s.sociated the new revolution with the memory of the American struggle for freedom. The Cuban flag was displayed in the United States, Cuban bonds were sold, and volunteers and arms were sent to the aid of the insurgents.
Owing to the nature of the country and the character of the people, a Cuban revolution had its peculiarities. The island is a very long and rugged mountain chain surrounded by fertile, cultivated plains. The insurgents from their mountain refuges spied out the land, pounced upon unprotected spots, burned crops and sugar mills, and were off before troops could arrive. The portion of the population in revolt at any particular time was rarely large. Many were insurgents one week and peaceful citizens the next. The fact that the majority of the population sympathized with the insurgents enabled the latter to melt into the landscape without leaving a sign. A provisional government hurried on mule-back from place to place. The Spanish Government, contrary to custom, acted at this time with some energy: it put two hundred thousand soldiers into the island; it raised large levies of loyal Cubans; it was almost always victorious; yet the revolution would not down. Martinez Campos, the "Pacificator" of the first revolution, was this time unable to protect the plains. In 1896 he was replaced by General Weyler, who undertook a new system. He started to corral the insurgents by a chain of blockhouses and barbed wire fences from ocean to sea-the first completely guarded cross-country line since the frontier walls of the Roman Empire in Europe and the Great Wall of China in Asia. He then proceeded to starve out the insurgents by destroying all the food in the areas to which they were confined. As the revolutionists lived largely on the pillage of plantations in their neighborhood, this policy involved the destruction of the crops of the loyal as well as of the disloyal, of Americans as well as of Cubans. The population of the devastated plantations was gathered into reconcentrado camps where, penned promiscuously into small reservations, they were entirely dependent upon a Government which was poor in supplies and as careless of sanitation as it was of humanity. The camps became pest-holes, spreading contagion to all regions having intercourse with Cuba, and in vain the interned victims were crying aloud for succor.
This new policy of disregard for property and life deeply involved American interests and sensibilities. The State Department maintained that Spain was responsible for the destruction of American property by insurgents. This Spain denied, for, while she never officially recognized the insurgents as belligerents, the insurrection had pa.s.sed beyond her control. This was, indeed, the position which the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission subsequently took in ruling that to establish a claim it would be necessary to show that the destruction of property was the consequence of negligence upon the part of Spanish authorities or of military orders. Of other serious grievances there was no doubt. American citizens were imprisoned, interned in reconcentrado camps, and otherwise maltreated. The nationality of American sufferers was in some cases disputed, and the necessity of dealing with each of these doubtful cases by the slow and roundabout method of complaint to Madrid, which referred matters back to Havana, which reported to Madrid, served but to add irritation to delay. American resentment, too, was fired by the sufferings of the Cubans themselves as much as by the losses and difficulties of American citizens.
One change of extreme importance had taken place since the Cuban revolt of 1868-78. This was the development of the modern American newspaper. It was no longer possible for the people at large to remain ignorant of what was taking place at their very doors. Correspondents braved the yellow fever and imprisonment in order to furnish the last details of each new horror. Foremost in this work were William Randolph Hearst, who made new records of sensationalism in his papers, particularly in the New York Journal, and Joseph Pulitzer, proprietor of the New York World. Hearst is reported to have said that it cost him three millions to bring on the Spanish American War. The net result of all this newspaper activity was that it became impossible for the American people to remain in happy ignorance of what was going on in the world. Their reaction to the facts was their own.
President Cleveland modeled his policy upon that of Grant and Grant"s Secretary, Hamilton Fish. He did not recognize the independence of the Cuban republic, for that would have meant immediate war with Spain; nor did he recognize even its belligerency. Public men in the United States were still convinced that Great Britain had erred in recognizing the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy, and consistency of foreign policy demanded that the Government should not accord recognition to a Government without a navy, a capital, or fixed territory. This decision made it particularly difficult for the President to perform his acknowledged duty to Spain, of preventing aid being sent from the United States to the insurgents. He issued the proper proclamations, and American officials were reasonably diligent, it is true, but without any of the special powers which would have resulted from a recognized state of war they were unable to prevent a leakage of supplies. As a result General Weyler had some ground for saying, though with characteristic Spanish extravagance, that it was American aid which gave life to the revolt.
President Cleveland energetically pressed all cases involving American rights; he offered mediation; he remonstrated against the cruelty of Weyler"s methods; he pointed out that the United States could not forever allow an island so near and so closely related to be in flames without intervention. Spain, however, a.s.sumed a rather lofty tone, and Cleveland was able to accomplish nothing. Senator Lodge and other Republicans violently attacked his policy as procrastinating, and the nation as a whole looked forward with interest to the approaching change in administration.
