McKINLEY SUCCEEDS CLEVELAND.
The Cuban Question Not a New One--The Efforts of Former
Administrations to Bring About a Settlement--President Cleveland's
Message--Recommendations of President McKinley--The Spanish
Minister's Insulting Letter--His Resignation Accepted--The Apology
of the Spanish Government.
For more than ninety years the United States government has been
confronted with a Cuban question. At times it has disappeared from
our politics, but it has always reappeared. Once we thought it
wise to prevent the island from winning its independence from
Spain, and thereby, perhaps, we entered into moral bonds to make
sure that Spain governed it decently. Whether we definitely
contracted such an obligation or not, the Cuban question has never
ceased to annoy us. The controversies about it make a long series
of chapters in one continuous story of diplomatic trouble. Many of
our ablest statesmen have had to deal with it as Secretaries of
State and as Ministers to Spain, and not one of them has been able
to settle it. One President after another has taken it up, and
every one has transmitted it to his successor. It has at various
times been a "plank" in the platforms of all our political
parties--as it was in both the party platforms of 1896--and it has
been the subject of messages of nearly all our Presidents, as it
was of President Cleveland's message in December, 1896, in which
he distinctly expressed the opinion that the United States might
feel forced to recognize "higher obligations" than neutrality to
Spain. In spite of periods of apparent quiet, the old trouble has
always reappeared in an acute form, and it has never been settled;
nor has there recently been any strong reason for hope that it
could be settled merely by diplomatic negotiation with Spain. Our
diplomats have long had an experience with Spanish character and
methods such as the public can better understand since war has
been in progress. The pathetic inefficiency and the continual
indirection of the Spanish character are now apparent to the
world; they were long ago apparent to those who have had our
diplomatic duties to do.
Thus the negotiations dragged on. We were put to trouble and
expense to prevent filibustering, and filibustering continued in
spite of us. More than once heretofore has there been danger of
international conflict, as for instance when American sailors on
the Virginius were executed in Cuba in 1873. Propositions have
been made to buy the island, and plans have been formed to annex
it. All the while there have been great American interests in
Cuba. Our citizens have owned much property and made investments
there, and done much to develop its fertility. They have paid
tribute unlawful as well as lawful, both to insurgents and to
Spanish officials. They have lost property, for which no indemnity
has been paid. All the while we have had a trade with the island,
important during periods of quiet, irritating during periods of
unrest.
TROUBLE NOT A NEW ONE.
The Cuban trouble is, therefore, not a new trouble, even in an
acute form. It had been moving forward toward a crisis for a long
time. Still, while our government suffered these diplomatic
vexations, and our citizens these losses, and our merchants these
annoyances, the mass of the American people gave little serious
thought to it. The newspapers kept us reminded of an opera bouffe
war that was going on, and now and then there came information of
delicate and troublesome diplomatic duties for our Minister to
Spain. If Cuba were within a hundred miles of the coast of one of
our populous States, and near one of our great ports, periods of
acute interest in its condition would doubtless have come earlier
and oftener, and we should long ago have had to deal with a crisis
by warlike measures. Or if the insurgents had commanded respect
instead of mere pity, we should have paid heed to their struggle
sooner; for it is almost an American maxim that a people cannot
govern itself till it can win its own independence.
When it began to be known that Weyler's method of extermination
was producing want in the island, and when appeals were made to
American charity, we became more interested. President Cleveland
found increasing difficulty with the problem. Our Department of
State was again obliged to give it increasingly serious attention,
and a resolute determination was reached by the administration
that this scandal to civilization should cease--we yet supposed
peacefully--and Spain was informed of our resolution. When Mr.
McKinley came to the Presidency, the people, conscious of a Cuban
problem, were yet not greatly aroused about it. Indeed, a
prediction of war made at the time of the inauguration would have
seemed wild and foolish. Most persons still gave little thought to
Cuba, and there seemed a likelihood that they would go on
indefinitely without giving serious thought to it; for neither the
insurgents, nor the Cuban junta, nor the Cuban party in the United
States, if there was such a party, commanded respect.
PRESIDENT McKINLEY'S MESSAGE.
President McKinley sent a message to Congress a few weeks after
his inauguration, in which he recommended the appropriation of
$50,000 for the relief of American citizens in Cuba. It read as
follows:
"Official information from our Consuls in Cuba establishes the
fact that a large number of American citizens in the island are in
a state of destitution, suffering for want of food and medicines.
This applies particularly to the rural districts of the central
and eastern parts. The agricultural classes have been forced from
their farms into the nearest towns where they are without work or
money. The local authorities of the several towns, however kindly
disposed, are unable to relieve the needs of their own people, and
are altogether powerless to help our citizens. The latest report
of Consul-General Lee estimates that 600 to 800 are without means
of support. I have assured him that provision would be made at
once to relieve them. To that end I recommend that Congress make
an appropriation of not less than $50,000, to be immediately
available for use under the direction of the Secretary of State.
"It is desirable that a part of the sum which may be appropriated
by Congress should, in the discretion of the Secretary of State,
also be used for the transportation of American citizens who,
desiring to return to the United States, are without means to do
so."
The joint resolution offered by Senator Gallinger, which embodied
the recommendations of President McKinley, passed both Houses
without a dissenting vote.
An influential journal printed the following editorial concerning
this measure:
"It is an essentially new departure in international affairs, and
it is in order for the sticklers for precedent to enter fussy
protestation, as they did in connection with the Venezuelan
question, against the Monroe doctrine, declaring it was not to be
found in the code of international law. It is certainly very
unusual, if not unprecedented, for the government to make a relief
appropriation for its own people in some foreign land. The truth
is, this Cuban situation is wholly exceptional. Here is a little
island in a state of civil war. It is largely a sectional war, one
part of the island being in possession of one of the belligerents,
and the other section in possession of the other belligerent.
