e 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 w

ile American manufacturers were reaching the point where they were anxious for foreign ma

ions 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 incor

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

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

racter. 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 bu

revolt of the Spanish colonies had halted on the shores 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, asserted that the United States could not consent to the passing of Cuba fro

he "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 an

tended was her too lax enforcement of her obligations to the American Government and on the assistance 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

been naturalized before returning home. Cuba was but ninety miles from Florida, and much of our coastwise shipping passed in sight of the island. The people of the United States were aroused to sympathy and to a desire to be of assistance when they saw that the Cubans, so near geographically and so bound to them by many commercial ties, were engaged against a forei

lace 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

ish 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 Americ

ever 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 repo

thern 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 proc

ates could not forever allow an island so near and so closely related to be in flames without intervention. Spain, however, assumed a rather lofty tone, and Cleveland was able to accomplish n

he 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, unsurpassed in

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 asserting 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 compla

form of words which would leave Spain in titular 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 t

uld 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 hi

etts 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 constituted a secret service of some efficiency, managed to obtain the lett

uban 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 interes

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 follo

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

under the circumstances, 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 ho

ver 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

mnesty 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

ould 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

ion is to become immediately effective as soon as accepted by the insurgents of that island, and is to continue for the space of six months to the 5th day of October, 1898. I do this to give time for passions to cease, and in the sincere hope and belief that during this suspension permanent and honorable peace may be obtained between the insular gove

the Secretary

the action of the American Congress beyond a discharge of his constitutional duty in transmi

European powers. On the next day, General Woodford cabled that the United States could

ere not pressed to the point of endangering her dignity. The overwhelming majority in Congress, and particularly the leaders of the dominant Republican party with the exception of Speaker Reed, refused to believe in the sincerity of the Spanish Government. The Administration could not overlook the fact that the Spanish Government, however sincere it might be, might not be able to execute its promises. Great Britain had just recognized the United States as intermediary in a dispute between he

l her to do so. Congress, however, was not content to leave the future of the island merely indefinite, but added that the United States did not desire Cuba and that the "people of the island of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent." This decision ruled out both autonomy and cession as solutions of the problem. It put an end to the American century-long dream of annexing Cuba, unless the

a formal declaration of war, this strategic move may be considered as its actual beginning. On the 25th of April, Congress declared "that, war be, and the same is hereby, declared to exist, a