William McKinley, who became President on March 4, 1897, was not actively interested in foreign affairs. This he ill.u.s.trated in a striking way by appointing as Secretary of State John Sherman of Ohio, a man of undoubtedly high ability but one whose whole reputation rested upon his financial leadership, and who now, at the age of seventy-four, was known to be incapacitated for vigorous action. To the very moment of crisis, McKinley was opposed to a war with Spain; he was opposed to the form of the declaration of war and he was opposed to the terms of peace which ended the war. Emphatically not a leader, he was, however, unsurpa.s.sed in his day as a reader of public opinion, and he believed his function to be that of interpreting the national mind. Nor did he yield his opinion in a grudging manner. He grasped broadly the consequences of each new position which the public a.s.sumed, and he was a master at securing harmonious cooperation for a desired end.
The platform of the Republican party had declared: "The Government of Spain having lost control of Cuba, and being unable to protect the property or lives of resident American citizens, or to comply with its treaty obligations, we believe that the Government of the United States should actively use its influence and good offices to restore peace and give independence to the island." With this mandate, McKinley sought to free Cuba, absolutely or practically, while at the same time maintaining peace with Spain. On June 26, 1897, Secretary Sherman sent a note to the Spanish Minister, protesting against the Spanish methods of war and a.s.serting that "the inclusion of a thousand or more of our own citizens among the victims of this policy" gives "the President the right of specific remonstrance, but in the just fulfillment of his duty he cannot limit himself to these formal grounds of complaint. He is bound by the higher obligation of his representative office to protest against the uncivilized and inhuman conduct of the campaign in the island of Cuba. He conceives that he has a right to demand that a war, conducted almost within sight of our sh.o.r.es and grievously affecting American citizens and their interests throughout the length and breadth of the land, shall at least be conducted according to the military codes of civilization."
Negotiations between the United States and Spain have always been peculiarly irritating, owing to temperamental differences between the two peoples. McKinley, however, had in mind a program for which there was some hope of success. He was willing to agree to some form of words which would leave Spain in t.i.tular possession of the island, thereby making a concession to Spanish pride, for he knew that Spain was always more loath to surrender the form than the substance. This hope of the President was strengthened, towards the end of 1897, by a dramatic incident in the political life of Spain. On the 8th of August, the Spanish Prime Minister, the Conservative Antonio Canovas del Castillo, was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and was succeeded on the 4th of October by the Liberal, Praxedes Mateo Sagasta.
The new Spanish Government listened to American demands and made large promises of amelioration of conditions in Cuba. General Blanco was subst.i.tuted for General Weyler, whose cruelty had made him known in the American press as "the Butcher"; it was announced that the reconcentrado camps would be broken up; and the Queen Regent decreed the legislative autonomy of Cuba. Arrangements had been made for the handling of minor disputes directly with the Governor-General of Cuba through the American Consul General at Havana, General Fitzhugh Lee. On December 6, 1897, McKinley, in his annual message to Congress, counseled patience. Convinced of the good intentions of the new Spanish Government, he sought to induce American public sentiment to allow it time to act. He continued nevertheless to urge upon Spain the fact that in order to be effective action must be prompt.
Public sentiment against Spain grew every day stronger in the United States and was given startling impulse in February, 1898, by two of those critical incidents which are almost sure to occur when general causes are potent enough to produce a white heat of popular feeling. The Spanish Minister in the United States, Senor Dupuy de Lome, had aroused the suspicion, during his summer residence on the north sh.o.r.e of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, that he was collecting information which would be useful to a Spanish fleet operating on that coast. Whether this charge was true or not, at any rate he wrote a letter to a friend, a Madrid editor visiting Havana, in which he characterized McKinley as a vacillating and timeserving politician. Alert American newspaper men, who practically const.i.tuted a secret service of some efficiency, managed to obtain the letter. On February 9, 1898, De Lome saw a facsimile of this letter printed in a newspaper and at once cabled his resignation. In immediately accepting De Lome"s resignation Spain antic.i.p.ated an American demand for his recall and thus saved Spanish pride, though undoubtedly at the expense of additional irritation in the United States, where it was thought that he should have been punished instead of being allowed to slip away.
Infinitely more serious than this diplomatic faux pas was the disaster which befell the United States battleship Maine: On January 24, 1898, the Government had announced its intention of sending a warship on a friendly visit to Havana; with the desire of impressing the local Cuban authorities with the imminence of American power. Not less important was the purpose of affording protection to American citizens endangered by the rioting of Spaniards, who were angry because they believed that Sagasta by his conciliatory policy was betraying the interests of Spain. Accordingly the Maine, commanded by Captain Sigsbee, was dispatched to Cuba and arrived on the 25th of January in the harbor of Havana. On the night of the 15th of February, an explosion utterly wrecked the vessel and killed 260 of the crew, besides wounding ninety.
The responsibility for this calamity has never been positively determined. It may have resulted from an accidental internal explosion, from the official action of the Spanish authorities, from the unofficial zeal of subordinate Spanish officers, or even-as suggested by Speaker Reed who was an opponent of war-by action of the insurgents themselves with the purpose of embroiling the United States and Spain. The careful investigations which were afterwards made brought to light evidence of both internal and external explosions; it therefore seems probable that an external mine was the prime cause of the disaster and that the internal explosion followed as a consequence. No direct evidence has been discovered which would fix the responsibility for the placing of the mine, but it is reasonable to attribute it to the Spanish hotheads of Havana. It is not impossible that the insurgents were responsible; but it is incredible that the Spanish Government planned the explosion.
