_To the Congress of the United States_:
For some time prior to the visit of the _Maine_ to Havana Harbor
our consular representatives pointed out the advantages to flow from the
visit of national ships to the Cuban waters, in accustoming the people
to the presence of our flag as the symbol of good will and of our ships
in the fulfillment of the mission of protection to American interests,
even though no immediate need therefor might exist.
Accordingly, on the 24th of January last, after conference with the
Spanish minister, in which the renewal of visits of our war vessels to
Spanish waters was discussed and accepted, the peninsular authorities at
Madrid and Havana were advised of the purpose of this Government to
resume friendly naval visits at Cuban ports, and that in that view the
_Maine_ would forthwith call at the port of Havana.
This announcement was received by the Spanish Government with
appreciation of the friendly character of the visit of the _Maine_
and with notification of intention to return the courtesy by sending
Spanish ships to the principal ports of the United States. Meanwhile the
_Maine_ entered the port of Havana on the 25th of January, her
arrival being marked with no special incident besides the exchange of
customary salutes and ceremonial visits.
The _Maine_ continued in the harbor of Havana during the three
weeks following her arrival. No appreciable excitement attended her
stay. On the contrary, a feeling of relief and confidence followed the
resumption of the long-interrupted friendly intercourse. So noticeable
was this immediate effect of her visit that the consul-general strongly
urged that the presence of our ships in Cuban waters should be kept up
by retaining the _Maine_ at Havana, or, in the event of her recall,
by sending another vessel there to take her place.
At forty minutes past 9 in the evening of the 15th of February the
_Maine_ was destroyed by an explosion, by which the entire forward
part of the ship was utterly wrecked. In this catastrophe 2 officers and
264 of her crew perished, those who were not killed outright by her
explosion being penned between decks by the tangle of wreckage and
drowned by the immediate sinking of the hull.
Prompt assistance was rendered by the neighboring vessels anchored in
the harbor, aid being especially given by the boats of the Spanish
cruiser _Alfonso XII_ and the Ward Line steamer _City of Washington_,
which lay not far distant. The wounded were generously cared for by
the authorities of Havana, the hospitals being freely opened to them,
while the earliest recovered bodies of the dead were interred by the
municipality in a public cemetery in the city. Tributes of grief and
sympathy were offered from all official quarters of the island.
The appalling calamity fell upon the people of our country with
crushing force, and for a brief time an intense excitement prevailed,
which in a community less just and self-controlled than ours might have
led to hasty acts of blind resentment. This spirit, however, soon gave
way to the calmer processes of reason and to the resolve to investigate
the facts and await material proof before forming a judgment as to the
cause, the responsibility, and, if the facts warranted, the remedy due.
This course necessarily recommended itself from the outset to the
Executive, for only in the light of a dispassionately ascertained
certainty could it determine the nature and measure of its full duty
in the matter.
The usual procedure was followed, as in all cases of casualty or
disaster to national vessels of any maritime state. A naval court of
inquiry was at once organized, composed of officers well qualified by
rank and practical experience to discharge the onerous duty imposed
upon them. Aided by a strong force of wreckers and divers, the court
proceeded to make a thorough investigation on the spot, employing every
available means for the impartial and exact determination of the causes
of the explosion. Its operations have been conducted with the utmost
deliberation and judgment, and, while independently pursued, no
attainable source of information was neglected, and the fullest
opportunity was allowed for a simultaneous investigation by the Spanish
authorities.
The finding of the court of inquiry was reached, after twenty-three days
of continuous labor, on the 21st of March instant, and, having been
approved on the 22d by the commander in chief of the United States naval
force on the North Atlantic station, was transmitted to the Executive.
It is herewith laid before the Congress, together with the voluminous
testimony taken before the court.
Its purport is, in brief, as follows:
When the _Maine_ arrived at Havana, she was conducted by the regular
Government pilot to buoy No. 4, to which she was moored in from 5-1/2
to 6 fathoms of water.
The state of discipline on board and the condition of her magazines,
boilers, coal bunkers, and storage compartments are passed in review,
with the conclusion that excellent order prevailed and that no
indication of any cause for an internal explosion existed in any
quarter.
At 8 o'clock in the evening of February 15 everything had been reported
secure, and all was quiet.
At forty minutes past 9 o'clock the vessel was suddenly destroyed.
There were two distinct explosions, with a brief interval between them.
The first lifted the forward part of the ship very perceptibly; the
second, which was more open, prolonged, and of greater volume, is
attributed by the court to the partial explosion of two or more of the
forward magazines.