"Several hundreds of our American citizens are in that section of
the island occupied by Spanish armies, and are suffering, in
common with the Cubans themselves, from a deliberate policy of
starvation. Weyler is trying to conquer by famine. That is his
fixed purpose, and, from the nature of the case, no discrimination
is made between Spanish subjects in rebellion and American
citizens sojourning in the island. If the policy of starvation
cannot be maintained without this indiscrimination then so much
the worse for Weyler and his policy. Congress has only to make the
appropriation asked for, and the relief will go forward, without
regard to any collateral consequences."
DE LOME'S INSULTING LETTER.
One of the most sensational incidents in connection with Spanish
affairs prior to the destruction of the Maine was the publication
of a letter, which fell into the hands of the Cuban Junta, written
by Senor Dupuy De Lome, the representative of the Spanish
government in Washington, to the editor of a newspaper at Madrid.
A translation of the letter is given:
My Distinguished and Dear Friend:
You need not apologize for not having written to me. I ought to
have written to you, but have not done so on account of being
weighed down with work.
The situation here continues unchanged. Everything depends on the
political and military success in Cuba. The prologue of this
second method of warfare will end the day that the Colonial
Cabinet will be appointed, and it relieves us in the eyes of this
country of a part of the responsibility of what may happen there,
and they must cast the responsibility upon the Cubans, whom they
believe to be so immaculate.
Until then we will not be able to see clearly, and I consider it
to be a loss of time and an advance by the wrong road, the sending
of emissaries to the rebel field, the negotiating with the
autonomists, not yet declared to be legally constituted, and the
discovery of the intentions and purposes of this government. The
exiles will return one by one, and when they return will come
walking into the sheepfold, and the chiefs will gradually return.
Neither of these had the courage to leave en masse, and they will
not have the courage to thus return. The President's message has
undeceived the insurgents, who expected something else, and has
paralyzed the action of Congress, but I consider it bad.
Besides the natural and inevitable coarseness with which he
repeats all that the press and public opinion of Spain has said of
Weyler, it shows once more what McKinley is--weak and catering to
the rabble, and, besides, a low politician, who desires to leave a
door open to me and to stand well with the jingoes of his party.
Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, it will only depend on
ourselves whether he will prove bad and adverse to us.
I agree entirely with you that without military success nothing
will be accomplished there, and without military and political
success there is here always danger that the insurgents will be
encouraged, if not by the government, at least by part of the
public opinion. I do not believe you pay enough attention to the
role of England. Nearly all that newspaper canaille, which swarm
in your hotel, are English, and while they are correspondents of
American journals, they are also correspondents of the best
newspapers and reviews of London.
Thus it has been since the beginning. To my mind, the only object
of England is that the Americans should occupy themselves with us
and leave her in peace, and if there is a war, so much the better.
That would further remove what is threatening her, although that
will never happen. It would be most important that you should
agitate the question of commercial relations, even though it would
be only for effect, and that you should send here a man of
importance, in order that I might use him to make a propaganda
among the senators and others, in opposition to the Junta and to
win over exiles. There goes Amblarad. I believe he comes too
deeply taken up with political matters, and there must be
something great or we shall lose. Adela returns your salutation,
and we wish you in the new year to be a messenger of peace and
take this new year's present to poor Spain. Always your attentive
friend and servant, who kisses your hand,
ENRIQUE DUPUY DE LOME.
As soon as this letter was made public, De Lome cabled his
resignation to the Spanish government, and withdrew his passports
from the State Department in Washington, thus saving himself the
mortification of a dismissal. The Spanish government at Madrid
sent the following communication to Minister Woodford regarding
the affair:
The Spanish Government, on learning of the incident in which
Minister Dupuy De Lome was concerned, and being advised of his
objectionable communication, with entire sincerity laments the
incident, states that Minister De Lome had presented his
resignation, and it had been accepted before the presentation of
the matter by Minister Woodford. That the Spanish Ministry, in
accepting the resignation of a functionary whose services they
have been utilizing and valuing up to that time, leaves it
perfectly well established that they do not share, and rather, on
the contrary, disauthorize the criticisms tending to offend or
censure the chief of a friendly State, although such criticisms
had been written within the field of friendship and had reached
publicity by artful and criminal means.
That this meaning had taken shape in a resolution by the Council
of Ministers before General Woodford presented the matter, and at
a time when the Spanish Government had only vague telegraphic
reports concerning the sentiments alluded to. That the Spanish
nation, with equal and greater reason, affirms its view and
decision after reading the words contained in the letter
reflecting upon the President of the United States.
As to the paragraph concerning the desirability of negotiations of
commercial relations, if even for effect and importance of using a
representative for the purpose stated in Senor Dupuy De Lome's
letter, the government expresses concern that in the light of its
conduct, long after the writing of the letter, and in view of the
unanswerable testimony of simultaneous and subsequent facts, any
doubt should exist that the Spanish Government has given proof of
its real desire and of its innermost convictions with respect to
the new commercial system and the projected treaty of commerce.
That the Spanish Government does not now consider it necessary to
lay stress upon, or to demonstrate anew the truth and sincerity of
its purpose and the unstained good faith of its intentions. That
publicly and solemnly, the Government of Spain contracted before
the mother country and its colonies a responsibility for the
political and tariff charges which it has inaugurated in both
Antilles, the natural ends of which, in domestic and international
spheres, it pursues with firmness, which will ever inspire its
conduct.