The hasty, though perhaps natural, conclusion to which American public sentiment at once leaped, however, was that the disaster was the work of Spain, without making any discrimination between the Government itself and the disaffected factions. A general sorrow and anger throughout the United States reinforced the popular anxiety for national interests and the humane regard for the Cubans. Press and public oratory demanded official action. "Remember the Maine!" was an admonition which everywhere met the eye and ear. The venerable and trusted Senator Proctor, who visited Cuba, came back with the report that conditions on the island were intolerable. On the 9th of March, "Uncle Joe" Cannon, the watchdog of the Treasury, introduced a bill appropriating fifty million dollars to be used for national defense at the discretion of the President. No doubt remained in the public mind that war would result unless the withdrawal of Spanish authority from Cuba could be arranged peaceably and immediately.
Even in this final stage of the negotiations it is sufficiently obvious that the United States Government was particularly desirous of preserving peace. There is also little doubt that the Spanish Government in good faith had the same desire. The intelligent cla.s.ses in Spain realized that the days of Spanish rule in Cuba were practically over. The Liberals believed that, under the circ.u.mstances, war with the United States would be a misfortune. Many of the Conservatives, however, believed that a war, even if unsuccessful, was the only way of saving the dynasty, and that the dynasty was worth saving. Public opinion in Spain was therefore no less inflamed than in America, but it was less well-informed. Cartoons represented the American hog, which would readily fall before the Spanish rapier accustomed to its n.o.bler adversary the bull. Spanish pride, impervious to facts and statistics, would brook no supine submission on the part of its people to foreign demands. It was a question how far the Spanish Government could bring itself to yield points in season which it fully realized must be yielded in the end.
The negotiation waxed too hot for the aged John Sherman, and was conducted by the a.s.sistant Secretary, William Rufus Day, a close friend of the President, but a man comparatively unknown to the public. When Day officially succeeded Sherman (April 26, 1898) he had to face as fierce a light of publicity as ever beat upon a public man in the United States. Successively in charge of the Cuban negotiations, Secretary of State from April to September, 1898, President of the Paris Peace Commission in October, in December, after a career of prime national importance for nine months in which he had demonstrated his high competence, Day retired to the relative obscurity of the United States circuit bench. Although later raised to the Supreme Court, he has never since been a national figure. As an example of a meteoric career of a man of solid rather than meteoric qualities, his case is unparalleled in American history.
The acting Secretary of State telegraphed the ultimatum of the Government on March 27, 1898, to General Stewart L. Woodford, then Minister to Spain. By the terms of this doc.u.ment, in the first place there was to be an immediate amnesty which would last until the 1st of October and during which Spain would communicate with the insurgents through the President of the United States; in the second place, the reconcentrado policy was to cease immediately, and relief for the suffering Cubans was to be admitted from the United States. Then, if satisfactory terms were not reached by the 1st of October, the President was to be recognized as arbiter between the Spaniards and the insurgents.
On the 30th of March, Spain abrogated the reconcentrado policy in the "western provinces of Cuba," and on the following day offered to arbitrate the questions arising out of the sinking of the Maine. On Sunday, the 3d of April, a cablegram from General Woodford was received by the State Department indicating that Spain was seeking a formula for an armistice that should not too obviously appear to be submission and suggesting that the President ask the Pope to intervene and that the United States abstain from all show of force. "If you can still give me time and reasonable liberty of action," ran Woodford"s message, "I will get you the peace you desire so much and for which you have labored so hard." To this the Secretary of State immediately replied that the President would not ask the intervention of the Pope, and that the Government would use the fleet as it saw fit. "Would the peace you are so confident of securing," asked the Secretary, "mean the independence of Cuba? The President cannot hold his message longer than Tuesday." On Tuesday, the 5th of April, General Woodford cabled:
"Should the Queen proclaim the following before twelve o"clock noon of Wednesday, April 6th, will you sustain the Queen, and can you prevent hostile action by Congress? At the request of the Holy Father, in this Pa.s.sion Week and in the name of Christ, I proclaim immediate and unconditional suspension of hostilities in the island of Cuba. This suspension is to become immediately effective as soon as accepted by the insurgents of that island, and is to continue for the s.p.a.ce of six months to the 5th day of October, 1898. I do this to give time for pa.s.sions to cease, and in the sincere hope and belief that during this suspension permanent and honorable peace may be obtained between the insular government of Cuba and those of my subjects in that island who are now in rebellion against the authority of Spain...." "Please read this in the light of all my previous telegrams and letters. I believe this means peace, which the sober judgment of our people will approve long before next November, and which must be approved at the bar of final history."