The evidence of the divers establishes that the after part of the ship
was practically intact and sank in that condition a very few moments
after the explosion. The forward part was completely demolished.
Upon the evidence of a concurrent external cause the finding of the
court is as follows:
At frame 17 the outer shell of the ship, from a point 11-1/2 feet from
the middle line of the ship and 6 feet above the keel when in its normal
position, has been forced up so as to be now about 4 feet above the
surface of the water, therefore about 34 feet above where it would be
had the ship sunk uninjured.
The outside bottom plating is bent into a reversed V shape (*A), the
after wing of which, about 15 feet broad and 32 feet in length (from
frame 17 to frame 25), is doubled back upon itself against the
continuation of the same plating, extending forward.
At frame 18 the vertical keel is broken in two and the flat keel bent
into an angle similar to the angle formed by the outside bottom plates.
This break is now about 6 feet below the surface of the water and about
30 feet above its normal position.
In the opinion of the court this effect could have been produced only by
the explosion of a mine situated under the bottom of the ship at about
frame 18 and somewhat on the port side of the ship.
The conclusions of the court are:
That the loss of the _Maine_ was not in any respect due to fault or
negligence on the part of any of the officers or members of her crew;
That the ship was destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which
caused the partial explosion of two or more of her forward magazines;
and
That no evidence has been obtainable fixing the responsibility for the
destruction of the _Maine_ upon any person or persons.
I have directed that the finding of the court of inquiry and the views
of this Government thereon be communicated to the Government of Her
Majesty the Queen Regent, and I do not permit myself to doubt that the
sense of justice of the Spanish nation will dictate a course of action
suggested by honor and the friendly relations of the two Governments.
It will be the duty of the Executive to advise the Congress of the
result, and in the meantime deliberate consideration is invoked.
WILLIAM McKINLEY.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 11, 1898_.
_To the Congress of the United States:_
Obedient to that precept of the Constitution which commands the
President to give from time to time to the Congress information of the
state of the Union and to recommend to their consideration such measures
as he shall judge necessary and expedient, it becomes my duty to now
address your body with regard to the grave crisis that has arisen in the
relations of the United States to Spain by reason of the warfare that
for more than three years has raged in the neighboring island of Cuba.
I do so because of the intimate connection of the Cuban question with
the state of our own Union and the grave relation the course which
it is now incumbent upon the nation to adopt must needs bear to the
traditional policy of our Government if it is to accord with the
precepts laid down by the founders of the Republic and religiously
observed by succeeding Administrations to the present day.
The present revolution is but the successor of other similar
insurrections which have occurred in Cuba against the dominion of Spain,
extending over a period of nearly half a century, each of which during
its progress has subjected the United States to great effort and expense
in enforcing its neutrality laws, caused enormous losses to American
trade and commerce, caused irritation, annoyance, and disturbance among
our citizens, and, by the exercise of cruel, barbarous, and uncivilized
practices of warfare, shocked the sensibilities and offended the humane
sympathies of our people.
Since the present revolution began, in February, 1895, this country has
seen the fertile domain at our threshold ravaged by fire and sword in
the course of a struggle unequaled in the history of the island and
rarely paralleled as to the numbers of the combatants and the bitterness
of the contest by any revolution of modern times where a dependent
people striving to be free have been opposed by the power of the
sovereign state.
Our people have beheld a once prosperous community reduced to
comparative want, its lucrative commerce virtually paralyzed, its
exceptional productiveness diminished, its fields laid waste, its mills
in ruins, and its people perishing by tens of thousands from hunger and
destitution. We have found ourselves constrained, in the observance
of that strict neutrality which our laws enjoin and which the law of
nations commands, to police our own waters and watch our own seaports
in prevention of any unlawful act in aid of the Cubans.
Our trade has suffered, the capital invested by our citizens in Cuba
has been largely lost, and the temper and forbearance of our people
have been so sorely tried as to beget a perilous unrest among our own
citizens, which has inevitably found its expression from time to time in
the National Legislature, so that issues wholly external to our own body
politic engross attention and stand in the way of that close devotion to
domestic advancement that becomes a self-contained commonwealth whose
primal maxim has been the avoidance of all foreign entanglements. All
this must needs awaken, and has, indeed, aroused, the utmost concern on
the part of this Government, as well during my predecessor's term as in
my own.
In April, 1896, the evils from which our country suffered through the
Cuban war became so onerous that my predecessor made an effort to bring
about a peace through the mediation of this Government in any way that
might tend to an honorable adjustment of the contest between Spain
and her revolted colony, on the basis of some effective scheme of
self-government for Cuba under the flag and sovereignty of Spain. It
failed through the refusal of the Spanish government then in power to
consider any form of mediation or, indeed, any plan of settlement which
did not begin with the actual submission of the insurgents to the mother
country, and then only on such terms as Spain herself might see fit to
grant. The war continued unabated. The resistance of the insurgents was
in no wise diminished.
The efforts of Spain were increased, both by the dispatch of fresh
levies to Cuba and by the addition to the horrors of the strife of
a new and inhuman phase happily unprecedented in the modern history
of civilized Christian peoples. The policy of devastation and
concentration, inaugurated by the Captain-General's _bando_ of
October 21, 1896, in the Province of Pinar del Rio was thence extended
to embrace all of the island to which the power of the Spanish arms was
able to reach by occupation or by military operations. The peasantry,
including all dwelling in the open agricultural interior, were driven
into the garrison towns or isolated places held by the troops.
The raising and movement of provisions of all kinds were interdicted.
The fields were laid waste, dwellings unroofed and fired, mills
destroyed, and, in short, everything that could desolate the land and
render it unfit for human habitation or support was commanded by one or
the other of the contending parties and executed by all the powers at
their disposal.
By the time the present Administration took office, a year ago,
reconcentration (so called) had been made effective over the better part
of the four central and western provinces--Santa Clara, Matanzas,
Havana, and Pinar del Rio.
The agricultural population to the estimated number of 300,000 or more
was herded within the towns and their immediate vicinage, deprived of
the means of support, rendered destitute of shelter, left poorly clad,
and exposed to the most unsanitary conditions. As the scarcity of food
increased with the devastation of the depopulated areas of production,
destitution and want became misery and starvation. Month by month the
death rate increased in an alarming ratio. By March, 1897, according to
conservative estimates from official Spanish sources, the mortality
among the reconcentrados from starvation and the diseases thereto
incident exceeded 50 per cent of their total number.
No practical relief was accorded to the destitute. The overburdened
towns, already suffering from the general dearth, could give no aid.
So-called "zones of cultivation" established within the immediate areas
of effective military control about the cities and fortified camps
proved illusory as a remedy for the suffering. The unfortunates, being
for the most part women and children, with aged and helpless men,
enfeebled by disease and hunger, could not have tilled the soil without
tools, seed, or shelter for their own support or for the supply of the
cities. Reconcentration, adopted avowedly as a war measure in order to
cut off the resources of the insurgents, worked its predestined result.
As I said in my message of last December, it was not civilized warfare;
it was extermination. The only peace it could beget was that of the
wilderness and the grave.
Meanwhile the military situation in the island had undergone a
noticeable change. The extraordinary activity that characterized the
second year of the war, when the insurgents invaded even the thitherto
unharmed fields of Pinar del Rio and carried havoc and destruction up
to the walls of the city of Havana itself, had relapsed into a dogged
struggle in the central and eastern provinces. The Spanish arms regained
a measure of control in Pinar del Rio and parts of Havana, but, under
the existing conditions of the rural country, without immediate
improvement of their productive situation. Even thus partially
restricted, the revolutionists held their own, and their conquest and
submission, put forward by Spain as the essential and sole basis of
peace, seemed as far distant as at the outset.
In this state of affairs my Administration found itself confronted with
the grave problem of its duty. My message of last December[4] reviewed
the situation and narrated the steps taken with a view to relieving its
acuteness and opening the way to some form of honorable settlement. The
assassination of the prime minister, Canovas, led to a change of
government in Spain. The former administration, pledged to subjugation
without concession, gave place to that of a more liberal party,
committed long in advance to a policy of reform involving the wider
principle of home rule for Cuba and Puerto Rico.
The overtures of this Government made through its new envoy, General
Woodford, and looking to an immediate and effective amelioration of the
condition of the island, although not accepted to the extent of admitted
mediation in any shape, were met by assurances that home rule in an
advanced phase would be forthwith offered to Cuba, without waiting for
the war to end, and that more humane methods should thenceforth prevail
in the conduct of hostilities. Coincidentally with these declarations
the new government of Spain continued and completed the policy, already
begun by its predecessor, of testifying friendly regard for this nation
by releasing American citizens held under one charge or another
connected with the insurrection, so that by the end of November not a
single person entitled in any way to our national protection remained in
a Spanish prison.
While these negotiations were in progress the increasing destitution of
the unfortunate reconcentrados and the alarming mortality among them
claimed earnest attention. The success which had attended the limited
measure of relief extended to the suffering American citizens among them
by the judicious expenditure through the consular agencies of the money
appropriated expressly for their succor by the joint resolution approved
May 24, 1897,[5] prompted the humane extension of a similar scheme of
aid to the great body of sufferers. A suggestion to this end was
acquiesced in by the Spanish authorities.
On the 24th of December last I caused to be issued an appeal to the
American people inviting contributions in money or in kind for the
succor of the starving sufferers in Cuba, following this on the 8th of
January by a similar public announcement of the formation of a central
Cuban relief committee, with headquarters in New York City, composed of
three members representing the American National Red Cross and the
religious and business elements of the community.
The efforts of that committee have been untiring and have accomplished
much. Arrangements for free transportation to Cuba have greatly aided
the charitable work. The president of the American Red Cross and
representatives of other contributory organizations have generously
visited Cuba and cooperated with the consul-general and the local
authorities to make effective distribution of the relief collected
through the efforts of the central committee. Nearly $200,000 in money
and supplies has already reached the sufferers, and more is forthcoming.
The supplies are admitted duty free, and transportation to the interior
has been arranged, so that the relief, at first necessarily confined to
Havana and the larger cities, is now extended through most, if not all,
of the towns where suffering exists.
Thousands of lives have already been saved. The necessity for a change
in the condition of the reconcentrados is recognized by the Spanish
Government. Within a few days past the orders of General Weyler have
been revoked. The reconcentrados, it is said, are to be permitted to
return to their homes and aided to resume the self-supporting pursuits
of peace. Public works have been ordered to give them employment and a
sum of $600,000 has been appropriated for their relief.
The war in Cuba is of such a nature that, short of subjugation or
extermination, a final military victory for either side seems
impracticable. The alternative lies in the physical exhaustion of the
one or the other party, or perhaps of both--a condition which in effect
ended the ten years' war by the truce of Zanjon. The prospect of such a
protraction and conclusion of the present strife is a contingency hardly
to be contemplated with equanimity by the civilized world, and least of
all by the United States, affected and injured as we are, deeply and
intimately, by its very existence.
Realizing this, it appeared to be my duty, in a spirit of true
friendliness, no less to Spain than to the Cubans, who have so much to
lose by the prolongation of the struggle, to seek to bring about an
immediate termination of the war. To this end I submitted on the 27th
ultimo, as a result of much representation and correspondence, through
the United States minister at Madrid, propositions to the Spanish
Government looking to an armistice until October 1 for the negotiation
of peace with the good offices of the President.
In addition I asked the immediate revocation of the order of
reconcentration, so as to permit the people to return to their farms and
the needy to be relieved with provisions and supplies from the United
States, cooperating with the Spanish authorities, so as to afford full
relief.
The reply of the Spanish cabinet was received on the night of the
31st ultimo. It offered, as the means to bring about peace in Cuba,
to confide the preparation thereof to the insular parliament, inasmuch
as the concurrence of that body would be necessary to reach a final
result, it being, however, understood that the powers reserved by the
constitution to the central Government are not lessened or diminished.
As the Cuban parliament does not meet until the 4th of May next, the
Spanish Government would not object for its part to accept at once
a suspension of hostilities if asked for by the insurgents from the
general in chief, to whom it would pertain in such case to determine
the duration and conditions of the armistice.
The propositions submitted by General Woodford and the reply of the
Spanish Government were both in the form of brief memoranda, the texts
of which are before me and are substantially in the language above
given. The function of the Cuban parliament in the matter of "preparing"
peace and the manner of its doing so are not expressed in the Spanish
memorandum, but from General Woodford's explanatory reports of
preliminary discussions preceding the final conference it is understood
that the Spanish Government stands ready to give the insular congress
full powers to settle the terms of peace with the insurgents, whether by
direct negotiation or indirectly by means of legislation does not
appear.
With this last overture in the direction of immediate peace, and its
disappointing reception by Spain, the Executive is brought to the end of
his effort.
In my annual message of December last I said:
Of the untried measures there remain only: Recognition of the insurgents
as belligerents; recognition of the independence of Cuba; neutral
intervention to end the war by imposing a rational compromise between
the contestants, and intervention in favor of one or the other party.
I speak not of forcible annexation, for that can not be thought of.
That, by our code of morality, would be criminal aggression.
Thereupon I reviewed these alternatives in the light of President
Grant's measured words, uttered in 1875, when, after seven years of
sanguinary, destructive, and cruel hostilities in Cuba, he reached the
conclusion that the recognition of the independence of Cuba was
impracticable and indefensible and that the recognition of belligerence
was not warranted by the facts according to the tests of public law.
I commented especially upon the latter aspect of the question, pointing
out the inconveniences and positive dangers of a recognition of
belligerence, which, while adding to the already onerous burdens of
neutrality within our own jurisdiction, could not in any way extend our
influence or effective offices in the territory of hostilities.
Nothing has since occurred to change my view in this regard, and
I recognize as fully now as then that the issuance of a proclamation of
neutrality, by which process the so-called recognition of belligerents
is published, could of itself and unattended by other action accomplish
nothing toward the one end for which we labor--the instant pacification
of Cuba and the cessation of the misery that afflicts the island.
Turning to the question of recognizing at this time the independence
of the present insurgent government in Cuba, we find safe precedents
in our history from an early day. They are well summed up in President
Jackson's message to Congress, December 21, 1836, on the subject of the
recognition of the independence of Texas. He said:
In all the contests that have arisen out of the revolutions of France,
out of the disputes relating to the crowns of Portugal and Spain, out
of the revolutionary movements of those Kingdoms, out of the separation
of the American possessions of both from the European Governments, and
out of the numerous and constantly occurring struggles for dominion in
Spanish America, so wisely consistent with our just principles has been
the action of our Government that we have under the most critical
circumstances avoided all censure and encountered no other evil than
that produced by a transient estrangement of good will in those against
whom we have been by force of evidence compelled to decide.
It has thus been made known to the world that the uniform policy and
practice of the United States is to avoid all interference in disputes
which merely relate to the internal government of other nations, and
eventually to recognize the authority of the prevailing party, without
reference to our particular interests and views or to the merits of the
original controversy.
* * * * *
* * * But on this as on every trying occasion safety is to be found in
a rigid adherence to principle.
In the contest between Spain and her revolted colonies we stood aloof
and waited, not only until the ability of the new States to protect
themselves was fully established, but until the danger of their being
again subjugated had entirely passed away. Then, and not till then, were
they recognized. Such was our course in regard to Mexico herself. * * *
It is true that, with regard to Texas, the civil authority of Mexico has
been expelled, its invading army defeated, the chief of the Republic
himself captured, and all present power to control the newly organized
Government of Texas annihilated within its confines. But, on the other
hand, there is, in appearance at least, an immense disparity of physical
force on the side of Mexico. The Mexican Republic under another
Executive is rallying its forces under a new leader and menacing a fresh
invasion to recover its lost dominion.
Upon the issue of this threatened invasion the independence of Texas
may be considered as suspended, and were there nothing peculiar in the
relative situation of the United States and Texas our acknowledgment
of its independence at such a crisis could scarcely be regarded as
consistent with that prudent reserve with which we have heretofore
held ourselves bound to treat all similar questions.
Thereupon Andrew Jackson proceeded to consider the risk that there might
be imputed to the United States motives of selfish interest in view of
the former claim on our part to the territory of Texas and of the avowed
purpose of the Texans in seeking recognition of independence as an
incident to the incorporation of Texas in the Union, concluding thus:
Prudence, therefore, seems to dictate that we should still stand aloof
and maintain our present attitude, if not until Mexico itself or one of
the great foreign powers shall recognize the independence of the new
Government, at least until the lapse of time or the course of events
shall have proved beyond cavil or dispute the ability of the people of
that country to maintain their separate sovereignty and to uphold the
Government constituted by them. Neither of the contending parties can
justly complain of this course. By pursuing it we are but carrying
out the long-established policy of our Government--a policy which
has secured to us respect and influence abroad and inspired confidence
at home.
These are the words of the resolute and patriotic Jackson. They are
evidence that the United States, in addition to the test imposed by
public law as the condition of the recognition of independence by a
neutral state (to wit, that the revolted state shall "constitute in fact
a body politic, having a government in substance as well as in name,
possessed of the elements of stability," and forming _de facto_,
"if left to itself, a state among the nations, reasonably capable of
discharging the duties of a state"), has imposed for its own governance
in dealing with cases like these the further condition that recognition
of independent statehood is not due to a revolted dependency until the
danger of its being again subjugated by the parent state has entirely
passed away.
This extreme test was, in fact, applied in the case of Texas.
The Congress to whom President Jackson referred the question as
one "probably leading to war," and therefore a proper subject for
"a previous understanding with that body by whom war can alone be
declared and by whom all the provisions for sustaining its perils must
be furnished," left the matter of the recognition of Texas to the
discretion of the Executive, providing merely for the sending of a
diplomatic agent when the President should be satisfied that the
Republic of Texas had become "an independent state." It was so
recognized by President Van Buren, who commissioned a chargé d'affaires
March 7, 1837, after Mexico had abandoned an attempt to reconquer the
Texan territory, and when there was at the time no _bona fide_
contest going on between the insurgent province and its former
sovereign.